Greetings fellow “BMW PGA > preferred lies in Asheville” fans,
And congrats to the winner of our Holderness and Bourne collegiate collection giveaway, Colin H. Colin won a box of collegiate collection gear (his choice of school) and kindly had this to say about Normal Sport.
I’m no writer nor artist, but I am a sports addict who can’t consume enough of Normal Sport. There’s a reason my endorsement is lacking compared to Kyle’s writing and Jason’s illustrations. They do the actual talent part, I just keep reading the newsletter. Highly recommend subscribing.
Collin H.
Name drops today: Carlos Alcaraz, J.T. Poston, Jennifer Lawrence, Jim Furyk, Jon Wertheim and Baylor’s placekicker.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Garmin and their new Approach J1 device, which is made specifically for young golfers. Both of my boys are currently wearing and loving this watch both on and off the course.
My 9 year old told me on our walk to school this morning, “Please charge my watch today, dad. I asked mom, but I think she’s probably going to forget.”
Hate to see that, but also love to see how much he’s loving it.
The J1 is the first golf watch designed specifically for junior golfers and pairs a lightweight fit with club suggestions, on-watch celebrations (awesome) and because Garmin cares about your sanity, a pace of play timer. If your 7 year old is holding up a round because he’s aimpointing a 3 footer, time to put him in flag football.
You can (and should) check out the J1 right here.
And now, onto the news.
1. Over the last 25 years, I think we got so accustomed to the reality that we had a golfer (Tiger) who was in a lot of ways bigger than the game that, in the aftermath of that, we tend to overrate how important all non-Tiger golfers are to the game. This is more or less something Brian Rolapp has been saying since he became CEO of the Tour.
Because of this, I think the two most important aspects of the new qualification criteria for the Tour’s championship series events should be …
1. Prioritizing product > individual players and …
2. Simplification
So did they accomplish that with the announcement this week of future Championship Series criteria? Uhhh … mostly. Kind of. Almost.
Here is how those Championship Series fields will be constructed.
• Top 90 players from previous year’s Championship Series.
• Top 20 golfers promoted from Challenger Series.
• Golfers who won twice on the Challenger Series.
• Winners of Championship Series events from the last 2+ years.
• No. 1 golfer from PGA Tour University.
• Medical extensions on a limited basis.
• Players eligible to use a one-time money list exemption.
2. There has been some criticism — specifically from Normal Sport readers — around Championship Series winners (including Players and majors) receiving 2+ year exemptions into other Championship Series events.
I mostly agree with that criticism, although I would point out that if you win in a given year, you’re almost certainly going to be in the top 90 anyway and eligible for the following season. J.T. Poston is a good example this year. Bad overall season but won Memorial, finished T4 at the U.S. Open and is easily in the top 50 of the FedEx Cup. It’s really that second year guarantee that should irk people.
Here’s my specific issue with it …
The Tour is a little bit trying to have it both ways. They are attempting to reward season long consistency by flattening the point distribution (see below) for everyone in the field, which caters to the top players. This is good. Your biggest stars are almost always also going to be your most consistent players over a big window of time.
But then the Tour is also massively rewarding winning an event by offering a multi-year exemption, which seems to undermine the whole idea of a pure year-to-year meritocracy in the way it has been framed over the last year.
Kristoffer Reitan and Poston, for example, should not be guaranteed spots in 2028 based on winning big time events in 2026.
Simplicity is part of the entire point here, and I think having that exemption undercuts the idea of trying to explain to someone, Well yes everyone is in danger of being relegated this year. Oh, except those three guys. And him. Oh and that guy over there.
Don’t love it. Just remove that category altogether and let the season long race decide things. This makes the product simpler and sharper.
3. But I really don’t love the career money exemption and think it is completely ridiculous. Part of the appeal of the new system is that Justin Thomas (6th in career money) or Jordan Spieth (10th) or Collin Morikawa (18th) actually could be playing in Quad Cities, San Antonio or Tampa the following year, not that they get a safety net from what they did 10 years ago. This is an example of prioritizing player over product.
Again, I get this from a business perspective — you don’t want your stars disappearing overnight — but I’m disappointed that the Tour didn’t go all the way in on prioritizing the product over the individual and making it as easy to understand as they could have.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,056 of them) and includes some European Ryder Cup things I need to get off my chest ...
By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Access to 100 percent of our content this week.
• An invite to our Slack channel where we watch and talk golf together.
• A free digital copy of our Rory book.
• 15% off to our pro shop.
Normal Sport is exploratory, sometimes emotional, always entertaining. It also has one of my favorite writers in the biz at its foundation.
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 is the best columnist in sports. That he has channeled those talents through strokes gained and Spieth memes is a blessing to golf.
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.
Kyle approaches coverage of the game with both conviction and curiosity
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.
It's a treasure trove of the important, the seemingly important, and — importantly! — the unimportant stuff. It's an asset in my inbox.
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!
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 is a perfect curator of the necessary moments of levity that accent a sport that will drive most of us insane.
Few make the sport feel as fun and as thought provoking.
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.
.svg){kind=spacer}
