We’re trying something new for these mailbag columns. We opened a thread at the Refuge to submit questions and have tag-teamed responses between the whole NLU crew. Hope you enjoy and get involved in the Refuge if you haven’t already!
If you could live one PGA Tour Pro’s life, who would it be and why? –murph
RANDY: Ryan Moore. 38th all-time in career earnings and zero chance he gets recognized going to the grocery store on a Tuesday night. That’s a hell of a win-win.
SOLY: For the same reasons, Charles Howell III.
NEIL: Adam Scott: Mr. Steal Ya Girl is physically gifted, got boy band ass, splits his time between Oz, Bahamas, and Switzerland (and probably several other non-extradition countries), has enough wins and a Masters to avoid any real “wasted talent” conversations from getting too in depth, owned his own plane (the real sign of “fuck you” money), and now seems to care more about surfing left breaks than reading left breaks. There’s more to life than golf for this guy. Sign me up, I’ll deal with the public recognition.
TRON: Thomas Pieters (I’m assuming this is only forward-looking). He’s been around long enough to have made a lot of money already, but not all the money so he’s still hungry. Crazy upside. Plays a worldwide schedule and possesses an EU passport. Definitely famous, but keeps a low profile. Gonna be a Ryder Cup stalwart. Still plenty of cool stuff he’s going to experience. Low-key funny guy too.
You get one of these two Sunday final pairings AND sudden death playoff at The Masters: Tiger-Phil, or Jordan-Rory. Which would you rather see? –misterfish1
RANDY: Tiger and Phil in a playoff at Augusta would be one of the most iconic, celebrated events in the history of the game. Full stop. It would be the cherry on top of the last 20-plus years of golf, a Hollywood-esque last act in the drama. It’s quite amazing (read: depressing) to think two of the greatest players of all-time, with the vast majority of their careers overlapping, in all likelihood won’t have a signature head-to-head battle for a major championship. If the ‘02 US Open is as close as we’ll ever get I can’t help but feel more than a little cheated as a fan.
D.J.: I think Randy nailed it. I kind of stopped reading the question after “Tiger-Phil.” Nothing else is close.
I think the interesting twist on this question is asking which young star you would want to see these guys go up against before their careers come to a close. For me, I think it’s Tiger and Jordan. JS has been the person whose dominance has most closely resembled Tiger’s (at least at a young age) and I think he feels like the player to me that is set up for the longest run of consistent winning (which would just make a duel like this age even better).
TRON: Didn’t Spieth already end Rory’s career that one Saturday at Augusta when he slow-played him allllllll day? I’ll take a Monty/Norman showdown, final answer.
Is Rickie this generation’s Sergio Garcia? –Blewett
RANDY: When Sergio was 29 going on 30 he had 15 combined PGA Tour/Euro Tour wins. Rickie currently has 6. It’s not getting late for Rickie by any stretch, but with each passing year the career trajectory projections shift a bit. Currently, I’m liking a Fred Couples comp. I can imagine Rickie ending up in the 15 win (+ 3 Euro titles)/1 major territory alongside Fred. Where the comparison really solidifies, in my opinion, is in the popularity of the two guys amongst fans.
D.J.: I again agree with the Slender Man here. I think what made Sergio Sergio was that his losses were so catastrophic and heartbreaking that he was turned into this tragic figure (sometimes by his own doing, of course). Nothing about Rickie, even at his lowest, ever feels tragic. He seems to just generally be winning at life and any success on the golf course is just gravy on top. The Fred Couples comp is money.
TRON: Everything above is spot-on (also take Randy’s stuff with a grain of salt, as he loathes the Rictator). As far as career arcs go, I’m starting to get a distinctly Adam Scott vibe from Rickie, only if Adam Scott cared more. Similar wins, similar close calls in majors, etc.
Ratio of strokes to pictures during a casual Zac Blair round? –PhilsSignedGlove
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D.J.: It’s at least one photo every hole, usually more. So that’s what? 2.5 to 1?
I’ve not only never seen anything like it, I just can’t wrap my head around how he keeps all the photos organized. He’s taking photos constantly through every round, firing them all off to different group texts to illustrate different architectural nuances and then referring back to them all months later. The reason I wanted to include this question is because it’s a perfect illustration of how ZB can legitimately remember almost every hole he’s ever played. It’s incredible. We get done with a round and he can rattle off what each hole was, what number he had in and even what each of your shots did there. And he can remember most of this months later too. I’d say on a good day (and an average course), I can remember about 9-12 holes immediately after the round. After a week, that drops to about 3. He just seems to have infinite space for this stuff.
TRON: Zac could probably give David Cannon a run for his money in terms of pictures taken over the past few years. The energy and mental organization he has to keep all this stuff straight continually blows my mind. He’s the RaynorMan in more ways than one.
NEIL: A more statistically relevant question would be “Ratio of strokes to, “this is the best (insert: hole, green, tee box, bunkering, layout, usage of native area, cart path) I’ve EVER seen” comments per round (minus the cart path line, RaynorMan would never say that). When you play with ZB, you have to relish the way he lives in the present. He might be Dori, from Finding Nemo, reincarnated as a dude in land-locked Utah. After the round he can remember every shot on every hole, but he can’t remember that he just told me the last green two greens might be the sickest green he’s ever played. It’s like active short term memory loss with no impact on the long term photographic memory. That’s wild man!
Why do you all love golf? –ejdean7
D.J.: I know this can sound cheesy (and I hope this person is not a sleeper cell with Big Insurance referencing those bad Zurich commercials where the players are taking lie detector tests about how much they love golf). But I think it’s kind of a fun one to think about every now and again.
I love it for all the reasons you’d think (you never perfect it, great company, challenge, etc.), but I think the main reason I love it is because there’s nothing else I’ve found that has so many different parallels to life in general. Legitimately every problem or high point in life can have a golf parallel/analogy to it (“Tin Cup” illustrates this really well in the therapy scene). But golf is also a perfect microcosm for people’s worldviews I think. You can learn so much about someone based on whether they’re obsessed with conditioning or score or architecture or equipment or hitting on the cart girl. You can see how people handle bad shots and how they gamble and whether they throw clubs or not. I can’t think of anything else that airs someone out quite the same way that golf does.
TRON: Because it’s a total mind-fuck.
SOLY: Golf is a perfectly imperfect blend of nature and sport. You’re outdoors amongst the elements, and battling the wind, the challenge of the terrain, the grass type, the trees, the hazards, all to put a ball into a tiny little hole. It’s hard as hell, so the genuine satisfaction that comes with a well-executed shot or a solid round hits you in the feels harder than it does with any other sport I’ve experienced. Almost all of the other sports I’ve ever played are played in the same dimensions, and are played directly against other people. With golf, the only defense you face is the course. The feeling when you stuff an approach is infectious, and you think about it all day until you get to tee it up again.
RANDY: Who says I do? (Whoa…)
With Furyk this year, Stricker likely in 2020, and Phil seeming to fit better in 2024, who do we have for a 2022 Ryder Cup captain? More likely to be a first time captain or a repeat? –coliphant
SOLY: Tiger.
It’s pretty safe to say that the U.S. has essentially adopted a similar model to Europe, requiring future captains to have at least served as an assistant captain. Cat will have likely been a 3-time assistant at that point, and he seems heavily invested enough in the pro
Source: https://nolayingup.com/blog/march-nlu-mailbag-part-1