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The best golf stories have multiple layers to them. In each episode, Local Knowledge dives deep into a subject golfers want to know about, whether it’s about the game they play, the competition at the highest level, or the surprising ways golf factors into larger conversations throughout society. Hosts Alex Myers, Keely Levins, Shane Ryan and Sam Weinman weave together original interviews, Golf Digest reporting, and additional elements to tell the type of compelling stories that have been a Golf Digest staple for decades.
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For about 40 years in major championship history, winning the PGA required a test of endurance that seems absurd today. In the midst of tracking down the record holder for most holes played in a major, we ran into more than a few wild stories.
In a place where nobody escapes politics, Rory McIlroy has done his best to stay neutral, despite a tragic family history with the Troubles.
L.A. Times Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Murray was one of the most celebrated sports columnists of his era, at a time when columnists held more influence and power by far than they do today. His humor and insight were legendary, but a lesser known element of his story is the personal boycott he led on Augusta National between 1968 and 1975, when he helped pressure the club to allow a black player into the Masters. On this week's episode, we look at Murray's quiet activism on the 50th anniversary of Lee Elder's pioneering first trip to Augusta.
From Greg Norman to Jordan Spieth, there is a long tradition of players speaking to the media after tough losses, but it's a tradition that is being lost in the modern game. Today we look at some of the most fascinating instances of player-media interaction after heartbreak, and how it made all parties better.
In 1934, when the first Masters tournament was held, nobody in golf would have been able to tell you what the "majors" were, and if they had an opinion, it would likely include amateur events that were quickly losing prominence. By 1974, and the advent of the Players Championship, the four modern majors were set in stone, and the club was closed for membership. How did things change in those 40 years? How did the four majors become what they are, without any governing body to declare their status? In this episode, we dig into history to look at the humans and institutions who made the majors what they are today.
The final part of our short series, chronicling the latter half of their rivalry and the infamous fried chicken incident.
It started at the turn of the century and ran hot for 15 years. From the PGA Championship at Medinah the 2013 Players Championship, there wasn't an ounce of love lost between the two superstars. In Part 1, we examine the origins of where it all went wrong.
The story of the last 20 years of professional golf is the story of growth's consequences, and is highlighted by the emergence of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour's new rival. We ask the tough question of whether this golf schism was an inevitable consequence of Tiger's rise, and the decision at the highest levels to pursue growth at all costs.
As the game's greatest player finalized a swing change that would take him from merely sensational to transcendent, and began playing a revolutionary new style of golf ball months ahead of most of his competitors (who wouldn't adopt the Titleist Pro-V-1 until October of 2000), golfing audiences bore witness to what can safely be considered the peak of human achievement in the sport.
This three-part podcast series attempts the big task of summarizing how the world of golf, from the professional to the recreational, has evolved over Golf Digest's existence. As it happens, 1950 is a decent starting point when you're telling that particular story.
Since its introduction in 1963, the PGA Tour's Q School has routinely been one of the most dramatic, heart-wrenching golf tournaments on the planet. This is where careers are made, and where just as often they're broken before they have a chance to soar. Where did it come from? How has it changed? Why did it disappear, only to return last year? This week, we investigate the institution of the Q School, and the outsize place it occupies in the minds of professional golfers.
On Aug. 8, Chi Chi Rodriguez passed away at age 88 and left behind him a legacy of a player whose reputation and personality exceeded his relatively modest success. That's how he would have wanted it: Rodriguez was an entertainer at heart, and he always had a joke or an elaborate celebration up his sleeve. But for this child of poverty from Puerto Rico, there's so much that stayed hidden, and it goes deeper than the surface image of a lovable jokester.
Long before Scottie Scheffler took gold in Paris, and more than a century before Justin Rose won in Rio, Olympic golf existed in the very early history of the Olympic games. This is the incredibly strange story of Olympic golf in 1900 and 1904, when chaos and confusion ruled, and only rarely gave way to Olympic glory.
In the second part of our early history series, we hone in on Scotland, and take you from the 1400s all the way to the rise of the first clubs—including the ascendancy of St. Andrews—that transformed the sport entirely and laid the groundwork for what it is today.
Where did golf come from? The easy answer to that question is "Scotland," but the historical record isn't quite so clear. Going back to the 1300s, surviving documents and drawings suggest the story is more complicated than we thought. This week, we're investigating the earliest origins of the game, and asking where it truly originated.
July marks the 25th anniversary of one of the two most notorious collapses in major championship history when Jean Van de Velde lost a three-shot lead on the final hole at Carnoustie. In the wake of Rory McIlroy's loss at Pinehurst, the Frenchman's late meltdown feels more relevant than ever; not just for the bizarre way it happened, but for his remarkable reaction, both then and in the 25 years since.
Cyril Walker put together the four rounds of his life in 1924 at the U.S. Open in Oakland Hills, defeating Bobby Jones in the final round and etching his name in golf history. So why don't more of us know him? The sad reality of Jones' life is that he fell into a spiral not long after his greatest triumph, and met a sad end in a New Jersey jail cell. This is his story.
This summer marks the 25th anniversary of Payne Stewart's triumph at Pinehurst in the 1999 U.S. Open, and as fate would have it, the National Open is back in at no. 2. In this podcast, we examine the life of Payne Stewart in living color, up to his great victory in North Carolina and his tragic death later that fall.
We've spent a decade wondering when Rory McIlroy will win his next major, but as the PGA Championship heads to Valhalla, we turned our eyes backward, to the last time he pulled it off. On that hot, humid Sunday in Kentucky, Rory asserted his will and claimed his throne atop the sport ... and it was one of those strangest finishes you could ever imagine.
Before the professional of Tiger Woods ever began, a PGA Tour committee met and determined that Sam Snead had accumulated 82 official wins in his PGA Tour career. As fate would have it, this is the exact number Tiger has landed on as his career seems to be winding down. In this podcast, we go deep on Snead's wins, and why that 82 total is—sorry to say it—highly dubious.
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Brady haters. wow! meow.
Awesome Kyle.
One comment that is meant to be helpful...I find it difficult to listen to your podcast and hear everything. I think it would help to compress your podcast audio files. At times it is too loud and at times it's very hard to hear people speaking because it is too soft. Compressing the files would make it not so loud at the loud points and the general speaking easier to hear. Also when speaking, podcasters shouldn't swallow their words.