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      Herbert Kohler, Plumbing Mogul Who Created a Golf Mecca, Dies at 83

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      The billionaire chief of a family company known for its bathtubs, toilets and faucets, he brought championship play to a tiny Wisconsin town.Herbert V. Kohler Jr., who built a century-old family business known for bathtubs, toilets and faucets into a multibillion-dollar global enterprise and turned a tiny company town into an unlikely stop for the world’s top golfers, died on Sept. 3 in Kohler, Wis. He was 83.The death was announced on the Kohler Company website. No cause was cited.As a young man, Mr. Kohler bridled at his father’s wish that he join the business full time after college.“That just wasn’t my cup of tea,” he told Forbes in 2010.But he ultimately took the path that had effectively been set for him when his grandfather John Michael Kohler, an Austrian immigrant, bought a Sheboygan, Wis., foundry with a partner in 1873.The company, which began as a maker of plows and other agricultural implements, took a defining turn 10 years later when its patriarch put enamel on a cast-iron vessel used as a horse trough and for scalding hogs and sold it to farm families as a bathtub.Kohler was on its way to literally becoming a household name.The company’s fixtures were included in a 1929 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition of contemporary home design. Its colorful “The Bold Look of Kohler” advertising campaign was introduced in 1967.By 1972, when Herbert Kohler Jr. took the top job at the privately held business, which also made engines and generators, it had $133 million in annual sales and was the second-largest U.S. producer of kitchen and bath fixtures, behind American Standard.When he retired as chief executive in 2015, it had annual sales of $6 billion. In 2018 it was the top choice for bath fixtures and accessories among U.S. builders, according to the research firm Statista.Under Mr. Kohler, the company acquired makers of furniture, cabinets and tiles; built or bought factories in China, Mexico, India, Europe and elsewhere; and developed two-person bathtubs, robotic toilets and a shower with stereo sound.He also started a golf and hotel business that attracted three P.G.A. championships, a U.S. Senior Open, two U.S. Women’s Opens and last year’s Ryder Cup to Sheboygan County and allowed him to put his mark on the seaside Scottish town where the game was born.Mr. Kohler’s vision, drive and appetite for risk fueled the company’s growth. He might have been slow to embrace his dynastic destiny, but when he did, it was with gusto.“I loved it,” he told Forbes, “because I saw so much potential for change.”Mr. Kohler and his wife, Natalie, at his Whistling Straits golf course, the site of last year’s Ryder Cup.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesHerbert Vollrath Kohler Jr. was born on Feb. 20, 1939, in Sheboygan, about an hour north of Milwaukee. His father was the Kohler Company’s chairman and chief executive. His mother, Ruth (De Young) Kohler, was a historian and a former women’s editor at The Chicago Tribune.Young Herbert’s mother died when he was a teenager, and he was sent east to boarding school, initially at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where, he told Forbes, “there wasn’t a rule or regulation I didn’t break.”Dismissed from there, he went to the Choate School in Connecticut. After graduating, he entered Yale, his father’s alma mater, but he lacked focus and left. He served in the Army Reserve and then studied math and physics at the University of Zurich. It was, he told The Chicago Tribune in 1994, “a period of total rejection of a prescribed life.”Returning to the United States, he enrolled at Knox College in Illinois. He studied acting, dabbled in poetry and edited what he described in a 2012 interview with Cigar Aficionado magazine as a “wild political newspaper.”“One of my friends called me ‘the first of the great unwashed,’” he told Forbes. “That’s a hell of a note for the son of a bathroom baron.” (At the time, he was mostly estranged from his father. “I seldom spoke to the poor man,” he said.)While at Knox, he met his future first wife, Linda Karger, who was directing a play he was in. They married in 1961 and divorced in the 1980s.Mr. Kohler’s attempt at independence continued at Furman University in South Carolina, where he enrolled briefly while also working. But he was soon back at Yale. He graduated in 1965 with a degree in industrial administration and joined the Kohler Company as a research technician.He became a company director in 1967; vice president of operations a year later, when his father died; executive vice president in 1971; and chairman and chief executive a year after that.One hurdle Mr. Kohler faced in taking the helm was the company’s bitter history with organized labor, including a United Auto Workers strike that began in 1954 and lasted more than six years — the longest such walkout in U.S. history at the time.“Rightly or wrongly, everyone knew the name Kohler because of the strike,” Mr. Kohler told The New York Times in 1973. (There have been two, much shorter, strikes since then, in 1983 and 2015.)The family was also in danger at the time of having its control of the company slip away amid a dilution of its shares’ value. Mr. Kohler engineered a reverse stock split that slashed the number of shares and gave him and his closest relatives near-total control.With his position solidified, Mr. Kohler reinvested heavily in the company, which was already associated with innovative design. He kept the emphasis on form as well as function, opening the Kohler Design Center, a museumlike product showplace, and, with his sister, Ruth, creating a residency program for artists.John Torinus, who got to know Mr. Kohler as business editor of The Milwaukee Sentinel, described him in a phone interview as a “genius” and a “tough cookie” whose fascination with design resembled that of Steve Jobs.“He was very particular about everything, down to the smallest detail,” said Mr. Torinus, who is now the chairman of Serigraph, a Wisconsin company that makes decorative parts for other businesses’ products, including, sometimes, Kohler’s.That focus undoubtedly helps explain what Sarah Archer, a design and culture writer, called the company’s enduring place in the bathroom firmament.“They weren’t just selling cleanliness or modernity,” she said via email. “They were offering a kind of mini-vacation.”Mr. Kohler married Natalie Black, a former chief legal officer and current board member of the Kohler Company, in 1985. She survives him. His survivors also include a son, David, Kohler’s chief executive since 2105 and now its board chairman as well; two daughters, Laura Kohler, a board member and senior company vice president, and Rachel Kohler, also a board member; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.In the late 1970s, Mr. Kohler decided to get into the hospitality trade by making a resort hotel out of a run-down building that had originally been used to house company workers after the foundry moved four miles west of Sheboygan in 1899 to what became the town of Kohler. Many people around him scoffed, but he forged ahead.“He didn’t like to give up on anything that was part of his heritage,” said Richard Blodgett, the author of “A Sense of Higher Design: The Kohlers of Kohler” (2003), a company-commissioned corporate history.Mr. Kohler’s instincts proved correct. The hotel, the American Club, opened in 1981. Augmented by a private hunting and fishing preserve, a tennis club, restaurants, shops and a spa, it was soon a tourist magnet.Still, something was missing.“You have this boutique resort hotel, but you don’t have your own golf course,” Mr. Kohler, speaking in a 2015 interview, recalled customers telling him. “That’s kind of embarrassing for a C.E.O.”Mr. Kohler had little interest in the game, but he quickly immersed himself in it.Working with Pete Dye, who was once called the Picasso of golf-course design, he developed two nearby championship-caliber courses, Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits.Mr. Kohler deepened his golf investment in 2004, buying a hotel alongside the famous Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, and the nearby Duke’s Course.Not all his golf projects have gone smoothly. Local environmentalists thwarted plans for a course on the Oregon coast, and the development of a new one near Kohler has been slowed by residents opposed to its reliance on public land, and by the discovery of Native American artifacts and human remains on the property.Mr. Kohler shrugged off such obstacles. He pressed on, guided by a phrase adapted from the 19th-century British critic John Ruskin and found in an old stained-glass window at the American Club: “Life without labor is guilt. Labor without art is brutality.”Kitty Bennett contributed research. More

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      These Left-Handed Golfers Are Content to Go Their Own Way

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      ROTHERHAM, England — If anyone questions Alan Haines’s left-handed golf swing, he jokingly reminds them that he happens to be the one standing on the right side of the ball.Haines, 73, was sitting in a clubhouse here recently, waiting for a fellow lefty to tee off on the first hole on what was a rather overcast day. After that player had driven on the downhill par 4, another golfer with a left-handed swing followed. Then another. And another — until, eventually, 36 consecutive players had teed off with their right shoulder toward the target.“When you get a lot of us together,” said Chris Birch, 60, “people do notice.” Birch said his grandfather, father, son and grandson were (or are), like him, left-handed.Another player, Frank McCabe, 84, concurred. “We’ve been playing and someone has said, ‘Crikey! I’ve just seen four left-handers playing together,’” McCabe said. “I’ve had to say, ‘Well, no; there’s actually 30 of us.’”Haines, McCabe and Birch help run a solidaric group known as the British Left Handed Golfers Association, or B.L.H.G.A., a decades-old society that aims to promote left-handedness in a sport whose sinistral figures don’t necessarily reflect those of everyday society.Alan Haines, right, has been a member of the British Left Handed Golfers Association for more than 40 years, and its secretary for nearly 30. Duncan Elliott for The New York TimesWhile around 10 percent of the world’s population are believed to be left-handed, their presence on golf courses is far more rare. The P.G.A. of America estimated that only about five percent of PGA Tour members play left-handed, and since 1860, only four — Bob Charles, Mike Weir, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson — have won a major. Only one woman, Bonnie Bryant in 1974, has ever won an L.P.G.A. event while playing left-handed.Many left-handed players put such figures down to two main obstacles from years gone by: access to equipment and the availability of left-handed coaching.“Going back 50, 60 years, you could never find a set of left-handed golf clubs in a pro shop,” Charles, who became the first left-handed major champion when he won the 1963 British Open, said in a telephone interview. “The clubs were not readily available.”McCabe, the chairman of the B.L.H.G.A., described how, when he was taking up the sport in the 1960s, his local golf club required new players to submit to lessons with the club pro before playing a practice round with them. “He only made it through two holes,” McCabe said of the latter requirement, “and then we stopped because he wanted to try out my putter, which, to him, was the other way around.”As a result of this environment, many lefties opted — and some still opt — to play right-handed, while a select few continued fighting the good fight for their preferred side of the ball.Events celebrating left-handed golfers are hardly new; some of the earliest examples date to the 1920s, when lefty tournaments were reportedly held in New England and Washington state. The National Association of Left-Handed Golfers (N.A.L.G.) was established in 1936, resulting in an organization that today has around 270 individuals on its mailing list and local affiliates in 12 American states, according to Sid Miner, the chairman of the N.A.L.G.Clockwise from top left: Chris Birch, Alan Lines, Alan Haines and Frank McCabe.Duncan Elliott for The New York TimesIn Britain, a trophy for left-handed golfers known as the Mees Cup was first contested in the 1930s, before a newspaper notice attracted a number of lefties to meet on courses in and around London in the 1950s. These gatherings resulted in the founding of the B.L.H.G.A. in 1959.Today, members pay an annual fee of £20 (about $23) for the privilege of being part of a society that prioritizes camaraderie over competitiveness. The group plays on eight courses a year, each handpicked to even out travel for members, around half of whom are retired, and to make sure as many as possible can attend events.“The thing I enjoy most is that the only qualification is to be left-handed,” said Alan Lines, 78, who was selected as the group’s captain for 2022. He had joined 12 years earlier, after learning of its existence through word-of-mouth.Lines said he hoped to one day play in the world championship for those with his unique swing, a multiday event that is overseen by the World Association of Left Handed Golfers (W.A.L.G.). That organization was formed in 1979, after the first global competition was held in Sydney, Australia.The W.A.L.G. website contains contact details for 21 national organizations, each with similar grass-roots backgrounds to that of the B.L.H.G.A. An association in the Republic of Ireland, for example, emerged in the 1980s after fliers were sent to clubs recruiting any left-handers who were willing to respond. An organization in Japan reported membership numbers of more than 1,000 in the 1990s. National groups also sprung up fin countries as far-flung as Sri Lanka, France, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden.B.L.G.H.A. trophies. Don’t even think about it, right-handers.Duncan Elliott for The New York TimesBut while such societies rose from circumstances of the past, some have more recently expressed concerns about declining attendance numbers, and the future of their events. The players who turned up in Rotherham voiced similar worries.“I think it’s easier now” for left-handers, said Terry Sims, a pro who runs a shop out of Silvermere Golf Complex in Surrey, southwest of London, that is dedicated to selling only left-handed equipment. “There’s a lot more package sets made left-handed. It’s also not taboo now to learn left-handed.”Sims, whose left-handed brother was initially forced to take up the game right-handed in the 1980s, said that since he opened his store in 2004, most major manufacturers have started making their right-handed models available to left-handers, with the exception of the odd putter and some hybrid clubs. Online ordering has helped, too, he said, making the sort of clubs that local pro shops might not stock available at the click of a button. Yet even in the internet age, secondhand options are still difficult to come by.Organizers at some societies have blamed their declining numbers at events on factors seen elsewhere in golf: a lack of interest in joining societal groups from younger players; cost; and the ripple effects of the coronavirus on travel.Haines sees it as even more straightforward than that: The growth of society golf, he said, had its heyday in the ’80s and ’90s, and many of those players are aging out.Clubs are no longer so hard to find for left-handed players. The players themselves, though? They’re still a rarity.Duncan Elliott for The New York TimesHaines has been secretary of the B.L.H.G.A. since 1995 and a member for more than 40 years. In the group’s heyday, he said, it counted around 300 members. Over the past few years, that figure has ebbed at around 150. But those that remain play on.After their afternoon round at Rotherham Golf Club, the group of British lefties regrouped for their annual general meeting, which would involve dinner and a discussion of the agenda for the year ahead. While other courses may rotate on the group’s calendar, Rotherham — with its Neo-gothic clubhouse and it status as the home course of the former Masters champion Danny Willett — has been a constant for more than 50 years. That regularity, Haines admitted, removes one amusing element of confusion that the group has previously seen when new courses have been added to their rotation.“Sometimes, we go to golf courses where they put the knife and the fork the other way around at the table,” he said. “That always brings a smile to our faces.”The clubhouse at Rotherham Golf Club, home to an annual left-handed championship and a Masters champion not eligible to play in it.Duncan Elliott for The New York Times More

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      Matt Fitzpatrick Talks About Life After Winning a Golf Major

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      Having won the U.S. Open in June, Fitzpatrick could triumph at the BMW PGA Championship.In June, Matt Fitzpatrick’s life changed when he won the U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., by one stroke over Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler.That’s what happens when a golfer breaks through to capture one of the sport’s four major tournaments. However, Fitzpatrick, who is from England, fares from here he will be forever known as a major champion.Fitzpatrick, 28, who will play in this week’s BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, spoke recently about his victory at the Open. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.Did you hear from anyone after the Open victory that surprised you?I’ve been really lucky. I’ve had quite a few messages from various people — one in particular, a text from Michael Jordan. I’m a member of his club down here in Florida; I do most of my practice there. To receive that was very special. I received a handwritten note from Ben Crenshaw. I really appreciate that as well.What did Michael say in the text?He just said, congratulations.Has the Open victory made you alter your goals for the future or your perception of yourself?I always felt like the work I put in was good enough to compete in a major. Whether it was good enough to win one, I was never sure because I had never given myself a chance up until the U.S. P.G.A. [Championship]. To win one backed it up that what I was doing is correct.Have you been prepared for all the demands on you?I was briefed, basically, as soon as I won by my manager, Ted Brady, and Mark Steinberg. I understand that. This is my ninth year as a pro. I know what it’s like to do media. Obviously, it’s just another level when you’re a major champion; there’s just more of it. I kind of knew what was to come.Did your performance at the P.G.A. Championship go a long way toward having confidence down the stretch at Brookline?I think so. Maybe I didn’t realize it right after, but certainly that week at the U.S. Open, I probably used some of that experience from the P.G.A.Fitzpatrick plays from the 11th tee during his second round of the 150th British Open in July on Scotland’s St. Andrews golf course.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse via Getty ImagesA few years ago, you talked about how you were working on your approaches. All that work paid off, didn’t it?I struggled out of fairway bunkers all year, but to hit that shot there [on the final hole] under the pressure and in the moment will obviously live with me forever. In general, my approach play this year, we changed my technique a little, and that’s really helped.How does the Wentworth course suit your game?I like the golf course. It’s demanding tee to green. I feel a strength of mine is off the tee. I love playing there, and having the atmosphere of a home crowd is also a big advantage in my opinion, too.You’ve played well there but said you haven’t really challenged to win. Any particular reason?I just feel the guys have played better than me. I never really got close enough, and the one year I did, I just had a bad Saturday. Didn’t drive it well and kind of lost my momentum from the first two rounds, and that was it.You were critical of St. Andrews two months ago. Any regrets with what you said?No, not really. I’m very picky when it comes to golf courses, the ones I like and don’t like. I’ve never played it that firm and fast, and maybe that emphasized my opinion on it more than anything. I feel like sometimes you can hit good shots at St. Andrews and not get rewarded. Sometimes you can hit bad shots and get away with it.When you were a kid, did you dream you would be a major champion in your 20s?I read various quotes from other major winners saying it wasn’t as good as what they thought it was going to feel like, and mine was the complete opposite. It was 10 million times better than I ever thought it would feel. For me, it’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever had. More

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      5 Players to Watch at the BMW PGA Championship

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      One of these golfers could win the tournament at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.Fresh off his comeback on Aug. 28 at the Tour Championship in Georgia, Rory McIlroy is a top contender at the BMW PGA Championship, which begins Thursday at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.McIlroy captured his third FedEx Cup title by completing the largest final-round comeback in the history of the Tour Championship. He will be a compelling figure at Wentworth, but here are five other players to watch.Shane Lowry plays a second shot on the tenth hole during the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August in Memphis.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesShane LowryIreland’s Lowry has proved that the course suits him well. In his last five appearances at Wentworth, he has finished no worse than a tie for 17th. His best showing was finishing second to McIlroy in 2014.Lowry, 35, would have qualified for his first appearance at the Tour Championship if either Adam Scott or Aaron Wise had made a bogey on the 72nd hole at the BMW Championship on Aug. 21 in Delaware, but each made clutch pars to secure the final two spots.Lowry shot a 68 on Sunday at the BMW to finish in a tie for 12th but three-putted from about 65 feet for a bogey at No. 17. Ranked No. 23, Lowry has not won an event since he captured the 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.Justin Rose during a practice round at Southern Hills Country Club in May in Tulsa, Okla. He was once ranked at No. 1.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesJustin RoseRose, 42, also hasn’t won since 2019 at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. Once as high as No. 1 in the rankings, Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, now stands at No. 58.In 18 PGA Tour events this season, he has recorded only two top-10 finishes, and his best finish was a tie for fourth at the RBC Canadian Open in June when he flirted with becoming the first European to shoot 59 on the PGA Tour. He ended up with a 60.His performance in the majors has been disappointing. He missed the cut in the Masters, tied for 13th in the P.G.A. Championship, tied for 37th in the U.S. Open and was unable to compete in the British Open with a bad back.But Rose has experienced some success at Wentworth. He finished second in 2007 and 2012. Last year, he tied for sixth.Francesco Molinari putts on the tenth green during the first round of the Memorial Tournament in June in Dublin, Ohio.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesFrancesco MolinariSimilar to Lowry and Rose, Molinari, 39, has had his moments in this event. In 2018, shooting a final-round 68, he won the BMW PGA Championship by two shots over McIlroy. He has recorded six top-10 finishes at Wentworth since 2012.In July 2018, Molinari captured the Quicken Loans National in Maryland by eight shots, closing with a 62, and three weeks later he won the British Open in Carnoustie, Scotland, by two shots, becoming the first Italian player to win a major.He missed a chance to win another major in 2019, when up by two at the Masters he found the water with his tee shot at No. 12 in the final round, which led to a double bogey. He finished in a tie for fifth.In this past season, he recorded only one top-10 finish in 17 appearances on the PGA Tour, missing the cut at the Masters and the U.S. Open. He tied for 15th in the British Open.Billy Horschel plays a second shot on the tenth hole during the second round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesBilly HorschelHorschel, who won the BMW last year, picked up his seventh PGA Tour victory in early June at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio, beating Wise by four strokes. He shot a 65 in the third round that put him up by five, and he finished the final round with an even-par 72.Horschel, 35, became only the second American to win the BMW. The first was Arnold Palmer in 1975, when the tournament was known as the Penfold PGA Championship. Horschel, now ranked No. 15, secured the win with an approach shot on No. 18 that came to a rest less than two feet from the cup. He converted the putt to finish with a 65 and a one-shot victory.England’s Lee Westwood during the first round of the British Masters in May. He was one of the first players to join LIV Golf.Paul Childs/Action Images Via ReutersLee WestwoodWestwood, 49, is one of more than a dozen players in this week’s field from LIV Golf, the new series financed by Saudi Arabia.Ranked No. 100, his best finish on the PGA Tour this season was a tie for 14th at the Masters. He missed the cut in the P.G.A. Championship and tied for 34th at the British Open.Westwood, a former world No. 1, has never won the BMW, although he came close in 2011, losing in a playoff to Luke Donald. Last year, Westwood finished in a tie for 71st. He said he planned to play four DP World Tour events in 2023. More

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      BMW PGA Championship Brings Players From PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf

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      Players from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the upstart LIV Golf series will all be competing at this week’s BMW PGA Championship in England.All but a half dozen professional golf tournaments — out of hundreds of events held each year — rely on a marquee sponsor and dozens of other co-sponsors to pay millions of dollars for each event to happen.There are a few notable exceptions: the Masters, the United States Open, the P.G.A. Championship and the British Open.But even an event as prestigious as this week’s BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England — one of the top events on the DP World Tour — relies on the German carmaker plus another dozen sponsors, like Zoom, Rolex and Hilton, to fund the event, pay the players and have something left over for charity.There’s just one problem. The BMW PGA Championship will have more than a dozen players from the rival Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf series in the field, including fan favorites Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood and several players that could win the event like Kevin Na, Patrick Reed and Martin Kaymer.Unlike the PGA Tour, which has suspended members who have joined LIV and barred them from playing in PGA Tour events, the DP World Tour has a slightly different policy. Members who qualify for tournaments, like Wentworth, based on their world rankings or other criteria, are allowed, for now, to play in the event.Given the amount of money sponsors pledge to an event on the DP World Tour, the PGA Tour or any of the other tours around the world, they want something in return. Corporate perks and television coverage for sure, but they also want great players to create compelling drama. That’s what happened in the final round of the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour on Aug. 28, when Rory McIlroy beat his playing partner, Scottie Scheffler, by one stroke to win the FedEx Cup, the PGA Tour’s season-long points competition. (Southern Company, Coca-Cola and Accenture are sponsors of the Tour Championship, not to mention FedEx, who as a season-long sponsor of the PGA Tour contributes a large part of the $18 million first-prize check.)And having a winner from LIV Golf creates a difficult situation for sponsors and the DP World Tour itself, which is a strategic partner of the PGA Tour but has allowed LIV players to compete.Before the tournament even started, the LIV presence at Wentworth was criticized by top tour members like the U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, who called the LIV presence “disappointing.” Billy Horschel, who won the BMW PGA Championship in 2021, said the LIV golfers shouldn’t be allowed to play on the DP World Tour at all: “They decided to go play on that tour and they should go play there.”Greenskeepers working on the 18th hole at Wentworth Golf Club on Sept. 6.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesIts sponsor has remained neutral. “The focus of the BMW Group is to host a world-class event and provide a premium experience for players, fans and enthusiasts at all our sport engagements,” said Tim Holzmüller, a spokesman for BMW Group Sport Engagement.Great players bring in fans and television viewers at home. And a battle between a LIV golfer and a PGA or DP World Tour member would certainly juice ratings. But what happens afterward for sponsors would be hard to say.The traditional measure of a tournament is its “strength of field,” which is important to ensure sponsorship dollars are well spent. In layman’s terms, the term refers to the quality of the players committed to playing the event. And for sponsors, the bigger the stars the bigger the audience.The DP World Tour says its marquee event has a strong roster of players.“The field for this year’s event is projected to be significantly stronger than last year’s event,” said Steve Todd, deputy media communications director for the DP World Tour, noting that three top-10 players are in the field — McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Fitzpatrick. The last time that happened was in 2019 — the last BMW PGA Championship unaffected by the pandemic.Todd added that there were plenty of fan favorites to draw in viewers and satisfy sponsors.“The field also features defending champion Billy Horschel and a number of Ryder Cup players including Viktor Hovland, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Justin Rose and Francesco Molinari, all of whom have strong records in the tournament and are particularly popular with the Wentworth crowds,” he said. “Also playing is [Ryder Cup] European captain Luke Donald, who won the event back-to-back in front of his home English fans in 2011 and 2012.”Westwood, a three-time winner of the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai and a winner on the PGA Tour, is now a LIV golfer who is playing at Wentworth this week. He said he didn’t believe it made any difference who won.“Everyone playing at Wentworth has qualified to play by right,” he said in an interview. “It’s the strongest field at the BMW PGA Championship for years.”He added: “If a LIV golfer wins, then he’ll be the person that’s played the best and will fully deserve it. I don’t think the public in general are bothered what tour people play on. They just want to see the best players play great golf.”Andrew “Chubby” Chandler, a longtime agent for players on the DP World Tour, said the competing tours at Wentworth “adds a lot to the event both in star names and intrigue. I don’t see a problem if a LIV golfer wins at Wentworth. I think it possibly shows what might have happened if the [DP World Tour] could have accepted all the LIV golfers as full members when it was suggested four months ago.”The tournament also comes just weeks after the PGA Tour made significant changes on how it operates that may not align with what the DP World Tour is doing.For one, top players on the PGA Tour need to commit to 20 events, which could be challenging for European players. The Tour has also created so-called elevated events with greater prize money. Both are meant to get the top players competing against each other more often.Patrick Reed of the United States plays his second shot on the 1st hole at the Wentworth Golf Club during a practice round before the BMW PGA Championship.Warren Little/Getty ImagesMcIlroy said that sports fans want to see the best in the game when they tune in to watch, drawing a comparison to U.S. football fans wanting to see Tom Brady at quarterback if they’re watching a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game.Yet the up-and-coming players are being given a $500,000 draw against their PGA Tour earnings to help them compete. This goes for both U.S. players who have made it to the PGA Tour and international players who have qualified through the DP World Tour rankings. In other words, it’s helping to end the economic disadvantage that young players have in golf that they don’t in other professional sports.“It’s comparable to how other leagues approach their athlete compensation,” said the PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan at a news conference. “For rookies, coming out here and knowing that that’s payable on day one we think will help put those rookies in a better position to compete because they can invest in the infrastructure they need to succeed.”(Players who miss the cut also get a $5,000 stipend to help cover their expenses.)The PGA Tour’s August announcement also has given LIV players fodder to play both sides of the debate, since what it means for the tour’s partner, the DP World Tour, wasn’t mentioned.“The goal for the DP World Tour is finding a way to get the top Europeans that play on the PGA Tour to come back and play in Europe more often, not just the odd big one or two tournaments where they get appearance money,” Westwood said. “This is all going to be made harder by the new concept that Jay [Monahan] announced that is designed to guarantee 20 strong fields in the U.S. with not much thought given to the DP World Tour and other tours. It’s an odd decision considering the new ‘strategic alliance’ supposedly in place.”But a PGA Tour official who was not authorized to speak because of ongoing litigation involving LIV Golf said the strength of fields on the tour remains strong even without the players who have left.And that, at the end of the day, is what some observers believe companies want. “Sponsors,” Chandler said, “want the best fields at their events so BMW will be pleased.” More

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      LIV Golf Continues to Try New Ways to Be Noticed

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      Whether it’s the team concept or a decision to allow its golfers to play in shorts, the breakaway Saudi-backed series so far sees itself as the anti-PGA Tour.BOLTON, Mass. — The LIV Golf event outside Boston was minutes from beginning on Friday, and Greg Norman, the frontman for the insurgent Saudi-backed circuit, needed a new, showy way to make an entrance in the rancorous battle for the future of men’s golf.How about jumping from an airplane and parachuting onto the first tee? Surely, Norman’s nemesis, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, had never done that?So it was that the hundreds of fans crowded around the first tee lifted their eyes to the sky to watch as Norman, who was harnessed to a retired military parachutist, dropped across the backdrop of a clear blue sky until he touched down in front of the tee.Separated from his escort, Norman bolted upright and raised both fists triumphantly. As he marched toward the tee, a fan yelled: “Greg, the PGA Tour is done. You did it, baby!”Looking a bit stunned, if delighted, Norman turned in the direction of the voice. He pointed a finger and flashed the widest of smiles.The scene could have been a metaphor for the most turbulent season in modern professional golf history: When LIV Golf suddenly appeared on the horizon this spring, the risk was manifest as the circuit searched for a welcoming place to drop into an occasionally inhospitable sport. In a surprise, LIV Golf has not only landed on its feet, it is defiantly celebrating.Despite the volume of one fan’s shout, the PGA Tour is far from done or even from losing the clash with its rival. Last week, it began a muscular counterattack. But as the fourth LIV Golf event concluded at the International Golf Club on Sunday, the evidence was mounting that the rebel tour was not retreating either. In fact, it continues to find new ways to be noticed.Consider the great dump-the-trousers crusade that unfolded here in Saturday’s second round. In its unceasing effort to be the anti-PGA Tour, which includes not having large tournament crowds or a broadcast TV contract, the LIV Golf leaders decided Saturday to allow players to wear shorts.The PGA Tour does not allow its members to show legs in competition. The LIV Golf decision moved players on the circuit to say they felt freer, an odd choice of words for a group guaranteed at least $120,000 (with expenses paid) for their appearance at the tournament.“This is a long time coming in the game of golf; I think it just takes a disrupter like LIV to get things done,” Phil Mickelson said of wearing shorts.Phil Mickelson wore shorts on Saturday and Sunday after the LIV Golf leaders decided to allow it.Mary Schwalm/Associated PressThere was only one snag in the dress code golfing revolution that LIV Golf was hoping to ignite. The majority of the golfers kept their pants on. Maybe these guys like golf tradition more than anyone suspected.I have now spent six days (two tournaments) inside the LIV Golf bubble since late July, and there are certain evident, noteworthy truths. One is that the rival circuit is clearly attracting a younger, more boisterous crowd than the typical PGA Tour gallery, portions of which can be reserved and sometimes removed, i.e., watching from an air-conditioned corporate box. LIV Golf’s chief motto is “Golf, but louder,” and with a recurring thunderous soundtrack of Beastie Boys, Twisted Sister and AC/DC, the circuit is living (no pun intended) up to its billing.Asked about the thumping music that can be heard on all 18 holes, Sergio García quipped, “I’m trying not to dance too much.”Cameron Smith, who is ranked second in the men’s worldwide rankings and who was the breakaway tour’s splashy new acquisition last week, refuted the suggestion that the music is a diversion or a gimmick. “To me,” Smith said, “it feels like the course has a bit of heartbeat.”The LIV Golf leadership is also convinced that the key to the tour’s success is its team concept, which is new to golf. The goal is to replicate the success of the Formula 1 team model. But the LIV Golf teams had a clunky rollout earlier this year when team members kept changing, which further confused potential fans who already could not identify or remember the 12 team names, let alone their four-man rosters.As an example, I stopped 10 fans on the golf course Sunday and asked them to name just one LIV Golf team. Three could do it, six could not and one grinning guy astonishingly started rattling off the team names one by one until I realized he was looking over my shoulder at a scoreboard with all the team names and scores.But next year, LIV Golf, whose major shareholder is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, will expand the number of tournaments, and the four-player teams will remain unchanged tournament to tournament, barring injury. Players on each team may even wear matching outfits of some sort, like a uniform, to drive home the team concept. The plan is also to make teams have a unifying theme: Four Australians led by Smith, a South African team headed by Louis Oosthuizen, and other teams bound by nationality. LIV Golf has heavily recruited Hideki Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters champion, in hopes of heading a Japanese team.The LIV Golf crowds at events are still sparse despite tickets being exceedingly cheap on the secondary ticket market. The attendance, which LIV Golf does not announce, is roughly one-fourth of what would be expected for a PGA Tour event.The LIV Golf version of a fan village alongside the golf course has considerable energy, with myriad golf skill contest booths and food trucks that might evoke a county fair. There also seems to be a bar, with a line, at every turn.But there is something else noticeable about the fan village. A giant screen was showing the golf taking place over on the course. I checked several times over three days, and while there were hundreds of fans standing and sitting around inside the village, it was rare to see anyone even glance briefly at the screen.The competition, for all its newness, does resemble an elite golf tournament with the kind of booming drives and deft short games that only the world’s best players hit. Dustin Johnson won the 54-hole event on Sunday in a playoff over Joaquin Niemann and Anirban Lahiri.But especially early on, some of the usual tension of a PGA Tour event, where the understanding is that a victory can be career-changing, was missing. On the driving range and the practice putting green before play begins, the atmosphere was unusually light and carefree — as if most of them knew that they had already been paid handsomely with guaranteed, upfront money. Which, of course, is the case.But LIV Golf is in its infancy, and its baby steps have included the successful, stunning recruitment of a sizable number of prominent golfers — a flock that very few thought could be assembled so rapidly. The circuit has now played half of its scheduled tournaments, and it is not going away.Monahan, the PGA Tour chieftain, is highly unlikely to consider Norman’s jumping out of an airplane a challenge that he must respond to in kind. But gaudy gestures aside, the new reality of men’s golf is that neither LIV Golf, which seemed to drop out of nowhere, nor the established PGA Tour is backing down. More

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      With the PGA Tour Season Over, LIV Golf Looks to Strengthen Its Foothold

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      Cameron Smith, the No. 2 player in the world, is among six veteran players who will make their debuts for the breakaway series at an event outside Boston this weekend.BOLTON, Mass. — Roughly 11 weeks ago in the Boston suburbs, men’s professional golf welcomed the game’s best players to the 122nd U.S. Open. Five days before that event began, the inaugural LIV Golf tournament in England was ending; it was largely treated as an anomalous curiosity.When Phil Mickelson, the well-compensated headliner of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, played his first holes at the U.S. Open, he was greeted politely, but the gallery also loudly snickered when one fan yelled: “Sellout!” At the conclusion of the championship, many in the tradition-bound golf community found amusement in noting the dreadful play of the small gaggle of LIV-aligned golfers, most especially Mickelson, who missed the cut with a score of 11 over par.On Friday, another Boston suburb will host the fourth LIV Golf tournament. But no one is laughing at the upstart circuit anymore.Since the June midpoint of this year’s golf season, the breakaway circuit, financed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, has lured away a deep collection of top golfers from the PGA Tour and coerced the rattled Tour into hurriedly adopting fundamental systemic changes to remain competitive.Even after the more-established PGA Tour ended its 2021-22 season on Sunday, LIV Golf continued to seize the spotlight by announcing its biggest talent acquisition, the signing of Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked male golfer and the reigning British Open champion. Smith, 29, was joined by five other PGA Tour veterans, including Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who is 23 years old and ranked 19th, and Harold Varner III, a 32-year-old American who is ranked 46th.Unlike nearly every one of his predecessors who have abandoned the PGA Tour for the rival series, Smith, who was reportedly paid $100 million to join LIV Golf, did not try to shamelessly deny that money played a factor in his decision. But he spent considerable time describing how the shorter LIV Golf schedule would allow him to spend more time in his native Australia, adding that he had not been home in three years. And he harped on a familiar theme — a feeling that LIV Golf offered a refreshing, youthful vibe — that has been preached by other defectors, each of whom did so fully aware that they would be suspended from participating on the PGA Tour.“I think this is the future of golf — I think it’s been the same for a very, very long time, and it needs to be stirred up a little bit,” Smith said. “I think it needs to change. I kind of see this as a new chapter in my life.”Harold Varner III said he was stunned by the negative comments on social media his decision to join LIV Golf engendered.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesOn Friday, Smith, Niemann and Varner will play in the first of three rounds of the 54-hole LIV Golf event at the International Golf Club in Bolton, Mass., a small town about 40 miles west of Boston.Protests and controversy about LIV Golf’s financial backing have dogged each of the series’ three previous events, which were held outside London, near Portland, Ore., and at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. A similar reaction may occur in Bolton, a town of about 5,600, which has made a designated area near a golf spectators’ parking lot available to protesters.Varner conceded that when his decision to commit to LIV Golf was announced on Tuesday, he was stunned by the negative comments on social media it engendered. Varner, a popular PGA Tour player and one of the few Black golfers in tour or major championship fields, said he took the time to read each of the derogatory remarks, even though he was cautioned not to.“I’m not ashamed of being Harold,” Varner said, then added: “But it was terrible. Who likes to be hated? I hate being hated. I’d rather not even be known than be hated.”But Varner, who earned $10.4 million in prize money on the PGA Tour, said he took LIV Golf’s upfront signing bonus — his payment has not been disclosed — to protect his family financially. Noting his modest upbringing in Gastonia, N.C., Varner said: “For a kid that grew up where I grew up, it was an opportunity for me to just make sure my kid never would be in that situation — ever — and that means the world to me.”Amid all the buzz and tumult the LIV Golf venture has created, one unequivocal reality has emerged about this summer’s disruption to golf’s status quo: There will be a lot more prize money distributed to virtually every top professional player. Late last month, the PGA Tour suddenly revealed that beginning next season the average purse for 12 of its existing events, plus an additional four tournaments yet to be named, would be $20 million. That’s a sizable jump in player earnings, and, not coincidentally, closely mimics the prize money available at the eight LIV Golf events this year.The PGA Tour also announced it was augmenting the Player Impact Program it began last year that paid 10 top players from a $40 million pool based on their popularity as measured by internet searches, general golf fan awareness, mentions in the media and broadcast exposure. The new program will now reward twice as many players from a bonus pool that has ballooned to $100 million.And finally, the tour plans to guarantee lower-level players $500,000 in annual earnings and a travel stipend for missed cuts at tournaments.Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who is ranked 19th in the world, also left the PGA Tour.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesIt is entirely conceivable, even probable, that had the PGA Tour implemented these changes a month before this year’s U.S. Open, the LIV Golf series might have largely remained the afterthought that most in golf expected it to be three months ago. Although, upfront payouts of $100 million, or even $200 million, which Mickelson reportedly received, may have changed the golf landscape regardless.As another LIV Golf event dawns, and the PGA Tour goes into what is typically its off-season, much is undecided, and there is intrigue about what will happen next. How could there not be? The sport is in the midst of an unprecedented showdown with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.But waiting on the sidelines are golf’s most influential power brokers, and they are the leaders of the four separate governing bodies overseeing the men’s major championships: the Masters Tournament, the P.G.A. Championship (which is not run by the PGA Tour), the U.S. Open and the British Open.The leaders of each of these entities have conspicuously avoided praising LIV Golf this year. Some have been downright dismissive and contemptuous of golf’s new tour. These groups may hold golf’s future in their hands, with the reserved, assiduously circumspect officials of the Augusta National Golf Club getting the first opportunity to make a profound statement for 2023.One thing is certain. The severe splintering of men’s golf may have been unforeseen back at the U.S. Open in June, but the brightly colored LIV Golf banners sprouting in another Boston suburb this week — they read, “Golf, but louder” — prove how much has changed in such a short time. More

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      Cameron Smith, Winner of This Year’s British Open, Joins LIV Golf

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      Smith’s defection had been expected, but Rory McIlroy tried to stave it off back in July.Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer and a player whose exceptional final-round putting carried him to this year’s British Open title, will join LIV Golf, the breakaway series financed with money from Saudi Arabia.Smith is expected to play in LIV’s next 54-hole, no-cut tournament, which will begin Friday in Bolton, Mass., west of Boston. Five other players — Anirban Lahiri, Marc Leishman, Joaquin Niemann, Cameron Tringale and Harold Varner III — will also join a LIV field for the first time, the series announced on Tuesday.The moves by the players were widely expected but still bruised the PGA Tour, which has spent months trying to devise ways to keep players in its establishment fold. Last week, Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, announced changes, including purses averaging $20 million at a dozen events next season, that executives hoped would better position the tour to compete with the allure of LIV, which has enticed players with more relaxed schedules and, in some instances, contracts reportedly worth at least $100 million.Smith, a 29-year-old from Australia who also won this year’s Players Championship, was a leading target for the series, which is underwritten by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The possibility of a Smith defection was such an open secret that a reporter asked Smith about it soon after he won the Open, where he shot an eight-under-par 64 on a Sunday to rally from a four-stroke deficit.“I just won the British Open, and you’re asking about that?” Smith said at a news conference then. “I think that’s pretty not that good.”A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesA new series. More