PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Adam Scott was one in all the last players to complete his Players Championship second round early Friday evening at TPC Sawgrass, and when he emerged from the scoring room a small group of reporters awaited him.
Scott, who was 2-under-par entering Saturday’s third round, was neither at the highest of the leaderboard nor had he just missed the cut in some kind of dramatic or heartbreaking fashion that warranted answers or explanations for inquiring minds.
The 43-year-old Aussie was one shot contained in the cutline, ensuring him Saturday and Sunday tee times at Sawgrass, but 12 shots off the lead held by Wyndham Clark and never prone to contend for the title.
So, why were reporters waiting for him?
“I birdied 17 to make the cut on the Players Championship,’’ Scott said with a sarcastic smile, knowing that’s not what we desired to ask him about.
That is the unlucky state of the sport we live in in the intervening time, where the conversations are less about birdies and bogeys and tournaments won or lost, but about business.
On a greater day, we’d have been waiting on Scott to debate his golf. Possibly how he birdied 17 or whether he felt pressure to make the cut or what his final plans were in preparation of next month’s Masters.
But these aren’t higher days in golf.
That’s why we were waiting for Scott after his round because he’s one in all six player-directors on the PGA Tour’s player policy board, and Golfweek on Friday reported that the player-directors are being encouraged to satisfy possibly on Monday with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the pinnacle of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which runs rival LIV Golf.
The PGA Tour and LIV have been at a stalemate by way of bringing the perfect players on the planet together since that “framework agreement’’ between the 2 was announced last June 6.
So, in line with the report, in an effort to maneuver things along, the players have been encouraged to satisfy with Al-Rumayyan.
“If the PIF thinks it’s useful, we meet and I feel it’s a very good thing to do,” Scott said. “So far as getting on with business, let’s get on with business. I’m curious to see how that every one pans out, identical to everyone in the sport is … simply to put a face to a reputation.
“Ultimately, the players [will] vote going into whether a deal will occur or not. And with the seriousness of what we’re voting on, I feel it is necessary that we’ve all met and regardless of what anyone’s feelings are.’’
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has met with Al-Rumayyan several times, essentially the most recent of which he revealed was in January. On Tuesday, during a press conference prematurely of the Players, Monahan, without divulging any details, characterised the negotiations with PIF as “accelerating.’’
Whatever meaning.
The Players Championship ends on Sunday and the meeting is reportedly scheduled to happen Monday possibly at a personal home near TPC Sawgrass.
Five of the six player-directors on the Tour’s policy board were in the sector on the Players — Scott, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson. Tiger Woods is the one player-director who didn’t play this week. Spieth and Simpson missed the cut, though Spieth indicated he may stay on the town for a pair more days.
“Something must occur for our sport,’’ Malnati said Saturday after his third-round 66. “I might like to see a unified game where when we have now events just like the Players Championship, we have now all the perfect players on the planet and we’re proud to call them PGA Tour members. I don’t understand how we get there, but that’s what I would like.’’
Certainly one of the stickiest issues amongst players regarding any merger or deal between the PGA Tour and LIV is the trail back to the PGA Tour by the players who took the Saudi money to leap to that tour.
“That’s obviously the thing that’s most top of mind for people,’’ Malnati said. “You’ll find opinions that ran the gamut, from guys that just have a line within the sand that say ‘never,’ and guys [who want the LIV players back]. So, we’re going to must net out somewhere in the center.
“The simplest, most certainly route we go once we do discover a way for guys to come back back is guys aren’t coming back to the PGA Tour with membership on the PGA Tour, they’re coming back to the PGA Tour as guys are going to must earn their way back here.
“We want to provide our fans a product where when we have now events like this at the perfect venues with the perfect every little thing, we have now the perfect players on the planet playing. We want to seek out a solution to give that to our fans, because that’s what they deserve for being loyal to us.’’
If that may be achieved, then we’ll be more compelled to ask a player like Scott details about how he birdied the famous island-green seventeenth and what it meant for him to make the cut on the Players.
Golf things, not business stuff.
