Thursday's New York Times puzzle solved: February 22, 2018

My time: 26:04, which is slower than average.

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Zhouqin Burnikel has solvers REVERSING COURSE, as the three themed answers are written in the puzzle backward.  The first one is LANOITAN ATSUGUA [Augusta National], "home of the Masters" (not the PGA Championship, held in August).  I kept wanting to put Atlanta in there.  The second backward answer is ARBEGLA-ERP [pre-algebra], and SREZITEPPA.  There's no reason for or common bond of these three particular answers, so while the theme is confusing, it's not very clever or interesting.

There were pretty abstruse, sly clues on this one.  For example, "request to be connected on social media" for ADD ME, "didn't get bought" for SAT, "nonmonetary donation" for ORGAN, and "didn't feel like moving, maybe" for ACHED.

"Divide into 120° sections, say" is TRISECT.  That's because every regular shape is 360°.  I didn't quite get that at first.

I have not heard of Minnesota senator AMY Klobuchar.  She is my kind of people.

Alfred ADLER was an Austrian psychotherapist who founded the school of individual psychology.  His work on the inferiority complex, a term he coined, is considered to be a major stepping stone in understanding personality development.

"Low ones are best, in brief" is ERAS.  That is, Earned Run Averages.  This is a baseball stat derived by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine.  Wiki?

During the dead-ball era of the 1900s and 1910s, an ERA below 2.00 (two earned runs allowed per nine innings) was considered good. In the late 1920s and through the 1930s, when conditions of the game changed in a way that strongly favored hitters, a good ERA was below 4.00.  In the 1960s, sub-2.00 ERAs returned, as other influences such as ballparks with different dimensions were introduced. Today, an ERA under 4.00 is again considered good.

Did you know the NRA produces a magazine called American Hunter?  I didn't, nor do I care.  The blood of children is on their filthy dollars.

URI, the University of Rhode Island, appeared February 8.

Clever clues: "They're often caught and passed around" is COLDS.  "Producer of inflation" is AIR.  "Having hands, in a way" is ANALOG. "Match maker?" is EROS.

Whew!  This was a tough one.  All those hard to parse clues.  I was way off my time TARGET.  Well, BYE.