Issue No. 141 | Jan. 9, 2024

Confession time: I’m not a huge predictions guy. Oh, I enjoy reading them, for sure, but I don’t always enjoy writing them. Why? It feels like a fool’s errand to predict what will happen at a major seven months from now when I barely know what will happen at majors when there are seven holes to go.

For example, if I had told you this time last year that …

• Scottie Scheffler would win nine times.
• Xander Schauffele would be a two-time major champ.
• The Ballfrogs would be the Boston pro team best positioned for a championship.

You would have given me one of these.

I identify with Scott Galloway when it comes to predictions.

That I can get on board with. So with that as our framework, let’s jump into 10 predictions I have for the golf year ahead.

But First!

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10 Golf-ish Predictions for 2025

1. Europe wins Bethpage: Yeah, I don’t love it, but it’s definitely in play. Europe fixed the gap it experienced at Whistling Straits when it got caught between generations, and this nugget from Data Golf is probably the most concerning point given how important driving is at Bethpage: Team Europe is projected to be 0.02 strokes better [than the U.S.] per round off the tee.

Also, here are the top 12 on Data Golf for both sides right now. It looks fairly … even, I think.

A lot will change over the next nine months, but I do think this Euro team is better positioned than most in recent years to upend the now 11-year streak of the home team winning.

2. The PIF-PGA Tour deal goes through … and then nothing happens: This is constantly changing so I could be wrong about this by, like, next Wednesday. But if you missed it in December, it sounds like a ho-hum deal between the PIF and the Tour is at the 3 yard line. This is infuriating because the PIF is basically doing what it apparently tried to do a half decade ago and invest heavily in the PGA Tour.

Here’s the New Yorker from 2022.

I don’t know the exact timing of when the PIF claims to have approached the PGA Tour, but 2018 was when Yasir “appointed … Sorour, to be the C.E.O. of the Saudi Golf Federation.” So Sorour likely (allegedly) approached the Tour after 2018 but probably before Rory said in March 2020 that he didn’t like where the PGL money was coming from (i.e. the Saudis).

Here’s an assumed timeline.

Oh … great.

The only difference between now and 2019 is that pro golf is inarguably in a worse spot than it was then. I don’t think much changes in 2025 — LIV won’t go away — even if the PIF gets its deal.

That’s brutal for the PGA Tour, which is receiving all kinds of investment money and will need to produce a return, but it’s great news for YouTube creators, TGL and other alternative forms of golf for folks who are not interested in focusing on a league where just one of the 10 most interesting golfers in the world tees it up at one of that league’s best events.

As an aside, I didn’t see this future-of-golf column from Jaime Diaz from back in October. It’s really good and worth reading from somebody who has certainly seen a lot more in the golf world than I have.

3. Kyle breaks 80 twice: That’s the goal this year. I wrote about it a bit on the Arccos blog, which I’ll be contributing to over the next several months. You can read it right here. I’ve broken 80 just twice in my life, but we are trending since August.

My biggest problems right now: I can get long and wild with driver (a bad combo), and I kick away 3-5 strokes every round around the greens. Not 3 putts (an entirely different conversation) but fatted chips and duffed pitches. It’s gross, but if I can clean that up a bit, I feel pretty confident about getting a couple of rounds in the 70s this year.

Also, before we continue, we built a little page on our website where you can share your personal golf goals this year and see what other Normal Sport readers are working on. You can share right here.

4. PGA Tour buys Golf Channel: This seems inevitable at some point, especially if you read this smart column by James Colgan. Whether it happens in 2025 or 2027 or the Tour just retains its own rights when they’re up in 2029 remains to be seen. But I’ll say it happens in 2025 for two reasons. First, the Tour seems like it’s itching to fill up PGA Tour Studios and second, I think SSG will be pushing for something like this because it will value having an in-house media arm.

Welcome to the members-only portion of this Thursday’s newsletter. Sometimes I forget to remind you what you’re getting for your annual sub so I’ll try to do a better job of that going forward. Hope you enjoy it!

5. Bryson breaks 50 (but not twice): I got hooked on Bryson’s Break 50 series later in 2024, and I’m kind of into it. By my count, there were four 50s but no 49s. I think he gets one this year but does it with another pro — maybe a Range Goat or a fellow Crusher.

6. YouTube golf takes over tour golf: This is somewhat related to the above, and while there’s no real way to measure it, I think this is the year that YouTube golf breaks through as a real alternative to tour golf. This has already been happening, for sure, but I think the drip-drip-drip is about to be an explosion, and I think real advertisers — big boys — are going to start to turn their attention to the YouTubers more and more because of the value they get from a fraction of the spend elsewhere in golf.

Back to Prof G.

The way he feels about podcasts broadly is how I feel about YouTube golf specifically.

I think the delta between share of attention and share of ad revenue, specifically in the golf space on YouTube is about to close. There’s too much money in golf, too much fracturing in traditional golf and too many smart people in advertising for it not to.

7. Rahm wins a major: He’s had fallow periods before and bounced back with major championships. I’m going down with the “he’s generationally great” ship. All the way in. Also, his demise a year ago was highly exaggerated. His numbers over the last year are actually excellent, but the narrative was bad because he sucked at the majors.

Here are the major numbers.

And now his overall numbers since Jan. 1, 2024. It’s basically Scottie [Red Sea] Xander [medium gap] Rahm [smaller gap] Rory [small gap] Morikawa [small gap] everyone else.

Here’s another way to look at it. I put strokes gained per round on the Y axis and wins on the X axis. Scottie is … very LOL, but the guys I’m in love with are the ones moving toward the top left who put up numbies but didn’t win much and didn’t win any high profile events. The Rahm, Morikawa, Ludvig crew.

8. Collin Morikawa, PGA Tour Player of the Year: Speaking of! I think we get a career year from Morikawa. A major, a handful of wins and his first POY. Scottie has won three consecutive POYs (more on him in a minute), but I think Morikawa does something like U.S. Open-Players-playoff event. Just something sick. I know I said on Tuesday that he decidedly does not have that gear, and this would seemingly go against that, but I do think both can be true.

9. Scottie wins five more times: Like Karl Malone in 1997, I think everyone will get bored with Scottie winning MVPs and give it to Morikawa, but Scottie is still going to have another monster year.

Here’s a stat to consider: In 2023-2024, Scottie’s xWins number was 12.1. That’s expected wins based on how well he played (example: If you gain 6 strokes per round on the field in a given event, your xWins is, like, .99). In those two seasons, Scottie won 12 times, meaning he’s actually winning (slightly) less than the numbers would say he should.

I have mild concerns about the hand, but he’s in the middle of an all-time run.

10. The role of golf media shifts: This again will be difficult to measure, but here’s a tweet (and response) I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Because of No. 2 and No. 6 above and because LIV and the Euro Tour joining forces seems more likely than LIV and the PGA Tour, I think golf is only getting more fractured. Not quite like soccer, but I don’t think we’re running toward that world tour some (like me) have been clamoring for. Here’s the thing about a sport getting more fractured, it gets much more difficult to follow.

Anecdotally, I had a friend tell me recently that he listens to Shotgun Start far more than he actually watches golf. I think we are entering a golf era where the consumption of pro (and even amateur) golf content will happen not through watching events or even highlights of those events but almost vicariously through NLU, Fried Egg and hopefully even this newsletter.

That makes our jobs a little more complex but the long tail of golf being played so many different places can serve as a bit of a moat for us. You don’t have time to find fun golf stories for eight hours a day, but we do and then we can deliver them in one or two newsletters or a podcast throughout the week.

People will still mostly watch the majors, but ratings for almost everything else will decline — especially the legacy stuff (ratings for new stuff like TGL can’t decline). However, I don’t think people will be less interested in golf broadly, which means they will start leaning even more on independent golf media to help them understand and contextualize what’s happening in preparation for the weeks in which they actually tune in.

Thank you also for reading until the end.

You’re a sicko for reading a golf newsletter that is 2,235 words long.

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