A song about Swan

By Andy Johnson

If you scroll to the bottom of the leaderboard in Bermuda you will find a peculiar name, Kim Swan. No he's not the next big thing. In fact, he’s an obscure name from yesteryear you might recall if you were watching the European Tour in 1980 or 1981. Swan, a local teaching pro and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the host course Port Royal, is playing in the PGA Tour's Butterfield Bermuda Championship on a sponsor exemption. 

Swan spoke about the opportunity with the Royal Gazette. “This special opportunity comes as I celebrate my 65th birthday at Port Royal Golf Course, which I proudly serve as chairman of the Board of  Trustees, as it enters its 53rd year of operation as a public golf course,” he remarked. “As a senior citizen, I’ve made a concerted effort to embrace a more healthier fitness-focused lifestyle; with this opportunity, I aim to turn back the clock for one last dance in honor of all those who helped along my life’s journey and lift up the Port Royal Golf Course for the great public golf course it remains today."

As you would expect of a player who was not strong enough to play for a living in his heyday, trying to hack it around at 65 against some of the best players in the world did not go well. In round one, Swan put together a strong second nine to shoot 89, 14 shots worse than the next highest score. The round one scoring average at Port Royal was 67. Surprisingly, Swan couldn't overpower the course averaging 219 yards off the tee.

Swan's inclusion in the event runs counter to everything we have heard out of the Tour during its battle with LIV. The messaging buzzwords of "meritocracy,” "legacy,” and "real competition" lose substance when a player who might be able to finish in the top 15 of a local club championship is playing one of your full field and full FedEx Cup points events. I would liken this to the person who manages Lambeau Field getting the opportunity to suit up in a regular season NFL game for the Packers. It would never happen! 

I understand that sponsor exemptions are part of the deal with PGA Tour events. However, the Tour needs to institute some guardrails to prevent this. Kim Swan playing in a PGA Tour event does damage to the Tour's most valuable asset: its product. Say what you will about LIV's lackluster fields, they have never had a player with as poor of a résumé as Swan at age 30, let alone 65, play in an event. Let Kim Swan be a ceremonial starter or play a practice round, but you cannot allow him to compete with players who have earned their spots on the most elite tour in the world. Sponsor exemptions should be required to have played in some competitive fashion or shown the ability to compete at some level in order to be granted. Otherwise, you will end up with situations where your Tour looks foolish, and if a sponsor doesn't understand that, you'd probably be better off not having them as a sponsor. 

“It’s not a product”

By Will Knights

Both on and off the course, Rory McIlroy has seemingly found himself in every conversation regarding men’s golf this year. The new world No. 1’s most recent headline appearance came from an interview with Ewan Murray of The Guardian. In the chat, McIlroy discusses the continued fracturing of men’s golf, his thoughts on the state of the Ryder Cup, his emotions surrounding the Open, and much more.

Almost every headline aggregating the article focused on a quote where Rory addresses the fighting between the PGA Tour and LIV, but there is a statement later in the piece that I found far more important. On the differences in format and money in golf, McIlory says, “At the end of the day, it is sport. It is not a ‘product,’ it is not ‘entertainment,’ it is sport. It is competitors trying to get the best out of themselves to win something. That should be the most satisfying thing.”

Throughout its rookie campaign, LIV has largely focused on the product and entertainment. Nowhere is that more evident than at this weekend’s season-ending team championship in Miami, an event in which the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund will pay out $50 million. Despite continued player talking points and smokescreens using the team format as key to the disruption of golf, it’s the first time that the team competition is prioritized over the individual competition. You need look no further than the letter they sent the Official World Golf Ranking chairman or the MENA Tour stunt to see that the organization knows the individual aspect of its events will always be most important for gaining relevance in the “golf ecosystem.”

Team golf is a fun idea. The Ryder Cup stirs player emotions and inspires fans in an extraordinary way. And yet team golf will always be an exhibition, an outside lane to the core singular nature that defines the game. Had tours been constructed in a team format from the beginning of time, history wouldn’t truly care about what team Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus or Annika Sörenstam played on in their days. We would care about how they, as individual players, dominated the sport.

There are certainly fans, myself included, who would like to see more team formats throughout the year. It’s a fun break that allows personality to show through in a way that isn’t always possible in stroke play competition. But as we think about the future of golf, it’s important to remember why the game prospered at the professional level. It’s not about the product and it’s not about the entertainment. It’s about the sport. More importantly, it’s about the individual.

LIV lawlessness 

By Brendan Porath

The LIV finale will concentrate the most money ever for one weekend in professional golf. The $50 million total purse will deliver $4 million per player for the first place team, and $2 million per player for the second place team. Given the histories of some of its participants, and the cash stakes, it begs the question, what kind of competition oversight and enforcement is happening here? 

Are the drivers tested or is just everything hotter than the face of the sun so we’re on a level playing field regardless? What about golf balls? Someone double checking greens-reading books? Is any drug testing happening at all? How many officials are out there walking around when cameras, and often fans, are absent?

That’s a lot of questions for a Friday morning. This is not to promote some grand conspiracy — there has probably already been enough chatter around Doral this week about rigged competitions and illegitimate results. But given all the parties involved, the stakes, and comparably minimal cameras and officials on site, the questions and a tinge of skepticism are fair until we get some level of communication. So far, we have none. There’s been next to nothing outlined about governance of this league, and obviously negligible transparency or messaging about any kind of oversight like this. It’s an afterthought to the big splash and other launch problems, like getting OWGR points. They may not even care, but a small emphasis on it would at least counter the appearance of these just being monthly parties where a whole bunch of money is exchanged. 

As of the end of July, LIV golf had not been fully responsive to U.S. Integrity, a third party service that works with leagues on their ability to verify results, maintain competitive integrity, and mitigate the risk of match fixing. States and provinces then can choose to follow that U.S. Integrity position or certification. With LIV’s lack of communication with that service, betting on the league was not offered in many states at that time and, for at least DraftKings, it is still not offered in all its markets. 

These are probably just the bumps of a start-up and on the “we’ll get to it” level of the checklist as this thing shot out of the gate this year. It’s also not to excuse the Tour’s lack of rigorous oversight, transparency, and communication around these same topics, where the stakes should be even higher given their embrace of gambling, and let’s be honest, ubiquitous promotion of it. This has been rarely discussed in the year’s circus of debates, rumors, and podium celebrations but for LIV, it would be nice to start understanding if these regulatory matters are at least considerations as a mix of craven and cavalier play for sums of money never before seen in the game. Maybe we already have our answer. 

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