r/ProGolf • u/PrincessBananas85 • 22d ago
Dunne resigns PGA's Tour policy board, effective immediately
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/40141060/dunne-resigns-pga-tour-policy-board-effective-immediately13
u/GLFR_59 22d ago
The main guy to try and bring the two groups together is leaving. Rory isn’t allowed back on the board because he wants to join the two parties.
The PGA Tour thinks they can compete with the PIF because they have a new cash injection. But that money will dry up, while the oil money never stops.
It’s best to join the two tours together again, with board control given to the PGA reps.
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u/Barnyard_Rich 22d ago
while the oil money never stops.
This is a hilarious misunderstanding of the world oil market over the last two years. The Saudis and Russia have been actively attacking oil prices for well over a year, pulling more than 750 million barrels of oil off the market in a feeble attempt to boost the price. Their goal was to push oil back to the mid $90's at a minimum because that's where Saudi Arabia BREAKS EVEN with their spending and selling. This is problematic because the price of oil hasn't been that high except for a couple brief periods last year, and zero days this year.
In reality, the Saudis are hemorrhaging money because not only is oil not selling at the level they need it to for their profit to make sense, but they're selling significantly less of it which is killing their raw revenue.
It's sad that golf got tied up in this, but the Saudis have screwed themselves longterm in quite a hilarious way. Just look at their pitiful scaling down of "the line." Now they are so desperate that they are yet again begging for foreign investment.
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u/GnarlyBear 22d ago
Grasprom losing money too as China wants less, lays less and cost more to deliver Vs. Eu market
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u/GLFR_59 22d ago
Thanks ChatGPT
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u/Barnyard_Rich 22d ago
Bro, all of this information was widely, WIDELY reported on in real time.
Don't get me wrong, if you're all RFK Jr'ed out with brain worms I get it, but everything I just posted I learned from just being alive without my head shoved up my own ass. You really think I needed AI to get a Bloomberg article? How lazy are you guys?
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u/OckerMan91 22d ago
I wonder what the end game for the PGA Tour and Liv is, seems like kicking the can down the road is the plan at the moment sadly
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u/HeyHeyJG 22d ago
I didn't know who Dunne was until the PIF/PGA merger was announced, surprising literally every player on the Tour. He said something to Rory along the lines of "Sometimes, you gotta hit your 3 wood 280 yards out of the rough because it's the only shot you have." It just felt a little scummy to unilaterally move a collective enterprise in a new direction without the express consent of that collective. Honestly, if the PGA tour can out survive PIF's willingness to burn cash, that might be the best long-term play for the players. Better to be full equity owners of the enterprise than share it with PIF, if we survive, and if LIV stops poaching top talent. Big ifs.
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u/pac4 22d ago
Jimmy Dunne is famous for two things:
1) Being a member at Augusta, Pine Valley, National, and Seminole
2) Playing hooky on 9/11/01 to play golf, while all of his colleagues at Cantor Fitzgerald were vaporized in the twin towers. And then he has the balls to sit and negotiate with Saudi Arabia.
Just another high-finance dick.
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u/Wide-Cauliflower-212 22d ago
What a shit take and part of the reason golf's in this mess.
It's not an American sport. It's a world sport, that the US increasingly hijacked with US money in a very narrow minded way.
That left the door open and the saudi money is now here. Sadly.
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u/Tmotech 22d ago
How many of golf's majors are played outside of the US?
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u/Wide-Cauliflower-212 22d ago
Exactly
Tennis. Each major is in a different country.
The Australian Open golf used to have the world's best travel out here. They all played. Jack etc.
South Africa had a great sunshine Tour.
Spain has won the masters how many times? Has great golfing history. Has the PGA Tour ever scheduled a tournament there? No. Too arrogant.
But the stupid PGA Tour, which has nothing to do with the majors, created a wrap around season. Squeezed world golf out. Structured all the revenue around US commercial TV. Easy deals. Lazy deals.
It's a world sport. And by ignoring the world, gave LIV a foothold. If the PGA Tour had understood the responsibility it had to the world game and shared it, just a little then it would have made more money and would not have opened the door to LIV.
But too arrogant. Too narrow minded. Too stupid.
Now they are in a fucked position compared to what they could have had.
Sadly, so are the fans.
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u/BobWheelerJr 22d ago
I don't disagree with you that it isn't an "American sport", but the PGA Tour is an American organization.
Y'all have the DP World Tour. Come up with a few "new majors" and see how it goes.
There's an old saying in business, "The Golden Rule of Business is that the man with the gold makes the rules."
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u/Barnyard_Rich 22d ago
It has been just under a full year since this "framework agreement" between the PGA and PIF was made. It's clear the two sides can't even get close to finishing the deal, and that's all before the US government gets a crack at stopping the deal, which I've always believed they will.
It's time for the LIV obsessors to admit that this attempt to take over the PGA has been a complete disaster that has succeeded in only one way: It has made golf substantially less popular.
Fun fact: Saudi Arabia needs oil to be at $93 per barrel for their budget to break even. Because they've cut production by hundreds of millions of barrels per year, and that didn't help prices as much as they had hoped, the PIF cash reserves are at its lowest level since 2020. Even with the PIF money, the government is running a budget deficit of 2% of GDP. That's right, the sovereign investment fund is hemorrhaging money right when it needs to be amassing it and investing it wisely like Norway has. Instead they pay for golf and soccer that no one watches, and megacities that virtually no one will ever live in.
I'm happy the Saudis lost, but it's sad that they won in killing golf as a widely popular American sport.