Fore Play's Hater series is one of those bits that shouldn't work as well as it does: take a guy from the replies who thinks he can beat Riggs, put him on a real golf course, stroke play, no gimmes, no excuses. It's been running for a while now and it always ends the same way, with someone eating a lot more crow than they expected. This time the stakes feel a little different.
Hater series is BACK. Tomorrow. Noon eastern. A 23 year old unemployed 2.8 handicap vs yours truly. Tobacco Road. Stroke play.
Riggs himself confirmed the details on his own account: the match goes down at noon ET, stroke play, at Tobacco Road against a 23-year-old who is, in his own words, unemployed with a 2.8 handicap. That's not a scratch golfer walking in with a chip on his shoulder — that's a legitimately good stick with nothing but time on his hands to grind his index down and study film on Riggs' swing.
The venue is doing a lot of the talking here too. Tobacco Road, the Mike Strantz-designed course in Sanford, North Carolina, isn't your average municipal track — it's built on an old sand quarry, full of blind tee shots, heaving waste areas and greens that punish anything less than precise. It's the kind of course that turns a good round into a disaster in about two swings, which makes it a brutal equalizer for a grudge match like this.
Naturally, the internet noticed the framing of the challenger before the match even started. One reply summed up the vibe perfectly, pointing out that calling the kid "unemployed" doubles as an insult and a scouting report.
@RiggsBarstool “Unemployed” is a statement of fact but also a clean shot
That's the appeal of the Hater series in a nutshell — it's part golf content, part psychological warfare, and Riggs clearly knows how to needle a guy before a single ball gets struck. Whether the 2.8 handicap's unemployment is a blessing or a curse remains to be seen; plenty of free time to play golf could just as easily mean plenty of reps against a course like Tobacco Road.
With TaylorMade attached and the match set for noon eastern, this is shaping up to be the highest-profile installment of the series yet. Barstool's golf audience has watched Riggs take on internet trolls before, but pairing a legitimately low handicap with one of the toughest, most unforgiving layouts in the country raises the degree of difficulty considerably. Expect the fallout — good or bad for Riggs — to dominate Fore Play's timeline for the rest of the week.