THE STARTER SHACK

Titleist fixed a problem that 99% of us will never experience. Well done gents.

📐 How do you measure up to a pro

😢 A sad millionaire

💰 The cost to rent a course for a tour event

🎾 Radar golf balls (also that is a tennis ball)

Ams Vs Pros....Stick To Your Knitting

Rose Zhang. You may be asking “Who is Rose Zhang?”.

Trust us, you likely won’t soon forget.

A standout freshman at Stanford University, Zhang’s college career is already outdoing what Tiger Woods did when at Palo Alto:

• won her first three collegiate events (Woods won his first two)
• first collegiate round was +1, next eight were under par (69.11 scoring average)

As the world’s top women’s amateur player at age 18, other astounding facts include:

• Winner of 2020 Women’s Amateur and 2021 U.S. Girls Junior Amateur
• First to ever win the Amateur before the Junior Amateur
• Low amateur at the 2020 ANA Invitational

A divine career start, surely leading to LPGA success in a few year’s time as it is doubtful that Ms. Zhang goes the “Stewart Hagestad Route” (he of the plus-6 handicap), and remains a “career amateur”.

It does beg the question what, if any, prodigious amateurs in recent times have had the ultimate success on golf’s grandest stages.

Let’s just say the list is shorter than the putt Retief Goosen missed to cause the 2001 US Open playoff.

• PGA Tour: 10 times (Frank Stranahan - four wins), last was Phil Mickelson in 1991
• LPGA Tour: 6 times, most recently by Lydia Ko in 2012 and 2013
• European Tour: 3 times, most recently by a beardless Shane Lowry in 2009

Considering the majors (even including the prehistoric times when there were a number of “career amateurs”), the list is as lengthy as a Corey Pavin cut shot:

• Men’s Majors: 14 times (7 by one guy, somebody named Bobby Jones)
• Women’s Majors: Twice (most recent ever, Catherine Lacoste 1967 Women’s US Open)

These wins are as rare as rocking horse shit folks.

Only two amateurs have even finished top 5 in men’s majors since 1972 (Rose - 1998, Wood - 2008), whereas women’s amateur success has been more prominent with a number of runner-up finishes since Lacoste’s triumph.

While these amateur wins didn’t result in a Scrooge McDuck-esque payday, there was a fleeting moment when they could thumb their noses at the pros letting them know who Numero Uno was, even if only for a week.

GIMME

• Unhappy Millionaires: Matsuyama made nearly $5 million but figured his game was for crap this year. Out of a scale of 1 to 10, he's giving himself a 1...we would've been children and given him a duece. He has some crazy standards, which we clearly do not.
• Happy Millionaire: Rickie may not have won on the weekend but he still won. His T-3 put him over $40 million in career earnings with 9 professional wins and several non-professional wins (they don't pay). Fowler is 24th on the list.  At the moment he trails 23 other players. He's only $80 million behind Tiger.
• More than Men's League: it costs a staggering amount to put on a Tour event. The USGA pays upwards of $2 million just to "rent" the facilities. Plus restorations/upgrades. Plus. Plus. Plus. But clubs who partake can make some Benjamins to stuff in their gopher holes when it's all said and done....$9.3 million was Oakmont's take.
• Best in your area: Golf Week has come out with a list of the Best Public Courses state by state. How many courses are in your state?! My dad can beat up your dad!
• Concert on the Course: actually it's called Concert at the Colesium...aka the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale is having a concert to kickoff the tournament. Thomas Rhett and Old Dominion will swoon you with some country tunes while you get blasted on watered down Bud Light.
• If you don't have anything nice to say: women in golf are sounding off on the bulls*%t they put up with from their mostly male counterparts. The worst part is that some of the cruelty comes from their colleagues, ie Golf Digest's John "I'm a grumpy old man" Huggan.

PIC OF THE DAY

Stroke Counter?

We can't confirm or deny (we can mostly deny) that Chi Chi often times used a stroke counter in tournament play. EVEN if he did, he looked damn cool doing so.

INSIDE THE ROPES

Pat Perez has 99 problems and not having enough shoes is not one of them.

Or maybe Pat Perez has 99 pairs of shoes and that's his problem. Michael Jordan once told Perez that "he would make that for me in a golf shoe". Every Perez fan just died and went to heaven. Sorry, no. Every Jordan fan. That should've said Jordan, not Perez.

GOLF GEAR

Titleist, come in. Titleist, are you there?

Hello world, meet Titleist's Pro V1 and Pro V1x Radar Capture Technology Golf Balls. Catchy name. These balls were invented specifically for indoor use on a Trackman. No more little shiny discs that you can't affix to the ball because they get stuck to the end of your finger.

There was a problem and Titleist fixed it. That's what businesses are built on. Hence the reason you signed up for this newsletter. Wait, why did you sign up to this newsletter.

*not a sponsored post

SHARE THE SHACK

Share today's newsletter to your favorite social sites...or your favorite playing partner(s). Help spread the word! Technically you're helping spread words...plural. Just tap forward in your email browser and send it to all your friends. Hopefully, you have friends.

We thank you in advance!

Today's email was brought to you by: Nolan Filipenko & Colby Johannson

JOBS    CONTACT US