Issue No. 248 | September 9, 2025 | Read Online

As you read (or even skim, peruse or glance over) the newsletter today, you’ll notice that it’s a bit different. The same content and jokes and ideas and thoughts, yes, but there is a lot less of it all the way around.

The reason?

We started a blog called The Infirmary.

The reason?

The newsletter was getting too rotund and too meaty for consumption. The Infirmary will (hopefully) be a nice alleviation for the girth of the newsletter. Instead of putting all 2,500 words into your email, we will link off to some stuff on our site and try to keep this thing in the hundreds instead of the thousands.

I’ll write more about how the blog will work and why we did it and when we’re adding comments and all of that at some point, but for now, send any feedback you have my way and we’ll keep working to make your daily experience as a golf fan feel as meaningful as possible.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Thank you to Meridian Putters for presenting today’s newsletter. Meridian will be sponsoring our Ryder Cup trip here in a few weeks, and we have loved partnering with them for a number of reasons this year.

Not the least of which is that they make the experience of owning and using a putter feel as meaningful as possible.

Meridian’s mission is as simple as it gets: To provide a high quality product, made from high quality materials, at a price point that most golfers will feel good about.

That’s awesome, and we can confirm (and so can their multiple years of being awarded gold from the Golf Digest hot list) that their product — I prefer the Key West — is as high quality as it comes.

OK now onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

Not me, watching this clip for the 122nd time since it happened.

Maybe the best part of it all came when the camera caught this father and son jumping and hugging amid one of the biggest roars of the year.

As noted above, we have a blog now — called The Infirmary — and I went deep on a post there there about Rory’s reaction to the day and why the preservation of his own joy is my very favorite thing about him and his career.

Normal Sport

1. The Walker Cup continued one of my favorite traditions, which is its “I have no clue what to do with my appendages” photo.

Let’s throw it back to 2008 for maybe my favorite one ever.

And to 2025 for the newest edition, in which Michael La Sasso is doing the rarely seen cross-legged splits.

2. Scratch recently got in on the Normal Sport fun with this out-of-context golf in 2025 video. My favorite screen grab.

Take of the Week

Here’s a take I was thinking about as I caught the Walker Cup here and there last weekend: I think it’s the rare golf event that’s probably better consumed in person rather than on TV. The Ryder Cup is incredible in person but can be extremely tough to follow because of how many people are there.

The Walker Cup, though? With how relatively few people there are (and how easily you can walk down the fairways), I think it’s actually potentially worse on TV than in person.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that these are your views.

And these are your venues.

Stat of the Week

I am fearful to go too far down this path because I will get 9,000 words in and not even realize what’s going on, but a reader threw out this thought experiment after Rory won at K Club.

Arnie is indeed in the mid 60s all time with 62 PGA Tour victories, a Spanish Open, a BMW PGA, an Australian Open and several “others” like five Canada Cups and a pair of Piccadilly World Match Play Championships (sure).

The top 20 of all time is actually a concept I want to explore a bit on The Normal Sport Show at some point, including what it actually means to be ranked No. 1, No. 5 or No. 8 on the all time list. Are we going for best players relative to their eras? Most accomplished resumes? Most important to the game?

Regardless, I do think Palmer, or something around Palmer, is in play for Rory. The resume is becoming undeniable. Five majors, the slam, three FedEx Cups, two Players Championships, six (soon to be seven) race to Dubai titles, 45 wins across all tours, 33 top 10s at majors (Palmer had 38) and five Ryder Cup victories to go with 18 Ryder Cup points (Palmer had 23).

Every win now is “this changes the legacy just a little bit” for Rory, which is great for him and absolutely wonderful to get to cover.

Corrupt Golf Media

• There’s nobody better to read on an amateur golf event at Cypress Point than Geoff Shackelford. Like I said, I didn’t catch as much of it as I wanted, but Shack’s recap was terrific.

• I’m fascinated by the NFL’s YouTube era (and I think LIV should have gone further down that road). The numbers for Chargers-Chiefs weren’t amazing, but the global distribution absolutely is. It’s something that the Tour — if it expands globally (as it should) — will likely keep an eye on, especially under the direction of new CEO, Brian Rolapp.

• I got steep on a podcast recently with some friends about Scottie’s faith and what it means to be professionally fulfilled. If you enjoyed what I wrote about him during The Open, then you’ll like that pod.

• This defense of ChatGPT by David Perell is really interesting and not something I’d thought much about before. This made me more pro-ChatGPT after reading it.

Love Your Work

I absolutely loved this.

No notes.

Thank you for reading our handcrafted, algorithm-free newsletter about golf. We put everything we have into every newsletter we write. And 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 obsessed with all of this..

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