King Behavior

Edition No. 18 | July 13, 2023

The Real Lede

Hey,

I’m currently reading Curt Sampson’s excellent book on Hogan and wanted to share this story, which is among a multitude of amazing tales from the book.

In the 1951 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills, Hogan shot an insane 67 in the final round (gaining 8 strokes on the field) to beat Clayton Heafner (who shot a 69 of his own) by two, Bobby Locke by four and the rest of the field by six or more.

In the locker room after his victory, Heafner, who again finished second to Hogan after shooting the second best score in the final round, went up to speak with him following their grueling 36-hole Saturday.

“Congratulations, Ben,” Heafner said, drained from his pursuit. He extended his hand to the new champion. But Hogan seemed not to realize he had been pursued. “Thanks, Clayton,” Hogan said. “How’d you do?”

On to the news.

Normal Moment(s)

All very routine sports stuff.

1. Strawberry Nine

During the final round of last week’s U.S. Women’s Open, Hyo Joo Kim’s caddie had to empty her bag because there was a strawberry rattling around in the bottom making her grips sticky (or more sticky).

It was a reminder of just how strange it is that in golf you are required to carry your equipment for 5-7 miles every day and protect it from all manner of external threats, including (but not limited to) rain, wind, heat, animals, earthquakes and … apparently … fruit.

2. Zoo Boys

After shooting 62 on Thursday at TPC Deere Run, Jonas Blixt said he was invited to the zoo by Henrik Norlander (a cynic might say that he’s been a part of one for several years now). What’s amazing — or most amazing — about all of this, though, is, as one reader pointed out, the fact that Blixt claims to be “a big fan of zoos” but does not have a favorite animal!

As an aside, I always ask my kids what they want me to ask different players when I sit down with them, and they always ask me to ask players what their favorite animal is. So there is definitely an audience for this stuff. It’s an audience that may not be able to read yet, but it exists.

3. Free Solo 2

Maybe we should just play Pebble as a 17-hole golf course. After Spieth’s flirtation with the cliff on No. 8 last year, Rose Zhang did a dalliance with one on the other side of the beach this year. It led to one of my favorite artbutsports golf references in what has become (unsurprisingly) a large library of them.

4. Lose Your Mind

There was a flash mob on the first tee (driving range?) at LIV London. Again, I never know if anything with LIV is ironic or not ironic, and I suspect many of the folks involved don’t either. What I do know is that given how many ridiculous rollouts have been presented without irony, LIV doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt.

Here’s a fun contradicting comp.

LIV: Unserious people taking themselves too seriously.
Strapped: Serious people not taking themselves seriously at all.

Which one is more appealing?

Question of the Week

Who is the most underrated golfer of the last 25 years? I asked this on Twitter, and the response was wild. I don’t have a quick way to tally up the votes, but Padraig Harrington got far more than I imagined he would and may have gotten the most of anyone mentioned.

And while I agree that Paddy is probably underrated, there’s also a bit of Houston Rockets in there with him in that he won two of his three majors while Tiger was getting his leg put back together. That’s not Paddy’s fault of course, just as it was not the fault of Mario Elie and Sam Cassell that MJ was chasing sliders in Chattanooga and Biloxi when they won their two NBA titles, but it’s worth mentioning.

My answer? While you could talk me into Vijay, Phil, Ernie or Rahm (seriously), I admit the correct answer is probably Tiger. Strangely, I don’t think he would have won as much in this era as he did in his (that take went well), but just as it was impossible to appreciate college until you were a few years (or a decade) removed from it, I think it will be impossible to fully appreciate how good Tiger was until the next Tiger shows up.

That is, Jack was certainly thought highly of as he was doing what he did, but I’m not sure he was appreciated in full until Tiger was trying (and ultimately failing) to run his major record down for the last 25 years. You need the bookends of greatness to properly frame your own.

Context, as always, remains king.

From the Archives

In doing some Michelle Wie research last weekend, I stumbled into this NYT reminder that she and Anthony Kim once played in the same U.S. Publinks quarterfinals in 2005. Wie lost to the eventual champ, Clay Ogden (who finished 15 over at the 2006 Masters), and Kim lost in the semifinals to Martin Ureta.

Can you imagine an alternate history in which Wie and Kim played in that final for a spot in the 2006 Masters? There cannot be many better “what ifs” in amateur golf history than that.

Flagged

“I just kind of looked out and said, ‘I’m out here at Pebble Beach. There’s not many places that are better than this.’” -U.S. Women’s Open champion, Allisen Corpuz

It is so rare in life to have the awareness in the middle of a moment of magnitude to look around with such tremendous gratitude. I’ve been trying to do this more and more, and one thing that has made it easier is a gratitude journal. I like to journal (and write in general) in the morning, and every morning I write about something I’m glad for, even if it’s something difficult. These three prompts are helpful if you want to start doing the same.

One Thing I Loved

On Wednesday’s Shotgun Start episode, Porath spoke for a bit about how Jimmy Dunne is a golf romantic and how it showed during the hearing on Capitol Hill.

And Jimmy Dunne has plenty of reasons to be a golf romantic. ANGC member, president of Seminole, course record holder at Shinnecock (along with Tommy Fleetwood). His golf bingo card is fuller than most.

But I also think it’s easy for us amateurs to remain romantics because we are never dependent on golf for anything other than its service as the subject of our daydreams. It is far easier to romanticize something when its underbelly has never been at eye level.

And then there is Michelle Wie.

When she finished up at Pebble last week, late on Friday evening, with an expectedly mediocre showing, a couple of hugs and a walk-off laugh that is befitting of all that she has endured, it would have been easy to consider how amazing it is that she is still a romantic as well.

Here’s the Times from last week on her retirement.

She plans to remain closely connected to the sport — she recently hosted the L.P.G.A. tournament that Zhang won — but insisted that she does not think much about how she transformed perceptions of the game that she said still enchants her.

Even now, she said, she will play with her husband and become persuaded that, like every other golfer who has won, lost or never actually contested a major, she has unlocked the sport’s mysteries.

“You get that one feeling and it feels really good, and you’re like, ‘I think I’ve figured out the game. I’ve figured it out!’” she said. “I still catch myself saying that almost every time I play, so I know there’s an itch to want to get better.”

How many rounds has Michelle Wie played? How many shots has she hit? How complicated has her relationship with the sport been? And yet, it is a “game that she said still enchants her” even as she moves on from so many of the material spoils it ever could have offered.

Perhaps I have been overcome, even from afar, by the Scottish summer and JT and Spieth trundling around North Berwick, or maybe I am simply entranced by the best major of any year forthcoming at Royal Liverpool. But I was swept away by that quote because, come on, how can you not be romantic about that?

Overheard on Twitter

"The more firmly you believe it ought to be possible to find time for everything, the less pressure you’ll feel to ask whether any given activity is the best use for a portion of your time.”

(Not a Threads critique, though maybe it should be)

-Oliver Burkeman (via Blake Burge)

Media Diet

👉️ You’re probably extremely not interested, but if you are interested, KVV and I talked a bit here about some of the nuance of being inside the ropes at majors and what we’re trying to accomplish.

👉️ This thread by somebody Bob “Golf” Ball (don’t believe that’s ironic), and endorsed by Phil, about the future of the PGA Tour and LIV is pretty interesting. It also has 4.5M views (which is wild). I posted some follow-up thoughts here.

👉️ This by Ethan Strauss on the economics of publishing sports books and how they don’t make sense is so good that it compelled me to fork over money for the paid edition of Strauss’ newsletter. TL;DR takeaway for me: Sports books don’t make money so self-publish and lean on audio.

👉️ Andy Johnson’s rant in Friday’s SGS (queued up at the start time) about how women’s major championship golf can and should thrive at great courses but is dependent on the setups will make you smarter about following golf.

👉️ I was rattled by this idea that assuming you’re below average can be a kind of superpower.

👉️ Desperate for a pair of these.

The Infirmary

True sicko behavior within the golf community.

I was playing a game called Spot It with my kids the other day. The premise is that you have to spot the object that is on both your own card and the card that is flipped over in the middle of the table. If you say the matching object first out of all the participants, you get to collect the card on the table (the goal is to collect as many cards as possible) and flip a new one over.

At one point in the game, I saw that the object circled below was on both my card and the card in the middle of the table, and my broken brain yelled “Gold Boy!” My wife just stared at me and said, “I think that’s a gingerbread man.”

I don’t believe it is, but I’m also certain that it is not a Gold Boy.

By the Numbies

58: Lexi Thompson, age 28, has now played the exact same number of U.S. Open rounds (58) as Scottie Scheffler, age 27 (allegedly), has played total major rounds.

Also this.

Cat Corner

How good was this Tiger shot?

I saw it so many times during Pebble coverage so I went back and looked it up. The tanimal special came during the third round in 2010, and Tiger had that eagle putt for 30 on the back and 65 on the day.

He missed it and then shot 75 on Sunday to lose to Graeme McDowell by three. His commentary on the shot was — I cannot possibly stress this enough — exactly what you think it would be.

“It was just a holdy 3-wood. I left a gap and just hold it. Just make sure I stay committed to holding it.”

A holdy 3-wood. Of course.

 Meme of the Week

This one is going to get some run, isn’t it?

Also, this is king behavior. Tommy might win Hoylake by six.

How is This App Free?

If you got a glimpse of this painting (?) without the logo or the name, how many guesses would it take you before you guessed that it was Sergio Garcia? Would it take you fewer strokes to play Oakmont from the tips or fewer guesses to guess that this was Sergio Garcia?

This just slayed me for some reason. The entire exchange. What a strange, wonderful, bizarre media world we live in. Imagine Grantland Rice trying to understand this exact screenshot.

The idea that you could see the meandering musings that modern sportswriters and sportsthinkers have, that those thoughts could be commented on by an entire tournament and that so much hilarious information could be disseminated so quickly and easily is honestly kind of insane.

Like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like like.

So much opportunity for meme-age at Wimbledon.