Status Update 008
Sir, the man is a walking keg of dynamite
Welcome to Status Update — a free Friday newsletter featuring long and short stories, general ramblings from the week that was, the most interesting things to have recently caught my eye and any other golf-related nonsense I believe to be worth your time.
The Opening Drive
It is a slow morning in the McDonald household following the Four Nations finale between the United States and Canada. Watching Sid the Kid join forces with McJesus and Nate Dogg across two weeks of good old fashioned hockey was nothing short of spectacular.
I’m gutted for the boys in the stars and stripes, but as a Pens fan, I have a hard time rooting against the kid. I’m sorry, it’s just in my DNA at this point of my life. He’ll make a great addition to Team USA in the 2026 Olympics once America’s top hat becomes No. 51. Or possibly No. 52 depending on the status of Greenland.
Sports are inherently a copycat league, and some are scrambling to capture the same magic that the NHL did with Four Nations Face-Off. This, of course, includes golf because we have to make everything about ourselves.
Now, there are some in the sphere who believe an all-star weekend is exactly what golf needs — long drive competitions, skills test, up-and-down challenges, whatever your wildest imagination can think of — and those people could not be more wrong. Kick them in the shins if you are near them.
If your takeaway from a weekend that saw the NBA flop and the NHL flourish is to copy the former, then I really can’t help you. The NBA literally brought up a white guy from the minor leagues to do the dunk contest…again! I’ll never dismiss a great weekend for white guys — dunk contest winner and hockey is officially back — but let’s seriously work this out.
“A constructive working session” as my man Jay Monahan would say.
Four Nations worked for one simple reason: the players cared. Now, hockey guys are inherently a different breed — about as far away from the modern professional golfer — and perhaps the last of true sportsmen.
So the question then becomes: How do you get golfers to buy into an exhibition?
The Match has flopped. The Showdown sucked. TGL has had its moments, and there is some serious buy-in there. Here is what I propose and feel free to credit me unlike Golf Channel when discussing Maverick McNealy’s plans to run for PAC Chairman.
No scoop for you!
First thing we do is cancel the Presidents Cup. Yup, sorry not sorry. We have tried this thing for more than two decades and it has been two decades of dominance for the red, white and blue.
Wow, what a nice spot on the calendar that randomly opened up!
In lieu of the P Cup, we roll out the World Cup — we can workshop that name we don’t need this to be problematic from the start — and unlike Four Nations, we trot out 32 nations — it’s already 8x better than the NHL and we haven’t even teed off yet — or realistically like 20 nations but still with 32 duos.
32 teams of two will make up the field, and those 32 teams will be split up into eight different groups from which two will emerge from a round robin style match play format. The format in the group stage will be four-ball, best ball, whatever you want to call it. Each team will play three matches and if there is a tie in the standings then a sudden death playoff will be required.
If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I am more-or-less copying the old WGC Match Play up to this point.
From 32 teams, we are now down to 16 teams in a single-elimination bracket where the format is no longer four-ball, but foursomes (i.e. alternate shot). You play it out from there.
Now, the field will be determined based on which 32 nations are the first 32 nations represented in the Official World Golf Rankings by the end of The Open. This would give players a chance to play with their partners in practice rounds over the final month of the season, and if they choose to forgo the playing opportunity and spit on their country’s flag then their spot can be filled with a replacement.
If nations have a surplus of players inside the top 100 or whatever arbitrary cut-off point we want to use then they can enter more than one team but no more than four — a little tip of the cap to the originator, so to speak.
Here is what the field could potentially look like (and yes, I cherry picked some names):
USA: Scheffler, Schauffele
USA: Morikawa, Clark
USA: Thomas, Cantlay
USA: DeChambeau, Bradley
Northern Ireland: McIlroy, McKibbin
Ireland: Lowry, Power
Sweden: Åberg, Noren
Japan: Matsuyama, Hirata
England: Hatton, Fleetwood
England: Rai, Rose
England: Canter, Fitzpatrick
Australia: Scott, Smith
Australia: Day, M.W. Lee
Norway: Hovland, Ventura
Scotland: MacIntyre, Ferguson
Austria: Straka, Wiesberger
South Korea: S. Kim, T. Kim
South Korea: An, Im
Belgium: Detry, Pieters
Canada: Taylor, Pendrith (this made me chuckle)
Canada: Conners, Hughes
Denmark: Højgaard, Højgaard (cheeseburger, cheeseburger)
Denmark: Olesen, Neergaard-Petersen
France: Pavon, Langasque
France: Perez, Rozner
Colombia: Echavarria, Munoz
Germany: Jaeger, Kaymer
South Africa: Bezuidenhout, Burmester
South Africa: Oosthuizen, Van Rooyen
Spain: Rahm, Puig
Spain: Garcia, Campillo
Chile: Niemann, Pereira
And just like all other things in golf, if playing for one’s country doesn’t get you out of bed in the morning, then what about a $25 million cash prize from Saudi Arabia?
While we were away …
An end of an era
There is some unfortunate news to share on the work front as a venture I have been intertwined with since my early days at CBS Sports will come to an end this Sunday. They say when one door closes another one opens — which is true in this case as another program which I’ll be heavily involved with gets going next week — but I still can’t help but be bummed out about the whole situation.
I’ll touch on the ins and outs, the decisions that were made behind the scenes and why the show mustn’t go on next week following the “official” announcement on Sunday of the Mexico Open.
Quotes of the week
“Whatever the tariffs were, double it.”
Good read for a start to the weekend!