Edition No. 88 | June 5, 2024

Hey,

One amusing misconception about my job when I tell people what I do for a living is that people say, “Oh you must play golf all the time.”

Brother, I have four children and an (awesome) gig that requires my butt in a seat and my face in front of a screen for it to work. I play golf when it’s light enough to start at 6 a.m. or when I can jam 4-5 rounds into a few-days trip.

All that to say, this might be my major championship week. I went to Dornick Hills in the thriving metropolis of Ardmore, USA on Monday for an awesome Fried Egg event and then we’re headed to Big Cedar on Wednesday for a 40th birthday trip (not mine).

So just one newsletter this week.

Also pray for my wife.

Onto the news.

One Thing Three Things I Loved

1. Bobby Mac’s dad, Dougie, saying, “I’m a grass cutter” after caddying his son’s first PGA Tour win is my favorite golf quote of 2024 thus far.

Most sports — not all, but most — require some sort of preternatural physical giftedness, which can lead to success. That is, in soccer or football or hoops, most of the time you have to be of a certain height, weight, speed or strength, much of which is determined in the genetic lottery.

While golf and tennis still require gifts, and it doesn’t hurt if you’re 6’7, 235 lbs., it’s much less necessary. Your path is more often determined by your actual output and not by what you look like with your shirt off or what the tape measure says at the combine.

That is not to say that one is better or worse, only that golf’s fundamental meritocratic nature is probably more predisposed to producing a professional tournament-winning son whose father is a grass cutter than other sports.

A grass cutter. Man. What a thankless but also noble job. Tending to the earth, cultivating and keeping it in check. Maintaining and (in some cases) restoring order.

What is it like to feel your son’s success? To have taken a small part in it that week? To have taken a large part in it over multiple decades.

I thought of Shane Lowry’s dad at Portrush in 2019.

I used to wonder what this felt like for the son, for I am a son myself. We all are sons or daughters of someone. Now, as I’ve had kids, I wonder what it feels like for a father.

I know how deeply I want my own kids to thrive and to succeed at ridiculous things like 4th grade baseball and 2-minute spring dances. I want to see them find their craft and observe the joy it brings.

What I cannot imagine is watching that play out over a larger, grander stage like a national open. For them to point to me and smile, proud not only of the thing that they accomplished but overjoyed that they had an even greater gift, somebody to share it with.

“I’m a grass cutter.”

No.

You’re a father who loves his boy, which is about as important as it gets. Grass cutting is just what you do.

2. I love not only intense, tough U.S. Open setups that challenge a player’s emotions and intellect as much or more than his or her physical giftedness, but also I love a player who will embrace that challenge with no inhibition.

I think players sometimes think we — fans, media etc. — want to see them suffer. I don’t. OK, maybe I do a little. But far more than that, I want to see who has an extra mental gear that others don’t have. Who can, as Brooks said, go to a place where others are unwilling to go.

Yeah, of course you’re gonna get bad breaks, it’s an Open! But are you going to lean in and embrace the entirety of the week or are you going to put walls up and talk about how unfair this bounce was or that draw is?

Who is mentally and emotionally tough, and who is not? That is more of what I want to see in professional championship golf and whatever we need to do to get there is almost certainly worth the frustration it may create.

3. Justin Lower broke down after getting in the U.S. Open this week. I don’t have a lot to add here other than that you should watch the video. Qualifying for major championships > winning most other pro events.

By the Numbies

This should probably just be Scottie’s Stats at this point.

Here’s a look at the worldwide leaders in strokes gained around the greens in 2024.

1. Hideki Matsuyama: 0.76

2. Scottie Scheffler: 0.69

3. Justin Thomas: 0.58

Unsurprisingly, this elicited a lot of “well of course Scheffler is up there, he’s the best at hitting from long distances, why wouldn’t he be the best from short distances?”

That’s not nuanced enough, though.

To start, I think Scheffler and Rahm have probably the two most underrated short games in the world. It is unfair to hardly ever miss shots and then be able to clean up almost any miss.

I remember JT talking one time about how it’s so much easier when your short game is clicking to go play a major because it removes so much fear of missing in bad spots.

That brings us to the second point, which was proposed on Twitter.

Scottie remains smarter and more disciplined than almost anyone in the world, which — I can’t prove this but I can almost guarantee it’s true — leaves him in better spots than most others around the greens. That he is second in SG around the greens proves several things — this one among them — and is such a massive reason he’s the best in the world by a mile.

Normal Sport

Here are this week’s normal moments.

1. My low-key favorite ridiculous golf thing is when a pro doesn’t post a nine-hole stretch in the 30s. Happened on the KFT last week with Kevin Velo — 27-41 is “makes you weak in the knees“ stuff!

2. Been trying to tell you guys about this Spieth gymnastics equipment!

3. A true case of somebody asking why not and nobody else asking … but why?

4. Also this one.

Uhh sir there has been a complaint filed by C.J. Stroud of the Texans that our high-wire cameras are sitting too low and disrupting that high deep ball he likes to throw to Stefon Diggs.

5. Here’s Beth Ann Nichols with an amazing Normal Sport moment from the U.S. Women’s Open in Lancaster last week.

Me seeing that.

6. And of course, another one from Det. Gillis. He released a statement — which again, not sure who was asking for this? — on the Scottie incident that included a p.s. about the pants.

To those concerned absolutely sent me. 😂 

7. Lastly, imagine going to a tournament, enjoying some time with your family or the boys, maybe having a couple of pops, and then all of a sudden down goes Fluff and you’re trying to figure out how far the Bread Man hits his stock 6. A whirlwind.

One Thought I Had

The audio/video of Scottie talking to a cop after the $80 pants incident is really interesting for three reasons.

1. Scottie handled it even better than I thought (and my expectations were pretty high!).

2. The way the officer talked to him was like I talk to my 4-year-old!

3. It highlighted how much power and autonomy cops have in situations like this.

I don’t get into police debate because I think most of it is just fodder for political warfare, but this whole incident did bring about some sobriety for me, a privileged white person, that if this was not Scottie Scheffler, No. 1 player in the world but rather John Williams, plumber from Louisville, he might still be sitting in jail.

I’m not totally sure what to do with that information personally but it will definitely shape the way I view privilege and the idea of bias in situations like this going into the future.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I have not read deeply over the last few weeks because of travel and our nomadic journeys last week — though I’m getting steep on the new Clayton Kershaw book, which is excellent — but I did read a few articles, and this one with Shane Lowry on Grayson Murray was really good.

Also, thank you for all the response to last week’s newsletter on Murray. I’m grateful for it and apologize for not getting back to everyone individually. I’m hopeful you were encouraged — and it sounds like some of you really were — and thankful for how much you have reached out.

👉️ Thoroughly enjoyed this on leaning into your strengths.

👉️ I have not read all of this on the history of Hollywood, but I found this excerpt to be quite sad.

Art in the long term > money in the short.

👉️ Between YouTubing “how to hit spinny pitch shots” after my abysmal Fried Egg outing, I found some time to watch this wonderful TFE video on No. 2.

Geoff Ogilvy is brilliant — NBC should pay him all the money to get him in Azinger’s seat — and this video demonstrates the best kind of championship golf imaginable. I hope the tournament meets expectations.

Data Golf Corner

I was bouncing around on Data Golf the other day, and I saw something that immediately got my attention. Scottie Scheffler is gaining twice as many shots on a regular PGA Tour field (2.99) as the 10th-best golfer in the world right now (Bryson DeChambeau) is.

I remember hearing Brandel one time say that at one point in his career Tiger was gaining twice as many shots in the majors as Jack did — something along those lines — which meant he was twice as good.

That math doesn’t add up to me in terms of the label of being twice as good. However, it’s pretty astonishing that if you throw Scottie and Bryson in the same tournament, Bryson is going to gain six shots on an average PGA Tour field and Scottie is going to gain 12.

That’s the Grand Canyon!

How is This App Free?

• I think I’m here.

• 🤢 

• Literally why Normal Sport exists!

Love Your Work

This from Nadal in this excellent French Open piece by Christopher Clarey is pretty awesome.

I enjoy what I do. I like to practice. I like to play tennis.

What a gift to be able to delight in your work like that. And while that is perhaps a privilege that is not afforded to all throughout history, I imagine there is some aspect of all of our jobs that we can find delight in, some task that brings us joy because we have gotten quite adept at accomplishing it or perhaps some skill that we think we have conquered only to find out that we actually have not.

I like to practice is my favorite part of this. I like to practice. What an unusual spot to find yourself in in life, enjoying the thing that everyone says they hate. I am grateful to have identified the things that I, too, like to practice at.

After the Fried Egg on Monday evening, I wandered down to the 9th and 18th greens before leaving to drive back to Dallas and just hit chips and pitches for 45 minutes. I probably wasn’t supposed to be doing that, but with the sunlight splayed following an afternoon storm and the pins cut on some USGA-approved shelves, I couldn’t help myself. I, too, like to practice. Even at things I’m not great at. Even when my ceiling is low.

Why? I think it’s the curiosity. Can I get better at this thing? What if I change this or do that? What if I shift this around? But it’s also the agency of the chase.

We were made to find delight in perfection, something that — as the world constantly reminds us — is so elusive. So to move closer to that creates a type of joy that can scarce be found elsewhere. We can catch millisecond glimpses of it, just barely, and we find that to be enough.

I like to practice. 

At everything and almost all of the time.

Thanks for reading until the end.

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