Phil Mickelson and his merry band of money grubbers initially left the PGA Tour for, well, money, but also because they claimed they wanted golf done a new way.
I say give them what they want. Boo them when they return to the tour they rejected. Boo them instead of Bababooey’ing them after they hit drives. Boo them when they miss putts. They deserve it. They’ll get over it.
When the tour announced Tuesday it was merging with LIV Golf to form a world tour, my immediate reaction was twofold: What about players who remained faithful to the tour? And what happens to the rebels who collected boatloads of Benjamins and now get to bounce back to the tour having had their cake and eaten it too?
On the first point, all one can do for the loyalists – please don’t call them suckers – is to feel sorry for them, but not too sorry. After all, they’re not sleeping in cardboard boxes. They are simply the unfortunate victims of what Michael Corleone described as “business, not personal.”
As for the traitorous defectors, boo them back to the stone age. If you’re appalled by such a suggestion, insisting that golf is a gentleman’s game, well, I laugh in your general direction. The PGA Tour, if not the game itself, stopped being sophisticated the moment it traded its integrity for a Saudi bone saw.
Plus, booing the pants off Philly Mick, Bryson DeChamblow and Bubba Gump Watson – how about those for LIV team names? – is exactly the kind of hip, Gen Z vibe the LIV dudes have been endorsing. What’s a little gallery razzing when LIV tournaments already blare music across the golf course, Caddyshack style?
The verbal abuse can be a temporary thing. Let’em have it for a year or two, like when baseball fans berated the Houston Astros for cheating. What started with a show of fan power has faded. But if the occasional derogatory chant still breaks forth, so be it.
And when that happens, and Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia complain, it will be good to remind them it’s just business, not personal.
Is Jay Monahan living on borrowed time?
If LIV players deserve to get booed, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan deserves to get booted. Fifty years from now it may be that Monahan is heralded as the man who saved professional golf. But now? It’s hard to see how the commish keeps his job after the way he blindsided tour players by dropping news of the merger on them out of nowhere. Many learned of the news on Twitter. Not good.
But it’s worse than that. After demanding their loyalty to the tour and bad-mouthing LIV for almost two years, Monahan double-crossed players by climbing into bed with the Saudis who found LIV Golf.
Monahan acknowledges he will be thought of as a hypocrite for preaching tour fidelity while cheating on his players, yet he still defended his unfaithfulness as the only way to get the merger done.
OK, but was a merger needed? Couldn’t the tour and LIV have found a way to work together without Monahan sabotaging integrity and honor? Was it absolutely necessary to do a complete about-face and hold hands with a Saudi regime that considers women second-class citizens, murders dissenters and houses anti-US militants? Ask many of the families of 9/11 victims what they think of the tour co-signing with Saudi Arabia, where 16 of the 18 hijackers called home.
How does Rory McIlroy feel about having served as unofficial tour mouthpiece against LIV, only to get stabbed in the back? How does Tiger Woods not wonder why he turned down a reported $600 million from LIV to remain on tour? And how does Monahan remain employed?
“Little Animal” James Laurinaitis deserves something big
It’s not as bad as former Ohio State linebacker Randy Gradishar continually getting snubbed by the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, but former Buckeyes LB James Laurinaitis deserves to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2024, after getting passed up the previous four years.
Laurinaitis, who joined the Ohio State coaching staff this year, is joined on the ballot by former OSU offensive lineman Chris Ward, who also was a beast. Just ask Archie Griffin, who ran behind Ward in 1975 when he won the second of his two Heismans.
Consider Laurinaitis’ resume: first OSU defensive player to be named a three-time consensus All-American, as a sophomore won the Nagurski Award as the nation’s best defensive player, led the Buckeyes in tackles three consecutive seasons, twice Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.
It’s time. Vote him in.
Listening in
“Here’s the thing, if the athlete makes a business decision that hurts the leader of the business, it’s frowned upon. But if the business leader makes a decision that harms the athlete, it’s just business.” – PGA Tour player and Lancaster native Joe Ogilvie, reacting on Twitter to how tour commissioner Jay Monahan handled the merger with LIV Golf.
Off topic
It continually amazes me that some people have barely tasted, much less finished a full cup of coffee. (Then again, some people have never seen the original Star Wars, so count me doubly gobsmacked.)
That said, my coffee days are (for now) behind me. A recent visit to England got me hooked on tea, which supposedly has less caffeine than coffee, which is good for me and those who must put up with jittery, all-over-the-map me. (You know who you are.)
Anyone else make the move from bean to leaf? Positives and negatives? Chime in.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Phil Mickelson, LIV Golfers should hear noise upon return to PGA Tour