The Grill Room: LIV and let live?

Writing from Chicago

Thursday, June 9, 2022

This morning at 8:15 Central time, the bell rings on a new concept in world professional golf: Competition for the players who compete.

It has never been the case before. The American PGA Tour and the European circuit, these days called the DP World Tour after a sponsor, has always cooperated in allowing their charges to play on the opposite side of the pond. Releases were granted after a player made a certain number of starts on his home tour.

At 2:15 p.m. London time, all that changes. Dustin Johnson, Scott Vincent and Phil Mickelson, a pair of most familiar names sandwiching a 30-year-old from the co-sponsoring Asian Tour, will go off the first tee in the LIV Tour Invitational London tournament, the first in the long-held dream of Greg Norman to create a world tour.

Three decades ago, he came up with the idea, got fellow Australian native Rupert Murdoch to back him with Fox television money, but never saw his ship leave port. It was scuttled by the threats of then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem of lifetime bans for those who dared essay a shot in the new venture.

Nobody left the Tour island.

This time, threatened with lifetime bans by current commissioner Jay Monahan, but lured by guaranteed millions from the Saudi Arabian exchequer, Johnson, Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Kevin Na and a host of European Tour regulars, including Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, have made the move. Of the American tourists, all but Mickelson have resigned their PGA Tour membership, itself a move with more legal than symbolic meaning.

They’ll be allowed to play in the upcoming U.S. Open if already eligible, but what if the LIV Tour doesn’t get accepted into the cozy family of tours awarded world ranking points? A family controlled by the tours players are leaving, by the way. It would be interesting to see Johnson or Mickelson trying to qualify.

For the moment, more players are to come. Monday, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, a pair who have become known as much as malcontents as major championship winners, declared they’ll be in Portland, Ore., in a few weeks rather than at the John Deere Classic in sylvan Silvis. DeChambeau, it may be recalled, won the Deere in 2018, and previously had been the beneficiary of a sponsor’s exemption, and Reed had a good showing there before he was discovered to be a mope.

Even more name players may follow. The Rickie Fowler rumor has not been refuted by the fan favorite and former Players winner. After that, who knows?

Once upon a time, the Chicago-born lawyer-agent Mark McCormack dreamed of accomplishing what Norman and his oil-rich backers are pulling off. On Labor Day weekend of 1963, he found a company willing to put up a $50,000 purse, a course willing to open its doors – Glen Flora Country Club in Waukegan – and so assembled Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player on the first tee for a 36-hole Holiday Classic. This, against the regular Tour’s Denver Open.

It may have been a holiday, but it wasn’t a classic. From 4,000 to 6,000 fans turned out across the two days. Player scored 4-under 136, Nicklaus 138 and Palmer 141. No records were broken, and while Player collected the $20,000 first prize – compared to $5,300 for first-time winner Chi Chi Rodriguez in Denver – the idea didn’t set the world on fire. The Holiday Classic turned out to be the first and only that McCormack would stage. (Longer-lasting was the World Series of Golf, which began in 1962 and was eventually subsumed by the Tour.)

McCormack had visions of his trio teeing it up here, there and everywhere, watched by adoring multitudes. Maybe it was the $7 ticket – pricey in 1963 – that turned out the crowds. Maybe it was everything else on a holiday weekend, but the idea of a challenger to the circuit died at the Glen Flora box office.

Reports from London are similar, that discounts for tickets abound, that Westwood and Poulter couldn’t give them away from websites, that the Centurion Club might not need crowd control because there will be no crowd. We’ll see, though we’ll have to watch via the LIV website, Facebook or YouTube. (As of now, only one television station in North America, CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ont., is picking up the coverage, and only Saturday’s final round, at that. Canadians can watch on cable, as CHCH is a superstation as WGN used to be in the U.S.)

While only Norman has been speaking, the Saudis, through their Public Investment Fund, seem to be in it for the long haul. McCormack had a sporting goods operation backing him. Norman has oil – and for all the understandable hand-wringing about the sordid Saudi resume, it’s worth noting that FedEx, sponsor of the PGA Tour’s annual pot of gold, last year announced a 10-year $400 million commitment to build out delivery operations in Saudi Arabia. Money makes the world go around, no matter who one must deal with.

The players who have made the move – accounting for 14 major championship titles in the London field, incidentally – had better hope this lasts. If the venture falters, the establish tours would undoubtedly welcome the refugees back or risk a legal tangle, but the locker room might be a bit chilly.

Speaking of legal tangles, the big surprise so far is that so far, the lawyers have been kept on the sidelines. That may not be the case by this afternoon.

If players continue to jump, Monahan’s hand will be forced. Sponsors will howl that their stars are disappearing, so why should they write the big check that helps fund the purse? CBS and NBC/Golf Channel, in the first year of new contracts, will be lighting up his phone. Nobody in charge will be happy.

In 1960, when the American Football League first took the field, some NFL owners laughed, though the old league tried to sabotage the new circuit by luring Max Winter over for a franchise in Minnesota and other tactics. The AFL countered by signing seniors literally under the goal posts at bowl games as they finished their college careers. In 1966, the NFL sued for peace, so to speak, and Pete Rozelle and Lamar Hunt figured out how to merge the leagues to first save money via a common draft and then mint it via the Super Bowl and ever-expanding television deals.

We can see a similar scenario in golf if the exodus of notables continues. The question is, when will Monahan decide it’s 1966? We know this: He cannot unring the bell.

– Tim Cronin