Padraig Harrington, who is one of the few 3+ time major winners who is as good of a talker as he is at golf, said something this week that upended my Wednesday for a good 20-30 minutes.
This week’s Irish Open is at the K Club, site of a Rory win in 2016 that included what Harrington called "probably one of the greatest golf shots ever hit.”
Here’s the scene: Rory is playing with Russell Knox in the final round in 2016, and they’re standing on the 16th tee box with Knox up one. He’s been outplaying Rory all day and looks ready to ruin the reason everyone is there.
Then Rory sent a couple of missiles that you can probably hear if you close your eyes and concentrate hard enough. The type of shots that have to make everyone else who plays professional golf wonder if perhaps they should look into professional accounting or professional plumbing.
And Russell Knox got vaporized.
The first came at the par-5 16th, which Knox bogeyed. This is the one Harrington was referencing. It’s worth watching at least 220 times twice. Start at the 0:54 mark below.
Harrington: “If I was Russell Knox standing on that fairway, I would have clapped, because if you have to hit a wedge to the back pin on that hole, it's incredibly difficult.
“It's probably the hardest golf shot, a wedge in there, let alone hitting a wood in there. And if he misses the shot, the tournament is over. Russell Knox has it won. I would have fallen into the Liffey I think.”
"Poor Russell Knox."
Still, Rory led by just one going to the last. Then he ended Knox for good with this rocket to 2 feet on 18. Same video, start it at 1:11 this time.
The whole thing reminds me of this great Mark Kram gamer from Ali-Frazier 3 in 1975. It’s an article I think about all the time, and I think about this section maybe most of all.
Most of his fights have shown this: you can go so far into that desolate and dark place where the heart of Frazier pounds, you can waste his perimeters, you can see his head hanging in the public square, may even believe that you have him, but then suddenly you learn that you have not.
The 2016 Irish Open was certainly not the Thrilla in Manila, but Padraig talking Rory is always going to get the full treatment from me. And Rory is one of the few in golf capable of embodying that “you may even believe that you have him, but then suddenly you learn that you have not” quote.
Also, this was incredible.
I absolutely loved this little bit on Marc Randolph, whose book on Netflix, That Will Never Work, is excellent.
I came across this wonderful piece from @mbrandolph, Co-Founder of @netflix, the other day. Highly recommend reading it and internalizing it. 5 key lessons I pulled away from Marc’s reflection:
1. Everyone should have a north star - success is what you make of it; money,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Romeen Sheth (@RomeenSheth)
Aug 2, 2023
It’s a reminder to me as I begin to develop this little newsletter and annual book project a bit more (👀) to not lose myself or my way in doing so. A reminder I need. A reminder to care most about the things that are most worth caring about.
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