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If Rory hadn’t missed his short eagle on 15 on Sunday at the BMW, the Hovland-Rory duo would have shot a best ball 25 on the back nine. At Olympia Fields. In the final round of a playoff event.
How am I feeling about the U.S. in Rome?
Onto the news.
All very routine sports stuff.
1. A Bug’s Life
One of my favorite things in golf is when the ball is in play and you have to treat it like it’s a nuclear reactor. In baseball it’s always been “how can I scuff up this ball with the battery-operated lathe I hid in my pants pocket” while golf is more like, “how can I remove this insect the size of four atoms while not causing my ball to rotate even .01 mm.” Amazing sport.
2. The Exhibitionist
Bryson showed up to hit tee shots with a persimmon driver at Cherry Hills last week while the U.S. Amateur was ongoing on other parts of the golf course. Like Pat Mahomes showing up at the Big 12 title game and throwing footballs into an inflatable Dr. Pepper can at halftime!
I am convinced — and I was convinced of this at Whistling Straits two years ago — that for all of the fun and interesting ways professional golf can be enjoyed, Bryson most enjoys making jaws drop and eyes bulge with his tremendous feats of strength. He is (almost unquestionably?) the most Vaudevillian golfer of this era. And while that can often be interpreted as silly or even stupid at times, I actually find it to be mostly compelling.
Because we take all of this so seriously, we sometimes forget that at its core, professional golf (especially outside of the major championships) is supposed to be entertainment. And you could argue that there is nobody more bent on entertaining than Bryson DeChambeau (which is also why I think he’s actually pretty great for something like a Ryder Cup, but that’s another post for another day).
Also, Bryson’s strike with persimmon is extraordinary. The USGA may need to look into rolling Bryson back at some point.
3. Get Low
This will never not make me laugh.
Did you see what Scottie Scheffler said about who should be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team? I hope you did because it’s fascinating. Is Scheffler a captivating interview? Maybe, maybe not, but if you actually listen to what he’s saying, you’ll learn something more often than you don’t.
“In my opinion I think you want guys that can succeed in that environment, and that's a personality trait. I think there's certain guys that are true winners out here.”
For soft-spoken, often-meek Scottie Scheffler, this opener is like a missile strike.
“I think the trait that I'm looking for the most is maybe a little bit of golf course fit and then the guys that when you get in that environment, playing an away game over there in Europe, it's a bit different. I don't know how you can get in the mind of a few guys, but I feel like I've got a decent idea of who I'd want on the team, and it's guys that are mentally tough.
“I shouldn't say winners by number of wins. It's just, I think guys have that mentality because you can look at me two years ago being on that team, I think that was something that a lot of captains would want is guys [who] were winners, and I hadn't won yet. It's more of a mental thing than a results thing, if that makes sense.”
Me after reading that. ⬇️
What Scheffler is talking about here is a disconnect between say, what Soly and I discuss when we talk about the Ryder Cup on the NLU pod and what players know to be true from spending endless hours competing against each other.
In other sports, it’s easier for fans to determine who winners are because if you’re afraid of the moment, you’ll get run over by somebody who’s not. In golf? Because you don’t compete directly against other players, any loss can always be explained away by bad breaks and bitter bounces. In the short-term it’s sometimes difficult to determine the best players (especially for a match play event) because winning is overrated (as Scheffler noted above, when he slayed Rahm at Whistling Straits, he had yet to win a PGA Tour event).
But players know.
Here’s what Rory said about Hovland shooting 28 on the back at Olympia Fields on Sunday to win the tournament: “He just keeps his foot on the pedal. Just isn't scared.”
Players know.
And it goes back to something I said about the Ryder Cup in a newsletter last week. As the captain, you have to have an answer to the question: Who do I want in the arena when the walls are closing in and the math doesn’t work? Even though nobody would say otherwise, not everybody wants the ball late, and that is totally fine. You just want to identify the guys who are playing well but also can’t imagine not having the ball late and put them on the plane.
"If exercise could be packaged in a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation.”
-Robert Butler (via Sam Parr)
We so often conflate being a top 20 player in golf with being a top five player in golf. They are … different planets.
For example: This year, Viktor Hovland is one of six golfers to gain 2.0 strokes per round or more since January 1. Cameron Young is No. 20, but the strokes gained gap between him and Hovland is the same as it is between him and No. 67 Ben Griffin. That is, it would take a “Ben Griffin becoming Cam Young” development from Cam Young for Cam Young to become Viktor Hovland.
What’s impressive about Hovland (and anyone who is a top five-type player) is how difficult it is to incrementally improve when you’ve left the tree line and are officially staring at the summit.
Hovland has taken the right approach. He’s improved his weaknesses (around the greens) without losing his strengths (dominant ball-hitter), and perhaps most importantly his mental game shift has been transformational. Here’s what he told Amanda after winning on Sunday.
“Instead of ‘Oh my god I have a chance to win, I need to birdie this hole, I need to birdie this hole, I need to birdie this hole to have a chance,’ it was more ‘OK, what’s the right decision right here now, and just commit to it.’”
This is always the right way to play, it’s just extremely difficult to execute. Even more importantly, his long view is also exactly what you want to see.
“It's not like I'm expecting to win X amount of tournaments or to win X amount of majors. It's just, “OK, this is as good as I am right now; what can I do to get better, and if I get better, I have the chance of winning these events. Whatever happens happens.”
Hovland’s triumvirate of 1. Elite and improving skills 2. Wants the ball in late in the game and 3. Relaxed and content mentally is the holy grail as a professional golfer.
There might not be a ceiling.
For all I know, U.S. Amateur Neal Shipley will go on to win three majors, a Players and the PIF Oil Derrick Championship eight times in his career. Even if he does all of that, though, I am dubious that he will ever feel exactly what he felt when he ripped this shot back to the pin to make it into the U.S. Am finals and the 2024 Masters before sauntering through a tunnel of folks who all wanted a piece.
Professional golf is a burglar of confidence, and there’s no invincibility like “I just hit the shot of my life on national television to get in the Masters as a college student, and all these people are here to see me” invincibility.
Again, it might get more impressive than that for Shipley, I don’t know. But I doubt it ever gets more fun.
File this under things I do not understand. On Sunday, Hovland put together — in his own words — “the best round I’ve ever played,” and Scheffler still out-struck him.
Hovland SG ball-striking in R4: 4.56
Scheffler SG ball-striking in R4: 4.98
This is emblematic. Scheffler has been one of the three best tee-to-green players in the field in 12 (!!) of his last 14 events with just one win in there (Players Championship).
Also, as Rick Gehman pointed out, Only three golfers have gained 100+ strokes from tee to green in 2023. Scheffler is the only one who has gained over 125+ and he's gained 214.
This chart is 😂😂😂
👉️ If you haven’t seen the exchange between this Tour official and Jordan Spieth, it’s a pretty humorous watch. Although the Tyrrell Hatton one is even better.
👉️ Brian Harman talking about Lucas Glover and the Ryder Cup is excellent.
👉️ U.S. Amateur winner Nick Dunlap “played the wrong ball, four-putted and backed up to 5 over through seven holes of Monday’s opening round at Colorado Golf Club.” The story of how he turned his week around is amazing.
He also joins a pretty exclusive club.
Players who have won both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Junior:
-Nick Dunlap
-Tiger Woods
That's the entire list🤯
— Zephyr Melton (@zephyrmelton)
Aug 20, 2023
👉️ And speaking of the Cat, Garrett is right here. Tiger winning six (SIX!) consecutive U.S. Juniors/U.S. Ams is outrageous.
Of all the incomprehensible things Tiger has done, this might be the most incomprehensible
— Garrett Morrison (@garrett_TFE)
Aug 19, 2023
👉️ The Ken Duke #TourSauce on Sunday was 👌👌👌
True sicko behavior within the golf community.
As Fitzpatrick and Scheffler stood over shots they needed to hole from the 18th fairway on Sunday to tie Hovland, Jim Nantz started dropping Tam O'Shanter World Championship facts from 70 years ago. Man doesn’t miss. Also, I know Nantz is the face of mainstream televised golf, but he is low-key a sicko’s sicko (which I love).
One other submission this week from a three-time major winner who swipes ball markers from top courses just like the rest of us.
Amen to this.
Re: the U.S. Ryder Cup team. The college football playoff debate is exactly what all of it feels like.
This on the Scheffler chart above got me good.
Two of them this week, the first of which is going to get some mileage. Greller, slumped over the facts (up-to-the-minute FedEx standings), trying to find the way forward, with Spieth hollering about hypotheticals and alternate routes that Greller doesn’t want to be bothered with. It’s kinda perfect.
I’ve been sitting on this one since Oak Hill. I had Wanamaker in the front suitcase and Brooks in the back, and I had to shelve it for the appropriate moment, which finally came on Sunday after the back nine 28.
"The single reason for the existence of any business must be that it supplies a human need or want, and, if my experience is worth anything, a business which has this reason for its existence will be bound in the end to prosper if thought be put into it."
–Harvey S. Firestone
— Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson)
Aug 19, 2023
I am interested in this tweet.
We are so often intent on building fancy businesses and widgets that look pretty and sound cool when the fundamental purpose a business fulfills — in the long term — always outweighs the hoopla around it. That’s a tremendous thing to remember.
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