Greetings!
I am back from the best sporting event going over the weekend.
Stanley Cup
NBA Finals
Canadian Open 😂
World Cup
The College World Series
I head to Shinnecock on Tuesday afternoon for the U.S. Open, and it’s going to be wonderful, but will it top four college baseball games with my son — who happens to be the perfect age for enjoying the CWS — and new friends (and Normal Sport readers!) Mike and Liz B. who gifted us tickets in Omaha over the last few days?
Kinda doubt that.
Some thoughts on the CWS experience below along with what I’m looking forward to about the 126th U.S. Open and other stuff I’m reading and thinking about right now.
Name drops today: Thomas Jefferson, Gene Littler, Owen Hull, Bud Cauley and Rafa Nadal.
Today’s newsletter is presented by a first-timer, our friends at … OMNI!
Speaking of my son (!) and of Father’s Day this weekend (!) I would like to point you to The Generation Cup, which is an incredible event, hosted at OMNI golf courses, where teams of two compete locally to advance to the national championship across three different divisions. The divisions …
Grandparent-grandchild
Parent-child or aunt/uncle and niece/nephew
PGA Professional-generational family member
My son and I did the parent-child division at PGA Frisco in 2024, and it was about as much fun as I’ve ever had playing golf.
OMNI offers 12 different locations throughout the country from June 2026 through February 2027 where you can contend.
You can check out those dates and locations right here.
The combination of getting to compete with my son — who always notes how much longer he is than me, even though he tees it up like 120 yards ahead of me (!) — on elite golf courses with other moms and dads and grandparents and their kids.
Well, it is an exceptional experience that I could not recommend more highly. If any of that interests you — and I’ve seen our survey results so I know almost all of it does! — then you should check out The Generation Cup right here.
OK, now onto the news.
1. I woke up on Monday thinking about how we’re kind of due for an elite U.S. Open champion. Since Brooks won it in 2018, we’ve gotten the following.
2019 — Gary Woodland (only major)
2020 — Bryson
2021 — Rahm
2022 — Fitzpatrick (only major)
2023 — Wyndham (only major)
2024 — Bryson
2025 — J.J. Spaun (only major)
I was listening to the excellent U.S. Opens draft by NLU and as they rattled off guys like Hogan, Tiger, Palmer and Nicklaus among their winners, I was thinking about how we haven’t had a tremendous champion in a while.
The obvious objections here are Bryson and Rahm. Bryson is going to be a no from me, dawg, if we’re talking about all-time greats, although he could still get there. Rahm is … I mean, we’ll see. I fall on the side of thinking he’s going to be an all-timer, but a lot of work to do. And our recent run of champs is nothing like what we used to get.
Look at this in the 1960s and into the 1970s.
Everyone on this list won multiple majors except for Littler, Venturi and Moody, and seven of the winners won at least six majors. There are probably only three active players who even have a chance at reaching six major championships!
The U.S. Open is wonderful because Jack Fleck and Michael Campbell and Scott Simpson can win it. But the truly memorable ones have been won by the all-time greats. The right bet is probably to be on a more random winner (Spaun, Rai etc.) — especially in this era of more parity — but the dream of course is for the guy who’s favored to win the grand slam or for someone in this field to get to six and tie Phil or someone else to get to seven and tie Palmer.
2. Here are the top 13 performers at U.S. Opens over the last five U.S. Opens (min. 12 rounds played). Interestingly, it only includes two winners (Rahm, Bryson).
I am pretty fascinated by this list. Some questions …
• How has Rory not won one of these?!
• How is Tom Kim ahead of [stares at screen] … Brooks and Bryson?
• How has tom Kim played 16 rounds at the U.S. Open in the last five years?!
• Wait, how good of an iron player is Hideki? Oh, just way better than some of the best of all time at this tournament.
• Who’s going to talk me out of Sam Burns this week?
3. If you have been on the fence about becoming a Normal Club member, this is the perfect week to do so. A lot of our (boots Hokas on the ground) coverage is paywalled, and we’ll be full send almost every day this week for what should be one of the best majors of the last several years. Other member benefits include …
15 percent off all our merch (new H&B order dropping soon!)
Free entry into our $1,250 U.S. Open fantasy contest (link after the jump).
An invite to our Slack channel where we disparage Spieth with ferocity in one breath and praise him incessantly in the next.
It really is a fun community and one we plan on continuing to build out with more and more benefits until it becomes the best deal in golf, thus surpassing LIV Golf swindling Jon Rahm into playing with 47 guys you’ve never heard of because his contract is the most airtight document since Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence.
I suppose we have a ways to go before we get there.
4. Here is the Normal Sport U.S. Open contest with over $1,000 in prize money at stake. It’s open and free to enter for you, Normal Club member.
I have yet to notch a Wikipedia yellow so far this year. In fact, if there was a cut, I would have missed both of the first two. It’s a fun time, though, and a great way to follow the event.
5. I haven’t watched the Rafa documentary (yet), but this piece on how his heroic warrior mantra is not to be celebrated was fascinating. I’m not sure I agree with it (actually I’m pretty sure I don’t), but the questions it raises and the thoughtfulness that went into it, how against the grain it is, the piece is truly among the most provocative things I’ve read recently.
6. OK, some CWS thoughts. I presume this is exactly why you pay to be part of the Normal Club.
I went to Rosenblatt with my family 20 years ago (how was that 20 years ago?) but had never been to the new stadium. So when reader, Mike B. and his wife offered up two seats for me and my son for the first four games (Troy-WVU, UNC-Ole Miss, OU-Bama and Texas-Georgia), I jumped at the chance to take a dad-son trip.
The entire experience blew me away.
I won’t dump all 138 thoughts I have here (though I want to). The one I want to focus on today, though, is how perfectly enmeshed the commercial side (stadium holds 25,000) of the CWS is with the intimate side (it feels electric at almost all times).
It’s not quite like attending a baseball game on a college campus, but it’s far superior to the Final Four in terms of fan experience.
I’ve talked about this some, but after finishing up my own baseball career early in college, my fandom of baseball waned in the years after that. I was just tired of it and enjoying other things. But as my kids have started getting into it, it has reinvigorated in me the love I once had for it.
Pro baseball gets overly romanticized in ways that it shouldn’t. The minor leagues are a war. Traveling is a grind. It’s a capital-J job for sure. Not unlike pro golf. But college baseball? Guys with eye black from their eyelashes to their jawlines. Burly boys throwing 94. Lanky boys throwing 99. Dust spraying all over the yard as 50 guys — almost all of whom will never play beyond this level — live out the full college experience but on a diamond, under the lights and in front of 25K?
I mean, how can you not be romantic about that?
I’m not naive to the types of humans that baseball produces. I played with them all. And so when my 12 year old watches the center fielder for UNC or the shortstop for Alabama with wide eyes and lots of dreams, I know the shadow side of their lives that he doesn’t yet know.
But I will admit this: It feels good to hope.
It feels good to watch an ace demand the ball in the 9th and continue shoving. It feels good to watch other people hope. In a bounce, in a break, in a play, in an inning that could bring about just a little more hope and a little more hope until you’re at the bottom of a dogpile in the 14th game of the week.
As we get older, we become more jaded. We all know this. We all feel it. So for a few days, I took so much joy in watching the joy of my son watch the players he one day wants to be.
Sport is commercialized. Everything good goes this way. If it wasn’t good, it wouldn’t have the opportunity to become commercialized. Omaha is no different. But there is still a sliver of dreaming and hoping in there that has all but been extinguished in other arenas and other professions.
Omaha is full of guys who definitely aren’t boys but also aren’t quite men yet. Superstars who aren’t famous like Arch Manning and Brayden Burries, which means you can see and experience their greatness from close up.
All of this makes for an intoxicating mixture. This amalgamation of desire and craft and hysteria in one stadium for 10 days with nothing but all of your dreams on the line. I’m glad we got to see and experience it in person.
I can’t imagine there are many sporting events in the world better than that one.
7. I was equally inspired by Bud Cauley winning his first Tour event in his 239th (!) start. I am contractually obligated to note that Bud is a Holderness and Bourne guy (I’m not, but I’m happy to do it!). But even more importantly, watching the grind of going 0-for-238 before snagging one is pretty incredible.
Also, his perspective in the aftermath was striking.
I have so much help. So many people that help me try to get better at this game and play good golf. I really almost look at it more as like a thank you to all the people that have helped me get to this point. To have some success and play well is just kind of a thank you to them.
Bud Cauley | 2026 Canadian Open
That is such a great outlook on life. That fulfilling your potential is a “thank you” to the people who helped you do it is rare, especially for someone who just accomplished something for the first time that he’s been attempting for forever.
I loved it and hope to emulate it more often.
Thank you for reading and participating in all of this. We are grateful you’re here and glad for your support. If you haven’t joined our Slack channel, this week is a great week to do so!
Greetings!
I am back from the best sporting event going over the weekend.
Stanley Cup
NBA Finals
Canadian Open 😂
World Cup
The College World Series
I head to Shinnecock on Tuesday afternoon for the U.S. Open, and it’s going to be wonderful, but will it top four college baseball games with my son — who happens to be the perfect age for enjoying the CWS — and new friends (and Normal Sport readers!) Mike and Liz B. who gifted us tickets in Omaha over the last few days?
Kinda doubt that.
Some thoughts on the CWS experience below along with what I’m looking forward to about the 126th U.S. Open and other stuff I’m reading and thinking about right now.
Name drops today: Thomas Jefferson, Gene Littler, Owen Hull, Bud Cauley and Rafa Nadal.
Today’s newsletter is presented by a first-timer, our friends at … OMNI!
Speaking of my son (!) and of Father’s Day this weekend (!) I would like to point you to The Generation Cup, which is an incredible event, hosted at OMNI golf courses, where teams of two compete locally to advance to the national championship across three different divisions. The divisions …
Grandparent-grandchild
Parent-child or aunt/uncle and niece/nephew
PGA Professional-generational family member
My son and I did the parent-child division at PGA Frisco in 2024, and it was about as much fun as I’ve ever had playing golf.
OMNI offers 12 different locations throughout the country from June 2026 through February 2027 where you can contend.
You can check out those dates and locations right here.
The combination of getting to compete with my son — who always notes how much longer he is than me, even though he tees it up like 120 yards ahead of me (!) — on elite golf courses with other moms and dads and grandparents and their kids.
Well, it is an exceptional experience that I could not recommend more highly. If any of that interests you — and I’ve seen our survey results so I know almost all of it does! — then you should check out The Generation Cup right here.
OK, now onto the news.
1. I woke up on Monday thinking about how we’re kind of due for an elite U.S. Open champion. Since Brooks won it in 2018, we’ve gotten the following.
2019 — Gary Woodland (only major)
2020 — Bryson
2021 — Rahm
2022 — Fitzpatrick (only major)
2023 — Wyndham (only major)
2024 — Bryson
2025 — J.J. Spaun (only major)
I was listening to the excellent U.S. Opens draft by NLU and as they rattled off guys like Hogan, Tiger, Palmer and Nicklaus among their winners, I was thinking about how we haven’t had a tremendous champion in a while.
The obvious objections here are Bryson and Rahm. Bryson is going to be a no from me, dawg, if we’re talking about all-time greats, although he could still get there. Rahm is … I mean, we’ll see. I fall on the side of thinking he’s going to be an all-timer, but a lot of work to do. And our recent run of champs is nothing like what we used to get.
Look at this in the 1960s and into the 1970s.
Everyone on this list won multiple majors except for Littler, Venturi and Moody, and seven of the winners won at least six majors. There are probably only three active players who even have a chance at reaching six major championships!
The U.S. Open is wonderful because Jack Fleck and Michael Campbell and Scott Simpson can win it. But the truly memorable ones have been won by the all-time greats. The right bet is probably to be on a more random winner (Spaun, Rai etc.) — especially in this era of more parity — but the dream of course is for the guy who’s favored to win the grand slam or for someone in this field to get to six and tie Phil or someone else to get to seven and tie Palmer.
2. Here are the top 13 performers at U.S. Opens over the last five U.S. Opens (min. 12 rounds played). Interestingly, it only includes two winners (Rahm, Bryson).
I am pretty fascinated by this list. Some questions …
• How has Rory not won one of these?!
• How is Tom Kim ahead of [stares at screen] … Brooks and Bryson?
• How has tom Kim played 16 rounds at the U.S. Open in the last five years?!
• Wait, how good of an iron player is Hideki? Oh, just way better than some of the best of all time at this tournament.
• Who’s going to talk me out of Sam Burns this week?
3. If you have been on the fence about becoming a Normal Club member, this is the perfect week to do so. A lot of our (boots Hokas on the ground) coverage is paywalled, and we’ll be full send almost every day this week for what should be one of the best majors of the last several years. Other member benefits include …
15 percent off all our merch (new H&B order dropping soon!)
Free entry into our $1,250 U.S. Open fantasy contest (link after the jump).
An invite to our Slack channel where we disparage Spieth with ferocity in one breath and praise him incessantly in the next.
It really is a fun community and one we plan on continuing to build out with more and more benefits until it becomes the best deal in golf, thus surpassing LIV Golf swindling Jon Rahm into playing with 47 guys you’ve never heard of because his contract is the most airtight document since Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence.
I suppose we have a ways to go before we get there.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,056 of them) and includes CWS content (the good stuff) as well as our big U.S. Open pool and some notes on Bud Cauley and Rafa Nadal (of course).
By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Access to 100 percent of our content this week.
• An invite to our Slack channel where we watch and talk golf together.
• A free digital copy of our Rory book.
• 15% off to our pro shop.
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