LET’S EMBRACE THE MASTERS THIS WEEK AND IGNORE GOLF’S WARRING PARTIES

I won’t acknowledge initials — LIV, PGA — because we’re sick of the infighting, and if fans do like golf, disregard finances while Scottie Scheffler wants dominance and Jon Rahm seeks a back-to-back

     Forgive me, almighty power people, but I am approaching the 88th Masters without acronyms. LIV is dead. PGA is barren. Knowing the Saudi Arabian influence paid Jon Rahm more than $350 million to join defectors Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and the money-first clan, I won’t take the approach of Brandel Chamblee, who uttered this week on the Golf Channel: “Jon went from being viewed as his own man to being somebody that could be bought.”

     True, so true, all were bribed. And this weekend, let the gentlemen monitor their gooey millions while the rest of us watch the sport’s showcase at Augusta National. No one is more repulsed than me about the inability of warring parties to reach a tidy agreement, but once they converged on Magnolia Lane — which is down the street from a Circle K and an Arby’s — our focus should be on magical words.

     This is a major, the most wondrous of four.

     If we must tolerate blindness from policy makers, including Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Jay Monahan, the golfing public should focus on these championships and ignore the political and financial stances. We have Scottie Scheffler, who is ranked No. 1 in the world and needs one Masters title to become the game’s dominant player, if not quite Tiger Woods before his scandals and a death-defying accident. We have Rahm, who would be the fourth back-to-back winner at this tournament. We have Rory McIlroy, who hasn’t won a major in a decade and has sought counseling in attempts to finish his career Grand Slam with a green jacket.

     Enough with the discord, the bazooka blasts, the chasm. Amen Corner doesn’t care who plays where for how much money. Why should we, Thursday through Sunday? The story lines are precious. Follow DeChambeau, who said: “I want to be competing every week, with all of the best players in the world, for sure. And it needs to happen fast. It’s not a two-year thing. Like it needs to happen quicker rather than later just for the good of the sport. Too many people are losing interest.” He’s correct. We are.

     “I think that is what's making this Masters and other majors so much fun, not only for me and for players but for spectators,” Rahm said. “It’s for all of us to be able to play together again and showcase what we're capable of.” He made the mistake of thinking his monster signing would unify the tours, but now, he says, “Unfortunately, it’s not up to me. At the end of the day, I did what was best for myself.”

     So did McIlroy, who has mellowed on wanting to nuke-bomb the traitors and says he’s weary of the world. “I just think with the fighting and everything that's went on over the past couple years, people are just getting really fatigued of it and it's turning people off men's professional golf, and that's not a good thing for anyone,” he said. “If you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they're down 20 percent across the board. That’s big. The numbers on LIV aren't great, in terms of people tuning in. That just can’t happen, so we need to figure it out.”

     Until then, can we enjoy the azaleas? “I don't know how it's going to end, exactly, or what it's going to look like,” Mickelson said. “I’m putting my trust in Yasir and where the game is headed more globally. Right now, we are in the disruption phase, so we are in the middle of the process.”

     You get it. Be Jim Nantz. Don’t say a word. “I have no control over anything. I'll just keep going wherever they tell me to go,” Koepka said. “Same with the PGA Tour guys. I just don't think anybody knows the future. Nobody knows on this side. Nobody knows on that side. It's up to people that are more important than me and more important than a bunch of the players to decide. We'll let them figure it out and go from there.”

     Other than two dash-and-crash rounds from Woods, who has played only 24 holes of competitive golf and is ready to become America’s 2025 Ryder Cup captain, imagine a Sunday blitz between Scheffler and Rahm. Neither has Woods’ aura, but for those who want to affirm the best, they will teach you. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see anything like that again in the game of golf,” Scheffler said of Tiger mania. “I think it would be good for the game. Anytime you have a figure that kind of dominates ... I think of the NBA. You look at Steph Curry for those years where the Warriors were winning a bunch. People were still showing up and watching because he was incredible to watch, and you want to watch greatness when you’re out there.”

     Yet, earlier this year at Riviera Country Club, Scheffler hit his tee ball and recalls the reaction. “This guy yells out, ‘Congrats on being No. 1, Scottie — 11 more years to go!’ Eleven more years to go.” It was a reference to Woods, who was ranked No. 1 for more than 13 years. What about Rahm? Is he ready to win again? His LIV distinction would earn headlines and praise from the tour’s clown prince, Greg Norman, but what happens at Augusta is beholden.

     “I mean, the Masters is the Masters,” Rahm said. "I don't think there should be any difference whether you play the PGA Tour, LIV, European Tour or Sunshine Tour. It really doesn't make a difference. You could have asked me the same question last year with some of the LIV players coming in. I wouldn't say there's anything added to it.”

     Here, he is allowed to face Scheffler, which can’t happen normally. “Yeah, I'm fully aware of where Scottie is," Rahm said. “I’ve seen it the last two years. He's a great competitor, and he is somebody that when you're under the gun and you've got to get it done, he's been able to get it done. I feel like I don't need to be playing next to him to know what's going on.”

     Through it all, McIlroy will keep trying. Last year, he told his caddie and manager that he wanted to do “a complete reboot.” The scene was shown on “Full Swing,” the Netflix show. “Like it feels so far away," McIlroy said. “I’m not at the stage of my life where I feel like I can come out and be doing these two-week boot camps. Like, I feel good enough to be, like, f—ing top 10 in my head, but not good enough to win.”

     He thinks he’s finally ready at 34, in what already is his 16th Masters appearance. “If I cast my mind back to 18-year-old Rory and I'm driving down Magnolia Lane for the first time, how would I feel?” he said Tuesday. “I think, it's just always trying to go back to being grateful and feeling incredibly lucky that you can be a part of this tournament and you get to compete in it every year.”

     His way should be our way. Be grateful. Feel lucky. Wear an Augusta cap. Buy a pimento cheese sandwich.

     Initials are forbidden, until next week, when we stop watching all of them again.

     ###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.