Reach 225,000 thoughtful golf fans.

Greetings to all on one of my favorite weekends of the year.

More on that below.

Name drops today: Gary Hallberg, Matthew Riedel, Kevin Hazzard, Tom Lehman, Nick Price and Twix minis.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Today’s newsletter is presented by Charlie Golf Co.

Here’s a question: How did you start playing golf?

Putting balls into cups in your living room? Maybe taking swings with a plastic club in a mirror? Or perhaps chipping balls into a bucket in your front yard?

Sometimes golf that’s barely considered is actually the best kind of golf.

Charlie Golf Co. built a company that gets your kids saying “I’m going to go hit some balls.” It doesn’t have to be on a course. It doesn’t even have to be at a course.

Golf, you see, is all over.

You should check out the new camo bags from Charlie Golf Co. (depicted above by Jason). They are spectacular, perfect for the fall and a terrific gift option for the upcoming holidays (unless of course you want to hold off for the Norman-themed bags we have coming as well!).

Check out their camo bags right here.

And now, onto the news.

8 (mostly) golf things capturing my attention right now

1. There’s not much good golf to speak of right now, but I have to say the Asia-Pacific Amateur has been wonderful. Firm, windy conditions at a course that looks both thrilling and difficult to play? All the way in. Just watch the first two minutes of shots here!

Throw in KVV’s on-site coverage for The Fried Egg, and it’s been an awesome event.

It also got me thinking about how much power Augusta National has when it comes to contextualization. In our podcast this week, Hayden and I discussed how much the Hong Kong Open (!) meant because its winner — John Catlin — received an invite to both the 2027 Masters and Open Championship.

In golf, we lack the prism of the World Series or Super Bowl that other sports have that helps contextualize even the most minute details and transactions: What does this 5th round pick mean for the Seahawks’ Super Bowl chances?

The Masters (and The Open) helps solve for this and gives some real depth to what we’re watching and experiencing in the golf world.

2. Michael Brennan. I’ve been thinking about him since he won in Japan. Is he a star? Not yet. Could he be? Absolutely. Here’s the first line on his Wake Forest bio.

• Tied for third in Wake Forest history with eight individual titles. The only Deacs with more wins are Bill Haas (10), Gary Hallberg (9) and Curtis Strange (8).

I am way into guys who improve year over year for several years in a row. I think of Ryan Gerard and Matt Fitzpatrick as recent examples.

Look at Brennan’s SG totals since 2022.

The jumps have been large, too. They don’t look huge on paper, but to go from -1.7 to +0.8 in five years, linearly, is crazy impressive. The situation is being monitored for sure.

3. When I was a kid, my parents were hesitant to let us dress up for and celebrate Halloween. I don’t hold it against them and I understand why that was the case. Maybe you grew up in a similar type of home or environment.

Now? I think it might low-key be my favorite holiday. Not what the holiday represents itself, but rather what it does to our neighborhood.

One big night — usually with great weather! — of parents and kids running around, hanging out in each other’s yards, talking, laughing, watching games on projectors, hollering at their kids to “put the candy away but first give me all your Twix minis.”

In a world in which yesteryear gets way overdone when it comes to how good it actually was, Halloween in our community — at least to me — truly does feel like the best of a culture in which people were certainly more present where they were.

This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,050 of them) and includes an awesome look at KFT grads, more on the new project I’ve been working on and a sheep review of the best book I’ve read in 2026 …

Join the Normal Club to read the rest …

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.