It’s been almost a year since the PGA Tour announced it had reached an agreement with the Saudis to reunify golf. At the time, it looked like the PGA/LIV war was over. There were details to iron out, but a resolution was on its way.
Since then, no details have been ironed. “Agreement” is a generous term. Jimmy Dunne, the investment banker who helped broker the arrangement, resigned from the PGA Tour’s policy board this week. Last week, Rory McIlroy—a proponent of reunification—was denied reentry to the same group. The appearance is that the remaining PGA Tour loyalists, guys like Jordan Spieth, are trying to circle the wagons and take a hard line when it comes to any prospective merger. Meanwhile, 16 LIV players participated in this weekend’s PGA Championship.
From the outside, then, this seems to be the situation:
- LIV continues to exist, paying its golfers far more money than they make on the PGA Tour.
- LIV golfers are allowed to compete in all four majors, although qualification is harder for them.
- PIF, the Saudi royal investment fund, remains willing to bankroll the PGA Tour to some extent in exchange for some type of merger. (My impression is that the Saudis are basically paying for prestige here, like SMU letting existing ACC members keep its share of TV revenue in exchange for access to the conference.)
- It’s unclear what terms the PGA Tour board holdouts are willing to accept. That makes it impossible to know what shape a merged golf world would take.
- Perceptions, based partly on television ratings, are that neither LIV nor the PGA Tour is thriving in terms of public interest. LIV has a longer—perhaps infinite—financial runway, but week in and week out, only golf diehards seem to care about either, and the number of golf diehards isn’t notably rising.
The nice thing for golf is that unless it really messes something up, it will always have the majors. The majors and the Ryder Cup are the only golf the mainstream sports world has ever cared about, and even with a fractured “regular season,” there’s plenty of golf to generate fields and narratives for these events. The question for golf’s prominence is how much this fractured “regular season” setup hurts the majors, and the answer to that is unclear. It’s the kind of thing whose effect might take twenty years to bear out, as the talent pool shifts in response to the emotional draw and practical opportunities teenagers see for themselves in the sport.
What this means beneath golf’s outer appearance, of course, is another matter. For the diehards, the continued dilution of the PGA Tour is a problem. If the PGA Tour turns into a feeder program for LIV, the golf world will be left with a few minor league tours and one gimmicky version of the sport put on by a murderous authoritarian regime for its own enjoyment. The longer time passes without a resolution to the conflict, the more that becomes the reality. Their position is understandable, but it’s hard to see what leverage PGA Tour loyalists have.
Mystik Dan Is Overvalued, Right?
The post time for the Preakness is listed as 6:50 PM EDT today, with coverage on NBC. With Muth scratched due to a fever and some rain in the forecast, I’m seeing Mystik Dan as the favorite at 2/1, with Catching Freedom next at 7/2. I’m curious the extent to which Mystik Dan’s odds are inflated due to the Triple Crown dreams. They’re inflated at least somewhat, right? The public is big enough to swing it that direction? How big is the surcharge? How do oddsmakers price that in for the fixed odds markets? The Preakness and sometimes the Belmont Stakes are the only races with this specific phenomenon, which makes it more a question than in more mainstream, popularly bet sports.
The Rest
The NHL:
- More goalie interference drama late last night, with the Stars appearing to win their second round series on a Mason Marchment goal twelve and a half minutes into the first overtime, only to see the goal disallowed. Matt Duchene did make contact with Alexandar Georgiev even before Cale Makar shoved the two into one another, but Duchene and Georgiev were on the edge of the blue paint when they first contacted. Regardless of the correctness of the call, goalie interference is something that should be black-and-white, and it wasn’t. The Stars did win eventually, and the incident did give us some great goaltending moments over the extra twenty minutes, but ideally, the rules would be enforced in ways that are consistent and easy to understand.
- There are a lot of counterintuitive situations in seven-game series, but the most disparate one between “how it feels” and where the probabilities stand might be this Canucks/Oilers one, where the team trailing 3–2 is favored in Game 6 and will be favored again in Game 7 should it happen. Most likely, the Canucks win one of the two, but it’s hard to not view them as the underdog when they’ll be the underdog should they lose as an underdog tonight.
The NBA:
- If he played for a coach other than Tom Thibodeau, I’d probably assume Josh Hart’s removal last night was precautionary. It’s common for NBA teams to throw in the towel once the win probability gets a certain level of low, prioritizing the next game and trying to gain a rest advantage. With Thibs, though, and with Hart specifically, it feels more concerning. The Knicks can only take on so many injuries.
- In tomorrow’s other Game 7, Jamal Murray’s elbow is a serious concern. This isn’t like football, where if a guy can manage the pain, he’s probably comparably effective. If Murray’s shot is off, the Nuggets are a much worse team. Possibly fatally flawed, if no one steps up to complement Jokić.
- Kristaps Porziņģis will reportedly miss the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals, but if you’re the Celtics, you really only want him to play one or two games, right? It doesn’t seem like they should be too concerned about losing the series, so it’s more about priming themselves optimally for the Finals.
- And, finally, in a break from only talking about injuries: The Thunder and Mavericks have a much more intuitive Game 6 setup than their NHL counterparts today. It’s not fully do-or-die, of course (that’s the one tempting fallacy), but this is the good chance for the Mavs. Game 7 would be the bad chance.
MLB:
- There was big Friday evening news on a few fronts in the baseball world. On the first, Jung Hoo Lee’s debut MLB season is already over, with the Giants’ prize offseason signing undergoing labrum surgery after dislocating his shoulder last weekend (Lee was a major international free agent, coming over from the KBO). The Giants’ IL is filling up, and while their strong top-end pitching makes the Wild Card more appealing to them than others, they’d have some big names to shop if they ended up selling at the deadline.
- On the other, David Fletcher reportedly bet with the same bookie as Ippei Mizuhara, and while he didn’t bet on sports other than baseball, a friend of his in the minor leagues did reportedly bet on MLB games, including Angels games in which Fletcher played. Fletcher’s currently with the Braves’ AAA affiliate, where his previous biggest newsworthiness came from throwing a knuckleball well in a couple blowouts. This is probably not what Shohei Ohtani’s camp wants, and it does cast a little suspicion back towards Ohtani—because Fletcher and Ohtani were reportedly good friends while teammates—but it’s a long way from being anything more than suspicious.
NASCAR, F1, IndyCar:
- After a dramatic one at Darlington on Sunday, with Brad Keselowski securing the most impressive victory of his career, all considered, NASCAR’s at North Wilkesboro this weekend for All-Star festivities. Here are the details on all the novelties.
- Indy 500 qualifying is underway today, with time trials determining who gets locked into the field, who gets locked into spots 13–30, and who moves on to Top 12 Qualifying and Last Chance Qualifying tomorrow. I believe there are 34 entrants this year, chasing 33 spots.
- Lastly, F1’s at Imola, in Bologna, Italy. That race will be Sunday morning, and after McLaren’s surprise showing in Miami, Max Verstappen’s odds are nearly half what they were that weekend at this point, reflecting that markets view Red Bull as more vulnerable than they were, but still not extremely vulnerable.
Chicago:
- Tough times for the Cubs with Dansby Swanson still on the IL and Nico Hoerner continually day-to-day with his hamstring injury. The pregame report today was that Swanson might be back on Tuesday, which would be welcome. In the meantime, Miles Mastrobuoni and Nick Madrigal continue as the middle infield pairing, with a thin bench behind them. Thankfully, the deficit behind the Brewers is only at two games, and the NL West’s non-Dodgers teams continue to flounder. There are only five National League teams with winning records entering play today.
- Connor Bedard’s having a big tournament at hockey worlds, second in the event in goals scored heading into today (five goals in four games). He and Canada beat Finland this morning to clinch a quarterfinals spot. They’ve got Switzerland tomorrow.
- Petr Mrazek (Czech Republic), Seth Jones (USA), Alex Vlasic (USA), Lukas Reichel (Germany), and Philipp Kurashev (Switzerland) are also all in action at hockey worlds, with Mrazek splitting time in goal with Lukas Dostal and the other four mostly playing solid minutes so far. The Czech and Swiss teams have clinched a quarterfinal spot. The Germans and possibly the Americans (conflicting reports) have yet to clinch, but both look pretty safe. Reichel did score twice for Germany yesterday in an 8–2 win over Kazakhstan.
- We haven’t mentioned the Bulls since the draft lottery happened, so consider them mentioned. The plurality (by no means the majority) of mock drafts I checked have them taking Dalton Knecht with that eleventh pick. I was a little bit of a Knecht truther this year (Tennessee had their rare defensive issues when he was on the court), but he’s easy to talk oneself into. Electric at the offensive end.
- In another Bulls development, they’ve hired Wes Unseld Jr. to be Billy Donovan’s lead assistant. Unseld was most recently the Wizards’ head coach, but if you look past that, he worked for a long time under Mike Malone in Denver as that team got built.
- The Sky lost their opener on Wednesday down in Dallas. They’re still there tonight, looking to split the series.
