AUGUSTA, Ga. — Good afternoon from ANGC. The weather is perfect here. There isn’t a favorite. Jose Maria Olazabal is gunning for Bryson’s record of ♾️ balls hit on the range this year and I spent all day gathering information, quotes and nuggets from the grounds.
One note before we jump in: Our Normal Sport fantasy contests are live on Splash Sports. We are running two contests this year. A big money one for members only (you can still join the Normal Club and get into that one) and one for all readers.
Both presented by Sap’s Original.
The contest is free to enter (with a free Splash Sports account), and first prize is $500. The game is to pick eight players at various tiers. Worst score is dropped, and your other seven are added up. Best score wins, and we pay out the top three spots. I’m not afraid to drop my team right here to see if you can top it.
You can join our contest for everyone right here.
Name drops today: Ethan Fang, Nick Faldo, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day’s balloons, Ben Hogan and Webb Simpson.
Thanks to Sap’s Original for not only sponsoring this year’s fantasy contest but also being a supporter of this newsletter and our hydration. Our bodies thank you.
With how toasty it’s slated to be this weekend, I am in desperate need of some Sap’s Original right now at ANGC. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait until I return home.
Their products contain an ingredient stack that actually works together. Electrolytes for hydration. Adaptogens for stress and balance. Aminos to help your body recover faster, even if that recovery is simply stress from watching Jordan Spieth play his first 18 holes on Thursday.
Check them out right here.
OK, now onto the news.
I watched the every hole video with Rory on the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, and I have some thoughts.
1. It is straight up better than the Amazon documentary. I didn’t dislike the documentary at all — I thought it was solid — but the every hole piece is a little nerdier and, somewhat strangely, more emotional. In retrospect, I would like to echo something DJ Pie said the other day that the Amazon doc needed to be more of the people around Rory talking about what that moment and week were like. His parents were the stars, and we needed more from people like his parents and probably a little less from Rory himself.
2. The way he explains what happened on 15 in the “every hole” piece was exceptional. He basically said he couldn’t turn that shot over too much, that it was impossible to do so. Which meant there was some freedom in the swing. And I think we all are aware by now that Rory playing with freedom is, like, a top eight golfer ever.
3. His tears at the end are emblematic of why Rory has become Rory. He is one-in-10-million good at golf. He is also, somehow (?), generationally good at processing through what has happened throughout his life. That combination makes for a one of one athlete. Nobody quite like him. Tiger and Jack were better at golf, obviously, but not as good at talking. A few have been better at talking and presenting but not close to his golf. There are very, very few that have ever been quite like Rory. Not just in golf history but in sports history.
4. My favorite part of the video, which you should go watch, happened when he started listing off the grand slam names.
Sarazen
Hogan
Player
Jack
Tiger
… Rory
Here’s what he said.
It echoed something he said in the Amazon documentary.
I once wrote the following about him.
My favorite thing about Rory throughout his career has been his continued disbelief that he gets to be Rory and that everything he dreamed about as a kid came true. The preservation of childlike joy as an adult is a rare and unusual thing.
Me
It’s difficult to imagine Tiger (or Jack or really any of the greats) saying, “Why me?” about the life they received, the things they accomplished, the work they compiled.
Perhaps it gets old, me talking about this all the time. And I understand that. But the truth is that the display of humility and gratitude from Rory here are things I need to be reminded of on a daily basis. So even if I’m just writing this to myself, that’s OK. May I never presume entitlement to any good thing. May I never tire of saying, “Why me?” to every good gift. It is a wonderful way to life life and one I aspire to every day.
1. We got a great one on Monday with this exchange.
Q. Do you still do that thing with the balloon?
JASON DAY: Yeah, every now and then. Essentially what happens is you have to really understand why things go wrong in your body. So for me, my diaphragm tightens up a lot … the psoas, even the QLs, everything comes in pretty close and they're the main spots that are problems for me.
👌👌👌
2. Tag me next time, Jamie!
I did an hour with U.S. Open champion, Webb Simpson, on what playing the Masters is like, what the hardest shots are, who he likes this week and why the par 3 is his favorite day of the year (and also one of the more normal sport days in golf).
Webb brought a ton of energy, and we had a great time with this one.
Jose Maria Olazabal finished third in most shots hit on the range on Monday and is currently T1 at the time of this writing on Tuesday (although Bryson doesn’t have a champions dinner to attend so I presume JMO will be T2 by the end of the evening).
Anyway, the Spaniard delivered one of my favorite quotes of the week so far.
The feelings are great. Every time I come here, this is a very special place for me, for my heart. I have wonderful memories. This place has given me so much in my career for major events. It's always fantastic to be back here.
JMO
This is a very special place for me, for my heart is such a cool quote. I love it. I love this tournament and how it is often seemingly barely about the golf itself.
In reflecting on my “10 most likely to win the Masters” list from Monday, I have one regret. I would take Hideki out — even though I stand by how great he’s been here — move everyone up one spot and slide P Reed into the No. 10 spot.
After listening to one of the NLU pods on Monday evening, I went back and looked up who the best players of the last three years have been, and Reed is smack in the middle of some horses.
Part of the reason for this (I believe) is something from the Data Golf newsletter last week about around-the-green play.
In terms of which categories drive overall scoring variation, we've seen that off-the-tee and approach are similar to PGA Tour averages (15% and 35%, respectively). The main difference is on and around the greens, where around-the-green has driven more of the variation in scoring compared to a typical tour stop, while putting has driven relatively less.
Data Golf
Look at the last 10 winners of the Masters.
Rory — Amazing short game.
Scottie — Maybe best short game in the world.
Rahm — Insane hands.
Hideki — Underrated short game.
DJ — Eh, November Masters.
Tiger — One of the great short games ever.
Reed — Maybe the best short game of any player not named Scottie.
Sergio — Spanish hands, baby.
Willett — Decent short game.
Spieth — Freak show.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that you have to be amazing from your second shot to your first putt at Augusta, and Reed often is.
All of this sounds outrageous. Patrick Reed with more Masters wins than Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy? But the three best players over the last three years at the Masters are as follows.
1. Scottie Scheffler — 42 SG
2. Ludvig Aberg — 27 SG (only 8 rounds)
3. Patrick Reed — 36 SG
That’s a T4-T12-T3 run from Reed, and he’s been awesome this year. Absolutely believe he will be in the mix at some point this week.
1. There are no storylines.
2. Looking back at Rory’s win.
3. ???
4. Scottie goes for three in five years.
5. First timers.
One of the underlying feelings after having been on property for a day — at least for me — is that Rory winning the slam last year let a bit of air out of the balloon as it relates to the juice of this tournament. I always have a bit of a difficult time wrapping my arms around a major in the first few days of being on site, but this particular major feels especially low key right now.
That will change by Thursday afternoon — it always does — but this lead in is less boisterous than maybe any I’ve covered here over the last decade.
Also, the irony in all of this is that Rory is — at least in terms of the actual golf — very much flying in under the radar (which is kind of amazing!).
Bryson talks about equipment the way those on the cutting edge of self-driving cars always talked about them. There was a 10-year period there where all we heard was things like, Trust me, self-driving cars are coming. They’re going to change everything. You won’t believe it when it happens! It got to the point that when it did actually happen, we were all so numb to the reality that we barely noticed.
Bryson’s first quote today.
Bryson: South Africa I was trying wedges. So I was going quite a bit down a rabbit hole there and figured a couple cool things out. Hopefully it helps this week.
Then I am working on irons, building irons, building a driver. So we'll see where it goes, we'll see where it takes me. All I could say now is, if I don't put them in the bag, it's my fault now.
Q. Can you say what clubs they might be?
Bryson: It's my own personal clubs I'm building.
Q. With Bettinardi or who?
Bryson: With myself, yeah.
It just always seems like the new Bryson-specific equipment is a tournament away or three months in the making or whatever. It’s Bryson’s version of Spieth saying, “we’re close!”
Are we, though?
• This video of the third hole is exceptional.
I told Jamie Kennedy, who edited the video, that I always feel smarter after watching the work the Digest team puts out on YouTube. You will absolutely watch the third hole differently than you did before after consuming that video.
• Speaking of Digest, I loved this piece on what it’s like to work inside the ANGC merchandise machine. This part especially was interesting.
There is a tension at Augusta National between the reality of a private club with very wealthy, very powerful members, and the gates being thrown open once a year to the public. I came to think that the tension is most glaring in merchandise, because the culture that has emerged, with the brand becoming so popular that it's almost a rat race at the main shop, goes against the southern gentility they like to cultivate as an image.
Golf Digest
• Let me be the 1,000th person to recommend KVV’s piece on Scottie. It is excellent, and the quotes from Spieth and Rory about chasing shiny things and how Scottie refuses to do it are 🎯🎯🎯.
Scottie (sort of) talked about this in his presser on Tuesday when he was asked about why he didn’t post about his new baby on Instagram.
Sometimes I think it feels like we live almost two separate lives, where I have this life where I come out here and play and compete, and sometimes my friends are brought into that arena that I kind of live in out here. There's a few tournaments my friends get to come to each year. …
It's fun for them to be able to experience it with me, but when we go home, I don't feel any different than my other friends. I still feel like I go to work each day. It doesn't feel like I'm sitting at a desk obviously. I love my job, but I don't feel any different than I did when I was a kid.
So I don't see why I would need to live any different or do anything like that.
Scottie Scheffler | 2026 Masters
A very, very unusual person.
I’ve said it before, but can’t believe I get to cover him and Rory in their respective primes.
This section will include bits and pieces I gathered from the course on Tuesday.
• I watched Viktor Hovland tee off the first hole on Tuesday alongside Ethan Fang and Co. After Fang teed it up from where the tee markers were on Tuesday, I watched Hovland skip a few paces back to where he thought the tee markers would be on Thursday or beyond. Pro stuff. Love to see it.
• Soly and I had lunch on the veranda on Tuesday. A wonderful time talking and catching up about life, our families and how both of our business evolved from one night when we threw a phone on a table in Minneapolis, Minnesota 10 years ago and yelled into it for an hour.
• Sitting up on the veranda for lunch is one of the most bizarre experiences you can have here. Oh, there’s Ben Crenshaw 7 feet away from me holding court. Oh, there’s an entire table of Euro Ryder Cup wives. Oh, Nick Faldo is waiting for us to come down the stairs so he can go up. Just surreal experience after surreal experience.
• Rory stopped by our table at one point so of course we talked about … how the cricket episode of Bluey makes all of us emotional. Oh, and good luck with your speech at the champions dinner tonight.
• Bryson said in his presser that there’s a new tree up the left on No. 2 that forces you to maybe change your line a bit off that tee. I thought that was pretty interesting. It’s always in the details here.
• I also thought this was interesting.
Q. You feel confident that you'll play at Adare Manor?
JON RAHM: Yes.
Me …
OK, that’s it for me today. I’m headed out to get some more scenes on the course, check out the prelude to the champions dinner and go buy some merch my kids don’t need with money I shouldn’t spend.
Thank you for reading our outrageous golf newsletter that is sometimes (but often barely) about golf. Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason from all over the world. This week, I’m in Georgia, Jason is in Amsterdam and our podcast producers are in Dallas.
The internet stinks for a lot of reasons, but it is awesome in this very specific way.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Good afternoon from ANGC. The weather is perfect here. There isn’t a favorite. Jose Maria Olazabal is gunning for Bryson’s record of ♾️ balls hit on the range this year and I spent all day gathering information, quotes and nuggets from the grounds.
One note before we jump in: Our Normal Sport fantasy contests are live on Splash Sports. We are running two contests this year. A big money one for members only (you can still join the Normal Club and get into that one) and one for all readers.
Both presented by Sap’s Original.
The contest is free to enter (with a free Splash Sports account), and first prize is $500. The game is to pick eight players at various tiers. Worst score is dropped, and your other seven are added up. Best score wins, and we pay out the top three spots. I’m not afraid to drop my team right here to see if you can top it.
You can join our contest for everyone right here.
Name drops today: Ethan Fang, Nick Faldo, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day’s balloons, Ben Hogan and Webb Simpson.
Thanks to Sap’s Original for not only sponsoring this year’s fantasy contest but also being a supporter of this newsletter and our hydration. Our bodies thank you.
With how toasty it’s slated to be this weekend, I am in desperate need of some Sap’s Original right now at ANGC. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait until I return home.
Their products contain an ingredient stack that actually works together. Electrolytes for hydration. Adaptogens for stress and balance. Aminos to help your body recover faster, even if that recovery is simply stress from watching Jordan Spieth play his first 18 holes on Thursday.
Check them out right here.
OK, now onto the news.
I watched the every hole video with Rory on the trip from Dallas to Atlanta, and I have some thoughts.
1. It is straight up better than the Amazon documentary. I didn’t dislike the documentary at all — I thought it was solid — but the every hole piece is a little nerdier and, somewhat strangely, more emotional. In retrospect, I would like to echo something DJ Pie said the other day that the Amazon doc needed to be more of the people around Rory talking about what that moment and week were like. His parents were the stars, and we needed more from people like his parents and probably a little less from Rory himself.
2. The way he explains what happened on 15 in the “every hole” piece was exceptional. He basically said he couldn’t turn that shot over too much, that it was impossible to do so. Which meant there was some freedom in the swing. And I think we all are aware by now that Rory playing with freedom is, like, a top eight golfer ever.
3. His tears at the end are emblematic of why Rory has become Rory. He is one-in-10-million good at golf. He is also, somehow (?), generationally good at processing through what has happened throughout his life. That combination makes for a one of one athlete. Nobody quite like him. Tiger and Jack were better at golf, obviously, but not as good at talking. A few have been better at talking and presenting but not close to his golf. There are very, very few that have ever been quite like Rory. Not just in golf history but in sports history.
4. My favorite part of the video, which you should go watch, happened when he started listing off the grand slam names.
Sarazen
Hogan
Player
Jack
Tiger
… Rory
Here’s what he said.
It echoed something he said in the Amazon documentary.
I once wrote the following about him.
My favorite thing about Rory throughout his career has been his continued disbelief that he gets to be Rory and that everything he dreamed about as a kid came true. The preservation of childlike joy as an adult is a rare and unusual thing.
Me
It’s difficult to imagine Tiger (or Jack or really any of the greats) saying, “Why me?” about the life they received, the things they accomplished, the work they compiled.
Perhaps it gets old, me talking about this all the time. And I understand that. But the truth is that the display of humility and gratitude from Rory here are things I need to be reminded of on a daily basis. So even if I’m just writing this to myself, that’s OK. May I never presume entitlement to any good thing. May I never tire of saying, “Why me?” to every good gift. It is a wonderful way to life life and one I aspire to every day.
1. We got a great one on Monday with this exchange.
Q. Do you still do that thing with the balloon?
JASON DAY: Yeah, every now and then. Essentially what happens is you have to really understand why things go wrong in your body. So for me, my diaphragm tightens up a lot … the psoas, even the QLs, everything comes in pretty close and they're the main spots that are problems for me.
👌👌👌
2. Tag me next time, Jamie!
I did an hour with U.S. Open champion, Webb Simpson, on what playing the Masters is like, what the hardest shots are, who he likes this week and why the par 3 is his favorite day of the year (and also one of the more normal sport days in golf).
Webb brought a ton of energy, and we had a great time with this one.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members and includes …
• Why I need to issue a mea culpa for Monday’s “10 most likely to win” list.
• Some of my favorite quotes from the first two days.
• A bunch of nuggies from the grounds on Tuesday.
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