The Worst Words I've Got

Edition No. 25 | August 29, 2023

Hey,

If you’re looking for JT content, it’s everywhere. Just not in this newsletter today. That’s mostly because I finished this edition before the picks dropped, and I have to go prepare for the takes after ZJ announces that he’s going to be on the team …

I’ll have plenty on that pick and the entire U.S. team later this week, perhaps even a special edition newsletter evaluating the U.S. chances of adding Michael Block as an assistant captain picks from every angle.

Onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

I loved this answer from Viktor Hovland on Sunday about improvement.

“I will say I'm a pretty analytical person and I do like to try new things because it's fun. You never know what's going to be on the other side of that door. But it's not like I try new things willy-nilly and usually there's at least a somewhat reasonable hypothesis before you try something new. And I give it a couple chances. ‘Okay, it didn't work out. We'll scrap that.’

“But if you see an improvement it's like, ‘Okay, hang on, we're on to something. Let's go down this rabbit hole and see where it leads.’" I've been very beneficial having smart people around me that are able to at least guide me down the smart rabbit holes and not get lost in the perimeters.”

A prerequisite of the curiosity Hovland is referencing which can lead to improvement is humility because humility leads to the fearlessness necessary to try new things.

We know this to be true because we see it play out with our kids (or our nieces and nephews). They are not humble (or mine rarely are), but they are fearless, and this fearlessness leads to a curiosity. As you get older and more fearful, the path to regaining curiosity is by obtaining humility.

My friend Sean Martin recently referenced this very thing when discussing the famous Hovland “I suck at chipping” video.

That’s what I mean by humility leading to fearlessness and thus curiosity. Here’s another great quote from SMartin’s great gamer on Sunday about Hovland. It underscores the point.

“For a lot of athletes, myself included, it's hard to be curious because you're afraid of losing what you have,” said Hovland’s countryman, Marius Thorp, a former DP World Tour player who now calls Hovland’s shots for his many fans back in Norway.

Incidentally, curiosity and fearlessness are related but also both independently beneficial when it comes to golf. We see the curiosity because Hovland talks about it, but we see the fearlessness when he slams the door on great players in big moments. Again, it is humility that led him to a learned fearlessness.

“I try not to think of [losing majors to Cam Smith and Brooks Koepka] as a disappointment and things that are going to hold me back and haunt me for the rest of my life. It's just, ‘Okay, I had an opportunity and it didn't work out. What can I take from that experience and come back and change that the next time I have that opportunity.’”

There is a unique equilibrium to Hovland. He has a humility that leads to fearlessness and curiosity BUT ALSO he has a self-awareness uncommon among successful, wealthy athletes. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.

This combination is both a reason he is great but also a reason he is seemingly nearly universally beloved. It’s a collection of character qualities that are rare for normal 25-year-olds, much less 25-year-olds in Hovland’s position.

Normal Moment(s)

All very routine sports stuff.

1. A Bug’s Life II

For the second week in a row we got bug on a golf ball content. Last week, it was Rory trying to remove an insect with a tee. This week, Ted Scott tried to pull a gnat away from Scheffler’s Titleist with a Larabar. Normal stuff.

2. Broomstick Putters for $800

Here in Dallas, the third round of the Tour Championship got knocked off for a Raiders-Cowboys preseason game in which Aidan O’Connell and Will Grier were the quarterbacks. Sure.

The third quarter of the supposed Super Bowl of golf bumped for the actual preseason of football.

What amused me about that, though, is that the golf got moved to a channel that was supposed to be showing Jeopardy.

I laughed when I thought about how some Jeopardy addict was going to flip on his or her show looking for questions and answers about the War of 1812 and Famous Belgian Books and instead would receive two hours of folks gushing about how a man in orange pants was “flushing” a white sphere and how the guy who made $21 million this year might need to “see someone” to help with something called a short game.

3. T1.

It’s kind of incredible to see written down. After several hundred players hit over a million shots in 47 tournaments across 11 months, the season ending event to determine who eventually emerges from that group as the ultimate champion … ended in a tie.

I get that this is not how it actually went. I also sympathize with the Tour, which has no good time of year and no great solution for its playoffs. But both of those things can be true AND it can still be hilarious that this event ended with two players at T1.

The Bengals and 49ers scoring the same number of points in the Super Bowl, and everybody going home as soon as the final whistle blows. But for golf.

By the Numbies

326.3: It somewhat strangely flew under the radar, but Rory destroyed Bryson’s 2021 average driving distance record of 323.7 yards by nearly 3 yards. This season was the longest Rory has ever been off the tee and the longest anyone in history has ever been for an entire PGA Tour season.

Perhaps even more incredible is how far ahead of second and third Rory finished. Brandon Matthews got second at 321.2 yards, and Cam Young took bronze at 316.9.

According to my fancy little strokes gained chart an email from Mark Broadie, a 10-yard advantage is worth around .05 strokes on a 490-yard hole. Do the math (14 drives, four rounds), and all of a sudden Rory is three shots up across an entire tournament on everyone not named Brandon Matthews.

Idea of the Week

Some great ones this week, headlined by Porath’s call for a Ryder Cup debate. Can you imagine Jim Nantz in the Chris Wallace spot grilling Keegan Bradley on his 2023 major performance, asking Sam Burns why he went 0-3-2 at Quail Hollow and throwing it to a Zoom screen so that JT can gesticulate about Paris. Would watch. Honestly, would be extremely compelling.

I’m not sure what needs to change as it relates to the PGA Tour’s playoffs, but it’s clear that something needs to. There’s just so little juice, such a tiny amount of oomph that would never fly in the playoffs of another sport. This idea from Jake Nichols would never be entertained on the TV side — which is a reminder that marrying entertainment and competition is extremely difficult — but it’s an idea that I’m fairly compelled by.

Question of the Week

We need an “obscure and very specific golfers” bracket including East Lake Xander, Thursday at Augusta Hoffman, Hatless Rory, Brookline Fitzpatrick, Scottsdale Hideki, Olympics Sabbatini, Binder Clip Phil, First Round Keegan and of course Bermuda Burns.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ This Phil Mickelson Masters story is incredible. I miss Phil being around at an age where he would almost certainly veer more often into tales like these.

👉️ These PGA Tour Player of the Year poll results surprised me. Rahm is the fairly obvious choice for POY, but I thought the competition for second would be closer. Hovland is running away with it, but I don’t think he’s who I would vote for.

👉️ If you love personal stories about golf success, you should read this one from Shane Ryan.

👉️ If you missed this Sam Burns shot on Saturday, it’s incredible. The coldest of tops (although many folks are attempting to convince me he’s doing some sort of drill where he’s trying to top the ball? Is that a thing?!)

👉️ Madden and Summerall, Miller and Morgan, Patrick and Olbermann. Add a new duo to the list.

How is This App Free?

Perfection here.

If you understand this tweet or any of this Shotgun Start shirt then you almost certainly have a problem.

One of the great tweets of our time.

I felt this intensely.

Meme of the Week

If you didn’t see the Norwegian duo call Hovland’s 28 at the BMW in the clip above, the below is part of the translation.

Alternative usage: Me and Soly on Friday afternoon when Sepp Straka and Adrian Meronk shoot 31 on the back in alternate shot to beat Brooks and Morikawa 5 and 3 while Straka sprays large swaths of Romans with all the Diet Coke Luke Donald can find.

What I’m Interested In

Here’s something nobody in my world talks about.

C.S. Lewis — probably not a lot of C.S. Lewis-Jason Fried crossover content! — somewhat famously avoided typewriters for the sake of rhythm.

When Lewis dictated letters to me, he always had me read them aloud afterwards. He told me that in writing letters, as well as books, he always “whispered the words aloud.” Pausing to dip the pen in an inkwell provided exactly the rhythm needed.

Lewis avoided a typewriter, not primarily for the noise of the typewriter, but primarily for the rhythm of the dip pen. The dip pen created the quiet space Lewis needed to speak and edit and sharpen and shape his next four or five words.

This is a concept I think about more often than I should. I don’t do it every day, but when I throw the headphones on at a major and I’m desperate to find something special, I almost always find myself writing to a beat or a rhythm.

The one I remember most is the final round of the 2022 Open about the romance of the Old Course and the tremendous heartbreak it can bring about. I don’t know if other people even notice, but I can almost hear the beat when I go back and re-read that. Inside baseball here, for sure, but if you’re interested then I presume you’re really interested. And if not, then feel free to scream out ALL THE WORST WORDS YOU’VE GOT!