Welcome back to the No Laying Up bi-weekly mailbag! In this space, we’ll address topics big and small, smart and dumb, irreverent and serious. You need to be a member of The Nest to submit a question to the mailbag, but the mailbag itself will be free to read (as long as you behave yourselves). Most of our questions are submitted via our message board, The Refuge, but if you’re not a message board person, please send me an email at kvv@nolayingup.com with your Nest handle and your question. As a bonus, if your question gets picked, we’ll send you a free NLU towel.
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Dflock24: Realistically what would you like to see in regards to a ball/equipment rollback? Obviously most of the talk is around a more spinny ball to exaggerate mishits; do you think this or other suggestions would be enough to truly make a difference in the professional game? Could changes such as a spinner ball or reduced legal driver head actually have a lasting impact, or would the players eventually figure it out and get back to overpowering courses in 5-10 years?
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Realistically, what I would like to see is professional golfers step back and realize that their interests do not always align with the greater good of the game. Professional golfers are really good at picking apart the challenge a golf course presents. Some of them see it as art, and some of them see it as a math equation they are trying to solve, but the goal is the same: Shoot the lowest score. The goal of the governing bodies is different. They have a responsibility to strike a balance between professional golfers, amateur golfers, golf course owners and architects, the environment, superintendents and history. Professional golfers have the biggest megaphone, but they also have selfish motivations. They don’t want their jobs to get harder and they don’t want the equipment companies who pay them to have to rethink a marketing strategy that has benefitted them. I wish they could realize they could step outside themselves and understand there is a value in preserving the historical connection we have to the game. Do I need to see them hitting a 1-iron into the 13th hole at Augusta National like Jack Nicklaus did? No, I’m not that extreme, but it would be nice to see more 4 irons instead of 8 irons. They could have participated in sensible reform, and worked with the USGA and R&A, but they’ve resisted ANY reform. I think if Mike Whan had announced that a new tournament ball was going to spin more or punish mishits severely, they would have howled in protest to that as well. So I don’t know what the answer is. But I do know the framing of the issue is frequently dishonest. Professional golfers are still going to be really good at golf no matter what ball they play. And if the ball doesn’t fly (quite) as far, maybe we don’t have to make greens STIMP at 13 or 14 in every major, which would benefit the game in a lot of ways, not just at the professional level but in a way that cascades down.
TK2575: Aside from the larger audience, what has your experience been using Twitter threads as a means of reporting? Does the 280 character bullet point have any significant impact on your approach? If so, is there any reason why this approach couldn't be incorporated into your NLU website posts?
One thing I’m enjoying about this mailbag is it feels like people like a peek into how the sausage of journalism is made. If you haven’t followed along, I’ve written multiple “columns” on Twitter from the Genesis and The Players instead of incorporating them into the NLU website, a decision that has baffled some of my friends but delighted some readers. The reasons behind it, I think, is fairly simple: The shelf life for a Thursday or Friday column from a golf tournament is very short. By the time I get it written, edited, built and posted, it might live on our website for what … five or six hours before play begins again?
There is an immediacy to writing in Twitter threads and also a discipline to it. I kind of enjoy trying to write well in small boxes. In truth, I think digital media companies have sometimes made a mistake in trying to monetize the written word. How likely are you to click on a digital banner ad on NoLayingUp.com when you’re interested in one of my stories? I think you’re more likely to be annoyed than you are willing to buy a product from one of those ads.
I want people to read those Twitter threads and feel something about the NLU universe. If you like my insights, hopefully, you’ll stick around and read the Sunday wrap-up or you’ll listen to the podcast or join the Nest. My friend Kyle Porter and I had a conversation about this recently. Writing is a great way to bring people under your umbrella. It’s not a great way to make money. Do Twitter threads feel like a waste if they just disappear? Maybe. And I think there will be moments when we could make them into actual columns. In the case of Keith Mitchell, I knew when I saw that I wanted it to be more than a series of tweets. So I wrote a column. I think my honest answer is, we’re figuring this stuff out as we go along. I like the freedom to do whatever the moment calls for.
Dmmcgaha: KVV, I really need your help. As I’m perusing the lineups for some music festivals this summer, I see that the foo fighters are headlining a lot of festivals. My question is: Who’s favorite band is the Foo Fighters? Aren’t they just Creed with a lead singer who was in Nirvana instead of the CIA? Foo Fighters is a heavier version of Maroon 5: Tons of accolades, but no one admits they like them. Can you help?
This topic came up recently in a group chat I’m in and I’m kind of surprised at how polarizing the Foo Fighters are among my friends. Often when these kinds of questions come up, I’m reminded of the anecdote about New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who was alleged to have quipped when Richard Nixon was elected president that she didn’t know how that was possible because she didn’t know anyone who had voted for him. (The anecdote is almost certainly apocryphal, but has bandied about for 50 some years as a way of poking fun at someone who seems out of touch and living in a bubble. In truth, Kael was almost certainly admitting her own provincialism.)
Do I know anyone who is a passionate fan of the Foo Fighters? Admittedly I do not. But that might be an indictment of me, not the Foo Fighters. I think the comparison to Creed and Maroon 5 is unfair because Creed stinks (sorry to my colleagues Neil and Randy) and Maroon 5 is not a rock band, they’re a pop band.
Here is what I will say about the Foo Fighters: They have two videos I can watch and I immediately get choked up. The time they played “My Hero” at the MTV Music Awards with Taylor Hawkins’ son on the kit, and the time they closed down Dave Letterman’s run as a late night host with a performance of “Everlong,” the song Letterman listened to repeatedly in the hospital when he needed a quintuple bypass.
I like snarking about art and music as much as anyone, but I don’t see how you can watch the Shane Hawkins video and not be moved by the power of music. There is a moment at the 3:45 mark where Dave Grohl looks back at Shane with a mixture of pride and wonderment that just guts me. Imagine losing your dad and then getting up on stage, sitting in the exact seat where he sat, and just mashing the drums with everything you’ve got in front of thousands of people. Grieving takes on different forms, and that one moves me every time.
The second video is more about my own shit, but it’s loosely connected to the theme of dads. When I was a kid, watching David Letterman on Friday nights was one of best bonding experiences I had with my dad, and it spanned such an important period of my life (from when I was a teenager to when I was a father myself) that when Letterman brought out the Foo Fighters to say goodbye and they started ripping through Everlong, it felt like a slideshow of the last 25
Source: https://nolayingup.com/blog/kvv-mailbag-the-rollback-modern-journalism-and-the-wire