Hello!
It has been a delightful golf week.
Between Pawan Munjal and the Cat hosting their annual presser, Rory playing Royal Melbourne and Scottie hunting Spieth’s 2015 season (more on that below), this has to be one of the best non-Ryder Cup golf weeks of the entire fall.
It also means we have a lot to get to.
Name drops today: Min Kim, the memed girl from the airplane, Jim Nantz, Jackson Koivun, Data Golf and Big Scheffler.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the Normal Sport pro shop.
We’re pumped up about Norman making his way out into the wild after some fun BFCM deals and want to extend the festivities: Today, anyone who spends $200+ in the pro shop will get $50 off (automatically applied at checkout).
If you’re a Normal Club member who gets 15 percent applied automatically, the bigger of the two discounts will be applied.
Also, we have towels stocked up.
Deal expires at 5 p.m. central time today. Go get it.
OK, now onto the news.
1. First things first. Scottie shot 66 at the Hero on Thursday, which means he’s primed to win for a seventh time this year.
Last year, he also won this event which netted him 7+ Data Golf points. If he does it again, he’d likely get another 7+ and kick aside one of the best seasons I’ve ever covered (Spieth in 2015).
Oh, and it wouldn’t even be Scottie’s best year of the past two years.
Think about what Spieth did in 2015. Won the Masters, won at Chambers, nearly won at St. Andrews and Whistling Straits. Took six trophies. Gained over 2.5 strokes per round on the field. And Scottie is probably going to discard it for the second consecutive year in six fewer events and by gaining nearly a half stroke more per round than Spieth did.
There’s only one thing to say.
2. Speaking of Scottie. Tiger talking about the details of what makes him great was in itself quite great. Here’s what he said.
I truly love watching him hit irons, the shaped shots that he hits, the trajectory, the window changes that he has, the distance control, the miss in the proper spot, the proper spin in certain pin locations.
These are all subtle things that mean a lot over the course of 72 holes.
That to me is impressive. If you don't have trajectory control, you can't have distance control. To see him move it up and down in different windows, use wind, fight wind and control spin is fun to watch.
Tiger Woods
Tiger talking traj out of different windows.
Tiger also talked this week about why he thinks about punching putts and how the golf ball slows down his putter on the way through. Could listen to it for hours.
3. We did a pod recently with James Colgan, who is one of my top three picks if I’m drafting the next generation of golf content creators.
We talked about a lot of different things — including his take that Jim Nantz could legitimately be president of the United States (which I’m way into). We also discussed a few ideas/takes related to the future of golf media starting right here.
My three ideas/takes ..
1. Golf is in the best (or, I guess, worst) position to be disrupted as a spectator sport. It’s the one sport that all of us can also play, and I care a lot less about the difference between good and bad golfers than I do in sports like football and basketball. This is already happening with YouTube Golf, which I’ve talked about extensively.
2. Broadcasts should lean all the way in on stats. As discussed in the LKD episode, the deeper you go into a topic, the better (not worse, but better!) for aggregating meaningful fans.
3. Curators win. In the attention economy, very few people want to spend their X number of free hours on 6-hour broadcasts of any kind when they can get a more enjoyable recap elsewhere. I’ve said this many times before, but it remains a good example. I don’t watch NBA games, but I do listen to Zach Lowe.
It takes so much less time, I have better takeaways than if I was actually watching the games and it’s actually more fun for me. Sometimes it feels like the leagues exist to serve the content creators rather than the other way around. Great for the content creators. Quite problematic for the leagues!
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
Poll results from last week’s question of whether you would rather own the media rights for the PGA Tour or all the majors, a Ryder Cup solution and what it would look like if there were two Masters every year.
Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. It’s always fun to feel like I’m writing to fewer people, which is what this section represents. Feels like I can say more, be a little more wheels off with my takes. I hope you enjoy!
4. Two weeks ago, we ran a poll about whether you would rather own media rights to the majors + the Ryder Cup or to the PGA Tour.
I understand why everyone would vote this way (and it’s how I would vote, too) … even if the Tour actually currently seems like the more financially prudent choice by a factor of 2x or even 3x. Obviously, the value of a property isn’t only found in its annual revenue, but it does highlight what I think Brian Rolapp and Co. are grappling with right now, which is that TV rights are often a volume play.
In other words: From a purely economic perspective, would you rather own the media rights to the MLB’s regular season or the World Series? It’s the regular season and it’s not even that close. Why? Because time equals money, and the regular season eats up so much more time, even if the World Series is much more prestigious.
Here are some reader comments.
The media rights question implies that you are looking for the most value/profit, but for me, there is so little that matters on the PGA Tour schedule, that I voted for majors and Ryder Cup, the stuff I care about.
Scott H.
I picked PGA Tour. I think this is the wrong answer, but it is the challenging answer. If I were in a position to actually own these things, I would much rather be playing in a situation where I have to win or lose it all than in a situation where I am playing not to lose. My ego also tells me that I might actually be able to do it...
Brendan M.
PGA Tour for me. Majors and Ryder Cup are obviously big ticket events but you’re talking about only five weekends (four depending on how you view the PGA :)).
If somebody could put out a decent TV product week to week on the Tour side of things, and if the Tour was able to make all of the events somewhat meaningful, you’d have to think the earning potential for 40+ “lesser” events is superior to the majors + Ryder Cup.
Ryan O.
That is a fascinating (and counterintuitive) view.
5. Speaking of reader comments, here’s a great email I got recently about the Ryder Cup …
As you know, we have the auto qualifiers and then the captain’s picks. The latter is where the juice comes in and a lot of the discourse around who was deserving or not, and if the boys club lives on.
Here’s my solution.1. Keep the auto qualifiers as is (objective).
2. Captain’s picks are now 4 instead of 6 (subjective).
3. The captain then picks a pool of 4-6 players to complete for the final two spots. (subjective then objective).
Think of this like play in games in the NCAA basketball tournament or wild card games in MLB. Those 4-6 players play in an event before the Ryder Cup like the Procore and the top two finishers from that pool make the team. Simple.Tony
This would absolutely be bad for the teams but amazing for the content. So good for the content, in fact, that it should be its own separate event, YouTube golf-style. JT, Keegan, Spieth and Jackson Koivun playing 36 against each other for a spot at Adare Manor with cameras in their faces and some good commentary?
Forget the Skins game. This would provide what we all actually want: Real, consequential stakes, and it would absolutely be some of the best viewing of the year.
6. I … agree with this?
First of all, if there’s a more normal sport than golf it is definitely (I mean definitely) college football.
Read this! The first sentence is unintelligible art … and it just keeps getting better.
Incredible.
Second, the note about the playoff making CFB worse is something I have felt. And I think it’s actually a golf take as well.
As noted above, the Tour is clearly wrestling with volume vs. scarcity right now, and I think the CFB Playoffs are proof that volume is not always the better choice even if it feels better in the short term because you’re rewarded with a lot of money from TV partners.
This is not a perfect comp, but it’s a useful one: What if there were two Masters every year? One in April and one in October. It would be kinda cool, I guess, and more money would definitely be made. But the overall devaluation of the Masters as a brand would be pretty obvious. It would also submarine the attention paid to regular season events.
That is what has happened — at least a little bit — with CFB to me.
Another thought exercise: What if the PGA Tour only had eight events every year?
Kapalua
Riviera
Phoenix
Memorial
Travelers
Bay Hill
Pebble
Players
That’s it. That’s all you can play if you’re Rory or Scottie.
Just actually think about that for a minute.
It would be pretty amazing because every shot would feel meaningful. The Tour wouldn’t be able to sell their product for as much money to CBS and NBC and ESPN, but I think in reducing its inventory from [waves hands in air] however many tournaments there are to … eight, it would create a more valuable company in terms of the attention paid to it in this attention economy.
Maybe not, though.
I guess my main point here is that it is presumed that more is always better. The phrase, “Who’s complaining about more golf on TV?” gets thrown around a lot. Me! I am! I am officially complaining!
Because more is not exactly what we want in anything in life. We want more meaningful events and moments. The good stuff. Much more difficult to create because expansion and increasing the volume of a thing is not always the right answer, even if it is the easiest.
7. Again …. a full blown hot takes newsletter is coming. But this one — which I’m not sure whether it is serious or not? — was sent to me and could sustain for weeks (maybe longer). An amazing … amazing take.
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Hello!
It has been a delightful golf week.
Between Pawan Munjal and the Cat hosting their annual presser, Rory playing Royal Melbourne and Scottie hunting Spieth’s 2015 season (more on that below), this has to be one of the best non-Ryder Cup golf weeks of the entire fall.
It also means we have a lot to get to.
Name drops today: Min Kim, the memed girl from the airplane, Jim Nantz, Jackson Koivun, Data Golf and Big Scheffler.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the Normal Sport pro shop.
We’re pumped up about Norman making his way out into the wild after some fun BFCM deals and want to extend the festivities: Today, anyone who spends $200+ in the pro shop will get $50 off (automatically applied at checkout).
If you’re a Normal Club member who gets 15 percent applied automatically, the bigger of the two discounts will be applied.
Also, we have towels stocked up.
Deal expires at 5 p.m. central time today. Go get it.
OK, now onto the news.
1. First things first. Scottie shot 66 at the Hero on Thursday, which means he’s primed to win for a seventh time this year.
Last year, he also won this event which netted him 7+ Data Golf points. If he does it again, he’d likely get another 7+ and kick aside one of the best seasons I’ve ever covered (Spieth in 2015).
Oh, and it wouldn’t even be Scottie’s best year of the past two years.
Think about what Spieth did in 2015. Won the Masters, won at Chambers, nearly won at St. Andrews and Whistling Straits. Took six trophies. Gained over 2.5 strokes per round on the field. And Scottie is probably going to discard it for the second consecutive year in six fewer events and by gaining nearly a half stroke more per round than Spieth did.
There’s only one thing to say.
2. Speaking of Scottie. Tiger talking about the details of what makes him great was in itself quite great. Here’s what he said.
I truly love watching him hit irons, the shaped shots that he hits, the trajectory, the window changes that he has, the distance control, the miss in the proper spot, the proper spin in certain pin locations.
These are all subtle things that mean a lot over the course of 72 holes.
That to me is impressive. If you don't have trajectory control, you can't have distance control. To see him move it up and down in different windows, use wind, fight wind and control spin is fun to watch.
Tiger Woods
Tiger talking traj out of different windows.
Tiger also talked this week about why he thinks about punching putts and how the golf ball slows down his putter on the way through. Could listen to it for hours.
3. We did a pod recently with James Colgan, who is one of my top three picks if I’m drafting the next generation of golf content creators.
We talked about a lot of different things — including his take that Jim Nantz could legitimately be president of the United States (which I’m way into). We also discussed a few ideas/takes related to the future of golf media starting right here.
My three ideas/takes ..
1. Golf is in the best (or, I guess, worst) position to be disrupted as a spectator sport. It’s the one sport that all of us can also play, and I care a lot less about the difference between good and bad golfers than I do in sports like football and basketball. This is already happening with YouTube Golf, which I’ve talked about extensively.
2. Broadcasts should lean all the way in on stats. As discussed in the LKD episode, the deeper you go into a topic, the better (not worse, but better!) for aggregating meaningful fans.
3. Curators win. In the attention economy, very few people want to spend their X number of free hours on 6-hour broadcasts of any kind when they can get a more enjoyable recap elsewhere. I’ve said this many times before, but it remains a good example. I don’t watch NBA games, but I do listen to Zach Lowe.
It takes so much less time, I have better takeaways than if I was actually watching the games and it’s actually more fun for me. Sometimes it feels like the leagues exist to serve the content creators rather than the other way around. Great for the content creators. Quite problematic for the leagues!
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
Poll results from last week’s question of whether you would rather own the media rights for the PGA Tour or all the majors, a Ryder Cup solution and what it would look like if there were two Masters every year.
Normal Sport is supported by exactly 1,015 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).
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