Issue No. 139 | Dec. 20, 2024

Here’s the scene …

It’s a Wednesday afternoon exactly one week before Christmas. I now write emails for a living. My kids eat $20,000 worth of groceries every year. I need to somehow make all of this work. I’m standing in the middle of an arena that was a dirt field 18 months ago. There are lights flashing everywhere. Roberto Castro is pounding 4 irons into a screen the size of a water tower. Tron and I are getting steep on something. Mark Russell walks up, and Tron starts pressing him about digital TIO (!). A rotating putting green is spinning in the background. Russell starts enthusiastically informing us about Andrew Lupe’s high school basketball career. I turn 40 in like 10 weeks.

How in the world, I wonder as I’m standing there, did all (or any!) of this happen?

Onto several things I’ve been thinking about this week.

10 Golf-Adjacent Thoughts I Had This Week

1. Since about the third hole of Tuesday’s match, something has been rattling around in my brain. It’s a quote from Colin and Samir — who you guys know I love — who did an interview with a guy named Ali Abdaal, and it’s about how media gets made.

Here’s what Samir said.

“A format is the most powerful thing in media. Period. Finding a format is the whole thing, in my opinion. You look at some of the most powerful shows. Hot Ones. Hot Ones is a format. Sean Evans … can explain the format really well. I’m going to interview someone, and we’re going to eat progressively hotter and hotter wings.

“When you find a format, you can get better at that format, you can collaborate within that format, you can build a team around that format, you can build a brand around that format. Formats are the key that unlocks success in media.”

I would add to this quote that it’s not really enough to just find a format. That’s step one. Step two is that the format needs to actually be good. And I’m not sure any of these made-for-TV matches have reached the level of good formatting yet.

2. I don’t know how you can watch what transpired on Tuesday and not walk away feeling … bored, tired and uninspired. I like most of the guys playing, and I love covering all four of them. Generational type guys who are all fascinating in a different way.

Yep, that sums it up.

But the format is not good.

On Wednesday evening when I should have been writing this newsletter, I found myself watching Bryson and Tom Brady try to break 50 from like 4,400 yards.

This is a good format. But why is it good?

Two main reasons.

1. The format is excellent. It has a great hook. It’s packaged well but not too well. It’s short enough, fast enough and compelling enough. Bryson talks to his guests about any number of things. Within a great format, you can do anything.

2. I — and I cannot believe I’m saying this — actually care about the outcome.

You can have No. 1 without No. 2, but you absolutely cannot have No. 2 without also having No. 1. Bryson — against all odds (?!) — has created an outcome that I care about. I care about whether he and Brady can break 50 or get close. Not as much as I care who wins the Masters, but definitely leaps, bounds and galaxies more than I care about how much crypto Scottie was handed on Tuesday night.

3. This is The Match’s primary problem. I do not in any way care about the outcome. In all good reality television, the outcome matters to us, right? This is why we watch Survivor or the Bachelor or American Idol. We might not always be able to articulate it along the way, but we care at least a little about the outcome. It’s the same with a good book. You think mystery novels sell because the writing is good?

What was it Aaron Sorkin said?

Intention and obstacle.
Intention and obstacle.
Intention and obstacle.

You create intent in a character, and then you put an obstacle in their way. Said a different way … getting people to care about an outcome.

Think about the golf you love. The Masters. The Open. The Ryder Cup.

The Ryder Cup is actually a terrific example of what I’m talking about. It’s not necessarily played on great golf courses, but because you care deeply about the outcome, it always works. The PGA’s greatest asset is that people give a crap about the Ryder Cup. The PGA has built worlds on top of this singular truth.

LIV doesn’t work not because it has bad players or goes to bad courses. It doesn’t work because, buddy, I do not care about the outcome of LIV Jeddah.

Why in the world would I?

4. All of this begs the question — what actually makes us care about outcomes? This is probably the hardest question to answer in all of this, but it’s the only one the folks running any of this should be considering.

Here’s one problem: It’s very difficult for me to care about the outcome when I’m unconvinced that the people involved actually care about the outcome (this has been true with most — maybe all — of the matches).

Off the top of my head, here are three reasons I care about outcomes.

Curiosity in what happens (Breaking 50).
Empathy for the characters (Survivor).
Historical relevance (Claret Jug).

The Match doesn’t really hit on any of these. Maybe if it was truly LIV vs. PGA Tour on a bigger scale (8 v. 8 or 12 v. 12), it would land. Maybe. But even then, it probably takes longer than anyone thinks it should.

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