Edition No. 83 | May 15, 2024

Hey,

All major weeks rule, but the PGA in particular has been bangers only over the last several years.

My pick this week?

I think (hope?) Scottie takes the slam to Pinehurst. We need something truly special to happen in golf right now, and even though Rory and Brooks winning would be up there, the tantalizing thought of a calendar year slam really brings the juice.

Onto the news.

One Thing Four Things I Loved

1. The Rory walk and talk on Saturday at Wells Fargo was excellent. His strategy off the tee on the drivable par 4 at Quail Hollow was straightforward but also cool to hear: “I hit 5 wood [off the tee] because I felt like my 3 wood could get into that greenside bunker on the right, and with the pin cut on the right side of the green I thought that was going to be a pretty tricky bunker shot.“

It’s one thing to hear a broadcaster hypothesize about why a player did something. It’s an entirely other thing for a player to say it out loud seconds after it happened. Combine that with CBS moving the camera to show the horizon Rory was pointing at, and it’s as additive a walk-and-talk segment as I’ve seen.

Golf is built perfectly for in-game insight like this. In other sports, you don’t necessarily want to voice out loud what you’re doing because, you know, the game is still going on and there are defenders defending and pitchers pitching. But in golf, it’s totally fine because what are you going to do, stop me from hitting this shot? Here’s the full segment if you didn’t see it.

2. Max had a great answer to a question about whether he was hopeful that Scottie becoming a dad would slow him down.

“You want to beat people at their best. He's making that incredibly difficult. I will say if there's one thing that could slow him down, it's parenthood. It's hard. I don't know if you can see I have a cut on my face from my son flying here on Monday, it's difficult.

“Scottie's frustratingly well rounded as a human being. He is a hard worker at golf, I know he's going to be an amazingly hard worker as a dad. I know he's going to dominate both.

“… Scottie's on track to be one of the best of all time. It will be a learning curve, but I mean, I don't hope it slows him down. Maybe once in a while when I'm in second place to him, that would be nice. Maybe I'll take that answer back. Yeah, I think you always want to beat the best when they're at their best, so he's giving us a really good target to aim for.”

It’s perhaps what everyone in that position would say, but I love that Max wants dogs to be dogs and he wants to convince himself that he’s one of them and can play with them even at their best.

Maybe it’s just been the last few years of some entitlement that’s wearing on me, but I love hearing from somebody who just wants to compete. There’s nothing better to watch than folks who are locked in at the highest level. It can be backyard ping pong, pop-a-shot, whatever. If people are excellent at what they do and completely dialed into it, I cannot get enough.

3. The idea of Cantlay and his crew boxing Rory out of a board seat and that leading to Rory going on a two-year run where he wins, say, seven times with two majors greatly amuses me.

To me, Rory has always been externally motivated. He’s stirred by what’s going on around him, and a dunk on Cantlay and Co. followed by 20 months of hanging on the rim would be the perfect ending – and honestly a worthy outcome – of him getting the Heisman from the board last week.

4. I wrote about this for CBS Sports on Monday, but the most underrated part of Rory’s career to me is his longevity. It’s extremely difficult to be a top 10 player for even two or three or four years, and Rory has been doing it for the better part of 14. I’ve been saying it since last summer, he’s having Phil’s career (maybe the inverse of Phil’s career), which means that he has a shot at becoming one of the 10-15 best golfers of all time.

It’s easy to lose sight of that, but consider the last time he went to Valhalla off a victory, Miguel Angel Jimenez was ranked in the top 30 in the world. Miguel Angel Jimenez is now 60 years old!

One Thing I Believe

I said this in response to a Jamie Kennedy post about Jack being underrated, but I think there’s a lot of Jack in who Scottie is and what he’s currently doing.

1. Boring, take-the-pin-out-of-consideration golf: Check.

2. Always involved no matter the course, no matter the major: Check.

3. Craves a home life that provides a foundation for his work life: Check.

4. Not beloved like some of his peers, even though he’s (a lot?) better than they are: Check.

That doesn’t mean Scottie is going to have Jack’s career, but it hopefully provides some historical context that engenders appreciation of exactly what he’s doing and what’s happening with him right now.

Fashion Show at Lunch

Listen, I get it.

The Malbon stuff is objectively cool, a two-word term that has never been used to describe me.

I’m not young enough, single enough nor fashionable enough to understand it (one quick point: neither is Jason Day!). But if you’re telling me that, yes, cargo pockets on pants are a good thing to be into because that’s what the trend is, then you know what, maybe I’m good with my H&B pullovers and pants. Thinking cargo pockets on pants is cool smells a lot like a trend you were told to be into but nobody actually likes or thinks looks good. Other things that fall into this group (I’m about to get way out over my skis).

• Baggy mom jeans

• Crocs

• Windshield wiper shades

• Sushi I have amended this take, good sushi is actually good

Also, the responses to Day’s outfit here absolutely destroyed me.

Quote of the Week

“If you look at some of the guys who have won here it's really elite golf IQ guys that think really well around the golf course and are able to kind of play their game, be really into what they're doing, but at the same time, think better than everyone.” -Stewart Hagestad

I was reading back over some Masters stuff recently, and I found this quote about ANGC from Big Stew. It’s a good one, and I think it explains why Tiger has thrived at ANGC and why Scottie has won two of the last three. They are elite thinkers and strategists. It also serves as a juxtaposition to this week’s golf at Valhalla.

Here’s JT.

“I just think that something about that there's not a lot of different ways to play the golf course.”

By the Numbies

Since Jan. 1, 2022 the unequivocal five best players in the world look like this.

Scottie Scheffler: 2.7
Rory McIlroy: 2.4
Jon Rahm: 2.2
Xander Schauffele: 2.2
Patrick Cantlay: 2.0

They are the only five golfers who are averaging over 2.0 strokes gained per round since then, and the sixth best (Viktor Hovland) is not really that close to Schauffele.

Now here they are ranked by non-team wins.

Scottie Scheffler: 11
Rory McIlroy: 7
Jon Rahm: 7
Xander Schauffele: 2
Patrick Cantlay: 1

This stat should be jarring if you’re Cantlay or Xander. A one-month or even one-year outlier is one thing, but these numbers tell a story that I’m guessing you either do not want told or wish wasn’t true. Perhaps that changes over the next few months, but – call me crazy – I’m pretty dubious.

Normal Sport

Here are this week’s normal moments.

1. I was watching this one live, and though it’s hard to tell, JT has those alignment sticks under each armpit, and they’re crossing at his hands to keep them boxed in on the ball.

Outrageous stuff, although not quite at a “Tony Finau at the Old Course” level yet.

2. This one got me good. Imagine Christian McCaffrey changing his socks and shoes on the field of play while the game is going on! Preposterous sport!

3. There is nothing more unnerving than walking at a tournament, arriving at a player’s ball and hearing a cameraman behind you coming around the bend like Yohan Blake toward the leader of the event.

Those people – especially if understaffed – absolutely get after it.

4. When the dude standing next to you is fun to cover but also may be the reason your UCL is in jeopardy.

5. Honestly though, is Johnson Wagner the most electric VT Hokie on television since Michael Vick?

Slideshow

Speaking of electric, how good is this throwback of Rocco? Also, how sick of a sponsorship is Sharpie, and how is that not a thing anymore? Sharpie should be plastered all over athletes!

Also, it’s hilarious that at the end of a round, a player’s caddie hands them three things.

1. Here is your $30,000 watch.

2. Here are four golf balls from the sponsor who pays you $400,000/ year

3. Here is your $1.79 mini Sharpie.

Normal stuff.

Also, I’m with ANGC Burner, this Jack and the Cat¹ photo is an all-timer. You could talk about how Valhalla 2000 was the torch pass and the baton handoff and then go 3,000 words backwards and 3,000 words forward about everything that led up to that event and everything that happened in the aftermath.

Or.

You could just show people that photo. It tells a thousand stories.

I had nowhere to put this, but I was reminded last weekend when Sepp Straka brought it up on the broadcast at Quail Hollow that he delivered maybe my favorite reaction of the last few years to a golf shot after Rory hit one of the nastiest shots I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch below (unless your email provider has blocked it as explicit content).

I have included a Sepp screenshot for your enjoyment as well.

Idea of the Week

This is not a new one, and you could do it a hundred different ways, but here’s a thread that got pulled on ahead of the PGA.

Maybe I’ll do a book at some point, weighting all the major wins to see who the true best players ever are.

Categories to included off the top of my head.

• How good was the venue?

• Who did you beat? Example: Rahm at Torrey

• How many shots did you gain on the field? Stenson at Troon

• Was it an all-time dual? Stenson at Troon

• Did you overcome something dramatic? Tiger at Torrey

• Was it historically relevant? Tiger’s 2019 Masters

• Did it require a memorable shot or putt? Phil’s 2010 Masters

I’ll get Jason to color code it and everything. We can all yell about that instead of who’s really running the policy board. Sounds a lot more fun.

Also, shout out to Tron for doing this in podcast form.

The Infirmary

This got me. Pulling clubs out of a sinkhole!

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I went on the Fried Egg pod to preview the PGA with Andy. It was a blast. We talked about everything from Stan Wawrinka to Bryson’s content boys.

👉️ This story from Ben Kaplan on Ernie Johnson’s kindness is unbelievable. So so good.

👉️ The sound alone here makes it worth the watch. Exquisite.

👉️ This on the most infamous stat combo on the history of on-air graphics is way funnier and better than I’m making it sound.

👉️ The smartest people in the room are all listening to the same podcast.

👉️ It sounds like RBC has had enough of the PGA Tour “flying the plane and building it at the same time.”

👉️ This story about taking a blind date to Tokyo is insane and strangely inspiring.

👉️ I find this pod about rich people getting honest on their wealth to be interesting in general, and specifically this episode with Mike Beckham, who started Simple Modern, was excellent.

👉️ This article remembering Chris Mortensen is incredibly well done. I flew through it. May we all aspire to be the kind of person who is competitive but humble at the same time.

Data Golf Corner

When Joseph LaMagna and I set out to build a golf website categorizing historical data (which is still out there but kind of just sitting around), one of its functionalities is something Data Golf implemented this week.

It’s simple – PGA Tour win percentage – but you would be surprised at how difficult this is to figure out without basically going to each player’s PGA Tour profile page and making your own spreadsheet.

That’s a ridiculous thing given how statistically driven pro golf is, but that is where we’ve been at for a long time. So I’m glad DG put this out there and glad they’re going to expand it to include European Tour events and others in the future.

Also, I think there’s so so so much more work to be done here, whether it’s by DG or somebody else. Golf has a long way to go as it relates to a proper documentation of its entire history. Maybe somebody can start pouring money into that instead of funneling it all to Pat Cantlay’s Chase account.

The reason I bring this up: Rory has a significantly (for our purposes) higher winning percentage than Scottie, and he’s been doing it twice as long. I’ve said it a hundred times (I literally said it earlier in this newsletter), but for a dozen reasons, his career got normalized and it sometimes takes something absurd – like Scottie winning four of five just to get within 2 percent of Rory’s number – to properly contextualize it.

How is This App Free?

• This got me good.

• Any Michael Scott comp is probably going to find its way into this newsletter.

• This is so perfect. Also feels like a personal attack.

• Yes.

• I approve the following message …

Love Your Work

I started thinking more about Brooks’ “go someplace a lot of guys can’t go” quote from last week in the context of my own work because I think bringing it into my world helps me understand where Brooks is coming from. I have never had to go to uncharted territory mentally to win a golf tournament, but I do understand what that’s like to write about one.

Perhaps that sounds silly – perhaps it is silly – but there is such a difference between putting a piece of writing on auto-pilot, which I have learned how to do decently, and giving yourself over to it. I can feel moments at majors or the Ryder Cup where I have to go to a place filled with thoughtfulness and emotion about a moment or an event that I don’t often visit.

Equal parts thrilling and dreadful, I can feel those moments coming. The ones where I have to truly give my heart over to something in a way that I know will produce something wonderful but will also exhaust me. That’s the good stuff. The stuff I know you love reading because I know I love writing it.

But it’s a difficult thing, and if I had to do it every day or even every week, I would want to find another profession.

I think sometimes we underrate the difficulty of winning big events (golf or otherwise) because we don’t consider the emotional toll it takes on you. We see this in NBA teams all the time, right? It’s physically brutal, sure, to try to go back to back or win three Finals in a row. But more than that, it is emotionally taxing in a way that’s tough to appreciate.

I feel that at times in my job, maybe you do as well. And while I’m grateful to get the ball – as it were – in big moments and at monstrous events, it’s also difficult to visit that place Brooks is talking about as often as I would like. Even though the stakes and the stage are different, going there does take so much out of you as a performer.

I feel that at every major, which is, perhaps counterintuitively, always such a delight.

Thanks for reading until the end.

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

Let’s have a major week!