Greetings!
Three notes to start before we get to the good stuff.
1. I legitimately don’t think I’ve ever received as much feedback for anything I’ve ever done as I received on that ridiculous Wordle puzzle we put out last Saturday. Nothing about the Masters, the Ryder Cup, none of it. Nandina as a Wordle word, though? So many emails.
2. On that note, I think I’ve arrived at a place in this business where I will still respond as much as possible to emails, but the days of responding to every single one I receive are probably over. That has been a point of pride for me over the years, but it has probably started taking away from my other responsibilities. So … genuinely … it’s not you, it’s me. I love, love, love hearing from all of you, and if I don’t respond it doesn’t mean I didn’t want to and it definitely doesn’t mean I didn’t see what you wrote.
3. Black Friday. We are planning two things next week. The first is 30 percent off to the pro shop for members. The second is 50 (first time) Normal Club membership spots for $50 each (normally $82). We’ll do this type of membership sale once or twice a year as we build up our club so if you’ve been thinking about joining the Normal Club or purchasing some gear, next week would be a great time to do both.
Jason’s Meridian blind draw.
Today’s thoughts are sponsored by Meridian Putters, which is hosting their annual blind draw sale, where you select from one of eight Meridian putter models and get an insanely good putter in that category for a ridiculous price (up to 50 percent off).
These putters are gently used as demos at shows and events and the face finish is completely random. But each one is inspected by a Meridian employee and [whispers] they’re basically new.
I have personally already bought my blind draw putter right here, and you should check it out if you’ve been interested at all in a Meridian putter.
Here’s what I went with.
This blind draw sale has limited availability and will sell out quickly so don’t wait around.
Get involved!
Additionally, Meridian is dropping their crazy Black Friday sale starting next Wednesday, Nov. 26. We will remind you of this, but all brand new in-stock putters will be 35 percent off, which is — by far — their best deal of the entire year.
More on that coming early next week!
OK, now onto the news.
1. Last week I clicked on an article by my friend Dylan over at Golf.com about the Internet Invitational (more on that event below). And I was met with a ludicrous number of advertisements.
So many ads that it became difficult to discern whether I was supposed to be there for the text I ostensibly clicked through to read or the ads that greeted me when I arrived.
Programatic ads like this are nothing new to the internet, and I am no stranger to them myself. In a former career, I ran an Oklahoma State website that leaned heavily on programatic advertising to generate revenue.
I … sort of regret that, but for a tiny shop like we were, it was difficult to be content creators in addition to ad curators/salespeople so it was much easier to simply lean on these types of ads, many of which can be thrown on any website by any organization. In other words, there’s not a lot of thought that goes into them.
2. This is not an anti-Golf.com take. This is happening everywhere. ESPN.com, the NYT (albeit not always as aggressively) and even my old employer, CBS Sports. I understand the model. Congregate tons of people for long periods of time, profit off their attention.
This is not that different than what the TV model has looked like over the years.
However, when the barrier to entry of content creation online is so low, it means that the number of consumers and the number of producers is basically the same. This is not true in, say, TV. The number of consumers far outweighs the number of producers.
In other words, everyone who consumes things online can also (and often does also) create them.
Because of this reality of the internet, it’s easy to see how attention starts getting more and more and more divided up across all these platforms and sites. And places that were accustomed to making X dollars with Y ads under their previous business model, now have to produce 5Y ads to make X dollars.
This is, as you can see, a problem.
3. Now the self-serving part. Part of the bet we’ve been making with Normal Sport is that many of these other places and their ads will be such a turn-off to readers and consumers that they will sprint with all the ferocity of Abe Ancer and Adam Scott trying to beat the horn, to media outlets that treat them more like humans.
To be clear, this is difficult.
It requires the following.
Good relationships with terrific sponsors.
Whose products we actually like and don’t just shill.
Trust from those sponsors to present their products in a compelling way.
Time to think through how to do No. 3.
We have gotten better at this on the newsletter side (we are still working at it on the podcasting side) and for 2026 we are committed to one presenting sponsor and one ad per newsletter.
The magic here is when the ads are part of the content, and that’s where Jason shines.
Content as advertising, like the Ryder Cup trophy going through TSA in OGIO's new Renegade Vault carry on bag? That's an ad, but it's barely one. It took us many, many hours (one Bethpage to Amsterdam flight to be precise) to make this and to put it in the right spot at the right time.
And to be clear, this is likely less lucrative and certainly more work than it would be if we just piled as many programatic ads as possible into the system. But it is also more considerate of the ultimate customer … you! And it also serves the brand (OGIO or whoever) way better than the mindlessness of these programatic ads. And we love the challenge of telling stories in new ways with our skill sets.
Ads can be good, but bad ads are so bad (and most online ads are bad). Most online ads are just a shell game of money changing hands where everyone is pretending like the reader is benefitting but everyone definitely knows that he or she is not.
4. Will this work for us? I don’t know! I hope so! It’s a bet we’re making. But it’s not the only bet we’re making. We’re also betting on membership and products (Rory book!) and merchandise. All moving parts of the whole business.
Perhaps this bores you. It is fascinating to me, and I like writing about things that fascinate me because I know as a consumer I am attracted to people who are fascinated with things. Obsessives.
I realize none of this is really about golf, but I would also say that this newsletter is only sometimes actually about golf. Golf is definitely the prism through which I see so much of the world, but it is rarely the ultimate thing I am fixated upon.
5. In our most recent podcast, Luke Kerr-Dineen and I talked about stats that aren’t stats but definitely should be. One of LKD's is what he calls power percentage, or the percentage of max speed a player hits on specific drives.
I like it, and it should definitely be a stat.
And of course, JRay went and found the players who — radar misreads aside — seemed to be taking the most off their drives in 2025.
No. 1 surprised me.
The point here is that golf could use some creativity in its statistics to help provide context for viewers and also to help us solve the, “Well I just feel like things are this way” problems that often arise.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes some thoughts on the Internet Invitational and Harris English’s comments on the PGA Tour schedule.
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Kyle is a perfect curator of the necessary moments of levity that accent a sport that will drive most of us insane.
Kyle approaches coverage of the game with both conviction and curiosity
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!
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.
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!
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.
Normal Sport is exploratory, sometimes emotional, always entertaining. It also has one of my favorite writers in the biz at its foundation.
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 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.
It's a treasure trove of the important, the seemingly important, and — importantly! — the unimportant stuff. It's an asset in my inbox.
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