daniel chigunwe
Over the weekend the golf conversation in the internet’s defective public square, Twitter, took a turn when user desertdufferLLG began posting screenshots from a series of legal documents.
Some of the more intriguing bits involved the PGA Tour’s discussions around (and blueprint for the acquisition of) the DP World Tour, Saudi involvement in professional golf and talking points drafted by the Tour for key figures in its operations, including Tiger Woods.
In other words, the story had a little bit of everything.
There was also the story behind the story, which is an enthusiastic golf-fan-slash-lawyer beating establishment media to the documents.
As it turned out, the documents weren’t leaked; they were released last week as a part of a 357-page document dump from lawyer Larry Klayman‘s lawsuit against the PGA Tour.
Desertduffer was eager to point to the fact that he had noticed them first as a collective failure of the establishment.
I guess having a byline on this website makes me a part of the “establishment,” and I’ll readily admit there’s plenty of stuff we get beaten to, especially now that our top doc-diver Sean Zak has set sail to England for a fortnight or two.
But if media-bashing is your thing desertduffer expanded on those thoughts in a victory-lap manifesto here in what is a mix of cutting analysis and gleeful disparagements — although I think he overrates the quality of the media centre lunch buffet.
What’s the point? The point is, as golf coverage has ventured further into defection rumours, lawsuits and geopolitics, news has come from — or been first reported by — less traditional sources with greater frequency.
This began with LIV-related rumours (people had varying levels of insight into the question of “is X Player going to LIV?!”) and has continued.
Lawyers seem disproportionately represented among the ranks of hardcore golf fans, which means there are people who spend significant time thinking (and tweeting) about golf who are better equipped to handle a court document search than traditional golf media types.
That’s not to say you should be eschewing establishment media for a sea of anonymous blue-check Twitter accounts, which range from excellent and insightful to trollish and terrible.
But it does mean that the desert duffer was the one to draw Tiger Woods‘ first public comments in months.
Strange times!
We’ll save a deeper dive into the rest of the documents, like the PGA Tour’s plans for the DP World Tour, for later this week (July 4th seems like too rude a time to discuss an American takeover of a beloved European establishment). Let’s focus, for the moment, on that reaction from the world’s most famous player.
Woods has been curiously mum since the announcement of a new proposed relationship between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund last month.
Because he’s been recovering from surgery, he hasn’t played any tournaments nor made any public appearances, so he hasn’t answered questions on the subject.
But he hasn’t released any statements, either, leaving fans to wonder where he stands on the matter.
Hadn’t released any statements, that is until a 35-word Twitter missive on Sunday evening:
“In response to the talking points memo released this weekend, I have never seen this document until today, and I did not attend the players meeting for which it was prepared at the 2022 Travellers.”
It would be foolish to read too far into this, but it would be even more foolish not to read a little bit into it.
The memo Woods is referring to is a list of talking points for a hypothetical Woods appearance at last year’s Travellers Championship. In those notes, Woods’ lines included praise for commissioner Jay Monahan and encouragement for Tour pros to stand up against LIV and to “tell the Saudis to go f — themselves.”
They also included Woods invoking the hypothetical future career of his son, Charlie. Woods claims he never saw these notes and he didn’t attend that meeting, at least not in person.
It’s not clear whether they were ever presented to him in any form, whether this was an early draft later abandoned, whether these had anything in common with the message he delivered at the later Delaware meeting or what.
It’s also not clear which part of the document Woods is objecting to in his tweet. Was it the invocation of his son’s name and future?
The hard stand against the Saudis that hasn’t aged well now that the two have shared business interests?
Or perhaps just the idea that the Tour would put words in his mouth at all? For now, all we know is that
Woods is objecting to its contents in some way. As the Tour tries to get him on board with its vision for the future, this makes for some awkward timing.
Winners
Who won the week?
Rickie Fowler won on the PGA Tour for the first time in nearly four and a half years, ending the drought thanks to back-to-back stellar approach shots into Detroit Golf Club’s 18th green in regulation and then on the first hole of a playoff. — golf.com
Bongani Ndlovu