Issue No. 102 | August 14, 2024

Hey,

We don’t always start things with a sponsor, but we have some cool news to announce today. We have partnered with Holderness and Bourne to provide Normal Sport readers with a $20 off discount code to use at check out on the Holderness and Bourne website.

You can go here and put your email in to redeem your individual code!

We also have several giveaway winners to announce today.

From the survey
Arccos gift card — Russell W.
Jones Bag — Andrew J.
Charlie Golf Co. bag — J.R.

From the U.S. Open
US Open gear No. 1 — Jack A.
US Open gear No. 2 — Mike K.

Congrats to all!

Onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

Thirty-five.

Keep that number in mind.

Major League Baseball’s 500 home run club has 28 members. The NBA’s 25,000 point club has 25 members. Twenty-nine men across multiple eras have won at least five grand slams in tennis. Thirty-one women have done it. In the NFL, 24 quarterbacks have thrown at least 250 TD passes.

In men’s golf, 29 golfers have won at least four majors. And in women’s golf, only 34 golfers had ever hit all the criteria needed to make it into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Had.

Until Lydia Ko become No. 35 by winning a gold medal last weekend in Paris. Think about that. How many women play professionally or at a high amateur level every year? Tens of thousands? Hundreds?

And only 35 ever have done enough to reach the LPGA Hall.

An aside: I think it’s kind of sick that there’s basically an Excel formula to determine the LPGA Hall of Fame. It’s something that Joseph LaMagna and I have discussed doing on the men’s side just for fun. Figure out a formula that weights different events and accomplishments and create a Bill Simmons-like pyramid. Of course I also think it’s kinda sweet when you have sportswriters and podcasters screaming about things like Harold Baines’ WAR as it relates to Halls. So I could kind of go either way.

What I loved most about the entire thing, though, of course, was Lydia’s child-like belief in something only a child could believe: Making the Hall well before turning 30 and doing it with a gold medal?

Come on.

“I mean, Cinderella's glass slippers are see-through, and my podium shoes are also see-through; I guess that's something that we have going for us. I feel like I'm part of this [fairy]tale.”

Here’s how Sean Zak wrote it for Golf.com.

Perhaps it is because my kids are the ages that they are or because both the men’s and women’s champs cried on the podium like babies when the first note of their respective anthems hit, but these Olympics seemed more emotional and a bit more starry-eyed than I can remember in a while.

Pro golf has a way of grinding the wonder out of your heart, but the Olympics have a way of restoring that. Lydia has been doing this for forever. She’s 27 going on 45. But when you start throwing medals and anthems on the table, she’s 13 again, with a heart full of flushed shots and nothing in the world that you care about more than trying to be as great as you are in your dreams.

Normal Sport

This section continues to write itself.

1. Here were my six favorite things about the PGA Tour’s “Play has been suspended at the Wyndham Championship because Matt Kuchar refuses to hit three more shots even though his playing partners are continuing to play” situation.

1. The reaction from Nantz and Immelman was absolute incredulity. You could almost hear Immelman’s disbelief. And then Nantz dropped an “I don't expect we'll be bringing you that coverage tomorrow” which got me good.

2. Speaking of Nantz, he at one point referenced “a theoretical horn” that halted Kuchar’s play.

A THEORETICAL HORN!

3. I did appreciate Kuchar’s explanation: “I'm figuring, ‘No way Max is going to finish out with a chance to win a tournament.’ I thought Max for sure had a shot to win and I thought no way in this situation do you hit this shot, you come back in the morning 100 percent of the time. So I said, ‘Well, Max will stop, I'll stop, kind of make it easy on him.’”

Truly, I think that’s actually kind of a cool thing.

Howevah.

Once he realizes Max is going to hit, Kuchar has to go back and play his ball, right? Has to! My guy, you are 103rd in the FedEx Cup standings. You’ve made $60M in your career. You’re T12 in the tournament, and nothing that happens here has any bearing on the Playoffs or any real ramifications on anything! I guess you could argue it’s positioning for the FedEx Fall or whatever we’re calling it, but is that worth being the only guy going out there on Monday and dragging Ken Tackett along with you to take line of sight?!

4. The difference between a 10-way for 12th and a seven-way tie for 21st — an incredible sentence in and of itself — is ~$58,000.

Again, he’s made $60M in his career!

5. This meme. Elite stuff.

6. Kuchar saying “I'm grateful to not be a part of the social media thing” on Monday because of what his agent was telling him about what people were saying.

Can confirm.

2. LIV cracking down on the Vick’s nasal decongestant usage is a turn of events. Also drug suspensions in golf look a little different than drug suspensions in other sports …

3. Sure.

By the Numbies

• Dylan Dethier found a good one this week: Bryson has made more on the PGA Tour this year ($6.99 million) than he has on LIV ($5.20 million). Even though neither of the PGA Tour-sanctioned events where he made his $7 million are actually put on by the PGA Tour. Normal stuff.

• Also, Max Greyserman’s card from Sunday. Whew. I’ve seen this roller coaster before. Eagle-quad-birdie-double. It nearly looks like Pudge Rodriguez’s career hit total (2,844)!

An aside: How wild is it to be up four with five to play, make another birdie coming home and still lose by two?

Also, if you understand this reference, seek help.

The Infirmary

I love it when people tell on themselves.

And the attire looks like something J. Lindeberg would put Hovland in.

Idea of the Week

One thing I have been thinking about this summer — probably because Xander has won two majors — is how majors serve as a magnifying glass for the rest of your career. If you win a Players and an Olympic medal and a FedEx Cup but no major then those wins are interpreted as “dude just can’t win the big one!” But if you win all of those and then win a major, those wins are interpreted as “everything has led to this!”

I’m not sure if this is how things should be, but that doesn’t matter because it’s how things are. Consider Xander. All that other stuff used to be “not a closer, might be SoCal Norman!” Now it’s, “he just needed to learn how to win!”

And as KVV noted, below … what are we gonna do, not talk about this stuff?

Take of the Week

Several this week. Let’s run through them all.

• A personal take I only about halfway believe: I’d rather have a gold-silver-bronze combo like Lydia than three golds.

• Speaking of medals … Michael Phelps, tremendous champion, but also when you get nine rips in five straight Olympics, of course you’re going to rack up some hardware. I co-sign what Joel proposes here …

• I watched a lot of the U.S.-Serbia semifinal game and some of the U.S.-France gold medal game. I, like everyone, was entranced by Steph’s Nuit Nuit close. But I was also compelled by the fact that three legends were out there grinding. I know people especially hate Bron and KD for tons of reasons (some of them perhaps even legitimate), but their care for hoops is admirable.

I don’t think it’s rare among legends because you kind of have to be in love with the game to become one, but I believe it’s rarer for pros in any sport than any of us want to believe.

That trio has done it all. MVPs, titles, all the money. Three of the, whatever, 15 best ever. They could be doing anything this summer, and they're churning out another two weeks for Team USA. That’s pretty cool.

Who in golf right now is that in love with the game? Like, who stands out to you as caring about the craft as much as KD and LeBron and Steph care about it? Surely there are those guys, I’m just not confident I can identify them.

• I have been screaming this.

According to Shackelford, there’s going to be a push for some form of a mixed team event in L.A., but I need them to go further. Don’t let Scheffler’s and Lydia’s tears distract you from how good a team best ball or alt shot event would be. There is a specific thing that the chaos of an event at that level does to you — you watched the 4×100 men’s relay, yes? — and golf is, I feel like I’ve said this 200 times now, perfect for this very thing.

Need it!

Rock the Vote

Speaking of things I’ve been yelling about. I don’t need podiums at the Travelers or Memorial, but at the majors? Absolutely.

Also, whose career does it make you think about the most differently about?

Quote of the Week

“We always make fun of the boys because we say that the girls in the Korda family are the only ones that are the Olympians and the boys are not.” -Nelly Korda, zero chill

Corrupt Golf Media

👉️ I agree with this idea from Meg Adkins about stacking men’s and women’s events in consecutive weeks. Context is king, and stacking — think the 2014 U.S. Opens at Pinehurst — allows for more of it.

👉️ I enjoyed this on Lydia Ko from Mike Stachura in Paris.

👉️ Ethan Strauss on Nike’s cruelly beautiful new direction is so good ($).

👉️ For $440/year students at St. Andrews University can play unlimited golf at all seven golf courses in St. Andrews. Might need to send my kids there (no idea how much the actual university costs).

👉️ This on medals per citizen is provocative. India!

👉️ Rick Gehman went back and looked at all the non-winning instances in which a golfer gained at least 10 strokes on the field in a tournament. Tiger leading this category in terms of average SG when gaining at least 10 strokes but not winning is hilarious. He could have won like 20 more times!

How is This App Free?

• Perfect.

• Also perfect.

• The deepest cut imaginable.

• They do.

How is This App Free?

I agree with this MKBHD statement.

This is no different in writing.

1. Write things you want to read
2. Nothing else matters
3. Everything else should serve the first point

I have been thinking a lot about this newsletter lately, especially after writing through what I’ve learned from the first 100 last week. I don’t know that I have fully arrived at answers to big questions like, “What exactly is it?” and “Who exactly is it for?” But what I do know is that we are writing about and illustrating the things we would want to read and see.

Golf and tennis are a little different in that there are no fan sites. No team sites like the NBA and NFL and MLB (unless you count the extended network of NUCLR Twitter accounts). But people (like me!) are fans of individuals and of events and of the game itself. So that’s a little bit of how I think about this newsletter. I’m a fan. Write like a fan. Think like a fan.

In some ways this is easier in golf than in other sports because in other sports you always feel like you have to justify what your team does or what your team’s coach says. In golf? I guess there’s a little of that, but it’s much easier to just move on to the next guy or to be a legit fan of several guys and/or ladies in a way that is still genuine.

I like that about covering the sport. Love it, even. And hopefully it normally results in writing things I would like to read.

Speaking of reading, thanks for reading until the end.

You’re a sicko, and I’m grateful for it.

Please send this to one friend who you think will understand even 20 percent of it!