Try as we might, we can only resist the #brands incursion into every facet of professional golf so much. And one of those areas where resistance is futile is the burgeoning creative tee marker practice. These otherwise insignificant accoutrements are perfect for the social media age, where little bits of whimsy crash ashore and then recede back out of our consciousness into the great data lakes.
Well, dear reader, we have climbed to the creative tee marker summit thanks to many a cargo-shorted cook’s favourite backyard smoking apparatus. I do not know the circumstances under which Big Green Egg, a company that primarily makes ceramic smokers and originated in Atlanta, came to be the title sponsor of the Dutch Ladies Open at Rosendaelsche Golf Club on the Ladies European Tour. But I am grateful they did, because now we have mini-smokers for tee makers and Paul Bunyan-sized smokers for course decorations.
The super market shopping trolleys, the paint cans, the courier trucks, the chickens that kids decorate to give each their own individual flair – all of these are fine and welcome tee marker decorations. The same goes for the understated classics. We are, after all, talking about tee markers and even in this bitterly divisive internet world, it would seem hard to provoke strong opinions about tee markers. But some are objectively better than others and these little smokers are the new standard.
In a happy aside, Sydney’s Steph Kyriacou holds a two-shot overnight lead after an opening 66:
