No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 504: Kyle Porter

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Longtime NLU podcast favorite Kyle Porter joins Soly to recap everything from the past year in golf and give us a preview of his new book Normal Sport. You can find out more information about Kyle's book at ANormalSport.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up podcast. Sully here. Got a fun episode for you here to recap the 2021 year. Had to bring in our main man Kyle Porter.

He was on to help us recap the major championships, of course. And he actually wrote a book on the 2021 season. It's called a normal sport. It might be called normal season. It's called a normal sport, might be called normal sport. It's at anormalsport.com is where you can pick it up. We talked some about that. It's a delightful read. It's an easy read. It's a beautiful time capsule of the year.

And he's got to do one of these every year now because we're going to need these illustrations are fantastic. Great. I appreciate him coming on talking about it on the NLU front. Neel and I have an alternate shot of an a forces event coming up shortly. We have a deep and rich discussion on what golf ball we're gonna use.

I prefer the Chrome soft truvis golf ball. He uses the Chrome soft X with a triple track technology. I like a golf ball that is softer feel, feel soft on my putter face, doesn't spin as much. I don't like my wedges coming backwards too much and launches a little bit higher. That's why I end up at the chrome soft. A lot of people tell me I should play the chrome soft X. I don't necessarily disagree.

It's just a total feel thing for me. I've spent the last couple weeks trying to get used to his golf ball. A lot of people coming up to me saying like, solid, you're just an incredible teammate. I can't believe the sacrifice you're willing to make. I'd love to play in a team event with you. But listen, I'm committed to Nioh as my partner and I'm committed to making the ChromeSoft X work.

It's kind of a little weird to me to see the golf ball spin as much as it does. It feels a little bit more firm on putts. I gotta get used to the feel around that and watching the ball check up a little bit more on chips around the greens. Calaway's got a great golf ball selector tool on their website at calawaygolf.com

and help you identify which ChromeSo soft would be good for you. They also have the chrome soft LS, which is the firmer feel, but doesn't spin as much. The options are endless. So again, check that out calaway golf.com. Hopefully, I have some video content from this tournament as well. So you can see how this little experiment works out without any further delay. Here is Kyle Porter. All right.

This is what happens when you know, you don't have a fall. We need to be covering Oklahoma State football. Kyle Porter sits around and says, like, I got to write a book on golf. Tell us about, tell us about normal sport. Where does normal sport come from? It's become your go-to meme. I just wanted, I want to hear your history of that. Well, speaking of Oklahoma State, I've lost my voice because I took my son to his first college football game on Saturday. Oklahoma State Baylor AT&T, you know, Oklahoma State loses by like two inches. They couldn't get to pile on on fourth down on on Baylor's go on, which is a very kind of normal sport event to happen.

Like, this five months of guy like these elite athletes grinding in the weight room and and you know working on all their plays and all this stuff and it comes down to two inches of a of a pile on cam. So I honestly like like all great bits. I don't totally know

where the golf normal sport things started It it's kind of turned into this saying if every time the one that I think of a lot is when they bring out the The strings To measure if a guy's still in bounce after he's hit a drive on like a Fence line or whatever and you're just, you start to take some of the events that happen in golf out of the context that we live in every day. And you're like, wait a second, this is really weird.

Like this is not a normal thing to happen, but because it's inside the context that you and I are in all the time, we kind of just normalize it and move on. And then you have like beach balls and sandcastles on the on the 18th tee box at the windum, which is in landlocked Greensboro, North Carolina. And you're like, wait a second, this is actually really weird. And yeah, it's just become kind of the bit that I use on Twitter and otherwise. Well, it's a sport that, you know, you, you traverse so much area, you know, like across, you know, so many different events golf courses are vast and spread out wide.

It's not like, you know, going to go see the Charlotte Hornets play on the same dimension, the court that they play out at the crypto.com building out which is formerly the staple center now like It And there's so much stuff that like in the moment it makes tons of sense like oh speed hit it down on the bank He's got to take a she's gonna be standing in the water. He's got to take his shoes off to hit the shot And then if you just like look at if you just scrolling something and you see like somebody with a golfer with their shoes off standing in the water It makes no sense at all. But, uh, you know what I love is you're not like I may have said this on our major recap pod, but you're not an enormous golfer. Like you don't play a lot of golf. You know, you didn't grow up playing golf and you have this like weird appreciation for for golf that makes me feel like my time spent

watching it and covering it is more worthwhile. I just love that. Yeah, thanks for saying that. I think the, I think what you hit on there with like golf being outdoors and it's always at a different place and it always looks different. Like there's so many variables there that lend themselves to like there's just you don't find that many variables at other events. Yeah, you go to different baseball parks and they they're they look different. There may be maybe you got a hill and center field. That's a normal sport thing. Yeah, but you just you have so many different variables to the point. I the thing I thought you're going to bring up with speed is him

Almost running into a lake after hitting a ball against the side of a hill With his with his club and I mean from the beginning though like golf You think about where the way it started was like basically trying to avoid hitting sheep in a field in Scotland And you're like, oh, this is is so weird. Like, it's, it's really and truly like the most the strangest and most bizarre sport I think. And I think that's a lot of what, you know, makes it fun. And I think it's why I, you know, we push back a lot against like, Hey, let's, let's try not to make every event look exactly the same.

That's not the goal here. And I think I've actually come to appreciate the Olympics because of that. And I think you might have had something on this as well, but it's like, yeah, is the Olympics the open? No, of course not. But it's different. It's other. It's kind of a category of its own.

And that's a unique and cool thing that I think I appreciate more now than I did back in 2016 when it when it got ramped back up. Well, it's interesting that it's it's as close to winner take all as we get like fourth place is equal to 60th place. You both get nothing. And you're fighting for three medals, whereas fourth place in a regular PGA tour event gets comes with a six figure paycheck and I don't know for in that regard. It's kind of it's I don't think I've viewed it that way prior leading up to it And I've not been eating for other reasons. I've not been able to watch it. I'll let the golf either time that either you it's been in there But I did joke in the book that if we are awarded medals in regular events, like we do at the Olympics,

that Louis Stason would be like the seventh best golfer of all time. That's interesting, which would be, I do think, I want to know what you think about. Yeah, we could, we could just do this for like five hours, but I'm curious about what you think. I think sometimes in regular tour events, we don't value second and third highly enough. And I really like that the Olympics.

It's very different because the money is obviously different, but I think we need to, there needs to be a way to value second and third more highly. You beat 154 guys in a week and you get nothing other than like the money that comes. I just, I love evaluating guys careers and I just think there needs to be a better way to do that for runner up and third place finishes. It's why I end up in the all these phenal debates. It's like, wait a second here.

We can't T25 is not the same as T2. Like it's just a very different thing. I think a lot of that's on on TV to like tell that story. I think the tour should own that a little bit more. I think also in the same way, like you, you know, I'm reading through your book and you're talking about the Rocket Mortgage class second, I'm like, oh yeah, walk in the even one that.

I don't know, he didn't, Troy Merritt one that, oh, no, no, sorry, he didn't, Cam Davis one that, that's right. I can't keep track of who wins it. So maybe I think I would care a lot more about who finishes second and third and With that many events it's just hard to I don't know properly properly place it but Yeah, we got to talk Louie. That's another big takeaway. I have from reading all that is just like how much that guys You know name comes up and how it just doesn't quite feel right at the more I evaluate his career.

But why? Why write a book about the 2021 golf season? What inspired this? Yeah, it's a good question. So there are two things. I think the first was actually a conversation that you and I had after the open championship. We were talking about. I kind of made the point that I think in 25 years, people will look back.

If they wanted to know what happened in 2021 or 2022 or whatever, they'll look back on your podcast or maybe the shotgun start they're doing their year-end review stuff right now as kind of the time capsule for what happened in that year. And the more I thought about that, the more I was like, man, I'd love to play a part in that. I'd love to create a sort of, hey, this is like all the stuff that mattered to us, you know, idiots like us in 2021 when it comes to golf. And it also gave me an opportunity to just kind of express some other thoughts that I had about the open, about I wrote a ton about the writer kept shockingly that I didn't, it's

hard when you're on deadline and you're writing stuff in the moment. You don't have any, you can't contextualize things, you can't put them in their proper place. And so this was an opportunity to do that. And because it's a lot of fun, you know, I was talking to my wife, we were on a road trip and this was really actually kind of the genesis of it. I said, hey, do you remember who on the masters? And she gets enough from me just yammering all day

to know who won different things like that. And she couldn't remember, and it's just like so much stuff happens in such a short amount of time, that even when I was going back through everything and looking at people's tweets and reading articles, I was like, I did not remember that Bryson had an umbrella guy run with his ball on this green at Capillewa to start the year.

You're like, that's hilarious. It's crazy. Somebody needs to document it. And so it was just, for me, it was so much fun to walk back through the year and remember all those insane things that happened and try to document them in a fun way. It's a very interesting read in the terms of, it's just kind of, it runs like a timeline.

And it says what people were saying at the time and includes tweets there's a ton of Justin Ray stats that that pop out and it it does kind of when when we cover stuff week to week like you said I kind of look back and I'm like wow I mean we did some podcasts whatever but gosh I just like put tweets out into the ether and it's just very unrewarding by the end of it. It's like, it just is gonna sit there forever, but like you go back and read it six months later, like never is it as funny as you thought it was

when you posted it. If you go out and pick the best ones and put them into like a storytelling mode, it's like, oh gosh, I said that, man, that was kind of interesting. I'm kind of proud of myself for that one. Well, I'm glad you said that because I think the way that we use Twitter is, it's been great for us

because I mean, we've talked about this. Like we've both kind of built up careers in a lot of ways on that platform, but it's also just, I think, you know, and I mentioned this in the book, but I think a lot of people that we associate with use Twitter as kind of a testing grounds for stuff that they either want to talk about on a podcast later, maybe talk about on a broadcast later, write about in a column, and

it ends up being to me kind of the best stuff, you know, the best stuff that's out there that gets pulled into these different places. And I just, I don't know that we always used Twitter correctly. And what I mean by that is like the jokes are funny in the moment, it's fun to be scrolling during the final round of the US open. But I think Twitter as a repository for information to go back and look back on, like I tried to leverage its ability to be a repository for all this best stuff.

And then kind of, because you don't want to just like take screenshots of tweets and make a book out of it. You want to contextualize that actually. Yeah, that I should have, that would have been a lot easier, honestly. But you want to contextualize it and kind of give like some color around it. And so that's, that's basically what I tried to do along with reading articles and getting information from other places throughout this book. Well, Twitter, the very best of Twitter

can still be really, really freaking good, right? But you have to sift through these days, especially so much stuff that just bogs you down and isn't that interesting and all that. But every now and then, you know, that it almost kind of waters it down when somebody does hit you with just the proper Elmo Jeff use, which I have to full confession. That's your baby and I've run that one into the ground and I wouldn't need to do that. But I'm curious about what you think about. Do you sense that some of your bits

that you have come up with over the years? Do you feel them getting old? Do you feel a desire to constantly like reinvent what you're saying or how you're saying it? Yes, but also like, I don't know how to do that, right? Like I don't do a lot of torso stuff anymore just because it, you know, I feel like that kind of somewhat run its course, but I don't know. Like my life has do a lot of torso stuff anymore just because it, I feel like that kind of somewhat run its course,

but I don't know, my life has changed a lot. Like I don't sit around and think of memes nearly as much as I did when I was 28 and starting and doing this now. Thankfully. Yeah. I just, I focus more now on the podcast and then I do on Twitter just because, like I said, it's just not as rewarding, but it is like, I don't know, there's still certain days where things just

are a buzz and it's so much fun. And you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe I missed this. I got to get to a, you know, it can be such a, it's such a good gateway into like finding out what's going on in this board because you don't need to watch all of it. You really don't, but you feel like an idiot when you miss something crazy and you're, oh gosh, that was 30 minutes ago. I missed it. There would have been a great opportunity there, whatever. But yeah, because I think the reward from and we see this play out specifically in major weeks, but the reward from watching all of it is you get Grear and Spieth at the hero on a Thursday afternoon and Grelar is just like, hey, did you see this, this exchange?

Probably not. Catch me up. Spieth gets into the water to get a, like he's hitting his ball out of like the side of the water kind of hill thing. And he's going for the green and he's telling Grelar and Grelar is like, if you were six under, do you think like, is this where you would hit that shot? And he goes, well, Michael, I'm not six under. Am I? And, and you just get Greller with this like thousand yard stare and it's very like emblematic of the relationship and the way they communicate, but you get these like rewarding nuggets

if you are in it so much of the time. And that's where I struggle with like, you know, how do I spend my time as I'm kind of like trying to cover all this, but find little stuff like that. And a lot of that stuff that you wouldn't put in a column or you wouldn't really write about, ends up going into a book like this, because I think it's the funniest and maybe most interesting stuff. So I don't, I just went on a tangent there,

but that's a lot of like, kind of what we're talking about, when we're talking about using Twitter as like a repository for the most interesting things. Well, cause now we go back and do these topic based pods every now and then, and they've involved some research for the most part and going back, going back in time and reading about either certain characters, people, or just events that have happened,

like I find myself in Rick Riley columns all the freaking time. Yeah. And I wonder about that for our generation, like the people that are doing this writing, like almost everything I do, especially in the podcast front, is like very, it's not very evergreen, right? I mean, some of the interviews you can always go back and listen to, but like Sunday night pods are like meant to be listened to right there. And I feel like that's the way things are just trending in this world and that people aren't necessarily publishing something or doing something that has a long shelf life. That's what I think this book is different from, and I'm going to, I am going to hold you to it to write one of these

every year now because it's just a great, it's just a great look back at how the year unfolded and it was, it was almost so overwhelming of a year, especially the way it started. I mean, it was just hit after hit after hit this winner. I mean, I don't know about you. We always see big upticks and engagement listens, you know, likes, retweets, all that stuff from January to March. I mean, people are just ready to take golf in at that time of the year. And we get hit with, I know what's your biggest story from the winner?

Is it the return of speed that's like, is it real? Is he, you know, just kind of holding on and making all these puts to Bryson driving it over the pond of Bay Hill, Reed with farmers with a rules official finger inside of depression. It just like was nonstop this winner. And I think the players, yeah, JT, the players JT and Hawaii was an enormous depression. It just like was non-stop this winter and I think the players. Yeah, JT. The players JT and Hawaii was an enormous thing. Obviously. Yeah. There was absolutely just

content for days and it needed to be documented in the book. Kevin now went in the Sony. I mean, who could who could forget that? Truly, if you to just quiz me on like we usually do like a little quiz. We maybe start the new year pod with who won this event. I wouldn't have gotten it. I just had Russell Henley for whatever reason. I felt like that. Oh, for sure.

Russell Henley's won the Sony More Than Speed is won the Masters, even though I think both of them have only won one of each. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I don't know. Did you mention Max Homo at speed in your play? I was talking for too long, and I couldn't I don't know did you mention Max Homo at Did you get to I was I was I was talking for too long and I couldn't even get through everything One of the one of the cool and I got I got to give a shout out to Jason Page is the illustrator of this book and

The illustrations are he's this very unique person where he's really gifted with like design, but he's also like too deep into this stuff Like the meat. Yeah. Oh, like the nuance with which he creates these illustrations is unbelievable And there's a great one and I I texted it to Max and he said he loved it But it was remember when Max's ball was up against the tree on the first playoff hole at Riviera, the illustration is because Max said he called his wife after he missed the three footer, maybe two footer, on 18, and she said, hey, forgive quickly. And I was like, oh, it's not forget quickly, it's forgive yourself quickly. And I was like, that's such a great golf and the life mantra.

And Jason made it into an illustration. And it's, I don't know man, like I'm just, I'm so excited. And I hope that excitement comes out in the way I've been talking about this and tweeting about it and whatever. But I'm so excited about being able to, like you said, document all these things that happened,

looking back on them. How rarely do we look back on stuff that happened 10 months ago and have the context like a fill win at the PGA where you're like, oh, in the moment, it was so hard to wrap our minds around. And now that we have six months, seven months away from it, like, oh, this was, this was even more insane than we could have possibly understood in the moment. So that comes across a lot of like, yeah, well, I was going to ask you what your biggest

like takeaways were revisiting some of these things. And for me, reading it was like, oh my God, we got like, I know we did our major recap on we got to talk more about Philip Keawaii. Like it's kind of, it's kind of like the tiger 2019 matches like we should start every pod at least saying this out loud. Like fill one the 2021 DJ championship. Yeah, totally. I mean, it was, it was, and you had a tweet about it that was like,

imagine telling yourself on January 1st, 2019, that we'd get another Tiger and fill major. Not win, but major. And I think that, yeah, I mean, the fill things stood out. The Bryson being a through line throughout the year. And that's part of the illustration is like, there's all these, he's always popping up with just stuff. I mean, he's, he's the content king for a reason, but

I had forgotten, I had forgotten about the, the, the aliens, the spaceship thing. Yeah, like, we kind of got a little tie. Like, didn't even, all right, well, I know you just had something totally batshit crazy. We're not even going to address that one. Okay, let's focus more on the 208 thing. Like UFOs, that's actually pretty on brand for you. I know you want some attention here. We're not going to give it to you. Like I know you want to say you want to live to 140.

We're not even going to really address that one. Like let's let's stay focused on, you know, some of the all- course stuff going on here. Yeah. So we actually started out Jason and I thinking that kind of the speed roller coaster ride would be the through one of the year. Like, okay, really gets going basically at the beginning of February starts in Phoenix and it just goes until the rider cup. It goes throughout the year. But the real through line, honestly, as I went back through everything was Bryson. And that people may or may not like that. But that's just the reality of like, he owned kind of that three week stretch with Bay Hill and the players.

He leads us open and finishes 25th. How is it? How did that happen? You know, and the stuff at the open championship with the dry. I mean, there was just driver? And the stuff at the Open Championship with the dry, I mean, there was just driver's side. And then even at the driver's side, and the Open just tweeted it out. And then at the Ryder Cup, obviously, just wielding his driver, like it was a sword going in the Smithsonian,

he really was the through-line. And that's, I mean, honestly, Bryce in alone being the through line makes the book worth writing because you're like, that's, that's absurd. Like everything about that is absurd. So I don't know. I'm just saying a bunch of random stuff right now. That's pretty much what I wanted to do today. Anyway, so it's, I know what stood out to you the most. I know what stood out to you the most. I think it is how much major championships matter. Like you don't talk a lot of Thursday, Friday, Saturday of any other tournament, but you really slow things down for the majors, which again, it's really, I think we're getting

led into what you have deemed to be the important parts of of a year on the PGA tour or a year in golf. And that's super, it's super interesting to revisit who is leading after each of those rounds because we want to like, you know, drill everything down to like, oh yeah, John Rom, he won the US Open. Like it was Rom's week. He just did everything. He was like, no, I do like Russell Henley was like a really big factor in all this or Louis, Louis, Louis was the leader after rounds one, two and three at the open championship. And we remember it forever for Morakau's dominance and another close call for Louis. And I've always just viewed major championships as I think I've told you this before, but like I think I could go back to if you just like quiz me

on like what all the way back to the 2000s, even in the late 90s who won this major in this year Like I could probably tell you like it just is their tent poles in my golf experience and it It's what's written on your tombstone and it really matters that much And I think it you know it we waver back and forth when we cover those sport week to week to week You know it can kind of somewhat blend in but it really really, I don't think you'd ever fully will with majors for me. Yeah. I think that's right.

And I really struggled. So I made like a, you probably haven't gotten to this part yet, but I made like a basically an all NBA team for golf this year because I was so annoyed that can't lay one the player of the year over ROM because not even necessarily because of why it happened, but just there's no documentation that ROM mattered in 2021, like in terms of these awards or what, and maybe nobody cares about the PGA trip player of the year, but there needs to be some sort of like,

hey, here's the five guys throughout the year that were meaningful, that played the best golf for the most meaningful. And in that process in doing that, I almost left Kentlay off that team. And the reason for that is one of his wins was the net tour championship. One of them was at the memorial and he didn't, he didn't have any success at the majors. He didn't have a top 15. I know he didn't have a top 10 and The majors just matter. I ended up putting them on because he is mostly because he was second and strokes gained on the year But even that is hard because strokes gained it doesn't pull everything in correctly because some of the majors have

You know our laser and some of the majors have our laser and some of them are not. Again, imagine another sport, like having all, think about this, so they're changing the rules for green reading books in the middle of the season. That's right. The season started four months ago

and they're changing it for January. Imagine the NFL being like, well, I know we started out this season saying this is pass-interference, but actually this is pass-interference. Well, that's probably a bad example because maybe they do do that,

but they don't change the... Yeah, like at the halfway point of the season, like yeah, we're changing this hand-checking rule is now different, you know, for the mangroves this year. And again, because of the, because everybody's in it day to day, like I think my, if I have a skill in this, it's being able to see something, pull it out and say, Hey,

like hold it up and say, Hey, this thing is absurd. And we don't really, like, comment on it being absurd because we just kind of go up, like, let it be and go about our day. But that was really fun to kind of do as I went back through the year. A quick break here to check in with our friends at Elijah Craig. They've introduced a new style of American whiskey. It's Elijah Craig straight rye. It's the first extra-age Kentucky straight rye whiskey to join their award-winning portfolio. It's maybe 51% rye grain instead of corn, which makes a little bit spicier than bourbon.

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I want to know who's on your, uh, you're all NBA team for the year because not all golf is equal, right? And you can be Cantla. You can be second stroke skein for the year and like you played the second best golf of anyone in the world Then I mean you had the biggest peak weeks. He happened to have several peak weeks, you know where you won the tournaments But did that come at the right time? How do you evaluate like Cantla versus Morakawa who just is not a stroke skein God? You know and yet like when he is on, he looks like the best player in the world. It's just hard to marry those things, I think, sometimes in terms of, you know, I just like, I don't know, make it too existential. I was just like, I don't know what we're, what we're watching, right? Like, what are we, what are we rooting for? Are we, are we trying to identify the top five players? Like, I don't, you know what I mean? Like, we're watching all these individual events.

Well, yeah, here's the thing. Like, think about it like this. Do you care? Like, is it more meaningful? I don't even know what the right words are to describe it, honestly, but is it more meaningful that somebody, like, let's take it out to the extreme. And this is what I did a little bit. Are you a better golfer if you win three times a year and you miss the cut at the other 17 events or if you finish second in every event? Because I think traditionally we've said the first one is better, but that's not true. You're not better at golf than the second guy who finishes second in every event. But you did have like, this was the wrong thing. Rom was really good for seven straight months. Like, like, historically good.

Like the fourth best 150 round measured stretch since Strokes Gain were invented. Only Tiger, Ernie and VJ had better runs than kind of the last couple of years of ROM. And he only won once in 2021. And then you look at, even like, yeah, Mark, how is a good example. I think he finished 11th in Stroke's game for 2021, but he won three times, four times throughout the year because he had these really elite weeks. And so you're like, well, is it better to have an elite four

day stretch? Or like some of the best golf we've ever seen for seven straight months? And I honestly, I people like wins. I know, I don't know where I net out on that. But like, it, people really like, you know, when you do have the peak, big weeks, you know, who, who would be on your all NBA team? if you just off the top of your head, if you had to make it? All NBA team is definitely wrong. Yep. It's more a cava for the reasons we mentioned there.

God see, I'm a cheat sheet guy. I always have a cheat sheet in front of me and I feel like I've got to miss someone here. But honestly, it was like, what was jarring is walking around the rider cup. And we found a little spot there on Sunday singles where watching guys cross over from two to three and from six to seven. I'm like, watching can't let go by and being like, oh, yeah, he's on this team too. Like, it's Rom and it's the rest are Americans.

I know that. You know, is it DJ is DJ on your team? No, so I went Rom. Okay. I went more of Cala. Those were the two, those were the only two locks. Like these guys, there's no chance they're not on this team. Uh, spieth was on there.

Of course he's on there, not only because it's your team, but also it feels deserved both. Yes. He mattered at the majors. He should have won the Masters. I will never not say that. He finished what 58th and putting that way. Uh, 51st out of 54 guys. Yes. I've got that one. I'll top that. So he's on there.

He won. He mattered at the open. He just he played good major championship golf. And he was kind of the strokes game leader for like from January on until Rom took over at the end of the summer. So he was he was kind of the best player in the world for like four or five months. He's on there. He was pretty easy to put on there. And then the last two, I just, I'm embarrassed at how much time I spent like, laboring over this, but I had, I had can't lay on there. I couldn't ignore how just quality he was and the fact that he actually did win. And then I had Hadecki on there. And Hadecki was tough because he he finished

like 31st in strokes game for the calendar year. But he had maybe the two two of the most meaningful wins of the last. Two or three years in the masters in the Zozo the Zozo got buried and.

That's it's unfortunate because it happens in the fall. No, it's the middle of the night. All these different things. But man, that was meaningful. I don't think Hadecki cared to win the Olympics more than the Zozo. I think he just wanted to win in Japan and he did. And it was, it was a cool end to his dream year. So because I had those two guys on there, I had to leave. I really wanted to put Louis on.

I really wanted to put Capca on because Kepp his major record alongside Louis. He had three top tens at majors. He won in Phoenix on that insane shot on 17 on Sunday. He beat out speed there. And he had a, I mean, the attention goes to when he misses cuts at non majors, but he really had a pretty good year. So I did those guys around my second team along with, I think I'm getting this right. Bryson. I was going to say Bryson. Zander. Bryson, is it 2021 only?

Are we or is it this? Yes. Yeah. Because Bryson didn't have a top 10 at a major though. Yeah. That hurts. He only won one time in 2021, which feels like he won more frequently. He's two time winner on the PGA tour season because his US Open win in the fall counted

towards that. And then he lost the playoff B&W championship, obviously to Cantlay. Had a really good run out of the US Open. Back nine didn't go great for him. Then he almost won the players too. Bryson had a pretty enormous season. I think second he's got a couple of spare. He got a couple of bad breaks at Tori.

This is unlucky. Yeah, just just you know, a couple, couple of balls didn't bounce his way. You make an eight on 17. Let's see who else to I think hovelin was also on my second team. He had a really good year. I think I was just I pulled up just the stroke gain

over the last 12 months worldwide. It goes rom, can't lay, speed, Daniel Berger. Fourth. Yeah. Victor Hovland, Bryson, Paul Casey, Luiz, Tason, JT, Zander, Cam Smith, Morakawa. My third team was Phil because just because of PGA, Berger, Rory, JT and Shuffle was my third team. So I think Paul Casey was the highest strokes game that I didn't include on any of the three teams. It can't be said enough how much Phil stunk in 2021. I mean, he just not good did absolutely nothing outside of winning that event. It do you do you again, we talked about this maybe five different times on this podcast, but On other podcasts, but

So you you write in there about like I don't believe too much and I'm with you on this and too much like major Chabin just have more heart have whatever more grit. They just know how to get it done But how else do you describe Hitting that golf tournament Well, when he plays his first event in 2022, he will have one top 10 in the last 500 days of PJ Tour Golf. And it happens to be out of major and it happens to be a win at a major. And man, I don't know what to do with that. I really don't.

And I think that, you know, more Kawa had this thing after the Open Championship where he said, listen, and I think you and I talked about this. He said, I'm not a great putter, but you see the same guys kind of rise up to the top at major championships because at majors, it's so much about self-belief and like how that affects your physiology on a weekend. And I think that a little bit took over for Phil I really do like he And Zander had this great quote where he said

Phil was I can't remember the exact wording but basically Phil's been telling himself that he's still got it for the last 25 years And I said listen Zander, I said this in the book, Phil's going to be telling himself that he's still got it for the next 25 years. Like that's not a, that's not a past tense thing. And I think that that is like when you're feeling the stuff that those guys feel on a Sunday at a major, I really do think that I think it matters. Maybe not as much as sports radio would like to have you think it matters. But I do think it is meaningful and it does matter. And I don't know how else to explain somebody who, so I don't think he was in the top 150 in Strokes game for 2021.

Data golf includes like the top 150 and his name's not on there. And he wins the PJ championship. I don't know what to do. I don't know either. I mean, him and Andrew Novak famously were right next to each other in the in the standings, but gliddeed to the rider cup, even after you have a PGA. But yeah, he is like, he's the dude that just broke this whole strokes game model of like, yeah, you can play this bad. Can we dream for a second? Because you at least hinted at touched on and I kind of have rolled

my eyes at this story for every time it's come up in the last however many years, but a fill at the US open. He won a major championship this last year. It's not outrageous to think that he could summon something for this. I like his chances to do something like that. More than I do like his chances to go, you know, like win the Wells Fargo or something like that. You know what I mean? PGA tour golf at this point doesn't seem to be that well suited for Phil. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to, you know, heavily emphasize ball striking and knowing where to leave the ball and can, you know, can maybe rely on a hot putter seems more more realistic than like, birdie fest golf. Yeah, I think, I don't know.

I mean, he went to the US Open Rider to PGA and he was hitting a two wood from like 300 and within the first three holes. And you're like, well, this is, yeah, this is how you follow that up. I thought Shane Ryan, I mentioned him in the book. He's a writer for golf digest. Somebody that I really look up to a lot in terms of

just his craft, like how good he is at it. And he had a really good take about filled during the US Open that Phil has always been kind of the people's champ, which is hilarious about somebody that drinks like $40,000 bottles of wine. He's made himself a man. I don't know how he's done it, man, but he has done it. It's absurd. Yeah, it's crazy. But he's always been kind of the people's champ to tiger being like a god. And he was like, I'm butchering this, but Shane Ryan basically said, it's kind of cool that Phil has this huge like flaw that he doesn't have that U.S. open because it almost serves to make him more endearing. It makes him not.

If he had him all, he would be a god and he's never been a god within the sport. And I thought that was a really cool take. And I think that I actually think that's what I'm rooting for because I think it almost makes him have more depth and be more interesting when we look back and talk about him over the next 20 years. He only earned world ranking points in seven events in 2021. That's a T was one of them the was one the bone saw. He did not know world ranking points for that. He got a T53 at the farmers T 35 at the players, which is actually pretty impressive. T25 at the Honda T21 at the masters, you won the PGA T62 at the US Open and a T17 at the FedEx St. Jude. And sorry,

and a T36 at the Ford net. That's, that's it. But if I look, if I go pull up, you know, say the top 25 rankings in the world, who's stock changed in either way in your mind in this past year? Who do you view differently here in December of 2021 than you did in December 2020? I'll start if you want a second to think about it. Yeah, go ahead.

More Kawa. That's the one that's like, I just don't know if we've, you know, looking internally done enough to properly emphasize what this rise has been like, what he's, what he's done. I mean, he was a major winner at this time a year ago, but now a two time major winner, two wins, major wins in your first eight starts. And you know, when, clipping off, or clicking off as Tiger would say, a couple other, then along the way, that's the one that I'm like, we might be looking, I mean, potentially, of course, if I could put too much weight on them,

like, could be looking like a top 10 player of all time, truly. I mean, according to Tron, he's going to win eight majors. I got all that in the book, which is a fantastic pull. I actually, I don't know if I told you this, I set a calendar reminder for end of July, 2026, just to check, just to check it on how that predictions looking. I have a bet with, I have a bet with Mark Emelman on the first cup podcast that JT is going to win 25 events in the 2020s. And I like to make bets that are, that are like decades into the future so that Yeah, just forget and then if they don't I'll have a calendar reminder to like the if it works out in my favor I'll definitely remind them so

This is such an issue question. I think more cow is is probably the right answer, but I'll throw I'll throw is probably the right answer, but I'll throw, I'll throw Sam Burns at you. I think Burns like Homa has, like it's crazy how much better he's gotten year over year for like three or four straight years. That's Homa's story, right? I think Burns is better at golf than Max Homa right right now. But the ability to improve Euro for a year like that. And he's we were talking about this the other day. Sam Burns is younger than Erie's the exact same age as Will Zalatoris.

They were born a month apart, which it doesn't really feel like that to me. I think that I think about him differently. I definitely think about more cow at this time last year felt like this is just an off the top of my head example. He felt a little like Jim Furek like, oh yeah, he's going to be really good. You and the cat putting the Furek Monica on on more. Yeah, I just I saw that the other day and that's just bit, but what I'm actually saying with that is, um, he's going to have that one off major and maybe have a chance at another. But now that he's won two out of eight, you're like, wait a second. Is this just like an unequal distribution where they happen up front and then it doesn't happen for a long time, kind of like what we've seen with Rory's career?

Or is it going to be something equivalent to this clip for an extended period of time? I think that's very different than how I felt about a master. And then I think the last one is maybe is is Bryson. And it's it's the way that I think about him differently is different than or what the way I think about those other two differently. I'm less inclined to say that he's going to thrive. Like after he won the US Open last year, I was like, this is a problem. Like he's going to be a real problem. And I still think that, but I'm

not totally sure if it's going to work as well as he wants it to at major championships. Yes. I think it's a select few. I think the Masters is a problem for him. I think he's realized that and I think it's a little bit in his head. I think the Green Readings book. That's another interesting development for Bryson for next year because Augusta is obviously famously

doesn't allow Green Readings book, Greens reading books, whatever you want to call him. And he has not done well there in the last two iterations of that. And even with this new playing style, I think that's a problem for him. I think US opens are going to work pretty nice for him. Yeah. I think they're going to work great. Select PGA's might opens. I don't think necessarily will work great for him. But I think PGA Torwise, he's, you know, he's still going to do a lot of damage, but I don't think this I'm with you. I don't think this design is the best for.

For, you know what, it's interesting reading a lot about the Brooks Bryson stuff in your book as well, had me thinking of like, dude, I don't like either of these guys. I don't like nothing about them. Makes me, you know, you know, Brooks kind of too cool for school attitude. Isn't endearing. I don't have, we don't have enough time remaining here to all the things about Bryson that aren't endearing. You know what's interesting? I think I, I root for both of them on

the golf course. Yeah. Like I, I would root for Brooks, Keppka over Paul Casey any day of the week. Like I think it's just more interesting when he's in the picture. And even, you know, you talk, we kind of have forgotten about the fact that he wasn't really supposed to play golf this year. Yeah. He is doctors were saying he should have basically taken the year off, recovering from the knee surgery he had and he was playing at the Masters, putting his booty up in the air

and at a gutter three weeks after it. And climbing up the hill on 13. Yeah. And, you know, you think back to just him actually inserting himself in the major championship picture this past year, especially at the PGA, like, man, healthy one. He might have clicked off number five there. And if we get to five, which I think I don't have no reason to think he won't win another major. We're talking about this guy's career in a whole different way. I still think we might be underrating Brooks's career. Yeah. He,

I mean, one of the things that stood out, honestly, because it came up and every time a major was played, he's major scoring at numbers over the last, I remember this distinctly, it was the open shape, so it was the last major of the year. And I think J-Ray had this stat, of course he did. It was like, I'm making, I'm thinking I'm making this up,

but it's something close to this. It was like over was I'm making I'm think I'm making this up But it's something closest it was like over the last four years anders 22 under At majors DJs 23 under Hideki's 24 under I don't know if those are the three guys Brooks is 85 under And you're like that looks like a typo like it was it was like 22 23 24 85 Yeah, and I I loved your I thought what you said about him. I think it was at the PGA was really insightful about you can say whatever you want about him. He wears these hats that look like quilts.

KVV said it looks like a ransom note, which is like it's all piece together. Which was the funniest thing ever. But he shows up and he plays big time golf at the events that matter. And you and I were on the same page with this. I finally at Tori was like, I threw my hands up in the air after he'd finished in the top 10 and like 16 out of 20 majors. And I'm like, I think Brooks might play well this week. And it's like, congratulations golf analyst on not being a moron during a major

week. So you got there. Yeah, I after four years of it, I finally arrived to, to that conclusion. And to your to, you know, what we talked about in the beginning too, T2, T4, T6, the last three majors of the year. And the other one he could barely walk, like, dude, that's, that's, that's a freakish kind of performance. And again, just kind of emphasizing what, you know, those tournaments meaning that much more. And being one of the, just again, I think it is so, it makes it easier to look back at these last five years or so with that perspective of how much we appreciate that knowing how badly we want it for Rory and spieth as resident Rory and spieth homers.

Like how pumped we'd be if Rory went T2 T4 T6 in the majors and like had legitimate shots to win them to be like, oh my okay, this is a development. Here we go. And when Brooks does it, it's kind of like, eh, all right, didn't win one this year. Like, what the hell happened here? The J Ray stat that, I don't know if it's still rang true by the end of the year, that Rory and Brooks had the same scoring average on the weekend and major since 2017 where Brooks clipped off four and Rory had zero. I was, I was tough to look at. It was tough to stomach. I tried to get Jason Page, my illustrators, to do the thing from Castaway with the, with the volleyball and Tom Hanks as like, I tried to get him to, to graft our faces into that on speed, I went, he wouldn't,

he refused to do it. I tried to fire him. It was a whole thing. And he do that just privately for us. I want to have that in my office. I, you know, one thing that came up, I've only got like 10 more minutes, but we could go for 10 more hours. One thing that came up, as I was actually talking about the writer cup, I realized speed, because speed was kind of the adult in the room at the writer cup, in the press conference, which was, you know, with DJ doing DJ stuff and everybody else just out of their minds.

He's only 28. He's like five years younger than Rory even. Of course, we end up talking about speed here. The question I was going to ask you is, if you had a better life, like in 15 years, if what you're stating right now doesn't come true, then your life's over, that Brooks would win another major, or Rory would win another major, or both would, or neither would,

which corner would you be on? Oh my God, order. Put my life on the line with this. I mean, geez. My instinct answer, and I want to think about that more. My instinct would say only Brooks. Yeah. That I think would be my instincts.

What would you say to that? I think I would say neither. Man, majors are, you know, I brought up the data golf guys a lot in the book, much to Tron andon and, and Neil's sugar and I'm sure their website's amazing. They do such good work. I wanted to give them some attention and, you know, publicity or whatever, not that a million people are going to read the book, but, you know, they, I talked to them in the middle of the year and they said that they projected like they're expected major win rate or expected total majors won for John Rom who is tiger levels of good to start his career not exaggerating those numbers. It was like 2.6 or something like that.

2.3 in the book. 2.3. Okay. And you're like, how, how's that, how, how's that possible? And it's like, you know, one of the things that that I really thought about a lot as I went back through all this is man, things change so, so quickly. Like even thinking about, well, after the, the first quarter of the year, like, well, Patrick Reed's got to be on the rider cup team. And then things changed in a hurry right at the end of the year. After the PGA was like, oh, Phil's definitely going to be on the Ryder Cup team. Things changed in a hurry. And I did not say that. I was very much not. I was not a Matt K. I think Davis loved trying to give him a pass. Yeah, like after I called that out immediately,

what had happened. I want to take credit for that if I may. But all that stuff just, it changes so quickly and what feels like an inevitability right now that Rory or Brooks would win another major. I just, I don't know. I don't know that you gain in this goes back to our more a coward conversation from after the open. I don't know that as your career goes on,

you gain the things that you need to win more major championships, which is almost like this child likeness, like more Kawa had at the open, to go do the thing on the weekend that you've done before. It's so hard to maintain that. And I don't know,

it's gonna be, that's gonna be one of the more interesting storylines going into the next, you know, two, three, four years. You mentioned things changing quickly. I just did a little quick data golf search more interesting storylines going going into the next, you know, two, three, four years. You mentioned things changing quickly. I just did a little quick data golf search and just said top. So it only, this is only going to include if you're still in the top one 50 in the world today, you would show up on this list.

If you're not in the top one 50, you're not going to show up on this list. But the top players in the world at the end of 2016, just going back five years. Can you even guess who the number one data golf player was at the end of 2016, just going back five years. Can you even guess who the number one day to golf player was at the end of 2016? Like for for January one, 2016 to the end to December, end of December, 2016, 2016. Is it somebody ridiculous? Yeah, a little, I just would honestly would have taken me a long time to guess it.

Like not one of the top whatever players in the world anymore for sure. Jimmy Walker Jason day. Like granted, he was always injury riddled, but like it wasn't like, imagine that guy not being a top player in the world five years. And I think you could kind of see that coming. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot more constant listed than you think. But day, Rory, DJ, Hadecki, spieth, Adam Scott, Paul Casey, Sergio,

Keppka, Ricky, Kutcher, Rose, Ram, Snetaker, Sergio under underrated career, unbelievably underrated. So good for so long long and that came out. I love that that came out during the writer cup, which shockingly we haven't talked about yet, but people said there's somebody on Twitter and I included this in the book said

it was such a great quote. Sergio is who everybody thought or thinks in Polter is at the writer cup. He's his career has been just I'm glad that he won a major because I think it gives some depth to a career that's been super underrated. Where, what's Rory Stock? Let's just do for our homerisms last two things. As we end the year here, Rory and Speed Stock

heading into the new year, where are we at? Buying or selling? I have, I'm selling Rory and Buying Speed. Hmm. I'm buying Rory, I know that. I really do think, I think things are gonna get a lot better for Rory next year. So I just, man, I remember at Rory St. George's,

I was like, I'm not, I've refused, it's the opposite of what I did with Brooks. I'm like, I refuse't, I'm not, I've refused. It's the opposite of what I did with Brooks. I'm like, I refuse to buy into this anymore. The Rory's coming stuff and no fence, but like, I'm like, I'm the sucker here. Like I keep buying into the fact that Rory's gonna gonna do it at a major and it's just, it's not there.

I do think that I think, and I go into this pretty deep in the book, you probably haven't gotten to this point, but Rory is somebody who, I think at times, because he's very self-aware and relatively humble for the position that he's in, I think he struggles with self-confidence because I think he looks at the people around him. He's got so many people around him and he's like, man, I want to validate their belief in

me, right? I want to validate them believing in me because I do care about them. I do actually care about all of this, which we saw at the writer cup. And he struggles with that self-confidence, but then there are moments when he receives it. He received it at Port Rush, remember? He's trying to make the cut. And he's like, oh my gosh, like, these people believe in me.

And he went on just a tear at the end of 2019. I think he won twice, like eight top 10s in his last 10 events. And I think we're seeing a little bit of that happening right now because at the right or cup this year it was like, oh my gosh, like, even though I don't believe in myself sometimes, these people believe in me. And that is, that's a meaningful thing. And I think that we're seeing kind of the fruit of that, which is him maybe going on a little bit of a

tear heading into 2022. Is that makes sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think he was playing such great golf before the pandemic hit. He was the best, like by far, the best player in the world and just hasn't been the same since then. And for that reason, you know, a little bit more time under is, you know, under's belt as far as being a dad and kind of getting to the flow of those things and speed just recently having a kid. It's a variable and it's immeasurable.

It's, you know, your life changes and it's just because you know This much better than than I do I think the most terrible But you know, it's just it's a variable and I don't want to I think I'm holding speed stock I'm not selling it But I think it's it's not unreasonable to say there might be some fluctuation going on in in in in future months and golf Probably is not biggest priority for him so One of my biggest takeaways in going back and reading everything

was how good that quote was that he had on this podcast about money. Like I remember in the moment, thinking, and if people haven't listened to it, go back, I think it's in May you interviewed him, right after he won Texas Open, right after the masters actually. And he just talks about how like money as a human

is such a crutch to like being great at your craft. And it's such, it's just like, it's this incredible quote, but I'm curious if what has been true of Rory is also now going to be true of speed, which is that like on your 21, 22, 23, you don't know any better. You can go win a master's, you can go win a US open, you can go win at Burtdale. Is that is, is that going to be true when you're 30, 31 and you have so many different things built up, you start having kids, you're a corporation, all these different things is he going to able to to find the balance

of all that in a way that Rory hasn't at major championships, the balance of like the Patrick thing, innocence and wisdom. And I don't know the answer. I hope he does because it's so fun when he's in it. But I don't I don't know what the answer to that question is. The beauty is we're going to find. I doubted him last year. I denied him three times and he had a researching year. I'll do it again just as motivation for him. So. I know.

Can I do a giveaway for your list? Please. That'd be wonderful. So if you wanna buy the book, it's coming out, I don't know, whenever you are listening to this, it's already out. You can go to anormalsport.com, anormalsport.com, and that's where you can buy it. So it's very easy to just click through by the PDF. You can read it on Kindle, you can read it on iBooks, you can read it on your computer,

you can read it on Kindle, you can read it on iBooks, you can read it on your computer, you can read it wherever you want. But if you use the, if you use NOU at checkout, I feel like I'm doing an ad read, I'm not saying this. If you use NOU, the code NOU at checkout, you'll get 19% off in honor of the US's epic, what did what did Phil call it, the cup one beat out of epic proportions a beat down of epic proportions The US put up 19 points. You get 19% off and not only that, but if you if you use that code All I'm gonna do a I'm gonna spend some money at the at the the Pro shop the NOU Pro shop and I'll do

2 $200 gift card giveaways you approach up and I'll do a two two hundred dollar gift card giveaways on December 14th. So you've got about a week to get involved to buy it to check it out and 19% off you'll be automatically you don't have to do anything you'll just be in that and I'll announce those people on Twitter. So there you go. Well thank you for writing the book. Thank you for telling us about it. Thank you for recapping another fantastic year of golf. And we will have to do it again soon, but. Absolutely. Thanks, Sally. Appreciate it.

You're the right club. Be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. How about it? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.