Thomas Levet's Soft Arms

Edition No. 32 | September 19, 2023

Hey,

A question that some friends and I were discussing last week at a local high school football game we all took our kids to: Could 10 dads (ages 30-40) beat a mediocre local high school football team if Patrick Mahomes was the dads’ quarterback?

Feel free to steal and discuss with your friends.

My answer at the bottom.

Onto the news.

But first

At some point over the last nine months — in the process of building the newsletter you are reading — newsletters became my primary outlet for learning. I can’t get enough of them. Business, money, health and of course golf.

One newsletter I have developed a lover for in that time is Jon Sherman’s Practical Golf. I’m not a big “here are 10 ways to drop four shots off your handicap” guy, but Jon writes about how to improve your game in such a personal, meaningful way that I can’t stop reading.

You should subscribe to his newsletter. You’ll certainly think about your own golf differently.

He also offers a free chapter from his book about hitting driver better (which I need given that I’ve sworn off driver for the rest of 2023 and have been hitting 3 iron-3 iron-8 iron on par 5s) that will get you signed up for the newsletter as well.

However you do it, start reading Jon.

Normal Moment(s)

All very routine sports stuff.

1. Plank Space

I have no idea if he is stretching his oft-ailing back or if this is actually AimPoint Express 3.0, but this no-context screenshot of Danny Willett made me chuckle.

2. Oh, you too?

When I read the tweet below …

… the famous C.S. Lewis quote on friendship came to mind: Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden).

The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

3. Nitworth

It doesn’t get a lot of attention, but playing an outdoor sport without lights is a pretty interesting move in 2023. Also, how did BMW miss this opportunity to encircle the 18th green with its cars and their headlights?

4. Yoda Pose

I have absolutely no context for where this was, when it happened or what it meant. Which is perfect. It also endlessly amuses me that when someone watching golf sees something ridiculous like a Yoda statue (?) at a golf course, their first reaction is to put it on the internet and tag some person in Texas that they’ve never met because they know it will make him laugh.

What tremendous branding I have done.

One Thing I Loved

Sahith Theegala winning Napa with his dad going bonkers in the gallery reminded me of their poignant interaction after Phoenix last year.

Here’s what Sahith said during his Full Swing episode about breaking down and crying in his 2022 Phoenix presser after missing out on the Scheffler-Cantlay playoff by a shot.

“A lot of people, you temper your own emotions, and my dad has always been like, ‘Why? Why would you temper your own emotions? You should show when you’re angry. You should show when you’re sad. That makes the happy moments that much better.’

“Yeah, just trying to be more like my father.”

It’s such terrific life advice that is so difficult to live out because, well, who wants to be seen crying on national television over golf?

Shortly after he spoke, Sahith was shown falling into the embrace of his father, Murli, who repeatedly told him, “I’m really proud of you.”

And I’m quite curious about this interaction.

Was Murli telling Sahith that he was proud of him at Phoenix last year because he tied Brooks Koepka for second in an actual professional golf event, or because Sahith had heeded his father’s wisdom in the moment and embraced the emotion that comes with truly caring about something?

Or perhaps it was both?

All humans have similar desires. And most men I know — myself included — are, at the most basic level, just sons attempting to make our fathers proud.

The compelling and interesting part of the Theegala story is that Murli seems like the type of father who is simply proud to be a father, regardless of whether or not his son goes on to get a master’s … or maybe even win one.

“I think at first it was hard for maybe some of my family and even friends to understand why I was trying to chase playing professional golf,” said Sahith.

“Seems like kind of a pipe dream, but my dad had my back the whole time. He just believed in me from the start and knew that this could be a thing. It's tough not to get emotional just thinking about everything he's done.

“He's always had my back, even through my wrist surgery in 2018 and '19 thinking I might never play again, him just having my back and keep on pushing me. He was really hard on me, but also one of my best friends.

“Always told me to have fun, the main thing was to just enjoy it, because if you don't enjoy it, there's no purpose in doing it, life's too short. Yeah, it was just such a right combination.”

A worthy (but difficult) goal in the life of any parent is the pursuit of relationship with your child as an adult. And while I don’t know the minutia of Sahith’s relationship with his own dad — it could be terrible behind the scenes! — it is notable that Sahith would cite him in both victory and defeat.

It is notable that he would turn to his father for how to handle the latter and express his appreciation for how he helped him toward the former.

That speaks to the type of person Sahith is, for sure, but it also seems to speak to the type of person he is emulating. The one who is joyful for his son in victory, and also the one who is still proud of him in defeat.

NS3 Preview

I’m going to start dropping mini nuggets from NS3 into the newsletter to get you hyped for what we’re building for the end of the year. Stuff you probably forgot about (which I know because I forgot about it, and it’s my job to not forget about it).

Here’s one from the Rory-Reed tee incident in January.

Rahm won Palm Springs over Davis Thompson after a late putt hit the stick and bounced out. Normal stuff. Rahm played his first eight rounds of the year 54 under par. For all the consequential moments that took place in golf in January, the most absurd thing that happened went down in Dubai when a grown man indignantly threw a 1.5-inch stick of wood at the feet of another man and stomped off with all the self-righteousness he could muster.

I’m not even out of January, and I’ve already encountered 50 things I forgot about.

Another Thing I Loved

Ludvig’s “I don’t even know better” vibe has me concerned about Rome. Like, “He might be on a team that beats Scottie Scheffler two and a half times” concerned.

For me, it all goes back to the canonical Padraig Harrington quote from the 2021 PGA Championship about innocence and experience.

“Well, as you gain experience, you lose innocence. I suppose if you drew a graph, there's a crossing point of equilibrium where you have some experience and a certain amount of innocence and enthusiasm.

“As you get a little bit older and you get all this experience, on paper people might think you get better with experience, but as I said, you've seen a few things that you know in your game that you probably never wanted to see, so you kind of lose that little bit of, I suppose, innocence. It's not everything it's cracked up to be to have experience.”

So I drew a graph with Ludvig on it.

The problem for the U.S. is that the very spot where Ludvig is on the graph is exactly where you want your generational rookie — on a team with 11 other guys who are either in the middle circle or just outside of it — to be.

Panic is the wrong word for what I’m feeling.

Trepidation might not be.

By the Numbies

35%: Here’s a stunner from Jamie Kennedy: From 2000-2010, Tiger won 34 percent of the events he played in. But in his Ryder Cup career, he has only won 35 percent of his matches.

In other words, it was equally as difficult for him to beat 155 other players in a stroke play event in his prime as it was for him to beat one or two others in a match play event over the course of his career.

On one hand, this makes sense. Players like Tiger win the long game. If you threw the best version of every player in history into a 10,000-hole golf tournament, Tiger would probably win by 100. Also, the variable of having a teammate at an event like the Ryder Cup mitigates both his talent and intimidation.

On the other hand, that is completely insane statistic that makes no sense whatsoever! It was just as easy for Tiger in his prime to beat 155 golfers as it was for him to beat one or two others?! How is that possible?!

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ The worst pro-am partner ever is amazing.

👉️ Bamberger on lunch with Lucas Glover and Brian Koppelman in New York was really good. I loved this line: Lucas listened attentively. He’s a plus-four listener.

👉️ Missed this last week, but KVV on the JT gamble is great.

👉️ Speaking of newsletters … this on how Lenny Rachitsky got to 500,000 subscribers on his newsletter on product and growth is excellent.

How is This App Free?

Not even sure what to say here. The toughest scene for me.

This got me good. Imagine flying across the Atlantic with a framed photo of a professional golfer in your bag.

Self-serving here, but part of the magic of Twitter for me is when you get a glimpse into what is more or less a performative version of our group chats and text threads.

As a self-proclaimed elite look-alike identifier, I am in awe of this comp.

Meme of the Week

This could get some run as both a video and photo during the Ryder Cup.

Here’s the video.

And the photo.

Rohm

I’m going to try and include Ryder Cup news and nuggets leading into the festivities. Today’s: Imagine this story by Mark Rolfing, which happened at the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah, happening in Rome in 2023.

Things had gotten real, to put it mildly. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to foresee the matches going down to the wire. With that in mind, I picked up Irwin and Langer late in their front nine.

Two things became clear: This match would decide the Cup, and par would be a good score on any hole coming in. On the par-5 16th, both made wizardly up-and-downs for par, leaving Irwin 1 up as they moved to the par-3 17th.

Always fearsome, that hole was playing especially tough that day, long and into a strong wind quartering from the left. Langer, with a long iron, tugged his tee shot, but the ball hit a spectator (we could see that in the replay) and wound up in a hollow just left of the green. Irwin, playing a fairway wood, also started his tee shot left, trying to bring it back with his patented fade.

That’s how I called it on the air, anyway. The TV cameras told a different story. Seconds later, they showed a ball landing on the right side of the green, coming to a stop some 15 feet behind the pin. Roars erupted.

“What a golf shot!” Johnny Miller said from the tower, as we cut to commercial. Except that it wasn’t. When we returned from break, our cameras picked up Irwin playing his second from the left side of the green, close to where Langer’s shot landed. The ball on the green wasn’t Irwin’s. Some joker in the crowd had tossed it there, but we never mentioned it on TV. I can only imagine how confusing that must have been for viewers at home.

We have come a long way.

Related: If the 2023 event comes down to one match, who do you want to see?

The Infirmary

This one destroyed me. It was a response to the NLU tweet above comparing Thomas Levet and Eric Cole. Imagine seeing that tweet and thinking to write the following collection of words.

Answer from the Top

I said no, 10 dads could not beat a mediocre local high school team even if Patrick Mahomes was our quarterback. Mostly because the dads would incur so many injuries that Mahomes would not only be doing everything on his own but with only 5-6 healthy players on his team by halftime.