My Top 100 course rejection, and the John Daly invention

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm you up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

We could buy whatever we wished from the clubhouse. I walked out with a bag tag and a tumbler. 

We were even allowed to take a cart up to the 1st tee. The view alone was almost worth driving out west to Mullen, where the skyline never ends and cell service is lost. 

As far as rejections go then, the one we got just over a decade ago at Sand Hills Golf Club went about as well as we could hope. We were let down easily. They didn’t laugh. We didn’t cry. 

But it was still a swift no. 

I was thinking of all this as this site recently released its newest Top 100 Courses in the World list — and Sand Hills checked at No. 10. The Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw gem in Nebraska has always held a lofty rankings spot, and that’s made the thought of playing it ridiculously appealing to most anyone who lives in the Cornhusker State, which I did for about 15 years. 

No matter that the course is ultra private. 

Sand Hills, unfortunately, isn’t a place where you just drive up and ask to play. 

Or was it?

Maybe we could try that?

So my wife and I did. We planned it out. We went later in the year, when conditions may dissuade out-of-state visitors. We went on a Nebraska football Saturday, when Big Red dominates in-state hearts and minds — and golf courses are left empty. On Friday, we stopped in Gothenburg and played Wild Horse, which is a must-play if you’re even remotely nearby. On Sunday, we found a couple of pay-in-the-box courses — there’s no clubhouse, no attendant, just a box — including one called Augusta Wind, a course name that, yes, covers both Masters enjoyers and pun lovers. 

On Saturday afternoon, we drove up Crenshaw Drive. 

We parked. Three cars in the lot. 

I’d offer $300 to play. Our pitch would be we’d promise not to tell a soul. We’d be in and out. No social media. No pictures. How could they say no? 

Like this:

Sorry, no. 

But we could buy whatever we wished from the clubhouse. And we could take a cart up to the 1st tee. 

We did. We gazed for about 15 minutes. Saw what appeared to be a fivesome, but no one else. It ‘looked’ like one of this site’s best courses. Smelled like it, too. But we never got to touch it.  

Was the trip foolish? Hell no. I’d do it again. And I’ll probably do it again, at some other golf masterpiece. Maybe next time I’ll get a yes. 

Or maybe I’ll again run into someone with the almost unreal discipline to turn down a boy, a girl and a few hundred bucks. That was actually impressive.  

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the Weekend 9. 

One takeaway for the weekend 

2. Was the announcement of the LPGA’s new TV deal — where all rounds of every tournament will be shown live — one of its biggest moments ever?

Yes. 

But how will they keep viewers?

Is having a platform enough? Sort of. Notably, the PGA Tour is dealing with this. You’d think the golf would be enough, but the message is folks want something more from what they see. So I’ll argue that new LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler saying he’s cognizant of all variations of ‘something more’ is just as important to the tour as the TV deal. 

On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s CME Group Tour Championship, Kessler talked with reporters, and I thought this back-and-forth was interesting (the reporter questions are in italics):

What do you consider the LPGA’s competition? And I think frankly what I’m getting at is how do you get the attention that women’s soccer and the WNBA is getting that golf frankly has felt like it’s lagged behind?

“You used the most important word,” Kessler said. “We compete in the attention economy. It’s not just against other sports. It’s should I put on Netflix, should I go out to dinner, should I hang out with friends, should I play in the backyard, should I go play a round of golf. Anything that has the potential to capture a fan’s attention, we are competing against that, so it’s our job to be differentiated, to be interesting, and capture fans’ minds in every way we possibly can.”

On the player side, what kind of message have you given to them that you got to get your oars in the water?

“I’ve had two player meetings,” Kessler said. “The first player meeting — and I’m so grateful that they did this. The players asked: ‘What can we do to help?’ And the answer was: ‘Nothing yet. Let us do our work, and when we have concrete answers, we’ll come back and we’ll ask at the right time for you to do your part.’

“This past week at the Pelican … they asked again: ‘What can we do?’ And we said: ‘Here’s what we need you to do. If we ask you to be a global superstar, lean in. Show up in culture everywhere you can. If we ask you to do walk-and-talks, not just you but your caddies, try it.

“‘Let’s — we need you to do your part.’ And at the end I asked: ‘Who is in?’ And virtually every hand in the room went up. Now it’s on us to actually bring that to life.”

Another takeaway for the weekend 

3. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, may be downsizing. Ahead of this week’s RSM Classic, Harris English said the Tour could start its schedule after the Super Bowl and “they’ll more go where 20 events are all the same, all the points, all the money, everything the same.”

So what do the moves mean, should they happen?

I guess it depends what you like. You’ll get less pro golf. But you’ll maybe get more heightened pro golf. But isn’t every week important? Or should there be a proper break?

Again, LIV Golf’s influence can’t be overstated. How many of these changes would have happened without the league?

4. Speaking of LIV, the New York Times published a story this week with a headline that read: “Saudi Arabia’s Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund Is Low on Cash.”

You can read the entire story, written by Rob Copeland and Vivian Nereim, here. 

An instruction tip for your weekend 

5. Lindy Duncan was awarded the LPGA’s Heather Farr Perseverance Award this week, and the transcript of her acceptance speech is well worth a read. You can do so by scrolling below. (Click on the white arrow in the middle of the post to see each slide.) 

A story that interests me 

6. I thought the story below, from Skratch’s the “Vanity Index Podcast,” was interesting. In it, co-host Chad Mumm describes a conversation with John Daly — about how the John Daly drink started. 

“So John Daly, we were prepping in the green room for this talk,” Mumm said, “and we were doing some talk for some restaurant people and I was like, ‘Hey, how did the John Daly cocktail come about?’ I was like, ‘How great is that?’ Like, did you lean into that and name it? Obviously, it’s based on the Arnold Palmer. Did you lean into that? Did someone else come up with it and you just kind of grabbed onto it? Because he has John Dalys — this Good Boy vodka brand, they make their own John Dalys.

“And he’s like, ‘No, I invented that when I was 9 years old. So he tells this story. He goes, ‘Yeah, I was in Darnell, Arkansas, and we won our — I was 9 years old, our little league team, we were sponsored by Piggly Wiggly. We won the little league championship in our town. And so we went back to celebrate at our house. And my mom used to make sweet tea in the sun, you know, sun tea. … And then lemonade. And daddy loved his vodka. And so my parents were nowhere to be found. And all the kids are all celebrating. So, I thought we might ought to celebrate. So, I went and got her sweet tea and I pulled some lemonade and I mixed it all together in a big jug and I got daddy’s vodka and I dumped the whole thing in there and we had a couple shot glasses. So, we lined them all up and each kid took a shot of this concoction. It tasted pretty good. So, then we did another one and then we did a third one and then we had a whole team of 9-year-olds who were wasted off their butts. 

“‘And I looked at my brother and I said, ‘If one of us becomes famous, we’re going to have to patent this drink. It’s either going to be called the Jamie Daly or the John Daly.’ And that’s how it got invented.’”

You can watch the clip with Mumm by scrolling immediately below. 

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7. Speaking of Daly, a spot he used to visit annually during Masters week, the Hooters located about a mile from Augusta National, was demolished this week. Below is a picture of some of the work. 

A question that interests me 

8. I thought the video below was interesting. In it, MLB players were asked: Is golf harder than baseball?

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