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Hey,
This is a bit of an unusual one for us as we normally have a pretty regular Tuesday/Friday cadence. However, Rory getting Mutombo’d from returning to the PGA Tour board started to engender so many thoughts and rabbit holes for me that I decided to break this into a one-off newsletter with a handful of thoughts, inklings and ideas about what in the world is going on with men’s professional golf right now.
Onto the news.
On Wednesday, Rory disclosed that, despite Webb Simpson lobbying for him to take over Webb’s spot on the PGA Tour policy board, he would not be returning.
There was no specific reason for this1 other than, “There was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason.”
And buddy, there’s a lot packed into that sentence.
Let’s get into the thoughts.
1. First, let’s get this out of the way, and I thought Soly said it well on Wednesday: I’m hesitant to be overly sympathetic to Rory here because, you know, he left the PGA Tour board on his own terms at the end of last year.
I don’t know the reason, don’t know the details and don’t know exactly why that happened, but for the sake of this specific point, I’m not sure any of that matters. The bottom line is that he had power that he seemingly was not forced to give up, but he gave it up anyway.
When talking about what all went down with all of this, we can’t just ignore that reality. It must be a lens through which all of this is viewed.
2. With that caveat out of the way, I must say this about Rory apparently being boxed out by the rest of the board (Spieth, Cantlay and Tiger … and Scott and Malnati?) …
The most influential active player (not counting the Cat here) is trying to get back in the room to throw his weight around for the future of the game and the organization, and you’re like, Nah, Pat Cantlay’s got this one.
What?
I was on a group thread on Wednesday of other writers and content creators, and one of them was lamenting the silliness of slamming the door on Rory — if only for the chance that one of the most powerful people in golf could feasibly set up shop elsewhere! — and it made me realize that I think this Tiger-Spieth-Cantlay contingent might think they already accomplished what needed accomplishing. They did the thing. They can now take on the PIF with Arthur Blank’s nickels and dimes compared to what MBS is swinging at them.
Listen, am I pleased that the obvious outcome here is that golf is now almost inevitably going to be heavily influenced by a Saudi contingent that comes and goes and does as it pleases? I am not.
Am I also in touch with the reality of the situation? I am.
Go back and listen to Rory’s comments over the last five months. He is exasperated — as everyone should be! — that no deal is done and that it does not even feel that close.
Here’s what Webb said on Wednesday.
“I think our goals might be a little different than their goals, I'm not sure because I'm not on that particular transaction committee who's currently negotiating, but those goals will come out I'm sure and we'll learn more.”
This is absolutely not a shot at Webb, but I feel like we’ve been hearing some version of that “those goals will come out, and we’ll learn more” for a year now.
When you hear Euro Tour boss Guy Kinnings talk about how they all just need to get in the same room, it’s like, Yo, what have we been doing for the last 10 months?!
Stuff like that, I believe it infuriates Rory because I know it infuriates most of the rest of us, and I think Rory considers and thinks about the state pro golf more like “the rest of us” than he does his peers.
3. Honestly, all of this sometimes makes me feel like rooting against the PGA Tour because, even though nobody will say it, that trio is seemingly voting against what could be an amazing and successful world tour and for the continuation of the 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage (no offense to St. Paul or Detroit but still offense to Memphis). It also makes me genuinely wonder if a deal with the PIF will even get done at all. Spieth said it out loud in January, which is part of what sparked this Rory-Spieth tension. Again, I’m not excited about a PIF deal, but if the alternative is the Tour withering away as expansion teams like the Mashies and the Albatrosses infiltrate LIV then the choice is kinda obvious.
4. This thread by KVV is well said, and it mirrors something I wrote earlier this week (which I’ll link to below). The crux of it is that you’re choosing between two undesirable things, but it feels like the Tour contingent have convinced themselves that that true thing is not actually true.
And like KVV said, I admire the willingness of Tiger and others to go down with the ship, but 1. Let’s either fast forward to the end of that or 2. Let’s understand that this is over, done and dusted and has been for a while and just get the deal done.
5. Here’s what I wrote in the Tuesday newsletter that is related to all of this.
Listen, is a world tour funded by the Saudi regime an idealistic state for professional golf? No. But also, how many times do we need to watch a lesser-funded organization attempt to take on the PIF and how many Jon Rahms does the PIF have to sign before the Tour and its leadership understands what is happening here?
The best outcome to all of this is obviously (?) a world tour with everybody back in the mix. As I wrote last week, I’m dubious that enough people will get on the same page to make this world tour happen, but that seems to be Rory’s agenda.
The worst outcome to all of this is a slow, methodical bleed where the PIF takes two guys every seven months and you look up at the 2027 Memorial and it’s Spieth, Cantlay, a couple of YouTubers and five guys from the Outlaw Tour playing in the final few groups with Tiger looking on and applauding.
I don’t know all the details around why Rory left the board to begin with, and I’m sure that plays into some of this. But to box him out because Tiger and others think it should be dug out of the dirt seems — and I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt here — short-sighted at best.
6. Read between the lines here in this Rory clip. He’s saying much of it out loud. Rory is smart, but he’s not smart enough to come up with that exact phrasing that quickly on the spot. He’s been dying to say that, and it’s one of the (many) things that’s being said behind the scenes by others, too.
When asked what compromises the Tour may have to make for a deal, it’s telling how QUICKLY this idea comes to McIlroy AND how smoothly he says it. It’s been top of his mind for months:
American golfers playing all their golf in America may have to play more golf across the rest… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Sean Zak (@Sean_Zak)
May 8, 2024
Honestly, I get it. If you’re Cantlay or Spieth, you don’t want to globetrot because the PGA Tour is nice and neat and heck, it pays a lot better than it used to. But that disposition toward professional golf reminds me of the organization I used to cover in a previous life.
Before I was a golf writer, I covered Oklahoma State football and hoops. The football team was good every year, rarely great, but always good. But the way they operated, man, it’s difficult to describe other than they had a little time mentality. Mike Gundy cared about the wrong things (what bloggers were saying about him) and not about the right things (recruiting at the highest level). It just reeked of a program that was never going to operate like a big time program. Like a Georgia or a Clemson or an Alabama.
This feels like that. It feels so little time. So small. I think there is honestly probably a decent financial case to be made for staying in the United States and not going global. I think Rory cares less about the finances and more about, you know, going to Australia for a monstrous event at Royal Melbourne.
It’s hard to keep fans, sponsors, and players in their seats when it doesn’t feel like there’s a direction. The PGA Tour appears to be completely directionless.
— Joseph LaMagna (@JosephLaMagna)
May 8, 2024
Maybe that’s fantasyland stuff that should be left to the dreams, but I can’t help but think about how insanely cool it would be if that was what men’s pro golf turned into. How much more I would look forward to it than, say, another swing at TPC Twin Cities (no offense to Blaine, MN obviously).
7. I’m not sure anyone in golf is more principled when it comes to golf, both as an endeavor and a business than Tiger. Remember his soliloquy on LIV at the St. Andrews Open in 2022? The one where he talked about how he couldn’t understand players giving up a shot at majors and not wanting to dig it out of the dirt. That wasn’t a bit. It wasn’t a moment in time. That’s who he is.
Which, again, this is admirable. And this is where I struggle to reconcile everything that’s going on. On paper, I actually respect Cat’s willingness to hold the line for what he believes, everything else (including the Tour’s business) be damned. In reality, though, well, the jig is up. It’s over. Vince dot gif. Saudi money is everywhere in sports, and just because I don’t like that doesn’t mean anything is going to change. What was Rory’s quote to me in the summer of 2022?
"I said [I didn’t like where the money was coming from] right before COVID. I said that at Bay Hill in 2020, so two and a half years ago. It's changed because I see -- golf may be different -- but I see the money that's going into Formula 1, for example, or [into] European soccer or a world heavyweight title fight is just about to be in Saudi Arabia in a few weeks. They're investing heavily in sport, and I think our sport would benefit from that investment as long as it's done the right way. I don't want them to own golf like they're trying to do, but if they can sort of come and play nicely in the whole ecosystem, I think it could be a good thing."
It takes tremendous humility and a high emotional intelligence to change your mind about something you have been so steadfast about. Two things Rory has a lot more of than Tiger.
I don’t know. There are so many layers to all of this that 1. It is incredibly confusing and exhausting to try and get to the center of the maze and 2. It’s also kind of fun (at times!) to try and do so.
I know “I don’t know” is not the most satisfying landing spot, but I truly am spinning trying to hold all of these ideas and thoughts at once.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
What about 27 opposing ideas, F. Scott?
8. The Good Friday Agreement got invoked this week! An all-time Normal Sport moment!
normal sport
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS)
May 8, 2024
9. Given Rory’s revelation that he’s actually on the negotiation committee, this entire saga says more to me about the discombobulation of the PGA Tour from a direction standpoint.
What he didn’t say was that a small handful of players on the board—Woods, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay—were viewed as being responsible for his failed bid. They argued that Simpson’s request skirted the proper procedures for filling a board seat. But people familiar with the matter also say that they saw McIlroy as a threat to the power they currently wield and that their views on key issues diverge with the Northern Irishman.
10. Porath said this on the Shotgun Start earlier in the week, but whatever the trivialities, the nuances, the hurt feelings, the past missteps … imagine keeping Arnold Palmer or Tom Watson off the board at one of the most critical junctures in the PGA Tour’s history. Rory is not Watson or Palmer from a resume standpoint yet. But that’s certainly his historical playground. The Tour — if it hasn’t realized it yet, is at war, fighting for its existence — and yet it has Kevin Streelman and James Hahn calling their own fouls. Your organization’s existence is currently in the balance! If that’s how you want to go down, then maybe it’s deserved!
When Rory left the PGA Tour board, they re-installed Spieth without much process or "governance." They also made up a new seat for Tiger with no term limit. Now a certain faction, and James Hahn, seem to be all into processes and bylaws. It's a sports league board, not a senate… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath)
May 8, 2024
11. How amazing is this photo from the 2011 U.S. Open?
12. Wait Kyle, weren’t you arguing against the Saudis all these years? Now that Rory has flipped (sort of), you have too?
It’s true. I am a man defeated though. I have realized that it is not Rahm, not Scottie and not DJ … but rather Yasir and the Saudis who are truly inevitable.
Maybe that makes me soft or two-faced or unprincipled or even duplicitous, but I agree with the thing Rory has been saying since that interview in the summer of 2022, if Saudi money is inevitable — and one way or another, the June 6 agreement guaranteed that it is in the world of golf — then the sport I love should probably do its best to receive that money and retain all the control it possibly can. Which, you know, could have been done a long time ago.
13. This from Coby is a good and valid point.
14. I think we are underrating how wild these comments from a tournament director are. Sponsors, tournament directors, the people literally pouring the money the Tour needs to exist into its coffers begging for Rory to have a seat. And Pat Cantlay Mutombo’d him!
One tournament director said McIlroy realized he made a big mistake in stepping down and is needed to help get a deal with PIF across the finish line.
“We need Rory back on the board. Had he stayed on he could’ve neutered Cantlay. He’s the only one with the power to neuter Cantlay. We need Rory to try to keep Cantlay from ruining the Tour,” a tournament director said. “Webb is too nice. A lot of people at the Tour at a very high level are thrilled that Rory is going back on the board for that reason.”
The tournament director compared McIlroy’s return to picking its poison.
“Rory wants the Irish Open and other international events to be promoted and smaller fields and larger purses. There’s a lot we don’t like about Rory and his deal. But the main thing is Cantlay and we’ve got to get a deal done with the PIF. LIV’s got to go away. If we don’t get a deal done, we’re all screwed in the end. We all know it. (Cantlay) is against it. Rory is for it. So let’s get a deal done and get these (guys) put to bed.
“Do any of us want to work with the Saudis, no? But, on the other hand, none of us want to fight against them and their money for the rest of our careers, either. Cantlay is blocking any type of deal they try to put together. Rory wants (independent director) Jimmy Dunne to be the negotiator, not the players. The players should only be voting on what happens inside the ropes and rules and stuff. They are not businessmen. If you have a high school education how the hell can you vote on multi-billion-dollar finance situations and investment properties? They don’t have a clue. They don’t know the business. Hire the top business guys in the world to do your deal. Put them in place and be done with it.”
15. How amusing and amazing would it be if the end outcome to all of this was a pissed-off Rory winning two of the next five majors to get to six and engaging in a multi-year clash with Brooks for this generation’s major championship king? Honestly, if that’s the outcome, it might have meant all of the other nonsense was worth it.
Thanks for reading until the end.
You’re a sicko, and I’m grateful for it.
1 Although there were plenty of stories outlining exactly what happened.
