LIV Derangement Syndrome Has Been Taken To A Whole New Level
Professional Golfer Cameron Smith Photo courtesy of foxsports.com.au
I thought I have seen every little dirty trick the PGA Tour can come up with in their fight against LIV Golf and its CEO Greg Norman. I was wrong!
On Sunday final round of the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Cameron Smith was handed a two stroke penalty for what the PGA Tour officials claimed to be an improper play during the third round.
Mind you, Cameron Smith was -11 at the end of his third round. With a victory, Smith could have overtaken Scottie Scheffler as the #1 player in the world.
Smith was definitely in contention until, oh, oh, the PGA Tour looked hard enough to find the infraction.
Just like that, Smith went from -11 to -9 and his chances of winning and becoming the #1 player in the world vanished with it.
I have no problem with professional golfers been held accountable for rules violations, but this one stunk like a skunk on a highway.
The infraction happened at the 4th hole during the third round and it was not until the morning after, and after the round was completed and the scorecard signed, the PGA Tour officials did not feel good about it.
If the PGA Tour had notified Smith during the third round, I would have gone along with it. Instead, they waited until the next day, right before Smith tee time to notify him of the infraction.
To me, that was a bunch of horse manure and deliberately done as to harm Smith chances at the #1 spot. Once the round is over the scores need to stand, period.
Sure, it is clear Smith took an improper drop and should have been penalized, but to wait almost 22 hours after the fact to notify him of the infraction was dirty and unprofessional.
With all the rumors of Smith leaving to go and play LIV Golf, and giving LIV Golf its highest ranked player today, Smith becoming the #1 player in the world was something the PGA Tour could not and would not allow to happen.
Next time, have some class and inform the player right away and not when the Tour feels threaten.
Garbage ranks higher than the PGA Tour and Cameron Smith has too much class to tell them.
Does the PGA Tour understands why players are leaving? Exactly!
Phil Mickelson and 10 Other LIV Golf Players File Antitrust Suit Against The PGA Tour
LIV Golf players, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau. Photo courtesy of golfmagic.com
It is about time!
Time for the PGA Tour to open its books and show the world the kind of big business they do not want to give up.
Phil Mickelson and 10 other LIV players have filed an antitrust suit against PGA Tour INC over the suspensions issued by PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan.
Three of the players have also filed for an injunction. The three players had qualified for the FedEx Cup prior to them joining LIV Golf, and under the new rules, they will not be allowed to play.
Listening to the on-field interviewer from the Golf Channel talking to some of the players at this week’s Wyndham Championships about LIV Golf and the lawsuit, was embarrassing and pathetic.
Damon Hack and Eamon Lynch were not much different in their commentary. More of the same, doing the PGA Tour bid. You can count on these two to bore you to death as they represent the Golf Channel lunatic fringe.
Having said that, I do not expect anything different from the Golf Channel. After all, they are part of the woke culture at NBC Sports. Objectivity and real journalism is not a requirement.
Paging Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, and Scottie Scheffler. Oops, once again they are not at the Wyndham Championship “supporting” the PGA Tour and the sponsor. Nothing more than whiny hypocrites.
The PGA Tour is big business and has been spending lots of money paying lobbyists in Washington to assist them in gaining political support for the PGA Tour in an attempt to prevent LIV Golf from operating.
Why would they spend money lobbying politicians? What are they afraid of?
Davis Love III, went as far as to say, “If the LIV guys sue and are allowed to play on the PGA Tour, the players are enough fed up with it.” What the heck is he saying? Is he threatening the LIV players with bodily harm?
He went on to say, “We understand we make the rules on the PGA Tour and the commissioner is enforcing our rules and we don’t want those guys playing, coming and cherry-picking our tournaments.”
Really? PGA Tour players cherry-pick their tournaments, and as long as they meet the minimum 15 event requirement, they are free to do as they wish. This is why McIlroy, Thomas, and Scheffler have not showed up for the last three regular season tournaments.
Love continued with his irrational tirade and it got even crazier. “We hold all the cards. We say to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and to Washington, ‘No, we support the rules. We don’t want those guys playing. We don’t care what the courts say.”
“The nuclear option is to say ‘Fine, if they have to play in our events we just won’t play’.”
Go ahead Davis, who cares? If you, and the rest of the PGA Tour players want to take that childish stance, no problem. I am sure that will do lots for your fan base.
He added that the suspensions issued to Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Patrick Reed, makes them ineligible to play for his President’s Cup team in September.
I’ll say the International Team will have a good opportunity to beat the United States without too much fuzz. Keeping your best players out sounds like a great strategy Davis.
If Davis Love III sounds insane to you, welcome to the club.
Commissioner Monahan should be embarrassed. He is nothing but a coward. These players go out and engage the media instead of concentrating on playing the tournaments. The media should be handle by Jay Monahan, not the players.
Jay Monahan is evil. He knows exactly what he is doing by pinning PGA Tour players against LIV Golf players. He has created this atmosphere and he should be fired.
By the way Jay, it is called LIV Golf, not the Saudi League. Stop sounding stupid and ignorant.
Jay Monahan’s salary is higher than most of the purses these players are playing for. He is worth about $12 million dollars with an annual salary of $4 million dollars. The winners purse for the Open Championship was $2.5 million. Let that marinate for a minute.
The PGA Tour is going to be exposed for the fraud they are, and the PGA Tour membership finally will see how much money the suits at Ponte Vedra have been hiding from them.
If you want to read a bit more about this so-called 501 (c) (6) outfit, indulge yourself with the links below.
Folks, as LIV Golf Derangement Syndrome continues its path to become a mental health pandemic, people like Eamon Lynch keeps reminding us, it is real and it is here to stay.
Between him and his cohost Damon Hack, they cannot stay away from talking about LIV Golf and complaining about the Saudi connection.
Frankly, it has gotten pretty old. Everyone knows where the money is coming from and most people do not care. No matter how much Lynch wants to make it an issue, the people who most matter, the players, have dismissed it.
Lynch, who is openly gay, wants to make LIV Golf about gay issues. Saudi Arabia is not the only Muslim country in the world who does not approve of homosexuality, that is a fact.
It seems to me, Lynch is only complaining about Saudi Arabia because they are the ones financing LIV Golf and his personal disdain towards LIV Golf CEO, Greg Norman.
I am in the camp of live and let live, but Lynch wants to inject his personal lifestyle into the golf conversation.
For People like Lynch, if you do not agree with his world view, you are the problem, so he will insult you and attempt to intimidate you into seeing things his way.
He complained about Paul Casey when he was asked by Christine Brennan, another media hack from USA Today, about the treatment of gays in Saudi Arabia.
Paul Casey’s answer was that he was not knowledgeable enough about the subject to answer the question. As a rational human being, I believe that was an honest answer, but to an agenda driven person like Lynch, it was not enough.
Listening to Lynch, he sounds petty and small. Lynch will serve his audience best by keeping his personal agenda away from the game.
Golf.com writer Nick Piastowski Photo courtesy of golf.com
Anybody who follows golf news knows about Nick Piastowski. Nick is one of those media hacks that could not do anything else as a journalist, so he became a sensationalist buffoon.
Not to outdo himself, he has laid another egg for all of us to read and make fun of his ridiculous and petty writing.
The story speaks for itself, so I will not bother you with the details. In a nutshell, it seems this media hack did not like the fact Phil Mickelson was wearing a black mask while filming a LIV Golf promo in Rwanda.
I know Nick is an idiot and his attempts to pass his articles as “news” is a joke all in itself, but to suggest Phil Mickelson is some type of racist because he was wearing a black mask, is petty and low.
Nick is a pathetic fool and he has earned my Stupid Person of the Week award.
Shame on golf.com for allowing such a media hack to operate under their banner.
My theory is poor old Brandel is bitter because he did not get a phone call from Greg Norman to join LIV Golf, so all he can do is fall to the bottom of the rubbish bin and scream to the top in hopes somebody will actually care for his nonsense.
I used to give Chamblee some level of respect, after all, he played the PGA Tour and actually won a tournament, but mostly because I think he is an outstanding historian of the game.
Now? Not so much. He has become a buffoonish character for his own detriment. Complaining about Saudi Arabia and its human rights record, while on the other side of his mouth refuses to condemn the Chinese Communist Party for the same dismal human rights record, is hypocritical to say the least.
Why Chamblee has chosen to go down this road is beyond me. I understand the Golf Channel is now part of the woke movement as part of NBC Sports, but Chamblee is losing credibility by the second.
To suggest Greg Noman and Phil Mickelson be removed for the World Golf Hall of Fame is ridiculous and petty.
If Chamblee wants to have a serious conversation with Greg Norman about LIV Golf, by all means, but to go about it this way is pathetic and it says more about Chamblee’s pettiness, than Greg Norman’s character.
LIV Golf is a reality and if Chamblee wants to have a serious debate about it, then he needs to realize that LIV Golf is here to stay and needs to base his arguments on the merits or flaws of the product.
When a current Ryder Cup Captain like Henrik Stenson chooses LIV Golf instead of the captaincy of the European Ryder Cup Team, is no longer a laughing matter.
Until then, Brandel Chamblee, and the rest of the buffoons at the Golf Channel, will be seen as nothing but foolish clowns.
As a sidebar, I want Jaime Diaz to provide evidence proving his on-air suggestion that Henrik Stenson is going through financial difficulties and that is the reason why he left for LIV Golf. Otherwise Jaime Diaz needs to mind his own business and report actual facts.
