About a month ago, Brian Harman — a little lefty from Georgia that only golf gurus ever really paid attention to — hoisted the claret jug at Royal Liverpool after one of the most dominant major performances in recent memory. He proved he was a true mudder at Hoylake, outlasting sloppy conditions and sloppier galleries en route to the biggest win of his career.

That alone would be enough to make anyone’s year, but Harman wasn’t done there. He’s since been named to the 2023 US Ryder Cup team, currently sits eighth in the FedEx Cup standings heading into the Tour Championship and was even seen throwing some downright nasty junk (this is a compliment in baseball) at the Atlanta Braves game on Tuesday night. Check it out.

The Champion Golfer of the Year brought the heat ?@HarmanBrian threw out the first pitch at tonight's Atlanta Braves game.@Braves | @MLB pic.twitter.com/GfFF1F1WT9

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 22, 2023

It’s an extremely low bar, but we’re going to go out on a limb and call this the best first pitch in golf history. Watch how this thing snaps down and away at the last second. Filthy. You know he’s coming up and in for some sweet chin music on the next one.

Former Georgia bulldogs and current British Open champion Brian Harman, throwing out the first pitch here at the Braves game tonight

Thursday he tee’s it up at East Lake in Tour Championship pic.twitter.com/PMvqu4W5JH

— Zach Klein (@ZachKleinWSB) August 22, 2023

The best part of all this is Harman swings a golf club lefty and pitches righty. Apparently the guy can do it all. Does that include a comeback for the ages this week at East Lake? He’ll tee off on Thursday six shots back of leader Scottie Scheffler. That’s a pretty big mountain to climb, but given the year he’s having (and the smoke he’s throwing on the mound), we wouldn’t rule it out.

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By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour issued a statement Thursday morning as professional athletes in several sports protested against racial injustice and police brutality.

The statement comes a day after NBA players sat out playoff games in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in Kenosha, Wis., as he attempted to enter a vehicle with his children in the car. Three MLB games were also called Wednesday, with athletes from the MLS, WNBA and professional tennis deciding not to play in their respective contests in protest.

“The MLB, MLS, NBA, WNBA and WTA protests are player-led, peaceful, powerful ways to use their respective platforms to bring about the urgent need for change in our country,” read a statement from the tour. “There have been a number of efforts in the past to send a message that the current climate is unacceptable, and these teams, leagues and players now taking this step will help draw further attention to the issues that really matter. The PGA Tour supports them—and any of our own members—standing up for issues they believe in.”

Cameron Champ, one of the tour’s four players with Black heritage, issued his own statement through the PGA Tour Wednesday evening, and has been wearing shoes with “Jacob Blake” and “BLM” messages. “People ignore it for so long. And then it gets to a point where it just blows up,” Champ said. “This is just the tipping of the iceberg. Change needs to happen. I feel like it’s going in the right direction, but again, with all the stuff that’s going on, it has to end.”

The PGA Tour pledged earlier this summer to be part of the solution, stating it is actively working to make “deeper and more specific commitments to racial equity and inclusion in the communities where we play, as well as supporting national organizations within this movement that we had not previously engaged with.”

“However, we understand that now is not the appropriate time to highlight our programs and policies, but rather to express our outrage at the injustice that remains prevalent in our country,” read the tour’s statement. “Sports have always had the power to inspire and unify, and we remain hopeful that together, we will achieve change.”

The tour’s BMW Championship remains scheduled to begin Thursday morning at Olympia Fields in the suburbs of Chicago.

The post PGA Tour issues statement amid professional athletes’ protests over racial injustice and police brutality appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Major League Baseball was scrambling to save its 2020 season Monday, just three days after it had belatedly begun. More than a dozen members of the Miami Marlins roster and front office tested positive for COVID-19, forcing league officials to cancel Monday and Tuesday games between the Marlins and Baltimore Orioles. The New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies game was also postponed Monday as the Marlins had just played in Philadelphia, sparking fear the Phillies were exposed to the outbreak.

Given baseball’s rushed approach to conducting its season, this development is not necessarily a surprise. Not helping matters has been the United States’ inability to curb the virus’ spread, to say nothing of the pandemic’s continual politicisation. But baseball’s issues arise during a week where the National Basketball Association resumes its regular season and the National Football League welcomes players to training camp, begging the question if sports are truly ready to come back.

It is a question that has multiple answers, none that are entirely right or wrong. However, for those seeking hope, the PGA Tour can serve as a guide.

The tour wrapped up its seventh PGA Tour event in its return to golf on Sunday at the 3M Open outside Minneapolis, with two tournaments on its slate this week. What it has been attempting this summer—traveling around the country with a caravan of 350-plus players, caddies and other personnel—is nothing short of a high-wire act. Each step has not been graceful, and in Weeks 2 and 3 specifically, the rope began to wobble. There’s also a long way to go before the “Mission: Accomplished” banner can be unraveled. Yet as the tour finishes up its second month (along with holding seven Korn Ferry Tour events), what it has pulled off has been a success.

But can its success be replicated? Golf is a non-contact sport, played individually, held outside without real need for a locker room. Its inherent nature is what allowed the game to return months before baseball, basketball, hockey and football. The dynamics don’t lend themselves to an apples-to-apples comparison.

“I think we’re so fortunate in our sport, it’s different. We don’t have the contact that basketball has, that football has. Baseball, we’re not touching the same thing as in a baseball,” Justin Thomas said Tuesday at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis. “I have no physical touch with anybody in my group. I can stay away from them. And we’re outside. It’s so different compared to other sports.”

Mitchell Leff
The Miami Marlins celebrate winning their opening day game, but did so at the expense of strict adherence to social distancing best practices.

Still, there are lessons other leagues can learn from the tour’s foray into the unknown. Which starts with universal buy-in from players.

In a sense, that seems elementary, especially with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan threatening punishment to those who do not heed the tour’s COVID-19 guidelines. In that same breath, players are contractors, beholden to no one but themselves. Most are 35 and younger and all are professional athletes; as one tournament director told us as the tour was making plans for its return, there’s a certain amount of ego needed to reach this level, a conviction that can occasionally render as cockiness. In short, tour pros are a group that doesn’t like to be told what to do.

Luckily, the buy-in has been almost universal. Players and caddies have exercised caution to the tour’s expansive restrictions, holding themselves and others accountable. Players have self-reported possible symptoms to protect their fellow players and all others at an event. They acknowledge that if this endeavor falls apart, it’s on them.

“I’ve tried to be really careful, but I could probably be more careful,” said Webb Simpson, RBC Heritage winner, during that week at Harbour Town. “I hadn’t really gone out to dinner. I’ve gotten takeout every night. But in terms of even wearing the mask, any time I’m out of my comfort zone away from the golf course, I think it’s smart. And really, the six-foot rule I’ve been good about, but I probably could be better.”

There are still the occasional breaches of social distance, but on the whole players and caddies are doing their part. They are staying in their hotel rooms and rented houses, having food delivered rather than dining out, wearing masks where required. Even the lone “outbreak” during the Travelers Championship, where multiple players due to COVID concerns, at a human level, was understandable, as the caddies in question might have caught virus while attending a funeral.

Streeter Lecka
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan looks on during a practice round prior to last month’s RBC Heritage. Buy-in from players on the tour’s COVID protocols helped the tour resume play so quickly.

Which flows into the second part of this equation: the tour’s environment. Despite entering a handful of coronavirus hot spots, the tour has maintained a safe working space for its membership. No, the process is far from fool-proof. In fact, the bubbles the NBA and NHL have enacted have proven safer environments in the early going: The NHL announced that it performed 4,256 tests on more than 800 players and had zero positives, while the NBA had zero positive tests after one week in its stay at Disney World. The tour doesn’t have a true “bubble,” per se, not with weekly travel and players and caddies arranging personal travel and accommodations.

Nevertheless, that only seven PGA Tour pros in seven weeks have tested positive is not providence. A lot of this stems from stringent policing of who is and is not allowed on site and re-engineering tournament properties to meet COVID-19 protocols. When leaks emerge, the tour does its best to plug them up. Every aspect of tour life is being recalibrated on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis.

Perhaps the biggest lesson, and possible salvation for baseball as it tries to dig itself out of its hole, is malleability.

The tour’s health and safety protocols were comprehensive when announced in May. Of course, every league has laid out a detailed approach in COVID-19 prevention (MLB has orders on how to properly flush an airline toilet, for example). What has spurred efficiency on the PGA Tour front, though, has been the evolution and continual tinkering of those rules. And they have, particularly when the protocols showed vulnerability.

“You know, [we’re all trying to] learn to live in an environment of COVID-19,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said during last month’s Travelers Championship. “I’m concerned but I’m also confident in the program and protocols we’ve put in place, and our ability to be able to sustain the PGA Tour and give our players opportunities on both of these tours over the course of the year, so long as we continue to be as diligent as we intend to be.”

It wasn’t that Nick Watney tested positive (the tour’s first COVID-19 positive player) in the second tournament that was a sore point for critics; it was that he was allowed on property while awaiting the results, potentially exposing other players. Within a week, the tour adjusted its protocols on player/caddie clearance, declaring no one would be allowed at a tournament site without a passed in-market test.

Additional testing was added for those on the tour’s chartered planes. Fitness trailers were brought to courses to discourage visiting gyms out of the tour’s jurisdiction. They have adjusted tee pairings to prevent possible transmission from players who have tested positive but are no longer showing symptoms. (On Tuesday, the tour adjusted again to do away with its “COVID-19 pairings.”) In short, as our collective knowledge of the virus grows, so does the tour’s abilities to combat it.

Obviously, the tour’s success is predicated off of more than buy-in from players, its work environment and its adaptability. But they lay a foundation for the rest of the operation to function. Without those pillars intact, as evidenced in baseball this week, the proverbial house falls apart.

The post What Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and others can learn from the PGA Tour’s return amid the pandemic appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
As a professional athlete, few have faced — and succeeded — under pressure like John Smoltz. The Hall-of-Fame pitcher raised his game when the stakes were the highest, posting an absurd 15-4 postseason record while wielding a scant 2.67 ERA. Smoltz took the mound in three playoff Game 7s, and yet, it was a recent three-hole playoff on the golf course at a U.S. Senior Open qualifier that had him feeling nerves like never before.

“There’s things that I’ve been through in golf that baseball couldn’t even prepare me for,” Smoltz said. “You’d think that pitching three seventh games would prepare you for any kind of unnerving or nervous moments, but it was nothing like what I went through.”

Ultimately, Smoltz made it through this latest sports battle, earning a spot in the U.S. Senior Open, which will be played June 28-July 1 at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. And now Smoltz will take a break from his job as a TV analyst for MLB Network and Fox to tee it up in his first major. Although, with Fox broadcasting the event, Smoltz says he could be involved with the coverage. Regardless, the 51-year-old is pumped about getting this unexpected opportunity at competing on a big stage again.

“I’m pinching myself every time I wake up,” Smoltz said.

Smoltz joined this week’s Golf Digest Podcast to discuss that crazy day of qualifying, his intense matches with Tiger Woods through the years, a prescient prediction he made to Joe Buck, and how golf played a role in his free agency. We also talked some baseball, ranging from his Hall-of-Fame induction to his toughest loss and most surprising win. Please have a listen:

https://soundcloud.com/user-96678684/john-smoltz-bryson-dechambeaus-next-big-step-and-a-wild-us-womens-open

The post John Smoltz on qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open, playing matches with Tiger Woods, and how golf affected his free agency appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
NEW YORK CITY — The PGA Tour announced plans on Monday to form a partnership with Discovery to create a global, multi-platform home for the sport. The deal, beginning in 2019, will include live rights outside the United States to 150 tournaments that operate under the PGA Tour’s jurisdiction, including the Players Championship, FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Presidents Cup.

“This partnership aligns very well with the opening of PGA Tour offices in London, Tokyo and Beijing in recent years and will support our long-term objectives of growing the game of golf,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in a statement. “It also will deliver more value to our sponsors as it presents a tremendous opportunity to engage new and diverse audiences around the world.”

The streaming service will reach more than 220 markets and territories and will act as a Netflix-style direct-to-consumer streaming experience. The platform, which doesn’t have a name at this time, will premiere in markets like Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia and Spain starting on Jan. 1, 2019. Other countries will have to wait for their airing dates, including South Korea (2020), China (2021) and the United Kingdom (2022). Despite this delay, Monahan and David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery, singled out Asia has a major target for the product.

Discovery expects to invest more than $2 billion over the 12-year deal, including licensing of the tour’s international media rights. Though the Maryland-based company is known for its cable channels like the Food Network, Animal Planet and HGTV, it has been successful in expanding its global sport footprint through the Olympics, securing the IOC’s European media rights through 2024 on its EuroSport channel.

“There’s no sport more global than golf, and none more local,” said Zaslav in a Monday meeting in New York. “The PGA Tour gives us live content for 43 weeks. We will build an ecosystem of golf that will nourish and excite every fan in the world.”

Discovery will broadcast the various tour packages on its portfolio of pay-TV and free-to-air channels, digital and short-form networks, while also helping the tour build a platform for non-live and library rights. According to Zaslav, what will constitute non-live product is still being determined, and will ultimately helped shape by consumers.

The announcement comes at an interesting time for the PGA Tour. While the deal does not immediately impact its media rights in the United States with CBS and NBC/GolfChannel, the current contracts end in 2021. The alliance with Discovery constructs a framework with multiple options for the tour to explore when the time arrives.

Regarding future endeavors, Monahan initially downplayed the idea of the tour creating its own network similar to other American sporting entities such as Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League.

“Discovery has the largest international experience that no one else has,” Monahan said. “What they can do for golf, no one can do. We are always seeking how the fan consumes the PGA Tour, and that’s where David and his team come in.”

Conversely, Discovery also recently struck a deal with BAMTech, the streaming business of Major League Baseball, for a European venture. And as Monahan was quick to point out, this is not strictly a rights agreement.

“This is coming together as partners,” Monahan said. “We’re going to go out and address our shared needs by a market-to-market basis.”

The post PGA Tour, Discovery announce $2 billion global, Netflix-style media deal appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.