Tonight on GeekNights, we review Golf. This includes mini golf. In the news, Microsoft is likely buying Discord, Xbox Live is dead, Emily is Away 3 brings us to the Facebook era, Shredder's Revenge brings us a solid-looking TMNT game, and Magic: Legends is now in open beta.
Things of the Day
Episode Links
When Microsoft bought Skype, simultaneously MSN Messenger (windows live messenger) and Skype died.
MSN was deprecated, Skype became functional garbage.
Microsoft buying Discord is bad news for Discord users.
I’m wondering if Microsoft is buying Discord to work with:
If it’s the first, RIP. If it’s the second… well, they didn’t kill Minecraft.
I reckon Minecraft is impossible to kill. It made all the money it needed to by the time it was sold.
Where as these communication platforms are very susceptible to early deaths.
As soon as basic features no longer function as expected, users will just migrate to another platform.
Microsoft bought Skype in 2011. Balmer was CEO until 2014. Microsoft has changed a lot since then.
I don’t think they’re going to buy Discord, but if they do, I think there’s a decent chance they won’t break it.
I’m almost certain it is for Xbox. Teams has more features than Discord for anything Enterprise related already and Discord’s brand recognition would not help them there. I’m willing to bet with Xbox’s recent push for getting their first party games on PC too they’re looking for an efficient way to build communities on any platform.
What about other golfs? Disc? Code?
Both briefly mentioned!
Not Golf but tangentily related, My friends and I at the local climbing gym will play “golf” on really easy routes (v1-v3) to see who can get up the route with the least number of holds used. (a hold counts if you touch it with your hands or feet, a hold only counts once, you must use any specified holds)
It’s a fun end of the night game when you’re tired but want to mess around.
I’ve played climbing golf. It’s real fun, and it’s accessible to even beginner climbers on easy courses.
That accessibility is big, one of my friends keeps trying to get us to do the “you have to touch the hold with your foot first” game and I’m getting too old to become that flexible.
Wii sports golf is the ultimate golf game.
Live stream:
Also tiger woods had disc golf on actual courses.
I’m sure nobody here is paying attention to what’s happening in Golf. I didn’t even realize what was happening until recently. I’ll help you out with a summary.
Another golf league has appeared called LIV Golf. It has some weird format where teams of 4 golfers each compete against each other. The whole thing is propped up with Saudi money. It’s part of the Saudia Arabian campaign to sports-wash their reputation, same as the pro-wrestling and such.
Anyway, the LIVE Golf has a lot of money. Huge payouts. And several big time PGA tour golfers have signed on.
The PGA has responded by banning anyone who participates in LIV Golf from participating in any PGA Tour events.
Except there’s one problem. There are four major golf tournaments. Those are the ones people really care about. The US Open, The (British) Open, The PGA Championship, and The Masters. The US Open has already confirmed that it will allow the LIV golfers to play (if they qualify). It is an open after all, and not just in name only. It will be very interesting to see how the other three go. The British Open is also ostensibly open, so it might allow them. The other two are question marks. You would think at least the PGA Championship would probably not allow them, it being a PGA event, but apparently it’s not as simple as that.
If indeed the four major tournaments allow the LIV golfers to play, that’s a huge boon for LIV and a huge hurt on the PGA. It also transfer a large amount of control over the sport as a whole from corporate interest (PGA and its sponsors) to a national interest (Saudi Arabia).
The one benefit to fans is that it could actually make the major tournaments more exciting. Two separate groups of top players competing in two separate top-tier leagues. But then just 1-4 times a year they compete against each other, and it’s a really big deal. Just like how the World Series and Super Bowl were originally. That gives the other three tournaments a large incentive to say yes, just like the US Open did.
The whole saga with Phil’s “blood money” comments was so wild.
Surely The Masters says no to the LIV players, right?
Daaaang.
I thought these sorts of league mergers had ended in the 20th century. In 1903 the NL and AL merged merged to form MLB. In 1966 the AFL and NFL merged. The NBA and ABA merged in 1976. In 1979 the NHL merged in four WHA teams. And now maybe not even 2 years after its founding, the PGA merged with the LIV Golf.
In a way you can think of this as a forced sale. The Saudis who made LIV Golf could have instead tried to just buy the PGA, but they wouldn’t sell. So instead they make a separate thing, merge with the original, and now they own a large share of the new whole. Same end result as if they were able to just buy a chunk of the PGA to begin with.
I guess it’s good for golf that all the top players are in the same structure. But it’s pretty bad who the owners are!
