Would You Spend $1,000 on This Hat?

Edition No. 12 | April 26, 2023

My wife went on a girls trip over the weekend, and I got three consecutive days of our kids (ages 3-10) looking at me like this when I asked them to do literally anything around the house …

We survived, though, and I’ve gotten word that the WH administration will be delivering me a medal of honor for my services.

Onto this week’s news.

Normal Moment(s)

All very routine sports stuff.

1. The Kessler

This one got sent to me plenty last week. Imagine Francisco Lindor laying down at shortstop between pitches trying to determine how the layering of the dirt at Wrigley will affect the ball’s path to him. Amazing.

2. What do these men do for a living?

I used to love the old Bill Simmons hypothetical about if aliens came down and we had to play five on five against them to save the planet, which five would we put out there? I guess I would add to it, after LeBron and Co. got done beating the aliens and they all hopped on Twitter, what would those same aliens believe these two men do for a living?

By the way, that’s Lucas Herbert and his caddie celebrating a victory on the European Tour, which was being played in Japan, which would be a whole other thing we would have to explain to the aliens.

3. Sure

Speaking of the European Tour going to Japan, I never thought I would see Scott Pelley (tbh, I have no idea what his first name is anymore) zooming in on a sumo wrestler with such enthusiasm. Also, I believe that’s Ernie’s, “Phil just dropped a 31 on me to win Augusta it’s never going to happen is it” face.

4. Shuttle Run

I bet you never envisioned reading the following two paragraphs.

Wilson Furr, Alejandro Tosti, and Mason Andersen completed the 18th hole (their ninth) during the second round of the Korn Ferry event played at Lakewood National Golf Club in Florida. The 18th was entirely surrounded by grandstands, with a tunnel for the players to exit.

When the three players exited the tunnel, a cart marked "shuttle" was waiting for them. A volunteer was driving it, and he asked the players if they would like a ride. The three players and their caddies climbed on and were driven to the next tee. That decision cost all three a two-stroke penalty and may have cost Wilson Furr his job.

What a stupid, insane sport. You can read the rest of the story on Ryan French’s new website.

One Thing I Loved

A moment, quote, sidebar or tidbit I enjoyed thinking about this week.

On Saturday evening at the Zurich Classic, Keith Mitchell was asked if he and partner Sungjae Im would change their strategy going into Sunday as they tried to chase down Beau Hossler and Wyndhaam Clark. Here’s what Mitchell said.

“Zero. Laser beams and smiles.”

It was endearing, wholesome content that deserves its own t-shirt at some point. But it was something else he said about Sungjae that made me stop and think.

“The guy has proven he's one of the best players in the world. He's only 25 years old, and the fact he's only won twice, I think is underrated for how good his game is. Being 25, being his fifth year on Tour, and this amount of talent, I think we're going to see a Hall of Famer in the future.”

You could make the case that Sungjae, given his age, how much he plays and his level of success, is going to earn more money than any golfer who’s ever played on the PGA Tour. But a hall of famer?

Here are his comps on Data Golf at this age.

OK, so maybe it’s a little crazy for somebody who has only won a Honda and a Shriners, but it’s not that crazy.

There are a ton of guys who get overlooked all the time when we talk about the best players in the world, and Sungjae is definitely one of them. His numbers are nasty, though (see below), and he has three top 16s in four Masters starts (including two top 10s). I think he’s a real 10-win, 1-major or 2-major threat over the next 10 years, which … would probably be a HOF career.

It’s worth reheating this Rapaport piece from last year about Sungjae’s military exemption. Clear the way for that man next year in Paris as he tries to bring a medal home to exempt him from returning to Korea to serve in the military.

And if he does make it into the hall of fame eventually? I have only one request for the plaque …

Question of the Week

I enjoyed this from Jamie Kennedy, who is one of my favorite people in golf.

It’s an extremely difficult question that, for me, has one no-brainer (Seve), one mostly no-brainer (Faldo) and then …… it depends on your taste. Do you want one of the founding fathers (Vardon, Braid, Taylor [gestures at the Morris family]), or do you go more modern with Langer, JMO, Monty or Woosie?

Do majors matter? Does the Ryder Cup matter? Where does Rory fit in? Where does Sergio fit in? Rahm is going to be on it eventually, so should we just put him on there now? Every question has another question.

If I have to choose — and I don’t, but I will — my Euro Rushmore would look like this.

Seve
Faldo
Vardon (he gets the nod over the other founding fathers because he won a U.S. Open in addition to a bucket of Opens)
Langer

To be clear, this is not a list of the best Euro players ever. I think Rory and Rahm are fundamentally better than probably everyone on this list. Instead, it’s a list of the most impactful.

Seve, Faldo and Langer were in the mix during a very formative, important time for European golf. And while you could argue that Rose, Sergio and Westy were more successful in terms of Ryder Cups, I’m not sure any of those guys would exist without Seve, Faldo and Langer going before them.

Rory is pretty close to taking Langer’s spot in my mind — another major would probably do it (definitely a Masters). I’ve argued (several years ago) that he’s already the best European golfer in history and given his involvement in the Tour-LIV brouhaha (among other things he’s been involved in), he’ll certainly go down as one of the most impactful.

It’s hard to see Seve getting upended here. Rahm could get Vardon or Faldo (or Rory), but for somebody to bump Seve on a Euro Rushmore, I’m not even sure what they would have to do. Win 10 majors? Win eight straight Ryder Cups? Win the Master while also broadcasting it?

Culturally, I’m just not even sure it’s possible anymore because the Euro Tour has become more or less a feeder into the PGA Tour. Its importance, its prominence is not what it once was and likely never will be again.

Lastly, this got me good.

Media Diet

👉️ The RBC Heritage got 4M viewers in the final round. You choose to believe in the Full Swing Corollary or the Elevated Events Effect. I choose to believe Jordan Spieth was in the mix and people just want to feel something.

👉️ What are you more surprised by in this Data Golf analysis of the 2022-23 PGA Tour season? That Tony Finau is playing better golf than Rory McIlroy. That Rickie Fowler is playing better golf than Cam Young. Or that Matt Kuchar is playing better golf than Sam Burns. According to DG’s true strokes gained metric, all of those statements are true this season.

👉️ Sean Zak on JT turning 30 is so good. This quote from JT definitely stood out: “I have zero sympathy for people who bitch about things they can do something about.”

👉️ Alan Shipnuck writes about Phil, LIV and what happened last summer and gets this incredible anonymous quote from another LIV player about Phil visiting Jeddah: “I’m pretty sure by the end of the week he could have been elected mayor of King Abdullah City, if they actually held elections over there.”

👉️ A good explanation of Tiger’s surgery by an actual doctor.

👉️ Matt Fitzpatrick says the quiet part out loud: Don’t point the finger at Cantlay and Co. Point it at the Tour.

Also worth remembering here.

The Infirmary

True sicko behavior within the golf community.

Rick Gehman makes another appearance by noting that he definitely didn’t spend $1,000 on this ANGC hat on eBay but that he thought about it for longer than he should have.

This actually reminded me of the insane hat Gordon Sargent was wearing in a video I was watching of him on Friday night after I got the kids down.

Friday night in your 20s: Out with the boys.
Friday night in your 30s: Studying Gordon Sargent’s ludicrous transition at the top after getting the boys down.

By the Numbies

74: In his last 89 rounds, Jon Rahm has gained strokes on the field in 74 of them. Given the caliber of tournaments he plays in, that just cannot happen. Also, think about how good Rahm has been over the last 12 months — seven wins in 24 starts — and then remember Tiger Woods once gained strokes on the field in 89 consecutive rounds from 1999-2000.

So he basically did what Rahm has done, except he didn’t shoot the 73 in the first round of the BMW Championship Rahm shot or the 76 in the third round at Bay Hill. He beat the average score from the best fields on the planet 89 times in a row.

Flagged

Quotes worth thinking about.

“Opportunity can be luck, but you still have to nail the opportunity and you still have to put real thought into it. You still have to give a shit. The thing I’ve learned over everything is the people who give a shit are the ones who succeed.” -Bill Simmons talking about his journey on How I Built This

I feel fairly conflicted about Simmons’ view on luck vs. skill. Obviously he was talented, but he wasn’t talented enough to have influenced everyone who came up behind him to the degree that he did. A lot of that was marrying the right person at the right time in the right industry.

What I don’t feel conflicted is the part about how the ones who succeed are the ones who care. I’ve talked about that in this newsletter before with a nod to Roger Angell’s phrase about the business of caring. It’s a rarer trait than I naively (?) imagined when I was younger.

It’s a good business to be in, though, because people can tell when you care about something, and when people can tell when you care about something, you will have their attention for as long as you can keep it.

Ultimately that’s business, right? Getting people’s attention for as long as our skillset or talent will allow us to keep it and trying to solve their problems (however big or small they might be) while you have it.

 Meme of the Week

Not sure this qualifies as a meme, but I enjoyed this from Claire highlighting the Baker’s Bay Boys running it back, this time as married men with two kids between them.

Here are the numbers by the way … if that Spieth putt had dropped at Harbour Town, it would have been perfect.

Total Tour wins before SB2K17: 17
Total Tour wins since SB2K17: 16

How is This App Free?

This one has been tweeted several times, and it will never not get me. It’s so stupid and hilarious and perfect.

Soly is obviously very good at Twitter, and one of the reasons for that is because his memory or his ability to search and find good analogies quickly is peerless.

This was a response to me when I tweeted the Chase Koepka hole in one from LIV Adelaide. It’s extremely my wheelhouse and made me laugh pretty hard.

Love Your Work

You may or may not follow MKBHD on YouTube. If you do, great, if you don’t, you should. He’s a tech reviewer (who is also kinda into golf!), and I would say he and Ben Thompson are for sure on the post-2010 Online Creator Rushmore.

Anyway, he partnered with a company recently to make a shoe, which dropped this week. Shoes have [checks notes] nothing to do with technology, but because MKBHD has built up an audience that loves him and his work, he’s able to point them in the direction of cool stuff he’s making (even if it isn’t in the tech industry).

Perhaps this is obvious, but this is the future of commerce. It seems odd now that a tech YouTuber would sell a shoe on Twitter, but it won’t seem odd at all in 15 years.

In a world where you can aggregate attention with the click of a few buttons, those who build the most successful businesses will build businesses on top of the attention and/or fandom they have aggregated. If you don’t believe me, watch this interview with the woman who started Blogilates and then turned it into two (two!) eight-figure fashion businesses.

✌️

I’m going on vacation next week (nbd), and recently asked for book recommendations. If you have any, feel free to add to this thread or just reply to this email.

Thank you and talk to you next week right before I leave.