Greetings and happy Friday Jr. to all (but especially Porath),
College football (officially) begins this weekend, and I’m convinced it’s the only sport that’s even more normal sport than golf.
Enjoy today’s Golf Connections.
Name drops today: Si Woo, Sellers Shy, Oklahoma State, 2013 Spieth, the Georgia attorney general and Brandt Snedeker.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Holderness and Bourne, which is giving away a $500 box of gear from their recently-launched collegiate collection launch (as well as some H&B Normal Sport merch).
Personally, I’m desperate for this Oklahoma State hoodie, but they have tons of other (probably better) schools in the store as well.
You can enter the giveaway on our site right here, and it will be open until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, September 13. Good luck!
And now, onto the news.
Team USA’s news strategy: Stop Making Sense
1. Me leaving 4th grade flag football practice on Tuesday afternoon to the Jackson Koivun-Presidents Cup news …
I legit did not think they would throw him on the team after so little experience as a professional. Based on his reaction — “When he called me and told me I was going to Medinah, I was about shellshocked for four hours” — I don’t think he thought they would either.
This is “Spieth at Muirfield Village in 2013” all over again, although Spieth finished that season with more of a flourish than I remember (can you imagine someone over a year younger than Koivun is right now finishing the season like this in 2026?!).
Koivun didn’t do that (although he did finish with two top 10s and a win in his last five events), but it’s still worth putting him on this team because of what he’s projected to be. Would Ryan Gerard or Mav McNealy help you incrementally more in 2026? Probably (maybe?).
But do you really need to be 1 percent or 2 percent better as a team, or do you need to develop the next Spieth as a centerpiece for future U.S. team events?
2. This is where Brandt Snedeker deserves a lot of credit. We all view the Presidents Cup as a warm-up of sorts for the Ryder Cup. But Presidents Cup captains are not incentivized to view it this way at all. The U.S. has never lost a home Presidents Cup, and it hasn’t lost one at all since 1998. You do not want to be the captain who ends that streak, and thus you are absolutely incentivized to pick the player who makes your team 1 percent or 2 percent better, even though that’s not the way the rest of us view it.
There is also very little crossover or continuity between the PGA Tour (which runs the U.S. side of the Presidents Cup) and the PGA of America (which runs the U.S. side of the Ryder Cup). So again, you are not rewarded for thinking a year (Ryder Cup) or even two (another Presidents Cup) into the future when someone else is probably going to be at the helm as captain anyway.
There isn’t much upside for a Presidents Cup (or Ryder Cup captain) to make picks like this (as KVV pointed out here). Snedeker eschewed all of that, though. And in doing so, he made the future of the U.S. team better and stronger for both events. From where I’m sitting, that’s a selfless (and thankless) choice.
I could do a whole newsletter on how there should be a Team USA that sits above both of these organizations and maintains continuity so you don’t have to rely on the stones of the captain to make Jackson Koivun-like picks, but that would be a book is another newsletter for another time.
[Jason here] Speaking of Captain Sneds and that Koivun illustration, here are some more tracks that could play out at Medinah.
• "Psycho Killer" - Patrick Cantlay when he goes 5-0 but only plays 50 holes.
• "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,” whispers Captain Sneds to Mrs. Koivun during the Team USA afterparty.
• "Slippery People" - Trump’s nickname for the Team INT boys after they nearly stage an improbable comeback.
• "Burning Down the House" - Team INT makes a comeback and Rolapp takes the helm with this song as his walk-out track.
• "Making Flippy Floppy" - What Team USA captains call switching players, while making everyone extremely uncomfortable.
• "Once in a Lifetime" - The 30 for 30 documenting Team INT's impossible victory.
• "Crosseyed and Painless" - I honestly have no clue how this song could play out at the P Cup, but I hope some situation calls for it.
[OK, back to Kyle].
3. As for the snubs? There was really only one. Ryan Gerard was terrific this season. Here’s a look at him compared to Jacob Bridgeman.
But at that point, you’re splitting hairs, and I’m not going to lose my mind over one or the other. I would have taken Gerard, but I’m also fine with Bridgeman. Snubs are part of the deal when you’re in that range of player, which is unfortunate for the players who are on the receiving end but can also be used as a motivator in the future.
4. There was also some chatter around JT and Cantlay over Gerard, which is … fair?
Gerard has as many top 10s and major top 10s as those two combined. He outpaces both over the last three months in SG and crushes JT in every category.
Here’s the thing, though. Koivun was an unconventional pick (by historic U.S. standards). It probably doesn’t feel like you can afford to make two of those on the same team. Do I think JT is better than Gerard at golf right now? Not really. But I understand why he got picked (and have written many words in the past about why he gets picked).
If you think that Gerard is more deserving, I probably agree with this (!). But I don’t think you should just take the statistically best players for the team. I think this is foolish, often how Americans operate with teams like this (even in basketball and baseball and other sports) but not at all how teams — even in individual sports — actually work.
5. This recent comment on Prez Cup qualifications made me chuckle.
If you split Scottie’s 14,749 points in half, Scottie No. 1 would have finished second and Scottie No. 2 would have finished third on the points list.
6. I’ve been wanting to get back to this, and now it’s relevant again since the Walker Cup will take place later this week.
I interviewed U.S. Amateur champion, Jack Whaley recently on the Normal Sport Show. He was terrific, and we covered quite a bit in a relatively short amount of time. This quote from his week at Merion was touched on in our pod.
It's awesome because my dad has seen a lot of close calls and failures through missing cuts from the age of 12 to 17. Honestly, it really did break my heart from the five years I was playing. It almost felt like why am I doing this, and my dad is funding my golf. It felt like every time I failed to make a cut, I was failing him. But every single time, he's like, keep going, you've got this. He's been behind me my entire life. He's honestly the biggest supporter.
Jack Whaley | U.S. Amateur
I asked him how he got past the heartbreak of feeling like he was letting his dad down and he said his dad was just never negative, never did anything other than support him.
This was encouraging to me as a current youth sports parent. It is so easy to critique: Why did you do this? Why didn’t you do this?
But — and I can’t remember where I heard it — the best question I’ve ever been encouraged to ask my own kids after practices and games is not, How did your play? or Why did you miss the cutoff man in the third inning? But rather, Did you enjoy it? Was it fun? Is this joyful for you?
There is power in that.
(Update: I remembered … Scottie said it. Of course.)
Both as an empowerment of the child but also as a disengagement from the outcome as a parent. I have no idea if that’s how Jack Whaley’s father went about his business (although it does seem like how Padraig Harrington went about his), but I know that talking to Jack about the experience made me want to go about mine in that specific way.
7. One thing I was thinking about over the weekend during the Tour Championship: Golf tournaments that are on CBS Sports feel bigger than ones that are on NBC. There are probably 100 reasons for this, and I could only name 5-10 of them because I don’t know everything that goes into building a broadcast. But I think it’s pretty objectively true right now.
Related: The numbers back this up. The four most watched golf events in 2026 were the final two rounds of the Masters, the final round of the PGA and the final round of the Tour Championship.
Some of the numbers here are skewed because they are calculated differently in 2026 than they were in 2025. However, even when you compare apples to apples, the story is pretty promising.
If you want more on the quality CBS is bringing to the table, you should start with this profile of Sellers Shy by James Colgan. Tremendous work that makes the entire operation even more likable and compelling.
8. Legit love this Presidents Cup idea.
Can you imagine Si Woo going to the first tee, staring at Cam Young and calling him onto the mat for a three-club challenge. Would watch. Would watch and record and then watch again!
Again, I’m not sure the U.S. is incentivized to engage in any of this — even if it was just one of the sessions — but Brian Rolapp does seem intent on building out the product. If anyone would go down that path toward a more interesting P Cup, it’s going to be an outsider who cares much more about what fans want than about “the way it’s always been done.”
Thank you for supporting Normal Sport. As always, we remain an algorithm-free establishment that (perhaps to our detriment in the short term!) handcrafts each tweet, each pod and each newsletter. Don’t forget to go enter our H&B giveaway!
Greetings and happy Friday Jr. to all (but especially Porath),
College football (officially) begins this weekend, and I’m convinced it’s the only sport that’s even more normal sport than golf.
Enjoy today’s Golf Connections.
Name drops today: Si Woo, Sellers Shy, Oklahoma State, 2013 Spieth, the Georgia attorney general and Brandt Snedeker.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Holderness and Bourne, which is giving away a $500 box of gear from their recently-launched collegiate collection launch (as well as some H&B Normal Sport merch).
Personally, I’m desperate for this Oklahoma State hoodie, but they have tons of other (probably better) schools in the store as well.
You can enter the giveaway on our site right here, and it will be open until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, September 13. Good luck!
And now, onto the news.
Team USA’s news strategy: Stop Making Sense
1. Me leaving 4th grade flag football practice on Tuesday afternoon to the Jackson Koivun-Presidents Cup news …
I legit did not think they would throw him on the team after so little experience as a professional. Based on his reaction — “When he called me and told me I was going to Medinah, I was about shellshocked for four hours” — I don’t think he thought they would either.
This is “Spieth at Muirfield Village in 2013” all over again, although Spieth finished that season with more of a flourish than I remember (can you imagine someone over a year younger than Koivun is right now finishing the season like this in 2026?!).
Koivun didn’t do that (although he did finish with two top 10s and a win in his last five events), but it’s still worth putting him on this team because of what he’s projected to be. Would Ryan Gerard or Mav McNealy help you incrementally more in 2026? Probably (maybe?).
But do you really need to be 1 percent or 2 percent better as a team, or do you need to develop the next Spieth as a centerpiece for future U.S. team events?
2. This is where Brandt Snedeker deserves a lot of credit. We all view the Presidents Cup as a warm-up of sorts for the Ryder Cup. But Presidents Cup captains are not incentivized to view it this way at all. The U.S. has never lost a home Presidents Cup, and it hasn’t lost one at all since 1998. You do not want to be the captain who ends that streak, and thus you are absolutely incentivized to pick the player who makes your team 1 percent or 2 percent better, even though that’s not the way the rest of us view it.
There is also very little crossover or continuity between the PGA Tour (which runs the U.S. side of the Presidents Cup) and the PGA of America (which runs the U.S. side of the Ryder Cup). So again, you are not rewarded for thinking a year (Ryder Cup) or even two (another Presidents Cup) into the future when someone else is probably going to be at the helm as captain anyway.
There isn’t much upside for a Presidents Cup (or Ryder Cup captain) to make picks like this (as KVV pointed out here). Snedeker eschewed all of that, though. And in doing so, he made the future of the U.S. team better and stronger for both events. From where I’m sitting, that’s a selfless (and thankless) choice.
I could do a whole newsletter on how there should be a Team USA that sits above both of these organizations and maintains continuity so you don’t have to rely on the stones of the captain to make Jackson Koivun-like picks, but that would be a book is another newsletter for another time.
[Jason here] Speaking of Captain Sneds and that Koivun illustration, here are some more tracks that could play out at Medinah.
• "Psycho Killer" - Patrick Cantlay when he goes 5-0 but only plays 50 holes.
• "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,” whispers Captain Sneds to Mrs. Koivun during the Team USA afterparty.
• "Slippery People" - Trump’s nickname for the Team INT boys after they nearly stage an improbable comeback.
• "Burning Down the House" - Team INT makes a comeback and Rolapp takes the helm with this song as his walk-out track.
• "Making Flippy Floppy" - What Team USA captains call switching players, while making everyone extremely uncomfortable.
• "Once in a Lifetime" - The 30 for 30 documenting Team INT's impossible victory.
• "Crosseyed and Painless" - I honestly have no clue how this song could play out at the P Cup, but I hope some situation calls for it.
[OK, back to Kyle].
3. As for the snubs? There was really only one. Ryan Gerard was terrific this season. Here’s a look at him compared to Jacob Bridgeman.
But at that point, you’re splitting hairs, and I’m not going to lose my mind over one or the other. I would have taken Gerard, but I’m also fine with Bridgeman. Snubs are part of the deal when you’re in that range of player, which is unfortunate for the players who are on the receiving end but can also be used as a motivator in the future.
4. There was also some chatter around JT and Cantlay over Gerard, which is … fair?
Gerard has as many top 10s and major top 10s as those two combined. He outpaces both over the last three months in SG and crushes JT in every category.
Here’s the thing, though. Koivun was an unconventional pick (by historic U.S. standards). It probably doesn’t feel like you can afford to make two of those on the same team. Do I think JT is better than Gerard at golf right now? Not really. But I understand why he got picked (and have written many words in the past about why he gets picked).
If you think that Gerard is more deserving, I probably agree with this (!). But I don’t think you should just take the statistically best players for the team. I think this is foolish, often how Americans operate with teams like this (even in basketball and baseball and other sports) but not at all how teams — even in individual sports — actually work.
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