The Golf Season Isn't Over Yet, and Other Musings From Labor Day Weekend

Hearty Midwesterner Gary Van Sickle will keep playing until the fairways have snow ... and even then he'll probably just clear a path.

Labor Day weekend is now in the rearview mirror. (And may be larger than it appears.)

That is not the end of the golf season, not even in Greenland, where it’s going to be in the low 40s and maybe a little rainy this week. That’s playable unless you’re made of sugar.

Some occasional golfers put their clubs down after Labor Day. Not serious golfers and not hardy Midwesterners like The Ranking staff. September and October are prime months for golf. In the Frostback Zone, which includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and all of Canada, our season is already too short. So we will play on doggedly, through drizzle and fallen leaves and snow flurries if that’s what it takes, to the bitter end. Which could be the last week of October (pessimism). It could be Thanksgiving (optimism). It could be Christmas (Fantasy Island).

And if you’re reading this in Scottsdale or Palm Springs, never mind. You don’t know what we’re talking about.

The PGA Tour isn’t done, either. Its new fall season features a bunch of second-tier players trying to improve/retain their status. Plus the rare top player who feels to need to compete, like Justin Thomas and Max Homa committing to play in the Fortinet Classic in Napa, Calif. LIV Golf isn’t over yet, either, as noted below.

Don’t let the calendar define your golf season. Define it yourself. Here is The Ranking’s challenge: Try to play on the last day of the golf season, weather-wise, in your area. You likely won’t know when that is, although an eight-inch snowfall is a strong clue. So you’ve got to cover your a-- by sneaking in a round on some borderline 39-degree days. Are you tough enough to be a real golfer?

The Hole Truth: Labor Day weekend is often the last big play day of the season at many Midwestern clubs. Getting a tee time can be challenging. So riddle me this, Batman—why on earth would you aerate your greens a few days before Labor Day weekend, knowing you’re going to get slammed with play, instead of waiting until, oh, Tuesday after Labor Day when the number of players drops dramatically?

The Ranking’s chief course rater played Saturday and Monday at a Pittsburgh-area course that did just that. The aeration was done as well it could be, minimally invasive, yet he had two putts Saturday that were going in until they hit aeration holes and veered away from the cup and one that he gag-yanked left on the final green that bumped into an aeration mark and miraculously darted right and found the hole. Is that a .333 average versus aeration? Additional metric data is required to answer …

Spellbound: Did Rose Zhang just get replaced as the LPGA Tour’s young sensation? Chanettee Wannasaen, a 19-year-old Monday qualifier, won the Portland Classic with a closing 63 after having missed nine straight cuts in her rookie season. Her 26-under-par total broke the tournament record by five shots. The Ranking staff is going to practice spelling her name correctly after this win …

Hockey beer? Isn’t that redundant?: Sometimes you feel like a beer in the headlights. Really. District1 Brewing of Stevens Point, Wis., produced Strick9 beer earlier this summer in honor of Steve Stricker playing in the U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld Golf Course, just a few blocks from the microbrewery. Now it has created Goal! Caufield beer, a light lager to hail Wisconsin hockey star Cole Caufield, a 22-year-old right winger from Mosinee, Wis., who plays for the Montreal Canadiens. Potential catchphrase: It’s a shot and a goal! ...

The Odds Are 50-50: This probably means nothing but The Ranking’s chief course rater teed it up at the ultra-fab Greenbrier golf resort last week and noted how Stuart Appleby’s bag and scorecard from his 59 in the PGA Tour event once held there was still on display in the golf shop. Maybe the chief missed it, he didn’t tour the locker room or Sam Snead’s Tavern, but he didn’t see any evidence of Bryson DeChambeau’s recent 58 at the fabled White Course in the LIV Golf event. Ahh, the chief probably didn’t make it past the bar after his round, as usual …

Bryson really did shoot 58 at the Greenbrier, right? The Ranking's just asking :: Bob Donnan/USA TODAY Sports

The Pass Tense: Favorite Tweet from the Ryder Cup selection process controversy: “Why is Rickie Fowler getting a pass with his 3-7-5 Ryder Cup record? I’ll argue Keegan Bradley should have gone instead of him!”Finally, a complaint about someone other than Justin Thomas. Why is no one on Twitter—er, X—ever happy? …

"The Price Is Wrong, B----!": Game show host legend Bob Barker, who recently passed away at 99, got more attention for his hilarious fight scene with Adam Sandler in the kinda-golf movie Happy Gilmore than for most of his other accomplishments. A few things you probably missed about the king of The Price Is Right: He made $10 million a year for hosting the show at the end. Current host Drew Carey makes $15 million (inflation?) … was a fighter pilot in the Pacific in World War II … held a black-belt in karate … won 19 television Emmy Awards… before The Price Is Right, Barker hosted the popular stunt show Truth or Consequences for 19 years from 1956 until 1975. He did Price until 2013. That’s a lot of price tags …

This Price Is Also Wrong, B----!: Las Vegas’s Shadow Creek, the it-wouldn’t-be-a-bucket-list-golf-course-if-not-for-the-outlandish-price, is raising its greens fee from $1,000 to $1,250 according to golf.com. This is the kind of disturbing news that makes The Ranking staff so distraught, it intends to play three rounds at Bandon Dunes this fall for less than that and still have enough for post-round Dr Peppers …

The Ranking likes Viktor Hovland to follow up his FedEx Cup green with another kind of green come April :: John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports

Odd Odds: Public opinion doesn’t change overnight. Despite his FedEx Cup beatdown at East Lake, Viktor Hovland’s odds of winning the Masters are pegged at 18-1 at SI Sportsbook while Jon Rahm is the favorite at 8-1 and Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are next at 8.5-1. While The Ranking isn’t anxious to lock up funds for a wager that won’t be settled for eight more months, its think tank crew believes Hovland is a buy. Of course, it also thought TCU was going to smack down Deion Sanders and Colorado in football so …

The Golf Breeze Doesn’t Suck, It Blows: The Ranking is ready for autumn in the Midwest with its new 15th club—Zoom Broom’s Golf Breeze. It’s a powerful leaf blower shaped like a fairway wood that fits in your golf bag. It’s not easy to keep in the bag because other home-dwellers like to borrow it to blow the debris off the back porch, pool deck, patio or pickleball court. The Golf Breeze even comes with a headcover so others don’t have to know you have a secret weapon when it’s your turn to putt through strewn leaves, twigs and other fall debris. The Golf Breeze gets a five-star rating from The Ranking, who wishes this invention had come years sooner. It costs $189 at ZoomBrooms.com and is a critical advancement in golf litter cleanup technology …

Now get out and play golf.