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Saudi World Golf Tour 2022/2023 Thread

DCDeac said:
The shotgun start makes the coverage a total mess - you have no idea what hole is where or who has what remaining in their round and there is no flow at all as to how the course plays. It's annoying in general for round 1, but when it's the final round and the scores are jumbled it's going to be real dumb. Guys will need a birdie or whatever to win but some will be on a 150 yard par 3 and others on a 500 yard par 5. Since it's simultaneous nobody will know what putts matter or where they stand. No drama of a final group walking up the 18th - some rando on the 5th hole will chip in and by like oh I won all while 10 fans applaud.
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Yeah I've been thinking about this too. The little bit of the broadcast I saw the announcers were trying to play up that the leaders will start on hole 1 on Saturday, but that doesn't at all address the issue that you outlined.

I will say that the team format is something that could end up being a good feature since the scores from guys clearly out of the individual comp still matter, but the shotgun start will still make this a mess. A quick cut with no context to James Piot 4 jacking it around the green to lose the team comp doesn't really work.
 
Also, with how much money has been thrown at this, huge missed opportunity to not sign on whatever shop built the Masters app.

The shotgun start actually wouldn't be as bad if there was an app with the functionality to build your own featured groups, go back and see every shot on every hole with course maps, toggle between audio from the commentators and mic'd up players and caddies. Eventually in app gambling could be integrated.
 
You know keeping with the wrestling thing, picture this. LIV pairs little Koepka with Bryson the next few events and Bryson beats up on him and then the next event it's still a Koepka-DeChambeau pairing and when everybody is expecting Chase to walk out, it's Brooks come to defend the family.
 
liveanddiedeac said:
Watching some of this LivGolf on the web, I've just realized what it is. It's basically World Team Tennis, except there is shit-loads of money involved. Otherwise, it's just as cheesy as World Team Tennis.
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It does have the contrived, exhibition feel of WTT. And the broadcast production doesn't help.

This all reminds me of the CART/IRL split of the 90s. Hopefully it will have better ending.
 
The 12 teams for the first LIV Golf event are as follows:

Aces GC
Cleeks GC
Crushers GC
Fireballs GC
Hy Flyers GC
Iron Heads GC
Majesticks GC
Niblicks GC
Punch GC
Torque GC
Smash GC
Stinger GC/QUOTE]

Is this professional golf or my Tuesday volleyball league?
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DCDeac said:
The shotgun start makes the coverage a total mess - you have no idea what hole is where or who has what remaining in their round and there is no flow at all as to how the course plays. It's annoying in general for round 1, but when it's the final round and the scores are jumbled it's going to be real dumb. Guys will need a birdie or whatever to win but some will be on a 150 yard par 3 and others on a 500 yard par 5. Since it's simultaneous nobody will know what putts matter or where they stand. No drama of a final group walking up the 18th - some rando on the 5th hole will chip in and by like oh I won all while 10 fans applaud.
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I thought it was great. Nonstop action without commercials.

Players prefer this format too. The current method is slow and wastes too much time waiting on guys to come up the same hole at the end. It also is unfair to do it how we are doing it now because of weather. Do it all at once with TV bouncing back and forth. This slow nature is what ended match play too. The faster the better for TV. Folks back then said golf was ruined forever too when they decided stroke play was better for TV.
 
donaldross said:
The PGA tour's position today is that you should take less money and stay with us. Because we are honorable and noble. And Jack and Arnie and Tiger built our legacy.

Good luck with that. Bobby Jones thought the PGA Tour was immoral and unhonorable since they gave away prize money. No mention of Mr. Jones in the press release.

It's ok to whore yourself out for money, the PGA Tour says, so long as you only whore yourself out for them.
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Competing against the best players in the world on the best tour in the world for prize money IS NOT "whoring yourself out" - any more than playing any other professional sport is whoring yourself out.

Accepting appearance fees and guaranteed up-front money to play against a ragtag bunch of golfers on a tour that no true golf fans anywhere care a whit about IS "whoring yourself out" - the fact that the money is coming from a government with a horrendous record with respect to human rights, is just that much shit (icing) on top.
 
donaldross said:
I thought it was great. Nonstop action without commercials.

Players prefer this format too. The current method is slow and wastes too much time waiting on guys to come up the same hole at the end. It also is unfair to do it how we are doing it now because of weather. Do it all at once with TV bouncing back and forth. This slow nature is what ended match play too. The faster the better for TV. Folks back then said golf was ruined forever too when they decided stroke play was better for TV.
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Who has said they prefer a shotgun. It's the least fair way to do it as far as I'm concerned. One player's first shot of the day might be on the hardest tee shot on the course, another's might be on the easiest tee shot and then they get to play the hardest hole(s) after they've gotten into the flow of their round.
 
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donaldross said:
I thought it was great. Nonstop action without commercials.

Players prefer this format too. The current method is slow and wastes too much time waiting on guys to come up the same hole at the end. It also is unfair to do it how we are doing it now because of weather. Do it all at once with TV bouncing back and forth. This slow nature is what ended match play too. The faster the better for TV. Folks back then said golf was ruined forever too when they decided stroke play was better for TV.
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The only players who prefer it are the ones being paid a shit ton of money to "prefer it."
 
donaldross said:
I thought it was great. Nonstop action without commercials.

Players prefer this format too. The current method is slow and wastes too much time waiting on guys to come up the same hole at the end. It also is unfair to do it how we are doing it now because of weather. Do it all at once with TV bouncing back and forth. This slow nature is what ended match play too. The faster the better for TV. Folks back then said golf was ruined forever too when they decided stroke play was better for TV.
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You are blatantly making shit up at this point and completely embarrassing yourself. I'm sure you will say you don't care, or whatever, but it is sad to observe.
 
I watched about 20 minutes at lunch. I thought it was ok, felt like I was watching a European Tour event. Not terrible but nothing special either. The score on the left side was cool I guess and no commercials (you can do that when you have no sponsors + ton of money). I read several comments on twitter from people who loved everything about it so :noidea:
 
Complacent Deac said:
Liv Golf You Tube and DAZN apparently.
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This is what has stunned me. There is no business model to any of this. I'm estimating they're paying out close to $1bil this year and will probably spend around half that the next 2 years. Maybe they can make $10-15mil back at the gate. But there is no TV contract and no corporate sponsors. You'd think the Saudis would at least want to eventually make back 30-50% of what they're spending. So I assumed they'd have a sports channel that is willing to at least pay something to show these "tourneys". There is hardly a shortage of sports channels. And you could find a handful of corporate sponsors. This is a joke.
 
I’m confused about this whole “there is no business model” argument.

Obviously this investor is pretty smart given how they have so much money. We all make bets in life. We add them up and determine who is winning and who is losing every April 15

If this investor loses, won’t you celebrate? If it’s that bad the money will eventually run out or, the guy wanting to lose money on purpose, will die. Or maybe they will prove players can get paid this much and the model will work. Like all business decisions, we get to see who won and who lost.
 
donaldross said:
I’m confused about this whole “there is no business model” argument.

Obviously this investor is pretty smart given how they have so much money. We all make bets in life. We add them up and determine who is winning and who is losing every April 15

If this investor loses, won’t you celebrate? If it’s that bad the money will eventually run out or, the guy wanting to lose money on purpose, will die. Or maybe they will prove players can get paid this much and the model will work. Like all business decisions, we get to see who won and who lost.
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the goal of activities funded by governments is rarely a financial ROI
 
donaldross said:
Some of those CEOs are also "Saudi backed." Gasp. Cancel culture them all!!


The PIF has 38% stake in Posco Engineering & Construction Co., a 5% stake in Uber (for $3.5 billion), and a 5% stake in the video game companies Capcom and Nexon (for $1 billion).[19] In March 2016, it was announced that ownership of Saudi Aramco would be transferred to the PIF and that the Kingdom will seek to list 5 percent of Aramco's shares by 2017.[20] PIF owns Qiddiyah,[21] spearheads the Red Sea project for luxury beach resorts,[22][23] and owns the closed joint-stock company named NEOM.[24][25] PIF owns a 5.7% stake (valued at $500 million) in concert distributor Live Nation.[26] In 2020, PIF purchased minority stakes in major U.S. companies including Boeing, Facebook and Citigroup.[27] PIF disclosed a $713.7 million stake in Boeing, around $522 million in Citigroup, a $522 million stake in Facebook, a $495.8 million stake in Disney and a $487.6 million stake in Bank of America. It also disclosed a small stake in Berkshire Hathaway.
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This is such a ridiculous post and needs to be countered. Just because the the Wealth Fund has invested in various companies doesn't mean it entirely controls those companies. Companies can't stop what members of the public buy its stock.

However, the Chairman of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is none other than MBS. And in 2015, the fund became less of a passive investor and started to be used more for actual influence to the point that it expanded its staff from 50 to 500 in the last 3 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Investment_Fund#cite_note-:1-8 So yeah, this is a golf league put together by the Saudi Arabian government for ... some purpose. I'm going to guess that purpose wasn't to free professional golfers from the Saudi-viewed constraints on their professional lives.
 
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