- Normal Sport
- Posts
- U.S. Open Venue Tiers and Other Shinnecock Tidbits
U.S. Open Venue Tiers and Other Shinnecock Tidbits
Normal Sport Newsletter No. 344
Kyle Porter & Jason Page
June 26, 2026
Greetings!
If you’re wondering where I’m at in life right now, here is a story that happened earlier this week.
On Thursday, I had an in-person meeting in Dallas. Pants, a polo (the Maxwell from Holderness and Bourne, of course), nice shoes, the whole deal.
My 12-year-old woke up and walked in the kitchen. He looked at me and said, “Are you playing golf today?” I said, “No, why?”
He responded (surprised), “You’re wearing a belt.”
So sloppily dressed am I that my own son thinks I only wear a belt to play golf. Not sure whether to be proud that I have turned this lifestyle into a career or embarrassed at the astonishment of my son seeing me in a belt off the golf course.
Regardless, I probably need to dip deeper into the H&B well.
Name drops today: Titanic, Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity, Betsy Ross, and LACC.
TODAY’S SPONSOR
Today’s newsletter is presented by our friends at Charlie Golf Co.
The U.S. Open is over, but you can still celebrate 250 years of normal golf moments with the Charlie Golf Co. stars and stripes collection (OK, more like 125 years here in America).
When the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and Betsy Ross ripped through that first flag (allegedly) I’m sure they envisioned an entrepreneur in Iowa painting it on some wooden sticks so 7 year olds could know whether their feet are aimed in the correct direction while getting through the zone. This would have been among the top ambitions for these men and women. Surely.
And to honor that, I would like to point you toward the great Charlie Golf Co. limited edition stars and stripes collection of bags and alignment sticks. They — like everything Charlie Golf Co. makes — are awesome.
And now, onto the news.
Tiering the U.S. Open Venues
I had a few disparate thoughts after my (alleged) final piece on the U.S. Open on Wednesday. You guys know I can’t just do one final thoughts newsletter after a major championship. Has to be at least two if not three. This one will be it, though. I promise. May the USGA stroke me two iced coffees at their next event if it’s not.
1. After Shinnecock, I started thinking about U.S. Open venues and how I would rank them. I’m not steep on architecture, and I missed out on going to a couple of these, so this is not a list necessarily rooted in golf course quality or playability, although both of those qualities do play into the rankings.
Instead, it is primarily a personal tiered ranking that is also answering the specific question of, “if all future U.S. Open venues were wiped off the board, and the USGA announced a new one for 2027 tomorrow, how excited would you be about that venue?”
Here’s my ranking.
I am sure everyone will have similar feelings and agree wholeheartedly.
• My broader point here is that Pinehurst and Shinnecock are it for me. The places. Pinehurst more so for the experience, Shinnecock more so for the golf course and shots.
• Brookline is a terrific mixture of the two.
• I probably struggled the most with where to put Chambers Bay and Erin Hills. I loved Chambers, but that might just be nostalgia. Erin Hills was good but also very easy (no wind), and I didn’t love the experience there as much as Chambers.
• Oakmont seems just objectively better than Erin Hills. Having said that, Chambers > Oakmont looks kind of silly when I see it on paper, but I do think that’s how I feel. Mostly because Oakmont feels like a difficult slog and Chambers feels like a unique (and kinda wild!) test of skill. Maybe too wild!
• I absolutely love Winged Foot as a golf course and a place. But the way they have to set it up now doesn’t make for a great U.S. Open.
• Similarly, LACC is a good course for me and you to play, but probably not a fantastic U.S. Open venue.
• Pebble … meh. It’s awesome. It’s Pebble! But I just don’t love it as a U.S. Open venue anymore. I’m not totally sure why. Maybe a combo of good but not great crowds and a course that’s tough to set up for a modern U.S. Open.
I feel pretty good about my S, A and E tiers. Everything in between I can probably be talked into or out of without a ton of effort.
2. I loved this from the Data Golf live blog during the U.S. Open.
My biggest takeaway might be that being on site reduces my attachment to how the course is playing. I’m still interested in the insights outlined above, but to a certain extent I’m just enjoying watching the test that is presented to the players.
I feel this. It is more of a pure golf experience on site than it is a formula or a math problem. With that in mind, here are my five favorite holes in terms of the experience they provided at Shinnecock.
9 — Rocked, wish it was 18.
10 — Wild hole, guys hitting anything from 6 iron to driver off the tee is very cool.
14 — I have no idea if it’s a great hole, but I love how the green is bowled and how you can use the contours on a blind shot to get it close.
11 — It looks like it’s floating in the sky. Amazing golf hole.
7 — This was one of the cooler places to watch players (all players) hit shots all week.
Honorable mention: 6 (Joaquin’s opus) and 16 (Wyndham’s dagger).
3. DJ said something on the NLU pod on Sunday evening that I agreed with wholeheartedly and was feeling on the grounds. He said that it felt like we needed more buildup time to Scottie’s slam.
Maybe not Rory-like buildup, which felt like this …
But maybe a bit more than, 400 days ago I had only won the Masters, and now I’m one of seven guys to ever win all four of the major championships.
Some of this is due to Scottie’s unwillingness to engage in the grand slam conversation but some is that we just haven’t had time to discuss it. It felt more like he wa
s trying to win Shinnecock than that he was trying to win the grand slam last weekend. That’s fine, but I would prefer — if he ever does it — for it to feel like he’s winning both. Like it did with Rory. Like it always would have if Phil had won the U.S. Open.
Join the Normal Club to read the rest …
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,056 of them) and includes a great Scottie quote on Wyndham, a bad Wyndham quote by Wyndham and my favorite scene from a week full of them at Shinnecock.
By becoming a member, you will receive the following …
• Access to 100 percent of our content this week.
• An invite to our Slack channel where we watch and talk golf together.
• A free digital copy of our Rory book.
• 15% off to our pro shop.
4. Scottie had a quote on Wyndham, and it was excellent.
Being in the arena is not for everybody. You know, there's been crowds that have been for me in my career; there's been crowds that have been significantly against me in my career.
I think Portrush was a scenario for me where Rory is in his hometown. Or not his hometown; he's in Ireland, not far from where he grew up. Crowds can be tough.
Being in the arena is not for everybody, and I think it shows a lot about Wyndham, how he handled not only this golf course but I think the crowd today as well and is a well-deserving champion.
Being in the arena is not for everybody.
What a quote!
He’s right, too. And this is where data and SG and everything else I probably lean on too much falls a bit short. Sam Burns’ putting stroke on 17. You’ve seen it, yeah?
And while I love Burns and actually do believe he’s a dog and that he loves being in the arena, that was not an “I’m loving the arena right now!” stroke.
Data Golf can measure a lot of things, it can’t measure what the arena is doing to your hands and your head and your heart in a given moment (shoutout to Mr. 58).
I’ve been so impressed with Wyndham’s ability to block all of that out multiple times and win two U.S. Opens over Scottie, Rory and loads of other top players who were taking rips at him. When he left himself 6 inches on the 72nd on Sunday, it took me right back to LACC when he hit that putt at the 72nd hole to a foot as well. Insane composure in a tornado of a moment.
Being in the arena is not for everybody, and while I don’t necessarily love rooting for Wyndham, he clearly loves the arena. You have to credit him for that because clearly not everyone does.
5. I know it got talked about, but it is extremely normal sport that you have all this buildup, all these prognostications, all this work and planning and everything that goes into a U.S. Open, and the eventual champion is determined by … a fog delay.
Father's Day at Shinnecock
6. Here’s one quote from Wyndham I did not like.
Man, I'm not getting angry as much as I used to. I think I get frustrated. My anger has kind of gone away, which is a huge blessing. I'd say the frustration is kind of obviously there. Anyone gets it in golf. Yeah, the anger, I'm not as angry as I used to be.
When he was asked, “Why?” here’s what he said.
I think it's a combination of things off the course being great. My game feels like it's in a good position. I'm just happier where I'm at in life. Then I think, you know, last year I got too caught up in things that really didn't matter.
Here’s why I hated this quote. Because the answer was entirely based on external circumstances. What changed? New girlfriend, new U.S. Open win, playing better golf? That’s not real internal change. That’s just a shift in what’s going on around you.
It’s unsustainable. What about when your girlfriend breaks up with you or you don’t win the U.S. Open or you hit four balls in the water on 17 this week at the Travelers?
I’m not saying Wyndham hasn’t changed. I’m saying what he’s describing here is not actual change, which I think is part of the problem everyone was having with him to begin with.
[Jason here] Listening to Kyle and Hayden talking about Wyndham’s disappearing anger reminded me of David Lynch talking about the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity (what a name) in his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity (which plays a big role in my life).
When I started meditating, I was filled with anxieties and fears. I felt the sense of depression and anger.
I often took out this anger on my first wife. After I had been meditating for about two weeks, she came to me and said, “What’s going on?” I was quiet for a moment. But finally I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “This anger, where did it go?”
And I hadn’t even realized that it had lifted.
I call that depression and anger the Suffocating Rubber Clown Suit of Negativity. It’s suffocating, and that rubber stinks. But once you start meditating and diving within, the clown suit starts to dissolve. You finally realize how putrid was the stink when it starts to go. Then, when it dissolves, you have freedom.
Anger is a funny thing.
[Kyle back]
Golf is a funny thing, too. That the two are so closely tied together is yet another reflection of how much golf and life serve as parallels for one another. I am glad for that because I greatly enjoy writing about both.
7. Shout out to Keith Mitchell for this masterpiece.
What’s even crazier is that he didn’t shoot a single nine-hole score of even par. After pulling off the herculean 41-29 even par round on Thursday, he ping ponged back and forth the rest of the week as well.
41
29
37
33
34
36
34
36
I have to say, Mitchell looked resplendent throughout the week. It does come through on TV, but in person it’s not just the fits. It’s the way he casually moves around the golf course, always striding but never in a hurry. If you dropped Keith Mitchell into pro golf in the 1970s, he would fit in perfectly.
His quote after the 70 bonanza was great, too.
I might have not won, but I felt like I achieved a lot more than potentially I thought I was going to after about two hours into the round. You can always look at winning a tournament, but I think I won the week after the start.
Wyndham’s last 63 holes: -1
Mitchell’s last 63 holes: -5
8. Last thing from me on Shinnecock. On Sunday evening, after a marvelous weather week at one of the cathedrals of American golf (™️USGA), many of the big players and heavy hitters milled about. I stood in the enclave where players walked over to do media. Oh there’s Scottie Scheffler’s dad, talking to literally anyone who will listen to him. There are the Schefflers hugging the Burns family after a tough ending. There’s Sahith signing a security guard’s hat. There’s Jackson Koivun scurrying over to get his low amateur medal from Mike Whan.
I don’t know what all of it made me feel.
Gratitude? Something else?
As I watched all of it from my little nook at the top of this extremely famous property, I think I felt joy. U.S. Open weeks are a grind. For everyone involved. This one was over. With a winner that not everyone loved but in a manner that no one could argue with.
A fabulous U.S. Open. How many will everyone in this scene have a chance to win? How many more will they even play in? Probably a lot. But also maybe not. All of it is fleeting.
Click.
A snapshot in time. One, not of importance, but that I’ll remember nonetheless.
Thank you for reading and participating in all of this. Thank you for supporting us so that we can do things like attend the U.S. Open at Shinnecock and try to write and draw about with as much feeling and joy as that place and this tournament both engender.