Edition No. 70 | April 3, 2024

Hey,

I love April. It is the best.¹

This year, I’m switching back and forth between making 4th grade baseball lineups and ranking the Masters field. Trying to set a rotation of arms barely touching 47 MPH and trying to determine which of the full time hitters touching 185 ball speed will wear a green jacket next weekend. Dialing in my fungo game and making sure I remember — not as a joke but in reality — actually how many Masters Jordan Spieth has won.

It’s a fun time of year. A hopeful season for so many reasons.

After trying (and failing) to get this newsletter out the door about five times this week, I trudged up to my son’s baseball game on Wednesday evening frustrated at my inability to send the newsletter.

Sixty-eight degrees, neighborhood kids playing ball with all their friends, the sun pounding the field and gloves (softly) popping, and all I can think is, I didn’t get that email with an illustration of the Astros mascot sent today!

It didn’t take long for me to get over it.

It never does, does it? What feels extraordinarily important in one moment becomes extremely forgettable the next. At one point during the game, I turned to another dad and said, “Man, what’s better than this?”

Probably the same thing that will be said many times next week at Augusta National by myself and many others. It’s a special season.

Let’s enjoy it.

Thank you to Holderness and Bourne for sponsoring this week’s newsletter. The most underrated product for me right now? Their pants collection. Lightweight, great colors and they held up enough for a 7-inning Easter wiffle ball game. Check them out here.

Onto the news.

One Thing I Loved

On Monday, I tweeted out the following question: Who is the second best golfer in the world right now? As soon as I sent it, I thought, “Dang, I should have said, ‘Who is the second best men’s professional golfer in the world right now?’”

Sure enough, on the No Laying Up message board, I got tagged and called out for being too myopic with my golf takes. Here’s what one poster wrote.

My first reaction to this is not fit for print.

My second reaction to this was … hmmm.

My third reaction to this was … You know, I think some of that is actually right.

It is not necessarily my job to cover women’s golf, but I have made it my job to look at golf as a whole and pull the most meaningful parts of what I see and experience. To ignore what Nelly is doing — three consecutive wins on the LPGA Tour — is foolish.

Now, is the statement above 100 percent fair? Probably not. But is there a thread of truth/fairness in there? Absolutely!

It’s good to get that feedback, internalize it, learn from it and try to become better at my job. This, to me, is the difficult part about being online and receiving immediate feedback. Even amid the cynicism and anger that sometimes exists, there is truth. Can you pull on that thread without letting in all the other stuff that creates self-doubt and even self-loathing? Can you create that specific filter?

I don’t know. Sometimes I can, and it’s good. And other times I can’t, and it’s bad. That is something that I think only comes with experience. One thing I don’t want is for online feedback to make me have skin that’s too thick.

Singer-songwriter Todd Snider wrote about this.

I’m no famous singer, but I do want to be appropriately thin skinned — I think he’s saying thin skinned in general but not necessarily toward every criticism — because I think it helps you create the best stuff. Sensitivity leads to vulnerability and vulnerability = magic. Al Pacino thinks so, too.

All that to say (and it was a lot), Nelly rules. And I’m happy to put Scottie in the No. 2 spot for right now. They have, collectively, lost to one golfer in their last six tournaments. 😂 

One!

And if we’re going straight down the men’s side, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Xander is clearly (?) the second best men’s golfer in the world and I also don’t really think his inability to close out tournaments is too much of a thing. Or, I guess a better way to say it is that I think it will even out over time and he will have more win luck and a better closing rate over the next five years. … And that he might even win the Masters.

One Thing I Didn’t Love

There has been a lot of talk about money in pro golf recently. Fans are sick of it. Players know fans are sick of it. Fans know players know they’re sick of it. It’s all just so … icky.

That’s why what Peter Malnati said last week went viral.

“No kid dreamed, when they were watching Jordan, of having his salary, they didn't care about that. They dreamed of being in that moment, hitting that shot. I think that's what our fans care about too and that's what they want to see.”

But here’s the dirty little secret that we know to be true as adults: Economics run the world. Brendan Porath wrote insightfully about that earlier this week. His conclusion? Things in pro golf (and pro sports) are the same as ever.

What he wrote — that money making professional sports go ‘round is the same as it has ever been — is true … but there’s one difference in golf right now, which Porath hinted at.

Instead of all the negotiating happening behind the scenes, it’s happening in front of the microphones and fans are now being used as leverage.

That feels … terrible.

We’re all adults. We know this is big business. We know it needs to be worked out in a way that makes sense for all parties. But … like … we don’t want to partake in it. Some of this is because we still want to believe in the innocence of it all. Maybe it’s foolish, but we do still want to believe that everybody plays pro golf because they enjoy the carrot of a U.S. Open trophy. That this is their greatest incentive.

It’s not. At least that’s not the norm.

But at the very least, don’t drag us into that like Bryson did this week when he said, “The fans are what drive this sport. If we don't have fans, we don't have golf. We are not up here entertaining. That's the most important thing as of right now, the low-hanging fruit. There's got to be a way to come together. How that comes together, that's above all of us out here.”

Yeah, I’d rather you maybe not use my fandom — which you just exploited for your own wealth! — as leverage for somebody else to clean up the mess you just made. YOU did that. Not somebody else.

And while Bryson is not alone — certainly Phil, DJ, Norman, LIV, Yasir, the PGA Tour, Jay Monahan and many others are all complicit — I think I’m all good on him trying to absolve himself of the mess he helped create by pointing the finger at [gestures at literally anyone else].

The driver sucks.

Same as ever.

Fans are sick of hearing about money, sure. But more than that, I think they’re sick of being treated like fools. Yo, we know this all happens but you don’t need to tell us about it publicly for the sake of your own positioning in negotiations.

It can feel a little bit like we’re being used. Fans just want the show. They don’t need to hear about how mad everyone is about how it gets produced. I mean, you can keep telling us. But it’s not going to accomplish what you think.

By the Numbies

20 — Brooks Koepka, winner of five major championships (including one last year!) was, earlier this week, 20-1 to win the Masters. A similar number to Xander, Spieth, Ludvig, Joaquin and Hovland (combined majors: 3, all by Spieth, none since 2017).

Brooks has a chance to get within one of … Arnold Palmer with a win at Augusta, and he’s not yet 34. I think what he’s done is somehow — I can’t believe I’m saying this — underrated and definitely undervalued based on that 20-1 number.

Dude has five majors! And he’s nearly the same number as Joaquin Niemann?!

How many times do we have to see it? How many times does it have to happen? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. What if you fool me five different times over the course of six years?

Normal Sport

I got a tweet the other day that I thought summed up Normal Sport better than I have ever summed it up: The dry wit and breaking down of things I never really thought odd at the time but after your review, I alway say to myself, “dang, that was crazy/hilarious/nuts/sick/wacko.”

Here are this week’s normal moments.

1. Quite a screenshot I stumbled into here. Every word of it is wild.

2. Roger Goodell sitting next to an adult man in an oversized jaguar costume while discussing the implications of Russia starting a pro football league with funds from Vladimir Putin’s extensive wealth.

But for golf.

3. Again, one person has beaten these two golfers in their last six events.

4. I would say, “man, this is crazy,” except it has been less than a year since the U.S. Open forgot to put its golf cups all the way in the ground and a ball hit one and popped back out like it was hit into a clown’s mouth at a putt putt course.

5. Imagine explaining a single word of this to a normal human being!

Quote of the Week

This from Anna Davis, who won the 2022 ANWA and is now a freshman at Auburn, was such a wonderful quote.

“All of my West Coast friends that go to school in the west, I don’t really play against them much. It’s going to be nice to see them. That’s kind of the real reason we’re here – to enjoy yourself and be with the people that make you happy and play some good golf.”

To enjoy yourself, be with people that make you happy and play some good golf. There are perhaps better mantras and ways to view the game for us as amateurs, but there cannot be many.

Question of the Week

“Of all the things in life, I didn’t think this would be the one that tripped you up.”

That’s a sentence my wife said to me last Friday evening after I brought home the GHIN debacle. If you missed it on Twitter — and I hope for your sake that you did — I played golf with some buddies on Friday and we got into a “how do you say the name of the app where you put in your scores?” debate.

So I put a poll out that turned into something else altogether. I gave the options of 1. The “Jen” app and 2. the Doug “Ghin” app.

Many (many!) people responded and said, “Neither … it’s the ‘gin’ app” as in the liquor. But this confused me. I say “Jen” and “gin” exactly the same way. This led to an existential crisis in which I think we arrived at the conclusion that I have been mispronouncing my wife’s name for the last 15 years.

At this point, I think I know I’m technically wrong, but I’m just not going to go to the effort of changing. It’s kinda like how Pat Reed often handles the rules of golf.

Anyway, the two best responses (by far) were as follows …

Idea of the Week

I have been busy over the last few weeks falling back in love with baseball. Probably most of you don’t know my story, but baseball was my sport growing up. Even though my mother was an elite amateur golfer and played in a couple of U.S. Women’s Ams, I chose baseball and played in high school and college.

After college, I sort of fell out of love with it for all the reasons you would expect. It felt like a job, it was too long and boring and so on.

But my sons — who are 10 and 7 — have brought me back. My oldest son loves ranking players² just like we all did as kids.

Anyway, I have been thinking about this tweet from Kevin Clark (as well as the follow up) a lot as I’ve gotten back into the game.

I think this is actually how a lot of people watch golf. I do not care about Rory’s SG from 122-137 yards or his proximity to the hole with a 53 degree wedge. All I know is he can’t make a 3 when it matters most!

It’s almost certainly a more fun way to watch sports and probably how games were intended to be discussed. And yet, the only time I will allow myself to slip into this mode in golf is the second nine on Sunday at a major.

Throw all the information out, erase Data Golf from the Google Chrome history. Get me an oxygen tank and give me something that makes these dudes feel things they almost never feel. That’s the good stuff. The best stuff. In light of the last two years, it might be the only stuff.

The Infirmary

This was an all-time email.

My neighbor’s kid has this scooter. Every time I see it I think it’s a Scotty Cameron Scooter they have for some reason. -Kyle M.

Meme of the Week

This from my colleague, Patrick McDonald, made me laugh.

Crooked Golf Media

👉️ I, too, could watch three and a half hours of this. This being Jordan Spieth talking his way through different pitch shots and how he thinks about hitting them based on what the lie allows him to do.

Speaking of Jordan Spieth talking his way through different pitch shots. That’s all I could think about when watching this mic’d up moment from Rangers 3B Josh Jung last week. He was having a conversation with the ESPN booth during the inning and got two ground balls, which he proceeded to talk his way through as he was fielding them.

If baseball players can do this, I don’t ever want to hear a PGA Tour golfer turn down an on-course interview again! In fact, they should lean into them! Can you imagine Spieth talking to us right up to the moment he takes the club back for an approach shot into No. 5 at ANGC with a nasty pin and a 15 MPH crosswind?

👉️ I will absolutely be listening to this podcast on how phones are harming our kids. This article — at least the part that’s free — sums it up well.

👉️ Using AI like this in the golf world (or any world) is terrifying. However, there is an upshot: Because this will only become increasingly ubiquitous, people who create content with heart and engender trust will be disproportionately rewarded.

👉️ My guy, Joel Beall, who edited Normal Sport 3, is writing a book of his own. It’s going to be great, and I memed the photo he used to announce it.

👉️ This Masters survey is good. My favorite part on little stuff they do that you might never notice if somebody didn’t tell you about it …

On 8, on the sides of the green, they flatten the first foot of fringe so you can’t use the opposite sides if you’re short-sided. There’s some little stuff like that which is unbelievable that they do.

Also, I noticed this on Masters.com this week. It’s so tiny but so important. The copy for their newsletter says “you’re officially invited.” It’s a play on the invites they send out to players, and of course you’re going to sign up for their newsletter because you also want to feel what it’s like to be invited to the Masters!

👉️ I went on Shotgun Start with Porath last week and we talked Scottie, DiMarco and tons of parenting/golf advice.

Overheard on Twitter

“It's crazy that besides humans and their pets, all animals are permanently outside. Until very recently, the only place you could possibly ever be is outside. There was no other place. Inside is one of the best human inventions.” -Tim Urban

How is This App Free?

• I feel this. It’s every single tweet. Infuriating.

• Makes you think.

• Claire starts what is sure to be an April heater.

• Man, this got me.

Love Your Work

Howard Marks. Some of you know him as successful investor. I know him as clear, concise and brilliant communicator. His recent podcast with David Perell about how he writes is extraordinary. Two big takeaways.

1. Humility is a superpower in writing because when you have humility in your writing, you use simple language that is easy to understand.

If you don’t have humility — if you are insecure — you often use a type of complicated language to try and convince people of something that is rarely ever true: that you definitely know what you’re talking about.

2. The idea that a life philosophy is built on four things: Many ideas from a variety of sources formed over a long period of time that you can distill into life lessons. Yes.

If you want to watch the pod, here it is. It’s so, so good.

Thanks for reading until the end.

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

We have a fun Masters giveaway coming over the next week.

Watch this space.