Issue No. 97 | July 19, 2024

Hey,

Fresh off of watching the best style of golf imaginable for 24 of the last 36 hours, I of course have some thoughts. So many thoughts that I cannot possibly jot them all down in this pre-weekend space.

But I needed to get these possibly unconnected, totally disparate and, at times, unhinged ideas out of my brain and into your inbox before the next 36 at Royal Troon.

Onto the news.

14 Thoughts on Rounds 1 and 2 of The Open

1. Infirmary check on … myself. I woke up at 3:20 a.m. without an alarm for Round 1. If Christmas morning is Christmas morning for a kid, Round 1 of the Open is Christmas morning for a golf-loving adult.

I will surely regret this ranking of the 19 most important days on the golf calendar starting with my favorite. But if I have to do it — off the top of my head — here are my top five.

1. Ryder Cup Sunday

2. Ryder Cup Thursday

3. Open Thursday

4. Masters Sunday

5. Masters Thursday

I think that’s what it looks like anyway. At some point I’ll rank all 19 (that’s 16 major days and three Ryder Cup ones). Regardless, Open Thursday is somewhere in the top five.

2. I could legitimately sit and watch shots into No. 8 all four days. Joaquin Niemann, who is in the top 15 at this event through 36 holes, needed eight shots from 117 yards to get the ball in the hole there. Eight!

You could putt the ball down the walking path and make less than eight. You could probably make five or six putting it down the walking path!

What a golf hole.

3. One reason I love the Open so much (that just hit me this week) is because it’s quite easy to make doubles and triples — especially in the wind — compared to other events. Somebody is going to take a two-shot lead to No. 8 on Sunday and then a one-shot lead to No. 11 on Sunday, and nobody knows what’s going to happen.

At regular PGA Tour events — heck, even at most majors — you have to do something pretty insane to find a double or triple or especially a quad (shout out to Jordan). Here? They seem to find you. It makes every shot feel even more consequential than it already is.

4. I have been listening to the Open radio feed on their app for parts of the event, and it’s great. On Thursday, they brought on a gentleman named Jonathan Edwards talk about the golf.

My first thought …

Turns out, the Jonathan Edwards they brought on was an English triple jumper who was “widely regarded as the greatest male triple-jumper in history” and still holds the triple jump world record of 18.29 meters (also how many feet of putts Scottie made in Round 1). Anyway, Edwards is now a BBC commentator with a 2.3 index so he jumped on to talk golf, and I have no idea why I’m talking about him right now.

Also: Highest recommendation on listening to the radio broadcast on the Open app. It’s awesome. They take themselves Shotgun Start levels of serious, make Da Vinci Code jokes and are constantly reading listener emails and referencing how many they get. Incredible experience.

5. I believe it was Paul McGinley who said earlier this week that great players — I think he was referencing Bryson or Scottie or someone in that category — have to be able to “create your own reality.”

I found that to be a magnificent phrase. Create your own reality. Point being that you have to maintain some level of delusion to be a world class player. Otherwise the entire thing would collapse on top of itself.

Shane Lowry basically admitted the same thing on No. 11 on Friday when he made double on the insane railway hole.

6. Ludvig wore a hat with a postage stamp on it and nobody batted an eye. Normal stuff.

7. Max had a great line on Friday night when he roared — literally and figuratively — to make the cut with a birdie at the last.

Why did he react like that?

“I don't know, just been really not playing very well and golf has not been very fun. I've been doing a poor job mentally. I just felt like today for one of the first times maybe ever I just never really flinched, never blinked. I played 16 really good holes and just made two really bad swings.

“Maybe I'm just proud of myself. This is my favorite tournament in the world. So to have the chance to potentially play two more days, I don't know, I had an out-of-body experience. I didn't really expect to yell like I won a golf tournament. It just felt really good. I felt like I fought all day.”

Then he described why golf is so cool.

“I don't know if I've been that happy [on the golf course]. It's more like inward. Just sometimes you just win like a battle within. You get a lot more proud than even beating all these guys sometimes.”

It’s a battle we all fight and one we’re all familiar with. The irony of golf compared to other sports is that the greatest enemy is not the guy guarding you, pitching to you or hitting a ball you must hit back.

The greatest enemy is often yourself, which is why the game is …

1. So intoxicating (surely, I can defeat myself!) and …

2. Also so maddening (but also I don’t know that I can!).

Max gets a lot of vitriol because he’s more popular than his resume suggests he should be. But I would imagine the majority of those who dislike him and dislike those of us who like him are unfamiliar with the level of vulnerability it takes to be unafraid to admit that you care that much about a game this silly.

8. This was one of the first tweets I saw on Thursday at 3:30 a.m. Imagine a normal person trying to figure this out.

9. Here’s a great Scottie quote on links creativity from Thursday.

“I would say my stock shot is high, but I feel like I can hit it as low, if not lower, than anybody. One of my best strengths is being able to shape and hit the ball and hit all kinds of different shots when they're appropriate.”

Go on.

“I think sometimes out here, especially off the tee, people just assume you want to hit every shot really low, but a lot of times when it gets firm out here -- even on days like today, typically you would have thought, if it's blowing into the wind on 1, 2, and 3, that I'd be hitting a shot really low.

“But the best shot for me actually to hit was a higher 3-wood because if I hit a low 3-iron, it wasn't going to chase out there very far, and if I hit a low 3-wood, it could chase into the bunkers. So for me the play was hitting a higher shot with the 3-wood.”

Nothing makes these guys think like links golf. Other than links golf in the wind. We got it all over the first two days this week.

10. On Thursday, Bryson offered up the made-up word “incalculatable” to correct Brendan Quinn, who actually said the correct word — “incalculable” — in a question he was trying to ask. That might have made my week.

Also, the way Bryson purses his lips when he says it … did it remind you of anyone?! I confess I am punch drunk on golf coverage, but I cannot stop laughing about this.

11. I don’t think I’m necessarily a Justin Rose fan (?), but I find his career arc to be underrated and his nostalgia and gratitude to be a delight, especially after he had to play 36 holes of a qualifier two weeks ago just to make it to Troon.

“Probably just a bit more gratitude just to be here from that point of view. Twenty years probably-ish ballpark where you make your schedule in December and you go, ‘Okay, Masters, Open, U.S. Open, PGA, how do we plan around that,’ and this year it's like, ‘Hang on a second, I'm not guaranteed in the Open or the U.S. Open at that point, either."‘ Had to do a little bit of extra hard work just to make sure I was here.

“Obviously it's a special event for me being a Brit. It's the one I've dreamed about winning ever since I was a kid, so obviously you've got to be in it to win it. That was the first part of the jigsaw puzzle was to make sure I qualified.”

Qualifying in as a 43-year-old who’s done it all. Not too proud to go smoke some 22-year-olds who haven’t been alive for as many Ryder Cups as you’ve played in. I think the early 40-something trying this hard to squeeze a last major out of a career that has probably suggested a few more of them (think: Sergio, Adam Scott, Rose) is a really compelling narrative.

I’ll still probably root for Scottie, Lowry and maybe others ahead of Rose this weekend. But I won’t be mad if he wins.

12. This is a very, very stupid bit, but imagining Marcel Siem as a young post on a bunch of great Germany basketball teams alongside Dirk, but who is still hanging around and has to guard Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic at the Paris Olympics will never not be funny to me. His whole aesthetic just screams, “I’ve averaged 15 and 12 for Bayern Munich for 20 straight years in the Euroleague!”

13. Two great early normal sport moments.

An NBC broadcaster (couldn’t tell if it was Faxon or Luke Donald, which, it seems like, is very much on me) said this about Justin Rose: "He used to use an anemometer when he practiced."

Sure.

Also, this guy got me good.

Somehow he is not employed by the Prestwick Airport.

14. If you feel terrible about your game this weekend, just remember the following happened within two hours on Friday.

1. JT left a tee shot on a par 3 a full … 83 yards short of the green.

2. Rory hit an approach from 95 yards a full 35 yards long of the green.

3. A professional golfer made two 9s and shot 52 on the back.

I have a million more thoughts that I will try to get out early next week. For now, I have to go reintroduce myself to my family.

Scheffler rolls this weekend.¹

Thanks for reading until the end.

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