THE STARTER SHACK
We're busy watching the playoffs and don't time for witty introductions...read on!
🎯 World's most painful shank
💋 Bryson & Brooksy make up...?
🎬 PGA Tour to give behind the scenes
⛳️ 160 Years of rules officiating
PGA TOUR
Slugger and Rusty Joined At The Hip
Quick show of hands from our esteemed readership.
- Do you take gimmes way outside the leather of your putter?
- Are breakfast balls simply an unspoken understanding amongst friends?
- Do mulligans flow like PBRs at a Bayou wedding?
Slugger White & Mark Russell are likely groaning and rolling their eyes as they recline further into their chairs.
Who you may ask? This tandem is only the longest-tenured set of rules officials on the PGA Tour.
Both Russell and White announced their retirement effective at the conclusion of this year’s PGA Tour season after only 40 years of service each:
- Sam Snead still played Tour events when these two started
- European Tour veterans John Paramour and Andy McFee also retired last year
- 160 years of collective rules officiating experience has just left the game
Just a quick visual to paint a picture for those who only tune in to watch professionals obliterate golf courses.
Slugger White - he looks like the gentleman you’d hire to operate the fan boat on a tour of the Florida Everglades:
- Played 73 PGA Tour events from 1976-81, best finish T-4 at 1976 Texas Open
- Started as a tour official in January 1982
Mark Russell - he looks like the gregarious fellow that convinced you to go on said fan boat tour after overindulging on bottomless Bloody Mary’s.
- Played golf at Elon University, worked as the Director of Golf at Disney World
- Started with the PGA Tour in 1980
Rules officials have stressful jobs; telling petulant professionals looking for any advantage that they are in the wrong.
Guys like Slugger and Mark always lead off with questions like “How can I help?’. Well, gentlemen, after a lifetime of wiping tour pro’s asses and solving problems, you can help by helping yourselves to a mint julep and relaxing on your Barcalounger watching some golf on TV.
You now get to live a life where perhaps the rules can be bent a bit to satisfy your leanings, and nobody would blame either of you a bit.
GIMME
- PGA TOUR x NETFLIX: the PGA Tour announced a partnership with Netflix where they will give a full(ish) behind-the-scenes access to the PGA Tour. If it's anything like their much-hyped PIP program that spawned the Bryson Brooks feud, they're going to promote the hell out of this and then keep us in the dark the entire time. We can see it now, blurred-out faces, voice distorters, interviews from the shadows...it's going to be riveting!
- Reed almost died: we don't want to make light of anyone dying...Patrick Reed almost died. Ummm...
- Titleist's new ball: has a dot on the left. Yep. A dot. On the left. What started off as a Custom Performance Option (CPO) ball made for specific players on tour is coming to a retailer near you. We've heard it performs a little different than our go-to Pinnacle Gold's. We may have to buy a dozen to see if they sink in the pond like all the other balls.
- Can you make the tour: the Professional Athlete Index just released the odds of becoming a professional golfer (so you're saying there's a chance?!). Just read the article and that's a hard nope. Apparently, we need to time travel and be born in Sweden for the best chance...then Denmark and Iceland. There's a very cold theme going on here.
- Bryson & Brooks didn't play footsy: at the Ryder Cup dinner and it has also been reported that no one yelled Brooksy while Bryson ate his 5th steak. Seems as though Stricker has these guys on a tight leash and everyone isbehaving like gentlemen(ish).
- Augusta like lawn: we all want that greener than green lawn with the stripes...here are 5 tricks to stick it to your neighbor and have the best lawn on the block.
- Then caddie, now pro: Sophia Popov caddied at Inverness and goes back as a Solheim Cup competitor. Reminds us of that time when we were cart boys during the day and Men's League competitors at night. Legends in the making.
PIC OF THE DAY
Hey you sexy hackers, we and Seve hope you're enjoying a weekend full of playoff golf with a tallboy of PBR in your hand.
INSIDE THE ROPES
Butterfly gives the assist in Koepka's long-bomb and Mike Tirico calls it as he sees it.
OUTSIDE THE ROPES
Imagine walking the hallowed grounds of Augusta National...not as a patron but as an actual golfer. Well, someone who resembles a golfer. We have all the feels for this fellow. He stands up on the 12th tee (probably feeling the butterflies just like the pros) and he absolutely flushes a shank. Like he couldn't have hit that anymore squarely in the hosel.
The round of his life and he'll always have that memory. It's a beautifully painful thing.
GOLF GEAR
Ralph Lauren Ryder Cup:
If you can't make the Ryder Cup Team...like all of us involved in this newsletter—yes, even you subscribers—then we can do the next best thing and dress like we're part of the Ryder Cup Team. Just don't swing a golf club and blow your cover.
*not a sponsored post
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Today's email was brought to you by: Nolan Filipenko & Colby Johannson
