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Hey,
Sorry there is only one newsletter this week. Jason and I have been working hard behind the scenes on a number of different things (including Normal Sport 3), and the time, effort and energy that goes into those projects is necessarily taken away from this newsletter.
I did travel to Austin on Wednesday for a fun golf interview with a pretty well-known non-golfer (you can google what else is going on in Austin this week), which will be on CBS Sports dot com at some point soon.
On my way home, I stopped at overrated Buc-ees (not sorry), and I officially have another food take for you that I am extremely comfortable making public: The sunflower seed flavor market is not only saturated but also completely out of hand.
Like, what are we doing here?
The Texas State Fair thinks bacon mac and cheese (bacon mac and cheese!) seeds have jumped the shark. Who is asking David for [checks notes] buffalo ranch, jumbo ranch and sour cream and onion seeds? Sizzlin’ bacon? Might as well just eat a block of MSG instead. Old Bay seasoned? The truest sign of late stage capitalism.
I was so irrationally riled up by the breadth of variety here that I eschewed seeds altogether and got a coffee instead. I don’t know where my anger came from. Perhaps I’m simply old and mad at companies that pander to the people who believe that flavors should be specifically manufactured to their literal tastes.
Or, you know, just make the actual seeds better instead of trying to cover them in fake flavors that hide the fact that they aren’t as fresh or well made as they should be (there’s a lesson for the folks running a variety of golf tours, media outlets and publications — and, in fact, most companies! — in there).
Onto the news.
All very routine sports stuff.
1. Cat Call
I saw an amazing tweet from a reader named Tripp the other day with the following photo of Tiger attached to it: “It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon in fall, yet all I can think about is getting your take on Tiger’s ‘COD: black ops’ sweatshirt on the golf course.”
Very normal stuff. The question and the outfit.
Also, if you showed an alien who was involved in interplanetary golf and knew what the sport was in a general sense but didn’t know any humans or their achievements this photo, which of these two men, based solely on their attire, do you think the alien would guess was the best golfer of all time?
2. Plagued
Not the first time these waters have lapped at the ankles of a wealthy rebel captain who was in pursuit of fireballs and goats.
Niemann from the BEACH 🏖️👀
@joaconiemann plays this shot from the water on the 16th 😮
#LIVGolf@TorqueGC_
— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league)
Oct 15, 2023
3. Clipped
The NCAA has now employed three different third party entities to keep track of its college golf scores in 2023. Imagine another sport in which scoring was so complicated and difficult that an organization was released because, effectively, it couldn’t figure out how to consistently and reliably count to 72.
Let me be the 50,000th person to recommend the Max Homa-NLU post-Ryder Cup interview. I listened on my drive down to Austin and legitimately got chills like five times in the first 20 minutes.
He told so many different stories with such authentic enthusiasm that even when you didn’t know what he was talking about because he was too excited, it was still some of the most compelling banter I’ve ever heard about golf and the Ryder Cup.
Here are two incredible mini stories he told.
On how Saturday night felt: “I told the guys Saturday night when we were leaving the course, I said, ’All of you guys who have played on these before (and some of them have played many) please just do me one favor and do not take this for granted.
“I know we’re getting absolutely f****** rocked, but this has been the most fun I’ve ever had. So please just never take it for granted.’ Even as we were getting killed, it was amazing. It was an amazing, amazing week.”
Shades of Shane Lowry from 2021 at Whistling Straits saying, “I said to the lads last night, ‘I'm having the time of my life and we're six points behind. What's it going to be like when we're leading?’ No matter how long I play, for the rest of my career, I'll want be to be part of this team.”
The second Max story was about taking an unplayable on 18 against Fitzpatrick and getting up and down from nowhere to win his match and keep the champagne on ice.
This is an extraordinary quote.
“I remember being over that putting saying, ‘You asked for this. You can be nervous, but you asked for this exactly so you better at least relish the opportunity.’ Matt missed, and I had 7 feet, and I remember saying, ‘You wanted this. Flip the nerves. You’re nervous, but you’re not scared. You asked for this exact moment, and you’re getting it in the biggest way.’
“I turned my brain on, ‘You wanted this, this is a very cool opportunity.’ I lost full control of my body. I can’t believe watching it that you can’t see my legs shaking. I couldn’t feel anything. My legs were full-blown vibrating like I had 50 phones tied to my legs, and everyone was calling me. It was wild. I watched it last night, and I don’t know how I made it. That motherfu**** was right in the middle. It was the best putt ever.”
I mean, come on.
I don’t believe anybody in golf (maybe all of sports) is better at conveying the experience of being in the arena in a way that makes us as fans nod our heads and say, “Hell yeah, that’s exactly how I thought it would be, that’s exactly how I hoped it would be!” better than Max Homa.
As a viewer of sports on TV or in person, the undercurrent that most intrigues us is not “how does he do that?” or “why does that happen?” or even “what will take place next?” No, the one I believe provides the deepest waters for our intrigue and our desire is, “What does that feel like?”
As Americans, we are not naturally a group of people that has a good and healthy relationship with our emotions, which, there are reasons that are too long for this email. However, emotion — how things feel — is powerful and drives so much of our decision-making and the choices we make with our lives. I don’t know if it is the most powerful guide for everyone, but I certainly find myself captivatingly intrigued by its existence in golf and perhaps specifically during the Ryder Cup.
This is why I feel drawn to the Rory-JT-Homa crowd. Because they are not afraid to engage those emotions. And Homa, more than anyone, maybe as much as anyone in golf history, is the best at connecting our questions to his experience. And he does this in a way that both creates a rooting interest for him as someone who is willing to be vulnerable and also keeps us coming back for the moment in general because he always discloses the truth that fully embracing the two-sided coin of joy and dejection is where life is meant to be lived.
It’s just golf, but also sometimes it’s kinda not.
Speaking of Max, you should click back through this thread.
It’s interesting and fun to read about how different people perceived the Ryder Cup (and its outcome) differently.
Who changed your mind the most about them (good or bad) based on this year’s Ryder Cup?
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS)
Oct 6, 2023
My unofficial off-the-top-of-my-head list doesn’t include guys like Rahm, Rory, ZJ or Rickie — even though they all had either a very good or very bad Ryder Cup — mostly because they (and others) were all more or less what I expected them to be.
It does include the following.
1. Donald — I wrote more about why here.
2. Hovland — Maybe ridiculous to have him this high considering the fact that he won Talor Gooch money on the Tour this year and nearly took two majors, but the Ryder Cup is so different. Brooks said “very few” guys want the ball late in the week (which I believe), and coming in I would have leaned toward Hovland being one of them. Now? I wonder if he’s at the front of the line.
3. Cantlay — It is a bit strange to me that somebody so mellow and monotonous could leave the week somehow changing my mind on him going both directions. He — I cannot believe I’m saying this — contained multitudes that week, both good and bad.
While the tweet about a hat got out of hand, I don’t know anyone who believes there’s not something substantial behind it, which is even beyond the self-importance I already assigned to him. On the flip side, he was nasty when it mattered. Fake hat tipping his way through the best golf scene of the year (16-18 on Saturday night) and staring down Rory — who had 5-0-0 in his grasp and was hitting some of the greatest shots I’ve ever seen him hit — over those last three holes on Saturday was serial killer stuff. He wanted it, which is not the story his major championship Wikipedia page tells.
4. Spieth — [Inhales for 17 seconds while shifting eyes in both directions] ……………………………………………… is Andy right? Is Spieth just a guy? Listen, I know he had a lot going on, and I’m going down with the ship regardless, but the performance was borderline uncomfortable.
5. Harman — Nobody other than Hovland changed my mind more over the entire year. Not that I all of a sudden think he’s something he’s not, but more like this year has shined a light on just how good his career has already been.
6. Ludvig — I’m not proud of this, but I did send this text to our Ryder Cup podcast group (including Tron) at one point on Saturday: “I think Ludvig might be an assassin.”
It was less about whatever his score was on the course and more about how he carried himself throughout the week against guys he had never even played against as recently as six months ago. He was nervy because everybody is nervy, but his presence was astonishing. I was already buying all the Class B stock Tron left for us plebeians, but now I’m begging anyone who will listen to sell me theirs as well.
7. Burns — I’m not predicting multiple majors or anything, but he was the the third-best player statistically on a team where he was the last pick. Baller tendencies even if the skillset maybe isn’t quite to the level of some of the stars.
I’m not sure Tom Kim is going to be superstar — although it’s something I want to get steep on at some point — but I’m almost certain he’s going to battle Hovland for most likable top 25 player in the world for the next few years.
When asked about how he was going to celebrate a second consecutive win in Vegas, this one as a barely-21-year-old.
“I'm going to go back home. I'm going to finish a piece of chocolate that I wanted to finish, so I'm going to do that. Then I'm going to order room service and I'm going to go to bed, then I'm going to wake up at 3:00 and take my 6:30 a.m. flight. I can't wait to finish that chocolate. I've wanted to finish it so bad.
“I brought it from a trip from Europe. It's a Ferrero Rocher white chocolate. It's great. Like I've saved it, and it's going to taste so good tonight.”
If you gave me that quote blind, I feel confident I could get you Tom Kim as an answer within three guesses.
👉️ This Gay Talese interview was really good. This was the best line and one that I identified with the most: I didn’t want to be a five-w reporter—who, what, why, where, when. I didn’t want to be a hard-news reporter. I wanted to be a fu***** writer.
👉️ Speaking of interviews with writers. This feature on Shams Charania is both inspiring and sad. Inspiring because he built an information and media empire out of thin air, sad because it seems to have come at the expense of even considering a future family, potentially a thriving life and, saddest of all, his time.
👉️ This Matthieu Pavon interview from his win last week at the Spanish Open is worth watching. It might be more than just golf!
👉️ A reminder that you should be subscribed to the Data Golf newsletter. Their deep dive this week on LIV’s popularity and why Ludvig might be a top 15 player was excellent. A reader mockingly asked me the other day if I owned equity in the company because I talk about them so much. The answer is the same as it has always been: I wish.
👉️ I’m broadly anti-phones at golf tournaments (praise be to ANGC), but this is one very cool benefit of having them.
This angle of Viktor Hovland chipping in on the first at the Ryder Cup is wild 🤯
— Lewis Fraser (@lewisfras98)
Oct 10, 2023
👉️ On how and why the NYT Connections game — which I believe I described to my wife as “The greatest word game that has ever been invented” — got started.
“I think one of the biggest and rarest edges right now, in any domain, is the ability to not overreact.” -Joseph LaMagna
This from Andy was amusing.
But the response from DJ made it great.
Imagine the Braves starting up 2-0 on the Phillies every game. 😂
Somebody was watching Michigan-Indiana last weekend, saw Jim Harbaugh splay-legged after the game during his interview, thought of me, went and found the NLU tweet meme-ing me from the 2021 Masters (in what my brain sees as a Photoshopped screenshot because of how many other photos I have seen myself pasted into) and responded to it, tagging me, DJ and a few others. Incredible, incredible app. Not even Musk can ruin that.
This one got me pretty good. I love it when folks are so amused by their own behavior that they feel the need to confess to me. Also, would be a low-key sick burner account for Jay Monahan.
saw this headline and had to click because I thought it was a golf headline (everyone knows the Aces) #theinfirmary@KylePorterCBS
— Jay Moynihan (@terroirgolf)
Oct 12, 2023
This idea from Tim Ferris hit me pretty good.
I believe that asking questions is a gesture of humility and potentially an act of service. We all love to talk about ourselves and all the Very Cool Things we (or our kids or spouses) have done or are doing. What we don’t always love is to listen to others talk about these things, which is obviously what question asking brings about.
I have labored to get at least decent at asking questions that make other people think because I believe that humility is among the most important character qualities an adult can have. The type of questions that lead to interesting and thoughtful conversations.
What I don’t know that I have considered is asking questions that, as Ferris pointed out, reward the specific ask. That seems to be a skill of thinking with clarity rather than thinking with intrigue or curiosity. A skill I definitely need to give more of my time and energy to.
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