This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
First, let me underline this: I will not write about the looney Donald Trump this week.
Instead, this should be a week when real golfers – me included — love to watch the best tournament in any year, the Masters.
Still, as this blog headline notes, a contentious issue lurks in the background.
It boils down to one word: Money.
More than 10 months have passed since the PGA Tour announced plans to partner with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns LIV Golf. The sides blew past a December 31 deadline and continue to work through details, but no deal is imminent.
Who knows if one reason is that the Saudi Public Investment Fund contains “tainted money,” produced by a country that kills people for a living.
Meanwhile, LIV Golf, funded by the Saudis, continues to pour money into personnel on and off the course, even as its product has yet to reach a critical mass, particularly in the United States. And the PGA Tour responded to LIV’s flurry of activity by going on its own spending spree — with new expenses seemingly outpacing new revenue streams.
This from the Washington Post:
“Because the game’s top players haven’t competed against one another in an individual event since last year’s British Open, fans have endured lackluster tournament fields and forgettable Sunday finishes. While LIV’s linear TV ratings aren’t publicized, LIV officials say their numbers on the CW Network are up 40 per cent from last year and they’re pleased with early streaming viewership.
“The PGA Tour’s TV figures, which includes a much larger audience domestically, are down more than 15 per cent.”
So, none other than controversial TV commentator Brandel Chamblee waded into the mess this week in comments made during oGolf Channel’s “Live from the Masters” show:
“We talk so much about how important it is for players to be in the right place mentally, and I just think there’s an epidemic of distraction on the PGA Tour, whether it’s greed or trying to solve problems that are almost unsolvable. However you want to put it, I just think they’re hugely distracted.”
Who knows if Chamblee is right. Sometimes he is. Sometimes he isn’t.
The goal to gain money for you and your family is not automatically wrong, especially as is the case, we live in a capitalistic society. But, the problem arises when money becomes the end goal, not happiness. Money should be a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
For my part, no amount of background tension – including over money in a bid to control professional golf — will get in the way of my intent to watch the Masters starting tomorrow, Thursday.
I’ll be sitting, figuratively, in my Masters chair and drinking coffee, figuratively, out of my Master’s cup. I say “figuratively” because I forgot both back home in Salem, Oregon as I continue my sojourn in the California desert.
It won’t matter. I’ll settle for a regular chair and a regular coffee cup.
So, go Scottie Scheffler.
Go Rory McIlroy.
Go others.
Make golf what it was meant to be this week for those who play for “love of the game” – money and tension aside.
Perspective from the 19th Hole 