Connect with us

Bruce Dowbiggin

Can Rory and Tiger Save The PGA Tour From Greg Norman?

Published

9 minute read

Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. 

The PGA Tour season wound up with a bang for Rory McIlroy, who won US$18 million for capturing the Fed Ex Cup— and maybe Player of the Year, too. Otherwise it was, as the British say, a damp squib for the preeminent golf body in the world.

Even as the final putt dropped on the 18th hole, word had dropped of  more frontline stars defecting to the upstart LIV Golf Tour. Open Championship/ Players Championship winner Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Cameron Tringale, Anirban Lahiri, Joaquin Niemann, Harold Varner III and possibly Mito Pereira are headed to the lucrative rival circuit. And banishment from all things PGA Tour.

In one fell swoop that could rob the World Team for the upcoming Presidents Cup of at least four stars when they tee it up at Quail Hollow on Sept. 19. Added to the other international players (Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel) who’ve already jumped to the Saudi-backed LIV it turns the showpiece event into a walkover.

Worse for the PGA Tour, it was forced by its remaining major stars into making accommodations that sound suspiciously like those that were being demanded by LIV CEO Greg Norman as far back as  the 1980s. Namely, more emphasis on the Tour stars playing together more often, innovative formats, global outreach and tons of new money.

As we foresaw on Feb. 3, 2020, “It’s not a new idea in golf. Investors using former world number one Greg Norman as their front man tried the same tactic as far back as the 1980s. But the combination of Norman’s reputation with fellow pros and the lack of a digital media marketplace  stalled the idea. This time, with integrated media and innovation in travel, it could succeed.

Rory McIlroy confirmed that he’s talked to the people behind the idea to create a league of extraordinary golfing gentlemen.  “You know, it’s a hard one. … I love the PGA Tour, but these guys have exploited a couple of holes in the system, the way golf at the highest level is nowadays and how it’s sort of transitioned from a competition tour to entertainment. Right? It’s on TV, it’s people coming out to watch. It’s definitely a different time than what it was before.”

McIlroy resisted the LIV seduction and is now one of the hardliners left on the PGA Tour. He partnered with Tiger Woods and a handful of other elite players in pressuring the PGA Tour to make big changes if it wants to survive as the preeminent Tour. The plan— it goes into effect in January 2023— means bribing the superstars into playing more than just the four majors and a handful of other prestige events.

As Sports Illustrated explains, the new template will create “Two tiers of tournaments, one of “elevated events” featuring the best players in the world and larger purses, and one for everybody else on Tour. It’s not quite that simple, and of course players can move up and down based on how they play each year. But that is the gist of it. 

The Tour also doubled its Player Impact Program payout from $50 million to $100 million. This will all be better for the best players, and the Tour had to keep the best players. But whether it is better for the sport is to be determined.”

The PIP slush fund will be based on internet searches, general awareness, golf fan awareness, media mentions and broadcast exposure. And, ending a long meritocratic tradition of no guaranteed money on the Tour, fully exempt members — Korn Ferry Tour and above — will be guaranteed a league minimum of $500,000. There will also be $5,000 to players who miss the cut.

So, after the new 20 “prestige” events— not including the RBC Canadian Open— that will leave 15 openings for other tournaments on the schedule. If The Canadian Open wishes to make it up with the big boys their sponsor RBC will likely have to pony up US $20 M in prize money.  Even that won’t guarantee the Canadian Open a good midsummer date or a respectable field. (The Canadian government has indicated it will bump up its contribution to the Open and the LPGA CP Championship.)

Now squeezed between two “elite” events players will flock to, the Open will only dream of the quality field it had in 2022 with McIlroy winning the title as St. George’s in Toronto.

Anyone  counting on the Saudis getting bored with golf and dumping LIV is likely going to wait a while. To ratchet pressure on those who choose the Bobby Hull route of changing leagues, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan declared a permanent ban from all its events for defectors like Smith Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau. The Tour will also pressure the organizers of the four majors to honour those bans. For the foreseeable future— or unless a court allows for players to mix-and-match Tours— it’s cold war. Think NHL versus WHA.

As a footnote, it would be remiss to ignore the impact of Tiger Woods in all this. The aging, injured supernova was integral in getting the Tour to adapt. He knows he still moves the needle on TV, and thus will get PIP money even if he only plays a few tournaments a year.

He and McIlroy also got the Tour to accept their new prime-time venture that will feature 18-hole events played on a virtual course across a two-hour window. The 15 regular-season matches will be contested by six three-man teams of PGA Tour golfers. Woods and McIlroy are already on board with 16 more spots to fill before the inaugural season kicks off in January 2024.

The time for talk is over. The sides are dug in. What happens next is a coin flip. But if money wins the day, place your bests ion the Saudis getting some—or all— of what they and Greg Norman want.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

 

Storytelling is in our DNA. We provide credible, compelling multimedia storytelling and services in English and French to help captivate your digital, broadcast and print audiences. As Canada’s national news agency for 100 years, we give Canadians an unbiased news source, driven by truth, accuracy and timeliness.

Follow Author

Bruce Dowbiggin

Canadians Thinks America Owes Them. Trump Has Other Ideas

Published on

Breaking: It’s now being reported that in the 2024 U.S. election, zero Canadians voted for Donald Trump. In fact, zero Canadians voted for anyone on the ballot. They’re not allowed to. And yet rage monkeys in the Canadian media seem to have the idea that Canada is— and should be— an immediate priority of POTUS 47.

Here’s Globe & Mail/ CBC wind therapist Andrew Coyne about ten exits past normal on the idea of Donald Trump on Canadian soil. Okay, on Alberta soil. “We’re going to roll out the red carpet for the wannabe dictator of America at the very moment he is moving to suppress dissent with armed force?” (You mean like the Truckers Convoy?)

Cartoonist Michael DeAdder, who likely cries if you use improper pronouns, says “Hold my kombucha”. His latest etching has Trump asking a veteran what he did in the war. The witty retort is “Fought against people like you”. Get it? Trump murders six millions Jews. But The Hill keeps this guy working, and the laughs just keep on coming. Free speech!

The presumption is jaw-dropping. Even as Trump’s approval rating hits 53 percent, Canadians online were echoing Democrats’ fever dreams of forming a shadow government to take over from Trump via coup. This sense of impunity at a distance is why the Canadian government— along with other drive-by virtue signallers UK, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia— have imposed sanctions on two sitting members of the Israeli cabinet. They know it will rile Trump’s America.

For ordinary Canadians, Trump became a post-it note to justify giving Team Liberal another swing at ruining the nation. “We used to be such friends! He’s a tyrant.!” This just in: Love him or hate him Trump is employed by Americans to do their bidding. He’s not a sentimental buddy of Canada who’ll cut us some slack for old time’s sake. He has no remittance from Canada to please the Laurentian elites. If your defence is non-existent and your military gender-obsessed: you had it coming.

Are his policies jostling Canada? Absolutely. Read Art of the Deal. The 51st state jibe when Justin soiled himself was rude. But it worked on pliant Canadian liberals. Now the The Little Banker is disavowing the dissolute decade of Trudeau while employing Conservatives’ policies on defence spending, inter-provincial trade and border security. Hell, he’s naming longtime Tories to his personal staff.

In the end Carney knows this ain’t mock Parliament. That his dossier begins and ends with satisfying the beast to the south. None of this should be a surprise. Yet Canadians dozed when Trump made clear in his election campaign that the American economy is the greatest in the world. If you want to fish in that pond it’s not going to be for free. That means tariffs for a range of U.S. industries that couldn’t compete in a Biden world.

We can argue how well tariffs work, but Trump wants them to reduce taxes on the people who elected him. Not the Canadians who fly first class but pay economy. And who have pushed his approval ratings into the 50s, higher than ever before. (Likely to spike higher after the No Kings Riot season peters out.)

No wonder Canadians preferred the guy before Trump, the senile sock puppet whose government was run by anonymous figures using the auto-pen. Sleepy Joe let Canada slide into mediocrity and financial peril without any judgement. It was comfortable. Then The Donald had the nerve to expose the ditch Canada was in.

Canada, Trump pointed out,  was delinquent on its defence, harbouring Chinese drug lords, printing money like Canadian Tire and its banks were involved in money laundering. That was the nice stuff. Try Organized fentanyl networks operating with impunity in the largest cities of the nation So dumping on Trump in salty cartoons allows Canada’s Mod Squad to ignore the real issues that should have been litigated in the April election.

We have written extensively about the ruse that was played on gormless Canadians in  “U.S. Voters Smelled A Rat But Canadian Voters Bought The Cheese” We have catalogued Canada’s drug and money laundering disgrace in “Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?” We’ve described the real-estate bubble economy created by Trudeau and sidekick Carney that threatens to crash the economy and ruin seniors’ pensions in

In the end, it is still la-la-la-la We Can’t Hear You. Trump-obsessed Boomers more concerned with the equity in their jumped-up bungalows gave the finger to the next generations and blamed it all on Orange Man Bad. In the monotone of Canadian political comment it all seemed so easy. Turn against Trump. Cash another dividend. Cheer on MSNBC and CNN bitch sessions.

The Family Compact don’t get it. Their Antifa heroes down south plan demos and “nonviolent” activity to crater the public resolve. In Canada that still works. But in the U.S. the Covid reverb is hitting the natural governing class of the nation. While they craft fine phrases about democracy the consumers remember them using a virus to stop society.

The appetite for Gavin Newsom blovaitors and Jen Psaki fart catchers is crashing in America. Riots may be coming in the U.S., but it won’t be like  George Floyd and Covid and the pussy hats. At some point Canada’s docile classes better wake up, too. America owes them nothing. They need to earn the respect.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Continue Reading

Bruce Dowbiggin

Simone Biles Fails To Stick The Landing Going After Riley Gaines

Published on

Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them. George Orwell

Or, in the case of Olympic legend Simone Biles, only gymnasts believe in the incendiary issue of trans men competing in women’s sports. Biles, who has made a secondary career as an object of pity, took exception when former swimmer Riley Gaines, an opponent of trans men competing against women, sent a picture of Minnesota softball team that recently won a state title with a pitcher who is reported to be transgender.

“Comments off lol,’ Gaines wrote in response to the post which wasn’t permitting any comments from the public. “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”

That brought Biles into the fray. ‘You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. ‘You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! ‘But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!’

She then poked Gaines again, saying: ‘Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.” (Gaines husband is 6-foot-4)

The loser reference was to Gaines having lost to a trans swimmer in an NCAA race. Since then Gaines has launched a campaign to outlaw biological males from competing with cisgendered girls and women. She has testified in the U.S. Congress and has appeared in numerous interviews espousing a position supported by the vast majority of Americans.

One might think the proof of this position— unquestioned as recently as a decade ago— would be obvious. But Biles and  gender radicals who’ve tried to make trans into the Emancipation Proclamation of the 21st century are not giving up the fight.

Here’s someone named Nancy Armour in USA Today. “There is no scientific evidence that transgender women athletes have a physical advantage over cisgender women athletes, but that hasn’t stopped Gaines from claiming they do..” When legislation banning trans men in girls/ women sports was presented in the U.S. Congress 106 Democrats voted against the motion. The chattering class on CBC, MSNBC and CNN likewise have a cohort of those opposing the ban.

But it was the outburst from Biles that most appalled fans who’d worshipped her as the GOAT of Olympic gymnastics and then sympathized with her victimization by Dr. Larry Nasser. Even when she bailed on her teammates at the 2024 Games they cut her slack. But suddenly a woman who’s preached against body shaming and intolerance was deriding a fellow athlete’s body and mocking her complaints.

Critics were quick to post Biles’ hypocrisy about compassion, citing her own tear-stained testimony about how she was taken advantage by a doctor. Here’s how we described her psychological distress last August during the Olympics. “Prominent among them was gymnast Simone Biles who described the abuse she’d suffered from a male trainer and on social media as the greatest female gymnast in history. Even as she added more golds to her mantle she’d seemed unable to find peace in her accomplishments.

“Due to mental blocks, she’d had to step away from the sport for a time to get her head straight. She had a lot of company from fellow competitors who described sexual harassment and intimidation on social media for their unhappiness. (Hence the constant mental health commercials on the TV broadcasts.)”

Now the same role model is mocking Gaines? It seems unthinkable. As for the claims that men have no advantage against women, it was pointed out that there are zero women who try to reverse the equation, going into men’s sports. They show the hard truths about competitive records of men versus women in a range of sports. They describe the physical risks for women playing against larger, stronger men. Here. Here. And here.

It’s still stunning to see Biles toeing the radical LGBTQ line while asking for traditional pity of a victimized woman herself. Or the amount of support that the cause has garnered from progressives throughout society. When did people became so obtuse about the growth this societal contagion?

We wrote earlier this year about how such notions take hold. MacDonald Laurier Institute fellow Mia Hughes charted a history of similar social contagions such as bulimia and multiple-personality disorder. “In 1972, British psychologist Gerald Russell treated a woman with an unusual eating disorder involving binging and purging. Over the next seven years, he saw a further 30 woman presenting with the same condition. In 1979, he wrote a paper published in Psychological Medicine, in which he gave it the name bulimia nervosa….

“Then something remarkable happened. The illness swept the globe like wildfire… affecting an estimated 30 million people by the mid-1990s, the majority of whom were teenage girls and young women. The explanation for this rapid spread is what philosopher Ian Hacking calls ‘semantic contagion’ – how the process of naming and describing a condition creates the means by which the condition spreads. The epidemic of multiple-personality disorder in the 90s was spread this same way… Multiple studies demonstrate the media’s culpability in the spread of social contagions.”

The new contagion is trans athletes. USA Today is just one example of how influencers try to legitimize campaigns to boost their own self esteem. As the battle to reverse the trans incursion shows, there are only too many willing to play politics in the gender debate. Like the pro-Palestinian movement in North America the trans athlete hoax exists is a bubble where reality and fiction can co-exist, knowing they’ll never be put to the test.

Orwell called it doublethink “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Biles and the liberal elites have it mastered. Nursing their grievance while finding it a fault in others.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, Bruce is regular media contributor. The new book from there team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin is Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. In paperback and Kindle on #Amazon. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/

Continue Reading

Trending

X