Tiger lays it out

They're playing the first round of The Open this morning at the ancestral home of golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews. Which is only right because this is the 150th Open, and therefore proper genuflection at the Road Hole and the Valley of Sin and Swilcan Bridge is a liturgical matter as much as anything.

Me, I just like all the venerable-ness that attaches to The Open, being a history nerd and all. Did you know, for instance, that in 1871 they actually canceled The Open because they didn't have a proper trophy to hand the winner (the Claret Jug arrived two years later)? Is that not the most British thing ever?  

And speaking of venerable-ness ...

Yes, Tiger Woods is here. As he said he would be. 

And the other day, he had some things to say about that Saudi exhibition tour all the greedheads on the PGA Tour are defecting to.

What Tiger said is, he doesn't hold with it.

What he said, in essence, is the LIV defectors, a lot of them, have deserted the very thing that enabled them to command the gargantuan money the Saudis are throwing at them. (The word for people who do that is "ingrates," Blobophiles, though Tiger didn't use it.) And the kids who are signing up with it right from the amateur ranks?

"They've gone right from the amateur ranks right into that organization and never really got a chance to play out here and what it feels like to play a tour schedule or play in some big events," Tiger said.

This is because the LIV, as noted, is an exhibition tour, with 54-hole "tournaments" and no cut and a substantial payday even if you finish last. That's not exactly the Greater Greensboro Open, or even the Greater Velveeta On Rye Open. It's Words With Friends, only with gap wedges.

"What these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice?" Tiger wondered. "What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt?"

And excellent question. And the counter to that is a lot of the defectors -- Phil Mickelson chief among them -- have gone out there and earned it in the dirt. And have been doing it for years.

Which leads one to the inescapable conclusion that they feel they're entitled now to some easy money, even if a lot of them already are wealthy beyond measure. 

Actually earning your dough out there is hard, after all. You have to work on your game. You have to compete. You have to pit your work ethic against everyone else's.

Maybe the defectors are tired of doing that. 

Maybe they just want to sail off into the sunset with a wad of cash in one hand and an umbrella drink in the other.

Maybe that's why Tiger Woods, who lives to compete, said this week he "just didn't understand it."

Because what competitor would?