It is often our job at No Laying Up to be skeptics (even cynics) when we think about the landscape of golf.


We strive to remain, despite the steady growth of our company over the last decade, grounded by the idea that we ought to represent the voice of the fan, the avid community of golfers around the world that is mostly just asking to be informed or entertained each week. It can be easy to grow disillusioned or frustrated with aspects of the game, whether television coverage, the massive commercial load, slow play, or the endless bickering over money, and we feel like it’s important to give oxygen to those frustrations, particularly when we share them.

We may not always get it right in your eyes, but we promise you this: Our feelings are never anything but genuine.


With that in mind, on this Thanksgiving, we’d like to (temporarily) remove our skeptic’s hat and talk about a few things we are thankful for in this sometimes messy, often-fractured, frequently confusing world of golf.


It’s important to give thanks and to be grateful for the stuff you believe in.


, which are both the skeleton and the soul of the game. These are not to be confused with accessible but expensive tracks like Pinehurst, or Bandon Dunes, or Kapalua. A bucket list trip is a gift and a membership at an exclusive club might be a goal, but there is something irreplaceable about a Sunday morning tee time at a local muni with a group of friends.

You might change your shoes in the parking lot. You might warm up by hitting balls off a threadbare mat. You might see someone mark their ball with a beer can. None of it matters if you’re lucky enough to get that first tee time when you can still see the dew on the grass and the ball disappearing (then reappearing) in the early morning light.

Every golfer, no matter how wealthy or successful they become, ought to have a favorite muni they return to from time to time, one where the superintendent punches above his weight, where the hot dogs at the turn are better than they deserve to be, and quirks of layout test your patience but feel as familiar as the lyrics of an old song.

You know that bunker, the one on the wrong side of a dogleg with its ragged edges and concrete sand? Every muni has one. She’s infuriating, but … we’ve been through some stuff together. Job changes, a marriage (or two), a couple kids, a sore knee, that magical round when we flirted with a score that didn’t seem possible. We used to hate that bunker. Maybe we still do. But at this point, we can’t help but love it too.

, for borders and oceans we sometimes cross just to put our peg in the ground and stare down that first fairway.

Maybe you’ll never get to play Tara Iti in New Zealand and hear the waves crash on the beach as you line up a putt. Maybe you’ll never gaze out into the dunes of Nebraska, and marvel at the ripples that nature made before Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw went looking for 18 holes in an ocean of sand.

But every course — even one on the other side of town — is a mystery until you explore it for the first time. It doesn’t need to change your life. But it might draw you in like a magnet, and give you an excuse to visit a dot on the map you’d otherwise ignore.


If the weather is merciful where you live, go find a course you’ve never played before the calendar flips. It might be forgettable. But it also might surprise you.

Speaking of surprises, we are thankful for 

He wasn’t a surprise to us, the way he was to many. But what started as a joke — a funny, off-handed defense of the future of the European Ryder Cup teams during the beat down at Whistling Straits — turned into an answered prayer. Åberg hasn’t played in a single major, and already he’s become one of the brightest lights in the game today.


Will Åberg be the next Tiger Woods or even the next Rory McIlroy? Probably not. The odds are obviously against him, as they are with any young golfer. Even voicing those expectations may serve as fuel for the machine that eventually grinds him down. But none of that matters at this moment. What matters now is what he 

 be — the best driver of the ball the sport has seen since Greg Norman.

There is nothing in golf as intoxicating as the beginning of a prodigy’s career. And in this case, the prodigy seems grounded and mature and willing to embrace the expectations.


Hope, as Red said in Shawshank Redemption, can be a dangerous thing.

But every once in a while, you have to go on a bender.


In this case, the high might last for years.

, which remains as riveting as any event in sports. Even the blowouts give us a reason to care. When have you ever seen Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy weeping in defeat outside the Ryder Cup? Where else could have seen Boo Weekley riding his driver like a pony down the first fairway, or Shane Lowry bounding along the rope line like a professional wrestler waiting to be tagged into a match?


As a mixture of drama, pride and entertainment, it remains undefeated.


We are thankful for Luke Donald and Eduardo Molinari (some of us more than others) for their leadership and competence, the way they took a potential mess left by Henrik Stenson and turned it into one of the best European Ryder Cup squads in memory, choosing the best team and then putting them in the right mindset to succeed.

But not all our praise goes to the men in blue. There was a moment this year in Rome when Max Homa stood over a putt on the 18th green at Marco Simone on Sunday, that reminded us how inconsequential the squabbling over money feels when you contrast it with something that actually matters. LIV Golf could play for a billion dollars — which they may propose at some point — and it would still not measure up to the pressure Homa faced needing to defeat Matt Fitzpatrick to keep the United States alive in the competition.

There wasn’t a lot of upside for Homa at that moment. The United States was most likely going to lose the Ryder Cup regardless of what happened on Homa’s putt. But for now, the Ryder Cup hung in the balance. It was black and white. If he missed, the Europeans would win. If he drained it, the United States still had a sliver of hope.


How do you not feel thankful to bear witness to a moment like that?

Some stuff — thank god — will never be up for sale.


We are thankful, each day, for the existence of the 

, even the weird corners of Golf Twitter (which we refuse to refer to as X) that feel like they could be creatures in the Mos Eisley Cantina.


If Twitter sputters and flickers out, or descends further into a cesspool of bootlickers and losers, it will be a shame. Because golf, much like college football, has to be covered with a sense of humor if you’re going to do it right. Mainstream golf media has always been a little too stiff, a little too serious, for its own good. Imagine if there wasn’t a community of golfers eager to poke fun at the haughtiness.


This includes the litany of content creators on YouTube, most of whom seem to be having way more fun than anyone playing professionally.

In the same breath, we remain thankful and indebted to 

 which has given us reams of stats to pore over, the quality of it far better than what any tour has to offer.

who has been a beacon of hope in a frequently frustrating broadcast space. He is prepared, cogent, consistent and entertaining, qualities that are not often combined by those in his position.

, two generational talents who remind us how much the majors matter above everything else. Would we like to see them face each other more often? Certainly. But what truly matters is watching them lock horns with history on the line. We remain optimistic we’ll see more of it in 2024.


 in golf, for the way the game resets itself every few years and ushers in a new generation of potential. Like Ludvig, we are thankful for the promise of 

, or her precocious, timeless swing. There was a world of expectation on her shoulders when she turned pro, and she has navigated it thus far with grace. (Winning in her first start didn’t hurt either.)


, who made the most out of his PGA Tour U status and is quickly en route to the PGA Tour. And we are thankful for 

 unique swing and his unique facial hair. Bennett’s performance at the Masters represented some of the most exciting days of watching a major championship this year. And we are excited about recent NCAA national champions, 

, who have a chance to make noise as professionals. Platforming rising stars instead of letting them fade into pro golf obscurity was always the right move.


. Each was a reminder of how much joy we got this year out of following the women’s professional game.

, the crusty genius that he is. His routing of The Tree Farm, and his work on Pinehurst No. 10, represented two of the best courses we played this year, and it feels like he might be entering the most fun, dynamic period of his career.


 at Sand Valley. You cannot go wrong with any of them, but if you buy one for yourself, buy a second (or a third) for someone in your foursome. Good karma will follow.

we have found in all of you — readers, listeners, viewers — 

 who can’t help but make golf a regular part of your life.

We may not agree on everything. You may be skeptical about Åberg, annoyed with Rory McIlroy, or heavily invested in the future of the Aces, the Fireballs and the Cleeks. (Can you believe, btw, that Blandy re-signed so quickly?)

Perhaps all we have in common is we can’t resist chasing 

, the one you get when you flush a long iron and you watch it dance on the wind, well above the horizon line, just before it tumbles back to earth.


That’s all you need, some days, to chase the cynicism out of your body, and to feel thankful for whatever comes next.

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director of No Laying Up. He wrote this piece after consulting with other members of the squad on what they were thankful for this year. You can guess who nominated Ludvig.

NLU 2023: What We're Thankful For

It's been some time since we've done a crew-wide Q&A 

and after a big year, I figured there was no better time to survey the NLU squad. Let's dive in.

What has been your “NLU highlight” of 2023?

Allow me to first go down the leaderboard of honorable mentions as it’s been a really fun year: competing with my close personal friend

 at the Open Championship, and watching Carlota Ciganda 

 in front of King and Country to win the Solheim Cup would all be easy answers…


But, The Roost Club Championship at Sweetens Cove is the true highlight of 2023. Sweetens Cove and specifically, 

, hold a really special place in my heart. I get a great deal of joy out of watching people play the course, especially in a competitive format, for the first time. I will never get sick of making the trip to Tennessee’s Sequatchie Valley, and if you haven’t joined a Roost yet, consider 

Best piece of content you’ve consumed in 2023?

, a podcast that dives deep into the history and success of different businesses, during long runs and road trips. Warning: these podcasts are 3-4 hours long, but I really love the approach the hosts take: well-researched but conversational. They explore the history of each business and then analyze why they think the business is successful or unique. It’s something KVV and Soly are doing with our recent topic-based podcasts on 

 (fascinating, especially because I remember it happening in 4th grade but never really knew how bad these hombres were), 

One of the perks of this job is getting to play a lot of different golf courses, but at the same time, I only played 3 courses this year more than once. I often finish a round dying for another chance to play and hit certain shots again. One of those courses was Camargo in Cincinnati, where I played in a member/guest with one of my best friends. It was a joy to play one of the best courses in the country on repeat for 3 days, and I think Carmargo has some of the best par 3s in golf.

Grade school Neil would say Mike Piazza (but D.J. has urged me to reconsider). New answer is John Elway (his steakhouse in the Denver airport sucks too).


Easiest question of 2023. My new Dyson vacuum. I spent way too much time researching this purchase, and I’m thrilled I ponied up for 

 now that I have a black lab in an apartment with a white color palette!

A lot of directions we could go here. I had such a fun time in Rome, both on our scouting trip with Justine, Soly and Ben, and 

then during the actual Ryder Cup with Soly and KVV. 

 It’s easy to circle dates on the calendar years in advance and say “I can’t wait for X tournament in Y city,” but oftentimes those trips are contained solely to tournament dates and you spend most of your time there in media centers, shuttles and trying to find convenient meals before early wake-up calls. This year in Rome was one of the first times we’ve actually made a significant effort (with the help of the homies at BMW) to go over early and really get to know the course, the area, the people and let that excitement build all year. It made the Ryder Cup so much more fun and hopefully made our coverage better as well.


I’m going to go movie-related. Of course: “Oppenheimer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Killer.” Underrated things I loved: “Past Lives” and “They Cloned Tyrone.” But the one that I want to shout out is “Beau is Afraid.” I don’t think it was the best movie I saw. I honestly don’t know what I thought about it. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I dare you to watch it. God, you might HATE it. It’s so sick.

Punchable answer: Sand Hills. Absolutely tip-top of the bucket list and it delivered on every expectation. I could play Nos. 7 and 8 all day every day for the rest of my life.

We had a chance to sneak out one afternoon

 during a shoot in St. Andrews and it’s a round I’ve thought about a lot since. It’s obviously drowned out by its more famous neighbors, but I can’t wait to go back.


One thing I really wanted to upgrade when we moved into our new house in Milwaukee was my audio setup. I love collecting records, but I’m like a 20 handicap when it comes to actual gear expertise. We decided to go with a new turntable from U-Turn Audio, which I’ve really loved. The gear is all very simple and clean and the ability to choose all the options you want and build a custom turntable not only helped me learn a lot more about how different pieces work but also allowed us to get exactly what we needed for our room. Highly recommend!

Justin Hueber fixing my putting on Film Room

I'm going with what I know will be at the top of my Spotify 2023 Rewind - the new album that I have listened to by far the most this year is 

 - it gets me fired up as soon as I hear the first note.

Sweetens Cove!  Finally checked that one off the list, and there was no better way to do it than at the Roost Club Championship. Had a smile on my face the whole time I was there - just a super fun course made better surrounded by our great community.

.  As someone who does a lot of shipping from home, the ability to now print/peel/stick a label in a matter of seconds from my computer or phone has been a massive upgrade to the shipping process.

I really, really loved the video we made about Jim Hartsell called “

”. I was extremely proud of the work Tron, DJ, Matt Golden, & Paddy Neill did in capturing and producing Jim’s story. It’s an amazing piece of content and one I’m so proud lives on our site.

It didn’t get any more enjoyable this year for me than the Oppenheimer one-two punch. Knowing that the Christopher Nolan movie was releasing later in 2023, I began reading the book the film is based on - “

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

” - early in the year. The book is amazing in its depth and breadth and was an awesome primer for the movie, which did not disappoint at all.

I was fortunate to get to play several amazing courses for the first time this year, Pine Valley among them, but the course that sticks out the most in my mind is Woking Golf Club outside London, England. Cody and I went over there on an afternoon prior to the start of the Women’s British Open and I could not have been more charmed by the place. It was quaint, challenging, fun, and walkable. And the colors were incredible—purple heath everywhere the eye could see. The highest compliment I can pay to Woking, or any course, is it’s a place I would love to play over and over day after day.

My best purchase of the year is a membership to a yoga studio near me. As I turned 40 this year, I decided I had to get serious about reclaiming (and preserving) my flexibility and mobility. I had been ignoring and putting off stretching as part of any workout routine with the result being a pretty constant feeling of tightness in my hips, legs, and low back. I’m now a couple of months into a dedicated routine of yoga (3x per week) and my back feels so much looser, and my body generally feels better than it has in a couple of years.

2023 AIG Women's Open with the Big Guy. From playing in the Pro-Am to doing BBC Radio throughout the week, it was a blast! Lots of "face for radio" jokes from people we ran into. But the highlight of it all was spending 1 on 1 time with Big. We played some great golf courses, ate too much curry and Chinese with Ian Carter and family, and tried all the G&Ts we could. I cannot wait for the Old Course next year.

I feel like everywhere I turn there is a new series or book being recommended to me. Sad to see Succession and Ted Lasso go out, but was excited for The Bear and The Crown to come back strong.

In the golf world, everyone thinks they deserve buckets full of cash. Your allegiance must be stated to support this or that. But we did have something cut through. Watching 

 will be a defining moment for me this year. Not because we did the project, but because of Jim. His vulnerability and openness to discuss the single hardest moment in any parent's life made me stop and think. It taught me to cherish what is in front of you because you never know when it is gone. It made me reach back out to friends, family, etc. It taught me to be present. It would not be possible without the love and support TC put into it. Coupling his vision with D.J. Pie to create something that will last long after we are gone. And Matt Golden seeing the whole thing through, with support from Paddy Neill and the great Justine Piehowski. If you have not sat down and watched the 50-minute film, please do so. You never know what you might be missing out on.


Sand Hills. Thanks to TC and D.J. Pie for a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will be hard to beat. Those two with an amazing host made it something I will never forget. Shout out to Commander Taco, Ben's porch, and ruby red Squirt (a splash is delicious in your vodka).


Mike Vick, followed closely by Ryan Leaf.


My wife's 40th Birthday trip to Italy. I hope it brings me goodwill for years to come.

Playing a match with Golden, Big, and D.J.

 at Lundin Links after a great day filming at the Walker Cup.


I’ve been trying hard to get into reading (specifically business/self-help books) more this year. Neil asked me to read Shoe Dog and I am so happy I did. From fostering that competitive mindset to stories about Pre and Bowerman - the whole book is a real treat.


Any KU Basketball player that isn’t playing well at the moment.

At-home baby monitor. That peace of mind knowing the baby is still kicking was a big help in our household. Don’t tell our doctor.

What's Burning at the Killhouse: 2023 Recap

Michael Wolf (@BamaBearcat) hosts “Office Hours” on the 

 In addition to being an author and unofficial golf historian, he’s also a longtime professional golf agent.

The PGA Tour season ended yesterday, just 119 days after Brian Harman was crowned the Champion Golfer of the Year and four short months after Viktor Hovland earned the FedExCup crown.

It may be years before we find out who the biggest winners and losers of the 2023 golf year really were. But at least it’s almost over.

Sea Island has always been a pleasant enough place to wind things down. It’s no Myrtle Beach, but it does offer a short commute home for many of those involved. Not all left happy, of course. Professional golf has winners and losers like any sport. It’s just sometimes been hard to tell. The PGA Tour may have embraced an eat-what-you-kill image, but its membership policies for the past couple of decades have often evolved more towards socialism. There have been second chances if you’re on the career money list. Third chances if you’ve made 300 cuts. Fourth chances if your first name is Rickie.

That’s finally about to change after a reboot of policymaking earlier this year in response to the pressures imposed by new rival LIV Golf.

I should explain what’s changing in each PGA Tour eligibility category and how it will impact different players going forward. But that will have to wait for Season 2 of Office Hours. And that’s because I’m still not confident that I understand the new system well enough to explain it to you. That feels weird to type, because my NLU overlords pay me at least in part to know such things. I’m not alone. Players at every level of the PGA Tour pecking order are headed into the offseason unsure of the details of how the new system will work when the lights turn back on at Kapalua in six weeks. Among them is my longtime friend Jim Herman.

Hermie didn’t reach the PGA Tour until he was 34 years old, but thanks to three well-timed wins, he’s held onto his card by his fingernails for the past 12 years. Every one of his starts on Tour has been earned. Thanks to a questionable choice for an agent (me) he’s never received a single sponsor’s exemption and he’s only played in a handful of no-cut events. He might just end up being the last person to reach the Tour without having ever taken a single golf lesson. But incredibly, if you had bet $5 to win on every player in every PGA Tour event since 2000, the one who would have made you the most money is James Robert Herman.

Jim’s now 46 years old, and the hardest season of his career ended last Friday afternoon with a missed cut in Sea Island that left him 198th on the final FedExCup list. With so much change coming to the world of professional golf, it was a bad year to play bad. And it means Hermie will have school carpools and shoveling snow to keep him occupied this winter.

The Hermans recently moved from Florida to a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia, closer to aging in-laws and so their kids could attend schools far from JupLife. For the first time in a decade, Jim will have to spend the holidays waiting to find out when and where he might get to play next year. He may have a few opportunities in Europe as a result of the Tour’s newly extended partnership with the DP World Tour, but it’ll remain an open question for the time being.

The cute answer has always been “Play Better,” and that’s exactly how it should work. Never has it paid more to be one of the best 300 golfers on the planet. But professional golf only survives in the long run if all of their newfound bullion is earned, not negotiated.


The NFL has space for 1,700 players, with virtually all of them arriving via an American college. NBA and MLB rosters are more diverse, but they still have room for 450 and 780 players respectively. The point being that outplaying the best from almost every country in the world just to earn one of the 200 PGA Tour cards is really, really freaking hard. Keeping that card for a decade is almost a miracle.

Being the 198th-best baseball player might mean you’re batting fifth in your team's starting lineup. In golf, it means you’re a mule. How that should translate to each player's bottom line is up for debate.

It feels like everybody has been winning a lot lately (except the fans and Jay Monahan). The remaining six weeks of the year will likely be filled with more reporting on How Much and For Who. The reality is the Tour has already been steadily bifurcating itself for years, next year will just make it official. Want proof? Hermie has played in 266 PGA Tour events and he still hasn’t met Tiger Woods. He did talk to Jim Nantz once, on an elevator.

Of course, a fourth-place finish at the Barbasol shouldn’t have earned more FedExCup points than a fifth at Riviera. But acknowledging that reality could cost the Tour some sponsors. Corrections of market inefficiencies are rarely free. But despite the costs, it’s still a net positive.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of the young faces this new system will help get onto the main stage faster. A pair of my hometown Birmingham boys – Gordon Sargent and Nick Dunlap – will likely be beneficiaries from the new PGA Tour U. You’ll like what you see.

But I’ll also miss some of the recently departed. Players like Brandt Snedeker and Nick Watney may not have won majors, but they made some of our Sunday afternoons more interesting. We can disagree with the sizes of the golden parachutes many of them will take from the game while still admiring the talent and effort they put into their craft. Jim Herman is probably better at golf than any of your friends are at anything they do for a living.

Mules may not run as fast as thoroughbreds, and they might not pull their own weight, but it still takes a lot of hard work to plow the fields.

A sincere thanks to Holderness and Bourne and to all of you for supporting my first year of working with No Laying Up. The syllabus for 2024 is already filling up fast.

What It Means to Be a Mule

Standing in the middle of the 18th fairway at The Club at Carlton Woods, the moment had arrived. Seven years into her professional golf career, this felt like Angel Yin’s chance to claim a major championship. Her tee shot had landed in the right center of the fairway, and in a playoff against Lilia Vu, Yin now had just a 5 iron left into the Par 5.

After so much doubt and anguish and frustration, after years of second-guessing herself, it looked like Angel Yin finally found her way. She just needed one more great swing, and all the pressure would be on Vu to match.


Yin and Vu knew each other well. The two Southern Californians, a year apart in age, had once dominated the junior golf scene. They chose different paths on their way to adulthood — Yin taking an early leap to professional golf in 2016 and Vu taking the collegiate route at UCLA — but now their paths were crossing again.


One of them was about to win their first major.

Yin stood over the ball, a gentle breeze in her face. She visualized the shot she wanted to hit, a towering draw over the lake. Everything was quiet. She drew back her club and fired her hips. The ball started right at the flag.


It drifted left, then farther left. Yin watched in anguish as it curled toward the grandstands.

Her ball continued to tumble out of the sky, splashing into the lake a foot from the bank in front of the green. A groan rippled through the crowd.

Yin, who had played so well throughout the Chevron Championship, had let it slip from her grasp. She could only watch in shock as Vu made a birdie to put an exclamation point on the win.

Standing at the podium after the loss, fielding various questions, the 24-year-old reflected on one of the most exhausting days of her life. “You’re taking the loss pretty well so far,” GOLF.com’s Zephyr Melton observed.

“Watch, I’m going to go home and cry,” Yin said, laughing.

What do you do when someone’s greatest triumph is your biggest disappointment?

In Angel Yin’s case, you rely on the mental fortress you’ve spent years building. That’s why, as Vu was lifting the trophy, Yin was still smiling.

“I think I’ve just come a long way,” Yin said. “I’m just really happy with who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing right now. Just a lot to appreciate. If I can talk about how much I appreciate life right now, I’ll get emotional — (but) not over this.”

When Yin thinks back on her 2023 season, a year where she won for the first time, where she is (projected) to finish 13th in the Race to CME Globe, and climbed to the best world ranking of her career, it’s how she handled the disappointment of losing a major that sticks out the most.


All the hard work, in that moment, was far behind her.

As affable and personable as athletes come, it might come as a surprise that Yin 

spent most of her days as a kid alone on a golf course.


A lot of that time was also spent in observation. Yin wasn’t taking lessons, so she’d watch a range full of “old men,” hovering her driver like Tiger Woods. Just by observing

 she developed one of the most powerful swings the eye could see. First exposed to golf from word of mouth, her mother mistakenly purchased a book on croquet to learn more. “I didn't grow up in a golfing household,” Yin said. “There was the knowledge that we lacked, and we didn't really seek more because the truth is, financially, to seek more, it's hard. Not everyone has that kind of money. We just did what we thought we needed to do and that was enough.”


Despite being one of the most promising prospects in junior golf – nearly qualifying for the U.S. Open at 11, medaling at the U.S. Women’s Amateur and reaching the final at the U.S. Girls Junior – she only won once on the AJGA, where she spent most of her amateur career. She still landed an offer from USC, one of the best programs in the entire country. Close to home, close to great courses – what could be a better fit?

But for Yin, a college education felt like something she could pursue at any point. She didn’t want to “miss the train” that was professional golf. She took the leap in 2016 and turned pro.


Yin’s few years playing professional golf turned out to be an education of its own, one she never knew she needed. At times, Yin was too powerful for her own good. She lacked any course management and had to learn the hard way about controlling her distances and shot-shaping.

Even amid the growing pains, she’d call the start of her professional career “fortunate.” She spent her rookie year on the LET and earned LPGA status at the end of it at Q-School. It only took a year before she earned her first professional win, and though she’d spent years without one, it felt like Yin would always be around. Her trajectory kept going up.

In her lowest moments, she could barely climb out of bed. She didn’t even recognize herself.

Some of it was pain. But Yin was also a prisoner of self-doubt.

She was 24 years old, still full of potential, but in 2021 — Yin’s third season on the LPGA Tour — nothing felt right. She couldn’t break through and get a win. She’d been tinkering with her swing, obsessively trying to reconstruct it to look the way it did when she played free and loose as an amateur, but all that work caused a grueling nerve injury in her left shoulder. On top of that, a recent diagnosis related to organ issues made things even worse. She was completely lost in her golf game, and to add insult to injury, she'd missed out on perhaps the year’s biggest goal: making a third Solheim Cup team in a row.


When the first week of September arrived, she refused to watch it. “I saw the scores. I was rooting for America. But I didn’t watch any golf,” she said. “I tried to stay out of it as much as possible, but it’s hard. My friends are all golfers. Everyone talks about it.”

“It was just too much for me to handle,” 

 “My reality collapsed a little bit that year.”


Four missed cuts in a row followed, mentally pushing to the absolute brink. She somehow managed to make the Tour Championship, but her body ultimately failed her. She withdrew after the first round, effectively ending her season.

One day, in the midst of her lowest point, Yin received a random DM from the site director of the Riverside LPGA-USGA Girls Golf chapter. Jakeishya Le knew of Yin from her local success as an amateur, but was a fan from afar, thinking Yin was still locally-based. She asked if Yin would be willing to host a clinic for the young girls, many of whom had never touched a golf club.


Plenty of professionals would have blown off the request, mired in the depths of their slump, but something about it piqued Yin’s interest. She flew from Florida back to Southern California to teach the group, ranging from ages 3-12.

What transpired next was what Le calls “the funniest clinic I’ve ever seen.” One child asked Yin to demonstrate a trick shot, and Yin threw the ball up and kicked it “like a soccer ball.”

Another participant asked how she hit the ball so far, and she responded: “It’s the drugs,” she deadpanned. “Just kidding!” Maybe it wasn’t quite the clinic Le imagined she’d get from a professional golfer, but it blossomed into a fast friendship.


All that laughter from that day was slowly healing Yin.


“When you go through enough pain in life, you just go and laugh at it,” Yin said. “I also have this weird habit, when something is really serious, I just laugh at it. I’m happy it hasn’t gotten me in trouble.”

2021 wasn’t a laughing matter, and neither was 2022. She had finally begun recovering from her nerve injury, but her health issues persisted. Her livelihood began to feel like it hung in the balance. Money grew tighter, and her play wasn’t getting any better. Her status was in limbo, and she had no choice but to play more. Her best finish was a T3 at the Cognizant Founders Cup, but she wouldn’t sniff anything close to a top ten again that year. She missed out on the Tour Championship entirely.

In even dire straits than before, Yin decided to go against the grain. She had an epiphany. Instead of writing letters to sponsors to fill up a patchy schedule, why not listen to her body and delay the start of her season?

She didn’t tee it up until late March. Her first two starts were a mess. 76th place at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain. A missed cut at the DIO Implant LA Open.


But then came Chevron. Something clicked, and she finally found her wings.

Yin opened with a 69 in the first round, then surged into the final group with a 67 on Saturday. She’d even been able to laugh off an ugly shank on the 17th hole while in contention and birdie 18 to get into the playoff with Vu.

It was all right there for the taking … until that 5 iron found the pond.

‘You’re on the right path,’ she told herself. ‘Something’s working. Let’s keep digging.’

“My entire life, it’s always been like, ‘You need to show no emotion,’” Yin said.

That’s what Yin thought the best golfers were supposed to do.

Occasionally, coaches and mentors would encourage her to open up, to channel that emotion. Juli Inkster tried to convince her it was okay, even productive, to get mad at times. But Yin always defaulted to trying to suppress her feelings.


It would be years before she understood how much it was holding her back.


At the Chevron, you could see Yin wrestling with her emotions, still trying to bottle them up. There was joy when she almost chipped in on 13. There was heartache when she found the water on 18, and when her second attempt over the lake landed 10 feet short of the cup, effectively ending the playoff. But she wasn’t quite ready to let go.

She wouldn’t miss another cut for the rest of the season. She was enjoying golf more than she ever had, even without that win and even within those close calls. Why, she began to wonder, at the pinnacle of her career, wasn’t she allowed to show that joy? Who would it hurt if she hung her head to diffuse her frustration? At the Women’s British Open at Walton Heath, she climbed within striking distance on Saturday, only for it to fall apart once again in the final round.

What good was flatlining doing for her game?

Something was missing, and it wasn’t just a win.

Three weeks after a successful Solheim Cup — she went 2-1 and earned a crucial point for the United States in singles by defeating Celine Boutier — Yin was playing one of the most exhausting stretches of golf of the year. Her body felt like it was breaking down again, but she kept making birdies. At the Buick LPGA Shanghai, she shot a sizzling 7-under 65 in the third round, making her the 54-hole leader going into Sunday.


Maybe this time, she wondered, things might be different.

She didn’t want to inundate herself with golf in preparation for the next day. But she also wasn’t interested in rest. She was more motivated by watching another set of professional athletes — tennis stars — who were chasing a trophy at the Shanghai Masters. Yin and her caddie, Markus Zechmann, went into town to watch Andrey Rublev and Grigor Dimitrov play in the semifinals.


As she watched the match, Yin noticed something about Rublev, the fifth-ranked player in the world. He effused 

of emotions. Anger. Sighs. Cheers. Joy. As Rublev claimed the second set over Dimitrov, Zechmann leaned over to Yin.


“Rublev’s body language is bad,” Zechmann said.


Angel Yin: Finding Her Wings

The Nest Invitational Tournament (NIT) is No Laying Up’s year-end championship and the culmination of our 2023 event series presented by YETI. This year, 96 participants spanning 4 countries traveled to Omni PGA Frisco Resort in North Texas in hopes of becoming the 4th NIT champion. For more information on how to qualify for the NIT and No Laying Up’s 2024 events schedule, 

sign up for the No Laying Up email newsletter.

FRISCO — Many years from now, when I have lived out my allotted days and my time on Earth is nearing a peaceful conclusion, I hope someone will lean in closely, and with curiosity and tenderness, ask me this question:

What was the most majestic, purely-struck golf shot that you ever witnessed in person?

There will be several contenders to consider. Brooks Koepka mashing a 4-iron to a back pin on the 16th hole during the final round of the PGA Championship at Bellerive. Rory McIlroy’s Saturday afternoon 3-wood into the 16th green at the 2023 Ryder Cup. Dustin Johson’s 6-iron into 18 at Oakmont to put a bow on the U.S. Open. It will be difficult to choose just one, because a great golf shot lingers in the mind like someone tattooed it there. Television can’t do them justice. You never forget that sound, the way the ball whistles as it pierces the air, the way it flirts with the heavens before it tumbles to earth.

I’ve never dreamed an amateur could hit a shot that would enter that conversation. They were not, by my calculation, even eligible. Mortals, to be blunt, do not throw lightning bolts like Zeus. But after witnessing the 2-iron that Derek Ho — better known to the No Laying Up community as “3PuttKing” — hit into the 13th hole at Fields Ranch East this past Saturday, I am tempted to reconsider. Because to borrow a line from poet John Gillespie Magee, I’m fairly certain that ball slipped the surly bonds of Earth and touched the face of God.

Was that 2-iron, which knifed through a wall of wind and nearly hit the flag from 230 yards, the most important shot in 3PuttKing’s eventual victory in the Nest Invitational Tournament?

Certainly not. The ball flew a yard too far and hopped into the back bunker, and Ho was not able to turn it into points, his short game being (admittedly) something of a weakness.


“I really do have hands of stone,” Ho said.

But anyone who played with Ho this week would be quick to testify to the purity of his ball-striking. That 2-iron was not an anomaly. Ho may have chosen an appropriate, self-deprecating message board handle in declaring himself the 3PuttKing, but as Jason Dufner and even Ben Hogan proved, you do not have to be great at everything to succeed in golf. If you compress the hell out of your irons, you write your name on a trophy.


“Knowing what my limitations are, and knowing where to hit it, having a plan and executing it, that’s what we did all day,” said the 39-year-old Ho. “I couldn’t have done it without my caddie, Ghost of Ty Webb. He kept me so calm. I was never looking at the leaderboard the whole day. I had no idea what was going on, but I felt like I had to be right up there.”


Ho was hardly considered one of the favorites coming into the event. A commercial property manager from British Columbia, he picked up the game when he and his family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada from Hong Kong. But he mostly played it casually — not seriously — until his mid-30s.

“It was a sons of immigrants thing, just picking up whatever games were out there,” Ho said. “But it was more casual, maybe under 10 rounds a year.”

Things began to change during the pandemic. The golf scene in Vancouver became a vibrant safe haven for many, Ho among them. He started going to the Savage Creek driving range regularly, learning to use the muscles he honed as a soccer player to crush the ball. In June, he finished 2nd at the Major Mayhem Roost held at Mayfair Lakes in Vancouver, and when the winner chose not to attend, the invitation fell to Ho.

The legend of the 3PuttKing was set in motion. He came to Frisco with no expectations other than having fun.

“I met him when I played in the Mayhem Roost major and I told him when we linked up here, I said ‘Hey when you make the championship flight, I want to be on your bag,’” said Nick Bennett, aka Ghost of Ty Webb. “He came back to me (Saturday) and said ‘Did you mean that? Because if you did, I’m going to hold you to it.’ I’m glad he did because it was a blast.”

Ho said he felt a little out of sorts early in the competition. He made double bogeys on his first four holes. “I was really nervous,” Ho said. But on the 6th hole on the West course, he stuffed a gap wedge to five feet and made the putt.

“That got me some pep in my step,” Ho said. “Not only was it a good shot, but it got my mojo going. Honestly, it wasn’t until about Saturday morning that I even started to think this was possible. I was hitting the ball pretty good for my standards, so I just thought ‘Well, let’s go.’ ”


Bennett and Ho came up with a game plan before the final. They knew the East course presented a brutal challenge, and that some of the lower handicaps would have to press to find points. They just needed to take advantage of holes where they could score.

“We talked before the round and what our thought process was going to be for the day, and he said ‘Keep me conservative. Keep me between the mayo and the mustard,’ ” Bennett said. “We really stuck to that process, and I thought that he executed it flawlessly. I’m just really really proud of how he committed to every shot, and the results were almost always what we intended.”


Bennett’s only regret? That he didn’t make the 3PuttKing empty his golf bag before the championship round.

“We probably didn’t need three dozen golf balls,” Bennett said. “If I do this again, I probably will take some things out of the bag. I think he had his carry-on luggage in there, maybe some ankle weights, a rock collection. It was absurd.”

Ho steadily accumulated points throughout the final round, putting from off the greens and securing several crucial bogeys rather than rolling the dice with his short game. He also made crucial pars on 10, 15 and 17. But he did not waltz to victory. Both Sweet_Cupn_Cake and LeftySauce made a strong final charge.

No Laying Up

Writing

NLU 2023: What We're Thankful For

What's Burning at the Killhouse: 2023 Recap

What It Means to Be a Mule

Angel Yin: Finding Her Wings

2023 Nest Invitational Tournament Recap: The Legend of the 3PuttKing

I Walk Alone: Embracing Solo Golf

The Beginning of My Links Golf Journey

The Prevailing Magic of Golf

Ryder Cup: Reviving the United States

Sunday Scenes from the 2023 Ryder Cup

The Adversity Gap

Driving and Crying

KVV Mailbag: 2023 Ryder Cup Edition

2023 Solheim Cup Takeaways

2023 Ryder Cup: A New Era for Team United States

Lexi Thompson! Let's Talk

When Revelation Comes Photo Gallery

2023 Solheim Cup Preview