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The first week of the PGA Tour vs LIV Golf is in the books and there was one clear winner and one very clear loser from all the golfing action.
The winner: The PGA Tour, which had a beauty of a finish on Sunday that saw Rory McIlroy hold off Justin Thomas and Tony Finau for his 21st PGA Tour victory. McIlroy wrapped up his victory in front of thousands of screaming fans who almost stormed the 18th green in celebration and then he took a tremendous shot at LIV Golf CEO/commissioner Greg Norman.
It was all such a fun and festive scene in Toronto.
The loser: The soulless players who left the PGA Tour to go play meaningless exhibitions that are funded by the dirty money of killers. Charl Schwartzel won the LIV exhibition in London and collected just under $5 million bucks but there wasn’t one memorable or meaningful shot from the event which was immediately forgotten by anyone who follows golf.
It was all such an empty and desperate scene in London.
It really couldn’t have been a better weekend for the PGA Tour, which had some of the best players in the world playing their best down the stretch of a really fun event that had actual meaning to it.
On the other side, LIV Golf had a bunch of mediocre golfers swimming in irrelevancy and playing for an amount of money that is a ton, sure, but means nothing in the big picture of the sport.
Here’s what the PGA Tour should do moving forward with this turf war – gleefully wave goodbye to any player who decides to give up and play for the dirty money instead of playing for lot of money and legacies on the PGA Tour. The Tour doesn’t need those players around, fans won’t miss them (when was the last time that Graeme McDowell did anything interesting on the golf course?), and the players can go off and enjoy the emptiness that is LIV Golf.
Oh, and the PGA Tour should also not put commissioner Jay Monahan on TV anymore. His interview with Jim Nantz during Sunday’s final round was so awkward and awful. He looked like he was going to cry in anger the whole time and he gave just really bad answers to Nantz’s very good questions.
The players should be the ones doing the talking and they should be doing it with both their mouths and their games. It’s their Tour and their livelihoods and their legacies on the line and that showed yesterday with McIlroy and JT giving everything they had down the stretch and then saying to each other afterwards that they should run it back this week at the U.S. Open.
Yesterday was awesome golf. What happened the thee previous days at the LIV exhibition was not awesome golf and it will continue to be bad no matter how many more middle-aged dudes who don’t matter any more make the jump. There was no buzz to that lame event in London, despite how much the announcers tried to tell you that there was.
Yes, the PGA Tour is in a very tough spot right now. It’s going against a dirty league backed by an endless amount of cash. The Tour is going to lose some more players that nobody really cares about (hello, Pat Perez!). And you know what? That’s just fine. Let the soulless guys who want to play out the string go and play out the string on sad YouTube live streams.
And let Rory, JT and other stars who really get it to carry the Tour and the sport to bigger and better things.
It can be done.
Quick hits: Ump makes embarrassing call at first base… Bad MLB history made by Cubs player… Joe Maddon’s sad mohawk… And more.
– The first base ump in the Pirates-Braves game on Saturday night made the most embarrassing call of the season.
– Cubs first baseman Frank Schwindel took the mound late in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Yankees and gave up a homer on a 35 mph pitch, which broke a bad MLB record.
– Last night we learned that Joe Maddon got a mohawk to cheer up the Angels but was then fired before he could show the team. Ouch.
– Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol dropped a loud F-bomb over the weekend after an ump stared down his pitcher.
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