“1917”: Shock, Awe, and Technical Wizardry

1917, a film directed, co-written, and produced by Sam Mendes, follows the journey of two ordinary British Army soldiers who are given an extraordinary task: deliver a message through a war zone to a British colonel that will save the lives of 1,600 men. Included among those 1,600 is the brother of one of the messengers, a wrinkle that only adds further urgency to their mission.

The two stars of 1917, George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, entered production as unproven leading men. But both deliver stellar performances in the film, and their relative real-life anonymity only adds an extra layer of realism to the idea that the Brits are merely pawns on The Great War’s chessboard. Mackay’s performance, in particular, stands out. Throughout the movie, he conveys a wide range of emotions without unnecessary flash or frills. The audience never forgets that MacKay is a soldier, but the actor never allows us to forget that he is also a human being.

The film benefits from superb cameos sprinkled throughout its 119-minute runtime. Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, Colin Firth, and Benedict Cumberbatch all lend their talents to 1917, and that murderer’s row of British acting talent gives the film a sense of gravitas that is welcomed in the condensed time the actors grace the screen.

Of course, the real star of 1917 is the camera. During production, Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins filmed long takes that, combined with clever choreography, created the illusion that the film consists of one continuous shot. This unorthodox format may make it difficult for some movie-goers to fully immerse themselves in the story, especially in the first hour of the film. However, the 15-time Oscar-nominated Deakins presents the viewer with such a dazzling array of images throughout 1917 that by the middle of the film, all criticism for the cinematography will likely be put on hold, if not forgotten altogether.

1917 received 10 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Mendes, Best Cinematography for Deakins, and Best Original Score for composer Thomas Newman. The film enters the Oscars on the heels of its two Golden Globe Award wins for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director. Widely praised by both critics and casual viewers alike, as it boasts an approval rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a CinemaScore of A-.

As it is restricted by the constraints of the single-shot gimmick, this film fights for two hours with one hand tied behind its back. This reality simultaneously makes this picture great and prevents it from reaching the level of outstanding. 1917’s single-shot format imbues its action scenes with uniquely frenetic energy, but each time this energy dissipates the film is once again forced to build up momentum in a slow and methodical manner.

While creating this film, Mendes and Deakins weren’t operating with a full deck, and while they make an admirable effort, the film comes up just short of reaching “masterpiece” status. 1917 reminds us why the best movies take advantage of edits, though just because the film isn’t The Godfather or Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t mean you shouldn’t clear your weekend plans to go see it in theaters. The film’s cast is top-notch, its cinematography is sensational, and its score is magnificent. 1917 takes you on a journey that engages your senses on a visceral level. It is unlike anything you will see this year, and any individual who treasures a night out at the movies is doing his or herself a disservice by skipping this film.

Prisoners of the Past: The Irish Travellers

Historically, societies tend to climb up the economic ladder as time progresses, but the Irish Travellers are a notable exception to this rule. The standard of living has substantially risen in Ireland over the past 50 years overall, but this trend has barely affected the Travellers.

Even though the Irish Travellers have the same genes as the Irish people in the settled community, the two groups could not be farther apart in terms of their place in the social hierarchy. Anthropologist Sharon Gmelch illustrates this contradiction in the documentary Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller:

I was fascinated by how you could have a group that was so distinct, but in many of the overt measures of distinctiveness, they’re the same. They’re white, they speak English, some of them know some Irish. Everything is the same… The thing that intrigued me is how they remain distinct (Gmelch 2012).

Irish Travellers and Irish settlers look alike and speak the same language but, in a sense, they could not be more different. Neither the settled community nor the Travellers are without blame on this issue, as a large number of people on both sides are happy for the two groups to remain as closed off from the other as possible. 

The Travellers’ inability to embrace certain aspects of modern society makes them collaborators in their poverty, but there is no question that they have long been victims of abuse by those in the Irish settled community. Numerous factors influence the Travellers’ extensive social problems, but the main causes are the racism and prejudice they encounter, their issues related to inadequate housing, and their issues related to poor health. 

Many seeds of anti-Traveller prejudice were planted by the Irish government in the 1960s. The government’s 1963 Commission on Itinerancy rejected the notion that Travellers were a separate ethnic group, and it laid the groundwork for policies that drove the Travellers from their rural communities into urban centers (Anti Racism & Interculturalism 2019). This stance, and the legislation that followed it, set the Travellers on a collision course with the settled community, and this friction led to a sharp increase in discrimination.

Unfortunately, the Travellers did not have the numbers needed to elect a politician to represent them, so the group could not influence the assimilation policies they were now legally obligated to follow. The people were powerless to prevent the robbery of their collective identity, and they were now living side-by-side with a population that resented everything about them, from their clothes to their culture.

As time passed, the divide between settlers and Travellers continued to widen. A 2019 Lenus report published quotes pulled from public statements made by Irish County Councilors from 1989-1996 dripping in racist anti-Traveller sentiment. Among these quotes, “Killarney is literally infested with these people… They are dirty and unclean. Travelling people have no respect for themselves and their children… The conflict is not between settled and Traveller. It’s between decent people and ‘knackered.” The most jarring quote came from a Fianna Fail Councillor who stated at a Wexford County Council meeting in 1996, “The sooner the shotguns are at the ready and these Travelling people are put out of our county the better. They are not our people, they aren’t natives” (O’Connell 1997).

These politicians speak, in theory, for the people they represent, and their rhetoric is a clear indicator that many Irish men and women consider Travellers essentially subhuman creatures. This heinous brand of rhetoric is obviously quite alienating to its targets and represents a major contributing factor to the metaphorical chasm currently sitting between the general public and the Travellers. The discrimination and prejudice directed towards the Travellers cultivates an unhealthy environment in their communities, as explained by the ITM (Irish Traveler Movement), “The Low status of Travellers in Irish society has profound effects on Traveller’s mental health and self-image, which has huge consequences for issues such as suicide, depression, and also physical signs of stress and trauma: blood pressure, heart disease, and other health problems” (Anti Traveller Racism 2019). 

Within the Traveller community, the biggest victims are women and children. An Irish Examiner article from March 2019 claimed that less than 1% of Traveller women are in third-level education and only 167 total Travellers in total have ever held a third-level qualification (Traveller Children 2019). The article also reported that many Traveller children are hiding their accent and ethnicity in school to avoid bullying and discrimination.

Unfortunately, much of the abuse aimed at Traveller women and children comes from Traveller men. In the documentary Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller, a widowed Traveller woman who had been physically abused by her husband in the past explained that she still loved him even during his worst moments. She explained, “Even when I was getting lashed about, my mind was other places… All I knew was that I loved this man, I loved him to bits. The way I looked at it was I was going to have some beautiful children with him, and I did” (Gmelch). While it is impossible to definitively say whether this sort of Stockholm Syndrome-like response to domestic violence is common in the Traveller community, the overwhelming amount of domestic violence in the Traveller community is troubling nonetheless. A 2009 Irish Times article reported that even though Traveller women made up just 0.5% of the population, they represented 15% of gender-based violence cases (Holland 2009). These services include physical, emotional and sexual violence, forced marriage, and trafficking. These statistics indicate that Traveller women were 30 times more likely to be victims of gender-based violence than settled women were.

The Travellers consistently face discrimination and prejudice, and this abuse has encouraged Travellers to develop a layer of self-hatred. It is difficult for these people to develop a strong sense of self-esteem or pride in their heritage when many in the settled community work hard to ensure that neither of those tasks gets accomplished. Among all of the Traveller’s extensive social problems, the discrimination they constantly face is possibly the most serious.

Travellers, as their name suggests, have traditionally lacked a firm relationship with any single structure for purposes of accommodation. As a nomadic people, the idea of living on the move lies at the core of their cultural identity. However, the dramatic upgrades in technology over the past 60 years have disrupted the group’s traditional way of life, and this disruption has forced the Travellers to migrate to urban areas and shun their traveling lifestyles (Accommodation 2019). The ITM lays out the problems that have resulted from this change, “Travellers report having to take substandard accommodation based on their desperation to access the housing market… with an increase in rent prices, specifically in Dublin, Travellers are further marginalized” (Accommodation).

Even though many Travellers must settle for substandard accommodation, some modern Travellers don’t have much accommodation at all. A July 2018 Irish Times article paints a bleak picture of the desperate housing situation for the least fortunate Traveller families.

From 2013-2018, the number of Travellers households living by the side of a road or in overcrowded conditions went up from 1,024 to 1,700, an increase of 66% (Holland 2018). These families account for 15% of the total Traveller population. The same article also illustrates the Irish government’s relative indifference to the Traveller’s housing problems. In the year 2000, the government promised to build 9,390 housing units for the Travellers. As of July 2018, 32% of the units had yet to be built and €55 million had yet to be spent.

The forced upheaval of the Travellers into a more urban setting has also caused some dangerous ripple effects in society. The power dynamics in Traveller marriage have changed dramatically, and the Traveller society is far more matriarchal than it used to be. Traveller males now lack positive outlets to release their aggression, and their built-up testosterone has fueled the rise of pugilism in the community. As the US National Institutes of Health reported in 2016:

Decreased health-seeking behavior is reported among male Irish Travellers, which is partly due to the belief that illness signifies weakness… Healthcare professionals should be aware of this pugilistic tradition among the Irish Traveler community and the high probability that these patients will not be dissuaded easily from participating in bare-knuckle boxing in the future (Patel 2016).

Moving into urban centers has also put Traveller men into more direct competition with settled men for employment opportunities. Given that only 1% of Travellers have a college degree, according to the 2011 Census, they are at a large disadvantage relative to more educated men in the job market (Pavee Point 2011). This gap in higher learning between the two communities helps keep the Traveller unemployment figure shockingly high. The 2011 Census indicated that 84.3% of Travellers were unemployed, which was a 9.7% rise from the number given by the 2006 Census. 

The crisis of inadequate housing for Travellers is one of the main problems that the community faces today. However, even though many Travellers still struggle to find acceptable housing, the overall housing situation has improved for Travellers in recent decades. Unfortunately, during this period, the life expectancy for Travellers has remained quite low, as is noted in Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller (Gmelch). This suggests that while their accommodations are undoubtedly poor, deeper problems are plaguing the Traveller community that won’t likely be fixed by proper housing alone.

One of the defining characteristics of the Traveller community is its poor general health. Pavee Point, an Irish Traveller organization dedicated to securing human rights for Travellers, has done a large amount of research on the topic of Traveller health, and their findings are troubling, to say the least.

The average life expectancy of a Traveller man is 15 years less than the life expectancy of a man in the general population, and the average life expectancy for a Traveller woman is 11 years less. The infant mortality rate in the Traveller community is also much higher than the general population’s rate. Out of every 1,000 births, 14.1 Traveller infants die as opposed to just 3.9 in the settled community. Traveller men are seven times more likely to commit suicide than men in the general population, and Traveller women are five times more likely (Traveller Health 2010).

Travellers don’t just struggle with physical health complications, they also face a disproportionate amount of mental health issues. In the general population, 21.8% of men and 19.9% of women reported that their mental health was not good for one or more days in the past 30 days. In the Traveller community, those numbers skyrocket to 59.4% for men and 62.7% for women.

One possible explanation for the severe disparity in health between Travellers and non-Travellers is the discrimination that Travellers face from the medical community. When medical service providers in Ireland were surveyed, 66.7% stated that they believed Travellers experience discrimination in the health services industry (Traveller Health). 

Another likely reason that poor health is a defining characteristic of Travellers is the culture of endogamy within the community. Travellers feel a strong urge to marry somebody who understands their way of life and appreciates the traditions that inform that lifestyle. Because of this, consanguine marriages are common in the Traveller community. One major byproduct of this phenomenon is the increased likelihood of these consanguine partners’ children being born with genetic disorders.

The poor general health of Travellers can’t be blamed on one specific cause, it is a result of several different factors all lining up against the community. Some of these factors are a result of the Travellers’ actions, but the majority can be ascribed to the social rift that exists between the community and the general population.

Even though the Travellers have consistently dealt with intense prejudice, substandard accommodation, and health issues, the society has managed to hold on and persevere through all of their trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, the Travellers are trapped in a sort of socio-economic no man’s land. Many Travellers long for better lives and are open to establishing a rapport with the settled community. But, many more Travellers still hear a strong call back to their old way of life, and their romanticization of the past is one reason their society lacks a bright future. However, the Travellers are not traditionally a group that pays much attention to what may come in the future.

As anthropologist George Gmelch states in Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller:

I had never lived with people who lived so much in the moment… Middle-class people, so often, are always living in the future and thinking about tomorrow. For (the Travellers) tomorrow is more of today, tomorrow doesn’t have the promise of being any different. When you live in those circumstances you are more inclined to seize the moment and make the most of it (Gmelch).

Perhaps the settled community has something to learn from the Travellers. Even though many view the nomadic community as nothing more than a punchline, the Travellers are not that. They are a proud group of people that respects their tradition. Sadly, this pride often manifests itself as stubbornness, and their respect for tradition often binds them to archaic principles and norms. For their group to flourish in the future, they must come to some form of mutual understanding with the settled community. At the moment, neither group appears prepared to come to such an understanding, and because of that, it is difficult to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel for the Traveller community.

 

 

Works Cited

“Accommodation – Key Issues.” Imtrav.ie, Irish Traveller Movement, 2019, itmtrav.ie/strategic-priorities/accommodation/accommodation-key-issues/.

“Anti Racism & Interculturalism – Key Issues.” Imtravi.ie, Irish Traveller Movement, 2019, itmtrav.ie/strategic-priorities/anti-racism-interculturalism/anti-racism-interculturalism-key-issues/.

“Anti Traveller Racism.” Imtrav.ie, Irish Traveller Movement, 2019, itmtrav.ie/strategic-priorities/anti-racism-interculturalism/anti-traveller-racism/.

Gmelch, George and Sharon Gmelch, directors. Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller. YouTube, YouTube, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X41Wkzr6fic&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop.

Holland, Kitty. “Traveller Women 30 Times More Likely to Suffer Domestic Violence – Report.” The Irish Times, The Irish Times, 24 Feb. 2009, http://www.irishtimes.com/news/traveller-women-30-times-more-likely-to-suffer-domestic-violence-report-1.707916.

Holland, Kitty. “Travellers on Roadside or in Overcrowded Homes Increased 66 per Cent in 5 Years.” The Irish Times, 27 July 2018, http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/travellers-on-roadside-or-in-overcrowded-homes-increased-66-per-cent-in-5-years-1.3578614.

O’Connell, John. “Travellers in Ireland: an Examination of Discrimination and Racism: a Report from the Irish National Co-Ordinating Committee for the European Year against Racism.” Lenus.ie, Jan. 1997, http://www.lenus.ie/bitstream/handle/10147/560348/travellersinirelanddiscriminationracism.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Patel, Toral R, et al. “Pugilism among Irish Travelers: Cultural Tradition and the Fight Bite Injury.” Journal of Injury & Violence Research, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Jan. 2016, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729335/.

“Pavee Point Calls for Action to Address Traveller Unemployment of 84.3%.” Pavee Point – Traveller and Roma Centre, 2011, http://www.paveepoint.ie/pavee-point-calls-for-action-to-address-traveller-unemployment-of-84-3/.

“Traveller Children Hiding Accent in School to Avoid Bullying, Committee Hears.” Irish Examiner, 26 Mar. 2019, http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/traveller-children-hiding-accent-in-school-to-avoid-bullying-committee-hears-913487.html.

“Traveller Health.” Paveepoint.ie, Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, 2010, http://www.paveepoint.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Factsheets-Pavee-Point-TRAVELLER-HEALTH.pdf.

 

Oak Meadow: Golf’s Field of Dreams

The most exclusive golf club in America isn’t Cypress Point or Augusta National. It’s located in a backyard in rural Minnesota, and its name is Oak Meadow Golf Club. There is no membership application process at Oak Meadow; no initiation fee, annual dues, or food and beverage minimums. To get on the course, you just need to know a guy.

In 2006, my uncle Ron and his family decided to build a house on the outskirts of New Prague, Minnesota. One day, Ron, a retired stockbroker and 18-handicapper, visited the empty lot, and when he saw the 10-acre pasture land that made up his backyard a thought occurred to him.

He told me, “There was a butterfly garden with a big retaining wall built and I just thought, ‘this would be a cool tee box.’ And then, it just went from there.”

Using some of the equipment used to build his house, Ron constructed ten tee boxes around the perimeter of the property that play to three different greens. To get some assistance with the course routing, he enlisted the help of local PGA Professional Kurt Ruehling. When the dust had settled, Ron had 12 holes ranging from 74 to 227 yards in length that added up to a total par of 36. Oak Meadow was born.

Throughout the years, the conditioning of the course has gradually improved, and the greens now roll just as fast and smooth as any of the greens on courses in the surrounding area. Since its opening, many players have given Oak Meadow their best shot, but the course record remains a resilient 4-under 32.

Every fall, Ron hosts the Oak Meadow Club Championship, a gathering of 30-35 friends and family all united by, among other things, a shared love of golf. The attendees’ level of golf skill varies widely, from better-than-scratch players to 30+ handicappers. All golfers are put into either the championship flight or the first flight, and after two loops around Oak Meadow, prizes are awarded to the top finishers in each flight.

Players show up on the first tee on tournament Saturday greeted by a spectacular display of hot caramel rolls, muffins, and coffee laid out by Ron’s wife Lori. There is even Baileys available for players interested in that sort of thing. Out on the course sit a number of coolers stocked with beer and water that competitors can grab free of charge.

A number of other contests take place concurrently with the tournament, with prizes awarded for most birdies, longest putt awards on each green, low front 6 score, and low back 6 score. After all the rounds are completed, two different shootouts take place, which give every player something else to compete for, no matter how bad their tournament rounds went.

Every competitor kicks in $30 at the start of the tournament, but Ron refuses to take any money for himself. By day’s end, every dollar is given back to the players in some way or another.

The golf played in the tournament ranges from dazzling to distressing. Nobody takes their scores too seriously, but late in the day, the air gets a little thinner for those in contention. Despite the rollicking atmosphere, none of the dozen or so serious golfers in attendance want to lose.

One reason for the heightened tension is what awaits the winner: a drink from a bottle of aged Glenlivet single-malt scotch that is only opened once a year. Twelve men have walked on the moon, but only six men have tasted that scotch.

Nick Pexa, the husband of Ron’s daughter Rachel, posted an even-par 72 to win this year’s event and claim his fourth Oak Meadow Club Championship. Pexa is a top-flight amateur that has won a number of club championships at “real” courses, and once again he served as a reminder to the field that the cream rises to the top at Oak Meadow.

After play concludes, wives and children begin showing up, and Ron fires up his custom-made stone pizza oven. By the end of the night, close to 30 homemade pizzas are consumed, and each year, without fail, the fastest to go are Ron’s famed gorgonzola-and-grape pizzas.

My dad, Joe, sums up the experience, “You can’t beat it. It’s a really unique thing, and what makes it so unique is Ron and Lori. They’re giving, thoughtful, and classy, and it all goes on display in that one day.”

The golf course is terrific in a vacuum, but what really adds to its charm is the thread that runs through every square inch of the property: family. The first superintendent of Oak Meadow was Ron’s oldest son, Danny. He then passed the title to his younger brother, Bobby, who then passed it on to my younger brother, Henry.

My grandpa, LeRoy Geiger, always has and still does help out the superintendent with different course maintenance duties, and Lori does a phenomenal job of maintaining the beauty of the flowers displayed on the course.

And then there is my uncle Ron. It’s easy to imagine someone who has a golf course in his backyard as being a little on the pompous or self-important side. But those descriptions could not be farther from my uncle. All Oak Meadow has ever been to him is something to share with others.

When I asked Ron what he liked best about having a golf course in his backyard, he replied, “It’s kind of one of a kind. It is fun for hosting events, people love it. We always have fun out here…” Ron then cracked a smile, and for a brief moment he allowed his mask of humility to slip just a little, “and nobody else has one.”

Thanks in large part to its uniqueness, everyone who plays Oak Meadow walks away with a memory. Having played the course dozens of times, I have a treasure trove to choose from when picking a favorite, but one sticks out above all others.

My dad took home the inaugural Oak Meadow Club Championship back in 2007, but I remember the 2011 event much more clearly. The reason that memory is clearer is that I was looping for him that day. From the first tee to the final green, thirteen-year-old me lived and died on his every shot.

During the first round, on the 227-yard seventh hole, my dad pulled his tee shot out of bounds. In an instant, my heart leaped into my throat, and I mentally concluded that our tournament had essentially ended. Barely reacting, my dad re-teed, then slapped a cut that landed on the front of the green and settled less than six inches from the cup. He looked at me, smiled, handed me the club, and eventually went on to win his second Oak Meadow Club Championship.

It is fun to judge the strengths and weaknesses of golf courses, but for the most part, they are just an excuse for a group of people to come together and enjoy each other’s company. So many of our greatest moments on the course have as much to do with who we are with as to where we are playing. In that sense, I can’t imagine a better course in the world than Oak Meadow, our family’s little 10-acre slice of golf heaven.

Patience, young grasshopper: Why we should keep expectations for today’s hyped-up Tour rookies in check

Few things capture the hearts and minds of the golfing public like young talent. Every year, a new cast of studs emerges from the college ranks, and pundits get to prognosticate which phenom will set the world on fire right out of school.

In April 2018, Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner penned an outstanding profile of Norman Xiong titled “The next big thing: Xiong ‘wasn’t born to be ordinary.’” In the piece, Lavner detailed why many expected Xiong to take the PGA Tour by storm.

After a sterling junior golf career, Xiong went to Oregon a semester early and excelled right away. The young star won the Phil Mickelson Award for being the nation’s top freshman after just a single semester of tournaments. Xiong then won the Western Amateur, went undefeated at the 2017 Walker Cup, and won four times in his sophomore year at Oregon. After collecting the Haskins Award as the nation’s most outstanding collegiate golfer, Xiong turned pro and signed a lucrative endorsement contract with Callaway.

In many ways, Norman Xiong was a can’t-miss prospect. He boasted impressive physical gifts, a powerful golf swing, and a stout résumé. So why did he make only five cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour this year? His results are not as surprising as you might think.

By and large, young professional golfers don’t produce immediately. Xiong isn’t the only highly touted player from the class of 2018 to struggle this year. Dylan Meyer, the 2016 Western Amateur champion and three-time University of Illinois All-American, also signed with Callaway after turning pro. He finished T-20 in his pro debut at the 2018 US Open but made just a single cut on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019. Braden Thornberry, a former world amateur number one and Walker Cupper, also had a tough year on the KFT and will join both Xiong and Meyer in Q-School this winter.

Even when these young studs do achieve success, consistency often remains elusive. The starkest recent example of this point is Cameron Champ.

Last fall, Champ began his PGA Tour career with an outstanding six-week run of play. In five events during that stretch, he went T-25, 1, T-28, T-10, 6. His eye-popping distance numbers were instant fodder for the Tour’s social media team, and Champ became a staple in PGA Tour Live featured groups and PGA Tour commercials. However, from the Genesis Open in February to the Wyndham Championship in August, Champ made only three cuts in 14 starts.

Just as he hit the low point of his young professional career, golf witnessed the emergence of Matthew Wolff, Collin Morikawa, and Viktor Hovland. Suddenly, Champ fell out of favor on the Tour’s official channels. He even suffered a long-delayed descent in Rob Bolton’s rookie rankings.

In the past, the media hyped up players like Tiger Woods, and to a lesser extent Jordan Spieth, and those players went out and exceeded expectations right away. That isn’t the norm, however.

Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose, Francesco Molinari—these guys needed time to develop. For all the commentary about how young the tour is getting, the average age of the top 50 players in the Sagarin Rankings (which are more indicative of recent performance than the Official World Golf Ranking) is currently 33.32 years old. My first suspicion after finding this out was that the Jim Furyks and Lee Westwoods of the world were inflating the average. But even when the five oldest players are removed from the list, the average age holds relatively steady at 32.04.

No doubt it’s exciting when young guys like Wolff and Morikawa win right away. It gives us something to talk about, and golf is the sport in most desperate need of new blood. Who wants to gather around the water cooler and talk about 32-year-old Peter Malnati making it into the FedEx Cup Playoffs after posting just a single top-ten all season? The PGA Tour and the golf media are desperate to reach a new, youthful audience, and they see players like Cameron Champ as potential meal tickets.

But these young stars need time and space to let their games mature. If we heap too many expectations on them before they’re ready, we’re essentially killing the golden goose in pursuit more clicks and impressions.

Champ, Xiong, Meyer, and Thornberry might turn out to be world-beaters down the road. They all have a ton of game. But we just have to remember that for every Jordan Spieth, there are a dozen Ty Tryons and Chris Williamses, and the best wines taste better after they’re given time to breathe.

Speed, speed, speed! George Gankas and the arrival of golf’s Moneyball era

In the early 2000s, Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane flipped the baseball world on its head by constructing a team of players solely based on sabermetrics. After studying the work of baseball statistician Bill James, Beane began to see the underrated value of players who performed well in certain stats like on-base percentage and slugging percentage, even if these players didn’t pass the “eye test” of baseball scouts.

For years, the A’s exceeded expectations, consistently beating teams with payrolls two to three times larger than theirs. None of these deep-pocketed teams could figure out why this penniless upstart kept beating them. Then the 2007 Boston Red Sox, adopting many of Beane’s methods, won the World Series, and the sabermetrics floodgates blew open.

A similar revolution is currently taking place in golf, but it doesn’t just have to do with new-age statistics like Mark Broadie’s strokes-gained system. Perhaps an even bigger change is occurring in the way the golf swing is taught.

Golf, like baseball, is steeped in tradition and history, and for years golfers have shared similar ideas about what a good golf swing looks like: a weight shift to the right foot on the backswing while keeping the club under Hogan’s famed pane of glass, then a lateral move through the ball onto the left foot into a reverse-C follow-through.

Images from Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf

This swing was born following the release of Hogan’s hugely popular Five Lessons book, but it reached its adulthood during the video-camera era of the 80s and 90s. Suddenly, golfers could compare their swings, position by position, to those of Payne Stewart and Nick Price.

This traditional move looks beautiful, but as technology changes and golfers begin to train more like athletes in other sports, the old ideals of the golf swing grow more antiquated by the day. Equipped with a ball that barely spins and high-MOI 460cc driver heads, many young players have abandoned Hogan’s Five Lessons in favor of a different piece of literature: The Gospel of Speed as Preached by George Gankas.

As evidenced by his growing stable of professionals and rabid internet following, Gankas has ushered in a new generation of golfers who religiously follow the teacher’s principles: a giant shoulder turn without much weight shift, a squat down into the ground to create a large amount of torque, and a massive rotation through the ball to generate a ton of speed at impact.

Individual versions of this move can break golf’s traditional rules about what a “correct” swing looks like, and Gankas couldn’t care less. To him, the merits of a swing are weighed on a Flightscope monitor. Launch angle, spin, and ball speed numbers are prioritized over aesthetics.

Billy Beane didn’t invent sabermetrics, and Gankas didn’t invent these swing ideas. Instructors all over the country, including Sean Foley and Chris Como, teach many of the same principles that Gankas does. These new-wave teachers don’t necessarily care if your swing looks like Steve Elkington’s or Adam Scott’s as long as you’re generating speed. In this way, golf is going the way of baseball, where hard data has made the “eye test” far less relevant.

This “numbers over aesthetics” movement in golf instruction is not a fad or a trend, it’s a tsunami. Thanks to his informal, charming demeanor and his social-media savvy, Gankas is currently riding the wave the highest, and that likely will not change anytime soon. While an instructor like Sean Foley makes the golf swing sound like a difficult physics equation, Gankas’s teachings seem accessible and straightforward.In an excellent profile of Gankas from last year, Alan Shipnuck described part of a lesson he observed the instructor give Tristan Gretzky:

“Gankas is literally a hands-on teacher, frequently moving his pupils’ limbs through different positions. Every swing is monitored by a Flightscope launch monitor and a video camera, and Gankas races between his laptop and the mat, instantly processing information and applying it. His patter never stops. He teased Gretzky by saying, ‘You’re not using your legs, bro. You get one lesson from Butch and all of a sudden you’ve lost 30 yards.’ He followed with the ultimate enticement: ‘Give me a good swing and I’ll put it on the ’Gram.”

Just as Billy Beane upset baseball’s apple cart 20 years ago, George Gankas is on the verge of doing something similar to golf’s established order. Two Gankas disciples, Sung Kang and Matthew Wolff, won this year on the PGA Tour. Wolff’s win at the 3M Open especially resonated with the public not only because he’s just 20 years old but also because his swing resides so far outside the sport’s Overton window.

Matthew Wolff’s (soon-to-be-less-)unusual position at the top of his backswing

If equipment technology continues to progress, there is no reason why the next generation of golfers’ swings won’t look more like Wolff’s than like Luke Donald’s. It won’t matter whether the club sits in a picture-perfect position at the top if the Trackman numbers come back looking good.

It is fair to wonder whether this focus on launch monitor data will take some of the mystery and subtlety out of the game. If it does, the blame lies with the USGA and R&A, not with golf instructors. Gankas and his ilk are taking the golf swing to a logical place given the current technological landscape. Speed has become king because the ball doesn’t spin much, drivers are big enough, and marginal strikes are tolerated more than they were in the past. It’s not the fault of players and their coaches that the sport’s ruling bodies buried their heads in the sand and failed to regulate equipment manufacturers while Tiger Woods lined their pockets.

In the meantime, Gankas keeps doing what he’s done for years: pacing in flip-flops at the far end of the Westlake Golf Course driving range from morning till night, refashioning the game, one lesson at a time.

 

Inside The Ropes: My Week Behind the Scenes of the PGA Tour

“Hey, you need to get back on the other side of the rope.” For the third time that day, a gruff security guard was attempting to eject me from my spot inside the ropes at the 3M Open. He, like the others, probably assumed some punk kid had managed to slip past a volunteer in an effort to see some players up close. Resisting the urge to fire back a retaliatory quip, I responded by calmly displaying my media credential. I mean, in his defense, he wasn’t exactly wrong.

Ever since I learned to walk, I have loved to play golf, and ever since I learned to read, I have loved to write. So, naturally, the day I realized I wasn’t going to make it to the PGA Tour was the day I decided I was going to be a golf writer. When I set foot on the University of Minnesota campus as a freshman, one of the first things I did, after selling one of my kidneys to pay for my textbooks, was secure a job at a campus newspaper. 

Two years later, the PGA Tour announced that they were bringing an event to the Twin Cities, and my elation grew at the thought of covering my first professional golf event. By some stroke of luck, I managed to finagle a media credential to the event and the inside the ropes access that came with it. Over the course of five days at the 3M Open, I walked forty-nine miles, absorbing everything I saw and heard along the way.

For somebody who has followed the PGA Tour for years from the couch, walking among the assembled media made me feel like I had stepped inside my TV screen. It’s so bizarre to see  people like Todd Lewis, Amanda Balionis, Gary McCord, and Ian Baker-Finch when they’re not “on.” And the only thing more bizarre than seeing these media types is meeting one of them. 

On Thursday, I managed to work up the courage to introduce myself to Alan Shipnuck in the media center. Of course, this little conversation only took place after spending half an hour trying to come up with a witty opening line, a line that I mentally scrapped while walking over to say hello.

Despite my nerves, this exchange went far better than the one I had with Nick Faldo on Saturday. While I stood on the range watching players warm up for their third round, the Englishmen did a double-take as he walked past me, and then giggled while directing me to go stand behind the ropes. By the time I had rebounded from my brief state of bewilderment and pointed to my credential, Faldo had already turned his back and I returned to my state of full-fledged confusion.

However, while I greatly enjoyed seeing all of the media personalities out and about, most of my takeaways from the week were related to the golf that was played.

Watching the PGA Tour on TV gives you the impression that just about every player is supernatural. But walking next to those guys for hours at a time shifted the way I see tour players. The closer I got to them, the more human they appeared. 

What really drove home this point were some of the little moments I got to witness inside the ropes: a resigned sigh from Bryson DeChambeau after a missed putt, a hot piece of Tour gossip delivered in hushed tones by Matthew Wolff to his caddy on the range, an unpleasant interaction between an attention-hungry fan and Kevin Na’s caddy while walking to a tee. These are reminders that in the 1.5 seconds it takes to complete a golf swing, yes, these guys are spectacular. But, for the rest of their day, they’re just like you and me. 

These guys feel stress. Cameron Champ certainly did that week, as he flew in Sean Foley on Tuesday morning for an emergency lesson, and the two practiced on the range for hours on end while Champ’s father anxiously looked on. Champ then played his first seven holes of the tournament in +5 and missed the cut, shooting 75-74. If you were just scanning the PGA Tour app this week looking at the scores, you would never realize just how heavy Champ’s shoulders looked while he was playing and how discombobulated the rookie appeared on the course. 

These guys are friends. Phil Mickelson heckled Colt Knost on the second hole during their practice round together, making a comment to Knost about how the Dallas native had missed his calling on the LPGA Tour. Phil then made it clear to Knost, quite sincerely, that the heart and grit Knost displays on the course is a source of inspiration for him.

But, most of all, these guys are really, really, really good. I followed Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa for all 18 holes on Sunday, and the level of golf that the two exhibited left me speechless at times. I am just 309 days older than Wolff, and only 488 days younger than Morikawa. In theory, the three of us should have some kind of shared life experience, but watching those two down the stretch made me wonder at times how we’re all members of the same species.

During the most important round of their young professional careers, Wolff and Morikawa showed no fear, shooting 65 and 66, respectively. But this lack of angst didn’t appear to be a result of an emotional shutdown, undergone in an effort to project a steely demeanor. Instead, the two exuded a casual intensity, a phenomenon that seems oxymoronic until seen first-hand.

Walking the grounds of TPC Twin Cities, I felt the tectonic plates of golf shifting below my feet. Golfers aren’t supposed to be cold-blooded killers six weeks out of college, they’re supposed to gain experience over time and “learn to win.” But players like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas showed today’s young guns that experience isn’t a prerequisite to success, just as Tiger Woods taught Spieth and Thomas the same lesson years before. 

However, the main reason that Wolff’s victorious performance on Sunday stunned me was I had watched the same player struggle with his swing at the range on Tuesday. That morning, Wolff’s coach George Gankas stressed to Wolff the importance of completing his rotation. Throughout the week Wolff’s caddy, Steve Lohmeyer, echoed this statement to his player right before he would step into a shot.

Witnessing that exchange at the range on Tuesday made my experience on Sunday that much more rewarding, as I saw first-hand a week’s worth of effort translate into a life-changing moment for one of golf’s next superstars. This was one of the many moments that made the week one of the best of my life.

Luckily, I know this newfound access to the players will not go to my head, as next week I will be forced to give it up and once again watch the PGA Tour through my TV screen like the rest of you plebeians fans.

Moving forward though, in all seriousness, spending five days inside the ropes taught me that it’s okay to meet your heroes. They’re not superhuman, they’re flawed human beings, just like the rest of us. This realization made Wolff and Morikawa’s play on Sunday all the more inspiring because I realized that if they could summon the will to reach their potential when it mattered the most, I had run out of excuses to do the same. 

 

(That’s me, there in the green)

2018 Midterms Recap

On the day of the midterm elections, the satirical publication, The Babylon Bee, published an article titled, “Nation Torn Apart By Routine Election Starting To Wonder If Government May Be Too Powerful.”

The headline perfectly captures my feelings following the 2018 midterms: a combination of bemusement and wistfulness. The election was imbued with a sort of artificial sense of importance by many, most of whom fall on the left side of the political spectrum.

Barack Obama, while campaigning for Illinois Democrats days before election day, stated, “…in two days, you get to vote in what might be the most important election of my lifetime, maybe more important than 2008.”

Ironically, Obama said similar things back in 2008 about that presidential election, “This is certainly the most important election in my lifetime- and not just because I’m running.”

That quote could not have sat well with John Kerry, a man who only four years prior had declared that the 2004 presidential election was the most important election of his lifetime.

I have a theory, and while it is admittedly still in the formative stages, I think it could prove fairly accurate moving forward: people have, and always will, make politics sound more important than it really is.

Very few of the problems that are dealt with in D.C. are matters of life and death. And many of the issues that have been given that kind of status (e.g. healthcare, welfare, reproductive rights) come directly as a result of their deepening integration into the federal government.

Each political party thinks the other is a dangerous cocktail of incompetence and malevolence. Both sides wish that the other possessed less power, and the solution to their problems is simple.

But instead of shrinking the government, a move that would shift the influence of the federal government to the state and local level, Republicans and Democrats have let the power of Washington D.C. grow unchecked.

But I digress.

Other than passing the tax cuts, which in fairness was no small victory, the GOP’s control of the House these past two years didn’t lead to all that many policy-related victories. And by all accounts, their agenda for the next two years wasn’t all that ambitious either.

It’s quite plausible that the Democrats seizing control of the House will lead to a healthy next two years for the country. Both sides will get what they want: Republicans will keep green-lighting a steady stream of judicial appointments while the Democrats get to conduct investigations to find the boogeyman they suspect is hiding in Trump’s closet.

The reason that the turnout for this year’s midterms was the highest in over a hundred years was the pervading sense of desperation that gripped liberals. It seems highly likely that the GOP’s control of both the presidency and Congress led to a “crowding-out” effect on half the country.

These past couple years the Democrats weren’t accountable for any of America’s missteps; they had no skin in the game. This allowed them to effectively implement a scorched-earth strategy against the GOP in 2018.

The Democrats did quite well this election. Sure, the number of seats they won wasn’t particularly unusual based on historical trends, but it was undoubtedly a resounding success. However, a fair warning to the left: don’t think that this playbook will work in 2020.

Democrats will likely spend the next two years subpoenaing everyone in sight in a search for Trump’s smoking gun. They’ll pore over his tax returns, investigate his ties to Russia, and do their best to block every item on his agenda in the process.

If you think that this is the best course of action for the left moving forward, you had better hope they find something damning. Because if they don’t, 2020 won’t be the victory lap for them that 2018 was.

Cory Booker and Kamala Harris’ inevitable cries for impeachment are going to get old really quickly, and if they remain unfounded after two years, the Democrats will have no captivating message to give to any voters outside their base.

Congratulations on the win, liberals. Just remember, the clock is ticking.

The Cost of Accosting Acosta

Throughout the entirety of the 2016 presidential election cycle, Ben Shapiro often referred to Donald Trump as “a hammer who sometimes hits a nail and sometimes hits a kitten.” This has always struck me a perfect metaphor for the president, a man who has never made subtlety and nuance his calling cards.

However, the fact that Trump clubs everything in sight can sometimes make it difficult to distinguish whether the target deserved its punishment.

Enter Jim Acosta. On November 7th, the reporter went toe-to-toe with the president during the post-midterms press conference at the White House. Acosta grilled Trump on his decision to send troops to the border in response to the migrant caravan, asking why the president had chosen to “demonize” immigrants.

Trump responded by telling Acosta that he should “let me run the country” and Acosta “should run CNN.”

The president also told the reporter, “You are a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible, and the way you treat other people is horrible. You shouldn’t treat people that way.”

Only hours after the press conference ended, the White House revoked Acosta’s credentials. Less than a week later, CNN retaliated by filing a lawsuit against the fine folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Writing about Jim Acosta creates a sort of paradox: the man does whatever it takes to grab as much attention as possible, so writing hit-pieces about the guy, while completely warranted, gives him exactly what he wants.

Acosta’s entire schtick is obnoxious self-aggrandizement (even the New York Times described him as a “showboat”), but Trump’s decision to revoke his credentials was the not a strategically sound play. Some of the president’s worst rhetoric is his “the press is the enemy of the people” routine, and all that this move does is throw gasoline on that fire.

Jim Acosta has done more than enough to merit a ban from White House press conferences, but Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut has turned the loathsome reporter into a martyr.

The smart move would have been to keep Acosta around solely for the purpose of smacking him around whenever he stepped out of line. Every word Trump that said about the reporter was true, and Acosta never fails to provide the president with new material to use in his oft-justified rants about fake news.

One thing Trump excels at is dominating a room, and a guy like Acosta stands no chance against the master. The CNN reporter’s ego repeatedly writes checks his body can’t cash, and his incredible thirst for the spotlight means he’ll never back down from Trump – even when it’s obvious he should retreat.

If the courts rule in CNN’s favor, as it appears they will, Trump will undoubtedly escalate his war with the network. The president refuses to get punked, especially by a low-life like Acosta, and he won’t accept the ruling lying down.

This goes back to why the decision to remove Acosta was a mistake in the first place: Trump is now overexposed. The more bombastic his rhetoric gets, the more the media can credibly play the “unhinged” card against him.

It doesn’t matter if Trump’s gripes are justified, a guy can only get away with so much screaming before the soccer moms in Fort Worth start to get a little fatigued. One only has to look at the turnout for this year’s midterms to realize that for Trump to win re-election, has to exceed his results in 2016.

If he plans on pulling that off, Trump has to start thinking about how he can start building coalitions on his side instead of blowing up everything in sight on the other side. That is going to take a little more restraint, which to be fair, is quite the ask when dealing with a twit like Jim Acosta.

The President’s Blind Spot

Just over five weeks ago, a caravan of roughly 7,000 Central American immigrants departed from Honduras. This event has become an avatar for President Trump, and he is pressing the advantage on what he views as a winning issue for Republicans.

The Wall™ was the signature policy proposal of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and despite the southern border still remaining conspicuously wall-free, immigration is still the issue that Trump most consistently hits on in public speeches.

On Monday, October 29th, President Trump pledged to send over 5,000 troops to the border to prevent migrants from crossing into the United States illegally. These troops will join the 2,100 members of the National Guard sent by Trump in April to prevent a similar caravan that formed earlier this year.

The same day he announced the deployment of additional troops to the border, Trump tweeted, “Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border… This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”

As he is wont to do, Trump undermined his justified actions by making irresponsible comments.

This isn’t that difficult. Trump can enforce the law without turning the outrage dial up to ten.

Of course, our border must be enforced. Allowing illegal immigrants to flood into the country en masse is unacceptable, and America can’t tolerate it. However, Trump’s inability to show even a shred of empathy damages the messaging surrounding his immigration policies.

It is a virtual certainty there are some bad characters in the caravan of 7,000 en route to the US. However, Trump consistently paints immigrants with a cynically broad brush. This attitude does him no favors in America, where 75% of citizens think immigration is a good thing for the country.

Again, Trump’s policy measures on immigration are entirely defensible. The problem occurs when his needlessly provocative rhetoric leads to his words speaking louder than his actions.

And of course, the media often treats him unfairly. For evidence of that, just look at the way Trump was pilloried for enforcing the same child separation policies that President Barack Obama did during his two terms.

I’m not claiming that the media would treat Trump much differently if he adopted an elder statesman persona. He’s going to get eaten alive regardless of his demeanor or tone, but that doesn’t mean he has to hand the hyenas red meat every time he gives a speech.

If Trump wants to convince people outside the MAGA-sphere to support him on immigration, he would do well to, at the very least, respect the sheer will and courage it takes to embark on a 1,000-mile journey in the hope of a finding a better life.

This isn’t to say that the Democrats’ immigration stance is better than Trump’s. No, it is much worse.

Democrats often trot out the “America is a nation of immigrants” talking point, but this is nothing more than disingenuous preening. They can claim no moral high ground in this arena.

The early immigrants from Europe had no social safety nets to support them if they failed in the new world. Success was solely based on hard work.

That isn’t to say that every illegal immigrant today is looking for a handout, I’m just saying that the immigrants America should accept won’t need one.

The Democratic party’s widespread support of policies like amnesty and free healthcare for illegal aliens exposes their misunderstanding of the spirit that motivated the immigrants that helped build America.

That spirit is self-evident in reading about the late Peter Schramm, an author and academic born in 1946 Hungary. He told his story in an academic article in 2006.

Schramm’s family faced incredible hardship after the communists took control of Hungary in 1949. That same year, Schramm’s grandfather was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for the crime of owning a small American flag.

Peter’s grandfather managed to secure an early release and rejoin the family in 1956. Shortly after this, a hand grenade landed directly next to Peter’s father while walking home from the grocery store.

Miraculously, the grenade did not go off, but Schramm’s father decided that it was time for the family to flee the country.

Schramm’s mother would only relent to the move with the consent of 10-year-old Peter. Schramm writes, “…I told my father I would follow him to hell if he asked it of me. Fortunately for my eager spirit, hell was exactly what we were trying to escape and the opposite of what my father sought.”

Schramm’s father then told his son that they were heading to the United States. When Peter asked why, his father replied, “Because, son. We were born American, but in the wrong place.”

That story captures what the president is missing from his rhetoric on immigration. A strong border is necessary to maintain the integrity of a just immigration system, but to gain widespread support for his policies, Trump must also grasp that the American Dream isn’t restricted by walls or borders.

The Establishment Strikes Back

One of the main appeals to Donald Trump’s presidential run was his supposed status as an anti-establishment figure. And whether you buy into that narrative or not in 2016, Trump’s relationship with the GOP establishment has undeniably had its peaks and valleys these past few years.  

In May of 2016, Lindsey Graham tweeted, “I also cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump because I do not believe he is a reliable Republican conservative nor has he displayed the judgment and temperament to serve as Commander in Chief.”

While Mitch McConnell eventually ended up supporting Trump’s nomination, he stated at one point in the campaign that if the former real estate mogul was nominated the party would “drop him like a hot rock.”

After all the past hostility showed by Graham and McConnell towards Donald Trump, who would have guessed that those men would play two of the biggest roles in backing the president’s most controversial move?

During the final Brett Kavanaugh hearing, Graham flipped the momentum of the entire confirmation process with a 4.5-minute speech/rant/soliloquy that electrified the proceedings. The South Carolina Senator attacked the Democrats sitting on the Judiciary Committee as a group, but Graham aimed his harshest words in Senator Dianne Feinstein’s direction.

“If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020… Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham. That you knew about it and you held it. You had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford; none.”

Just after Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh were made public, a New York Times report stated that President Trump met with Mitch McConnell to gauge how determined the Senate Majority Leader was to confirm the judge. According to that same report, McConnell told Trump that when it comes to Kavanaugh, “I’m stronger than mule piss.”

Only moments after Kavanaugh was officially sworn in, McConnell took center stage on the Senate floor and wasted no time advancing several more of Trump’s judicial nominees. For those not yet aware, Cocaine Mitch plays for keeps.

Even though Republicans have taken their lumps politically in recent months, the coalition that was forged through the fire of the Kavanaugh confirmation is an encouraging sign for the future.

Donald Trump rose above the crowded 2016 presidential field due in large part to his “outsider” perspective. However, in order to get reelected, he’ll need to adopt a different strategy.

In 2020, the Democratic Party will throw the kitchen sink at Donald Trump. If they run Biden, as I suspect they will, Trump can’t afford to face any notable #resistance from his own party.

Despite the amount of buzz surrounding a potential Ben Sasse primary bid, I doubt that the Nebraska Senator will end up challenging Trump in 2020. Sasse has the potential to be a formidable candidate in 2024 and alienating the MAGA crowd would crush his chances post-Trump.

John Kasich, on the other hand, has a big enough ego that the blowback from a primary challenge will only bolster his deluded sense of self-worth. Expect America’s least-favorite Son of a Mailman™ to run in 2020.

Obviously, Trump will win the GOP’s nomination comfortably, but it is imperative that he doesn’t allow himself to get wounded by any “friendly fire” in the process. Biden will be a stout opponent, and the president can’t afford any unforced errors.

This illustrates why Trump’s tentative alliance with the establishment is so crucial; politics is a team sport, and maintaining Graham and McConnell’s support will pay big dividends down the road.