The Top Golf sale is a perfect encapsulation of where we are currently in the game. Callaway made a 2 billion dollar bet on exposing non-traditional golfers to driving range golf hoping they’d become core golfers and buy Callaway’s clubs and balls, long-term. This naturally didn’t work because: 1. Actual golfers hate the concept and execution. No one wants to see drunk and non-drunk people top shots, shank, body pirouetting after a shot, yelling/wooing after a shot, showing up in jeans or bros with their hats backwards hitting golf balls as hard as they can while eating nachos between shots. 2. The 10-12 acre facilities are in the middle of town and total eyesores. It’s the ugliest business in every town they occupy. 3. Similar to bowling, the only people that go are big groups for “team building”, double-dates, and birthday/Christmas parties. To survive the business needs recurring revenue, not customers that show up 2x per year. 4. The menu is microwaved and/or fried Sysco bag food and the waitresses don’t look like Hooters girls from the late 80’s and early 90’s - when they looked like they could be on Baywatch. It’s hard to imagine losing 1 billion dollars in 4 years on what should be a core competency. This should be a lesson to all golf-related businesses chasing non-core golfers, but it won’t be. The powers that be will continue going after the lowest common denominator. The End.

The oldest trans-Hudson crossing was the 1910 Uptown Hudson Tubes train tunnels for the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad. They are now the PATH tubes from Hoboken to Christopher Street and then to 33rd Street. This is a 1909 diagram of the NJ side with split to Hoboken and Newark.

In a call between the two foreign ministers, China agreed to supply Italy with 1,000 ventillators and 2 million masks. Additionally, they are donating (!) them 100k respirators, 20k protective suits, and 50k test kits as part of "massive aid" package. corriere.it/politica/20_marz…

TIL: the difference between a wharf, a pier, a jetty and a quay (reading about the history of the port of San Francisco on a Friday night).