John McHenry

Unglika Norse

Just reading the article in the indo about John McHenry, and I have never seen such an underhand act of treachery and destroying the myth, of "it's a game of Honour"

Bottle

Read it myself, found the fact that the board members were not provided with the correspondence addressed to them very odd indeed.

Unglika Norse

What is equally as odd, is that if even through media coverage they have been made aware of what happened, is that it would appear as if they have done nothing about it. I have never met him, but John McHenry has always seemed to have come across as a very decent sort of a man.

Pa8301

I read it too and agree that Pelley and the European tour have acted pretty shamefully. However, I was also surprised at the naivety of McHenry and Desmond. I'm not an expert on these things but surely they could have done something to try to protect themselves? McHenry seemed to go in with absolute faith that they wouldn't screw him, which is exactly what happened.

IITYWYBMAD

Pa8301 wrote: »

I read it too and agree that Pelley and the European tour have acted pretty shamefully. However, I was also surprised at the naivety of McHenry and Desmond. I'm not an expert on these things but surely they could have done something to try to protect themselves? McHenry seemed to go in with absolute faith that they wouldn't screw him, which is exactly what happened.

People trust people. Yes he was naive, and so was Desmond (certainly on the basis of that article). He should have protected his IP, and certainly the ET seemed to f**k him over.

I'm conscious that we are only reading one side of the story, but the ET does not seem to come out of it too well.

Kevin Finnerty

Telling factor in all of it was the €30k offer. That was a foolish move.
Surprised at Desmond though, thought he'd be wilier than that.

Seve OB

can you at least give us a link

callaway92

Seve OB wrote: »

can you at least give us a link

Jaysis... It's on the front page of the Indo website like

https://www.independent.ie/sport/columnists/paul-kimmage/paul-kimmage-how-john-mchenrys-dream-of-sixhole-golf-exposed-the-darker-side-of-the-gentlemans-game-37273821.html

Rikand

callaway92 wrote: »

Jaysis... It's on the front page of the Indo website like

https://www.independent.ie/sport/columnists/paul-kimmage/paul-kimmage-how-john-mchenrys-dream-of-sixhole-golf-exposed-the-darker-side-of-the-gentlemans-game-37273821.html

How dare you expect us to do our own research!

Seve OB

pretty shocking carry on
no reason not to believe any of it.

Seve OB

pretty shocking carry on
no reason not to believe any of it.

HighLine

Mentioned in the other thread, the 30k offer from the Euro Tour is telling and should assist McHenry in future litigation.

I actually didn't think the GolfSixes was that popular/lucrative anyway.

Seve OB

HighLine wrote: »

Mentioned in the other thread, the 30k offer from the Euro Tour is telling and should assist McHenry in future litigation.

I actually didn't think the GolfSixes was that popular/lucrative anyway.

I bet ET wouldn't say that.

HighLine

Seve OB wrote: »

I bet ET wouldn't say that.

Probably true.. it's just not something I had much interest in. Perhaps for the teenagers

Riskymove

HighLine wrote: »

Probably true.. it's just not something I had much interest in. Perhaps for the teenagers

indeed.

you can see from the results of the Danish event that there is great potential especially form a TV/entertainment perspective

much like 20/20 cricket really

Seve OB

HighLine wrote: »

Probably true.. it's just not something I had much interest in. Perhaps for the teenagers

so it worked

valoren

A shuddering read. How Desmond didn't zero in on the intellectual property rights for the '6 hole' idea is incredible. Seeing that the tour effectively stole the idea, they would have been screwed with initiating any 6 hole events after Henry was shafted by using a similar format as the audit trail of communications and meetings would have had them dead to rights purloining Henry's IP rights when they decided to go another way.

The lesson learned here is that you shouldn't bother trying to 'save' the game. It will continue to decline. That it's too hard and too time consuming is a lethal combination. Any brilliant ideas you might have would need pretty water tight IP rights before you even initiated any contact with the powers that be who should be biting the hands off anyone with passionate ideas to stem the terminal decline.

FixdePitchmark

Great article and that.

But going against the tend here. How can someone claim IP on a 6 hole format.

I play a 6 hole format myself. Have my own version.

It was a nasty piece of work alright. But come on - on the idea someone can claim ownership to a golf format.

Am I missing something ?

Pa8301

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Great article and that.

But going against the tend here. How can someone claim IP on a 6 hole format.

I play a 6 hole format myself. Have my own version.

It was a nasty piece of work alright. But come on - on the idea someone can claim ownership to a golf format.

Am I missing something ?

Yes I am questioning that too. However I still think that they could have surely done something to get some sort of protection or guarantee before investing the amount of money they did. It all seemed to be done on a handshake which is pretty naive in the business world.

FixdePitchmark

Pa8301 wrote: »

Yes I am questioning that too. However I still think that they could have surely done something to get some sort of protection or guarantee before investing the amount of money they did. It all seemed to be done on a handshake which is pretty naive in the business world.

But the European Tour didn't need John McHenry - he needed the European Tour and was hoping to latch onto them.

He pulled every link he had to try and do that and failed. It is a hard luck story.

Equally John was trying to peddle Moyvalley for 70 K - he was hanging in the high world and got burnt. He was well exposed to failed business ventures.
If you play that game - you should know about the high risk associated.

Shorter formats of golf are being talked about for a long time and even played in different formats for a long time.

"Golf is a game of honour" has nothing to do with the world John was playing in .
K Club - Desmond - Moyvalley - The K club - 3.

Pa8301

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

But the European Tour didn't need John McHenry - he needed the European Tour and was hoping to latch onto them.

He pulled every link he had to try and do that and failed. It is a hard luck story.

Equally John was trying to peddle Moyvalley for 70 K - he was hanging in the high world and got burnt. He was well exposed to failed business ventures.
If you play that game - you should know about the high risk associated.

Shorter formats of golf are being talked about for a long time and even played in different formats for a long time.

"Golf is a game of honour" has nothing to do with the world John was playing in .
K Club - Desmond - Moyvalley - The K club - 3.

Yes I think McHenry probably vastly overestimated his importance to the whole venture. The European tour had all the tools needed to start the sixes already. That said, Pelley could have been a lot straighter with him.

Ollieboy

Pa8301 wrote: »

Yes I think McHenry probably vastly overestimated his importance to the whole venture. The European tour had all the tools needed to start the sixes already. That said, Pelley could have been a lot straighter with him.

Totally agree, loads of clubs run 6 hole events for the last 100 years. This poor me rubbish and lack of any business knowledge and he still lacks it. You don’t go around afterwards telling the world you mess up as it makes you look even more stupid.

I thought the whole article was ridiculous and self important and Kimmage helping out a friend and wasting space in my Sunday Paper. Usual Kimmage rubish and poor journalism, I was very surprised a editor would even publish the story in a respectable paper. Just tells you the standard of the indo now.

Niles Crane

As somebody said earlier how can you claim to own a format in a sport, if someone came up with a 5 or 7 hole golf format and how could you stop them from doing it.

When the first professional 20/20 cricket league was run by the English Cricket Board all the other countries copied them and they weren't exactly infringing on any apparent ownership of the format that the ECB could have claimed to have.

GreeBo

As I said in the other thread, initially I was kind of aghast, but afterwards the only link I can see between the two formats is that its over 6 holes, which is irrelevant.

Golf Warriors (terrible name btw, very 1990's Gladiators) seemed to be far too complicated to score and track, golf sixes isn't.

It feels a bit like someone who has a great idea on Dragons Den but cant accept that a great idea isnt always a great business or even a business in many cases.

liam7831

GreeBo wrote:

It feels a bit like someone who has a great idea on Dragons Den but cant accept that a great idea isnt always a great business or even a business in many cases.

I'm out

Adiaga 2

GreeBo wrote: »

As I said in the other thread, initially I was kind of aghast, but afterwards the only link I can see between the two formats is that its over 6 holes, which is irrelevant.

Golf Warriors (terrible name btw, very 1990's Gladiators) seemed to be far too complicated to score and track, golf sixes isn't.

It feels a bit like someone who has a great idea on Dragons Den but cant accept that a great idea isnt always a great business or even a business in many cases.

+1 on all of that

dr.kenneth noisewater

I thought the main issue was they stringed him along for so long when they knew he was investing so much of his own money and chasing around for sponsers.

GreeBo

dr.kenneth noisewater wrote: »

I thought the main issue was they stringed him along for so long when they knew he was investing so much of his own money and chasing around for sponsers.

Its hard to know from the article if they were stringing him along or he was just throwing good money after bad.

Seve OB

I see where you guys are coming from and all but lets call a spade a spade here.

He came up with an idea.

ET liked it. ET figured they could use him and they did.

Then they tweaked his idea, called it their own and shafted him.

After reading that article I have no doubt that golf sixes wouldn't exist today without John McHenry.

Reading the article, I was getting worried about where it was going. All the references to a game of honour etc, I was convinced that John was after f@*&^ing up somewhere.

But I think we found out in the end that the moral of the story is that within the heart of the Professional Tour administration, there is no honour, in the game of honour.

billy3sheets

Yeah, I think there was a lot more to it than just proposing a 6-hole format. If it was that simple, then he wouldn't have been indulged at all, either by European Tour or by Desmond. I also doubt that Kimmage would be fool enough to make accusations without having grounds to do so.

GreeBo

billy3sheets wrote: »

Yeah, I think there was a lot more to it than just proposing a 6-hole format. If it was that simple, then he wouldn't have been indulged at all, either by European Tour or by Desmond. I also doubt that Kimmage would be fool enough to make accusations without having grounds to do so.

There was a lot more to Golf Warriors than just the 6 hole, which is what put them off.
They came up with a much simpler format that also is played over 6 holes so had no use/want for the (over) complicated Golf Warrior format.

Offering him €30K doesnt seem like a bad deal at all if viewed in this light.

The problem is that he dumped a crazy amount of cash into something without any contract or guarantees and feels hard done by that he got left behind.

There certainly seem to be some boardroom irregularities around sharing of the proposals etc, but dont really see how that impact McHenry.

IITYWYBMAD

GreeBo wrote: »

.....

There certainly seem to be some boardroom irregularities around sharing of the proposals etc, but dont really see how that impact McHenry.

There's no onus on the chairman of a board to bring "proposals" to the board members, that's why companies employ CEO's, COO's, and FD's.

However, there's more to the article than "they stole my idea/invention"

If we take the article as its reads, it appears that Pelly was stalling McHenry, through the board. i.e. telling McHenry that the board needed more info, where not interested, hadn't time to discuss it,etc... so it was a stalling technique.

As an aside, you cannot IP an idea. I think McHenry is/was trying to demonstrate that he had an invention, which on the face of it he did. The format of Golf Warriors (which I was not aware of) is over complicated, but not that dissimilar to the concept trialed last year on the ET, which does have a simplified version of Golf Warriors.

There's also the ethical element to this, and again basing my comments on the article alone, it would appear that Pelly and by default the ET behaved in an unethical way.

The 30k offer, of what some would call hush money, only serves to reinforce that and I'm sure the legal dept of the ET are no strangers to law suits and threats, but I would also be of the belief that they don't try and offer a monetary settlement in most or all cases.

GreeBo

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

There's no onus on the chairman of a board to bring "proposals" to the board members, that's why companies employ CEO's, COO's, and FD's.

I didnt say there was. I was referring to the presentations that were individually addressed yet not received.

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

However, there's more to the article than "they stole my idea/invention"

If we take the article as its reads, it appears that Pelly was stalling McHenry, through the board. i.e. telling McHenry that the board needed more info, where not interested, hadn't time to discuss it,etc... so it was a stalling technique.

I dont see anything that proves that, an article essentially written for McHenry isnt likely to be the most unbiased.

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

As an aside, you cannot IP an idea. I think McHenry is/was trying to demonstrate that he had an invention, which on the face of it he did. The format of Golf Warriors (which I was not aware of) is over complicated, but not that dissimilar to the concept trialed last year on the ET, which does have a simplified version of Golf Warriors.

Is it a simplified version of Golf Warriors or is it a game played over 6 holes?
Where do you draw the line on what idea is based on another one?

IITYWYBMAD wrote: »

There's also the ethical element to this, and again basing my comments on the article alone, it would appear that Pelly and by default the ET behaved in an unethical way.

The 30k offer, of what some would call hush money, only serves to reinforce that and I'm sure the legal dept of the ET are no strangers to law suits and threats, but I would also be of the belief that they don't try and offer a monetary settlement in most or all cases.

OR, the 30K was recognition for a guy who had spent a lot of time and money on something that he shouldnt have so they were giving him a dig out, based on the honour of the game when they clearly didnt have to, but the guy is bitter that his idea didnt make him a millionaire and hence we get this article.

slave1

Without sounding too harsh he came across to me as overtly business naive (bringing an unprotected idea/concept to a major player) and has nothing to complain about, he should have done due diligence in leaving the K club for Moyvalley earlier in his life and didn't learn his lesson

PokeHerKing

slave1 wrote:

Without sounding too harsh he came across to me as overtly business naive (bringing an unprotected idea/concept to a major player) and has nothing to complain about, he should have done due diligence in leaving the K club for Moyvalley earlier in his life and didn't learn his lesson

I'd completely agree with that and don't think it's in anyway harsh.

I still think solely based on the article that Pelley and ET took his idea, repackaged it slightly and dropped his name from the credits.

IITYWYBMAD

GreeBo wrote: »

I didnt say there was. I was referring to the presentations that were individually addressed yet not received.

The 'packages' your referring to included a copy of a solicitors letter and a presentation on the idea, as a means of asserting ownership. You mentioned "boardroom irregularities around sharing of the proposals". The proposal had moved off the table at that stage, and this was moving into the area of legal ownership.

They are not irregularities, and there is no onus on the CEO to discuss any proposals with any board, if he does not deem them fit to discuss. The article actually recognises this, through the quoting of a board member. There may be an issue with withholding mail from the intended recipient, but again this is not an issue for any board.

GreeBo wrote: »

I dont see anything that proves that, an article essentially written for McHenry isnt likely to be the most unbiased.

Where did I say that there is anything that proves this????

I specifically said "If we take the article as its reads"....

GreeBo wrote: »

Is it a simplified version of Golf Warriors or is it a game played over 6 holes?
Where do you draw the line on what idea is based on another one?

I suspect that that will be for a court to ultimately decide. I'm certainly not getting into the minutia of what was McHenry's idea and how it is/is not a part of the trial last year.

GreeBo wrote: »

OR, the 30K was recognition for a guy who had spent a lot of time and money on something that he shouldnt have so they were giving him a dig out, based on the honour of the game when they clearly didnt have to, but the guy is bitter that his idea didnt make him a millionaire and hence we get this article.

"giving him a dig out"?? Your either naive or having a laugh.

you can't protect a concept or idea.

the only way would be to copyright the name of it and his name was crap anyway.

MisterAnarchy

Kimmage really need to learn to get to the point in his articles ,most of that article is complete waffle.

Niles Crane

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Kimmage really need to learn to get to the point in his articles ,most of that article is complete waffle.

It was way way too long and to be honest he's quite a poor writer in my opinion most of what he's written in the Sindo in the last while left you more confused and unsure of what the big issue is because there was far too much filler in the pieces.

For someone who is a better writer it wouldn't be an issue as they could manage to do a colorful piece with a seriousness to it but Kimmage just isn't a great writer and he'd be better off writing shorter to the point pieces without much style than what he's been attempting with a lot of his pieces recently.

Raisins

Seve OB wrote: »

But I think we found out in the end that the moral of the story is that within the heart of the Professional Tour administration, there is no honour, in the game of honour.

Whatever about the rest, a child writing a 6th class essay wouldn’t make that argument.

The tour on that side of things is a business as it has to be they don’t go around calling shots on themselves in a business sense. What does it even mean? Do tour executives go around to sponsors saying listen golf is a game of honour so you I have to admit nobody watches the Eurasia cup.

That tag line made me realise that Kimmage didn’t have any material to show his idea has been “stolen”. If he thought he’d make millions from the tour as a gesture of goodwill then he was foolish.

FixdePitchmark

Raisins wrote: »

Whatever about the rest, a child writing a 6th class essay wouldn’t make that argument.

The tour on that side of things is a business as it has to be they don’t go around calling shots on themselves in a business sense. What does it even mean? Do tour executives go around to sponsors saying listen golf is a game of honour so you I have to admit nobody watches the Eurasia cup.

That tag line made me realise that Kimmage didn’t have any material to show his idea has been “stolen”. If he thought he’d make millions from the tour as a gesture of goodwill then he was foolish.

Also if he had a case would he be crying his eyes out to Kimmage ?

I actually like Kimmage myself - I like a bit of train of thought, meandering writing.

But over the last few years - he has run with gut feeling and little else on many issues.

On a few radio shows and a few articles he has come across as a bit of a spoilt child - increasingly egotistical and totally incapable of any reasonable opposition to his argument.

Takes one to know one. He would be a good poster on this forum.

prawnsambo

Raisins wrote: »

The tour on that side of things is a business as it has to be they don’t go around calling shots on themselves in a business sense. What does it even mean? Do tour executives go around to sponsors saying listen golf is a game of honour so you I have to admit nobody watches the Eurasia cup.

I'm not sure even if there is any likelihood of someone coming up with an idea for a format of golf and not falling foul of the governing body.

GreeBo

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm not sure even if there is any likelihood of someone coming up with an idea for a format of golf and not falling foul of the governing body.

He should bring his Golf Warriors idea to the PGA, then if it takes off over there the ET can't do squat to him.
If they try to say he took their idea, they will just be proving they took the idea from him in the first place!

callaway92

John's favourite tournament is on at the moment.

I will say this - European Tour have absolutely been pumping the Marketing into this year's version. I have a good feeling from their POV that it'll be successful in the coming years.

Young_gunner

just read up on this, whatever about honour, surely there's such a thing as business ethics?

if McHenry can prove the idea was his conception (through emails and other correspondance etc.), surely he can sue the ET?

callaway92

Young_gunner wrote: »

just read up on this, whatever about honour, surely there's such a thing as business ethics?

if McHenry can prove the idea was his conception (through emails and other correspondance etc.), surely he can sue the ET?

They’ve changed up the format enough at this stage to have made it their own I would say.