Who will win my golf madness?! And Nelly’s persimmon test

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this the Weekend 9. Think of it as a spot to warm you up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We’ll have thoughts. We’ll have tips. We’ll have tweets. But just nine in all, though sometimes maybe more and sometimes maybe less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell some of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com

The Weekend 9 is doing a bracket. 

A golf one. But it’ll be a little different. It has to be. Sure, we could pick a winner out of a field of 64, and we’d all debate, but one, would we really pick someone other than Scottie Scheffler, even with the hand woes; and two, it’s been done before. That said, I’m stealing another idea. At a newspaper I once worked at, in an effort to let off some steam, we used to do the “Annoyance Bracket,” where a few of us would find 64 things that, yes, annoyed us in the newsroom, we’d drop ’em all in a bracket — then advance them based on how the men’s basketball tournament played out. For example, if the five seed out of the West Region won the hoops tournament, then the five seed in the West Region of the “Annoyance Bracket” would also win, and we’d have a good laugh. (If you’re in “Severance” cubicle land yourself, you really must give this a go.) 

Here, we’re going to take just the structure to crown a champion among the 64 best men’s pro golfers (though a golf annoyance bracket would be pretty great, too; we’ll be sure to pocket that thought). Our 64 will be the top 64 ranked by the folks over at Data Golf, as they include LIV Golf results, and pros will advance — or be bounced — based on how their corresponding men’s basketball seed fares. 

With that, here’s the bracket:

South first round 

1. Scottie Scheffler vs. 16. Patrick Rodgers  

8. Sergio Garcia vs. 9. Alex Noren 

4. Bryson DeChambeau vs. 13. Abraham Ancer 

5. J.J. Spaun vs. 12. Maverick McNealy 

3. Tyrrell Hatton vs. 14. Jacob Bridgeman 

6. Denny McCarthy vs. 11. Ben Griffin 

2. Patrick Cantlay vs. 15. Taylor Moore 

7. Si Woo Kim vs. 10. David Puig 

West first round 

1. Jon Rahm vs. 16. Laurie Canter 

8. Jason Day vs. 9. Davis Thompson 

4. Xander Schauffele vs. 13. Alex Smalley 

5. Ludvig Aberg vs. 12. Wyndham Clark 

3. Patrick Cantlay vs. 14. Byeong Hun An 

6. Keegan Bradley vs. 11. J.T. Poston 

2. Tommy Fleetwood vs. 15. Nick Taylor 

7. Sungjae Im vs. 10. Adam Scott 

East first round 

1. Rory McIlroy vs. 16. Thomas Detry 

8. Lucas Glover vs. 9. Tony Finau 

4. Sepp Straka vs. 13. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 

5. Robert MacIntyre vs. 12. Max Greyserman 

3. Hideki Matsuyama vs. 14. Dean Burmester 

6. Akshay Bhatia vs. 11. Tom Kim 

2. Joaquin Niemann vs. 15. Sahith Theegala 

7. Michael Kim vs. 10. Will Zalatoris 

“>

Midwest first round 

1. Collin Morikawa vs. 16 Louis Oosthuizen 

8. Daniel Berger vs. 9. Taylor Pendrith 

4. Shane Lowry vs. 13. Stephan Jaeger 

5. Corey Conners vs. 12. Viktor Hovland 

3. Justin Thomas vs. 14. Harry Hall 

6. Aaron Rai vs. 11. Brooks Koepka 

2. Russell Henley vs. 15. Kurt Kitayama 

7. Sam Burns vs. 10. Min Woo Lee 

On Monday, and the following Monday, I’ll update this file, and I’ll provide updates in future Weekend 9’s. There’ll be upsets; we’ve seen some already. The winner gets a golf clap.   

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the Weekend 9. 

2. Whom do I have in my basketball brackets? Houston in the men’s, and USC in the women’s. 

One takeaway / one feel-good story from the week 

3. Keeping with the theme, the week gave us a Cinderella story, too.   

Playing the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, via its Monday qualifier, was Andre Chi, who 9 to 5 works as the assistant pro at Deepdale Golf Club up in Manhasset, N.Y. Earlier in the week, the tireless Ryan French of the Monday Q Info website shared his story, and, after his first round on Thursday, Chi shared more. 

His dad, through magazine clippings, introduced him to the game before YouTube took him the rest of the way. Tiger was a model. Adam Scott, too. Chi’s road then took him to an NCAA Division III national title, before he took a club pro job. But the 24-year-old is a stick. And he’s a dreamer. He continued to compete. And this winter, he took what he called a gamble — on himself. He’d go down to Florida. And he’d just play. Cash would be extremely tight — “there’s money going out, no money coming in,” he said Thursday. Who knows what would happen, but you live only once. 

Chi fell short at Q School and at two other Monday qualifiers. But then came the breakthrough. He was in the Valspar. Chi played a practice round with Scott even. “So, yeah, it was a great time, he’s super generous, super nice,” Chi said. “He was trying to give me a lot of advice on this golf course and how to tackle this golf course and it was awesome,” Chi said. “It was awesome.”

Thursday was tough. He shot an 81. Didn’t matter. One start may mean more. 

“I’m not sure if it’s set in yet,” Chi said. “I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other right now and trying to soak everything in. I think once this week’s over, I think it will kind of hit that I did play in a PGA Tour event, but right now, I’m just trying to figure out my putting.”

Another feel-good story from the week 

4. Thursday, Angela Stanford was named Solheim Cup captain. The day before the announcement, she was with friend and fellow pro Kim Kaufman, who is undergoing chemo treatment for cancer. 

Announcer Grant Boone described things well here. 

An instruction tip for your weekend 

5. This was good from Keith Mitchell, on what he would remember from last year’s Valspar Championship, where he led by two going into the final round, only to shoot a 77 and tie for 17th: 

“I still think about it. It’s still definitely in the back of my mind and I want it to stay there for hopefully for the rest of my career to just motivate me to remember what it feels like when you let those kind of nerves get in your way. A round like today feels like the opposite of that. So, processing it, I guess, is something that I want to keep to always have it in the memory banks, like this is what not to do. You look at a lot of guys in their career, everybody has a few of those, and that was mine.”

Another instruction tip for your weekend 

6. This was good from Xander Schauffele, who’s been struggling some on his way back from a rib injury:

“I’ve kind of had stuff all over the place. I feel like I’m cramming for a test, and when I’m out there, I feel like I’m still trying to study almost, not really just taking the test. Today, whether it was a few swing videos that were taken, sent to Chris [coach Chris Como], I just didn’t look at ’em. I need to start looking — what my dad taught me a long time ago is look at the ball and react to the ball and not to how your swing looks. I think I’ve gotten a little too nitpicky on swinging the club correctly and trying to get back in a good pattern when I was playing really good golf. Sometimes when you just focus on the task at hand versus the result, you can get yourself there.”

A golf story that may only interest me

7. Nelly Korda, via a series of photos on her Instagram story, shared that she recently swung a persimmon driver; the club was a MacGregor. The photos — and the results — are below.

Another golf story that may interest only me

8. Here’s J.J. Watt, who’s in an interesting position:

1. Like the lifts under the green, they need to put some under the hitting area for the second or third shot. I would love to see some downhill or sidehill lies. Several times the players get a perfect lie after the drive clearly is not on a flat surface.

2. They need a fourth playing box, with the grass much higher. Plus, they can’t drop their ball in it — the opposing team gets to one-bounce it in there.

3. If the technology is available, how about adding some wind?

I really like these ideas, especially the wind. Some rain would be fun, too. 

More of what you’re emailing me 

10. Let’s do 10 items! Here’s another email I received after last week’s Weekend 9. 

Always a good read, but here’s No. 11 for ya:

Passing of John Feinstein, author of many books on sports, including several on golf. Of those, “A Good Walk Spoiled” is one of the best.

(And apologies if you mentioned it in an earlier article — if you did, I missed it!)

The reader was very right: I should have included that. But now I am, along with sharing an article on Feinstein, written by GOLF’s Michael Bamberger. You can read it here.  

What live golf is on TV this weekend?

11. Let’s do 11 items! Here’s a rundown of live golf on TV this weekend:

— Saturday

10:30 p.m (Friday)-3 a.m. ET: Porsche Singapore Classic second round, Golf Channel 

1 p.m.-3 p.m. ET: Valspar Championship third round, Golf Channel 

3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: Valspar Championship third round, NBC 

5 p.m.-8 p.m. ET: Hoag Classic second round, Golf Channel 

— Sunday 

10 p.m (Friday)-3 a.m. ET: Porsche Singapore Classic third round, Golf Channel 

1 p.m.-3 p.m. ET: Valspar Championship fourth round, Golf Channel 

3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET: Valspar Championship fourth round, NBC 

4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: Hoag Classic third round, Golf Channel 

A non-golf thought 

12. Gonna end things by asking for a favor from you. 

Five years ago yesterday, my mom died. It was sudden; my sister called at 8:30 in the morning, and there were times when I’d wondered if my sister even had my number. I picked up, though, and a few hours later, I was on a flight back home. 

It was around then when I scrolled through my texts. 

I wanted to see a few of the last ones between me and my mom, and I got sick. Disgusted. The exchanges were one-sided. Mom would reach out, and I’d respond every third or so time, usually with just a few words. It wasn’t intentional, but just other things had a higher priority, or at least they did in my stupid head. And my mom would understand. She always would. 

But good lord, would I love to get a message now. Or a call. And the chance to respond with … whatever. My mom would listen. She always would. So I kept the texts. I’m looking at them as I type this. It’s a reminder. Of what she sounded like. 

But it could have been more. 

Please, please learn from that mistake.