Normal Sport is presented by Seed Golf this week. You know those Wirecutter articles that deliver you, “The best product for the most people.” That’s what I think of when I think of Seed. Check out their premium golf balls right here.

I had planned on dropping another 10 (or more) thoughts here and giving you my pick at the end. But instead, I started going down the philosophical rabbit hole with Scottie and Co. and I am maybe still trying to find where it ends (more on that below). So instead of the end, I’ll give picks to you right here.

Winner: M. Fitzpatrick
Bet my house on top 10: Rory
For sure will not win: Cam Young
Sleeper: A. Fitzpatrick (~60-1)

So Cam will win by four and the other three will miss the cut.

Guys, I have to tell you, I cannot wait for this championship to start. The course looks magnificent and possibly a bit unhinged, and I think it’s going to be (by far) the weirdest major championship week of the year (and hopefully of the last few). This is almost always the case at The Open, but even more so this time around.

We will have newsletters following each round as well as a podcast at the halfway point and after the final round on Sunday. You can subscribe to the newsletter here and to the podcast right here. Let’s get into it.

Name drops today: C.S. Lewis, Tiger, Scottie and Rory. Four of the best to ever do it.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

But first!

Today’s newsletter is presented by our friends at Seed Golf, which makes the best golf balls you’ve probably never heard of. Speaking of The Chase — which we will get into below — Seed epitomizes it. Here’s their founder, Dean Klatt.

Preach!

This is part of the reason the partnership between Normal Sport and Seed has been so great. They are [sarcasm font] a very normal business that started at a university in Ireland and is now making inroads around the globe through partnerships with people called speedgolfrob and some brand that developed a logo from a monkey meme on social media.

The thing I respect most about Seed — other than them talking Open Championship with us at Birkdale — is that they love The Chase. Love the competition. Love trying to figure it out every day in the knife fight of entrepreneurship. There’s nothing quite like that, and they — like we aspire to be — are the epitome of that in the golf product space right now.

And now, onto the news.

Quick mea culpa before we get to Scottie + Rory: Yesterday in our newsletter, I noted that Gary Woodland and I both play the King irons. That is false. I actually play the King Tour irons, and Woodland splits his time between the King Tour MB and the King Tour irons. KP regrets the mistake.

The Chase

If you had a friend who on a specific date one year ago when asked about their work and their life, said something to the tune of, I’ve been thinking about all of this and just wondering … what’s the point? And then, just one year later on nearly the same date, this person followed that up with, “I'm going to live my life, and it's going to end,” you would likely start making some phone calls. You would have concerns. You would probably start asking some deep and serious questions.

If you are a follower of golf, however, and the person who said both of those things also happens to be the best player (by far?) since Tiger Woods was pumping flighted irons at every major championship he looked at, you might instead think, Oh man, this guy is getting it. He’s solved all of this. He’s figured it out.

What has traditionally been known as Open week has somehow turned into Existential Discussion week. Scottie Scheffler’s wonderful and ecclesiastical monologue from a year ago was both incredibly misunderstood at the time and also has served as a source of fascination for me (and others) for over a year now.

He went right back to the well again this week.

Golf is the least relatable it can possibly be when a man with eight zeroes in his bank account is kissing a trophy that has been around since the Civil War.

Golf is the most relatable it can be, however, when a suburban dad to two kids who is fighting both a right miss and his own hairline presents this opportunity: I can either get in the arena or not get in the arena, but either way the show is gonna go on.

Scottie is somehow both of those people, and what he is offering is truly a great path for any of our respective lives: The Chase.

What I think Scottie is getting at here is that making the outcome of an endeavor the purpose of that endeavor is foolishness.

The first reason is that you can’t control outcomes.

Here’s another guy with 4+ majors.

The second reason this is foolish is that the ultimate enjoyment of achievement is often so fleeting that to make it the primary purpose of participation is to get on the hamster wheel and start spinning until you don’t know which end is up.

And while both The Chase and the end outcome can (and often do!) become idols, the former is both important to engage and accessible to all. The Chase is a way for us to honor the variety of gifts we were all given by fulfilling them to the best of our abilities.

The Chase (often) makes us more fully what we were created to be.

Rory was asked about his motivation for major championships.

That is beautiful.

It’s also attainable by everyone. We all know the dad who cares for a disabled child, the nurse who joyfully (and sometimes tragically) delivers baby after baby and the grandmother who leads the community on her street. None of these outcomes — even the best version of these outcomes — will ever be lauded or celebrated by the world. But those are all variations of The Chase. And in each instance, the person can honestly and simply say, I am seeing how good I can be.

We are all chasing something. Some of those things are good and some of them are bad, but all of those somethings are shaping the people that we will eventually become.

I have felt this idea acutely even over the last two weeks. Building a business is more difficult than I thought it would be (and I already thought it would be so difficult). I have experienced failure and jealousy and fear. I have been petulant and annoyed and at times disengaged. I have experienced these things because I am obsessed with an outcome, a place I want to get to. All the while forgetting the very thing I preach all the time, which is that The Chase is 99 percent of the fun.

Another term for The Chase, of course, is the trope-y “it’s the journey and not the destination” phrase. This, to me, has always felt slightly off. It implies that testing one’s self and trying to find the limits of who you were created to be is not paramount to the whole exercise to begin with. I think that the phrase above is close but not quite correct. It implies a level of idleness or passiveness that I am uncomfortable with.

I have said this before, and I likely will again, but my wife and I talk all the time about being in the mix. We use that phrase weekly about any number of family, community, work and marriage activities: Just be in the mix.

I believe this is what Scottie is getting at and that it serves as a nice bookend to what he said a year ago about what’s the point. The point is to be in the mix. Of course the outcome is going to be unsatisfying. C.S. Lewis’ famous quote comes to mind.

But it is not the outcome that matters. That feels like a dumb thing to write on the eve of an Open Championship where the outcome very much matters. To me. To you. To everyone who is involved in or interacting with this tournament.

If the outcome didn’t matter, then nobody would ever care.

I just don’t think the outcome matters most in the way we think it does. The real benefit of ever winning a professional golf tournament is not that it improves your Wikipedia page or that someone will write a book about you or even that any of those things will make you rich and famous.

No, the real benefit is that winning — or even the idea of winning — is an allure that keeps you in the mix for all the other minutes you spend on your craft. Because winning outcomes are heavily incentivized and widely celebrated, this might be more true in pro sports than in any other industry.

The true effect of this idea of winning and achieving is not that you gain anything tangible from it as it relates to your legacy. It’s quite simply that it prolongs The Chase.

Thank you for supporting Normal Sport. It allows us to do things like attend The Open at Birkdale this week, which is where Jason endured England’s loss amidst a sea of English folks (what a scene). This is The Chase for us. And (most days) it really is so much fun.