Edition No. 80 | May 3, 2024

Hey,

I try to say this often but I probably don’t do it enough: Thank you for reading this newsletter. I have so much gratitude that my dream job is writing and reading and thinking and that I get to do that about golf, of all things.

I’m really glad for that and for you because if nobody reads then it really doesn’t work. So take that into the weekend … somebody you don’t know is appreciative of the time you have given him, no matter whether that’s been 5 minutes or 500.

Truly thank you.

Onto the news.

7 Golf-Adjacent Thoughts This Week

1. I was reading a book recently called The Power Law about the venture capital world because it is a world I’m intrigued by and don’t really understand. In the introduction, the author writes about a guy named Vinod Khosla and how venture capital for him is a mindset and a “theory of progress.“

Here’s what he writes …

Except!

Except … as we all have learned at some point in our lives … the satisfaction of human aspirations is never enough, is it? It never truly satisfies.

That was the backdrop upon which I interpreted Rory’s quotes from last week when he was asked about the equity distribution from the Tour: "I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is that there’s never enough.”

The response to this quote was pretty amazing. Even in the face of video evidence, in which it was clearly … not even really a joke but more of a tongue-in-cheek dagger at a lot of people over the last two years (not hard to read between those lines!), people made the entire quote about how greedy and selfish … Rory is.

What?!

That’s what you thought he meant when he said that it’s never enough?

More foundationally, he is correct. And while each individual actor operated somewhat rationally in each situation, there seemed to be little consideration of the whole. And you can say, Well Phil brought about change with this revolutionary thing that he did! to which I would respond, Sure, but I’m not sure that was ever even Phil’s primary goal.

While none of us are in the position Rory, Phil and most other pros are in, almost all of us have an area of our lives where we can and should say, “You know what, I think I have enough.”

But so often, we try to fill the sorrow of life, the emptiness we experience, with something. For all of us that’s something different: Food, drink, money, success, power, busyness, intelligence, beauty or fitness. For exactly zero of us does any of this work as a long-term solution.

It’s never enough.

It never will be. That’s always been true.

2. Speaking of Rory, let’s make a hard left turn here and talk about the 25/4 club. That’s 25 PGA Tour wins and four major championships. I wrote about this for CBS Sports earlier in the week, but it’s worth discussing what’s possible over the next several years.

He is now in the 25/4 club, which is a wild list of names. Now the question is whether he can reach the 30/5 club or the 40/6 club? It’s certainly possible. Going exactly 40/6 in this era would basically be equivalent to what Phil has done in his career.

And so far? Rory is tracking almost exactly to Phil, if not a bit ahead of him.

Here’s a look at Rory vs. Phil in PGA Tour wins and PGA Tour top 5s. This obviously doesn’t include European Tour or LIV (though there’s not much to include re: the latter).

Rory doesn’t play nearly as much as Phil does, and it would be shocking if he reached 500 tournaments played, but he also might not need to if he keeps winning at the rate he’s winning.

Here are top 5s.

Think about how good Phil has been in his career, what an all time great he is. Now look at the gap between Rory and Phil in those two charts above. That’s stunning, and it brought about declarations like this one from Paul McGinley (which I agree with).

Of course we also have to look at major championships. These numbers are pre-2024 Masters, though they don’t really change on Rory’s side because he didn’t finish top 10 at this year’s Masters.

Rory has played literally the best golf of his life over the last year. According to Data Golf, his best 150-round stretch ever ended August 2023. That includes the absurd 2011 and 2012 play as well as the torrid 2014 stretch.

The question now is how he ages. Phil has aged like one of his beloved wines, beautifully. Maybe the best of any post-World War II player. Will Rory age like that? It will be difficult, especially since his strength is speed, and speed is sometimes difficult to maintain as you get older (although Phil has maintained, if not increased his).

The 40/6 club looks like this.

Tiger
Jack
Phil
Hagen
Hogan
Palmer
Snead

Joining that group in this era when players play less than they used to will be extremely difficult. I think we underrate Rory’s overall career (for reasons described below). To be tracking toward that group of seven above is preposterous and shines a light on McGinley’s quote above.

4. I put some of the above rhetoric on Twitter, and the response was again humorous. A lot of, “You have to be kidding about Rory winning another major” and “dude is close to done.” I know that’s mostly trolls being trolls, but come on people. Rory has been extraordinary at majors over the last few years and, again, has played the best golf of his career recently.

Since 2022, only 11 golfers have made the cut at eight or more majors. Here are their scores at majors in which they made the cut (i.e. this does not include Scottie’s 2022 PGA or Rory’s 2023 Masters).

Major winners highlighted in yellow.

If there’s a critique of Rory at the majors, it hasn’t been what he’s done lately. No, it’s what he did from 2015-2021 when he gave himself, what, like 1.5 chances at winning one? Basically his age 26-32 seasons were very mediocre for an all-timer at the majors. That’s a bummer, of course, but if you’re a Rory fan the last few years should actually be encouraging.

5. I saw Greg Norman’s comments in Adelaide about how “the people have spoken.”

Here’s a snippet: “Vindication is not the right word. It’s the ignorance of others who simply didn’t understand what we were trying to do. I actually feel sorry for them because they now see the true value of LIV Golf and want to be a part of it. …

“The people have well and truly spoken. Both individual and team golf is alive and well in Australia and they deserve it. I knew they would support this event. I’m feeling extremely proud right now. With what we’ve (LIV Golf) gone through over the past 16 months, both as a league and what I’ve copped personally… the hatred… this makes it all worthwhile.”

Burning down the men’s professional game to spite the haters who did not think Brendan Steele could bring the masses out to Adelaide.

Sure.

Listen, this does not abdicate the PGA Tour, which, I think it’s pretty obvious (?) by this point, has been asleep at the wheel this entire time. If you hate what’s happening right now, it should infuriate you that all of this could have been avoided.

This paragraph from a 2022 New Yorker article on Yasir and LIV should incense you (especially the bolded part).

But two things can be true.

1. LIV can be an extremely ridiculous endeavor propped up by some of the most unserious people in the sport and …

2. The PGA Tour can also have sort of brought this upon itself.

What cannot be true is that the PGA Tour cannot continue to increase its budget while decreasing its entertainment value (which is what has been happening for three consecutive years).

If you want to have two primary tours, fine, that’s what pro golf has been for most of the last 50 years. But part of the non-Tiger related reason purses have increased over the last 20 is because the Tour consolidated all of the world’s top stars who used to stay in Europe (Rory, Rahm, Hovland etc.).

If we go away from that, whatever, that’s cool. A two-tour system honestly has more historical precedent than a unified world tour. But the amusing “yeah man, we are DEFINITELY worth these $20 million or $25 million purses” spirit cannot abide.

The math doesn’t work for either tour, at least not right now.

Which is why …

6. One truth I was considering over the weekend is how disruption brings about change. Am I glad for the disruption of LIV in the world of golf? Idk, it honestly has not affected my personal day to day job all that much other than being sometimes annoying (but also sometimes fascinating) to cover.

Would I be glad for the disruption of LIV in the world of golf if it led to a unified world tour that went to Australia with all the best players in the world two or three times a year? Absolutely.

Some people — Rory perhaps chief among them — see this moment in time as the moment for all of this to break a certain way and truly become a global, F1-like traveling circus. I don’t disagree.

This is an idea I have been thinking about for an extremely long time (and actually wrote about for CBS Sports nine years ago). It’s risky, though, which is why it hasn’t happened. There was no reason to bust up what the Tour was doing. It has been bringing in well over 10 figures in revenue annually and growing significantly, even if its product was stagnating.

It was able to sign lucrative TV deals, which is where the world tour starts to get a bit dicey. What is best and most idealistic for the game of golf — going to wonderful places like Australia and South Africa and Spain and Ireland — is maybe not best for the television contracts, which is not best for the decision makers (either the executives or the players) in the short term.

But desperate times and such.

And now is the time to burn it down and pull it off. It won’t happen because it’s all too much and there are way too many people involved, too many moving parts, and too much money to put on the line.

But it’s at least alluring right now that it could.

7. I would like to double down on my take that the closest thing golf has to the NBA on TNT is the Shotgun Start. If you replace this Barkley clip on Galveston with Andy talking about geography, it would have the same humorous effect.

I had about 15 more thoughts, but it’s nice out today and my sons are currently obsessed with testing their ball speed.

Thanks for reading until the end.

You’re a sicko, and I’m grateful for it.