Nick Bell

Small business CEO in Regional Vic. Average but avid golfer.

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@StevoMedia @zerohanger Final year for the great man I think. Can't risk too many more knocks in the head.

Butters a handy replacement though.

[Ripper GC @rippergc_]

Your 2026 LIV Golf Virginia champion! 🏆

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@Daniel_Rapaport There's at least 5 or 6 of them just in Melbourne

[hrrproratings @hrrproratings]

Lynch,

This reads less like a rag column and more like a prosecution brief with jokes stapled on. You dress it up in Gladwell and “outliers” language, then treat subjective disdain as if it’s the data. “Bootlickers”, “apologists”, “social media slurps” isn’t analysis. It’s a tell. You’re not testing a claim, you’re selecting targets and cueing the reader how to feel about them.

Your LIV section is built on a double standard that always favours the PGA Tour. Adelaide’s revenue being an outlier is an interesting business point, but you use it only to sneer at LIV fans, not to examine what it actually proves: that elite men’s golf can thrive outside the US when it’s staged properly and priced for the market. Cue LIV Golf South Africa in a few weeks, that could be bigger than Adelaide. Then you reach for a US TV number as a mic-drop without explaining the source, method, platform context, or like-for-like comparison. That’s not “evidence”. That’s a stat as a bludgeon.

The Kim section is the giveaway. You concede the hard truths, absence, addiction, rebuild, and then you cannot bring yourself to let the sporting achievement stand without reducing his return to a “desperate marketing stunt”. That’s not something you demonstrate; it’s something you assert because it flatters your priors. The inconvenient fact is that Kim’s place wasn’t protected: he was relegated, then earned his way back, then won. If you’re arguing LIV has no merit pathways, Kim is the counterexample in your own copy.

Your sweeping claims need receipts, not rhetoric. “More than 90%… by invitation.” “Contractually protected.” “Ejected based solely on national origin.” Those are allegations mis represented and half truths, with no context and no written rules cited, and no acknowledgement that the PGA Tour is also in parts a closed shop in practice: sponsor exemptions, medical extensions, major-category protections, reshuffles, and a system that has always mixed merit with status, money, and relationships. If you want to prosecute LIV for being curated, you need to apply the same standard to the Tour you’re implicitly defending.

In the end, the “outliers” framing is just a narrative trick: Player as your designated villain, Kim as your reluctant hero, LIV as your permanent defendant, and the PGA Tour as the unspoken baseline of virtue. You can dislike LIV, plenty do, but you don’t get to replace reporting with mockery and call it truth. If you want to persuade readers rather than rally your own side, drop the sneers, show all the sources and truths, and argue against the strongest version of the opposing case, not the caricature.

Of which you certainly are along with your pal Brandel, the two biggest Spitting Image caricatures in golf.

[Mark Knable @birdiesnpar]

@GolfCentral @chambleebrandel @Paige_Mackenzie Brandel Brandel. Ugh 🙄the USOpen & Masters have something to day about that……..

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@NUCLRGOLF Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Peninsula Kingswood.

You could play all three regularly without jetsetting around the world.

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@ShaneLowryGolf @JonRahmOfficial @OpendeEspana Come play in the Australian Open with your mate Rory, the best of the national opens!

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@AndrewKirbyGolf Just a shame about how far we all hit it now so its such a short simple hole

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@sirswampthing any chance of seeing which team gives up the most 'red time' goals, say last 2 mins of each quarter. As a doggies fan we seem to do it every week.

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@MickMjwhite64 @AFL He's out already this week from concussion so they didn't need to do it this week

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@1116sen @Grays_AU @SENBreakfast Our bottom 8-10 players are arguably as bad or worse than any other team in the top 10, wouldn't get a game at Geelong, Pies, Lions etc, so unsure how Kane is still suggesting the doggies clearly have 'the best list in the comp'. We have 5 or 6 guns like most, rest are not there.

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@amanda_emblem @senbmckenzie @The_Nationals Honestly, I think he would have done better as an independent and pinched the seat.

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@mosullivan2323 @oddball1982 Dogs played horrid for majority of the game, kicked horrendously, umps were dogshit (26 to 12 frees) and cats couldn't miss but we still lost by only 2 kicks down at that shithole, not a terrible result

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@DalePearce3 I can only do so much!

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@AndrewKirbyGolf @JamesMarchesani @GolfAust @PGAofAustralia Certainly understand the comparison isn't like for like being one of the majors in tennis world, but its hard to believe corporate Australia have cash burning a hole in their pocket and GA can't offer them a reason to spend it like Tennis Aus can

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@AndrewKirbyGolf @JamesMarchesani @GolfAust @PGAofAustralia The prize money has always been the killer. I've used this example plenty of times and GA people tell me its not remotely relevant, but I can't understand coming up with >$90 million in prize money for the Tennis, but the Aus Open golf can't pull together more than a pittance

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@strangerous10 AEC shows margin is now 70, 533 envelopes left to process

[Nick Bell @nick_bell7]

@kazza264 @Qldaah It very almost did. Lisa has a lot of work to do to actually be visible around here for the next 3 years if she hopes to continue beyond the next election. Andrew was a strong choice for the Nats and almost knocked her off.