"As I said, it wasn’t going to be pretty. I was going to make a fool of myself. But it’s not the first time and won’t be the last time.." - Billy Horschel on his cringe-y "Dirty Bird" entrance at this week's TGL match... or me prepping the fellas for my first post-baby golf round.

 

It's PGA+... 

FULL SWING CLASS OF 2025

Netflix dropped the release date for Full Swing Season 3 this week—February 25th!
 
And alongside the premiere date, they announced the cast of characters who are joining (and re-joining) this year.
 
My quick takes on both lists:
 
TOP 3 RETURNING
Joel Dahmen - The narrative arc is unmatched from season one sweetheart to season two heart strings. Excited to hear more from Joel.
 
Keegan Bradley - Same as Joel, the emotional arc that Keegan went on with the Ryder Cup devastation and now we see his triumphant return as a captain should be good TV.
 
Rory McIlroy - Tough to not include since (outside of Tiger) he's been the official unofficial spokesman for the state of golf—plus, plenty of on-course drama to follow along.
 
TOP 3 NEWBIES
Min Woo and Minjee Lee - So pumped to see their dynamic and will be odds-on favorite for "breakout" stars of the season. Plus, ya gotta love an Aussie accent.
 
Neal Shipley - Low amateur at the Masters will likely be the bulk of his story, and I'm okay with that. There's a promise of endearing quirkiness to him.
 
Bryson - Home run by Full Swing. US Open vistory + his emergence as a force on golf social media will be pure gold.

 

Charley Hull is ready to go off the grid

CIGARETTES AND NOKIAS

For a brief 20 hours this past week, we all got a good sense of just how addicted to TikTok we were. A nice wake up call for myself as I proceeded to absent-mindedly open the app about 100 times throughout that day only to remember it had gone away.
 
But the story here concerns Charley Hull—the viral sensation of the past golf season for her Marlboro Man-esque relationship with cigarettes and not giving a f@#&.
 
On Instagram, during the TikTok "ban", she said the following:
 
"I think we should all be going back to old school. Ban all social media go back to a Nokia phone and live life in the moment."
 
The quote itself isn't terribly surprising. Someone who adores smoking cigarettes wants to go back to an old school world? Yeah... I bet. Back to a world where 6 year old Scott walks into Colonial restaurant in the northwest suburbs of Illinois and peeks over the "smoking section wall" to the people ripping darts and finishing up their banana splits. (Enjoy that HIGHLY specific regional restaurant chain reference.)
 
But the idea behind it did make me pause. Even considering just the influence of phones on the game of golf—some of my favorite rounds are the ones where I forget to pull my phone out at all and, as Charley mentions, live in the moment.
 
So perhaps there's something to banning social media after all...

 

JT to the PGA

TIME TO GRAB THE MIC

Full Swing Season 3 cast member and TGL golfer, Justin Thomas pulled a Michael Scott this week and penned his own letter to the editor. But instead of naming Chili's as the place where business is done... he made a plea to fellow PGA pros about helping amp up future golf broadcassts.
 
His pitch? More on-course interviews.
 
If you want to read the full pagelong letter, Athletic writer Gabby Herzig posted it on X here.
 
To be honest, the letter was a bunch of paragraphs that amounted to Justin saying—come on fellas, just play ball and answer a few questions.
 
His argument is that golf should act like the other professional sports leagues where you get the chance to watch a coach or player field a softball question before the game, during timeouts or at halftime. 
 
What amazed me was just how low a bar he tries to set. He writes that basically the audiences just wants to hear ANYTHING. It can be an easy, pre-cleared question that means nothing. Not sure if I totally agree there, but it is a way to fill the airtime with something besides two announcers waxing poetic about how JJ Spaun's swing reminds them of some obscure golfer's takeaway from 1998.
 
The other interesting piece was he drops a little data point saying that 18-34 year olds selected "on-course personality" as their highest driver of interest. See also: Bryson's YouTube.
 
Who knows what comes of this—for now, likely nothing. But I find it amusing when you get to see emails and letters written by athletes to one another—they really are just like us, sending memos that no one reads.

 

Golf under the lights

LIV FROM SAUDIA ARABIA—IT'S THURSDAY NIGHT

(That was one of my better headlines in a while... thankyouverymuch.)
 
LIV has been dropping quite a few updates recently—first of which was replacing Greg Norman as CEO with Scott O'Neil, a sports industry veteran. Which 100% feels like a "request" from the PGA before any merger is agreed upon.
 
Second update was the signing of a new broadcast deal with FOX—officially giving LIV the TV spotlight it's been craving. The CW just wasn't cutting it.
 
And finally, they announced that their 2025 season opener at the Riyadh Golf Club in Saudi Arabia will be taking place under the lights. Tee times are scheduled for around 7p local time which means it will air live in the US mid morning.
 
LIV continues to try new stuff and an entire golf tournament played in middle of the night surely falls in that category. I can't imagine the pros are going to love that seeing as my own experience playing under the lights really messes with how you read greens—and I barely know how to read greens.
 
There will be one player that I can't wait to hear weigh in and that's Rahm who infamously said the Amex tournament in Palm Springs was a "piece of s@#^ putting contest."
 
Strap in, Jonny boy and wave adios to your depth perception.