Edition No. 49 | January 23, 2024

One note before we get started.

1. This month’s newsletter sponsor is TRUE and they’re giving away four pairs of TRUE Lux Hybrid golf shoes (photo below) to Normal Sport readers (one every week this month).

What do you have to do to win the shoes?

Simply be subscribed to the newsletter (which you already are). This week’s winner — our third giveaway of the month — is Justin McComb.

One more to go!

For now, a note from the TRUE founders.

TRUE linkswear is a company rooted in the game of golf. Brothers Ryan and Jason Moore grew up playing and working on the family driving range. Ryan grew into a 5-time PGA Tour winner and Ryder Cupper while Jason caddied early in his career.

No matter how big of an event the duo was part of, one thing never changed — they couldn’t find a golf shoe they enjoyed wearing, a problem they vowed to correct. Out of that pursuit arose TRUE linkswear, one of golf’s fastest rising footwear and lifestyle brands.

Mission No. 1 was creating a modern, comfortable golf shoe that looks (and feels) like your favorite running shoe. In 2023, TRUE launched the LUX Hybrid which emerged as the go-to footwear for players on nearly every major tour, led by the likes of Moore, Joel Dahmen and Christina Kim.

There is much more to golf than professional events. There is a lifestyle that surrounds the game that TRUE has embraced, creating footwear and apparel that is equally appealing in any setting.

Disbelief

I would love to — before we get to Nick Dunlap — suspend everything that happened on Sunday in Palm Springs and take you back a year and a half to an event north of where the PGA Tour tournament was played last week.

Brooks Koepka had just joined LIV Golf, and he held an amusing (I guess that’s the word) press conference alongside Pat Perez and Patrick Reed at LIV Portland. Two guys, I wrote at the time, who he (correctly) doesn’t believe are even in his universe.

The entire day was a sham, but I was especially struck by the cynicism that emanated from that trio. In retrospect, it was probably more like shame disguised as cynicism, but regardless, it was sad to watch the transparent transaction all three were making. Our words for your money. This is business, of course, but most sports business still has something resembling a soul.

The whole thing was difficult to believe.

I was chatting with somebody in the golf world about a month ago, and I told this person that I felt so disillusioned with the sport at that moment. This was right after the Rahm letter jacket scene (speaking of things that were difficult to believe), which was yet another marker on this expensive, exhausting trail.

Normal Sport 3 had just been released, and I was just kind of sick of everything. Maybe not sick of golf but sick of what the last two years have wrought.

Some of that is on me, a romantic who chooses to believe in ideals, even though I have enough experience to know that this is almost never how the world actually works.

Not in sports. Not in finance. Not in healthcare. Nowhere, really.

It is foolish to believe that the tyranny of greed won’t eventually come for it all. But golf, because of its meritocratic nature, always seemed like the last bastion. The final fortress. The boss level.

You want to know why this game is intoxicating?

Because we have all flushed a shot before.

Even the most inept among us has found the center of the club face. It feels almost indescribably good. The briefest moment of euphoria that, if it lasted any longer, might not draw you back for more.

And because we have all felt what Rory and Morikawa and DJ and Phil have felt before, we can (and do!) talk ourselves into this next shot feeling the exact same. Our greatest achievements are always 79 or 68 or 62 fleeting euphoric moments away.

This is transferrable. Because this is true of us, we believe it to be true of the professional game. Every week feels like hitting the reset button on the unknown. Anything could happen. That it usually doesn’t is not the point.

It only matters that it could.

I don’t love golf because it’s like every other sport. While I enjoy other sports, I love golf because it represents hope in a world that needs more of it. To play golf is to wrestle hope. To watch it is much the same. There’s nothing like it.

Rahm and Co. bleeding the Saudis dry felt like the opposite of this.

Sunday mattered because it was a reminder that golf actually is different than all the other games we follow. What happened with Nick Dunlap literally cannot happen in other sports. Maybe in the Olympics. But nothing that we follow from week to week. You’re either a pro or an amateur. You don’t get to be both.

I was off work on Sunday. Our family was having dinner with some friends at around the time the AmEx was ending. When we got to their house, I told my wife to go ahead with the kids, and I watched the last 15 minutes on my phone in the car. It was about as nervous as I have ever been watching a golf tournament.

Why?

I had nothing on the line. Whether Nick Dunlap won or lost on Sunday, I was still going to have an enjoyable dinner with my friends while all of our kids made up insane chants like, “We want a dog! We want a dog!” from across the room.

I was nervous because I wanted to believe that hope had not been completely eliminated from golf.

I was nervous because if a 20-year-old amateur can win a PGA Tour event then maybe I really can shoot 75 this year.

I was nervous because engaging in the foolish aspiration that anything can still in fact happen sure beats the alternative.

I was nervous because magic is a terrific balm for the disillusioned.

And so I sat there in my car, holding my phone and grinning as this college sophomore walked around the Stadium Course, palming his own head and crying the kind of tears that only an impossible accomplishment can bring about.

It was wonderful and restorative and hopeful.

The good kind of disbelief always is.

Question of the Week

I am going to try and be more consistent about asking a question of the week on Twitter this year. This week’s (as seen here): What’s the most nervous you’ve ever been watching golf?

Dunlap said on Sunday that the end of the tournament was by far the most nervous he has ever been. Understandably so given that he was actually, you know, contending in the event.

An aside: I found this exchange interesting, especially coming from a former pro.

Back to the question, though, which I realize is a bit ridiculous. It’s ridiculous to get nervous about something in which I am not invested. But, after reading the comments here, many of you apparently feel the same!

All that to say, I felt a nervousness on Sunday that I had not felt in a while. I remember noticing that I had not felt it in Rome last year until the final day when Homa had to get up and down from a despicable spot at the 18th to keep the Ryder Cup from being won. That was the last time I felt truly nervous watching an event, but it paled compared to what I felt on Sunday.

All time?

Spieth at Birkdale comes to mind. Although that felt less like nerves and more like what I imagine the hardest drugs known to man feel like.

I suspect it has to be a Masters. The gravity of those Sundays is nearly tangible, and when so much legacy hinges on so few moments, it generates wild emotional swings. I think about the eagle putt Rory had on No. 2 in the final round in 2018. When Spieth almost hit the stick on No. 16 in the final round in 2016. When Spieth made birdie on No. 16 in 2018. Another non-Masters one is Spieth going to the 17th at St. Andrews in the final round in 2015. Or Rory’s putt in the dark at Valhalla in 2014.

There appears to be a theme here.

Obviously I have to mention the Ryder Cup.

Although those haven’t been particularly nervy late since I started covering them in 2014. I don’t remember specifically what I felt in 2012 at Medinah, but I do know — even in the blowouts of late — that there are no nerves quite like the “I can’t even count the reds and blue boxes on my TV screen properly” nerves of a Ryder Cup Sunday.

Stat of the Week

Last week I mentioned that Rory had entered final rounds in his career inside the top three on the leaderboard 79 times. Following his win in Dubai on Sunday, that number is now 80.

How good is that? Here’s how it looks compared to five (sort of) contemporaries. Note that these numbers are from Data Golf, do not include LIV events and only date back to 2004 (the SG era).

1. Rory McIlroy (since 2007): 80

2. Tiger Woods (since 2004): 61

3. Dustin Johnson (since 2007): 54

4. Phil Mickelson (since 2004): 51

5. Jordan Spieth (since 2010): 38

6. Rickie Fowler (since 2008): 35

That is … insane!

I included Spieth and Fowler not to denigrate them because have had pretty incredible professional careers, but rather to provide some context from one guy who is a little younger (Spieth) and one who is a little older (Rickie) than Rory. He has entered final rounds of professional events inside the top three more than both of those guys combined.

Idea of the Week

I have been trying to find the holes in this idea for the last few days, and I cannot. This is your all-star game weekend event by the way. Do the skills challenges, do the long drive, do all of the ancillary stuff, and then chase it with 36 at Myopia with persimmons and 2 irons that look like sheet metal.

Quote of the Week

I was doing some Masters research this week and stumbled across this quote from Fred Couples.

“It’s not like, ‘Ha, ha, ha, I can screw around and play 36 holes for fun.’ I’m going to try and compete. I can't compete with Viktor Hovland or Jon Rahm or anybody, but I can compete with myself, and that's really why I come. That's what I like to do, is make the cut here at an older age.”

I can compete with myself.

Nothing like it.

Normal Sport

There were some good ones this week.

1. Shooting the lowest score and earning $0 and 0 FedEx Cup points. Sure. CJ Stroud leading the Texans to the Divisional Round for free and then (probably, but maybe not!) getting paid in 2025 but not for anything he did in 2023 or 2024.

2. This next one is not necessarily unique in sports. Fans on the first few rows find basketball players sitting in their laps all the time. Baseball patrons catch baseballs with regularity. Football fanatics can get domed with field goals.

What’s strange about this scenario in golf is that the ball is still in play.

It would be like a baseball fan running on the field and barehanding a slow roller to third. Imagine that happening and having to build an entire block of rules around it!

3. This is wild.

But it has also happened before. Perhaps multiple times. This from the 2022 Tournament of Champions/Sentry/Kapalua/TOC/Signature Event is the one I could remember.

The Infirmary

If you understand the reference by our friend Joe Lukes below, then you are almost certainly a sicko.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I loved this by Ethan Strauss: Nick Saban rejects the gerontocracy. Going out on top is an act of humility, whether that’s how you categorize it or not.

👉️ Michael Kim continues to provide incredible insight about what it’s like to be on Tour and compete against the best players in the world. Most interesting thing from Palm Springs was on in-game adjustments. I don’t think often about pros adjusting their swings in the middle of play.

Happy to get a top 10 finish. My game didn’t “feel” great but feel isn’t real and that final day I was able to figure out what worked for my swing. 72 holes is a long time and I was making adjustments throughout the week to see what was working for me. 

👉️ The Fried Egg continues to grow. Love this both for them and for Jay.

👉️ I went on the Making Media podcast last week. For the last year, I have gleaned so much wisdom and insight from Matt, Dom and the guests they’ve had on (including Neil from NLU) so it was a delight to go on and talk about some of my media theories and thoughts.

Matt’s endorsement here was very kind!

👉️ For my dads: the new season of Bluey includes an episode called Cricket that is just extraordinary.

Overheard on Twitter

If you can’t write for pleasure, you can’t write for money. -Shane Parrish

How is This App Free?

One of my goals this year is to be on Twitter less than in past years so this section might be a bit soft until we hit the major weeks. Still, a fun week.

I have almost no desire to be back in the college football media world, but boy the Alabama vortex would truly be incredible.

This tweet got me. All of it. The premise, the pun and the response.

Oh we definitely have someone like that …

Ah, this made me laugh because I can hear it so clearly.

I was in Phoenix last year, and I remember being amazed at how the bags are just kind of out there in the open next to the media center. Access is limited, I guess, but it’s not that limited.

@ me next time, Claire.

This is golf’s “should Bonds be in the HOF” debate.