Scottie Scheffler's Sweater

Edition No. 22 | August 18, 2023

Hey,

Wait, two newsletters in the same week? That’s like getting two bogey-free rounds in the same tournament from Spieth. Cool if it happens, but expectations are not necessarily high!

We’re experimenting a bit with the newsletter right now and wanted to send two slightly shorter*, somewhat snappier updates instead of just one. As always, feedback is appreciated (just hit reply and give me your worst — I promise I’ll see it).

Onto the news.

* “shorter”

The Ryder Cup Mess

Keegan Bradley’s quote from earlier this week resonates with me: “Well, I think about the Ryder Cup every second I'm awake basically.”

Same.

And in thinking about it this year, I have realized that the selection of the U.S. team is messier than normal for three reasons.

1. Bigger PGA Tour purses
2. Unexpected major winners
3. The LIV boys

The easiest way to explain the purse problem is this: Two years ago, Lucas Glover would have received 1,800 points for winning the $1.8M first prize at Memphis. He would almost certainly be a bit lower in the standings and likely not truly in contention to make the team. But because of Phil’s Saudi operating agreement, all of a sudden the Memphis event is worth $3.6M and 3,600 points (remember, these purses changed after the Ryder Cup qualification rules were instituted and announced). Now Glover is 16th and in the conversation.

It’s not that everybody hasn’t been playing by the same rules here because they have. It’s just that the presumed harbinger for Ryder Cup success has always been major championship success, and this always worked itself out under the current format because the majors always had the biggest purses and thus offered (by far) the most Ryder Cup points until now. Glover has not even played in a major this year (!!) and yet is possibly on the precipice of making this team.

So that’s one issue.

Additionally, when you get outlier major winners like Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark who invert the presumed order of the rankings, it’s always going to feel strange. To be clear, both players have earned their way on the team, but also to be clear, it makes everything at the bottom just a little more complicated.

The last part is basically just the Bryson Conundrum. You could throw DJ or Patrick Reed in there, I suppose, because they both have Ryder Cup equity built up, but I don’t know that anybody believes they’re playing well enough to make the team anyway.

Bryson, on the other hand, is.

He’s been the third best American over the last three months. He just shot a 58. He’s played well in majors championships. And he was — and I cannot stress this enough — incredible at Whistling Straits. His up and down from 355 yards against Sergio on Sunday on the first hole when he walked off holding his putter over his head like he was the Napoleon of Lake Michigan was perhaps the most amazing on-course memory I have of that week.

However, because LIV does not receive points and he didn’t win a major like Brooks did, he’s also 53rd in the rankings. As a captain, can you afford (do you want to afford) the scrutiny that comes with picking somebody ranked behind Mark Hubbard and Sam Stevens? (no offense to anyone, of course)

I suppose the biggest question I have for a captain is what window of time you actually look at when it comes to captain’s picks. Is it nine months? Six months? Three weeks? Two years? You’re going to get different answers about who should be on the team for every single window, which is what makes the job so tricky.

Ultimately, if I’m the captain, I have to use the following question to arrive at a conclusion for my picks: With a 30-year drought on the line and the event tied 11-11 late on Sunday when nobody’s able to breathe and you’re subsisting on Larabars and adrenaline, who do I trust?

I don’t know what Zach Johnson’s answers are to any of those questions, but I know his spot and his decisions will be unenviable here in about 10 days.

The Ryder Choice

Speaking of the Ryder Cup, who would you choose as a captain’s pick from these resumes?

Answers at the bottom.

Question of the Week

I threw this on Twitter earlier in the week, and the responses were as I expected. I absolutely howled at a few of them.

A question I was thinking about for way too long this morning: What is your favorite golf-related word or phrase? Something that amuses or delights you. Can be as obscure or as mainstream as you like.

Here was maybe my favorite.

Five Questions

Speaking of experiments, I’ve been playing around with bringing you a section where I ask a player/official/media member five very specific, sicko-like questions.

First up is Patrick McDonald, who writes with me at CBS Sports and who has become a friend in the golf media world. Here are his answers.

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

It’s from the Cat, but it’s not one with a ton of meaning to a ton of people. I saw a lot of Tiger growing up with his tournament in the D.C. area, and it must have been right after I graduated high school.

He flared his tee shot right into the hazard on No. 12 at RTJ, and I remember yelling, “Don’t worry, Tiger, that’s an easy 5 from there.” I swear he growled at me. I was up on fairway level for his third after taking a drop, and he chopped this fairway wood from out of the rough that boomeranged left to right and settled 10 feet past the pin. It was the last time I heckled anyone.

2. Which non-tour pro do you think would be funniest to throw into a Ryder Cup?

Bill Murray and D.A. Points

3. If you made Scheffler money in 2023, what is one thing you would purchase?

I’m in the middle of a move so those costs being covered would be nice. And the air conditioning in my run-down Ford just went out again, so that is needed. Material items don’t really get the juices flowing, but I am planning a trip to Ireland and the UK with the McDonald men so let’s go with the cost of that trip along with, I don’t know, four houses spread throughout the U.S.

4. What is one quirk (from a player, course, whatever) that amuses you?

A lot of my friends are beginning to pick up golf, and the way newbies tee up the golf ball where they crouch down like a catcher and carefully place the ball absolutely sends me. They look like little kids playing in the sand. Collin Morikawa was doing something similar to protect his back at the U.S. Open, I think, and the group message was blowing up with “told ya so” texts.

5. What made you fall in love with golf?

My grandpa on my mom’s side was the one who was really into golf in my family, but I never really knew him – he passed away when I was in the third grade. We hold an annual scramble tournament in his honor, and that’s where I really grew to love the game.

In the early days, it was my dad, my mom’s brother who played D1 and is the director of golf at Athens Country Club in Georgia, his son and myself. I just remember having so much fun riding the coattails of my uncle, contributing one or two putts, and telling everyone we shot 20 under.

Those Uniforms

I know the real reason you are subscribed to this newsletter is to receive fashion takes from a 38-year-old dad of four kids who did not own sandals until a month ago. So here’s my latest: The U.S. Ryder Cup uniforms are fine.

They’re fine!

I neither love nor hate them. They are neither awful nor amazing. They just are what they are. Though I can absolutely see Scottie Scheffler wearing that sweater not only for 81 of the 83 holes he plays in Rome but also for most of the following three months in Dallas. He may play all four majors in it next year.

I guess one of my questions here is … would you prefer this?

Or this?

Maybe you would. Maybe those are both in the Viktor Hovland “so bad they’re good” camp. But I think the modern stuff is significantly better (albeit also a lot safer).

Two other things.

1. I ride with Tron Carter: Ditch the shield logo and go with the trophy (as seen here) as the only Ryder Cup logo. We are inching into “Billy Horschel has a stitched equine on his left breast the size of an actual Kentucky Derby horse” territory with the Ryder Cup shield. It’s fine on the whole, I suppose, but the trophy-only logo is elite.

2. Wear these ever year pls thx.

By the Numbies

52%: This is going to become the Scottie Scheffler Numbies section at some point. Though he has not done it in his last two starts, Scheffler still has 24 top five finishes in his last 46 starts, or 52% of them. Come on. 

For context: The best number I could find on Data Golf for Tiger was that at one point for his career he was 138/252, which is nearly 55%. Although there was a stretch from 2004-2009 where he was 64/97 (66%) lol

Meme of the Week

Forgot to include this one on Tuesday, but it’s going to get some absolute run.

Love Your Work

In 2009, the guys from Dude Perfect were slamming basketballs off the crook of the roof at a house in College Station. In 2023, the guys from Dude Perfect bought a Premier League team.

This is the future, of course. It’s not even the future, it’s the present.

In the past, being a business meant you created a product and then went and marketed that product, hopefully well enough for your company to succeed. In the present, being a business sometimes means you flip this around and create the marketing before you have the product. Then you either create, purchase or partner with the product, and there’s your business.

This is, theoretically, tremendous for both creators and consumers. The flattening of the business world means that anyone can both create and consume in extraordinarily specific ways (you’re currently reading a newsletter with a section called The Infirmary). This is ostensibly great for everyone.

However, the unintended downside of democratization is that we will see monstrous companies (FB, Netflix etc.) with tens of thousands of employees and small ones (No Laying Up, Chamberlain Coffee) with a handful of employees but probably fewer businesses between those two sizes (I don’t see this as a downside, but some might).

For the consumer, choice is great, but choice is also overwhelming and I do wonder if there will be a point where we are exhausted of constantly tailoring life to our very specific needs and desires. Again, in theory this is wonderful, but would you rather have four choices of cereal when you go to the store or 400?

For the creator, the upshot is tremendous. If Dude Perfect throwing basketballs out of airplanes evolving into a partnership with Amazon dot com to broadcast the National Football League has taught us anything, it’s that the barrier to entry has been completely annihilated.

The tricky part is always going to be the transition from content creator to product builder, but DP has smartly leaned on other people to construct their soccer teams, shoes and theme parks.

It’s been a bit of an inspiration for me, a fellow content creator, that you can actually use yourself as marketing in the process of building something bigger than what people currently see. That has for the last few years simply meant a couple of books I sold on the side, but it’s an idea that’s almost always simmering in my mind.