Normal Sport is presented by Seed Golf this week. An Irish golf ball company presenting our coverage of a golf tournament started in Scotland, played this year in England and attended by an American (Jason) who currently lives in the Netherlands.
Sure, absolutely. Let’s do it.
Check Seed out right here.
[Jason here]
I nearly didn't make it to Southport today. I was waiting for my transfer in Paris watching people board for Oran. I suck at Maptap so I Google Oran (it's in Algeria). I am early and relaxed when I see the dictionary definition of a golf guy — wearing an [OEM that’s not Cobra] hat and a striped Holderness and Bourne polo (possibly this Maxwell) — rush up to the gate to board.
Cool shirt. What's golf like in Algeria? Is there golf in Algeria? Is that guy actually going to Algeria? I crane my neck and see another board that says Gate Closing Manchester. Crap. I made the flight and was never so thankful to see an [OEM that’s not Cobra] hat in my life.
I arrived at Birkdale this evening with just enough time to touch one very firm and surprisingly dusty (so dusty) fairway and witness Geoff Shackelford chuckle to himself as he sent out The Quadrilateral, which arrived 1 second later in my inbox. Aspirational energy. It's delightful to be in the mix.
Getting to illustrate a tournament live is a gold mine for observing and dreaming up ideas. Too many ideas to fit into the final illustrations. I thought you might like to see how the sausage is made. Or in this case, how the Birkdale Biscuit was made.
Here's my Tuesday doodle on the train to Southport.
[OK, I’ll throw it back to Kyle for his usual nonsense]
Name drops today: The Beatles, Cam Young, Granit Xhaka, meme kings and Gary Woodland.
An Open in Birkdale, just down the road from Jason’s home base for the week in Liverpool? Too easy.
Today’s newsletter is presented by our friends at Cobra, which is who I thought of when I saw this bit from Michael Kim on Tuesday.
Why did I think of Cobra? Well, because I wondered, Maybe Michael Kim doesn’t have those shots, but you know who does? Gary Woodland and his King irons, which also happens to be the model of iron that I’m playing right now (results may vary).
I’m giddy to see him rip long irons with max 7.5 feet of apex all over that place all week as he tries to bookend his U.S. Open at Pebble Beach with an Open Championship at Birkdale and pull off what would be one of the sports stories of the last several years.
King irons, built for the noblest traj in all the land.
And now, onto the news.
The Birkdale Biscuit, hard as the dickens.
1. Birkdale looks unequivocally fast and firm (maybe the firmest). I have to say, this kind of sneaked up on me a bit. Yes, all Opens are browned out, and many of them are even fast and firm. That is kind of the entire brand.
But I did not expect this …
Or this.
The turf is still spectacular but about as dry, firm, and fast as any rota venue since the Old Course.
Geoff Shackelford
This is a delight, of course, but now my brain is in a bit of a blender about how exactly Birkdale is going to play and who’s going to thrive there.
The cool part? So are the brains of the players.
There's a lot of thinking off the tee on whether or not you want to just hit driver up there somewhere and kind of play from the rough most likely, or do you want to start hitting some irons, getting it in some fairways and hitting some longer shots into the greens?
On each hole there's a good bit of strategy; there's a decent amount of thinking. If it wasn't as firm as it is now, there wouldn't be as much decision-making, but I think with the firmness, it creates a whole lot more challenges, I think, for us as players, just to try and control your ball and figure out where it's going to end up.
Scottie Scheffler
This is everything — I mean everything — I want from an Open. And while it’s probably a bit overstated to say that The Open is the Thoughtful Major, I’m not sure there’s been another golf tournament this year that has presented players with such a wide variety of options and potential decisions from the tee shot all the way through the putt. That’s unique about The Open and especially about this Open.
Golf at this level is most interesting to me when you can see guys going through their options and having to make not only a choice about strategy but then go execute it right after. That is a layer of the game that we don’t get to see as often as I would like.
And listen, the World Cup has been fun but the soccer mind could never comprehend …
2. Speaking of Scottie! I am fascinated to see what he does this week.
Which camp are you in?
Camp 1
• 1st in the world in SG (last 50 rounds)
• 2nd in the world in SG (last 20 rounds)
• Three top 14 finishes at majors this year
• Won last year’s Open Championship
• This course requires a ton of patience
Camp 2
• Open has been probably his worst major (“worst”)
• Just missed a cut for the first time in four years
• Hates the randomness that Opens often bring about
• Doesn’t really feel like the best player in the world
• Has clearly lost a step and a half with his iron play
Here’s how I’ve been thinking about it: Scottie could definitely win, absolutely. Of course he could. But instead of having a 12-15 percent chance in my head when the event starts, it’s more like a 3-5 percent chance. No longer in the Tiger range. More in the range of other stars.
This squares up with how he’s played, too. He is still playing at the level of a star (maybe even a superstar), but he’s not playing at the level of a “having (another!) one of the great seasons of the last 40 years” guy.
It’s hilarious to type all of that and also consider the fact that 17 guys (out of 400) have beaten him at the first three majors.
3. New pod with Hayden Martin dropped this afternoon. We answered the question of not who we think is going to play well and/or win, but which player winning would get us the most excited. No real surprises, but we got rolling here, especially toward the back half of the pod. A ton of fun, and I hope it’s a good bit of entertainment heading into Thursday.
One note for after the jump below, I’ll drop the link to our Open Championship pool with over $1,000 in prizes. If you want to join, it’s free for our members.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,056 of them) and includes thoughts on some of the groups, who I think will play well, that Open contest and an amazing follow up to my World Cup-golf comps.
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.
Kyle is the best columnist in sports. That he has channeled those talents through strokes gained and Spieth memes is a blessing to golf.
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.
Few make the sport feel as fun and as thought provoking.
Kyle is a perfect curator of the necessary moments of levity that accent a sport that will drive most of us insane.
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 approaches coverage of the game with both conviction and curiosity
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!
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.
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