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Issue No. 192 | April 30, 2025
Hey,
Thanks to everyone who joined the Normal Club last week. We had two winners of leftover merch from the tournament in North Georgia, and three folks who received Golf is Art 3. We actually had 14 folks sign up overall — which was very cool — and unexpected. So I gave the other nine a 40 percent off discount for when we (mercifully) get our merch posted.
Merch is so hard. Recommendation: Don’t do it.
Until you get it, and it rules.
Anyway, thank you guys for joining the Normal Club, and here’s a nice thing one of you said about Normal Sport.
Your writing style pulls me in! Not gonna lie, there are times I open the newsletter and think, I only have time to read part of it. Nope, read the whole thing every time!
Sue B.
We have reached the time of the golf season when what’s in the distance is often far more interesting to talk about than what’s directly in front of us. And one of the weeks ahead is a U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally at Erin Hills, which happens to be presenting today’s newsletter.
It is arguably the biggest week in women’s golf, and this year it will include the biggest purse in tournament history — a whopping $12 million to the ladies who tee it up at Erin Hills. That’s … 8x what it was in 1998 when the U.S. Women’s Open first came to Wisconsin (Se Ri Pak won at Blackwolf Run).
I find Erin Hills to be fairly underrated as a course, and I think it will show wonderfully for this event. In doing some research, I found this interesting about the 3rd hole (pictured above), which you can see in this cool flyover video.
At the 2017 U.S. Open, the third fairway was the easiest to hit but the third green was the toughest to hit.
USGA
It’s a great course that will provide a terrific test for the best golfers in the world. And all of it is just one month away! You can (and should!) get tickets for the event right here.
• I don’t have many, but here is one: What a year Andrew Novak is having. I have not one but two different — completely separate — mea culpas to offer up regarding Novak.
• The first is when Soly and I once openly (and jokingly) wondered whether he was related to Novak Djokovic on a pod. I do not remember when or where this happened, but I do remember it happening. Hand up!
• The second happened at Torrey earlier this year.
This led to me contacting Novak and interviewing him for this very newsletter and then to him dunking on me after he nearly beat JT at Harbour Town.
Now? Novak has top 3s in his last three starts, is ranked ahead of Tom Kim, Sam Burns, Tony Finau and Adam Scott and ranks sixth in the FedEx Cup standings.
He’s also … in a legitimate position to make the Ryder Cup team? (see below)
• Novak may be a good character as well! He was extremely playful with Joseph LaMagna when he interviewed him about different courses and their rankings on Tour and has his own deep (like deep deep) NFL fantasy pod. He did a mock draft on Wednesday and won a PGA Tour event on Sunday!
In.
Speaking of the Ryder Cup! Following JT’s win at RBC Heritage, I decided to do a Ryder Cup check in, and people had taaaaakes.
It didn’t change much after Zurich, except that Novak moved into the top 10 and officially into an interesting spot for the next several months.
A lot of how I feel about him will be dependent, not on the RBC Heritage and Zurich, but Quail Hollow and Oakmont.
Anyway, here’s the top 25 right now.
• My locks right now: Scottie, JT, Xander, Morikawa, Bryson, Cantlay, Henley. Probably in that order, tbh.
• Then what?
• Like, who are your other five? The guys who are dogs can’t hit it 900 yards like Bethpage demands, and the guys who can do that might not be dogs.
• I think the U.S. should seriously consider — I’d have to see all the data on this — shortening the course big time. You’re gonna run with Rory, Hovland, Rahm, Ludvig and all those Hojgaards with … Brian Harman, JJ Spaun and Novak?
• I think this top 12 would get — I cannot stress this even close to enough — torched by the Euros if the Ryder Cup started tomorrow.
• Somehow, Data Golf projects that this U.S. team would still be slightly better statistically. The betting markets reflect this as well.
• Burns and Spieth not in the top 25 for the U.S.? 😬
• Did not envision Daniel Berger’s resurgence being the potential linchpin for the U.S. team.
• Did not envision Cantlay about to fall out of the top 12.
• Five months is still a long time.
• If it started tomorrow, I’m taking the seven I listed above plus …
Berger (dog)
McNealy (dog tendencies)
Harman (dog’s dog)
Spieth (come at me)
Reed (maybe THE dog)
I feel great about exactly none of it. Though, I do think it’s time to get the Spieth-Reed band back together. I will for sure change my mind on this 27 times between now and Bethpage.
• It does feel like 25 guys are legitimately in play right now. I can’t remember feeling that this close to a Ryder Cup before.
The Porter family lawn 24/7 365.
This could not have less to do with golf, but I saw this from Bernard Arnault of LVMH fame (and preposterous fortune), and I thought it was terrific.
You cannot dream when you talk numbers. When you create desire, profits are a consequence
Bernard Arnault
One — and only one — golf thing comes to mind, and it just happened and a fellow from Northern Ireland won it. Can’t stop thinking about how simple but profound that statement is.
What a quote.
Way too often we focus on the profit at the expense of the desire.
One should always precede the other.
1. The real tanimal. Imagine Juan Soto taking off his shirt, socks and shoes and rolling up his pants to take a swing and everyone just shrugging and saying, Yeah, I mean what are you gonna do?
2. This video of Bryson got me good. He looks like Manny in his prime!
3. The most exciting part of the first women’s major of the year was … a whiffed shot on the 72nd hole? Ariya Jutanugarn probably should have cruised to her third major, but with the entire field banging approach shots off the backboard beyond the green, she almost entirely missed a shot on her last hole of the tournament. Stunning stuff.
👉️ The new Fried Egg website is awesome. Long live websites!
👉️ This video breaking down the Savannah Bananas and their business plan is excellent. It actually — in a very different way than LVMH — gets at that desire/profit quote from above. The Bananas aggressively put the fan/customer first, sometimes seemingly to the detriment of their own bottom line. And yet ….
👉️ A thrilling mystery that I’ve been into that I’m slightly hesitant to recommend because I’m not quite done but has been awesome so far: The God of the Woods. Good writing, amazing story.
I happened upon two pieces of nostalgia this week, things that reminded me of my childhood.
• The first was — following Mike Patrick’s death — this old tribute video to Rosenblatt. I grew up on the College World Series. My dad would attend and bring back t-shirts with the eight logos of the teams that made it. I wore them out. I eventually got to go myself. I have watched so, so many games in that ballpark. We all have a variety of important things that make up who we are as kids. That’s one of mine.
• The second — following Junior shooting the Masters a few weeks ago — is this poster, which I absolutely had. Nobody in sports history has ever been cooler than a 26-year-old Ken Griffey Jr. was to those of us who were 10 at the time.
Some great ones this week.
• Yes, perfect.
• Had no idea McGregor was running for office!
• This one made me laugh out loud.
I mentioned this last week, but Jason and I are grinding on putting together a book about the 2025 Masters. Most of it is just a compilation of work we did that week with some annotations, a little new writing and hypothesizing.
It’s so fun, and we’re so excited to show it to you … but it also takes so much time.
Thanks for bearing with us while we finish it. Here’s a little snippet from the beginning.
I have to say this off the top … but I didn’t see it coming.
Of course I wanted it all to be true, but as soon as Rory added Sawgrass to Pebble back in March, I definitely thought, Oh yeah, we have seen all of this before. Dominates Tour events (all of them), but mentally and emotionally at majors – and especially this major – he’s just on permanent tilt. I am not afraid to admit that I did not believe Rory McIlroy would ever win a Masters. I’m on record!
This obviously didn’t stop me from picking him every other year (no hedging like sportwriter hedging), but gun to my head, I would have said no, it’s never going to happen. I needed to get that out in the open before we move on to everything else.
Our to-be-named 2025 Masters Book
We’re hoping to be done before he wins the PGA in May. 🤞
Thank you for reading a golf newsletter that is 1,562 words long.
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