Fred Capps’ Ryder Cup changes and my favorite ghost story

welcome! Where are you, you ask. I call it “Weekend 9”. Think of it as a warm-up spot for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We will have ideas. We will have tips. We will have tweets. But there are only nine in total, although sometimes there may be more and sometimes there may be less. As for who I am? The following paragraphs tell some of the story. You can contact me: nick.piastowski@golf.com.

Aaron Ray believes in ghosts.

I think back to last weekend, when Rai won the DP World Tour Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and people learned a lot more about this gentlemanly Englishman. His story is great, too, and GOLF’s Dylan Dethier brilliantly laid out all the reasons why on Instagram earlier this week. He has a kind of wisdom. He is a thinker.

This happened to us a few years ago when we were walking along the 7th fairway at Oak Hill and talking about Buffalo Bill – he has been dead for over 100 years but may still occasionally visit a creek that runs through the hole.

I learned that as part of our staff’s preparation for the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill, and then I kept digging. Bill Cody lived near the ballpark in Rochester, N.Y., for a few years, but maybe keeps coming back. I was told that the club’s former historian was a serious man who once wrote:

“Some people say there’s a ghost in Oak Hill!

“Like, walking down the No. 7 fairway on a warm summer night. Huddled on the creek bank, they say, if you look closely you might see the vague outline of an angler. Look even closer and you might see a big, slutty hat, a flowing mustache, maybe even a pair of boots.

“They say it was Buffalo Bill. The sharpshooting Wild West showman hunted and fished on these grounds in the 1870s. …

“William F. Cody, known as ‘Buffalo Bill’ for his prodigious rifle skills, was a rugged frontiersman of the American West in his early years. However, in the 1870s, he brought his family to live in Rochester.

“The site that would become today’s Oak Hill was Buffalo Bill’s favorite hunting and fishing spot. At the time, he was also already active in his famous Wild West shows.

Although Buffalo Bill’s grave is located in Lookout Mountain, Colorado, three members of his family are buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.

“Should we really wonder that he might still visit Rochester from time to time and walk on the green grass of Oak Hill’s beautiful fairways…when the nights are warm and peaceful.”

What a story!

I called both Buffalo Bill museums. I spoke with a psychic in Rochester – she taught me how to summon ghosts. I spoke with the current club historian at Oak Hill and he agreed to walk with me to pitch seven when I arrived at the ballpark. I also talked to a few players about all this, and most dismissed me when they learned I was writing about a potential visitor from afar.

Then there’s Rye.

Two days before the PGA, he was playing No. 7. I came closer.

Aaron, hey, it’s Nick with GOLF.com. Can I walk with you for a while?

I can.

Okay, this is going to be the weirdest question you’ll be asked all week, but… do you believe in ghosts?

He did it. His reasoning is profound. “I think a ghost is a spirit, too,” Rye said. “I think all living things have some kind of spirit. I just believe that; living things are more than just our physical form.”

Let’s keep walking. I told him about the Buffalo Bill situation. We reached the water’s edge. I said what the medium told me.

there is nothing.

At that point, I thanked Rai for his time and wanted to wish him well, but he interrupted me.

He asked if he could try summoning a ghost.

Yes, yes you can!

So he tried it. Unfortunately, nothing happened again. I reached out to shake his hand—but he wasn’t done yet.

He wanted to know if we could try it.

Yes, yes we can!

We did it. But no Buffalo Bill. After this attempt, I thanked him again and again and he was on his way.

I had the hero of the story two years ago. And today.

Let’s see if we can find 8 more items for Weekend 9.

A takeaway on the weekend

2. Is this week’s Annika Championship the most watched LPGA event of the year?

Yes, it seems so.

But is that possibly the most important?

One of the things about golf, oh my God. There are majors. Next week will be the CME Group Tour Championship with huge prize money. The schedule is filled with meaningful games.

But there’s some excitement this week. How much text and video did you read about basketball superstar Caitlin Clark’s pro-am game on Wednesday? How many sights and sounds will you see from the president’s granddaughter, Kai Trump, in the next few days? Kay Trump received Annika’s sponsorship offer?

How many new people are curious about other people? Maybe a few.

Maybe they’ll stay too.

Because the golf alone is enough to get you into it.

3. I found it odd, though, that you only got about half an hour of Trump on Thursday’s broadcast.

Another takeaway for the weekend

4. On this week’s episode of “Katrek and Maginnes On Tap” on SiriusXM, Fred Couples offered his Ryder Cup advice.

There need to be fewer people around the players.

“I know it’s really selfish to say that, and that’s all I know,” Couples said on the show. “I know when I went to Augusta to play, even after I won in ’92, you go out on Saturday and Sunday and you don’t want to have 10 people in your car. You drive to the ballpark and I want to go your own way and the car comes back and it carries other people. I don’t want to say hello to 400 people and I don’t want to stand in line at breakfast. I want to go with my partner. Let’s say I play with Davis Love in 1993 year, but I didn’t want to be around a lot of people, whereas at the Ryder Cup we had a lot of people around us.

“The answer is, they do too. There’s a team dinner, there’s a big dinner, you get to put on a tuxedo, all of that is part of life. But I think in the team room, I’d really like to see 12 people and maybe even their caddy, but the caddy has no real reason to be there. Unless he tells them, hey, I’ve got rain gear in my dressing room and it looks like it’s going to rain. I just think less is more for these guys when they play in the majors and they don’t have people around them and I think at the Ryder Cup, you have too many people around you and I think that’s frustrating.

“Then when you’re behind, guess what happens? Everyone pats you on the back; ‘We’re going to catch them today.'” Unless you go out and get them, you’re not going to get them today. I’m not a fanatic, never have been. The Presidents Cup is much easier for a captain than the Ryder Cup. But I just think it’s an exciting thing, but I just don’t see it – I see it as golf. “

The couple then pondered the crowd.

“I think it’s getting out of hand in New York. I wish, let’s say you and I are golf fans, we go to New York and watch. Fifty thousand people watching four sets of golf? That’s impossible. You say, well, what are we going to do? There weren’t 50,000 people when I played, and they made money and they did a great job. It’s a money tree now, but you don’t need 50,000 people watching four sets of golf.

“It’s invisible; it takes away the sting.”

You can listen to the full show here.

Another takeaway on the weekend

5. Ahead of this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, Sahith Theegala was asked to reflect on his 2021 split with Bermuda pro Brian Morris, who passed away from cancer in 2023, and Theegala shared the colorful player’s story.

“Well, he said something that I can’t repeat here, but one of the things he said was – and it made me laugh. He was talking about, hey, man – it was like, very early on. Like I didn’t know how to bring up cancer with him, but at some point I was like I’m just going to talk about it and he seemed so calm.

“It’s like, ‘Man, how’s it going, how is everyone treating you, what’s your prognosis?’

“He said, ‘S**t, Sahith, now that I have cancer, I can say whatever the FI wants, I can do whatever I want, I can ask for things.

“During the darkest times of his life, I believe in the people around him, he was able to – still show his humorous side and not take for granted every day that he still had a life. There were a lot of moments like that out there.

“He hit some shots – he hit a few shots, and the first thing he did, he put his hands on me and gave me a hug. He was like, ‘Sahis, this game, man, this is the worst game ever.’

“But he also said many times that it was the best sport ever and that golf almost saved his life. I think he attributes a lot of the justice relationships he’s made through golf and why he feels he’s been so lucky in life.”

Tweets that interest me

6. I think the tweet below is interesting.

A non-golf story

11. Doesn’t Weekend 9 usually happen on Friday? Indeed. So why is it Thursday? Because, I have to visit a few colleges with my nephew over the weekend.

Please feel free to email me topics of conversation from our 10+ hours in the car.

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