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    DP World Tour: Five Events That Stood Out

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    Here are five tournaments that stood out in 2024.Another year on the DP World Tour is about to go into the books, filled, as usual, with heroics and heartaches.Which leads to this week’s finale, the DP World Tour Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the 50 players who accumulated the most points will compete for the title.There will also be a winner — either Rory McIlroy, who has a big advantage, or Thriston Lawrence — in the Race to Dubai that will award 10 golfers a total of $6 million.Below are five events in the 2023-24 season that provided their share of suspense:Jan. 11-14: Dubai InvitationalDown the stretch, it was McIlroy’s tournament to win or lose.He lost.Up by a stroke on the 72nd hole at the Dubai Creek Resort, McIlroy of Northern Ireland found the water with his tee shot, leading to a bogey. Taking advantage was Tommy Fleetwood of England, who knocked in a 16-foot birdie putt for the victory.“I think I was very happy with the way I played today for the large majority of the round,” said Fleetwood, who prevailed by one over McIlroy and South Africa’s Lawrence.McIlroy was also on target for much of the day. He recorded three straight birdies on the back nine, but three-putted from two feet on 14 and made the costly error on 18.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Tennis, Turning a Backhand Into a Forehand

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      Experts say hitting what’s called an inside-out forehand to an opponent’s backhand gives a player an edge.The ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, features the best men’s tennis players in the world, who have some of the strongest backhands on the tour. And yet, these players are often succeeding by running around those backhands and getting into position to turn them into the more powerful forehand.Most points end in four shots or less, but when rallies reach that fifth shot, players need to seize an advantage. “Hunting for forehands is not about trying to end the point, but about controlling it and getting on offense as quickly as you can,” said the ESPN analyst Patrick McEnroe.Being the first player to turn a backhand into a forehand, called an inside-out forehand when it’s hit to your opponent’s backhand, is that edge, putting them on the defensive and opening up the opposite corner.“The forehand is the bigger weapon, and it’s easier to maneuver your opponent because you can create better angles,” added Michael Russell, who coaches Taylor Fritz, one of the eight entrants in Turin.Craig O’Shannessy pushed Novak Djokovic, who has one of the best backhands, to hit more forehands when he coached him during 2017-19.O’Shannessy, who focuses on statistics and patterns, has studies showing that forehands are, on average, about eight miles an hour faster than backhands and that between two-thirds and three-quarters of all winners are typically hit on forehands.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Importance of High-Pressure Tennis Tiebreakers

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      Experts say that players need to take their time to succeed. “The athlete who rushes during a tiebreak gets into trouble,” Pam Shriver says.The WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, brings together the year’s top players for one final showdown. Just because the tournament features only the game’s best doesn’t guarantee close sets — in the last two years, about as many sets have been decided 6-0 or 6-1 as they have 7-5 or 7-6.But it is success or failure in those 7-6 sets, decided by a seven-point tiebreaker, that can make or break a player’s season and their season finale.“The mind-set is the most important part of the tiebreaker,” said Pam Shriver, a Hall of Famer, ESPN analyst and coach for the 19th-ranked Donna Vekic. Shriver, who won 21 Grand Slams in doubles, said having someone by her side helped her remain calm and clear during tiebreakers. “When you take your time, things fall into place. The athlete who rushes during a tiebreak gets into trouble.”Iga Swiatek dominated Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-0 last year in the tournament’s final, and she is also the best in tiebreakers among the elite eight: In the last two years, Swiatek is 6-2 in tiebreakers against top 10 players, which may give her a critical advantage in this tournament. (The third-ranked Coco Gauff is 4-2 and may also have an edge.)“You need to be extra focused in tiebreaks, especially on the first point because you want to start well,” the sixth-ranked Jasmine Paolini said. (She’s 2-2 in tiebreakers versus top 10 players over the past two years.)Shriver says most players include tiebreakers at the end of practice, but many don’t emphasize how to cope in those situations. However, Paolini said she did not really practice for tiebreakers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rory McIlroy Crashed at the U.S. Open. Here’s How He Recovers.

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      Two performance psychologists explain the mental strategies that help push past blowing a lead at a major.LONDON — Rory McIlroy was hardly the first golf megastar to falter down the stretch of a major: see Arnold Palmer at the 1966 U.S. Open and Greg Norman at the 1996 Masters.But for all the illustrious company, blowing a lead is still misery. McIlroy had not missed a putt inside three feet all season on the PGA Tour, and yet, with a one-stroke lead and the U.S. Open on the line at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina last month, he missed a par putt from 2 feet 6 inches on the 16th hole. He then missed a putt on the 18th from 3 feet 9 inches.Victory went instead to Bryson DeChambeau after a great escape from a bunker on the final hole.McIlroy, still trying to end his decade-long major drought, could only stare desolately at the screen in the scorer’s room with his hands on his hips and then trudge to his courtesy car without further comment that day.#Pinehurt quickly became a hashtag on social media.“Yesterday was a tough day, probably the toughest I’ve had in my nearly 17 years as a professional golfer,” McIlroy posted on X the next day.Arnold Palmer at the 1966 U.S. Open where, like McIlroy, he blew a lead at the end of a major. Palmer never won another major after that loss.Bettmann/Getty ImagesHe has since withdrawn from the Travelers Championship to regroup and is set to return this week for the Genesis Scottish Open to defend his title. He will then play in the next major: the Open Championship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Look Back at 2023 in Golf: A Year of Drama

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      The PGA Tour is looking at LIV Golf, and the L.P.G.A. and Ladies European Tour are on the cusp of joining together.Golf is a sport where certain years stand out above others, and 2023 may prove to be one of those years. It’s a heady list.In 1860, Willie Park Sr. won the first British Open, which was held at Prestwick Golf Club, marking the debut of the oldest major tournament.In 1913, the amateur Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open, beating the two best English golfers of the time, and popularizing the sport in the United States.In 1930, Bobby Jones completed the first and only Grand Slam, winning the four majors of his day in one year.Babe Didrikson Zaharias became the first woman to make a cut on the PGA Tour in 1945, competing in the Phoenix Open and Tucson Open. She went on to dominate that decade of golf.In 1950 the L.P.G.A. was formed.In 1968, a group of professional golfers, led by Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, broke away from the Professional Golf Association of America to create the PGA Tour.Tiger Woods completed the Tiger Slam — winning all four men’s major championships consecutively over two seasons, from 2000-1.This year could prove pivotal for the men’s and women’s game, with both of the top tours looking at mergers.Rory McIlroy with fans at Oak Hill Country Club in May. McIlroy resigned from the PGA Tour board last month.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBrooks Koepka on day one of the LIV Golf Invitational in October. He was among the highest profile players to defect to LIV.Cliff Hawkins/Getty ImagesFor the PGA Tour, June 6 signifies a before and after in professional golf. That morning Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, announced a “framework agreement” for the PGA Tour to work with LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed golf league that he had spent much of the previous year disparaging.“I would ask any player that has left or any player that would ever consider leaving: Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?” Monahan had said a year earlier.It was one in a series of comments he and officials made connecting LIV, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (P.I.F.), with the country’s history of human rights abuses.But that day in June, in an about-face, there was Monahan sitting next to the fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, calling for cooperation.“There are only a handful of people who weren’t surprised given the past two years,” said Kevin Hopkins, vice president at Excel Sports Management. “Not knowing what this is going to lead to is going to be the next headline.”As shocking as this announcement was for golf fans, it was also a surprise to the PGA Tour’s membership, which was largely caught off guard.Suzann Pettersen, the captain of the European team, led her team in their fight for the Solheim Cup in Spain in September. The competition ended in a draw but, as hosts, the Europeans retained the cup.Bernat Armangue/Associated PressThe year in the women’s game was more positive — exciting major championships, the debut of a promising young star, a hotly contested Solheim Cup that ended in a draw between the two teams — but the women’s tour also has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it.After the L.P.G.A. and its equivalent across the Atlantic, the Ladies European Tour (L.E.T.), reached an agreement to merge, the L.E.T. vote to approve the merger was abruptly postponed. Here’s a look back at a roller coaster year.Behind the scenesThe PGA Tour-LIV announcement looms large for the sheer suddenness of the tour’s reversal and the way that it angered and alienated some of its top players, including Rory McIlroy, who had been one of Monahan’s staunchest allies. He has since resigned from the PGA Tour board.“My reaction was surprise, as I’m sure a lot of the players were taken back by it, by what happened,” Woods said last month at his Hero World Challenge. “So quickly without any input or any information about it, it was just thrown out there.”The move galvanized top players to push for control on the tour’s board. Woods, who now sits on the board, said players wanted to ensure that, going forward, “we were not going to be left out of the process like we were.”For his part, Monahan has expressed regret with how the announcement was made. “The rollout was a failure on my part,” he said at The New York Times DealBook Summit last month. “I’ve owned it, and I’ve continued to own it.”Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, surprised many in June, when he announced a “framework agreement” for the tour to work with LIV Golf.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesOn the other side, LIV Golf was given a boost, if not a lifeline. The league had been rolled out haphazardly. Its first tournaments in 2022 had been marred by problems, such as the lack of a television deal and team uniforms.The P.I.F. put hundreds of millions of dollars behind the new league, but after the initial wave of star defections to LIV — Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and the then-reigning British Open champion, Cameron Smith — attention shifted to poor attendance at events and a lack of a major media partner to broadcast the events.The June 6 announcement gave the fledging league relevance.“We went from being cast unfairly as outsiders in golf to our chairman sitting shoulder to shoulder with the commissioner of the PGA Tour,” said Gary Davidson, LIV Golf’s interim chief operating officer in 2023. “We always knew that LIV could coexist.”With the L.P.G.A. and L.E.T., their merger talks had been going smoothly. The two tours have been operating in a joint venture since 2020, a period when prize money rose on both tours.This year the two boards negotiated terms for a merger, with the L.P.G.A. effectively taking over the L.E.T. Whether it happens depends on a vote by the L.E.T. players.“The vote has been postponed by the L.E.T. board from its original Nov. 21 date as more time was needed to evaluate all relevant information received,” said Mollie Marcoux Samaan, the L.P.G.A. commissioner. “A new date for the vote has not yet been set. The L.P.G.A. board remains enthusiastic about the opportunity to bring our two organizations together.”Jon Rahm won the first major of the year, fending off Brooks Koepka to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in April.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesIn the spotlightBoth the women’s game and men’s game also provided compelling story lines on the course.The first men’s major, the Masters Tournament, came down to a duel between Jon Rahm, a stalwart of the PGA Tour, and Koepka, a multiple major champion who had left for LIV. Rahm prevailed, but in the next major, the PGA Championship, Koepka pulled away from the field to win his fifth major.LIV saw this as validation. “Competing in the Masters and then winning the PGA Championship was massive for us,” Davidson said. “It proved the competitiveness of LIV, that it could prepare the guys well for majors.”(On Thursday, LIV announced that Rahm would join its tour next year.)The five women’s major championships also provided excitement. Lilia Vu won the first and last of the majors, to rise to the No. 1 ranking and claim the player of the year title. Céline Boutier became the first French player to win her home country’s Amundi Evian Championship. And Allisen Corpuz, a young American in her second year on the tour, won the U.S. Women’s Open.Allisen Corpuz notched her first win on the L.P.G.A. Tour in July, at the U.S. Women’s Open in Pebble Beach, Calif.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThe L.P.G.A. also got a feel-good story with Rose Zhang, who had long been the No. 1-ranked amateur woman in the world. Zhang turned pro in June and won the first event she entered.“It’s been a whirlwind for her, but she’s done what people have expected her to do,” said Hopkins, who runs Excel Sports Management’s L.P.G.A. practice. “The L.P.G.A. is excited to have her as one of the stars.”Team competition was intense on both the men’s and the women’s sides, but in different ways: The Solheim Cup was close and exciting, while the men’s equivalent, the Ryder Cup, was a rout. Team Europe blew out the U.S. team, which succeeded only in preserving its 30-year losing streak in Europe.There is one wrinkle for future European teams, and that’s the partnership the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour have struck. The PGA Tour has effectively made DP World a feeder tour, granting membership to the top 10 players on its annual Race to Dubai rankings. This effectively culls the best players in Europe.With just weeks left in the year, there’s still the possibility of more drama. While all eyes are on whether the PGA Tour-LIV framework agreement gets signed by year end, questions remain whether the L.P.G.A. and L.E.T. merger will go through too. It’s a fitting end to a tumultuous year. More

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      DP World Tour Winner May Have Barely Played the Tour at All

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      This will happen this year at the DP World Tour Championship and the Race to Dubai.The DP World Tour will end its season at the championship in Dubai, which starts on Thursday, as it has done for more than a decade. But like the past several seasons, the winner of the Race to Dubai championship will be someone who has played sparingly on the tour itself. In fact, this may be its most anti-climactic finale yet.This stands in stark contrast to the PGA Tour, where its FedEx Cup series funnels golfers into playing as many events on that tour as possible to accumulate points.It wasn’t always this way. The Race to Dubai is an honor that dates well-before the FedEx Cup. It began in 1937 as the Order of Merit. Charles Whitcombe won the inaugural one. Subsequent winners are a who’s who of European golfers, including multiple winners like the Ryder Cup stalwarts Colin Montgomerie with eight and Seve Ballesteros with six.But this year is another in which the closing event feels like a showcase for stars who have been largely absent from the tour. Rory McIlroy, a four-time winner of the Race to Dubai, and Jon Rahm, who won it in 2019, are in first and second place, but after last weekend’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, no one can catch McIlroy.Of the 43 events on the tour, Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, right, has played nine; Jon Rahm of Spain, left, has played seven.Gregory Shamus/Getty ImagesAnd that makes the disconnect with the season-ending race even starker. The two players are ranked second and third in the world golf rankings. And they’re stalwarts of the European Ryder Cup team. But McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Rahm of Spain have hardly played this season on the DP World Tour. And while McIlroy is set to play in the event, he could skip it and still be crowned the winner for the fifth time.Of the 43 events on the tour, McIlroy has played nine and is in first place in the Race To Dubai; Rahm has played seven to sit in second and the drama has turned to whether they will repeat as champion of the tournament itself. In third place is Adrian Meronk of Poland, who has played 23 tournaments on the DP World Tour.Meronk is a lock to win another prize: full membership on the PGA Tour. This goes to the top 10 finishers in the Race to Dubai who are not already on the PGA Tour, which has higher purses and earns more points for the world golf rankings; it also means Meronk will probably, like McIlroy and Rahm, play more on the PGA Tour than on the DP World Tour next season.Welcome to the new abnormal of golf, in which European Tour champions barely play on the tour. How did we get here? It’s complicated.In the scrambled world of professional golf, with the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour working together to stave off the threat from LIV Golf, the new Saudi Arabia-backed league, new incentives abound. And they’re upending the existing order.While there is a tentative agreement with LIV to pause litigation between it and the tours, one of their big concerns is players being lured away with more lucrative LIV contracts. But at the heart of the current agreement between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour is a system for the highest-ranked players in Europe to play in the United States on the PGA Tour.The leaderboard for the Race to Dubai is the result of two factors: how certain events, like the four majors, are sanctioned by the two tours and thus earn more points; and the higher number of points awarded to other elevated events. Because dominant players like McIlroy and Rahm compete in events with stronger fields, they end up earning more points by playing well in fewer events.In McIlroy’s case, only four of his nine events that got credited toward the Race to Dubai were DP World Tour events; the others were on or sanctioned by the PGA Tour. With Rahm, it was fewer: only two of his seven tournaments.It’s not the first time this has happened. Last year, McIlroy won the Race to Dubai (and Rahm won the DP World Tour Championship) with a similar amount of play on the DP World Tour.In 2021, Collin Morikawa, a full member of the PGA Tour, became the first American to win the Race to Dubai. He also won the British Open, but only played in two other events outside the United States: the Scottish Open (which is also sanctioned by the PGA Tour) and the Omega Dubai Desert Classic. In neither event did he finish inside the top 50.By contrast, this year Meronk played the four majors and the other 19 events on the DP World. While he is third in the Race to Dubai, he is ranked only 46th in the world because he earned fewer points from the European events.Victor Hovland of Norway is ranked 14th in the Race to Dubai, but is the fourth-best player in the world rankings. Again, it’s the value of the points. He is credited with seven DP World Tour events, but all but one, the BMW PGA Championship, are also sanctioned by the PGA Tour.At its core, the list of contenders for the Race to Dubai is a mix of players who did well in DP World Tour events and will move up to the PGA Tour, and players who have played well at the majors and other co-sanctioned events. The result is a season-ending tournament and season-long prize that could be more confusing than climactic.Joost Luiten of the Netherlands is close to winning the opportunity to play more on the PGA Tour and thus play less on the DP World tour.Lorraine Osullivan/ReutersIn fact, the real drama may lie with the final player on the P.G.A. promotion list, Rasmus Hojgaard of Denmark, who jumped five spots into 16th place.That spot had been held until the last tournament by Joost Luiten of the Netherlands, who dropped five spots after last week and is now in 22nd place. Both Hojgaard and Luiten have played over 20 events each on the DP World Tour to get an opportunity to play more on the PGA Tour and thus less on the DP tour next season.On the flip side, current PGA Tour players who finish outside the top 125 on the money list get full membership on the DP World Tour, for numbers 126 to 200.When this was announced last month, David Howell, chairman of the DP World Tour’s Tournament Committee, categorized the demotion to that tour as a positive for players. “When we announced our strategic alliance with the PGA Tour in November 2021, one of the prime objectives was to give as many opportunities as possible to members of both tours,” he said. “This is another perfect example of how this is working.”An agent who represents players on the DP World Tour and LIV Golf said that elevating one group to the PGA Tour and demoting another group onto the DP World Tour was further dividing professional golf ranks. It has made it more difficult, the agent said, for many players to gain the world golf ranking points to get them into the majors and other marquee tournaments.“All these PGA Tour events sit way above the European Tour in world golf ranking points,” said the agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid the ramifications of speaking publicly about the Tour. “They had an argument that the depth on the PGA Tour was better than anywhere else, so how could you be top 100 on PGA Tour and 300th in the world. I get it. But that pushed the European Tour into a corner. It made it into this feeder tour.”Next year the format will change and be more like the FedEx Cup, where players qualify for an event and then the field shrinks with each tournament. So it will be 70 players at the Abu Dhabi Championship and 50 players at the final DP World Tour Championship in 2024.What it comes down to is getting the sport’s stars to play in those final European Tour events, regardless of how much they have played on the tour during the season.“The season-long narrative is for the die-hard golf geeks,” the agent said. “The average sports enthusiast just wants to see superstars. The commercial product lives and dies by it.” More

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      How Coco Gauff Can Beat Jelena Ostapenko in the U.S. Open Quarterfinals

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      Here’s what to know about the singles match between Gauff and Ostapenko, and Gauff’s return to the U.S. Open quarterfinals.Coco Gauff, a 19-year-old American who has had an outstanding summer, will take on Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open on Tuesday.The two have played twice before, with Ostapenko winning their most recent encounter, at the Australian Open in January. Ostapenko beat Gauff in straight sets in a fourth-round match. But in their first meeting, in 2019, Gauff defeated Ostapenko in three sets in the final of the Linz Open in Austria.Gauff, who is seeded sixth, has the advantage of playing in her home country’s Grand Slam tournament and the added confidence from winning the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., and the Western & Southern Open in Ohio in the past month. But Ostapenko, seeded 20th, is also on a tear: She eliminated Iga Swiatek, the defending champion and world No. 1, on Sunday night.Here’s what to know about the match.How did they get here?Gauff defeated Laura Siegemund, a tricky player from Germany, in the first round. Siegemund hit slices and drop shots, catching Gauff on her back foot, and won the first set. But Gauff won the match in three sets after playing more aggressively.Gauff also defeated Mirra Andreeva, a 16-year-old from Russia; Elise Mertens of Belgium; and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who recently returned to professional tennis after retiring in 2020.Ostapenko notably defeated Swiatek, who will lose her No. 1 ranking at the end of the Open, in a fourth-round match. Ostapenko is one of the few players who have beaten Swiatek consistently. Her win on Sunday was the fourth in a row against her.On her way to the quarterfinals, Ostapenko also defeated Jasmine Paolini of Italy, Elina Avanesyan of Russia and Bernarda Pera, who was born in Croatia but represents the United States. Each of those matches went three sets.Jelena Ostapenko’s aggressive game can sometimes work against her.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesBeware of Ostapenko’s aggression.Ostapenko’s aggressive game is built on playing fast and with a lot of power. She credited that playing style for her ability to consistently defeat Swiatek, who appreciates having more time to set up her points.Sometimes that aggressive game works against her, and she racks up unforced errors. She had 20 unforced errors in the match against Swiatek. Gauff recognizes that. On Sunday, she called Ostapenko a “striker,” but “hot or cold, to be honest.”For Ostapenko’s part, she’s trying to be more selective of when she goes for her shots.Keep an eye on Gauff’s net game.Gauff, who is one of the fastest players on the tour, is no stranger to powerful shots, having the ability to track down balls and to hit them back with the same power, or more. Gauff responds well to powerful shots from the baseline, waiting until she has an opening to rush the net and put away points with overheads, swing volleys and volleys.Gauff serves with precision, at times making it difficult for her opponents to put their rackets on the ball to return it well, as spectators saw in Gauff’s fourth-round match against Wozniacki.But it is well known that Gauff’s forehand has been her weaker shot, and while she has been working hard to improve it with her new coach, Brad Gilbert, if an opponent can force errors on that wing, it can make a win for Gauff that much more difficult.Gauff has been here before.This is Gauff’s second time in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open. She also made them last year, when she was defeated in straight sets by Caroline Garcia of France.While this is also the second time Ostapenko has been in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, she made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open this year and has made deeper runs in other Grand Slam tournaments. She was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 2018 and won the 2017 French Open.There is excitement for the American men and women right now, and the crowd will be in Gauff’s corner. At least one American man will make it to the semifinals this year because Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton are playing each other in one of the quarterfinals. Taylor Fritz, who is playing Novak Djokovic, could make it two.“It’s nice to just see the competitiveness between the countrymen and us all doing well,” Gauff said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s just really exciting tennis for America. I hope that fans are excited.”Sorana Cirstea or Karolina Muchova await.The winner of the match will play 30th-seeded Sorana Cirstea of Romania or 10th-seeded Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic, who are also playing on Tuesday. More

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      ‘Different Than What You Expect From a Los Angeles Golf Course’

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      For much of Collin Morikawa’s life, the Los Angeles Country Club was a mystery.The course, designed in 1921 by George C. Thomas Jr. with its North Course restored by the architect Gil Hanse in 2010, was off-limits to most — even Morikawa, a son of Southern California and one of its most promising golfers.But entering this week’s U.S. Open, he is one of a handful of professionals with meaningful experience at the club, which has not hosted a PGA Tour event since 1940 and has never been in the spotlight of a major tournament. Its most recent high-profile competition was the 2017 Walker Cup, an amateur team event played every two years. The United States won that year with a team that included Scottie Scheffler and Morikawa, who first got to play the course when he was a student at the University of California, Berkeley.“It’s demanding — it’s very different than what you expect from a Los Angeles golf course,” Morikawa said in an interview. “The grasses are very different. The West Coast is known for Kikuyu grass and very sticky poa annua greens, bumpy greens in the afternoon. That’s not what Los Angeles Country Club is.”Instead, players will confront a course of Bermuda grass, with bentgrass on greens that Morikawa sees as PGA Tour-like because of their slopes and designs. This year’s Open will include five par-3 holes for the first time since 1947, when Lew Worsham beat Sam Snead in an 18-hole playoff at St. Louis Country Club.Morikawa does not see that as a problem.“Just because there is a heavy focus on par-3s at L.A.C.C. doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a great championship golf course,” he said.No. 6Par 4, 330 yardsThe club’s first five holes pose challenges, but in Morikawa’s mind, it is not until No. 6 that the course offers a fearsome proposition of risk and reward. For the field, it will appear to be an eminently drivable par-4, even with a blind tee shot.But if the greens are as ferocious as the United States Golf Association hopes, good luck. The depth of the green demands perfect distance control, Morikawa said. The ideal landing zone is perhaps five yards in diameter and a bad bounce sends the ball toward the long rough.“Let’s just say it’s 295, 300 yards,” he said. “From that distance, no one is that accurate to hit every drive within a five-yard diameter.” Instead, he said he expects players to layup, often from somewhere between 215 and 240 yards, leaving enough space to the green to test their wedge games. (Morikawa said this week that his caddie had persuaded him to consider going for it instead of laying up.)“When you show up on six, you’re going to be thinking birdie,” he said. “But you’re going to see a lot of bogeys because of how difficult the strategy is going to be.”Nos. 6 and 8 — a par-5 hole measuring 547 yards — at Los Angeles, he said, can be like the second and third holes at Augusta National Golf Club, where players eagerly seek the low scores that are there for the taking.“You want to walk out under par, you have to play smart and you can’t be too aggressive,” he said.No. 9Par 3, 171 yardsFairly few ninth holes are par-3s — the last U.S. Open to have a par-3 on No. 9 was the 2017 edition at Erin Hills in Wisconsin — but the trek back toward the clubhouse includes one Morikawa has judged “deceiving.”A back pin might be merely 200 yards away, but Morikawa warned that the challenge comes from the slope of the green.“With fast greens, if you’re behind the hole, you’re going to be hoping for a two-putt par,” he said. Excessive aggression could very well land a player and his ball in the bunker and poised for a bogey.“For the most part, you’re going to be putting from the middle of the green,” Morikawa said. “You’re going to take four pars and walk out of there very, very happy.”No. 11Par 3, 290 yardsGet over the distraction, on a clear day at least, of the Los Angeles skyline, and face the downhill hole that is the course’s longest par-3. Thanks to its length, Morikawa figures it will be playing somewhere between 200 and 270 yards.“It’s going to be tricky because you have to land it in the right spot,” said Morikawa, who predicted that some in the field would see their tee shots land perhaps 15 yards short of the green and end up dealing with a 30- or 40-yard pitch shot.“If you miss it left, it’s going to run off,” he said of the hole, where the front of the green includes a slope that can fuel headaches if a player is too aggressive toward a back pin. “If you miss it right, it’s going to run off.”Even though the hole is formally a par-3, Morikawa predicted at least some high scores because of its length.No. 13Par 4, 507 yardsWhen Morikawa imagines a quintessential par-4 hole at a U.S. Open, he pictures No. 13: “Long, demanding. You’re going to have a long iron in, the tee box is miles away from the 12th green.”OK, maybe not miles, but it might feel like it after 12 holes of championship golf.And just about everyone — long hitters, short hitters, guys in between — is going to need to keep his tee shot to the left.“Long hitters who hit it right, it’s going to kick down the slope, right into the right rough,” said Morikawa, describing the perils for much of the modern Open field. In Los Angeles, the challenge with the right rough is that it all but forces the player to take a second shot with little visibility.A poor drive, Morikawa said, might require a 5-wood.He is expecting plenty of up-and-downs, and lag putt after lag putt, on a test that has plenty of angles along the way.“It’s a very long hole, but the green in regulation percentage is not going to be there,” he said.No. 14Par 5, 623 yardsThe lone par-5 hole on the back nine, No. 14 first demands that players decide whether they want to try to carry its right bunker. Even with the distances pros are logging off the tee, there will be only a handful who can carry the bunker and will also dare to try it, knowing that they need a drive of 310 yards or so.Edging toward the left, Morikawa said, will leave a player farther from the hole — and “it’s not the easiest layup because the fairways are going to be so narrow.” Being stuck in the rough for a third shot, he said, can be especially troublesome if a right pin is in play for the day because of how the green slopes.“No. 14 is going to require a lot of precision,” Morikawa said. “With 14, if you are a long hitter, you can go for it, push it up there, have a nice little wedge shot and make birdie.”There will be what Morikawa classifies as “stupid bogeys” since the hole is a par-5, ending a four-hole stretch where he senses the Open will not be won, but can be lost.“I think I’ll be pretty happy if I walk out of those holes even par throughout the week,” he said. More

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      The PGA Tour and LIV Golf Merger, Explained

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      The announced deal to dramatically change golf is far from complete.The PGA Tour, the world’s pre-eminent professional golf league, and LIV Golf, a Saudi-funded upstart whose emergence over the past year and a half has cleaved the sport in two, have agreed to join forces.The pact is complicated and incomplete, and numerous golfers hate it. They are directing their wrath at the architects of the deal. Let’s start from the beginning.What are the PGA Tour and LIV Golf?The PGA Tour holds tournaments nearly every weekend, mostly in the United States but also in other countries in North America, Europe and Asia, with prize pools worth millions of dollars. The tour has been the home to practically every male golfer you can name: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and so on.It has relationships with, but is separate from, the organizations that stage men’s golf’s four majors: the Masters Tournament, the P.G.A. Championship, the U.S. Open and the British Open. (The L.P.G.A., which runs the women’s tour, is separate.)LIV Golf began in late 2021 with the former PGA Tour player Greg Norman as its commissioner and billions of dollars in backing from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which is known as the Public Investment Fund. LIV lured several PGA Tour players, including the major champions Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, with massive purses and guaranteed payouts that far surpassed what they could earn on the established circuit.LIV promised a sharp break from golf’s fusty traditionalism, starting with its name, which, when pronounced, rhymes with “give” but is actually the Roman numeral for 54, the number of holes played in each tournament. LIV had music blaring at its events, looser dress codes and team competitions — and tournaments that lasted three days instead of four. Further, and of particular appeal to potential players, while the PGA Tour tournaments cut golfers with the worst scores after two rounds, LIV did not cut anyone.What was the relationship between the leagues before the deal to align?Acrimonious, to put it lightly. Players who joined LIV were forced to resign from the PGA Tour — and its European equivalent, the DP World Tour — under the threat of suspension and fines. LIV sued the PGA Tour, and the PGA Tour countersued, litigation that is technically continuing (though the deal is supposed to resolve it).PGA Tour supporters and other critics of LIV said the venture was simply an attempt by the Saudi government to distract attention from its human rights record, while LIV supporters said the PGA Tour was a monopoly that used inappropriate strong-arm tactics to protect its position in big-time sports.And yet now they are combining?Yasir al-Rumayyan, left, who is the governor of the Public Investment Fund and who oversees LIV, would chair the board of the new entity. Former President Donald J. Trump, middle, has hosted LIV tournaments on his courses.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIt seems so. The PGA Tour and LIV announced on Tuesday the creation of a new entity that would combine their assets, as well as those of the DP World Tour, and radically change golf’s governance.The PGA Tour would remain a nonprofit organization and would retain full control over how its tournaments are played. But all of the PGA Tour’s commercial business and rights — such as the extremely lucrative rights to televise its tournaments — would be owned by a new, yet unnamed, for-profit entity that is currently called “NewCo.” NewCo will also own LIV as well as the commercial and business rights of the DP World Tour.The board of directors for the new for-profit entity would be led by Yasir al-Rumayyan, who is the governor of the Public Investment Fund and also oversees LIV. Three other members of the board’s executive committee would be current members of the PGA Tour’s board, and the tour would appoint the majority of the board and hold a majority voting interest, effectively controlling it.When does this take effect?Not yet.First, the idea also has to be approved by the PGA Tour’s policy board, what it calls its board of directors, which includes some people who were left out of the secret negotiations for this deal in the spring.The policy board is made up of five independent directors, including Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne, who helped negotiate the deal. The board also includes five players: Patrick Cantlay, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati, Rory McIlroy and Webb Simpson.Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, said Tuesday that there was only a “framework agreement” and not a “definitive agreement,” with many details still to be decided. The definitive agreement needs a vote before it can go forward.And for the rest of 2023, all the tours will remain separate, and all their tournaments will continue as scheduled.And after that?Who knows? This is how Monahan answered questions on Tuesday about what golf might look like in the future.Will LIV continue to exist as a separate golf league? “I don’t want to make any statements or make any predictions.”Will LIV golfers go back to the PGA Tour and DP World Tour? “We will work cooperatively to establish a fair and objective process for any players who desire to reapply for membership with the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour,” Monahan wrote in a letter to players.Will PGA Tour players, many of whom spurned LIV and its huge paydays, receive compensation? Will LIV players somehow be forced to give up the money they were guaranteed? “I think those are all the serious conversations that we’re going to have,” Monahan told reporters.How do players feel about all of this?LIV players like Brooks Koepka seemed to take a victory lap.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesBroadly, LIV players seem to think they have gained a major victory, and they are probably right. They got their cake (huge paydays) and can eat it (a pathway to returning to the PGA Tour), too.Mickelson, the first major player to leave for LIV, tweeted that it was an “awesome day today.” Koepka took a jab at Brandel Chamblee, a former professional golfer and current television commentator, who has been vocally anti-LIV.Many PGA Tour players were less jubilant. They were blindsided by the news, learning of the agreement when the public did, and they did not seem to understand why the tour waged a legal war against LIV and a war of morality against Saudi money, only to invite the wolf into the henhouse.Monahan met with a group of players on Tuesday in Toronto at the Canadian Open, which was set to start in two days, and afterward told reporters it was “intense, certainly heated.”Johnson Wagner, a PGA Tour player, said on the Golf Channel that some players at the meeting called for Monahan’s resignation.“There were many moments where certain players were calling for new leadership of the PGA Tour, and even got a couple standing ovations,” he said. “I think the most powerful moment was when a player quoted Commissioner Monahan from the 3M Open in Minnesota last year when he said, ‘As long as I’m commissioner of the PGA Tour, no player that took LIV money will ever play the PGA Tour again.’”Wagner estimated that 90 percent of the players in the meeting were against the merger.On Wednesday morning, however, McIlroy, perhaps the most influential PGA Tour player not named Tiger Woods, said he was reluctantly in favor of the agreement. McIlroy said he had “come to terms” with Saudi money in golf. “Honestly, I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that this is, you know, this is what’s going to happen,” he said.Rory McIlroy is a member of the PGA Tour’s policy board, which must vote to approve the definitive agreement. McIlroy has been one of the most outspoken players against LIV.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesI see a photo of former President Trump up there. Is he involved in this?Yes, though not directly. The Trump Organization owns golf courses around the world, and Donald J. Trump has for years sought to host major tournaments on its properties. Those efforts suffered a setback after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as the golf establishment distanced itself from the former president. Most significantly, the P.G.A. of America pulled the 2022 P.G.A. Championship from the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.But Trump had cultivated unusually close ties to Saudi Arabia while president, and Saudi-backed LIV had no problem embracing him. Last year, two LIV events were held at Trump courses, and this year it will be three.Trump’s son Eric said that the agreement between LIV and the PGA Tour was a “wonderful thing for the game of golf” and that he expected tournaments to continue to be held at Trump-owned courses. He declined to comment on whether the Trump family played any role in bringing the two parties together.If the PGA Tour was so against LIV and Saudi money, what changed?Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, at the Players Championship in March. He said the ability to “take the competitor off of the board” while retaining control was a significant factor in the merger.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock“Listen, circumstances change, and they’ve been changing a lot over the last couple years,” Monahan said.Get it? No?“What changed? I looked at where we were at that point in time, and it was the right point in time to have a conversation,” Monahan said.Between the lines, Monahan made it sound like the agreement came down to money and competition, as it often does. To compete with LIV, the PGA Tour has enhanced purses, supported the DP World Tour financially and pursued extremely expensive litigation. “We’ve had to invest back in our business through our reserves,” Monahan said.He also said the ability to “take the competitor off of the board” while retaining control was significant.Can anybody else stop the deal from going through?The Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission or the European Commission could certainly try.For about a year, the Justice Department has been investigating the tight-knit relationship between the PGA Tour and other powerful entities in golf. Among its questions is whether the organizations have exerted improper influence over the Official World Golf Rankings, which determine players’ eligibility for certain events and can be an important factor in their success and income.As part of their deal, LIV and the PGA Tour agreed to drop their dueling lawsuits, but doing so would not necessarily change the Justice Department’s inquiry. If there were any illegal conduct by the PGA Tour, a merger would not prevent the PGA Tour from being punished for it.“The announcement of a merger doesn’t forgive past sins,” said Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration.The federal government, through the Justice Department and the F.T.C., also reviews more than 1,000 mergers for approval each year, and the European Commission reviews them for the European Union. Without a definitive agreement, it is not clear whether this might be the type of combination regulators could block or whether they would try to do so.Saudi Arabia seems to have grand sports ambitions. Will it always remain a junior partner to the PGA Tour in golf?As always, Saudi Arabia has the perfect vehicle to gain more control: money.The Public Investment Fund will invest “billions,” according to its governor, al-Rumayyan, into the new for-profit entity. It will also hold “the exclusive right to further invest in the new entity, including a right of first refusal on any capital that may be invested in the new entity, including into the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and DP World Tour,” according to the release announcing the agreement.If the Public Investment Fund invests more money, it will surely demand more board seats and greater voting rights, further tilting control of men’s professional golf toward the kingdom. More