PGA & LIV Golf Merger.. everything we know so far.

Greetings, salutations, and a good Wednesday to you. Here’s a quote from PGA Tour CEO and spineless hypocrite Jay Monahan:

“I would ask any player who has left or any player who would consider leaving, 'Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

Here's what we've got for ya today:

• Doin Lines: RBC Canadian Open

• LIV & PGA Merge

• Golf Shots Heard Round The World

• Show Me How To LIV

• Meet Jimmy Dunne, the man who brokered the merger.

• Golf Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

Doin Lines: RBC Canadian Open

By Josey Orr

The RBC Canadian Open has gotta be thrilled today that their event, which has a great history and decent field, has been totally overshadowed by the PGA & LIV news. We’ve got bets to make, so let’s dive in.

🚩 Location: Oakdale Golf and Country Club

💰 Purse: $9M - Winner gets $1.6M

👑 Previous Winner: Rory

⛳️ Field: 156

👀 Watch On: Golf Channel, CBS, ESPN+, Paramount+

The Field

The field this week includes 10 of the top 30 in OWGR. Here are some of the big names who will be playing outside of Toronto:

Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Sam Burns, Cameron Young, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose, and Corey Conners are the players to beat at the 2023 Canadian Open.

The Course

Despite the RBC being one of the longest running events on tour, this is the first time they are hosting at Oakdale.

The scorecard has it playing around 7200 yards, but sources tell me that they’ll be moving things around every day of the tournament, so it could play a bit closer to 7400yds.

Apparently, they let the rough grow a little thicker than usual this year as well, likely to prevent the “bomb & gauge” style of play.

Greens are on the smaller side, so as per usual, SG APP will be our focus metric.

The Strokes Gained Data

The top 10 in SG: APP over the last 36 rounds are: Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Corey Conners, Shane Lowry, Aaron Rai, Tyrrell Hatton, Eric Cole, Nate Lashley, Tommy Fleetwood, and Scott Piercy.

The top 10 players in Prox: 75-150 are: Russell Knox, Ben Martin, Davis Riley, Charley Hoffman, Corey Conners, David Lipsky, Ryan Armour, Aaron Baddeley, and Hank Lebioda.

💰Shanks Picks💰

Outright Winner: Justin Rose +1600

Top Five: Shane Lowry +375

Top Ten: Sam Bennet +1200

Top Twenty: Ludvig Aberg +210

Long Shot: Akshay Bhattia +12500

Ludvig and Sam (you may remember him from The Masters) are both fresh out of college and are highly touted as up and coming players. Let us take a little flier on them.

LIV & PGA To Merge

By Josey Orr

By the time you’re reading this, you’ve undoubtedly heard the news that LIV Golf and PGA Tour are merging.

There’s so much to unpack here, it’s hard to know where to start.

And the sad reality of our time is that it doesn’t matter.

No one is going to care next week anyway, and money rules everything. The Saudis will buy the Dallas Cowboys next year, and The Chinese government will buy the New York Yankees, and no one will care.

No one will draw a line.

Every piece of America is for sale to any dictator who’s got enough cash to buy. Not only will the outrage pass quickly, and people will forget about where the money comes from, but they’ll also actively cheer as the crown prince snaps up more American institutions, real estate, sports teams, oil companies, etc.

In fact, as I write this, Rory McIlroy is up at the podium doing an interview, here’s what he said about PIF Funding

“I’ve come to terms with it. I see what’s happened in other sports. I see what’s happened in other businesses. I’ve just resigned myself to it.”

Anyway, here’s a rundown of everything we know so far, which ain’t much since the details of the merger are scarce.

Dan Rapaport: Details are starting to emerge about the shocking PGA Tour- LIV Merger: How it came to be, who knew, and the players-only meeting.

Jason Sobel: Royalty over Loyalty

Brandel Chamblee: One of the saddest days in golf.

Joe Pompliano: Everything you need to know about how the Saudis are taking over sports. This one is a podcast episode.

Michael Kim: A player gives his rundown of events:

Meet Jimmy Dunne

Click the tweet to read the entire thread.

Dunne is the president of Seminole. He banned LIV members from the annual member-pro tournament. According to today’s press release, Jimmy will serve on the board, which is chaired by Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Yasir is the governor of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Golf Shots Heard Round The World

Greg Norman: CEO of LIV Golf was not informed of merger decision, will likely not be involved going forward.

Jack Nicklaus and Fred Ridley: The GOAT and The Chairmen of The Masters both have said they are encouraged by the announcement of LIV & PGA merging together. That is really all you need to know.

Bryson Says: 9/11 was twenty years ago and it’s time to move on.

Show Me How To LIV

By Chase Marjerus

Not for any specific reason, but I thought it might be helpful to remind our readers how LIV tournaments work. It’s confusing and may be a bit more popular soonish. Maybe.

At the next LIV Tour event on June 30^th - July 2^nd at Real Club Valderrama in Spain, you should expect the following to happen…

• 48 players will represent 12 teams. So that’s 4 people per team.

• 3 rounds of 18 holes = 54 holes total. No cuts (oh the horror).

• Shotgun start (all groups of players tee off simultaneously from different holes).

• During every tournament, there is simultaneously a team competition and an individual competition.

• The lowest individual score wins the individual event. The lowest cumulative team score wins the team event (the 3 lowest players’ scores are counted for the whole team thing).

There’s a $20 million individual prize pool, with $4 million going to the winner, $2.1 million to 2^nd , and $1.5 million to 3^rd . Teams have a $5 million purse and the winning foursome splits $3 million, the second-place team sharing $1.5 million and the third-place team receiving $500,000.

Currently, you can catch the LIV tour on the CW network, the LIV Golf + app, or on YouTube. If you want to see their website, check it out. Trust me. You won’t die. Find a golfer you like. Find a team to root for. Kick back and have a beer.

Golf Thing We'd Buy If We Weren't Broke

By Chase Marjerus

There almost couldn’t be a more interesting time to go to a golf event than right now. And it’s not even a major! I would pay good money to see some pissed off players at the RBC Canadian Open or the next LIV Tour event in Spain. Let’s check ticket prices!

If I wanted to hop the border to the RBC Canadian Open, tickets to the actual event are $109 for Thursday, $142 for Friday, $142 for Saturday, and $114 for Sunday.

If I flew my ass out to Spain at the end of June, tickets to the LIV Golf event are 42,35 euros ($45.40) for grounds pass, 210 euros ($224.36) for the Birdie Shack, 330 euros ($352.56) for the gallery club, 2520 euros ($2,692.30) for the gallery club lodge box, and 1699 euros ($1,815.17) for Club 54 access for all 3 days.

Now I don’t have that kind of dollar (or euros) in my bank account but if I was made of funny money, I’d go to both!

Got an opinion you’d like to share? Tweet at us or reply to this email. See you Friday.