In fact, the only thing that inspired me was a young student who engaged in a whispered conversation with me and ended up asking me for advice on getting into journalism.
Presumably he had seen me carrying out some mind-boggling undertaking and thought that if an oaf like me could make a living by mindlessly pawing and poking at the keys of a laptop until I reached 900 words, so there is hope. for everyone.
Meanwhile, we live in hope that the ongoing shenanigans in the upper echelons of men’s professional soccer will one day come to some sort of conclusion.
Speaking to the Sunday newspaper this weekend, the DP World With the Tour booming, Keith Pelley has suggested that a unified product, involving the old European Tour, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, is inevitable.
Everyone and their aunt knows that negotiations between the different parties have been going on for years. And they might continue to rumble for a while.
“Whether it’s six months, a year, two years or ten years, I think people realize that a collective product is in the best interest of global society. Golfsaid Pelley.
A decade? Shit. Imagine your correspondent still documenting this prolonged palaver over the next 10 years? It would be like an entrance out of the diary by Samuel Pepys.
These days continue to be strange. Last week, those of us who work in golf media immersed ourselves in various states of excitement at Anthony Kim’s return after 12 years in the competitive wilderness.
For all our slightly lopsided anticipation, Kim, as expected, looked as rusty as some of the wrecks at Polmadie’s pound and finished dead last at the LIV event in Saudi Arabia with a total of 16 , 33 shots behind eventual winner Joaquin Niemann.
Kim arrived 11 strokes behind the penultimate player and was so adrift that he might as well have been swinging on a raft on the Red Sea.
As for Niemann? Well, his victory fueled a heated discussion topic that just won’t go away. The young Chilean, who won his second LIV event of the season and also won the DP World Tour Australian Open in late 2023, is one of the hottest players in the game right now.
“How is that possible? I’m like 100 in the world,” he replied, once again bringing up the bone of contention that is the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR).
For the record, Niemann is actually 76th in the world order but, like most LIV members, he is falling down the rankings because the Separatist Tour does not meet the OWGR criteria and players cannot earn ranking points. In this regard, scrolling through these rankings remains a confusing read.
Now where is Dustin Johnson, the two-time major winner who spent a total of 135 weeks as world number 1? Ah look, there he is, 247th, sandwiched between Pachara Khangwatmai and Nick Bachem. It’s a strange situation, isn’t it? But this is elite men’s golf in 2024 for you.
Niemann is eligible for the Open. The other week he got an exemption to the Masters based on his victory at the Australian Open and last night he got the nod for the PGA Championship.
In these fractured times, competition between the best and the best is not something that happens regularly. As a golf fan, you might feel wronged. The majors therefore seem more important than ever.
Some, including several LIV winners and – whisper it – world number 449 Talor Gooch, have claimed that big winners should now have an asterisk next to them due to the absence of some LIV players on the ground. Hysterical nonsense? Well, sure, but there has been a lot of hysterical nonsense spouted around the golf world over the last couple of years. There will probably be more to come.
Hysterical nonsense? Well, sure, but there has been a lot of hysterical nonsense spouted around the golf world over the last couple of years. There will probably be more to come.
Players who signed up for LIV knew they could potentially jeopardize their place in championships that matter more than money due to the tour’s failure to comply with OWGR regulations. You can’t have your cake soggy and eat handfuls of it.
Some observers insist that the OWGR is imperfect, inaccurate and unsuitable for current developments in golf. Many others believe LIV defectors should face the consequences of their choices on a circuit that still has to answer questions of competitive integrity.
It’s just another thriving thing that needs to be addressed in the complex framework that is men’s professional golf. If we’re lucky, we might get consensus rather than conflict by 2034. Watch this space…
