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Issue No. 214 | June 11, 2025 | Read Online
In 2016, I got a chance to play Oakmont the day after D.J. burned it to the ground. On the first tee, the guys in the group I was with decided that we “might as well play from the U.S. Open tees because when else are we going to have this opportunity?”
You can imagine how that went.
At the time, I was probably between a 12-15 index. One of the assistant pros is out there on the first tees looking at all of us like, “These guys …”
And I turn around and hit probably one of the five best drives I’ve ever hit in my life. Just this towering draw off the right side that surely eclipsed 300 yards.
After a shot on the green and two very slippery putts for par, I walked off the green and stood staring at the red U.S. Open pin with cars racing down the freeway behind me.
In that moment, I promise you I thought, “I honestly might shoot, like 76 today from the U.S. Open tee markers.” I definitely thought I could get Lee Westwood, who shot 43 on the front on Sunday.
I shot 106.
On 16 holes.
Tack on the two hole I skipped because I didn’t want to miss my flight, and I definitely was not cracking 115.
The thing I didn’t understand until, like, the 14th hole – because I might be a dumb? – is that when you miss a fairway, it’s so rare that you can hit something longer than a 7 iron back into position. Normally it’s 9 iron to sand wedge, and you’re just trying to sort of get back on the planet. I spent the whole day with rough as thick as the roots of a tree wrapping around my club head.
Missing fairways felt like an auto double. Missing greens felt like you had four more shots ahead of you. Even hitting greens was scary because they rolled at a speed tantamount to those “make this length-of-the-court putt for $10,000” contests at college basketball games.
Welcome to Oakmont.
The most fun 106 I’ve ever shot. And one of the coolest spots in American golf (and American golf history).
Here are a few final thoughts before the festivities get underway on Thursday.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Erin Hills, which hosted the most recent (men’s or women’s) major championship with its U.S Women’s Open presented by Ally a few weeks ago.
That championship gave us a wonderful glimpse of what big time major green complexes look like, similar to what we will see again this week at Oakmont.
For those of us who couldn’t make it to Wisconsin, it was cool to live vicariously through friends and their kids visiting Erin Hills.
Jason and I got to thinking about how the best experience in golf is being at a big time event with your parents or kids and will be watching the U.S. Open with this pinned on our digital fridges (along with the Porter Family Draft below).
OK, now onto the news.
1. I loved this from Jamie Kennedy on the 10 best major rounds since 1983.
Gaining 10+ strokes on the field average is truly insane. At a regular PGA Tour event, it would normally mean shooting somewhere in the range of 58-62.
I think doing this is probably most impressive at a Masters since the field doesn’t include (very many) non-tour players or any PGA professionals. But doing it anywhere is so impressive.
Paul Casey got on the list by shooting 66 in 2007 at Oakmont in the second round. Here was that leaderboard at the halfway point, when Angel Cabrera went on to win.
I think I’m less excited about the potential that someone might match the 11 SG in a round and more excited about the fact that the scoring average in Round 2 in 2007 was 77 (!) and that we could easily see that this year.
2. On that note, I’ve watched the Bryson Oakmont video, seen the Fried Egg preview and listened to the NLU breakdown of this golf course. All are excellent, and I have a couple of takeaways based on their analysis as well as listening to players.
1. This is probably a “fairer” test than Pinehurst. Remember when Scottie got so mad last year about the luck he was getting on missed fairways at Pinehurst? That probably will not be (as much) the case this time around.
2. Stylistically, I prefer Pinehurst because while recovery shots there were tougher than, say, Augusta, they weren’t impossible like they will be here. The rough is incredibly penal this week, which should be painful, but I don’t think I’ll find it to be quite as fun as what we got at PHRST.
3. Bryson doesn’t win this year if he plays the final round the same way he did in 2024. He hit six fairways in the final round at Pinehurst. Six! That’s not going to fly here, and in that sense, it’s a stiffer test of driving than a lot of other venues.
4. The big question I have is something Soly brought up on the NLU Oakmont pod: Is Oakmont just Winged Foot redux, where players can bang the ball all over the yard with no inhibition for where it ends up? It sounds like the answer is no (JLM described why here), but I have concerns after listening to Bryson.
It's not like every single hole is Winged Foot out here. You can't just bomb it on every single hole and blast over bunkers and have a wedge run up to the front of the green. You can on a lot of the holes but not on every one of them.
I think this golf course you have to be just a fraction more strategic, especially when the rough is so long. I'm going to be as fearless as I can possibly be out there; I know that.
Bryson DeChambeau
5. I don’t think this will be as much of an emotional test as a mental one. Emotional tests are when you get bad breaks when you should get good ones and vice versa (Pinehurst did this). I don’t believe this week will be like that because you will mostly get what you deserve. I think it will be more of a test to see who can stay mentally engaged with the idea of playing a five-hole stretch in 3 over instead of 6 over, which could win you the championship.
It’s just going to be straight up really, really difficult.
It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win.
Rory McIlroy
3. This idea from JT was the inspo for sharing my story about playing in 2016 and is also a great idea.
I think I would be fine if you want to tee off a foursome of varying handicaps after the final group each day of the tournament just to monitor what they’re shooting in similar conditions. Wouldn’t watch but would keep up with the scoring. Basically this but while the tournament is going on.
Also, this could actually be very cool.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
Three guys to watch out for.
Some thoughts on the Porter family draft.
My pick for the week.
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.
Here is the U.S. Open fantasy contest if you haven’t entered it yet.
4. Woodworking and acupuncture got me pretty good. Very normal sport.
5. Our Porter Family U.S. Open Draft took place at lunch on Tuesday afternoon with the Data Golf rankings on our living room TV screen and kids crying over the draft order.
Here’s how it shook out.
Some thoughts.
• I already regret taking Bryson over Scottie.
• Mrs. Normal asked me, “Can Justin Rose play in the U.S. Open even though he’s not American” one round after she took Rory McIlroy.
• I’m getting word all over social media that Sadie is a ballknower. Reality: Sadie was playing LEGOs and asked me to read the names of the next best available on data golf dot com and was just saying names she thought sounded cool.
• Jack, as has been the case for three years now, is the ultimate agent of chaos. No plan, doesn’t care, wants to let it rip as much as humanly possible.
• Jude was devastated over picking fifth in a four-player draft, panicked and took JT, which he said he regretted in the aftermath. You hate to see it.
• Hannah, our oldest, sat out in protest because “Jude talks too much trash.” Might be a “Tiger in the early 2000s” situation. Folks quitting before they even start.
• Mrs. Normal started singing “Si Woo shaking that ass” in front of our kids. 🤨 Knows what the “Si Woo shaking that ass” song is but doesn’t know the nationality rules of a major championship.
• I feel horrible about all five of my picks even though the squad is flush city.
6. Out of context quotes from Bryson’s major pressers is always a fun game.
We've got a lot of great revenue coming about, and probably in a year from now, I hope to unveil some incredible master plans of what we're going to do with the Crushers and whatnot.
Bryson on LIV
Sure, sure, sure.
Yeah, so we iterated on the design of the face. The heel is a little bit flatter on the curvature. My face obviously has some curvature on the irons. So we're just optimizing for the gear effect on the heel and on the toe based on the mass properties that are there.
Bryson on his new irons
What's funny is as much as my guard has been let down, I feel like I'm more strategic in how I deliver things and how I give perspective on things. Before, I was pretty up front and would just say things the way I wanted to whenever I wanted to. Now it's more strategic in the way I do it and deliver it because I think there's a lot of good that can come from that.
Bryson on his public persona
What?!
Our team has been EBIDTA positive for the past two years, so we're starting to grow and move in the right direction, just like TGL.
Bryson on EBIDTA
At the U.S. Open!
He teaches me a couple things out of the bunker and wedges, and I'm like, all right, here's something we do for our channel that makes it a little more interesting. Kind of fun stuff. It's fun.
Bryson on Phil
Just amazing, amazing stuff.
7. So it begins.
And buddy, it will not stop. The screenshot I took here cuts off, but there are 5-6 articles here Yahoo created with AI, which Josh pointed out.
Here’s the problem. The people making decisions are not artists, they’re suits. Business people. They make business decisions. And when these are the choices in front of you.
• Employee A: Costs $100,000/year, must sleep, wants vacation, can only type 65 WPM, generates 3M pageviews a year on 400 articles.
• Employee B: Costs $200/month, never sleeps, doesn’t vacation, works 24/7, can type 650 WPM, generates 30M pageviews a year on 4,000 articles.
The choice is easy.
It’s like Nico trading Luka: Dawg, I do not care about what happens 10 years from now. I’m gonna be fired anyway. I need something to happen right now. That is probably how I would think as an executive of a media company, and that is probably how many of them think.
Thankfully, there is an antidote to all of this, and that antidote is that I get to preserve and communicate how I feel. How Oakmont made me feel about golf. How Scottie made me feel about life.
I think of this post I read recently.
Lots of people worry that AI will replace human writers. But I know something the computer doesn’t know, which is what it feels like inside my head. There is no text, no .jpg, no .csv that contains this information, because it is ineffable. My job is to carve off a sliver of the ineffable, and to eff it.
Adam Mastroianni
Machines are winning, and they will win. But they can’t have it all, and the very best stuff — the human material, the stuff we’re made of — they don’t get that, as much as those in charge will try.
8. Ah, this made me laugh pretty hard.
Rahm gets a bad rap here, but it was still funny.
The truth is that since he went to LIV, Rahm has been the third best player in the world at scoring the golf ball. Better than Rory. Better than Bryson. Basically the same as Xander, who has won two majors in that span.
Data Golf adjusts for field strength and takes all events into account so these numbers are not juiced by the likes of Matt Jones and Chieh-Po Lee playing in LIV fields.
Also Scottie lol.
9. A question I’m jamming on this week: Joaquin Niemann, who art thou?
After last week’s LIV win, he’s into the top five in the world in the Data Golf rankings, but is he serious about winning major championships?
The answer thus far has been a big non-yellow …
The talent is there. It does remind me of PReed a little bit with no top 10s, no top 10s, no top 10s, one top 10 and then wins the Masters.
Could be headed for something similar with Joaquin.
10. This Scottie quote on Oakmont and strategy fascinated me.
There's not really many areas where you step on the tee box and you're like, “Hey, I can miss it right here, hey, I can shade towards the left side of the fairway because right is really bad.”
Actually, if you hit it in the right rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green; if you hit it in the left rough, you're probably not going to get it to the green. So might as well try and split the difference there and hit it in the middle.
Scottie Scheffler
What he’s saying is that he normally moves his target around toward where the miss is, and here there aren’t a lot of good misses off the tee, so you just try and rip down the middle. I think that actually hurts him a bit because he’s better than everyone else at moving that target around.
11. My pick below, but three guys I absolutely love this week are as follows.
Morikawa — Elite U.S. Open player (five straight top 15s), and if he’s pounding fairways, could be a wrap.
Henley — Three top 15s in the last four years at this tournament, crazy accurate off the tee, finished top five at Memorial. Could be the Jim Furyk from 2016 of 2025.
Berger — Most accurate driving season of his career and a sneaky solid U.S. Open player. I think he’s in one of the last three groups on Sunday.
12. Here are all the golfers who have won the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA.
Floyd
Rory
Nelson
Sarazen
Hogan
Player
Tiger
Jack
Scottie (if he wins as a +275 favorite this week)
That is a wild, wild list.
And in some ways, it does seem like the major Scottie is best suited for, right? His superpowers are decision making, patience and exercising immense discipline over the course of four days. And while some of that maybe gets taken away by what he said above about moving targets around, his disposition is still terrific.
And while he does have three top 10s in his last four appearances at this tournament, his overall performance here has been just mediocre compared to 1. Where he’s usually at and 2. Where his contemporaries (especially Xander) have been.
Also Xander’s run, my gosh.
13. OK, my pick.
I think if you beat Scottie, Bryson and Rory, you win the tournament.
Do I think anyone is going to do that? Not really.
I think you’re going to have to drive the golf ball like a complete and total maniac, and one of those three is currently embroiled in one of the great driving seasons in the history of golf.
Bryson is currently gaining nearly 2.0 strokes per round with his driver alone. That means he’s nearly a top five player in the world if you only look at his tee shots!
I have some concerns about how crookedly he drove it at PHRST last year en route to his victory. I also have some concerns about how weak his short irons have been in the first part of 2025. However, I can’t get Winged Foot out of my head. I know they’re different, but his short game was so incredible there.
Rory-Scottie-Bryson as your first three major winners of 2025.
Imagine telling yourself that in January.
Imagine when Spieth joins them at Portrush.
Thank you for reading until the end.
You’re a complete and total sicko for reading a newsletter about golf that is 3,052 words (!!) long, and we are grateful for your support of this business. Let’s have a national championship!
Issue No. 214 | June 11, 2025 | Read Online
In 2016, I got a chance to play Oakmont the day after D.J. burned it to the ground. On the first tee, the guys in the group I was with decided that we “might as well play from the U.S. Open tees because when else are we going to have this opportunity?”
You can imagine how that went.
At the time, I was probably between a 12-15 index. One of the assistant pros is out there on the first tees looking at all of us like, “These guys …”
And I turn around and hit probably one of the five best drives I’ve ever hit in my life. Just this towering draw off the right side that surely eclipsed 300 yards.
After a shot on the green and two very slippery putts for par, I walked off the green and stood staring at the red U.S. Open pin with cars racing down the freeway behind me.
In that moment, I promise you I thought, “I honestly might shoot, like 76 today from the U.S. Open tee markers.” I definitely thought I could get Lee Westwood, who shot 43 on the front on Sunday.
I shot 106.
On 16 holes.
Tack on the two hole I skipped because I didn’t want to miss my flight, and I definitely was not cracking 115.
The thing I didn’t understand until, like, the 14th hole – because I might be a dumb? – is that when you miss a fairway, it’s so rare that you can hit something longer than a 7 iron back into position. Normally it’s 9 iron to sand wedge, and you’re just trying to sort of get back on the planet. I spent the whole day with rough as thick as the roots of a tree wrapping around my club head.
Missing fairways felt like an auto double. Missing greens felt like you had four more shots ahead of you. Even hitting greens was scary because they rolled at a speed tantamount to those “make this length-of-the-court putt for $10,000” contests at college basketball games.
Welcome to Oakmont.
The most fun 106 I’ve ever shot. And one of the coolest spots in American golf (and American golf history).
Here are a few final thoughts before the festivities get underway on Thursday.
Today’s newsletter is presented by Erin Hills, which hosted the most recent (men’s or women’s) major championship with its U.S Women’s Open presented by Ally a few weeks ago.
That championship gave us a wonderful glimpse of what big time major green complexes look like, similar to what we will see again this week at Oakmont.
For those of us who couldn’t make it to Wisconsin, it was cool to live vicariously through friends and their kids visiting Erin Hills.
Jason and I got to thinking about how the best experience in golf is being at a big time event with your parents or kids and will be watching the U.S. Open with this pinned on our digital fridges (along with the Porter Family Draft below).
OK, now onto the news.
1. I loved this from Jamie Kennedy on the 10 best major rounds since 1983.
Gaining 10+ strokes on the field average is truly insane. At a regular PGA Tour event, it would normally mean shooting somewhere in the range of 58-62.
I think doing this is probably most impressive at a Masters since the field doesn’t include (very many) non-tour players or any PGA professionals. But doing it anywhere is so impressive.
Paul Casey got on the list by shooting 66 in 2007 at Oakmont in the second round. Here was that leaderboard at the halfway point, when Angel Cabrera went on to win.
I think I’m less excited about the potential that someone might match the 11 SG in a round and more excited about the fact that the scoring average in Round 2 in 2007 was 77 (!) and that we could easily see that this year.
2. On that note, I’ve watched the Bryson Oakmont video, seen the Fried Egg preview and listened to the NLU breakdown of this golf course. All are excellent, and I have a couple of takeaways based on their analysis as well as listening to players.
1. This is probably a “fairer” test than Pinehurst. Remember when Scottie got so mad last year about the luck he was getting on missed fairways at Pinehurst? That probably will not be (as much) the case this time around.
2. Stylistically, I prefer Pinehurst because while recovery shots there were tougher than, say, Augusta, they weren’t impossible like they will be here. The rough is incredibly penal this week, which should be painful, but I don’t think I’ll find it to be quite as fun as what we got at PHRST.
3. Bryson doesn’t win this year if he plays the final round the same way he did in 2024. He hit six fairways in the final round at Pinehurst. Six! That’s not going to fly here, and in that sense, it’s a stiffer test of driving than a lot of other venues.
4. The big question I have is something Soly brought up on the NLU Oakmont pod: Is Oakmont just Winged Foot redux, where players can bang the ball all over the yard with no inhibition for where it ends up? It sounds like the answer is no (JLM described why here), but I have concerns after listening to Bryson.
It's not like every single hole is Winged Foot out here. You can't just bomb it on every single hole and blast over bunkers and have a wedge run up to the front of the green. You can on a lot of the holes but not on every one of them.
I think this golf course you have to be just a fraction more strategic, especially when the rough is so long. I'm going to be as fearless as I can possibly be out there; I know that.
Bryson DeChambeau
5. I don’t think this will be as much of an emotional test as a mental one. Emotional tests are when you get bad breaks when you should get good ones and vice versa (Pinehurst did this). I don’t believe this week will be like that because you will mostly get what you deserve. I think it will be more of a test to see who can stay mentally engaged with the idea of playing a five-hole stretch in 3 over instead of 6 over, which could win you the championship.
It’s just going to be straight up really, really difficult.
It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win.
Rory McIlroy
3. This idea from JT was the inspo for sharing my story about playing in 2016 and is also a great idea.
I think I would be fine if you want to tee off a foursome of varying handicaps after the final group each day of the tournament just to monitor what they’re shooting in similar conditions. Wouldn’t watch but would keep up with the scoring. Basically this but while the tournament is going on.
Also, this could actually be very cool.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
Three guys to watch out for.
Some thoughts on the Porter family draft.
My pick for the week.
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 866 crazies. By becoming a Normal Club member, you will receive the following …
• Our very best stuff during major weeks.
• First look at new merch.
• The pleasure of helping us build an independent business.
By clicking below to join the Normal Club, you will also be eligible for our 2025 U.S. Open fantasy contest, which you have to get picks in for by Thursday morning.
