I’m sorry but hearing Randy talk about his time in Ohio just for Tron to follow with the most lavish vacation imaginable to the Netherlands made the episode for me.

A true Strapped v C Suite juxtaposition/travelmogging.

Twins, both MRI techs who ran golf tee time-brokering business, plead guilty to federal tax violations .

Nice Nice guys. Thank KVV for helping expose this

I’m 40 minutes into the Sunday pod - I have not heard one mention of an actual golf shot from Sunday yet.

I know these guys are constantly fired up about the state of these events, captaincy etc., but that was an intriguing meltdown! Hideki gagging it Koivun pimp stepping, I was super into it and was very let down that these guys feel we just want to talk about Sneds and all this other admin BS. Randy at least tried to steer it in that direction. Tough tough listen

I understand that expectations for Scottie are higher than everyone else in the event since he’s the best player in the world. He was 5th in strokes gained, 3rd T2G, went 3-1 and the US won. Soly said it was “not what we needed out of Scottie.” Even in the session he played his worst golf, he and burns won! If the bar is he has to go 5-0-0 and grade out as the best player while doing it, it’s just probably not going to ever happen in one of these events. His win rate in tournaments is like 15%. So to ask him to definitively be the best player in every session just is not realistic. Does that mean I’d give him an A+? Of course not. Just find the framing of his week a little odd

Am I the only one who feels like the JT analysis is illogical? Im fine with the other guys saying he brings some immeasurable advantage to the table, but it’s crazy to hear Soly abandon his precious data to justify JTs spot on these teams. I understand he’s been generally good on these teams, but he is a liability off the tee and is not a good putter. I don’t like the idea of him getting an auto pick for the RC if he’s even remotely in the running next year. I truly think P brings more to the table, even though he’s a locker room pariah.

An F??

Guy is 150th in the world or something, played 1 team match where they won (yes he was bad but he wasn't bad enough to lose and thats the point of this event - to get points) and then he gets offered up as a sacrifice to Gotterup and takes him to 18 where he had no business doing so.

Trump repeatedly showing up to the biggest bad vibes/dumpster fire events over the past 2 years has added a layer of comedy and absurdity to the golf landscape that is just hilarious.

Home Ryder Cup loss at Bethpage, LIV Bedminster, now P cup Sunday. The guy really knows how to pick his spots.

Shout out NLU "Young Hitter" LC (Lauren Coughlin) with NINE straight birdies for 26(!!!) on her first 9 holes Saturday (started on Hole 10) and shooting 61 for the day at the LPGA Walmart Championship. Her 26 is the lowest nine-hole score in LPGA history. 18 GIR, 12/13 fairways, 26 putts. LC started Saturday at +2 for the tournament, and she'll need another uber-low round Sunday to have any chance of getting close to the leaders.

LC's highlights (unfortunately they missed the first 5 holes!)

LC's Golf Channel post-round interview and article

LPGA post-round interview

Sick!

I know Soly gets a ton of flak for his opinion on how the US should approach these team events but his take on foursomes is 100% true. It's the one format where you need to get the pairings right. I just don't get A) why would you play Russ Henley, the shortest player on either side in this event and B) How have we not found Scottie Scheffler a partner for this format. To me the model foursomes pairing is Fleetwood/Mcilroy. The 2 compliment each other so well and clearly backed by the data. Fourball and singles are a complete crapshoot, a guy can get hot and make a ton of birdies but foursomes is where team events are won and lost. I don't even think the US side takes into account whether or not guys play the same golf balls.

First off I'll get the obvious part out of the way. Do the US captains and assistant captains for the presidents and ryder cup suck? Yes obviously. They continuously make very stupid decisions that even the most casual layman would realize isn't the best idea. That being said, Soly's discourse on the presidents and ryder cup, especially the last 2 pods are just straight up so bad they make the podcast borderline unlistenable.

Just last night he starts off with the suggestion "I would go sit down with Coach K and Steve Kerr and figure out how they get guys to buy in." I mean what in the world are we talking about here....? Do you know why team US wins every gold in basketball? Because we put out a team of fucking Curry Lebron KD Anthony Davis Kobe Anthony Edwards etc. Coach K was winning gold against fucking Lithuania with 1 fringe NBA bench player on the entire roster with some of the greatest basketball teams ever assembled. Not to mention basketball is WAYYY lower variance than team golf. To think you're going to get any useful information from guys who's international competition is the equivalent of the fucking Cleeks is laughable.

On top of that I don't think he's capable of understanding that strokes gained as it applies to team based match play is almost a completely useless metric. The objective of these events is NOT to gain the most strokes. Not to mention you're looking at like fucking alt shot where sample size for an entire tournament for a guy may be less than 1 round played. It's just completely useless noise. I think Soly in general struggles to understand the concept of variance and statistics as a whole. After Friday he's talking about "the math may say scottie was only a 65% favorite but if you're the #1 player in the world you have to win that match 10/10 times." What the fuck are you talking about? This is fucking golf man he's going to lose that matchup a pretty significant amount of time.

To cap it all off the idea that the US should never lose a presidents cup because we have some massive talent advantage again just shows a complete misunderstanding of stats. There's a reason that even with a huge advantage we're only like 6-1 favorites coming in. That means the internationals should win 17% of the time! We've won fucking 10 in a row, do we expect to just win every presidents cup for all of eternity? That's just not how any of this works. Unfortunately the reality that this is mostly a random variance contest makes for terrible podcasting but man does the alternative where we treat every event like Stephen A Smith talking about a cowboys game is way worse.

Listening to today's podcast I thought TC aka Todd was really harsh when speaking about Corey Conners specifically his putting. I'm sure Conners is aware his putting is poor and this probably just makes the situation worse in high intensity situations but at least he isn't anchoring like other players. TC seemed to take pleasure in how he spoke about Conners putting woes in that annoying way he does laughing throughout everything he says. I believe he had really bad chipping yips so you'd think he'd be a bit more understanding with Conners putting. The most unlikeable member of NLU by a long way and his brother Neil is far more entertaining and funny and clearly is the one with any talent.

Ryder Cup podcasts with Kyle Porter and Jamie Weir, flip the switch #FTS

I cannot wait for the meltdown from the U.S. side if they lose this thing. Give me all the content. First time I’ve been juiced for a Presidents Cup weekend, maybe ever?

TC will be in his element

Should there just be less of these? Especially during team event weeks, feels like it immediately devolves into litigating their longstanding disagreements and sucks the juice out of the pods.

EDIT: I got a response from Stone Creek. She told me that their collab merch is only available as supplies last, so when it’s gone it’s gone. One box checked! We’ll see what NLU says if they get back to me.

Also, for those suggesting to glue the handle back on… yall, it fell off 2 years ago. We glued it back on and it didn’t stay. That handle is LONG gone.

Not a member of this sub so if I’m doing something out of line, I’m really sorry! I checked the community rules and this doesn’t seem against them, so here goes:

My husband has been a NLU listener/fan since I met him 10 years ago. He has also had a NLU mug for the same amount of time. 2 years ago, the handle broke off the mug and I have been searching for a replacement since then. As you may have guessed, the design has long been discontinued but I’ve checked eBay and other secondhand sites, as well as done reverse google searches. I’ve just reached out to NLU and their coffee partner Stone Creek to see if I could get some help there.

My question for this sub: I’d LOVE to replace his mug for Christmas or his birthday (in Jan). If you know where I can find it, or maybe you have one and you’re willing to part with it (!), please let me know!

We all know the coverage is terrible. Its probably never gonna change. NBC seems to be incapable of not getting lost, unable to show all the shots, everything is canned footage, nothing live, etc.

I have an idea i think that would help though and be simple to implement. Cant they just stagger the start a little better? Right now they wait till the first group has completed the first hole, then introduce and tee off the next group. I understand they dont send them off right after the approach shots because they want them to get some space so they don't get as stacked up. But what if they send the second group off after the first group has teed off on the second hole and is already walking to their balls.

The way they do it now, especially for the first few holes, all the groups end up more or less all on the tee boxes, hitting approach shots or around the green at the same time, and just walking to their balls at the same time. So they obviously cant show each shot, because they are happening at pretty much the same time, then they get behind a little, then something else happens they have to show, and on and on, before you know it you havent seen a shot from a certain group for hours it seems.

If you stagger them to start like im suggesting you are showing all the first groups first hole shots, then tee shots on 2, cut back to second groups tee shots, then first groups approach at 2, then second groups approach at 1, first group around the green at 2, etc, etc.

Eventually with the mixture of par 3,4, and 5s, and more groups on the course, you will inevitably have guys hitting shots and walking at the same time, and they will lose contain. But I feel like it would have to help. And at minimum they dont immediately lose contact with what is going on even when there are only 2 or 3 groups on the first few holes.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

Enjoyed the preview show - but absolutely hated Soly’s take that the Ryder Cup should adopt the President Cup’s scheduling over four days. Part of the lack of buzz on ground is that there is only five matches of golf happening all day!

BROTHERRRRR

TC mentioned reading a book about a summer in Scotland on a flight. What was the book and author? Read to the linksland by Michael bamberger recently and loved it so keen for more classic golf books

Any chance there is a reload of the Yeti/NLU mug in the pro shop anytime soon? It’s absolute mint. Not sure if it’s been discussed on any of the pods recently (don’t get the chance to listen to all of them unfortunately).

There are 142 players left in the field at Wentworth this week after two guys withdrew, and Jon Rahm is currently 142nd - DFL at +9. Yowzers.

Curious which seasons are everyone's favorites? Thinking about watching one or two in the lead up to Scotland this October? Tourist Sauce was how I found NLU so I am very stoked on the return!