The best golfer Halloween costumes, the next Rory McIlroy(?), and a crazy college football firing tee time scoop

Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we still can’t get over that crazy World Series Game 7. To the Dodgers fans, congrats (I guess). To the Blue Jays faithful, my condolences. And to Isiah Kiner-Falefa, you might want to move out of Canada. I haven’t played baseball in 30 years and even I know you’ve got to take a bigger lead than that off third base! Anyway, let’s get back to our beloved golf, where every big event is a game of inches. And at least the Great White North finally broke that drought at the Canadian Open a couple years ago, am I right? OK, too soon. Let’s get a running start into everything happening in golf.

WE’RE BUYING

Tom McKibbin: The rising star from Northern Ireland is following in his hero Rory McIlroy’s footsteps in more ways than one now. Like McIlroy, McKibbin can now call himself a Hong Kong Open champ. Like Rory, this guy can really blitz a field as evidenced by his seven-shot win over the weekend. And like Rory, he’ll now be at Augusta National next April. “And to have that drive down Magnolia Lane for the first time ever will be even more special,” McKibbin said after of earning an invite thanks to recent qualifying criteria to give national open winners a spot in the Masters field. “Historic tournaments like this deserve their spots, and it’s great to take advantage of that.”

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Eurasia Sport Images

Of course, unlike McIlroy, McKibbin plays on the LIV Golf. And this is a big deal for that tour as well—especially if this guy actually turns out to be the next Rory.

James Morrison: This might be my favorite golf story of the year. The 40-year-old journeyman lost his DP World Tour card last year and was just playing out the string on the HotelPlanner Tour, turning the Rolex Grand Final into more of a family holiday in Spain (I used that phrase so I could note that “Holiday in Spain” is a Counting Crows classic). Morrison said this “100 percent” was going to be the last event of his career and then he won. By three shots. With his 13-year-old son, Finley, on the bag. And now he’s back on the DP World Tour.

“I haven’t got a tour bag. I haven’t got a caddie,” Morrison said after, referencing Finley having to return to school the following day. “I’m going to have to figure some stuff out.” So it’s a fairytale ending—without an ending for now. Good luck, James. Now back to work.

Miyu Yamashita: The 24-year-old Japanese star added to her breakout rookie campaign by winning the Maybank Championship three months after claiming the AIG Women’s Open. And this victory involved an incredible eight-shot comeback on Sunday. Yamashita also overcame two weather delays and two opponents in a playoff to win by draining this 20-footer on the first extra hole.

“There were lots of delays due to the weather today, but I was able to stay focused and keep control of my game, and really just like listen to music and then just get ready for the playoff,” Yamashita said after completing the second-biggest LPGA comeback since 1982. Whatever she was listening to, it worked.

WE’RE SELLING

Gary Player’s all-time ranking: If anyone has earned the right to declare themselves the third best golfer of all time (Behind Jack and Tiger), it’s Gary Player. The guy just turned 90, he won 160 times around the globe including nine majors, and he claims to have broken his age more than 3,000 times in a row. But. . . as one of the foremost Ben Hogan fans—and Gary is too, which is what makes this claim so surprising—I have to take issue with it. That being said, Gary is a total legend and he can still do more pushups than me:

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A lot more.

Sleeping through your tee time: The most hated person on Golf Twitter last week was YouTube star Luke Kwon, who overslept his tee time at the Internet Invitational. What’s the big deal? Well, the $1.7 million purse is certainly the biggest the inaugural Creator Classic champ has ever competed for, he was part of a team and, thus, hurt a lot of others chances at winning big money, and to top it all off, he was kind of a jerk about the entire thing.

Then again, maybe this shouldn’t have come as a surprise:

Perhaps, team captain Robby Berger should have done a more complete scouting report before making his selections. Anyway, Kwon issued a long apology a few days after this episode ran, but the damage has been done. That being said, sadly, this will probably only help his BRAND. That’s just the world we live in.

Losing your standing tee time: Some incredible tee sheet reporting from an Auburn fan beat the team’s beat writers to knowing head coach Hugh Freeze was fired after the Tigers’ bad loss to Kentucky on Saturday. Someone noticed that Freeze’s standing 1:30 p.m. Sunday tee time at the Auburn University Club had been canceled. And people started connecting the dots that the coach had gotten the boot.

What a scoop by @great_tweeter! That’s pretty brutal that they wouldn’t let Hugh tee it up one more time on his way out. Also, it’s pretty funny that it’s his wife’s name listed on the tee sheet instead of him, presumably because of the criticism he’s taken for playing too much golf. In fact, reports then came out that Freeze playing golf the day after suffering some bad losses was one of the reasons he got fired.

Anyway, looks like Hugh has a lot more time to play golf now. He just won’t be playing there anymore!

ON TAP

The PGA Tour fall season resumes with the World Wide Technology Championship, AKA that one that used to be called Mayakoba, AKA that one they play at that Tiger Woods design in Mexico. The DP World Tour returns with the Abu Dhabi Championship that will feature the real Rory McIlroy and the LPGA rolls on with the Toto Japan Classic. No word on if they’re still giving a toilet to the winner.

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Random tournament fact: This will be the third year El Cardonal is the event’s golf course. Tiger Woods has never played in this tournament, even when it’s been at El Cardonal.

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

—Tiger Woods will ever play in this event: 1 MILLION-to-1 odds

—Someone will oversleep their tee time in Mexico: 100-to-1 odds

—Finley Morrison had the best show-and-tell in school this week: LOCK

TWEET OF THE WEEK

I see what you did there, Greg. Well played.

PHOTO(S) OF THE WEEK

Happy Halloween, everyone! To celebrate, here’s a rundown of some of the best golfer costumes out there this year—from the usual suspects. Like Dustin and Paulina:

Brooks and Jena:

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The Finaus:

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Charlie Hull:

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And, of course, the Donalds:

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Who I believe won Halloween every year since The Grind started. Well done, everyone.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Not sure how this is coming out more than three-and-a-half years after the fact, but this new angle of Jordan Spieth’s death-defying shot from a cliff at Pebble Beach’s eighth hole is WILD:

No wonder he and caddie Michael Greller hugged each other moments later. That was nearly an all-time sports tragedy!

THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS

J.R. Smith, unfortunately, missed a flight and couldn’t participate in the Internet Invitational. HOWEVAH, he did post that he reached an impressive golf milestone:

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Well done, J.R.

THIS WEEK IN PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

Adam and Jessica Hadwin went to Games 6 and 7 of the World Series in Toronto:

Aww. Of course, this was taken before the Blue Jays lost both those games. In crushing fashion. Sorry, guys.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I’ll do the same thing tonight. I’ll have three gin and tonics and a glass of wine. Have a bit of ham. Play some Uno with the family, and that’ll literally be it. Come to the course tomorrow and see what happens.” —James Morrison on his Saturday night plans ahead of Sunday’s final round. Hey, you gotta do what works.

THIS AND THAT

Congrats to Yanhan Zhou on winning his ninth China Tour event. At 17 years old. Yeah, we’re going to be hearing more from this guy. . . . LIV’s Promotions event will be played in Florida this January with a $1.5 million purse on the line and two spots on the LIV Tour up for grabs. It will be interesting to see if any PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour guys make a run at this. . . . Wild Spring Dunes, a new Mike Keiser project in Texas with the first course designed by Tom Doak, is set for a soft opening Nov. 12 with people being able to play the eight-hole loop twice with lunch for $70. And every time I hear stuff like this, I wonder why I live in this area. . . . And, finally, here was this year’s Halloween candy stash:

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