DeChambeau, Bryson

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares149 Views

    PGA Tour and LIV Golf Seek to Drop Litigation Against Each Other

    by

    Although the tour’s deal with the Saudi wealth fund has not closed, the request to a federal judge was a milestone in golf’s surprise détente.The PGA Tour, LIV Golf and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund asked a federal judge in California on Friday to dismiss the litigation that catapulted golf’s economic and power structure into the American court system.The request to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be refiled, came less than two weeks after the tour and the wealth fund, which bankrolled LIV, announced a tentative agreement to form a partnership. Although the deal may not close for months and faces mounting scrutiny in Washington, Friday’s submission in Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., was a milestone in the abrupt détente between the rival circuits.Judge Beth Labson Freeman, who has been overseeing the case, is expected to approve the request, a cornerstone of the tentative agreement between the tour and the wealth fund. By abandoning the litigation, LIV, the PGA Tour and the wealth fund are limiting the potential for damaging revelations and surging legal bills, as well as closing off one avenue for recourse if the new alliance falls apart.Justice Department officials, who were already conducting an antitrust inquiry into men’s professional golf, are expected to review the deal closely and could even try to block it or compel changes to it. At least two Senate panels are demanding information about the planned transaction and its consequences, and the deal has not even secured the approval of the PGA Tour’s board.Much about the agreement itself also remains in flux, including the valuations of the assets of the tour, LIV and the DP World Tour, formerly the European Tour, that are to be housed inside the new for-profit venture. The tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, is expected to serve as the company’s chief executive, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund’s governor, is poised to be its chairman. The PGA Tour expects to hold a majority of the seats on the new company’s board, but the wealth fund will have extensive power over how it is bankrolled, assuring the Saudis of significant influence.Until June 6, when the deal was announced, the PGA Tour had warned against allowing Saudi money and influence to take hold in golf, fueling California litigation that had a costly, complicated life.The acrimonious proceedings began last August, when 11 LIV players, including the major tournament champions Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, brought a lawsuit that accused the tour of violating antitrust laws. LIV itself joined the case later that month.The tour also pursued its own claims against LIV, which it said had improperly interfered with existing contracts with players. The tour later received Judge Freeman’s approval to expand its case to include the wealth fund itself and al-Rumayyan, just one of the rulings that placed pressure on the Saudis and their allies, whose superior financial resources put the tour under immense strain.The tour, the wealth fund and LIV waged a ferocious battle over evidence collection in the case, and many filings in the case were redacted, but a federal magistrate judge concluded this year that the wealth fund was “the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight and operation of LIV,” undercutting its contention that it was a passive investor in golf.A trial had not been expected until at least next year.Hours before Friday’s filing from the tour and LIV, The New York Times filed a motion that asked the court to unseal records in the case. The Times cited a “substantial and legitimate public interest in these proceedings and their outcome” and suggested that the planned partnership could make concerns of competitive harm moot.“To the extent that competitive harm existed at the time of sealing, those justifications may not apply with the same force today — or upon completion of the parties’ anticipated merger,” The Times’s filing said. “Sealing is a decision that can and should be revisited as facts change and circumstances require.”It was not clear when the judge would rule on either of Friday’s motions. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Golf

      LIV Golf Wants to Talk About Sports. Donald Trump Still Looms.

      by

      It was only on Sunday evening that LIV Golf, the men’s league awash in billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, met its greatest athletic triumph to date when one of its headliners, Brooks Koepka, emphatically won the P.G.A. Championship.By Thursday morning, though, LIV’s road show had been reinfused with the political bent that has trailed the second-year circuit as it has convulsed professional golf: the loquacious, limelight-seizing presence of former President Donald J. Trump, who is hosting one of the league’s tournaments this weekend at a course northwest of Washington.Whether LIV can outrun Trump’s shadow, and whether it even wants to, could do much to shape how the league is perceived in the years ahead, particularly in the United States, where it has struggled to gain a meaningful foothold against the PGA Tour.But for now, besides major tournament winners like Koepka and Phil Mickelson who have joined the circuit, there is probably no figure beyond golf more publicly linked to LIV than Trump, who has repeatedly and enthusiastically cheered Saudi Arabia’s thunderous, flashy entrance into sports. At its events, he often seems like an eager M.C. whose role is at once decidedly conspicuous and deeply mysterious — neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events — as the league looks to make inroads in a hidebound sport.The former President Donald J. Trump played with Patrick Reed during a pro-am event Thursday.Trump talked to the news media throughout his round of golf.“They want to use my properties because they’re the best properties,” Trump said on Thursday, when he spent five hours appearing in a pro-am event with the LIV players Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed (and staging what amounted to a rolling news conference about politics and an infomercial about his property over 18 holes along the Potomac River).The Trump portfolio does indeed feature some exceptional courses, including the Washington-area location, which once held a Senior P.G.A. Championship, and LIV executives have said in the past that they were drawn to them because many top-caliber properties in the United States were not willing to host a circuit intended to rival the PGA Tour. But Trump’s persistent, growing place in LIV’s orbit also invites sustained skepticism of the motives and intentions of the league, which some critics see as a glossy way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its image.The former president is unbothered by the league’s patron, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and the kingdom’s budding place in professional golf, despite its record of human rights abuses. He is still casting aside objections from family members of Sept. 11 victims, some of whom believe Saudi Arabia played a role in the 2001 attacks, because, as he said Thursday, LIV tournaments are “great economic development.” He is openly admiring the millions and millions of dollars that the Saudis are raining down onto players and, of course, properties like his, even though he asserted Thursday that hosting tournaments amounts to “peanuts for me.” This year, LIV will travel to three of his properties, up from two in its inaugural season.He has remained steadfast in his loyalty even though a special counsel from the Justice Department, Jack Smith, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to LIV.In an interview as he walked between holes on Thursday, Trump described Smith’s aggressive approach as “retribution” because the Biden administration wants “to do something to take the spotlight off what’s taken place.” He said he did not know why his ties to LIV had drawn the special counsel’s scrutiny.Trump’s affection for LIV can be traced, at least in part, to years of friction with golf’s establishment.Graeme McDowell, right, who played with Trump Thursday is among the past major champions to have left the PGA Tour for LIV.Neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events on his courses.In 2016, the PGA Tour ended a longstanding relationship with Trump’s course in Doral, Fla., near Miami, because of what its then-commissioner described as “fundamentally a sponsorship issue.” And in 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the P.G.A. of America — which is separate from the PGA Tour — abandoned its plan to host its flagship men’s championship at a Trump property in New Jersey in 2022.Trump has not fared much better abroad. The R&A, which organizes the British Open, has signaled it does not intend to take the tournament back to Trump-controlled Turnberry, where LIV’s commissioner, Greg Norman, won one of his two Opens.LIV has embraced Trump, though, and in return gotten a former president’s imprimatur, along with bursts of news coverage for events that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. He brings prestige and power, diluted as both might be by the divisiveness in which he revels.“They have unlimited money and they love it,” he said Thursday, “and it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.”But for every day Trump appears at a LIV event, it is a day that LIV might as well write off as one in which it will not escape the pointed questions that it has spent a year trying to move past, or at least saying it wants to move past.It has been hard enough for the league, even on a day when Trump is not playing a round, not to have its players confronting questions about the morality of accepting millions in Saudi money.“We’re contracted to play golf,” Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner who finished in a tie for fourth at the P.G.A. Championship last weekend, said on Wednesday. “I think the most important part is to provide great entertainment wherever possible on whatever platform that is, whatever platform that provides it. When you can talk about ethics, that’s people’s perception. I completely disagree with it, but everybody has the right to their own opinion, and I’d say, was it worth it? Absolutely.”Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But DeChambeau hardly has the same megaphone or presence as a former occupant of the Oval Office. When Trump appears at a LIV event, even winners of the Masters Tournament or the U.S. Open are relegated to supporting actors.LIV executives have generally brushed aside questions about whether the former president is good for business, or merely essential for it, given their troubles landing quality venues. They seem convinced that, at some point, sports will overtake politics, which might be wishful thinking since Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But LIV’s strategy still involves a gamble that the presence of one of the nation’s most polarizing figures will not scare off even more of the sponsorship contracts and television rights that are already proving hard to come by for the operation. And Trump can just as easily alienate prospective fans as he can entice them.Trump himself insists that LIV craves him at its events and that he is not a distraction from the league’s proclaimed goal of growing the sport and giving it doses of needed energy.“They wanted me to be here, and I said sure,” said Trump, who said that LIV’s contracts with his properties did not require his appearances in events like the pro-am.Perhaps all of that is true. But as long as it is, LIV will linger in the political thicket, no matter how well Koepka plays on the game’s biggest stages. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      Bryson DeChambeau Rediscovers His Groove at the P.G.A. Championship

      by

      It’s only one round, but DeChambeau, the once hard-swinging golfer who has struggled of late, shot a four-under-par 66 at Oak Hill Country Club.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Bryson DeChambeau walked onto his final green in the first round of the 2023 P.G.A. Championship on Thursday and the modest gallery awaiting him remained hushed. DeChambeau was leading the event and on his way to a sterling 18-hole score, his best at an American major championship in three years. And yet, the roughly 200 silent fans near the green stared at him as they would an exhibit in a museum.This is the place DeChambeau has come to inhabit in golf. Even at the conclusion of a sparkling performance, fans were curious but nonetheless wary about awarding him too much affection.Three years ago, he was feted and cheered as the game’s next revolutionary, one who would inspire a new generation to swing as hard as possible on every shot. It was the way to his record-setting 2020 U.S. Open victory. He promoted an intense workout regimen and a radical diet. His following was young and raucous.Then came a long series of uninspiring results, a defection from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf and more ineffective play that made him a relative afterthought. Once ranked fourth in the world, DeChambeau began Thursday ranked 214th.But the DeChambeau who attacked the demanding East Course at Oak Hill Country Club in the first round was wholly different, for a day at least. He was still powerful off the tee, often out-driving his playing companions Jason Day and Keegan Bradley by 40 yards. Stepping onto his last green, he was leading the tournament on a day when most players were floundering and cursing under their breath.In pursuit of long-distance drives, DeChambeau bulked up, once eating about 5,000 calories per day before abandoning that strategy.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFacing a 50-foot uphill birdie putt, DeChambeau knocked his golf ball to within a few inches of the hole. The fans watching finally relented and applauded politely.One spectator who appeared to be in his 50s — not the usual demographic for a Bryson die-hard — shouted, “Come on, Bryson! Come on buddy!”With a four-under-par 66, DeChambeau was second by the time play was suspended because of darkness with many players, including the leader Eric Cole, not having finished their rounds. He left the grounds smiling and with a hop in his step that seemed more than a reflection of the roughly 35 pounds he has shed from his once bulky frame.He stopped to sign a child’s golf ball, fist bumped a handful of fans and jogged off to the scoring tent and then lengthy meetings with reporters and television interviewers.All the while, DeChambeau grinned, even as he said repeatedly: “It’s been a tough last four or five years.”It is a quizzical statement for a golfer who since 2018 has had a runaway victory at the U.S. Open, six wins on the PGA Tour and 31 top-10 finishes. In that stretch, he earned more than $23 million on the PGA Tour.But DeChambeau would explain his view of what has transpired since 2018.For starters, he had been consuming about 5,000 calories per day and “eating lots of stuff that inflames your body.” He is now eating about 2,900 calories per day.He also had a hand injury, which he said has healed.“Obviously having the hand injury was no fun and then learning to play golf again with a new hand,” DeChambeau said.DeChambeau was once viewed as a potential revolutionary in the game by fans.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThere were dark days as his slump and ailments continued.“The emotions have definitely fluctuated pretty high and pretty low — thinking I have something and it fails and going back and forth,” he said. “It’s humbling.”He continued: “I will say that there have been times where it’s like, man, I don’t know whether this is worth all of it.”DeChambeau was notorious for hitting balls on practice ranges at PGA Tour events well past sunset, swatting away under lights that illuminated only him. He now seems ambivalent about putting in those long hours.“You see me out there on the range,” he said. “That’s something I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be out there all night.”But DeChambeau feels like he’s now discovered something, or in his words Thursday: “Trending in the right direction.”Asked if he was closer to the end of his journey to find, or regain, his swing, he answered: “The end of it, for sure. I want to be just stable now. I’m tired of changing, of trying different things.”But what of the predictions of him maybe being able to blast 400-yard drives? DeChambeau shook his head.“Yeah, I could I hit it a little further,” he said. “Could I try and get a little stronger? Sure. But I’m not going to go full force. It was a fun experiment, but I definitely want to play some good golf now.”“Golf is a weird animal,” DeChambeau said on Thursday. “But I feel like I’m trending in the right direction.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd, as he said, he is still plenty long enough.One good round at Oak Hill does not reverse many months of ineffectual play, but what next for DeChambeau?“Golf is a weird animal,” he replied. “But I feel like I’m trending in the right direction. Of course, playing like I did today makes it easier to feel that way.”DeChambeau was still smiling. He smiled easily and often two and three years ago, too.“Maybe it could all change tomorrow; it’s golf,” he said. “But I don’t think it will.” More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      2023 Masters: Rory McIlroy Looks to Make Up Ground as First Round Begins

      by

      Plus, N.C.A.A. champions will be invited to play the Masters, and Larry Mize and Sandy Lyle are preparing to say farewell to the tournament.AUGUSTA, Ga. — In the last five years, Rory McIlroy has spent 27 weeks ranked as the world’s best men’s golfer. He has earned nine PGA Tour victories, including at the Tour Championship and the Players Championship. He was on a Ryder Cup-winning team. In the final round of last year’s Masters Tournament, he carded an eight-under-par 64.But the last time he shot par or better in a Masters first round? April 5, 2018.2019: 73.2020: 75.2021: 76.2022: 73.At least the trend line is improving? It stands to reason that if McIlroy is to become the sixth modern player to achieve the career Grand Slam, he is very likely going to have to refigure out Thursdays at Augusta National Golf Club. (When he made his Masters debut in 2009, he shot a first-round par 72.)“It’s been tentative starts, not putting my foot on the gas early enough,” McIlroy said this week. “I’ve had a couple of bad nine holes that have sort of thrown me out of the tournament at times. So it’s sort of just like I’ve got all the ingredients to make the pie. It’s just putting all those ingredients in and setting the oven to the right temperature and letting it all sort of come to fruition. But I know that I’ve got everything there.”McIlroy is keenly aware that Augusta National, where he has lately played more than 80 holes of practice, is “a very difficult course to chase on.”“You start to fire at pins and short-siding yourself and you’re missing in the wrong spots, it’s hard to make up a lot of ground,” he said.Dottie Pepper, the CBS commentator and a two-time winner of women’s major championships, said she thought McIlroy had made some of the shifts necessary to contend, like switching putters and drivers. But Thursday, she said, may well reveal if it will be enough.“He has played himself out of the tournament year after year on Thursday, and all of a sudden, gets it in gear and it’s a gear too late,” she said. If he can sort out the first round, she predicted, “it could be a pretty spectacular movie come Saturday and Sunday.”McIlroy, who will play with Sam Burns and Tom Kim for the first two rounds, is scheduled to tee off at 1:48 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.A new pathway into the Masters: the N.C.A.A. titleGordon Sargent, the reigning Division I men’s individual champion, was invited to this year’s field before Augusta National announced that N.C.A.A. title winners would be automatically invited next year.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesAugusta National announced the entry criteria for the 2024 Masters, and although the standards did not change much for professionals, America’s male college golfers have a new incentive to win the N.C.A.A.’s Division I individual title: It now comes with a Masters invitation.“That is a major amateur championship, and I thought it was time that we acknowledged it,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said of the N.C.A.A. competition. Gordon Sargent, a sophomore from Vanderbilt University who is the reigning Division I champion, is in the 88-man field this week, having received an invitation from tournament organizers before the new policy was announced.“It really goes back to our roots, and that is that Bobby Jones was the greatest amateur of all time,” Ridley said, speaking broadly about the place of amateurs at Augusta National. “He believed in the importance of amateurs in the Masters. I had the personal experience of enjoying that on three different occasions, and I can tell you that it changed my life.”Past N.C.A.A. individual champions include Bryson DeChambeau, Luke Donald, Max Homa, Phil Mickelson, Curtis Strange and Tiger Woods.Sargent, who is from Birmingham, Ala., has reveled in the experience, even if he has been mistaken around Augusta National for, say, a participant in the youth Drive, Chip and Putt competition.“I’m walking around, and no one is with me,” Sargent said. “I don’t even know if I had my badge with me — I think I probably still had it in the car or something. I was like, ‘Can I have player dining?’ They’re like, I don’t know, player?”He eventually made it inside.“It was pretty funny,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Where are your parents? Like, did they send you by yourself?’ I was like, ‘No, they’re coming in. I can travel by myself sometimes.’”Ridley also said Wednesday that the winner of the N.C.A.A.’s individual women’s championship will be invited to play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Stanford’s Rose Zhang, the reigning Division I champion, won that tournament over the weekend.Two past champions are ending their Augusta National careers.Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters victor, is the only Augusta, Ga., native to win the tournament.David Cannon/Getty ImagesRidley, ever diplomatic, did not identify Larry Mize as a reason Greg Norman was not invited to this year’s Masters. But it was Mize who hit a brilliant chip — from 140 feet away — at No. 11 in 1987, making Norman a Masters runner-up for a second straight year.Mize, 64, has played every Masters since, and this one will be his last. It will be also be the final Masters for Sandy Lyle, 65, who won in 1988.“Club head speed lowers down without you even trying sometimes, and then the course is getting longer and I’m getting shorter,” Lyle said. “Not a good combination. The young ones are so good these days that I can’t really compete against that.”Mize, the only Augusta native ever to win the Masters, has spent part of the week doling out counsel to newcomers.“Trust your talent, believe in it, and just let it go,” said Mize, who added, “You’ve got to respect this golf course, but you can’t fear it. You can’t play in fear out there, or it’s going to be a long week.”Mize, Lyle suggested, struggled to get through his remarks at Tuesday’s private dinner for past champions. He had figured Mize would be at ease. He was not.“He clammed up like a clam shell,” Lyle said. “He just stood up there and had a glass of water and another glass of water.” As it turns out, Lyle said, “He’s tough enough to win a Masters, but when it comes to that kind of emotional thing, we’ve all got feelings.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Golf

      For a Humbled Bryson DeChambeau, Augusta National Looms Long

      by

      The major champion used scientific research to engineer prodigious drives, but enters the Masters knowing a return to the top of the leaderboards will take workshopping, too.AUGUSTA, Ga. — It was only two years ago that Bryson DeChambeau arrived at the Masters Tournament as the reigning U.S. Open champion, having earned that title by bludgeoning Winged Foot Golf Club in New York with prodigious 350-yard drives to win by six strokes. He was the new face of golf and promised to shape the sport in his image, which at the time was a musclebound 240-pounder who had gained 45 pounds and swung so hard it almost hurt to watch.DeChambeau, a physics major in college at Southern Methodist, preached that he had used scientific research to construct a more powerful swing and would remake the paradigm of the modern golfer: Someday 400-yard drives would be routine and render many traditional courses obsolete. He predicted that his imposing length off the tee would make the timeless Augusta National Golf Club play like a par 67 rather than its par 72 on the scorecard.His brash, swashbuckling style energized golf and the fervent, cheering galleries that followed him dwarfed those of every other golfer (Tiger Woods was injured). His fan group also skewed noticeably younger, a demographic shift welcomed by the stewards of the game. DeChambeau reveled in the role of pied piper and pledged that his golf revolution was in a nascent stage.“It won’t stop; there’s just no way it will stop,” DeChambeau said.DeChambeau practicing during the 2021 Masters, when he finished tied for 46th place.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, in a final practice session before his fifth consecutive Masters, DeChambeau sauntered up the eighth fairway alone. Trailing him by 50 yards was his caddie; he had no playing partners. There did not appear to be a single fan accompanying him. As he approached a grandstand with about 1,000 seats overlooking the eighth green, there were 21 people witnessing his arrival. No one offered applause.It was as if those looking down at him were not sure who he was, which might be understandable since DeChambeau is now one to two shirt sizes smaller and maybe 30 pounds lighter — possibly more. Late last year, he admitted he lost 20 pounds in one month alone by eschewing his former protein shake, overeating diet.Whatever the cause, and the golf community has multiple theories, in the last two years DeChambeau has become a shell of his former self in more ways than one. At the 2021 Masters, he finished tied for 46th with three rounds of 75 or higher. In 2022, he missed the cut with an eight-over par 80 in the second round. So much for Augusta playing like a par 67. At the 2021 U.S. Open, he led with nine holes remaining and then collapsed as he shot eight over par to finish the tournament.He tied for eighth in last year’s British Open but other than that his highest finish in a major championship since his runaway victory at the 2020 U.S. Open has been a tie for 26th.Asked if he could win this week, DeChambeau answered: “I don’t come here to finish second, but I will say that I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can get there.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesBefore joining the LIV Golf circuit last June, he had missed the cut in four of his five PGA Tour events. In LIV competitions since, he has never finished higher than 10th. Wrist surgery contributed to his woes, as did a bout of vertigo later corrected with a sinus surgery. In November, his father, Jon, who had taught his son to play golf, died at 63.But earlier this week, a grinning DeChambeau arrived at Augusta National and professed himself healthier than he has been in years. He advised anyone trying to get stronger to see a doctor for a blood test that would measure food sensitivity because DeChambeau believes he was eating foods that caused inflammation and injury.The highs and lows of his golf game, he said, have taught him that “the only thing consistent in life is inconsistency.” It is the kind of quizzical thing DeChambeau has been saying since he stamped himself as a rising star in the sport as the N.C.A.A. Division I individual champion and U.S. Amateur champion in 2015.As for shortening Augusta National to a par 67 because of his length off the tee — and then shooting eight-over par in his last Masters round — DeChambeau did not admit to any contrition for the comment.“I don’t think I regret anything,” he said, adding: “Because of that statement people think I don’t have respect for the course. Are you kidding me?”He continued: “With the distance I was hitting it, I thought there was a possibility. I learn from all of my mistakes.”DeChambeau walked to the first tee during a practice round at this year’s Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHe has clearly tempered his expectations. Asked if he could win this week, he answered: “I don’t come here to finish second, but I will say that I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can get there.”When DeChambeau had completed his practice round after nine holes, he departed the last hole in silence, despite the green being surrounded by a few hundred fans. He stopped at one point when a few fans asked for his autograph. One in the group was Matthew Fehr, 16, of Alamo, Calif., who wanted DeChambeau to sign the cover of Golf Magazine from March 2021.Fehr collects athletes’ autographs and has had DeChambeau sign for him three times before, all during the height of the golfer’s popularity.Asked to assess what he thought had gone wrong for DeChambeau in the last few years, Fehr said: “It was cool to see him hit the ball that far and he definitely got the fans’ attention. But I don’t think what he was doing — the workout regime and the diet — was sustainable. Or healthy.”Fehr added: “You know, in athletics there are checks and balances.”DeChambeau’s Wednesday practice round drew little fanfare.Doug Mills/The New York Times More

    • 163 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      PGA Tour Seeks to Add Saudi Wealth Fund to Lawsuit Over LIV Golf

      by

      A federal judge will decide whether one of the tour’s leading avenues to investigate and challenge a new rival can be expanded.The PGA Tour intensified its legal fight against LIV Golf on Tuesday, when it asked a federal judge in California to let it add Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to a lawsuit that has become one of its principal ways to investigate — and try to undercut — the circuit that has assaulted the tour’s customary dominance.The request, filed in the Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., where LIV and the PGA Tour have argued for months over matters like antitrust law and contract interference, came as the two sides braced for a ruling about whether tour lawyers might depose Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund’s governor. The fund, formally known as the Public Investment Fund, effectively owns most of LIV.But with a judge’s decision pending and potentially months of appeals ahead, the tour sought another way to examine and retaliate against Riyadh’s entry into men’s professional golf. In Tuesday’s filing, the tour also asked to add al-Rumayyan to its suit.“Documents produced by LIV reveal that P.I.F. and Mr. al-Rumayyan were instrumental in inducing players to breach their tour contracts,” the tour told the judge Tuesday, when it complained that the wealth fund and its leader had been “exercising near absolute authority” over the circuit.The wealth fund has previously rejected the tour’s accusations that it and al-Rumayyan dominate LIV, which has used condensed schedules and enormous contracts to entice players such as Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio García, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith to leave the PGA Tour for the league. LIV, which announced a decidedly modest American television rights deal last week, is expected to begin its 14-stop 2023 season next month in Mexico.Phil Mickelson, left, with al-Rumayyan during LIV Golf’s inaugural tournament last year at Centurion Golf Club near London.Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockJudge Beth Labson Freeman will consider the tour’s request and weigh factors such as whether the tour acted with sufficient haste to amend its lawsuit and whether its request is in good faith and not a mere stalling tactic.A Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Golf

      How Bryson DeChambeau Saved Long Drive Golf

      by

      The sport is gaining fans among the public and professional golfers, many of whom have adopted its techniques for their own games.In August 2021, long drive was on the brink of collapse. The niche sport — in which competitors drive golf balls as far as humanly possible, often more than 400 yards — had endured a difficult year, disrupted by the pandemic, and registrations for the world long drive championship were dismal.That’s when Bryson DeChambeau, the winner of the 2020 U.S. Open and a member of the 2018 and 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup teams, entered the competition, sparking a surge in interest and dozens of new entries.“He saved us, that’s for sure,” Kyle Berkshire, a two-time world long drive champion, said.DeChambeau’s participation was not a total shock: In recent years, more and more established pros, increasingly obsessed with driving distance, have become unabashed fans of long drive, with PGA Tour winners like Justin Thomas, Tony Finau and Cameron Champ expressing support. Berkshire has become a go-to training partner and sounding board for many of these pros, sharing tips on swing technique, stretching, fitness routine and more.“Back when I was in college, everyone thought the long drive guys were the clowns of the golf world,” Berkshire said. “That whole perception is changing.”DeChambeau has played a major role in that, and after finishing seventh in the 2021 competition, he’ll be back for this year’s world championship, which begins Tuesday.DeChambeau made headlines in 2020 by bulking up and drastically changing his swing, increasing his average driving distance by nearly 20 yards to lead the PGA Tour. He ultimately won that year’s U.S. Open, and he has not been shy about crediting long drive — particularly its emphasis on swing speed — with much of his success.“I actually watched the 2019 world long drive championship, and that’s what inspired me and got me thinking,” DeChambeau said in a recent phone interview. “These guys were swinging the golf club 40 or 50 miles faster than me, so I thought, what if I could add just 15 percent to my swing speed and use that on tour? That’s how it started, and then I got addicted to hitting it farther and farther.”With the help of Berkshire and other long drivers, DeChambeau adopted a common long drive practice method: overspeed training, in which competitors swing the driver as hard as possible, with no regard for accuracy, in the hopes that it will also improve the speed of their more typical, controlled swings.The method worked incredibly well for DeChambeau — so much so that now, he and Berkshire said, it has become a standard training routine for many professional golfers.“It’s sort of a new revolution,” Berkshire said. “At this point, it’s almost required for professional golfers, since everyone is doing it.”According to Mark Broadie, a Columbia University professor and golf researcher who helped coach DeChambeau in 2020, the embrace of long drive within the golf world is a logical next step. Years ago, Broadie invented the “strokes gained” metric, which analyzes the impact of every shot throughout a round of golf in relation to the rest of the field. His analysis ultimately found that even marginal gains in driving distance could have a major effect on scores.“It’s true for all players: If you drive it 20 yards longer, even with a little less accuracy, you can gain a stroke per round,” Broadie said. “So it feels like a natural evolution for long drive to be more accepted. If you want to drive the ball as far as possible, then you clearly want to talk to the long drivers, the guys who have optimized that throughout their careers.”Long drive has existed, in some form or another, since 1949, when a driving competition was held in conjunction with that year’s P.G.A. Championship. A more formal long drive world championship would form in 1976, and various professional leagues have taken shape since the 1990s.One of the most recent iterations of a long drive league — the World Long Drive Association, sponsored by Golf Channel — essentially disbanded in 2020 after canceling its season because of the pandemic. In its wake came a spiritual successor, the Professional Long Drivers Association, which has hosted a number of tournaments, including the 2021 world long drive championship.While the association’s administrators are happy to be gaining acclaim in golf circles, they are also hopeful it will translate into mainstream acceptance.“This year, we’re getting a really big response from players wanting to compete, and more fans are coming out to watch our events,” said Bobby Peterson, the association’s managing partner and majority owner. A former long drive competitor, Peterson has been a part of the sport since 1992, and he said there had never been as much enthusiasm surrounding it as there is this year, including interest from possible corporate partners. “This isn’t just hyperbole,” Berkshire said. “Based on the talks I’ve been involved in, this sport is in the best position it’s ever been in.”Long drive’s recent ascent comes at a time when golf is reckoning with a major disruption in the form of the LIV Golf Series, whose major shareholder is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. In its first season, LIV Golf poached some high-profile golfers from the PGA Tour, including DeChambeau, and implemented innovations aimed at enhancing the fan experience and changing how viewers watch golf, including shorter tournament structures and a team format.David Carter, a sports business professor at the University of Southern California, said long drive could ultimately be an intriguing acquisition or partner with either the PGA Tour or LIV Golf, as both look to add content in the years to come.“It’s all about this next generation of consumer: younger people who want short-form, digestible content,” Carter said. “Something like long drive could be curated in a lot of different ways, whether online, through social media, or in conjunction with tournaments.”As long drivers prepared for this year’s world championship, Berkshire was grateful for DeChambeau’s continued support. He said he nearly had to pinch himself when he thought of how far long drive had come in such a short time.“Just a year ago, I had never seen a sport in such a bad position,” Berkshire said. “Now, I’ve never seen one poised for such a bright future. It’s just an exciting time all around.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      LIV Golfers, Paid Upfront, Giggle Their Way Around Trump Bedminster

      by

      Henrik Stenson won the third event on the LIV Golf tour, where nine-figure signing bonuses for top players guaranteed a carefree vibe.BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Brooks Koepka, the four-time major golf champion, was riding in a golf cart Saturday with his wife, Jena Sims, sitting on his lap, both laughing as the cart headed for the golf course.It was a nice snapshot of summer in New Jersey.But what set this scene apart was the fact that Koepka was roughly two minutes away from teeing off in the second round of the LIV Golf event at Trump Bedminster Golf Club. Typically, the buildup to the first shot at a professional golf tournament is tense, anxious and pressure-filled. After all, a seven-figure payday is on the line.The lighthearted Koepka-Sims cart ride, while harmless fun, underscored the impact of guaranteed nine-figure contracts earned by top players on the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour. Koepka reportedly received more than $100 million to join the breakaway circuit.No wonder he and his wife were giggling.Patrick Reed teed off on the first hole on Saturday.As LIV Golf completed its third event this year on Sunday, there was an unmistakable carefree air to the undertaking, a sense that everybody had already gotten their money. That’s because dozens had, and even the player who finished last was assured a $120,000 payout (with the travel and lodging expenses for top players reimbursed).Henrik Stenson won the tournament and earned $4 million.Still, for all the focus on the sumptuous prize money, the LIV Golf experience has been illuminating and edifying for professional golf in other less avaricious ways. The vibe from Friday to Sunday in northwestern New Jersey was decidedly younger, less stuffy and clearly more open to experimentation than on the established PGA Tour. That meant blaring high-energy music even as golfers tried to execute devilish putts or challenging chips. The Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)” serenaded Dustin Johnson ($125 million upfront payment) at a high volume as he teed off on the first tee Sunday.His shot landed in a bunker.But many fans felt energized in the environment.“You go to a traditional golf tournament and they’re constantly telling you to shut up,” Patrick Shields, who lives in Hackensack, N.J., said next to the 16th tee. “It is a sporting event, right?”Golf carts filled with players, caddies and family members headed to each of the 18 tees for a shotgun start on Saturday.LIV Golf on-course volunteers, however, did carry crowd control placards meant to quiet fans, as is customary on the PGA Tour, too. The placards, held overhead, read, “Zip it,” or “Shhhh.”Although, just as relevant, the volunteers never had to deal with sizable crowds. The attendance for Sunday’s final round was substantially improved from the meager gatherings that turned out for the first two rounds — often there had been only about 30 people surrounding a green — but the total number of fans on the grounds Sunday was no more than several thousand.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      LIV Golf Comes to Bedminster, and Trump Plays Host, and 18 Holes

      by

      The former president’s barge-ahead style and whim for scooping up shots too hard to make wouldn’t fly on the LIV Golf series or the PGA Tour.BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Walking alongside Donald Trump as he plays golf is a lot like watching his presidency: He tells you how well he’s doing, mistakes are disregarded and the one constant is an endless stream of group photos with Trump blithely flashing a toothy grin and a thumbs up.It was as entertaining, revealing and inexplicable as it sounds.On Thursday, Trump was a contestant in the pro-am tournament on the eve of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf event he is hosting this weekend at the lavish golf course he built in northwestern New Jersey. The intent of the outing was to team some celebrities and everyday golfers with the professionals, and Trump was, naturally, in the featured first grouping of the day.While Trump played a plethora of golf rounds as president, other than his guests, few were able to witness his golf game during his four years in the White House. The news media was kept at a removed distance. But on Thursday, nearly 50 media members credentialed for the tournament — as well as some event officials — would accompany Trump on foot for 18 holes.Trump’s golfing party, which included security, drove in a dozen golf carts, generally two to a cart. But there was one cart predominantly occupied by a single person, and it was the only ex-president on the property at the wheel.Trump was grouped with Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau in the pro-am.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor the pro-am, Trump was grouped with two of the best players to defect to the rival LIV Golf circuit from the PGA Tour: Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, who have won three major championships between them.About 15 minutes late for his 10 a.m. tee time, Trump stepped onto the first tee dressed in a white shirt and black pants and sweating profusely under his signature MAGA hat. He looked pale. To be fair, at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, which has little shade, no one walking the grounds on a humid day with temperatures in the mid-90s was comfortable.Stepping onto the tee, Trump quickly became the focal point of more than a handful of photos. He would organize the lineup of the people in the picture, often giving instructions on who should stand where, like a concierge of photo ops.Finally, it was time to start the round, and Trump’s opening drive bounded into the left rough. But it was a respectable distance from the tee for a 76-year-old, roughly 220 yards.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More