Olympic week preview 🥇

Good morning and welcome to the Breakfast Ball Buffet — where we break down the golf world so even your non-golfing friends might pretend to care. Here’s today’s menu ↓

• Olympic preview 🗺️ + Buffet bets 💰

• What’s going on with Tony Finau? 🤔

• Rory is #OneOfUs 🏠

• Bryson being Bryson (again) 👨‍🔬

Olympic preview 🗺️

There is a 5th major in golf and it’s the quadrennial Olympic Games.

Winning an Olympic Gold is one of the most prestigious feats one can accomplish in all of sport, and the only reason we don’t already regard it as the official 5th major is because this the third edition of golf in the Olympics.

You might think this is a hot take right now, but give it some time, you’ll see.

Anyways, to the preview. The 2024 Paris Olympics field features 10 major winners amongst the 60-player field ↓

As mentioned in the last newsletter, the course they’re playing at (Le Golf National) hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018 and is pure eye-candy ↓

My guess is a winning score in the -15 to -18 range; Le Golf National is way harder than that but I’m hearing the rough is short this week, which changes absolutely everything.

This goes for nearly every major, but the best ball-strikers will clump atop the leaderboard, along with one completely unexpected dude who makes you think he’s going to win at some point over the weekend.

Who’s gonna join these two as Olympic Golf Gold Medalists on Sunday and win the final major of the year?

I guess that brings us to the…

Buffet bets 💰

BBB’s favorite favorite: Rory McIlroy (+800) — He’s won literally everything there is to win in golf in the last decade other than the four majors and the Olympics. I have a feeling he’ll be a four-time major champ and an Olympic Gold medalist come Sunday evening.

Others I like: Joaquin Niemann (+2000) & Hideki Matsuyama (+2200) — I seldom take two for this category, but I have weird inklings about both this week. Will absolutely sprinkle.

The top-lay: Scheffler & McIlroy top 10 finishes (+125) — Perhaps my favorite play of them all. Source: trust me bro. 🔨

What’s going on with Tony Finau? 🤔

Now on things I didn’t expect to read this week: Tony Finau hosted his foundation’s annual charity tournament, and protestors stood outside the gates for over two hours.

They claim that Tony owes them millions, as they sponsored him early on in his career, which is something that Tony has openly spoken about in the past.

I’m not accusing known #goodguy Tony Finau of anything here, I’m just reporting what I know.

It’ll be interesting to learn more about this as time goes on, but there’s also a chance it gets settled and we’ll never hear about it again.

Rory is #OneOfUs 🏠

Instead of playing a Monday practice round at the Olympics, Rory went for a pre-Paris stroll at the Home of Golf ↓

About 250 people heard that he was out for a fun round and decided to go watch him. In very St. Andrews fashion, the spectators were extremely respectful and kept their space.

I absolutely LOVE when pros do stuff like this. It shows that they play golf for more reasons than just money, and that they’re nerds just like the rest of us.

Rory has been to St. Andrews a million times, yet he still went out of his way to play a meaningless round there on Monday of Olympics week.

And we’d all do the same if we had that luxury.

Bryson being Bryson (again) 👨‍🔬

Yes, you read that tweet correctly. Mr. Scientist Bryson is now using curved-face irons.

He built them with the brand “AVODA”, which is the Hebrew word for “work”.

The science behind them is similar to the science behind woods having curved faces; it’s meant to make off-center strikes result in your target still being hit.

In other news, the PGA Tour announced this ↓

So of course YouTube and LIV golfer Bryson Dechambeau had to chime in ↓

There’s no way for LIV members to play PGA Tour events, but the man has a point…

Quick bites 🥓

The GOAT ball marker: Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart just casually using the Stanley Cup as a ball marker 😂

Struggling with your driver?: Then this one’s for you. One of the best drivers of the golf ball ever gives his most useful tip to become straighter off the tee 🫡

SOLD!: A bidder paid $481,000 for Gary Player’s 1974 Open Championship trophy. Seems a litttttle steep to me 😬