Liberty National Needs To Expand Into Bird Habitat If It Want To Keep Hosting Those Rapidly Growing Playoffs!

Tracy Tully of the New York Times considers the need of Liberty National to add three holes in a migratory bird habitat called Caven Point if it wants to keep hosting big-time professional events.

Naturally, golfers can understand the desire of adding new waterfront holes on the landfill-converted course, but it’s the rationale being pushed that strains: the economic viability of Liberty National, tournament venue.

“If we are not able to accommodate what these tournaments need, then they will simply go somewhere else that can,” said Chris Donnelly, a spokesman for Liberty National.

Because there are so few options in the greater Met market.

And then there are those playoffs.

A spokeswoman for the state’s Economic Development Authority said the agency had no estimate of the economic value to the state from the four PGA tournaments held at Liberty National since 2009.

A spokesman for the PGA Tour, Joel Schuchmann, confirmed that the size of Liberty National had become a consideration, particularly for the Northern Trust, which is the first event in its FedEx Cup playoffs each year.

“It’s true that as the PGA Tour, and the FedEx Cup playoffs specifically, continue to grow in stature and interest among our fans, media and partners, so does the need to make certain the proper footprint is in place,” Mr. Schuchmann said in a statement.

First the golf ball rendering so many courses useless, and now the playoffs getting so big that they’re limited where they can go. So sad.

PGA Tour's New Slow Play Policy Leans On Jargon To Coddle The Turtles

Joel Beall’s “here’s what you need to know” item on the new PGA Tour slow play policy can be whittled down to telling what you jargon you need to be warned about.

Because as with so many rules shaped by the players, heavy petting is involved. Beall explains the core components, both supported by a jargony name and a long list of ways to help a slow poke get multiple opportunities to take his time before experiencing a penalty.

After setting up the backstory of how the Tour got to this point, Beall writes of the “observation list”:

An "Observation List" will be created, one that will be kept private from the public and PGA Tour membership as a whole.

And right there the policy already became less effective than it could have been.

How will a player make the list? The parameters are as follows:

—Each stroke throughout the round must be played in under 60 seconds in absence of a valid reason. If observed by an official to exceed this time, that player will be timed on an individual basis as soon as he can be notified. If the player does not have a bad time (same bad time rules as with out of position) within two holes, timing will cease.

At multi-course PGA Tour events, there is now just one rules official per nine holes. Kind of tough to be a roving rules official and be timing the slow pokes, it would seem. But, should they be able to find the time to pull out the stop clock…

—If any player is observed to take more than 120 seconds on a shot in the absence of a valid reason, he will be given an "Excessive Shot Time" and observed throughout the round by an official.

—The list will be updated on a weekly basis. Any player with an overall average of 45 seconds or more per stroke based on a 10 tournament rolling period will be on the list, along with anyone who receives two "Excessive Shot Times" in a tournament will be played on the list in subsequent tournament rounds.

Scary!

Oh but there’s the enforcement. At least the bank accounts are getting hit harder, but will we ever get to this stage?

A player will receive a warning for their first bad time. On the second, he will receive a one-stroke penalty. For each additional bad time, another one-stroke penalty will be given.

There will also be fines. Excessive Shot Times will receive $10,000 and $20,000 punishments for second and additional offenses (with the first offense receiving a warning). Though the first bad time also gets a warning, a second offense comes with a $50,000 penalty, with a $20,000 penalty attached to further offenses.

"We are not looking to hand out these penalties," Dennis said. "But players have to know they are there."

Players may know, but if players, fans and media knew they’d made the list, might that be just as effective as strokes and fines?

The Lucky Ones Giving Up Valuable Life Minutes: PGA Tour's 2020 Player Advisory Council Announced

While GolfChannel.com’s Rex Hoggard notes the inability of Bryson DeChambeau to have convinced caucus goers he was worthy of adding context to the council’s prime area of concern—slow play—I’m struck by the departure of Matt Kuchar.

The veteran, who takes his bronze medal around the world in a sock, was said to have added many wonderful thoughts and concerns for the less-privileged on Tour. He was beloved by his Council peers and will be missed. Or not.

For Immediate Release, the 2020 Slow Play Policy Advisory Council and players who have shown an ability to use their brain for other thoughts besides those revolving around golf, I mean PAC:

PGA TOUR announces 2020 Player Advisory Council

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The PGA TOUR today announced the 16-member Player Advisory Council (PAC) for 2020. The PAC advises and consults with the PGA TOUR Policy Board (Board of Directors) and Commissioner Jay Monahan on issues affecting the TOUR.

2020 Player Advisory Council

Ryan Armour
Paul Casey
David Hearn
Harry Higgs
Charley Hoffman
Billy Horschel
Zach Johnson
Russell Knox
Anirban Lahiri
Peter Malnati
Rory McIlroy
Ryan Palmer
Jon Rahm
Kevin Streelman 
Justin Thomas
Harold Varner III

Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati and Justin Thomas have been selected by the Player Directors to run for PAC Chairman via election which ends February 7. The leading vote-getter will replace Johnson Wagner as a Player Director on the PGA TOUR Policy Board, serving a three-year term (2021-23).

PGA Tour: Data Sales A Big Part Of Sports Betting Push

We’ve previously learned that the PGA Tour hopes to reap 1% of the billions projected on sports betting. Based on estimates, that would put their annual haul at $7.5 million, or the price of one above average event’s purse.

Not much given the headaches that could come with legalized sports betting in golf.

But of further interest is this reveal in an unbylined AP story regarding the PGA Tour selling ShotLink data in lieu of a more direct partnership with betting houses.

The leagues argue that they are creating new betting products by enhancing the data that they sell to gambling companies. That is part of the reason these companies have been willing to pay for a product instead of simply writing the leagues a check.

The PGA Tour says it is creating new betting opportunities through its complicated (and expensive) ShotLink technology.

“ShotLink gathers data from every shot; there are more than 30,000 shots in a golf tournament,” said Andy Levinson, senior vice president for tournament administration with the PGA Tour. “We’re collecting multiple data points, and they are going to be potential betting points. There’s going to be opportunities over a season to have millions of markets created in golf. You’re talking about distance, ball location, whether it’s on the fairway or in the rough. If a player has a 10-foot uphill putt, there’s going to be historical data on that shot. Our sport is perfect for it.

“That requires 60 people every week; we have to lug 5 miles of cable,” he said. “We have cameras, laser systems around our greens. It’s an extremely expensive process.”

Volunteers man a majority of the Shotlink towers that gather information, though increasingly the Tour is leaning on an automated setup. Nonetheless, I do wonder how volunteers will feel about their job when it’s better known they are working to fill Tour coffers on the back of sports betting. Most probably won’t know or care, but it certainly is another element of the efforts to incorporate betting into PGA Tour golf.

Monahan On Next TV Deal: More Work To Do Than Has Been Suggested

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan spoke to the light sprinkling of golf reporters on hand for the 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions, reports GolfDigest.com’s Dave Shedloski. He covered an array of topics, but for those eager to see how the PGA Tour positions media rights for 2022 and beyond, it seems no decision will be coming imminently.

“We have more work to do. Probably more work than has been suggested,” Monahan said. “But I've been bullish on our prospects before we entered the process, and I'm as, if not more, bullish as we get through it.”

And this on TV vs…platforms:

He said that much more attention is being given to the delivery platforms as opposed to a straight television deal. “I’m probably more focused on that than I am anything else,” he said. “Making certain that … we continue to provide our content to our fans in the way that they want to consume that content.”

Patrick Reed's "Fun" With The Crowd Highlighted And It Doesn't Go Over Well

For the second day Patrick Reed and Webb Simpson lost a Presidents Cup match.

Reed, fresh off cheating at the Hero World Challenge, has been hearing it from fans so even though he made a putt just to halve a hole and keep his match at 2 down, the hubris and rage kicked in. The PGA Tour social account, perhaps encouraged by Team USA’s kid-gloves treatment of Reed, gave it a light spin and the commenters were not amused. Golfers, I’m pleased to say, are not embracing the nebulous behavior of Reed despite efforts to sugarcoat his actions.

The post:

Patrick Reed having some fun with the crowd. #QuickHits pic.twitter.com/RFEz6kgaUQ

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 13, 2019

And just some of the comments:

At Decade's End: PGA Tour Winners Get Noticeably Younger

Nice work here by Robopz to use the end of decade opening to look at average PGA Tour winner age from 2000-2009 vs. 2010-2019. Give him a follow for doing all of this math.

This should not be a recipe to turn pro at 18 or to give up the game at 40, but will please those pushing players to peak younger. I am a bit surprised given the falloff in 40+ winners given how much better players age, particularly as major championships have not been won by many youngsters. But other factors like bloated bank accounts, faster greens and the distance chase easily offset the Pilates and chia seed lunches.

Comparison of the prior decade to this decade by age shows the shift to younger winners more dramatically. A big falloff in the # of age 40+ winners, a moderate drop among the age 30's group, but a huge increase in the under-30 winners pic.twitter.com/NBzzyszGvS

— Robopz (@Robopz) December 1, 2019

Hope! Mickelson Becomes Host To PGA Tour's Desert Stop

Along with a blue chip sponsor in American Express, the once-vital Bob Hope Classic now has a blue chip host in Phil Mickelson, who expands his role as the tournament’s front man.

Larry Bohannan with all of the Desert Sun details, including these comments from Phil, who even put on his best flip-flops for the presser.

“The last couple of years, we asked to give us a few years to really showcase what this tournament can do, and have needed and had the help of many people,” Mickelson said, specifically pointing to officials with Discovery Land, developer of Madison Club and other desert courses, and Lagardere Sports, which operates the tournament for non-profit Desert Classic Charities.

“Now we have the partner that we want to bring it to a whole other level,” Mickelson said, a reference to the new five-year sponsorship deal with American Express. “American Express asked that myself and my foundation take on a bigger role, the PGA Tour asked me to take on a bigger role. My wife and I, Amy, we’ve decided this is the right fit, and we want to have a more direct involvement with the charitable support and donation here in the valley.”

PGA Tour Still Slow Playing Updated Slow Play Policy

Rex Hoggard’s GolfChannel.com story from the RSM Classic gives the impression the PGA Tour PAC and Policy Board have signed off on giving their referees more leeway to zero in on slow-pokes.

Naturally, they remain in no hurry to usher in the policy:

The new policy is aimed at avoiding situations where players take an inordinate amount of time to hit a shot, like Bryson DeChambeau at The Northern Trust in August. The plan is to also empower Tour officials to take action if a player is impacting pace of play.

According to the Tour, the revised policy will go into effect in the second quarter of 2020.

FedEx Won't Have Any Trouble Paying Their PGA Tour Bills After Tax Code Change Reduced 2018 Tax Bill To "Less Than Zero"

The New York Times’ Jim Tankersley, Peter Eavis and Ben Casselman explain how FedEx lobbied successfully for corporate tax cuts that effectively lowered their tax bill from a hefty $1.5. billion in 2017 to “less than zero” in 2018.

In other words, if you were wondering how they could justify that big FedExCup boost in prize money, not to worry!

As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017.

A spokesman said it was unfair to judge the effect of the tax cuts on investment by looking at year-to-year changes in the company’s capital spending plans.

“FedEx invested billions in capital items eligible for accelerated depreciation and made large contributions to our employee pension plans,” the company said in a statement. “These factors have temporarily lowered our federal income tax, which was the law’s intention to help grow G.D.P., create jobs and increase wages.”

And that they did on the PGA Tour!

Bevacqua Bullish On NBC/Golf Channel Retaining PGA Tour Rights: "I’m thinking about how we’re going to improve."

As we near the projected date of the next PGA Tour television rights deal, NBC Sports Group President and former PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua chatted with SBJ’s Abe Madkour and John Ourand.

Among the topics? Playing golf at Bel Air with Al Michaels and where NBC will target resources with the NFL and other sports properties.

The money needed to retain the NFL has many observers wondering what might get scrimped on by networks. Bevacqua made clear golf is not one of those sports.

Bevacqua said there is a "plan in place" for which non-NFL deals NBC is hoping to maintain or add going forward. He said, "I know in my mind what we feel we need to bid on, what we would like to bid on and what we probably won’t bid on. That can always change." Bevacqua was bullish on NBC and Golf Channel's chances to keep its PGA Tour package. "I’m not thinking about what will happen if we don’t get them," he said. "I’m thinking about how we’re going to improve." He also noted there will be a better sense of the landscape on the future of Tour rights "by the end of the year." SBJ has reported that Tour execs want to have a new deal in place by the end of the year, despite the current deals running through '21.

The full interview that is worth a listen despite the tragic microphone placement (come on SBJ, up your game!):

Video: Memorial Park Re-Opens, Jackie Burke Hits The Opening Tee Shot

Hard to tell what’s better, seeing an important muni revitalized in a major American city, or seeing the great Jackie Burke, former Masters champion, opening the course.

The Houston Business Journal’s Olivia Pusinelli with the full story of the $18.5 million renovation.

Thanks to the renovations, the Houston Open will move to the Memorial Park Golf Course in October 2020. Previously, it had been held at the Golf Club of Houston in Humble since 2003. Additionally, starting with the 2019 event, the Houston Open has moved to the fall after being held in the spring, shortly before the Masters Tournament, for years.

Thanks to reader Tom for these two videos put out by the Astros Golf Foundation to commemorate the reopening. Note one of co-architect Brooks Koepka’s primary request: reasonable length par-3s based on fatigue of playing too many long ones week-toweek in professional golf.

J. Burke Houston Open 2019 - v.5 from Andrea Andrus on Vimeo.

Tiger's 82nd Win As An Excuse To Fine-Tune The PGA Tour Record Book

I’ve been uncomfortable with the belittling of Sam Snead’s 82 wins, because while the record books do credit him with some odd wins, he’s also had many chipped away from his career mark since tied by Tiger Woods.

The bashing also ignores that the war years stripped Snead of opportunities to win at the peak of his powers.

But, that said, MorningRead.com’s Gary Van Sickle penned an interesting look at the various issues Snead had with his record, the changes in his victory total over the years and other PGA Tour marks that are worth examining. Or maybe re-examining. This one was interesting:

The main one worth mentioning is Byron Nelson’s streak of finishing in the money in 113 consecutive tournaments. It was broken by Tiger Woods, who extended his streak to 142 tournaments. Except, Johnson noted, from the 1939 PGA Championship through the 1950 Los Angeles Open, Ben Hogan was in the money 177 events in a row.

Did Hogan maybe miss a cut during that time and therefore not appear in the final tournament results, which happened occasionally? Did he have a missed cut that is unfindable because it didn’t appear in a newspaper box score? Possibly. The same can be said of Nelson’s record, which the Tour accepted on the basis of an Oklahoma golf statistician’s say-so. Neither proposed record is bulletproof.

Half Of PGA Tour Pros Think The "Product" Would Be Better Off With Fewer Events

Maybe it’s the sight of a worse-than-most field in Bermuda, or no rounds this fall registering a respectable audience until the ZOZO’s Monday finish in U.S. prime time, but the question of PGA Tour product oversaturation seems reasonable to ask.

So Golf.com did in their anonymous player survey and an amazing 50% said the product would be better a little bit streamlined.

TRUE OR FALSE: THE TOUR WOULD BE MORE INTERESTING IF THERE WERE FEWER EVENTS.

True: 50%


False: 50%

Hot takes:

“More millionaires, but more guys getting hurt. If you increase quantity in any industry, quality goes down.”


“Would not be good for the new guys.”


“A four-month break would make fans psyched that golf is back.”

While we know four months is not palatable, golf sure could use a dead period. We thought September would be that month in the U.S., but next year will now only see one week off.

Reading Between The (TV Contract) Negotiation Lines: Davis To CBS Edition

Michael Bamberger’s Golf.com story on Davis Love joining CBS features this paragraph highlighting the state of the PGA Tour’s closely-watched television contract negotiations, if we will even call it television by the end of the next deal.

Love has a two-year contract with CBS, for 2020 and 2021. It couldn’t go beyond that because the CBS-PGA Tour contract expires at the end of ’21. The NBC-PGA Tour contract does, too. Golf Channel is under the NBC Sports umbrella. Contract negotiations are ongoing. Traditional TV-watching, as Davis grew up doing it, has been turned on its head in the age of ever-connected phones and laptops and iPads. It’s not at all clear what golf-on-TV will look like in the years to come, as attention spans continue to shorten and as live gambling becomes a bigger part of fan engagement. Love’s deep relationships in the game, at the PGA Tour headquarters, among corporate executives, on Capitol Hill, can only help CBS.

While Love no longer holds a seat on the PGA Tour Policy Board like AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, he does have an intimate knowledge of the Tour’s plans, dreams and desires. Will that bolster CBS’s bid? More revealing though may be the idea that longtime PGA Tour partner CBS needs to pull out such stops to retain rights. Stay tuned…