Greetings!
We are unashamedly trying to reach 1,000 book sales by the time the 2026 Masters starts and are about 1/3 of the way there. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can do so right here.
Let’s get to work.
Name drops today: Alyssa Liu, Nathan MacKinnon, Kurt Kitayama, Dwight Schrute, Adam Silver, Cam Smith and Ben Hogan.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Ship Sticks.
Even if you’re not an Olympian — and I’m guessing if you’re reading a newsletter about men taking off their clothes to hit golf balls, you likely are not (though we may have one or two on this list!) — you can at least still travel like one.
That’s because Ship Sticks has a subdivision called Ship Skis, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Whether you’re traveling to Milano Cortina to see if you can ski a 6-minute mile uphill like this absolute freak or just taking your kids to the bunny slopes in New Mexico (seems more likely for this crowd), Ship Skis is a great solution for your upcoming travel.
OK, now onto the news.
1. There are so many different directions to go at the end of this week so let's start with the obvious massive golf storyline hanging out there: Milan 2026.
I didn’t start this newsletter so I could break down Taylor Moore’s chances at the Honda Classic. I started it so I could congregate an audience that I could write anything to (with a mostly golf slant) and let the intrigue fall where it may.
Which takes us back to the Winter Olympics.
I felt this stat from The Athletic.
The Milan Cortina Olympics drew a daily average of 23.5 million viewers in the United States, making it the most-watched Olympics since the 2014 Sochi Games, according to numbers released by NBCUniversal on Monday.
The average daily viewership was a 96 percent increase over the last Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022, which drew only 12 million.
The Athletic
And while I don’t really care about the numbers generated by massive media brands like NBC, I do care very much about monocultural events like this. It was such a fun connection point with my own kids, other friends and even in the rote small talk we make with acquaintances or people we see in passing every day.
It reminded me of this great tweet by my pal Tom Marton and our very human need for community and collectivity. The Olympics is not eternally significant, but it is a very fun and useful way to engage with that community and collectivity.
This actually happens often for us on Golf Twitter during tournaments, which Jamie Kennedy and I discussed recently on this podcast.
2. My favorite Winter Olympics things, mostly in order.
The Hockey
Also The Hockey
Jordan Stolz
The (other) quad god
The ice dancing
The women’s hockey
Alyssa Liu
This random freestyle skiing competition my son and I watched where guys started doing 2160s. No idea what it was, but it was extraordinary.
We woke up early on Sunday before church to see if we could get the whole gold medal game in before we had to leave. Because it went to OT, we ended up watching on my phone in the parking lot with friends. An absolutely all time experience.
I have not felt what I felt during the third period and OT of that U.S.-Canada game since Rory was on the 15th tee last April.
[Jason here] I need to shout out my fellow countryman Jorrit Bergsma for winning the 10,000km Mass Start by… just skating faster than everyone else! Normal skate. I've watched the highlight at least once per day since the race and you should too.
3. Some additional thoughts on The Hockey as well some actual golf talk and the golf-hockey crossover comp that involves the phrase “sorta quiet but also a lunatic” for Normal Club members below…
Normal Sport is supported by exactly 1,010 individuals who may or may not think of me when they see penis material headlines in the Olympics. By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• The delight of helping us establish Normal Sport.
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• Access to all of our content (like the rest of this post).
Few make the sport feel as fun and as thought provoking.
Kyle's content is a product of a sick sense of humour, a clear passion for golf and unquestionable dedication to hard work. That's not normal!
Kyle approaches coverage of the game with both conviction and curiosity
The way Kyle has been able to mold a silly Twitter joke (normal sport) into a must-read newsletter on the weekly happenings in our silly game gives a great look into why he's one of the smartest people in golf.
Kyle sees golf in a way that no one else does—and we're all fortunate to get to share in that view through Normal Sport!
It's a treasure trove of the important, the seemingly important, and — importantly! — the unimportant stuff. It's an asset in my inbox.
There’s been no one else in golf that has tickled my funny bone as often as Kyle Porter does. He’s been instrumental in ushering in a new era of golf coverage and it’s been a pleasure to be along for the ride in that.
Kyle is one of the best in the golf world at finding and synthesizing the absurd, the thoughtful and the fun things that make being a golf fan worthwhile.
I’ve always enjoyed your love for golf. So often I see favoritism showed to golfers in the social media world, but I enjoy reading you telling a situation how it is regardless of the person.
Normal Sport is exploratory, sometimes emotional, always entertaining. It also has one of my favorite writers in the biz at its foundation.
Kyle is the best columnist in sports. That he has channeled those talents through strokes gained and Spieth memes is a blessing to golf.
Kyle is a perfect curator of the necessary moments of levity that accent a sport that will drive most of us insane.
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