LIV intrigue, Augusta’s ketchup move that impresses Scheffler | Weekend 9

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm you up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com

Time to show you a bit of how the sausage is made, which is a saying I love to use if I can, considering I’m from Milwaukee, where meats race during the sixth inning of baseball games and you can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with any hour in between.  

Anyway, next week is Masters week, and as part of the mining effort, I like to look up every participant to see what’s being written about them, along with learning biographical nuggets. The Rorys and the Rahms are well known, but others are less so. Some of the research turns into a story. Some of the fact-finding doesn’t.

Until now. 

Here, we have a home. Let’s call it the 9 for the 9, a look at nine people who I’m interested in because I think you’ll be interested in them.

— Jose Luis Ballester, last year’s U.S. Amateur winner. Did you know he’s coached by Sergio Garcia’s father, Victor? Jack Milko of SB Nation wrote about the relationship here. 

— Evan Beck, last year’s U.S. Mid-Amateur winner. Did you know he’s an associate portfolio manager in the Washington, D.C., office for Baltimore-based Brown Advisory? David Shefter of the USGA wrote about Beck here. 

— Brian Campbell, a Masters first-timer. Did you know he’s statistically the shortest hitter on the PGA Tour? The stat is here.

— Rafael Campos, a Masters first-timer. Did you know he once wrote a note to his daughter, Paola, who was born days before his first PGA Tour win? The letter is here.

— Austin Eckroat, a Masters second-timer. Did you know in his first visit to Augusta, last year, he was hoping he’d miss the cut? I actually wrote about that one, and the story is here.   

— Justin Hastings, the Latin America Amateur Championship winner. Did you know he’s from the Cayman Islands, where there are only 27 holes of golf? 

— Thriston Lawrence, a Masters first-timer. Did you know his dad, Steven, will be his caddie? The DP World Tour wrote about that here. 

— Matthieu Pavon, a Masters second-timer. Did you know that his mother, while attending the Masters, buried a coin near the old Augusta National driving range, with the dream that her son would one day come back to get it? I’m hoping you read this one, as I wrote about Pavon last year, but if you didn’t, here it is again! 

— Hiroshi Tai, last year’s NCAA Division I champion. Did you know that he served in the Singapore Navy before playing at Georgia Tech? Tod Leonard of Golf Digest wrote about that here. 

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the Weekend 9. 

2. Late last year, the Masters released a video entitled “Concessions | Hallowed Grounds: The Story of Augusta National,” and the 11-minute video is well worth your time, but an interesting part came at the 7:05 mark. 

There, Scottie Scheffler revealed how Augusta National prepares … their plastic ketchup bottles.  

“I remember one time I was there eating lunch,” Scheffler said on the video, “and they have those little plastic ketchup bottles and sometimes they can be brutal to open and they have somebody that cuts around the ring so you didn’t really have to open it and it was a fresh bottle of ketchup. 

“Just little things like that where they’re just a step ahead at all times.”

One takeaway from the week / one takeaway for the weekend 

3. Of course, with it about to be Masters week, everyone’s talking Rory McIlroy. Determining whether this is his year at Augusta means spring has sprung. During a press conference ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Miami event, Phil Mickelson was asked about McIlroy. During a teleconference previewing the Masters, Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee was asked about McIlroy. On the Sky Sports Golf Podcast, six-time major winner Nick Faldo talked about McIlroy. 

All of which made me think of a Justin Thomas thought — about what makes Scheffler so good. 

“I think it’s underrated how well he’s playing for expecting to play that well. I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to win when you’re expected to win or when every single person that’s there expects you to play well and you expect you to play well and then to still play well. I think expectations are something, it’s very, very hard to manage. It truly is just as much of a talent as being able to, you know, control your distance with your wedges or flight a driver or hit it far, whatever it is, is being able to stay present, stay in the moment.”

One more takeaway from the week / one takeaway for the weekend 

4. LIV Golf made headlines this week. It’ll make headlines this weekend. Let’s try to digest them. 

— There was talk on the progress of the league, now playing its fourth season. On Tuesday, Brooks Koepka had this exchange with a reporter, with the question written in italics. 

The league is going into its fourth year. When you look at the ratings and the interest globally and in the U.S. and in terms of sponsorships, where do you think it’s at? Is it just keep the head down and keep charging, or what changes need to be made?

“I think we all hoped it would have been a little bit further along, and that’s no secret,” Koepka said. “No matter where you’re at, you always hope everything is further along. But they’re making progress, and it seems to be going in the right direction.”

News

That comment followed one Koepka made last month, when he was asked about his future in light of Hall of Famer Fred Couples saying Koepka “really” wants to come back and play the PGA Tour. Said Koepka: “I talked to Fred quite a bit, but we don’t go too much into detail about what’s going on. Like I’ve said before, I’m not in those rooms. I’ve got a contract obligation out here to fulfill, and then we’ll see what happens.”

— There was talk on the proposed funding deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, an arrangement that, in theory, would bring back together PGA Tour and LIV Golf pros, as the PIF also funds LIV. 

According to a story written by Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig, though, new LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told a group of reporters at this week’s LIV event that a deal would be “nice,” but not needed.

“If the deal can help grow the game of golf, I’ll jump in with two feet,” O’Neil said. “Do we have to do a deal? No. It would be nice to do a deal, so long as we’re all focused on the same things.

“So do we have to do a deal or need a deal, whatever word you use, leave that to somebody smarter than me. I will say I love what we’re doing, I love our prospects. I love the growth in three months. I know what’s coming in the next three months. And I love where we are.”

That thought was followed by a story written by the Guardian’s Ewan Murray, who reported that, as part of the deal, the PIF had wanted assurances that LIV would continue and that its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, could be a co-chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises — and that the Tour turned down those requests. 

— Then there’s the golf itself. LIV is playing its first U.S. event of the year this week, and it’ll be broadcast on Fox’s family of channels — against the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open that’ll be shown on Golf Channel and NBC. GOLF’s Sean Zak summarized the implications well here. 

The takeaways here? Headlines get folks talking, so there’s that. This week is important for LIV, the PGA Tour and the deal. But keep monitoring Koepka’s thoughts. They’re important, too. 

Best non-GOLF.com read for your weekend 

5. What am I reading (besides the thoughtful prose of my colleagues)? This article is worth your click. 

Here, Rick Broadbent of the Times sat down with Koepka, and they talked about McIlroy at the 2023 Ryder Cup. And the Masters. And PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. 

A golf story that may interest only me 

6. My golf-basketball bracket stinks. But it’s not entirely my fault. 

If you missed it, I created a tournament of 64 men’s pros based on Data Golf’s March 21 rankings — and the pros would advance based on how their corresponding team in the men’s college basketball tournament played. At the least, I was curious. But then four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four. Meh. I wanted upsets. Oh well. 

Here’s who’s left:

No. 1 South Scottie Scheffler vs. No. 1 West Jon Rahm 

No. 1 East Rory McIlroy vs. No. 1 Midwest Collin Morikawa 

Another golf story that may interest only me 

7. Here, John Daly talked about persimmon drivers. Then he hit one.

One more golf story that may interest only me 

8. Here, Ryan McCormick, a pro on the Korn Ferry Tour, resorted to taping his mouth shut to combat anger. 

One golf / non-golf story

9. Here, Viktor Hovland joined … the UAP Files Podcast. What’s a UAP? It’s short for unidentified anomalous phenomena, for what have long been called UFOs, short for unidentified flying objects. Hovland has talked about the subject on occasion, and on the podcast, he spent a good portion of his time questioning the host. 

The golf talk was brief, though this was interesting:

“Just to relate this to golf,” Hovland said, “the past couple years have been a little bit challenging for me on the golf course and it’s made me have to question a lot of the things that I’ve done. Because when you make an instinctual move that I’ve done for, I’d say, maybe the past 10 years of my life and the ball is going one direction, it’s going pretty straight, it’s going where I want it to go and then suddenly it’s not doing that, you have to really question everything and look at all the things that you’re doing to re-engineer the golf swing that you had before. 

“And when you do that, it’s quite addicting, really. It might give you some short-term discomfort because you look at things that you regard as facts and then maybe they weren’t as true as you thought they were. And that original discomfort goes away quickly when you realize that on the other side, there’s lessons to be learned and you can actually improve because of that. 

“And then when you extrapolate that to other things in society or how you live your life in general, it’s quite freeing and it almost becomes a little addicting — you just want to question everything, although within reason; you still need to put on your shoes and put on clothes and go out there and work and get better at the things you want to get better at. But yeah, it’s just fascinating so that’s kind of what led me to this topic.”

What golf is on TV this weekend?

10. Let’s do 10 items! Here’s a rundown of golf on TV this weekend:

— Saturday

Noon-3:30 p.m. ET: Augusta National Women’s Amateur final round, NBC 

1 p.m.-3:30 p.m. ET: Valero Texas Open third round, Golf Channel 

2 p.m.-4 p.m. ET: LIV Golf League Miami second round, FS1

3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: Valero Texas Open third round, NBC 

3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational second round, Golf Channel 

6 p.m.-9 p.m. ET: T-Mobile Match Play quarterfinal, Golf Channel 

10 p.m.-midnight: Club Car Championship third round, Golf Channel 

— Sunday 

8 a.m.-1 p.m. ET: Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals, Golf Channel  

Noon-1 p.m. ET: LIV Golf League Miami final round, FS2

1 p.m.-5 p.m. ET: LIV Golf League Miami final round, Fox 

1 p.m.-2:30 p.m. ET: Valero Texas Open final round, Golf Channel 

2:30 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: Valero Texas Open final round, NBC 

2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. ET: James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational final round, Golf Channel 

4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Club Car Championship final round, Golf Channel 

6:30 p.m.-9 p.m. ET: T-Mobile Match Play final, Golf Channel 

A non-golf thought 

11. Let’s do 11 items! This weekend, I’m off to Des Moines, where my sister-in-law is getting married — and where I’ll be the officiant. The process to get certified was wild — I applied online and was approved as soon as I paid. Hmm. As long as everyone’s happy, I guess. 

The other big news here is I have to give a short speech — and I plan to sing some of it. It’s my idea, though. My sister-in-law and her future husband are in the theater scene, so I thought it would lighten the mood to have an absolute non-performer perform. It might work. Or not.

Then I head to Georgia.  

(One programming note! No Weekend 9 next week Friday, but we’ll have Masters Observations — a lot of ’em — on Monday, April 14.)