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Hey, my name is Kyle Porter, and I have to confess that all of this was a bit of an accident.
About a week after the 2021 Ryder Cup, I messaged my friend – and now, our illustrator – Jason Page vaguely about the possibility of writing and illustrating a book together about that year in golf.
His response via Whatsapp: Sure! What did you have in mind?
What a question, and what a journey since then.
We wrote and illustrated not only that first book together in 2021 but two more after that. Somewhere along the way, we realized two things.
So we doubled down on our writing and illustrating and flipped the books into a newsletter about ridiculous events like giraffes rushing down the fairway at the Magical Kenya Open and how Phil Mickelson’s cape collection could affect the future of men’s professional golf.
And now, for some reason, over 15,000 people read it every single week.
Everything we do flows from these two statements.
Our mission: Use humor and humanity to make the daily fan’s personal experience of golf feel meaningful.
Our vision: To become the most unique publisher of written and illustrated golf content in the world
As noted above, most outlets that produce written golf news and insight do so from the perspective of the journalist, not the fan. We wanted to create something different than that. Something that felt like it was written and illustrated by people who are in love with the game.
We wanted to create written and illustrated golf content that is …
We believe this is the full arc of golf fandom. More than just being funny, golf is absurd. It’s also a very human thing to be invested in the game as a fan, even if it is not always covered that way. And finally, almost everyone who follows the game enjoys playing it as well. Golf is the most personal sport in the world.
If the above three things are what we’re trying to do with our content, the following five represent the foundation of our business.
We don’t always know what we’re doing, which is part of the point and most of the fun.
We’re simply internalizing and interpreting golf and trying to build a world that brings about joy in us and perhaps engenders delight in you, our readers.
It’s a cheeky nod to the fact that golf is the strangest game on earth.
A game in which crocodiles traipse the playing field on a semi-regular basis. A game in which if you don’t keep your own statistics (and everyone else’s) correctly, you’re ejected from the event. A game in which pool noodles are used as practice props, and nobody blinks an eye.
We take a few of these oddities and try to juxtapose them with the beauty of the game to create a publication that will hopefully make you chuckle but that may also make you more contemplative.
This is, aspirationally, what we are trying to do.
Golf is uniquely positioned to accomplish all of this.
We’re simply trying to capture those moments.
This is more or less our tagline as well: A ridiculous game made more meaningful.
We deliver fresh golf news 3x/week that is handcrafted with humor and heart. Maybe we’ll do a podcast in the future. Maybe we’ll become Youtube bois at some point. But right now? It’s just the newsletter.
We figure out golf alongside the reader and help interpret it for them. We take convos about golf we have with friends, write them down and share them with you. We try to complete the arc from hilarious to heartfelt in almost every newsletter.
One reader said it better than I could: “I open these emails because of golf, but I'm rarely thinking about just golf when I close them, which I think is a pretty cool testament to what you're doing.”
Here’s what another said: “I feel like I'm reading my buddy's musings that we would have discussed in between Sunday services or during a quick 18 early in the morning or during kiddo nap times.”
That is – I cannot stress this enough – exactly what we are going for.
The newsletter is free to sign up, and it's free to leave. You can join 15,000 other sickos right here. If you want to read our latest newsletter, you can do that here. And if you want to become a member and help fuel this dream alongside us, you can read more about that right here.
I wrote close to 3 million words about golf over 12 wonderful years of working for CBS Sports (I wrote about what it was like to leave that job here). I also covered 47 majors and five Ryder Cups in the process, wrote three books and built this. My other work – podcast and television appearances as well as some behind the scenes writing has appeared at the following outlets: Golf Channel, Masters, PGA Tour, No Laying Up, Fried Egg Golf and the Ryder Cup. In 2011, I founded, ran and eventually sold an Oklahoma State website called Pistols Firing. I live in Texas with my very gracious wife and our four kids (not looking to fight).
I’ll let each of my co-founders take it from here.
I have been golfing and goofing around with image making since I was a kid. Those two loves combined with years of making unsolicited golf logos for online strangers snowballed into a career as golf-illustrator-at-large for Kyle’s Normal Sport books as well as the Shotgun Start podcast, No Laying Up and a handful of others. I’m always shooting to bring more multilayered, open, colorful and playful narratives into golf storytelling. I live in Amsterdam (NL) with my wife who couldn’t care less about golf.
I am a sales pro with a knack for building businesses from scratch. I helped grow my last company from just 1 to 70 employees and over $10 million in revenue. I’m also an Atlanta Braves superfan and a golf addict, and my quotes – for better or worse – regularly pop up in 'The Infirmary' section of the newsletter. As a self proclaimed golf and baseball purist, I believe that batting helmets are pointless and golf equipment should be rolled back to hickory shafts and gutta-percha balls. I live in Arkansas with my wife and daughter.
I have a background in product design and have worked with teams designing and building apps and websites for six years with the folks at CrateBind. I love building new things and have led design efforts for teams like Dude Perfect, Mizzen+Main and The Village Church. More personally I am a lifelong sports fan and will tell you that the 2011 Dallas Mavericks are the greatest team of all time. As the team’s least experienced golfer (by far), Normal Sport has been a great way to engage with the sport in a new and fresh way. I live in Texas with my wife and two kids.
I didn’t grow up around golf, but on a whim, I joined my tiny high school’s first women’s golf team as a freshman to avoid running track—and ended up loving it. My claim to golf fame is somehow making it to state three times on that team, but I can guarantee it was absolutely not my golf skills that got us there. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand most of the golf lingo around here, but it’s still really fun to be a part of. In my free time, you can usually find me traveling or working on one of my business ventures, but my greatest life privilege is being Aunt Lindsey to Kyle’s four kids. I live in Oklahoma with my Holland Lop bunny, Poppy.
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