Jimmy Dunne, Mike Whan Deliver Most Important U.S. Open Week Ideas

Matthew Fitzpatrick just produced a thrilling win over major champs like Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, and Hideki Matsuyama at the U.S. Open.

But perhaps the most significant occurrence of the week were two opinions delivered by two different executives, one who heads up the USGA and the other who works in investment banking. Both were talking about LIV Golf.

Last Wednesday Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA, made comments about LIV Golf to media at the U.S. Open and to NBC’s Mike Tirico during the NBC telecast. Whan is a former commissioner of the LPGA.

He explained that as a former LPGA commissioner, he had one thing he would say to the players.

"“You know what makes this sport different than every other professional sport? You own this thing,” he recalled."

You own this thing.  LPGA, PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions.  They are the owners. It’s exactly as Rory McIlroy said last week, the PGA Tour works for him, not the other way around.

Whan pointed out that when he was commissioner of the LPGA, one of the best things about it was that the players didn’t report to owners.

They didn’t report to a few men who had a bunch of money. They didn’t have to do things or go places because one or two or three owners wanted it done.  And just to keep him on his toes, they could fire him at any time.

With LIV Golf, everything, including the players, are owned by the Saudi public investment fund.  Any time people are writing checks as big as $125 and $200 million, those people are the “owners,” and they tell underlings where to go and when and how to act when they get there.

Now, despite what has been said, promises of owning teams and such, there’s unlikely to be any real shared ownership in the LIV endeavor.

If there were, anyone would be an idiot to want it because it’s going to bleed cash for the foreseeable future.

All the money is going out in multi-millions of payments to players, in expenses for setting up golf tournaments and possibly in travel and accommodations to bring players to the sites. There is no inflow. It’s a black hole of money.

Basically, instead of being owners, PGA Tour players who join are giving up ownership of the Tour they belonged to.

In addition to the ownership situation, Whan also has a hard time figuring out how LIV grows the game.

"“Playing five times in America, where the game is about as strong as it’s been, is kind of a dichotomy to we’re going to take the game all around the world,” Whan pointed out."

And he also doubts that LIV Golf is good for the game, which is a phrase often used by backers and organizers.

"“I’ve heard that this is good for the game,” he noted. “At least from my outside view right now, it looks like it’s good for a few folks playing the game, but I’m struggling with how this is good for the game.”"

It’s good for all the guys who got $200 million or $125 million or $50 million or whatever they got. No question.  At least right now.

Another who has thoughts on LIV Golf is Jimmy Dunne, vice president of Piper Sandler, a large investment banking firm in New York.  He’s also president of Seminole GC and a member at Augusta National, to name just two course affiliations.  He also happens to be an excellent amateur golfer.

Dunne knows many of the players who have jumped to LIV.  He has played with them in the Seminole Pro-Am.  He knows the Saudi backers.

Jimmy Dunne said the concept is working only for golfers who no longer have their games, who don’t have “it” anymore.

In an article for SI.com/Morning Read by Michael Rosenberg, he says the excuses given by the players who have joined annoy the heck out of him.

He thinks they should just be honest and say they are at a place in life where they don’t want to play much, but they still want to get paid and paid more handsomely than they ever could be on the PGA Tour.  He said there’s no growing the game element. It’s growing the bankroll.

Jimmy Dunne called it an “Exhibition Tour” and the “I Have Lost It Tour”, because those who have joined have, he thinks, lost their games and can’t get them back.

The fact that there are 54 holes and no cut is what tells him that they have lost their games. Now, because the players have already been paid, there’s no competitive pressure to succeed.

The LIV golfers can cruise forever if they can take the stress of being a part of LIV. The reason there’s likely to be stress is revealed in a story Jimmy Dunne told about one player who has been considering joining LIV but hasn’t yet.  It is somewhat chilling.

The player was called by the Saudi representative and was given a four-hour window that day to come to a meeting with the head Saudi guy.  He couldn’t. He had something else on the calendar.

The representative of the Saudis said something like, you don’t understand, we’re telling you to come now. There was probably the emphasis on the telling.

For that golfer, the issue with the LIV organization was that once you signed with the Saudis you were “with them.” In other words, you owed them, and they owned you.

And then the player said: “And their moods can change.”

Regarding the players that deserted the PGA Tour, Jimmy Dunne said, “They’re replaceable.”

He mentioned Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler as two examples of why.

“Did you know Will Zalatoris two years ago? Did you know Scottie Scheffler? He’s the No. 1 player in the world,” Dunne said for the Rosenberg article.

"“The average age of the top 10 is 27. The average age of the ‘I have lost it’ tour is 41. What does that tell you?”"

Jimmy Dunne suggested there was no way to know how much was being offered to other people. He congratulated Tiger Woods for turning them down.

In addition, he said the simplest solution to keeping LIV players out of majors was to not award world ranking points because they are, after all, just exhibitions.

As Mike Whan noted about LIV, “We could get to the point where a couple of people hold those strings, and how they act may or may not be great for the game.”

That would be the biggest concern for the sport of golf.