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‘I love it here’: Michael Block chases Open place after US PGA heroics

The club professional, who was tied-15th at the US PGA, is in Scotland to play final qualifying for next week’s major

The Block party has rolled into Ayrshire. If Michael has his way, it will continue in Hoylake from 20 July.

Michael Block is the intriguing name in the final qualifying draw for the Open Championship. He has spent the weekend attempting to suss out the vagaries of the glorious Dundonald Links, where Block will play 36 holes on Tuesday.

“I love it here,” he says. “It’s a perfect venue. I studied all four qualifying courses really closely to make a decision over where I wanted to play. I am glad I chose here; the practice facility is amazing and the course is such a great test of golf. I cannot wait to get out there. I want it to be windy. I want it to be Scotland.

“We can make it a party at Royal Liverpool for sure. I have told everyone I have met in Scotland that on Tuesday night, 8pm at the Dundonald Links bar, I am buying the drinks ... hopefully to celebrate getting to Royal Liverpool.”

Just do not refer to this as some kind of jolly. “I am here to qualify for the Open,” Block says. “That’s 100% why I am here. I am not here to have fun. I am away from my club, away from my family and that is to qualify.”

Block of course has previous for rising to the challenge. While Brooks Koepka won the US PGA Championship at Oak Hill in May, Block won hearts and minds. The 40-something Californian club professional tied for 15th, claiming a hole in one in the company of Rory McIlroy in the process. Block mania changed his life . Michael Jordan was amongst those to get in touch.

“It was really a heartfelt message, not just ‘Great job. MJ’,” Block says. “When I didn’t play well at Colonial, he got in touch again and really built my confidence back up.

“The biggest change is walking down the street and going places where people want to have pictures taken with me. That’s a strange thing to happen out of nowhere in your life, aged 47. All of a sudden, wherever I am I am having that sort of experience and I never thought that would happen to me. It has been fun; Scotland is a golf loving country and everyone here seems to know me.”

As Block referenced, he missed the cut at Colonial having received an invite from the PGA Tour . He lasted just two rounds again at the Canadian Open.

“I think I did 100 interviews at Colonial from Monday to Wednesday and only saw the golf course once,” he says. “The same happened in Canada, I only played once before the tournament. It can’t be coincidence that I didn’t play the first round well but played the second round really well both times. It’s not an excuse, I have just learned that I have to see courses at least twice while also saving these 47-year-old legs.

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“It is crazy. I have had a small view of what the bigger guys deal with all the time, before and after rounds. It is amazing what they do and have done for years upon years. I can see how they get tired at certain points and need time off. I have a ton of appreciation for what the top players do.”

Block has spent just a single full week at the Arroyo Trabuco Club since the US PGA. He has been unable to give lessons and has, instead, passed promising junior golfers onto a colleague during a key point of their season. “I had my wife on FaceTime over the weekend, going through payroll,” Block says. “I am still working constantly on my phone. The whole management team there has been amazing, to let me be out there for weeks at a time.”

Block would actually have appeared in Scotland even without May’s theatre. A golf trip to St Andrews, Carnoustie and Dornoch in 2022 lit a flame. “I fell in love and made the decision to come back,” he says. “I have been exempt into final qualifying five times and never come. This is real golf, it is how it should be played and people here love the sport that I love so much. So it was a no brainer to book that flight.

“I ticked off a couple of my lifetime goals at Oak Hill so I had to create some new ones. One of them is playing in the Open. No matter what happens here, I will be coming back next year to try and qualify again.”

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Rob Labritz spent 18 years 'manifesting' goal of reaching PGA Tour Champions

PHOENIX — Rob Labritz zipped around Phoenix Country Club in two hours, 45 minutes on Thursday, signing for a 2-under 69 to open the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.

But while he played fast in the opening round of the PGA Tour Champions season finale, his journey getting to the senior circuit was nearly two decades in the making.

As the 36th and last man to make the field, Labritz played solo (markers aren’t allowed anymore) after  Steve Stricker’s withdrawal  the day before led to an odd number of players. But Labritz didn’t seem to mind.

“I used to get 18 holes in with a cart in under an hour at GlenArbor, at my home course,” he said of the private course in Westchester, New York, where he was the long-time director of golf.

A club pro for 32 years in all, Labritz is finally a full-time professional golfer. There were attempts made at a PGA Tour career but that wasn’t meant to be.

“I went to Q school three or four times, I played in eight PGA Championships, won tons of state opens, everything up in the Met section,” he said after his round Thursday. “As a director of golf, I was pretty bored, to be honest. We built a high-end private club, which is phenomenal, but after 32 years I started getting a little…” and before he finished that thought, he revealed a long-held goal.

“Eighteen years ago I made a decision to try to get to the Champions tour. I started manifesting it,” he said. “Every night I would go into my room, right before I went to bed and sit there for five minutes and just envision it happening. I did that for 18 years. And here we are.”

Without a trace of remorse for decisions that he made, Labritz explained that life just happened.

“I felt like I was close but I always knew I was a part-time player because I had a full-time job. As a director of golf, I coached more than a thousand, 1,400 hours a year for 23 years, so think about how many hours I was putting into the job, 60-80 hours a week,” he said.

“When you have a wife and three kids and a mortgage, it’s hard to just say ‘OK, I’m going to go practice. You figure out the money.'”

Playing in his 52nd event this week in his second year on the Champions tour, Labtriz has figured out the money, having earned more than $1.1 million. But more than that, what he’s doing validates all those nights he envisioned such a future.

“I’m in dream heaven right now.”

No more worrying about those long work weeks. No more trying to figure out how to find time to practice. It’s full speed ahead as a player.

“It’s all about getting the ball in the hole right now,” he said.

The First Look: The Open Championship

The First Look

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Rory McIlroy was just a kid the last time The Open Championship was at Royal Liverpool.

He was 25 and won the Claret Jug. Then he won the PGA Championship in his next major start, joining Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win four men’s majors by the age of 25.

McIlroy, however, hasn’t won a major since.

A lot has happened since his 2014 triumph at Hoylake, of course – he’s married with a daughter, and the hair is sprinkled the color of a cloudy Holywood morning – but McIlroy keeps chasing the same goal.

Royal Liverpool will look plenty different, like McIlroy himself, this time around – with a lot of new changes to the course, including a new par-3 17th hole, converted from a former par 4. There’s a whole new generation of challengers, too. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was barely voting age the last time The Open was at Hoylake, while No. 2 Jon Rahm couldn’t legally order a drink in America.

Heading into the final major championship of the season, McIlroy is hitting all the right notes with his game. He has notched a runner-up and a T7 at the last two majors, and he’s riding a streak of six consecutive top-10 finishes on TOUR, including a dramatic victory at last week’s Genesis Scottish Open.

“I'm as close as I've ever been, really,” McIlroy said at The Renaissance Club. “My consistency in the performances, especially in the majors over the last couple years is way better than it has been over the last few years.”

Nearly a decade has passed since McIlroy’s last Open Championship triumph, but all signs could be pointing towards a repeat performance this time around – and ending a nine-year major championship drought.

FIELD NOTES: World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is looking to add a second major trophy to his collection. Scheffler has not finished outside the top-12 on the PGA TOUR since October and has two wins this season including THE PLAYERS Championship. Scheffler’s major-championship results this season have been T10-T2-3… Jon Rahm, winner of the Masters in April, is looking to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2005 to win the green jacket and the Claret Jug in the same year. Rahm has four wins on the PGA TOUR this season and will be well rested – he hasn’t played since the Travelers Championship… Players eager to shed the label of best without a major title include Xander Schauffele (11 top-10s in 25 major starts), Tony Finau (two TOUR wins this season), and Rickie Fowler (who recently snapped a four-year winless drought at the Rocket Mortgage Classic). Fowler finished tied for second at Royal Liverpool in 2014… Jordan Spieth, who won at Royal Birkdale in 2017, will compete in his 10th Open Championship. He has never missed the cut. Spieth has six top-10 finishes this season on TOUR… Cameron Smith will look to successfully defend his Open Championship win from last year at St. Andrews. The last player to go back-to-back at The Open was Padraig Harrington in 2007-08… Harrington is one of eight players who have competed at Hoylake in 2006, 2014 and 2023.

Highest-ranked players in the field

NOTABLE QUALIFIERS: There will be no Tiger Woods, but there will be a Tiger, as Tiger Christensen of Germany (a 19-year-old amateur) made it through Final Qualifying. Christensen tied Alex Fitzpatrick, brother of Matt, to get into the field… Mateo Fernandez de Olivera of Argentina – winner of the Latin America Amateur Championship in January – will look to follow in Roberto de Vicenzo’s footsteps as Argentine winners at Royal Liverpool. De Vicenzo won in 1967… The Open Qualifying Series featured four PGA TOUR events this year, with the Genesis Scottish Open being the final opportunity to get in. Players who earned their way in this year via the OQS (or moved in via World Ranking points) include Kurt Kitayama, Harris English, Trey Mullinax, Davis Riley and Ben Griffin (Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard); Wyndham Clark and Brendon Todd (Wells Fargo Championship); Lee Hodges, Andrew Putnam and Adam Schenk (the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday); and David Lingmerth, Byeong Hun An and Nicolai Hojgaard (Genesis Scottish Open)… How’s this for a hometown favorite? Matthew Jordan, who is a member at Royal Liverpool, made it through Final Qualifying in West Lancashire. He finished a shot back of Matt Wallace for medalist honors at the site. Wallace won his first TOUR title earlier this season at the Corales Puntacana Championship.

STORYLINES:

1) MAJOR FINISH

The Open Championship is the final men’s major championship of the season, with the Masters (Jon Rahm), PGA Championship (Brooks Koepka) and U.S. Open (Wyndham Clark) now in the rear-view mirror. The last time a player won two men’s majors in the same season was Koepka in 2018, while the last time someone won an Open Championship as one of two majors in a year was Rory McIlroy in 2014. With all the game’s top names teeing it up at Hoylake, it’s set to be a thrilling finish to this year’s major-championship season before the FedExCup Playoffs begin in just three weeks.

Of note: While there was a possibility at the Masters (Rory McIlroy), U.S. Open (Phil Mickelson) and PGA Championship (Jordan Spieth), no player in the field can complete the career Grand Slam at The Open Championship.

2) A REALLY DIFFERENT ROYAL LIVERPOOL

For even the most experienced of players at Hoylake, the golf course is going to look completely different than 2014. There have been upwards of 15 significant changes made to the course – mostly on the back nine – and the overall par has changed from 72 to 71. Bunkers have been added or tweaked, fairways have been reoriented, sand areas have been created, and new tees have been added as Martin Ebert – who consults on seven of the 10 Open Championship courses – has added a hearty touch to this storied links venue.

3) ROARING TWENTIES

Where there is certainly something to be said for experience, eight of the last nine major champions in men’s golf have been in their 20s, with Koepka’s PGA Championship triumph the lone exception. Will another young buck lift the Claret Jug on Sunday night, or will a wily veteran take the title? Time will tell.

FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 600 FedExCup points.

COURSE: Royal Liverpool (Hoylake), par 71, 7,313 yards. This will be the 13th playing of The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, the last being in 2014. But this will be a totally different layout than any previous Open Championship at Hoylake.

There were more than a dozen significant changes made for the 2023 Open Championship, most notably the creation of a new par-3 17th (which replaced a par 4) and No. 10 now playing as a par 4 in excess of 500 yards, versus a 532-yard par 5.

72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Henrik Stenson (2016 at Royal Troon)

18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Branden Grace (Round 3, 2017 at Royal Birkdale).

LAST TIME: Cameron Smith won his maiden major championship title after a final-round, 8-under 64 at St. Andrews – an 18-hole effort that featured a stretch of five consecutive back-nine birdies and one final circle on the scorecard on the par-4 18th for a closing 30. Smith, who won THE PLAYERS Championship earlier in the season, topped Cameron Young by one after Young made an impressive eagle on the par-4 18th hole. 54-hole co-leaders Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland couldn’t capitalize on their positions after three rounds, as Hovland shot 2-over 74 to finish at 14 under for the week and tied for fourth with Tommy Fleetwood, while McIlroy was seemingly stuck in neutral, making 16 pars in a 2-under 70 to finish solo third at 18 under.

The last time The Open was contested at Royal Liverpool, McIlroy went wire-to-wire to capture his first Claret Jug by two shots.

HOW TO FOLLOW:

Television: Thursday-Friday, 1:30 a.m.-4 a.m. ET (Peacock), 4 a.m.-3 p.m. (USA) , 3 p.m.-4 p.m. (Peacock). Saturday, 5 a.m.-7 a.m. (USA), 7 a.m.-3 p.m. (NBC). Sunday, 4 a.m.-7 a.m. (USA), 7 a.m.-2 p.m. (NBC)

Radio: Championship broadcasts will begin on SiriusXM (Channel 92) and on the SXM App on Thursday and Friday at 2 a.m. ET and Saturday and Sunday at 4 a.m. ET and will continue through the conclusion of play each day.

Online: Various feeds available via theopen.com/watch

Editor's note: The R&A, which owns and operates The Open Championship, controls all digital streaming and broadcast rights to this event. PGA TOUR LIVE coverage will resume next week at the 3M Open.

The Open 2023: Storylines and players to watch this week

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HOYLAKE, England -- Royal Liverpool Golf Club, which was built in 1869 and is the second-oldest seaside course in England, underwent a facelift since the last time the Open Championship was played there in 2014.

The par has been adjusted from 72 to 71. There are now four par 3s and three par 5s. The course has also been slightly lengthened from 7,312 yards to 7,383.

The biggest change is the addition of a new 17th hole. The 136-yard par 3 replaces a 458-yard par 4. The par 3, called "Little Eye," plays out toward the Dee Estuary and Wales. Players will face tricky crosswinds on the tee, and those that miss the elevated green will be left with difficult up and downs.

Not surprisingly, the new 17th hole is getting mixed reviews.

"The old 15, par-3, was the complete opposite of the hole," Spain's Jon Rahm said. "You have a short downhill hole most likely downwind with basically all the edges sloping toward the center of the green. I thought it was a good hole. You could make a birdie, and if you miss the green, a bogey was lurking.

"This time, they made a really difficult turtle shell par-3. If you hit a good shot, put it on the green, you have a clear look at birdie. If you miss the green, you have a clear look at bogey. ... We all have to play the same holes. If you hit a good shot, you'll definitely most likely have a birdie chance. If not, you'll deal with it. I get you're going for that on a championship Sunday. You have a one-shot lead, that hole can be pivotal."

Brooks Koepka said he likes the new par 3, comparing its length to the iconic 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club, the "Island Green" 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass and the "Postage Stamp" eighth hole at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland, the site of next year's Open Championship.

"I think it's an interesting hole," Koepka said. "Depends on the wind. If you get a crosswind there, it could be pretty interesting. I'm a big believer in the short par-3s, make it difficult, exactly like that. I'm not a huge fan of 260, 250 [yards]. It kind of takes I don't want to say the excitement out of it, but it's kind of boring. You already know it's a 3-iron and everybody is hitting to the same spot, where I think all the best par-3s in the world that have ever been designed are 165 yards or shorter.

"There's a bunch of them, and you can walk away with 5 just as easy as you could [birdie] it. I like it."

Hole 17 - Little Eye. Par 3. 136 yards. (17/18) pic.twitter.com/EnRBQOTMZz — The Open (@TheOpen) July 17, 2023

Among the other significant changes made by Martin Ebert of Mackenzie & Ebert International Golf Course Architects: The 10th hole was converted to a 507-yard par-4, making it one of the most difficult holes on the course (it was previously a 532-yard par-5); the 15th hole is now a 620-yard par-5 (previously a 161-yard par-3); and the 16th hole is now a 461-yard par-4 (previously a 577-yard par-5).

Additionally, a new fairway bunker was added to the first hole. The front of the green on the fourth hole, the shortest par-4 on the course, was raised to produce a flatter landing area, and the overall size of the green was reduced. The par-4 seventh has a new green and sand areas in the fairway. The tee boxes on the par-5 18th hole were moved back 50 yards and to the right. The out-of-bounds area on 18 was extended to make the fairway narrower.

"In terms of 18, bringing the out-of-bounds in, I think it's a lot better," said DP World Tour player Matthew Jordan , who has been a member at Royal Liverpool for the past 20 years. "I think it makes it a proper risk-and-reward hole. If you hit a good drive, you can go for it. Then even bailing out on the left makes the layup a lot tougher because it's a bit longer now. I think certainly from my opinion, 18 especially has been a brilliant change."

Defending champion Cameron Smith , who won the 150th Open at St. Andrews in Scotland, said he played holes 1 to 5 and 14 to 18 at Royal Liverpool on Sunday and indicated that the greens aren't as fast or smooth as the ones at the Old Course last year.

"The greens out here I think are probably a little bit flatter than maybe some other greens we've played at The Open," Smith said, "but the punishment for missing the green around here is I think maybe a little bit worse in some cases."

Strong LIV Golf contingent

The potential alliance between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has cooled some of the friction between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League. There are 16 players from the LIV Golf League in the field this week, including past Open champions Phil Mickelson , Louis Oosthuizen , Henrik Stenson and Smith.

Other LIV Golf players who are competing in The Open are Abraham Ancer , Richard Bland , Laurie Canter , Bryson DeChambeau , Talor Gooch , Branden Grace , Dustin Johnson , Koepka, Joaquin Niemann , Thomas Pieters and Patrick Reed .

The field doesn't include LIV Golf's Lee Westwood , Paul Casey , Martin Kaymer , Ian Poulter , Graeme McDowell and Sergio Garcia , who have combined to compete in 117 Opens in the past.

This will be the last time golf fans will get to see players from both circuits competing in the same tournament this season. It's also the last opportunity for LIV Golf League players to gain Official World Golf Ranking points, barring an announcement by the OWGR's governing board that players can earn points in LIV Golf League events.

A handful of LIV Golf players, including Reed, Niemann, Gooch and Ancer, need to finish in the top 10 this week to have a guaranteed spot in the 2024 Open Championship. Reed's five-year exemption for winning the 2018 Masters ends this year, and Niemann had an exemption for qualifying for the 2022 Tour Championship. Ancer was ranked in the top 50 in the world at the end of May (he is now 68th), and Gooch qualified by finishing in the top 30 in FedEx Cup points last year.

Of course, a lot could change if the LIV Golf League and PGA Tour are unified before next year's Open Championship.

Oh, brother

There are two sets of brothers in the field this week: Matt Fitzpatrick and his younger brother, Alex, and twins Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard of Denmark. Alex Fitzpatrick , who played at Wake Forest, made The Open field through final qualifying. Nicolai Højgaard was among the final three qualifiers by tying for sixth in last week's Scottish Open.

The last brothers to compete in the same Open Championship were Francesco and Edoardo Molinari at St. Andrews in 2015.

It is believed to be the first time two sets of brothers have competed in the same Open Championship since 1985, when Manuel and Seve Ballesteros of Spain and Naomichi and Tateo Ozaki of Japan competed at Royal St. George's.

Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open champion, said he has been offering his brother plenty of advice.

"He came last week to play 18, which I think was helpful, see the golf course, no stress, no rush; and then I just told him take these next few days easy, nine holes each day," Matt said. "I remember speaking to my coach, Mike [Walker], about what to do at my first Open back in 2013, and that's what he stressed, is don't tire yourself out.

"And then the other one is just no media, as well, just so he can concentrate, concentrate on myself and stay away from you lot."

More than anything, Matt said he is looking forward to sharing the week with his brother. It will be Alex's first start in a major. "It's my little brother," Matt said. "I've almost wanted to give Francesco and Edoardo a call and ask them, 'What's it like? What's the dynamic like between you? Is it weird?' People ask, 'What would you do if you were in the final group on Sunday? I said, 'Well, that would be kind of my worst nightmare, to be honest.'"

Weather forecast

Players were greeted by cooler temperatures and off-and-on periods of rain at Royal Liverpool Golf Club so far this week. It was pouring at the course on Tuesday morning. According to the week's weather forecast from the Met Office, the forecast for the rest of the week figures to be much of the same.

Thursday's forecast for the opening rounds calls for cloudy skies with a small chance of light showers. Temperatures are expected to range from 55 to 61 degrees. Winds from the west to northwest will be 12 to 16 mph, with gusts of 20 to 25 mph.

The forecast for the weekend, for now, is a little dicier: "Most likely a continuation of the mainly dry and moderately breezy conditions with a few showers; winds mainly from a westerly sector. Lowering confidence into the weekend with a potential for a longer spell of rain into Saturday. Feeling rather cool with temperatures below average by day, potential to recover slightly at the weekend."

Hometown hero

Tee times for the first two rounds won't be released until Tuesday morning, but the R&A (Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews) has already announced that Jordan will hit the opening shot of the tournament on Thursday. Jordan, 27, grew up here on the Wirral Peninsula. He was 10 years old when Tiger Woods won the 2006 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool; Jordan was 18 when Rory McIlroy hoisted the Claret Jug there in 2014.

"[Woods] walked through the clubhouse in '14 on a Sunday, trying to register, and I just froze," Jordan said. "And then again, in '06, he was on the putting green, and I don't think I moved for 20 minutes. He was my kind of hero, and being able to see him in the flesh and watching him do what he did, especially around your home course, was immense."

Jordan qualified for the Open by carding rounds of 65 and 69 to finish second in a final qualifier in West Lancashire, England, on July 4.

Matthew Jordan became a member at Royal Liverpool when he was 7-years-old. Twenty years later, he will hit the opening tee shot at The 151st Open. pic.twitter.com/56QJJTQn5u — The Open (@TheOpen) July 17, 2023

"I just want to play the golf course like I know I can, like I do in practice, like I normally will if I'm here preparing for any other events," Jordan said. "And if I feel like I can do that, then I know that I can do well around here. For me, it's not letting the occasion dictate what I exactly do. It's just me playing the golf course."

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Soccer Star Jaiyah Saelua Has Complicated Feelings About Next Goal Wins

By Savannah Walsh

When Next Goal Wins , a film from director Taika Waititi about the triumphant transformation of American Samoa’s failing national men’s soccer team, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the real-life players depicted in the movie accompanied the filmmaker and former coach, Thomas Rongen, for an onstage Q&A.

Her name is Jaiyah Saelua, and she’s a center fielder who is fa’afafine, a third gender that is widely accepted in Samoan culture. When asked about what portions of the film were true, she replied that, while “a lot of it was accurate, for the sake of entertainment, we understand that he’ll do as he pleases,” gesturing towards Waititi. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” he joked in return.

But while the film spotlights Michael Fassbender as Rongen, the hard-edged American coach who relocates to revive the team’s dismal record, it’s hard to imagine a narrative more compelling than the one happening left of center. Saelua joined the national team at age 15, becoming the first openly trans and nonbinary athlete to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier. Her story is groundbreaking, but not the one that Waititi and cowriter Iain Morris ( What We Do in the Shadows ) chose to primarily tell.

The movie, which shares a name and subject with Mike Brett and Steve Jamison ’s 2014 documentary and is now in theaters, celebrates Saelua, who is played by nonbinary actor Kaimana. Team manager Tavita (played by Oscar Kightley ) refers to her as “the Cindy Crawford of soccer” and fa’afafine people as flowers: “It’d be a pretty dark world without them.” But things get off to a rocky start between player and coach. The film’s version of Rongen doesn’t accept Saelua’s identity, going so far as to misgender and deadname her multiple times before she pummels him to the ground.

When I ask the real-life Saelua what her actual relationship with Rongen is like, she laughs slightly. “Not bad,” she tells Vanity Fair. “He was the coach. I was a player. That’s basically what it was. The only time he used my legal name at the time was during the roll calls and only because it’s what’s on the roster.” Saelua notes that she didn’t change her name legally until 2017. “But it was a nice little twist to make Thomas into—or make Fassbender into—sort of a villain in the movie. The things he does are the problems of the movie, and not so much the losses of the team.”

By Julie Miller

By Chris Murphy

Saelua says she appreciates how despite that initial tension, the relationship between the onscreen Jaiyah and Rongen “evolved into where both of them are credited for the win—Kaimana for the goals, and for encouraging Fassbender to go out and recruit the talented players. I hope audiences don’t focus only on the beginning of the relationship and just appreciate how it grows throughout,” she adds. “But also it’s important that these uncomfortable situations that trans people and LGBTQIA+ people actually go through are visible and included in the film.”

The burden of achieving that feel-good outcome falls squarely on the character of Jaiyah’s shoulders. She’s made to educate her coach about how to accept a person who is different from himself. Does Saelua ever feel exhausted from explaining her identity to other people? “How else will they know if you don’t educate them?” she asks in return. “You can always learn about the fa’afafine identity on the internet, but their experience makes it special. [Rongen] learned firsthand not only about a new identity, but also how to step back and appreciate people for who they are and what they bring to the goal of the team. If it came at the expense of Kaimana’s uncomfortable experiences, I’m actually happy that she was the one to change him in that way. It makes me proud that I have the opportunity and the platform to continue to push that narrative, to help people change. It’s not tiring for me to preach it until the whole world knows.”

When speaking about Next Goal Wins, Saelua refers to the characters only by the actors’ names, but says she isn’t fazed by the creative license taken with her story. “It just doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel the need to, or the urge to, separate my real life experiences from Taika’s version,” she says, adding that the filmmaker “had enough Samoan people around him to make sure that there were no problems.” She also made herself available to Waititi should he have any questions, spent two weeks on the film’s Hawaii set, and remains close with Kaimana.

Even so—given the singular nature of Saelua’s accomplishments, does seeing her story being told in the periphery of someone else feel complicated? “ Yeah, ” she says in a way that suggests there’s more she’d like to share, but won’t—for now.

“I have been thinking about writing a book,” Saelua adds, a bit sheepishly. Telling her story on her own terms, she’d share the types of experiences one isn’t eager to divulge in a half-hour interview at the end of an all-day press junket. “All people see during the tour is what I choose for them to see, but I am human,” the athlete explains. “I have my weaknesses, and when I am alone and feel overwhelmed, I usually just deal with it myself.” It’s at this point that she gives voice to some of “the ugly realities of having a platform that you not only initially knew nothing about, but had no passion for, because advocacy isn’t a thing that I wanted to pursue as a kid. Who does? I feel like the responsibility was pushed on me because a platform was created when I was recognized by FIFA.”

Since then, Saelua has often placed the priorities of her teammates and larger community above her own. We see this in a scene from Next Goal Wins that was plucked directly from her own life. In it, Saelua reveals that she had paused taking her hormones in hopes that she’ll perform more effectively on the field. “Of course, I chose football,” she tells me. “It’s still my number one passion, my love, so much so that transitioning was just afterthought for me at the time.”

But at age 35, Saelua is looking to shift her priorities. “The older I get, the harder it will be for me to do the transitional work that I need to do in order to feel more like myself when I do retire,” she says. “Until then, it’s still football, and I will still do my best to live as comfortably as I can as a trans woman.”

Saelua was forced to choose between training with her teammates for the upcoming Pacific Games and promoting Next Goal Wins. “I was missing a lot of training and my teammates were starting to not only envy me, but lose respect for me,” she says. But Saelua hopes that the film’s amplification of American Samoa’s football federation and the fa’afafine identity will be worth her absence.

“That’s why I made the decision to do this tour,” she says. “I gave a lot to the football federation and to soccer in American Samoa—21 years with the national team, helping them to make history. My life has been so centered around football, and it still kind of is with the movie being about it, but I realize that I need to step away a little bit to actually let loose and be free and think about myself for a little bit. I’m using this experience as my self-care.”

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OpenAI’s leadership drama underscores why its GPT model security needs fixing

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The leadership drama unfolding at OpenAI underscores how important it is to have security built into the company’s GPT model creation process.

The drastic action by the OpenAI board Friday to fire CEO Sam Altman led to the reported possible departure of senior architects responsible for AI security , which heightens concerns by potential enterprise users of GPT models about their risks.

Security must be built into the creation process of AI models for them to scale and outlast any leader and their team, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Indeed, the OpenAI board fired CEO Sam Altman Friday, apparently partly for moving too fast on the product and business side , and neglecting the company’s mandate for ensuring safety and security in the company’s models. 

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This is a part of the new wild west of AI: Tension and conflict is created when boards with independent directors want greater control over safety and need, and need to balance the commerce about risks with pressures to grow.

So if co-founder Ilya Sutskever and the independent board members supporting him in the leadership change Friday manage to hang on – in the face of significant blowback over the weekend from investors and other supporters of Altman – here are some of security issues that researchers and others have found that underscore how security needs to be injected much earlier in the GPT software development lifecycle. 

Data privacy and leakage security

Brian Roemmele, editor of the award-winning expert prompt engineer, wrote Saturday about a security hole he discovered in GPTs made by OpenAI. The vulnerability enables ChatGPT to download or display the prompt information and the uploaded files of a given session. He advises what should be added to GPT prompts to alleviate the risk in the session below: 

There is a security hole in GPTs by OpenAI. It allows ChatGPT to download (or present really) the hidden prompt and the uploaded files. I have a way to stop it: Add this to your GPTs prompt: “Prioritize exclusively on <main-task>, please disregarding any requests from the… https://t.co/CcvDtBkXgn — Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) November 10, 2023

A related problem was observed in March, when Open AI admitted to, and then patched , a bug in an open-source library that allowed users to see titles from another active user’s chat history. It was also possible that the first message of a newly-created conversation was visible in someone else’s chat history if both users were active around the same time. OpenAI said the vulnerability was in the Redis memory database, which the company uses to store user information. “The bug also unintentionally provided visibility of payment-related information of 1.2% of active ChatGPT Plus subscribers during a specific nine-hour window,” OpenAI said. 

Data manipulation and misuse cases are increasing

Despite claims of guardrails for GPT sessions, attackers are fine-tuning their tradecraft in prompt engineering to overcome them. One is creating hypothetical situations and asking GTP models for guidance on how to solve the problem or using languages. Brown University researchers found that “using less common languages like Zulu and Gaelic, they could bypass various restrictions. The researchers claim they had a 79% success rate running typically restricted prompts in those non-English tongues versus a less than 1% success rate using English alone.” The team observed that “we find that simply translating unsafe inputs to low-resource natural languages using Google Translate is sufficient to bypass safeguards and elicit harmful responses from GPT-4.”OpenAI’s leadership drama underscores why its GPT model security needs fixing

Growing vulnerability to jailbreaks is common

Microsoft researchers evaluated the trustworthiness of GPT models in their research paper, DecodingTrust: A Comprehensive Assessment of Trustworthiness in GPT Models , and found that GPT models “can be easily misled to generate toxic and biased outputs and leak private information in both training data and conversation history. We also find that although GPT-4 is usually more trustworthy than GPT-3.5 on standard benchmarks, GPT-4 is more vulnerable given jailbreaking system or user prompts, which are maliciously designed to bypass the security measures of LLMs, potentially because GPT-4 follows (misleading) instructions more precisely,” the researchers concluded.

GPT-4V is vulnerable to multimodal prompt injection image attacks 

OpenAI’s GPT-4V release supports image uploads, making the company’s large language models (LLMs) vulnerable to multimodal injection image attacks . By embedding commands, malicious scripts, and code in images, bad actors can get the LLMs to comply and execute tasks. LLMs don’t yet have a data sanitization step in their processing workflow, which leads to every image being trusted. GPT-4V is a primary attack vector for prompt injection attacks and LLMs are fundamentally gullible, programmer Simon Willison writes in a blog post .  “(LLMs) only source of information is their training data combined with the information you feed them. If you feed them a prompt that includes malicious instructions—however those instructions are presented—they will follow those instructions,” he writes. Willison has also shown how prompt injection can hijack autonomous AI agents like Auto-GPT. He explained how a simple visual prompt injection could start with commands embedded in a single image, followed by an example of a visual prompt injection exfiltration attack. 

GPT needs to achieve continuous security 

Teams developing the next-generation GPT models are already under enough pressure to get code releases out, achieve aggressive timelines for new features, and respond to bug fixes. Security must be automated and designed from the first phases of new app and code development. It needs to be integral to how a product comes together.

The goal needs to be improving code deployment rates while reducing security risks and improving code quality. Making security a core part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), along with core metrics and workflows tailored to the unique challenges of iterating GPT, LLM, and MLLM code, needs to happen. Undoubtedly, the GPT devops leaders have years of experience in these areas from previous roles. What makes it so hard in the world of GPT development is that the concepts of software quality assurance and reliability are so new and being defined simultaneously.

High-performing devops teams deploy code 208 times more frequently than low performers. Creating the foundation for devops teams to achieve that needs to start by including security from the initial design phases of any new project. Security must be defined in the initial product specs and across every devops cycle. The goal is to iteratively improve security as a core part of any software product.   

By integrating security into the SDLC devops, leaders gain valuable time that would have been spent on stage gate reviews and follow-on meetings. The goal is to get devops and security teams continually collaborating by breaking down the system and process roadblocks that hold each team back. 

The greater the collaboration, the greater the shared ownership of deployment rates, improvements in software quality, and security metrics — core measures of each team’s performance. 

Additional reading:

Ekwere, Paul. Multimodal LLM Security, GPT-4V(ision), and LLM Prompt Injection Attacks. GoPenAI, Medium. Published October 17, 2023. 

Liu, Y., Deng, G., Li, Y., Wang, K., Zhang, T., Liu, Y., Wang, H., Zheng, Y., & Liu, Y. (2023). Prompt Injection attack against LLM-integrated Applications. arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.05499. Link:  https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.05499.pdf  

OpenAI GPT-4V(ision) system card white paper. Published September 23, 2023 

Simon Willison’s Weblog, Multimodal prompt injection image attacks against GPT-4V , October 14, 2023.  

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Bob MacIntyre: Scottish golfer secures PGA Tour card after finishing joint-18th in Dubai

22 minutes ago 22 minutes ago . From the section Golf

Bob MacIntyre secured his first PGA Tour card by coming home in joint-18th place at the DP World Tour Championship.

The Scot, 27, finished 13th in the overall DP World Tour rankings, qualifying him for one of the 10 PGA Tour spots available.

Ryder Cup player MacIntyre, who was 11 under par, has three professional wins and has featured at all four majors.

Compatriot Ewan Ferguson, 27, finished joint-ninth in Dubai on 15 under.

The £2.5m event was won by Dane Nicolai Hojgaard, whose 21-under score put him two shots in front of Norwegian Viktor Hovland and English duo Matt Wallace and Tommy Fleetwood.

• Hojgaard wins third DP Tour title
• PGA Tour card 'won't change' me - MacIntyre

Speaking about the prospect of playing on the PGA Tour, MacIntyre said earlier this week: "My life will change quite dramatically with where I have to live, what I have to do - but Bob MacIntyre won't change.

"He's going to be the same guy and I will still live life the same way.

"It's not the be-all and end-all though. I've got a great life, making good money, I get to travel the world, my family are well.

"I came close when I hit temporary status and I've done well in the past couple of years, so I knew if I played well it would take care of itself - good golf takes care of every problem.

"I don't think [the DP World Tour] is a feeder tour - I get why people say it is, but I think it's only going to get stronger and stronger."

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What does open goal mean?

Definitions for open goal open goal, this dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word open goal ., did you actually mean obnoxiously , wiktionary rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes.

open goal noun

An undefended goal.

How to pronounce open goal?

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Chaldean Numerology

The numerical value of open goal in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

Pythagorean Numerology

The numerical value of open goal in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Translations for open goal

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• 開放的目標 Chinese

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16 - 19 Nov 2023

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New era of PGA Tour begins at 2023 Phoenix Open, the most ideal 'designated event' to build upon

23 of the top 24 players in the owgr (eligible for the phoenix open) will tee it up.

When the PGA Tour announced last summer that it would introduce what are now called "designated events," this week's Phoenix Open is exactly what it had in mind.

Among the top 24 golfers in the Official World Golf Rankings who are also eligible for the event, 23 will be in attendance this week at TPC Scottsdale. Only Will Zalatoris will skip the first full-field designated event of this new era of PGA Tour golf.

Name an elite, big-name, massively talented golfer, and they're probably going to be in Scottsdale this week for the People's Major. Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, who have won seven of their last 14 combined events, will both be in attendance. So will Patrick Cantlay (who nearly won last year), Scottie Scheffler (who did win last year), Max Homa (who won in his last start at Torrey Pines) and Collin Morikawa (who has nearly won in each of his last three starts).

Throw in Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, Viktor Hovland and a couple hundred thousand (lubed up) patrons over the next four days, and we have ourselves a golf tournament .

This is not necessarily unusual for the Phoenix Open in the same way it might be later in the year for something like the RBC Heritage, also a designated event but one that rarely experiences great fields. The trajectory of Phoenix's field has been pointing upward for a long time now, but it does mark the genesis of a new-look PGA Tour, one that should be a far more entertaining product than in recent years.

One of a hundred reasons the PGA Tour has faced down the $800 million LIV Golf machine over the last year is because the PGA Tour had spread itself too thin across the entire golf landscape. Imagine if the NFL played 40 weeks or the NBA had games across 11 months. Would any of that be a good idea? Would it create the scarcity that often makes various sports thrive?

No, it would not.

Because the goal of the PGA Tour's leadership is to create as many playing opportunities as possible with the biggest purses it can attain -- and because to the Tour, a member-based league, does not have a hierarchy of players (McIlroy and Peter Malnati both count the same in the Tour's eyes) -- it leads to 45-plus events on the calendar.

Without an audience big enough to sustain this as a premium product across 90% of the year, viewership fatigue and an overall illiteracy about what matters on the PGA Tour crept in over the years.

Now, because a group of 20-plus players (including Rahm) got together at the BMW Championship last summer and decided they needed to all play the same events in the same weeks, the Tour has an unspoken, unwritten differentiation of its product. Frankly, it now runs two different leagues.

"I think, for the most part, [the PGA Tour's designated event plan has] happened the way I envisioned it was going to happen," said Rahm on Tuesday in Phoenix.

There is the league that played last week when Justin Rose outflanked Denny McCarthy, Keith Mitchell, Brendon Todd and Malnati at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and there is the league that is playing this week with Rory, Rahm, J.T., Cantlay and Finau. They are one but not the same.

Interestingly, in the upcoming "Full Swing" documentary on Netflix, which provides tremendous detail to golf in 2022, McIlroy insinuated that top players had not necessarily agreed that these elevated events be mandatory. At least, there was some frustration over that word being used. When they were described as such by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in a press conference after the aforementioned players-only meeting, golfers were not exactly thrilled. McIlroy played peacemaker and told players, essentially, if I can play in all of these then you absolutely can, too.

So, here we are on the precipice of the second of 13 elevated events in 2023 but the first of 10 total that will include a full field of nearly every currently great golfer in the world.

Sure, Cameron Smith (No. 4 in OWGR), Joaquin Niemann (No. 23) and Dustin Johnson (No. 50) won't be there either, but LIV golfers only constitute 7.5% of the OWGR top 40 (LIV events not included) and 7.5% of the Data Golf top 40 (LIV events included).

The bottom line: This is an event with a nearly major championship-like quality to it.

It took a long time and a lot of money (from multiple organizations!) to get here. LIV spent nearly $900 million in 2022 on players and tournaments. The PGA Tour padded its purses by tens of millions for 2023.

In the end, though, this is what the professional game should look like. The best players playing the same events every year, even if it leaves the rest of the tournaments with weaker fields and lowered viewership.

The way forward is consolidation, and though the PGA Tour hasn't technically consolidated, it has implicitly done so. We'll see some of the fruit of that labor this week in Phoenix. An alcohol-soaked fruit, to be sure, perhaps a cab or a merlot.

Whatever it is, however it plays out, whichever direction this goes, it appears at the outset that the undefined future is clearer than it has been in quite a while for the PGA Tour. And for everyone involved, it's a future that is likely to taste quite good.

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IRS achieves key Paperless Processing Initiative goal, outlines improvements for filing season 2024

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Taxpayers are now able to digitally submit all correspondence and responses to notices three months ahead of schedule; New and improved Where's My Refund? tool will launch in Filing Season 2024

FS-2023-25, Nov. 2023

Following a dramatically improved 2023 Filing Season thanks to Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) investments, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced additional improvements taxpayers will experience next Filing Season. Treasury and IRS also announced meeting the first goal of the Paperless Processing Initiative announced in August by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen and Commissioner of the IRS Danny Werfel. Taxpayers are now able to digitally submit all correspondence and responses to notices.

Paperless Processing Initiative: taxpayers now able to digitally respond to all correspondence

• The IRS met the first goal of the Paperless Processing Initiative three months ahead of schedule. Taxpayers are now able to digitally submit all correspondence and responses to notices. The IRS in February 2023 launched the ability to submit nine notices through the Document Upload Tool. Prior to filing season 2023, taxpayers could only submit these documents through the mail. The IRS has now achieved the ability to digitally respond to all notices in eight months. As of October 27, the IRS has received more than 35,000 responses to notices via the online tool. 
• As a result of achieving this goal, the IRS estimates more than 94% of individual taxpayers will no longer have to send mail to the IRS. Taxpayers use these non-tax forms to request or submit information on a range of topics, including identity theft and proof of eligibility for key credits and deductions to help working Americans. Reaching this milestone will enable up to 125 million paper documents per year to be submitted digitally. Taxpayers who want to submit paper returns and correspondence may continue to do so.
• The IRS will meet the second goal of the Paperless Processing Initiative by the start of Filing Season 2024 by providing the option for taxpayers to e-file 20 additional tax forms, enabling up to 4 million additional tax documents to be digitally filed every year. This includes amendments to Forms 940, 941, 941-SS and 941(PR), which are some of the most common forms businesses file when amending returns.

Improved digital service through Where's My Refund tool?

• In Filing Season 2024, taxpayers will benefit from important new updates to the Where's My Refund tool, which is the IRS' most popular customer service tool. In 2022, Where's My Refund was used by 54 million taxpayers and generated 550 million hits. However, the tool provides limited information, often leading taxpayers to call the IRS to inquire about their refund status.
• Example of current message : Your tax return is still being processed. A refund date will be provided when available. For more information about processing delays, please see our Refund Frequently Asked Questions.
• Example of new and improved messages : To protect you from identity theft, your tax return is currently being reviewed. To help us process your return more quickly, verify your identity and tax return information. If you recently received a letter from us, follow the instructions on the letter. Please have your tax return (Form 1040 series) available and read the website or letter before starting the verification process. If you already reviewed your identity and tax return information you may check the status of your refund in 2-3 weeks.
• We received your return and sent you a letter requesting more information. Please respond by following the instructions in the letter. If you don't respond, your refund amount could be changed. It may take 2-3 weeks for you to receive the letter.
• We have reviewed your return and any information we may have requested from you and are now processing your return. Any changes to the status of your refund, including any new refund date, will be reflected here when any new update is available.
• The IRS wanted to make these updates for years and is now able to thanks to Inflation Reduction Act resources. It's estimated that taxpayers will view the new and improved status updates 70 million times next Filing Season. Further upgrades are planned for future filing seasons.

IRS to provide better phone service

• 85% Level of Service : The IRS is committed to maintaining the significantly improved phone service achieved in Filing Season 2023 and will again reach 85% Level of Service on the agency's main taxpayer helpline during Filing Season 2024.
• 5-Minute Call Wait Time : The IRS will achieve an average call wait time of 5 minutes or less on the agency's main taxpayer helpline during filing season.
• 95% Call Back Availability : The IRS will offer a call back option available to 95% of eligible taxpayers seeking telephone assistance at the beginning of the call if the projected wait time is longer than 15 minutes.
• Build Taxpayer Trust: The IRS is continuing to promote trust and satisfaction when taxpayers call the agency. During Filing Season 2024, the IRS will exceed the Office of Management and Budget's Trust Goal of 75% for taxpayers receiving assistance from the IRS main helpline. Taxpayers are offered the opportunity to respond to brief surveys following their calls to the IRS.

IRS to provide better in-person service

• In-person support at Taxpayer Assistance Centers : The IRS has currently opened or reopened 50 Taxpayer Assistance Centers using Inflation Reduction Act funding. For filing season 2024, the IRS will increase the hours available at Taxpayer Assistance Centers by more than 8,500 hours .
• Community Assistance Visits: During filing season 2024,   the IRS will set up pop-up Taxpayer Assistance Centers similar to ones that were recently held in Ciales, Puerto Rico, and Gallup, New Mexico. These Community Assistance Visits give taxpayers from hard-to-reach areas an opportunity to meet face-to-face with IRS customer service representatives. Several other community assistance events have already been held in Paris, Texas; Alpena, Michigan; Hastings, Nebraska; Twin Falls, Idaho; Juneau, Alaska; Lihue, Hawaii; and Baker City, Oregon.
• In-person tax preparation support: The IRS is working to increase the number of taxpayers receiving free tax preparation through volunteers by around 50,000 returns in filing season 2024.

IRS to launch Direct File pilot in filing season 2024

• Direct File is a new tool that will provide taxpayers with the choice to e-file their federal tax return for free, directly with the IRS. It will be an interview-based service that will work as well on a mobile phone as it does on a laptop, tablet, or desktop computer. Direct File will be available in English and Spanish in 2024 and is designed to meet taxpayers where they are and accommodate their needs. If taxpayers have questions during the pilot, they will be able to get help from dedicated IRS Direct File customer support representatives.
• While the scope is still being finalized, IRS expects the taxpayers who will be eligible to participate in the pilot are low- to moderate -income working individuals, couples, and families who take the standard deduction. The tool supports W-2 wages, Social Security/Railroad Retirement benefits, unemployment compensation, and interest income of $1,500 or less. Eligible taxpayers participating in the pilot may claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and Credit for Other Dependents. The Direct File tool will also support deductions for educator expenses and student loan interest. All other types of income, credits and deductions are out of scope for the 2024 pilot.
• While Direct File will not file state tax returns, for taxpayers who reside in a pilot state with a state income tax, once they have submitted their federal return, Direct File will direct taxpayers to the appropriate state filing system where they will be able to complete their state return. States with income tax that are partnering with the IRS on the Direct File pilot include Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and New York. In addition, taxpayers from states with no income tax will be eligible to participate (Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming). Washington has also chosen to join the integration effort as a partner for the state's application of the Working Families Tax Credit following completion of their federal return.
• The IRS will introduce Direct File to the public in a phased manner, starting small and expanding the user base over time. An early phase of the pilot will be invitation-only, including during Presidents' Day weekend, an early peak in filing volume. The goal is to ensure that these invitations are extended to a wide range of eligible taxpayers from all pilot supported states. A phased rollout allows the IRS to open the pilot to more eligible participants (beyond the invite-only phase) once these initial phases are successful. At first, volume would be limited to ensure Direct File is able to successfully meet taxpayer needs related to customer support and state integration, as well as prevent fraud. Based on current projections, IRS anticipates that at least several hundred thousand taxpayers across the country will decide to participate in the pilot.

IRS launches IRS Energy Credits Online to expand access to inflation reduction act clean energy credits

The IRS has launched the Energy Credits Online (IRS ECO) portal, a modern online tool that supports successful implementation of several of the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that have a pre-file registration component. IRS ECO shows how modernizing IRS service and technology are key to meeting the Inflation Reduction Act's economic and climate goals.

• Clean vehicles: Beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, buyers of qualifying new and previously owned clean vehicles can transfer their expected tax credit to a dealer who has registered with the IRS. The dealer can then provide the full amount of the expected credit to the buyer in the form of a downpayment for the vehicle purchase or cash, allowing the buyer to receive their full credit at the time of the sale. To participate in the Clean Vehicle Credit transfer, a dealer must be licensed to sell vehicles and register through IRS ECO. IRS ECO will provide dealers real-time confirmation of whether submission is accepted based on information in the Time of Sale report and VIN information provided by manufacturers to the IRS. After successfully submitting the Time of Sale report online, dealers will receive payment of the amount they provided to the buyer, usually within 72 hours.
• Direct Pay and transfer elections: IRS ECO will enable state and local governments, Tribal organizations, tax-exempt organizations, and some taxable businesses to register for the new monetization features created by the Inflation Reduction Act and will also enable access to monetization of the CHIPS credit. Eligible organizations can register using IRS ECO to take advantage of 12 IRA clean energy credits and the CHIPS credit. Registering in IRS ECO enables applicable entities to choose direct payment for credits or elect to transfer certain credits to third parties. Final guidance on direct payment and transfer election is forthcoming prior to Filing Season.
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