50 Things That Changed Golf

Golf gambling has taken off in recent years, and it figures to grow even bigger. How did we get here? In this episode, we examine the game’s rapid embrace of what was once considered a seedy pastime, and why golf seems particularly well suited to benefit from legalized gambling. We’ll look at how golf’s massive amount of data has allowed gamblers to wager on seemingly every aspect of the game, and why some players are apprehensive about its influence on the sport.

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Ken Duke’s 65 at the 2016 Players Championship isn’t close to one of the lowest rounds in PGA Tour history. It’s not even the best round ever at the Players. So why does it qualify as the greatest round in Players history, as well as one of the greatest rounds in the history of golf? In this episode of Local Knowledge, Alex Myers tells the story of a journeyman pro’s improbable round on a difficult scoring day at the Players, along with the backstory of how our measurement of golf performance has grown more sophisticated in recent years. In talking to Columbia University professor Mark Broadie, the creator of golf’s strokes-gained statistic, Myers explores how advanced metrics have altered our understanding of golf, and has helped everyone from tour pros to average players understand where they excel and where they most need improvement.

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There is no draft in pro golf. When most young players try to make a go of it on tour, they’re on their own, which means the expenses of tournament fees, travel, and caddies can add up in a hurry. In the absence of the type of endorsement contracts given to top prospects, some players have to get creative, and that means relying on wealthy backers who help front the costs in exchange for a potential return on their investment and the entertainment of having skin in the game. In this episode of Local Knowledge, Daniel Rapaport looks at how certain golfers have come to rely on “sugar daddies" in their early years on tour, and how those relationships vary from one to the next.

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Jan Stephenson won 16 times on the LPGA, including three majors, but in the 1970s, the tour sought to market the Australian as more than just a talented player. From her photoshoots in a nightgown or in a bathtub full of golf balls, Stephenson faced backlash from fellow competitors who thought marketing players’ appearance diminished their abilities as athletes. Yet the controversies around Stephenson didn’t end there. She dated a series of famous men, was once removed from a golf course and brought to a psychiatric hospital, and lost her game when a mugging left her with broken fingers. In this episode, Keely Levins looks at Stephenson’s journey on tour, the criticism she faced, and the underrated career she carved out as a result.

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A golf rules official’s responsibilities cover a broad spectrum. They set up the course, oversee playoffs, and determine when a golf course is playable in a rainstorm and when it isn’t. Perhaps most important, they help golfers decipher the game’s complicated rules at pivotal moments throughout a tournament. In this episode, Alex Myers talks to retiring rules officials Slugger White and Mark Russell of the PGA Tour, and John Paramor of the European Tour about the highs and lows of their long careers, and which parts of the job made them sweat most.

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After a 91-day hiatus caused by the surge in COVID-19 cases, the PGA Tour returned last June and continued uninterrupted through the end of 2020. Through positive tests and logistical details that ranged from how to keep score to how to give volunteers coffee, the season was unlike any that came before. In this episode, host Dan Rapaport and Golf Digest editorial director Max Adler explain how the tour navigated the uncertainty of a pandemic to resurrect its schedule.

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Conventional golf wisdom has said long drive competitions and tournament golf are two entirely different disciplines. But the gap has closed in recent years, and Kyle Berkshire, the No. 1 ranked long driver in the world, is out to prove his 150 mile-an-hour swing speed would give him an advantage even over the best players in the world. In this episode of Local Knowledge, Alex Myers examines what Berkshire needs to do to make the jump from professional long drive to the PGA Tour, and why the time might be right for him to do so.

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Before his retirement from Golf Digest last month, Guy Yocom had one of the most unique jobs in golf. In his 36-year career, Yocom came to know virtually every great player in the modern game by way of extensive one-on-one interviews for the magazine. Yocom met with Ben Hogan in his Forth Worth office, stayed with Phil Mickelson in his first condo fresh out of college, and came to know firsthand Lee Trevino’s generosity and compassion. Along the way, Yocom not only produced some of Golf Digest’s most important interviews, he developed an appreciation for what these giants of the game were like as people, what motivated them, and how they compared to one another. In this episode of Local Knowledge, Dan Rapaport turns the tables on Yocom and asks the veteran golf journalist to share some of his favorite stories about the characters behind the headlines.

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A seemingly obscure legal rule that would allow college athletes to profit from their name, image or likeness could change the complexion of amateur golf, what was once considered golf in its purest form. In reality, the game is already well removed from an era when Bobby Jones and Frances Ouimet both had to leave amateur golf behind for money they received tied to their accomplishments on the course. Now amateur golfers can receive free clubs, nominal prizes, and are supported well enough to travel and compete around the country. In this episode, Keely Levins examines what amateur golf used to signify, what it is now, and where it could be headed in the near future.

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At the first playing of the tournament that is now known as the Masters, Augusta National Golf Club needed to borrow chairs from a funeral home. The club needed money to buy grass seed, and the only reason we now know Augusta National’s clubhouse as one of golf’s most iconic buildings is because the club at first didn’t have enough money to tear it down. In the latest episode of Local Knowledge, Alex Myers talks to David Owen, author of “The Making of the Masters,” to learn how profoundly Augusta National struggled in its early years, and how desperation led to some of golf’s most important innovations.

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