Opinion & Analysis
Q&A: The man who started No Laying Up and #toursauce
At times, professional golf can be a humorless enterprise, and the coverage of the sport usually follows suit. That’s where No Laying Up comes in.
A Twitter account started two years ago as well as a golf website that mainly began in 2014, No Laying Up has risen into the consciousness as a funny and witty alternative to a sometimes subdued golf media. You can find the hilarious stream of golf thoughts –especially during live tournament action — on its Twitter account @NoLayingUp.
The No Laying Up group, a team of a few golf fanatics, also prides itself on finding fresh angles on golf coverage in its website writing. The greatest example in that regard would be Tour Sauce. No Laying Up’s own invention, Tour Sauce refers to a list of actions on a golf course that only Tour pros can do without looking ridiculous. No Laying Up released Tour Sauce to the world in a magnificent four-part series (here’s Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV) and it has caught on as a Twitter phenomenon with #TourSauce. Additionally, No Laying Up coined the popular #PrayForTedScott on Twitter.
Chris Solomon, a No Laying Up co-founder and the man in charge of its Twitter account, stopped to chat with GolfWRX’s Kevin Casey about No Laying Up’s origins, its place in golf media, some #PrayForTedScott, and, of course, heaps and heaps of #TourSauce.
Kevin Casey: You guys are called No Laying Up and Zach Johnson is famous for doing the opposite, so you are pretty vocal against him on Twitter. How are you feeling after Johnson won The Open?
No Laying Up: There’s categories of guys I don’t like. Bubba and Poulter are in a class of their own. Those are really guys I just can’t stand. I wouldn’t say my dislike for Zach Johnson is nearly as justified as it is for those two. It’s really not personal with Johnson at all, I just don’t like his style of golf. You can’t win the Masters laying-up on every par-5. We celebrate the guys who have bigger personalities and have more firepower to the game. So that’s why I wasn’t excited to see Johnson win the Open.
KC: No Laying Up is never shy to call out players, with Bubba and Poulter being the primary examples. But, as you said, it’s tougher to justify with Johnson. It seemed like there were some who attacked you on Twitter for your Zach comments.
NLU: I wouldn’t really say attacks, just some people were kind of surprised at how much I was hating on him Monday. But it can’t be that hard to understand, really. Plus, I have no idea what we did to get blocked by him on Twitter and that fueled it a lot more than our hate caused it. I’m not even sure what it was, but it must have been the thinnest-skinned thing in the world, because I don’t remember tweeting at him ever and then just finding out one day that he blocked us. It took Poulter an embarrassingly long time to block us. Ted Scott definitely blocked us. Steve Elkington, Brandel Chamblee and Tim Rosaforte have also blocked us. Bubba has not blocked us yet though! I commend him for it; I don’t know how he hasn’t at this point.
KC: You jokingly tweeted that you wear Johnson’s block as a “Badge of Honor.” Is there anyone who blocked you that you seriously feel that way about?
NLU: Yeah, Poulter. I was trying to earn that one. That one was completely justified. The rest of them are for thin-skinned stuff, but I worked on Poulter for a year-and-a-half and that’s one I’m pretty proud of.
KC: You’ve detailed it before, but can you go through the origins of No Laying Up?
NLU: Me and a couple of buddies, who go by the aliases Tron Carter and Big Randy, always had a group text message for many, many years talking sports, mostly golf. Some of the things my buddies came up with were just too funny to keep harnessed in our little group. The whole time with the stuff they were coming up with I was like, “We need to get this on a website, we need to do a blog.” Finally, I said enough of this and I just made the Twitter account one day. I didn’t even put any thought into the name. I just made the Twitter account, gave those two the password and I was like “Let’s try this.” We did it for a while, shared the account and just got bored with it after a year. And we were like, “We should really do something with this.” So last January we bought the domain and the four of us (including Neil at that point) started the website and decided to see if we could do some real analysis. It’s hard to get credibility on Twitter if you’re just tweeting dumb stuff all day. If you can back it up with a chance to show that you have some golf knowledge as well, it works better.
KC: So you wanted to start this to get that funny content out there, but golf coverage can be a little dry at times. Was the idea of getting this alternative out there also a factor?
NLU: Definitely. We’re big fans of Spencer Hall and Ryan Nanni from Every Day Should Be Saturday, so that was our inspiration from the get go. Every time we write or do something on the website, our goal is for it to be something you can’t find anywhere else. Golf.com, Golf Digest and these websites will all have this same story, like some slideshow of Rickie Fowler’s girlfriend the day after he wins. We don’t want to be doing stuff that everybody else is doing. We’re not really inspired by traffic numbers; we don’t have advertisements. If 50 people read a piece and love it, we’d prefer that over 5,000 people reading it and being indifferent.
KC: When you guys first started the website, did you have any structure planned out?
NLU: We had a basic structure of we wanted to do a preview and a recap for every week. We’ve kind of axed the recap because it’s a lot harder to do a recap and not generalize everything. The previews are a lot harder to do than they look because it’s difficult to find fresh new nuggets about something like the Wells Fargo Championship. So we did have that structure in place and trying to do features once a week. But with full-time jobs on top of this, it’s hard to sit down at night and pound something out when we’ve got other stuff going on and me living on the other side of the globe in Amsterdam. That was the structure, but we also threw a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what stuck. It’s always about finding a fresh angle and it’s hard to think creatively like that full time.
KC: You guys are kind of a counterculture outlet for golf. How much do you think there is a market for that audience-wise?
NLU: It’s pretty obvious that there is a space for this. Just to see how much this counterculture has grown in this last 1.5 to 2 years is great. I think a lot of us counterculture people are based on Twitter, while a lot of golf media types are website-based. They use Twitter to interface, but their job is to write. For us it’s more about having fun on Twitter and finding like-minded people to talk golf with. That’s where I spend most of my time and people on Twitter want more to be entertained than to talk serious golf all of the time. I love going on Twitter to see people’s reactions to shots in the moment. So there’s a space for this, but I mean it’s not paying the bills. I don’t have an interest in becoming a full-time golf writer and following the Tour week-to-week and pounding out deadlines. The reason golf writers have to produce all of this Tiger and click bait stuff is because that’s what pays the bills. They’re being judged by how many people go to the website and they’re balancing the line between journalism and trying to get clicks and that’s why we’re able to operate in the function we do. If we were revenue-based, we would be doing the same thing.
KC: So we need to talk about #TourSauce. Can you briefly describe how you guys came up with this concept?
NLU: It was something that my buddies and I would do on the golf course. We knew each other and our games really well and had really great matches, improved a lot over the years. We just started thinking we were better than we were. It was to the point that we were rooting for a 65 degree day when we could justify wearing pants, which is an example of Tour Sauce. It snowballed into you hit a good shot and your buddy says nice shot and instead of saying thank you, you give a tip of the hat. And we kept one-upping each other and it would turn into this hilarious side game of who could pull it off the best. It kept going and going until finally we were like, “We have to get this on paper.”
KC: You guys have done a lot of these Tour Sauce moves yourself, but some are really crazy. Like have you ever actually acted out “The Apology?”
NLU: I’ve never seen that one done. But we did have someone tweet us a picture once of hitting a ball into someone’s yard and they signed their glove and left it on their fencepost. Also, one of my friends won the member-guest at his club and after he sank the winning putt on the 18th green, his two little kids ran out onto the green and greeted him, and his wife came out and kissed him. And to top it off, he took out the flag and took it home with him. It’s funny because my mom’s totally in on it now. My dad was playing in the same member-guest this past week, and he was in second place going into the last day and she was like, “I’ve got my high-heeled boots on and I’m ready to run onto the green if he wins.”
KC: You and Kyle Porter did a Tour Sauce Power Rankings. What pros do you think have the most underrated Tour Sauce games?
NLU: [Justin] Rose was the first guy who came up there. Patrick Reed isn’t an underrated Tour Sauce guy; he’s one of the sauciest guys out there. Sergio can be really saucy, too. He’s never happy with a shot; he’s always leaning and can be pouty. Keegan Bradley can be very saucy — when he misses a putt it looks like he just found out his dog died. He’s basically got his own Tour Sauce category too with his pre-shot routine. Phil can get really saucy with how analytical he gets on a lot of his shots. Everyone has their own flavor of Tour Sauce.
KC: So #PrayForTedScott. We know its origins, but you actually first used the hashtag during last year’s Open Championship. Did you in any way expect the avalanche that followed after you first used the hashtag?
NLU: I remember some catastrophic event had happened somewhat recently and I had remembered seeing “Pray For.” But it was far enough away from that event that I felt OK making the hashtag. It was meant to be a joke about Ted being in danger because of the way Bubba treated him. I just did it and it took on a life of its own. It’s so ridiculous in a way because it all stems from that one Travelers incident. Bubba doesn’t really yell at his caddy and he’s not really hard on him, but it will always be funny to me to keep that line of jokes going forever. At the same time, I’ve never seen a player do that to a caddy, at least on camera.
KC: Did you get any DMs about #PrayForTedScott?
NLU: I’ve gotten a few messages like, “You’re doing God’s work right now.” A few of them are from players. The funniest to me is which players will favorite an anti-Bubba tweet, which is public for people to see. And you can tell right there, OK, that guy doesn’t like Bubba.
KC: No Laying Up had an excellent podcast a couple of months ago with Justin Thomas as a guest. I’m curious how did that come about?
NLU: He started following us back in January or February and he would favorite a tweet and message us here or there. I just shot him a DM and asked him if he was interested in doing a podcast and he was down to do it. I think he appreciates the golf counterculture. He knew I wasn’t going to ask him about Spieth and run through the same narratives and everything.
KC: It seems like you’ve kept in contact with Thomas, too, as well as other Tour Sauce fans Billy Horschel and Scott Langley.
NLU: We’ll exchange messages from time to time. It’s funny, some players will DM me random things that they can’t say in public. I have some screenshots I would never take or send that would be very interesting on Twitter. It’s cool that Twitter gives you the opportunity to develop relationships with these guys. They can appreciate somebody who tells it like it is. But at the same time, Horschel is friends with Poulter, so he probably hates my Poulter stuff. I protect the guys we’re friends with. I don’t call out Thomas or Horschel on Twitter. I can definitely be criticized for being hypocritical when it comes to the guys I like. I’m very soft on them on Twitter.
KC: Are there any guys who lay up too much who aren’t really contending at the moment that you dislike?
NLU: There are certain things about guys where I’m like I’m out on you. Like, Will Wilcox, you can’t play with a yellow ball, get that off my screen. For Johnson and some of those short-hitters, the whole mindset of No Laying Up is not that you’re not allowed to lay up. When Sergio laid up on 17 at the BMW last year from like 223 yards, he can get on from anywhere he wants to, but he played with fear and laid up. That’s the kind of thing I’m most against. I’m not advising golfers to play outside their ability. It’s just that I love the guys who will go for it and be aggressive.
KC: What are your favorite Tour Sauce moments of 2015 thus far?
NLU: Probably the entire montage of Spieth yelling at his ball at the Masters. Kevin Na comes to mind on No. 17 at Sawgrass when he did the club throw and he hit it to 5 feet. Spieth also did that at Colonial when he hit it to 15 feet on the 72nd hole. Living in Amsterdam it’s tough to watch a lot of golf, so I’ve been relying on people to report Tour Sauce to me.
KC: Are there any new Tour Sauce moves you’ve noticed since writing that series?
NLU: Some will pop up. A caddy will stand over a putt with the pin behind his back, as if he’s going to putt it. If you’re my partner and you’re lining up a putt from behind the hole, I go stand over your putt as if I’m the caddy and I’m going to putt it. Another one is when you hit a shot into a blind green and you think it’s really good but there’s no applause from up around the green, you can act confused as to why there wasn’t an ovation.
KC: You’ve said that Tiger kind of invented Tour Sauce, but have you ever looked at players from previous generations in regards to purveyors of Tour Sauce?
NLU: It’s funny to go back and look at and see the old highlights from the 70s and you see guys doing the spike mark blame. Nicklaus in ’86 when he missed the putt on No. 12, he tapped down a spike mark immediately. So people always get that to me. Jack had some premature tee grab sauce for sure and he was also the purveyor of the hike-up-the-pant-leg-before-getting-the-ball-out-of-the-hole. I think he basically invented that. Palmer had all of the leaning going on and the follow through finishes and what not. Tour Sauce is not new, it’s always been there.
KC: No Laying Up is a big fan of a lot of these younger guns. I know this is a long-term projection, but how many majors do you think Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth each end up with?
NLU: This was a question I floated to Shane Bacon a while ago: Between Rory and Spieth, do they beat Nicklaus’ 18 majors? I’m confident they’ll beat Tiger’s, but I’m less sure on Nicklaus. I’ll say they each win six more majors; Rory wins 10 and Spieth wins 8. No one will ever remember to look back at that prediction, so it’s the safest one you can make. But overall, I think this will be an unbelievable rivalry for the next 10 years. It’s impossible to put into words how amazing the state of the game is.
KC: What is the future of No Laying Up?
NLU: We would love to redesign the site; we just haven’t gotten the time to actually sit down and do it. We had one design and redesigned it to what it currently is like a month later and we haven’t touched it since. I would love for the site to look a little cleaner, a little better. We have some new merchandise coming out; we’re trying to perfect the shipping and all of that process. We would love to have some towels and pullovers in the pro shop. I come up with ideas all of the time, and then I sit down to write and hate what I write. I have an arsenal of unpublished drafts. I’d like to pick the podcast game back up, but we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.
I wish my other friends with No Laying Up just had more free time because when they write, it’s some funny and really good stuff. If they had the time to dedicate to it, the website would really be something.
As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.
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Scott
Jul 28, 2015 at 3:58 pm
NLU is a pretty funny site. I could not stop laughing at the Toursauce articles
John
Jul 27, 2015 at 8:49 pm
I am 59 years old and I think NLU is really funny. It’s a game people, not a religion. Of course the problem, Kevin, is most of the knuckleheads on here either have no sense of humor, or are so full of tour sauce that it’s impossible for them to laugh at themselves. Great read.
Oh and by the way, if jerks like Hogan often was wouldn’t like NLU, I’m all for it.
Pingback: What I’m Reading (July 27) – Kyle Porter
No sauce
Jul 26, 2015 at 9:31 pm
Guys talking about tour players sauce sounds really…… (insert the word). Got to be one of the worst sayings so far! Definitely tops the idiots yelling BAABAABOOEY and that is saying something. Keep your talking about tour guys sauce to yourselves.
Patricknorm
Jul 26, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Without naming names , my son is a prominent pro athlete and this is the way they talk all the time. In front of a camera it’s very professional and orderly and polite but off camera and amongst friends this is what they do. When you’re a pro you have a lot of insight into your sport because well, you’ve been doing it at the highest level for 20 years. Pros get bored by the lameness of other players, announcers and team owners.
Let’s face it I like this guy and went to his website, read the articles, the Twitter account and it’s all authentic. Lighten guys ( male and female) it’s 2015 and if you play golf at a fairly high level like I do and play way too much and get way too serious, this is the kick in pants some commenters need.
I been a pro athlete , hung around the guys for close to 40 years and this website is pretty close to telling it like it is. There is luge out side the ropes, lines, arena , etc.
Christosterone
Jul 26, 2015 at 4:45 pm
I think the NLU group of writers are fairly typical of the post 1970 children…I am counted in their ranks sadly.
NLU is a perfect microcosm of this generation….his persistent references that he is not “totally” into it and that he is so ready to point out that he is not full time nor are any of his “writers.”….or that his website is not completed or page views don’t matter or that he is over seas or blah blah blah….basically he is too cool to engage in anything thereby avoiding ownership of failure…or a lack thereof….newsflash NLU, the world is governed by metrics and generally speaking, you are what you earn…with very few exceptions.
NLU’s mentality is typical of people who are afraid of failure…they never fully engage so are never held to the any judgment….he can simply brush aside criticism with the excuse that this is not his full time endeavor…were it to be he would be subject to failure as he would have no excuses…
So, as I stated before, I am proud to engage fully in the pursuit of catching lightning in a bottle on a golf course…
I can never throw on a #23 jersey and drop 63 on Larry Bird at Boston Garden….but I can play Sawgrass and maybe, just maybe drain a 20 foot snake like Tiger in 2001…and that is exciting to me…
Hope this helps explains NLUs polarization…
-Christosterone
Kevin Casey
Jul 28, 2015 at 5:04 pm
I definitely understand where you’re coming from here, Christosterone. I totally get why NLU is polarizing, and each side has valid reasons for standing where they do on this. It in no way confuses me why some people aren’t fans of or outright dislike NLU.
The only thing I’ll say here is that Solomon was pretty honest in why NLU is structured the way it is. As his answer above showed, he is very aware that NLU would be a much tougher endeavor if the goal was to make money off it. As you can see in Solomon’s answers, he’s definitely not a big fan of everything with golf coverage, but he also gets that NLU would probably cover golf in a very similar way as the other sites if making money was a goal. He seems to be fully aware that if he and his friends tried to put all of their effort into making money here, they would fail and/or NLU would lose its character and become like any other golf website.
Maybe I’m reiterating your points, I don’t know. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t see Solomon and NLU using these things as excuses. I think they just understand that NLU works best as it currently is and it really wouldn’t as a full-time money-making venture.
Matthew
Jul 26, 2015 at 3:22 pm
The reason wrxers don’t like NLU is because they’re full of #toursauce and don’t like being made fun of
Christosterone
Jul 26, 2015 at 4:09 pm
I think many of us view the “tour sauce” crowd as being “too cool” to play aspirational golf.
There is a zero chance I could ever be a tour player, though I’m completely excited to throw on a pair of knickers with matching foot joys and tee off at sunup to chase that perfect shot….
And while I may never achieve it, my dream is to occasionally play a hole as well as a pro…I could never dunk a ball from the free throw line like Dr J or throw a 50 yard spiral like Brady….but on rare occasions I will catch magic in a bottle and birdie a hole or hit it to a few feet from a long way out…
And I am ecstatic on those rare occasions….and while these guys view everything through a cynical “ironic” prism, I choose not to….unlike these guys, I am not too cool to celebrate the occasional lucky putt or hope for better shots in spite of the fact I may be 10 over par….
-Christosterone
Dean
Jul 26, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Wow, there are some incredibly humorless people ’round here. I bet some of you are a blast at parties.
NLU is great, and quite funny. I hope they keep it up.
Good article, Kevin. Trust me, some of us “get it.”
Kevin Casey
Jul 26, 2015 at 2:40 pm
Haha thanks, Dean! I don’t have any qualms with people who are against NLU. I’m obviously not one of those people but NLU is not an entity many people feel neutral about.
JH
Jul 26, 2015 at 11:23 am
really golfwrx? these guys are a bunch of dooshcanoes. terrible article.
Spikey
Jul 26, 2015 at 3:24 am
What a bunch of total cnuts
D Louis
Jul 26, 2015 at 2:28 am
This site seems to decline a little more every week with really entertaining, breath taking articles like this
Slimeone
Jul 26, 2015 at 12:32 am
Lame.
Sean
Jul 25, 2015 at 10:29 pm
All that matters in the end is how many. It doesn’t matter how you do it. The scorecard doesn’t care.
Kyle
Jul 25, 2015 at 8:21 pm
The part 1-4 tour sauce articles made my night. Love the tweets keep em going!
Mlecuni
Jul 25, 2015 at 5:45 pm
Anything positive ?
Kevin Casey
Jul 25, 2015 at 6:48 pm
What do you mean?
Mlecuni
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:05 am
I mean that there is more in the game of golf than unfavourable judgments with the only perspective of selling merchandise or make a joke, especialy over a two times major winner.
I dont reconized the golf that my familly, friends and myself love in this article.
So any construtive critisism ?
Kevin Casey
Jul 26, 2015 at 10:20 am
If you didn’t find any positivity in this article, you were not reading very closely. NLU isn’t about always saying unfavorable things. They tell it like it is, positive or negative. The point for them is to have fun. Some of their jokes have a positive connotation, others have a negative one. I certainly understand that NLU isn’t for everybody, but it’s misconstruing it to say that they are always negative.
Gary Gutful
Jul 25, 2015 at 5:21 pm
I lay up all the time.
#OnPar4s
Kevin Casey
Jul 25, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Haha, on a regulation PGA Tour course from the tips, I would have that same problem over and over again.
Steve
Jul 26, 2015 at 7:39 am
Regulation PGA Tour course? What is that? This isnt football or basketball where the dimensions are the same everywhere? You just keep proving your knowledge.
Kevin Casey
Jul 26, 2015 at 10:47 am
I’m curious about this, Steve. Does your dislike for me all stem from that one disagreement we had over the Road Hole? If so, that is really strange and petty. People disagree all the time, there’s no way to have any lasting friends if every time you don’t see eye-to-eye with someone on one issue you treat them as a new enemy.
But that’s just one option. I feel what’s more likely is that you’ve disliked me for a long time, and it first bubbled up in comments on the Road Hole argument. I can understand this option far more than the first one. But yeah, I am legitimately curious which one of these strikes closer to the truth.
Anyway, all I meant by regulation was your average PGA Tour course. They’re obviously not all the same, but they all tend to be far longer than the courses I play (where the tips are maybe 6,600 or 6,700 yards at most) and have much more trouble (narrower with more trees and bunkers, and rough that is actually somewhat penal). I really don’t see why there was any need to gripe over my phrasing here.
Steve
Jul 26, 2015 at 1:25 pm
You seemed to know very little, but come off that you know alot. Just in you recent articles. 1. You think a hole in a major championship that is playing over par isnt fair. 2. You pick someone as a favorite to win the Canadian open, that wasnt in the field. 3. You think there are regulation pga tour golf courses.
Kevin Casey
Jul 26, 2015 at 2:03 pm
So from what you’re saying, it seems like the first scenario I offered for your dislike is pretty much correct, which is very strange…
As for your points, 1. You just did not get my argument about that hole on Thursday. At all. That is clear from your statement. 2. That’s fair, for the most part. I did offer a mea culpa on that, it was a dumb mistake and I own up to it. Although, I didn’t pick him as a favorite. I put him on one of my DK rosters. If I could have picked 12 players with no restrictions, Pettersson wouldn’t have been on there. But there’s a salary cap to rosters and I have to choose players who are further down on the scale in a field. Regardless definitely a stupid error that I regret. 3. Once again, you’re just not getting it. I already explained what I meant by that phrase.
Patricknorm
Jul 26, 2015 at 6:28 pm
Hey Kevin I’m a big fan of yours and keep up,the good work. It’s like any pro sport. You’re closer to golf pros more than anyone of us will know and everybody has an idea. But they don’t know. I have a son who’s been a pro for,10 seasons in another sport, makes well over seven figures and it amazes me all,the time when people argue with me about his sport. They think they know but don’t. That’s what you’re up against every time you write and article it seems. Hang in there.
The Infidel
Jul 30, 2015 at 8:14 am
Steve – Take it somewhere else or get therapy. Those are your big boy options.
Ryan
Jul 25, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Doesnt surprise me that a few WRXers are too dense to get NLU. Great interview, Kevin.
Kevin Casey
Jul 25, 2015 at 6:49 pm
Appreciate it, Ryan! Helps to have a great subject like Solomon and NLU.
Jang Hyung-sun
Jul 25, 2015 at 3:29 pm
Ben Hogan is spinning in his grave over this nonsense.
Christosterone
Jul 26, 2015 at 9:20 am
I sadly do a lot of these…though to defend the pants pull up, I have ripped a crotch seam getting a ball out of the cup so at least I have an excuse on that one…
-Christosterone
ABgolfer2
Jul 25, 2015 at 3:19 pm
There is no wrong way to win the Masters as long as the winner plays by the rules and displays proper etiquette.
TJS
Jul 25, 2015 at 11:53 am
“You can’t win the Masters laying up on all par 5’s.” Yeah this quote is so special since he’s talking about the guy who actually won the Masters doing just that…not a very informed group of “Golf fanatics.” Should’ve ended the interview right there…idiots.
Kevin Casey
Jul 25, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Solomon very well knows that ZJ won the Masters doing exactly that. Look at what he says in the sentences around that one. Context there makes it pretty obvious that what he’s saying here is that he sees winning the Masters by laying up on every par-5 as blasphemy, as the wrong way to do it. He knows it can and has been done, what he’s saying is that he doesn’t like seeing it done that way.
I can see how that sentence could be misconstrued on a quick read, but if you pay attention closely to everything said in that response, you’ll see what he’s trying to say there.
Matto
Jul 27, 2015 at 6:44 am
It was said in the same vein as the “you can’t play golf with a yellow ball.”
Well, obviously…you can.
Kevin Casey
Jul 27, 2015 at 8:57 pm
Exactly. You said it much better and quicker than I did haha