Golfpocalypse is a collection of words that runs prior to each week’s PGA Tour event, mostly ABOUT that event. Reach out with your hottest takes on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com. We’ll publish the best emails here.
Ladies and gentlemen, give yourselves a hand, pat yourselves on the back and down a quart of bourbon and ice cream: We are out of the weeds.
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The miserable Texas swing is over, and we are back in the realm of the blessed SIGNATURE EVENT, with major championships on the horizon. In Rolapp’s future utopia, every week will be like this (and no, I’m not troubled at all by the constant stream of articles saying, “institutional inertia is defeating him and eventually every tournament will be the Mexico Cognizant Schwab John Deer Puntacana Classic”), but for now we have to slog through the morass to get here. And friends, we have slogged, and we have earned a tournament like the Memorial where nine of the world’s top 10 players are in the field, and the storylines on Sunday will automatically be better than, “hey, did you know it’s Eric Cole’s mother’s birthday?”
Welcome to Muirfield Village, one of the tour’s hardest tracks and a perfect U.S. Open appetizer. Here we go.
1. If Scottie can’t win this week, he should go back to jail
Remember when I said that Scheffler really should have won the Byron Nelson, but he only finished third? Well, now he’s up against a much harder field, but this is his turf—he’s the two-time defending champ, and before that he finished third twice in a row. If Tiger’s personal playground was Torrey Pines (or Firestone, or Bay Hill), Memorial is shaping up to be Scottie’s, and his advantage from tee-to-green is so wildly out of proportion that he doesn’t even have to putt very well. His iron game has been particularly deadly here, with his SG: Approach ranks clocking in at second, first, first in his last three outings. And when I say putting doesn’t really matter, I mostly mean it—he was exactly average last year, verrrry slightly better than average in 2024, and poor in 2023.
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All of which is to say, for a guy who is excellent on any course, this is his ultimate horses-for-courses destination, and it would be a massive upset if he finished outside the top-five. The question is, can he find that winning touch? A win here, and all we’re going to be talking about for the next two weeks is the possible career slam at Shinnecock. It’s a springboard!
2. Who are we honoring at this year’s Memorial?
Last year, we got Barbara Nicklaus, which gave us the touching scene of Jack donning the headphones and singing “The Angel I Married” in a real-life recording studio. His voice was pretty good! That really could have felt very awkward, I have to say, and in this day and age the fact that he avoided becoming a meme speaks to how well he did. (Also, go to the 2:45 mark of that video to see how Jack’s son’s voice is eerily just like his dad’s.)
This year, we’re getting David Graham, the Aussie who won both the PGA and the U.S. Open, and is one of those sneaky underrated guys you don’t think much about. The story of his ’79 PGA is particularly wild, because he just needed a bogey on the 72nd hole to beat Ben Crenshaw, but gagged up a double, then would have been dead on the first two playoff holes if he didn’t make a long putt … which he did, and then won on the third. Really, go watch this video, because he choked it bad and admits it, and it took a miracle (and a gutty putting display) to get him the Wanamaker.
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Anyway, I approve of this honoree. And I must note this bit of research I unearthed, which is that in 2000, Nicklaus honored … himself.
3. Who else should we care about?
Here are five that intrigue me more than all the others:
Cam Young – Is he still elite? Did his window close already?Wyndham Clark – Is he elite again? Is he back to 2023 form after dominating the Nelson? Muirfield is a great test of whether his game can stand up to real pressure.Rory McIlroy – Are we in a sneaky repeat of last year, where it’s all downhill after the Masters?Matt Fitzpatrick – He has to win a major this year, right? The man got his brother a tour card!Xander Schauffele – Isn’t it time for him to be old Xander again at place where he hasn’t missed the cut since 2018?
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4. Appreciate Muirfield’s teeth
Last year, only four of Muirfield’s 18 holes played under par, and the last three holes in particular are brutal, which is how it should be. The only bad part is they don’t have a catchy name like seemingly over other course on tour, so I propose this: “Jack’s Dungeon.” Scary, a little creepy, a little enticing. For more on Muirfield, I recommend this from Joseph LaMagna, which makes the point that it’s the anti-Aronimink: the best players are able to get separation because ball-striking is so important. The really interesting part is the how—small greens with thick rough and tiny landing zones that are punishing if you get short-sided or just errant on the approach. It’s gnarly off the tee, too, partly because Nicklaus had the fairways tightened around ’99. The phrase LaMagna references is “target golf,” which can have a negative connotation, but for better or worse, accuracy is king here. If it ends up creating some sloggy action on the weekend, at least it makes demands. Spend five minutes at the Byron Nelson, with its 30-under winning score, and you’ll be begging for Muirfield. You’ll be begging for Jack’s Dungeon, you sicko.
5. At some point in your life, just sit down and watch an entire group in featured coverage on a Thursday or Friday
I realize this is not an easy ask, since time is at such a premium even though AI is going to render human existence meaningless within six months, BUT, as an infrequent feature coverage watcher myself, I am always pleased when I settle in and just focus on three guys playing 18 holes over a few hours on a weekday. It doesn’t even have to be your sole focus—just have it on in the background while you go through the motions of the sunset of your working life, and check in when you can. This is a particularly great week for the reasons stated above. You can watch guys plot their way around this course, and probably learn something about golf, and Muirfield, in the process. You can even shout at the golfers when they’re stupid. I feel like this is time well-spent; it gives you all the good vibes of studying something and getting smarter—self-improvement!—but at the end of the day you’re just watching golf. Win-win.
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6. Golf Tweet of the Week: Tiger’s 2-iron at the Memorial
I have a feeling a lot of you have seen this already, and the tweet is actually from 2024, but that’s okay, because it’s never a bad day to watch it again. Tiger Woods, 1999, Memorial, 274 yards from the hole. This is pure magic, and includes the greatest ‘follow-the-ball’ march ever:
That was his first win at Memorial, and it also included the “how about four?” flop shot par save. What a week for peak Tiger!
7. Ranking the sponsor’s exemptions
Bad – Matt Kuchar – I am spiritually opposed to wasting exemptions on these old guys who have already earned a billion dollars. What is the point? What does he bring you? Also, he just got a sponsor’s exemption LAST WEEK. Is the whole PGA Tour a Kuchar charity at this point?
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Also Bad – Tony Finau – I’m over him. Let him fade. What did he ever do for me?
Fine – Patrick Rodgers – He’s fresh on my mind, because I saw him in this article yesterday while looking up facts on Eric Cole; he’s one of three guys to make $20 million on tour without ever winning. Crazy.
Good – Billy Horschel – Give this guy as many chances as it takes until he’s back on top of the world. We love Billy.
8. One normie pick, one weird pick
When it’s time to go normie, I go full normie, so obviously I’m picking Scheffler, two-time defending champ and King of Muirfield (Village). For the weird pick, I’m going to stick with the cast of characters we’ve already introduced and go with Billy Horschel. Absolutely nothing about his current form indicates he has even a remote chance, he won here in 2022, and what a story it would be! Horsches for courses!
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9. Rogue Golf Thought: 2004 Shinnecock is the funniest thing that ever happened
This is an act of filthy self-promotion, but Jamie Kennedy and I just did our latest “50 Things That Changed Golf” podcast on the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 2004, and I didn’t realize until I started researching how outrageously funny the whole thing was. This was the USGA at peak incompetence, and if you’re into details like stopping play on Sunday to water the course, and being so monomaniacally obsessed with protecting par that you hatch an utter debacle, you’re going to love this. Listen here, and delight in the fact that we get this course again in two weeks.
10. Rogue Non-Golf Thought: Berate my Canadian friend
A friend of mine whose name I will omit so he doesn’t suffer global humiliation told a few of us this story on our friends’ Slack this week. It takes place at a duty free store as he was on his way back home to Canada. It’s long but worth it:
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“I go in last night to get a bottle of bourbon for a friend (can’t get it here). It’s $31.25 and I want to burn the rest of my US cash. I pay $22 and intend to do the rest by card … except the guy gives me back $10.75. ‘How much do you think I gave you?’ He says, ’42.’ ‘No, it was 22.’ He quickly tries to figure it out, can’t, and then asks if I’ll step to the side while he deals with the remaining customers. I’m thinking it’s because the store is closing. Ok fine. I step aside. He deals with, like, ten people … but people keep joining the line! Then he comes back to me and prints out the entire transaction history for his shift, and does the count compared to his initial float, including scanning like a hundred singles. So I’ve probably been in the store for close to 40 minutes at this stage, and then he’s like, “yeah, I’m twenty short.” I say, “right.” And then I can see the gears really turning and he says, “well, I don’t know what to do.” So I give him back the $10.75, thinking he’ll give me back my $22 and we can do the transaction properly. Except he just takes the $10.75 and has me sign for the whole thing. And I’m like, ‘but wait, I’m still paying less than I should.’ And he’s like, ‘just go, man.'”
My first thought is that this is the most Canadian story I’ve ever heard, and I hope I can’t get canceled for saying that just because our president wanted to conquer them a year ago. (If he ruined making fun of Canadians, I’m going to be so mad.) The more important thought is, yes, this was abysmal customer service, but abysmal customer service is the norm these days. What’s insane about it is how passive my friend was at every step. I mean, I spot several outs here:
1 – Just take the money he gave you and run. Duty free shops are run by massive, probably evil conglomerates. This isn’t some mom-and-pop outfit who will no longer be able to send their beloved boy to college. You just pulled one over on Bezos, basically, so grab the cash and go. They’ll never miss it, but you can feel like Andor stealing the empire’s dubloons.
2 – The minute the guy asked you to step aside, the answer was “no, I have somewhere to be.” You can’t get put aside by a guy who can’t do simple math, or you’ll die in that store.
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3 – FORTY *#$&ing MINUTES???? At one point, my friend said he went out to his car to confirm how much cash his wife had given him, and then later she came in and was like, “what the hell is happening here?” It should be noted his wife is a fiery Irishwoman, I assume if she were Canadian she’d still be waiting in the car, slowly starving. But bottom line, at this point I would have just left. I’d pay $300 not to have wait 40 minutes in a duty free store. I would drink the entire handle of bourbon on the spot so an ambulance would come take me away from that place.
I can’t stop thinking about this, so I had to share it here. More people must know, if only as a cautionary tale. I told my friend that I felt pity for the situation he got himself into, but that he should be ashamed of himself and that his wife should leave him. The rest of our friends agreed.
Read the full article here
