Fire Drill 085: Follow the Money
With Alan Shipnuck and Matt Ginella
In this Fire Drill podcast, Alan Shipnuck and Matt Ginella react to the Senate hearings on the LIV-PGA Tour framework agreement and the accompanying bombshell document dump. So much to unpack as the ongoing golf drama reaches Capitol Hill.
In 1994, Alan wrote his first cover story for Sports Illustrated as a 21 year-old intern, and in the ensuing quarter-century he typed two dozen more. He is the author of eight books, including best-sellers Bud, Sweat & Tees; The Swinger (with Michael Bamberger); and Phil. Shipnuck has won 13 first-place awards in the annual Golf Writers Association of America writing contest, breaking the record of Dan Jenkins, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. Alan lives in Carmel, Cal.
Good overview of this day and this mess.
A comment though: Mr Al Rumayyan, at least on paper, seems to have very good qualifications: chairman of who knows how many companies, of the PIF, Aramco, … Loves golf and knows a lot about it. Yet he lets someone write in a presentation or document for this deal that he should be admitted to Augusta and R&A? Asking this of people who have no say in that? Also knowing that the time this gets out he will have zero chance of getting these memberships?
This whole thing seems to be a quest of a man for recognition in the golf world, and he’s wasting billions of his country’s dollars on it. Just hope MBS sees this thing in time to put an end to it.
Fantastic podcast, congrats Alan & Matt. So many questions. I’m curious about current PGA Tour sponsors and the impact on long-term sponsorship deals? Will players in both leagues be able to sue? 501 C- 6 status going forward? Long-term I think Tour and LIV players will win. Love the humor in this podcast and your passion for golf – hasn’t changed!
hi guys….i love you both and really respect both of your opinions but on this podcast, i really think differently.
The way i look at it, the creation of LIV forced the Tour to spend tons of money it did not have to compete and try and save players and sponsors. Unfortunately, in the end, the tour lost. They were losing sponsors, they were losing players and fighting for their existence. How long could that model last? a year? two years? in time, they would have been out of money and out of business no? what choice did they have? i don’t see it as hypocrisy at all, i see it as they HAD NO CHOICE.
And it is driving me NUTS listing to all of these LIV players (phil, bubba, etc) are gloating that “see!! we did this! we got you guys more money!!” where they SHOULD be saying “see!! we almost single handed put the PGA tour out of business!” The PGA tour did not have bottomless amounts of money like PIF did and couldn’t keep up. at the end of the day, the PGA Tour lost the battle and rather than be slaughtered, they surrendered and got the best deal they could have.
The LIV players should be ashamed, THEY did this to the tour.