PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — You know that Bobby Farrelly — alongside his brother, Pete — is some kind of genius. Has to be. Yes, there’s Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something about Mary. There’s also D&D2. Plus his decision this year to have his everybody-into-the-pool pool in 2022 include not just the four majors, as it does every year, but the Players Championship, too.
“OK, now it’s not a major,” Bob said by phone Wednesday, with the deadline to get in looming. “But it is, like, half a major. It’s a mini-major. So half off to get in.” Fifty bucks instead of a Benjamin. Every dollar in gets paid out.
Let’s say all the usual suspects enter, under various code names. Mrs. Spieth. Bookemdanno. UnPhiltered. The payouts would be half of what they are at the majors. C’mon, do the math!
Farrelly, 63, of the Cumberland, R.I., Farrellys, still calls the Players by its old-timey name, TPC. (Well bless his heart, as the Southern division of the family might say.) Reminded that Fred Couples has won TPC twice, Farrelly said, “Yep, two TPCs, that’s one major. So with that Masters, he’s got two.” And two gets you in the World Golf Hall of Fame, or it gives you a fighting chance, anyway.
This pool could not be easier. It requires no understanding of golf. It’s a Chinese restaurant menu of pools. You are offered a selection of six different categories — flights of players, if you will — grouped by how good the different golfers are at golf.
In the first category, you have your Collin Morikawas and your Jon Rahms. In your sixth flight, you have your Kevin Streelmans and your Luke Lists. In between, you have your in-betweens.
You pick your predicted low man in each category. Whatever that golfer wins for the week is assigned to you as a number. All six categories are added up. No money for a missed cut. It’s very exciting.
“You know, we used to do this before. We had a pool for TPC. But didn’t they switch it or something? Like it was March and then it was May and now it’s March again?” Farrelly wasn’t really asking, he was stream-of-consciousing.
In his other life, he just got done shooting a Woody Harrelson movie where Woody plays a Special Olympics basketball coach, which he does to serve his community-service sentence.
The PGA Tour history reflects that everything Farrelly said in the foregoing is accurate.
“Yeah, so when TPC was in May we didn’t need the pool because we had the Masters in April and the U.S. Open after that. But now it kind of starts the season. Everybody’s ready for some golf.”
The pool attracts directors, actors, writers, sous chefs, golf bums and the chronically underemployed. The Farrelly brothers do, too.
Golf is a thing in their lives. They know a lot of golfers, amateur and professional, including Brad Faxon, Billy Andrade and various golfers named Quigley. In Rhode Island golf, being a Quigley is like being a Spencer in England. They’re golfing royalty, Rhodey-style.
“I do think they oversell it,” Farrelly said of the various Tour promotions for the Players. “All that, ‘Better than most, better than most.’ And you know, those Pete Dye courses, all that water and the railroad ties. They’re too hard. But it is fun to watch.”
He was out in Sun Valley, Idaho. The overnight low was -4. That’s Fahrenheit. In Celsius, well, we can all do the math:
(-4—32) x 5/9 =
But why show off?
It’s really not important.
The math for this golf pool is also advanced, but, fortunately, there’s an app for that. Also, Bobby’s got a guy.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.
