Breakfast Balls enthusiasts—issue #200 is next week!!
And in the spirit of the show The Bear, picture me pensively hunched over in the kitchen at Bad Birdie HQ gingerly tasting various pans of sauces and remoulades before yelling out "BEHIND!" or "CORNERS!" as I command the staff around like my own army of sous chefs.
In the meantime, I'll be finishing my series of questions at the end of each week's issue to help get ready. So if you'll do your best Richie impression—telling me you wear suits now as you help prep the dining room for service—I'd appreciate any and all responses as I will definitely have a heavy reader-contributed portion to the issue.
Now, let's get back to our normal programming.
Off to Paris they go—eventually
THE OLYMPIC FIELD IS SET
This week, the full Olympic golf field was officially set. The men were announced the week prior but the women's field included the results of the KPMG Women’s PGA major championship last weekend.
Now that we have a picture of both, wanted to do a quick rundown of what stood out and who we can root for come August.
TEAM USA - MEN'S
1) Scottie (duh)
2) Xander (looking for a repeat gold performance)
3) Wyndham (recent form is making this one tougher to justify and likely would be the Bryson spot if the rankings worked differently)
4) Morikawa (playing some great golf and excited to see what he does)
OTHER MEN'S OLYMPIC NOTABLES
1) Rory and Shane for Ireland kind of seems like a Batman & Robin thing. Obviously the Rory heartbreak is top of mind but I absolutely love the narrative of his year if he comes out like a man on fire at The Open and rolls that right into a gold medal.
2) Between Viktor and Ludvig, this will be the most Olympic action that the Nordic countries have seen since curling or cross country skiing or whatever freezing cold winter sports they usually dominate.
3) Jason Day and Min Woo will be electric for Australia and I could easily imagine the Australian fan base repping hard for them in France.
4) Super bizarre story from The Netherlands who are not allowing their golfers to even go to the Olympics because of an internal rule that if they rank outside the Top 100 they have no shot and shouldn't even bother. Yikes. Very against type for the same country that brought the world Amsterdam.
5) Long(ish) shot of the field will go to the Frenchman Pavon as he rides the hometown crowd to a podium.
TEAM USA - WOMEN'S
1) Nelly (duh)
2) Lilia Vu (came in second at the KPMG last weekend and has some of that Morikawa-like momentum behind her)
3) Rose (huge. Easily the member of Team USA men's and women's that I am most excited to watch.)
OTHER WOMEN'S OLYMPIC NOTABLES
1) Korea will be the only other nation besides the US sending multiple golfers in either field.
2) Minjee Lee will join her brother Min Woo on Team Australia which will surely be a featured video package seen across the entire broadcast of both competitions—and I'm down.
3) Charley Hull rippin' darts in France will be the most France Olympics thing I can imagine and could end up being the cover photo for the whole event.
4) Maja Stark will win for the name that strikes fear into me without having any legitimate reason. She had a handful of top finishes this year but for the most part hasn't played amazing. The Game of Thrones connection, however, can't be ignored.
5) Lydia Ko will be looking to podium for her third straight Olympics which is a pretty bada$$ streak given that we haven't seen Olympic golf since 1904 before Rio 2016 brought it back.
An all-time Q School story
THE GOLF GALAXY GUY DID IT!
Golf social media went ballistic this week for the story of Nick Bienz, a Golf Galaxy employee who ended up qualifying on Monday for this week's Rocket Mortgage Classic.
The story caught fire because during an interview with the Monday Q Info account, he dropped this absolute gem as he was drinking beers while waiting to see everyone else finish.
"I need every ounce of alcohol to calm my nervous system and not vomit on myself."
He ended up drinking three beers before competing in a playoff for the spot—and he won.
I may have a new secret rule of thumb for Breakfast Balls content, any time a story can reach my social feed, Pat McAfee (or another mainstream sports show), and NY Post... it makes the cut no question.
And the cherry on top of his week came when Golf Galaxy tweeted out a press release announcing Nick as their newest sponsored athlete and sharing this epic statement from Nick himself.
"Let’s have a week.”
All this takes me back to my summer working at Golf Galaxy in college. I decided to run days at Golf Galaxy and evenings waiting tables at Bahama Breeze and it was my highest paying stretch of employment for an embarrassingly long time into adulthood. Turned out that the big time paydays in entertainment were not something shared with the production or writer's assistants...
Nick said he typically arrives two hours early or stays two hours late to use the Trackman systems and hone his game.
My claim to fame during my time at Golf Galaxy was stealing an Odyssey promotional ball marker that looked like a poker chip. And uhhhhh, that may have been it.
Speaking of wunderkinds like myself...
MILES GETS HIS HALL PASS
Joining Golf Galaxy Nick at the Rocket Mortgage this week is 15-year-old Miles Russell who qualified for the event after finishing top 20 in a recent Korn Ferry tournament.
Always love a good visual and the joke this week was that Detroit Golf Club made a special exemption to their clubhouse policy.
Yes, Detroit Golf Club officially welcomed Miles into manhood. Like a bar mitzvah, almost. Only, instead of reciting the Torah, rumors are that they made Miles promise not to steal the free cans of Barbasol shaving cream or reveal to anyone the color of the locker room carpet or—I don't know, I don't find myself in country club locker rooms often.
Miles went out and shot an opening round 74 and the fun fact here is that it was the same score shot by 51-year-old Stewart Cink. A man 36 years his senior.
The list is long for why I love golf, but the idea that two people 36 years apart can make the same score in a professional league tournament is pretty magical.
I mean, I don't hate it.
GOLF, BUT LOUDER
It's no secret that I have been harsh on LIV and its early days execution. I gave it a shot. It was a rough watch. I haven't been back.
And there are a small contingent of you who focused on my negative comments about LIV (conveniently ignored my negative comments about PGA) and vowed never to read again. Only to email a few months later with the same gripe—so who can't quit who?
But at a base layer, I'm one guy. With one set of opinions. And to call me a needle mover in relation to anything other than physically picking up needles when I accidentally knock over my college sewing kit still tucked into the back of a junk drawer—would be a joke.
BUT
I discovered that LIV has officially launched their own golf playlists. So I went in to take a quick spin and see what we were dealing with. I was highly skeptical that this would be anything more than ten songs who maybe had fun titles. Little to no faith that it would be a usable playlist.
I was wrong.
It's not only usable, it's kinda legit. The moment they won me over was when I saw Busy Earnin' by Jungle—a song squarely in the top 10 of my own golf playlist.
Furthermore, the entire concept of creating playlists inspired by all the stops on the LIV Tour is pretty awesome. You could see the telecast using only songs from the playlist then guiding people back to Spotify to hear more of their favorites. You could see featured artists headlining the tournament concerts at each stop.
In fact, it's such a great idea to me that it inspired my final question to prepare for Issue 200...
#200 approaches...
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
As I teased at the start, the countdown to Breakfast Balls Issue #200 is on! In fact, the countdown is almost at zero seeing as #200 is next week.
To say I know EXACTLY what I'm doing for it would be a biiiiiiiit of a stretch. But what I do know is that I'll need your help because it will feature a heavy dose of you—the readers.
So I end this issue with a simple question for you to answer.
Last week I asked: Who are your favorite five golfers in either PGA, LIV, LPGA or another Tour right now? Spoiler alert, lots of Nelly and lots of Homa.
MY FINAL QUESTION
What is your favorite song to play on the golf course right now?
NOTE - it doesn't have to be your all-time favorite. Just think about if you're out there playing right now and someone asks you to flip on a song, which are you choosing?
Have a Breakfast Balls-worthy tip? Reading any good golf books? Want to play some G?
Hit me up! The hot line is always open.
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