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      On Second Thought, St. Andrews Steps Back From Remodel by Swilcan Bridge

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      Want a patio-like surface by a bridge that’s perhaps more than 700 years old? St. Andrews did, but many others most definitely did not.St. Andrews Links — the stately sporting refuge in Scotland that has outlasted major champions, monarchs and well-to-do duffers — caved Monday and abandoned plans for a patio-like surface by the Swilcan Bridge.Few locales in golf invite quite so many pilgrimages as the stone bridge, which crosses a burn on the Old Course’s 18th hole and is the centerpiece of photographs that surface in Scottish pubs, man-caves all over suburban America and Tiger Woods’s office in Florida. So, perhaps it was predictable that even some well-intentioned remodeling of the area around it, worn down by the footwear of many thousands of players and visitors, would lead to fury, confusion and more than a few memes.Golf, you might have heard, is not always keen on change, and the resulting kerfuffle will amount to a brief, if breathtakingly effective, chapter in the very long history — like, maybe more than 700 years — of a 30-foot bridge. The whole spat, of course, could have been avoided had the bridge stuck to its long-ago mission of catering to livestock.But since that did not happen and because many people cannot mimic Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus or Woods on their scorecards, they merely congregate at the bridge, wave like a British Open champion, memorialize the moment for Facebook or Instagram and march on their way, leaving tattered turf behind.The idea that set off the scorn, course officials said over the weekend, was to replicate a past stone pathway and guard against repeated bouts of “disrepair” after a handful of other strategies, including artificial turf, proved insufficient. They added that they could “categorically state that no works have been undertaken to the bridge itself.”As if that would calm down, say, the denizens of Twitter. By Monday night, the Old Course was seeking another solution, new, old or at least not that one.“The stonework at the approach and exit of the bridge was identified as one possible long term solution,” the course’s administrators said in a statement that conceded that “while this installation would have provided some protection, in this instance we believe we are unable to create a look which is in keeping with its iconic setting and have taken the decision to remove it.”The statement noted “feedback from many partners and stakeholders as well as the golfing public,” which was a most proper way to characterize social media-fueled disdain and mockery.“What in the world were those idiots thinking building this?” Hank Haney, who once coached Woods, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Nick Faldo, whose six major tournament titles included the 1990 Open at St. Andrews, was also aghast.“If you’ve travelled halfway around the world for your bucket list round at St Andrews, would you rather leave with a bit of historic dirt on your shoes or a few cement mix scraps?” he asked. Perhaps, he mused, the approach was a “strategically placed sundial (for slow play).”St. Andrews officials said Monday that turf would be restored “in the coming days.” Even though the internet never seems to forget, there is plenty of time for recovery between now and the next Open at St. Andrews. This year’s tournament will be at Royal Liverpool, the 2024 festivities will be at Royal Troon and 2025 will see the competition return to Royal Portrush.The R&A, which organizes the Open, has not announced its plans for other years. More

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      Anthony Kim Was Compared to Tiger Woods. So Why Did He Walk Away From Golf?

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      A young man is walking briskly across a stretch of mowed grass, on his way to someplace entirely new. Hundreds of people are clapping as he passes. They are hollering his name. The young man lowers his head, tugs off his white cap and holds it in the air. A smile flickers across his face, then disappears.This is Anthony Kim. It is 2008, and he is 22 years old and one shot away from earning his first win in a first professional golf tournament. When he reaches the 18th green, he pauses, not only to line up his final putt, but also, he later reveals, to let a simple fact swirl into his consciousness: My life is about to change. Kim taps the ball, and it clunks into the cup. He punches the air twice, screams “Yes!” twice. He takes a bow.He is $1.2 million richer.“That walk up 18 was the best feeling in my entire life,” he says later that day.“I want to recreate that as many times as possible now.”The feeling would prove fleeting. Four years after that first win, after more rousing victories that established him as one of golf’s biggest stars, Kim took a sudden leave from the game. Injuries were hampering his play, and he needed time to heal. But beyond his physical troubles, some invisible, unknowable forces must have been churning inside him.Because he never came back.‘Golf’s Yeti’A full decade after Kim stopped playing professional golf, people are still fascinated by him, still asking where he is, still curious if he might ever return.They wonder, in part, because of his talent. His power, his touch, his moxie — they were a recipe for sustained greatness. More than that, though, they wonder because he never bothered to explain himself. In a world of interminable retirement tours and heart-tugging valedictory speeches, Kim walked away in 2012 without saying goodbye and has made almost no public appearances or utterances since.Kim was supposed to be the next Tiger Woods. Instead he became the sports world’s J.D. Salinger. Sports Illustrated called him “golf’s yeti.” Pictures and stories hinting at his whereabouts regularly go viral on social media. Last summer, when the new LIV Golf circuit began recruiting players with huge, guaranteed sums of money, many people’s minds went to the same place: Could Kim, still just 37, be coaxed back to the game?Anthony Kim celebrated his victory at the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte, N.C., in 2008. It was his first professional win.Chuck Burton/Associated PressSports careers are rare and valuable. They are hard won, involving years of tedious and often lonely practice. And they are fragile, susceptible to the ravages of age and injury. Most athletes, for these reasons, tend to treasure them.Kim’s total retreat, then, stirs all kinds of questions about sports and celebrity: What duty does a person have to his God-given talent? What does that person owe to his fans? And in the age of TMZ and T.M.I., what does it mean, really, to disappear?‘He Was Transcendent’Kim was born and raised in Los Angeles, the only son of South Korean immigrants. Though his golf swing would come to appear effortless, his skills were intensely honed during his childhood years by his father, Paul, and a string of coaches. By the time Kim reached college, he could make a golf ball do whatever he wanted.“His talent was beyond anything I had ever seen before,” said Rocky Hambric, an agent who signed Kim after his three years at the University of Oklahoma. “And I know it’s sacrilege, but that includes Tiger Woods.”Two months after that first PGA Tour win came a second. It was only his second year on the tour, but he was operating with the prowess of a veteran. He finished the 2008 season with eight top-10 finishes, $4.7 million in winnings and a tornado of hype.That Kim emerged just as Woods was navigating the first real turbulence of his career — in the form of injuries and marital turmoil — heightened speculation about whether he could be the game’s next superstar.And the highlights, for a little while, kept coming. On the second day of the 2009 Masters Tournament, in a stirring display of his daredevil approach to the game, Kim fired off 11 birdies, setting a tournament record that still stands.In a traditionally staid sport, Kim often felt like a gate-crasher, providing surprising bursts of flair and color.He demolished two-dimensional stereotypes about both golfers and Asian Americans. He wore garish belt buckles bearing his initials. He talked trash — and backed it up. He had an admitted love of partying. He was gregarious with fans and generous with his time and money. He signed a multimillion dollar endorsement deal with Nike. He spoke often about wanting his own reality show.“He was transcendent and attracted interest from all segments of sport, music and entertainment, which was especially rare for golf at the time,” Chris Armstrong, another former agent, said in a text message.Kim was known on tour for flashy clothing and a love of nightlife.Streeter Lecka/Getty ImagesHe appeared with the actress Jessica Alba on “The Jay Leno Show” in 2010.Justin Lubin/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesIn a span of a few weeks in 2010, he appeared on “The Jay Leno Show,” where he gave the actress Jessica Alba a putting lesson, and played in the celebrity game at the N.B.A.’s All-Star weekend, where he was matched up against the comedian Chris Tucker.“I’d rather have 50 people love me and 50 people hate me,” Kim said in an interview with ESPN in his rookie season, “than have 100 people who don’t even know who I am.”At some point during this ascent, Kim took out an insurance policy on his body. When injuries forced him to step away from the game, he began receiving monthly checks that reportedly would cease if he returned to competition. The payout, according to a Sports Illustrated article from 2014 that cited anonymous sources close to Kim, landed somewhere between $10 million and $20 million and was the primary reason, they said, for his prolonged absence.Yet there has remained something unsatisfying about that line of reasoning. Few other golfers relished the simple act of competing as much as he so plainly did.Near the end of the 2008 season, in a performance that cemented his status as golf’s most exciting young player, Kim trounced Sergio Garcia, the Spanish star, in the opening singles match of the Ryder Cup, a prestigious team competition. Kim swaggered around the course all day, feeding off the energy of the clamorous crowd.“I wouldn’t trade this for $10 million,” Kim said that day.At the Range With Tommy ChongKim last spoke publicly about his golf career in 2015, three years after he left the game.In an interview with an Associated Press reporter, he confirmed that he was receiving insurance payments, but he denied that the money was the reason he was not returning to competition. He also shot down more fanciful rumors, including one that he was homeless.He said he needed time to rehabilitate an assortment of injuries, including to his ankle and back. He was hiring a new trainer. In all, he sounded optimistic, saying he was happy with his progress. “My goal right now for the next year is to get healthy,” he said.Communicating through friends, Kim declined to be interviewed for this article.Those who know him say he splits time between Texas, California and Oklahoma. He became a father in 2021 and got married last summer. He has broad investments, including in real estate. He and his wife own The Collective, a popular food hall in Oklahoma City.To answer a question on everyone’s mind: Kim plays golf, but only sporadically. Adam Schriber, who has been Kim’s swing coach since he was a teenager, said in an interview that he played twice with Kim in the past two years.“It’s the same swing you remember,” Schriber said.Kim during the second round of the 2010 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga.Harry How/Getty ImagesEric Larson, Kim’s caddie from 2008 to 2009, fondly recalls splitting a couple buckets of balls some years ago at a public driving range in Los Angeles with Kim and Tommy Chong, of Cheech and Chong fame, whom Larson befriended during their overlapping stints in federal prison.In an interview, Larson said that he had asked Kim on the phone recently about whether he would participate in the LIV Golf tour. Kim demurred.“He goes, ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’ ” Larson said. “I said, ‘Come on, man, get the old clubs out. Go out there and have some fun.’ And he starts laughing at me. He goes, ‘That’s what everybody wants me to do!’”Anthony Kim SightingsThere is a point where talent, at its most rarefied levels, starts to feel collectively owned. The dynamic is pronounced in the sports world, where people use the first-person plural form to refer to their favorite teams, where athletes return the favor by winning championships for the city and dedicating awards to the fans.This can explain why, for sports fans, there is something so disconcerting about watching a star player walk away at a young age. When talent feels like a winning lottery ticket, squandering it can be processed almost as a betrayal.Consider Bjorn Borg, who was one of the top tennis players in the world in 1983 when he retired, seemingly out of the blue, at 26. The decision bewildered his fans, but Borg’s justifications hinted at an often unseen tension: that success in sports can close as many doors as it opens.“Basically, over the years, I was practicing, playing my matches, eating and sleeping,” he told The New York Times in 1983. “But there’s other things besides those four things.”Borg explained his decision. What Kim has done — to walk away and become entirely inaccessible to an adoring public — feels different and extraordinary, particularly at a time when name recognition has never held more value.He is hardly in hiding — today it seems a person can be deemed a recluse or misanthrope for merely declining to maintain a social media account — but still, any evidence of him engaging with society in even the most banal way tends to inspire wonderment.In 2019, Ben Bujnowski, 48, a technology sales consultant from Great Falls, Va., was on vacation with his family when he spotted Kim outside a Los Angeles restaurant. A longtime golf fan, Bujnowski could not resist circling back to say hello, and Kim gladly obliged his request for a picture.Bujnowski posted the photo to Instagram — “AK sighting in the wild,” he wrote — where it was soon picked up and circulated by the golf news media. The comments section of the original post became a message board of sorts for strangers to post their own sightings of Kim.In this way, each public photograph of Kim inspires its own little news cycle: Kim crouched in a group photo in somebody’s backyard; an inadvertent shot of the back of his head at a bar; an unintentionally cryptic Instagram post from Schriber. In 2018, No Laying Up, a golf media company, posted a brief video of Kim, surrounded by at least six dogs, expressing support for Phil Mickelson before his exhibition match against Woods (“Need to see him holding today’s paper,” somebody tweeted in reply).“It almost feels like his life story in golf hasn’t been completed yet,” said Bujnowski, who sometimes gets recognized on the street by golf fans. “People want to know what happened.”A Carefree SummerThe sports world craves neatly legible narratives. But Kim’s path offers a reminder of how frequently the industry’s most common tropes — the underdog stories and redemption arcs, the last shots and legacies and love of the game — fall short of capturing the complexities of the people who inhabit it.Fans may want their heroes to stay in their assigned roles, but there are gifted people everywhere turned off by the relentless pursuit of external validation. And failure, in the eyes of others, may represent freedom for the individual.Kim hinted at a possible worldview in a 2009 interview with Golf Digest, when he responded to question about his apparent fearlessness on the course by deflating its very premise.“It’s just golf,” he said.Photo illustration by Mike McQuade; photograph by Hunter Martin/Getty ImagesSome close to Kim can recall moments that seemed to foretell his eventual ambivalence toward his golf career.Larson, Kim’s former caddie, thinks back to the week after the 2008 Ryder Cup. Kim led the field by two strokes after two rounds at the Tour Championship. But that Saturday, in the third round, his momentum spiraled. He hit only four fairways. One of his tee shots struck a fan, sending him to the hospital with a head wound. Kim slumped to a tie for third place.Larson was sure that Kim imploded because he had, somewhat inexplicably, gone out late that Friday night.“I don’t know what he thought, but you don’t just go out and party all night Friday night when you’re leading the Tour Championship.” Larson said. “That would have been his third win that year, but we ended up losing that tournament by a shot, and he was out Friday night, late, and I’m just like, ‘What are we doing?’”Schriber, the swing coach, recounted another moment that, in retrospect, felt loaded with meaning. It was 2010, the night after what turned out to be Kim’s final PGA Tour win, at the Houston Open. Schriber and the rest of Kim’s team were on a private jet to Georgia happily passing around a bottle of tequila, but Kim seemed withdrawn.“We were just getting pummeled celebrating — because winning’s hard — but he didn’t even drink after the win,” Schriber said. “He said, ‘Schribes, I don’t feel anything, I don’t feel the joy.’”A week later, Kim finished third at the Masters.Schriber is reluctant to speculate too much on his friend’s mind-set, but, in his view, Kim’s childhood and the continually rocky relationship he had with his father had a deeper and more lasting effect on Kim than most realized.The story of how Paul Kim tossed one of his son’s second-place trophies in the trash is part of Anthony’s lore. Later, when Kim was in college, he and his father had a fight that resulted in a two-year stretch of silence between them. After Kim turned professional, his father publicly acknowledged that he was too hard on his son, that he was too cold, that when other parents asked him how to mold their children into top athletes, he advised them against it.Schriber doubted that golf, even during Kim’s loftiest moments, was the respite the young man needed it to be.“I think it was the feeling of, ‘It’s not taking the pain away like I hoped it would,’” Schriber said.Schriber was also there when, in his eyes, Kim got an early glimpse of an alternate path.It was 2006, the summer after Kim left college. He was staying at Schriber’s house in Traverse City, Mich., laying the foundation of a golf career, practicing every morning and sleeping on a couch in the living room at night. In the afternoons, stuck in a sleepy town with few other options, he hung out with Schriber’s children, kayaking, fishing, hiking and doing all manner of other activities that he, as a child golf prodigy, had rarely had time to enjoy.That September, Kim played in the Valero Texas Open, his first PGA Tour event. He tied for second, won nearly $300,000 and soon after moved into an upmarket condo in Dallas. But he never forgot those lazy days in Michigan, when nobody knew who he was and life felt pleasantly small.“Best summer of my life,” Kim said often, according to Schriber.Susan C. Beachy More

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      Confidential Records Show a Saudi Golf Tour Built on Far-Fetched Assumptions

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      McKinsey documents suggest the Saudi league is far off-track for success. Experts say the analysis shows it was never just about profits.Early in 2021, consultants working for Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund studied an audacious idea: The desert kingdom wanted to become the world leader in the hidebound realm of men’s professional golf.If the idea seemed unlikely, records show that the benchmarks for success bordered on the fantastical. A new Saudi league would need to sign each of the world’s top 12 golfers, attract sponsors to an unproven product and land television deals for a sport with declining viewership — all without significant retaliation from the PGA Tour it would be plundering.The proposal, code-named Project Wedge, came together as Saudi officials worked to repair the kingdom’s reputation abroad, which hit a low after the 2018 assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents. The plan was the foundation for what became LIV Golf, the series whose debut this year provoked accusations that Saudi Arabia was trying to sanitize its human rights record with its deep pockets, former President Donald J. Trump’s country clubs and a handful of big-name golfers. Some of those golfers have publicly played down Saudi abuses, as has Mr. Trump.The league’s promoters say they are trying to revitalize the sport and build a profitable league. But hundreds of pages of confidential documents obtained by The New York Times show that Saudi officials were told that they faced steep challenges. They were breaking into a sport with a dwindling, aging fan base — if one with plenty of wealthy and influential members — and even if they succeeded, the profits would be a relative pittance for one of the world’s richest sovereign wealth funds. Experts say that these make clear that Saudi Arabia, with a golf investment of least $2 billion, has aspirations beyond the financial.An unidentified man trying to hold back the press as Saudi investigators arrived at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in April 2019 amid a growing international backlash to the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images“The margins might be thin, but that doesn’t really matter,” said Simon Chadwick, a professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris. “Because subsequently you’re establishing the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia — not just as an event host or a sporting powerhouse, but legitimate in the eyes of decision makers and governments around the world.”The documents represent the most complete account to date of the financial assumptions underpinning LIV Golf. One of the most significant was prepared by consultants with McKinsey & Company, which has advised the kingdom’s leaders since the 1970s. McKinsey, which has worked to raise the stature of authoritarian governments around the world, was key to Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to diversify the kingdom’s economy and turn it into a powerful global investor. Worldwide sports have become a pillar in that plan, with Saudi officials even discussing the possibility of someday hosting the World Cup.McKinsey, which declined to comment, analyzed the finances of a potential golf league, but pointedly said in its report that it was not examining whether it was a strategically viable idea. And many of Saudi Arabia’s rosy assumptions, McKinsey added, “have been taken for granted and not been challenged in our assessment.”Indeed, LIV Golf appears far from meeting the goals that the Project Wedge documents laid out. After an inaugural season that cost in excess of $750 million, the league has not announced major broadcasting or sponsorship deals. And its hopes for a surrender by, or an armistice with, the PGA Tour have instead collapsed into an acrimonious court battle.Mr. Trump with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, right, at a LIV tournament at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in July.Seth Wenig/Associated PressMoreover, the league is nowhere near having signed all of the elite players who Saudi advisers said were required for success. In one presentation slide, as McKinsey projected one of its more optimistic financial forecasts, the participation of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy — who have combined to win 25 major championships — was included under the headline “What you need to believe.”Of those stars, only Mr. Mickelson joined LIV, with a deal that is reportedly worth at least $200 million.Mr. Woods, with his ability to attract fans and sponsors, was seen as essential. Even though the league offered Mr. Woods a long-term plan that could have made him “in the neighborhood” of $700 million to $800 million, according to Greg Norman, LIV’s chief executive, the league has found Mr. Woods to be one of its greatest public antagonists.“I don’t know what their end game is,” Mr. Woods said of LIV last month in the Bahamas, where he was hosting a tournament on the PGA Tour schedule. Mr. Woods acknowledged that the PGA Tour “can’t compete dollar for dollar” with the Saudis, but he said that “an endless pit of money” was not a surefire means to “create legacies.”Saudi soccer fans celebrating during a World Cup match against Argentina in Qatar last month. Worldwide sports have become a pillar in the plan to raise Saudi Arabia’s global stature.Tasneem Alsultan for The New York TimesNot long after Mr. Woods spoke, LIV announced details for several of the 14 tournaments it expects to be the proving grounds for $405 million in prize money next year, in addition to the guaranteed payouts it has promised players. It has said it will release its full schedule “in the coming weeks.”The season will unfold as LIV’s business evolves toward its planned franchise model. Although professional golf has some signature team events like the Ryder Cup, the PGA Tour generally relies on players competing for themselves. LIV, whose music-blasting gatherings feel little like traditional tournaments, is betting that fans will prefer to watch a dozen four-player teams competing against each other.“LIV has repeatedly made clear that our stakeholders take a long-term approach to our business model,” Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for LIV, said in a statement. “Despite the many obstacles put in our path by the PGA Tour, we’re delighted with the success of our beta test year. And we’re confident that over the next few seasons, the remaining pieces of our business model will come to fruition as planned. Our business plan is built upon a path to profitability. We have a nice, long runway and we’re taking off.”Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s 37-year-old de facto ruler, often gravitates toward splashy ventures and has repeatedly said that he sets sky-high targets in hopes of motivating officials to achieve a fraction of them. In its analysis, McKinsey called the golf league “a high-risk high-reward endeavor.”The consultants detailed three possible outcomes for a franchise-driven league: languishing as a start-up; realizing a “coexistence” with the PGA Tour; or, most ambitiously, seizing the mantle of dominance.In the most successful scenario, McKinsey predicted revenues of at least $1.4 billion a year in 2028, with earnings before interest and taxes of $320 million or more. (Federal records show that the PGA Tour, a tax-exempt nonprofit, logged about $1.5 billion in revenue and posted a net income of almost $73 million for 2019.)By contrast, a league mired in start-up status — defined as attracting less than half of the world’s top 12 players, navigating a “lack of excitement from fans,” reeling from limited sponsorships and confronting “severe response from golf society” — stood to lose $355 million, before interest and taxes, in 2028.The American golfer Phil Mickelson, right, at LIV Golf’s inaugural event in St. Albans, England, in June.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor now, LIV’s standing tilts sharply that way. Its tournaments have not commanded large crowds, and its broadcasts are largely limited to YouTube. The PGA Tour suspended players who defected, and it is not yet clear whether the organizers of the four major men’s tournaments will allow LIV golfers to participate.Of the top 12 players on a roster in the McKinsey report, LIV has attracted four: Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Mr. Mickelson and Henrik Stenson.McKinsey’s work on the golf project is part of a longstanding pattern of foreign consultants providing rationales for Gulf States’ multibillion-dollar projects, some of which become white elephants. When the crown prince announced plans to build a futuristic city called Neom, McKinsey was among the companies that helped envision proposals for robotic dinosaurs, flying taxis and a ski resort that officials say will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029.The Project Wedge analysis was conducted for Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is led day to day by its governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan. Mr. al-Rumayyan, a longtime golf enthusiast, is also chairman of the Saudi Arabian Golf Federation. In 2019, he hosted a “Golf Means Business” tournament at the crown prince’s annual investment conference in Riyadh. The PGA Tour describes Mr. al-Rumayyan in court documents as a micromanager whose “daily involvement and influence bears on everything from LIV’s global strategy to the tiniest detail.”Tiger Woods at the Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Course in Nassau, Bahamas, this month.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesOne document obtained by The Times shows that LIV organizers considered assembling an all-star board of business, sports, legal and political titans. But nine of the people who were identified as possible board members, including Ginni Rometty, the former IBM chief executive, and Randall Stephenson, the former AT&T chairman, said they had never been approached about joining.“I didn’t know I was on the list, and I have never been approached,” Mr. Stephenson, who is a member of the PGA Tour’s board, said in an interview. If asked, he said, he would decline. “It would be a quick conversation,” he said.Most others listed in the document, including the basketball legend Michael Jordan; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and Mark Parker, the executive chairman of Nike, did not respond to requests for comment. McKinsey did not appear to prepare the document, which carries the logo of Golf Saudi, which Mr. al-Rumayyan leads.Mr. Grella, the LIV spokesman, did not answer inquiries about the current composition of a board, which a player handbook said would initially have up to 10 members, including Mr. al-Rumayyan and Mr. Norman.Despite its struggles, LIV is making plans for tournament venues years into the future and is trying to sign more stars. Mr. Norman said in November that a television deal was “a priority,” and as the new season nears, golf fans and executives alike have debated what boost the new league might get if one of its players captured a major championship in 2023.That, Mr. Norman has suggested, would be proof of “how we work within the ecosystem.”It would also be a sign that an outright ban of LIV players from the sport’s biggest stages, one of the gravest hazards that McKinsey flagged, had so far been avoided.Greg Norman, center, the chief executive of LIV Golf, has said that a television deal is “a priority.”Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKevin Draper More

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      For 2022, LIV Golf Was the Story

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      The Saudi-backed tour, which has used big payments to attract players, has upended the gentlemen’s game.Golf is an individual sport, so any year-end reflection is going to be about the people who stood out.But this year many of the top names who defined the year in golf are past their prime or don’t play professionally.Pride of place goes to Greg Norman, the former world No. 1 and two-time major champion whose last PGA Tour win came 25 years ago at the 1997 NEC World Series of Golf. In that victory, Norman beat a young Phil Mickelson, who was just at the start of his career that would include six major championships and more than double the PGA Tour victories of Norman.Now the pair are linked in the creation of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and roiling the established PGA and DP World Tours. LIV made headlines as much for paying golfers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to join the league as it did for the source of the support, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.Add to that a rollout and public relations campaign that was bumpy — including one golfer who took $200 million to join LIV, while saying their move was to grow the game — and it made for a very unexpected year.“Golf was puttering along in its normal boring sport way, and then everything exploded,” said Alan Shipnuck, whose book “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar” and subsequent reporting for The Fire Pit Collective, a golf news site, was at the center of the story. “This was the most fascinating and chaotic season in golf history. The gentlemen’s game has never seen this kind” of news conference sniping.The league brought fresh attention to the human rights records of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. It also held several events at golf courses owned by former President Donald J. Trump, who didn’t shy away from criticizing the PGA Tour.Phil Mickelson was paid a reported $200 million to join LIV Golf.Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesWhile a rival golf league had been talked about for years, just as LIV was set to start at the beginning of the year, Shipnuck published an interview with Mickelson on The Fire Pit Collective that criticized the Saudi government over its human rights record.“Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it?” Mickelson said. “Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.” He joined LIV in June.From that moment, the story on the men’s and women’s game has been Saudi money and LIV Golf.It overshadowed Rory McIlroy becoming only the second player to win both season-long events on the PGA and DP World Tours in the same year. Henrik Stenson, who now plays on LIV, was the first in 2013.It put the game’s administrators, Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour; Keith Pelley, chief executive of the DP World Tour; and Peter Dawson, chairman of the Official World Golf Ranking, front and center.It spilled over to women’s golf, where talk focused on what might happen if the Saudis took a similar interest in top L.P.G.A. players. (The consensus has been Saudi money would decimate a tour that doesn’t have the financial reserves or lucrative television rights to fend off a rival league buying up players the way the PGA Tour has.)And it got young professional and amateur players thinking about their future in professional golf after a few unproven players — namely the 2019 and 2021 U.S. Amateur Champions Andy Ogletree and James Piot and a top-ranked college player Eugenio Chacarra — took LIV money and bypassed the traditional route of trying to make their way on the PGA or DP World Tours.“I spoke to some friends and coaches who said if LIV contacts you go there,” said Filippo Celli, who won the silver medal as the low amateur at this year’s British Open and is trying to play his way onto the DP World Tour.“You go there and even if you finish last in the tournament you can earn $150,000, which is a lot of money, especially at 22 years old,” he said. “When you’re young you’re thinking about the money. It’s normal. My dream is to play on the DP World Tour and then the PGA Tour.”But the threat of a rival league forced changes on both of the main men’s tours. Many of those changes were announced after an August meeting of PGA Tour players in Delaware before the BMW Championship.The increased money was the main issue, more prize money for the top players and also guaranteed minimum pay for golfers still making their way. That helped defer six-figure costs just to compete, and the money was a carrot to the elite players.Of course, plenty of good players have not been asked to go to LIV and have said they are not interested. Sam Ryder, who has played on the PGA Tour for six seasons, is one of them.“I’m not on the players council of the PGA Tour,” he said. “I’ve been trying to stay in my lane and play good golf. I’ve not been concerning myself too much with all that’s been going on. I just know that everything will sort itself out.”His playing status on the PGA Tour has earned him a new multiyear sponsor this year: Ryder, the transportation company. “Both Ryder and Sam Ryder remain committed to the PGA Tour,” said J. Steve Sensing, president of supply chain solutions for Ryder System.Some of the top players have not been as politic in their rhetoric. McIlroy, who reclaimed the world No. 1 spot this year, became the de facto player-defender of the PGA Tour. He and Tiger Woods were at the center of the meeting in Delaware, and he’s spoken forcefully in defense of the tour. Recently, McIlroy and Woods called for Norman to step down as LIV commissioner as a necessary first step in negotiations.Dustin Johnson was reportedly paid up to $150 million to join LIV Golf.John David Mercer/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut there are knock-on effects of losing older but well-known players, like the future of PGA Tour Champions. It is where many of the game’s greats go to play when they turn 50. Each year the tour gets marquee players who are suddenly relevant again. This year, it was Padraig Harrington, a three-time major winner and Ryder Cup captain, who won four times on the Champions Tour.Yet some of the first players who went to LIV were close to Champions Tour eligibility, including Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, and Ian Poulter, with players like Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey not too far behind them. It’s those big names that sell tickets.At a news conference in August for a Champions Tour event in Jacksonville, Fla., Jim Furyk, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and the tournament’s host, talked about the course and the fan experience. He even talked about Notah Begay III, a former player turned Golf Channel commentator who was returning to professional golf on his 50th birthday.What Furyk or anyone else at the event did not talk about was the previous year’s winner: Mickelson. That victory was his third win in four starts on the Champions Tour and augured well for his transition to the tour, and for the tour itself.But right now, the focus is on the main tours and seeing what LIV does next year. There has been little interest in actually watching LIV events. The league has no television contract and worldwide viewership numbers for streaming have declined with each event, particularly after the initial player announcements were made.Still, the PGA Tour, which had been slow to respond at first, seems to be taking no chances. It recently hired a lobbyist in Washington who is close to Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who hopes to become speaker when Republicans take control of the chamber in January.“The tour has always been all powerful,” Shipnuck said. “Now there’s a competition.” More

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      How Bryson DeChambeau Saved Long Drive Golf

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      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

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      PGA Stars Seek ‘Some Sort of Unity’ With LIV After Meeting With Tiger Woods

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      Adding to the drama, the LIV golfer Patrick Reed filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.PGA Tour stars, including Tiger Woods, met on Tuesday to grapple with the LIV Golf series, which has lured away tour players with staggering sums of money, and emerged feeling positive but unwilling to detail how they planned to fend off the rebel golf start-up or live somewhat peacefully alongside it.The meeting was the latest turn in what has been an uncharacteristically antagonistic year in golf, and it came just a week after a federal judge ruled that the PGA Tour can bar LIV golfers from the FedEx Cup playoffs, which conclude at the end of August.Ahead of the BMW Championship, PGA Tour players on Wednesday were reluctant to share specifics about the meeting, held in Wilmington, Del., that attracted Woods, who flew in from his home in Florida to attend. Rory McIlroy, the world No. 3, described the meeting to reporters on Wednesday as “impactful.”McIlroy said Woods’s leadership at the meeting was crucial as players discussed how to improve the PGA Tour and contend with the rift in the golf world since the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational series. (The PGA Tour announced in June that it would suspend players who joined the LIV series.)“His role is navigating us to a place where we all think we should be,” McIlroy said of Woods’s presence. “He is the hero that we’ve all looked up to. His voice carries further than anyone else’s in the game of golf.”While players were quick to praise Woods, they demurred when it came to sharing any actionable steps that came from the meeting.“What’s the short-term? What’s the medium-term? What’s the long-term?” McIlroy said. “That’s something that we have to figure out.”Xander Schauffele told reporters on Wednesday that he wanted to see a resolution that ended in “some sort of unity.”“It was a really nice meeting. It was great. It was exciting. It was new. It was fresh,” Schauffele said. “I am very hopeful with what’s to come.”Schauffele, the world No. 6, told reporters there was “a little bit of a code” to keep quiet.“I think I’d be pretty unhappy if I saw one of those guys from last night just blabbering to you guys what we talked about,” Schauffele said. “That would be really frowned upon, and you probably wouldn’t get invited back to the meeting.”Justin Thomas, the world No. 7, said at a news conference that the meeting was “productive” and that the players who attended “just want the best for the tour and want what’s in the best interest.”“I’d just hope for a better product,” Thomas said. “I think that’s the hope in general of anything, is just to try to improve ourselves, where we’re playing, everything the best that we can.”Thomas said that having Woods present gave the meeting added credibility.“I think if someone like him is passionate about it, no offense to all of us, but that’s really all that matters,” Thomas said. “If he’s not behind something, then, one, it’s probably not a good idea in terms of the betterment of the game, but, two, it’s just not going to work. He needs to be behind something.”McIlroy said that in addition to dealing with LIV Golf, the PGA Tour would also eventually have to handle a world without Woods on the tour.“The tour had an easy job for 20 years,” McIlroy said. “They’ve got a bunch of us, and we’re all great players. But we’re not Tiger Woods.”Adding to Tuesday’s drama, Patrick Reed, the winner of the 2018 Masters who joined LIV Golf in June, filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Texas, claims that the network and Chamblee have conspired with the PGA Tour to defame LIV players “with the intention to destroy them and their families professionally and personally” and eliminate LIV Golf as a competitor.According to the lawsuit, Golf Channel, Chamblee and the PGA Tour have conspired since Reed was 23, about nine years ago, “to destroy his reputation, create hate, and a hostile work environment for him, and with the intention to discredit his name and accomplishments.”For Chamblee and Golf Channel, “it does not matter how badly they destroy someone’s name and life, so long as they rake in more dollars and profit,” the lawsuit said.Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Reed, said that “we are confident of prevailing in court,” adding that “it’s a very strong complaint.”“While Chamblee’s and NBC’s Golf Channel’s never-ending defamation with regard to Mr. Reed, as set forth in the complaint is not new, with his joining of LIV Golf, it has reached new, intolerable heights,” Klayman said in a statement.Lawyers for Golf Channel and Chamblee could not be reached.The LIV Tour, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has drawn much attention and criticism in recent months. Among those who have left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf are Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson. Mickelson sparked outrage in February when it was reported that he had said that the LIV series was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” even as he called Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights “horrible.”Mickelson, who is reported to have received as much as $200 million to sign with the breakaway tour, is among 11 golfers who defected from the PGA Tour and then filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this month against the PGA Tour, seeking to challenge its suspensions and other measures that have been used to discipline players who have joined LIV Golf. More

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      At the British Open, It’s the PGA Tour Faithful Against LIV Golf

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      “Everybody, it feels like, is against us, and that’s OK,” said Talor Gooch, a LIV golfer tied for eighth at seven under after the second round. Cameron Smith held the lead at 13 under par.ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Tiger Woods was finishing up at the Old Course on Friday, perhaps for good, and Rory McIlroy was just getting started.As they exchanged understanding glances and walked in opposite directions on parallel paths — Woods on the 18th hole, McIlroy on the first — it felt like a passing of the torch. But perhaps a passing of the lightsaber was more in order as McIlroy headed out to lead the charge against the dark side at this 150th British Open.That overstates it, of course. This is only golf, after all, and golf in a fine place, particularly in the clear and clement conditions that prevailed again for most of the afternoon, with banks of cumulus clouds standing watch over the greens and browning fairways of golf’s ancestral home.It was quite a panorama, as it has been for centuries, but the sport’s landscape is changing quickly, with new allies and enmities being created over the breakaway, mega-money LIV Golf Invitational series.Just a few months ago, there were only golfers. Now, there are golfers and LIV golfers, and though today’s rebels have a habit of becoming tomorrow’s establishment, for now the rebels are wearing the black hats because of their tour’s Saudi Arabian backing and the sense that they are grabbing the easy money no matter how uneasy it makes everyone feel.“Everybody, it feels like, is against us, and that’s OK,” said Talor Gooch, a LIV golfer who is tied for eighth at seven under par heading into Saturday’s third round. “It’s kind of banded us together, I think.”The bonding works both ways on and off the course. At the Dunvegan Hotel, the popular St. Andrews pub near the 18th hole, patrons were often booing LIV golfers on Friday when they appeared on the television coverage of the Open.There were plenty of them to jeer on the early leaderboard, and when McIlroy doffed his cap at Woods on the first hole and sallied forth, Dustin Johnson, the former No. 1 and highest-ranked LIV player, was the rebel in charge.The LIV golfer Dustin Johnson playing out of the rough on the fourth fairway Friday.Alastair Grant/Associated PressBut by the end of the second round, Johnson, at nine under par, had been reeled in by the PGA Tour (at least until the next round of defections).Cameron Smith, Australia’s top player, was on top at 13 under, followed by Cameron Young, the first-round leader from the United States, at 11 under. Tied for third at 10 under were McIlroy and Viktor Hovland of Norway who made the shot of the day by holing out from the rough from about 140 yards for eagle on the par-4 15th hole.“I was a little concerned it was going to go too far right,” he said. “But it straightened out and somehow landed on that side slope softly and just trickled in. That was unbelievable.”By such fine margins and lucky breaks are major championships won, but there will be plenty more unexpected bounces on the undulating and increasingly unforgiving fairways of the Old Course.“We had that on-and-off rain this morning, I think, which slowed us up just a touch,” said Smith, who had a middle-of-the-pack start time on Friday. “We were able to hit some shots that we weren’t able to hit yesterday, but I still think it’s going to get really firm and fast. This course bakes out so quickly. It’s going to be a challenge, for sure.”And yet Woods’s record winning score at St. Andrews of 19 under par in 2000 certainly looks under threat. He will not be the one to challenge it after shooting nine over par for two rounds and missing the cut, just as he missed it in 2015 in the most recent Open Championship at St. Andrews.But Friday was much more bittersweet: bitter because Woods at this diminished stage is nowhere near the player he once was in Scotland and beyond; sweet because he could sense the compassion and appreciation from the crowd and his colleagues.“As I walked further along the fairway, I saw Rory right there,” he said of the 18th hole. “He gave me the tip of the cap. It was pretty cool, the nods I was getting from the guys as they were going out and I was coming in, just the respect. And from a players’ fraternity level, it’s neat to see that and feel that.”Tiger Woods acknowledging fans as he crosses Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole Friday.Paul Childs/ReutersMcIlroy, 33, grasped the symbolism but would have preferred another scenario as he embarked on what turned out to be a round of 68.“It would have been a cool moment if he was eight under par instead of eight over or whatever he was,” McIlroy said. “I just hope, everyone hopes, it’s not the end of his Old Course career. I think he deserves and we deserve for him to have another crack at it.”Woods, often grim and tight-lipped after poor performances, was expansive and forthcoming on Friday. After playing only to win for most of his career, it seemed that simply participating was enough for peace of mind after the car crash that severely damaged his right leg 17 months ago.“I’ve gotten pretty close to Tiger over these last few years,” said McIlroy, a Northern Irishman based near Woods in the golfing enclave of Jupiter, Fla. “I think we’ve all sort of rallied around him down there in Jupiter, and we all want to see him do well. He was all our hero growing up, even though I’m maybe a touch older than some of the other guys. We want to see him still out there competing, and this week was obviously a tough week for him, but we’re all behind him.”Woods said he had no immediate plans to compete again and was not sure that if and when he did return that he would be able to play a fuller schedule. In this minimalist comeback, he played in three majors and only three majors, beginning with the Masters in April.“I understand being more battle hardened, but it’s just hard to walk and play 18 holes,” Woods said. “People have no idea what I have to go through, and the hours of work on the body, pre and post, each and every single day to do what I just did. That’s what people don’t understand.”He was hardly the only golf luminary to fall short at the Old Course. Collin Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion, missed the cut by a stroke after failing to keep pace with McIlroy in their group and finishing at one over par.Louis Oosthuizen, the South African who won an Open at St. Andrews in 2010, will also miss the weekend. So will Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, fellow members of the LIV tour and former major champions.The cards and stars have been reshuffled in a hurry, and no one knows how the game or this historic Open Championship will turn out. But what is clear is that if the final holes on Sunday come down to, say, Johnson versus McIlroy for the claret jug, it will not be perceived inside or outside the game as simply Johnson versus McIlroy.May the force be with them. More