Iss. #118 | The Cyber Hiatus Is Over—I'm Back, Baby!

Hope you all got into some tasty Cyber deals last week and stocked the closet for the golfing season ahead.

Who knew I'd leave you all on such a downer issue with my "it sucks to be aging" ramble. Sorry about that one. But let's get back into some golf-adjacent musings, eh?

I had no one to vent to...

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF TIGER NEWS

The trajectory of the past few weeks in Tiger news roughly matched my own blood sugar levels over the holiday weekend. Dairy-bomb dishes met sickeningly-sweet desserts for a feast (and leftovers) for the ages—and my body could not keep up.

First you tell me that we get back-to-back-to-back weekends of Tiger in competition starting with the Hero World Challenge then The Match then the PNC Championship. THEN you rip away the Hero World Challenge because, it turns out, he's still recovering from injuries from the car crash and can barely walk. Not ideal.

(Fun Thanksgiving Fact: I as well couldn't quite walk after my third helping of New York Times green bean casserole... that contained a QUART of heavy cream in one casserole dish of food. A QUART. My stomach gets rumbly with a splash of half in half in the morning... I digress.)

On a positive note, Tiger has said that he will be playing in The Match and PNC because he can drive a cart around. Such a dumb rule, that keeps a legend like Tiger from playing more—and keeps a legend of another stripe John Daly from cruising tourneys with a 30 rack of Bud Lights.

Food for thought, PGA rules committee.

BMW has entered the chat

ALLLLL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS... IS YOUUUUUUUU

Caught this article from Fast Company highlighting a collab four years in the making between Club Car (likely the company that makes the golf carts at your local muni) and Designworks (BMW's in-house innovation studio).

The result?

An absolutely stunning re-imagining of what a golf cart can be. This beaut is street legal in 35mph zones and under. It features space for 5 buckled adults. And the coolest feature easily is the built-in lounge.

Yes, the driver and passenger seat can swivel around to form a lounge with the backseat bench and table. Apparently years of market research showed that people just want to hang out in their golf carts (could've given me about an hour to catch them up to speed there.) And so they created this all-in-one hangout machine that can seamlessly go from course to club to driveway.

All for the price of $29k. Steep, but fair seeing as it's basically an EV.

Which leads me to my own innovation territory... retirement communities, wait for it, for the un-retired. I visit my parents in their 55+ community, WIDE streets, weaving through a golf course, amenities coming out of their ears, and community events aplenty. And I think to myself, if you told me I could live in that community tomorrow with a variety of my friends scattered around the golf-cart accessible streets... I'd hand you a sack of cash right now.

Wales, the country I am half-convinced isn't real.

GARETH BALE—GOLF GUY

Better late than never on some stories, and this one from the World Cup was an all-timer.

Before the Cup, Welch manager BANNED their star payer Gareth Bale from playing golf while in Qatar. Why? Well, all I'll say is that Bale held up the flag pictured above after qualifying for Euro 2020. It reads "Wales. Golf. Madrid. In that order."

But apparently that order may have been tweaked a bit since 2019 as the manager deemed it necessary to ban him completely from the game during the World Cup—to which he responded by installing a simulator in his hotel room. Check. Mate.

Also I will take this moment for a little U-S-A love. Let's go knock around those pesky Dutch on Saturday!

An Aussie twist

I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE TRY STUFF IN GOLF

Flipped through a Fried Egg newsletter this week to learn something new about the ISPS Handa Australian Open...

1. The men's and women's Australian Opens will be held at the same time and at the same venues.

2. The purses for the men's and women's Australian Opens are the same: $1.5 million.

Pretty friggin' cool to see.

As the writer, Garrett Morrison mentions, it will be fascinating to see how the men and women play the same course in different ways—and I think the combination of the two (even if just for one event) is such a great opportunity to share the spotlight for the betterment of the game overall.

Now, the field kinda sucks as it's scheduled against the Hero World Challenge and it's mostly just famous Australian players there. BUT as the BMW DesignWorks people probably say—inspiration can come from anywhere!

"Welp—I joined the office fantasy league" update