Issue No. 144 | January 16, 2025

As many of you know, we recently introduced a page where, when people sign up to receive the newsletter, they can share the weirdest golf story they have. Earlier this week, we may have gotten one that will never be topped.

Colorways

Today’s newsletter is presented by Holderness and Bourne.

Here’s a weird connection.

I have been into watches recently. Just a casual observer from afar, intrigued by Tom Brady’s outrageous collection and what various golfers are into.

One thing that has stood out to me — a watch idiot — is how specific Rolex is with its colors. It’s clear that there is a preposterous amount of attention given to the colors on a given Rolex. One I noticed recently was this one Scottie was wearing in the PGA Tour documentary Sean Martin made about him.

It’s not quite orange but also not quite red. It’s a color that draws you in.

Details matter, and the same thing I’ve noticed about Rolex (again, from afar) is what I’ve also noticed about Holderness and Bourne. Their attention to color combinations is just a little bit more nuanced and a little bit more obsessed than other places.

Take their new resort collection.

The colors aren’t necessarily unusual, but there is an extra layer of detail to get them to play off each other in a very specific way that, to me, sets H&B apart. I appreciate that about them and have found it to be emblematic of who they are as a company.

[Jason here] As a watch-loving visual artist who works with colors constantly, it’s cool to hear Kyle point out the challenge of outspoken colors working in an aesthetic way. It ain’t easy! And I also love how H&B nailed it in the Resort Collection.

7 Golf-Adjacent Thoughts This Week

1. I wanted to bring back a prediction I made last week in my 10 predictions for 2025 (which we will absolutely revisit in December for giggles).

This particular prediction was behind the paywall (this is the content you’re missing out on, non-members!), but I wanted to bring it in front because I got a thoughtful response from a reader.

Here’s what I wrote.

To be honest, you could follow pro and high-level amateur golf exclusively through newsletters (not podcasts or video, just newsletters) and probably have twice the experience in a tenth of the time as someone who followed every single event as it played out.

Here’s what a reader wrote to me in response.

This is fascinating, but honestly it’s how I followed the NBA for a long time. I would watch some of the playoffs and most of the finals but almost none of the regular season. Instead, I would listen to Zach Lowe and/or Simmons and read Grantland or Daily Thunder or a random article here and there. I felt like I knew more about the NBA than I needed to and certainly more than most of my friends. It was a great way to follow.

This represents a shift that’s been happening for a while now. That shift is that the more ubiquitous broadcasts become, the more need there is for tremendous curators.

2. SGS is a curator. So is the Data Golf newsletter. Normal Sport is a curator most of the time. Most media you follow are probably curators. There are still news breakers, yes, and that is extremely important. But the business model for a news breaker can be difficult, and so most of us have chosen the path of curation.

Why? It’s extremely fun for us (or at least me) but also (hopefully) beneficial for you because you save time and get a more contextualized experience of whatever you’re into.

Most sports outcomes most of the time are not worth the time investment needed. That’s harsh but also more or less true. Perhaps even more so in golf where the “game” is 40+ hours long, and 99 percent of the participants that you might be rooting for end up losing.

The idea of curators is not unique to golf or sports. All industries have curators or tour guides (I guess in our industry, it would be a TOUR GUIDE) that save them time by pointing out what matters and what doesn’t.

Here’s something I believe …

Because content is now everywhere, and as an audience ages and becomes busier with kids, careers etc., the need for a curator increases along this path. This is not a perfect representation of what’s happening, but I think it’s directionally correct and something I believe advertisers should be paying attention to because the inverse will probably become increasingly true for the broadcasts themselves.

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