If you’re a Titleist-playing US Open-loving Stateside golfer who grew up on the PGA Tour and its show-me-the-scorecard ethos, it’s easy to dismiss LIV Golf. Subsidy (huge amount of Saudi oil money). Format (players competing against each other while, as teammates, pulling each other). Music, gunshots, non-stop events, spread all over the world.
It is always easier to drop anything from an altitude of 30,000 feet, or from a distance of 3,000 miles. Then you see LIVsters, close to you personally, and something else hits you: Every last person involved is a human being on this earth, trying to find a way to navigate this thing called life.
Over the past few days, LIV players and caddies and club managers and player agents and LIV managers have been all over West Palm Beach for photos and interviews, as well as well-organized little opportunities to hang and tie, tie and hang. They have stayed at the prestigious Hilton Hotel here on Okeechobee Boulevard, the neighboring Palm Beach County Convention Center and the nearby Dutchman Pipe Golf Club.
They used to be in a beautiful outdoor mall across Okeechobee from the hotel called CityPlace, with an Equinox gym and a Lululemon store and a dancing fountain. Hold it, hold it: Who’s that at Sloan’s, the ice cream shop where you can buy loose candy by the bag, tight white T-shirt, blue baseball cap backwards. Two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau and a little posse, loads of goodies!
In the open spaces of the hotel, there was the English golfer Paul Casey, talking about his brother, Simon, the managing editor of Bloomberg News’ energy stories and “the logical guy,” in this typical game of brothers. There was Lara Toscani Weems, LIV Golf’s communications officer, talking about her two children and how her husband fits in when he’s on the road. There was Scott O’Neil, LIV Golf CEO, talking about his daughter, a college softball player.
Brooks Koepka said one day he is leaving LIV Golf and returning to the PGA Tour. Dustin Johnson recently signed on for at least two years with LIV. Jon Rahm says he’s happy where he is. Bryson DeChambeau is deep in discussions. Phil Mickelson, 55, has no way back on the PGA Tour and probably doesn’t want one. The politics of modern golf. An interesting picture perhaps but not a good one, if you appreciate the old world order.
But there’s this, too: hot fudge or caramel? Both are in the air at Sloan’s, behind the counter. It’s a big thing, to have options.
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3 Things I Think
1. New Tiger Museum: Tiger Woods turned 50 and Wednesday night at the Breakers will be his bash, attended by Brian Rolapp, CEO of the PGA Tour and a new and important person in Woods’ life. Rolapp, a former NFL executive, knows a lot about business and not much about golf. Woods knows a lot about golf but not much about business. Each needs the other.
getty photos
2. Fans first: After Brooks Koepka’s PGA Tour comeback, Brian Harman asked this question: “Where’s the one-year suspension?” It’s a question anyone who believes that rules are rules can ask. Such an archaic thought. Rolapp sees the Tour in ways his predecessor, Jay Monahan, never could. It depends on: Give the fans what they want. He believes that only good things can come from that.
3. A new lens on the women’s game: Earlier this month, the LPGA announced that it will have its own TGL league, WTGL. A women’s version of this indoor, televised golf club tournament would do more for women’s golf than the existing version for men’s golf. It’s because men are already out in the open. We know what Wyndham Clark is like, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel. Women’s golf club microphones can give the average golf fan a chance to get to know Jeeno Thitikul and Minjee Lee and Rio Takeda (if those three play) in ways that we don’t.
