Issue No. 207 | May 27, 2025 | Read Online

Happy U.S. Women’s Open week!

I am on vacation for the next few days, playing badminton, Binho and watching our kids play with a new school-is-over-and-summer-is-here puppy.

Speaking of the dog! Nobody has worse takes than married couples before they have kids. Nobody. “Oh, I will never __________” has been upended innumerable times. You hate to see it. But you also kinda don’t.

A couple of quick thoughts on the golf world right now.

But First!

In a move straight out of the Normal Sport playbook, Erin Hills — which is sponsoring today’s newsletter — and the USGA teamed up for a children’s poster contest to celebrate this week’s 80th U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally.

The winners (shown below) will be featured on site at Erin Hills all week.

Here’s a look.

Harper H. (age 11): “I was inspired by photos my dad showed me of Erin Hills from a time when he played there. I really loved the caddy barn. I feel like it perfectly represents Erin Hills and Wisconsin scenery.”

Aviel C. (11): “When I saw Hole 9, I imagined what it would be like to play it—wide, strong, and full of adventure. It would be so cool to walk this hole one day with someone like Nelly Korda and see it through her eyes.”

Madison L. (12): “I got most of my inspiration from my Grandpa Adams who gave me the ideas for the silhouette in the front and Holy Hill in the background. I love golfing and I’ve heard that Erin Hills is known for having a great view of Holy Hill from the course so I wanted to include that in my drawing.”

I love all of the art. I love that golf inspired it, too.

As a reminder: Youth ages 17 and younger receive complimentary admission with an adult who has purchased a ticket. You can see all of these posters in person (along with some great golf) by getting tickets right here.   

OK, now onto the news.

Five Thoughts on Golf (and Other Things)

1. I went on the NLU pod last week to do our first Ryder Cup roundtable of 2025, which lasted a brisk two hours.

This will not surprise you, but folks get extremely emotionally wound up about the Ryder Cup. The response to some of our conversation has been not unusual for the state of the internet in 2025 but still a bit amusing for a congenial conversation about a late-September exhibition.

The “Who’s your 12?” answer will change 1 million times in the next two weeks, even more so over the next four months.

I would like to follow what Soly and I said about how to determine who’s on our teams — both right now and who we believe the U.S. should pick in the future. Sometimes, the way it’s framed by either myself or him can sound convoluted, but I’m convinced we’re on the same page.

How we use data: Establish a baseline. If you aren’t X.XX SG over the last three, six or 12 months, then we can’t even consider you unless your name is literally Justin Thomas (and I think that is the only person in that category — not Max, not Spieth, nobody else). You can get mad about that, but only if you also get mad about the Warriors paying somebody who averages 9.0 points per game $100 million over four years (Draymond).

How we make our personal teams: Dogs only. This is where it gets a little squishy. You are either a proven dog (DB Vibin) or a projected dog (Scottie in 2021 at Whistling Straits). We accept both. Pedigree matters, and so should age and team chemistry.

Three other notes on this.

1. There is often a difference in who we think the U.S. should pick and who we believe it will pick. There seems to be an aversion to making outside-the-box selections on the American side out of fear of critique, which is why the should (dogs) and will (often just right off the Ryder Cup points list) groups are often quite different.

An example of this: If the Ryder Cup started tomorrow, I think the U.S. team would probably take Brian Harman, who is 10th in RC points but that it should take Tony Finau (course fit), Daniel Berger (dog) or Jordan Spieth (leader) in his place. This is an imperfect example but gets at my point.

2. The boys club. Don’t want to hear it, don’t want to see it. You know who has a boys club for whom all of this has worked out quite nicely? The continent of Europe. Here’s what I wrote last summer.

3. There is a big difference between home picks and away picks. At home, it’s easier to pick your 12 most talented, roll the balls out and let the crowds carry them. On the road? You have to bring your own juice, which is something that U.S. rarely picks toward and was the whole point of bringing JT to Rome. It didn’t work out, but it wasn’t the wrong pick because it didn’t work out.

Is all of this complicated? Yes. Should the U.S. be considering all of these points and 1,000 more? Also yes. Is Europe doing the same? 100 percent hell yes. Will I ever get tired of talking about the Ryder Cup in the middle of May with like eight more meaningful tournaments until picks are made?

Me ⬇️ 

2. I thought this piece from Fried Egg Golf on the Tour using some of its SSG money to build its own PGA Tour-specific golf courses was smart and interesting. It does remove a lot of the charm of the Tour visiting places like Silvis and Harbour Town and Waialae, but … I don’t know … seems like most of the charm left the building a long time ago.

Here’s the crux of the argument.

I think all of this depends on whether you value competitive gameplay or the idea of a charming, barnstorming PGA Tour. With the Tour making it impossibly difficult to square the latter with its anti-rollback stance, I think the former is the only option, which leads us to the idea of building some more TPC Sawgrass-like courses in the future (which, speaking of, I would not be against a twice-a-year trek to Sawgrass — maybe one stroke play and one match play? I enjoy it that much).

3. Speaking of FEG, Andy recently wrote about the golf course where my all time favorite round of golf took place. Not Oakmont, Winged Foot or ANGC. Not even anything in the United States. No, it’s the Elie Golf House Club. If you are ever doing that Scotland golf trip, make it a priority if at all possible.

I have never written in depth about that experience, but it was one of those magical nights that feels like it will last forever even if you know that’s not actually how time works.

It’s the course and the round that has stuck with me the most.

Courtesy: Fried Egg Golf

4. I got a very Normal Sport email from a reader over the weekend asking how — how in the world?! — this could be the mechanics of the best player on the planet and someone who is tracking to be one of the 10 best of all time.

I have no answers of course, but I will say that I absolutely love that the best player in the world was not build in a lab. I love that he eschews a $25,000 radar for an $11 grip trainer before rounds at Augusta National.

Dylan Dethier wrote about this a bit in his excellent Scottie profile for Golf.com. Here’s the quote he got from Scottie’s coach, Randy Smith.

Artists are artists because they have quirks. That they are imperfect and produce art with warts is exactly the point. Otherwise they would be machines, and their work would not affect anything in the hearts of the people who fall in love with their art. In a golf world where everyone is a slave to the Trackman formulas, it is legitimately refreshing to see an artist thrive at a level nobody else other than Rory is even sniffing.

5. I got a great email from a reader about evaluating players based on consecutive majors under par. I adjusted this a little bit to consecutive majors gaining strokes against the field. The best I could find was Scottie at 12 in a row (and counting), and all of them are 1.0 or higher, which is wild!

Tiger — this will not surprise you — did it 38 times in a row from the 1996 Open to the 2006 U.S. Open (this is not strictly a made cut vs. missed cut thing either). Example: Tom Kim made the cut at this year’s PGA but lost strokes to the field by finishing 71st.

Anyway, here’s Tiger’s run.

I didn’t dig super deep on this so I’m sure there are others I’m missing, but those were two notables that I found. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to keep looking because the kids are on me. I just heard a, “Dad's looking at golf numbers again” from the other room. Time to go catch some fish and clean up after the pup.

Can't wait to watch Erin Hills with them on Thursday.

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