Issue No. 135 | December 3, 2024

One of my Thanksgiving experiences was the reminder — that we often get — of what a great conversation space golf can be.

Here’s what I mean by that.

There are very few topics or categories that are good, enjoyable, easy jumping off points for other more meaningful conversation. Golf is one of them.

It’s not the only one, but I have found it to be a valuable starting point for either getting to know someone new or restarting a conversation with someone I’ve known.

I find the shared experience of playing golf — something that, at least for adults, is rarely true of playing football, baseball or basketball — to be both galvanizing and refreshing.

From a place of “Where have you played?” or “Who do you play with?” or even “What are you working on right now?” you can take the conversation in so many different deeper directions.

That’s probably more serious than you were arriving here looking for, but it’s something I was thinking about today before I sent this newsletter out.

OK, onto pirates and reindeer antlers.

But First

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Holderness and Bourne.

Speaking of meaningful experiences, H&B just celebrated its 10th anniversary. And while we could talk about its apparel and how much we enjoy it — even more so during Layering SZN — I would rather talk about how aspirational their company is 10 years in for us as we’re barely 10 weeks in.

I think it probably comes through in the way they present their products and branding, but every conversation you have behind the scenes with them is like, Ohhh, these guys care a lot about making something that’s really good. 

That shouldn’t be rare, but it often is in a world bent on ridiculous things like exit velocity and valuation multiples.

So yes, support H&B this holiday season because H&B supports us but also know that you’re supporting a business whose people are thoughtful, curious and engaged with the world they are creating for.

One Thing I Loved

This is a few weeks old now but no less amazing.

Dan Orlovsky recently threw on the Apple Vision Pro goggles to break down a play between the Bills and Chiefs, talking through everything he’s seeing as a QB and moving the camera around the field to give the audience different views that each position would have.

I know next to nothing about football (outside of some elite play calling for my son’s flag football team — our misdirection spread offense with three potential throwers is gaining some steam nationally from what I hear). But I’m transfixed.

And more importantly, I’m educated. I’m smarter after having watched this.

I realize all of this sounds insane, especially if you just look at that thumbnail and don’t watch the video. But I encourage you to watch it. It will transform the way you think about what video analysis could be.

The entire time, of course, I’m just thinking “GET JOHNSON WAGNER SOME GOGGLES!” which is partly tongue in cheek and partly pretty serious.

I think there are some real opportunities for golf here. I don’t know who will take advantage of them. Maybe Golf Channel? Maybe the Tour? Maybe Normal Sport? Idk.

The point is, it is one thing to watch Scottie fist pump a 3 on No. 13 at ANGC with the tournament tilting away from him.

This right here is the apex of major championship drama.

But it is an entirely other thing to see what he sees from this viewpoint, with the azaleas in the background and the green rolling this way and that. To have someone talk us through this putt, how to hit it, what it’s like.

That would be so additive, whether on the broadcast or on a postgame show.

Normal Sport

1. I honestly don’t even want to know.

2. Think about how different the dress code is in golf than pretty much any other sport.

Football variance: Number of wristbands
Basketball variance: Nike or Adidas
Baseball variance: Body armor at the plate
Golf variance: Some people wear pants, long sleeves and hats, while others wear skirts, pullovers and reindeer antlers.

The Infirmary

Turning myself in this week.

On Saturday, I was watching Texas-Texas A&M, and the studio host threw it back to the game, saying, “Back to Chris, Kirk and Holly [Rowe].”

I thought he was saying, “Chris Kirk and Ollie [Schniederjans].”

I am broken.

Oh Sure, Sure

We built this little thank you page for anyone who signs up for the newsletter.

That means every new subscriber gets an opportunity to share their story because as one of my friends said recently, “Everybody has at least one insane golf story.”

This, it turns out, is true.

Here’s this week’s.

Since this email led me down the Ray Nitschke rabbit hole, I wanted to share this photo of the man himself from when he was … 37 years old. Thirty seven!

Lookalikes?

With my kids this week, I watched the new Mr. Beast video, feat. Ronaldo, Noah Lyles and … is that 8x all star Dustin Johnson?

It’s not — it’s actually Bryce Harper who looks more like Dustin Johnson’s brother than Dustin Johnson’s actual brother, Austin Johnson.

Namealikes?

Over the past two weeks we’ve seen the tours dominated by golfers named after other things. Elvis [Smylie], Maverick McNealy named after the Ford Maverick (obviously), and Ryggs Johnston keeping Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon character relevant in the 21st Century.

At this point, we’re virtually certain that Peter Uihlein (b. 1989) was named after Bill Murray’s character Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters 1 (1984). These scenes might as well be Andrew Waterman telling him that the PIF will stop funding LIV (kids do love the Range Goats) and Peter and Bubba talking future plans.

In all seriousness, we’re just hoping that the namesake winner trend continues into 2025 for the GOAT…

Thought of the Week

Maybe I was stuck on this video from JLM about Joel Dahmen’s card, but I was thinking over Thanksgiving about how the Tour is so hung up between a business model and a meritocracy (v normal Thanksgiving thoughts btw).

Then I started thinking about how other pro leagues would handle sponsor exemptions, and I realized we saw it happen in the NBA just this year with Bronny being drafted by the Lakers. That was — let’s be honest here — a sponsor exemption. Cool and fun and celebratory, sure, but still a sponsor exemption.

And the whole league just lost its collective mind.

People had emotional breakdowns on national television either trying to defend or dispel what was happening.

The amusing part?

That happens four times a week every week of the year in the biggest and most important golf league in the world.

Stat of the Week

If you made me put together a list of my most fundamental golf beliefs from the last 12 years of doing this, I think Phil has had the most underrated career in the last 50 years could be on it.

Jamie didn’t include it, but that quartet has just three more majors (9) than Phil has on his own (and Phil should almost certainly have more than six — Troon and Winged Foot to name two). Phil is perhaps the last great golf character of a specific kind.

But you could also talk me into the fact that he’s also going to be the last member of the 45-6 club* … ever?

*That’s 45 Tour wins and six majors. Nobody active other than Rory (kind of) is even close to those numbers.

Data Golf Corner

One of the underrated stories of the second half of 2024 was Luke Clanton’s emergence as a potential PGA Tour star.

After another top five at the RSM, he jumped into the top 100 in the world.

The OWGR rankings are — as I’ve noted — not helpful for me, though, because while I think excluding LIV upholds some of the integrity of the rankings, it doesn’t help me understand statistically who the top 100 players in the world are.

Clanton’s numbers are eye-popping, though.

His DG Index number (above) is currently 2.7, which means he is 2.7 strokes better per round on average than the average golfer in the D1 NCAA Championship.

DG estimates that this amateur number is around 2.4 strokes per round worse than the PGA Tour, which puts Clanton at around a 0.3 DG Index on the professional side, keeping some pretty interesting company in the No. 100-110 spots.

Look at this crew!

That’s pretty good for somebody who’s still in school, but it gets more interesting when you look a little closer and comp Clanton with another recent college phenom who also became the No. 1 amateur in the world.

Here are Clanton’s starts on the PGA Tour this year.

• U.S. Open: T41

• Rocket Mortgage: T10

• John Deere: T2

• ISCO: T37

• 3M: MC

• Wyndham: 5th

• Procore: T50

• RSM: T2

That’s … really good. And it made me wonder how crazy of an idea it is that Clanton would be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team at Bethpage.

Europe took Ludvig last year when his starts in similar events looked like this.

And while it was probably more obvious that Ludvig was going to be Ludvig — with the U.S. hungry for young, back-end talent to develop for the future, it’s not a crazy question to ask with less than 10 months to go.

Clickbait

👉️ Most clicked in the newsletter last week: Vladdy’s arm (normal for a golf newsletter).
👉️ Second most clicked last week: Meridian Jr. putters.

How is This App Free?

• Max nailed the Ohio State-Michigan aftermath.

• Except, you know …

• This response got me for some reason.

• Speaking of Ohio State-Michigan!

• I see at least one of these every week, and they always make me chuckle.

• Also, this is true.

Love Your Work

I’ve been on a big Colin and Samir kick recently. Two guys many people have probably never heard of, but they run what I would call the No Laying Up of the creator world. They interview YouTubers, podcasters and writers on their own YouTube show.

With people like this, I always like to listen to them outside of their own show, to hear how the sausage is made. Because I am in a similar position, it can be beneficial (and interesting) for me to hear how they do what they do. 

Samir recently went on a pod that is worth the listen, and he had a few quotes that I jotted down. Here’s the first.

I could not possibly agree more.

I recently played in Omni’s Generation Cup at PGA Frisco. Dads and sons, grandmas and grandsons, uncles and nieces, all of it exactly what you would imagine. And man, I think you could charge anything for events like this. Our hunger for genuine human connection far outstrips our capacity (and therefore our desire) to intake the amount of content that the efficiency of the internet provides. Therefore, I think we gravitate toward verifiably human experiences.

A good segue to the next quote

Me writing down Normal Sport ideas …

Me then looking at the amount of time I have to implement these ideas …

It is much more difficult than I expected to stay disciplined with one thing in building my business. I have 900 things I want to do instead.

Speaking of things that are difficult to remember …

This is so simple and yet so easy to miss. It is so easy to start or take over a business and begin to think that your first product is actually not content and that your first customer is actually not the audience. This sounds ridiculous, but [gestures at pro golf].

He was talking about podcasting, but I feel the same in writing this newsletter. The first reward is the research, the learning, the connecting of dots. I enjoy it. It’s fun.

The second, bifurcated (shout out Mike Davis!) from the first is whatever success we have from each edition of the newsletter.

To view those as separate things is emotionally wise and mentally healthy. It’s hard to do so, I have to say, but it’s definitely the better way.

Thank you for reading until the end.

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