Greetings!
I don’t know if you are experiencing this, but the start of summer is always such a strange time for content — what I watch and what I read online seems to change significantly. I am moving around more, participating in more activities, going on more trips and just generally at my desk less often.
Outside of both Opens, this seems to lead to less opportunity for consumption of golf, which is part confession and part wondering aloud if Brian Rolapp should factor that into his calculus when putting together the 2028 schedule. Maybe I’m alone in that. But I suspect I’m not.
Summer is a fun and wonderful time — all seasons are magical in their own unique ways — but I just feel a bit less invested in the golf than I do in January-May. So of course … here is a newsletter about everything going on in the golf world but really just about what went on with Scottie at Memorial this week.
Name drops today: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Steph Curry, Jon Rahm, Jalen Brunson and Ted Scott.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Sap’s Original.
Sap’s is perfect for any summer activity. On the course. After a long run. During travel. Or doing absolutely nothing on a Sunday while watching the No. 1 player in the world hoot and holler at an event he’s won twice in a row.
Sap’s is light, crushable, and refreshing in a can. We played some golf at Wild Spring Dunes earlier this week, and they had some cans of those, uh, drinks started at the University of Florida. If you’ve never had that drink out of a can, you’ll never go back to the plastic bottle. That’s exactly what Sap’s out of a can reminds me of.
Plus, you don’t even have to travel to a resort course to find it because you can buy it on Amazon or at your local HEB.
OK, now onto the news.
1. Scottie. Let’s talk about it. It’s all anyone is talking about. If you haven’t seen it yet, he hit a ball into someone’s milkshake with his training aid grip on Thursday. It was wild.
Ok I’m kidding, he actually just hit a ball in the water on No. 16 but then unloaded for two minutes, talking generally in Ted Scott’s direction and voicing his anger with Scott’s reading of the wind but also seemingly talking toward anyone who would listen to him.
The entire episode provided us with memes for weeks, possibly months.
Scottie’s frustration will literally feed families.
And of course people had many, many, many opinions about this outburst from the best golfer in the world.
Here’s mine.
Right around the PGA Championship, our tiny Normal Sport team had some backend technical problems that didn’t affect very many people but kept popping up. It made me extremely frustrated because I want everyone’s experience of Normal Sport to be a great one. I went to Jeff, who runs all of our tech stack, and said — and this is a direct quote — This just can't be happening, which sounds a lot like what Scottie said to Ted Scott.
Jeff probably wasn’t my biggest fan in that moment, and I was probably a bit harsher than I needed to be. But I say that to say that these things happen when you’re trying to build something, when you’re pursuing something meaningful. When you’re in the mix and working toward a goal.
I just cannot get worked up about this particular Scottie-Ted Scott interaction. If this was Wemby and Mitch Johnson or Jalen Brunson and Mike Brown I think we would be talking about what dogged competitors those guys are. Honestly, this seemed kind of mild to me as far as high-level athlete interactions go.
2. That having been said!
When Scottie plays poorly — the 2025 Players comes to mind for me — he does seem to get incredibly whiny in a way that is both unbecoming and unappealing to the general golf public. Both of these things — both No. 1 and No. 2 — can be true.
His anger can be both fairly tame by professional athlete standards and also incredibly annoying as a spectator.
Here’s the problem: When you see Jaxon Smith-Njigba yelling about how Sam Darnold never hits him at the right moment on his route — I’m making up scenarios — it is completely unrelatable to almost everyone watching so it’s easy to presume that this anger is justified.
But when you see someone whining and being sarcastic and getting worked up about a bad shot on the golf course, almost everyone watching has either played with that person or been that person [raises hand for both], and it is the most relatable — and unattractive — thing in the world.
Because we have all been in that situation, have all played with that person, it is easy and natural to formulate a negative opinion of Scottie. Easy to find it annoying.
3. The place where I ultimately land is that I think all of this makes Scottie a more interesting character within the golf world. This is the third thing that is true.
Would I cringe if my kid one day emulated a whininess in this particular way? Probably. Do I also think it makes him more intriguing to write about and think about? Yes, of course. Obviously!
Jason illustrated the same Scottie story at the 2025 Players.
Golf is life, life is golf. Scottie once said, “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’m sure he doesn’t always love what he sees.
But that is probably true of all of us in each of our particular worlds.
Could my opinion of this situation be viewed as a free pass for someone who dressed down an employee on national television? I suppose. I don’t see it that way, though I can understand why others would.
I am probably less offended by this incident than when Scottie goes full Tim Duncan and acts like every putt he hits should drop from all over the yard.
This.
That gets me riled up because it connotes some entitlement.
This Ted Scott interaction? I think it’s just a sociopathic competitor being a sociopathic competitor. Is it great? No. But I empathize with the situation because if there were cameras and microphones constantly in my workspace, people would sometimes see something pretty similar. Even in the last few weeks.
4. In light of this (or maybe because of it) that has been some low-key “Scottie’s lost it” chatter going on. Perhaps I’m getting got by random Twitter folks (basically this).
But if anyone is actually selling stock, I am looking to make large-scale and wide-sweeping purchases with no inhibitions and no regard for my actual cashflow situation.
Scottie is unequivocally the second-most consistently great player of this century. The others — Phil, Rory, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Brooks Koepka — have combined to win, what is that … 24 major championships.
Scottie has lost to 88 golfers across 11 events this year, or roughly eight golfers per tournament. Is the iron play mildly concerning? Sure. Do I think it’s more likely that he figures it out than it continues to decline? Absolutely.
He’s 29. Could catch Brooks in a month. Could catch Phil in six weeks. He’s averaging 3.0 SG per round across the last three years, and that hasn’t changed much this year. Most importantly when it comes to situations like this, I trust that his love for golf will win the day.
5. I was talking to Blayne Barber about this on our fun pod on Tuesday … guys who love it are so much easier to trust than just guys who have good swings.
Here’s what Blayne said.
You know, we've probably all heard the line, comparison is the thief of joy. And I think what you especially in golf, you just have to constantly evaluate yourself on who you are and what you've done and just keep trying to chip away at being better and then really just loving that process.
That's how you live in the present and you eliminate outcome-oriented motivation and you just you keep grinding and you just don't know where it takes you.
Blayne Barber
Rory, Scottie, Rahm. They love it. That cannot get enough of it. That is … maybe not as common as we all would think. But Scottie stands out even among that crew. In love with the process. In love with the game. Bring me all your stock. I will happily gobble it up because I’m still not convinced everyone understands exactly what we’re watching, which is one of the all-time greats in the middle of what is probably his all-time best run.
Here are the record holders in terms of most consecutive weeks as world No. 1.
Scottie has a real chance to catch one of the great Tiger records ever.
There has been and will be more backlash in the upcoming years than there was when he was ascending. That’s part of the deal, and I think Scottie probably struggles with this spotlight more than others.
Which again, means that watching him compete under that microscope — where his flaws are highlighted but so are his strengths — is going to be (and already is) one of the more interesting storylines in golf.
Thank you for reading and participating in all of this. We are grateful you’re here and glad for your support. We promise little other than that we’re going to absolutely wear out that Scottie meme above in every conceivable way.
Greetings!
I don’t know if you are experiencing this, but the start of summer is always such a strange time for content — what I watch and what I read online seems to change significantly. I am moving around more, participating in more activities, going on more trips and just generally at my desk less often.
Outside of both Opens, this seems to lead to less opportunity for consumption of golf, which is part confession and part wondering aloud if Brian Rolapp should factor that into his calculus when putting together the 2028 schedule. Maybe I’m alone in that. But I suspect I’m not.
Summer is a fun and wonderful time — all seasons are magical in their own unique ways — but I just feel a bit less invested in the golf than I do in January-May. So of course … here is a newsletter about everything going on in the golf world but really just about what went on with Scottie at Memorial this week.
Name drops today: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Steph Curry, Jon Rahm, Jalen Brunson and Ted Scott.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Sap’s Original.
Sap’s is perfect for any summer activity. On the course. After a long run. During travel. Or doing absolutely nothing on a Sunday while watching the No. 1 player in the world hoot and holler at an event he’s won twice in a row.
Sap’s is light, crushable, and refreshing in a can. We played some golf at Wild Spring Dunes earlier this week, and they had some cans of those, uh, drinks started at the University of Florida. If you’ve never had that drink out of a can, you’ll never go back to the plastic bottle. That’s exactly what Sap’s out of a can reminds me of.
Plus, you don’t even have to travel to a resort course to find it because you can buy it on Amazon or at your local HEB.
OK, now onto the news.
1. Scottie. Let’s talk about it. It’s all anyone is talking about. If you haven’t seen it yet, he hit a ball into someone’s milkshake with his training aid grip on Thursday. It was wild.
Ok I’m kidding, he actually just hit a ball in the water on No. 16 but then unloaded for two minutes, talking generally in Ted Scott’s direction and voicing his anger with Scott’s reading of the wind but also seemingly talking toward anyone who would listen to him.
The entire episode provided us with memes for weeks, possibly months.
Scottie’s frustration will literally feed families.
And of course people had many, many, many opinions about this outburst from the best golfer in the world.
Here’s mine.
Right around the PGA Championship, our tiny Normal Sport team had some backend technical problems that didn’t affect very many people but kept popping up. It made me extremely frustrated because I want everyone’s experience of Normal Sport to be a great one. I went to Jeff, who runs all of our tech stack, and said — and this is a direct quote — This just can't be happening, which sounds a lot like what Scottie said to Ted Scott.
Jeff probably wasn’t my biggest fan in that moment, and I was probably a bit harsher than I needed to be. But I say that to say that these things happen when you’re trying to build something, when you’re pursuing something meaningful. When you’re in the mix and working toward a goal.
I just cannot get worked up about this particular Scottie-Ted Scott interaction. If this was Wemby and Mitch Johnson or Jalen Brunson and Mike Brown I think we would be talking about what dogged competitors those guys are. Honestly, this seemed kind of mild to me as far as high-level athlete interactions go.
2. That having been said!
When Scottie plays poorly — the 2025 Players comes to mind for me — he does seem to get incredibly whiny in a way that is both unbecoming and unappealing to the general golf public. Both of these things — both No. 1 and No. 2 — can be true.
His anger can be both fairly tame by professional athlete standards and also incredibly annoying as a spectator.
Here’s the problem: When you see Jaxon Smith-Njigba yelling about how Sam Darnold never hits him at the right moment on his route — I’m making up scenarios — it is completely unrelatable to almost everyone watching so it’s easy to presume that this anger is justified.
But when you see someone whining and being sarcastic and getting worked up about a bad shot on the golf course, almost everyone watching has either played with that person or been that person [raises hand for both], and it is the most relatable — and unattractive — thing in the world.
Because we have all been in that situation, have all played with that person, it is easy and natural to formulate a negative opinion of Scottie. Easy to find it annoying.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,055 of them) and includes where I land on all of this and why I’m buying stock if you’re selling any.
By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Access to 100 percent of our content this week.
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