Aug 16, 2021 5 min read Email

THE STARTER SHACK

Warning shots have been fired at the PGA Tour and Webb Simpson just did that cool thing where you blow on the end of your pistol as it smokes. Never thought we'd describe Simpson as a badass. (we got a note back from our editor...we didn't describe Simpson as a badass he's just a really nice guy)

🔪 PGA Tour commits horrendous crime

⛳️ Teeing off in front of a crowd of angry people

🌳 12,700 trees removed from Oakmont

📈 And the playoff scenario's have just begun

PGA TOUR

Picking The Top 100 Golf Courses

Golf Digest’s biennial listing of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses and Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Courses You Can Play compilations were recently released. And best private tracks you'll never play is below.

Rather predictably, Pine Valley out-dueled Augusta National to gain top course honors on Golf Digest’s list. Pebble Beach, to nobody’s surprise, once again took home the Public “Belle of the Ball” honors with Golf Magazine.

As In Life, The Rich Get Richer With These Highest Ranking Courses

Digging further into the ranking machinations:

Golf Digest

1900 evaluators, assessing 1600 courses in USA/Canada
7 criteria used (Shot Options, Challenge, Layout Variety, Distinctiveness, Aesthetics, Conditioning, Character)
For the America’s 100 Greatest list, courses need 75 evaluations over a 10-year period
For the Top 100 Public list, 35 evaluations in the same period are required

Golf Magazine

100 evaluators vote on 460 candidate courses
can only evaluate the courses they have played
evaluators: professional golfers, architects, “industry experts”
criteria for course evaluation include: Design, Setting, Course Condition, Creativity

Golf Magazine publicizes the names of their evaluators; Golf Digest is a nope.

Many of the courses on Golf Digest’s list (including the top 7!) are ultra-private and not available to the golfing masses. As Del Griffith once proclaimed, you’d have better success playing Pick-Up-Stix with your buttcheeks than getting a tee time at these fabled clubs.

Just because it’s public don’t make it cheap!

Tackling the list of publicly accessible tracks from Golf Magazine - tee times are surely available, but at a pretty significant cost. Playing the top 10, you will fork over almost $4000 (even “slumming it” on the next 10 is a whopping $3100).

Does not include your beer.

These costs are exclusive of the required lodging at many facilities as well as the usual travel-associated costs; so much for making the game more accessible.

GIMME

Best Private Courses in every state list: the list that reminds us that our Enron investment was too good to be true. Oh, what could've been. What could've been. Anyway, here's the list.
Who's in, Who's out!: Playoff season is here, which means Golf Channel turns into CNN for the next couple of weeks playing out every scenario of who's in the Tour Championship and who's out. Chamblee Blitzer and Justin Cooper will dance the Tango with every bogey, birdie, and two-foot pars. Here is a list of who's potentially in...or out.
Have the best lawn on the block: and the best person to give that advice is the person with the biggest lawn...Mike Naas, superintendent at the White House. It doesn't mention throwing rocks at the neighbor kids when they ride over it.
Teeing off in front of a crowd: pros describe what it's like to tee off at the Ryder Cup. Guessing it's different than Men's Night with Charlie burping over your left shoulder and Frank peeing in the bush over your right.
More than 12,700 trees were removed from Oakmont: and the competitors at the US Amateur are taking full advantage of this. How? By blasting tee shots into neighboring fairways on purpose. If we tried that it would result in an attempted murder charge.
PGA Tour commits horrendous crime: Will Zalatoris has won about $4 million dollars and would rank 26th in FedEx Cup points...but he has zero. What?! He's had 8 top 10's, ranked 29th in the world and yet the PGA Tour won't let him. This is a lot of hullabaloo and Webb Simpson agrees with us!

PIC OF THE DAY

Tommy Fleetwood may or may not have taken up tennis. Either way, he's feeling the flow.

WITB

PXG with some fancy new flat sticks! Know what we love about new putters? No, not seeing how far we can throw them when we make our first three-putt. Seeing how resilient they are after we throw them after our first three-putt.

OUTSIDE THE ROPES

Josh Lavender knows how to make an entrance, although we'd like a club count in that bag.

INSIDE THE ROPES

Close only counts in Horse Shoes and hand grenades...and our Men's League. But not on the PGA Tour! We usually lose sight of the ball as it floats past the forward tees, we wouldn't have any idea this actually happened. Hey, maybe we've actually come that close. That's a good feeling.

GOLF GEAR

Dad's Polo...for Women:

Men get all the cool things...hairy chests, receding hairlines, calcium deficiencies...but the ladies finally have something to crow about. Sisters, Pippa and Sarah Renwick wanted a polo that was soft, versatile, and reminded them of their dad's old polos.

*not a sponsored post

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