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Days ago, before the absence of actual golf became the dominant storyline of golf’s “fifth major,” the Players Championship felt like any other event on the PGA Tour, flush with rumor-mongering and speculation about possible announcements from rival circuits. As this week at TPC Sawgrass grinds onward into next week at TPC Sawgrass, not much has changed.
Chatter about a prospective Super League has taken on the feel of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh,” in which a misbegotten band of barflies (like Jimmy Tomorrow) are forever promising progress that never materializes. Unlike the patrons of O’Neill’s saloon, it’s possible—even likely—that the Saudi-financed concept will advance, or at least make noise. Whispers in hallways at the Players Championship persist like herpetic hypothesis: on what players might yet jump, on what Phil Mickelson will do next, on how the Saudis will pivot.
The latest conjecture has the Crown Prince’s coat holders planning to stage a tournament with an enormous purse that could dwarf the $20 million offered at the PGA Tour’s flagship stop in soggy Florida. The goal would be to engineer litigation by inviting Tour members to compete while hoping commissioner Jay Monahan denies the permission required to do so, thereby presenting an opportunity to challenge his control over where members play, or to at least jeopardize the Tour’s tax-exempt status as a 501c organization.
This rumor is kin to dozens that preceded it, plausible on paper but unseen in reality. Years into their scheming, the only positive contribution the Saudis can claim is having relieved the tedium of days-long rain delays with a fresh supply of gossip (though many guys in the locker room would pat them on the back for dismantling Phil’s facade, albeit accidentally).
We wait on another front too, for the drama at the Players to get underway in earnest around the time it was supposed to be concluding. A winner will be identified here, no matter…
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Source : yahoo
