Good Wednesday morning, golf fans, as we gear up for the CJ Cup…and more fallout from Zach Helfand’s New Yorker piece.

1. Report: Four more elevated PGA Tour events

Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch with the exclusive…“The PGA Tour is set to announce a further four tournaments with elevated status for 2023, Golfweek has learned. The additions will bring to 13 the total number of Tour events designated as “elevated,” meaning the presence of the game’s biggest stars will be guaranteed as they compete for lucrative purses of at least $20 million. The Tour plans to communicate specifics on the events to players later this week.”

• “In August, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced the first nine elevated events for the 2022-2023 season. Those were the Players Championship; three FedEx Cup playoff stops (FedEx St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship, Tour Championship); the three invitationals (Genesis, Arnold Palmer, Memorial); the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play; and the Sentry Tournament of Champions.”

• “The four additional tournaments to be elevated this season are the WM Phoenix Open, the RBC Heritage, the Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers Championship, according to five sources familiar with the discussions. Several sources said the Tour is still in the process of finalizing negotiations with the events. A spokesperson for the PGA Tour declined to confirm the details or to comment on potential announcements.”

2. In other words…

3. “I will create my own majors”

Be sure to check out the full piece — “Will the Saudis and Donald Trump Save Golf—or Wreck It?” —  from Zach Helfand at the New Yorker …but the most eye-popping portion is excerpted by our Matt Vincenzi…”Majed Al Sorour, the chief executive of Golf Saudi who’s heavily involved with LIV Golf, has an idea of his own.”

• “According to Zach Helfand of The New Yorker, LIV Golf will create their own major championships if the players can’t participate in the traditional ones.”

• “In the interview, Sorour states that he believes the major championships are leaning towards siding with the PGA TOUR and keeping LIV golfers out.”

• “For now, the majors are siding with the Tour, and I don’t know why,” he said.

• “Sorour then added: “If the majors decide not to have our players play? I will celebrate. I will create my own majors for my players. Honestly, I think all the tours are being run by guys who don’t understand business.”

• “If LIV is forced to create their own majors, Sorour didn’t specualte as to whether their “own majors” would be tournaments that are currently scheduled or additional events.”

4. Pepperell on why DP World, LIV talks fell through

James Hibbitt for Golf Monthly…“Eddie Pepperell has recalled a conversation with DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley and why a proposal to incorporate LIV Golf into the European circuit’s season fell through.”

• “Having spoken to Keith, and I trust his word on this, he said to me that one of his proposals was to the guys at LIV was to take the autumn and have eight events and put your product in that part of the year,” he told the Stripe Show Podcast.

• “It’s a part of the year that the PGA Tour famously suffers. It’s actually, ironically, one of our strongest parts of the year. He [Keith Pelley] was prepared to accommodate LIV at the expense of our own Tour because he could see that LIV was going to be part of the furniture moving forward.”

• “Despite Pelley’s efforts, it would seem they were not part of LIV Golf’s plans. “They didn’t want that,” the Englishman said. “They wanted 14 events. They wanted their own thing.”

• “It comes to the point where if you’re Keith Pelley, and this is where I see it and agree entirely with Keith, if you put yourself in Rory McIlroy’s shoes, if you’re going to sign up to play 14 times plus four Majors, you might play three or four other times per year – which is not going to satisfy, in any way shape or form, the needs commercially of the PGA Tour or the European Tour. You have to go back to LIV and say, this is not going to work for us.”

5. Rahm on Mickelson’s comments

Our Matt Vincenzi…”At last week’s LIV Jeddah, Phil Mickelson blasted the PGA TOUR. The four-time major champion said his former league was on the decline, while his new employer, LIV Golf is on the rise.”

• “I see LIV Golf trending upwards, I see the PGA Tour trending downwards, and I love the side that I’m on,”

• “Jon Rahm, who’s remained fairly neutral throughout the PGA TOUR vs. LIV Golf saga, disagrees with Mickelson’s assessment. In his pre-tournament press conference at this week’s CJ CUP, he spoke out in support of the changes being made to the PGA TOUR schedule.”

• “I love Phil but I don’t know what he’s talking about. I really don’t know why he said that,” the Spaniard said ahead of this week’s CJ Cup.

• “There’s been some changes being made but that doesn’t mean it’s going down. I think there are some great changes being made for the tour and the players.”

6. Willie Mack III rewarded with exemption into Butterfield Bermuda Championship

PGATour.com staff report…”Willie Mack III, the APGA Tour star and winner of last week’s Butterfield Bermuda APGA Championship in Southampton, Bermuda, has been granted an exemption into the PGA TOUR’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship coming up at the end of the month.”

• “The two-time APGA Tour Player of the Year, Mack has over 70 wins in professional golf with two made cuts on the PGA TOUR among his accomplishments as he pursues opportunities at the highest levels of the sport. He won the APGA Tour event in Bermuda in a three-way playoff Oct. 12 and was surprised with the announcement of the exemption at the awards ceremony later that day.”

• “The Butterfield Bermuda Championship, in its fourth year as the first PGA TOUR event in the country, is set for Oct. 27-30 at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, where Mack won the APGA Tour competition. Lucas Herbert won his first PGA TOUR event last year at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. The PGA TOUR debuted there in 2019 as the Bermuda Championship.”

7. Vijay’s Bryson trollery

8. Sand courses, oiled greens

An interesting morsel on the origins of golf in Saudi Arabia from the previously mentioned Zach Helfand New Yorker item…”Golf has always been about money and power, but in Saudi Arabia it literally came with the oil. The country’s first courses, and almost half its current ones, were “sand courses” improvised from the desert landscape by the Americans who helped build Aramco, the state petroleum giant. There was no grass, so golfers carried around little squares of artificial turf to hit from. A woman is said to have killed a sheep with an approach shot. (She had to pay the shepherd.) The ingenuity required just to complete a round was almost inspiring. Landmarks moved with the wind. Balls could be red. Greens were brown. Reading them was tough; camels stomped across. Putting, at least, didn’t require the turf mat. To maintain the requisite firmness and speed, the greens were slicked with oil.”

9. Na Yeon Choi’s Last Dance

• “The 35-year-old golfer wrote a letter to fans that said, in part, “There were a lot of happy moments (in my career) but at the same time I always felt lonely spending my entire 20s playing golf in the U.S. There were times when I loved it so much and also hated it so much… I believe I did my best throughout my career, so there are no regrets.”

• “This week at the BMW Ladies Championship in Gangwon Province, Choi will play her final LPGA Tour event. In the BMW media center on Tuesday, she said, “Starting this season, I really gave myself to this season, and around midseason it crystalized into this decision to retire. There was no one single moment where I decided this was the time to announce my retirement.”

• “I have been playing for a long time and I think on the bright side, I really want to start something new as fast as I can. What that’s going to be, I have no idea. But I have no regrets with my career as a golfer.”