The PGA Tour and its members have reached a deal.
After the players meeting led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy last week, the PGA Tour announced this morning that they will “elevate” four to-be-determined tournaments, raising their purses in exchange for commitments from the tour’s top eligible players to play in these four, thirteen other significant tournaments, and three events of each player’s choosing. It’s a consolidation of sorts, focusing the schedule on seventeen clearly defined events out of what this year was 48 total competitions.
Observers who’ve followed the saga will note that this isn’t a dissimilar setup from LIV Golf, in a lot of ways. There’s a consolidated schedule. There’s more prize money per event. There’s a bigger concentration of names in those events. It lacks the “team” setup and the made-for-TV shotgun start, keeping the tournament formats in line with traditional golf, but by aggressively formalizing a middle tier of events between the majors and the everyday, week-to-week tournaments, it streamlines the calendar, telling fans one tier below die-hard where to direct their focus. These are similar changes to what Phil Mickelson once proposed, changes the PGA Tour didn’t adopt when Mickelson proposed them, changes the PGA Tour is only now adopting in the presence of a significant threat. Will Mickelson ever return? That’s to be determined—bridges have been burned, but money talks, forever is a long time, and the PGA certainly appears stronger today than it has at any point since Mickelson followed through and lit the match after years of pouring lighter fluid on the timbers.
There are two points to make here. The first is that, as hasn’t gotten enough mention, the PGA—like pretty much all of us, to varying degrees—maintains financial interests that support the ongoing Uyghur genocide by China’s dictatorial regime. LIV Golf’s direct ties to the also-genocidal (see: Yemen), also-brutally-torturously-suppressive-of-free-expression Saudi Arabian dictatorial regime is more shamelessly executed, but the PGA doesn’t have clean hands, and that isn’t changing either. This isn’t some victory for human rights. It’s about golf. (We could get into a comparison of how bad affiliation with China is compared to affiliation with Saudi Arabia, and it’s a worthy discussion, one we’ve all gotten a lesson on in the wake of this spring’s gas price surge as we societally reduced our affiliation with Russia in the wake of their dictatorial regime’s embarkation on a more shameless, larger-scale genocidal path. At the end of the day, though, bad is bad, and this lesser-of-two-evils brand of bickering mostly just leads to us excusing our own implicit or explicit support of what the phrase “lesser-of-two-evils” names as “evil.” We shouldn’t be supporting something we call evil. That is a terrible incongruity.)
The second is that competition works. Litigation is playing a role here, and the pseudo-unionization of the PGA Tour’s top players is playing a role here, but those are all happening within the competitive arena. Phil Mickelson’s proposals weren’t adopted when there was no competition. The Woods-McIlroy Union’s organization produced fruit only when it emerged as competition back at the effective union of their departed peers. LIV may not win. Hopefully it doesn’t win—the disintegration of the PGA Tour would be sad, and “We’ve all made mistakes” Greg Norman would be a gag-inducing patriarch of the sport. But through providing the PGA Tour with a legitimate competitor, LIV has led to a better PGA Tour. There’s a lesson in that which applies to every institution in want of change. The lesson being that, again, competition works.
Are the Yankees Swimming, or Did They Just Catch a Wave?
The Yankees won again last night, sweeping their two-game set with the Mets. It was an impressive pair of games, and while the Yankees didn’t exactly look “crisp” (a mental bungle by Gleyber Torres allowed the Mets to tie things at one point, and with the Yankees’ bullpen thin, Clarke Schmidt was asked to get ten outs to end the game, something he did not quite do but worked out in the end), the Mets have an earnest argument to be called the best team in baseball on paper. Beating them twice is impactful, and for a Yankees team that’s looked like it’s drowning all month, there’s a momentum aspect here where they might be getting a breath of fresh air.
We played this game less than a week ago with the Yankees. They’d just beaten the Rays 8-7, a Josh Donaldson extra-inning grand slam capping a pair of comebacks. Was that going to be the spark, we asked? They then lost three straight. Now, they’ve won three straight, they’re getting Giancarlo Stanton back tomorrow, and their upcoming West Coast swing gives them seven games against also-rans before they head to Florida for what could be the weekend where they put away the Rays.
At its core, this is probably most illustrative in that it demonstrates how hard it is to read whether a team has something going, momentum-wise, or doesn’t have something going, and how quickly that can change. There may be people out there who can accurately read this stuff and make predictions off of it. There are certainly people trying. But overall, it’s really hard to tell. Which is part of why the default response should still probably always be to trust the numbers—numbers which, as they have for most of the year, say the Yankees are good but not great. They’ve likely earned themselves a good October path. That may be enough for them to get through and win a pennant (or a World Series). But this team, on paper, is not as good as the Blue Jays or the Astros. It’s hardly better, on paper, than the Brewers. That’s a bigger deal than the momentum question, even if the momentum question is more fun.
Elsewhere:
AL Wild Card
The Rays, Blue Jays, and Mariners all won as Corey Kluber carved up the Angels, Ross Stripling shut down the Red Sox, and Robbie Ray made neat work of the Nationals while the Rays’ and Blue Jays’ offenses blew up and Seattle’s did enough. Those three teams are still just about even, with the Rays up by half a game and Toronto ahead of the Mariners by percentage points.
AL Central
The Orioles also won, beating the White Sox to remain two and a half back of a playoff position. This team is still not very good on paper, but they remain great on the field, and while their remaining schedule is tough—per FanGraphs, only the Rays have a harder schedule among AL teams—seven games against the Astros in August and September, when those Astros are merely playing for home field considerations, is better than catching the team in the midst of a division race. As for the White Sox, well, to give you a sense of how they’re doing: Michael Kopech hurt his knee during warmups Monday against the Royals, but wasn’t taken out until midway through the first inning and is now on the IL.
Speaking of the Astros, Justin Verlander gave the Twins hell in Houston, striking out ten in six no-hit, no-walk innings before exiting the game, having thrown 91 pitches. Should he have stayed in? Back in April, we were disappointed about Clayton Kershaw and Dave Roberts and the Dodgers in a similar situation (even against the same opponent), but this was a lot earlier in the game, the playoffs are closer, and Verlander’s pitch count situation was much worse than Kershaw’s was in that game. It was a 2-0 game at the time last night, too, though that said, the Astros’ bullpen almost blew it in the ninth while closer Ryan Pressly was unexpectedly unavailable with neck stiffness. On the Twins side, Byron Buxton’s on the IL now with that hip injury.
The Guardians won, beating old friend Mike Clevinger in San Diego (Clevinger pitched well, but Cleveland beating a guy they once traded away is a very Cleveland thing to do). Their division lead is now three and four games over Minnesota and Chicago, respectively, and in terms of Wild Card picture, they’re a game back of Toronto and Seattle. Also of note with these guys: For the first time all year, they’re more than 50% likely to win the division, per FanGraphs.
NL East
The Mets lost, and to meet every Mets fan’s expectation, Atlanta won. That gap’s down to two games again, and if anyone just wondered the same thing I did, Atlanta’s nine and a half back of the Dodgers for the best record in baseball. Don’t think that’s happening.
NL Wild Card
The Phillies won a wild one over the Reds, coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the sixth and a 6-5 deficit in the ninth. Bryson Stott’s double off of Alexis Diaz was the big hit, with the rookie scoring two batters later on a Nick Maton single through the drawn-in infield (a Nick Senzel throwing error had allowed Jean Segura to score and moved Stott to third). The Phils are back ahead of the Padres by a game.
The Giants got back to .500 again, winning by two in Detroit as Camilo Doval struck out Miguel Cabrera on a full count and induced a Harold Castro groundout to escape a bases-loaded jam of his own creation. FanGraphs gives both the Orioles and the Red Sox a better chance of making the playoffs than San Francisco, though none are above a one-in-twenty likelihood. The Giants, on that note, just put Brandon Belt on the IL a few minutes ago. Nagging knee issue.
NL Central
The Cubs stopped the Cardinals’ winning streak, a ragtag group of mostly young arms holding St. Louis scoreless despite walking four and only striking out five. In the second game of the doubleheader, the Cardinals exacted their revenge, scoring five in the fourth and sixth in the ninth to win 13-3. With the Brewers losing in Los Angeles (the Dodgers plated seven against Corbin Burnes, Tony Gonsolin moved to 16-1, Walker Buehler had Tommy John surgery), St. Louis now leads that division by five and a half, nearly as much as the eight games by which the Yankees lead the Rays.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
- 12:35 PM EDT: Atlanta @ Pittsburgh, Wright vs. Keller (MLB TV/ESPN+)
- 4:10 PM EDT: Cleveland @ San Diego, Quantrill vs. Snell (MLB TV)
- 8:05 PM EDT: St. Louis @ Cubs, Mikolas vs. Farrell (MLB TV)
- 1:10 PM EDT: San Francisco @ Detroit, Webb vs. Manning (MLB TV)
- 4:10 PM EDT: Washington @ Seattle, Sánchez vs. Kirby (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Baltimore, Giolito vs. Watkins (FS1)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ Philadelphia, Zeuch vs. Sánchez (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Anaheim @ Tampa Bay, Mayers vs. McClanahan (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Toronto @ Boston, Berríos vs. Bello (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Minnesota @ Houston, Bundy vs. Valdez (MLB TV)
- 9:00 PM EDT: Milwaukee @ Los Angeles, Houser vs. Heaney (MLB TV)
