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November Monthly Golf Newsletter - 2022
The following newsletter is sponsored by Grass Clippings. *As always, none of the below information has been fact checked or confirmed in anyway.
"Put a Horse Out to Pasture"
Unknown Origins
1. In literal terms, to retire an animal from working by allowing it to roam in a field or pasture.
2. To force, coerce, or pressure someone into retiring from their work.
Used in conversation after a rec league basketball game:
Johnny: "Hey Greg after tonight's performance and after talking with the guys, we think it's best if we put the horse out to pasture if you know what I mean."
Greg: "I actually don't know what you mean John."
Johnny: "You're past your prime Greg and we're trying to win. Pick up pickle ball or karate or something. You just gotta get out of my locker-room."
With that said, welcome to the Grass Clippings Monthly.
In this issue:
Billy's Monthly Insights: *observations from the month of October
- Marriage & Divorce; Both Unproductive.
- Long LIV Golf
- We've Been Robbed - FOLLOW UP
- It's Never Sunny in Philadelphia
Updates from the Shop
- Christmas Party
- New G Cord Hats
- Flying Off the Shelves
Investing 101 *a Hail Mary approach
- Last Months Recap
- Hedge Your Bets, but Go All In
1. Marriage and Divorce; Both Unproductive.
Folks, I have long been fascinated with the correlation between marriage and athletic performance. There is enough data, scholarly papers, and research teams that have concluded the act of marriage is a severe detriment to an athlete's (pro or amateur) ongoing performance. I've been writing about it for years now. With this line of thinking, one could easily conclude that exiting a marriage would have a contrasting effect. Here I thought all Rickie Fowler had to do was return to the Bachelor life and all would be hunky dory, but that's not how the world works. Apparently divorce has the very same effect as its counterpart marriage. Maybe even worse. To say I'm at a loss for words would be an understatement. I wish I could take back some of the advice I've given over the years.
It's no secret that Tom Brady, the GOAT, is getting a divorce. But not any old divorce. A divorce to the woman who in 2007 Forbes named the world's richest supermodel or the woman who Men's Health in 2011 ranked as the 25th hottest gal of all time. No matter how much of a "guys guy" Tom Brady might be this one stings and it's surely showing on the field. Shooter McGavin put it perfect in the critically acclaimed film Happy Gilmore, "How am I suppose to chip when I got that goin' on Doug?"
I'm on record saying that the divorce would catapult the already storied quarterback into an even more elite stratosphere. Call it the redemption tour, but sadly Tom is just a man. In the month of October, Brady and the Buccaneers went 1-4 and are currently riding a 3 game losing streak which Tom Brady hasn't endured since 2002. During the 3 game losing streak, they lost to the lowly Carolina Panthers and the rebuilding Pittsburgh Steelers. As a young male in my 30's, it's devastating to say the least. I can't tell you how many people I've over heard at the gym say "where do we go from here" or "I feel lost". Collectively the world is hurting and scholars are puzzled. My advice at this point if you're married and looking for athletic success is hold on and hit the gym. The grass ain't always greener on the other side.
Despite the gloomy outlook, I hold onto hope as Tom Brady is one of the last great gunslingers of our time. The remainder of the season will dictate a lot about the future of humanity. Go Bucs.
2. Long LIV Golf
Folks, good news. You don't need a bachelor's degree or any formal schooling to understand that the LIV Golf Tour doesn't pencil out. Screenshots of a Saudi Business School's curriculum surfaced on twitter this past weekend during their final event of the year. The screenshots were quickly taken down after memes began making their way around the golfing world.
After a full season of the upstart Golf League, there has been little to zero traction from fans. It was reported that roughly 4,000 people attended the LIV finale in Miami where the tournament purse was $50 million dollars. Day passes were being sold directly for $49, but those same tickets could be purchased on third party apps for prices ranging from $1 - $3 dollars. Let's do some quick math on the 4,000 in attendance at a $49 purchase price. They brought in a whopping $196,000 to offset the $50 million dollar purse let alone $2+ billion dollars they paid C level talent to join the league. Folks, I don't know what kind of calculators they use across the Atlantic, but something isn't adding up.
This whole charade is becoming eerily reminiscent of the XFL back in 2010. The XFL promised a new brand of football - violent, provocative with off the cuff commentators like Jesse Ventura. Well folks, the original XFL failed so much so a book was written called Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco.
The LIV Golf tour must have something up their sleeve becasue at this rate they're making Bernie Madoff seem like a sound investor. At the very least, the LIV Tour could source some marketing inspiration from the XFL.
3. We've Been Robbed - FOLLOW UP
If you can recall, the Grass Clippings retail store was robbed roughly a month and a half ago. Following a fantasy football draft, the Grass Clippings team woke up to several notifications from the Ring security app. An older gentleman entered the shop 3 different times throughout the night absconding with odd items each time. He wasn't the brightest burglar as he stole a broken speaker, a neighbors dirty clothes, and a backpack cooler or roughly $34 dollars worth of property.
We figured this man had a basic understanding of how to pull off a heist. I think in the criminal handbook the #1 rule is to never return to the scene of the crime. Well apparently we gave this guy too much credit.
The video above shows the moments leading up to a high speed chase that lasted roughly 30 minutes through the Arcadia neighborhood.
4. It's Never Sunny in Philadelphia
What a World Series we have on hand folks. One team, the Houston Astros, is trying to move past one of the biggest cheating scandals from just a few years ago and another team that if victorious will send the world economy back into the dark ages. Apparently a Philadelphia World Series win (A's 1901-1954 or Phillies) is always followed by a market recession. Who do you root for?
And when we say "recession", these aren't your wait out the storm type of recessions. These are the big kahunas.
1929: You may have heard of it - The Great Depression which was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th Century.
1980: Well if the 1980 recession doesn't sound like the same situation we're in now, then I don't know what does. The 1979 energy crisis created an oil supply shortage that increased oil prices which further exacerbated the already high inflation. This forced several countries, including the US, to tighten monetary policies.
2008: The housing bubble or more dramatically put The Great Recession.
2020: Mark Twain once said that history repeats itself. Here we are with record inflation staring down yet another market downturn and the Phillies are hotter than a street light.
Yet another blow to a sport that is losing interest quickly. The national past time has now become the grim reaper. As Brad Pitt so eloquently said, "how can you not be romantic about baseball"?
*A throw the ball investment strategy. Imaginary $10,000 is invested each month and we track the performance. "Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever." - Shane Falco. In other words, this is not financial advice.
Folks, I'll shoot you straight. We really took it on the chin last month. Conceivably every bet, hypothesis, and logical thought we had was completely and utterly wrong. Although the Hertz stock remains in a downtrend, it found life in the latter part of October to finish the month in the green impacting our sizable short position. Black Rifle Coffee is now tangled up in a lawsuit with one of its investors which put downward pressure on the stock. Tom Brady found a way to throw for 351 yards without covering the spread against a rebuilding Atlanta Falcons. When it rains it pours, but as always we get it all back this month.
Message from Killer the CFO:
I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but as Charles Barkley would say its just "Turrible". Another tumble in October with an overall portfolio loss of -31.48%.
Billy took a haricut on all 3 of his investments last month; short on Hertz car rental (-9.18%), long black rifle coffee (-10.4%) and the real banger was the bucs (-8.5 pts) over falcons losing (-100%). If these type of shenanigans continue, I'll be putting in my letter of resignation before years end. This job is just too tough for the pay.
You'd think by now Billy would be learning from his mistakes. As they say, "History repeats itself", but in Billys mind he's thinking fu** history. He's going all in folks....All in on the Philadelphia Phillies to take down the Houston Astros. Billy's got a lot of pressure to perform here, his bank accounts all but dry, and with the recent raise of interest rates by the Fed, taking leveraged positions going forward makes things really tough to swallow. Stay tuned, this should be a wild ride.
November Allocation
1. Philadelphia Phillies to win World Series (-140) - ($10,000)
This is the old "hedge your bets" strategy. The way I see it is if the Phillies win we obviously win our bet, but if they lose we will be avoiding a complete market collapse thus our stock portfolios should move to the upside. Outside of the global consequences, I do think it's Bryce Harper's time. He's batting .382 with 6 home runs and 13 RBI's. Unfortunately the Phillies take home the hardware. We go all in here.
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Let's have ourselves a hell of a month SG Fam!
-Billy Dobson
Stay Grassy
