Greetings!
As with any major championship, there is still so, so much to discuss. We recorded a lively and fun Normal Sport show episode (Apple | Spotify) with some of our takeaways from one of the weirder major championships I’ve ever watched, but I need to get the rest down on paper here as we enter into the second half (!!) of major season.
I try to only do something like this 1-2 times a year, but because this newsletter list is literally the best network I have (or can imagine having), here is this year’s request: My family is traveling to Telluride, CO this summer for a youth baseball tournament at the end of July and is currently looking for both a place to stay and things to do around there.
If you are a person that has a place there or knows of one or has recommendations for that area, please reach out! I can pay in either American dollars or Holderness and Bourne sheep gear.
Thank you!
Today’s newsletter is presented by Ship Sticks.
Not only are we entering the second half of major championship season, but we’re also entering the beginning of golf travel season for the rest of us normies who don’t play well enough to complain about the greens at Aronimink (but probably would anyway).
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OK, now onto the news.
1. First, as a follow up to what I wrote about Aaron Rai and hope on Sunday evening, I thought this tweet from Michael Kim was validating. Look at what he said here about working hard and believing that the Aaron Rais and Michael Kims of the world can go out and win major championships.
Massive congrats to Aaron Rai. Such a nice guy and a hard worker. Makes me want to work harder and a greater belief that I can win majors as well.
Michael Kim
That is why I wrote what I wrote. Exactly that, right there.
Major championship golf is perfectly meritocratic right now. I don’t know that it has always been that way. Sometimes the scales tip too far in one direction (superstars winning all the time) or the other (superstars not winning enough). But right now, that equilibrium rocks and is one of my favorite things about covering the sport.
2. Three brief course notes, partly because I’m a dumb when it comes to architecture and setting a golf course up, and partly because the discourse all week had me like …
1. I think it’s very, very difficult to set up a 7,000-yard golf course that both A. Plays extremely difficult and B. Identifies and separates out the best hitters of the golf ball. Augusta can do it (when it gets weather), but it’s tough for the Minks of the world to follow suit.
Why? Well, because the golf ball goes (way) too far, guys are going to have wedges in their hands all day. If you want it to play difficult, you have to hide pins. If you hide pins, it is seemingly going to be impossible to proportionally reward great golf shots.
But if you don’t hide pins, guys are still hitting wedges, and it’s open season. It’s an untenable situation. Ultimately, every course setup complaint has an equipment solution (as outlined here by JLM). It infuriates me that these solutions are continuously ignored and it gets more and more difficult to set up golf courses, but that’s where we are.
2. Also, it’s fine that this tournament tested a skill other than ball striking! I think we have decided that all majors should reward the best flushers, and I generally agree with this idea. But hitting only makes up ~60 percent of the game, and there’s no rule that says a major has to identify the guy swinging it best in that week. I agree that golf would become stinkier if we moved toward identifying the best lag putters or most patient golfers every major, but for one a year or one every three years? I’m fine with that.
I was so impressed with the course - how it managed to test both our discipline and precision all week. It begged us to challenge pins and play aggressively, and we found out early we’d be punished if we didn’t execute.
Which in my opinion, are just as major championships should be.
JT | 2026 PGA
3. I did love how easy it was to see that angles still matter. Take the 7th hole on Sunday. Rory torched a drive, but had the most atrocious angle into that pin.
Ludvig, meanwhile, laid back and had a beautiful angle in. Of course, Ludvig made bogey because he overcooked his approach and Rory made par because his short game was tremendous. But you get the point.
This is the opposite of bomb and gouge, and if equipment was reduced would be the type of thing we could get far more frequently.
OK enough of me talking golf courses.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,050 of them) and includes thoughts on Scottie kicking away a great chance, Rahm’s return and an announcement from me about Jordan Spieth.
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There’s been no one else in golf that has tickled my funny bone as often as Kyle Porter does. He’s been instrumental in ushering in a new era of golf coverage and it’s been a pleasure to be along for the ride in that.
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I’ve always enjoyed your love for golf. So often I see favoritism showed to golfers in the social media world, but I enjoy reading you telling a situation how it is regardless of the person.
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