Latest news with #LIVTour
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trans athlete ban part of Trump's quest to ruin L.A. Olympics and sports, one step at a time
How did the world ever hold an Olympic Games before Donald Trump came along to show us the way? That guy's latest move to fix the Games is his executive order barring transgender athletes from competing for the U.S. team in women's events at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. This is in the wake of Trump saving the city of L.A. from total annihilation at the hands of rampaging mobs. You can already feel the order, peace and love building for this Olympics, can't you? Try harder. Trump doesn't have the authority to ban American trans athletes from the Olympics, but, well, actually he does, because he can do whatever he wants to do until someone pushes back, and that's not happening here. By its federal charter, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee has exclusive authority over all matters regarding U.S. representation in the Olympics. The USOPC receives no federal funding. Its policy on trans athletes — which is that each U.S. sporting body sets its own rules — was formulated over years of study and discussion. Then the USOPC tossed that policy out the window like night water in a chamber pot. 'Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women,' explained Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the USOPC. Whatever you do, make it sound like you're taking the high road, not that you've been bullied into submission. If rolling over and playing dead becomes an Olympic sport for '28, the USOPC 'leaders' have a shot at the gold. But they'll face stiff competition from heavyweight law firms, universities, TV empires, tech titans, big newspapers and elected officials. It's all for the better, especially in the world of sports, which has a true champion in Trump. For example: • He is leading the charge to restore abandoned team nicknames to the NFL's Washington Commanders and MLB's Cleveland Guardians. He is threatening to withhold federal wampum. • In baseball, Trump has coerced MLB into giving the dead and disgraced Pete Rose a shot at the Hall of Fame. • In golf, he patched up the rift between the PGA Tour and the LIV Tour. Wait, he didn't? He said he could fix that problem in 15 minutes, and it's already been six months? At least he's trying, maybe because the LIV Tour feeds his ego and fattens his wallet. • In pro football, he once destroyed an entire league, the USFL, but took a mulligan and saved the NFL by putting a stop to national anthem protests by 'son of a bitch' players. His bullying led the NFL to rule in 2018 that players were required to stand at attention, unless they opted to stay in the locker room. You could protest all you wanted, as long as you didn't let Trump see you. • Most recently, Trump issued an executive order setting in motion a plan to limit the earning ability of college athletes. These greedy kids have to be taught that there's more to life than money. To put teeth in his order, signed in an Oval Office decorated with more gold than King Tut's tomb, Trump will use the familiar threat of cutting federal funding. That penalty that would be administered by the Department of Education, which he is in the process of dismantling. But if one were to rank Trump's proudest sports accomplishments, his attack on trans folks would be at or near the top. It's where his heart is. He recently pulled the plug on a national suicide hotline for LGBTQ+ kids. In sports, to the man who has declared himself the winner of golf tournaments in which he didn't physically participate, the trans issue speaks to the heart of his idea of fair competition. It's also instant gratification. Trump might not be able to deliver on promises to end wars, his tariff follies might be throwing global commerce into turmoil, but with a bold stroke of his Sharpie, Trump can stop the invading horde of sports-wrecking trans athletes. Horde-lite, I should say. According to the International Olympic Committee, less than 0.001% of recent Olympians openly identify as trans and/or nonbinary. I did the math. About 11,000 athletes will compete at the L.A. Olympics. By statistical probability, one-tenth of one athlete at those Olympics will be a trans woman. If that athlete wins a medal, it should be the size of a dime. Granted, this is not a black-and-white issue. Recent polls show that a majority of Americans are not in favor of trans women and girls competing against cisgender women and girls. OK, if we're going to decide controversial issues simply on the basis of polls, then we should anticipate Trump signing executive orders to institute tough gun-control laws, restore female reproductive rights, and give back to immigrants the due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The trans athlete controversy isn't a yes-or-no deal. In 2021 the IOC released a lengthy document titled 'Framework on Fairness,' essentially a guidebook to help national Olympic committees formulate their rules regarding trans athletes. The document says, basically, let's weigh all the factors and not rush to emotional or political decisions. For instance, the Framework points out that there is no known instance of a male athlete proclaiming himself trans for the purpose of sneaking into women's competition, but the document does offer provisions to deal with that scenario. That document is way too touchy-feely for Trump. Like the part that says, 'The Framework asks sports bodies to consider the value of inclusion for, and the needs and rights of, trans athletes and athletes with sex variations.' As if. So you either go with the Framework suggestion that decisions be made after employing science, compassion, debate, fairness and all that, or you go with the Trump method, which is to trim the infant's fingernails with a chainsaw. Hold still, you little brat! It all adds to the excitement Trump is injecting into the L.A. Olympics. He has created the image of a city in chaos, overrun by violent mobs held at bay only by heavily armed federal troops. What potential Olympics visitor can't wait to wade into that party? Trump's visa restrictions, and his demonization of former allies like Canada and Mexico, figure to make the whole tourist experience much more interesting. Can you get into America? Can you get out? On the fields of play, more questions. Would Trump interfere with trans athletes from other countries getting visas? Will he try to stop them from competing? Will he have them thrown into an ICE pop-up gator gulag? Trump does not control the IOC. Not yet. But he could threaten to scuttle the L.A. Olympics if the IOC doesn't play by his rules. The charter under which the USOPC operates is not a presidential charter, but a congressional charter. Congress, for instance, created oversight mechanisms to ensure fairness to athletes. Now, though, Trump has seized the wheel from Congress and announced that he will steer this ship by himself. In a way, isn't it much simpler when one person makes all the rules and decisions for all of us? Eliminates so much mindless chatter and red tape. There should be a name for a guy who runs the whole show with unquestionable authority and ruthless, unchecked power. Any ideas, send 'em our way.
Belfast Telegraph
18-07-2025
- Sport
- Belfast Telegraph
Tom McKibbin vents his frustration after missing first Major cut of his career
'Not great. A little bit annoyed. Yeah, a little bit p****d off,' he opined bluntly after firing a two-over second-round 73 to finish the week at three-over-par, two shots too many for the cut line. You could hardly blame him, given he started the day so positively with a birdie at the first, but a double-bogey at the eighth after finding trouble over the green and two more bogeys at the par-fours 11 and 14 were enough to do the damage. He reinvigorated his hopes of making the weekend with a birdie at the 15th to get back to three-over, with the cut at that point threatening to move to two-over, but three pars to finish just wasn't good enough. 'The whole week was good, sort of positive,' he continued. 'I thought I played all right, just a few sort of stupid mistakes that, looking back, I wouldn't really hit different. 'The shot was fine, just sort of missed in the wrong spot or got the club slightly wrong. 'Overall, I actually thought I played quite nicely, just a few silly mistakes.' The Open at Royal Portrush: What happened in 2019 It is another crucial bit of Major experience for the 22-year-old, who has four more events on the LIV Tour to play in before he finishes his season with some DP World Tour invites, even if this was the first he has played where it only lasted for two rounds. He will take plenty of confidence from a strong showing on the greens, where he ranked fourth in strokes gained putting, and how he battled through some punishing weather but, ultimately, it wasn't enough to get him in for the weekend. 'I think that's what's probably most annoying. This is probably the best I've played out of them all,' McKibbin fumed. 'Just so many like stupid errors, just pins at the back of the green, hitting over the green. It's just where there's nothing really wrong with the shot. So, I think that's what's a little bit frustrating.' Meanwhile, if this was Darren Clarke's final appearance at a Major, then it was a great one to go out on, and he gave himself a chance of making the cut even if he did end up missing the number by a considerable distance. The 56-year-old looked visibly emotional as he walked up towards the 18th grandstand to round out a second consecutive three-over 74 to end the week at six-over, but he will not forget holing a 56-footer for birdie on the 10th that fostered hope that he might do something special. In the end, though, five bogeys sunk him, including at the 13th and 18th after the birdie at 10, and it's a missed cut for the Dungannon man. Time will tell, but it could very well be his last in this hallowed event.
Sydney Morning Herald
18-07-2025
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
Greg Norman was right, the World Golf Rankings mean nothing
In the three years since the first ball was struck in a LIV tournament, professional golf has become ever so slightly ludicrous. Two years ago, on these pages, I asked what happens to the sixty-odd players who'd signed for the LIV Tour, two years down the track, if whatever they achieve in the meantime counts for zilch? Because the OWGR are based entirely on ranked performances across the previous 24 months. Midway through 2025, my question can be answered: golf's world rankings system is an abject absurdity. Sure, hitching onto LIV Golf's travelling circus has done nada for the cultivation and maintenance of the technical skills and temperament required to compete at the highest level, for either Rahm or Smith, but that's a different argument. The crux of the issue is that LIV events are excluded from the OWGR. That's an unacceptable reality that should rightly cause offence to all professional players– it isn't just the LIV players this freezer treatment directly affects. LIV Golf management this week made a fresh application to the powers who control the OWGR for LIV events to be included in the calculation of world golf rankings. The OWGR meets annually at the British Open. LIV's previous application to OWGR was formally withdrawn last year. There's an indivisible absurdity here. Players began defecting to LIV three years ago. There's been a series of LIV tournaments played and won. Hardly anyone truly pays attention, but regardless, it's wrong that those tournaments, and their entrants' results, are ignored for the purpose of measuring the performance of the thousands of players on the OWGR rankings list. That's not right. There's at least two fundamental problems with the intransigence of those in charge of the OWGR (including PGA Tour and European Tour representatives), regarding LIV players and their achievements in LIV tournaments. Three years ago, the exclusion could be explained on the basis that assessments needed to be made as to what LIV is. Now the exclusion is churlish. LIV events are contrived, with their 54-hole, no cut, limited-field formats and confected atmosphere. It's a closed shop in terms of the players who compete. But by equal measure, results achieved in LIV tournaments must count for something. For players currently ranked inside the top 10 or top 50 of the OWGR, that ranking no longer means what it says because players like Rahm have their regular-season results excluded from all consideration. The best aren't the best any more. The last open door for LIV players outside the top 50 is via open qualifying events for the US Open and The Open championships. In the future, it means major championships will exclude players who should rightfully be there. What then happens, the major tournaments will have their importance eroded. The passage for LIV players to play in The Open wasn't non-existent, but the path was so narrow it may as well be. It's a matter of high farce that LIV-aligned players can't earn world golf rankings points. That's not to say that a 54-hole LIV closed-shop event should be ranked on par with a PGA Tour event that has a field four times as deep. LIV is anything but cutthroat. It's not the best of anything. Loading Yet, the 54-hole Big Easy Tour – a development tour in South Africa, composed largely of golfing unknowns – is recognised for OWGR purposes. Examined through the same prism, it's inexplicable that the LIV Tour isn't. That contrived anomaly must be rectified; otherwise, professional golf and its major tournaments will continue to suffer credibility damage. By the status quo, Rahm might well be ranked outside the world's top 300 next year. Reckon that's accurate? The problem is that the highest-ranking officials from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour sit among those who decide which tournaments and tours are recognised for rankings purposes. Fair and reasonable? Or exclusionary and anti-competitive?
The Age
18-07-2025
- Sport
- The Age
Greg Norman was right, the World Golf Rankings mean nothing
In the three years since the first ball was struck in a LIV tournament, professional golf has become ever so slightly ludicrous. Two years ago, on these pages, I asked what happens to the sixty-odd players who'd signed for the LIV Tour, two years down the track, if whatever they achieve in the meantime counts for zilch? Because the OWGR are based entirely on ranked performances across the previous 24 months. Midway through 2025, my question can be answered: golf's world rankings system is an abject absurdity. Sure, hitching onto LIV Golf's travelling circus has done nada for the cultivation and maintenance of the technical skills and temperament required to compete at the highest level, for either Rahm or Smith, but that's a different argument. The crux of the issue is that LIV events are excluded from the OWGR. That's an unacceptable reality that should rightly cause offence to all professional players– it isn't just the LIV players this freezer treatment directly affects. LIV Golf management this week made a fresh application to the powers who control the OWGR for LIV events to be included in the calculation of world golf rankings. The OWGR meets annually at the British Open. LIV's previous application to OWGR was formally withdrawn last year. There's an indivisible absurdity here. Players began defecting to LIV three years ago. There's been a series of LIV tournaments played and won. Hardly anyone truly pays attention, but regardless, it's wrong that those tournaments, and their entrants' results, are ignored for the purpose of measuring the performance of the thousands of players on the OWGR rankings list. That's not right. There's at least two fundamental problems with the intransigence of those in charge of the OWGR (including PGA Tour and European Tour representatives), regarding LIV players and their achievements in LIV tournaments. Three years ago, the exclusion could be explained on the basis that assessments needed to be made as to what LIV is. Now the exclusion is churlish. LIV events are contrived, with their 54-hole, no cut, limited-field formats and confected atmosphere. It's a closed shop in terms of the players who compete. But by equal measure, results achieved in LIV tournaments must count for something. For players currently ranked inside the top 10 or top 50 of the OWGR, that ranking no longer means what it says because players like Rahm have their regular-season results excluded from all consideration. The best aren't the best any more. The last open door for LIV players outside the top 50 is via open qualifying events for the US Open and The Open championships. In the future, it means major championships will exclude players who should rightfully be there. What then happens, the major tournaments will have their importance eroded. The passage for LIV players to play in The Open wasn't non-existent, but the path was so narrow it may as well be. It's a matter of high farce that LIV-aligned players can't earn world golf rankings points. That's not to say that a 54-hole LIV closed-shop event should be ranked on par with a PGA Tour event that has a field four times as deep. LIV is anything but cutthroat. It's not the best of anything. Loading Yet, the 54-hole Big Easy Tour – a development tour in South Africa, composed largely of golfing unknowns – is recognised for OWGR purposes. Examined through the same prism, it's inexplicable that the LIV Tour isn't. That contrived anomaly must be rectified; otherwise, professional golf and its major tournaments will continue to suffer credibility damage. By the status quo, Rahm might well be ranked outside the world's top 300 next year. Reckon that's accurate? The problem is that the highest-ranking officials from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour sit among those who decide which tournaments and tours are recognised for rankings purposes. Fair and reasonable? Or exclusionary and anti-competitive?
Irish Times
15-07-2025
- Climate
- Irish Times
Bryson DeChambeau focuses on links test over Rory McIlroy rivalry as he arrives in Portrush
The room expected a more aggressive energy field from Bryson DeChambeau in his first interview after arriving on Irish soil. His rivalry with Rory McIlroy has refused to die and recently he said he'd love nothing more than to beat him 'especially in front of his own crowd'. McIlroy mused this week on creativity versus power as the best way to get the ball around the links course at Royal Portrush, with those looking into McIlroy's mind reading it as DeChambeau's muscular game perhaps relying too heavily on science rather than the more nuanced 'artistry' required to win. While McIlroy won The Open in 2014 at Royal Liverpool, DeChambeau's best effort to win the oldest championship in the world was a T8 in 2022 at St Andrews. READ MORE Either way, for those hoping for a taste of golf as a blood sport two days before the first players tee off, DeChambeau was a let-down with his willing Californian smile and an open, shoot-the-breeze kind of charm. 'Great question,' he even quipped to one inquiry. 'Just have fun this week and be strategic. I'm trying to ride the wind,' he said. 'A heavy wind is a great way to describe it. It's thick.' There were no snide remarks or concealed digs, no reprisals or escalation of the rivalry. The drama of Portrush was what grabbed him. The LIV Tour player, one of 19 in The Open field, is not used to playing links golf and has been troubled by trying to develop a game that suits a punishing course where it is expected to blow. [ No flies on us as we look forward to new views of the Open Opens in new window ] Yesterday it was modest at 21km/h, although Met Office warned of potential disruption around the local area between 11am and 5pm. Play was halted twice due to a threat of lightning on Monday. 'You're feeling the wind, how much it's coming into you and if it's off the left or right a lot more than normal,' said DeChambeau. 'Okay, how do I feel? How do I turn this into the wind? If you're going to try to ride the wind one time, how do I control and make sure it doesn't go into a crazy place? Because once the ball goes into that wind, it's sayonara. That thing can go forever offline. It will turn east sometimes. 'You know, it's one of those situations where you're in the environment and you go, all right, this feels like a 15-mile-an-hour wind, and all of a sudden it plays like a 30-mile-an-hour wind, and you're like, what the heck?' Bryson DeChambeau during a press conference ahead of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. He plans to 'have fun this week and be strategic'. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA DeChambeau will open his championship with England's Justin Rose and Scotland's Bob MacIntyre. It is a fact of life on the LIV tour that the players do not have the opportunity to play on links courses and was an issue Joh Rahm brought up last year, bemoaning the fact that without playing on the coastal courses, their chances of winning an Open significantly decline. The 31-year-old also arrived at Portrush with a personality makeover since his last visit in 2019, when he missed the cut. His venture into 'fun' YouTube events and behind-the-scenes footage have softened the image to his 1.5 million subscribers of the beefcake who simply beats the bejaysus out of a golf ball. 'I think people see a different side of me on YouTube, where I can have fun, I can enjoy, I try to relate to others as much as I possibly can has been fun to show,' he said. 'For me, I always go back to what footprint can I leave now? I'm not going to be here forever. I'm not going to win every tournament. 'Yeah, am I going to get frustrated playing bad golf? Yeah. Am I going to want to still sign autographs? Yeah, because I care about the game.' But the golfer, who plays for a LIV team called Crushers, is far from retiring the hot-blooded image. Has no intention of going soft. 'I'll walk through the fire rather than run away from it,' he said. 'I'm still the fiery, want to go, competitive go-getter that I've always been.'
