Issue No. 138 | December 17, 2024

I had a call with illustrator Jason Page on Monday where we just chopped it up for an hour about what we’re making, what we’re thinking and what the future looks like.

Those calls are about as energizing as this job gets.

We could build a miniature clay statue of an exasperated Michael Greller and place it in Central Park!

We could start a YouTube channel dedicated to exploring specifically the strange places that drives on the LPGA end up!

We could make papier-mâché kits of Ludvig and Hovland!

We could build a dancing, shuffling Scheffler doll!

As far as I remember, none of those were discussed. This week anyway.

But the takeaway from Monday for me was that we are starting to reenter a time when Jason and I are focused primarily on content. We have agreed to partnerships with six different brands now, which is a thrill, and frees us up to do our normal work.

If you want to round out that group of partners (spots are going quicker than we thought, but we’re looking for 2-3 more for 2025), please let us know right here. We will get back to you quickly with ridiculous illustrations of your brand in our world more info on our demographics and ad options for 2025.

OK, onto the news.

But First

Speaking of partners, today’s newsletter is presented by Holderness and Bourne.

We’re thankful to work with brands like H&B who encourage us to shed new light on their great products in Normal Sport world. Some might call it a perfect pairing.

For many of us (half of the Normal Sport team), golf right now is primarily an indoor activity. We’re home for the holidays, finding a new putting stroke on the carpet, looking at our closet full of H&B Turnbull shirts and Carter shorts daydreaming of what course will see our fresh scripting first.

You might be in the same situation right now.

If you’re closet isn’t full of H&B, they’ve got you covered for perfect pairings ideas. Having fresh threads for warmer days might be the easiest New Year’s resolution ever.

And if you just can’t wait for warmer days to test your scripting on the course, we’ve got an idea for you, too …

One Thing I Loved

Tuesday’s blockchain bonanza at Shadow Creek between four guys with 13 collective majors got me thinking about the future.

Here’s what Brooks said about the festivities.

"Let's be real -- wouldn't you want to see a LIV versus PGA Tour Ryder Cup-style thing? That is what it is. This is growing into a big thing. That's what will draw the fans."

I’m listening.

“What we're doing is so unique for golf,” he added.

“It could start something going into the future.”

I’m still listening, but I have to say that he’s quite wrong about that last part. This is very much not unique for golf. Matches like this have been happening for a century.

Here’s one from 1929.

Here’s an excerpt about that Hagen-Smith match above.

"The golf course [where they played] had been open for two years when the officers of the Golf Association agreed that there was more promotion to do. Our membership had increased, and play was coming good, but we could not set back on our laurels; we wanted more members.
So we decided that if we could get two top notch professional golfers, and throw an exhibition, it would be a good thing for the course. We negotiated with the Professional Golf Association (PGA), who advised us that Walter Hagen and Horton Smith were on a tour and would be in Chicago within two weeks and could be had.
We closed the deal for a certain day, and paid them $500.00 for the 18-hole exhibition.
We had to get busy quickly. We were able to secure another local sponsor in the Southern Sporting Goods Company. We placed tickets for sale at $1.50 per head and advertised this match in Martinsville, Spencer, Bedford, Columbus, Terre Haute, Linton, etc.
… the people wanted to see these great golfers.
Cascades Golf Course

Tuesday’s match has made me wonder, though, if the future of pro golf looks more like its past than we thought. For players, the old formula went something like this: Win tournaments to gain popularity, make big money in exhibitions on the side.

We all know the money in pro golf right now is completely unsustainable. It doesn’t work. Patrick Cantlay starring in a $12 billion league that also has a rival league which boasts 4-5 of the best players in the world … that is almost certainly incompatible.

Then there’s LIV’s business model, which is going to be a Harvard Business Review case study at some point.

Their expenses were $800 million, and they generated $11 million in revenue.

Why?

But what if the new model is just the old model?

What if we lower the RBC Heritage purse to something more reasonable, and the needle movers reap their rewards on YouTube and elsewhere?

I have a handful of problems with the way some of these made-for-TV matches like the Rory-Scottie-Bryson-Brooks one in Vegas have been presented over the years — they actually need to be less produced than they have been — but Bryson’s YouTube success and Brooks’ comments have me wondering if there isn’t something more here.

YouTube golf is real, but how much bigger could it be if the characters were Scheffler and Rahm and not Grant Horvat and Garrett Clark (no offense to those guys)?

It’s not that big of a leap to think these non-PGA Tour and non-LIV matches could be more of what they were 100 years ago. The distribution model is quite different (not sure how many folks were YouTubing stuff in the ‘20s), but the sponsorship of it could look very much the same.

Maybe it eventually looks different than Tuesday’s match. Or maybe this is the exact space that TGL will capitalize on.

Regardless, the friction between the Tour and LIV is the perfect entry point for something like this, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you kinda sorta be into Abe Ancer and Cam Smith taking on Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele for nine holes at a good golf course with cameras in the players’ faces the entire time?

I think I would.

Plus you get the benefit of the model now working both ways. Here’s what I wrote about Bryson’s experience a few weeks ago.

The only new part is the medium, which has allowed Bryson to gain fans who only care about his YouTube career. I don’t think there were a lot of people who only cared about Sam Snead or Byron Nelson’s barnstorming and trick shot sessions. That model only flowed one way.
Bryson’s cuts both directions, which is fascinating.
Issue No. 136

It remains whether this is viable in the long term.

But in a world with plummeting TV ratings and various players attempting to deliver a product fans actually want, it’s something that’s certainly worth considering.

Rock the Vote

Speaking of tonight. I was thinking about the four guys involved and Bryson’s dig at Rory which was golf funny but not really actually funny (?) and curious about what the perception is on the following question. Feel free to weigh in with commentary, and I’ll give my answer on Thursday.

Normal Sport

1. This is somehow a video about golf. And now I regret not making this fella the Normal Sport logo. Side-eye sheep are great, but this guy? Elite.

2. Not remotely golf related, but I was scrolling through the bowl schedule the other day, and some of these names are just all time.

The cricket celebration bowl!

Sure.

Feels like a Shotgun Start bit where you have to guess what the business does.

If you approached a normal human and said, “What do you think the Wasabi Fenway Bowl” is, how long would it take them to get to a UConn-UNC football game?

Lol.

Why not?

Into it.

The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl! Where are we at in society?

Oh Sure, Sure

We built this little thank you page for anyone who signs up for the newsletter.

That means every new subscriber gets an opportunity to share their story because as one of my friends said recently, “Everybody has at least one insane golf story.”

This, it turns out, is true.

Here’s this week’s.

My father started an awards business 35 years ago and I went to work for him after graduating from school in 2001. It was the era of the fax machine. I walked into the office on a Monday morning to find two orders from Oakland Hills. They were both from the 13th hole, same date, same yardage, same club used, but for two different guys.
I called the shop to be sure that there wasn't an error. There was not. They were in the same group, playing in the club championship, in a match, against one another. They halved with aces. Normal.
Brian

Can you imagine being the first guy?

Halving a 1 in your club championship is totally crazy.

Saban Corner

Your weekly dose of “is this what we want golf to be?”

I stumbled into this chart on Twitter the other day, and it made me wince because I know there’s a similar chart out there re: pro golf that reflects the fact that the game has become statistically tilted toward driver-wedge-repeat.

Smarter and more efficient from the player’s perspective? Absolutely. But a better product when it comes to the sport? Absolutely not.

Consider this from last year’s Walker Cup …

On the 351-yard par-4 12th, one of the Old Course’s most thought-provoking tests with its two blocks of cross-bunkers, Sargent knocked his drive over the three-tier putting surface. No one else was within 30 yards of even the front of the putting surface.
Golf Digest

As always, it is incumbent on the leagues and those running the sport — in golf’s specific situation, the USGA and R&A — to respond to make the pro game as entertaining and competitive as it can possibly be.

This is such a layup for golf — especially compared to other sports — that it’s infuriating that it hasn’t happened yet. Anytime players or teams work to eliminate viable options that increase their chance of winning (i.e. midrange jumpers in basketball or bunting in baseball), it almost always (always?) makes the sport worse.

Options = decisions = intrigue.

Let’s avoid the above chart in golf.

Corrupt Golf Media

👉️ Great normal sport story on a player who got a seven-stroke penalty in the first round of an Australia tournament. The player at hand finished T3 and would have won by four if not for the penalty. Also, the comment at the bottom from Mike Clayton is some truly sicko stuff.

👉️ Tiger hitting balls into the massive TGL screen is such a curiously compelling watch. Sound up. That single video with the raw sound is, I think, the best representation of how cool this league could be.

👉️ Porath on the search for the UHC killer got me.

👉️ SMartin working on a Scottie documentary? Way into that. Word is Scottie and Tiger were both tremendous in it. Can’t wait to watch. And look at the Tour releasing it on YouTube first (Dec. 21)!

👉️ A library of books exclusively made by kids? So awesome.

👉️ We celebrated what would have been our daughter’s ninth birthday over the weekend. If you haven’t read that story, you can do so here.