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Issue No. 234 | July 22, 2025 | Read Online
I spent most of Sunday’s newsletter reflecting on a lot of non golf thoughts I had after the 153rd Open Championship, which is not really unusual for me but it does mean we have a lot of leftover Open stuff to get to below.
On Thursday, I’m headed for Colorado for a little mountain golf and some fly fishing with our kids. Books will be read (I’m particularly excited about this one). Mini golf will be played. Games will take place. Fights will break out.
All that to say we are planning on a Tuesday/Friday newsletter cadence this week as we clean up everything from Portrush, and then we will probably only publish one newsletter toward the end of next week before getting back in our regular rhythm as we march toward the Ryder Cup.
I told our team on Sunday evening that I can’t believe our first major season as a business is complete. It went so fast and was so much fun. I think it went fast because it was so much fun. Jason and I have more offseason plans than our typing fingers can probably handle, and we are even more excited (10x more excited!) about Normal Sport today than we were this time a year ago.
A podcast is inevitably happening. As inevitable as Jordan Spieth making the U.S. Ryder Cup squad, I might add 😄 . A couple of books are in the queue. We are trying to thoughtfully and methodically walk through where these three circles overlap because that’s a great place for us to live.
Thank you for joining us for this first year. We truly hope the joy we have in doing this comes through the screen (and headphones soon 👀 ) and that it makes your experience of following golf even more meaningful than it already is.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Meridian Putters.
My son and I went today to get a couple of clubs cut down for him for that aforementioned trip we’re talking this week. While we were waiting, we went over to the putting green and started rolling a few.
I picked up a putter — not a Meridian — hit a couple that felt good and then looked at the price tag. This was a used putter, by the way. A used putter. The tag said $579, and I just stared at it for a good 10 seconds like my brain had mixed up the numbers or something.
It reminded me of something Meridian founder Ryan Duffey said when I talked to him about his putter business.
One of the challenges I've had is communicating that this is a good putter. It's all being done in the United States, and it can be done in the United States. And you don't have to pay … it's still a challenge.
I look around and I go, “I don't get why it's so difficult to offer a reasonable price. We're just going to start at 250. We are small enough that we can do that. I can throw your initials on the putter for 30 bucks. We can make the putter your own for very reasonable prices.” That's just the way we operate.
Ryan Duffey
I loved that so much. I love the ethos of looking around and saying, Wait … we don’t have to do that. We don’t have to copy what everyone else is doing. We don’t have to charge the price of a laptop for our putter. We can be different. A lot of what Normal Sport is trying to get at, and I’m proud to partner with a putter company that feels the same.
Go check them out. Everything they make is awesome, but I’m particularly partial to the Key West (pictured below).
OK, now onto the news.
1. Fine, let’s get into it. People were Big Mad — like BIG MAD — that I compared Scottie’s 2022-2025 stretch to Tiger’s 2002-2005 stretch.
If I’m being honest, the reason I did it was because I thought the 20-year symmetry looked nice and it was the first four-year stretch I looked up after vaguely hearing Soly talk about the Scottie-post-2002-Tiger comps on the NLU pod.
When I saw that the numbers were almost identical, I went with it. Again, people were furious about this because it ignored Tiger’s 2000-2001 and 2006-2008 runs. Which is fair!
What’s interesting — and what I only realized later on — is that I was also comparing Scottie and Tiger’s age 26-29 seasons. Tiger at age 26-29 and Scottie at age 26-29. Here they are.
Scottie from 2022-2025 (age 26-29)
• 81 events
• 20 wins
• 4 majors
• 2 Players
• 2.8 SG/round
Tiger from 2002-2005 (age 26-29)
• 79 events
• 18 wins
• 4 majors
• 0 Players
• 2.8 SG/round*
*per Data Golf, which only includes 2004-2005.
2. I’m not really trying to compare Tiger and Scottie here. At least not yet. Tiger was a cultural icon. He shifted an entire sport, an entire sport’s economy. Nothing like it. Probably never will be again.
What I’m trying to do is set up the truth that Scottie is living at (and exceeding) where Tiger was living at the same age. Scottie obviously didn’t have Tiger’s age 21-25 run (or anything close to it), but he has a real opportunity to far surpass what Tiger did from age 30-40.
I could look at this Data Golf graph all day.
Scottie’s age 27 season got close to Tiger, then his age 28 season was better in terms of SG and age 29 has been as well. He’ll have to take it up a level to get to where Tiger was at age 30-31, but then it gets bumpy for the Cat.
Scottie has a real chance to have a better age 30-40 run if he can just somehow stay at this plateau (or near it) for the next 10 years. Very easy and simple, I know.
3. One of the things that stood out most to me on Sunday was what Spieth said about Scottie. You can watch it starting right here, but the money quote for me was as follows.
I think more so maybe it's less the golf swing and maybe more of his personality. He doesn't care to be a superstar. He's not transcending the game like Tiger did. He's not bringing it to a non-golf audience necessarily.
He doesn't want to go do the stuff that a lot of us go do, corporately, anything like that.
He just wants to get away from the game and separate the two because I know that at one time, he felt it was too much, that he was taking it with him. Whenever he made that switch, I don't know what it was, but he has hobbies. He's always with his family. They're always doing stuff.
Jordan Spieth
This is …
1. One of the more unusual quotes I’ve ever heard about a superstar and …
2. Absolutely terrifying for every other golfer in the world and …
3. Insane and kind of sad that hobbies are such an oddity in pro golf. [Jason’s point]
I think anyone who has experienced success at any level in the workplace knows and understands how difficult it is not to get swept up in that, to be consumed by it, to take it with us everywhere. To capitalize on it with a bigger salary and fancier title.
Now imagine if you were the best golfer on earth and people were soberly comparing you to Tiger Woods.
How do you just leave that at the office?!
I am personally always thinking about this newsletter, what I can write to get more readers, how I can delight the ones I have. I am consumed with self more often than I would like to admit, and I’ve experienced about 1/1,000,000 the success Scheffler has.
4. Scottie’s disposition is not normal. Not even close. And it makes me think it’s just kind of hardwired into him. Like, this is just who he is. Yes, it takes some discipline to not give yourself over to the corporate overlords or the magazine photo shoots or Lexus commercials, but there also seems to be an internal scale on which he measures the cost and the benefit, and that scale is not the same one everyone else has.
Here’s my guy Paolo Uggetti on Scottie’s dad from the weekend.
Scott chatted up the marshals nearby, sharing childhood stories of Scottie, raving about how he bounced back from the double bogey on No. 8, acknowledging the company his son now keeps in golf history while preaching the same kind of message his son has espoused at every turn.
"He doesn't ever think about that, he never has. He's just like, 'At the moment, I'm good at what I do,'" Scott said. "I always told him the joy was in the journey. You never know what you'll find along the way."
ESPN
I believe this is called — as KVV wonderfully described here — contentment.
But even as someone who would say that I find myself to be rather content, I think the way Scottie goes about things so unique and almost confounding. Even as someone who would say that I think I’m fairly grounded, I so often get swept up in my own minuscule headlines. Reading my own press. Always struggling to fight the thought that I need another $10,000 or need to accomplish something else.
We probably all do it. How could you not? But Scottie apparently either doesn’t do it or is far less enamored of both his own headlines and his own wealth than anyone else.
Shane said it well here.
It is almost impossible to believe that someone this good, this famous, living under this microscope, could possibly be this grounded.
Shane Ryan
I agree with Spieth: “I don't think anybody is like him.”
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
The Porter family major draft results.
A wild Scottie-Rory comp.
An admission that I … like Bryson?
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. The deep end as it were. The Calamity Corner of golf newsletters. Hope you enjoy.
5. My wife torched us in the family major draft.
When reached for comment, she said, “That’s two straight. And it wasn’t close.”
What’s most sad is that I had Scottie and still finished fourth. And I lost to a 5 year old who unironically wears leotards and pink wristbands around the house and wouldn’t know Russell Henley from Don. Actually, maybe this is most sad for all of you, who are paying real money for my thoughts on golf!
6. A wonderful and amusing normal sport moment here from Scottie’s great behind the scenes video that the R&A put out on Sunday night.
Elite, all time athlete still in his Nike uniform sits down with a 150-year-old trophy, surrounded by a group of people who probably own a few castles collectively and dress in suit and tie for a trip to the grocery store.
7. Jamie Kennedy’s photos thread from the end of the week was amazing. You should go check out the entire thing, but here are my two favorites.
Two thoughts.
1. Links golf almost looks like an entirely different sport than regular non-links golf.
2. I’m really grateful for people like Jamie who do such a great job documenting all the important moments and events. I thought so many golf media people last week were fantastic (Shane Ryan on Scottie and Porath on Rory stood out) , and Jamie — whether it’s his work on Twitter or the videos he puts together with other Digest folks — is almost always at or near the top of that list.
Only 356 more days until Birkdale.
8. Here’s a fun one. Scottie is Rory at non-majors and Tiger at majors. You can play around with Data Golf’s major visualization tool right here.
That point where Scottie is currently residing is a scary, scary place.
9. One thing that always shocks me is how fragile majors are. Even four-shot wins. Example: Scottie saves a long par on 6 and another one on 7 and then makes double at 8. During that same timeframe, Rory had about 40 feet into 8 and 9 with his second shots and made par at both. Probably doesn’t matter and Scottie cruises anyway, but there are like four shots in there that could have swung it to a one- or two-shot lead going to the back nine.
… And then what?
A little something for China’s most handsome man who used to sleep with his golf clubs.
10. I think I might love Haotong Li? He seems like he could be completely crazy but also might have a lot of joy for the game. I’m way into his whole ethos. The WeChat hat. The drivers off the deck. The clear “I am delusional to believe I’m going to shoot 61 on Sunday at The Open and take down this man because I am the Chinese Scottie” attitude. The kinship he formed with American Haotong.
It was actually super calm and he's such a lovely guy to play with. We did a joke about each other a little bit and just so nice to play with him.
I just said, “Is there any time I can practice with you when I go to the PGA Tour?” And he said, “Yes.”
But I said, “When I text you, you better reply to me,” and he goes, "Haotong who?" That was actually funny. Just a lovely guy to play with, and I enjoyed.
Haotong Li
Kinda into the whole thing.
11. There are so many Bryson moments to choose from. He talked about bringing a “tsunami of a crowd to Bethpage” and compared himself to Arnold Palmer after storming up the leaderboard on Sunday.
But a moment of earnestness if I may.
His quote on YouTube golf from Sunday was, I thought … kinda excellent?
That's the stuff that excites me now. Not more than tournament golf, but almost as much as tournament golf.
I think having another identity with that saying, “Hey, look, I'm not just a professional, but I'm an entertainer as well, and I like showcasing myself to others and doing fun challenges because that's just who I am” has shown people the true side of myself.
I've been able to say, “Okay, I don't have to play good all the time. I can still not do my best and still have relevance and care from others because I'm hopefully growing the game outside of just playing tournament golf.”
Bryson DeChambeau
Do I think Bryson’s intent is as pure as the driven snow? No, of course not. Nobody who follows even 1 percent of this thinks that. But do I like that we have guys on Tour who have thought beyond just making the cut at the Wyndham? Yes, yes I do. In some ways, Bryson gets it where others just do not. Does that mean everyone should have a YouTube channel and should be lining up to take down Grant Horvat? No. But I sincerely appreciate his willingness — however awkward and misappropriated at times — to entertain fans with his golf.
Dang … do I like Bryson?
12. There are 1 million ways to quantify what Scottie is doing right now, and I think I may explore every last one of them. This chart is nuts. It shows seasons in which a golfer has won two majors and finished top 10 in all four.
Two people did it from 1983-2023, and now two people have done it from 2024-2025.
13. There I am, clickity-clacking away on my keyboard on Sunday afternoon about Scottie and this Open, and then Golf Channel just upends me with this graphic.
I just stared at it in disbelief.
What if … what if Scottie doesn’t win the U.S. Open until 2036?
That is obviously not going to happen … which is exactly what we said about Rory in 2014 after he went back to back at Hoylake and Valhalla.
And while golf is the ficklest game — especially in that stratosphere — Scottie has two things going for him that Rory (and even Spieth) did not.
1. He knows himself, which, as Shane Ryan pointed out in this excellent thread, is perhaps as important as his physical ability. Some of that is background but some of it is age, which leads me to ..
2. I think it’s probably slightly easier to maintain all of this when you come to it at an older age (29 vs. 22 or 23). Things were just a little harder for Scottie at age 21 and 23 and 25 than they ever were for Spieth and Rory.
Here’s Rory at the 2025 Masters talking about himself at the 2011 Masters.
I would see a young man that didn't really know a whole lot about the world. I'd say I probably would see a young man with a lot of learning to do and a lot of growing up to do, and also … maybe I probably didn't understand myself. I didn't understand why I got myself in a great position in 2011, and I probably didn't understand why I let it slip in a way. But I think just having a little more self-reflection.
Rory McIlroy | 2025 Masters
So I do wonder if some of the dips may not be as difficult for him to internalize because of both his grounded-ness and the foundation he built up while going 0 for his first 70 on Tour. Maybe not — he does tend to get demonstrative at times — but I think from week to week and season to season, the ups and downs will be a little less emotionally volatile.
14. I think the most underrated aspect of Scottie’s major wins is as follows.
He hasn’t even lucked into a major yet!
Circumstances are weird at times — Rahm trying to shoot the moon at Quail Hollow and finishing bogey-double-double — but in general when you’re beating the best fields in golf by three, four or five shots, that is a sign of true and unfettered greatness.
15. One question that popped up on Sunday is what you would have made this year if you had blindly wagered $100 on Scottie every week. I heard Neil ask this on the NLU pod, and then Rick answered it.
Some people look at this and see miserable returns for $1,600 wagered.
Some people look at it and see automatic long-term compound interest.
This was probably my favorite take of the entire Open week. Tommy as a meme stock and Scottie as the S&P 500. That is exactly what he is.
16. Remember that graph I showed you earlier of Scottie running down Tiger in his late 20s. That was fun! Here’s a more sobering one.
I spliced together Spieth from age 19-23 and then Scottie from age 24-29, and they are still far, far below what Tiger was doing from 19-29.
Tiger is the green line.
Spieth + Scottie is the blue line.
Also look at those age 20-21 numbers for Spieth compared to Tiger! People are always popping me for riding for Spieth, but buddy, I know what I saw.
Thank you for reading our handcrafted, algorithm-free newsletter about golf. We put everything we have into every newsletter we write, which is why they are frequently 3,428 words long like this one.
While we do use digital tools that help us find information, everything you read and consumed was created from scratch by two humans who are absolutely obsessed with the game.
Thank you for being a Normal Club member, and if you ever want to further support our business, you can buy some Norman merch right here.
Issue No. 234 | July 22, 2025 | Read Online
I spent most of Sunday’s newsletter reflecting on a lot of non golf thoughts I had after the 153rd Open Championship, which is not really unusual for me but it does mean we have a lot of leftover Open stuff to get to below.
On Thursday, I’m headed for Colorado for a little mountain golf and some fly fishing with our kids. Books will be read (I’m particularly excited about this one). Mini golf will be played. Games will take place. Fights will break out.
All that to say we are planning on a Tuesday/Friday newsletter cadence this week as we clean up everything from Portrush, and then we will probably only publish one newsletter toward the end of next week before getting back in our regular rhythm as we march toward the Ryder Cup.
I told our team on Sunday evening that I can’t believe our first major season as a business is complete. It went so fast and was so much fun. I think it went fast because it was so much fun. Jason and I have more offseason plans than our typing fingers can probably handle, and we are even more excited (10x more excited!) about Normal Sport today than we were this time a year ago.
A podcast is inevitably happening. As inevitable as Jordan Spieth making the U.S. Ryder Cup squad, I might add 😄 . A couple of books are in the queue. We are trying to thoughtfully and methodically walk through where these three circles overlap because that’s a great place for us to live.
Thank you for joining us for this first year. We truly hope the joy we have in doing this comes through the screen (and headphones soon 👀 ) and that it makes your experience of following golf even more meaningful than it already is.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Meridian Putters.
My son and I went today to get a couple of clubs cut down for him for that aforementioned trip we’re talking this week. While we were waiting, we went over to the putting green and started rolling a few.
I picked up a putter — not a Meridian — hit a couple that felt good and then looked at the price tag. This was a used putter, by the way. A used putter. The tag said $579, and I just stared at it for a good 10 seconds like my brain had mixed up the numbers or something.
It reminded me of something Meridian founder Ryan Duffey said when I talked to him about his putter business.
One of the challenges I've had is communicating that this is a good putter. It's all being done in the United States, and it can be done in the United States. And you don't have to pay … it's still a challenge.
I look around and I go, “I don't get why it's so difficult to offer a reasonable price. We're just going to start at 250. We are small enough that we can do that. I can throw your initials on the putter for 30 bucks. We can make the putter your own for very reasonable prices.” That's just the way we operate.
Ryan Duffey
I loved that so much. I love the ethos of looking around and saying, Wait … we don’t have to do that. We don’t have to copy what everyone else is doing. We don’t have to charge the price of a laptop for our putter. We can be different. A lot of what Normal Sport is trying to get at, and I’m proud to partner with a putter company that feels the same.
Go check them out. Everything they make is awesome, but I’m particularly partial to the Key West (pictured below).
OK, now onto the news.
1. Fine, let’s get into it. People were Big Mad — like BIG MAD — that I compared Scottie’s 2022-2025 stretch to Tiger’s 2002-2005 stretch.
If I’m being honest, the reason I did it was because I thought the 20-year symmetry looked nice and it was the first four-year stretch I looked up after vaguely hearing Soly talk about the Scottie-post-2002-Tiger comps on the NLU pod.
When I saw that the numbers were almost identical, I went with it. Again, people were furious about this because it ignored Tiger’s 2000-2001 and 2006-2008 runs. Which is fair!
What’s interesting — and what I only realized later on — is that I was also comparing Scottie and Tiger’s age 26-29 seasons. Tiger at age 26-29 and Scottie at age 26-29. Here they are.
Scottie from 2022-2025 (age 26-29)
• 81 events
• 20 wins
• 4 majors
• 2 Players
• 2.8 SG/round
Tiger from 2002-2005 (age 26-29)
• 79 events
• 18 wins
• 4 majors
• 0 Players
• 2.8 SG/round*
*per Data Golf, which only includes 2004-2005.
2. I’m not really trying to compare Tiger and Scottie here. At least not yet. Tiger was a cultural icon. He shifted an entire sport, an entire sport’s economy. Nothing like it. Probably never will be again.
What I’m trying to do is set up the truth that Scottie is living at (and exceeding) where Tiger was living at the same age. Scottie obviously didn’t have Tiger’s age 21-25 run (or anything close to it), but he has a real opportunity to far surpass what Tiger did from age 30-40.
I could look at this Data Golf graph all day.
Scottie’s age 27 season got close to Tiger, then his age 28 season was better in terms of SG and age 29 has been as well. He’ll have to take it up a level to get to where Tiger was at age 30-31, but then it gets bumpy for the Cat.
Scottie has a real chance to have a better age 30-40 run if he can just somehow stay at this plateau (or near it) for the next 10 years. Very easy and simple, I know.
3. One of the things that stood out most to me on Sunday was what Spieth said about Scottie. You can watch it starting right here, but the money quote for me was as follows.
I think more so maybe it's less the golf swing and maybe more of his personality. He doesn't care to be a superstar. He's not transcending the game like Tiger did. He's not bringing it to a non-golf audience necessarily.
He doesn't want to go do the stuff that a lot of us go do, corporately, anything like that.
He just wants to get away from the game and separate the two because I know that at one time, he felt it was too much, that he was taking it with him. Whenever he made that switch, I don't know what it was, but he has hobbies. He's always with his family. They're always doing stuff.
Jordan Spieth
This is …
1. One of the more unusual quotes I’ve ever heard about a superstar and …
2. Absolutely terrifying for every other golfer in the world and …
3. Insane and kind of sad that hobbies are such an oddity in pro golf. [Jason’s point]
I think anyone who has experienced success at any level in the workplace knows and understands how difficult it is not to get swept up in that, to be consumed by it, to take it with us everywhere. To capitalize on it with a bigger salary and fancier title.
Now imagine if you were the best golfer on earth and people were soberly comparing you to Tiger Woods.
How do you just leave that at the office?!
I am personally always thinking about this newsletter, what I can write to get more readers, how I can delight the ones I have. I am consumed with self more often than I would like to admit, and I’ve experienced about 1/1,000,000 the success Scheffler has.
4. Scottie’s disposition is not normal. Not even close. And it makes me think it’s just kind of hardwired into him. Like, this is just who he is. Yes, it takes some discipline to not give yourself over to the corporate overlords or the magazine photo shoots or Lexus commercials, but there also seems to be an internal scale on which he measures the cost and the benefit, and that scale is not the same one everyone else has.
Here’s my guy Paolo Uggetti on Scottie’s dad from the weekend.
Scott chatted up the marshals nearby, sharing childhood stories of Scottie, raving about how he bounced back from the double bogey on No. 8, acknowledging the company his son now keeps in golf history while preaching the same kind of message his son has espoused at every turn.
"He doesn't ever think about that, he never has. He's just like, 'At the moment, I'm good at what I do,'" Scott said. "I always told him the joy was in the journey. You never know what you'll find along the way."
ESPN
I believe this is called — as KVV wonderfully described here — contentment.
But even as someone who would say that I find myself to be rather content, I think the way Scottie goes about things so unique and almost confounding. Even as someone who would say that I think I’m fairly grounded, I so often get swept up in my own minuscule headlines. Reading my own press. Always struggling to fight the thought that I need another $10,000 or need to accomplish something else.
We probably all do it. How could you not? But Scottie apparently either doesn’t do it or is far less enamored of both his own headlines and his own wealth than anyone else.
Shane said it well here.
It is almost impossible to believe that someone this good, this famous, living under this microscope, could possibly be this grounded.
Shane Ryan
I agree with Spieth: “I don't think anybody is like him.”
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
The Porter family major draft results.
A wild Scottie-Rory comp.
An admission that I … like Bryson?
If you aren’t yet a Normal Club member, you can sign up right here.
If you are, keep reading!
Normal Sport is supported by exactly 963 crazed individuals. By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Our very best stuff during majors (like this post).
• The delight of helping us establish this business.
• First look at our new gear.
