LOS ANGELES — It’s easy to lean into movie metaphors when you get here. Practically everyone does it. The light is so often perfect. The people can seem disproportionately beautiful. Houses and cars are frequently so ostentatious, they look more like film props.

Riviera Country Club embodies all of this. It was built in the 1920s as a playground for the wealthy, and at the time, it was one of the most expensive golf courses ever constructed. Nearly 100 years later, it still feels like a movie set. The sight lines are magical. The fairways look like green cashmere. The 

 that abutt many of the holes loom, particularly late in the day, like ghosts.

It’s always been the perfect setting to wrap up the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing and this year’s has already been as good as any in recent memory. Max Homa, who 

 and is the son of an acting coach, framed it in cinematic terms early in the week, well before the first shot was hit at the Genesis Open. As I floated my way around Riv, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“I think it’s kind of climaxing like a movie,” Homa said, referring to the season’s opening act.

So many storylines were unfolding, it was hard to keep track of them all. Tiger Woods’ return to the PGA Tour for the first time in three years; Jon Rahm’s quest to seize what felt like an inevitable No. 1 ranking; Homa’s continued ascension; Rory McIlroy trying to balance his role as shadow commissioner and generational talent; Netflix debuting “Full Swing,” its long-awaited documentary series about professional golf. Each felt worthy of its own short film.

Jon Rahm proved to everyone he is the best golfer in the world! 

— I wanted to sit for a minute with each moment that I saw or heard about during the week.

Just one spoiler: Not everyone walks away with a happy ending.

. He wanted everything to go well. It wasn’t the golf that was stressing him out. It was a decision about food.

At age 20, Kim had been part of the PGA Tour for roughly half a season. He was still getting to know the majority of his peers. At the Presidents Cup in September, he’d played with such energy and emotion for the International squad, even in defeat, that he’d emerged as one of the event’s most memorable stars. His personality and enthusiasm are infectious. But life on Tour, particularly when you’re young, can be lonely.

Kim decided he’d take up residence in Dallas so he could be close to his swing coach, Cameron McCormick. When Jordan Spieth and his wife Annie heard he was planning on spending Christmas dinner by himself, they insisted he come over to their house for prime rib. He spent much of the evening playing with the Spieths’ son, Sammy.

Kim realized he wanted his new friends to learn a bit about him and his culture, so in the weeks leading up to the Genesis Invitational, he invited a large group of them out to eat Korean barbecue. After spending the day together at a Titleist commercial shoot, Spieth, Homa, Justin Thomas, Jim “Bones” McKay and Michael Greller all took him up on the invitation.

“Since it’s LA, it’s a great spot for Korean places,” Kim said. “I wanted them to have at least a good experience with Korean food, because I’m very picky with my Asian food. I thought it was a good time to bond with those guys.”

Kim insisted on picking up the check, even though Spieth, Thomas and Homa have won close to $125 million combined on the PGA Tour. He even sheepishly admitted at one point that he’d tried out the restaurant ahead of time, just to be certain it was up to his standards.

“I wanted to make sure it was a good time,” he said. “I had some time in LA prior to this trip, so I checked out all the food. I think all the guys enjoyed it.”

In his first start at Riviera, Kim was paired with Homa and Xander Schauffle for the first two rounds. He went on to finish T45.

 That was the first thing everyone noticed when he walked into the interview room Tuesday afternoon. His gait seemed better in 2023 than it was in 2022, if such a thing is even possible to measure.

He also seemed to be in a happy mood. He talked about how much his ankle had improved, and how his endurance had increased. He was optimistic, but also trying to be realistic about his body. He understood he has a finite number of swings left in his body, even if that number remains unclear.

“When you get a little bit older and a little bit banged up, you’re not as invincible as you once were. That’s the reality of all of us aging,” Woods said. “I remember as a kid growing up, watching 

 and just crying saying ‘I can do it but my body won’t allow me to do it anymore.' I’ve gotten to that point a couple times.”

Early in his press conference, Woods had mentioned his hero, Arnold Palmer, playing in 50 Masters. He used it as a way to illustrate how different golf was from contact sports. His answer got me thinking: Was there a part of him that was softening in his late 40s? Could he envision a day when he could play tournament golf without waking up that morning convinced he could win the tournament? Could he picture himself playing golf in a competition rather than playing competitive golf.

“I have not come around to the idea of being…” Woods said, and then there was a noticeable pause.

He closed his eyes. It felt like he was mulling a snippet of a future he wanted no part of.

“If I’m playing, I’m playing to win,” Woods said, and he let the words hang in the air for a second. “I know that players have played and tried to be an ambassador for the game and tried to grow the game. I can’t wrap my mind around that as a competitor. If I’m playing in the event, I’m going to try and beat you. I’m there to get a W. I don’t understand how making a cut is a great thing. If I enter an event, it’s always to get a W.”

He apologized for cutting me off. But I wondered if a part of him wanted to shout: Dude, do you even know me at all?

Woods’ soaring ball speed and his opening 69 and Saturday 67 were proof that his good is still good enough to win No. 83. The 74 and 73 on either side were reminders of his new reality. He finished T45.

admitted he was looking forward to the day when he can be just a golfer again. When he can play with a clear head and not feel obligated to give a monthly state of the union address to the media about the future of the PGA Tour.

But that day, he concedes, has not arrived yet.

“Would I love to just get back to playing golf at some stage? Absolutely,” McIlroy said. “But there's still a lot of stuff that needs to be decided. For better or for worse, I'm part of that conversation, I'm on the board of the Tour, and I need to be a part of it.”

On Wednesday, McIlroy held court with the media after his pro am, answering the kind of questions that probably should be directed at PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, although virtually no one believes Monahan would handle them as deftly as McIlroy frequently does. Monahan’s strength is forming business partnerships, not public speaking (as he has repeatedly demonstrated.) And so much of the burden has fallen on McIlroy, particularly in the LIV Golf era, to answer questions or address rumors frequently floated about looming structural changes the Tour is mulling.

For example: Will designated events, in the future, have 70 player fields and no cut? Will this be the end of underdog stories? Who is looking out for the bottom half of the Tour while the top guys get rich?

Patiently, but not without hints of exasperation, McIlroy answered each one.

“The best players should be playing in [designated events] because ultimately the PGA Tour needs to be built around the best players because that's what will maximize the value of the product,” McIlroy said. “But that doesn't mean that there's not great storylines further down that list, which we're all very cognizant of. I've had tons of conversations with guys that are worried about what events they're going to play next year and all that. The one thing I said, look, no one's trying to screw the bottom half of the tour here. If anything, we're trying to lift it up.”

The NBA, McIlroy pointed out, wasn’t built around protecting the interests of the 12th man. It was built around its stars. And in the long run, the 12th guy on every bench was lifted up by the financial windfall the stars generated.

“Does it mean that the Tour's going to get more competitive? Yes,” McIlroy said. “I honestly think that’s a good thing.”

After a strong start to the week, McIlroy failed to break par on the weekend and finished T29.

Aaron Rai wasn’t asked to be part of the Genesis Pro Am.

As the 127th-ranked player in the world, that wasn’t a surprise. Not every player in the field ends up with a spot. With temperatures in the mid-40s, and the wind whipping, most players would have viewed it as a blessing. Rai, a 27-year-old Englishman, instead viewed it as the opportunity of a lifetime.

He decided to brave the cold and follow his hero Tiger Woods.

“I’ve never gotten a chance to watch him up close,” Rai said. “I thought walking the back nine with him would be the perfect chance to get close to him and just see some of the shots he hits. To try and see what he sees. I didn’t expect to meet him.”

It is a testament to Woods’ aura and accomplishments that, at age 47, he still makes many of his peers nervous. So many of them grew up with his picture on their wall. They immediately feel like a kid when they’re in his orbit. Rai figured he’d hang around the periphery of holes, taking mental notes, making certain he wasn’t bothering Woods. But Rob McNamara, Woods’ friend and associate, recognized Rai on the 11th hole. He called Rai over to meet Woods.

“It was great,” Rai said. “He was great. He made me feel very comfortable. I would have been too scared to approach him otherwise. I was pretty nervous just saying hello. It was incredible really. As bad as it sounds, it was probably the highlight of my week.”

Rai said he couldn’t help but think back on the worn VHS tapes of Woods he and his father watched during his childhood. From the age of 5 until his teenage years, Rai estimates he watched them two or three times a week. To see some of the same shots in person was enough to make his heart soar.

“On No. 11, the wind was off the left and hit this real low stinger drive that probably didn’t get 30 feet off the ground,” Rai said. “And then three holes later, it was downwind and he hit this towering pitching wedge way up in the sky and got it to spin and stop. It was so special.”

Making his second start at Riviera, Rai finished the week 4 under par, three ahead of Woods.

. There was barely any light left in the sky. The putting green was empty except for he and caddie Michael Greller.

Spieth was rolling four footers, again and again, working on his start line, working on his path, trying to find a feeling he could take to the course the next day. His putts kept leaking right. Poa annua grass can be maddening that way.

He’d only played one round, but already Spieth knew he was going to have to fight just to play the weekend. He’d lost 2.3 strokes to the field on the greens on his way to a listless 74. It was a similar story to what happened in Phoenix, where he led the field in ball striking, and ranked near the bottom in putting, a skill that once made him look like a magician.

How do you recapture the magic of putting when it disappears inexplicably? The answer is: There is no magic. There is only more practice.

You put in the work for as long as the sunset, or your patience, will allow.

After a second-round 70, Spieth missed the cut at Riviera for the first time in seven years.

Tiger Woods had just glanced at him and shrugged his shoulders on the 18th green after making a third consecutive birdie. The crowd, four deep in some places, was going bonkers. It was the kind of day Thomas had always dreamed about, and now he would likely remember it forever. As Woods climbed the hill, you could tell it meant something to him too. A man who once walked through crowds with his head down now had his hands out, high-fiving anyone within reach.

Thomas and Woods have bonded in recent years, particularly since Woods nearly lost his leg in a car accident, to the point where they treat each other mostly like brothers. Each is an only child, which is important for reasons psychologists could better explain. Their affection takes the form of ribbing and teasing, as is often true with men who need their friends but struggle with the idea of vulnerability.

That’s as decent a roadmap as any to explain how we ended up engrossed in a discourse about tampons and misogyny in the middle of a golf tournament.

Woods would later explain he was trying to play a prank on Thomas in the middle of the round after he out-drove him on the 9th hole and then surreptitiously handed him a tampon from his golf bag as they walked toward the fairway. (After pictures surfaced revealing the handoff, 

It was not a particularly creative or funny joke, though it was in line with much of Tiger’ humor, and a strong case can be made that many of the world’s ills can be traced back to the idea that weakness in men somehow makes them feminine, and thus worthy of mockery. If anyone ought to have moved beyond the crassness of tampon jokes, it’s a 47-year-old divorced dad with a 15-year-old daughter. Alas.

Yet as the outrage cycle ramped up in the most predictable manor, with most of the people defending Woods’ right to make a bad joke eager to combat a wave of outrage that, in reality, barely existed, I was struck by something:

Tiger Woods really loves Justin Thomas like a little brother. He might not bring himself to say it, but he wants him to know it. It’s a common theme in a lot of male relationships. We crack bad jokes because it helps many of us avoid saying the hard stuff.

As lame as I find Woods’ jokes, I’m grateful he has Thomas. I bet Thomas is grateful too.

It was Saturday night. He was leading the golf tournament by three shots over Homa. A win would elevate him back to No. 1 in the world. He’d just shot a 65 on a difficult set up and he seemed in control of all aspects of his game. He’d even been blessed with several fortunate bounces, including a Friday ricochet of the grandstand next to 17 that led to an unlikely eagle. Even fortune appeared to be on his side.

And yet, he couldn’t relax. From the outside, people assumed he was unflappable. Homa joked that Rahm was like Thanos in the Marvel movies, a destroyer of worlds. In private, Rahm knew the truth. He was not immune to the anxieties that weigh you down when you’re chasing greatness.

He decided to play with his children. He loved being a dad more than he loved just about anything, including golf. Chasing around his oldest son, Kepa, helped him unplug from the intensity that so often powered him on the course.

“It's the fact that they don't care, nor should they, right?” Rahm said. “When I walk through the door, I'm dad, period. It's a good way to put some perspective in me. I'm a good golfer, but I strive to be an even better dad, husband and friend. That's the priority to me. That's why when I get home it makes things a lot easier. Following after him, running around, playing, it's so rewarding. It's like a natural recharge for my brain and myself. I don't know, it just makes me so happy that puts me in a really good spot and gives me a lot of perspective of what really matters.”

Rahm needed that perspective as played the back nine on Sunday. He’d let the lead slip away briefly after bogeys on 10 and 12, but a 45-foot birdie putt on 14 gave him back the lead. Now he was standing on the 16th tee with a one shot advantage, staring down the flag from 158 yards, looking like he wanted to strangle it.

“It’s a 150 shot,” said Adam Hayes, Rahm’s caddie. “Trust it. It’s the perfect number."

Rahm lashed at the ball with an 8-iron like a graceful lumberjack, launching it into the sky with cut spin so that it tracked back toward the flag.

“Be the freaking number, come on,” Rahm growled.

The ball tumbled from the sky and nearly hopped into the cup on its third bounce. It stopped two feet away. The 28-year-old Spainiard gave an understated, below-the-waist fist pump. He knew he had essentially slammed the door.

“That was probably my best swing of the week,” Rahm said afterward.

An hour later, he was kissing his son Eneko and lifting him high above his shoulders, fully re-engaged in Dad Mode, even though Rahm was still standing on the 18th green.

“What happens on the golf course kind of seems, it's very minimized, right?” Rahm said. “It's not nearly as satisfying as that is.”

KVV: Eight short films about Riviera

LOS ANGELES — For the better part of my life, people have talked about the 10th hole at Riviera Country Club like it was a piece of golf’s holy ground. Jim Murray, the famous LA Times columnist, called it “a shrine of the sport, a citadel of the game.” At just over 300 yards, it was once seen as the ultimate risk-reward hole, with players having to strategically choose between laying back or bombing driver and trying to sneak one on to the severe green, but technology has essentially rendered that decision moot. Virtually everyone goes for it now.

As the newest member of a company called No Laying Up, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday than to post up near the 10th green, tracking every group as they came through, and writing about the 4-hour adrenaline rush. I decided in the name of good journalism, I’d even plant myself at the foot of a palm tree left of the green, the place where players frequently miss. With the pin front left, I figured (correctly) almost everyone would go for it. With nothing but my notebook to protect me, I bunkered down and prepared for an onslaught of urethane missiles headed my way. It felt like a worthwhile risk to take if I got to seek some eagle putts up close, hear some roars from the gallery.

Other than a couple near misses — Viktor Hovland and David Lipsky came closest to splitting my head open — I left feeling tremendously underwhelmed. A little bored, even. The fans who waited much of the day near the green, seeking similar thrills, appeared to feel similarly.

I walked away with one question I was eager to put to the players: Does the 10th, in its current iteration, actually stink?

“It stinks,” said Rory McIlroy. “It absolutely stinks.”

One player I talked to, granting him anonymity in exchange for his candor, went even further.

Not every player sees it that way. Plenty of the players that I grabbed outside of scoring had nice things to say about the iconic hole, designed by legendary golf architect George Thomas. 

“I think it’s an amazing hole,” said Tony Finau. “Everyone has a chance to make birdie, and everyone has a chance to make double. It’s a little bit firmer than it was in the past, and it has a bit more slope. But you know what you have to do. You have to keep it left of the green. I think it’s great.”

But the more players I talked to, the more aligned I found myself with McIlroy’s analysis. It’s partially a design problem — the slopes and the bunkering were not part of Thomas’ original construction — and partially a grass problem. You can, and should, blast it toward the green. But what happens from there is mostly luck. At best, it’s a test of your short game which (while intriguing) does not exactly get my adrenaline pumping as a fan. Truth in advertising would probably sound something like this: 

Come watch the players bomb good drives, get boned behind some trees, and then have a chip off! That’s right, I said a chip off!

I doubt the superintendent or the general manager at Riviera are taking suggestions, but if they are, McIlroy has a few. I figured his voice carries a bit more weight than mine.

“I think it’s the kikuyu,” McIlroy said, when I asked him to expand on his assessment. “They either need to re-grass 30 yards around up to the green so the ball runs, or you just have to keep those greens a touch softer than the rest. There’s no skill anymore. You’re not aiming it in the left bushes, but you know if it goes in the left bushes, it should be okay. It’s just not a good golf hole. It’s the same with No. 4. Even if you just did 20 yards of apron [that wasn’t kikuyu] it would be better. Royal Melbourne have done that. If Royal Melbourne can do it, there is no reason these guys can’t. If they want to get a U.S. Open here, which I think they’re trying, they need to do something.”

The highlight of the day? It was probably Denny McCarthy, who landed a 3-wood in a spot where, a yard left or a yard right, it would not have worked. But some combination of luck and skill sent the ball trickling onto the green from 287 yards away. McCarthy made the 6-foot eagle putt on his way to a sizzling 64 (the low round of the day) but even that didn’t sway him from his long-held opinion that it’s not exactly a test of skill.

“It’s an interesting hole,” McCarthy said. “You need to get lucky. I hit a good shot, but somebody could have landed it a foot away from me and ended up down in the swale or in the rough. I could hit a bucket of balls and not do that again. I think they might need to soften it if they want to play the greens this firm. With how much slope it has, it can sometimes get a little silly.”

I’ve been fortunate enough to see Tiger Woods make plenty of birdies in my time covering golf, and most of them made me 

 something. The birdie he made Saturday on the 10th, his first hole of the day, was not one of them. It did not feel strategic or iconic. It just sort of … was. Woods blasted a 3-wood over the green, then hit a fairly indifferent putt to the fringe, then made the next one from 15 feet. Even he seemed somewhat nonplussed by it. When I asked whether technology and had made the hole a little boring, he was noncommittal. But he did concede that the strategy has changed significantly.

“When I first came here, no one went for it,” Woods said. “Balata and persimmon doesn't go very far, so no one went for it. We all laid up to the far left or to the right. And the second shot wasn't as hard because we played a spinnier ball. Then over the years that right side has gotten steeper from the sand and the slopes have gotten steeper, the shots have become more challenging. Then now with the length everyone hits it, guys are going for it, which we never did.”

The hole’s reputation is still so vaunted, it was the natural choice for CBS when they 

 and do their weekly walk-and-talk. And Morikawa was great, explaining exactly why it’s polarizing and not beloved.

“It’s the hardest hole,” Morikawa said. “I don’t think people understand how much slope is on this green. There is so much bank off the right, so much bank pushing away from the front edge, that all of our balls end up back of the green. And when you’re over there, any pin that’s on the right side of the bunker, you’re chipping out to the middle of the green and taking a 40 footer. This is why it’s one of the most loved, and the most hated holes.” (Morikawa, despite a great drive just short of the green, was left with an awkward chip; he bumped a 5-wood right where he was looking – just right of the flag – and settled for par.)

Golf courses, no matter how well maintained they are, can’t be maintained like a painting. They naturally ebb and flow like living things. Thomas’ original design, based at least partially on the 12th hole at Pine Valley, didn’t even include bunkers because Thomas thought the version at Pine Valley was too difficult. But over time, they were added (likely by Thomas, who played the course often) and gradually the slope became more severe.

“I think its original design was a great hole and I think it’s kind of gone overboard,” said Harris English. “Especially that back part of the green. We have some really good short Par 4s on Tour. Hartford has one of them (No. 15), and so does Phoenix with 17. They give you a chance to make eagle if you hit a good shot and bogey if you don’t. This hole, good shots don’t really get rewarded. Misses, you’re just trying to chip it on the green somehow. It’s a fun hole to play, but it’s not very fair.”

I’m open to the argument that its lack of fairness is what makes it interesting. If everyone is annoyed by it, then maybe it’s a bad hole that serves a decent purpose. The 10th demands that players keep their cool when they get a bad break. But how much better would it be if everyone could pick their own strategy off the tee and still be rewarded in different ways? Justin Thomas is one of the few players who stubbornly chooses to lay up, but even that seems to offer little safety. He laid up in the first two rounds and made two bogeys. He went for the green on Saturday and made a birdie.

“I think there are a few different ways to look at the hole,” said Sahith Theegala, who made birdie on Saturday. “Is it a great hole? Yes, I think it’s one of the best short par 4s ever, if not the best. Is it a fair hole? I think no. I think you’re at the mercy of the golf course. The green is pitched a touch too much. But that’s what makes it fun and diabolical. If it wasn’t diabolical, no one would really talk about it. You can hit a perfect tee shot and get absolutely hosed.”

You can also hit a perfect tee shot that chases onto the green and sends the crowd into a frenzy, and then be bored out of your mind by the time you get a chance to putt. The reason? The natural rhythm of the hole is all stops and starts. It's a pace of play nightmare. Here is how it unfolded much of the day: A group would hit. They’d walk to the green. They’d locate their ball and chip, or if by some miracle they found the green, they’d mark. Then the marshal would signal the next group on the tee to go ahead and hit. The first group would finish out the hole. The next group would locate their balls and mark, waving the group behind to go ahead and hit. If you found the green, like Seamus Power did on Saturday, it might be almost 15 minutes before you got the chance to putt.

Imagine having to wait 15 minutes to know if a 3-pointer by Steph Curry found the bottom of the net after he let it fly. Some of that might be a golf problem, but imagine how it will feel on Sunday if Max Homa or Keith Mitchell is trying to chase down Jon Rahm and one of them drives the green. Now imagine they have to stand around and wait 12 minutes before they get a chance to stand over it with a putter. And that’s the best case scenario!

“I think it’s an overrated driveable par 4 in this day and age,” said Adam Hadwin. “Good shots don’t get rewarded. I’m a firm believer that you can set golf courses good and hard, but if guys hit good shots, they should be rewarded with decent looks. You can hit perfect tee shots on 10 and have to lay up. We all have to play it, so I get it. I’m 2-under on the hole through three rounds. I’ve played it well. But I’ve had plenty of times when I’ve played here, hit a decent shot, and I am chipping to 25 feet. I have no shot toward the pin. And if you don’t hit a great tee shot, there is not an incentive to try and do something. You’re just bringing 5 and 6 into play.”

I’m not an expert on golf course architecture, but I feel comfortable saying that the best driveable Par 4s should give players options off the tee. If the Tito’s Vodka tent that’s left off the fairway (and left of the cart path) could find a different home, you could easily make that area tantalizing for more players like Thomas. Give him a better angle into that kidney-shaped green, and the contrast of styles would be exhilarating. As it stands now, it’s just gotten a little boring.

“It’s going to get to the point where the high numbers get taken out,” said Tommy Fleetwood. “No one is going to make 6s and 7s, they’re just going to make bogey at worst. I still think it’s one of the signature holes on the Tour, but it’s borderline. The beauty of a short hole is that you should have options."

I wanted to love it. It seemed like I was supposed to love it. But by day’s end, I found myself spiritually aligned with J.J. Spaun, who had nothing good to say about the hole at all.

“I think you should either take on the risk with the tee shot, or take on the risk with the second shot,” Spaun said. “Right now, you can hit a great tee shot and be totally screwed. You can hit a great chip and be totally screwed. You can hit a good putt and be screwed. There is no correct play.”

KVV: Does the 10th at Riviera stink?

One thing we probably don’t say out loud enough is just how different golf is from other sports.

If you’re a recreational player, this is something to be embraced and is probably one of the things you love the most about the game. And if you’re in the golf industry, where TV ratings, revenues, salaries and day-to-day drama are dwarfed by nearly every other professional sport, this feels like an existential dilemma to solve.

Netflix’s newly-released “Full Swing” series is professional golf’s moon shot for this problem. The eight-episode docuseries is unabashedly designed to bring new fans into the game the way Formula 1’s “Drive to Survive” rocketed to the top of American watch lists during the pandemic. No one understands this phenomenon more than me – a guy who didn’t know which direction the cars drove at the beginning of 2020 and was participating in F1 fantasy leagues by 2021.

But the differences between F1 and golf are, needless to say, vast. Let’s start with simply comparing the titles. “Drive to Survive” immediately calls to mind the danger and drama inherent to F1, while “Full Swing’s” stakes are naturally going to be exponentially lower. This is the first sign that “Drive to Survive” shouldn’t be a paint by numbers template for other (slower) sports.

I, along with millions of my friends, was thrilled to parachute into the brand new world of F1 due to a number of different circumstances. Fast cars, exotic settings, team swapping and general bitchiness was a perfect fit for me at a time where live sports were on pause. Watching post-produced races from a year ago (races whose outcomes I had no idea about) was the perfect COVID watch when little else was on TV. And when I made the jump to watching F1 races live, the telecasts were exceptional – commercial-free, engaging and easy for beginners to follow.

Golf has a comical amount of inhibitors for new fans. It’s brutally difficult to play, to understand, to follow and, perhaps most of all, to pay for. It takes far too long and is, even on its best days, almost irredeemably dorky. Large parts of the game have seemingly been set up to actively drive people away for all kinds of hateful and/or stupid reasons. And the professional product has started to feel like a 10-year-long commercial with a few occasional golf shots mixed in. As it exists today, golf was basically designed in a lab to never become a mainstream sport. And somehow, despite all of this, golf (at least on the recreational side) has more momentum than it's had in decades.

But pro golf’s superpower – the thing that makes people turn on their TV’s – is relatability. When I flipped on F1, I had no expectation to ever understand what it feels like to drive a car into Turn 4 at the Circuit of the Americas. I don’t know what it’s like to dunk a basketball or hit a home run. But when I watch Rory McIlroy hit a short-sided bunker shot, I understand exactly what the challenge is. I can relate to having nerves over a 4-footer and a shot that comes a foot short of clearing a bunker lip. This feeling is the biggest value pro golf offers. And trying to sell the slow, often-vanilla sport without that feeling included has always felt like a bit of a doomed proposition.

Formula 1 is built as a pure entertainment product. Watching golf is much more complicated than that. It’s part relaxation, part instructional video, part therapy session and part physics lesson. And it’s the sum of those parts – and the way they slowly develop and come together to a crescendo over the finishing stretch – that adds up to the entertainment product. I’m not sure there’s a way to shortcut it.

It’s been tough to have any conversation in the golf industry the past year without a mention of what the new Netflix series “could do for the game.” And it undoubtedly will be a net positive. The way that golf’s governing bodies and top players aligned to provide unprecedented access and footage is massively impressive considering golf’s hesitation to evolve for the past, say, 300 years. The world will certainly have more Joel Dahmen and Sahith Theegala fans by next week. The Brooks Koepka episode is a fascinating look at a player being torn between an egotistical defense mechanism and his impending golf mortality. Unfortunately for Randy and I, Tony Finau is a delight to watch and we get to watch Ian Poulter step on a few rakes tonally, which is fun.

If we’re looking at golf obsession as a 1 to 10 scale, there’s no doubt “Full Swing” will succeed in taking golf fans from a three to a five or a five to a seven because there's a lot to enjoy. But with such a focus on #GrowingTheGame, I’m left wondering whether it will make any zeros reconsider their stance.

 is that suddenly you have to compete with 

. In order to do this, “Full Swing,” understandably chooses to cut back on the nitty gritty moments and insights that make us terminally ill golf sickos tune in every week. But even with unprecedented access, when you cut out the stuff that separates 

 golfers from every other golfer on the planet, what new fans are left with can feel fairly bland, particularly when compared to all the other things fans 

 be watching. (For my “Drive to Survive” people, golf has many more Otmar Szafnauers than Guenther Steiners.)

Leaning into the riches of pro golf doesn’t exactly work. We want to see the opulence in F1 because F1 isn’t real. It’s not relatable. It’s an imaginary world that exists in our TV’s where money is just a concept. But this has never been the bargain with golf, where the “athletes” remind us more of ourselves out there, playing the game that we play. You can understand how good they are because you can understand how bad you are.

Golf fans know that Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are not lacking in personality, as Episode 1 could convince some viewers. It’s just that their personalities are so defined by a lifelong golf obsession. That’s what makes the jokes funny. That’s what makes the betting games interesting. There’s a prerequisite class needed to decode it. When you try to avoid the X’s and O’s, the swing theories, the caddie conversations and the shot making, all you’re left with is a couple of dudes drawing cards on an airplane. If we're worried about turning people off by showing golfers playing golf... well, showing golfers 

 playing golf is rarely going to be an improvement.

There are very nice moments throughout the series – Mike Thomas discussing parenting a superstar and a great look at Finau’s family dynamic. There are little moments that will resonate with golf fans in a big way and help add dimension to the players we watch every week. But man. There’s a lot of content out there that has nice moments. It will be interesting to see if “Full Swing’s” are interesting enough to retain people who are encouraged to choose between it and [gestures toward inescapable black mass of other content instantly available at all times].

As a hardcore golf fan, this is what has become a bit deflating; watching golf try constantly to cater to an audience that seems destined to ignore it, rather than using the same energy to present the sport the way it deserves for those who already love it.

At its best, “Full Swing” still provides an intimate look at the revolving door of pro golf – Theegala on his way in and Koepka questioning whether he’s on his way out. But at its worst, it’s surface-level and a little boring. At times it feels artful, soulful and introspective. But often it feels like “Inside the PGA Tour With Some Swearing.”

And to have this takeaway during a year that will very likely be the most exciting and dramatic off-the-course year of my lifetime is particularly head-scratching. The LIV Golf alley oop of 2022 permeates through the entire season, but the show never seems to want to say the quiet parts out loud. This could be due to a number of factors, not least of which was a lack of participation from Phil, Bryson, Reed and other LIV defectors. A number of great talking heads are brought in to offer context, but rarely are they given the time to offer more than expository lines to move the narrative forward. All the player bickering and mudslinging that was clearly going on behind the scenes has dried up once the red dot turns on. Apart from one throwaway “I know the cameras are here but I’m going to say this anyway” comment from Rory  about Mickelson, much of the LIV drama ends up packaged as a fairly emotionless stating of the facts.

Because the scope of the show is so large, it’s impossible to capture the ebbs and flows of a player’s season without feeling an inch deep and a mile wide. (Again, an understandable bargain geared toward creating a mix of big names and new faces to maximize interest.) By the time we get to McIlroy in the finale, there is so much ground to cover that we’re forced to skim through his historic career, his upbringing, his role in the LIV breakaway, The Open at St. Andrews, the Delaware meeting about restructuring the PGA Tour AND his FedExCup win in the span of a single episode. It ends up feeling much more like reading a Wikipedia page than an intimate portrait of what will likely be one of the most important and memorable years of his career.

None of this is to say that “Full Swing” is without promise. It’s made by an incredibly talented team of filmmakers and there is something powerful about simply seeing familiar players and situations through a more cinematic lens. It’s also possible Season 1 was more “proof of concept” than “swing for the fences.” This entire endeavor runs so counter to every instinct the golf industry has had for the past few decades that I’m sure there was an element of simply getting a W on the board for players, agents, sponsors, tours, tournaments and more.

Season 2, which is already filming, offers a chance to shine a light on more of what makes professional golfers truly fascinating. Most of them are too smart to ever say anything private on camera. The true personalities out on Tour are few and far between and “Full Swing” can always flex that muscle when it’s called for. But the one thing that everyone on Tour from Tom Hoge to Tiger Woods has in common is an obsessive genius and mastery of a game that millions of people are already chasing every single day. There is no one in the world better equipped to explain and showcase the art and science of being a genius at your craft.

Let us into that and trust that it’s the strongest asset golf has.

Growing the game vs. showing the game

LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods was not going to wait to hear the end of my question before he fired off his answer.

“Nope,” he said, anticipating where it was headed. “Nope.”

He wasn’t pissed. In fact, there was a hint of a grin on Woods’ face.

In the first half of his Tuesday press conference to kick off the Genesis Invitational, Woods was asked what he thought about Tom Brady and LeBron James and Aaron Rodgers, about whether watching them navigate the winter of their athletic lives had inspired him to consider his own mortality. He demurred at first, mentioned his injury history, then brought up how there were times when he wondered if his body might make the decision for him “When you get a little bit older and a little bit banged up, you’re not as invincible as you once were. That’s the reality of all of us aging,” Woods said. “I remember as a kid growing up, watching John Elway speak and just crying saying ‘I can do it but my body won’t allow me to do it anymore.' I’ve gotten to that point a couple times.”

But he also talked about how different golf is from their professions.

“In our sport, there is no contact,” Woods said. “I don’t have 300 pound guys falling on top of me. It’s just a matter of shooting a good score. We have the ability to pick and choose and play a little longer. We saw my hero Arnold Palmer play 50 straight Masters. I’m not even 50 years old yet. You look at Gary Player, he played 51 Masters. We’re different sports.”

His answer got me thinking: Was there a part of him that was softening in his late 40s? Could he envision a day when he could play tournament golf without waking up that morning convinced he could win the tournament?

“If I’m playing, I’m playing to win,” Woods said, and he let the words hang in the air for a moment like a mantra. “I know that players have played and tried to be an ambassador for the game and tried to grow the game. I can’t wrap my mind around that as a competitor. If I’m playing in the event, I’m going to try and beat you. I’m there to get a W. I don’t understand how making a cut is a great thing. If I enter an event, it’s always to get a W.”

He apologized for cutting me off. He was in a joyful mood. But I wondered if a part of him wanted to shout: Dude, do you even know me at all?

“There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it’s probably sooner than later,” Woods said. “But wrapping my head around that transition, being in an ambassador role and just playing, just being out here with the guys? No, that’s not in my DNA. I flip my hat around and become a player, and I want to get the W.”

It's easy to get hyperbolic about Tiger. I’ve been guilty of it, but so have the players who have been generational bookends to his career. Who can forget the infamous interview Woods did as a rookie with Curtis Strange, an interview before Woods’ first professional tournament where Strange (a two-time U.S. Open winner) tried to educate him, informing that he might come across as arrogant or brash if he said he expected to win, and that finishing 2nd or 3rd didn’t make it a bad week.

“On Tour, that’s not too bad,” Strange said. 

“That’s just not in my nature,” Woods replied.

Twenty five years later, Woods still hasn’t learned, and there is something magnetic about that stubborn, irrational self belief.

I used to wonder if he’d ever have a Duel in the Sun moment like Jack Nicklaus did when he finished a stroke behind Tom Watson at the 1977 Open Championship, but still put his arm around Watson as they walked off the 18th green. Nicklaus could revel in the cauldron of competition, yet still pull back and celebrate the success of others. When he made a Sunday charge at the 1998 Masters at age 58, he wasn’t furious when he finished four shots behind Mark O’Meara in a tie for 6th. He seemed elated he could remind people he was a man — the man — who once made the game look easy.

Tiger Woods has always been built differently. It’s possible there will come a day when he will stroll the manicured fairways of Augusta National or the wispy rough of an Open Championship, and be able to enjoy the atmosphere and soak up the appreciation of the crowd. Much like it was with Arnie and Jack and Tom in their 60s, people will want him there, just to say they saw a glimpse of who he used to be.

But I also won’t mind if Tiger won’t indulge us in the pomp and pageantry. He was programmed to kick your ass — by his parents, by his coaches, by his own obsessive, creative brain. That’s his DNA. He bent the world of golf to him, not the other way around. When he tees it up in a PGA Tour tournament this Thursday for the first time in three years, he’s still seeking something, convinced he can win at the one course, Riviera Country Club, he’s never conquered.

If he has to reassess at some point, so be it. Golf would be grateful if he stuck around, even if he morphed into a player who was more hopeful than he was cutthroat.

I’m just grateful we’re not there. Not quite yet.

KVV: Tiger wants to win. Still.

Welcome to the No Laying Up bi-weekly mailbag! In this space, we’ll address topics big and small, smart and dumb, irreverent and serious. You need to be a member of The Nest to submit a question to the mailbag, but the mailbag itself will be free to read (as long as you behave yourselves). Most of our questions are submitted via our message board, The Refuge, but if you’re not a message board person, please send me an email at kvv@nolayingup.com with your Nest handle and your question. As a bonus, if your question gets picked, we’ll send you a free NLU towel. 

Are you going to be a guest/host on the Sunday Recap Pods/Liveshows now? Will your involvement on the Trap Draw be larger than it already is? Are there now three Strapped boys? New competitor on Tourist Sauce?

This is four questions you sneaky devil. I feel like Phil Mickelson, 

 at the U.S. Open for asking double-barrelled multi-part questions. I’ll field them as one because it gives me an opportunity to riff a little on my role at NLU. You will definitely see me and hear me on the Sunday Recap Pods and live shows. (In fact, 

check out our Sunday night discussion from Pebble

.) It’s something I’ve done as a guest many times and I’m excited to continue doing it. One thing we’ve learned is, if you have a rotating cast (with Soly playing point guard), people tend to bring their best when it’s their turn to be on the Sunday show. So I won’t be on every week, but I will be on frequently. One aspect I’m excited about is that I’m going to be on the ground at the majors, so I’ll be checking in each night from the course, trying to offer a little insight from the venue before I go work on a column.

As for the TrapDraw, I think it’s fair to say I’ll be frequently welcomed into the space. Tron and I have talked about how much we want to do mini-deep dives into every professional sports owner and how they came into their money. It’s kind of mysterious, especially if you don’t live in the city where that team resides. I think we may make that a recurring segment. I’ll be steering the ship on Perfect Clubs, trying to make sure we’re landing at least one per month, whether I’m on the panel or not. D.J. and Randy and friend of the program Tim Simons will tackle the Oscars pod as there is no chance I will be able to watch all 10 Best Picture Nominations in time. (I think I may write something about Top Gun: Maverick, though, so look for that.)

Are there now three Strapped boys? I can confidently say no to this. First of all, we don’t know if Strapped will ever return! It might have been the ultimate walk-off homer. I teared up a little during “The Kid,” the last episode of South Carolina, which felt like the culmination of ten incredible seasons. If the show continues, I think you’ll see some changes, but I wouldn’t want to mess with its perfect chemistry. If you added a third person to Andre 3000 and Big Boi, would it still be Outkast? No, it would be a third guy everyone wishes would STFU so they could listen to Outkast. (I think Randy is Big Boi in this analogy, Neil is Andre, but your mileage may vary.) Neil and Randy might also be Simon and Garfunkel. Who can say.

As for Tourist Sauce… we’ll see. Adding this thicc boi to an already-crowded rental car in a foreign land seems like one more logistical headache, but maybe there is a written element of Tourist Sauce that might justify my inclusion. Watch this space, as we so frequently say.

Professional golf has completely splintered in a way most people probably never thought possible just a few years ago. Now that sides have been drawn and lines have been drawn, where do you see professional golf one year from now? Do you think someone is going to blink and compromise or do you think this is going to be a fight to the death?

I probably should have learned my lesson at the PGA Championship to 

, but I’ll take a swing at this one for the sake of entertainment. I think the most likely scenario is the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gradually loses interest in funding LIV Golf, an enterprise that isn’t generating revenue, and one day the spigot of funding gets turned off. We’ll hear plenty of spin about how they accomplished everything they ever hoped to accomplish, and now it’s an appropriate time to disrupt other industries. If you’re one of the lucky guys who was paid in full, you’ll shrug your shoulders and move on. But I suspect some players will never be made whole. And in that scenario, what are you going to do? Demand a meeting with Mohammed bin Salman? Send him an invoice? Good luck with that.

Here is the hard truth about LIV: There are some things about the format that are appealing, like shotgun starts and team competition and 54 holes. But none of that is dramatically different from PGA Tour golf. It’s still golf, a sport that is never going to feel disruptive or rebellious or cool. It doesn’t matter if you blare rock music on the first tee and let people wear shorts, it only conjures up the image of Steve Buscemi holding a skateboard over his shoulder saying “How do you do, fellow kids?” 

Part of LIV’s biggest problem is, it’s not cool enough to appeal to a younger generation, and it’s too tacky to appeal to traditional golf fans. It would have a better chance at disruption if it was either less serious or more serious, but it can’t be either. At least if it was a show on Nickelodeon where golfers got slimed for double bogeys, it would be easy to differentiate.

I don’t think there will be a compromise because I think, outside a small audience that spends too much time on Twitter, no one cares about the players who left. And that’s going to become apparent once major season revs up. It’s not like Cam Smith or Dustin Johnson or even Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau have been banished to YouTube or the CW forever. We still get to see them at majors. And therein lies a flaw in LIV’s plan. Casual golf fans only care about the majors. You’re never going to get them worked up about OWGR points. LIV players might have a more compelling argument if they were being barred from majors, but for the most part, they aren’t. Smith can play the Open until he’s 60. DeChambeau is in the U.S. Open until 2030. Johnson, Reed, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia can play the Masters until they turn 65. Brooks Koepka’s exemption into the U.S. Open runs until 2028, and like Mickelson, he can play the PGA Championship for life.

If you’re expecting people to take up pitchforks and torches on behalf of Talor Gooch or Paul Casey, you’ve badly misjudged the paying customer.

I think there is a good chance that Smith or Johnson or Reed wins another major in the next few years, but that won’t change public sentiment outside some initial bluster. All it will do is underline the point. 

You mean I still get to watch them compete in majors? Great, then why should I care if they can’t play the 3M or the Valspar?

KVV, Is the addition to the Swilcan Bridge as egregious as I think it is? It honestly looks like a DIY, cock-and-balls-inspired backyard patio. It’s awful.

If you missed it over the weekend, or if you are not (like me) trapped in the funhouse mirror that is Golf Twitter, let me offer a quick recap to what my colleague Tron is referring to here. In an effort to shore up the ground in front of the Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole at The Old Course, the St. Andrews Links Trust commissioned someone to put stones down and extend the path that leads to the bridge. The thinking was, grass is difficult to grow in such a highly trafficked area. Everyone who plays the Old Course wants a picture of themselves on the 700-year-old bridge. If the person holding the camera could stand on stone, and those waiting for their turn could as well, the ground in front of the bridge might not be a mud pit.

Did the initial photos make the extension look like a DIY patio you see in the Instagram feed of someone you went to high school with? They did. The Courier, one of Scotland’s largest newspapers, ran a front page headline that described it as “Painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.” The outrage was so universal the Links Trust has already reversed course and announced that they’re going to remove the stones. (I hope some contractor from Fife got paid twice for this.)

The cul-de-sac patio look wasn’t great, but I think it’s important to have a little perspective here. Though we talk about the Old Course with religious reverence, please take a moment and remember that the Old Course is a living monument, not a museum. In 1968, they built a 

 on the most famous hole in the world, a design that someone deemed so commercially essential, it should block your view of the fairway from the tee. For all the jokes about how there could be a hot tub in the stone patio, there is literally a spa inside the hotel, just a few feet away. Is there an invisible line somewhere that divides golf’s holy ground with a place where I can pay 140 pounds to get an organic seaweed wrap? This was sort of like putting a Starbucks on the outside corner of Notre Dame Cathedral, then claiming it’s not a big deal because some drywall and limestone separates a painting of St. Thomas Aquinas from the lattes. We’re kind of arguing semantics, right?

I wish we could save some of this energy and direct it toward other ways to preserve other elements that make The Old Course special. Just right of 18, you can no longer visit Tom Morris’ Golf Shop, a quirky, yet delightful place that had stood since 1866. It’s now something much more corporate, a soulless place that mostly sells officially-branded Open merch. There are holes where they have to put tees out of bounds just to retain some of the original design because the ball flies so far. There is rough in places that didn’t have rough for hundreds of years. Is preserving the muddy area in front of the bridge really where we draw the line?

 As a fellow Kevin I’d love to see your Power Rankings of famous (up to interpretation) Kevins. Can be real/fictional, sports or not.

For starters, have you seen the anti-Kevin sentiment that has become mainstream in Europe? It’s outrageous! 

 recently about how being named Kevin in France can hold you back socially and financially and politically. Kevin is a fine Irish name. At the top, I’ll toss these out for your consideration:

 Right at the beginning of the pandemic, when no one knew what the world was going to look like, my family took comfort in watching movies almost every night. But no one wanted to watch scary movies (myself included), so we had to find things everyone could enjoy, from age 47 to age 8. Footloose was one of the biggest home runs. You forget what a great athlete Bacon is until you watch this. It’s a fairly ridiculous film, and yet his charisma carries the whole thing. (Let’s normalize men teaching other men how to dance again!) Bacon also earns the top spot for me here because of his small role in A Few Good Men. Everyone who loves this film focuses on the showdown between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson at the end, but the rapport that Cruise and Bacon have – as military lawyers who are also softball and basketball rivals – to me represents the best of Aaron Sorkin’s writing shtick. I still have a close friend from high school whom I randomly text “You’re a lousy fucking softball player, Jack!” and he’ll immediately write back “Your boys are going down, Danny. I can’t stop that now.”

 The news that Coster wants to get out of filming more episodes of Yellowstone nearly helped him surge to the top of my rankings. As a Montanan, I can’t tell you how conflicted I am about Yellowstone. I suspect Costner feels the same. The writing on the show is truly embarrassing, yet it’s weirdly addictive. It has driven up real estate prices in Montana to absurd levels by bringing in droves of rich people from out of state who want to play cowboy but can’t seem to grasp that they’re actually the bad guys in the conflict between the old west and new west. They believe they’re the Duttons, but really they just want to wear Carhartts and look at scenery porn. The tires of their F-150s don’t even touch gravel roads. Anyway, I could riff on The Untouchables, Bull Durham, Tin Cup or even Robinhood: Prince of Thieves, but did you know Costner used to be Tiger Woods’ partner in the Pebble Beach Pro Am? I’m all for PGA Tour players getting to pick their schedule, but damn it would be fun if the best players still played with some of the biggest stars. Tell me you wouldn’t be riveted if Rory McIlroy and Cate Blanchett were dueling Jon Rahm and Timothée Chalamet down the stretch.

Everyone loves to tweet the gif of Kevin spilling a giant pot of chili on the carpet of Dunder Mifflin, and to be fair, it is one of the great bits of physical comedy in the history of the show (if not television). But few things will ever make me chuckle more than Kevin wearing Kleenex boxes on his feet for Jim and Pam’s wedding because the hotel destroyed his shoes when he left them outside his room hoping they’d be polished. (“The smell became a safety issue, sir.”) Cap that off with Kevin putting his sore feet in the ice machine at the end of the night, and it’s just a Hall of Fame moment for Kevins. Throw in the fact that Brian Baumgartner is a massive golf nerd and this feels like an easy choice.

Years ago, I remember reading Jimmy Carter say that he would pay $10,000 if he could read 

 again for the first time. I don’t know if he was envisioning an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind scenario, but if you love books and stories, that’s just about one of the most beautiful things I can imagine spending money on. I think I feel that way about The Leftovers, maybe the weirdest, coolest, bravest show I’ve ever seen. It’s not my No. 1 show of all time, but it’s certainly one I wish more people would go back and digest. If you hear Otis Reddings “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember” and you immediately think of Kevin and Nora dancing, you know what I’m talking about. Justin Theroux was a tour de force in it.

 Even though Kevin the Snipe is a fabulous friend, I mostly ranked him here on the .0001 chance Durant sees this and is enraged he’s ranked below a cartoon bird.

 In all seriousness, I kind of love the way Durant lays bare the majority of his insecurities. He’s probably the greatest scoring forward the NBA has ever seen, and yet he’s as perpetually online as any media weirdo. I admire how human that is. You are, without question, one of the best basketball players in history, yet you get so bothered by stupid people saying stupid things about you, that you repeatedly fire up a burner account just to try and correct the record one gripe at a time? It’s so sad, yet I 1000 percent understand the appeal. Kevin Durant’s burner needs to join Golf Twitter. Watching him lock horns with our greatest burner account, which I will not name here for legal reasons, would be a gift to us all.

 It’s 2026 and you’ve been tasked with writing the script for HBO’s hit tv show The Newsroom episode where the Newsroom covers LIV. What would you make sure to include? In what ways would our Newsroom crew elevate journalism through their coverage? What character would have a personal tie to LIV and what would it be?

Edit: Also, what would be included in the signature montage and what song would accompany it?

What an insane, delightful question. The Newsroom has gotten a bad rap in recent years, mostly because of that cringe-worthy scene where producer Don and the rest of his ACN team are determined to reveal to a plane full of people that the United States military tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden. It’s very cringe, particularly if you remove any of the context you get from watching multiple seasons of an Aaron Sorkin drama. The show was earnest, overwrought and over-acted, but it was also fun to see real journalism debates play out on television. How would the ATN team cover LIV Golf? I have to believe someone, maybe Olivia Munn, would get a tip that Phil Mickelson had given a 

 explosive interview that might sink the entire league. There would be a big debate about what constitutes off the record, and Jeff Daniels would give a speech about the Pentagon Papers and how absurd it is you have to be willing to go to jail to protect both Daniel Ellsberg and Ian Poulter, but that’s the job and if you don’t like it, there is the door kiddo.

Dev Patel would say something like “And what about the next time a journalist gets kidnapped and murdered?” and no one would have a good answer. In the third act, Sam Waterson’s character would reveal that he used to play cards with Greg Norman and he could always tell when The Shark was bluffing, and this wasn’t one of those times. In the end, ATN would decide not to run the story, protecting their source, and the episode would end as they watched the first LIV event on YouTube, with Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” playing over a montage of Charl Schwartzel spraying champagne in slow motion on Hennie du Plessie.

 Who have been your biggest writing influences over the years - sports writers or otherwise? Which of their works should we seek out?

When I was in college at the University of Montana, I took an entry-level creative writing course while I was still playing football. (I use the term ‘playing’ liberally here. I saw the field like twice in two years.) One of the short stories we had to read for the class was On The Rainy River by Tim O’Brien, which is part of his novel The Things They Carried. I liked it so much, I found a copy of the book later that night at my uncle’s house and read the entire thing. I fell asleep as the sun was coming up. It has been the most influential piece of writing of my life. I would probably live out President Carter’s fantasy and fork over $10,000 just to feel that rush again.

As for sports writers, there are so many, it’s hard to narrow it down. But S.L. Price and Jeff MacGregor and Tim Keown are the three I suspect I ripped off the most to shape whatever my writing voice is. If you’ve never read Jeff’s piece about a 

 in Oklahoma, remedy that this weekend. You should also read Tim’s 

, the price of football, whether any of it is defensible when it’s your loved ones being broken by the sport.

Has professional golf outgrown the ‘gentlemanly’ approach to the rules where players are expected to police themselves based on the (sometimes subjective) application of the rules and limited input from toothless and tardy rules officials? Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg proposed having a rules official with every group. Andy also emphasizes that while Patrick Reed gets a ton of negative attention and scrutiny for such incidents due to his history and demeanor, he believes that this type of rule-bending is much more common at the professional level than many believe.

Is there a cheating issue in professional golf?

I thought Andy and Brendan did a really nice job discussing this issue. For anyone who didn’t hear it, 

it’s worth spending some time listening

 to their pod from last week. Without getting too specific and potentially putting myself in legal jeopardy, I do think there are players who believe it is their job to see what they can get away with, following the murky language of the rules if not the spirit. After Lexi Thompson’s ball marking controversy at the 2017 ANA, Phil Mickelson gave a very interesting answer when asked what he thought about the four-shot penalty Thompson received in the middle of her final round the following day. “I know a number of guys on tour that are loose with how they mark the ball and have not been called on it,” Mickelson said. “I mean, they will move the ball 2, 3 inches in front of their mark, and this is an intentional way to get it out of any type of impression and so forth. And I think that kind of stuff needs to stop.”

Writing

KVV: Eight short films about Riviera

KVV: Does the 10th at Riviera stink?

Growing the game vs. showing the game

KVV: Tiger wants to win. Still.

KVV Mailbag: The Swilcan Patio and The LIV Newsroom

In the Nest: KVV on Brady's Sad Goodbye

"Comets"

The Electric Phactory Wins the Inugural Roost Club Championship

Rory, Tiger, top players agree on vision for PGA Tour changes

From the Refuge: How I met my childhood hero the "Unicorn," Anthony Kim

2021 Nest Member Gift

Making Picks: 2021 Tour Championship

Making Picks: BMW Championship

Making Picks: The Northern Trust

Hidden Scotland: A Return to the Hidden Places

Introducing the No Laying Up Course Map

Making Picks: Wyndham Championship

Making Picks: 2021 3M Open