Good morning and welcome to those of you who are new to this newsletter, I’m Dan Gartland. The Saudi golf drama is just getting started.
In today’s SI:AM:
💰 The Saudi golf project’s first event
🇺🇦 The Ukraine men’s national soccer team’s return to competition
👌 The greatness of Stephen Curry
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A first list of names for the Saudi golf league
After months and months of conjecture, speculation and controversy, LIV Golf finally released the list of 42 players who will be taking part in the Saudi-funded upstart’s first tournament in London later this month. One name in particular came as a shock: Dustin Johnson.
When rumors about the Saudi tour began to heat up in February, Johnson issued a statement dismissing the possibility of his involvement.
“I feel it’s now time to put such speculation to rest,” the statement said. “I am fully committed to the PGA Tour.”
So much for that.
Johnson is the biggest American name in the field for the inaugural event of the LIV Golf Invitational Series at the Centurion Golf Club next week (June 9–11), but he isn’t the only guy golf fans will recognize. Louis Oosthuizen, currently ranked No. 20 in the world, is in the field, as are former major champions Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel, Graeme McDowell and Martin Kaymer. Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Kevin Na are also set to take part.
Johnson is different, though. At 37, he’s still in his prime and is already third all-time in career earnings on the PGA Tour (behind just Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson—more on him below). He could be taking a risk by participating in an event not sanctioned by the PGA Tour. On May 10, the Tour officially denied players permission to play in the tournament.
“We have notified those who have applied that their request has been declined in accordance with the PGA TOUR Tournament Regulations,” Tour president Tyler Dennis said in a statement. “As such, TOUR members are not authorized to participate in the Saudi Golf League’s London event under our Regulations.
“As a membership organization, we believe this decision is in the best interest of the TOUR and its players.”
While it remains to be seen what impact Johnson’s possible participation in the LIV event will have on his PGA Tour status, his involvement with the Saudi venture is likely to spark more immediate reaction from his sponsors, as was the case with Mickelson. Johnson is sponsored by Canadian bank RBC, which is the title sponsor of next week’s Canadian Open. Johnson will be skipping that event to play in the LIV tournament and RBC issued a statement last night saying it was “extremely disappointed in his decision.” But given the rumors about the kind of money being thrown around by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, it doesn’t sound like Johnson will be hurting for cash even if he does lose sponsors.
Speaking of Phil, you’ll notice that he wasn’t on the list of 42 names confirmed for the 48-man event. But the door is still very much open for him to participate. Five more players will qualify for the tournament via the Asian Tour, leaving one more spot. I wonder who that could be for.
The best of Sports Illustrated
In today’s Daily Cover, on the eve of the NBA Finals, Howard Beck tries to put Stephen Curry’s greatness in perspective:
“To obsess over Curry’s three-point artistry is to miss all the other skills that make him one of the greatest players of his generation—and arguably of all time. It’s his sublime ballhandling, his ability to weave in and out of traffic; his soft finishes at the rim, with either hand; his midrange marksmanship, his balletic assortment of floaters, scoops and step-throughs; his passing and playmaking and court vision; his rebounding (especially for his size); his stout screen-setting (ditto); his knack for drawing double teams, then solving them with a quick pass or shot.”
Today’s game against Scotland will be an emotional one for the Ukrainian national team, Andrew Gastelum writes. … On the latest episode of SI Weekly, Pat Forde joins John Gonzalez to discuss the Jimbo Fisher–Nick Saban feud and NIL’s overall impact on college sports. … Let Ross Dellenger introduce you to Dr. Katie O’Neal, the SEC’s new chief medical adviser and the person responsible for the conference’s decision to play football in 2020. … Chris Herring sees similarities between this year’s Celtics and the Warriors team that won the title in ’15.
Around the sports world
Tommy Pham threw fantasy football commissioner Mike Trout under the bus in the latest development in that amusing saga. … Charges against Broncos receiver Jerry Jeudy, including second-degree criminal tampering with a domestic violence enhancer, have reportedly been dropped, but the NFL is still weighing punishment under the league’s personal conduct policy. … The Phillies have lost 10 of their last 13 after falling to the Giants in extra innings last night. … A goalkeeper in Norway’s top division is under fire after footage emerged of him literally moving the goalposts to make the goal smaller.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. Albert Pujols’s walk-off sacrifice fly
4. These two step-back threes by Kelsey Plum
3. Aaron Judge’s leaping catch to rob Shohei Ohtani of a home run
2. Every goal in the wild 8–6 Western Conference Final opener
1. The Mets fan who caught a home run with one hand while holding his baby on his shoulder (Yahoo’s Hannah Keyser tracked him down in the stands after)
SIQ
The Mets welcomed Johan Santana back to Flushing last night to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the no-hitter he threw on June 1, 2012, the first in team history. It seems like every no-hitter has a signature defensive play to keep the bid alive. In Santana’s game, it was by left fielder Mike Baxter, who crashed into the wall after catching a sharp liner off the bat of which Cardinals hitter?
- Carlos Beltrán
- Matt Holliday
- Yadier Molina
- Allen Craig
Yesterday’s SIQ: Tommy Lasorda struck out 25 batters in 15 innings pitching for the Phillies’ Class C affiliate in Schenectady, N.Y., against which team on May 31, 1948?
Answer: the Amsterdam Rugmakers. It was Lasorda’s second professional season, having signed with the Phillies as a 17-year-old in 1945. He played one year in the Class D North Carolina State League before spending two years in the military. After being discharged, he joined the Schenectady Blue Jays of the Class C Canadian-American League.
In the second game of a doubleheader, Lasorda set a league record with his 25 K’s while allowing five runs. He also came through at the plate, hitting a walk-off single in the 15th.
Lasorda was taken by the Dodgers in the minor league draft after the season and sent to Class A Greenville. He pitched well there, and in five seasons with Triple A Montreal, but didn’t make his MLB debut until August 1954. Lasorda’s big league career didn’t amount to much, though. He ran up a 6.48 ERA in 58⅓ innings with the Dodgers and A’s.
After washing out as a player, the Dodgers brought Lasorda on as a scout and later third base coach before serving as manager for 20 years.
From the Vault: June 1, 1992
Chuck Solomon/Sports Illustrated
After a lousy 1991 season, Mark McGwire showed up in ’92 looking like a new man.
McGwire, who shocked the world with 49 homers as a rookie in 1987, followed that up with seasons of 32, 33 and 39 dingers, making him the first player to hit at least 30 homers in each of his first four seasons. Then came the dismal ’91 season. McGwire hit a paltry .201, which, in an era where batting average was still king, earned him plenty of heckling (even if, by his 103 OPS+, he was slightly better than league-average at the plate). The abuse even came from some unexpected sources, as Steve Wulf wrote in SI:
“[Comedian Mark] Pitta, who is a close friend of McGwire’s, recalls going over to McGwire’s house in Alamo, Calif., late last summer and sitting by his pool. ‘On a hill overlooking the pool is this fence for the Alamo Elementary School,’ says Pitta. ‘Well, kids would come to the fence at recess and yell, ‘McGwire, you suck! McGwire, you stink!’ It’s got to hurt to have little kids yelling at you.”
Wulf’s story details how McGwire worked to get over the frustration of his down year and attempt to turn things around. He tried to clear his head by going to Australia to caddy in a golf tournament for his friend Billy Andrade, a PGA Tour pro. He put in extra work over the winter with A’s hitting coach Doug Rader. He tweaked his stance, went back to the model of bat he used earlier in his career and, oh yeah, began a new gym routine. “Eventually, he added 25 pounds of muscle to his already imposing 215-pound physique,” Wulf wrote.
Lines like that make you cock your head in 2022. (When he admitted in Congressional testimony in 2010 to having used steroids during his career, McGwire did not say he used them in the ’91–92 offseason. “I remember trying steroids very briefly in the ’89–90 offseason and then after I was injured in 1993 I used steroids again,” he said. “I used them on occasion throughout the ’90s, including during the ’98 season.”)
Regardless of what he was or wasn’t on, 1992 was the year McGwire’s transformation from wiry to hulking began in earnest. He started to look more like the guy who would hit 70 homers in ’98. Maybe it was the muscles, or maybe it was just his new goatee.
“I tried a beard two or three times this winter,” McGwire told Wulf, “but some social occasion always came up that made me self-conscious about it. Still, I felt I really needed something, and about three weeks before spring training, I started the goatee. I think it has added about five years to my baby face.”
Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.
