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Issue No. 187 | April 17, 2025

I honestly cannot believe — with absolutely zero ill will intended toward the good folks of Hilton Head, South Carolina — that there is another PGA Tour event this week.

Felt like they might just cancel the rest of the season.

I have gotten a lot of "buddy, time to move on” on Twitter (a lot of this). 

It’s not.

No, probably like the 14th best golfer of all time just did something that five other humans have ever done, and he did it after a decade of build up at the most prestigious place he could have done it. It’s not time to move on. We might actually just be getting started.

That’s the whole point of having my own enterprise. I can talk about the 2025 Masters for the rest of 2025 if I want. I won’t, but I might.

He won the slam! We might be underplaying it. It feels like we should throw him in Arnie’s red car and at least let him cruise through Times Square for like 5-10 minutes like they used to do when we were a proper country.

Part of me feels like some people are like, well I guess it’s RBC Heritage time! which is such an unusual normal sport-y thing about golf and tennis. The biggest events happen in the middle of the season. Would be like jamming the World Series in June and then having to pay attention to three Royals-Tigers matchups the following week.

If this was the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl, we absolutely would be breaking down what happened and the implications of it for weeks and weeks and weeks. As it stands, Harris English and J.T. Poston are playing 18 holes at an elevated event today.

That’s weird, but also we don’t have to think about it, talk about it or care about it.

The majors obviously mean the most, this one perhaps more than any I’ve ever covered. So the question is not when are you going to stop talking about it. No, the question is why in the world would you want to talk about anything else?


Presented By

On Sunday, I was wearing my Garmin Approach S70 at Augusta National during the final round. I thought it would be fun to go back and pull my heart rate compared to a normal day at that time.

The first one is a normal day. Living in that 70 BPM range with a spike up to 97, probably with a kid hollering at me or something. The second one is Sunday during the back nine.

Never really dropped below 100 and spikes into the 140 range. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Also, a huge thanks to Garmin for both outfitting me for that event, my own golf adventures and presenting this newsletter. We literally could not do it without them, and they have been a tremendous advocate for the work we’re doing.

You should check out all the golf gear they have available.


Also, congratulations to the following on winning our giveaways from Sunday.

Turtlebox: Tyson B.
OGIO: Lane C.
Precision Pro: P. Healey
Holderness: D.B.
Seed Golf: Harrison A.
Meridian: D. Char

Turtlebox: I gave away our last Turtlebox speaker to J. Fletch on Twitter, who guessed last week that Rory would win at -11. We had 3-4 guesses on Rory at that number, but J. Fletch got it in first.


Lastly, congratulations to our fantasy contest winner, Eric P. who won it all with a team of …

Scheffler
Spieth (had to)
Day
Rose
Mav
Harry English
Max
Schenk

Here’s what Eric said about his $2,500 win.

Just wanted to send you a quick note of thanks. Normal Sport is the perfect example of why paid media is important. I really enjoy your writing and wish you all the success in the world with the endeavor.  

Still debating what I am going to do with the winnings, right now it's between a new set of irons (will they actually help a 16 handicap?) and a golf trip with my wife.

The Rory Masters was a Shakespearean play, no idea how golf in 2025 can keep it up, but I'm here for it with you.

Can’t wait to do it again for the PGA!

If you’re a Normal Club member, you’re invited to play.


13 More Thoughts on the 2025 Masters

1. Here’s a great normal sport point. Did … a hurricane named Helene get Rory over the line at Augusta National? Much was made about the loss of trees at ANGC, and it was certainly noticeable in person. The tee shot on 10, behind the green on 15 and (most visually striking to me) up the right side on 16. Even up the left on 13.

Someone who knows things told me over 1,000 trees.

I have no idea what the actual number was, but it is not inconceivable that all of this saved Rory, what, a shot? Two shots?

I've rode my luck all week. And again, I think with the things that I've had to endure over the last few years, I think I deserved it. 😂 

So, yeah, anytime I hit it in the trees this week, I had a gap.

A natural disaster to devastating a community like that is so awful, and it definitely owed us a changing the course of golf history in the most optimistic and best way possible.


2. I rewatched some of the back nine on Tuesday with my sons. He could have lost 100 different times. I just now saw Rose’s eagle putt on 13 😲. The hooked shot into 11. Trevor said it was 6 inches from going in. It may have been less.

All of it was so precarious, so close to going differently. It reminds me of a thing I wondered during LACC: It's not as astonishing to me that Brooks Koepka has won five of these or McIlroy has won four as it is that anyone ever wins one at all.

One way to view it is that he shouldn’t have hit it in the water on 13, which is true.

Here is another way to view it …

One of the things that I think about a lot is how few chances players have to win majors. It could be one single swing or maybe, if you’re lucky, nine holes. Then it’s over before it feels like you even began, and this thing you’ve been working for your entire life, well, you’ll never get another chance.

I felt that after St. Andrews in 2022. Just the gasping and overwhelming desperation of it’s over, gone, like a vapor, and we can never go back to that place again. I never get that shot again. Never get that putt back.

Golf is slow until it’s unfathomably fast.

To even be able to function in that crushing, oxygen-depleted environment — especially with his history and the journey he’s been on, what he knew he needed to accomplish — is amazing.

To hit three straight 1-in-29,000 shots is almost beyond belief.


3. I have not totally missed not having a podcast myself … until this week. I have been dying to talk about this, to talk about my experience, to tell the story in a longer form. May have to revisit that decision. My wife said I should just release four episodes a year and call it good. 🤔

And speaking of pods, you should listen to this one from NLU. It is an immersive audio experience right in the heart of Augusta National.

Neil and KVV were mic’d up all week just running around getting the best of what that place has to offer.

When the boys told me about it last week, I presumed it would drop in like May or June. “Nah …. Tuesday,” they told me. I was stunned at the turnaround time. Even more so at how good of an idea it was.

Someone recently asked me to break down what it was like to be on 15 with my friends. You can literally hear the moment on here at the 1:02:45 mark. All-time shot, all-time moment, and that 1:02:45 mark is an all-time memory for me. I’ll never forget it.

I get chills just thinking about it.

Whew.


4. One mini moment that didn’t get enough run: Rory completely breaking down when talking about his mom and dad in Butler Cabin. It was so good, so real. Some people probably wonder what I mean when I say ridiculous things like that Rory has preserved his own humanity. This is what I mean.

Pro golf grinds you up, spits you out, lobotomizes your emotions.

You are literally told that to be better at golf, you need to control your emotions. And Rory? Plenty of people cry after winning the Masters (or a different major), but so rarely do they disclose this much.

He has always been almost ashamed of his gifts.

I’ll never forget the Jaime Diaz article from 2015.

"Until just a few years ago, I don't want to say I felt guilty for being successful because I had this ability given to me, but it was sort of like, 'Why me?' " he says. "Because I felt like it's a very selfish thing to be a winner, a very selfish trait. Which is what you sort of need in golf. And I guess it just took me a while to be comfortable with that, just because of the personality I have.

“I realized that if I want to succeed in golf, which I do, I need to have it. What helped was realizing how much people like winners, how people gravitate to them. So if other people are happy for me winning, then why can I not be?"

"Now I want to win at golf all the time. I feel like golf has allowed me to be competitive at something in life—and my fitness has become part of that—and I feel like I've developed a bit of a ruthless streak on the golf course over the last few years. But I've no real ambition to be the best at anything else. If we're playing a game of cards, or a game of pool, or whatever it is, I'd happily let someone win just to keep them happy."

He still has a bit of that. Watch this interaction with Jamie Weir.

One of the six humans to win a slam, and he talks as if he doesn’t deserve to be mentioned alongside anyone.

Like I said on Sunday: With the golf gods now, but among that group, surely, the most human of them all.


This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …

  • My notebook from Sunday.

  • How Pat Reed nearly spoiled the party.

  • A take I’m scared to say out loud.

  • The weight of time.

If you aren’t yet a Normal Club member, you can sign up right here.

If you are, keep reading!


Join the Normal Club to read the rest …

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