What the Hell Got Into Sam Bennett?

Sam Bennett, an amateur, is, as of this moment, sitting at -8 with a few holes to play, good enough for 2nd place at The Masters behind Brooks Koepka.

Where did this come from? Who is Sam Bennett? Is it possible he finishes in the Top 3? Is it possible he finishes in the Top 3 without the benefit of wearing one of our golf hats on his head? Sadly for Sam Bennett the answer is a resounding, “NO!” but good luck, Sam.

The LIV Tour Freak Show & The End of Golf Majors

Most golf fans do not organize their personal lives around PGA events such as the Greensboro Open, the John Deere Classic, Sanderson Farms. the Shriners, or the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. All minor and largely inconsequential tour stops that most of the golf community could care less about.

However, when it comes to golf “majors” everybody tunes in. But the advent of the LIV tour has upset the apple cart. It’s splintered the professional golfer community, forcing everyone to pick sides and prohibiting LIV-aligned golfers from participating in PGA and Euro-tour events.

Not satisfied with driving up gas prices, you’ve also ruined golf. Thanks Saudi Arabia!

Cameron Smith is a Bad, Bad Man...

Cam Smith and his mullett do not feel pressure like the rest of us. He just put on an impressive display on the back 9 at St. Andrews to win the British Open and set a bunch of records in the process.

• 1st person to post two (2) rounds of 64 in a major

• Lowest final 9 in a closing round (30)

• Lowest final round to win a (64) major

• Lowest score relative to par after two rounds

12 putts the final 9 holes and 6 one putts. Just a totally unbelievable performance by Cam Smith. We’re going to ship you a bunch of our hats. You won’t need them, of course, but the pressure clearly got to lots of players. You might pass one on to Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy,

We're Rooting for Mackenzie Hughes, Russell Henley & Matthew Wolff to Win the U.S. Open

Why are we rooting for Mackenzie Hughes to win the U.S. Open? Because he’s Canadian and Canadians are nice people. Plus, they rarely ever win on the PGA tour. In addition, Hughes has overcome adversity - once losing his tour card before regaining it five years ago. Outside of his own friends and family, nobody is cheering for Mac. While the last two months have not been kind to Hughes (missed cuts in five straight events) he’s played well this week and is on the verge of winning The Open.

That makes him a solid underdog and a golfer we are pulling for today.

Russell Henley is another rootable player. While he had some early success in his first year on tour - winning the Sony Open by a record margin - he has not won as often as many had predicted when he graduated from the University of Georgia ten years ago. Now a 100-1 shot to win any tournament he enters, Henley is also a guy we can get behind.

While technically not an underdog, Matthew Wolff is easy to root for because of his entertaining and unconventional golf swing. He’s also talked about his struggles with depression and anxiety.

We are definitely not rooting for Bryson DeChambeau because he is a weasel. A VERY LARGE weasel, but a weasel nonetheless.

Remember: we are all underdogs when we step on the golf course. Our golf hats instill golfers with the calm resilience they need to play well.

Epilogue: Unfortunately, Hughes, Henley, and Wolff struggled during the final round and fell out of contention. It is hard to ignore the fact that they did so while wearing PING, Titleist, and Taylor Made hats. One cannot help but wonder how they would have faired wearing our Go-Lo, On in Regulation, or Birddha hats.

Chesson Hadley's Very Bad Day

Chesson Hadley, who has not won on tour in seven years, was on the verge of winning the Palmetto Championship at Congaree, but he couldn’t keep it together during the latter half of his final round and let an opportunity he may not get for another seven years, slip through his fingers.

Sometimes golfers in Hadley’s position catch an unlucky break during the finishing stretch, such as finding their ball in a divot or a buried lie, or knocked down by a sudden gust of wind. If that was the case with Hadley we wouldn’t be writing about him. It wasn’t an epic and sudden collapse at a golf major like Jean Van de Velde at the British Open. Rather, it was a slow, steady folding of the tent.

After opening with a -6 round, Hadley began backsliding. Still, he entered the final round with a 4 stroke lead on the field. Watching his play during the closing holes one could see it was a clear case of his nerves simply unravelling. You can easily identify with what golfers are going through in these situations. Desperate and feeling cornered you look for any way to stop the bleeding. The mind races and you start seeing things, and in Hadley’s case, he saw fire ants. Lots and lots of fire ants. So many, in fact, that he claimed he ought to get relief (from a rather dicey lie). The rule official disagreed, “I don’t see any.” And with that, Hadley’s fate was sealed. Bryson DeChambeau, another guy who’s always trying to bend the rules in his favor, has also played the “fire ant” card, to no avail.

Our recommendation to Hadley - and any other golfer who happens to be leading entering the final round is this: Ditch the Titleist, Callaway, Nike, and Taylor Made golf hats before you tee off and replace them with our Back 9 golf hat. Chances are you won’t have to go looking for fire ants.

Lastly, congrats to underdog and Monday qualifier, Broc Everett, who kept it together and cashed a nice check for $33,000.

Mickelson's gum

Phil Mickelson kept it together and nailed down an improbable win at the PGA Championship played on the Ocean course at Kiawah Island, SC. he was a 600-1 underdog at the start of the tournament and rightly so. He hadn’t won a major in 8 years and had only won twice on the PGA tour in the past 7 years. It was a historic win and Mickelson now becomes the oldest major winner - at close to 51 years old - easily surpassing the previous standard bearer, Julius Boros, who won the PGA championship in 1968 at the age of 48.

But as remarkable as Phil’s win was - and it was - we are really mainly interested in the gum he chewed throughout the entire championship. It’s been long-rumored that CBD gum has become quite popular among some of the older Tour players. CBD provides an array of amazing benefits, pertaining to stress reduction, sleep, inflammation, digestion, pain management, and more. But to feel these benefits to the fullest, your body needs to be able to absorb as much CBD as possible into the bloodstream.

We know that Mickelson was chewing SOMETHING the entire tournament and assuming it was CBD gum and he popped his first piece on during a practice round leading up to the tournament start and continued chewing almost non-stop through Sunday, he likely was feeling pretty good by the time he began the back 9 on Sunday. It seemed there were several holes where Mickelson’s caddie - his brother, Tim - had to re-direct a seemingly out-of-it-Phil to the next tee box. At least, that is how it appeared to the viewing audience.

Chances are - given Phil’s age - in addition to CBD, there were some Metamucil chewables mixed in, along with a tincture or two of NUGENIX, though this is just speculation on our part and we have no basis for believing this to be the case.

Rather than exotic cocktails and supplements, golfers of any age can spend less than $40 and get a golf hat that will almost assuredly lower their scores. Check out these unique, play-enhancing, and score-lowering hats here.

Lee Westwood & The Players Championship

Justin Thomas played a great couple of closing rounds to win The Players, setting a record in the process for strokes below par for the final rounds. But Thomas is no golf underdog so we’re not going to focus on him.

Instead, we’re going to use this space to applaud Lee Westwood, who has spent most of his career as a favorite, but at 47 years of age, is now squarely in the “Underdog” camp. After nearly winning at Bay Hill the week prior, Westwood went toe-to-toe with Thomas and the 240 lb cyborg, DeChambeau, and almost pulled off a stunner. Had Thomas’ tee shot on 18 found the water, Westwood may well have won the tournament.

What makes his near win all the more remarkable is not just the 20 year age difference, but what it means in terms of preparation for the final round. We have a feeling Thomas pops out of bed, pops a dip between his tongue and lip, to go along with a black coffee, while DeChambeau has a 12 egg omelet and six protein shakes. Westwood’s day, however, likely began - before getting out of his oxygen-rich hyperbaric chamber - with a series of neck and ankle rolls, followed by tea, fresh fruit, and bran flakes.

Let’s see how long Westwood can keep his re-birth going.

Moving day at the Masters

There are lots of story lines we could write about the 2020 Masters. Abraham Ancer contending in his first appearance, former Buddist monk, Jazz Janewattananond, nearly posting the the same score as the current PGA Championship and U.S. Open winners, or Jason Day and Matthew Wolff being outplayed by Larry Mize, who is close to qualifying for Medicare. However, the most interesting development has to be 63 year-old Bernhard Langer making the cut. A remarkable achievement for a player who continues to have a remarkable career.

Also remarkable is Bryson DeChambeau’s penchant for challenging official rulings that go against him. Yesterday, when he could not find his ball after a wayward tee shot, he wanted us to believe he should get a free drop, rather than take a penalty. At the St. Jude invitational, he debated with rules officials for three minutes that he ought to get a free drop because the grass was “swarming” with fire ants (it was not). And at the Memorial, DeChambeau famously protested when not one, but two, rules officials sided against him and his claim that his wayward shot over a fence should be considered in play and qualify for a free drop (he went on to card a 10 on that hole). It’s hard to imagine Bernhard Langer, Mize, Ancer, or most tour players whining like this with such regularity. He could, of course, stop this act and instead wear one of our signature hats, which many people say delivers an immediate, calming effect on their psyche. Keep it together, Bryson.

Collin Morikawa and the game of inches...

He chips in at 14 and hits the “one for the ages” approach to 16, His opponents do the opposite. They do not get the breaks and their putts burn the edge and will not drop. Approach shots careen into greenside bunkers.

What is the difference? Why did Morikawa succeed where others failed?

We will never know but rest assured that Morikawa told himself more than once as he closed things out to “Keep it Together.”

Nice job, Collin! Now take down the Masters!.

PGA Set to Return After Very Silly "Match"

Finally, after months with nothing golf is set to return with the Schawb event at the Colonial tour stop next week. Sure, there were the made-for-TV, faux events like “The Match” which attempted to give us a short-term fix, but there is no substitute for the real thing.

The one positive to come out of the The Match was watching Tom Brady struggle. After watching him play a few holes it seemed clear to us that something is amiss with his claimed handicap (8.1.). Our guess is his REAL handicap is closer to a 16, and maybe higher than that. Had Brady had the good sense to swap out his TB12 hat for our incredibly calming “Birddha” cap, there is no question he would have settled down earlier in his round. Alternatively, he could have donned our Back9 hat at the turn. You can’t help people unless they are willing to help themselves.

Other observations about the event: It appeared Tiger Woods was really just going through the motions. Phil Mickelson DID seem engaged, but talks an awful lot. Peyton Manning is a decent golfer and his handicap seems legit.

Regardless, with these silly events behind us we can now look forward to seeing competitive golf once again.

2020 Golf Season Starts...Then Stops

The 2020 golf season had already delivered surprising finishes, before COVID 19 ground it to a halt. The tournaments conducted during the first two months seemed to represent a changing of the guard, with players such as Nick Taylor and Sungjae Im winning some of the biggest prizes with wins at Pebble Beach and the Honda Classic.

Taylor, at 32, had missed cuts and then, knocked around various tours, and, out of nowhere, inexplicably wins Pebble Beach. As crazy as Taylor’s win was, someone we have never heard of - Maverick McNealy - managed to claw his way into the Top 5.

While Im’s a rising star, finishing behind him at the Honda Classic was Mackenzie Hughes, who somehow managed to sneak into the field, potentially with a falsified “player pass” and post a series of scores that landed him in 2nd, enabling him to cash a $763k check.

We want to be clear that while we do not condone whatever “tactics” Taylor and Hughes have employed to gain access to PGA tournaments, we applaud them for their fine play. Simply put, they kept it together.

148th British Open - the Ashton Turner show

Shane Lowry winning this year’s Open Championship by 6 strokes was certainly noteworthy. He’d missed the cut at this event each of the past four years. This year he basically wired the field and had to contend with very challenging weather conditions during the last day. Additionally, a British Open had not been played in Northern Ireland for 68 years so to have an Irishman win it made it special. But Lowry is no underdog. He’s the 17th ranked player in the world so posting Top 10 finishes and winning tournaments is rather expected.

While we do celebrate remarkable achievements of the game’s top players, we have a particular fondness for those players who are scratching and clawing for table scraps each week. When these types of players manage to break through and announce themselves, as Ashton Turner did on the tournament’s opening day, we take notice, particularly if they are players we’ve never heard of.

Coming into the week, Turner was officially the world’s 2,079 best golfer, which makes sense when you consider that he had recently missed the cut at an (alleged) golf tournament called the Motocaddy Masters (which raises a very good question: how is it that one can qualify for the world’s oldest and most prestigious golf tournament following a missed cut at a horseshit tour event?). Still, Turner’s -2 on his opening round is quite amazing, as was his 68 on the final day (which included an eagle). Going from failure at the Motocaddy Masters to the leaderboard at the British Open illustrates how fickle golf can be. You can also look at JB Holmes’ card for his final round and draw the same conclusion. It looks remarkably like a recent round of golf I played at the West Seattle muni course. Double bogeys every other hole. Or, compare Rory McIlroy’s first and second rounds (79 on day 1 and 65 on day 2). The game is inexplicable and defies reason.

Matthew Wolff & Ho-sung Choi

There were all kinds of eccentric golf swings on the tour prior to the modern golf swing getting introduced, There was Trevino, Gary Player, Arnie, Jim Thorpe, Moe Norman, Ray Floyd., and a host of others. Since then, not so much.

Then, almost overnight, the golfing world is reminded that it doesn’t matter how you start the swing, or how you finish, as long as you execute. Matthew Wolff and his odd, unorthodox swing, wins the 3M tour stop in just his 3rd PGA tournament. We were aware of Wolff because he is an obvious talent, and he did manage to win the NCAA individual title within two years of committing to Oklahoma State.

Still, we couldn’t wrap our mind around how someone with a routine and swing more bizarre than Furyk’s could have success. Wolff’s win is something the larger golfing community should celebrate. One, because with his swing he is always going to be an underdog, and two, because his win means we all need to question whether there might not be a different path to success on the course. We spend so much time and effort (and $$) trying to conform to what swing gurus and instructors tell us we need to do in order to be successful. Maybe the answer is to move in the other direction? Away from the status quo? Maybe we would all benefit by introducing a bit of a dance move, instead of a forward press, to jump start our swing?

Or at least, whatever feels comfortable to each of us.

After Wolff’s win, it’s natural to see if there are other professional golfers who ignore conventional wisdom and carve their own path. Five minutes into our search we stumble upon another diamond in the rough: Ho-sung Choi. Check out a compilation of his unique swing style here.

We are now BIG fans of Wolff and Choi and hope they are able to keep it together for years to come.

And, thanks to Wolff’s win and a sponsor exemption, we have Wolff and Choi, side-by-side warming up before this week’s John Deere Classic.

Ho-sung

Nate Lashley

A tragic personal history, a period where he quit the game, and an uncertain future. Could easily be talking about me, but we’re actually referring to one of the great human interest stories of the year: Nate Lashley. At this point, everyone knows about Lashley’s ups and downs (more downs than ups going into this week’s tour stop).

This is the kind of pro we can get behind. Comes into the week ranked #446 in the world, makes the field as an alternate, after failing to qualify on Monday, and four days later he’s hoisting a jug and being handed a check for $1.4 million.

Though he had begun to show flashes this year in a few events, including Pebble Beach, he was still an unknown and a non-entity to 99.8% of golf fans. His ESPN page only indicates that he is a right handed golfer - there is no photo of him on his profile - just a gray silhouette of a golfer. In contrast, Chad Collins, ranked #226 on the PGA tour and with winnings of $30,000 this year, actually has a full profile on ESPN, including his picture, along with interesting factoids about his life. That’s how out of left field Lashley’s win was.

I’m still waiting for this kind of redemption and turnaround to happen for me. I can visualize it: I pull my 1999 Saab 9-3 into the parking lot of Laurel Hill golf course in Lorton, VA. I warm up with a few balls on the range. Tempo is good, my mind is clear…everything is free and easy. I birdie three of the first four holes and never look back, on the way to posting a -2 under 69.

While my game will never be good enough to break 70, over even 75, breaking 80 again is definitely still in the cards. If Lashley can overcome the odds, there’s no reason we can’t realize our own goals.

Also notable: the Rocket Mortgage tournament included Martin Piller. He’s hanging by a thread trying to keep his tournament card. He’s 32 years old and has never come close to winning on the PGA tour. It would be great if Martin can find a way to break through on the next tour stop, just as Lashley did this week.

Doc Redman finished 2nd. We’re not sure whether Redman can be considered a true underdog given that he did win the U.S. Amateur last year and starred on Clemson’s golf team. One person in the field who we can be sure is no underdog is Wyndham Clark. If your first name is “Wyndham” chances are you come from a privileged background. You were born rich and you’re going to die rich, so none of this really matters, but we could be wrong.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Gary Woodland failed to make the cut, which underscores, yet again, just how hard the game can be.

Hannah Green, Chez Reavie & Zac Suchar keep it together

11 years ago Chez Reavie was considered a rising star. Then he disappeared. In the past year he had showed signs of regaining his form, and definitely served notice with his tie for 2nd at the PGA championship one week ago.

Seven days later he wins the Travelers.

"It means everything," Reavie said. "I went through some injuries, had some long years there in the middle. But it was great, because it gave good perseverance and good perspective of what life is and what golf is."

Hannah Green, who also battled injury problems over the past year, also shocked the golfing world with her 1st win on the LPGA — a major championship.

Perhaps the biggest shocker was the tie for 2nd place at the Travelers by Zach Sucher, who cashed a check for $633,000 exactly one week after missing the cut at a Web.com tour stop.

Brooke Henderson, Gary Woodland, and the wild Sunday finish

Woodland will get all the headlines, and we have to tip our hat. Gary has been a grinder for years. We celebrate guys like Gary finally breaking through. He took down Brooks Koepka. Not an easy task.

Brooke Henderson had her hands full, as well. Holding on for a 1 stroke victory over the likes of Lexi Thompson, she set a record for most tour wins by a Canadian, with 9. It’s worth pausing here to reflect on her record run. Canada, for much of the year, is VERY COLD. There is a lot of snow and mud between October - May. It’s hard to practice. Jupiter, Florida, it isn’t. Henderson had 9 birdies on Saturday to create the bit of breathing room she would need on Sunday. It is worth noting that it would take us months of regular play to record 9 birdies.

Last point about Woodland, he really kept it together and hit some quality shots over the closing holes. He’s basically a clone of Koepka. The same weight and size; the same swagger; the same length off the tee. These guys could be the face of American golf for the next century, with the occasional nip-at-the heal by Chez Reavie, Ricky Fowler, and Jordan Speith.