I LUV GOLF
Everyone knows hes a cheater
updated
Writer: Adam Schupak
Video editor: Lance Keller
Gary McCord tells
an all-time Mac
O’Grady story from
the time he got his
PGA Tour card after
17 failed attempts
at PGA Tour Q-
School
McCord played a major role in rallying support for the
Tour’s move in 1983 to the top 125 All-Exempt Tour.
Previously, the magic number was top 60. In some sort of
poetic justice, McCord lost his card by a matter of a few
TXT.rtf
thousand dollars and had to go back to Q-School, held at
TPC Sawgrass and Sawgrass CC, in late 1982, just as it
will be this week. (One of the primary differences is that
only top 5 and ties will get a card this time.)
McCord made it. So did O’Grady, who, despite opening
with rounds of 79-76, earned his card for the first time in
17 attempts. Recounting the story to Golfweek, McCord
said, “I invited him to dinner. I said, ‘Let’s go celebrate.’ He
said, ‘No, I’ve got something to do.’ ”
Save Ballesteros (left) is given a lesson by Mac O”Grady
(holding video camera) as caddie Billy Foster shelters him
from rain during a practice round before the start of the
1994 Masters. (Steve Munday/ALLSPORT)
Months passed and McCord sees O’Grady and, out of
curiosity, asked him what he did that night after making his
card at last.
“He told me he went down to the sporting goods store and
bought 17 Louisville Slugger baseball bats, got a Sharpie,
and wrote the date and location of every time he failed (Q-
School), then waited until dark and went behind the
second green at the TPC and broke all 17 of those bats
against a pine tree,” McCord recalled. “He said, ‘I got rid of
the demons.’ I just went ‘OK.’ Whether he did it or not, I
don’t know. But I bet he probably did.”
TXT.rtf
Writer: Jay Busbee
Video editor: Lance Keller
What’s good for Jon
Rahm is terrible for
the game of golf
Golf is rapidly headed in the direction of
tennis, in which only four events a year
matter to most fans
At its heart, golf is a simple game. Not easy, but simple:
Tee it up, swing away, and whoever reaches the pin in the
fewest strokes wins. Everyone is equal standing on the
first tee.
But simplicity and equality don’t fit in the worldview of
professional golf. Power and profitability rule the sport at
its highest levels, and if that means the game suffers ...
too bad, so sad.
Jon Rahm
announced Thursday that he’s leaving the PGA
Tour for LIV Golf
, the Saudi-funded breakaway tour that’s
now taking huge chunks out of the Tour’s hide. There will
be gloating on the LIV side, wailing on the Tour side. LIV
will view Rahm as a conquering hero; the Tour will brand
him a money-hungry traitor.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle. The truth is also
this: A great day for Rahm and LIV Golf is a terrible day for
golf fans.
Certainly, this is one of the most important days in Rahm’s
life. He has signed a deal that will guarantee his great-
great-grandchildren a comfortable existence. He has
managed to protect himself at a time when the entire sport
seems to be, if not crumbling, at the very least creaking on
its foundations. He looked out for himself, and he made
the judgment that throwing in with LIV was a better option
than riding with the PGA Tour. That’s a warning sign
glowing bright red in itself, one that surely has the Tour in
a head-for-the-bomb-shelters panic.
At 29 and in the prime of his career, Rahm stands as one
of the finest players in the world, a charismatic lumberjack
whose eloquence and emotion make him a better
ambassador for the game than a dozen of the anonymous,
country-club-raised types that populate the PGA Tour.
He’s the defending Masters champion, a U.S. Open
champion and a Ryder Cup icon.
Rahm has no need to worry about LIV's inability to get
Official World Golf Ranking points for its tournaments; he
has a permanent exemption into the Masters, a 10-year
exemption into the U.S. Open and five years for the PGA
Championship and Open Championship. But every PGA
Tour event he misses, from The Players to the FedEx Cup
to an early-season tune-up, is that much worse off without
his presence.
If all of golf's present talk of hundreds of
millions of dollars
, world ranking points, elevated
events and breakaway tours makes your eyes start to
glaze ... well, that’s the heart of the problem. All the
entities involved here are clinging so fiercely to their own
fiefdoms and their own players — and spending ungodly
amounts of money to do so — that the sport risks
crumbling under the weight of its own greed and
desperation.
Golf is rapidly transforming into tennis, in which the only
events that break through into the national sporting
consciousness are the four Grand Slams: Wimbledon and
the U.S., Australian and French Opens. In the same vein,
the majors — The Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA
Championship and the Open Championship — will be the
only times golf fans can see the best in the game gathered
together on the same course, the same leaderboard.
Golf’s current trajectory isn’t sustainable. The PGA Tour
doesn’t have the financial resources to compete with the
Saudi Public Investment Fund, and LIV Golf hasn’t yet
shown that it can attract the interest of more than a tiny
fraction of golf fans. The whole of golf is so much more
than the sum of its fractured parts, and LIV and the PGA
Tour are spinning in ever-tighter, ever-more-costly circles.
Maybe Rahm’s departure will spur a wave of new LIV
signees who bolster the breakaway tour’s presence.
Maybe this will inspire the Tour and LIV Golf to come
together, execute their agreement and find a way to allow
players to move back and forth between the tours, for the
good of the game and its fans.
Or maybe it will all collapse into two bickering, sniping
camps, each with its own array of social media shock
troops and zealots, with nothing achieved but acrimony
and nothing gained but billable hours. Golf is a niche sport
as it is; subdividing it still further risks shattering the sport’s
value entirely.
At its heart, golf is a simple game, one of the finest in the
world. But if the best aren’t sharing the same course,
there’s no true winner ... and an entire sport full of losers.
Writer: Jay Busbee
Video editor: Lance Keller
It's official: Jon
Rahm joins LIV Golf,
a major upheaval in
the uncertain world
of golf
Jon Rahm, one of the world's best and most
popular golfers, is joining LIV Golf, a move
that will send ripples through the entire
sport.
The most important piece on the board in professional
golf’s ongoing chess match now belongs to LIV Golf. Jon
Rahm — two-time major winner, defending Masters
champion, world No. 3 and Ryder Cup icon — will leave
the PGA Tour and join LIV Golf starting in the 2024
season.
"I have officially joined LIV Golf," Rahm said Thursday
evening in a Fox News appearance. "There's a lot of
things that LIV Golf has to offer that were very, very
enticing. Being part of a team is something that's been
very big for me in my career."
Rumors of Rahm's departure had circulated for weeks,
right around the time that Rahm withdrew from an indoor
golf league planned by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. A
non-denial denial then, and continued silence since, has
fed the perception that Rahm would be accepting a
mammoth offer to join LIV. When Rahm did not appear at
a news conference to promote a PGA Tour event where
he's the defending champion, the writing appeared to be
on the wall.
The move of such a major player in golf's world order
comes at a precipitous time for the sport. The PGA Tour
and
Saudi Arabia
's Public Investment Fund, the financial
backer of LIV Golf, are facing a Dec. 31 deadline to
formalize an agreement, announced in June, that would
end legal hostilities between the two and lay the
foundation for the sport going forward. Rahm's leap to LIV
could be seen as an act of aggression by LIV, although a
do-not-poach agreement between the two leagues that
was initially part of the agreement was scrapped. It's also
a sign that the PIF is willing to invest heavily in LIV's future
viability.
On a personal level, Rahm’s departure is a significant
shock given how opposed he had been to both the riches
and the format of LIV Golf in the past.
“This is my official, my one and only time I’ll talk about this,
where I am officially declaring my fealty to the PGA Tour,”
Rahm said in early 2022. “I have a lot of belief in [PGA
Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan and the product that
they’re going to give us in the future. There has been a lot
of talk and speculation about the Saudi league. It’s just not
something I believe is the best for me and my future in
golf, and I think the best legacy I can accomplish will be
with the PGA Tour.”
Since then, however, Rahm has won the Masters — which
gives him a permanent entry into Augusta, as well as
several years of exemptions into the other majors — and
the PGA Tour has stunned its players by securing a
negotiated-in-secret agreement with LIV’s financial
backers.
Rahm’s move to LIV also sets up a fascinating scenario
involving the Official World Golf Rankings. LIV Golf
tournaments currently do not receive ranking points for a
variety of reasons, including their length, their lack of a
mid-tournament cut, and the lack of a pathway for
advancement or relegation. Already the rankings’ validity
has come under scrutiny because of the low rankings of
notable major winners like Cam Smith and Brooks
Koepka; any “official” ranking system that does not have
Rahm at the very top — he’s currently No. 3 in the world
— will be incomplete at best and invalid at worst.
It’s almost impossible to overstate the seismic impact of
this move on the fate of the PGA Tour. Outside of Woods
and McIlroy, Rahm is the most important golfer on the
planet, a charismatic ambassador of the game who also
happens to be one of its finest players. Losing the 29-
year-old Rahm means losing a player who is on a
trajectory to dominate golf for the next decade, a player
who appears to be the next link in a chain of golf history
that leads from McIlroy to Woods to Nicklaus, Palmer and
on back into history.
LIV Golf continues to make inroads on the international
front, with more tournaments outside the U.S. in 2024 than
in the series’ previous two seasons. Adding the Spanish-
born Rahm to the mix will continue to establish and solidify
the league’s presence beyond American borders.
Rahm’s arrival marks the most successful day in the two-
year history of LIV Golf, and a reputational boost that
would have taken LIV years to achieve on its own.
Writer: David Dusek
Video editor: Lance Keller
USGA, R&A
announce golf ball
rollback for
everyone, not just
elite golfers
In an announcement nearly four years in the making,
the United States Golf Association and the R&A,
golf’s governing bodies, announced Wednesday that
they are changing how golf balls will be tested for
conformity to reduce the effects of distance in the
sport.
Starting in 2028, for a golf ball to be deemed
conforming and be legal for play, it will be tested
using a robot that swings a titanium club at 125 mph
and hits the ball on an 11-degree launch angle with
2,200 rpm of spin. The shot can not exceed the
Overall Distance Standard (ODS) of 317 yards of
combined carry distance and roll (with a 3-yard
tolerance).
Currently, balls are at 120 mph with a launch angle
of 10 degrees and 2,520 rpm of backspin, so the
change increases the robot’s clubhead by 5 mph,
increases the launch angle by 1 degree and
decreases the spin rate by about 300 rpm.
Current test
conditions
New test
conditions
Change
120 mph
clubhead speed
125 mph
clubhead speed
5 mph clubhead
speed
10-degree
11-degree
1-degree launch
launch angle
launch angle
angle
2,520 rpm of
spin
2,200 rpm of
spin
320 rpm of spin
Nearly every golf ball being sold today – including
the Titleist Pro V1, Callaway Chrome Soft,
TaylorMade TP5, Bridgestone Tour B and Srixon Z-
Star – would go too far and fail the new test because
manufacturers design their balls to go right to the
current distance limits. Increasing the test speed by
5 mph and hitting shots at low spin rates and higher
launch angles would make all of today’s balls go too
far and become non-conforming.
Balls that had previously been legal but failed the
new test will be removed from the Conforming Ball
list, making them illegal for official play starting Jan.
1, 2028.
According to Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s chief
governance officer, using golf balls that pass the
new test will result in a loss of distance, with the
fastest-swinging players being affected the most and
recreational golfers being affected the least.
“The longest players, which means those generating
ball speeds of 183 mph or higher, are going to lose
13 to 15 yards [with their driver],” Pagel said. “The
average PGA Tour player and elite male, like a
college player, would lose closer to 9 or 11 yards.
LPGA players, given their clubhead speed, we’re
looking at 5 to 7 yards. And recreational golfers,
we’re talking about 5 yards or less.”
Only 10 players ended last season’s PGA Tour with
a measured ball speed average of over 183 mph.
ShotLink reports the PGA Tour’s average ball speed
for the season was 172.85 mph.
According to John Spitzer, the USGA’s director of
equipment standards, the average male club player
who swings his driver at 90 mph will lose 4 to 5
yards off the tee but will likely not lose any yardage
when hitting hybrids, irons or wedges.
“The typical male amateur and female amateur in
the recreational game hit the ball with a lot more
spin than is optimal off the driver,” Spitzer said.
Balls that are submitted for testing by October 2027
will be tested under the current standard, while any
balls submitted for testing after that will be tested at
the new standard and added (assuming they pass
the test) to the Conforming Ball list on Jan. 1, 2028.
Why did we decide to change the golf ball
testing conditions?
Because, as
@USGAMike
explains, we would
be failing in our responsibility to protect the
game's future if we didn't take appropriate
action.
“Golfers in the recreational game don’t have to worry
about this until 2030,” Pagel said. “We will leave the
last list for 2027 published and recreational golfers
can continue to use those balls. So, if they have any
balls left in their golf bag or at home and they want
to use those balls and post their scores, they will be
playing under the Rules of Golf and there won’t be
any issues there.”
The USGA and R&A plan to work out the details that
will allow recreational golfers to play pre-2028 balls
but have professionals and elite amateurs use
reduced-distance balls at a later date, likely with
Clarification.
Nine months ago, the USGA and the R&A thought
they had a solution to the distance problem and
proposed a
new Model Local Rule
. It would
allow tournament organizers and tours to require
players to use golf balls tested under conditions very
similar to those announced now. The goal was to
enable tournaments for elite golfers to mandate the
use of distance-reducing golf balls while not
changing equipment rules that govern recreational
players.
ok at several golf balls that have been cut in half to show their insides.
(Photo: David Dusek/Golfweek)
Writer: Adam Woodard
Video editor: Lance Keller
Rory McIlroy
explains why he
doesn’t understand
the ‘anger about
the golf ball roll
back’
Rory McIlroy is taking some time off after a busy 2023, but
a brief break from competition doesn’t mean the world No.
2 is completely checked out from the game.
On Sunday morning McIlroy took to social media to voice
his opinion about
the recent report
that the USGA and
R&A plan to
announce a universal golf ball rollback next
week.
“I don’t understand the anger about the golf ball roll back.
It will make no difference whatsoever to the average golfer
and puts golf back on a path of sustainability,” McIlroy
wrote. “It will also help bring back certain skills in the pro
game that have been eradicated over the past 2 decades.”
I don’t understand the anger about the golf
ball roll back. It will make no difference
whatsoever to the average golfer and puts
golf back on a path of sustainability. It will
also help bring back certain skills in the pro
game that have been eradicated over the
past 2 decades....
Show more
The four-time major champion stood up for the two
governing bodies and told fans their anger should be
directed at
elite professionals as well as the equipment
manufacturers “because they didn’t want bifurcation.”
“The governing bodies presented us with that option
earlier this year. Elite pros and ball manufacturers think
bifurcation would negatively affect their bottom lines, when
in reality, the game is already bifurcated,” he argued. “You
think we play the same stuff you do? They put pressure on
the governing bodies to roll it back to a lesser degree for
everyone. Bifurcation was the logical answer for everyone,
but yet again in this game, money talks.”
McIlroy has been on the frontlines for the PGA Tour in its
battle against LIV Golf for the better half of the last two
years and has been an active voice in the game for most
of his career. The 34-year-old
recently resigned from his
position
as a player director on the Tour’s Policy Board.