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Issue No. 134 | November 27, 2024
Two Thanksgiving takes before we get to some golf notes.
Thanksgiving take No. 1: It’s the third or maybe even fourth-best fall/winter holiday depending on what you consider a holiday and what you consider fall/winter.
I think Thanksgiving is fine, but Halloween (my personal No. 1) and Christmas (my personal No. 2) are both easily ahead of it. And no, I’m not taking questions on my rankings at this time.
Thanksgiving take No. 2: If When I run for president in 2028, my ticket will consist of the following …
1. Shortening the golf season.
2. Globalizing the golf schedule.
3. Pushing Thanksgiving back to the last week of November (like it is this year) and mandating that all Americans who are able to do so take off from Thanksgiving to New Year’s (tantamount to how Europeans take off all of August).
There are a million problems with all three of those ticket items, but that’s what the cabinet is for.
On a more personal (and programming!) note, I do plan on taking a lot of the next five weeks off as I recharge for the 2025 golf season.
We’ll still have content, and I’ll still be around, but I won’t be grinding the rest of this week and I’ll almost completely shut it down the last two weeks of December.
I realize this is a position of privilege that not everyone is afforded this time of year, but it’s something I’ve been looking forward to about having my own business and I’m really grateful for that opportunity.
An aside: Nothing notable ever happens in the golf world during the last two weeks of December. ← I am writing this to assure that that framework deal gets done on, like, December 28.
Meridian Putters, who is a partner for us through the end of 2025 is offering a huge deal (possibly the mega deal) on their junior putters for BFCM. The already well-priced putters are now under $100 (starting at 5 p.m. on Wednesday), and you can get them in pink, green or blue right here.
Wishbones look a little different this Thanksgiving in Normal Sport world.
My favorite part? You can have it engraved with ridiculous things like … NRML SPRT or JHNSN WGNR. Or, you know, just your daughter’s name.
Regardless of how you engrave the putter, go check it out. It’s a wonderful Christmas present idea if your kid is getting into golf (or to get her into golf).
OK, onto the news.
1. Emails like this from readers.
In my dream I was playing a round of golf with Peter Finch (who narrated his every shot, normal sport) and Geno Bonnalie was caddying but also being very rude about my poor play and accused me of cheating at one point!
At the halfway house Peter Finch morphed into KVV who offered me a whisky sour while opining “I may as well enjoy myself” regardless of my golf.
I may need to stay off golf YouTube for a while.Anonymous Reader
Peter Finch, KVV and Geno in the same dream?! Absolutely sociopathic stuff!
Absolutely sociopathic stuff that we love to hear about!
2. This video of Sahith giving his caddie a Rolex. Yeah, I get that it’s first world stuff, but Sahith rules, and the video is less about a watch and more about someone who cares and is thoughtful toward those around him. His caddie had a great (and illuminating) quote at the end: “Even if you didn’t get me anything. Even if you just say thank you, it makes me want to show up and work harder every day.”
3. Jamie Kennedy. Who is perhaps the most curious golf person I know. This question about the most underrated major performance in golf history is terrific, and there are some great answers in there.
The firs place my mind goes is Phil at Kiawah. It’s difficult to see that scenario — a 50+ player beating two major winners (and one legend) who are in (or close to) their primes — happening very much over the next 10-15 years. It was obviously a big deal when it happened, but I think we are still underrating it historically.
Also, you should check out our Q&A with Jamie.
4. Bryson. A thing I was thinking about this week while watching Bryson on Day 15 of trying to make a 1 over his mostly glass house:
Is … is Bryson the needle?
If asked, Bryson might repeat what he said when he was 14 year old: “I don't really try to think about it that as much but it's very very fun for me and I just enjoy having that reputation right now.”
[Illustrator note] And by “thinking about this week” Kyle means “thinking about since Bryson’s Valhalla range session from edition No. 85 of the newsletter.”
Golf lacks characters.
Everyone is a facsimile of Hudson Swafford.
That’s nobody’s fault, those players least of all. But it does make me thankful when a true character emerges, especially in this era of safety and control when it comes to pro careers. Bryson is nothing if not a character, and I’m compelled by pretty much everything he does.
5. That Twitter is still a great place for questions like this.
My answers, by the way.
Vlad
Stafford
I know those are probably not technically correct, but they were the first two (along with Michael Vick) that popped in my head.
The first throw in this video is a joke. A joke!
6. Followers who respond to that question like this …
7. The 2025 Fried Egg events schedule. I’ve been to a couple of these, and they are such wonderful days. Probably even more fun than you would imagine they are.
David Hill, who does our business ops, and I played in the Dornick Hills twice in the last few years.
The first year, Fried Egg Will paired us with Brandon Weeden of Browns fame, and who I covered at Oklahoma State. That was great by me as we have a good rapport, but I remember Will pulling me aside, semi-panicked about the pairings right before the event started, saying, “Wait, he doesn’t hate you for anything you wrote about him during his OSU days, does he?!” 😂
You should absolutely check out the Fried Egg events and see if there’s anything even remotely close to where you live. If so, get involved!
8. The response to our membership program. We are up over the Mendoza line (!) and slowly moving toward Harry Vardon’s winning total in the 1898 Open Championship.
And yes, that’s still the Jackson pullover by our friends at Holderness and Bourne.
There are several reasons to become a Normal Sport member (one is that we promise to not keep sending what was supposed to be a member-only email to everyone like we accidentally did on Friday). 🫠
But the most compelling one (I think!) is that the more people become members, the longer we can do this as a full time job.
The feedback on the newsletter so far has been something along the lines of This is what you’re supposed to be doing with your career!, which I agree with. And the more that membership number increases, the longer I can do what I’m supposed to be doing with my career.
In the words of Elvis [Smylie], It’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready now go cat go…
9. Colin and Samir. If you don’t follow their show, it is incisive, thoughtful and inspirational. I love it. They interviewed Dude Perfect recently, and it dropped last week. The interview is excellent, and one big takeaway that you guys will be interested in: DP wants to get into golf at some point in some capacity. Would watch!
10. CJ Chilvers’ newsletter. I heard recently that a brand is the feeling you get in your gut when you interact with someone’s product or service. If that’s true — and I believe it is — then the brand of CJ Chilvers, who you have probably never heard of, is world class because every time he publishes something, I find myself excited.
This week’s post on newsletters becoming more personal was great and aspirational.
As for the gut feeling we’re trying to bring about at Normal Sport?
A level of excitement about seeing our newsletter in your inbox that makes you not open it right away because you want to wait until later, when you actually have 5-15 minutes to truly enjoy it.
Maybe I’m alone, but the newsletters and content I enjoy the most, I often put off reading until later — usually right before bed — so I’m free from other distractions. I also look forward to reading them all day.
11. This call by James. I don’t know if I’m glad that this seems like the trajectory for Golf Channel — to be folded into PGA Tour Enterprises as its media arm, but it does seem obvious that this is the trajectory for Golf Channel.
12. You, dear reader. I have said it 1 million times, and I will not stop. Because what so many entities — this is not a PGA Tour subtweet, though it could be — lose sight of is the fact that without an audience, there is nothing.
The only thing that matters is delighting each individual member of an audience because if you lose that then everything else is just lipstick on a pig.
My friends just got back from NYC where they saw Wicked. “Our jaws were just on the floor the entire time,” one of them told me.
That should be the goal of every business. It’s not always easy to do, but the default is that you should aspire to it in every single way. I’m hopeful that this has been at least part of your experience at Normal Sport and that it continues to be.
Thank you also for reading until the end.
You’re a sicko for reading a golf newsletter that is 1,741 words long.
We would love to have you as a member.
We would also love for you to get a putter.
We hope that if we post this illustration enough, future Johnson Wagner Normal Sport cards will become as valuable as the T206 Honus Wagner.
