Edition No. 54 | February 9, 2024

Hey,

I went back and read the first edition of Normal Sporter this week, which was published 362 days ago during Phoenix Open week. Shockingly, I led with a bit about Rory (and Brooks) and how different but intertwined those two are.

There were also the usual shenanigans, including a stampede (?) of giraffes at the Magical Kenya Ladies Open, which … of course.

Here are some Normal Sporter numbers over the last 52 weeks.

• 54 newsletters published

• ~110,000 words written

• ~100 unique illustrations

• 6,700 net subscribers

• 69.6% open rate

• 12% click thru rate

The numbers to me are mostly whatever. Did I want 10K or 20K subscribers over the first year. Absolutely. But also did I expect the open rate to stay at 70 percent as the newsletter list grew? I did not.

I think the biggest surprise for me is what a delight it has been to write this newsletter once or twice a week. It started out as a way to build up an email list for the books I wanted to publish, but it has absolutely turned into a creative outlet for everything that is either too silly or too serious to write for CBS Sports.

It has been a true joy for me. It’s also been encouraging for me to hear from those of you who have told me you’ve liked reading it, learned something from it or just appreciated someone trying to figure out golf (and pro golf) alongside you. Someone who is putting words to some of the things you’re thinking and feeling.

I have so many ideas for what Normal Sport could be. Ideas for short books, long books, books for kids, different products we could develop. One of my deepest enthusiasms — I hope this is obvious — is leveraging eternally insignificant entities (like golf) to develop relational depth and helping others to do the same.

That sounds profoundly ridiculous and so annoyingly highbrow for [checks notes] a newsletter about animals on golf courses. But the newsletter is only a small part of all of this.

Do I know where Normal Sport is going? Not really. I have thoughts and aspirations, but to say that I know where something that includes essays on the technical usage of pool noodles would be a fool’s errand.

What I do know is that our aim is this: To build a heartfelt and humorous world that helps daily golf fans see life a little bit differently than before.

Can you build a business or a company around that?

I don’t want to overshare here, but one year is a good time for both reflection and vision-casting. Jason and I recently started writing and illustrating our first illustrated children’s book (👀). We’re incredibly excited about it. Normal Sport 4 is likely going to look a lot different than it has in past years. There might be some sort of annual subscription we roll out at some point. There are Spieth books to be written, Tiger things to be documented.

One thing I have learned about myself over the last year is that I am obsessed with writing. I don’t want to do anything else.

It is easy for me to become enamored with the success of YouTubers like Dude Perfect or podcasts Shotgun Start or NLU. But I feel fine zagging because I have realized — or remembered over the last year — that I just want to write. Tiny books, bigger books, biographies, fiction, non-fiction.

I can’t get enough of it.

So thank you for reading because without your interest in the words, this desire would be homeless. Instead, it has been met in a place by a group of people that, if we don’t think similarly, we are at least arguing about things from a level starting point. That is a difficult thing to go and find, and you have provided it for me. I’m grateful for that.

At the risk of more self-indulgence, I am going to eschew the normal thoughts on golf this week and give you a few thoughts from the last year of publishing the Normal Sporter as well as the book we did in December.

Thank you again for reading.

11 Thoughts on Year 1 of the Normal Sporter

1. There is a DJ Piehowski thing I think about all the time. I can’t remember if he said it publicly or to me in private, but the gist of it is that the viewer/reader/listener should be trusted and taken seriously. It sounds obvious, but there are a lot of publications and companies which do things that remind you that it is not.

This week, my wife and I were watching this fascinating show on Apple TV called Drops of God. It’s ostensibly about wine (but not really), and one of the main characters was considering writing a guide to French wine. As he was contemplating the idea, he began lamenting how all the written content and guides are geared toward fluffing the primary wineries in France and not the niche, more obsessive mom and pop-like ones.

His quote was tremendous.

“People are more refined and intelligent than we think. They can quickly develop a good palate and they shouldn’t be taken for morons.”

We have always tried to presume that the folks reading this newsletter have great palates. That has probably sometimes kept our subscriber numbers lower than they otherwise would be, but I would rather have the right 10,000 subscribers than the wrong 100,000.

2. Related: There aren’t very many templates around here, at least when it comes to making the content. I generally just chase what I’m intrigued by and trust that at least some of you will be intrigued by it as well. I have been studying a lot of different content creators over the last 18 months, and all the templated, formulaic stuff just doesn’t do it for me. I think it does work for some content creators, but I also think it can get a little inauthentic and almost mad lib-y at times.

That can sometimes lead to this newsletter or the books feeling a little all over the place, but the truth is that this is how we think, talk and interact more often than not. I think it usually (not always, but usually) works for the type of content we make.

3. The publishing industry is tough. Or I guess, more accurately for us, the printing and distributing industry has been difficult to figure out. We have somewhat accidentally become a publisher ourselves just by putting together (writing, editing and illustrating), printing, packaging, marketing and distributing our own books over the last few years.

It has been fun at times — really fun — but also so discouraging. Entering the book publishing industry has sometimes felt like trying to enter a locked room that nobody has a key to. There is very little information and almost nobody moving in that direction to go on the journey with. We are constantly asking ourselves things like …

• Should we just let Amazon print and distribute or books?

• What if the quality of Amazon’s printing is not up to our standards?

• How do people want to consume all of this content?

• Does it make sense to repackage the newsletter into a year-end book?

• Should we constantly start from scratch for the Normal Sport books?

• Should we do digital or physical books?

• Should we make them PDFs or format them for Kindle?

All that to say, if you work in the publishing industry (or know anyone who does) — specifically in printing and distribution, please reach out to me. I would love to chat about what I’m doing wrong and what I can do different or better.

4. Related: Normal Sport 3 did not sell as much as we hoped. In fact, it sold about half as well as Normal Sport 2, which sold about half as well as Normal Sport 1. This was jarring to me. It would make far more sense to me if the numbers were the other way around.

Emotionally speaking, this was difficult to internalize for me because everyone wants their product or their content — especially the stuff they pour themselves into — to hit. When it doesn’t, it can feel personal. I remember irrationally searching local jobs online the week after Normal Sport 3 was released. I’m not sure I’m a writer anymore, I thought.

Ultimately, I think the Normal Sport book sales are a product-market fit problem more than a company trajectory issue. Or at least that is how I’ve rationalized it given how many of you open these newsletters and read them on a weekly basis.

5. This quote is something I have been thinking about a lot.

The idea that we're in a newsletter bubble because "no one can read 10 newsletters a day" is dumb. No one can listen to 10 podcasts, watch 10 YouTube videos, etc. This is true for all media. Email is still the best place to build your audience. -Matt McGarry

It’s a reframing of something I’ve always been fearful of. I wrote in Normal Sporter No. 1, “The world needs more newsletters like it needs more professional golf leagues,” which remains true.

What I’m here for, though, is not to become “another newsletter” but rather to become the most unique publisher of golf text + illustration in the world. That is something worth striving for.

6. I said this earlier, but I have become obsessed with writing books or book-like content (I think we are often too traditional when we think about the concept of a book but that’s another post for another time — you can read more on it here if you want).

While book writing might not be the best business in 2024, it’s the one I want to be in. For me, it’s a lifestyle business. It’s what I want to do. If that means our business is only 1/10 the size of what it could be if we were full multimedia, so be it. I am OK with that and have found myself very content with the lack of complication living in this world brings about (Normal Sport 3 printing mishaps notwithstanding).

7. I am compelled by the idea of a compound library. This is a phrase that makes no sense so let me explain.

Almost all of the content produced at Normal Sport thus far has been time bound (even the books). It has a figurative shelf life. If you didn’t read NS2 at the end of 2022, you probably aren’t going to read it ever. Normal Sport needs more content that you can read at any time (think about Tourist Sauce or Strapped or the course design profiles TFE makes – all are timeless).

My guy Morgan Housel said something the other day to the effect of “I would rather have above average returns on my money for 50 years than tremendous gains for the next five years,” In other words, you should desire to be good for a very long time rather than trying to be great for a very short period of time. 

Thinking about filling up a library of digital or even physical content helps frame that for our business. Our focus needs to be more on timeless versions of this content — example: A book entitled The 20 Most Important Moments of Tiger Woods’ Career that can be purchased at any time — than in the day to day grind of content that needs to be consumed somewhat immediately.

8. Curation is key. What’s difficult about writing a newsletter like this is not finding content. With everything going on in the golf world, I could send you a 1,000-word newsletter almost every day. But would it be worthy of the time you are giving us?

Your time is extremely valuable — often more valuable than even your money — and as a nod to that truth, I want to curate only the very best, most interesting or funniest stuff to write about. That part is honestly more difficult and draining than the writing and the joke-making. I’m not sure I expected that to be the case going into this.

9. I heard a terrific definition recently — I can’t remember where — that good business is simply creating value by solving problems for people. I can get on board with that. As someone who loves the creative world, I always feel at least a little icky when it comes to transactions and sales. Solving problems for folks, though, in a fun and creative way? Yeah, I’m into that.

So what problem is Normal Sport solving? It’s a good question that I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about.

I think the main one is that very few modern publications are 1. Clutter free and 2. Speak to life more than just sport. We aspire to solve both problems.

Here’s an excerpt from something I wrote in Normal Sport 3.

For me, covering golf is about covering more than just the golf. In fact, sometimes it’s barely about covering golf. The golf is almost incidental. And I think (hope) that style resonates with people. I believe deeply that who you are is far more important than what you accomplish. And while my job is to cover what players accomplish, I am in the business of writing about life.

Here is a conversation my wife and I had recently.

Her: “Oh, you still think of yourself as a golf writer, don’t you?”
Me: [staring straight ahead for 29 seconds without blinking]
Her: “You’re not a golf writer.”
Me: “It literally says golf writer on my paycheck.”
Her: You write about life, golf is just the vessel that you use.”
Me: [myelin sheaths coming unraveled for a good five minutes]

Her: “It’s true.”

It is true. I love everything about golf, but it is subservient — as all sports are — to life itself. That is a far deeper well from which to draw, and though it is impossible to draw from it every single time, I still go to it often. I do this because I know that while golf is relatable to some, life — and its complex contradictions and tiny triumphs — is relatable to all. I know that golf may stimulate our brains and may stir our hearts but the deep truths of the human condition are written upon our souls.

10. One thing I have noticed over the last year is how little focus there is on content and products for kids (and for kids to share with their adults) in the golf world. I am fascinated by that …

11. Here is a tweet I included in that first Normal Sporter a year ago. I wrote about how this is what I wanted this newsletter to be. It was aspirational then — especially that first sentence — and it is aspirational now.

Thank you, as always, for reading and following.