Welcome back, Weekend Warriors!

This week, learn about the future of golf simulators, golf bags, golf leagues, and golf tournaments! This future focused edition of WW talks about some of awesome things to look forward to in 2025, while also giving you guys a recap on the first ever Crest Cup!

I hope you enjoy!

Lowercase Bag

My homies over at Lowercase Bag are about to make 2025 the year of city golf retribution. They have been planning, building, and designing what I honestly believe to be the future of golf bags for those golfers living in urban areas. While there are some options available like the Sunday bag or the Jain club holder, none of these have the same combination of form and function. Lowercase is not shaped like a golf bag in the slightest; its build resembles a backpack, with a laptop cover and zippered pockets and even a cupholder on the side. In fact, at first, it looks like any other backpack, albeit one with a really sleek design and beautiful colors and materials. The magic happens when you go to the top, where there is space for 8 golf clubs to sit comfortable in their proprietary clip in system. You kidding me???

I spent years running around NYC with a golf bag of 14 clubs on my shoulder, dodging pedestrians, popping it under subway seats, jumping left and right depending on which way the cars are coming. My smaller bag for less clubs held only 5-6 depending on which ones, and the strap was terrible. Lowercase has been working hard for years to find that perfect balance, and they have achieved it. The bag looks great, is really comfortable, and holds the clubs (and more) with ease. It even is compatible with bikes, the bag being able to be strapped to the side. It truly is a product driven by innovation and the need to fill a gap for so many people dealing with the same product. Lowercase is launching on Kickstarter this January, and stay tuned for an in depth interview with the team behind the bag!

Ready GC

Ready Golf Club is also made for those urban golfers, trying to fill a gap in the NYC golfing market that has only grown and been heightened in the last five years. As golf has become more and more popular, so have the ways for golfers to get their fix in the Big Apple. Chelsea Piers has been a staple for decades, even though the price is shooting up to annoying places. There are many simulators, but all of them have the same problems. Firstly, most of them are all in the same areas, near Grand Central and Penn, where a lot of the white collar golfers work. They all have amenities for parties like pool and ping pong tables, bars, and sometimes even different types of sims for different sports (T Squared.) Ready GC looked at all this and said, what about those people that really just want to golf? They’re taking care of us.

Instead of having to pay the expensive price for one of the run of the mill simulator places like 5 Iron, a price that doesn’t just include the simulator, but all of the other amenities you may or may not even use. Ready has cut this out by cutting it out; the place is nothing but a space to practice and play golf. There are no bars or lounges or anything; just you, your clubs, a ball, and the highest level of simulator technology available on the market. The barebones operation is in favor of all golfers; it makes the price cheaper while also ensuring the clientele are all serious about golfer and about using the sims for the right reasons. Its East Village location also fills up an important gap because there really are no sims in that area, the closest one is almost a mile away in flatiron. As a city golfer myself (at least some of the time) I understand the need for a place like Ready GC, and can’t wait for it to open this weekend, December 27. Be sure to stay tuned for an interview dropping with the team behind Ready, and New Yorkers, go get your membership today!

Crest Cup

This past Saturday at Palmetto Golf Course, Weekenders Weekly held the inaugural Crest Cup, a 2 man scramble tournament for the shiniest silver trophy in all of South Florida. It couldn’t have been more of a success!! What started as a plan for 15 of friends of the brand to go play a scramble at the local muni soon ballooned into a sponsored, media filled 56 person tournament with real prizes on the line. Winners walked away with gift cards to some of the best brands in the game, like Quiet, Eastside, and Malbon, while local sponsors like Cafecito Golf Club and Planet Golf Miami also showed out with prizes for the players. A huge shoutout to Cayeya for providing both their tequila and some Chica Chida, which my players and some of the course patrons absolutely adored. The players took it seriously, but not too seriously, coming kitted out in the best fits and kicks Palmetto has easily ever seen, and playing to win, but with a fun attitude that promoted that great vibes that were running throughout the day. Missing phones, falling tequila bottles, near misses and the tournament almost falling apart the literal moment it started (whoops). An in depth article will be dropping in the few days, and stay tuned for loads of insane content coming out soon!

Weekly Advisors

This week’s advisory is geared not specifically to golfers, but to those who put on the tournaments they play in.

• Shotgun start is key

• Tone is important, and is set way before the tournament begins. It denotes the type of players playing, their mindset, and the overall vibe of the tournament.

• Even for a fun casual tournament, take scheduling, handicaps, and sponsorships rigidly and seriously.

• Something will go wrong no matter what. Be prepared.

• Find one point of contact and only listen to them. Many other people will try and get in the way.

• Have at least two people you can rely on no matter what.

• Enjoy every second.

Course of the Week

This week’s course is a fan favorite, and a player favorite as well. Kapalua in Maui is the home of the Sentey Tournament of Champions, the unofficial kickoff of the 2025 PGA Tour season. All winners from the previous season are invited, and it is a course most deserving of this caliber. The holes are ginormous in length and width and play some of the most downhill golf I’ve seen, coming in at a ridiculous 7600 yards. It is Bermuda grass, so it is always fun watching how pros deal with grain when putting and chipping. With the crazy location of this course in the mountains of Maui, they have to deal with insane gusts of wind, treacherous water hazards and cliffs, and the ever downward movement of holes that leads straight to the ocean. Search up best drives on the 18th at Kapalua, you can thank me later. Fun fact: This is where Max Homa hit what is the longest drive in PGA Tour history. Didn’t know he was that strong!

Stories from the Sticks

This week’s advice comes from John Daly, not in the way you would think. Daly played at the PNC this last week as he often does, and a moment of his went viral (obviously) when he hit only one ball on the range and then walked away. Obviously, one is not enough, but there is something important to learn in this moment. Firstly, it is important to get range time before a round, no matter what. I truly believe it can make the difference between more than 5-6 strokes in a round. But, on the flip side, too much range time can destroy a round. It should be a place to hit a couple of balls just to get the body set. No large buckets before 18. Next time you see pre tournament footage from the Tour, look at the bag of balls they get for the range. It’s usually even smaller than a small bucket. Moral of the story, range time should be the perfect amount of warm up and mental prep. No more, no less.

Stupid Golf Story

This week’s stupid golf story comes from the Crest Cup, and to be fair, I could probably fill this series for a few weeks with some of the moments from the event. But, this one didn’t even happen on the grass, even though I wish it did. I spent the tournament driving around checking up on the players and making sure that it was proceeding in good time and fairly for everyone. Well, as the day went on, my golf cart started getting more and more full of various objects, including the bottles of Tequila Cayeya that everyone was getting the chance to try. Well, on one somewhat sharp turn, I was talking to the camera when all of a sudden, I heard crazy noise on the sidewalk next to me. I looked down to see what else but a bottle of Cayeya rolling down the cart path. Thank god they make those bottles so strong!

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Weekenders Weekly! Again, to everyone who came to the Crest Cup, thank you so much! It’s mind blowing to see the real world repercussions of a lot of work come to fruition, and it would not have been possible at all without everyone signing up, contributing ideas, time, skills, etc. I can’t wait for the next one! NY coming soon?!? I hope so! In the meantime, keep checking Insta and YouTube for loads of content from the tourney, as well as some awesome interviews dropping soon with influencers, product designers, and more! Next week will be a best of 2024 issue, so stay tuned for that as well! Thanks again to everyone, big up Crest Cup, and go play some golf!