DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Eight years later, before Rory McIlroy’s victory, a forecast for thunderstorms led to a two-tee start for the first time in Open history. And when Shin played there in 2012, poor weather led to the third and fourth rounds being condensed into a single day. “But it’s going to be wet or it’s going to be very wet. Its men’s Open champions later included Bobby Jones and Peter Thomson. The 151st Open, Shin predicted, “will be the beginning of another history.”No.

Persons: Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy’s, Shin, Hoylake, ”, ” Martin Slumbers, Harold Hilton, Bobby Jones, Peter Thomson, “ Organizations: Tiger, Royal Liverpool, 151st, Royal Locations: Royal North Devon, Royal

☆ There’s a British Open Winner Coaching High School Golf in Ohio
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Alan Blinder | More About Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This kind of understated Friday morning is very much how Curtis likes his life two decades after he made his major tournament debut at the British Open — and won. Championship and a Players Championship, a spot on a Ryder Cup-winning team, a few other PGA Tour victories — but never the major-winning magic. He last played a tour event in 2017, finishing with career earnings of more than $13.7 million. Today, he coaches his son’s golf team at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent, Ohio, and teaches at a golf academy that bears his name. On Thursday, the Open will begin at Royal Liverpool.

Persons: David Letterman, Ben Curtis, steeling, Curtis, George’s, Theodore Organizations: Royal St, Ryder, Theodore Roosevelt High School, Royal Liverpool Locations: Cleveland, South Carolina, London, Kent , Ohio, Royal

If the U.S. economy has a "soft landing" - no recession this year with inflation near target, and only a mild downturn next year with unemployment staying historically low - Jerome Powell may lay claim to being the most successful Fed chief in history. Powell was frequently on the receiving end of public lashings from his then boss - "Clueless," "horrendous lack of vision" and "pathetic!" "Kudos to Powell if he can achieve a soft landing. Greenspan, dubbed 'the Maestro' by his admirers, was Fed chief from 1987 to 2006. Not only that, his 36% rating was the lowest of any Fed chair since the survey series began in 2001.

Persons: Jerome Powell, Powell, Janet Yellen, Donald Trump, Trump, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Volcker, Greenspan, Joe LaVorgna, Alan Blinder, Goldman Sachs, Jan Hatzius, Hatzius, Joe, Jamie McGeever, Andrea Ricci Organizations: Powell's, Republican, Nikko Securities, Trump White House, Reuters, New York Fed, Gallup, Thomson Locations: ORLANDO, Florida, U.S

The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, facing pressure from the Justice Department about their ambitions for a new company to shape global golf, have in recent days abandoned a crucial provision of their tentative deal: a promise not to recruit each other’s players. Three people familiar with the change, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations, signaled that the decision was an early casualty of an antitrust review by Justice Department regulators, who are expected to decide in the coming months whether to try to block the transaction. The tour moved to notify its board of the decision only on Thursday, after The New York Times asked the tour to comment on its reporting. The framework agreement between the tour and the wealth fund included few binding provisions. But one of them was a nonsolicitation clause, which said the tour and wealth fund-backed LIV Golf league would not “enter into any contract, agreement or understanding with” any “players who are members of the other’s tour or organization.”

Persons: LIV, ” Organizations: Tour, Saudi, Justice Department, The New York Times, LIV Golf

The PGA Tour sought the ouster of Greg Norman, the two-time British Open champion who became the commissioner of the insurgent LIV Golf league, as a condition of its alliance with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, according to records that a Senate subcommittee released on Tuesday. The tour and the wealth fund did not ultimately agree to the proposal — crafted as a so-called side letter to a larger framework agreement — and, for now, Norman remains atop LIV. But the deliberations reflect an enmity forged over decades of hostilities between the tour and Norman, one of the most talented players in professional golf history who often chafed at the sport’s economic structure. And they underscore the tensions that could linger if the deal closes. The glimpse into the negotiations between the tour and the wealth fund came as the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began its first hearing into the arrangement, which calls for the business ventures of the tour, the wealth fund and the DP World Tour to be brought into a new, for-profit company.

Persons: Greg Norman, LIV, Norman Organizations: LIV Golf, LIV, Investigations Locations: Saudi

Price and Dunne may also be asked about the weekend resignation of Randall Stephenson from the tour’s board after more than a decade. The sport’s leaders have often handled their business in Washington behind closed doors, relying on a fount of good will and gentility. The tour faced a significant threat in the 1990s, when the Federal Trade Commission examined antitrust issues in golf before its inquiry fizzled amid a pressure campaign from Capitol Hill. But baseball has drawn much of the attention from Congress, like when senators called a 1958 hearing on antitrust exemptions. (“Stengelese Is Baffling to Senators,” read a subsequent headline in The New York Times, which reported that Yankees Manager Casey Stengel had lawmakers “confused but laughing.”)

Persons: Price, Dunne, Randall Stephenson, Stephenson, Jamal Khashoggi, ”, Travis Tygart, Arnold Palmer, Dwight D, Eisenhower, Jack Nicklaus, Biden, Casey Stengel, “ Organizations: AT, Saudi, Washington Post, U.S, Doping Agency, Federal Trade Commission, Capitol, Lawmakers, football’s, ”, New York Times, Yankees Locations: Washington, Capitol Hill

‘Serious concerns’ at the PGA TourJust days before Tuesday’s PGA Tour hearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a prominent tour board member, Randall Stephenson, has resigned. His reason? He said he cannot support the golf organization’s proposed tie-up involving LIV Golf, its Saudi -backed rival, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch and The Times’s Alan Blinder report. In a scathing resignation letter obtained by DealBook, Mr. Stephenson, the former AT&T chair, said that he — like most of the board — was left out of the loop as the tour negotiated a deal with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that jolted the sports world. (In fact, he had already lately taken to attending most board meetings via videoconference, save for last month’s meeting in Michigan.)

Persons: Randall Stephenson, LIV Golf, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch, Alan Blinder, DealBook, Stephenson, —, Mr, Jamal Khashoggi, ” Mr Organizations: Investigations, AT Locations: Saudi, Michigan

☆ Economy not yet seeing major effects from Fed's rate increases, says Princeton's Alan Blinder
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailEconomy not yet seeing major effects from Fed's rate increases, says Princeton's Alan BlinderAlan Blinder, former Fed vice chairman and Princeton professor, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the latest jobs report, the elongated nature of this economic cycle, and what the Federal Reserve will do going forward.

Persons: Princeton's Alan Blinder Alan Blinder Organizations: Princeton, Federal Reserve

☆ Michelle Wie West Wants One More Crack at a Major
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

They surfaced at a luncheon with Brandi Chastain and Kristi Yamaguchi, and during a climb up a flight of stairs, and a stroll through a lobby. That’s Michelle Wie West, that 6-foot-1 fixture of collective memory and modern golf history. She did not win as much as she wanted to, and certainly not as much as many people thought she would or should have. But after close to a quarter of a century in the spotlight, she is still one of the savviest stars women’s golf has ever had, a player plenty of people outside of golf know as a star even if they do not know golf. The competitive golf part of Wie’s life will most likely be done by dusk on Sunday, when the U.S. Women’s Open is scheduled to finish at Pebble Beach.

Persons: Brandi Chastain, Kristi Yamaguchi, That’s Michelle Wie West, Wie Organizations: Women’s Locations: Stillwater, U.S

☆ Minjee Lee Doesn’t Want Golf to Be Easy
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Alan Blinder | More About Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Minjee Lee has spent these past few years feeling golf’s glories and agonies more than most. She won her first major tournament at the 2021 Evian Championship, a come-from-behind playoff victory, and followed it less than a year later with a record-setting win at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open. Then came a tie for 43rd when she tried to defend her Evian title, worries about exhaustion and a pair of frustrating finishes in the first two majors of this year. 2 last summer, Lee, a 27-year-old Australian, will have to conquer Pebble Beach Golf Links — the renowned course on the California coast — if she is to defend her Open title. Harding Park in San Francisco, Lee discussed her masterful iron play, the hazards of Pebble Beach, the evolution of the women’s game and why winning a major once, never mind twice, is so difficult.

Persons: Minjee Lee, Lee, Harding, haven’t Organizations: Evian, Women’s, T.P.C Locations: U.S, California, San Francisco, Beach

Golf’s big deal — a planned partnership between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — is not how big deals are ordinarily done. There were almost no outside bankers or lawyers involved in negotiations that led to a five-page framework agreement, and only so much input from the PGA Tour board. The plan that would, as the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, put it, “take the competitor off of the board” came as the tour faced a Justice Department investigation over antitrust matters. “The fact that they were willing to publicly announce it does mean that the parties are pretty committed to doing something,” Sreepada said. “But I guess that leaves us with a question of who holds the leverage at this point?

Persons: Jay Monahan, “, ”, Suni Sreepada, ” Sreepada Organizations: PGA Tour, Saudi, Justice Department, & Gray

☆ PGA Tour’s Pact With Saudi Wealth Fund Shows Many Details Left to Settle
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The five-page framework agreement was obtained Monday by The New York Times. The proposed deal, announced on June 6 by the tour and the wealth fund, the financial force behind the renegade LIV Golf circuit, has caused an uproar throughout the golf industry. Most crucially, the tour and the wealth fund must still come to terms on the values of the assets that each will contribute to their planned partnership. Bankers and lawyers have spent recent weeks beginning the valuation process, but the framework agreement includes no substantive details of projected figures or even the size of an anticipated cash investment from the wealth fund. Instead, much of the agreement focuses on the basic structure of the new company that is to house what the accord describes as all of the “commercial businesses/rights” of the PGA Tour and the European Tour, now known as the DP World Tour.

Persons: LIV Organizations: The New York Times, Saudi, Bankers, PGA Tour, European Tour Locations: Saudi

☆ Wyndham Clark Captures the U.S. Open
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Clark’s time on top ended swiftly, when he bogeyed the second hole for the second time this week. The sixth hole had unnerved players for days, a par-4 concoction with a blind tee shot and demanding terrain. Clark had managed a birdie there on Thursday, before making par on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, seeking a slightly larger gap between himself and everyone else, Clark stood at the tee and sent his shot soaring 266 yards. The ball crashed onto the green, rolling past the cup but setting up a short putt for birdie and a two-stroke lead.

Persons: Clark, Beverly Hilton, McIlroy, Fowler Organizations: Beverly Locations: Wilshire

☆ For PGA Tour Players, Betrayal and Confusion in Saudi Deal’s Wake
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour was changing. Then came the tour’s surprise announcement on June 6 that, after it had lobbied players to forsake the Saudi money it had associated with human rights abuses, the PGA Tour and the wealth fund would join forces. None of the five players who sit on the tour’s board learned of the deal more than a few hours before it became public. June 6, he said, showed that the voices of tour players had suddenly been “thrown out the door a little bit.”Woodland is not an outlier. In interviews and during news conferences at the Open, top players described a shaken faith in a PGA Tour they believed had recently offered them more meaningful agency and greater influence.

Persons: Gary Woodland, LIV Golf Organizations: U.S, PGA Tour, Los Angeles Country Club Locations: Saudi, Washington

☆ U.S. Open Shows a Fiercer Side, but Low Scores Abound Anyway
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Few golfers relish a U.S. Open quite like Brooks Koepka. He first lifted a major trophy at Erin Hills in 2017, and then he did it again the next year at Shinnecock Hills. But Koepka has this week become a paradoxical, brand-name exhibit in an unexpected debate: Is this U.S. Open, the first at the venerable and cloistered Los Angeles Country Club, too easy? It was only on Tuesday that Koepka had been talking about how the tournament’s historical ferocity was a perverse source of comfort. “If it’s going to be a birdiefest where 20-, 21-under wins,” Koepka added, “that’s really not the style.”

Persons: Brooks Koepka, Koepka, “, ”, —, ” Koepka, “ that’s Organizations: Olympic Club, Los Angeles Country Club Locations: U.S, Pinehurst, Shinnecock, Erin

☆ Max Homa Takes His Star Turn at the U.S. Open
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For a decade now, Max Homa has had regrets. A gettable birdie on the Los Angeles Country Club’s sixth hole had eluded him. In his mind, his scorecard could have read — should have read — 59. If he can ratchet down his internal insistence on flawlessness when he plays golf’s most formidable tests. “I am good enough to win whatever I want — I’ve decided that,” Homa, who finished Thursday with a two-under-par 68, said in a recent interview.

Persons: Max Homa, “, — I’ve, ” Homa, ” Organizations: Los Angeles Country, U.S Locations: Los Angeles County, Valencia, ”

Last week, golf’s premier circuit, the PGA Tour, announced it was partnering with its rival circuit LIV Golf, an upstart league backed by Saudi Arabia, giving the country a powerful new seat at the table of international sports. Alan Blinder, who covers golf for The New York Times, explains what was behind the deal and what it means for the business of sports.

Persons: LIV, Alan Blinder Organizations: PGA Tour, The New York Times Locations: Saudi Arabia

☆ Pros Won’t Be Hitting Golf Balls This Far Forever, Whether They Like It or Not
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

is also concerned about the millions of golfers who are not professionals and neither he nor Perpall indicated plans for a wholesale surrender. The announcement that Monahan had stepped back followed seven days of turmoil in professional golf. Monahan, who helped to negotiate the deal, was criticized as a cash-hungry hypocrite, but he has retained at least some crucial allies inside the tour. “Jay is a human being,” Webb Simpson, the 2012 U.S. Open winner and a member of the tour’s board, said in an interview on Wednesday. “Golf is a game, and oftentimes, we make golf into something so much bigger than it is and we dehumanize people.” Perhaps, he said, Tuesday’s announcement would give “people a little perspective.”

Persons: Mike Whan, ’, Perpall, ” Whan, “, Jay Monahan, Ron Price, Tyler Dennis, Monahan, “ Jay, ” Webb Simpson, ” Organizations: PGA Tour, U.S, LIV Golf Locations: Saudi

☆ ‘Different Than What You Expect From a Los Angeles Golf Course’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Alan Blinder | Meg Oliphant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For much of Collin Morikawa’s life, the Los Angeles Country Club was a mystery. “It’s demanding — it’s very different than what you expect from a Los Angeles golf course,” Morikawa said in an interview. The West Coast is known for Kikuyu grass and very sticky poa annua greens, bumpy greens in the afternoon. That’s not what Los Angeles Country Club is.”Instead, players will confront a course of Bermuda grass, with bentgrass on greens that Morikawa sees as PGA Tour-like because of their slopes and designs. This year’s Open will include five par-3 holes for the first time since 1947, when Lew Worsham beat Sam Snead in an 18-hole playoff at St. Louis Country Club.

Persons: Collin Morikawa’s, George C, Thomas Jr, Gil Hanse, Scottie Scheffler, “ It’s, ” Morikawa, Lew Worsham, Sam Snead Organizations: Los Angeles Country Club, United States, University of California, St, Louis Country Club Locations: Southern California, U.S, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Bermuda

☆ First Came Golf’s Flash Grenade. Now, Here’s the U.S. Open.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For the first time in generations, the PGA Tour was not the unrivaled signature show in American men’s golf. How might players who defected from the tour to LIV be allowed to return? And what about all of that money, said to be $100 million or more in some instances, that the wealth fund promised LIV golfers? Much about the framework agreement, though, is unclear, with bankers and lawyers still rushing to fill in blanks on matters as weighty as asset valuation. (“I don’t have enough information about the deal yet to have an unfavorable or favorable view about it,” Patrick Cantlay, a player who is on the PGA Tour’s board, said on Tuesday.)

Persons: Lyndon, Johnson’s, LIV, ” Patrick Cantlay Organizations: Torrey, PGA Locations: Torrey Pines, San Diego, Sea Pines, Hilton Head, Saudi, London, Venice, San Francisco, New York

☆ Golf’s Titanic Deal Stokes Anger on Capitol Hill
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Alan Blinder | Kevin Draper | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The trouble for the wealth fund and the tour is that Washington also has a bipartisan affection for lawmakers imitating sports executives, and browbeating actual ones, in public and in private. The tour and the wealth fund can take some comfort in history, which suggests a successful congressional effort to thwart the deal directly is unlikely. The Hill, though, could still seek to make the transaction painful beyond a feisty public hearing or two. Groups like the PGA Tour have combated legislative headaches surrounding their tax-exempt status in the past, with one effort to end the practice for sports leagues vanishing from a 2017 tax bill at the last moment. In the past 18 months, years after the N.F.L.

Persons: Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, “, ” Organizations: Major League Baseball, Democrat, Senate Finance Committee Locations: Washington, Oregon

☆ Latest economic data 'good enough' to pause rate hikes, says Princeton's Alan Blinder
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailLatest economic data 'good enough' to pause rate hikes, says Princeton's Alan BlinderAlan Blinder, former Federal Reserve vice chairman and Princeton University professor, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the Fed's rate hike campaign, whether the latest economic data is good enough to stop rate hikes altogether, and more.

Persons: Princeton's Alan Blinder Alan Blinder Organizations: Federal Reserve, Princeton University

☆ Senate Opens Inquiry Into PGA Tour Deal with Saudi-Funded LIV Golf
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Kevin Draper | Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have not yet closed a stunning partnership agreement announced only last week, but vows from Washington to slow or stop the deal — or at least make it uncomfortable for golf executives — crystallized on Monday, when the Senate opened an inquiry into the arrangement. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and the chairman of the chamber’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said Monday that he had demanded that both the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian-funded LIV give up a wide array of documents and communications tied to the agreement. Blumenthal also asked for records related to the PGA Tour’s nonprofit status, suggesting an appetite to challenge the tour’s tax-exempt standing. In a statement issued three days before the start of the U.S. Open in Los Angeles, Blumenthal decried Saudi Arabia’s “deeply disturbing human rights record at home and abroad” and said the agreement raised concerns “about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”

Persons: LIV, Richard Blumenthal, Blumenthal, Saudi Arabia’s, ” Organizations: Senate, Investigations, PGA Tour, PGA, U.S, Saudi Locations: Washington, Connecticut, Saudi, Los Angeles, American

Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, had gone unnoticed in Venice last month. He was in town for the same wedding that had brought al-Rumayyan to Venice. If the motor sports executive spotted the PGA Tour’s leader, he would assuredly connect the presences of Monahan and al-Rumayyan, and golf’s greatest secret might get out. The civil war that had disrupted and defined the once genteel sport — for example, Monahan once publicly asked whether PGA Tour players had ever felt compelled to apologize for competing on the circuit — was abruptly suspended. The tour’s reputation was stained and many of its loyalists were furious, but its coffers were poised to overflow.

Persons: Jay Monahan, Yasir al, LIV, Stefano Domenicali, Monahan, Domenicali, — Organizations: PGA Tour, PGA, LIV Golf Locations: Venice, Italy, Saudi

☆ In Reprieve for PGA Tour, Rory McIlroy Backs Saudi Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Alan Blinder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The PGA Tour, facing a crush of internal dissent for its choice this week to accept the kind of Saudi money it spent the last year denouncing as tainted, appeared Wednesday to have the support of one of its most powerful players: Rory McIlroy, who had been one of the foremost critics of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit, which had convulsed the sport. Peering a decade into the future, McIlroy predicted Wednesday that the agreement to bring the tour and LIV’s business dealings into a single company controlled by the PGA Tour would be “good for the game of professional golf.”“There’s a lot of ambiguity,” McIlroy said Wednesday in Toronto, where a tour event is scheduled to begin Thursday. “There’s a lot of things still to be sort of thrashed out. But at least it means that the litigation goes away, which has been a massive burden for everyone that’s involved with the tour and that’s playing the tour, and we can start to work toward some sort of way of unifying the game at the elite level.”McIlroy, a member of the PGA Tour board, which will ultimately have to approve the agreement that blindsided almost the entire golf industry when it was announced on Tuesday, is only one player. But he is among the world’s most prominent golfers, and his decision to refrain from joining the wave of condemnations toward the PGA Tour is a precious reprieve for Commissioner Jay Monahan and his allies as they scramble to curb a revolt against the deal.

Persons: Rory McIlroy, LIV, McIlroy, ” McIlroy, “, that’s, Jay Monahan Organizations: PGA, PGA Tour Locations: Saudi, Toronto

Search resuls for: "Blinder"

25 mentions found