Six Questions For... Kyle Porter of Normal Sport
In the first of a new series of interviews here on The Wedge, with leaders, executives, entrepreneurs and influencers from across the golf industry, Shane speaks to Normal Sport founder Kyle Porter.
About Kyle Porter
Kyle wrote close to three million words about golf in twelve years working for CBS Sports (and later wrote about what it was like to leave that job here). He covered five Ryder Cups and 47 Major championships in the process and also wrote three books. His other work — podcast and television appearances as well as some behind the scenes writing — has appeared on Golf Channel, Masters.org, PGA Tour, No Laying Up, Fried Egg Golf and the Ryder Cup platform.
In 2011, he founded, ran and eventually sold an Oklahoma State website called Pistols Firing. He lives in Texas with his very gracious wife and their four kids (not looking to fight). He launched golf media platform Normal Sport in October 2024.
Six Questions For... Kyle Porter
Shane Breslin: First question, tell us a bit about the Normal Sport business model, and then, what’s been the biggest challenge so far?
Kyle Porter: We have two main revenue streams at Normal Sport. The first is sponsors — we send three newsletters a week, and each one of those newsletters is sponsored by a company. Having partners like Holderness and Bourne, Garmin, Ogio, we launched with Turtle Box recently, has been amazing for us.
The other part of the business model is paid memberships. Paid members get extra content and access to our merchandise before everybody else. For a lot of our paid members, though, I think it’s just the joy of helping build the business. That's why I pay for different newsletters or podcasts — I just want the thing to exist — and people have responded very well to that.
“Golf can change your life … You're going on a six-mile hike with friends, and you're talking, and every once in a while you swing a metal stick and hit a ball.”
As for the challenges, I launched it full-time back in October, so it's only been five months, but three things are top of mind.
First is consistent growth. Growth comes in stops and starts, and that can be frustrating. Second, and this is one that I didn't see coming, is the ability to stay disciplined. With your own business, you can do anything, right? Make refrigerators, sell kids' toys, whatever. That freedom can be enticing, so it's taken more discipline than I thought it would to stay in my lane and do what I do well.
And third, which is more of a longer-term challenge, is figuring out what even is our business! You listen to founder podcasts, going through how big businesses started, and almost all of them didn't start as what they are now. Businesses evolve and change over time, so I’m trying to think about the long arc of the company. Are we staying nimble enough, but also have the vision to go down the right path? Balancing those two things has been harder than I thought.
SB: What aspect of the golf business do you think is most misunderstood by those outside the industry?
KP: I don't know if this is business-related or not, but when you tell people you're in golf, you get one of two reactions. One is, “Oh, that's really cool. It sounds like a dream job.” The other is, “Golf!? Isn't that stuffy and stuck up? Isn't it what your 75-year-old grandfather plays?”
The cool part for me is telling people, golf can change your life. The way I think about playing golf is that you're going on a six-mile hike with friends, and you're hanging out and talking, and every once in a while you swing a metal stick and hit a ball.
“The learning curve for me was really steep. It's still steep! I’m still learning a ton of things.”
But a lot of people still think of it as this uppity country club deal. Maybe it used to be that, and maybe in some places it’s like that still, but that's definitely not what it is to me or to my friends or to a lot of the people that I hang out with.
SB: Third question is looking back in time. What was your first job in golf and how does it influence your current perspective on the industry?
KP: Covering golf at CBS was my first job in golf, honestly! Golf was in our family — my mom was an elite amateur player, she played in some US Women's Amateurs, and my grandfather, her dad, was a golf nut and actually had Masters badges going back to the 80s or early 90s. He loved it, and he shared that with me.
Even at that, I was never really deep into it until I got the job with CBS Sports at the very end of 2012, but I can look back now and see that golf was weaving its way in and out of my life over the last 20 or 30 years, even though I didn't play, and even though I didn't get a journalism degree, or do any of the traditional things that would have led me into this job.
“Golf is very magical. It's played in pastures that sheep used to roam, and sometimes still do.”
I think my journey here is part of the reason my perspective on golf is very different than a lot of people in the industry, who might have worked for the student paper, got the journalism degree and did all the things you think you might need to do to get into the business.
That journey worked both for and against me. For me, in that I think I have a fresh perspective on golf than a lot of people that have been in it for a long time. But it's worked against me a bit too because I didn't understand some very basic things when I started. The learning curve for me was really steep. It's still steep! I’m still learning a ton of things. But I'm glad of it because it gave me a perspective that people who grew up in golf might not necessarily have.
SB: Question 4: What are you working on now that you're excited to see in 12 months’ time?
KP: Man, I love this question. One of the things we're working on is publishing physical artifacts. That's a very fancy way of saying, ‘we’re making books!’
In the process of trying to figure out what we are as a business, one of the answers that we've landed on in the short term is, “we publish things”.
Right now we publish a three times a week newsletter. I've written three books in the past that were illustrated by Jason (Page, co-founder and Art Director of Normal Sport), so we have experience in that field and we want to do more of it. We're exploring things like, ‘Can you publish a 20-page book?’ I mean, why not? That freedom is one of the exciting things about having your own business.
Right now we're working on a kids' illustrated book. A lot of our followers are 35- to 40-year-old moms and dads, and they want their kids to be into golf. That’s great — I also want my kids to be into golf, because it's a great way to spend time with them. So we plan on giving that demographic some resources to on-ramp their kids into golf, but not just that — also to spend quality time with them by reading to them. So while newsletters are the core of the business, creating physical artifacts gets our juices flowing.
SB: What current trend in golf do you think people will look back on as transformative?
KP: This is a hard one because you're either gonna look really smart or really stupid, but I do think screen golf is fascinating. I don't know if it's “transformative”, because it does take away a bit of the experience of taking a hike with friends, but in a world where we're all busy, there's something meaningful about being able to go to a little studio with a screen and sit around for an hour with your friends and hit balls.
It can be as serious or unserious as you want it to be. TGL is normalizing simulator goal a bit in the US now, but you look at other markets like Asia, and screen or indoor golf is very common. So it's going to be interesting to see where that is 10, 15, 20 years from now.
Okay, the experience is not as good as playing 18 holes with your son or with your dad or with your friends, but from a business standpoint, there's a lot of value when you can save time and save space. I think a lot of companies out there are creating a lot of value for people that are interested.
SB: Last question. What keeps you excited about golf after all these years?
KP: I love the professional side. I really enjoy covering guys like Spieth and Rory and Scheffler, because they're not just interesting golfers, they’re interesting people.
But what really gets me going is the idea of being out there with your friends and playing on these very magnificent arenas out in nature. Golf is very magical. Part of the reason I started Normal Sport is because golf is such a weird sport. It's played in pastures that sheep used to roam, and sometimes still do. Basketball or baseball or soccer or football, they’re all played in manmade arenas and stadiums and courts, whereas golf is out in nature and that's a unique thing.
I was in Scotland for the 2022 Open at St Andrews. I know a lot of people in golf have got their Scotland stories, but playing places like Elie and Crail at 10 o'clock at night with some of your best friends was just an incredible experience. I’ll remember that forever.