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. . .
Also, a Return
to the Bad Place —
and I Don’t Mean Oakmont
Current in-brain background music:
“Dublin Blues,” Guy Clark
Can check:
Interdimensional Awareness IPA, Black Mountain Brewing
“I wish I was in Austin, mm hmm
In the Chili Parlor Bar
Drinking Mad Dog margaritas
And not caring where you are.”
But I’m not in Austin. The entire Lying Four staff is spending the week at its palatial western North Carolina bureau, complete (or incomplete, as it were) with no central A/C and a VHS library including copies of “Death Becomes Her” and “Patriot Games.” If you’re not a white guy in his mid-40s, then maybe that doesn’t sound like a good time, but then you’d be young and foolish. There are only about 70 breweries within an hour’s drive — including Black Mountain Brewing, down the hill from the Cousins Cuban Cafe in downtown Black Mountain, N.C., where the first round of the U.S. Open finds me.
Just for Men spokesman J.J. Spaun shot a 4-under 66. Texas governor Si Woo Kim is two shots behind. NCAA individual champ Michael La Sasso, in true form for an Ole Miss student, turned in a 75 and called it a success. And La Sasso’s fellow SEC alum Scottie Scheffler has two bogeys in his first four holes, so now he’ll probably win by only six or seven shots.
I can’t say the U.S. Open is my favorite golf tournament, but it’s certainly a great golf watch. Any event that spent 30 years traumatizing Phil Mickelson is alright with me. The players don’t bitch as much about it as they used to, which means it’s not as good a tournament as it used to be. But if watching overpaid snowflakes whine about the height of grass sounds like a fun time, then you could do worse. Oakmont looks fun, in the same way that Heath Ledger’s Joker laughed his ass off while Batman beat the shit out of him.
Speaking of senseless evil, I saddled up and rode back into Twitter today. (I’m not calling it the other thing.) Follow me at @lyingfour — or don’t, if Nazis and Clay Travis aren’t your thing. (But I repeat myself.) I can’t say I’m looking forward to the fullTwitter experience, but I have missed the demented Golf Twitter crowd. To the certain chagrin of my 15,000-ish followers, I deleted my original account about six months ago, after [gestures wildly at the last eight months of American history]. And I don’t mean paused, I mean deleted. I found a seat at Bluesky and figured that’d be that.
It hasn’t exactly lived up to the billing. Don’t get me wrong, Bluesky has its advantages. It’s basically Twitter 1.0 all over again. For one thing, there are fewer white nationalists. For another…well, that’s about it, really. Bluesky also doesn’t have much of a golf-centric community; there’s Garrett Morrison, Alex Kirshner, and three or four others. That’s about it. There’s certainly no one desperate enough to entertain subscribing to this periodical. For that level of desperation, Golf Twitter is unmatched. As always, that group’s commentary during this major tournament has been a joy. I hope to watch just enough of the tournament, and not a second more, to understand the inside jokes.
Besides, I’ve got shit to do. Friday is my last day in Appalachia before driving 10 hours back toward temperatures in the low 90s and godless levels of humidity. I’ll stop along the way in Atlanta for Saturday’s tilt between the Braves and the Rockies. Spencer Strider is scheduled to pitch for Atlanta, and besides Kris Bryant, I couldn’t name anyone on Colorado’s roster. Is Dante Bichette still playing? If so, Dante Bichette.
Anyway, golf. I just switched over from the joyless trio of Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, and Min Woo Lee to the insane asylum of Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, and Dustin Johnson. Among the three of them, one of them has been an accomplice to murder, and the other two are probably waiting for statutes of limitations to run on six or seven various torts. And if the first five holes are any indication, DJ will be lucky to get through Friday without a tee shot leading to a wrongful death lawsuit.
Just now, the half-cloudy, half-sunny North Carolina sky is starting to rain, and DJ just pitched out of the lefthand rough into the righthand rough. It’s probably time for another beer.
. . .
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