Edition No. 77 | April 23, 2024

Hey,

I want to declare that I, too, have won four of my last five events.

• Yahtzee against all four kids: 1st

• Chutes and Ladders against the 4-year-old: 1st

• Monopoly Deal against the three oldest: T3

• Spades against the two oldest (team event): 1st

• Chess against the 10-year-old: 1st

Not that hard of an accomplishment.

Onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

Some day I’ll get tired of writing about Scottie Scheffler.

Today is not that day.

I thought a lot over the weekend about what he’s currently doing. There are so many different ways to dissect it (which we’ll get to in a moment). But on a personal level, I felt immense gratitude for my personal front row seat to something so special.

I never covered the Cat because I was in high school and college when he was really rolling. Rory’s run happened in the first year or two after I got this job at CBSSports.com. I was too busy trying to figure out my 401K options and whether the correct term was in fact “plotting” or “plodding” your way around the course¹ to truly appreciate what he was doing.

Spieth’s 2015 was the first time I was not a complete fool about what was going on, but I was still illiterate when it came to the historical implications of the situation. Brooks’ dominance has never been sustained week over week like this.

So this is arguably the first time that a player has entered the “they’re gonna write books — wait, maybe I’m gonna write books — about this dude” stratosphere since I have 1. Been at this job and also 2. Been anything resembling competent at this job.

That’s a thrill for me.

And I know Scottie is an acquired taste for some.

Here’s a thread that got tossed my way over the weekend.

These are not unique takes. They exist inside my friend groups, inside golf media and even inside my own home (though I refuse to disclose the culprit!). However, my challenge to you — and this is something that Joesph LaMagna and I text about a lot — is to go listen to a Scheffler press conference. He’ll do one next time he plays, whenever that is, and he’ll be asked a wide array of questions.

The way he answers them discloses the mind of a person who does not presume his own success entitles him to anything beyond what he has already achieved. You will also find someone who takes his craft seriously but does not take himself seriously. Someone who prepares deeply but doesn’t think too much. Somebody who cares a lot but doesn’t squeeze too tight.

What you will hear is the mindset of a champion.

And listen, I get it. He doesn’t roar or scream or fist pump as often as we would like. He plays boring golf, which is often synonymous with great golf (looking at you, Jordan). He almost seems shy and introverted, which is not what we want from our heroes.

We crave emotional killers because it gives us something to hang our own feelings upon. We don’t know what to do with silent greatness.

I’m not trying to convince you that Scottie is somebody to be rooted for as much as he is somebody to be learned from. I love listening to him talk and watching him play. I either take away something new and different or I am reminded of enduring truths. There is a brilliance in his care of the tedious, mundane acts of a golf round or tournament.

Most of life is monotonous. Most of us are carried along it like empty rafts on a raging river.

Scottie, conversely, talks almost every week about being present where he is at. I think him being Very Not Online is a cheat code.

“[Tiger’s] short game is otherworldly,” said Max Homa recently. “The array of shots he has is more than I've probably seen anyone have. That was just over a two-day span. I find that to be something I would love to somehow figure out how to do. His commitment to each shot he hits, that's something I think Scottie is tremendous at.”

Commitment, discipline, care and love (see below) are not qualities that we revere because they are not gifts we can necessarily see like we can see roped 3 irons. But they are, at least in this case, the engine behind those gifts being put on display.

Scottie was asked last week about whether the average golf fan likes golf less or more because of all the PGA Tour-LIV stuff. I thought his answer was lovely.

It's not about anything other than wanting to witness something great and enjoying the competition.

Greatness doesn’t always look like we thought it would.

But that doesn’t make it any less brilliant.

By the Numbies

30 — That’s how many rounds Scottie has shot in the 60s this year. The other nine were 70 (6x), 71 (2x) and 72 (1x). Thirty-nine consecutive rounds at or under par to open 2024. And he’s -659 in his last 60 events.

I wrote more about the absurdity of these numbers for CBS Sports this week.

Also, he and Nelly have lost to one human in their last 10 combined starts. And as Claire Rogers has pointed out, this is maybe the only photo we have of them together.

Which I believe makes Stephen Jäger …

Normal Sport

Here are this week’s normal moments.

1. Pro golf is often — when you really think about what is happening — completely insane. This week’s version of that?

Russ Cochran, who is 65 (!), is playing the Zurich Classic with Eric Cole. This series of tweets explains it better than I could. Normal sport.

2. The sentences below are absolutely incredible.

Grown men from Australia, Arkansas and Wales lift their voices in song during the million-dollar Sun City Challenge tournament in Bophuthatswana, lending the event a touch of class.

3. Nikola Jokic throwing a pass off the big scoreboard hanging at midcourt and Jamal Murray catching and playing it as if it was no big deal. That’s what happened on this shot from Jasmine Koo.

4. I thought Caitlin Clark was wearing a LIV letterman jacket in this episode of SNL. Send help.

Quote of the Week

This week’s quote is brought to you by Michael Scott.

“I love golf.”
-Tiger Woods
-Rory McIlroy
-Scottie Scheffler

Here’s Tiger before the Masters: “I love golf. I do. I've always loved it. I played other sports growing up, but I just have always loved this sport. I love to compete. And be able to have the love I have for the game and the love for competition be intertwined, I think that's one of the reasons why I've had a successful career. I just love doing the work. I love logging the time in, and I love preparing. I love competing, and I love that feeling when everything's on fire with a chance to win and you either you do or you don't.”

Rory after the Masters: “I'll take a week off, playing Quail Hollow, play the PGA, take another week off, then play another four in a row. Loving golf at the moment. Loving it.”

Scottie after RBC Heritage: “I love the feeling of a well-struck golf shot. I love this game. I love going out and practicing by myself. I love playing golf, gambling at home with people, just messing around. The game of golf has been a huge part of my life now for a long time, and Lord-willing it'll be part of my life for a long time going forward, as well.”

These three run the full gamut of success in golf right now. Tiger is just trying to make cuts. Rory is playing well-ish but has not really contended much. And Scottie is the reaper. To hear them all the same thing is eye opening.

Collectively, how many swings must this trio have taken? How many golf balls must they have hit? There is a childlikeness to the way they talk about the game that … I just don’t know if you can go obtain that.

I think it has to be built in. Regardless, for the rest of us who have felt the things Scottie described above, this is delightful to see.

Quote of the Week II

"There's a key in the simplicity that I have when I play it. I honestly just take it a shot at a time, and we pick a game plan when we get to the golf course and we work and we stay in our own little bubble. It's been working so far. I feel like golf can get overcomplicated, and there's a key to the simplicity of it."

-Nelly Korda

I loved that. It’s the same thing Scottie has been saying recently. Think about how pros like Spieth (or whoever) talk about the swing and the game when it’s not going that well. Like it’s astrophysics. Like it’s something no human could ever conceivably figure out. Then look at how these two talk about it. Like it’s so simple a child could understand it immediately.

There is beauty in a thing that is simultaneously so complicated you could spend the rest of your life trying to understand it but also so simple that it can be summed up in one or two sentences.

Data Golf Corner

New section from me this week. I know the deep dive Data Golf stuff isn’t for everyone so I decided to give it its own little space here. I was looking for something over the weekend and stumbled into this tweet from last summer where I wondered aloud if Scottie was about to go on a Tiger-in-2006 run.

I was almost a year early, but there is a lesson in there: The reason you kept hearing — sometimes annoyingly so! — folks like me, Rick Gehman and Chris Solomon yell about Scottie’s strokes gained numbers is because they have been so abnormal that it would be nearly impossible to maintain them and not win at the rate he’s currently winning.

Sure, you always have to make a few putts to win, but consider the fact that Scottie was 37th in putting last week, which is fine but certainly not amazing and the worst among players who finished in the top nine.

And he won by three.

Let’s go deeper.

Since January 1, he’s 69th among the top 150 players in the world in putting. He’s gaining about one shot per tournament on the field with his putter. That’s certainly not terrible but it’s also not great. He’s won four times and finished in the top 10 nine times in 10 events.

This — this winning without even putting great, just average — is exactly why we’ve been yelling.

What If …

I thought about this when Spieth and Scheffler were paired together last week at RBC Heritage.

What if I would have paused your TV after 63 holes of the 2016 Masters and told you the following statements.

1. In 2024, it will be true that a University of Texas golfer from Dallas who played on a Walker Cup team and won the U.S. Junior Amateur will have two green jackets in the last 10 years.

2. This person’s name will not be Jordan Spieth.

How improbable and insane would those statements have been at this very moment?

The Infirmary

I got this email from Wesley W. the other day.

It got me pretty good.

Extraordinary (and extraordinarily strange) stuff.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I enjoyed this Warren Buffett at Pebble Beach story (probably not what you think).

👉️ Jamie Kennedy normalized Tiger’s 2000 season to 2024 dollars and found out that he would have won … $92.3M.

👉️ Know how Min Woo makes those “let him cook” Insta videos? That’s what I say in my head when Tron gets behind the keyboard. Great stuff here, especially the parts about introspection on travel.

👉️ Perfect Putt is an excellent newsletter on the business of golf, and I found Jared’s most recent newsletter on country participation rates interesting and compelling.

👉️ I linked to this last week in passing, but Scottie went on a podcast with Ben Crane, William Kane and Webb Simpson the day after winning the Masters, and it was excellent.

👉️ My favorite thing about Tourist Sauce? I’ve convinced my wife it’s a travel show, and she’s way in. Too much golf, though.

Overheard on Twitter

“Get so sad when I finish my first coffee of the day. I will have a second one soon, but nothing beats your first. I had the whole day ahead of me when I was drinking that, the world was at my feet. Now I’m just some guy getting on with it.” -Mike Townsend

How is This App Free?

• This was so perfect.

• Perfect. No notes.

• 😊😊😊 

• Specific and spot on.

• Felt this one.

Love Your Work

There’s a guy I read that nobody talks about, maybe nobody knows about. I think he’s brilliant on media stuff and newsletters.

Here’s what he wrote this week.

Establishing trust this year in your name will ensure you have income in 10 years. I believe this deeply. It’s the way things have always been. It’s how they’ll always be. Not, Will you make me smarter? or Can you entertain me? No, it’s Do I trust that your heart is in this? Can I trust that you really care?

That matters now. It will matter more in the future.

Same as ever.

Thanks for reading until the end.

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

This tweet got me good.