From Tom
Is there that much difference in distance performance between brands?
Tom-
While this may have been rhetorical in the comments, I got this question from several you in one variation or another. (Side note: You guys and gals were aces in the comments this week. It was a record-setting week since the paywall was erected and enforced. Side questions on the side note: Rushmore of normal words that make normal grown men giggle like middle schoolers? Does 'erected' make it, because Uranus is the Brady of this discussion, no?)
Where were we? Oh yes, golf equipment.
Starting point. At one time in my life, I was pretty decent at golf, like a mid-single-digit handicapper. That means I would routine shoot in the 70s but that was my apex. At that time in my life I became 100-percent Titleist committed. Still am.
That said, with as infrequently as I play these days - and with my 11-year-old Titleist driver and my 15-year-old Titleist irons - I have little business buying the elite - and super expensive - golf balls like the Pro-V1 or the Pro-V1x.
I don't have enough game to make the most out of those, nor do I have the consistency to limit the overreacting bad outcomes on miscues.
The technology in golf balls is not unlike serious car drivers getting serious performance cars. If you are taking the kids to school and going to Food City for groceries, you don't need 0-to-60 in 4.1 seconds.
Same with most golf equipment.
That said, the blowback from the players is 100 percent about sponsorship coin, because remember back less than a decade ago and golf reduced the science that was making wedge shots near impossibly accurate and increasing spin with the grooves on the clubs.
That change was made to level scores and two protect par, because these courses, especially the old ones, can't keep adding distance. There's just not that much room.
Well the players didn't utter more than a peep on those. Why, because chicks - and weekend hackers - love the long ball. And longer balls. (Wait, strike that.)
From a slew of you
Who you got Sunday?
Gang-
I am riding with the Bucs primarily because that was my pick before the season, and why change now. In a 2020 that no one could have predicted, and a year in which my predictions were record-settingly blah-tastic, that would be some finish.
That said, considering the parts of the above thought, that likely means Chiefs 28-4. But the side, especially at an even 3, is one of the last bets on the board I would support.
I love most if not all of the Leonard Fournette props. I'm all in on the Kelce and Hill props. I like Vaders selections of Patriots and Belichick references going whatever the line is.
My SB contest entry, and if you'd like to play, email your best guesses to the following Super Bowl props to me at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com
- Primary color of Jim Nantz tie (Blue is the favorite); Blue
- Length of the national anthem, over/under 120.5 seconds; Under
- Head or tails; Heads (and the amount of action on this is staggering to me because it's over in the blink of an eye).
- Player to score the first TD; Mike Evans
- Longest play over/under 44.5 yards; Over
- MVP; Mahomes
- Spread, Chiefs minus-3.5; Bucs
- Total yards combined, over/under 765.5: Over
- Total points scored, over/under 56.5: Over
Who's in?
As for the Rushmores:
Rushmore of Soups: Had to split this one into general soup and actual soup. There's Soupy Sales, "What's your Soup de Jour?" exchange in Dumb and Dumber, and of course "No soup for you" from Seinfeld which leaves out Bannon's classic praise for the soup at Mindy's. "The best, Jerry. The BEST." Actual soup: Vegetable, Chicken noodle (made some homemade chicken noodle this week, and now with my afternoons free, my cooking has picked up speed. Also made shrimp tacos and chicken piccata for dinners this week. The C-N soup may not have been quite as good as Mindy's but it was pretty excellent. Highly recommend two things when making chicken noodle soup: First, remember the order and do not short-change on the amount of chicken you use or it becomes noodle soup with chicken. Nowhere close to as good. Second, I use egg noodles and it adds a nice flavor.)
Rushmore of female doctors from TV and movies. Dr. Melfie from the Sopranos, Meredith Grey from Grey's Anatomy, Dana Scully from X-Files, Lisa Cuddy from House, and yes, it was tough to leave Dr. Quinn off and a slew of folks from ER and a lot of other candidates from Grey's Anatomy.
Rushmore of '2' and be creative: Godfather 2, the internet meme with the kid tipping his RE2PECT hat, I liked Chaz' Desmond Tutu, and it takes two to tango. Apologies to two-a-days, too. And one of the big-brained readers noted that 2/2 was on a Tuesday, or better yet a Twosday. That'll do.
From Chas
Did you see the Joe Montana/Guinness Super Bowl ad with the GOAT theme? Guinness is the GOAT in its category, but is Joe? Isn't it tricky business swimming in those waters?
Chas-
There were a lot of open-ended questions in the 5-at-10 this week - when you close in on 100 comments, that'll happen - but this one made me think.No not about that black bitterness you guys call Guinness, but about Joe Montana.
And it's no fault of his own, because Montana was great and cool and won on a historic scale for every QB not named Brady.
But our prisms have changed and who you play/played with and for now alters legacies from Bradshaw to Brady, and Montana is hurt by those realizations.
I have maintained Brady as the GOAT, and have always said that Brady over Manning is like MJ over LeBron in that the formers have more titles but you can make every argument that the latter were better in the eye test.
But Brady's march to another Super Bowl in a different gown, and if he wins a 7th with a different team, well, as D-Day said in Animal House, "Game's over man. Werner dropped the big one."
I think Montana makes the Rushmore, of accomplishments, but as cool and calm and accurate as he was, setting matters. Is Montana one of the four best you've ever seen do this? I don't think so, and if you have the greatest offensive innovator of all-time calling plays and your throwing to the greatest non-QB of all-time (if you want to say Jim Brown, you have a point too) and play with the best safety of all-time, well, it's hard to fathom.
Thoughts, and yes, these are shark-filled waters.
From Stephen
Tell us more Jay about the new face of country music.
Stephen-
I sense your sarcasm and innuendo even through the toneless platform that is social media. And that is fine.
And that's OK. We had a question about Morgan Wallen two weeks ago today and that's when I called him the new face of country music. Sunday night, Wallen's career came to a screeching halt when he was caught on a phone video dropping the N-bomb and several other cheek-blushing curse words.
I think his music is great, but this is just reminder 13,072 that we may think we know celebrities, athletes and performers we enjoy, but we don't.
And in truth, what we said earlier this week is the cleanest way to put it. The Oxford Dictionary has more than 273,000 words. That one never needs to be used by a white person. Ever. All the other obscene phrases and words - and what is clearly the intent of Wallen to have one of his buddies put hands on the driver of the car - are certainly not appropriate, but that one is next-level nuclear.
(And what Vader added earlier this week is also true, this is not about free speech or a double standard - if Blacks want to use it, fine - or even cancel culture. This is about nothing a clear and distinct line and Edwin Moses-style hurdling over it.)
And the juxtaposition for a guy who has a hit song "Live The Way I Talk" well, you can't make stuff like that up.
That said, the next chapter on this is an intriguing to me as Wallen's rant was offensive to almost all of us.
Could this be a career ender? I don't know, maybe. More importantly, should it be a career ender? Again, I don't know, but it's hard to think someone with Wallen's talent and success - last week he had five of the top 20 songs on the charts across all music and was the Dr. J of downloads - getting completely shunned.
I mean look across the sports, acting, celebrity scale and the only complete career killers have been Kevin Spacey and his unspeakable acts with young makes and Ray Rice being caught on film punching his future wife in an Atlantic City elevator. (And you can make a hard argument that the NFL, with its history of second-, third- and forever-chances to dudes who can play, was more worried about Rice's slowing 40 time and dropping yards per carry than his right hook.)
Thoughts?
Enjoy the weekend, the game and be safe friends. If you go to a Super Bowl gathering - I wrote a little about that today on A2 - be smart and safe.
And remember the Props contest.
Jay Greeson