Issue No. 215 | June 13, 2025 | Read Online

OAKMONT, Pa. — At some point I need to do a power ranking of my favorite people to run into at a golf tournament. I experienced one of my top five on Thursday as I walked around Oakmont Country Club.

Standing behind the tee box on the par-3 13th hole, an older gentleman stood next to me as I watched Ludvig, Adam Scott and Hideki hit their tee shots. Every single swing was met with a contortion and a bit of commentary.

“That’s right at it. That’s right at it!”

Brother, we are all watching. You’re at the U.S. Open, we presume you know ball. You don’t have to convince us of it.

Another one I ran into was the guy who says “that’s good” on every 3 footer he sees throughout the day. The problem is that nobody around him ever laughs as hard as he does. Except for me thinking about how I’m going to write about the moment later in my newsletter.

That should be a tell to this guy. It never is.

Onto my thoughts on Round 1 of the U.S. Open.

But First!

Today’s newsletter is presented by Seed Golf.

You absolutely should not play Oakmont from the tips — as I outlined on Wednesday — but if you do, it should certainly be with a Seed golf ball. As many as you can fit in your bag.

That is, if you want a ball that will stand up against the hardest golf course in the country but also won’t infuriate you if you lose it in the outrageous rough at this course. Why? Because they work so hard to keep costs down and provide value to us as players.

It is rare to find a company that cares about quality as well as value. Here’s how Seed founder, Dean Klatt, explained it to me recently.

When we got started, The Dollar Shave Club thing was a big deal at the time. That was all new and revolutionary, and it was definitely something we looked at as an example of what could be done.
… A very large chunk of the market and would have appeared to be almost impenetrable. But I think sometimes those larger companies, they get so focused on the core of the business. Perhaps they don't see where those changes are coming from, where those changes in demographics, changing in buying patterns, all that stuff I mentioned before are happening.
If you're small, quick, nimble, you can perhaps take an advantage of that.
Dean Klatt

Speaking my language, Dean! Check them out right here.

OK, now onto the news.

You hate to see it.

18 Thoughts on Round 1 of the U.S. Open

1. Watching Matt Vogt hit the opening tee shot was very cool. The dentist coach was clearly feeling a ton of emotion for so many different reasons — his father just passed, he used to caddie here, he just became a dad, this is where he’s from and so on.

Brentley Romine wrote nicely about his story here.

That first tee shot off No. 1 was left of the fairway … the 9th fairway, but he somehow recovered for an easy par. No matter how things go, that moment — leading off the United States Open at the place where you used to caddie, where you were once a kid and are now a man, that is extraordinary.

Here’s what he said after shooting 82.

I hope that I represented the city, Oakmont, with pride today. I don't want this to all be about me this week. All this has been incredible. I just hope to bring a lot of joy to the city. It means a ton to hit that 1st tee ball.
Honestly, there's been so many people in the city and here at Oakmont that have been so awesome this week. It does mean a ton. Right now playing poorly really stings. I know I'll look back on it, and that will help save things.
Matt Vogt

Place matters. Places hold time, and while the U.S. Open doesn’t hit us the same way the Masters does every year with its familiar rhythm, it does hold thunderous beats for specific people. Vogt is unquestionably one of those people now, and his moment on Thursday was part of what makes this championship wonderful.

2. I walked a lot with Joseph LaMagna on Thursday, and I asked him why the leaderboard has some randomness to it so far.

He said he thinks the long rough neutralizes the best ball-strikers a bit but that the long rough is the trade off for protecting par and making the golf course difficult.

Here’s what Bryson said about it.

I think the rough is incredibly penalizing. Even for a guy like me, I can't get out of it some of the times, depending on the lie. It was tough. It was a brutal test of golf.
Bryson DeChambeau

In other words — based on what JLM was saying — if there was no rough, the leaderboard might look a bit better in terms of superstars because it would feature the best shot-makers (Augusta is usually emblematic of this).

3. Here’s a decent example of this idea.

On the par-5 15th hole, Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland ended up in the exact same spot off the tee, 202 yards from the hole.

Scottie was able to advance his ball to the green, while Viktor had to chop out. All of it was based on the lie they both had.

This is not a test of second shot skill. It’s a bout of first shot luck.

To be clear, I’m OK with this!

This is how Pinehurst was (though I think Pinehurst allowed for a bit more shot-making from tough spots), and not everything needs to be ANGC or TPC Sawgrass.

But it does maybe help explain a little bit of why the leaderboard features some guys you have probably not heard of (or at least haven’t heard from) in a long time.

Also, this course is thus far testing keeping the ball in the fairway more than a normal Tour course (see above screenshots), so it makes sense that different types of players would emerge than a normal week.

Here’s Data Golf.

Missed-fairway penalty holding strong at 0.65 strokes. This probably isn’t a record for a single round, but it is higher than any PGA Tour event or major we have data on since 2015 (0.57 is the current max).
Data Golf

Lastly, all of this is probably moot because the leaderboard on Saturday afternoon will be stacked.

Normal Sport might be idiotic hat company disguised as a newsletter. (Yes, that’s the grounds crew mowing a hill, and yes we hope to see this hat in the Oakmont proshop by Sunday).

This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …

Brooks??
Spieth?!
Si Woo has no clue what he’s doing.
Some thoughts on a wonderful quote from our 18-hole leader.
A new PGA Tour logo?

If you aren’t yet a Normal Club member, you can sign up right here.

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 loved J.J. Spaun’s explanation of why he played well on Thursday.

I didn't really know what to expect especially since I've never played here. But yeah, maybe sometimes not having expectations is the best thing. So I'll take it.
J.J. Spaun

I think sometimes the key to golf is also the key to life: High belief in yourself and tremendous hope in the future but holding both of those things alongside zero expectations.

This is a difficult place to get to, but it’s a nice place to exist, especially in golf.

Especially if you have a $10 bet to win $90K on somebody to go bogey-free the entire tournament (Spaun is 25 percent of the way there).

5. Patrick Reed’s albatross on Thursday was electric. Gah, I would love to see Reed involved with the other leaders on Saturday and Sunday. He’s such an outrageous and fun character (maybe especially because we don’t see him 25 weeks a year).

Also, how about this …

Presidential assassination attempts since the first U.S. Open: 7
Albatrosses at the U.S. Open since the first U.S. Open: 4

Also, this has the potential to become an all-time meme. We already have a clubhouse leader.

6. Si Woo is me after shooting 87 at my easy local muni. Except he just shot 68 at the hardest golf course in the entire country and is in the top five at the U.S. Open.

Honestly, I don't even know what I'm doing on the course. Kind of hitting good but feel like this course is too hard for me.
Si Woo Kim

Same brother.

So kind of like no expectation, but I played great today.
Si Woo Kim

OK maybe I can’t relate.

Another forgotten piece of history from Oakmont’s clubhouse. Framed next to the infamous furrowed bunker rakes is Henry Fownes’ first shot at playground design, which followed the same concept as The Beast. "Let the clumsy, the spineless, the alibi artist stand aside!”

7. I think a highway splitting the middle of one of the great theaters in the game is near the top of my normal sport power rankings this year.

Imagine if Wimbledon had a train track running through the middle of its grounds with courts on either side. Or if Lambeau had a bike trail running parallel to the visitors’ sideline. Truly weird stuff that we all kind of look at and shrug like, Well … yeah.

via Fried Egg Golf

8. I got a chance to sit and take in a lot of golf on Thursday. This isn’t something I used to be able to do very often because I had a ton of editorial responsibilities so I enjoy getting to just kind of be a fan for a few minutes (thank you, Normal Club members!).

One thing that stood out to me is that the ball stays on the ground forever here (watch this!). It makes sense that Henry Fownes’ vision of Oakmont was inspired by Scotland because you can see it all over the course.

If there was a “time spent on ground” stat, I’m convinced Oakmont would rank near the top of the list behind all the Open Championship venues. It makes watching so fun.

The slope down to No. 1, the tucked pin on No. 12 where you had to get it through the lead-in fairway but not so hard that it flew past the hole. So many different pitch and bunker shots. The ones I was watching were from the left bunker on 16. You had to land it 50 (75?) feet short and let it feed. It’s so awesome.

This is what I love about U.S. Open golf.

9. Also spotted on the grounds: Forget the BIG BLOCK SDRAWKCAB hats, this is maybe the worst I’ve ever seen. I asked someone I was with how much money they would have to be paid to wear it unironically all week. That number was not four figures.

10. A thought I had, that collapsed by the end of the day: Sam Burns winning would be very cool. One thing I think about quite often is how hard it must be for him that someone he’s extremely close to is becoming one of the best golfers who has ever lived.

Some of that is cool, sure, but we’ve all been in the arena with our friends, and it can be tough when they have levels of success that we aren’t reaching. It would be awesome for Burns to grab at least one major in the middle of what has been a really solid career.

11. I sent my wife this photo of Adam Scott and Ludvig during the round on Thursday, and she responded by hearting it, which is both what I was expecting and also something I was not prepared for.

Ludvig’s three-striped pants by the way? Not good.

12. Brooks, man. What a grind-y, gritty 68. He holds the real lead at -2. Didn’t see it coming, shouldn’t have seen it coming. He has two top 10s this year (Singapore and Adelaide, obviously) and no top 10s at majors since winning Oak Hill.

He’s the most fearsome killer at big boy events like this, but it just hasn’t been there in any way over the last year and a half.

He said on Thursday the reason he hasn’t had his stuff is because of a technical issue in his swing.

Just getting the club in a better spot. Yeah, like I said, my perception of where the golf club was and where it was was 8-9 inches off. We spent all last week from what I got there at RTGA on Tuesday, I didn't play the golf course Tuesday or Wednesday. We just sat on the range and hit balls some long hours last week.
It's started to feel good. It's starting to click. I'm starting to see the ball flight evolve where it's a nice little fade and I don't have the two-way miss going.
Very consistent now.
Brooks Koepka

I don’t really think he’s going to win, but I do have to say that Brooks and Oakmont would go very nicely together. And with a win, he would join Tiger, Jack, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan as the only five players with three or more U.S. Opens and six or more majors.

Wait … Cat, Jack, Hogan, Jones and Brooks Koepka?!

13. This is extremely stupid and nobody is asking for it (kind of our M.O), but I thought Scottie looked a lot like the PGA Tour logo on a shot out of the bunker on Thursday so I overlaid them.

Not bad!

14. People seemed mad about the scoring, especially early on, which is pretty outrageous.

This was some of the sentiment.

If this is your position, then you are implicitly pro-rollback. KVV made this case two years ago, and I could not agree with it more. A couple of other thoughts here.

1. Without rolling equipment back, producing no scores under par would take a preposterous golf course that would not even be fun for the viewer and would include 6- or 7-hour rounds. It would be like studying for a Spanish quiz and getting a calculus test.

2. If all of this is such a problem, just change par to 68, and all of a sudden only two guys are under par. Make No. 17 a par 3 and No. 4 a par 4.

Of course guys are going to break par here with modern equipment and a ton of rain. Did I want a little more bounce in the greens? Absolutely. But this obsession with over par scores (on Thursday!) is strange to me when the golf course is clearly torturing guys.

Bob Mac said his round was “up there in the top 10 of any rounds that I've played.

He shot 70.

“It is just so hard. If you miss it -- even if you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an eight-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that's brick hard running away from you.”

You can and should be frustrated with the USGA, but not for how they set up the golf course. Rather, you should be frustrated that they let equipment get to where it has today because it has put them in a position where they are running out of setup options.

Also: Two guys will be under par on Sunday afternoon.* Maybe fewer.

You know it's going to firm up. It's still not as firm as a typical U.S. Open probably is. I mean, I understand there was rain on Sunday night, so I get it, but … it's going to have some heat to it this weekend. It will be a good test.
Brooks Koepka

*Barring rain

15. Speaking of a difficult golf course, I could listen to Rahm talk golf all day. I thought this quote was so specific and good.

Q. Is there a shot out here that they probably don't understand that it's as hard as it really is for you?
JON RAHM: Probably every shot. I mean, there's too many. Too many instances where you may not know -- the best example I can give you is 16. I hit one of the better 5-irons I can hit and had maybe 7 1/2 feet to the hole. Mentally, like I want to make that putt, but I'm thinking I'm going to hit three feet right and it's downhill. I'll take a tap-in.
There's things like that where you don't realize, or if you leave it just short of the green on 1 on that little upslope, how hard that putt is. There's so many things and so many little instances on the golf course that if you're not there physically, even if you're in the grandstands, you don't understand how difficult it truly is.
Jon Rahm

16. Here’s the SG tee to green leaderboard after R1.

1. Si Woo (-2): 7.79
2. Ortiz (+1): 7.48
3. Morikawa (E): 7.22
4. Hovland (+1): 6.68
5. Rahm (-1): 6.18

Brooks is in the top 10 as well.

Hovland’s round was extraordinary. He flushed the ball but had four three-putts, missed four putts under 6 feet and lost 3.1 shots to the field with his putter. Something to watch for on Friday.

17. Spieth’s putting stance today made me think of Jeff Bagwell.

I think it gets wider every week.

Speaking of Jordan, I did not see him getting Scottie and Bryson by three and Rory by four. He didn’t even putt well! This course doesn’t exactly scream “Jordan Spieth gets his fourth!” but he definitely has my attention going into R2.

18. Speaking of things that should have your attention.

We got these babies from Holderness & Bourne in over the last few days and will have them posted for you guys in the next week or two. Pumped about them!

Thank you for reading until the end.

You’re a complete and total sicko for reading a newsletter about golf that is 3,131 words (!!) long, and we are grateful for your support of this business.

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"I Don't Know What I'm Doing"

But First!

18 Thoughts on Round 1 of the U.S. Open

But First!

18 Thoughts on Round 1 of the U.S. Open

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