Nick Piastowski
Getty Pictures
At 12:30 within the morning on Friday, in January, I used to be watching a baseball sport from 2014.
My spouse even double-checked.
“At 12:30 within the morning, in January, you’re watching a baseball sport from 2014?”
I used to be.
“Uecker?”
Uecker.
She walked away, and I continued to look at. Or hear. To Ueck. Like I did in ’87, on 620 AM, when Deer and Sveum went deep on Easter Sunday, and 9-year-old me was listening on the kitchen desk, 3 miles from metallic County Stadium. I listened in ’92, too, although this time on the best way house from the yard, at the hours of darkness brown station wagon purchased from Bud Selig’s Buick dealership, on the night time Rockin Robin hit No. 3,000. I additionally listened Thursday afternoon to a few of Uecker’s remaining phrases from final season, after the Milwaukee Brewers have been shocked within the playoffs’ first spherical. These damage. He stated the loss stung. And it did. One other yr, one other wait until subsequent yr. The longtime radio voice of the crew had been battling most cancers, although, and Thursday, we realized that he had handed.
Must you be unfamiliar, Uecker as soon as had his hand in all the pieces, in an everyman sort of manner. Miller Lite pitchman. Carson visitor. Sitcom and film star. He was additionally known as Mr. Baseball, which you knew was ironic, as he performed six principally undistinguished MLB seasons — although nobody embraced the irony greater than Uecker himself. He leaned into it. Nobody jabbed Ueck greater than Ueck, which made the Milwaukee native a little bit of a guy-next-to-you-on-a-barstool man — and an ideal match when he grabbed the radio play-by-play microphone throughout the Brewers’ first season, in 1971, and simply stored on speaking. Concerning the crew. About himself. About no matter. Baseball has built-in gaps, like golf, in any case.
Proper, golf. Let’s get to the purpose. There are just a few.
First, welcome! Consider this as a spot to heat you up for the weekend. We’ll have ideas. We’ll have ideas. We’ll have tweets. However simply 9 in all, although generally possibly extra and generally possibly much less. As for who I’m, the primary few paragraphs above do the job there. Milwaukee child. Grew up throughout the road from a bar. Pretty spouse. Sports activities watcher. Golf typist.
And somebody who’s heard the cries of dying curiosity within the professional sport — and questioning if any of the professionals watched how Uecker did it. Possibly golf wants a Mr. Golf. And a Ms. Golf. Trevino’s one. Who else?
Relaxation in peace, Ueck. Onto to our different eight.
One takeaway from the week — and the weeks forward
2. The place can we stand with TGL?
In a really unscientific scan, the reception by these paid and unpaid to comment was good in week one. A number of bells and whistles, although not sufficient hammers. Quick-paced, although a bit sluggish on the finish. It was completely different. In any case, it was some golf to look at on a Monday or Tuesday night time.
However then week two got here.
And the tech appeared off to of us. The play, too. Issues have been too informal. Does anybody care in the event that they’re profitable? Or dropping? Feedback have been being made. Ought to we care about this?
Right here’s saying we should always wait. Give it time. Possibly until week 7, which comes on the finish of subsequent month. Issues ought to be extra buttoned up. We’ll additionally get three matches then, two on Monday, and one on Tuesday. How will the league get us to look at all of that?
Talking of …
3. What did my now-17-year-old correspondent consider week two? In week one, I (form of) pressured my golf-loving teenage nephew to look at, then talked to him afterward, as he’s precisely the viewers TGL is making an attempt to woo.
However he didn’t watch this week. Kind of.
He didn’t tune in to ESPN’s protection. However on YouTube, he did catch Good Good’s go contained in the TGL dome.
That claims one thing.
Greatest non-GOLF.com reads on your weekend
4. What am I studying (apart from the considerate prose of my colleagues)? Two articles are value your click on.
Right here, Golf Digest’s Luke Kerr-Dineen wrote why the professionals are airmailing greens throughout TGL play — and the rationale isn’t the tech. Type of. LKD asks ‘why’ in addition to anybody.
5. Right here, the Wall Road Journal’s Jason Homosexual took his flip in reviewing TGL. This was gold:
“Golf reimagined. That’s what TGL pledges, which ought to necessitate an adage: Any time you see ‘__________ reimagined,’ funding companies have entered the chat.”
This was additionally nice:
“The night time kicked off with the zenith expression of sports activities enthusiasm: the dramatic walk-out. Low-key males accustomed to quietly stepping from event courtesy automobiles marched into the rowdy ‘SoFi Middle’ like gladiators sporting pressed pants. Woods, naturally, acquired Tuesday’s largest ovation, strolling out final to the rumble of Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ a music sufficiently old to qualify for a reduction at most South Florida eating places.”
Greatest instruction tip (and finest YouTube video) on your weekend
6. What am I watching to attempt to get higher (apart from the considerate movies of my colleagues)?
A YouTube video from YouTube star Grant Horvat is value your time. In it, Rory McIlroy critiques the strikes he makes ought to he be “actually going after one,” and the video may be discovered by clicking right here or scrolling instantly beneath.
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Horvat, notably, has been on a heater. He additionally not too long ago posted an instruction video with Tiger Woods.
Greatest golf story which will curiosity solely me
7. Is European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald getting ready his facet for the potential rowdies at New York’s Bethpage Black? Apparently so. Tommy Fleetwood, in his press convention forward of this week’s Hero Dubai Desert Traditional, alluded to the hassle that was in place eventually week’s Group Cup.
“Look, there’s no manner you’ll be able to replicate what a Ryder Cup is like, that’s for positive,” he stated. “However you’ll be able to undoubtedly strive your finest and create completely different environments that can assist us come the time the place we do must deal with that, and I feel Luke has been nice and really on job, if you happen to like, at sure challenges that we’ll face; that the crew will face come September enjoying in an away Ryder Cup. I feel it’s extra about being conscious and making an attempt to develop sure abilities that can assist you to finest cope with these conditions, after which with the ability to apply that.
“So there’s no manner you’ll be able to replicate what the primary tee is like at a Ryder Cup or completely different situations there. However you’ll be able to undoubtedly put your — create form of minor conditions, if you happen to like, that can assist you to work on the issues that you just want in terms of that point, and I feel final week was an excellent instance of that the place I’ve undoubtedly by no means, you understand, executed issues like that earlier than, and I feel it might probably solely assist.”
Bunkered’s Ben Parsons supplied extra element — and his story may be discovered right here. These paragraphs have been one thing:
“‘They modified just a few issues with distraction ways as a result of we’re going to New York,’ Jordan Smith, a member of the Nice Britain and Eire facet, advised bunkered.co.uk right here on the Dubai Desert Traditional.
“‘That they had these large microphones and audio system on the primary tee, child noises, issues going off, individuals shouting and coughing. Then once we acquired onto the seventh, which was a tricky par-3 with water round it, they’d an American man there shouting all types at us. He was an American comic.
“‘He stated to Tyrrell Hatton that he appears like a reborn Amish farmer due to his beard. He was making an attempt to place everybody off, saying you’re going to place it within the water, you’re going to hit a s*** shot.’”
Greatest golf story which will curiosity solely me, half two
8. The New York Jets’ Sauce Gardner was giving freely golf golf equipment earlier this week. The story comes through Golf Digest’s Alex Myers, who had watched Gardner’s Instagram tales, the place Gardner wrote this, beneath a video of a set of golf equipment:
“Don’t ask me why I’ve so many golf equipment. Simply assist me eliminate them. At one level final offseason I assumed that it was the membership that made you golf higher. Not the opposite manner round lol.”
What stay golf is on TV this weekend?
9. Right here’s a rundown of stay golf on TV this weekend:
— Saturday
2 a.m.-8 a.m. ET: Hero Dubai Desert Traditional third spherical, Golf Channel
4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: The American Specific third spherical, Golf Channel
7 p.m.-10 p.m. ET: Mitsubishi Electrical Championship remaining spherical, Golf Channel
— Sunday
2 a.m.-8 a.m. ET: Hero Dubai Desert Traditional remaining spherical, Golf Channel
Midday-3 p.m. ET: The Bahamas Nice Abaco Traditional first spherical, Golf Channel
4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: The American Specific remaining spherical, Golf Channel
Your golf second of zen
10. Let’s do 10 gadgets.
The picture beneath is mesmerizing.
Nick Piastowski
Golf.com Editor
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Journal. In his position, he’s liable for modifying, writing and creating tales throughout the golf house. And when he’s not writing about methods to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native might be enjoying the sport, hitting the ball left, proper and quick, and ingesting a chilly beer to clean away his rating. You possibly can attain out to him about any of those subjects — his tales, his sport or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.