On the most logical level, it is silly to feel sorry for Brooks Koepka.

Whatever happens to his career from this point on, he’ll be remembered by history as one of the great players of this era. Koepka will always be one of a few guys who stood up to a Sunday charge from Tiger Woods in a major. He’ll end up in the Hall of Fame, having won (at least) four majors and two Ryder Cups, and he has untold millions to his name. Koepka could spend the next 30 years relaxing by his pool, his wife and his labrador by his side, not giving a damn what might have been. His legacy is secure.

There was, however, a scene in Netflix’s “Full Swing” that made me feel a twinge of sympathy for Koepka for the first time in many years.

If you’ve watched the show, you probably know the scene I’m about to describe, because it is the most haunting thing I’ve seen on television since the pilot episode of The Leftovers. Koepka, rocking mindlessly on a swing that is hanging in their walk-in closet, is half-listening while his soon-to-be wife, Jena Sims, describes the different swimsuit cover-ups she’s going to bring with her on a trip she's planning, presumably her bachelorette. In a brilliant stroke of editing, we hear Koepka in a voiceover explaining to producers how, in the midst of his current slump, he cannot get away from thinking about his golf swing. He knows he should be listening to his future bride, despite what seems like would be the most vapid conversation imaginable, but he cannot unplug from the obsessions that his profession demands.

The sport has brought him fame, romance and riches, things he assumed would fill up his cup, but ultimately it’s still golf immortality that he’s chasing.

“I go back to the last major I won, and I’d pay back every dollar I’ve ever won in this game just to have that feeling for like another hour,” he says.

Is he being disingenuous as he makes these claims from his multi-million dollar home? I can’t decide. It’s important to remember what we saw on Netflix took place a year ago, before his decision to join LIV Golf. It’s possible he’s reconciled all of this angst with a significantly larger pile of money. But I also think, knowing the stone-cold killer Koepka was on the golf course in his prime, he might be trapped in a hell of his own making. 

If the rumblings are true that Koepka thinks he may have made a mistake in joining LIV and he is sniffing around, at least asking questions as to whether there might be some kind of path back to the PGA Tour, then the news that spilled out on Wednesday about what the Tour will look like in 2024 might spur even deeper reflection.

What if — hypothetically speaking — LIV falls apart within the next 18 months? What if the PGA Tour has already won and players on either side are hesitant to publicly admit it?

I write that sentence fully aware it could turn into my own personal “Mission Accomplished” banner. The Saudis can, if they wish, continue to fund the money pit that is LIV Golf forever. It won’t put even the slightest dent in the Public Investment Fund, which may achieve a valuation of $1 trillion by 2025, according to most estimates. It is possible that everything we’ve seen thus far truly is the beta stage and part of a 10-year plan that will gradually gain momentum. It’s possible Greg Norman will have the last laugh.

It’s also possible that Norman and Phil Mickelson will do in business what they so frequently did in majors: Fall down a flight of stairs in slow motion after considerable bluster, usually right after they insisted this time would be different. (In Dustin Johnson’s case, the stairs actually took place prior to the major.)

What would it do to LIV’s credibility if a player of Koepka’s caliber reversed course and tried to extricate himself from the deal he signed? It might not be a death knell to the league — again, hubris and money could sustain LIV forever — but it would likely be the beginning of the end. And that end could be swift and sudden if the Saudis start to feel embarrassed.

There are already signs their interest is waning, despite Norman’s denials. Signing bonuses are drying up. Teams have been told they need to budget their expenses. New signees Brendan Steele and Dean Burmester aren’t bringing additional eyeballs to LIV outside their friends and families. The legal battle between the PGA Tour and LIV also recently saw the Saudis argue in court that Yasir Al-Rumayan, head of the Public Investment Fund, was a “sitting minister of government with sovereign immunity,” a revelation that could compel the English Premier League to re-examine the PIF’s ownership of Newcastle United. The PIF’s 2021 takeover of Newcastle was only approved by the league after it received “legally-binding assurances” that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would not have any control over the club. Endangering its ownership of Newcastle, which by any measure has been a successful public relations endeavor, while trying to defend the fledgling venture that is LIV Golf, would be an enormous own goal.

What compelling case could LIV make to future recruits (or potential sponsors) if a four-time major winner saw it from the inside and decided he was better off eating crow, returning a portion of the money, and throwing himself at the feet of Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy, asking if there was still room in the castle on the other side of the moat? No one knows what that might look like at this point, whether players who defected for LIV, fully aware a lifetime ban was one of the potential consequences, would even have their pleas for some kind of amnesty entertained. It’s something Monahan should be asked about in his press conference next week ahead of The Players. If he wants to play offense against LIV, all he would need to do is imply he and the Players Council were open to those discussions. With the plan for 2024 rapidly shaping up, things are moving quickly. No one wants to be left without a (comfy) chair when the music stops.

Koepka has always been, at least to me, a series of contradictions. He loved to pretend he didn’t work hard while privately outworking everyone behind the scenes. He insisted he didn’t care what others thought about him even though it was clear he sought out and read every slight. In “Full Swing” he can be seen sporting a Triggered sweatshirt, an obvious dig at others for being so sensitive, even though he engaged in a year-long feud with Bryson DeChambeau for the crime of suggesting he didn’t have abs in ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue. He belittled golf at every turn, insisting it wasn’t a real sport like basketball and baseball, while also wrapping his self-worth up in being the best golfer in the world. He wanted you to think he didn’t care about the regular season of the sport, then went on Netflix and, in a moment of commendable honesty, admitted that Scottie Scheffler cruising past him at the WM Phoenix Open filled him with existential dread.

There is no way to know what the future of Koepka’s career will look like, regardless of what he decides. It’s clear he joined LIV at least in part because he was privately worried his knee was ruined and his game would never reach the heights it once did. These days, his knee seems fine, and the meaningless competition he once told us he loathed looks as meaningless as ever. Perhaps it took being on the outside to crystallize that money wasn’t going to make him happy, not the way competition could. The Instagram Q&A he did at LIV Mayakoba looked like a hostage video, all the light gone out in his eyes.

I don’t think Dustin Johnson cares about what his legacy might be. He’s the one member of LIV whose approach you can’t help but admire (a little). He has not spent his time scrolling through Twitter, sending pouty DMs to former allies, or taken to Instagram Live to grumble and whine about hypocrisy. He has instead made it clear that there was a price for his services and it was met. Being liked by strangers, at this point, matters little. While everyone else complains, DJ just keeps cashing checks. Whatever contractual obligation he has to promote LIV, he continues to do the bare minimum. I suspect he’s using the Saudis as much as they’re attempting to use him.

I get a different read from Koepka. I think money is obviously important, but it’s also secondary. It’s the juice of competition that made him feel alive, and now that’s missing. The majors alone may not be enough to sustain it. There has to be a part of him that burns every time he sees Scheffler mentioned as the world’s best player because that was once Koepka. As lauded as Scheffler currently is, he still can’t match Koepka’s resume, but the world has already moved on.

Wednesday’s news also made it clear there is a lot of money to be made on the PGA Tour if you can claw your way into the upper tier. Is that something Koepka wants to chase?

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director at No Laying Up. Email him at kvv@nolayingup.com.

KVV: Brooks Koepka and the balance of golf's civil war

Welcome back 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.

Why all of a sudden are we hearing endless conversations about who is the #1 player in the game? From my perspective this is a pretty unimportant conversation on a week-to-week or month to month basis. Golf careers are measured in years/decades, not weeks/months. Why does anyone care who is #1 in the OWGR? Is this based on our society’s need to rank everything? It’s pretty clear to me that Rahm, Rory, and Scheffler are the consistently best players in the world over the last year. Ranking one over the other is pretty pointless. Anyone can see that Rahm is the hottest golfer on the planet right now. In two months it could look different.

This is something that’s been bugging me recently as well, Mr. Scratch. I understand why it appeals to people drawn to the idea that everything should be quantifiable, but few subjects interest me less than arguing over the fairness of a math equation in the context of sports. Andy Johnson of The Fried Egg and I have a long-running bit about the careers of Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson, with Andy contending that Phil’s inability to ever reach No. 1 in the world is the ace up his sleeve in the argument that Els had the better career. (I recently had to concede that if morality is our tiebreaker, the Big Easy gets the nod, but I’m not quite ready to give up on the statistical discussion.) Is consistency what you crave? Or an athlete’s peak?

I have always been drawn more to the romantic element of sports, not the analytics, although I’ve learned to see the value in Strokes Gained when assessing whether golfers are playing well. But in my mind, it’s always important to remember rankings are just a snapshot, or a moment in time. It's insane to me to think that when Mickelson was standing on the 18th tee at Winged Foot, two good swings away from winning his third straight major, that he wasn’t the best player in the world. It also doesn’t matter to me if he was or wasn’t. If the best players don’t make you feel something, who cares what the numbers say?

One of the smartest things I ever heard came from Mathew Slater, the Patriots special teams legend. I was interviewing him for a feature in ESPN, and asking who he thought were the best special teams players of all time. He said he didn’t want to categorize or compare them. “Comparison is the thief of joy,” he told me.

Maybe that’s a phrase that’s been monetized by Etsy embroidery entrepreneurs for a decade, but it resonates with me. I try to think about it in terms of movies, books and music. Why not golfers?

If Jon Rahm is the best player in the world — and I think recent results clearly back that up — does that diminish my enjoyment of watching Scottie or Rory? It shouldn’t. I guarantee the people at Riviera this week did not care that Tiger Woods is currently 985th in the world. I used to rank a lot of things in my life. I think I blame the book High Fidelity. Now I just try to enjoy all of it. Comparison is the thief of joy.

The new 13th

Augusta National recently announced the long foreseen lengthening of the 13th hole from 510 to 545 yards. This comes after the recent lengthenings of the 5th, 11th, and 15th holes. Is Augusta National done lengthening the course?

I’ve been saying for a few years that I think if the USGA doesn’t do something to curtail distance, Augusta National will be tempted to come out with their own ball. They could hand two sleeves to every player on the first tee. One version that spins a lot and one that spins less. You can pick which you’d prefer to play, but neither ball will go 350 yards. If you don’t like it? You are welcome to skip the tournament. Augusta National is the only power broker in golf that could put its foot down and say “enough” without a lawsuit. It’s an invitational. What choice would players have?

There would be plenty of Twitter eggs eager to tell you the Masters had lost all credibility because it didn’t have the top players in the world, but I don’t know that the Masters would care. 

 the club has spent around $200 million buying up houses and land around its property. Could they, in theory, buy even more land and keep pushing tees back? I suppose, but where would it ever end?

Less than two years ago, Phil Mickelson won his sixth major and was by most accounts pretty beloved by golf fans and golf twitter. Fast forward to 2023 and present day Phil has lost a lot of the goodwill he built up for about 30 years. Can you think of a bigger heel turn in professional sports history?

Lance Armstrong is the only athlete who I think comes close.

Do you remember that brief moment in our culture when millions of people were wearing yellow LiveStrong bands? The megalomania required by Amstrong to spread his story and turn himself into a messianic figure — knowing it was mostly a lie — is still unfathomable. I think people wanted to believe it because the lie was too big. Few thought Armstrong could be so brazen, although plenty of European journalists were thankfully skeptical.

Mickelson’s metamorphosis from hero to pariah is more complicated. He didn’t cheat or break laws the way Armstrong did. He didn’t try to destroy the careers of his critics, although I think he has purposefully tried to mislead people about his interview with Alan Shipnuck. But the one thing Mickelson and Armstrong do have in common is they got the public to fall in love with a version of themselves that now seems disingenuous. I defended Mickelson in my friend group for years. The 2004 Masters is one of my favorite sports memories. He was probably my favorite athlete. He came to Arnold Palmer’s memorial service when so many of his peers couldn’t be bothered. I looked forward to having him around in golf for decades to come. It would have been so fun to have him in the booth for the next 20 years, serving as our generation’s Johnny Miller. He would have been brilliant.

Instead he’s going to spend his final years as a competitive golfer flying around the world playing junk courses, sucking up to monsters for one last payday, getting high off the adulation of the worst kind of sycophants. He may never get to be a Ryder Cup captain. Once a delightful smart aleck, both on and off Twitter, he is 

. His press conferences, once an artful dance between athlete and reporter, now feel like depositions. The whole thing makes me sad.

I feel like he deserves better than the zombie existence he’s living through at major championships, 

, but that might be the last bit of Mickelson naivety left in me. Perhaps he’s getting exactly the ending he deserves. After all, he insists he’s never been happier.

Can you rank your top 20 Jason Isbell recordings?

For a second, I thought it would be funny to follow up my first mailbag answer about comparison being the thief of joy by totally ignoring everything I said above, but I worried the joke would be lost on many. (“A southern man tells better jokes,” as my guy Isbell would say.)

I think the best approach, when it comes to your favorite artist, is to understand that different songs can hit you in different ways depending on the day, the month, the year, even the current status of your relationship, etc. Even the artist learns different ways to sign them as they age and change. Take 

this version of The Pretender by Jackson Browne

. The original didn’t do much for me when I was a kid. But when I heard this version as a 45-year-old man, it got me good in a totally unexpected way.

My favorite Isbell songs are the ones where he’s telling stories, almost like he’s George Saunders or Elizabeth Strout or Raymond Carver.

In that category, I’d ride or die for: 

Decoration Day, The Life You Chose, Something More Than Free, Streetlights, Elephant, Never Gonna Change, Speed Trap Town, Outfit, Traveling Alone, Stockholm, If We Were Vampires, The Last of My Kind, Something To Love, The Magician, The Songs She Sang in The Shower, Palmetto Rose, Children For Children, Tupelo, River, Danko/Manuel

I could probably write 1000 words on each of those songs, but I’m not sure we’re ready to launch the Jason Isbell-specific portion of The Nest just yet.

I also have a lyric from Cover Me Up tattooed on my left forearm, so you can put that one above them all for what it means to me personally. (Just do not mention the Morgan Wallen cover, thanks.) Excited for the upcoming album release and Tour, which take place this summer.

With his drive, focus in the moment to make the proper play, and history with the game, could we see Tom Brady make a run at the Champions Tour? He seems like he will need an outlet for competition.

This question reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad when I was a teenager. My dad would have been, back then, about the age I am now. He said he thought if he could just dedicate 5 years to it, he could make the Senior Tour. He was dead serious. All he lacked was the time to practice.

I didn’t know a lot about golf, but from my perspective, he hit the ball a long way. Maybe he wasn’t crazy? I remember wishing we could win the lottery so he could take a crack at that dream.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized my father has never been lower than 18-handicap and has never broken 80 in his life. At his athletic peak, he probably hit it 240. He would have had a better chance of becoming an astronaut.

I’m not sure most people grasp how good you have to be to play on the Champions Tour. I looked up Brady’s GHIN recently, just for fun. He doesn’t enter scores very often, but as far as the USGA is concerned, he is an 8.1 handicap. He regularly shoots scores in the 90s.

Brady has made it part of his brand that he loves it when people doubt him, but I think I can safely say that no amount of practice or lessons at this point in his life is going to allow Brady to play on the Champion’s Tour on merit. (A sponsor’s exemption is another deal entirely.) Even if he dedicated his life to golf and crept closer to scratch, no amount of practice would give him the reps under pressure he needed to beat people who have been competing obsessively on the course since they were kids. The best 50-year-old golfers in the world used to be the best 30-year-old golfers in the world. Before that, they were typically the best 15-year-old golfers in the world. It’s pretty rare that someone just reinvents themselves and skips the line when their hair goes gray. Professional golfers at every level are really good at golf because they didn’t choose other paths. Can it happen? In theory, sure. Will it happen? No chance.

It’s a bit like the famous Margaret Atwood anecdote. Supposedly, she was at a party once and a doctor – unfamiliar with her work – asked what she did for a living. Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale and more than a dozen other novels, stated that she was a writer.

“You know, after I retire, I’ve always thought I might write a book,” the doctor allegedly said.

“What a coincidence,” Atwood supposedly quipped. “When I retire, I thought I might want to go into brain surgery.”

Where do you land on the Chasing Scratch animal debate?

(For those unfamiliar: You have an olympic sized pool, 6-foot deep water. On one side is a 12-foot long great white shark, on the other is a 9-foot tall polar bear. Who wins in a fight to the death and why?)

My first instinct was to pick the shark. But having thought about this more, I think I’m Team Polar Bear.

All the polar bear needs to do is avoid the initial charge. If he can use his claws to deflect the shark and not let him get a clean bite, he’s suddenly got the upper hand. He’s going to be ripping the shark apart from above. Sharks typically attack their prey from underneath. That doesn’t seem possible in a 6-foot pool. I think the bear is a clear underdog, but he also might be able to rip the shark’s dorsal fin right off.

Either way, I can’t help but feel sympathy for the person who has to clean up this pool.

As the world’s foremost expert on Gary Player impressions, wanted your opinion. Who do you think are the top five MOST impersonated celebs? I feel like No. 1 has to be Walken. Everyone does a Walken. I feel like Trump has probably shot up the ranks since 2016, but has he unseated Walken?

For starters, let me say that impersonations are a tricky bit of comedy to engage in. I never really imagined it would become part of my gimmick in life. But I naturally do voices when I tell stories. The Gary Player thing started as a one off joke about Chambers Bay, which he truly did call a “tragedy,” something that will never stop being funny to me.

It made people laugh, and suddenly I was being asked to do it every time I came on a podcast. I’m well aware that some people think it’s extremely cringe, and my recent Jon Rahm impression is no different. To each their own. It just sort of comes out of my mouth. The one thing I’ll add is, doing an impression and doing mimicry are two different things in my opinion. Impressions are attempts at a heightened reality, typically in the name of comedy. Mimicry is what you do if you’re trying to win an Oscar in a biopic.

Walken is a good pick, but I think I would probably go with Mathew McConaughey as our most widely-impersonated celeb. Obviously it begins with Dazed and Confused, but his cameo in Wolf of Wall Street spawned another round of it. It doesn’t matter what movie he’s in, it’s basically still McConaughey. Even McConaughey is doing an impression of McConaughey at this point. As for the rest of the top five, Walken for sure. I think former President Trump clearly makes the list. Arnold Schwartzenegger and Jack Nicholson would also be in the running. I feel like Al Pacino should be in there too. I suspect people who are on TikTok (which I am not) would have a much different list, perhaps more proof that I am old.

Is there any particular piece of advice or tip you received at the start of your career that’s shaped (or continues to shape) who you are as a person and as a writer?

Don’t talk shit as you’re trying to climb the ladder. But also, don’t be a jerk to young people trying to break into the business once you’ve made it. You’ll never know who is going to end up as a mentor, or a friend, or a boss.

Imagine if, when No Laying Up debuted in 2013, I put on my condescending veteran journalist hat and complained about how immature they were or how bad they were for golf media. Not everyone has to take the same path you do, and not everyone coming up behind you needs to be seen as a threat. If you are curious and kind, it will frequently come back to you.

Where he’s at now, if he’s being honest, do you think Bryson would rather win another major or have 1 million YouTube subscribers?

I had to think about this one for a bit. I wanted to take it seriously.

I think my answer, genuinely, is YouTube subscribers. I think Bryson, above everything, wants to be loved. He was never meant to play the villain. Going to LIV was actually a chance to feel loved and wanted for a spell. I think he would geek out if a million people on the internet were telling him each day how funny and cool he is. And while I do believe he’d like to win more majors, I think he would like to be the next Dude Perfect even more.

That sounds like I’m shitting on him, but I’m actually trying to view it in a sympathetic way. There is a lot about Bryson that feels like he’s a kid trapped in a man’s body. Like he’s Tom Hanks in Big, or Jennifer Garner in 13 Going On 30. The second film actually fits better because Garner’s character can’t understand why no one seems to like the adult version of her, and it also turns out she’s been scheming for like a year to take a new job with a rival company.

Also, Bryson turns 30 later this year. I promise 

if he recreates the Thriller dance with some of the LIV boys

, I’ll subscribe to his YouTube channel.

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director at No Laying Up. He can be reached at kvv@nolayingup.com.

KVV Mailbag: Rankings fatigue, Phil's fall

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.)

Writing

KVV: Brooks Koepka and the balance of golf's civil war

KVV Mailbag: Rankings fatigue, Phil's fall

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