Issue No. 106 | August 27, 2024

Hey,

Me every week after writing this newsletter.

Onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

There is winning.

There is winning a major championship.

And there is running down world No. 1 to win a major championship at the Old Course weeks after touching off the medal slam in Paris to get into the Hall of Fame.

There are layers, and they are not the same.

If you stand on a stool, 10 inches off the ground, the gravity of the earth doesn’t seem like a big deal. You barely notice it. But when you stand on a cliff 1,000 feet in the air? Well, the gravity of the earth seems like the most important thing in the world.

In the same way, when you are 16 years old, the gravity of what you are accomplishing doesn’t seem like a big deal. You barely notice it. What about over a decade later, after marriage and a full career and years of retirement talk and weeping over brisket and pickles in Oregon?

Well, the gravity of what you are accomplishing seems like the most important thing in the world because you understand at 27 what you did not at 16, which is that this bridge that connects your sport’s history to your personal future will never be built again.

Venues matter. Obviously they matter for the shots at hand, but they also matter for the stories they tell.

• Braid

• Jones

• Snead

• Thomson (“No one thinks about Peter Thomson at all”)

• Nicklaus

• Seve

• Faldo

• Woods

• Ochoa

• Lewis

• Ko

That list tells a story, and it’s a story that Ko could not have understood at 16 but one that, at 27, she can at least begin to understand.

And to know that she understands that story now, all you have to do is watch how Lilia Vu’s missed putt at the 72nd contorted her face and her heart in a specific way such that she will never be the same again.

That’s how gravity works. You feel nothing at all, and then you feel everything at once. It is quite a thing to watch. Now imagine what it feels like to live the experience.

One Thing I Hated

There was an instructive Xander quote during the BMW broadcast on Sunday. I only caught a piece of it because I was watching on my phone while my wife drove our family back from Oklahoma — Playing Through was the size of a Cheez-It on my phone by the way!

The quote was something along the lines of, It tests my patience at this time of the year, and I’m pretty short on patience at this time of the year. 

That quote followed Scottie losing his mind which followed Scottie ripping the format (or at least the language around it) which followed Scottie saying last year that he was exhausted at the Tour Championship, with the obvious implication being that he just wanted the season to be over with.

That’s how everybody feels. Players, fans, media. It always seems to just drag on and on and on. Change the format, it drags on. Take away events, it drags on. The more it changes, the less it feels like it changes.

The more this happens on an annual basis, the more obvious it is to me that these playoffs being played after The Open is not the best the Tour can do in terms of its product. The best players have already expended so much effort and energy (physical and mental) this year, that even if you don’t feel bad for them (you shouldn’t), it’s not a stretch to say that you aren’t seeing the best they have to offer.

Not to go full Saban, but is this what we want the Tour’s most important golf (allegedly) to be?

It’s all kind of difficult to watch. There is a certain sadism that goes with watching players lose it at a U.S. Open. At the second FedEx Cup event, which is being played for little more than money and fake points and shots on the field in Atlanta? It just feels avoidable.

Honestly? Just get rid of it all. Take it away. Who is benefitting from any of this? Move the Western Open in front of The Open and let The Open end the season. I don’t really care what you do with the money, but it’s clear that the only players who matter don’t really care about that money anyway. The whole thing has a real “well we gotta have some inventory before the AFC East gets rolling again!” feel to it.

I don’t want it, don’t need it, have no desire whatsoever to watch it.

I’ve been pretty adamantly against the notion of “hey, more golf is always good, who’s complaining about more golf?” The FedEx Cup is a good example of why someone would and specifically why I am complaining about more golf. It just feels like such a beatdown for everyone involved. It is emblematic of the worst parts of pro sports: Tons of money on the line but no other incentives.

Nobody seems to enjoy it, so why in the world are we doing it?

Normal Sport

1. So many wonderful things about this screenshot, but it’s the specific way the bird’s head is barely tilted that really just slays me. What a sport.

2. I am rooting for one of two things to happen at East Lake …

1. Somebody like, say, Taylor Pendrith to somehow win the $25 million, which would force folks who are looking back at the 2024 season to say insane things like, “Taylor Pendrith was the leading man on the PGA Tour. What a campaign he must have had!”

2. Ludvig to win the FedEx Cup without winning a single tournament, including the Tour Championship, which he could conceivably win without winning because he starts at 5 under. Very normal stuff.

   Hat tip to my guy Patrick McDonald for that idea.

3. Have you ever thought about how many different uniforms golfers wear? In basketball, football and baseball, uniforms are different colors but the same general template. In golf? You could wear earmuffs and ski boots in the same week somebody else is wearing shorts and a tanktop. Incredible variety and I think fairly unique among all sports.

4. Meme of the year? Decade?

5. I’m not here to yell about the rule, but the fact that a man on a cart is holding the most vital piece of a equipment a golfer owns and is telling that golfer that he must carry on playing with it even though it’s cracked because “we have said no to something worse than this” is incredible.

This screenshot sends me.

Also, the explanation is hilarious.

Basically the governing bodies (including the Tour) don’t test this stuff often enough so this is how we are going to inadvertently control distance. Lol!

6. Speaking of not being able to replace your driver. Rory snapped his driver on Sunday while leaning on it to pick up his tee, which brought about conversation around whether he could legally replace it.

Here’s the USGA rule.

Except in cases of abuse. I’d love to see the official interpretation of that clause. Was Rory abusing his driver? By leaning on it? It didn’t look purposeful, but it also didn’t look not purposeful.

There’s more though.

Sure. 😂😂😂

And finally …

But the amendment to Rule 4.1 is what really gets me.

Even if the player damaged it in anger.

An extraordinary line in a full sequence of them. Because what it implies is that if you damage your club out of anger, you are not allowed to replace BUT if you damage it not out of anger (or abuse), you are allowed to replace it.

But isn’t anger, like, the most subjective thing ever? I think I get angry at my kids, but then I’m around other parents and it’s like ohhhh that’s what anger actually looks like.

What a ridiculous and hilarious sport in which you must determine if your anger rose to the level at which you would not be allowed to replace your golf club. What you deem it “frustration” or “exaggerated excitement”?

So many questions. So much content.

7. Brother … yes.

8. Hockey but golf.

9. Many people sent this one to me.

10. In the final round of the BMW on Sunday, NBC had a BMW c-suite member — somebody running marketing in Europe or whatever — and she started getting steep on car models in the final round of the second to last playoff event. The AFC Championship game, but an executive from Bose starts breaking down the science of acoustics with Nantz and Romo during the fourth quarter of the Chiefs-Ravens game. Insane stuff!

Question of the Week

I asked this on Twitter and got some awesome responses: Whose name do you get most excited to see when they pop up as a podcast guest? Can be a player, media member, writer, business titan, coach, actor, musician, anything. 

The most common answers were exactly what you imagined they would be for an audience of people who follow me: Phil, Max, Rory, SVP, Barkley, Russillo and so on. But the two I’m thinking of are not in that group.

1. Chuck Klosterman: He did get some run but not as much as I would have given him. There are a handful of writers who, when I read them, I think, “Yep, I can’t ever do that. You could give me 20 years and I could not write like that.” Shane Ryan is one that’s up there. That’s Klosterman for me but in podcast form. The way he thinks about things is amazing, and then the way he explains or describes them even more so. I could listen to him talk about anything.

2. Ben Thompson: Thompson is actually who made me think of this question. He doesn’t do a lot of interviews, and I actually didn’t see anyone else even mention him in their answers. But he’s the newsletter OG and somebody who I think is brilliant. His recent interview with David Perell is must listen stuff. I’m already on my second time through.

Stat of the Week

Players with more individual PGA Tour wins over the last two seasons than Keegan Bradley.

• Scottie Scheffler
• Jon Rahm
• That’s it

Bradley has more wins than Ryder Cuppers Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa combined.

Amazing tweet here.

The Infirmary

• I thought that was Mark Immelman on the right.

• Got this text from David Hill, who runs our ad sales, last week.

For reference …

Take of the Week

This one was probably a bit hot given how much fun the Women’s Open at the Old Course was, but I think there should be some sort of major or massive team event there every year. We get the Dunhill, but I’m talking more at the level of the Open-Walker Cup-Women’s Open three-year heater we’re on.

I understand the objections, but they’re also fairly easy to solve. Make the men play a limited flight ball and make the Old the star. For it is when she shines brightest that she illuminates the greats, which is what happened last weekend.

I’m not married to it, but it’s just such a fun, incredible place to watch golf.

Circles and Squares

Personal golf update: I’m getting worse!

I played once last week, and I’m playing again later this week.

One thing that I’ve been excited about recently is getting hooked up with the folks at Arccos (not an ad) to identify where I’m bad. After one round, there’s an answer: Everywhere … but especially off the tee.

I hit — I think I got this correct — eight shots out of bounds in my round last Friday, six of them off the tee.

Not good!

But also, it’s so sick to be able to access my own personal strokes gained. You guys know how in love I am with SG so to have it for my own game is really cool (and hopefully helpful).

Also, I was personally buoyed by these two notes from the BMW.

1. This …

2. Wyndham’s back nine on Thursday that included no 4s or 5s.

No 4s or 5s!

Also, to the Wyndham haters, chill. He’s fine.

Rock the Vote

In place of our family major draft we had a family NFL draft.

The rules: 5 points per regular season win, 10 points per playoff win, 15 points for a Super Bowl win (the kids made the rules up so send complaints to their office).

Here are our squads (no chance I’m putting the draft order out there to be mocked so these are alphabetical).

Please vote on who you think is going to win the season-long points race not sponsored by FedEx.

Corrupt Golf Media

👉️ This KVV story on Lydia rules.

👉️ NLU playing the Old in reverse send help.

👉️ This video of fans commentating on the Memphis event is so good. The couple where the wife was confused about the course layout was incredible.

Also, I kinda feel vindicated here!

👉️ Jamie Kennedy is on an Aaron Judge-like heater right now. This on how the Old Course plays more true for the Women’s Open is terrific.

👉️ This on how TGL holes are designed is interesting. So fantastical and absurd that it could actually work?

👉️ Deion + the PIF. What could possibly go wrong? Also, Anti crushing as always.

The CU camel also got me good.

How is This App Free?

• Yep.

Thanks for reading until the end.

You’re a sicko, and I’m grateful for it.

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