Issue No. 187 | April 17, 2025

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

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

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

It’s not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presented By

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 More Thoughts on the 2025 Masters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is another way to view it …

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

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

Golf is slow until it’s unfathomably fast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I get chills just thinking about it.

Whew.

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

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

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

He has always been almost ashamed of his gifts.

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

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

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

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

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

• My notebook from Sunday.

• How Pat Reed nearly spoiled the party.

• A take I’m scared to say out loud.

• The weight of time.

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

If you are, keep reading!

Join the Normal Club to read the rest …

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Welcome to the members-only portion of today’s newsletter. I hope you both enjoy it and find it to be valuable to your golf and/or personal life.  

5. How thin are the margins? If Pat Reed makes this putt for birdie on 13, he finishes at -11. Butterfly effect and all, but can you imagine Rose and Rory shaking hands on the tee at 18 for the playoff and Reed comes running down the hill busting into the festivities like the Kool-Aid Man?

This cuts 1,000 ways. Like I mentioned above, if Rory’s ball on 11 goes 6 inches (maybe less!) further, he probably loses the Masters! Of course, he also probably doesn’t lay up on 13 so who knows. This is why actual outcomes are sometimes (not always but sometimes) a bad way to judge how good a player is. Rory is a hero because he wins, and a goat if that ball goes in the water on 11. Six inches!

The best players, though, are always around the rim, ready to clean up messes (sometimes even their own). That is the easiest path to winning majors.

The best players have Wikipedia pages that look like this.

Also: I maintain that the funniest imaginable outcome would have been ZJ shooting 66-65 to get into the playoff and steal Rory’s Masters. It also would have bumped Spieth or JT or somebody like that off the Ryder Cup team.

Golf Twitter would have never recovered.

(I am also extraordinarily glad this did not happen).

6. Speaking of thin margins.

I had a buddy who (sadistically) said that he wanted Rory to miss a putt to lose the Masters just for the theater of it all.

Me hearing that …

I thought Shane Ryan wrote it well, though. And I agree with him that it would have been a bridge too far. Rory had suffered enough, anything beyond Pinehurst would have just been cruel.

Which leads to …

7. A thought I can’t stop thinking: What if Rory would have lost? Early in the week, Soly said on the NLU pod that he wasn’t worried about this Masters because, “Nothing could hurt more than Pinehurst.”

This loss would have made Pinehurst feel like he won.

I guess that’s the part that’s most impressive to me. He’s been preaching resilience for years and years and years. It felt like coach speak or something Rotella got into his brain. But it turns out that it was not.

Remember the Rory story when he was 27?

Nothing but a frontrunner. Not a gamer. No grit. Doesn’t have it when the chips are down. Great when the swing is flowing but as soon as you throw something at him — weather, competition, a firm, fast golf course — he’ll wilt.

That player feels like he existed 40 years ago. He feels like a completely different player. I don’t know if this particular one is necessarily smarter [gestures at 27 different shots from Sunday alone], but he’s undeniably more complete.

And he’s a dog now. A dog!

Surely nobody in golf history has ever stared as much adversity and terror and the potential of unfathomable heartache in the eyes and kept on going. Kept hitting those shots we saw this weekend. Kept making 3s.

If you would have told me 10 years ago that Rory would get his fifth in 2025, I would never have believed you. But if you would have told me five years ago that Rory would get his fifth in this exact way — under a debilitating weight in which he had to get back in the arena over and over again until everyone else in the arena had to look away — I wouldn’t have believed you either.

The way he has evolved with this held-off wedges and distance control is impressive, but the way he has evolved emotionally and mentally as a golfer is almost inconceivable compared to who he used to be.

8. Two videos that rule, and both are treacly as hell (I think we are very much post-treacle at this point).

• Carolyn Zacharias took the song Ben Rector wrote after he lost Pinehurst last year and overlaid it on his winning putt. The result is spectacular. I have watched it many times.

• Rory himself put out a video with the caption: Never give up on your dreams. Keep coming back. Keep working hard. It’s equally excellent. 

9. Here’s a take: He was luckier last week than he was smart. I have some questions about the decisions, though I’m so glad they finally broke his way.

Again, his words, not mine …

But that’s kind of the whole deal with him. He can’t help himself. Can’t win like Scottie. It’s just not who he is. Never has been, never will be (although he’s certainly more like Scottie now than he ever has been before).

This is why the best path to winning majors is putting yourself in the mix as many times as possible. Because sometimes the luck favors you. Rory has done that over the last five years in a way he didn’t the five before that, and the payoff was better than he dreamed.

Here’s a crazy stat.

• Rory’s 2022 Masters: 4.14 strokes gained
• Rory’s 2025 Masters: 4.14 strokes gained

You cannot control the other 94 players in the field. You cannot stop Cam Smith and Wyndham Clark from having the weeks of their lives. Rory’s strokes gained numbers at majors have often been better than they were in this one.

Just as he always would have traded 10 PGA Tour wins for one major, I’m sure he would trade both those U.S. Opens as well as that one at St. Andrews for this green jacket.

Golf gives and takes away.

10. This on Bryson acting aggrieved about Rory not talking to him is just not a thing.

Here’s the quote just before that clip.

Bryson is a brutal communicator, seemingly always one beat off. But he did not seem angry about Rory’s silence. But also, did he think this was the creator classic? You want the guy whose heart you squeezed in your fist nine months ago to ask your thoughts about frame rates and upload times?

Please.

11. Three tiny scenes I’ll remember from being out there on Sunday.

1. Harry slapping Rory’s back on 18 with a closed fist like he was punching him. Why? He’s holding the ball. I don’t believe 17 UFC fighters could have pried that ball out of Harry’s hands.

2. Rory on the back of a golf cart driving down the first fairway speaking to — presumably — his parents. They blocked off the first hole as patrons tried to leave, and two carts cruised him over to media as he waved and stared back up the hill, laughing as his parents cried. What a moment.

3. I punched KVV several times on Sunday. More than once. My apologies.

12. Speaking of being out there. Here are some notes I wrote down as they’re written in my notebook. No context, just notes to myself for scenes I wanted to remember. I used none of them because I just opened up a vein instead, but I’m posting them here for fun.

• You never get to be up four going to the back ever again. And it should have been eight.

• How good must you be to be up four after 63 with three doubles?

• Guy peering through the board on 10 at green.

• I called Jude not because I was glad Rory won but because I knew he would remember. He’s 11. When he’s 21 or 31 he will have a distant memory of dad, standing on 13, calling him from a thing called a pay phone, thinking about him on the biggest writing day of his life.

• Gasps on 16! After Rory double was put on the board.

• Winning majors is impossible.

• I have seen unbelievable things.

• “Why is he going for it?”

• KVV closed his eyes, when he opened them I was screaming in his face.

• Never experienced a coaster like that.

• BP said it was over if he missed on 14.

• Rory chant on 16.

• Makes Spieth look like a kiddie ride [lol]

• Most emotion I’ve ever felt [at a golf tournament]

• Today felt like four rounds.

• I have seen inconceivable things.

• Grown men inhaling and exhaling like they’re bungee jumping.

• I don’t know how I’m alive.

• Rory’s number going up on the board on 18 was loudest cheer of the day.

• I couldn’t see on 18 so I listened for the sound I’ve heard 1,000 times.

• This was Rory’s forever war.

• Clubhouse packed at the top

…

• [Next note was] “My dreams have been made today”

13. I asked on Twitter this week what everyone’s lasting image from the week would be. There are so many great ones (both the silly and the serious).

I think this one is probably mine. Or one of these.

For everyone in golf, playing the Masters is a dream.

For very few, playing it is a nightmare.

For nobody — maybe just him — is it both.

If you’re extraordinarily lucky, you get a few minutes on a Sunday throughout your entire career in which the golf has historical implications. All that work. And it comes down to just a handful of swings or putts.

Even for someone as great as he is.

Time carries with it an incredible weight.

So how good must it feel, in the aftermath of it all, to turn a forever war that can only be fought a couple of days — maybe a couple of minutes! — every year into something that can never be undone?

How good must it feel to turn all the doubt, all the fear and all those questions — even of himself — into delight in a career that’s now among the best there’s ever been?

Thank you for reading until the end.

You’re a complete and total sicko for reading a newsletter about a single round of golf that is 3,986 words (!!) long, and your support of our business is appreciated. Stay tuned for 15 more Masters thoughts tomorrow (just kidding) (maybe).