Australian Open In World First: Joint Men's and Women's National Championships

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Victoria Golf Club (Geoff Shackelford)

While we’ve had tournaments of a similar format, the Australian Open becomes the first to bring the men and women together for concurrent national golf championships December 1-4, 2022.

The DP World Tour will co-sanction the men’s event.

Even better, they have lined up the magnificent Victoria Golf Club for the finale, with the incredible Kingston Heath hosting early action.

From the release:

The men’s event will headline the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia, while the women’s event will be sanctioned by the WPGA Tour of Australasia.

In another first for the Australian Open, the men’s event will also be sanctioned on the DP World Tour, putting Australian golf on the world stage for two consecutive weeks with the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship to be staged at Royal Queensland the week prior.

Field sizes of 144 men and 144 women will compete for an equal split of the minimum $3.4 million prizemoney on offer.

The Australian Open will also feature the third edition of the Australian All Abilities Championship assembling the top 12 players on the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability from across the world. Golf Australia’s Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said the new format is a significant strategic move that has involved in depth long-term planning. 

Brooks Has Lost The Bros: Barstool Head Unleashes On Koepka

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So many sad stories in the news these days and I hate sharing another.

Seems Brooks Koepka reneged on his charity-raising match with Barstool Sports founder and dream influencer of select governing bodies, Dave Portnoy.

Pausing here to let you take it all in.

At least we know this break up is a clean one. No grey area for this brospat! Essentially, Koepka backed out of their “charity” match due to a wrist injury but played Bryson DeChambeau for The Match.

From Bunkered, with Portnoy explaining how this match made in douchedom fell apart:

"Next thing you know, I don't hear from him and he's like, ‘Hey I'm doing a match with Bryson DeChambeau.’ 

“Listen, you do you but to not give me a heads up that he was doing that first and after all the work we put into our thing? (He’s a) scumbag piece of sh*t.” 

A clearly furious Portnoy added: “If I had wasted somebody’s time, it wasn’t his fault he got hurt, but the courtesy would have been to say, ‘Hey, I got this opportunity so I’m going to this first and then I’ll do you.’ Not even a ‘Yeah, I should have told you.’ Piece of sh*t.”

LIV Golf Rolls Out Tickets Sales And A Slogan To Make Live Under Par Almost Sound OK

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Hey parents, have fun explaining that one!

Daddy, why do they say Shot Just Got Real?

Well, Tilly, it’s a play off of…oh forget it.

But more importantly, you can now reserve Grounds passes in the $70-85 range for all but the LIV Golf series tournaments except the finale at Trump Doral. And I know, this sounds pricey for one day of golf where it’s a 4-hour shotgun start. But it’s a small price to pay when you get to see the likes of Garrigus!

Besides the general admission, there are some all-you-can-eat packages and Club 54 options for each event including a premium option that what looks like it goes for $13,000. Lee Westwood’s going to love when there are fans inside the ropes! And the post round Q&A…

Major(s) News & Notes April 28, 2022

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Plenty of notes in the weekly free edition of The Quadrilateral for all the world to see.

In a nutshell: Mickelson's return rollout is panned. Then we look at Collin Morikawa's curious Open defense plan, Scottie Scheffler surfaces in the Green Jacket, a bunch of Open and USGA notes, Tweets and Reads.

As always, here is more on The Quadrilateral.

And The Quad’s Substack home page.

Plus, the free Substack Reader app for a reading experience minus cookie acceptance requests, pop-up ads if your finger nears the screen, random crashes and autoplay videos.

Lawrenson: LIV Event At St Albans Will Test European Tour's Ryder Cup Captaincy Threat

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The Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson considers news of Phil Mickelson possibly returning and going for the Saudi money he knows is controlled by a murderer.

And in doing so Lawrenson notes two key points worth keeping an eye on:

The interesting thing will be if the DP World Tour follow through with their threat to prevent anyone who signs up for a Saudi event from becoming a Ryder Cup captain in the future.

It looks as if Westwood, Poulter and Garcia — three shoo-ins for the job under normal circumstances — are ready to call their bluff and see who blinks first. It would certainly damage the credibility of the Ryder Cup if all three were overlooked for the post.

That’s an understatement. It would be a stunner given how all three have seemed like locks to one day wear $1900 jumpers and drive the bright blue buggies of the DP World Team, I mean, Europe.

He also offers this reminder about all of the money talk surrounding the world of golf.

There's a war going on, people are struggling everywhere to pay their bills, and yet 48 golfers, half of whom will be journeymen at best, will play a glorified exhibition 54-hole tournament for a $4million first prize, with even last place getting $120,000.

Is it possible to conceive a worse optic for golf than that?

Ratings: Spieth Delivers For CBS; Zurich And Valero Have Rough Years

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Paulsen at Sports Media Watch with the good news for CBS’s 2022 RBC Heritage won by Jordan Spieth and viewed by the largest non-Masters audience of 2022.

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Heritage tournament averaged a 1.9 rating and 3.68 million viewers on CBS Sunday, marking the largest audience for the event since 2003. Jordan Spieth’s win, which peaked with 5.04 million viewers, increased 20% in ratings and 43% in viewership from last year. The previous 19-year mark was 3.46 million for Spieth’s previous win in 2015.

Also noted by Paulsen and this should not be underestimated: “The 19-year high for the Heritage came on the same Easter Sunday in which the NBA scored its largest opening round playoff audience in 20 years.”

CBS had the other highest-rated non-major of the year with the WM Open in February.

The two-man team Zurich Classic fared poorly for CBS despite Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele winning. According to ShowBuzzDaily.com, it drew a 1.16 final round rating on CBS, averaging just 1.8 million viewers, down from 2021’s 1.37/2.1 million avg. Saturday’s third round drew a .96/1.4 million average, a tick down from 2021.

The 2022 ratings news for NBC continues to be uninspired. But at least the Tour can go right down the Global Home hall and ask what’s going on?

The Valero Open prior to the Masters was down a million average viewers (1.45/2.3 million avg.) for Sunday’s final round from 2021 (1.80/3.3 million).

Jon Rahm: "A lot of people don’t know, a lot of what we have and what we are competing for right now is because of [Phil].

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Here’s guessing the World No. 2 has not heard of Tom Morris or Walter Hagen…or about 30 others.

Rahm, speaking to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis ahead of this week’s Mexico Open, believed what Mickelson said and did shouldn’t damage his legacy.

“That guy has given his life to golf,” Rahm said about Mickelson. “A lot of what we have, a lot of people don’t know, a lot of what we have and what we are competing for right now is because of [Phil]. A lot of people focus on Tiger but he is easily one of the top 10 best players of all time. He is a Hall of Fame and we should recognise him as that. He has given his life to the public, no one has signed more autographs, no one has done more for the fans.”

PGA Field Released With Mickelson And Woods

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Tiger and Phil are entered, but Mickelson’s agent issues statement suggesting his disruptor client is keeping all options open, including a possible Saudi payday.

But does this already suggest Mickelson will return in the disruptor mode that got him in trouble? Thoughts in The Quadrilateral.

Doral Is Back! Trump Resort To Host LIV Golf's Team Championship For Its Non-Team Event Tour

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The fountain at Trump Doral.

Bob Harig at Morning Read/SI had the news first: Trump Doral will host October’s concluding eighth event of the LIV Golf Invitational Series. The famed Blue Monster course was site of the PGA Tour’s annual Miami stop beginning in 1962 and until the PGA Tour left for Mexico City’s WGC event, now defunct.

Harig writes:

After five years away, Doral will get professional golf again under Norman’s LIV Golf banner, the $30 million Team Championship in which the four-man winning team will split $16 million.

As you may recall Commissioner Greg Norman and friends have abandoned a team concept for 7 individual events followed by this concluding tournament. Harig has also reported that 15 top 100 players have registered and may seek releases from their Tours.

Either way, expect former President Donald Trump to add to October’s spectacle, whatever format is used to give out $30 million of Public Investment Fund money. It should be fun.

When Doral was dumped by the Tour, he said…

"I just heard that the PGA Tour is taking their tournament out of Miami and moving it to Mexico," Trump said in an interview with Fox News in May of 2016. "It's at Doral ... they used one of my places. They're moving their tournament; it's the Cadillac World Golf Championship. And Cadillac's been a great sponsor, but they're moving it to Mexico. They're moving it to Mexico City which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance.

"But they're moving it to Mexico City. And I'm saying, you know, what's going on here? It is so sad when you look at what's going on with our country."

Well it’s back and funded by folks who’ve done a little kidnapping and slaughtering themselves. It comes full circle.

A Good Reminder That Sam Snead Made A PGA Tour Cut At 67 Years Old

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Reader GP was miffed at reports out of New Orleans of Jay Haas becoming the oldest player to make a PGA Tour cut. While there might be some recency bias and general silliness to a team event counting the same as an individual tournament, it’s still nice that the Haas’ competed, made the cut and acknowledged Sam Snead.

Adam Schupak handled the “record” well in this story and as you’d expect for a class act like Jay Haas who knows the history of the pro game, he said just what you’d hope after making a key putt to get to the weekend.

That included becoming the oldest player to make a cut on the PGA Tour at 68 years, 4 months, 20 days, edging past Sam Snead, who made the cut at the 1979 Manufacturers Hanover Westchester Classic at 67 years, 2 months and 23 days.

“I don’t think it should (count) because Sam Snead did it on his own and all that, but anything that I’m even remotely close to Sam Snead on would be very special,” said Haas, of Snead, who was in the field when he made his Tour debut at the 1973 Wyndham Championship.

In a lot of ways, these records or near records are more impressive for Haas:

Haas is making his 799th Tour start, second on the all-time list behind Mark Brooks (803). Among his other achievements he counts leading the record books with 591 made cuts. And Jay, who captained the 2015 U.S. Presidents Cup team, was no slouch in his prime, winning nine times on Tour and another 18 times on PGA Tour Champions, where he remains active.

Nasa Wins LA Open, Norman Gets An Open Rejection

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It was another fun week at Wilshire Country Club where Nasa Hataoka dominated and set herself up as a U.S. Women’s Open favorite with her DIO Implant LA Open victory.

Plus, Jin Young Ko's 17th-hole fiasco, rangefinders on the LPGA Tour, Greg Norman continues to need attention and a weekend recap. All in the latest Quadrilateral.

L.A. Times Editorial Supporting California AB 1910 Highlights The Absurdity Of It All

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The L.A. Times editorial board weighted in on the latest attempt by assemblymember Cristina Garcia to help fast track conversion of some California golf courses into affordable housing and in doing so, inadvertently highlighted how bizarre the proposal is.

It’s a sign of how desperate our housing shortage is that lawmakers and some cities are even considering converting golf courses to housing. This should be a last resort given the paucity of open space in many communities. Empty shopping malls and other unused commercial space should be the first places to look.

Yes they should.

Then there is this:

There are 960 golf courses in California, according to the National Golf Foundation, a trade association for the golf industry, but only about 200 are owned by local cities and counties.

Some municipal courses are financially struggling and have to be subsidized by the local government. That could make them candidates for conversion — especially in a community that would rather have housing and open space than a golf course.

It’d be fascinating to hear who many courses right now are being subsidized—as opposed to doing the Parks and Rec subsidizing that so many golf departments do—and how many fall into the category of being in crowded communities eager to convert open space to “affordable housing”.

Conversion to parks maybe, but not more housing that brings more density and traffic. It feels like that would be a very short list.

And there’s this catch on the whole affordable case, too.

Under this bill, developers would be required to make at least 25% of the units affordable to low-income renters or buyers and set aside at least 15% of the land for publicly accessible open space.

So all of this for just 25% falling into the affordable category? And we know developers will not go higher than the minimum.

There’s no question that golf courses are ideal, even idyllic, swaths of real estate as large as 100 acres or more. Even with the requirements for open space, that kind of land could hold a lot of housing.

But there are a lot of issues to keep in mind. Public golf courses are already offering something affordable — golf. The average price nationally for an 18-hole round of golf at a course open to the public was $38 last year, according to the National Golf Foundation. That includes all courses — public and privately owned — that are publicly accessible. That’s a deal compared with private clubs with expensive membership fees.

Numerous golfers of diverse backgrounds — in terms of income, ethnicity, age and gender — learned on public courses and still play there. Golf long ago stopped being the exclusive purview of rich white people. That’s partly because people from varied backgrounds found an accessible public course and a youth program or golf league they could join there.

And while making the case for how asinine Garcia’s effort appears to be with so little upside, also note the image included with the editorial shows Canada geese—migrating birds—enjoying a stopover at a course. Taking these valuable habitats away will run afoul of laws and “understandings” designed to protect the beautiful and innocent creatures of the sky.

Although the bill is supported by housing advocacy groups and builders of affordable housing (such as AIDS Healthcare Foundation), it is opposed by dozens of golf clubs, the National Golf Foundation, and the nonprofit Southern California Golf Assn.

No city is going to sell off popular or fabled public golf courses. Rancho Park in Los Angeles, Torrey Pines in San Diego come to mind. Nor is the author of the bill, Assembly member Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), trying to kill off public golf courses — particularly the ones that communities want to keep.

“Let’s have a conversation,” Garcia said. “Is this the best use of this land? Do we want to use this property in a different way?”

Ultimately, someone here really doesn’t like golf and in a funny way, the editorial helps point out what a reach Garcia’s effort appears to be with such a small upside for affordable housing well, well down the road unless all environmental laws are kicked aside.

Discovery Head Of Streaming Says Move Into Golf Has Been A Failure

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In reporting on Warner Bros. Discovery’s sudden shuttering of CNN+, the New York Times’ Michael Grynbaum and John Koblin obtained a staff meeting audio recording where executives explained the decision.

JB Perrette, Discovery’s global head of streaming, explained the struggle his company has had with streaming launches. This includes GolfTV, which is paying $2 billion over 12 years for PGA Tour international streaming rights.

To the left of Mr. Licht sat Mr. Perrette of Discovery. He invoked tweets that called the service “CNN Minus,” because it did not include any programming from CNN’s cable network, “the global calling card of this new organization,” he said. (CNN+ carried only unique programming to avoid running afoul of CNN’s agreements with cable carriers.)

Mr. Perrette also referred to Discovery’s own “painful” history of starting niche streaming services — focused on cars, food and golf — and said they were costly to market and ended up with few subscribers.

“We have failed almost at every turn launching these products,” he said, according to the recording.

The “failed” launch started in 2019 after Discovery CEO David Zaslav said would be a "golf Netflix” and Tiger Woods declared would bring “new youngness” to the game.

Discovery also purchased Golf Digest in May, 2019.

ClubCorp Rebranding As "Invited" With IPO Plans

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Adam Schupak reports on the rebranding of the longtime club operator as “Invited”, and while you might think this sounds like something a cruise line would do after a series of awful virus outbreaks, the company formerly known as ClubCorp says it’s just who they are. With a name that cheesy they could be right.

“Invited is not just a name. It’s everything we are,” Invited CEO David Pillsbury said in a press release. “We are Invited because, from the golf courses to the tennis courts, from fine dining to family hang time, we connect and create communities attracting members from diverse backgrounds that share similar passions and pursuits. We create clubs and experiences that combine exceptional amenities and unmatched service with a friendly and welcoming spirit. We want our members, guests and team members to know that Invited is where they belong.”

The Dallas Morning News says ClubCorp owner Apollo Global Management is looking to take the company public (again) after spending $1.1 billion for the company in 2017.

And they are dreaming of a big valuation. Perfect Putt’s Jared Doerfler notes this:

Mike Keiser: "I became convinced that the heavily engineered courses in the United States weren’t designed for golfers like me and my friends."

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Mike Keiser has teamed with Stephen Goodwin to pen a golf memoir now due in June (previous listings said May but the book business is dealing with supply chain issues, too).

Golf Digest has posted a lengthy excerpt worth checking out here.

This is great:

As I tried to educate myself about the game’s design and history, the questions kept multiplying. As is often the case, the conventional wisdom was misleading at best, a convenient justification for doing things the same old way. I became convinced that the heavily engineered courses in the United States weren’t designed for golfers like me and my friends. To play them successfully, you had to be able to hit shots that were beyond our abilities—long, straight drives and high, precise approaches. You had to be able to recover from deep bunkers and putt on surfaces as slick as the hood of a car. And yes, you had to stay out of the accursed water hazards. The only people who could manage these feats were pros and a tiny fraction of top amateurs. Why design courses for them? Why inflict misery on everyone else? Who had decreed that a round of golf should be an examination, and the architect should be an examiner intent on exposing the student’s every flaw?