...what the hell?
So here I am, minding my own business when Golf Channel broke the news of the PGA Tour announcing the full 2018-2019 schedule for next season. Analysts had speculated these scheduling shifts for months now, most notably the PGA Championship kicking off #majorszn by moving from August to May, and the PLAYERS Championship moving from May to March. Great move, everyone is in agreement. In fact, roughly the first half of the schedule remains the same, with the roundabout part of the opening stretch is almost identical to the dates of last year. Beginning the season ONE WEEK after last year's President's Cup was indeed a wild move, and there certainly won't be much wiggle room between France and the Brendan Steele Open in October.
Aside from California and Florida getting virtually they're own stretch of real estate, followed by the Texas events and the dog day of summer events, one glaring date stuck out that is more sad than upsetting. This is the removal of the Dell Technologies Championship over Labor Day weekend, or, most notably and will forever be known as, the Deutsche Bank Championship played at TPC Boston in BEAUTIFUL Norton, MA (shout out Wheaton Lady Lyons). Now I can sit here and get all sappy and say the 2009 Deutsche Bank Championship was my first pro golf event I ever attended. It was also the first time I got a glimpse (albeit for a split second) of one Eldrick Woods (you know, two months before IT happened...) as well as the first time I saw Rickie Fowler who was rocking the long hair and Redbull pro series look. With a full purple PUMA suit, I said to my buddy Nate "THERE is the man I'm going to run into at an In-N-Out Burger in Phoenix, AZ eight years later. I just KNOW IT!" Well damn if I'm not a fortune teller.
The reasoning for the removal of the Dell Tech (which gets it back in 2020 but who cares at the moment) is the increased competition for viewers at the end of August because of the big bad NFL. No one watches golf once football season kicks off, hell the numbers even start to dwindle once preseason starts. That's just the way it is, and I think the PGA Tour did an exceptional job at moving events around for the most part. But if you're telling me there is a tournament in RENO NEVADA in...JULY?! And only one event in the New England event all season? Have you ever been to New England in the summer? Aside from the Travelers which golf fans obviously know does big numbers because of last year's final round, and even this year's event which saw Bubba Watson win it for like the third time, how can there only be one event in New England? Same with in Canada, with only the RBC Canadian Open getting its event the week before Pebble in 2019. I know the market isn't crazy popular in Vermont or Maine, but the amount of incredible courses throughout the region and especially in Massachusetts to not have an event even on the Web.com come through simply doesn't sit well with me. It's cool that Michigan and Minnesota are adding events next season, but who doesn't love lobster rolls and the ocean? Figure it out Jay, and come hang out with us!
...apparently nothing. And that's unfortunate.
If Bryson isn't allowed to use a compass in his profession, does this truly mean that what you learn in school does NOT matter in the real world...? This is an sadly a question I am forced to ask myself (and all of my dedicated readers) as the USGA ruled against DeChambeau's use of a compass two weeks ago at the Travelers Championship. Being one of the thousands in attendance down in Cromwell, I have to place some of the blame on me for not noticing this heinous act and putting a stop to it. In no way, shape or form should a respectable athlete be using this "unusual equipment" to help him gain a competitive advantage. He was bound to get caught, no doubt about it.
Let's look at the big picture here: the man used an actual compass to help pin point the exact hole locations during the tournament. Could you imagine if he pulled out a TI-83 to help calculate score? Would this also be frowned upon? Admittingly the most use my personal calculator ever got was during class when someone showed me how to download solitaire and I watched my pre-calculus grade slip on a daily basis. There's conversation about range finders and other video and whether or not they should be allowed to help the players during play, but I never expected a compass to be considered unusual equipment. What a world, do less Bryson. Just do less.
“With Woods about to make a monumental mistake, Scott uttered seven words that would have made the games Scottish ancestors proud: “Hey Tiger, did you move that back?” P. 115, Tiger Woods. Benedict & Keteyian (By the way, how bout bonus points for the attempted APA or MLA proper citation attempt in a blog? Pretty sweet...)
There are a few things I need to explain before I get into this post, albeit comes at a perfect time. The excerpt above is from the new book Tiger Woods, which highlights the early career of the greatest golfer of all time and takes the reader through his historic rise to fame and notorious fall from grace to which he's trying to redeem at the current time. I will say I've only reached the part of the book where he officially turns pro in 1996, which allowed me to freshen up on the infamous U.S Amateur down at Pumpkin Ridge vs. Steve Scott. Now Scott was the perfect competition for Tiger, especially since he had him on the ropes after the first 18 holes of the match. Imagine being Scott though? Watching Tiger walk to the first tee alongside only Phil Knight, Butch Harmon and Wally Uihlein? What a joke.
Fast forward, as the story goes, the two reach the 16th hole at Pumpkin Ridge with Scott up two. As he settled in to putt, Scott quickly informed Tiger he thought he had mis-marked his ball like the quote from above. At almost an instant, Tiger stood up and remarked his ball before sinking the birdie to move within one and eventually win the match. No acknowledgement from Tiger to Scott, no compliments, no handshake, no nothing. Oh Cat.
We move ahead to July 1, 2018. The hot pairing surrounding TPC Potomac wasn't Tiger-Burgoon, or Blair-Armour, or even Cejka-DJDFUNK. Nope, it's Joel Dahmen-Sung Kang who moved the controversial needle post final round. As it story goes, Kang apparently hit his ball into a hazard and gave himself a complimentary drop much to the hawkeyes of Dahmen. Joel took to Twitter and dropped a hard 'C' all over our asses against Kang to no avail of the PGA Tour. Yada, yada, yada Dahmen signed the card apparently because he had no choice and went on to finish in whatever place.
Now the real question is asked, again perfect timing due to my slow reading habits: Had Dahmen been Tiger's opponent in 1996 (which is funny because the two were paired together this past Saturday no less), would Joel had spoken up like Steve Scott to help out the machine in the making? Or would he have known to keep quiet and essentially wrap the championship on technicality and go on to become the greatest golfer who ever lived? Well that would obviously be impossible because Dahmen is only 31, but just think about it.
In 1996 Tiger was on a damn mission. In the final tournament prior to turning professional, with the likes of the CEO of Nike and Titleist quite literally in his back pocket and one of the best instructors of all time in his bag, what a way to completely ruin the moment by waiting a millisecond after Tiger attempted his putt to alert an official of the ball misplacement and claim the title for himself. Now I don't know that much about Joel Dahmen, and I only know about Steve Scott because of the book (he also married his caddie which would be a sick idea for a golf movie) but what a controversy we'd have in 1996 and beyond if Scott called Tiger on that marking. In retrospect, it may not have mattered especially since Tiger won the 1994 and 1995 U.S Amateurs. Maybe he'd return to school in an attempt to win his third U.S Amateur in four years? Maybe he'd stay and win a second-straight individual championship? Or maybe he'd be in the same exact position we find him 22 years later. It's fun to speculate. I would've most certainly taken him down, but then again I was never much of a tattle tale.
"Why didn't I think of that...?"
The ageless question which gets muttered either by oneself, or heard from others after a minuscule idea becomes something big. Any time I hear a really cool or interesting idea, my first thought is always 'I really wish I had thought of that.' Now more than ever, especially with the influence of social media and the instant gratification of any thought or observation, we're living in an ever-competitive landscape. I relate this to golf (shocker) in terms of how do I receive my golf news? Where do I go to find golf coverage, learn more about my favorite pro, interact with said pro and even discover a really cool filter to use when I get the chance to have a picture taken with them.
The genesis of this entry is this: golfers (and pro athletes) have most likely played their respective sport for almost as long as they've been alive, and if their lifelong goal is to make it in that sport, they play it. Day in, and day out. Tournament after tournament, heartbreak after heartbreak, these are all too familiar feelings pro athletes feel growing up to chase the dream. For the rest of us who are simply fans of the sport, we all have so-called dream jobs (shocker again, mine is to work in golf media) and we too need to train day in and day out in order to either get discovered or continue pursuing success if we are lucky enough to land our dream job.
Think of golf coverage in a traditional manner: golf is a game almost as old as time as far as I'm concerned and the very early days of golf coverage can include still-photos, old newspaper articles and even word of mouth from the locals at their respective country club. Fast forward to today, there's livestream on Twitter and Facebook (as of this past weekend). There are numerous podcasts that are catching steam as a way for tour pros to share their stories in a non-traditional media format. There's still golf magazines (Golf Digest being one of the best publications in sports even today) and writeups you'd find in your local newspaper. The problem with these traditional forms of media is everything is faster today. Following his win at Hartford last weekend, Bubba Watson was being live-streamed on Twitter and Periscope from the PGA Tour account, live-streaming HIMSELF on Instagram and there were various wrap-up shows also broadcasting live to those looking to tune in (shout out No Laying Up who produce the most hysterical post-round recap you'll find online.) Same can be said during practice rounds, pre-tournament gatherings and opening tee shots where live video is pushed to social media users and the content can be endless. PGA Tour Live is one of the best video subscription services I've ever seen and can watch early tee times from Thursday and Friday rounds for most tournaments.
So where do you even start? I'm 29 years old, I try to blog every once in a while about the sport and what I find is interesting about it. But what about the Dan Jenkins' and Alan Shipnuck's of the world? Imagine if Twitter was around when Jenkins wrote his famous books back in the day? He's a whirlwind of a follow today, but I can only imagine what it'd be like for him to receive instant feedback on any comment he makes. Shipnuck from Sports Illustrated has decided to embrace social media and helps put out an almost-weekly podcast and asks for questions to be submitted via Twitter for his Knockdown column. You have guys like Alex Myers from Golf Digest who focuses on the social side of the game and adds video to his columns most notably from 'The Loop'. Alex and his colleagues also put out a podcast almost twice a week complete with interviews, predictions, etc. Final example is Shane Bacon, who used to play professionally and has dug out such an amazing niche for himself with a podcast and email newsletter. Fast forward to two weeks ago, he was interviewing WAYNE FREAKING GRETZKY live at the U.S Open...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I want his job, and I've mentioned that to him personally. Sup Shane?
I guess to answer my question, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. Embrace the sport and interact where you see fit. Again, Instagram and Twitter is such a cool medium to interact with tour pros and in my opinion they are the best follows in all of pro sports. Maybe if you're lucky you'll get a picture with a few of them (have I mentioned that before...?) This time, Dylan Meyer at Hartford. Great dude.
For those of you doing the math at home (probably just me) that marks approximately 328,500 push-ups over a three-year consecutive span...Yikes.
Now these numbers do have a few side notes, I actually started this streak in March of 2015 after a trip down to Florida to visit my aunt and uncle on Palm Island, only one of my favorite spots in the world. This was also the same time my Uncle Terry introduced me to Men’s Journal, which is a hybrid magazine between fitness and travel. World renown big wave surfer Laird Hamilton posts each month fitness tips he finds productive and one of them is the benefit of push-ups. What originally started out as 100 per day in March of 2015 quickly turned into 300 a day on June 1 2015 and in all surprises to me, I haven’t missed a day.
So why do I mention this, besides the obvious date today of June 1 (and also National Donut Day)? Well I recently started a new job and someone mentioned that they began a push-up challenge themselves and I thought that was really admirable and a great way to start something that improves your wellness. While I congratulated that person for starting this, I also had to congratulate myself on this feat which is something I recommend to everybody. Be proud of your accomplishments, set goals for yourselves whether it’s a fitness goal, a personal goal or a professional goal and stick to it. Think of the start of each month as the beginning to some sort of adventure or activity you want to pursue, maybe you want to read a book in the next 30 days, maybe you want to walk 10k steps a day, whatever.
Anyways, here’s to another three years of push-ups, God help me.
