Issue No. 270 | November 15, 2025 | Read Online
Greetings!
Part of the reason I started Normal Sport is so I could bump a Friday newsletter to Saturday for the sake of taking a fishing trip with my son and my father in law.
None of these babies …
But we caught plenty.
And now there are a few things to catch up on from this week.
Hope you enjoy.
But first … today’s five thoughts are sponsored by our friends at Precision Pro.
In doing some research for this particular newsletter, I learned something about my Precision Pro Titan Elite that I did not already know.
Something that makes me like and appreciate it even more than I already did.
You can watch the review of their Titan Elite right here, but the thing I learned from that review is that there is a GPS inside the Titan Elite that will give you front, middle, back as well as the pin.
This is easy to use, incredibly helpful and a pretty amazing feature for the best rangefinder in the game.
You can check out the Titan Elite right here.
OK, now onto the news.
1. If you play Wordle, you may have seen this week that users can now make their own puzzles. So of course, I made one. It’s seven letters, I won’t give a hint, but I will say that it does have to be an actual word, which I learned by trying to make a puzzle using S-P-I-E-T-H.
You won’t get it. But if you do get it, I will give the first person to send me proof a $50 gift card to our pro shop.
Because I’m pretty sure you won’t get it.
2. Our newest Normal Sport Show episode is out, and I’m very proud of it. You can watch on YouTube right here, listen on Spotify here and listen on Apple Podcasts here. We also put all of our episodes on our website if you want to view them that way.
Luke Kerr-Dineen of Golf Digest was this week’s guest, and we really enjoyed talking ball for 90 minutes.
One theory that was floated by LKD is something I believe in quite adamantly, which is that the nerdier you can get, the more interesting it is and the more people want to know and understand the world you’re inhabiting.
I think about those podcasts LeBron and JJ Redick did where they just got steep immediately on ball.
You think I know what any of this means?
Absolutely not.
But I’m intrigued by people who are obsessed with things, and if I get even a peek into that world or have even a smidgen of interest, I immediately want to know and understand more.
One of the flaws of pro golf — and I would say this is specific to the PGA Tour — is that it tries to dumb things down to be more approachable for everyone.
No!
People can be approachable even if they’re talking about topics that are not. Make it nerdier, make it weirder.
Let people like LKD be approachable people who proselytize the game to the masses — I am so fascinated by this thing, here’s why you should be, too — and all of a sudden the depth of your fan base is growing and not just the breadth.
Anyway, that’s one of the (many) topics we get into on this week’s show.
I said this on the pod, but I always learn from LKD, and he always makes me think differently about the game. I’m sure we’ll have more content that comes out of this particular episode, but I hope for now that it brings you some delight during a down time for golf.
Also, if you’re at a place where you understand this illustration, might be time to reevaluate some things.
3. I had lunch with a friend (and Normal Sport member) this week, and he was asking me about my #process in terms of putting the newsletter together. I told him I have a running Apple Notes note (because of this meme) for podcast ideas and newsletter ideas, but a lot of it is just bopping around the internet and exploring things with my broken golf brain.
That was the case this week when I was reading an article about the best managerial hires by MLB teams going into 2026.
The Braves, I learned, hired Walt Weiss, who I remember watching growing up and who has somehow, inexplicably, morphed into someone who looks like he could be related to Sergio Garcia.
 |  |
Tell me I’m wrong!
So that’s my in depth process for bringing you a newsletter about golf that many people have decided is worth paying real American dollars for!
And if you are one of those people, this post will continue below for you. It includes some thoughts on gambling and golf and how much I appreciated that aforementioned lunch.
Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. I hope you find the parts about golf enjoyable and the parts about our business encouraging, perhaps even for your own endeavors.
4. I loved this from LaMagna on golf and gambling. It’s thorough, smart, scary and one of the main reasons why I don’t believe I would ever partner with a DraftKings-like brand.
Here’s the most intriguing part of his article.
I have never orchestrated a professional golf gambling scheme, but if I were planning one, it would probably look something like this: Recruit some golfers before the start of a season and say, “Hey, any time you’re injured and planning to withdraw from a tournament, either before a tournament or before the start of a subsequent round, let me know. Don’t withdraw before the round. Start the round, then withdraw a couple holes in.
Oh, also, any time you’re playing in an event with a cutline and have no chance of making the cut entering the second round, I’m going to give you the name of a golfer and you’re going to make sure you shoot a worse score than he shoots in round two.”
Then, I would bet on the golfers I’m conspiring with to lose their head-to-head matchups – gambling offerings that pit Golfer A against Golfer B either for a full tournament or for one round – and send players a kickback for taking a dive. Good luck detecting that. Of course, I would get the action down on unregulated, underground sportsbooks that have no real recourse for discovering illegal activity. You have to be a complete moron to try a scheme like this on regulated books.
Fried Egg
This will almost certainly happen if it hasn’t already.
It is justifiable by the player and lucrative for everyone involved (especially a borderline Euro Tour or PGA Tour player who is just eking by from season to season).
I don’t know what the solve is there, but I’m extremely leery of businesses like DK and others that can often be, like JLM points out, extremely predatory.
People don’t just lose money gambling because betting markets are difficult to beat. People lose because the overwhelming majority of sportsbooks impose limits (i.e. effectively shut off) the tiny sliver of the population who demonstrate the acumen to beat a book reliably.
Fried Egg
This is bad, preys on the vulnerable and — in my opinion — is no way to run a business.
It does not engender trust, care or earnestness, which are three of our company values. Instead, it increases revenue at any expense. And I am becoming increasingly convinced that the proliferation of gambling as a thing you can do on your phone with little to no friction is a net negative for sport in general.
5. To counterbalance this with a few things that could be net positive, let me tell you about the lunch I had with Normal Club member, Brett U. on Thursday.
He was in town and reached out to see if I could have lunch, which if you are a Normal Club member (and if you’re reading this, you are!), you should absolutely do.
If I can say yes, I normally do.
Anyway, he gave me three brilliant ideas about how to improve Normal Sport as a business. Ostensibly, I think he was asking me to lunch to see if he could glean any insight for his own business endeavors.
Inevitably, this almost always gets turned the other way around.
The three ideas.
Stronger NS community by letting members interact with each other.
Give readers the ability to gift sales clients a $100 (or whatever) package of NS gear and memberships.
Normal Sport match game for dads and their kids using Jason’s illustrations.
Yes, yes and another hard yes.
The one that excites me most is definitely the last one.
One of my personal goals with Normal Sport is to build products that engender relationship between parents and their kids. Which is why reader Brett sending this is so inspiring.
I also want to fashion it just like my favorite memory game I’ve played with the kids, which is this one from Ben Chaud.
There are 100 takeaways from this interaction an these ideas, but the primary one for me is that a community of 20,000 looking at one leader might be strong, but a community of 20,000 interacting in interesting ways with each other as one leader leads them is so much sturdier. That is aspirational and helpful as Jason, David, Jeff and I continue to try and build this business together.
And if you ever want to support our business, you can buy some Norman merch here (at a discount!) or pass along our site to your golf group chat and get them involved in all this nonsense as well.
Issue No. 270 | November 15, 2025 | Read Online
Greetings!
Part of the reason I started Normal Sport is so I could bump a Friday newsletter to Saturday for the sake of taking a fishing trip with my son and my father in law.
None of these babies …
But we caught plenty.
And now there are a few things to catch up on from this week.
Hope you enjoy.
But first … today’s five thoughts are sponsored by our friends at Precision Pro.
In doing some research for this particular newsletter, I learned something about my Precision Pro Titan Elite that I did not already know.
Something that makes me like and appreciate it even more than I already did.
You can watch the review of their Titan Elite right here, but the thing I learned from that review is that there is a GPS inside the Titan Elite that will give you front, middle, back as well as the pin.
This is easy to use, incredibly helpful and a pretty amazing feature for the best rangefinder in the game.
You can check out the Titan Elite right here.
OK, now onto the news.
1. If you play Wordle, you may have seen this week that users can now make their own puzzles. So of course, I made one. It’s seven letters, I won’t give a hint, but I will say that it does have to be an actual word, which I learned by trying to make a puzzle using S-P-I-E-T-H.
You won’t get it. But if you do get it, I will give the first person to send me proof a $50 gift card to our pro shop.
Because I’m pretty sure you won’t get it.
2. Our newest Normal Sport Show episode is out, and I’m very proud of it. You can watch on YouTube right here, listen on Spotify here and listen on Apple Podcasts here. We also put all of our episodes on our website if you want to view them that way.
Luke Kerr-Dineen of Golf Digest was this week’s guest, and we really enjoyed talking ball for 90 minutes.
One theory that was floated by LKD is something I believe in quite adamantly, which is that the nerdier you can get, the more interesting it is and the more people want to know and understand the world you’re inhabiting.
I think about those podcasts LeBron and JJ Redick did where they just got steep immediately on ball.
You think I know what any of this means?
Absolutely not.
But I’m intrigued by people who are obsessed with things, and if I get even a peek into that world or have even a smidgen of interest, I immediately want to know and understand more.
One of the flaws of pro golf — and I would say this is specific to the PGA Tour — is that it tries to dumb things down to be more approachable for everyone.
No!
People can be approachable even if they’re talking about topics that are not. Make it nerdier, make it weirder.
Let people like LKD be approachable people who proselytize the game to the masses — I am so fascinated by this thing, here’s why you should be, too — and all of a sudden the depth of your fan base is growing and not just the breadth.
Anyway, that’s one of the (many) topics we get into on this week’s show.
I said this on the pod, but I always learn from LKD, and he always makes me think differently about the game. I’m sure we’ll have more content that comes out of this particular episode, but I hope for now that it brings you some delight during a down time for golf.
Also, if you’re at a place where you understand this illustration, might be time to reevaluate some things.
3. I had lunch with a friend (and Normal Sport member) this week, and he was asking me about my #process in terms of putting the newsletter together. I told him I have a running Apple Notes note (because of this meme) for podcast ideas and newsletter ideas, but a lot of it is just bopping around the internet and exploring things with my broken golf brain.
That was the case this week when I was reading an article about the best managerial hires by MLB teams going into 2026.
The Braves, I learned, hired Walt Weiss, who I remember watching growing up and who has somehow, inexplicably, morphed into someone who looks like he could be related to Sergio Garcia.
| |
Tell me I’m wrong!
So that’s my in depth process for bringing you a newsletter about golf that many people have decided is worth paying real American dollars for!
And if you are one of those people, this post will continue below for you. It includes some thoughts on gambling and golf and how much I appreciated that aforementioned lunch.
Normal Sport is supported by exactly 1,012 crazed individuals. By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• A vote for trusted, independent media.
• The delight of helping us establish Normal Sport.
• 15% off to our pro shop (and more in the upcoming weeks!).
• Access to all of our content (like the rest of this post).
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