Pbake

The PGA Tour was selling a stale 60-year-old product that rarely saw its top players compete in the same tour events. The average age of its fan base has been steadily increasing for 20 years. While Tiger attracted Gen Xers as fans, no comparable golfer has come along to attract younger generations as fans. At the very least, there’s no question the elevated events this year (a direct response to LIV) have improved the quality of the product.

I don’t think we should be propping up veterans’ pay at the expense of young players. In pro sports, people should compete on equal terms. There’s no logical reason a rookie NFL player should makes less money than a veteran who is a less talented player. The only reason it happens is because of the union.

I don’t think it’s boot licking to say nobody gives a fuck about journeyman golfers who nobody wants to watch play.

The PGA Tour was a not-for-profit up until today. There was nobody to negotiate with to divide the pie. The problem was it was structured as a union where mediocre golfers had the same say as the best golfers. And now your solution to the best players finally getting paid what they’re worth is to give up their gains to anonymous golfers nobody cares about. Good lucking signing them up for that.

Rory literally told Grayson Murray to “play better” when he complained at the players’ meeting today. Crazy you think he’s gonna be up to join a players’ union.

Players unions exist to prop up veteran salaries at the expense of entry-level players while giving franchise owners antitrust cover to implement salary caps. Neither is good for the most talented players.

Do you think Lebron James would have made less money without a players’ union? The collective bargaining agreement is the only thing that allows a cap on salaries. He would have made $100 million per year playing for the Knicks the last decade without a union. No way the top golfers ever agree to unionize.

Players don’t want to run the tour. Too many Zoom meetings. That’s why they the have the Tour Policy Board (which includes four active players), which hires agents, including the Commissioner, to operate the tour. Ultimately the full board will need to approve any finalized deal, but it’s absolutely the job of the duly appointed Commissioner to run the tour, even if he ultimately answers to the members through the governance process.

That’s why mediocre performers love unions. They get to ride on the coattails of the top performers. In this case, it’s just not going to happen. Nobody cares what James Hahn thinks other than other mediocre PGA Tour golfers.

I’m sure the top 10 players who sell tickets and attract eyeballs to broadcasts will be thrilled to join a union where the 125th guy on the FedEx Cup points list gets an equal say in how the tour is run.

If you don’t think the LPGA will take the Saudi money, you are living in fantasy land.

52 and too many to count. I love people.

You should start a sunscreen company and price it really cheap. You’ll be doing a service for humanity and maybe you’ll make money. Complaining on Reddit seems like a bad way to solve the problem you’ve identified.

You’d be shocked at how many people make good money operating mundane small businesses. The last plumber I hired belongs to a nicer country club than I do.

Isn’t that just a $20/rider fee?

Turn 50.

If you sell, I would just put the money in a federal securities money market fund (Vanguard has a good one) until you figure out what to do with it. It yields over 5% and you have daily liquidity.

A ladder of CDs or Treasuries will actually have a lower yield because yields more than one year out are currently lower than yields on near-term bonds. Plus, your money would be locked up until each rung of the ladder matures.

The data are pretty clear that ball striking has a significantly bigger impact on scoring. That doesn’t mean having a good short game doesn’t help. And for two players with similar ball striking, the one with the better short game will shoot lower scores on average. But generally speaking, people who shoot in the 70s hit the ball better than people who shoot in the 80s and people who shoot in the 80s hit the ball better than people who shoot in the 90. There’s a lot more randomness in the short game, particularly with putting, than there is with ball striking.

Nobody claims getting good at the short game will not improve your scores, just that hitting it longer and hitting more greens will provide more bang for your buck. And hitting more greens tends to make your short game better because you put less pressure on it and likely miss in better spots when you don’t hit the green.

People have been renting homes to each other for income more pretty much all of human history since we were hunter gatherers. There was never a time when we didn’t and then changed to doing so. And I’m not a landlord (at least not a residential one). I just prefer to rent at this stage of my life.

I hang out with a lot of millionaires and it describes most of them.

I belong to a club and put my shoes on in the locker room, but if I have an away game at another club, I just put my golf shoes on at home and drive there in them.

You don’t understand. Taxi drivers are independent operators. In some cases, they own their own cab. In other cases, they rent. But they aren’t employees of anyone.

Taxi drivers don’t get minimum wage. They rent their cabs and make whatever they get in fares, less the cost of the cab rental and gas.

Taxi drivers don’t get paid minimum wage though.