Friday Foliage
It's Masters Week, y'all. Get into it.
The collection of random thoughts for Friday is back. By the time you read this, it will be the second day of The Masters, probably the biggest golf tournament in the world. Suddenly, golf fans all over will be sporting pinks and greens in their wardrobe, developing a fondness for pimento cheese and peach ice cream, and watching as much coverage as they can possibly consume.
Please indulge us.
I was having an online discussion about Bandon Dunes (I know, this is SHOCKING news, and I’ll give you a moment to regroup) and I quoted this article where Matt Ginella, head of the FirePit Collective and general golf charlatan, says about the Bandon Dunes course that “It’s the OG, and for me that matters.” And the best response I got was about how WE NEED TO STOP CALLING THINGS THE OG. I completely subscribe to this - the original usage of this literally meant “Original Gangster” and when you use it in a golf context - or, honestly, almost any context, you sound like a complete maroon. The Urban Dictionary gives a bunch of definitions that somewhat explain its usage, but it’s idiotic. Let’s all stand together and stop using this - unless we’re talking about an original member of a street gang. (And I honestly have NO reason to be talking about that.)
I gotta say, when ICE-T made this album, he for sure anticipated folks using this phrase to describe the original Bandon Dunes golf course. Yup. I find it WAY too humorous that the ChatGPT website makes you authenticate to prove you are a human. That is all.
Speaking of The Masters, my friend Fareed asked this question and … I can’t believe we don’t know who is behind the best sports website AND the best sports application, bar none.
Just check out the website (this is a breakdown of hole 3, but of course they do all 18 holes this way). They also air the tournament live (despite getting paid for the broadcast too) and it’s brilliant. They have a “natural sounds” which takes the announcers off the broadcast. Like, literally anything you might want as a golf fan? They have it. Oh, did I mention they track and film LITERALLY every shot taken on the course? They do that.
Two shows that got popular during COVID that couldn’t be more polar opposites, Succession and Ted Lasso, are both finishing up their final seasons. To me, Succession (only two episodes in) feels very much a continuation of the same tone, same story and I’m eager to see how it wraps up. Ted Lasso, on the other hand, feels like it’s trying to be something else - and it’s a good thing, a treatise on the importance of mental health. But it’s not … what we signed up for. The show episodes are almost an hour now, which feels entirely too much, and Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), three years into his role as a coach of a soccer team, not only seems to know LESS this year than in prior years but constantly asks whether it’s idiotic that he’s still out in London doing this. Well, since you asked … yes.
I’ll keep watching, and it also will stun me if Apple+ doesn’t find some way to NOT end it this year and/or create a few unnecessary spinoffs, but it feels like an unwieldy mess right now. Too many story lines, none of which I think make a ton of sense (or if they do, they’re stories we’ve already in theory gotten some resolution to in prior seasons). I’ve only seen three episodes but … it’s discouraging.
Yr like an OG blogger