👋 Good Morning Stump Nation!

A near course record from Hayden Springer at the John Deere Classic. A second straight 2 HR day from Christian Walker. And then PENALTIES in Argentina-Ecuador!! Are you kidding me?!?! What a day! All of that and our Stump Story is on….Mini-Golf? Give it a quick read! Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July!

If you haven’t checked out Episode 6 of the POD! YOUTUBE LINK!

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Links below ⬇️⬇️⬇️ 

LETS. GET. INTO. IT.  

THE DAILY STUMPED🔮

In 2023, how much did the U.S. spend on fireworks, not just for July 4th, but for the entire year?

• A. $145 Million

• B. $680 Million

• C. $1.4 Billion

• D. $2.3 Billion

• E. Firework - Katy Perry

Answer at the bottom of The Stump!

ON THIS DAY🗓️ 

On this day in 1968…

The first-ever cash prize was offered to the winner of WIMBLEDON!

Rod Laver defeated Tony Roche in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2! To win 2,000 Euros! This year the prize will be 2.7 Million! Woah!

YESTERDAY IN SPORTS📰 

Breaking News…

• 🌭 Chicago’s own Patrick Bertoletti SHOVELED 58 hot dogs into his gullet to win the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest

  • SOME are putting an ASTERICK next to this win with the absence of Joey “Jaws” Chestnut

• 🥊WBC expels young boxing star Ryan Garcia from any activity with the organization after he repeatedly used racial slurs on social media

• ⚾️ The MLB released the All-Star starters yesterday, here’s a link to check it out!

Top Final Scores💯 

• ⚽️Argentina def. Ecuador in PK’s!!! 1-1 (4-2)

  • An insane 91st minute equalizer by Ecuador after Argentina was on cruise control, and then goalkeeping heroics by Emi Martinez in penalties!

• ⚾️Red Sox complete the sweep of the Marlins in Miami in 12 inning marathon, 6-5!

• ⚾️Yankees continue to struggle as they fall to the gritty Reds, 8-4

• 🏀Lynx lose to the Sun at home, 78-73, while the Aces handle business against the Mystic!

What Caught Our Eye👀 

• ⚽️ The BEST in the World! Emi Martinez! Dance your dance!

• ⛳️ A 59 amidst his rookie year! Have A Day Hayden Springer!

• 🎾 After his last ever Wimbledon, a tribute video for Andy Murray! Wimbledon is Andy Murray and Andy Murray is Wimbledon!

• ⚾️ Christian Walker has officially taken the owner’s rights of Dodger Stadium!

STUMP STORY OF THE DAY✍️ 

Not PGA. Not LIV. But TwinTour.

A lot we could talk about in the world of sports, but we’re going down a different path today! We’re talking MINI GOLF! Come for the story, stay for the sandwich analogy!

Bun

We’re going with a ‘paragraph sandwich’ today. A quick paragraph (bun), the story (cheese, meat, and veggies), and then another paragraph (bun). Now that I write that it seems kind of dumb, I believe that’s what people call an intro and a conclusion. Maybe I’m just hungry.

For some reason, the topic of today’s story has taken way too long to come up with. At first I saw golfer Hayden Springer shoot a 59 (insane score) at this week’s John Deere Classic. Then Arizona Diamondbacks first basemen Christian Walker had his second straight 2 HR game against the Dodgers. If that wasn’t enough sports we had an insane goalkeeping performance by Argentina’s Emiliano Martinez in penalties at the COPA. The options to choose from are limitless.

But when we started writing Stump Stories we didn’t want to just write things that you would see on the front page of ESPN, because then you would just go to ESPN.

Cheese, Meat, and Veggies

All that being said, while debating which of those three topics to write about, I did what happens to the best of us and somehow ended up scrolling through Instagram. While doing that I came across one of my more recent IG follows in “TwinTourGolf”.

What this group of friends does is so simple, yet somehow captivating.

They play mini-golf, and they post it on social media. There’s two twin brothers, Danny and Steven, who with their friends have been playing mini-golf for months now, and have amassed a 300k following on IG. They play their own ‘majors’ and right now we are in the middle of a bracket style tourney that is WILD! It’s an 8 person tourney with regular seeding match-ups based on who the best are supposed to be.

In the first round we had (1) Danny vs (8) Wolf. Danny is the Scottie of TwinTourGolf and wins almost every major he plays in. However in a STUNNING playoff STUMPSET, Wolf mounted a comeback and knocked out Danny, his semifinal match will be posted throughout the day today.

The star of the show however is Bella. In months of content she has said a grand total of 0 words, and puts on absolute clinics with the putter. She came into this tourney as the 6 seed and put up a near course record 38 in round 1 against (3) Steven. One round of 38 wasn’t enough, in the semis just yesterday she put up another 38 in a win over (2) Eddie. Bella is in the finals and looks to win the big one!

At first when this account came across my feed, I said “Alright are we really playing mini-golf on Instagram now?” But we absolutely are and it’s electric! It’s almost like a show. You get invested in the characters. You want to see if Wolf can upset Danny. You want to see if Bella is ever going to crack a smile.

That’s all I’ll say about TwinTour, if you’re interested, they are @TwinTourGolf on all platforms, it takes a three second scroll to go back and see the STUMPSETS I talked about.

I think what I find most interesting about this is that it’s just a crew having fun. It’s not a professional league, it’s not in front of any fans at all, it literally is just a group of friends recording some mini-golf. It’s so so simple, yet so entertaining. They’ve cracked a code and I think 300k might just be the beginning. When it comes to everything you see on social media, there’s a lot going on. It’s refreshing to see some simplicity every once in a while.

Bun

Going back to deciding the topic of this story today I was having a little bit of an existumptial crisis. A little ‘Who are we?‘ moment. There’s so many outlets out there to see the big stories in sports. If you google Springer, Walker, or Martinez you’ll already see 10 different articles about each of them. If you google TwinTour you won’t find one.

So who are we?

We’re the ones who talk about what you don’t always hear about.

We’re storytellers. We’re on our way. We’re Stomping Ground Sports.

JUICE STATION🧃 

Quote of the Day

Song of the Day

Glue Guy of the Day

Defined: Glue Guy (Noun, Verb, Adj., etc.) - a person, thing, idea, or thought that holds together the larger group. Not the star, not the main character, but a hard hat and lunch pale type who knows its role. The GLUE of the group.

WHAT TO WATCH📺️ 

Soccer⚽️:

• Quarterfinals at the EUROs: Spain vs Germany (12:00 PM ET), Portugal vs France (3:00 PM ET)

• Quarterfinals at the COPA America: Venezuela vs Canada (9:00 PM ET)

Golf⛳️: Some monster scores at Day 1 of the John Deere Classic

• Hayden Springer is your Day 1 leader after shooting a 59 (-12)

• Followed by Valimaki (-10), Cole (-9), D. Thompson (-8)

  • Not your everyday household names but seems like we’re in for a great Tourney!

Tennis🎾: WIMBLEDON - Day starts with (5) Medvedev vs Struff and (3) Alcaraz vs (29) Tiafoe (Match OTD). Womens side of the bracket has (12) Keys vs (18) Kostyuk and (2) Gauff vs Kartal

MLB⚾️: Seems like we have rivalry day in the MLB - RED SOX @ YANKEES (7:05 PM ET), Mets @ Pirates (6:40 PM ET), Phillies @ Braves (7:20 PM ET), Brewers @ Dodgers (10:10 PM ET)

WNBA🏀: ATL Dream @ DAL Wings (7:30 PM ET), LV Aces @ LA Sparks (10:00 PM ET), CHI Sky @ SEA Storm (10:00 PM ET)