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"I would hate seeing my swing on video. I think it looks disgusting." - Tyrrell Hatton on whether or not he uses AI in his practice/coaching routine. He continued, "Yeah I'm sorry for being terrible for your question there."
<Me patiently tapping my foot waiting for all the personalities to come back to the PGA.>
USGA drops their 2025 Golf Scorecard
AND IT KNOCKED ME OFF MY CHAIR
I'm asking you to really trust me this week as the lead story is about a white paper from the USGA detailing the nationwide statistics around handicap index.
But some of these numbers were legit jaw-dropping. Don't believe me? Strap in.
JAW-DROPPER 1
~14% of people who carry a handicap played golf 50 or more times last year. (What do you people do for a living?? Do you not have families? Every. Single. Weekend. You golfed.)
JAW-DROPPER 2
230,000 Exceptional Scores were posted last year. That essentially means a score that was at least 7 strokes below your expected score according to handicap. (You can view this two ways, that's either 230,000 sandbaggers saved or 230,000 people that had the round of a lifetime. I like to look at the bright side and root for excellence.)
JAW-DROPPER 3
Among male golfers there was a 58% increase in 9 hole scores posted since 2020. (Long live the executive course! Some of my favorite golfing memories from when I picked the game back up in LA were at this cool yet ratty 9 hole course in Venice called Penmar. It has since dropped the ratty moniker and become, apparently, quite the hangout.)
JAW-DROPPER 4
The five regional winners for states with the "golfiest" populations—meaning the highest # of rounds played proportional to the number of golfers in the state and available days to play. (Don't @ me to explain this further.)
West - Arizona (sure)
Southeast - Florida (sure)
Midwest - Wisconsin (I would've guessed Michigan but sure)
Central - Colorado (our first genuine upset over Texas)
Northeast - Maine!! (lobsters, Stephen King, and golf?)
JAW-DROPPER 5
I saved the best for last. The two states with the lowest average men's and women's handicap index? Mississippi and Arkansas!
You could've given me 46 guesses before I would've hit Arkansas. So to all you readers in "The Natural State", kudos.
Splittin' the uprights
FGIR: FIELD GOALS IN REGULATION
One of my biggest mind blocks is rationalizing that the length of an entire football field is more or less my pitching wedge distance. And furthermore, you could hit driver in any NFL or college stadium and easily hit it out of the park at any given moment.
I don't know why my brain can't handle this fact.
In other news, speaking of football, bummer about my Bears last weekend. What a run. I had a blast sending the fingernail painting emoji to all the Caleb doubters in my life (of which there are PLENTY.)
In other other news, I present the TikTok above. Demonstrating an impressive level of accuracy I could only dream of with driver, this kid absolutely drills one through the uprights.
A few surprising stars emerge
DP WORLD TOUR REMAIN THE CONTENT GOATS
I need to LinkedIn the DP World Tour content team because they must be the most charming bunch of people in the world to get these athletes to play along with these posts.
The latest gold from Dubai was an 80s style sitcom intro featuring about a dozen or so pros. You had the expected bunch like Tommy, Viktor and Shane Lowry being their usual affable selves.
But a few surprising stars emerged from the video that even after a few seconds you could tell were fun dudes to be around.
Click through the image above for the full video but here were my top three standouts:
3) Ryan Fox who was "caught" fishing in the course lake before proceeding to show he caught a fish "THIS BIG" with his arms. Ryan. Fox. Who knew he had it in him??
2) Lee Westwood struck me as a prickly fellow but he understood the assignment here and absolutely crushed the 80s era "caught in the act" smile and turnaround candidly.
1) Angel Ayora could be something. A relatively fresh face on the scene, turning pro in 2024, Angel has a quick piece at the very end. But the way he lets his impeccable flow shake out of his cap before hitting you with the popular guy in high school smile? We could have a star here.
Beware. Teen crossing ahead.
E-BIKES ARE COMING FOR OUR COURSES
On the golf re-post factories this week was a grainy, Big Foot-esque video from Australia of teens on e-bikes absolutely swarming a seaside golf hole.
Initially my mind went to that AI-generated image of a million bald eagles on the course and thought I was getting duped again. But the footage appears to be real.
Then my mind went to just how harmless yet terrifying swarms of teens are. I see this weekly as I pop over to our local thai food spot on Sunday evenings to find the high school crowds absolutely suffocating the local outdoor mall. I'm usually in a slightly stained with baby snot tee shirt, workout shorts, and socks with flip flops because who even cares at this point of the weekend. And I watch as the seas of baggy tree trunk sized jean wearing teens part for me like Moses, scowling or snickering or some combination of the both. Then I remember that the best way to diffuse any of said crowds is to literally say anything to them—and they collapse in on themselves like a single sheet of plastic wrap.
THEN my mind went to the question of what would be more destructive and annoying to deal with—a gang of e-bike riding teens popping wheelies in the bunkers or a pack of wild javelinas leaving a path of destruction down the fairways.
Same-same.
