I’m not that previous, however I’m a dinosaur—I did my first reader mailbag circa 1998, when the Web was in its infancy. I’m delighted to start anew with MyGolfSpy’s discovered followers. Search for these Q and A’s across the huge occasions and every time breaking information calls for it. With out additional ado, to the questions…
#AskAlan If Rory by no means wins one other main, will he be seen as this technology’s Greg Norman? Unfair to each gamers I believe, however the media and followers love a tragic determine story. @BillsMafia1985
Given McIlroy’s oft-stated antipathy for Norman, I’m positive he would hate this comparability, however there’s undoubtedly one thing to it: two mega-talents who’ve achieved a lot however someway depart us wanting extra. The plain distinction is that Rory has doubled the Shark’s profession main championship victories; 4 wins is fairly heady firm. That brings us to a different participant who’s, I believe, a greater analogue for McIlroy…Ernie Els, who additionally owns 4 main championships. Els, too, may make the sport look absurdly easy however a sure fragility saved Simple from totally realizing his superior potential. Not for nothing, a lacking piece in all three gamers’ résumé is the Masters. The exacting nature of that course, and the grandeur of the stage, has a approach of flummoxing flawed champions.
Will Scottie win the profession Grand Slam? Will Rory? Will Collin? Will a rollback change the calculus? Is there one other “Phil” on Tour? @andy_sp1
Sure. No. No. Eh, probably not, as a result of 5% ain’t practically sufficient. Is there one other huge, meaty e book to be written about skilled golf? I definitely hope so, as a result of I’m already on chapter two.
#AskAlan: I’ve been pondering of one of the best ways to have a tour that’ll fulfill sponsors, top-tier gamers, rank-and-file gamers, spectators and followers at house. Now my head hurts. Is that this an unattainable activity that “Hockey Jay” has earlier than him? @david_troyan
I believe there’s a resolution that may fulfill all of those constituents with the attainable exception of the rank-and-file, however, frankly, they’re the least essential people in all of this. It begins with the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Funding Fund (PIF) consummating a deal, which has to occur to reunify the sport. The Tour ought to use this inflection level to lastly admit that its schedule is much too bloated; slightly contraction will assist the product. If we eradicate the weakest 10 or so Tour occasions, that opens up weeks on the calendar that may be stuffed by the LIV tournaments. Now we construct bridges between the excursions: two four-man groups at each LIV occasion shall be stuffed by Tour gamers, including some wanted frisson (and giving the Tour guys an opportunity to feed on the trough). And LIV regulars get to just accept as much as seven non-member sponsor’s exemptions at Tour occasions, which can tremendously enhance the field workplace and provides them pathways again; if the LIV gamers win a event, they mechanically turn into full-blown Tour members and might come house with out penalty.
Now that the partitions are coming down, we will lastly construct a unified world schedule. The nationwide opens of Eire, Scotland, Australia, South African, Japan, Korea and Argentina turn into signature occasions, drawing the most effective gamers and restoring the misplaced luster of these proud previous occasions. To assist make all of this work, the PGA Tour has to scale back the variety of exempt gamers to 100, or perhaps 90. However PIF and Strategic Sports activities Group (SSG) funding means the Korn Ferry can double or triple its purses, so the displaced journeyman can nonetheless fly personal sometimes. And they are often given most well-liked alternatives on a better-capitalized European Tour and an Asian Tour flush with LIV funding.
As for the beleaguered followers, an enormous chunk of the personal fairness and PIF cash must be used to used to enhance the TV and streaming merchandise: drastically fewer advertisements; capacity to look at each shot of each participant at each event; all of the caddies and gamers carrying mics; varied different enhancements to win again the numerous people who’ve been disenchanted by the awful product and limitless bitchiness.
Possibly I’m a dreamer, however I believe most of that is truly doable. It simply takes some creativeness and management. Alas, that’s been briefly provide currently among the many recreation’s stewards.
Alan, is it true you’re truly Yasir Al-Rumayyan? You look a lot alike. @dokktordogo
About the one factor we’ve got in widespread is that we each love golf and have beards. Oh, and that Greg Norman is commonly an irritant to us. It’s not an accident that Al-Rumayyan has chosen golf as a automobile for additional ingratiating himself into the higher echelons of sport and enterprise. He has Western appetites. Within the MBS biography Blood and Oil, Yasir is described as having “a style for tremendous cigars and after-hours bars in Dubai frequented by long-legged, short-skirted Russian girls.” That is undoubtedly a degree of departure for us, as I desire low cost cigars.
Hey Alan, I do know the U.S. Open is fairly set for venues till I hit 50…and I’m in my 20s lol. However I wished to #AskAlan why the USGA has not had the nationwide championship again at Chicago Golf Membership or Myopia Nation Membership like they did within the 1800s? Is the event too huge for these programs? @derrickq42
Alas, these antiquated enjoying fields are a lot too quick for the fashionable recreation, and, as you observe, neither membership has the infrastructure to host the touring circus that’s the Open. However they’re good for the U.S. Girls’s Open, which Chicago Golf Membership will host in 2036. As the ladies’s sports activities proceed to blow up in recognition, and with Nelly Korda rising into the crossover star that the LPGA has all the time dreamed of, the Girls’s Open is turning into one in all golf’s showcase occasions. Pebble Seaside final 12 months was a milestone, and future venues embrace Riviera, Oakmont, Pinehurst No. 2, Shinnecock, the Nation Membership, Merion, LACC and Oakland Hills. These are fabulous programs, clearly, however very a lot related to the dudes. I’d like to see the Girls’s Open department out to quirkier spots like Myopia or locations that by no means have and by no means will host a U.S. Open. Howdy, Pine Valley, Seminole and Cypress Level.
Since lots of the LIV contracts allegedly had been solely three-year offers, is the PGA Tour fearful that that LIV will poach extra gamers subsequent winter? @IIIWoodD
After all! The Jon Rahm signing was the last word warning to the Tour: come again to the bargaining desk or we are going to raid your prime gamers. It’s wild that anybody would nonetheless query Al-Rumayyan’s resolve. He performs to win, and if the framework settlement falls aside and LIV and the Tour return to being bitter rivals, Yasir is not going to be shy about wielding the checkbook.
Will Jon Rahm ever get up and odor the roses, or will he persist in his obvious delusion {that a}) he’s nonetheless a member in good standing of the PGA Tour, and b) he’ll someday be welcomed again to his favourite PGA Tour occasions with open arms? @WillotheGlen
He could but get to play Torrey Pines and Riviera and the Phoenix Open and some extra of his favorites, however for positive this has been a jarring change in workplaces for Rahm. He has immense pleasure and a deep want to turn into a participant for the ages, so it’s far too early to surrender on him. Rahm has discovered a tough lesson that more cash hardly ensures extra happiness. He’ll discover his equilibrium finally but it surely higher be quickly, as a result of the game is shortly shifting on with out him.
It’s clearly scary territory to match Scottie to Tiger at this level. Is what he’s doing extra akin to ’04 Vijay? @T_stebbins
That’s an incredible comparability. Singh gained 9 tournaments that 12 months, together with the PGA Championship. Scheffler is now at 5 victories, together with the Masters, with one other dozen tournaments on the schedule, together with two majors and the Olympics. Vijay will get severe bonus factors as a result of he needed to battle off prime Tiger and Ernie, whereas Scottie doesn’t have an equal with whom to contend. However Singh turned 41 in 2004. He gained a bunch after that however ’04 was clearly his peak. Scheffler is barely 27 and we don’t know but how he’ll climb, solely that he’s going to achieve rarified air.
What number of gamers shun you given your reporting? Genuinely curious whether it is simply Phil or just a few (gamers) or dozens? Trying ahead to your subsequent e book. Thanks. @RisingorSetting
I used to be definitely involved about that after Mickelson started slandering me with malicious lies, however I found that “Phil” elevated my credibility with the gamers (and brokers and caddies and wives). A bunch of them thanked me for writing the e book; that they had all the time been bothered by the adoring press Mickelson loved, they usually knew he was very totally different in personal than in public. The e book bridged these two worlds and other people within the recreation appreciated the unflinching have a look at a really sophisticated individual. Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka have been dicks to me on social media, so I give them a large berth, however just about each participant I approached for interviews for “LIV and Let Die” answered my questions, whether or not it was Spieth, DeChambeau, McIlroy, Homa, Rahm, Reed, Fowler, D.J., Adam Scott, Keegan Bradley, Gooch, and so forth. There should not many precise reporters left on the golf beat; at PGA Tour occasions, the scribes are outnumbered three-to-one by Tour social media staffers, or so it appears. I believe the gamers nonetheless recognize when somebody asks them actual questions on actual issues.
If he wins the U.S. Open and Open Championship this 12 months, ought to Scottie get a “do over” at subsequent 12 months’s PGA Championship, and if he wins it does that rely as profitable golf’s Grand Slam? @gt_jake
I believe the weirdness of what transpired at Valhalla undoubtedly deserves its personal particular place in golf historical past. If Scheffler wins at Pinehurst and Royal Troon, his 2024 marketing campaign ought to ceaselessly be known as the Detective Bryan Gillis Dirty Pants Slam.
When writing for a e book do you employ particular software program and is it totally different from what you employ for articles? @BillsfaninIll
Nah, I don’t distinguish between the mediums. I’m a Mac man and other people make enjoyable of me for utilizing Pages, however for causes I can’t fairly articulate I desire it to Phrase. I’ve tried utilizing Google Docs however I typically kind on airplanes or in espresso outlets and pressrooms, the place the wifi might be spotty, and that makes me mistrust GDocs. The bizarre factor is that after I’ve completed a narrative or a chapter in Pages I’ll finally reserve it in Google Docs in case I wish to retrieve it afterward my telephone or one other gadget. Or, if I’m sending to somebody, I convert right into a Phrase doc. However for those who’re asking if I take advantage of any sort of AI, that’s a tough no. I’ve by no means as soon as messed with ChatGPT or its ilk and have zero intention of ever doing so. The entire notion offends me. The machines can not conduct interviews or pay attention to a player-caddie dialog or verify when a golfer is standing over a putt just a bit too lengthy. AI won’t ever totally perceive the emotion and human drama that makes sports activities so thrilling. So whereas I take advantage of a pc, I don’t wish to turn into one. If sportswriters have any worth left, it’s to carry our idiosyncratic perspective to occasions you’ve already watched and attempt to clarify them in a novel approach, or take you locations you’ll be able to’t go as a fan at house, or provide a historic perspective which may have gone neglected. To make you are feeling one thing. However you gotta have perspective: I all the time say that my job is to present individuals one thing to learn whereas they’re within the rest room. If you happen to consider it like that it’s exhausting to take your self too critically.
The put up #AskAlan, Pinehurst Version appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
