Edition No. 45 | January 2, 2024

A few notes before we get started on the first newsletter of 2024.

1. We’re in the process of contacting our three Frame Coffee year-long subscription winners currently and will announce those next week.

2. We will also announce a $500 gift card winner (to the golf outlet of your choice) next week (we extended this deadline from the original). What do you have to do to be eligible? Simply purchase a copy of Normal Sport 3, which is for sale right here.

3. 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).

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.

The Gravity of Ron J. Ham

One lesson I have learned from the last two years of PGA Tour-LIV nonsense is this: There are no needle movers other than Tiger Woods. Nobody matters when compared to the aggregate other than Tiger. Nobody.

There is plenty of evidence of this and no piece perhaps more compelling than a few years ago when the PNC Championship outpaced The Open Championship in terms of viewership.

It’s true that The Open was battling middle-of-the-night numbers that lowered its average and it was on for a lot longer than the PNC, but come on, that’s still astounding.

This is not to say that nobody matters.

In a vacuum, guys like Rory, Rahm, Scheffler, Hovland and Morikawa matter a lot. But what the PGA Tour more broadly has going for it is a sort of network effect. Its institutional success is mostly dependent on getting as many stars and superstars — which are almost always created outside of all tours (at the majors) — as possible to play in its league.

I wrote on Twitter last week that the absence of Jon Rahm (alias: Ron J. Ham) at this weeks’s Kapalua event (among others) reduces the gravity of big time PGA Tour events. This is not to say it will reduce the viewership whatsoever (see above), but this is the first time since all of this started that I have truly felt the Tour’s weight lessened.

Does that cheapen future victories? I don’t know about that. Up until, what, the mid-90s, the Tour could not claim it had almost all of the best players in the world on a week to week basis. Once it did, it did not even require them all to play the same events until last year.

Regardless, it’s difficult to go from the delight of 2023 — everybody is finally playing in the same non-majors! — to what we have this year.

Maybe this is exacerbated by the fact that Rahm is the defending champ here. There certainly seems to be a disconnect between the perception and reality of Rahm’s greatness. The trajectory for Rahm is as a top 15-25 golfer … ever. The Tour has only lost one (Phil) or maybe two (DJ) of those types of players, and neither was in the middle of his prime.

The truth in all of this is that the best non-major events are defined by where the best players play. If in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the best players would have gone over to Europe to play, well then you would have what professional soccer has where the best league is in Europe and a lesser league is in the U.S.

Instead, in golf, it’s the other way around. For now.

Before Rahm left, you could sort of explain your way around the guys who ejected for LIV (they’re old, disinterested, injured, retiring early, playing YT golf, whatever). Now? There’s no way to get around the fact that probably the most consistently great player in the world for the last seven years won’t play on the PGA Tour this week or next or the one after that.

That is a tremendous gain for LIV, and even though there will be little to no data to reflect it … a massive loss for everyone else.

Quote of the Week

“I feel like after going through those few years of struggles you learn to enjoy both the good and the bad times. The bad times make you appreciate everything else. Without understanding that side of things, it’s never going to be as good at the top.” -Rickie Fowler

Dylan Dethier talked to top players about what they learned in 2023. This from Fowler was probably my favorite quote.

The idea of a perfect life in which you are totally insulated from suffering (suffering is all relative, I know) is an illusion. And because it is an illusion, making it your goal will only lead to disappointment.

That’s what Fowler is saying here. That the acceptance of the difficulty of life — in other words, right expectations — leads to deeper joy and contentment across the board. It’s a good worldview, even if getting there can be painful.

Question of the Week

Do you prefer twilight golf or daybreak golf? (inspired by this post from LKD)

Idea of the Week

This tweet hit me.

I’m with Jon. Golf has always had this unspoken reputation as a dumb game that unathletic folks with too much disposable income and too little propensity for spending time with their families play.

The truth is that it can be one of the most galvanizing, life-giving activities we participate in with other people.

The soul of Normal Sport is that, yes, golf is bizarre and strange and sometimes difficult to figure out and understand.

But what makes it so odd — that anyone can play against anyone else, that it is outdoors and often played amidst animals and bad weather, that it provides space for endless conversation with friends and family and that it is a mental exercise as much as a physical one — is also what makes it so great.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I have thought about this video of Padraig Harrington talking about how to get your kids interested in golf probably every day since I saw it. I will write about it more in depth — likely next week — but if you somehow haven’t seen it and you are a parent (or even if you’re not), you should definitely go watch it. I promise it will affect you in some way.

👉️ Joel Beall had a great one before Christmas on how Scottsdale became the underworld of professional golf. Nobody I want writing stuff like that more than Beall.

👉️ This GQ profile of Dan Orlovsky is really good.

👉️ The 10-year history of NLU is obviously excellent.

Overheard on Twitter

The death of nuance is one of the greatest invisible costs of the internet. -Alex Lieberman

What I’m Into

I discovered a financial writer named Morgan Housel over Christmas break. I like him because he barely writes about finances.

His writing is both intriguing to read and aspirational for me, somebody who is a golf writer who (at times) barely writes about golf.

I’m halfway through his bestseller, The Psychology of Money and just ordered his newest book, Same As Ever. I rolled through his recent podcast tour as well, and my favorite interview was probably on ACQ2.

Something he said on one of the podcasts about content creation and the way he thinks about writing blog posts, doing podcasts and putting together books that I have been thinking about a lot as it relates to my own work is this:

If it’s not timeless why are you doing it?

I certainly don’t do enough writing and work like that, but it’s such a great goal to work toward.