Hello fellow “the golf watching times are actually secretly better when golf is played in Europe” sickos,
I am here to report (or remind) that the September golf slate is just as good as May-July (other than the majors) and in Ryder Cup years, might be even better.
Walker Cup ✔️
Irish Open ✔️
Solheim Cup ✔️
Wentworth
Presidents Cup
French Open
Some great ones down but plenty to go over the next two weeks.
Let’s get into the weekend.
Name drops today: Angela Stanford, Jamie Weir, Steph Curry, Wyndham Clark, Jose Maria Olazabal, CeeDee Lamb and Jen Kupcho.
Today’s newsletter is presented by our friends at Sap’s Original.
We’re not saying that if Angela Stanford dressed up like a Sap's can and carried a case of Sap’s Original (purchased using their store locator, of course) onto the bus on Saturday night, Team USA would have retained the Solheim Cup.
But … well, maybe the celebration would have been a little more muted and the video would have gone just a little less viral.
A case full of hydration and performance support for this squad? Vamos? How about V-aminos (to help the body recover faster)!
A well-hydrated team is one you want going into Sunday, and you get the added benefit of not providing bulletin board material for a killer like Carlota Ciganda.
Alright, now on to the news.
Before Shane Lowry won this year’s Irish Open by 11 shots but well after he had begun to establish himself as maybe someone whose schtick had become a bit old, an unflattering video emerged of a Lowry drive on the 18th hole at Doonbeg. The camera captured him saying that a group of volunteers “deserve to get hit” based on where they were standing and how little attention they were paying.
Some people seemed to use this as mounting evidence that Lowry is not exactly the easy-to-root-for, fun-loving, pub-visiting everyman who won the Irish as an amateur, the Open as a pro and made the winning putt at a Ryder Cup.
But as far as provocative pro golf clips go, this one does not particularly stand out. As far as Shane Lowry clips go, this one does not particularly stand out.
Is this something you should say on camera? Probably not. But Shane says a lot of things he shouldn’t say on camera — many of which are so perfectly incoherent that my kids don’t even know that he’s cursing — which I believe is what his detractors would nod to as their entire point. Geoff Shackelford even suggested a “six-month vacation” for the Irishman.
Whether Lowry was joking or not, some of the on-course behavior from him is difficult to square this with the man who became emotional about finally taking a trophy home to his daughter and who gestured to the fans at the end in disbelief that he got to do this in front of them once again, 17 years after improbably doing it the first time.
I do not know Shane Lowry (and even if I did, I wouldn’t know him). Do not know whether he’s a good or bad or great or terrible hang. What I do know, though, is that he is emblematic of all humans. We all say incredibly stupid things. We all feel emotional when we revisit where we are from and when we talk about our kids. We all would love to pop in a bar following a huge career victory and lead a few chants.
All of us are difficult to square.
Shane Lowry may be the worst. Or he might be the best. But the truth — and I think all of us know this deep down — is almost certainly somewhere in the middle. Like many middle age dads, he seems to struggle with anger, seems to enjoy his drinking, seems to truly love his wife and kids, seems to have a complete and total obsession with the game of golf. Sometimes seems unsure of himself and what he wants out of life and maybe also forgets where he came from, who he once was. Seems like someone who is proud of his close friendships but fearful of the big moment. You could swap the specifics and be talking about a lot of 40-something men I know.
You are of course free to root for whoever you want to root for. This is the point of sport. But I guess what I’m saying here is that we should remember we cheer for humans, not deities. I like rooting for humans. I like it when they show me all of their sides, good, bad, ugly and beautiful (anything but indifferent). I love good characters.
I wrestled with all of this more comprehensively this summer when Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open for a second time. Lowry’s Irish Open — the full breadth of it — was a reminder that fandom in individual sports is complex because people cannot be reduced to the clips they sometimes produce.
Jason here with two lasting observations from Sunday at the Solheim Cup before we get to Kyle’s take on Bottlegate.
1. I loved seeing the ladies not taking off their hats to hug after a match. Straight out of the Larry David School of Golf Etiquette. Make it a men's golf thing!
2. Atmosphere. The difference in atmosphere between Bernardus and Bethpage was the difference between drinking punch and getting punched.
Maybe it's because I grew up a Philly sports fan, but I was surprised at how cordial the crowd was and also how rarely they got irked. When Team USA held up a fathead of Alison Lee after her historic comeback I heard little more than, "pfft, typical Americans."
When Auston Kim gave an "I can't hear you" after draining a putt on 14, I heard, "Oh, now I don't like that!" It was a far cry from some of the histrionics at last year’s Ryder Cup and far more akin to what a team event atmosphere should be.
It had been, what, a whole two years since a global team event played in Europe was completely upstaged and largely upended by a tweet that changed the entire trajectory of the week?
But thankfully, we’re back.
In case you missed it over the weekend, Jennifer Kupcho hit 115 feet of putts in the last two holes on Saturday evening to — alongside Lindy Duncan — win a match against Carlota Ciganda and Celine Boutier. Prime Steph stuff to tie the festivities 8-8 going into the singles matches.
Then U.S. captain, Angela Stanford, brought beers on the bus for reasons that are still a little unclear. The social post said they were for Jen (as in Kupcho) or presumably for what she did on the course in the final team session on Saturday night.
On Monday, Soly noted that the beers were given to the caddies, which makes a lot more sense than the U.S. players drinking on Saturday evening (perhaps they drank the Sap’s instead).
Regardless, the Europeans — who are not usually known for taking offense to any perceived slight such as the spike marks in Jose Maria Olazabal’s line from the 1999 Ryder Cup, which they will be talking about for the next 700 years — saw it, wrote it down and punished the confident Americans for it by winning and then making up a “they drink on Saturday, we drink on Sunday” chant.
Which …. is kinda sick.
Golf is so weird in that you constantly stop play at the end of the quarter, take a day off and then play the next quarter after going about your life away from the course for a substantial amount of time.
Imagine the Cowboys-Giants game lasting four days, and Dak and CD are going out to eat in NYC after the second quarter while down 21 points. That would be so strange.
In golf, all of these things that have almost nothing to do with the actual on-field play can happen between quarters and go on to affect the on-field play.
Culture is so weird in that — like with Lowry — these massive weeks and events are sometimes reduced to a 20-second clip on social.
When you think of the Rome Ryder Cup, Jamie Weir’s tweet probably ranks pretty high on the first thing you think of. When you think about Bethpage, it’s probably Rory pointing at fans and screaming expletives. When you think of this Solheim Cup, it will be this moment.
All of this is incredibly entertaining, of course, but I fear these players and these teams will be incentivized toward being robots. Toward not doing anything even remotely controversial or that could even be labeled as controversial.
This would be a shame for fans.
Because half the fun of rooting is to see a video of Nelly housing a beer on Saturday evening when it was 8-8, looking at the camera and saying, “We’re going to drink on Sunday, too.” This of course did not — and would never — happen. But it would have been so great if it did.
Both the Lowry and U.S. moment have the same takeaway for me. That these little snippets are great snapshots into people and events. Pieces of the puzzle, of interpreting the whole. I hope they don’t go away because they serve as little clues within our fandom. They are stories in and of themselves, yes, but they become even better when we realize and remember that they are only tiny parts of the entire narrative.
Thank you for reading our golf newsletter that is sometimes about golf but always made by humans and never generated with A.I. We love writing and illustrating it, and we’re grateful that you would spend your limited time and attention on something we’ve built.
.svg){kind=spacer}
