Your annual reminder...
THE 2024 MASTERS LOTTERY IS NOW OPEN!
DENIAL - There's no way it's this hard to get 'em.
ANGER - Why can't I f^&@#% get even a practice round ticket?!!!?!
BARGAINING - Maybe if I only select certain days, they'll be more favorable to my application.
DEPRESSION - They've never going to pick me ever and I'm a hopeless loser.
ACCEPTANCE - Me, right now, today.
I am proud to announce that I have officially entered the final stage of Masters ticket grief—acceptance. What will be, will be. May the odds be ever in your favor. And insert whatever other helpful mantras or lines from teen fiction epics here.
All I'll say is, head over to the Masters site and submit your application. This could be the year! If not, there's always next year. And that's okay.
(Meme courtesy of Reddit)
Come on, starter, you've got to be kidding me!
"ZHANG ROSE" PRO DEBUT
Really great buzz this week in the LPGA with the brand new Mizuho Americas Open at Liberty National.
Most notably, Rose Zhang, the most decorated amateur golfer since Tiger Woods, made her professional LPGA debut on a sponsorship exemption—firing a -2 opening round.
And to prove just how unflappable Rose is, we go to this footage of Rose being announced on the first tee as "Zhang Rose". Rose doesn't even flinch and proceeds to absolutely lace one into the fairway.
I'm sure it's years of seeing tee sheets where the Chinese or Korean players have their family name listed first while Western cultures list their family names second... but come on, dude! If your job is to announce professional's names on the first tee, do your homework. Rose deserved better than that.
On a ROSIER note, I can't wait to see how she finishes and I'm already looking ahead to her competing at Pebble in a few weeks! Sports are always made better when the brightest stars shine, and she's got some absolutely stellar potential.
Speaking of LPGA stars shining
MICHELLE WIE-WEST: THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS
The host of this week's brand new tournament at Liberty National is none other than my golf crush—Michelle Wie-West.
And, as the host, she's introduced some really friggin' cool tweaks to the tournament's format and programming.
First, the 24 best AJGA ranked juniors are playing alongside the pros in their own stableford match (meaning points are accrued based on pars, birdie and eagles made rather than outright scoring.) The juniors play together for the first two rounds in between the two sets of LPGA pairings. But on the weekend, the juniors will actually get paired with the pros. Offering them a unique opportunity to learn from the stars in a situation they'd never get to experience—actual tournament play.
Each junior was afforded a $1500 travel stipend to attend the tournament and they were provided caddies for the round as well. Much like my epic pillow forts in grade school, no parents (as caddies) allowed.
Finally, Michelle introduced a big sister program where each junior was matched with a pro. The GolfWeek article linked here explains:
Marina Alex, for example, played a practice round with Sara Im, who has committed to Vanderbilt, Alex’s alma mater.
“I know when I was a junior nothing like this existed,” said Alex. “You would come out, and if you qualified, let’s say for a U.S. Open or played a professional event as an amateur or as a junior, it was a little scary.”
Such an awesome idea to help grow the game at the junior level by connecting the future stars with today's stars—a sort of rising tide raises all ships approach.
Mad respect Michelle.
First tee jitters? Nah.
SAINT EMILIANO
Looking back at last weekend's Charles Schwab Challenge, I caught this touching moment as it was happening and knew I had to drop into BB this week.
For those who haven't seen it make the rounds, eventual champion Emiliano Grillo was hitting balls on the first tee to stay warm in case of a playoff. And in between swings, he looked over to find a dad with his two sons waiting on the fence watching—seemingly the only spectators around. To which Emiliano said they should come over and hit some balls with him while he waited.
In about three seconds, the dad was already chucking his kids over the fence to meet Grillo and the announcers live on-air watched as the kids hit a few shots.
The real kicker is that the kid in the video who absolutely pures one down the fairway was a lefty using Emiliano's right handed club. A feat I've attempted a few times without even sniffing contact. (Would love to see this kid again years down the line as the sport's first ambidextrous golfer. A concept that likely makes no sense in actual execution but hey, why not?!)
Not many pros out there who would break their concentration while preparing for a playoff with $1.5M on the line to let some kids hit a few dingers. Saint Emiliano ROCKETING up my personal favorite pro leaderboard right now.
Minneapolis for the win?
WE NEVER LAY UP, BUT WE MAY LAYOVER
A fun one to close us out this week. It comes courtesy of an IG post I spotted a few weeks back from @breezygolf.
APPARENTLY, the Minneapolis airport has a golf simulator inside of it?!?! From the comments it appears that many in Minneapolis didn't even realize this was there.
But I got to say, just a top notch innovation from the airport concierge staff here. And it has me frantically googling for how I can petition the city of San Diego to install a fleet of these bad boys here.
Can we get Top Golf involved? Maybe one of the major golf equipment companies in town can lend a hand? The motivation is here, we just need that one hero to step up.
(Puts on a Superman cape... then sits back down at my laptop.)
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