Last newsletter of the year! This is our 140th-ish newsletter, which is insane and would not be possible without all of you reading them! If you’re inclined, a good Christmas present to us would be you subscribing to our YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast pages, depending on where you get your favorite shows.
Two things before we get to some horrific (and a few decent) predictions for 2025.
1. We got into an argument today in an internal meeting about the metric system vs. the imperial system (I am pro-metric for all kinds of reasons). Anyway, our web guy, Jeff, had a great idea: Whoever wins the Ryder Cup gets to determine which system is used by Europe and the United States until the next Ryder Cup. Way into this.
2. I mentioned this briefly last week, but want to double down today. Wild Spring Dunes — a new project by Dream Golf, which brought you Bandon and Sand Valley — opens next year in east Texas, and it’s going to absolutely crush.
It’s about three hours from Dallas so we got to play it last week, and it is spectacular. My favorite anecdote from our time there is that they dug 40 feet down on site and found only sand. In other words, absolutely perfect for building and growing a world class golf course (and probably several more).
Also, an elite logo.
You can currently become a founding member of the place (which I would recommend if you have the money) or simply book two eight-hole loops for $70 (!!), which is tantamount to stealing.
Who knows how these things will go, but if WSD doesn’t become the Bandon of Texas, I’ll be pretty surprised. Best thing I can say about the place is that I remember every hole. I didn’t love every hole, but I remember every single one.
As you can see from the photos below, the landscape feels less Texas and more Tennessee or North Carolina. Just a stunning place.
Name drops today: Scottie Scheffler,
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the Turtlebox, which is back for us as a 2026 sponsor and also fueling the No. 1 player in the world. Not sure how those two entities overlap, but I’m definitely pumped about it.
I mentioned this on a podcast that will come out in a few days, but Turtlebox has powered so many different gatherings for us this year. Golf outings, sure, but also …
Youth baseball practices
Outdoor fire pit nights
Front yard movies
Garden dance parties (Jason)
All of their products are great, but if you’re looking for the best value, I think the Original (Gen 3) is the way to go. A perfect last-minute Christmas gift.
OK, now onto the news.
Way back in newsletter No. 141, I made some 2025 predictions for the golf world. Against my better judgement, I want to hold myself accountable to those predictions now that the year is coming to an end.
Some of them were tough to look back on. Others turned out OK. Either way, I learned a lot in revisiting them and seeing which way the golf world went (or didn’t go) in light of those predix.
So without further ado ….
1. Europe wins Bethpage: Yeah, I don’t love it, but it’s definitely in play.
It gets … much worse.
2. The PIF-PGA Tour deal goes through … and then nothing happens.
The PIF-PGA Tour deal did not go through, but also nothing has happened. Feels like I deserve 0.25 points for this one. And the PIF appears to be doubling (or even tripling) down on its future as it recently approved an increase that ran the LIV investment total to $5 billion (!).
All so a 52-year-old Lee Westwood could be trotted back out there for the Magic Sticks.
I just don’t really get it. It feels post-sportswashing. Almost like the PIF has an agenda that it’s going to prove something to the PGA Tour.
We get it, man. You’re rich. You don’t need to keep telling us.
After seemingly getting close to a deal a year ago, with the Tour’s new leadership installed and very much focused on the Tour, I don’t have much confidence here that anything is ever going to happen.
3. Kyle breaks 80 twice.
Nope. Two reasons, probably related.
1. I didn’t play enough.
2. My chipping got so bad that I started chipping one-handed.
Seems like a good time to mention that if you are a yippy-chip-fixing brand looking to sponsor a newsletter whose writer is desperate to try … really anything, I have some inventory for you in 2026. But for real, if you represent a brand looking to get involved, please reach out.
Here are the scores. I am proud of that 80 at Trinity Forest.
4. PGA Tour buys Golf Channel
Listen, we were taking some swings here.
This one also seems not as close as it did a year ago.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes an Internet Invitational take, one of the great comments I’ve ever seen and (by far) my worst prediction of the year.
Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. You all have made this newsletter hum over the last year. Thank you for that. It’s appreciated, and I loved writing to you even more than I thought I would.
5. Bryson breaks 50 (but not twice).
I have no idea why I made this a prediction, but I think I actually got it correct.
Bryson actually did break 50 twice, but the first one was with three people (like an ace on a par 3 course in which the hole is under 80 yards, this doesn’t count). He did it for real with Steph in October. Steph was lights out, and what I saw of the video is actually pretty cool.
It also led to one of the great YouTube comments of all time.
6. YouTube golf takes over tour golf.
I was definitely on a YT golf kick, but this was … kinda true?
The highlight of the year from a YT perspective was the Internet Invitational, which crushed from an interest standpoint. I talked more in depth about this idea on a recent show with James Colgan.
Tour events will continue to have their place for sponsors — I believe primarily as a B2B vehicle? — but if you’re a consumer brand like Dunkin, would you rather be involved with the CJ Cup or the Internet Invitational?
It’s not even close, right?
7. Rahm wins a major.
I regret nothing.
At 4:54 p.m. on Sunday at the PGA Championship, Data Golf had Rahm at 40 percent to win Quail and Scottie at 50 percent. I don’t get credit for that, but he definitely got closer than it seemed like he did.
I will absolutely run that prediction back in 2026 because I think Rahm is generationally good. How could you not think that? Here are the five best players in the world since 2015. Three of them are over 2.0 SG per round, and two of them will end up as top 15 players of all time. So what in the world are we supposed to do with Rahm?
8. Collin Morikawa, PGA Tour Player of the Year.
OK so maybe I don’t regret nothing.
9. Scottie wins five more times.
Count ‘em.
Here’s a look at his wins list. Also, how did I think Scottie was going to win five times, and Morikawa was going to be PGA Tour Player of the Year?
There are 1 million insane Scottie stats, but the fact that he had 19 top 11s in 21 starts — and the other two were a T20 (Players) and a T25 (Phoenix) — has to be near the top of the list.
10. The role of golf media shifts: This again will be difficult to measure, but here’s a tweet (and response) I’ve been thinking about a lot.
I don’t really think this is all that insightful anymore as much as it is simply obvious. With divided interests across multiple disciplines, the easiest way to follow the things we love is to listen to and read great curators.
Listeners and readers are effectively paying curators to get time back.
That is, if you listen to an hour of the NLU pod about Torrey on the Monday drive to work the day after the event, you are paying them (by listening to a few ads) to get three or four hours of your Sunday back.
Then you can tune in for the super important stuff.
That is reductive, but it is also obvious. This is also — I hope! — a continued good thing for this newsletter and our show going into 2026.
We are so excited about 2026. With the newsletter rolling, the podcast finding its footing, two book projects in the queue and more ideas than we will ever have time to fulfill, I am as enthusiastic about building this business and covering this sport as I have ever been. Thank you again for reading, and please enjoy this yet-to-be-released proposed cover for our book about the 2025 Masters.
It needs a bit of cleaning up, but the concept and the illustration are 💯.
Cheers to a wild year and to the best readers in the golf world.
We appreciate you reading our handcrafted, algorithm-free newsletter about golf. We put everything we have into every newsletter we write, which is why they are frequently 1,703 words like this one. Everything you read and consume was created from scratch by two humans who are absolutely obsessed with the game.
If you ever want to support our business, you can buy Norman merch here.
Last newsletter of the year! This is our 140th-ish newsletter, which is insane and would not be possible without all of you reading them! If you’re inclined, a good Christmas present to us would be you subscribing to our YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast pages, depending on where you get your favorite shows.
Two things before we get to some horrific (and a few decent) predictions for 2025.
1. We got into an argument today in an internal meeting about the metric system vs. the imperial system (I am pro-metric for all kinds of reasons). Anyway, our web guy, Jeff, had a great idea: Whoever wins the Ryder Cup gets to determine which system is used by Europe and the United States until the next Ryder Cup. Way into this.
2. I mentioned this briefly last week, but want to double down today. Wild Spring Dunes — a new project by Dream Golf, which brought you Bandon and Sand Valley — opens next year in east Texas, and it’s going to absolutely crush.
It’s about three hours from Dallas so we got to play it last week, and it is spectacular. My favorite anecdote from our time there is that they dug 40 feet down on site and found only sand. In other words, absolutely perfect for building and growing a world class golf course (and probably several more).
Also, an elite logo.
You can currently become a founding member of the place (which I would recommend if you have the money) or simply book two eight-hole loops for $70 (!!), which is tantamount to stealing.
Who knows how these things will go, but if WSD doesn’t become the Bandon of Texas, I’ll be pretty surprised. Best thing I can say about the place is that I remember every hole. I didn’t love every hole, but I remember every single one.
As you can see from the photos below, the landscape feels less Texas and more Tennessee or North Carolina. Just a stunning place.
Name drops today: Scottie Scheffler,
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the Turtlebox, which is back for us as a 2026 sponsor and also fueling the No. 1 player in the world. Not sure how those two entities overlap, but I’m definitely pumped about it.
I mentioned this on a podcast that will come out in a few days, but Turtlebox has powered so many different gatherings for us this year. Golf outings, sure, but also …
Youth baseball practices
Outdoor fire pit nights
Front yard movies
Garden dance parties (Jason)
All of their products are great, but if you’re looking for the best value, I think the Original (Gen 3) is the way to go. A perfect last-minute Christmas gift.
OK, now onto the news.
Way back in newsletter No. 141, I made some 2025 predictions for the golf world. Against my better judgement, I want to hold myself accountable to those predictions now that the year is coming to an end.
Some of them were tough to look back on. Others turned out OK. Either way, I learned a lot in revisiting them and seeing which way the golf world went (or didn’t go) in light of those predix.
So without further ado ….
1. Europe wins Bethpage: Yeah, I don’t love it, but it’s definitely in play.
It gets … much worse.
2. The PIF-PGA Tour deal goes through … and then nothing happens.
The PIF-PGA Tour deal did not go through, but also nothing has happened. Feels like I deserve 0.25 points for this one. And the PIF appears to be doubling (or even tripling) down on its future as it recently approved an increase that ran the LIV investment total to $5 billion (!).
All so a 52-year-old Lee Westwood could be trotted back out there for the Magic Sticks.
I just don’t really get it. It feels post-sportswashing. Almost like the PIF has an agenda that it’s going to prove something to the PGA Tour.
We get it, man. You’re rich. You don’t need to keep telling us.
After seemingly getting close to a deal a year ago, with the Tour’s new leadership installed and very much focused on the Tour, I don’t have much confidence here that anything is ever going to happen.
3. Kyle breaks 80 twice.
Nope. Two reasons, probably related.
1. I didn’t play enough.
2. My chipping got so bad that I started chipping one-handed.
Seems like a good time to mention that if you are a yippy-chip-fixing brand looking to sponsor a newsletter whose writer is desperate to try … really anything, I have some inventory for you in 2026. But for real, if you represent a brand looking to get involved, please reach out.
Here are the scores. I am proud of that 80 at Trinity Forest.
4. PGA Tour buys Golf Channel
Listen, we were taking some swings here.
This one also seems not as close as it did a year ago.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes an Internet Invitational take, one of the great comments I’ve ever seen and (by far) my worst prediction of the year.
Normal Sport is supported by exactly 1,013 crazed individuals. By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• A vote for trusted, independent media.
• The delight of helping us establish Normal Sport.
• 15% off to our pro shop.
• Access to all of our content (like the rest of this post).
.svg){kind=spacer}
