We essentially called it.
And so that’s what we forecasted on the Fore Play pod.
I got a big kick thinking of the social staffer behind the swing-video post.
Thankfully for us, they hit send.
They always do, even when he doesn’t have anything resembling a solid base to swing from.
He did then, and he still does now.
We’ve seen it the few times he’s played.
It’s everything in between.
It goes without saying that I’d love to be wrong.
But as of this very moment, the main takeaway is that there is no real new information.
This surgery was never going to fix everything.
You finish in the top 30 for the whole year, you’re on the PGA Tour.
You’re not, it’s back to the KFT or Q-School.
And so 30 dreams came true on Sunday.
Some for the first time.
Just look what it meant to Campos to get the 30th and final spot.
Some other good stories to follow next year.
6 Pierceson Coody, No.
Dumont de Chassart might be the best of the bunch.
Still just 24 years old, though an older 24 than most.
21 Tom Whitney A 34-year-old Air Force veteran who gets his PGA Tour card for the very first time.
And he didn’t have some paper-pushing job in the Air Force, either.
Quite literally the opposite.
The guy was in charge of the nukes.
Still, the New Jersey native needed just one year on the KFT.
32 Shad Tuten The other side of a life-changing day.
It’s a massive bummer.
Basically they were playing lift-clean-and-place, and Tuten placed his ball only for it to move forward.
It’s a procedural thing and pretty nebulous, but rules are rules.
Most notably, this from Brooks Koepka, with some interesting context between the quotes.
“You think I give a fuck what they think?
You think I care what people say about me?
I just had three surgeries, and I’m supposed to turn down $130 million?
I grew up with nothing.
After signing that contract, the first person I called was my mom.
We both cried.”
From an unnamed former Ryder Cup teammate:
“Fuck Rory.
I’m so sick of hearing about how he’s some kind of hero who is saving golf.
Brooks Koepka chimed in from the LIV side of the aisle.
This led to an interesting discussion about the role of journalism in 2023.
Alan’s a friend and one of the best golf writers alive, full stop.
It’s a bit like the COVID-19 response; everything in hindsight looks a bit cringy.
you could’t believe some of the things that were said, maybe even by yourself.
Now that things are less heated, everyone seems to be distancing themselves from that sort of divisive rhetoric.
Last week was about team unity.
The last few months in golf have been about reconciliation.
Shipnuck thus became an easy target for sharing things that people don’t want shared.
By definition, any new/behind-closed-door quotes that get published these days are unauthorized.
The gig has changed.
So the behaviors have, too.
Not a bad stretch for the 29-year-old.
Until next week,
Dan
