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Bruce Dowbiggin

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

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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

 

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Eau Canada! Join Us In An Inclusive New National Anthem

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This past week has seen (some) Canadians celebrating their heritage— now that Mike Myers has officially reinterpreted Canadian culture as a hockey sweater and Mr. Dressup. This quick-change was so popular that Canadian voters even forgot an entire decade of Justin Trudeau.

In the United States, the people who elected Donald Trump– and not Andrew Coyne– to run their nation celebrated Independence Day with stirring renditions off The Star Spangled Banner, although few could surpass the brilliant performance of the song by the late Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl.

The CDN equivalent is some flavour of the month changing the words to O Canada at the Grey Cup game. Canada’s national anthem has always been open to interpretation by people who may or may not have Canada in their hearts. At the 2023 NBA All Star Game Canadian chanteuse Jully Black became the latest singer to attempt a manicure to the English lyrics of O Canada, penned for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony ( Calixa Lavallée composed the music, after which words were written by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The English lyrics have “evolved” over the years, just like the dress code for the CDN PM..)

Black amended the first line from “our home and native land” to our home ON native land”. Because something-something. But this creative license is nothing new. Unlike Chris Stapleton, Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston with the Star Spangled Banner, interpreters of O Canada have seen fit to amend the lyrics to their sensibilities. Roger Doucet, famed anthem singer of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970-80s, tried to add the words “we stand on guard for truth and liberty” in place of the first “we stand on guard for thee”.

In 1990, having nothing better to do, Toronto City Council voted 12 to 7 in favour of recommending that the phrase “our home and native land” be changed to “our home and cherished land” and that “in all thy sons command” be partly reverted to “in all of us command”. (The latter was officially adapted.)

While those attempts had mixed outcomes it appears it’s just a matter of time till Ms. Black’s class-conscious culling of the words is accepted. Being generous we here at IDLM thought we’d short-circuit piecemeal attempts to create a throughly Woke version of the anthem that would last till the latest fad come along. Herewith our 2023 definitive O Canada that even— maybe only— Justin Trudeau could love:

“O Canada” (Ignores the French fact in our culture) Change to “Eau Canada”

“Our home on native land” (ignores indigenous land claims) Change to “Get off our land, settlers”

“True patriot love in all of us commands” (Only true patriot love? There were officially 78 kinds of relationships in Trudeaupia. And commanding love?) Change to “Love the one you’re with”.

“With glowing hearts we see thee rise” (rise suggests triumph of white triumphalist dogma) Change to “Non judgementally we oppose the crushing impacts of Euro-based autocracy”

“The true north strong and free” (How can anyone be strong or free when we support America’s killing fields?) Change to “Heteronormative thinking must be stamped out at our borders. If we even have borders anymore.”

“From far and wide” (Body shaming) Change to “Obesity is a disease that is not helped by putting it in the national anthem.”

“O Canada” (biased against A, B, AB blood types) change to “Science Must Be Believed”

“We stand on guard for thee” (Spreads hate against the non ableist community) Change to “Please remain seated.”

“God keep our land” (God? God? What is this, the Reformation) “Change to “It’s your thing”

”Glorious and free” (Glorious harkens to the bourgeois subjugation of Indigenous thought processes by white Christian priests) Change to “A genocidal state if there ever was one”.

“O Canada we stand on guard for thee/ 

O Canada we stand on guard for thee”  The denial of trans rights is used twice here to emphasize the intolerable burdens faced by people of the LGBTQ2R community as they seek respect and compensation for the evils of the founding oppressors.) Change to “Eau Canada, after 6.5 hours of intensive lectures on the gender, race and dissociative application of class war on your citizens you may someday come to understand that this song is a manifestation of your bigotry and exploitation of minorities— and why rhyming lines like “thee and free” is the work of the devil or J.K. Rowling, whomever comes to mind first.”

There. That wasn’t so tough, was it? Flows trippingly off the tongue like Mark Carney refusing a special inquiry into China buying the electoral process.  Or perhaps we should simply accept a literal translation of the original French lyrics:

“O Canada!

Land of our ancestors

Glorious deeds circle your brow

For your arm knows how to wield the sword

Your arm knows how to carry the cross;

Your history is an epic

Of brilliant deeds

And your valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights.”

Yikes. That’s downright fascistic. But it’s Quebec, and we have to allow them their peccadilloes. So circle your brow with glorious deeds, grab a cross and a sword and valour steeped in faith. And remember we must be adaptable in the new era.

Unless it’s Alberta using the adapting to fuel its CO2-belching machines. In which case it’s man the battlements and follow Mike Myers into the fight.

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.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Canada Day 2025: It’s Time For Boomers To Let The Kids Lead

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So how did you spend your first Canada Day under new PM Mark Carney? If you’re CBC, freed from the clutches of Pierre Poilievere, you do a fawning  interview with ex-pat comedian Mike Myers, whose Elbows Up appearance on Saturday Night Live and whose partisan hockey sweater appearance with Carney were pivotal moments in the recent election. (Saving CBC from drastic budget cuts— not that they mentioned it.)

After Donald Trump’s bellicose 51st state comments, Myers’ nostalgic harkening to the days of Gordie Howe and Mr. Dressup pivoted Boomers’ voter preferences in Canada. Soft Quebec sovereigntists petrified by Trump abandoned the Bloc for the Liberals. Progressives ditched the NDP for the Grits. And some wobbly Conservatives moved to Carney’s side, too, after the charm offensive by Myers, who hasn’t lived in Canada since the 1980s.

The result? Liberals vaulted 20 points in the polls and barely missed a majority in their fourth consecutive election win. Boomers were exultant. Their subsidized media was joyous. And the rest of the world asked if Canada was a serious country after the Libs naked substitution of Carney for the loathed Justin Trudeau. After all, hadn’t the U.S. Democrats tried the same thing and been summarily spanked by voters?

More to the point, had Canadian voters missed a great opportunity by sticking their heads in the ground on Chinese gangs using Canada as a drug launch pad, Canadian banks being fined billons for money laundering, immigration flooding social services, cratering GDP and Palestinian protests clogging the streets?

This at a time when the under-50 generation has lost faith in its destiny within Canada. As we wrote in March why are 43 percent of 18-36 male CDNs telling pollsters they would accept U.S. citizenship if they were guaranteed full rights and financial protections? Where upper-class products of liberal education— the future professional class— have taken to wearing keffiyehs to the convocations and demonstrations. Where housing is an unattainable goal in most major Canadian urban centres.

It’s not hard to see them looking at the Mike Myers obsession with a long-gone Canada and saying let’s get out of here. The signs are there. Recently former TVOntario host Steve Pakin attended two convocations. The first at the former Ryerson University, which switched its name to Toronto Metropolitan University in a fit of settler colonizer guilt. The second at Queens University, traditionally one of the elite schools in the nation. Here’s what he saw.

“At the end of the (TMU) convocation, when Charles Falzon, on his final day as dean of TMU’s Creative School, asked students to stand and sing the national anthem, many refused. They remained seated. Then, when the singing began, it was abundantly noticeable that almost none of the students sang along. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know the words, which were projected on a big screen. The unhappy looks on their faces clearly indicated a different, more political, explanation.

I asked some of the TMU staff about it after the ceremony was over, and they confirmed what I saw happens all the time at convocations. Then I texted the president of another Ontario university who agreed: this is a common phenomenon among this generation at post-secondary institutions.”

At Queens, where Canadian flags were almost non-existent, O Canada was sung, but the message of unrest was clear: “Convocation sends a message of social stability,” Queen’s principal Patrick Deane  began in his speech.  “It is a ceremony shaped in history. You should value your connection to the past, but question that inheritance. Focus on the kind of society you’d like to inhabit.”

You can bet Deane is not telling them to question climate change and trans rights. As Paikin observes, “if we fail to create a more perfect union, we shouldn’t be surprised when a vast swath of young people don’t sing our anthem the way so many of the rest of us do.” So why are the best and brightest so reluctant to see as future in becoming the new professional class that runs society?

In the Free Press River Page searched the source of their discontent. “If the Great Recession, Covid-19, and the spectre of an artificial intelligence-assisted ‘white collar bloodbath’ has taught the professional class anything, it is that their credentials cannot save them. This insecurity, compounded by the outrageous cost of living in many large cities, has pushed the PMC’s anxieties to the breaking point. 

“Add that to the triumph of identity politics in professional class institutions like universities, corporate C-suites, non-governmental organizations, and media—itself a byproduct of inter-elite competition as many have observed—and what you have is the modern left.

“… they’ve already come to the baffling conclusion that there’s no difference between class struggle and child sex changes. More to the point, the socialist mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has only ever stood the test of time in Anabaptist sects. It requires a religious devotion to self-sacrifice that is not characteristic of this anxious and hyper-competitive class—as many actual socialists have spent the last decade warning.”

As we wrote in March Boomer nostalgia is a dead end. “It’s time that Canada’s aging elite ceded a greater voice in the national debate to younger voices. They need an intervention of the type Trump is now performing on Canadians addicted to sitting in first class but paying economy. He brought them into a room with the chairs and levelled with them about getting the free stuff they assumed was their right. Defence, security, trade, medical access. He’s the first president to do this in half a century.

And like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don’t want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” Because we’re now seeing the likely answer to that question everywhere in Canadian society.

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.

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