Issue No. 143 | January 14, 2025

We have a lot to get to, so I’ll be brief on the intro this week. But we (with the help of Seed Golf and Experience Ireland Golf and Travel) are sending a reader to Ireland for three days on an all expenses paid trip this August to play Carne and Enniscrone, two absolute gems.

More details on how to win that trip right here.

Onto the news.

But First

Today’s newsletter is presented by Meridian Putters.

I could tell you about how much I’m enjoying the Key West or how good their manufacturing process is, but I’ll leave it to a reader who emailed me recently after he saw that we are partnering with Meridian for 2025.

OK, now onto the news.

There’s Only Money

As one of my golf media friends pointed out to me last week … what took me two years and probably 200,000 words to say … took Eugenio Chacarra two seconds and eight words.

Did you catch it?

Chacarra, who was not re-signed by the Fireballs after they finished in sixth place, just .17 points behind Torque GC — an extraordinary sentence! — gave a knifing quote last week about LIV.

"I see what it’s like to win on the PGA Tour and how your life changes. How you get major access and ranking points. On LIV, nothing changes, there is only money.”

I realize Chacarra was specifically juxtaposing two leagues, and I’m not really throwing him under the bus. But the phrasing and the way it was framed, whew, it’s just the perfect description of this entire era.

Many people took this quote as proof that the folks running LIV are liars and grifters and [shakes fist at the air and adjusts monocle] complete and total fraudsters!

But whatever. That’s not really the crux of the quote to me. Of course the folks running LIV are writing checks with their words they couldn’t cash in court. Of course.

Yeah …

What intrigues me about the quote is none of that, though.

It’s the last four words: “There is only money.”

My pal Brent Beshore wrote a terrific thread recently about the vapidness — the emptiness! — of success and wealth. You should read the section of his annual letter here entitled “on being gratefully wrong.”

It is tremendous, and yet he did not reach any new conclusion the author of Ecclesiastes did not also reach several thousand years ago.

Call it whatever you want to call it. A fickle mistress. A chasing after the wind. A tremendous vanity. Nothing changes. It’s all the same.

This is not to say that money is bad and that the Open champ should receive £22 like how things used to be! I like making money, I need to make money and I think often about how my business can do a better job of doing so. But the idol of money is often a dementor, drifting around and coldly sucking souls with no care for the consequences.

Almost all of us know this. We do! We have all experienced a bonus or an unexpected lump sum or maybe as kids, a large gift from a grandparent. The hit creates a high, but that’s the extent of it, and now all you’re left with is the chase of that high over and over.

To be fair, I don’t really think this is all LIV is. I do think the team features have been beneficial for someone like, say, Bryson. I think there is still something to be gleaned if you are a player who chooses to jump to LIV.

But primarily it is — and has always been — about money.

Chacarra’s quote is emblematic of why I find LIV to be so futile and sad.

Not because other leagues like the PGA Tour are necessarily purer of heart. But because LIV is the manifestation of the there is only money worldview, which is the most despairing worldview of all.

One we have all probably succumbed to at one time or another. One that needs to be pushed back on as often as possible.

In golf, LIV represents the broader cultural lie that the wind actually can be caught.

One Thing Jason Loved

Last week we created a page on our website for you to share your 2025 golf goals. I loved reading through them. Especially the goals to just play more.

Simple and sweet, but somehow increasingly difficult to do when life happens. It used to surprise 25-30-year old me when golf obsessed friends said they don’t play much. And here I am, a little older and busier (both happily), setting the same goal to play more than last year.

Note to self: Stretch next time.

On Sunday I hit my first balls of the year. Rolled up to the range, cold (38F/3C degrees), ordered a big bucket and proceeded to rapid fire all 75 balls at a giant 15 foot Big Green Egg target sitting at 140 yards. Normal Range.

Was it productive practice? Doubtful. Am I sore as hell? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Always.

One Thing That Amused Me

One of my favorite newsletters right now is Simon Owen’s Media Newsletter. He provides great links to and thoughts on the traj of media, and this on why sports streaming is so convoluted from a recent newsletter made me laugh.

Brother ……. Yes! This part stood out: Imagine if you had to subscribe to four streaming services just to watch all the seasons of a single TV show.

It’s always amusing when an outsider descends into your world and points out all the ridiculous things that have just been normalized or that we have been forced to accept.

Regarding this … If I were a sports fan, I'd wonder why a single league couldn't just sell one subscription fee through its streaming app so I could access the entire library of games … you know how Zillow has a “make me move” price? The Tour or each major should have a “make me stay” price where they sell me an annual sub where I know if I turn it on, I can see the golf.

Maybe that’s the NBC feed being fed into the PGA Tour app, or whatever, but I know I’m getting golf and not having to root around for it all the time. Streamlining all of this could lead to the super duper max ++++ package where I get all of it without commercials.

Try to price me out of the market!

I realize I’m being extremely reductive, but it’s at least worth talking about.

Normal Sport

Stephen Jaeger’s chances of winning the Sony Open were disapparated on Sunday when he hit a high left ball off the 16th tee.

That led to a brief search in somebody’s backyard, but even more humorously, this exchange on Golf Channel.

Bones: “Given where the pool is relative to the dogleg …”

Smylie: “It’s a terrific pool.”

Rolfing [straight faced]: “I wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time looking in that pool actually.”

Imagine just hanging in your pool, enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Hawaii and getting domed up by the Jaegermeister. What a sport.

And as illustrator Jason noted, this is not a new phenomenon.

Here’s George Plimpton on the old Bob Hope event (now the AmEx) from his book, Bogey Man, which may have been the original Normal Sport publication.

The Infirmary

Two submissions this week. Both readers who emailed in, and both got me pretty good.

Yes, this is a real movie. No, Evan was not serious.

Here’s the second submission.

A lot of my worlds colliding in that email right there.

Corrupt Golf Media

👉️ In praise of the newsletter/blog. Self serving for sure! But also quite good. Here’s a nice little morsel.

👉️ Good Q&A here from Gabby Herzig with Kevin Kisner. This part stood out to me, and I’m curious if Kisner can balance the partnership with the critique.

👉️ Joe Pomp writes about his experience on the grounds at TGL. I agree with him that it is much more of a made-for-TV product than an in-person product. Excellent writeup, though, if you’re curious about what it’s like there.

👉️ Lastly, don’t forget about the Ireland trip!

Thank you for reading until the end.

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