Golf Thread

[waspish]

 

[Mr.Banks]

Anyone ever been up to Fife/ St Andrews area playing golf . 3 of us thinking of going next year .

I've been watching the golfmates YouTube channel and they have been doing some videos around Dundee, carnoustie country, they have played some really nice courses up there. May be another option for you.

 

[sky tot]

I've been watching the golfmates YouTube channel and they have been doing some videos around Dundee, carnoustie country, they have played some really nice courses up there. May be another option for you.

Yea I’ve been watching this week’s videos also .. One of the courses they played was stunning.

 

[Dubai Blue]

The Saudi backed LIV tournaments have started today.

Video | LIV Golf

Check out the latest videos & highlights from LIV Golf

www.livgolf.com

I've watched half an hour and have some observations.

1 - The teams seem to have zero meaning or consequence at the moment.

2 - 54 holes is too long. What they're trying to do is essentially what cricket did in the 1970's - go from Test matches only to 1 day cricket. But instead of going from 5 days to 50 overs, they've just gone from 4 days to 3 which doesn't change much. I would have loved to see 18 or 36 holes, and make it into a sort of T20 version of golf where you HAVE to go hard to stand a chance of winning - hitting every par 5 in 2, trying to drive short par 4s, attacking the pin on par 3s to get birdies.

3 - The shotgun start is interesting but removes all sense of how good a score is. I have no idea if someone is at -3 because they started on an easy stretch of course and have played all the par 5s or if they're genuinely outplaying the field.

4 - Commentary is pretty bland although comparable to the online streams of the European Tour. People seem to really like no adverts, but it's a bit like a short highlights package, just shot after shot without great explanation of how important the are.

They've not brought in anything new. New camera angles, new graphics or visualisations etc. What about Split screens? Overlays? That might be something they bring in later.

Agree with most of that. Watched a couple of hours of it today and despite all the hype, it just felt a bit too same samey.

A bit underwhelming really, think they've missed a trick by not coming up with a genuinely new format. I've seen some people suggest the teams should have been 2 men and 2 women. That could have been an interesting new approach.

All in all, it just wasn't different enough to make it genuinely compelling viewing. And those noises on the graphics (and the completely unnecessary microphones in the holes) were pretty annoying too!

I'll probably stick with it though cos I enjoy watching golf and think the PGA Tour have behaved like knobheads.

Edit: I'd also read that the players and caddies were going to be mic'd up but didn't see any evidence of that from what I watched. Was looking forward to that as at least it would have been something new

 

[bluethrunthru]

Seems to me that this LIV Tour will end badly for golf .....not a fan of golf myself but all I see and hear looks like it has all the trappings of Kerry Packer and Cricket - Allen Stanford and Cricket - ITV Digital and the EFL and the PL clubs and the European Superleague thingy - when these things grow organically out of a frustration about how the game is run and financed is one thing but when some rich fucker tries to but a sport it seldom ends well.

Problem for some of the "names" who have been suspended today by the PGA is if it all collapses - 5Live reporter today said everyone he spoke to there got in on a free ticket - whilst they are away from the PGA others have the chance to grow and prosper. If at the end of the year LIV has gone and they are looking for a way back in if I was one of the loyalists who was now doing well I'd be pretty sore if they got straight back in.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Seems like a pretty open and shut case of restriction of trade? The PGA Tour has created a monopoly and is now banning anyone else.

I also don't think it's great from a legal perspective that the European Tour and PGA Tours are so obviously collaborating and will happily release players to play each others tournaments or the Asian Tour or Challenge Tour, but not the LIV Tour.

I think the existing powers have handled this really badly so far.

I have a lot to say about this. These are just the broad strokes.

If this doesn't die quickly, professional golf as we knew it (i.e. since Palmer effectively invented it for TV, perfected later by Frank Chirkinian) is finished. Pro golf will go the way of tennis for sports fans quickly, and eventually, for golf fans too. That is, everyone will only watch the majors. The remainder of the tournaments would finished as TV spectacles, on all tours. That's because no one wants to watch half-quality fields on TV, which is what this split will bring.

This isn't because of LIV. LIV is the culmination of what actually began the rot, which the WGCs. The WGCs started the ruination of pro golf because they introduced appearance fees into an eat-what-you-kill sport, as tennis has. In that regard, the PGA Tour and the other tours are culpable because they allowed that to happen. I said that guaranteed money was a slippery slope when the WGCs first came along years ago.

Guaranteed money works in team sports because a player's motivation is not to let teammates down if the team isn't winning. Knowing this, LIV is going to try to create "teams" to give players motivation, as with guaranteed money, there is less motivation to perform, especially in events with half-assed fields and no prestige, which is what non-majors will all become (and in some cases already were, and are in all cases with LIV). Non-PGA tours get by today the way the Championship and League One, etc. do -- the possibility of "promotion" to the majors and a cadre of hardcore fans who are fine with less-rated athletes performing. But there's an even higher risk that those 2nd tier players go to LIV now (look at the roster) because they aren't getting guaranteed money any other way.

LIV is Greg Norman's revenge on golf. Norman was probably the sport's greatest underachiever, mostly because he was the sport's most popular underachiever. Greg believes the most popular players should be paid the most, like performer/actors, not the best players. He was at one time the best, and most popular, but couldn't translate that into either competitive greatness in the majors (how best is defined long-term) nor the most on-course money after he stopped winning, despite remaining popular. He has spent the last 25 years attempting to rationalize his competitive failures, and that has become an obsession akin to a CEO who backdates stock options because his share price "deserved" to trade higher because he "ran the company so well". Bluntly, he believes that on-course competition for money is actually unfair to popular players. IMO he's an avaricious, vengeful, moral cretin with a shocking lack of self-knowledge and no ability to admit his faults.

This in turn opens all sorts of questions about the majors. The PGA and U.S. Ryder Cup teams can blackball LIV players (which of course hurts those events) but the other three majors control their own admissions standards. They probably want the strongest fields, so they'll keep admitting even those kicked off other tours. But how? What if OWGR points don't ever accrue to LIV players? What if the other three majors side with the PGA? Or what if they screw the PGA by saying PGA tournament victories don't mean auto-qualification anymore because they need slots to let LIV guys in?

The PGA HAS to ban these guys and try to kill this now, just like the cartel tried to do to City. It's the only remedy they have, but in this case it's because they've let the appearance fee slippery slope wolf in the door already, and they know they can't compete with the Saudis, who will throw endless venture capital money at a huge loss to build this up, even if the PGA countered with appearance fees, which they can't afford and could never match unless another quadrillionaire entity bankrolls it. Obviously the ban isn't working well, because LIV just throws so much at these guys the ban is worth it. Hence golf as we know it is dead.

There's only one solution, and it rests with a small cadre of mostly old, mostly white, mostly men who wear green jackets and periodically hang out in Augusta, GA. They could kill this tomorrow. Will they? I don't know. I doubt it. But they're the only ones that can do it in one fell swoop IMO. I doubt very many players will risk never being invited to The Masters again (even if they've won -- The Masters would need to take an uber-hardcore stance, but they have before, on MANY issues). Maybe the has-beens won't care, but not those players who still have careers in front of them.

 

[thepolarbear]

I've started playing again after not hitting a ball for about 25 years having moved back to Scotland. I'm just starting to hit the ball properly again after a good number of visits to the driving range, starting to enjoy it again!

There are many good courses where I live I live 20 mintues either side in the middle of Turnberry and Royal Troon - not that I can afford to golf at these :-) £250 a round :-(

There is many other good links courses around here and you can get unlimited Golf on a South Ayrshire Golf pass for ~£500 a year which includes 5 courses, Belleisle Park, Troon Links, Girvan, Maybole, Seafield and Dalmilling.

 

[domalino]

I have a lot to say about this. These are just the broad strokes.

If this doesn't die quickly, professional golf as we knew it (i.e. since Palmer effectively invented it for TV, perfected later by Frank Chirkinian) is finished. Pro golf will go the way of tennis for sports fans quickly, and eventually, for golf fans too. That is, everyone will only watch the majors. The remainder of the tournaments would finished as TV spectacles, on all tours. That's because no one wants to watch half-quality fields on TV, which is what this split will bring.

This isn't because of LIV. LIV is the culmination of what actually began the rot, which the WGCs. The WGCs started the ruination of pro golf because they introduced appearance fees into an eat-what-you-kill sport, as tennis has. In that regard, the PGA Tour and the other tours are culpable because they allowed that to happen. I said that guaranteed money was a slippery slope when the WGCs first came along years ago.

Guaranteed money works in team sports because a player's motivation is not to let teammates down if the team isn't winning. Knowing this, LIV is going to try to create "teams" to give players motivation, as with guaranteed money, there is less motivation to perform, especially in events with half-assed fields and no prestige, which is what non-majors will all become (and in some cases already were, and are in all cases with LIV). Non-PGA tours get by today the way the Championship and League One, etc. do -- the possibility of "promotion" to the majors and a cadre of hardcore fans who are fine with less-rated athletes performing. But there's an even higher risk that those 2nd tier players go to LIV now (look at the roster) because they aren't getting guaranteed money any other way.

LIV is Greg Norman's revenge on golf. Norman was probably the sport's greatest underachiever, mostly because he was the sport's most popular underachiever. Greg believes the most popular players should be paid the most, like performer/actors, not the best players. He was at one time the best, and most popular, but couldn't translate that into either competitive greatness in the majors (how best is defined long-term) nor the most on-course money after he stopped winning, despite remaining popular. He has spent the last 25 years attempting to rationalize his competitive failures, and that has become an obsession akin to a CEO who backdates stock options because his share price "deserved" to trade higher because he "ran the company so well". Bluntly, he believes that on-course competition for money is actually unfair to popular players. IMO he's an avaricious, vengeful, moral cretin with a shocking lack of self-knowledge and no ability to admit his faults.

This in turn opens all sorts of questions about the majors. The PGA and U.S. Ryder Cup teams can blackball LIV players (which of course hurts those events) but the other three majors control their own admissions standards. They probably want the strongest fields, so they'll keep admitting even those kicked off other tours. But how? What if OWGR points don't ever accrue to LIV players? What if the other three majors side with the PGA? Or what if they screw the PGA by saying PGA tournament victories don't mean auto-qualification anymore because they need slots to let LIV guys in?

The PGA HAS to ban these guys and try to kill this now, just like the cartel tried to do to City. It's the only remedy they have, but in this case it's because they've let the appearance fee slippery slope wolf in the door already, and they know they can't compete with the Saudis, who will throw endless venture capital money at a huge loss to build this up, even if the PGA countered with appearance fees, which they can't afford and could never match unless another quadrillionaire entity bankrolls it. Obviously the ban isn't working well, because LIV just throws so much at these guys the ban is worth it. Hence golf as we know it is dead.

There's only one solution, and it rests with a small cadre of mostly old, mostly white, mostly men who wear green jackets and periodically hang out in Augusta, GA. They could kill this tomorrow. Will they? I don't know. I doubt it. But they're the only ones that can do it in one fell swoop IMO. I doubt very many players will risk never being invited to The Masters again (even if they've won -- The Masters would need to take an uber-hardcore stance, but they have before, on MANY issues). Maybe the has-beens won't care, but not those players who still have careers in front of them.

If this kills golf then golf deserves to die to be honest.

The PGA tour has systematically killed the European Tour over the last 15 years, going from 2 equal branches where players freely switched to the PGA tour becoming the big league and the European struggling to retain players for more than half a dozen rolex events a year. Now someone's using the same tactics against them, they're thowing a hissy fit.

 

[Dubai Blue]

I have a lot to say about this. These are just the broad strokes.

If this doesn't die quickly, professional golf as we knew it (i.e. since Palmer effectively invented it for TV, perfected later by Frank Chirkinian) is finished. Pro golf will go the way of tennis for sports fans quickly, and eventually, for golf fans too. That is, everyone will only watch the majors. The remainder of the tournaments would finished as TV spectacles, on all tours. That's because no one wants to watch half-quality fields on TV, which is what this split will bring.

This isn't because of LIV. LIV is the culmination of what actually began the rot, which the WGCs. The WGCs started the ruination of pro golf because they introduced appearance fees into an eat-what-you-kill sport, as tennis has. In that regard, the PGA Tour and the other tours are culpable because they allowed that to happen. I said that guaranteed money was a slippery slope when the WGCs first came along years ago.

Guaranteed money works in team sports because a player's motivation is not to let teammates down if the team isn't winning. Knowing this, LIV is going to try to create "teams" to give players motivation, as with guaranteed money, there is less motivation to perform, especially in events with half-assed fields and no prestige, which is what non-majors will all become (and in some cases already were, and are in all cases with LIV). Non-PGA tours get by today the way the Championship and League One, etc. do -- the possibility of "promotion" to the majors and a cadre of hardcore fans who are fine with less-rated athletes performing. But there's an even higher risk that those 2nd tier players go to LIV now (look at the roster) because they aren't getting guaranteed money any other way.

LIV is Greg Norman's revenge on golf. Norman was probably the sport's greatest underachiever, mostly because he was the sport's most popular underachiever. Greg believes the most popular players should be paid the most, like performer/actors, not the best players. He was at one time the best, and most popular, but couldn't translate that into either competitive greatness in the majors (how best is defined long-term) nor the most on-course money after he stopped winning, despite remaining popular. He has spent the last 25 years attempting to rationalize his competitive failures, and that has become an obsession akin to a CEO who backdates stock options because his share price "deserved" to trade higher because he "ran the company so well". Bluntly, he believes that on-course competition for money is actually unfair to popular players. IMO he's an avaricious, vengeful, moral cretin with a shocking lack of self-knowledge and no ability to admit his faults.

This in turn opens all sorts of questions about the majors. The PGA and U.S. Ryder Cup teams can blackball LIV players (which of course hurts those events) but the other three majors control their own admissions standards. They probably want the strongest fields, so they'll keep admitting even those kicked off other tours. But how? What if OWGR points don't ever accrue to LIV players? What if the other three majors side with the PGA? Or what if they screw the PGA by saying PGA tournament victories don't mean auto-qualification anymore because they need slots to let LIV guys in?

The PGA HAS to ban these guys and try to kill this now, just like the cartel tried to do to City. It's the only remedy they have, but in this case it's because they've let the appearance fee slippery slope wolf in the door already, and they know they can't compete with the Saudis, who will throw endless venture capital money at a huge loss to build this up, even if the PGA countered with appearance fees, which they can't afford and could never match unless another quadrillionaire entity bankrolls it. Obviously the ban isn't working well, because LIV just throws so much at these guys the ban is worth it. Hence golf as we know it is dead.

There's only one solution, and it rests with a small cadre of mostly old, mostly white, mostly men who wear green jackets and periodically hang out in Augusta, GA. They could kill this tomorrow. Will they? I don't know. I doubt it. But they're the only ones that can do it in one fell swoop IMO. I doubt very many players will risk never being invited to The Masters again (even if they've won -- The Masters would need to take an uber-hardcore stance, but they have before, on MANY issues). Maybe the has-beens won't care, but not those players who still have careers in front of them.

A lot of this makes sense and it's sad to see the game get torn apart, but as you say it's all the PGA Tour's own making. Most of the Tour is incredibly dull to watch and I don't know anyone who watches it regularly (other than the occasional final two hours on a Sunday when it's close between some big names). There's far too many events, it's too America-centric and it's pretty much just the same format week in week out. No variation and, beyond the players themselves, does anyone really care who wins most of these tournaments? I certainly don't.

If it's to succeed, LIV needs the PGA Tour. Because without it, how does anyone even know that these are best players in the game (not this current field, but what the eventual dream is). But equally, the PGA Tour could also have been given a new lease of life if both parties had agreed to exist side by side.

Free up 8 weeks across the season by dropping some of the shittier events on the Tour and every 6 weeks or so, the top 48 on the PGA Tour at that point get entered into the next LIV event to compete for mega money (without the ridiculous team format). Now, that would have been great for everyone — LIV would be guaranteed to get the best players for their events, the PGA Tour would retain all the best players and add some much-needed excitement to their events, the players would rake in a ton of extra cash, and golf fans would have a genuine reason for tuning in every week.

The problem is that the PGA Tour wouldn't want to be seen as playing second fiddle to a series with more money (ironic considering that's exactly what they did to the European Tour) and Greg Norman seems intent on completely destroying the status quo rather than finding a way to fit into it. Such a shame they couldn't both put their egos to one side and genuinely revolutionise the tour concept for everyone's benefit. Massive missed opportunity all round.

 

[Cityfan]

I've started playing again after not hitting a ball for about 25 years having moved back to Scotland. I'm just starting to hit the ball properly again after a good number of visits to the driving range, starting to enjoy it again!

There are many good courses where I live I live 20 mintues either side in the middle of Turnberry and Royal Troon - not that I can afford to golf at these :-) £250 a round :-(

There is many other good links courses around here and you can get unlimited Golf on a South Ayrshire Golf pass for ~£500 a year which includes 5 courses, Belleisle Park, Troon Links, Girvan, Maybole, Seafield and Dalmilling.

Troon Darley and Lochgreen are really enjoyable courses, Belleisle is meant to be as well, great value ticket that.