250,000 Words on the Ball Frogs and the Cleeks

Special Edition | August 2, 2024

Hey,

We have written around 250,000 words over the course of our first 99 newsletters. That’s a lot of hearing from us.

Like a “Phil gets asked a question about the inflation crisis in Argentina on the first tee of a pro-am and has the next 18 holes to opine” level of hearing from us.

Instead, we want to hear from you today.

We put together (and Normal Sport-ified) our first ever reader survey to mark both the first 100 newsletters (which we will hit next week) as well as to celebrate crossing the 10,000 reader threshold, which we hit earlier this year. 

Why did we put together a survey? Four reasons.

1. It’s no secret that we would like this newsletter to start generating a bit more revenue. However, we don’t want it to be cheap, easy-to-attain revenue. We want to be able to go to brands that we love and tell them what you want to hear about and see. 

We want to find world class products and services like Holderness and Bourne that both mesh with this newsletter and also will make your experience of golf more enjoyable. But first we need to know what your interests are, what you like and enjoy and want to see more of. 

2. We believe that online ads can be good (a handful of companies have proved this) but that bad ads are very bad. And most ads online are bad ads. We are trying to create ads that are barely ads (like Jason’s illustrations), but it takes the right partners for that to happen.

We have said no to a lot of easy money thus far and will continue to do so. What we desire is to build partnerships with other companies that 1. We (and you) love but also (and just as importantly) 2. We are able to easily integrate into what we do with this newsletter. Having this survey data helps with that. 

We aren’t going to just jam random ads into the newsletter for the sake of more money. That undermines our voice and does a disservice to you, the reader. We will however partner with companies that we love like Holderness and Bourne, Garmin and hopefully many others in the future and continue to create fun, creative illustrations and copy that disclose our delight for their products.

3. We are actually curious about who you are. I get a lot of emails from people who respond to thoughts or ideas that I have, but more broadly, while I have an idea of what our audience looks like, I’d love to know for sure. I’m curious to see how this survey goes and hopeful that we have built up enough trust with you that you choose to fill it out.

4. It’s been too long since we gave something away. If you finish the survey, you will be automatically entered to win one of the following. 

• Arccos membership card (value: $155)

• Jones hardwood bag (value: $170)

• Charlie Golf Co. bag (value: $90)

The first ever Normal Sport survey takes just under 10 minutes to complete (unless you are Patrick Cantlay, in which case it may take up to 25). We will share the overall results with this community in a future newsletter. 

I hope this goes without saying, but we will not share any of your personal data with any potential partners or brands, or anyone else for that matter. Except for the PIF (because they already have it¹).

Onto the survey.