Greetings!
If the last week has taught me anything, it’s that I was very wrong about golf as the normalest sport. Just look at these headlines from Milan!
Real headlines!
Ukrainian sledder Vladyslav Heraskevych files appeal over DQ for skeleton helmet
Norwegian Olympian reveals infidelity after winning medal, will ‘try everything to get her back’
French judge’s scores ignites 2026 Olympics ice dancing scandal
Julia Simon wins biathlon gold but credit card fraud conviction involving beaten teammate causes controversy
I was reading this story by my guy Brendan Quinn about how you can’t cross an imaginary line in the snowboarding races, and it clicked into place for me that the Winter Olympics are far more normal sport than the summer and maybe standard deviations more normal sport than golf.
We’re only halfway into this thing, and we have gotten some absolute classics thus far. Thankfully they only happen once every four years so golf remains in the normal spotlight when the credit card fraud and ice dancing scandals subside.
Name drops today: David Frost, Sap’s Original, Greller, Coldplay, Lex Fridman and Thomas Fleetwood.
What am I hydrating with while I sit on my couch and watch world class athletes literally wail on the ground after racing 10K uphill (?!) in skis?
We'll, I’m glad you asked.
Sap’s Original is a new Normal Sport sponsor for 2026. Their drinks provide …
Electrolytes for hydration.
Adaptogens for stress and balance.
Aminos to help your body recover faster.
A greater sense of self-worth while watching elite performers casually do things you couldn’t do with 90 years of training.
OK maybe not the last one but definitely the first three. We’re pumped that they’re on board for the year. Check them out right here.
OK, now onto the news.
Anytime Spieth shoots an opening 66, Kyle brings out this 2022 Normal Sport relic.
1. My official off-the-top-of-my-head most meme-able golfers rankings currently look like this.
1. Spieth
2. Spieth and Greller together
3. Greller without Spieth
4. Rahm
5. 🤷
Which reminds me that I forgot to drop this jewel from Phoenix.
Which led to this incredible comment.
To which I would respond … nah, looking for some competition at Pebble right now. [FURIOUSLY HITS SEND ON NEWSLETTER BEFORE THE INEVITABLE 41 ON SATURDAY].
2. I was watching the downhill skiing earlier this week and thinking about how unfair it is that — when it’s snowing — different competitors get wildly different conditions.
Can you imagine the gesticulating and gesturing golfers would do if they got bunker lies that looked even 10 percent as different as some of these downhill slopes look from first competitor to last.
Hoping that wasn’t just me thinking about that.
3. I had SMartin on the Normal Sport Show this week. You can listen right here.
We talked about a lot of different things, but the most interesting one (to me) was about why there currently aren’t any players in the top 20 in the world under age 26.
SMartin’s theory is something I have never thought of, which is that the Scottie/Spieth/JT age of player right now was part of the wave of Trackman technology and strokes gained information 10 years ago. This created a crop of young players who thrived early because they all grew up on Trackman and SG while the #olds at that time had a tougher time adapting. That gave the #youngs a real competitive advantage.
There hasn’t been a similar technological breakthrough at scale in golf recently, which means that all things being equal, experienced players are probably going to win out.
I think I agree with that theory? And while it’s probably one of a handful of reasons that most of the top players right now are 28 or older, it’s the most intriguing one to me.
Listen, like, subscribe, smash buttons et al.
4. This idea from Jamie Kennedy made me laugh.
It would be both enedearing and hilarious to keep track of which pro shop gear Tommy is wearing this year. Oh, there’s Tommy in the umbrella logo in Florida. Oh there he is with a commercial insurance logo in Connecticut.
Also, shout to our friends at Holderness and Bourne who made the Lawson hoodie he’s apparently rocking.
Tommy knows ball.
For our Normal Club members, I have a few more thoughts on why I think about Rickie’s career a lot, why I find symmetry in Federer and Rory and a tremendous Scottie nickname after the jump.
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5. I am curious about who your “yeah but has he had ____________’s career” benchmark is. Mine is always Rickie. I use it all the time.
Example: Ludvig has a long way to go to even have Rickie’s career. Or: Scottie just had Rickie’s career in the last three months.
I find it to be a good measuring stick, probably partly because he’s so polarizing so you can use it to prove your point going either way.
Here is Rickie’s career, by the way.
Quail Hollow
Players
Playoff win
Honda
Abu Dhabi
Scottish Open
Hero
Phoenix
Detroit
13 major top 10s
Five Ryder Cups
$54.4 million (19th on PGA Tour)
It’s a really, really strong career that is somehow both overrated and underrated, which again is probably the reason I use it as my test for other players.
I’m curious about who you, dear reader, use to measure the careers of other players.
6. Been thinking about this one for a while …
On one hand, who really cares at all?
On the other hand …
My official answer: This is why you use strokes gained and not GIR when following players and tournaments.
7. Another thing I’ve been thinking about is this chart. Sean Zak and I talked about it in a recent podcast, but I haven’t given my full thoughts here.
So … let’s do that.
1. Carlos’ pace could get even crazier given that he will be favored in the other three slams this year. He could have eight (or nine?!) by the end of this year, his age 23 season. That pink line could be well out ahead of Nadal (and everyone else). I, like everyone else, am obsessed with this idea. That someone who is roughly the same age as Luke Clanton could have nine slams by the time the Open starts. Nine!
2. As always, it’s much easier to collect slams/majors as a top tennis player than it is for a top tier golfer. The two reasons are probably obvious: You only have to beat seven players, not 155 (and you partially control how they are playing). Also, scoring in tennis lends itself to the fact that even a marginal difference in skill will heavily favor the better tennis player. Not true in golf.
3. Djokovic is absolutely relentless.
4. Roger (quietly) didn’t win much after age 30. This is normal, but also it’s apparently not normal compared to his peers. Also, I ride with KVV. Fed is somehow not the goat (and maybe not even second), but he’s my goat because few things in sport have ever felt like you were experiencing beauty more than watching him play tennis.
5. I feel all of those same things about watching and experiencing Rory.
6. Which explains a lot.
7. Phil’s career is hilarious. Brooks, Tiger and Rory have a combined two majors after their age 33 seasons (so far). Phil has six!
8. This article on TBPN — which is a media business I have been obsessed with recently — is good, even if the author seemed a bit … wary of new media like TBPN and others of the ilk that I would consider Normal Sport to be spiritually a part of.
The day I visited Coogan and Hays, in LA, a tech CEO was going viral after he was caught on camera at a Coldplay show snuggling up with one of his executives—who was notably not his wife. You couldn’t have scripted a better piece of TBPN fodder.
While in line for coffee that morning, Hays dashed off an X post: “Startup CEOs can’t even hug their chief people officer at a concert in this country anymore.”
As he watched the likes pour in, he predicted they would top 10,000 or so. When I checked it the next morning, there were over 70,000. For the better part of a decade, I have sat in newsrooms and marketing brainstorms as media folk have tried to conjure the kind of virality that Hays produced in approximately 12 seconds.Vanity Fair
The reason this kind of virality is difficult for traditional media outlets? They take themselves way, way, way too seriously.
One of the features of this wave of independent media like TBPN (and in golf, NLU, Fried Egg) and others is that for those businesses, all of this — talking about technology or golf or whatever — is just … fun.
Does this lead to fanalyzing the landscape in a given vertical? Of course it does!
[TBPN] considers themselves tech-positive, like their podcasting peers Dwarkesh Patel and Lex Fridman, who are other regular stops on a C.E.O.’s press tour, perhaps because of their often gentle approach to interviewing.
(Tech executives have grown increasingly hostile to traditional media. Seeing Mr. Zuckerberg do a sit-down interview with anyone other than a podcaster these days is about as rare as snowfall in Palo Alto.)
NYT
But I would argue that this is completely fine.
Powerful people tend to tell on themselves as often in casual conversations as they do in Frost-Nixonian interviews. Sometimes even more so!
There are innumerable ways to earn trust, and one of them — that TBPN and others have clearly pursued — is this wink-wink idea of being in on the absurdity of all of this alongside the audience. Shotgun Start is maybe the best example of this.
That, to me, is often (though not always!) more endearing and engenders more trust than when somebody — think of the traditional media outlets — tells you, No, really I promise you can trust me.
As you can tell, I have many thoughts on media and business, but let’s keep moving.
9. Lastly, how good is this nickname for Scottie?!
The Penthouse!
Thank you for reading our ridiculous (mostly) golf newsletter.
Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason. Though we take the work very seriously, we try not to take ourselves seriously at all. Shoutout David Frost. ✌️
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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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