Midweek Musings - P.M. Edition

Sorry about this morning, but it was shorts weather.  The astute reader can guess where I was....

How Do We Make Golf Fun? - Any guesses?  Anyone?  Bueller?  It's simple according to this Bloomberg report:

To Make Golf Fun, Just Add a Nightclub

I'm guessing you wish that you had thought of that before Topgolf,  which is reportedly one of the fastest growing entertainment chains in the country.  That last bit is my only hesitation with this piece, as they aren't, you know, in the golf biz.

The first Topgolf opened in 2000 in Watford, England, a commuter town northwest of London. It was the brainchild of Dave and Steve Jolliffe, golf-loving twins who embedded radio-frequency identification chips in balls to track them. They invented a game to go with the balls, putting holes in the turf, each about 50 feet wide with a flag in the center, to use as targets. The “top” in “Topgolf” stood for “target oriented practice.”

The company has since dropped the acronym, but the basic game the Jolliffes invented is still played at every Topgolf. In Scottsdale the hostess leads us to a bay on the second deck—I’ve brought along my dad, who, like me, hasn’t been on a golf course in years. The tee faces 215 yards of turf bounded by a net more than 150 feet high. It’s pay-by-the-hour—$45 during peak times at this venue—for a bay about the size of a den. Each player gets a Topgolf membership card, which the hostess swipes at a touchscreen to start our time. She explains the basic rules: No running up to the tee to hit, Happy Gilmore-style. (“We had people doing that,” she says.) Only one person at a time past the red line separating the couches from the tee. And no aiming for the carts that circle the outfield sweeping up balls.

Excuse me, that last bit is unAmerican..... It's obviously a model that works, but they don't come cheaply:

In September the company lined up $275 million in financing to build 7 to 10 locations a year. (Each costs $20 million to $25 million to open.) “We think there’s room for 100 or so in the U.S. and an equal amount globally,” Anderson says, though other than the original locations, the company hasn’t yet opened any outside the U.S. Revenue last year was about $300 million; this year it will be about a half-billion dollars.

They're running golf-themed saloons, not that there's anything wrong with that.   I'm skeptical that they'll create any new golfers, but the Millennials seem to love it.... at the least the few of them that have spending cash.

Task Force Envy - Rory created a little storm with his comments on the No Laying Up Podcast.  

Rory McIlroy has urged the European Tour to scrap its controversial Ryder Cup rule

which caused Paul Casey to miss last month’s defeat, claiming the Englishman’s absence “definitely hurt” Europe’s attempt to win for a record fourth time in succession.

“It should be the best 12 players from Europe versus the best 12 players from the US,” McIlroy told the Nolayingup podcast. “For me, there shouldn’t be anything to do with membership of tours. To have a guy like Paul Casey not on our team when he is playing some of the best golf in the world right now, it definitely hurt us [in Hazeltine].”

Not.  Gonna.  Happen.  The Euro Tour, which unlike our side controls their share of the bonanza, has only that ca to keep their kids at home.

Lee Westwood agrees with the Ulsterman:

"I can see the reason why they want you to be a European Tour member, but I think it's unfortunate when you have clearly world class/Ryder Cup experienced players missing

out because they have chosen to, for one reason or another, live in America or play golf solely in America. 

"I can always sympathise with them because I don't see why that personal decision should affect whether you can play in the Ryder Cup or not.

"At the end of the day, you're still European and you still have the passion to play for Europe and represent them. 

"If you prove that you're world class on, say, the PGA Tour and not the European Tour, 

why should that have any bearing on whether you can play or not?"

 Even if Seve recommended it from the grave, that just can't go there....

Don't Try This At Home - These guys are quite mad:

At their day jobs in Australia, Evan Shay is a builder and Morgan Ruig is a commercial

real estate agent. But apparently, their talents in creating and selling translate to other activities as well. 

The pair of Aussie hackers recently pulled off the greatest golf prank we've ever heard of by posing as pros to get into and play in the North Korea Golf Championship. And it didn't even sound like it was that difficult. Well, if you don't count risking getting stuck in North Korea. 

"Originally, we said we're a couple of Australian golfers, and they said, 'You're the Australian team?' and we sort of, didn't say no," Morgan Ruig told News 9 in Australia. "So we thought, 'we better go along with this.'"

And if they got stuck in North Korea, it would be in the Nork's gulag....  At least they're not Americans, though John Kerry would see negotiating their release as the path to his Nobel Peace Prize.

As Long As It's Bipartisan - From a driving range in Texas:

And Shotlink confirms my suspicions:

Oh, and by "votes," we mean non-votes. It makes sense that golfers would try to hit the target of the candidate they're not supporting. According to an employee at the range, people have been hitting 20 balls at Clinton for every one ball at Trump. And that makes sense with Trump being heavily favored to win Texas and its 38 electoral votes on Nov. 8.

This Story Is A Month Old - Tiger Woods announces his return to golf, is "excited" to play Hero World Challenge

Youth Is Served - Jaime Diaz has an item from Golf Digest that I'm undecided about.  See what you think, a she first gives them their due:

No question the New Big Three of Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy is farther ahead in their careers than any previous trio of 20-somethings. (When Jack Nicklaus and

Gary Player began simultaneously killing it in their 20s, Arnold Palmer had reached his 30s.) 

Still, today's young players are more precocious than their immediate predecessors. After Tiger Woods won 46 times in his 20s before turning 30 in 2005, by the end of the 2007 PGA Tour season, only two American players in their 20s—Jonathan Byrd and Ben Curtis—had more than one official victory. 

But then came Anthony Kim and Dustin Johnson, followed with a bang by McIlroy, who won four majors before turning 26. In 2015, Spieth won two majors at 21.

 It is a particularly strong group young talent I'll agree, but here's Jaime's premise:

But there's something else going on. Today's best young players don't just want to be great at golf. They're more aware of being great at life. 

And they're being cheered in the pursuit. It's why #SB2K16—last April's Instagram- and Snapchat-chronicled buddies trip of Rickie Fowler, Smylie Kaufman, Justin Thomas (then 27, 24 and 22, respectively) and Spieth—was so popular. Some old-schoolers saw it as evidence that the first three were doing too much work on their images and not enough on their games, and that Spieth—who had just suffered a heartbreaker at the Masters—was going soft. But that was the minority view. Most celebrated the unmarried foursome getting bleary-eyed and footloose. Why? 

A complex cocktail. Partly it's Woods, long admired for his killer instinct and lonely pursuit of excellence, becoming a cautionary tale. Partly it's the millennial sensibility—having been shaken by disquieting events and broken models—placing increased value on friendship and joie de vivre, and seeing the public sharing of such moments as the spreading of a new gospel. And partly it's economic. Today's young stars simply have it easier, earlier.

That last bit is uncontroversial, but are today's kids really any different than the prior generations, or do we just know about because of social media.   Yes, Rickie spends an awful lot of time on his wardrobe, but so did Doug Sanders....  And wasn't it way back, yanno in 2015, when we heard ad nauseaum what an old soul Jordan is?

Discuss among yourselves....

I'll go out on this cute pic of Johnathan Byrd's son's Halloween homage:

The beverage and pink shirt were nice touches, the latter being a fave of The King.  But no grading on the curve here, this costume is wholly inadequate without a persimmon driver and a cigarette dangling from his lips....