Rory Sabbatini, the silver medalist from the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is making his first start of 2022 at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Something golf fans noticed right away about the South African-turned-Slovakian is a big piece of blue tape on his golf hat. It's clearly not suppoed to be there, and it especially stands out in a world where pretty much every professional golfer this side of Robert Rock and Ollie Schniederjans wear a hat or cap with a logo on it.
The big blue tape on Rory Sabbatini's hat is actually covering up the logo of a sponsor that he is apparently engaged with in a dispute. Earlier in the week, Sabbatini was wearing the same hat with the logo that's visible.
The company is Viscogliosi Brothers, a private equity, merchant banking and venture capital firm which specializes in the neuromusculoskeletal industry. They fund companies and projects that help advance technology for surgeons in the category.
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Sabbatini wore their logo on his cap in 2021, seemingly without issue. Viscogliosi Brothers owns a company called Centinel Spine, and Sabbatini wore that logo on his cap starting in 2019. Centinel Spine had an initial public offering of stock this week, which may mean there was a blackout window for Viscogliosi Brothers to be Sabbatini's hat sponsor under Securities and Exchange Commission rules, known as the quiet period before an IPO.
1. Rory Sabbatini started wearing a "Centinel Spine" hat at the 2019 Valspar
2. Last summer, switched to "Viscogliosi Bros." hat
3. VB is a PE firm focused on health care, owns Centinel, and it closed its IPO on Tuesday
4. Sabbatini's hat looked like this Thursday and Friday https://t.co/zC5hIorHYp pic.twitter.com/Jj4nluPBsQ— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) January 14, 2022
It's unclear what the problem is, but for whatever reason, Sabbatini isn't rocking the Viscogliosi Brothers logo so far in 2022.