Issue No. 171 | March 17, 2025
With apologies to the Valspar, we’ll spend this week unwinding the Players.
There is much to discuss.
Like the actual tournament, our publishing schedule was undone by the weather. However, we have a ton of great stuff planned for the week, starting with some thoughts on Rory coasting on Monday to an historic win.
Here’s our slate for the week.
1. Monday (today): Players/Rory thoughts
2. Thursday: Leftovers from Players, two Turtlebox winners announced
3. Friday: Q&A with Seed Golf founder, Dean Klatt
Let’s get to work.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Ship Sticks.
Even after losing Monday’s playoff, J.J. Spaun took home $2.7 million for his efforts at TPC Sawgrass this week, which means he could (if he wanted to) fly by himself with his clubs in the seat next to him, at least for a while.
You are probably not in the same financial position as J.J. Spaun.
Enter Ship Sticks, whose affordable rates and white glove service for either your clubs or your luggage will produce the same end result, and all of it includes complimentary insurance, real-time tracking, dedicated support and on-time delivery.
If you do use Ship Sticks in the near future, you can use the code normalsport at checkout for 20 percent off!
OK, onto my weekend thoughts.
We were few wind gusts away from 2,000 words on Akshay.
1. The 2025 Players shots by Rory that I will think about and remember, ranked.
6. The shot into 17 in the playoff.
5. The putt on 18 on Sunday.
4. The 40-yard cut on 6 on Sunday.
3. The drive on 16 in the playoff.
2. The mega cut into 18 from the pine straw on Thursday for an impossible 3.
1. The flight-y draw into 18 in the playoff.
These are not necessarily rational, given that the last one is probably the most inconsequential of them all.
However, it’s also a shot that says a lot about where Rory is at in his career.
Of the 72 players who made the cut on Friday, Rory finished 26th in strokes gained off the tee and 70th in fairways percentage. He only hit 48 percent of his fairways.
Forty eight percent!
And yet, he somehow won the golf tournament.
The traditional Rory formula … Be the best driver ever + destroy par 5s + make a handful of putts = trophy.
This week’s Rory formula … Drive it fine + flight shots + escape trouble + don’t make dumb doubles = trophy.
It can be easy to start moving the ball around too much (hello, JT), but Rory pitched like he was Zach Greinke and not Aroldis Chapman. That’s a compliment, one he has not always earned or deserved.
2. I thought this take on Rory was really good.
What stood out to me this week, in addition to the shot shaping, was how thoughtful and patient he was. Hitting 3 wood on 18 when it was called for. Backing off his shot on 17 in the playoff (unlike his shot into 14 at LACC). Picking spots, throwing change ups.
One thing many of us have been screaming about over the last however many years is for him to think better, to make adult decisions. Apply some patience and thoughtfulness on the golf course and let his distance rock the field.
Obviously you have to put in the work to obtain the shots necessary to win an event of this caliber. But I think for somebody at Rory’s level, it’s just as important to know when (and when not to) hit them as it is to possess them.
Here’s how he said it: “By no means did I have my best stuff this week, but I was still able to win one of the biggest tournaments in the world. That's a huge thing.”
That shot on 18 above didn’t mean much toward winning or not winning the trophy, but it was emblematic of a Rory that has 1. Developed a deeper arsenal of shots than ever, 2. Become smarter about when to use them and 3. Seemingly found the highest floor of his career.
3. The question, now, is about the ceiling (at least in the major championships). The forever golf question of whether you can raise your floor without lowering your ceiling. Whether you can become more consistent and also have those volatile major weeks where you’re just boat racing plebeians.
In other words, can you play with wisdom and inhibition at the same time?
I think it’s the hardest thing in golf because it requires not mastery of swing, necessarily, but mastery of mind and self, the ficklest parts of anyone’s games.
This was my Garmin on Sunday/Monday for sure.
Rory was asked about this afterward after admitting that he woke up at 3 a.m. anxious about the day and said he was more nervous on the tee shot on 16 than he’s been in a long time. The question he got was about the difference between the nerves of trying to win vs. the nerves of trying not to lose.
I think they're sort of the same. They're at least the same feelings. But I think trying to win and being in that mindset, it can eradicate some of those feelings.
It's much better to play to win. If you play to win and you don't hit the shot that you want to hit, I think you can live with that. But if you play to not lose, you're never really giving yourself the best opportunity, and that's hard to swallow.
I've done that before at times in my career.
Rory | 2025 Players
That line is so thin. Understanding when to hit the gas and when to hit the brake and having the emotional IQ to be able to do both properly across five grueling days is so difficult. Rory has been terrific at it of late, but it’s always tested at that one place that begins in 24 days in ways it cannot be tested elsewhere.
This post will continue for Normal Sport members below, and includes …
A dive into Rory’s emotional state.
A Scottie take that’s been percolating a bit.
The funniest game I saw all week.
If you aren’t yet a Normal Sport member, you can sign up at the link below.
If you are, keep reading!
Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. I hope you both enjoy it and find it to be valuable to your golf and/or personal life.
4. I promise we will get to something other than Rory in a bit (and especially later this week). But this my first monstrous event to cover independently and Rory wins in historic fashion? If you didn’t think this is what you were going to get, that might actually be on you!
Here’s the money quote from Rory on Live From after his round today.
Rich Lerner asked him, “At your level, you have to be willing to take it. The brutal losses, the criticism, whatever comes with it with the media these days. How have you been able to so effectively work through all of that and arrive at this point as a winner yet again?”
Rory’s answer was great.
The first thing you have to do is be willing to go through it. I’ve gone through my fair share of losses, criticism, expectations …
You have to be willing to get your heart broken.
I think I went through a few years in my career where I wasn’t willing to put myself out there. I think that’s why I didn’t win as much as I probably could have from 2015-2020.
I feel like I’ve figured it out, and I’ve been on a pretty good stretch since then.
Rory | 2025 Players
There are perhaps three sides every athlete — and especially every golfer — must figure out. The physical side, the mental side and the emotional side.
Rory obviously has the physical gifts. That part has never been in doubt other than maybe a few stretches with his wedges, some small putting questions and that weird 2013 year when he switched to Nike. At this point in his career, though, he’s married extraordinary power with terrific touch in nearly unprecedented ways.
The other two areas have always been much shakier with him.
He is thoughtful. He is emotional. He cries at La La Land and swipes people’s phones because he listens to everything and feels quite deeply. That is part of the appeal, of course. He is human.
It sounds very stupid to say that world class golf is highly emotional, especially compared to world class football and basketball. Those sports are more obviously emotional because they more obviously disclose the adrenaline we associate with these bursts of emotion.
However, if you’ve ever played golf, you understand the emotions roiling inside of you when that stupid thing doesn’t go where you thought it would. And if you’ve been at a high level tournament late on a Sunday, you know it’s about as raw as sport gets. About as unfettered and breathless as an arena can be.
There’s not much like it because in no other sport do you have that much time to think about how you are, indeed, very much alone on the stage.
It is, I presume, a bit like stand up comedy.
In stand up, you can play it safe, but you will probably never get anywhere. Or you can go for the joke or the bit — we all probably have our own examples of seeing comedians do this — and you may get the moon, but a lot of times you’ll get a mouth full of gravel.
The same is true in golf, though it is not as easy to see. It’s difficult to determine whether this plays out in reality or internally. Why does Patrick Cantlay rarely touch the lead in majors, and why does Scottie always seem to hold it?
Some of it is in fact just golf. But I think it would be foolish to not think that at least some of it is psychological, even if it’s several layers deep.
We have all been in uncomfortable situations, stand up comedy or not, and we can feel our bodies fighting against those situations. Now put a 7 iron in your hands and see what happens. Tournament golfers, maybe unknowingly, often fight against the discomfort of being the lead horse.
This is what Rory means by being OK with getting your heart broken. It’s an internal choice (almost an acceptance) to go for it, to put yourself out there, to hit the shots and try to do the thing. There are no statistics for this, and I realize all of it may sound a bit insane. But if you’ve watched pro golf at all, you can — because golf is such a mental and emotional game — almost see it playing out.
Rory has understood this in ways others maybe have not. That means the losses will always hurt greatly. But it also means there will be more wins than there would otherwise be.
5. Nobody in the field will agree with this, but Saturday absolutely ruled. The wind and the weather, sure, but I think it also highlighted just how good TPC Sawgrass is.
The spread in Round 3 was ludicrous. There were three 66s, several rounds in the 80s and Emiliano Grillo had to go on a run of pars late in the day to not scare 90.
I don’t know how other folks feel about TPC Sawgrass, but I began my writing career feeling nothing toward it before moving toward thinking it was kind of dumb and overrated. Now? I’ve arrived at the fact that it rules because of how 68 and 78 are both in play.
6. Here’s a Scottie quote from early in the week: “I feel like every time you're playing golf you're kind of looking into a mirror and learning more and more about yourself.”
I think this is at least part of what a lot of us love about the game. Golf is life. Life is golf.
I thought about that quote while watching Scottie constantly holler, writhe and generally gesticulate throughout the next four days.
To be clear, there are not many players or people I like more on the PGA Tour than Scottie Scheffler. This doesn’t change that. But man, it can be tiresome.
The consistent “Woe is me to whom that gust happened” routine is just … do any other recent greats do that? Maybe Spieth and/or JT depending on your definition of the term “great.”
It’s unfair to Scottie that every single shot and reaction of his is shown on television, and I for sure prefer an emotional player to a dial tone.
But in the same way that Tyrrell Hatton’s act when he’s not playing perfectly gets exhausting, Scottie’s does sometimes as well. Coming off a nine-win year, it’s something that could start to irritate fans and media, which may affect the relationship between them and Scottie, and then the cycle starts again. I’m not saying this will happen, only that it’s something I’m keeping an eye on.
7. [Jason here, one of my notes for Kyle was as follows] How does this compare to the historical greats and their negative talk while struggling?
I think the interesting part here about the mental side of being a great is the ability to fully commit to the next one. Tiger talked about being 100 percent present. Jordan pumping two identical drives OB is a good example of the opposite. Is Scotty able to be 100 present on the next shot or is he letting mistakes effect the overall game?
I would say he’s still 100 percent present, and I don’t think it’s affecting his actual game, mostly because we have seen this from him a lot. I remember the 2022 PGA right after he won the Masters, just riding high on golf and he was barking up a storm at Southern Hills ahead of a missed cut. I think some of that is just who he is (which is clearly working!). It’s more of a personal nuisance that I needed to air than anything else.
Related: I got an immediate response from Michael Kim, who has some information that I hope Normal Sport will publish as a hardback special edition book someday. 😂
8. At most Tour stops, scoring variance is smaller than it is at TPC Sawgrass. You go to some places, and it feels like triple is rarely in play.
Here? Like Ty Cobb, there are doubles and triples all over the yard.
Two examples.
No. 14 OUTTA NOWHERE!
On Saturday, Will Zalatoris hit a bad shot up the right side on No. 14. He then ping ponged his way to a quad, which was part of an 8-6-5-5-5 finish that moved him from one off the lead to 11 back of Spaun at the time Zalatoris finished.
Look at this!
Something similar nearly happened to Akshay on Sunday. He hit a decent drive on No. 10 and then (I think) tried to hook a wedge into that front pin. But it caught some thick rough off to the left, and all of a sudden he has to make a 7 footer for bogey.
I asked RickRunGood.com proprietor, Rick Gehman, about Sawgrass’ variance, and he told me that of the non-majors, only Muirfield Village has a higher standard deviation in terms of strokes gained. Michael Kim posited that this is because TPC Sawgrass was built for pros and amateurs are able to play it while most other courses are the other way around (now that I think about it, this is true of Muirfield Village as well).
So this might be difficult to accomplish at other venues, but it’s definitely something that I have grown to appreciate about TPC Sawgrass.
And still, we’re left thinking, how can we see more variance?
9. I was laughing on Saturday while watching pregame coverage when Brad Faxon was standing with Rory as he hit pitch shots. Would be like Tom Brady running drills with Josh Allen before the AFC Championship!
10. The Spaun drop on No. 9, let’s talk about it. Completely insane that you can go from heavy rough to the fairway. We argue over the dumbest stuff in golf (literally why this newsletter exists), but nobody raises an eyebrow at this?!
Where it landed
Where he hit from
Spaun got relief from two different sprinkler heads (according to Bones) and ended up in the fairway.
To be clear, I’m not accusing Spaun of anything at all. He did everything by the book, and I’m sure he was a perfect gentleman. I just think the rule absolutely sucks. He got up and down for birdie here, and that outcome absolutely affected the tournament.
There has to be — has to be! — some common sense applied when using some of these rules. Like, I get that you should get relief from a sprinkler head, but is it equally fair to say that your relief should not result in a significantly better lie? A totally absurd rule that people who grew up in golf just kind of shrug at and move on. Outrageous stuff!
11. This little game from Shane Ryan had me in shambles.
The best ones I saw …
Billy Woo Lee — total chaos
Banjamin Bezuidenhout — actually love it
Si Woo Hoey — made me cackle
Bud Burger
Sami Springer
Harry Hoge
All amazing.
What a week.
More thoughts dropping on Thursday. Thanks again to Ship Sticks for presenting today’s newsletter. Go check them out if you haven’t yet!
Thank you for reading until the end.
You’re a complete and total sicko for reading a golf newsletter that is 3,153 words long. I am being serious when I say it was a professional thrill to cover this tournament (even from afar) as an independent outlet.
Thank you for supporting us financially in a way that makes that happen. It is more meaningful than you probably believe.
My Shiftwave is a couch and this is where my mind goes. [Jason]
Issue No. 171 | March 17, 2025
With apologies to the Valspar, we’ll spend this week unwinding the Players.
There is much to discuss.
Like the actual tournament, our publishing schedule was undone by the weather. However, we have a ton of great stuff planned for the week, starting with some thoughts on Rory coasting on Monday to an historic win.
Here’s our slate for the week.
1. Monday (today): Players/Rory thoughts
2. Thursday: Leftovers from Players, two Turtlebox winners announced
3. Friday: Q&A with Seed Golf founder, Dean Klatt
Let’s get to work.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Ship Sticks.
Even after losing Monday’s playoff, J.J. Spaun took home $2.7 million for his efforts at TPC Sawgrass this week, which means he could (if he wanted to) fly by himself with his clubs in the seat next to him, at least for a while.
You are probably not in the same financial position as J.J. Spaun.
Enter Ship Sticks, whose affordable rates and white glove service for either your clubs or your luggage will produce the same end result, and all of it includes complimentary insurance, real-time tracking, dedicated support and on-time delivery.
If you do use Ship Sticks in the near future, you can use the code normalsport at checkout for 20 percent off!
OK, onto my weekend thoughts.
We were few wind gusts away from 2,000 words on Akshay.
1. The 2025 Players shots by Rory that I will think about and remember, ranked.
6. The shot into 17 in the playoff.
5. The putt on 18 on Sunday.
4. The 40-yard cut on 6 on Sunday.
3. The drive on 16 in the playoff.
2. The mega cut into 18 from the pine straw on Thursday for an impossible 3.
1. The flight-y draw into 18 in the playoff.
These are not necessarily rational, given that the last one is probably the most inconsequential of them all.
However, it’s also a shot that says a lot about where Rory is at in his career.
Of the 72 players who made the cut on Friday, Rory finished 26th in strokes gained off the tee and 70th in fairways percentage. He only hit 48 percent of his fairways.
Forty eight percent!
And yet, he somehow won the golf tournament.
The traditional Rory formula … Be the best driver ever + destroy par 5s + make a handful of putts = trophy.
This week’s Rory formula … Drive it fine + flight shots + escape trouble + don’t make dumb doubles = trophy.
It can be easy to start moving the ball around too much (hello, JT), but Rory pitched like he was Zach Greinke and not Aroldis Chapman. That’s a compliment, one he has not always earned or deserved.
2. I thought this take on Rory was really good.
What stood out to me this week, in addition to the shot shaping, was how thoughtful and patient he was. Hitting 3 wood on 18 when it was called for. Backing off his shot on 17 in the playoff (unlike his shot into 14 at LACC). Picking spots, throwing change ups.
One thing many of us have been screaming about over the last however many years is for him to think better, to make adult decisions. Apply some patience and thoughtfulness on the golf course and let his distance rock the field.
Obviously you have to put in the work to obtain the shots necessary to win an event of this caliber. But I think for somebody at Rory’s level, it’s just as important to know when (and when not to) hit them as it is to possess them.
Here’s how he said it: “By no means did I have my best stuff this week, but I was still able to win one of the biggest tournaments in the world. That's a huge thing.”
That shot on 18 above didn’t mean much toward winning or not winning the trophy, but it was emblematic of a Rory that has 1. Developed a deeper arsenal of shots than ever, 2. Become smarter about when to use them and 3. Seemingly found the highest floor of his career.
3. The question, now, is about the ceiling (at least in the major championships). The forever golf question of whether you can raise your floor without lowering your ceiling. Whether you can become more consistent and also have those volatile major weeks where you’re just boat racing plebeians.
In other words, can you play with wisdom and inhibition at the same time?
I think it’s the hardest thing in golf because it requires not mastery of swing, necessarily, but mastery of mind and self, the ficklest parts of anyone’s games.
This was my Garmin on Sunday/Monday for sure.
Rory was asked about this afterward after admitting that he woke up at 3 a.m. anxious about the day and said he was more nervous on the tee shot on 16 than he’s been in a long time. The question he got was about the difference between the nerves of trying to win vs. the nerves of trying not to lose.
I think they're sort of the same. They're at least the same feelings. But I think trying to win and being in that mindset, it can eradicate some of those feelings.
It's much better to play to win. If you play to win and you don't hit the shot that you want to hit, I think you can live with that. But if you play to not lose, you're never really giving yourself the best opportunity, and that's hard to swallow.
I've done that before at times in my career.
Rory | 2025 Players
That line is so thin. Understanding when to hit the gas and when to hit the brake and having the emotional IQ to be able to do both properly across five grueling days is so difficult. Rory has been terrific at it of late, but it’s always tested at that one place that begins in 24 days in ways it cannot be tested elsewhere.
This post will continue for Normal Sport members below, and includes …
A dive into Rory’s emotional state.
A Scottie take that’s been percolating a bit.
The funniest game I saw all week.
If you aren’t yet a Normal Sport member, you can sign up at the link below.
If you are, keep reading!
Normal Sport is supported by nearly 600 sickos. By becoming a member, you will receive the following.
• The satisfaction of helping us establish our business.
• The entirety of our behind-the-paywall major (and PLAYERS) coverage.
• First look at future merch drops.
By clicking below to join the Normie Club, you will have a front row seat to what we’re building. Like J.J. Spaun on 17, the posts are probably always going to be long, but unlike Spaun on 17, you’ll hopefully enjoy them!
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