Greetings!
I am back from the best sporting event going over the weekend.
Stanley Cup
NBA Finals
Canadian Open 😂
World Cup
The College World Series
I head to Shinnecock on Tuesday afternoon for the U.S. Open, and it’s going to be wonderful, but will it top four college baseball games with my son — who happens to be the perfect age for enjoying the CWS — and new friends (and Normal Sport readers!) Mike and Liz B. who gifted us tickets in Omaha over the last few days?
Kinda doubt that.
Some thoughts on the CWS experience below along with what I’m looking forward to about the 126th U.S. Open and other stuff I’m reading and thinking about right now.
Name drops today: Thomas Jefferson, Gene Littler, Owen Hull, Bud Cauley and Rafa Nadal.
Today’s newsletter is presented by a first-timer, our friends at … OMNI!
Speaking of my son (!) and of Father’s Day this weekend (!) I would like to point you to The Generation Cup, which is an incredible event, hosted at OMNI golf courses, where teams of two compete locally to advance to the national championship across three different divisions. The divisions …
Grandparent-grandchild
Parent-child or aunt/uncle and niece/nephew
PGA Professional-generational family member
My son and I did the parent-child division at PGA Frisco in 2024, and it was about as much fun as I’ve ever had playing golf.
OMNI offers 12 different locations throughout the country from June 2026 through February 2027 where you can contend.
You can check out those dates and locations right here.
The combination of getting to compete with my son — who always notes how much longer he is than me, even though he tees it up like 120 yards ahead of me (!) — on elite golf courses with other moms and dads and grandparents and their kids.
Well, it is an exceptional experience that I could not recommend more highly. If any of that interests you — and I’ve seen our survey results so I know almost all of it does! — then you should check out The Generation Cup right here.
OK, now onto the news.
1. I woke up on Monday thinking about how we’re kind of due for an elite U.S. Open champion. Since Brooks won it in 2018, we’ve gotten the following.
2019 — Gary Woodland (only major)
2020 — Bryson
2021 — Rahm
2022 — Fitzpatrick (only major)
2023 — Wyndham (only major)
2024 — Bryson
2025 — J.J. Spaun (only major)
I was listening to the excellent U.S. Opens draft by NLU and as they rattled off guys like Hogan, Tiger, Palmer and Nicklaus among their winners, I was thinking about how we haven’t had a tremendous champion in a while.
The obvious objections here are Bryson and Rahm. Bryson is going to be a no from me, dawg, if we’re talking about all-time greats, although he could still get there. Rahm is … I mean, we’ll see. I fall on the side of thinking he’s going to be an all-timer, but a lot of work to do. And our recent run of champs is nothing like what we used to get.
Look at this in the 1960s and into the 1970s.
Everyone on this list won multiple majors except for Littler, Venturi and Moody, and seven of the winners won at least six majors. There are probably only three active players who even have a chance at reaching six major championships!
The U.S. Open is wonderful because Jack Fleck and Michael Campbell and Scott Simpson can win it. But the truly memorable ones have been won by the all-time greats. The right bet is probably to be on a more random winner (Spaun, Rai etc.) — especially in this era of more parity — but the dream of course is for the guy who’s favored to win the grand slam or for someone in this field to get to six and tie Phil or someone else to get to seven and tie Palmer.
2. Here are the top 13 performers at U.S. Opens over the last five U.S. Opens (min. 12 rounds played). Interestingly, it only includes two winners (Rahm, Bryson).
I am pretty fascinated by this list. Some questions …
• How has Rory not won one of these?!
• How is Tom Kim ahead of [stares at screen] … Brooks and Bryson?
• How has tom Kim played 16 rounds at the U.S. Open in the last five years?!
• Wait, how good of an iron player is Hideki? Oh, just way better than some of the best of all time at this tournament.
• Who’s going to talk me out of Sam Burns this week?
3. If you have been on the fence about becoming a Normal Club member, this is the perfect week to do so. A lot of our (boots Hokas on the ground) coverage is paywalled, and we’ll be full send almost every day this week for what should be one of the best majors of the last several years. Other member benefits include …
15 percent off all our merch (new H&B order dropping soon!)
Free entry into our $1,250 U.S. Open fantasy contest (link after the jump).
An invite to our Slack channel where we disparage Spieth with ferocity in one breath and praise him incessantly in the next.
It really is a fun community and one we plan on continuing to build out with more and more benefits until it becomes the best deal in golf, thus surpassing LIV Golf swindling Jon Rahm into playing with 47 guys you’ve never heard of because his contract is the most airtight document since Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence.
I suppose we have a ways to go before we get there.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,056 of them) and includes CWS content (the good stuff) as well as our big U.S. Open pool and some notes on Bud Cauley and Rafa Nadal (of course).
By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Access to 100 percent of our content this week.
• An invite to our Slack channel where we watch and talk golf together.
• A free digital copy of our Rory book.
• 15% off to our pro shop.
Kyle is a perfect curator of the necessary moments of levity that accent a sport that will drive most of us insane.
It's a treasure trove of the important, the seemingly important, and — importantly! — the unimportant stuff. It's an asset in my inbox.
Kyle is one of the best in the golf world at finding and synthesizing the absurd, the thoughtful and the fun things that make being a golf fan worthwhile.
Few make the sport feel as fun and as thought provoking.
I’ve always enjoyed your love for golf. So often I see favoritism showed to golfers in the social media world, but I enjoy reading you telling a situation how it is regardless of the person.
The way Kyle has been able to mold a silly Twitter joke (normal sport) into a must-read newsletter on the weekly happenings in our silly game gives a great look into why he's one of the smartest people in golf.
Kyle approaches coverage of the game with both conviction and curiosity
Kyle's content is a product of a sick sense of humour, a clear passion for golf and unquestionable dedication to hard work. That's not normal!
Kyle sees golf in a way that no one else does—and we're all fortunate to get to share in that view through Normal Sport!
Normal Sport is exploratory, sometimes emotional, always entertaining. It also has one of my favorite writers in the biz at its foundation.
Kyle is the best columnist in sports. That he has channeled those talents through strokes gained and Spieth memes is a blessing to golf.
There’s been no one else in golf that has tickled my funny bone as often as Kyle Porter does. He’s been instrumental in ushering in a new era of golf coverage and it’s been a pleasure to be along for the ride in that.
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