This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
So much virtual and real ink has been spilled about what turned out to be the wildest day in golf history.
And although so much has been said about the PGA Tour and LIV golf merger that includes the DP World Tour, the story is just beginning as shocked pro golfers figure out what’s next, as fans wonder what this means and answers to questions we have will come, maybe in the next year or two.
But I woke up Wednesday morning, after the shock and chaos of the news breaking seemingly out of nowhere, and all I could think about was pretty much every aspect of this, with one word.
Gross. It’s all so gross. So here’s a list:
1. It’s gross that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan spent a couple of years fighting LIV Golf and its Saudi-backed blood money, preaching that staying with the tour was the right move on all accounts … and then he hypocritically took the money. Lots of it. Our Blake Schuster wrote a terrific column on how Monahan burned everyone who trusted him.
2. It’s gross that Monahan’s powerful words last summer — in response to 9/11 families who were furious at golfers joining LIV — were dashed to pieces in a matter of seconds.
3. It’s gross that big-name players who turned down massive paydays from LIV have to now wonder whether staying with the PGA Tour was worth it. All those players who stuck out their necks for the tour, for their peers, for the good of the game, who ripped on LIVers so many times … and they get left in the dust.
4. It’s gross that players had to hear about this first from social media.
5. It’s gross that sportswashing is a thing, although it’s at least a little heartening to see that the concept is being talked about everywhere by fans and others. We’re not glossing over what’s happening here.
6. It’s gross that, as USA TODAY Sports’ Mike Freeman wrote, this could just be the beginning this kind of investment in American sports. Not great.
7. It’s gross that the LIV Tour and its backers are the ones who ultimately win here. Look who’s truly in charge and that’s what you really need to know.
8. It’s gross that, as Succession taught us (if we didn’t know already), money wins.
9. It’s gross that this is so gross that I’m 99 percent sure I’m forgetting more gross things about this.
Gross. All of it. And as this all unravels, it might get grosser.
Quick Hits: Consensus NBA mock draft … An NHL trade! … and more.
— A look at who the experts are projecting to go in the first round with our “consensus” NBA mock draft.
— Ivan Provorov got dealt to the Blue Jackets, and Mary Clarke has the grades for the trade.
— Chris Paul says his daughter was bullied at school: “Your daddy ain’t never gonna win no championship.”
