Jun 30, 2021 5 min read Email

THE STARTER SHACK

💰 LPGA Caddies double-dipping big time

😠 Bubba Watson is pissed off

🍺 No bar hopping at Open Championship...that's it we're withdrawing

⛳️ Danielle Kang literally keeps something up her sleeve

PGA TOUR

Caddie's Double-Dipping Right In Front Of Players.

What is the percentage of making a 22 foot left to right slider? We have no idea—just like the LPGA.

Until this week, all of us weekend hacks had access to the same data in our golf games that the greatest female players in the world had:

Fairways in regulation
Greens in regulation
Number of putts per round

Grade school data entry that you and your buddy Forrest Gump could do right on the blank spaces on the scorecard.

Enter the KPMG Performance Insights being introduced this week at the Women’s PGA Championship

Firstly, this is not Shotlink, the gold standard data in golf data mining used on the PGA Tour:

elaborate (and very pricey) program
began with lasers, now incorporates cameras on every hole
shows shape and distance of every shot by every player
ShotLink data is immediately available

KPMG Performance Insights improves the pre-historic “scorecard tally” system, using a method similar to what’s used on the European Tour:

caddies collect data throughout a round (e.g. yardages, club selection, lies)
info collected in a pre-formatted template, entered into a central database by KPMG
after processing, data is available to players, media, and fans

Key metrics from the KPMG Performance Insights include:

strokes gained stats (off the tee, to the green, putting)
shot dispersion
proximity to the hole from various distances

All you loopers out there, don’t fret.

In addition to all of your other booze-fueled duties on the course, caddies get an additional stipend for documenting the data. Just don’t ask to borrow anybody’s reading glasses because the writing is too small on the new template.

GIMME

Golfer Dies: A 74 year-old golfer retrieving his golf ball from a water hazard drowns. And that is why 30 of the 60 balls in our bag are water balls.
103 feet of putts: Phil drains 103 feet of putts on two holes. The 1st was 63 feet (was his longest putt since 2003) followed by a 40 footer on the next hole (was not his longest putt since 2003...cause he just made a 63 footer the hole before...which is longer than 40 feet).
Swing notes up her sleeve...literally: Danielle Kang writes down her swing thoughts in a notebook, on her hand, her glove, up her sleeve. This is literally a scene out of Spy's Like Us, except Danielle isn't two disheveled morons...she's an Olympian.
WHOOP there it is...all the information: The data shows that the Korda sisters are a bunch of sleepy heads and that's how they win. Unlike us getting blasted on PBR's before getting 3 hours sleep before our 6am round.
“I guess I just blacked out out there,”: no Nelly Korda was not drinking PBR's with us, she got her sleep and shot a tournament record 63 to take the 36 hole lead at the Women's PGA. Sleeping does pay off, huh. Also, Nelly birdied the last six holes...so that's kind of a big deal.
Bubba breaks his driver: Bubba winds up his pink beast and kaboom! his driver head flies off. The ball seemed to be completely oblivious of the catastrophe as it still flew 300+ yards.
No bar hopping at Open Championship: strict guidelines have been sent out to players including not being allowed to go to bars while playing in the tournament. Whelp I guess John Daley's out. Some of the rules are leaving players and their teams a little pissy...not naming names like Pete Cowan.
The end of the Post-Round Interview: Bubba Watson is pissed! Announcers and the PGA Tour don't celebrate 400-yard bombs and guys that pump zee iron. According to Geoff, I own a bazillion blazers Shackleford, Naomi Osaka’s French Open WD opened the floodgates on sports and mental health.

PIC OF THE DAY

Sources won't confirm this but it looks like Jon Rahm might have been involved in gang activity while attending ASU. We think this is the sign for the Tempe gang called Three Jack City. Authorities have stated they've been known to hang out at municipal courses in the area. Clean up your act, Jon!

INSIDE THE ROPES

Tour Pro shoots 68 without shooting in the 30's. When we first read this we were like...yeah so? That's like a solid front nine, what's the big deal. The big deal is that he played 9 more holes than us and still shot 68 with two very different 9's.

GOLF GEAR

Mr. Porter brang some retro with that class. Yaaaaas, we know, brang is not a real word. But everyone's fine with kiltie? Okay then.

Mr. Porter started a golf collection with some throwback to it, including these white pebble-grain Leather Kiltie Derby golf shoe. They had us at pebble-grain and threw us over the edge with Kiltie Derby. At $315 dollars you better be getting the entire outfit and not be wearing these with your pleated dockers looking like a complete ding dong.

Check out the entire collection.

*not a sponsored post

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