"Introducing" the driver's license of golf
GRöNT KORT FöR KLUBB
Kicking things off this week with some umlauts as I discovered that Sweden requires people to hold a grönt kort aka green card to play golf at a majority of courses in the country.
The process for getting a green card is pretty much identical to how we get a driver's license in the states. There's a written exam testing knowledge about the game and a skills test where a licensed professional determines whether you meet a minimum threshold to play. All to ensure that golfers can play "in a safe and fun way."
Some more digging revealed a Reddit thread where Americans made a bunch of green card jokes and a bunch of Europeans revealed that the system exists in Norway, Germany and potentially more European nations.
And while I understand how a system like this makes the barrier to entry for brand new players WAY higher than in the US—I also think it's pretty genius on the course side of things. With a green card, they can now guarantee people will play quickly under the same set of rules and also hold a pretty damaging punishment (suspending their card) for those who get completely out of line and ruin the game for others.
Next to zero chance this would work nationwide or even statewide in the US... but hey, until then I'll just imagine myself roaming the Trelleborg plains or the Björkliden mountains free from the kind of people that drive their golf carts onto tee boxes or take chunks out of the green as a prank.
LIV had themselves a weekend
AUSTRALIANS SEEM TO REALLY LOVE GOLF
Make fun of the normally lackluster LIV crowds all you want but this past weekend at the league's stop in Australia... the people showed OUT.
The atmosphere on the ground in Adelaide seemed Phoenix Open-esque as the hometown Australian team led by Cam Smith found itself in a playoff for the team title. This overhead shot documents the scene as the finishing group came into the green, but it had all the makings of a classic golf frenzy as fans were running behind the group to create one of the better hype circles I've seen in a while.
Attendance numbers backed it up as over 94,000 people attended the event and many around golf media point to this as clear proof that a true world golf tour could be electric.
Now, we're likely still a few years away from any real reconciliation—but I had to admit that it was the first time I found myself genuinely FOMO-ing over a LIV event. Impressive.
Plus, the crowd gave us moments like this—which only team-based golf could produce.
Sure, you'll hear crowds get rowdy but outside of the Ryder Cup you never see crowds actively rooting against a player.
The huge caveat here being that it's not necessarily a direct result of LIV team fandom. Instead it's about pride in country and how the Ripper GC team just so happens to be made up of all Australian players. Assuming LIV continues in its current form, I can't imagine we are anywhere close to people having a true football/soccer team level passion for the Range Goats or HyFlyers...
Speaking of national teams...
CHECKING IN ON OLYMPIC QUALIFYING
If you're looking for a real mental workout, try explaining to someone how Olympic golf qualifying works. Yikes.
What started as a fun exercise to answer the question of how close Si Woo is to qualifying (Spoiler alert—he's CLOSE!)... quickly devolved into a $#@& ton of math. So I'll try to sum it up as quickly as I can before highlighting a few of my top takeaways from the current state of Olympic team qualifying.
120 golfers will be eligible—60 men and 60 women.
Each country will be allowed two men and two women—UNLESS you have more than 2 golfers in the Top 15 of the Olympic/OWGR rankings. Which currently only applies to the US (woo!) and so we'll potentially have up to 4 golfers on both the men's and women's side qualifying.
The Olympics rankings go back two years and the further back your top finishes are, the less they matter. (Spoiler alert—if you're a LIV fan, cover your eyes...)
The deadline for final qualifying is mid-June so we're about six weeks away from knowing the final rosters.
All that said, here's a few of my top takeaways about where we stand:
- US team is loaded but some fan favorites are on the outside looking in. For the men—Scottie (duh), Wyndham (yay), Xander (meh), and Cantlay (...) with Homa and Sahith both lurking. For the women—Nelly (duh), Lilia Vu, Megan Khang, and Alison Lee with Rose lurking and Lexi pretty far out of the picture (among others).
- Tom Kim is well-positioned for Korea but it's a tight race for the second spot between Sunjae, Byeong Hun An, and Si Woo!
- Rahm, despite joining LIV, will have no issue qualifying since he had such a dominant run on Tour the previous two years.
- Cam Smith however... NOT ON THE TEAM! Jason Day and Min Woo Lee are the Australian representatives and that's entirely because of LIV.
- A Scandinavian battle for the 60th spot on the men's side between Kris Ventura of Norway and Kalle Samooja of Finland. Who are they? Great question but I bet they love to layer.
- More of a global affair on the women's side as Ines Laklalech of Morocco battles Dottie Ardina of the Phillipines, separated by only one point.
WOW—I wish I created this...
THE OAKLAND OPEN
Back during Masters week, this absolute gem of a tournament snuck right by me.
Celebrating its third year in existence, allow me to introduce The Oakland Open—an event held by the Theta Xi fraternity at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
This 36 hole golf tournament takes place on the streets surrounding the fraternity house and features four rounds and a field of 44 players. After perusing the Instagram account and the official website, it appears that the holes are made by burying a red solo cup in the ground, full betting odds are released, and the tournament features a men's, women's, and senior (alumni) field.
If I were to re-do my college search today, it's an event like this that could have tipped the scale between Syracuse and Michigan. I can't even describe the level of jealousy I have that I didn't create something similar when I was at school.
It's the perfect blend of rough-around-the-edges and completely over the top celebration. Would love to hear from anyone who attends Michigan about this—and if you've been... email me NOW.
BB Book Club?
A COURSE CALLED AMERICA
I'm at the stage in my golfing obsession where I've now become golf book guy.
Letting that sink in has been both exhilarating and depressing. Exhilarating because it means that I care about the game so much that it not only fills all my social feeds but now occupies most of my reading time. Between Dream Golf, The Golfer's Journal, and now this book—I'm on a kick alright.
Depressing because I literally have no time for any other books—and I definitely remember being 15 and making fun of my parents for reading these kinds of things. So there's some facing my own aging mixed in here and I don't love it.
But back to the exciting part—A Course Called America was absolutely fantastic.
The quick pitch is that the writer Tom Coyne had toured both Scotland and Ireland for similarly structured books but realized that he hadn't toured his own country and all the kinds of golf available therein. So this book chronicles his multi-year journey to play a course (often many) in every state as he searches for the perfect American golf course.
Each chapter is only a few pages, and they read like short stories as he weaves together the tales of who he played with, how he got there, what the course was like, and often a whole host of other topics along the way.
I saved this section for the end this week to respect my shorter attention span readers out there—but if you enjoy a good book and love golf, this is a must-read.
**WARNING!! -- This book will result in extreme desires to schedule multiple golf trips. Do not operate while holding a credit card.**
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