Why Golf Should Be More Like UFC

Edition No. 24 | August 25, 2023

Hey,

I went to the grocery store in Dallas on Thursday, and they are officially stocked up on pumpkin spice goods.

It was 104 degrees at 7:15 p.m.

This has to change. We’re better than this.*

If elected in 2024, I vow as president to do two things: 1. Provide an actual projected cut line for the broadcast (instead of an in-the-moment cut line) and 2. Force all pumpkin spice products into an Oct. 1 - Nov. 25 window. As an aside: I would love for General Mills to define the term, “limited edition” to me and will invite them to do so during one of the debates I participate in.

Onto the news.

*We’re not, but I wish we were

One Thing I Loved

This conversation between Gary Williams and Tom Coyne was really good. Gary was incredibly open about his struggle with sobriety and framed it in a way I had not considered before: That it’s one thing to not drink alcohol, but it’s an entirely other thing to be a sober person. It’s excellent.

Anyway, Gary was asked about his favorite interviews, and the conversation (obviously) turned to one of my favorite interviews, but the way both guys talked about Rory and his gifts was perhaps different than I’ve heard it talked about before. I was fascinated by the connection they made.

Here’s Gary: “Rory is possessive of something I mentioned earlier. The first time I spent a day with him was [after the Masters in 2011]. When I came back to Golf Channel, people were like, ‘What was he like?’

“I said, ‘He was really good listener.’ I found that to be unusual for an only child whose parents did everything they could to allow him to pursue this, which made him ripe for entitlement. And he was anything but that at 21. It wasn’t because he was wounded because of what happened at the Masters, he was that way because he was that way. He’s remained that way, and as you know likes to read. I like to read.”

He was that way because he was that way is actually a pretty great summation of Rory’s persona. Back to Gary …

“The way that he has navigated his career while pursuing relationships that are not just advantageous for him as far as his brand. He has interesting relationships with people.”

Now here’s Tom: “I love what you said about reading. This goes back to what you said about listening. Reading is an act of listening. You’re listening to an author, you’re listening to characters, you’re listening to other people’s experiences and perspectives. … Reading is an exercise in empathy. It’s how we got to understand and think about and consider other people’s points of view. It’s the same thing we get from travel, but if you can’t travel you can read books and read articles and walk around in someone else’s shoes for a little bit and realize that you are not in fact the center of the universe.”

This conversation is ostensibly about Rory, but while that part of it was intriguing, it’s more of a conversation about reading. And it’s actually a great case for reading fiction. I asked my friend (also named Kyle) one time his purpose behind reading fiction, and his response surprised me: Because it provides me with empathetic points of view that I could otherwise not attain elsewhere.

I have to confess that I sometimes read fiction simply because it’s fun, but I am compelled by the idea of spending time in worlds I am prohibited from inhabiting because of time and logistical constraints. This is expansive for my mind and in fact does make me not only a better listener but also (hopefully!) a kinder person to those who I am around.

Anyway, listen to that pod. Time well spent.

Idea of the Week

Easy one this week — this from Soly was simple and solid. I am all the way in. If you even want to bring back the purple vests, I’m down for that, too.

Five Questions

This week we have Joseph LaMagna, who is somebody whose work I have tremendous admiration for. He is a contributor to Fried Egg Golf (one of my favorites from him is on how the FedEx Cup needs to change) and writes his own excellent newsletter, Finding the Edge.

1. What is a shot (not your own) that you think about all the time?

I think about Vijay Singh's approach into 15 at the 2000 Masters quite often (1:54:30 mark below). Considering the stage, it's definitely one of the best non-Tiger Woods shots I've seen.

2. What is your favorite weird, quirky, normal sport-y thing about a player or course or event right now?

Amateurs teeing it up in actual tournaments like the American Express will never cease to amaze me. It's pretty crazy that everyday people can just pay to play in PGA Tour events. I remember watching Justin Rose hole a 10-footer on the first hole at Amex after some hack in his group just made a putt on the same line and thinking, "Yeah, this tournament definitely shouldn't offer 500 FedEx Cup points to first place."

3. What is one thing pro golf -- specifically the PGA Tour -- should steal from another sport?

In general, the PGA Tour should steal a bunch of stuff from the UFC. I'm not certain that golf works better under a pay-per-view model, but I'd be interested in exploring that. Pay-per-view events put pressure on the organization to produce a compelling product or people won't buy the event. Golf would benefit from some of that pressure.

Not joking: I think players within the top 5 or 10 on Sunday should have walk outs like in the UFC. I don't mean that players would step up to the tee with walk out music and flex to the crowd. But I think it would be cool if after each player was announced individually, he'd walk through the tunnel in the stands, greet the crowd, grab his driver, and tee off. It would add gravity and drama.

Leading up to contenders' tee times, the PGA Tour should have well-produced montages of what winning the tournament would mean to each player, with snippets from the players' press conferences, like the UFC does. You'd sponsor the montages, which people would actually watch, in place of cutting away to commercials, which people don't watch. Folding ads into the product instead of cutting to commercials is happening across sports and leads to a more cohesive broadcast; that's how the PGA Tour could do it.

4. Why are you compelled to make and consume golf content?

I like solving puzzles and I enjoy learning. Also as someone who watches pretty much every sport, I genuinely think golf is the most interesting puzzle. Figuring out players' skill sets and how their skill profiles and form match up with a variety of golf courses is challenging. I'm addicted to perfecting the craft of solving that puzzle and leaving bread crumbs to help others pursue the same goal.

5. What made you fall in love with golf?

I think it's the accountability. In most team sports, you can delude yourself into believing you or your child is the greatest talent to ever grace the earth. Golf lets you know where you actually stack up. It rewards the young girl or boy who spends an afternoon smashing balls on the range while his or her friends are at the pool. It doesn't know how popular you are at school. It gives you the opportunity to prove yourself.

I suppose that mentality drives why I've always been a bettor, even as a young kid. It's easy to express belief about something when there's nothing at stake. Both golf and betting require commitment and conviction.

You can probably imagine how much I enjoy a money game on the golf course...

Flagged

“People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.” -The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

By the Numbies

12: That’s how many instances we have since January 1 of somebody beating Scottie Scheffler by 7+ strokes in a golf tournament. If you believe somebody not named Rory, Scottie, Rahm or Hovland is going to win the Tour Championship, you’re betting on something that has happened .67 times across the 18 tournaments Scheffler has played this year.

Here are those 12 instances by the way (only eight have been by folks not named Rory or Rahm).

Riviera
Rahm — 9
Homa — 7

Augusta
Rahm — 8

Open
Harman — 13
Tom Kim — 7
Rahm — 7
Sepp — 7
Day — 7

Memphis
Cantlay — 9
Glover — 9
Rory — 8
Fleetwood — 8

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I did a Ryder Cup pod this week with the NLU boys and Jamie Weir. It was tremendous fun, and I think I talked myself into The Captain as the U.S.’ 12th pick.

👉️ This Andy Roddick profile is incredible, and somehow — perhaps fittingly — the best part was about Roger Federer and the time he beat Roddick at Wimbledon in 2009.

Still, [Roddick] was distraught. “I don’t think that people got the true sense of how much his heart was ripped out that day,” says trainer Doug Spreen, who’d joined Roddick’s team full-time after the 2003 US Open. “He was back in the shower for twenty minutes, just sitting there with water running down him.”

Spreen was sitting in the locker room when Federer took a seat next to him. “He said, ‘I feel really bad for you guys, and I feel really bad for Andy. I hope he gets this one time.’ I think Roger realized on that day that it wasn’t right to have a big celebration, and his words when he sat down next to me were…” Spreen pauses, crying. “He didn’t need to do that, and it was heartfelt.”

What’s Something That Lives Rent Free In Your Head?

Surely you have seen the handshake between new Commanders owner Josh Harris and Joe Buck in the ESPN booth. If not, go find it and put it on repeat for a few minutes. It’s extraordinary.

The best part (maybe by far) is Troy Aikman’s reaction after seeing it out of the corner of his eye.

But that’s not the thing that lives rent free in my head. The thing that lives rent free in my head is this handshake from the 2021 Masters between Charl Schwartzel and Si Woo Kim. I legit think about it 2-3 times a week. It was so bad that at one point, Schwartzel pulled on Si Woo’s finger. You can watch the entire exchange here. It’s preposterous.

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