review of Alan Shipnuck's new book "Phil"

[jgonz69]

54 minutes ago, aenemated said:

 

Phil shoulda learned how to handle it from Tony "The Ant" Spilotro ... err, Nicky Santoro. 

 

 

Phil should be thanking god that vegas handles getting back their gambling debts with lawyers instead of goodfellas. 
 

[grm24]

3 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

If he wasn’t fooling around with other women enough to get in the book, you got to wonder why not.  I mean, what’s the point?  Gambling as a “vice” instead of women?

When this stuff initially came out about Phil, Shipnuk said there was some other things that, paraphrasing, were not good for Phil and that he didn't put those items in the book.

Edited May 17, 2022 by grm24

[Oneput]

Thanks for the review. I await BW book. Read BW still owns Bali Hali golf course in Vegas. Wonder when the land lease expires (read awhile back BW wants to redevelop the golf course....)

[garcia51694]

How things end with Phil could make for a hell of movie. 

[tacklingdummy]

It sounds like the hyped up trailer (Fire Pit article) was better than the movie (book). 

[jgonz69]

14 minutes ago, tacklingdummy said:

It sounds like the hyped up trailer (Fire Pit article) was better than the movie (book). 

Read the book or keep quiet, obviously your bias towards Phil, LIV,  GN clouds your objectivity as evidenced by your many many posts carrying water for PM.  There are many light hearted and funny stories showing PM’s fun and goofy side, as well as his times of insensitivity towards his colleagues. You’ll never know that because you have already shown without doubt your implicit bias against  Mr. Shipnuck. Your repeated assertations that this book is full of heresy is refuted by by the citations of at least 50 pro golfers, celebrities, billionaires, sportscasters etc.

I will take these well vetted (by lawyers who represent massive book publishing companies) passages in the book over your uninformed anonymous internet opinion  

 

[bladehunter]

4 hours ago, jgonz69 said:

Read the book or keep quiet, obviously your bias towards Phil, LIV,  GN clouds your objectivity as evidenced by your many many posts carrying water for PM.  There are many light hearted and funny stories showing PM’s fun and goofy side, as well as his times of insensitivity towards his colleagues. You’ll never know that because you have already shown without doubt your implicit bias against  Mr. Shipnuck. Your repeated assertations that this book is full of heresy is refuted by by the citations of at least 50 pro golfers, celebrities, billionaires, sportscasters etc.

I will take these well vetted (by lawyers who represent massive book publishing companies) passages in the book over your uninformed anonymous internet opinion  

 

Now to be clear.  Anyone not jumping on the shipnuck love train was  told we were too stupid to live.  So I think reading the  book is an impossibility, right ? 
 

but really. I don’t see why a discussion needs to be a one sided deal  to be ok.  Your opinion is worth the same as anyone else’s. Good grief.  

[bscinstnct]

1 hour ago, bladehunter said:

Now to be clear.  Anyone not jumping on the shipnuck love train was  told we were too stupid to live.  So I think reading the  book is an impossibility, right ? 
 

but really. I don’t see why a discussion needs to be a one sided deal  to be ok.  Your opinion is worth the same as anyone else’s. Good grief.  

 

Ya, this isn’t a book so much as it’s like,

 

 

 

 

[BCC1898]

Shipnuck always has been, and always will be, complete garbage.

[Greg_B]

Shipnuck was on Live From last night, interviewed by Rich Lerner, and I think did well. He is not a charismatic sort of guy, pretty soft-spoken, and again put forward his version of events. I thought Lerner was excellent dealing with the whole Phil thing on an extended segment there last night. Although you have to take it was several large grains of salt, since GC is essentially an arm of the PGA Tour, they gave a lot of time to a discussion of the entire situation. Lerner is good at this sort of thing, while Chamblee of course blathered on at length as only he can do. Brad Faxon, new to the Live From desk, was largely rambling and not particularly insightful although he did tell a Greg Norman story from 1994 at the Shark Shootout when Norman floated his initial World Tour idea only to have it shot down by pretty much everyone in the room, including Arnold and Jack.

[jonsnow]

16 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

Ya, this isn’t a book so much as it’s like,

 

 

 

 

"Best investigative reporting on the planet."

                                                      --Agent K

[miamistomp]

1 hour ago, bladehunter said:

Now to be clear.  Anyone not jumping on the shipnuck love train was  told we were too stupid to live.  So I think reading the  book is an impossibility, right ? 
 

but really. I don’t see why a discussion needs to be a one sided deal  to be ok.  Your opinion is worth the same as anyone else’s. Good grief.  

 I think the issue is not  Shipnuck love  but TD's discrediting the book

As mentioned by several-it is not a home published book-lawyers from the publishing house would assure sources were legit

 

 

 

 

[DavePelz4]

At any point is FIGJAM mentioned? 

 

Personally, I'm more of a strawberry jam guy.

[ThinkingPlus]

27 minutes ago, DavePelz4 said:

At any point is FIGJAM mentioned? 

 

Personally, I'm more of a strawberry jam guy.

 

[miamistomp]

 I prefer boysenberry jam

 

 

[MUNIGRIT]

Alan is using Phil's current situation to put money in his own pocket too. He is taking advantage to promote and accelerate his book.

[bscinstnct]

27 minutes ago, ThinkingPlus said:

 

 

Figs!

 

My folks (RIP 😔) had a bunch of fig trees. 
 

Eat ‘em right off the tree, none ever made it to be preserved ; )

 

 

[ThinkingPlus]

3 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

Figs!

 

My folks (RIP 😔) had a bunch of fig trees. 
 

Eat ‘em right off the tree, none ever made it to be preserved ; )

 

 

My grandmother had a fig tree in her backyard and loved figs.  My mother likes them as well.  Me, not so much.

[Greg_B]

9 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

Alan is using Phil's current situation to put money in his own pocket too. He is taking advantage to promote and accelerate his book.

Yes, his book about Leo Diegel really failed to sell.

 

What author writes books in hopes they are not saleable?

 

(There is no AS book about Diegel BTW).

[dcmidnight]

I am only a third of the way or so into the book but I think if you read the book and didn't have any previous idea whatsoever what it was about - you'd be pleasantly surprised.

 

If you want to pretend you know what the book is about just from a few selected clips here and there or a 30 second highlight from a podcast - be my guest. But thats on you.

 

I'll say this. Everyone who whined about this book being a complete hatchet job is - so far - been proven dead wrong.

 

OP was right though, should be easy enough to breeze through in one day.

[BlackDiamondPar5]

26 minutes ago, MUNIGRIT said:

Alan is using Phil's current situation to put money in his own pocket too. He is taking advantage to promote and accelerate his book.

No, Phil did that all by himself. 

[tacklingdummy]

8 hours ago, jgonz69 said:

Read the book or keep quiet, obviously your bias towards Phil, LIV,  GN clouds your objectivity as evidenced by your many many posts carrying water for PM.  There are many light hearted and funny stories showing PM’s fun and goofy side, as well as his times of insensitivity towards his colleagues. You’ll never know that because you have already shown without doubt your implicit bias against  Mr. Shipnuck. Your repeated assertations that this book is full of heresy is refuted by by the citations of at least 50 pro golfers, celebrities, billionaires, sportscasters etc.

I will take these well vetted (by lawyers who represent massive book publishing companies) passages in the book over your uninformed anonymous internet opinion  

 

 

 

Shipnuck is that you? 

 

I am wondering if Elon Musk has golfwrx.com on his radar. It is getting to be like Twitter around here. 😜

 

 

[illum1na71]

17 hours ago, Mustard_Tiger said:

I encourage people to listen to the recent No Laying Up Podcast with Alan Shipnuck as the guest. It was a very entertaining interview by Solly. I was not going to buy the book but now I'm going to. It's not a hit job on Phil, although the Saudi stuff has gotten all the early publicity. The truth is that Phil has a lot of reasons to love him and a lot of reasons to hate him.

 

Agreed.  The NLU interview was very entertaining.  That said, the audio book may be more entertaining than reading it.  Alan is narrating the book and it may flow better as a "podcast" rather than reading it.

 

17 hours ago, Mustard_Tiger said:

 

 

 

 

 

[bladehunter]

13 hours ago, JungleJimbo said:

The “No Laying Up” podcast episode with Shipnuck =Linked here, to save folks a Google search. 
 

 

 

Anybody know what point on this the bones story comes up?  Would be much appreciated to be able to skip most of this to find it. 

[bladehunter]

2 hours ago, miamistomp said:

 I think the issue is not  Shipnuck love  but TD's discrediting the book

As mentioned by several-it is not a home published book-lawyers from the publishing house would assure sources were legit

 

 

 

 

Right.  And trust me. I get the discrediting part.  But at least from my perspective , you can’t ask a question without it being coined as an attack.  
 

example. The bones story.  I’m very curious to know if it’s true or not.  If bones said this out in the open.  It would change my opinion of Phil.  This crosses the line from “ gambling is his business “ to “ dirt bag doesn’t treat his helpers well “.    In my opinion that’s two different things.  
 

this alleged situation was discussed at length in the other thread that the OP closed , and then it was theorized that if it made the book , then it passed the lawyers Vetting process.  Fair enough I thought.  But now we’re here and it’s not in the book.  What does that mean as far as it’s validity ?  Do you leave that juicy info out ?  Saved for a sequel ?  Or ?  Surely that’s a fair question.   Now if the libel experts here say that him mentioning it on that podcast is same as put in the book.  Ok. Maybe so.  But that assumes that everything he said there is also lawyer vetted.  Yes ?  That I find hard to believe.   But , I’m open to someone explaining to me how that can be. 
 

 

but my real issue - someone just rolling in and deciding to say “ shut Up “.  I mean.  We all know the rules.  Right ?  

[dcmidnight]

ESPN is running a story that relates to something I've been saying for the last month or so. If you want to read about how involved in the gambling/insider trading Phil was - this isn't the book. Its Billy Walters book.

 

Being co-written by a guy who's won 11 Emmys so...no slouch.

 

BTW I think I said 3 in another thread so I only shorted him 8.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by dcmidnight

[Hawkeye77]

15 hours ago, Chunkitgood said:

If he wasn’t fooling around with other women enough to get in the book, you got to wonder why not.  I mean, what’s the point?  Gambling as a “vice” instead of women?

So "not enough rumored dirt" is a literary criticism? 😉

[Hawkeye77]

3 hours ago, Greg_B said:

Shipnuck was on Live From last night, interviewed by Rich Lerner, and I think did well. He is not a charismatic sort of guy, pretty soft-spoken, and again put forward his version of events. I thought Lerner was excellent dealing with the whole Phil thing on an extended segment there last night. Although you have to take it was several large grains of salt, since GC is essentially an arm of the PGA Tour, they gave a lot of time to a discussion of the entire situation. Lerner is good at this sort of thing, while Chamblee of course blathered on at length as only he can do. Brad Faxon, new to the Live From desk, was largely rambling and not particularly insightful although he did tell a Greg Norman story from 1994 at the Shark Shootout when Norman floated his initial World Tour idea only to have it shot down by pretty much everyone in the room, including Arnold and Jack.

I thought the story about the World Tour was really insightful, especially the Nick Price connection, but more so that there at the meeting - only Norman was apparently in favor yet somehow the press reported all the players were on board (hmmmmm, wonder who got [looking at you Greg] that story planted).

 

Also, Faxon right to the point at the end when he said he'd have two questions for Rickie Fowler and they were THE questions Rickie wasn't asked that needed to be answered.

 

Pretty decent take about Phil on there and as balanced as Phil has allowed it to be, which means he wasn't coming off well at all to anyone that was listening pretty carefully.  

 

Only nitpick for me was Lerner throwing in that Phil was "exonerated" in reference to the Billy Walters situation and that's absolutely not true at all.

 

Alan has come off in media, pre-release of book, as kind of wanting to have it both ways with respect to the release of the passage about Phil (which was absolutely timely and relevant) but the book is a fairly balanced look at Phil and I sort of agree with him ---- you read the book and get to make up your mind what Phil is to you.  To me, he's always been largely irrelevant and when he's done things that garner attention other than being a historically all time great golfer they are either nice stories of nice things he's done for people or . . . ego driven nonsense and phoniness that I've never really gotten past and it keeps getting re-affirmed, but just IMO.

 

As someone said, he's gone from "revolutionary" (in his mind) to "martyr" (trying to paint that pic in people's minds now) and neither really are the truth.  Money grab and he played the PR side of it about as bad as anyone could ----- "clown show" in reference to Greg was the biggest understatement on the segment.

 

Now . . . we can talk about the PGA Championship and they can move on this week (I hope).

[Hawkeye77]

32 minutes ago, dcmidnight said:

ESPN is running a story that relates to something I've been saying for the last month or so. If you want to read about how involved in the gambling/insider trading Phil was - this isn't the book. Its Billy Walters book.

 

Being co-written by a guy who's won 11 Emmys so...no slouch.

 

BTW I think I said 3 in another thread so I only shorted him 8.

 

 

 

 

I've been wondering if that book was going to come off, sounds like it is definitely real. 

[tacklingdummy]

3 hours ago, miamistomp said:

 I think the issue is not  Shipnuck love  but TD's discrediting the book

As mentioned by several-it is not a home published book-lawyers from the publishing house would assure sources were legit

 

 

 

 

 

What I said was that Shipnuck had big claims in the book and questioned those claims if not supported by reliable sources and facts. Innocent until proven guilty.  Ya'all already had Mickelson guilty as charged on all those claims before there was any supported evidence. And from what it looks like right now, there still has not been any substantiated evidence/facts to support the Bones-Mickelson story, yet. At this point, it is all just rumors and nothing has been supported by facts. I'll wait till make an opinion until the real facts are released.