The Golfer's Journal Podcast

Few golf writers know the Ryder Cup like Shane Ryan. Since his book, The Cup They Couldn’t Lose: America, The Ryder Cup, and the Long Road to Whistling Straits, he’s only increased his exhaustive reporting of the biennial event’s origins and history. On this week’s TGJ Podcast, he and host Tom Coyne discuss the best and worst captains, the formation of the pod system, bad blood and preview next week’s showdown in Rome.

The Golfer's Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist and made possible by member support.

Since the Super Bowl era began in 1967, only 800 men have started an NFL game at quarterback. Kyle Allen is in that elite club. He joins host Casey Bannon on this week's episode of Mind Game to discuss the physical, mental, emotional and leadership skills required to play the most coveted and challenging position in professional sports.

This podcast is 100% reader supported thanks to the Broken Tee Society. Become a member here: https://www.golfersjournal.com/product-category/subscriptions/

This series is part of The Index Experiment: https://www.golfersjournal.com/index-experiment/

Casey Bannon: https://www.instagram.com/caseyfbannon/

Kyle Allen: https://www.instagram.com/kyle_allen/

As a kid, Tom Valentine called Merion Golf Club “the family farm.” His grandfather tended the greens there for 52 years, and his father followed suit for another 27. Tom took a different approach, opting to leave the "farm" to develop newer and more efficient ways to care for courses. That's taken him across the golf world, but his heart still belongs to Merion. Dig in learn more about our playing surfaces, an encounter with Albert Einstein, and a secret modification to Merion's famed 11th green. 

You might have heard that gambling legend Billy Walters is releasing a book, and that Phil Mickelson is prominently involved. But have you heard the rest of the story? The one in which Walters is raised in the pool halls of rural Kentucky, rises to legitimate business power on the Las Vegas Strip and uses his time in prison to do some good for other inmates? Walters joins host Tom Coyne to chat about Phil, the $100 million in losses, that $400,000 Ryder Cup wager and the two-year sentence Walters claims Mickelson could have prevented had he testified. But you’ll also hear the rest of a remarkable golf life.

Welcome back to Re-Teed—the show that relieves some of golf’s most memorable tournaments. This time around, Editor Travis Hill reminisces on the chaos that was the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale which, for him, included birthday cake shots, Wrigley Field and life-changing news. For Jordan Spieth, it included one of the strangest rulings in golf history and some demon slaying down the stretch. We re-tee it all on this episode, plus Travis catches up with friend-of-the-program D.J. Piehowski in an attempt to fully understand what happens on "Spieth Island."

The Golfer's Journal Podcast is made possible by member support. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/Memberships

Lou Stagner never intended to become the golf data guy. But with a degree in analytics and a spreadsheet that’s tracked every single one of his shots since the 1990s, he’s uniquely qualified for it. The prolific tweeter joins Tom Coyne to discuss why not all 10 handicaps are equal, why more birdies is a bad strategy, the importance of keeping your stats and plenty more number nerdiness.

Tom Coyne: https://twitter.com/coynewriter Lou Stagner: https://twitter.com/LouStagner

The Golfer's Journal podcast is presented by Titleist

The Golfer's Journal Podcast is made possible by Member support. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a TGJ Member: https://glfrsj.nl/Memberships

Bernard Darwin didn't invent golf writing. But as TGJ contributor and philosophy professor Matt Chominski tells us, he was the first to prove it could be a career. Chominski and host Tom Coyne are your guides through Darwin's singular golf life, with timeless tales about Pine Valley, Bobby Jones, the inaugural Walker Cup, and his famed grandfather Charles (yes, that one).

Harry Higgs would like you to know that these are his opinions, and his alone. The PGA Tour veteran joins the pod to give his unfiltered thoughts on the USGA and R&A’s recent distance ruling, criticism from “Twitter warriors,” designated and no-cut events, LIV Golf, the emotional work he’s been doing to play better golf and much more.

You’ve watched JJ Redick knock down three-pointers since his freshman year at Duke two decades ago. These days, when the 15-year NBA vet isn’t talking hoops on your TV, he’s likely grinding over his short game.

The legendary sniper joins host Tom Coyne to discuss how he’s redirecting his competitive fire into golf. He also nerds out on club logos, ponders the art inherent in golf course architecture, compares swing thoughts to shooting thoughts and fires off a truly NSFW Greg Norman take.

Tom Coyne: https://twitter.com/coynewriter

JJ Redick: https://twitter.com/jj_redick

Casey Bannon: https://twitter.com/CaseyFBannon

Five years after they first started recording their quest to a 0.0, Mike & Eli of Chasing Scratch are still doing exactly that. The co-hosts of golf’s favorite game improvement buddy podcast join host Tom Coyneto to unpack their up-and-down journey to this point, and help our audience avoid any pitfalls along the path of better. For example: Are training aids a scam? Is speed necessary? How many wedges do you actually need to hit to get better?

This lively back-and-forth includes a live Q&A with Broken Tee Society members participating in The Index Experiment, and will have you itching to rededicate yourself to the grind.

Charlie Warzel writes about technology’s effect on culture, people and ideas for The Atlantic. This makes him the perfect person to ask the question: Why are we all addicted to watching the Trents and Big Randys of the world play golf on YouTube?

Warzel consumed “a weapons-grade amount of YouTube golf” for his story in TGJ No. 23, and joins the podcast to unpack it all with Tom Coyne. They also discuss the future of AI and writing, the work-from-home movement, Warzel’s Index Experiment goals, and characters he’s befriended through covering golf.

Nearly 20 years ago, TGJ Senior Editor Tom Coyne put life on hold, moved to Florida and dumped everything he had into chasing his dream of playing pro golf. He chronicled his journey in the NYT best-selling book Paper Tiger, and recently sat down with TGJ contributor Matt Chominski to reflect on what he learned whilst doing so.

This February, pro golf will receive the F1 treatment thanks to Full Swing: an eight-part Netflix docuseries showcasing what life as a pro golfer was really like in 2022. Vox Media's Chad Mumm—a Broken Tee Society member known to pop into our Discord server—is the man behind it all. He joins Tom Coyne on TGJ Podcast 126 to give a behind-the-scenes look at making the show, the process behind getting access to players, and why fans have a certain multi-major champion all wrong. 

Mike DeVries has learned from the best. The Michigan native first picked up the game at Crystal Downs, trained under Tom Doak and worked for Tom Fazio. He's since made a name for himself by designing celebrated modern courses like Kingsley Club, Cape Wickham and Greywalls to name a few.

On TGJ Podcast 125, DeVries joins host Tom Coyne from the site of his next project in Tasmania to speak to what makes for "engaging" golf," his personal top five and why, for him, everything comes back to Crystal Downs. 

It’s not easy to pin down Bill Murray, but one way to do so, as podcast host Tom Coyne learned, is to ride shotgun with him across Georgia. In this candid conversation from the midst of a golf road trip to Ohoopee Match Club, the two discuss what they love about golf, where they love to play it, and with whom. It’s Bill Murray as you haven’t heard him before–not the movie star but your pilot across the low country, both of you late for a tee time.

Andrew Green has become one of the hottest names in golf course architecture thanks to his renovation work at Inverness, Congressional, Oak Hill, Scioto, Wannamoisett and many other golden age classics in need of a refresh. But does he want to build something from scratch? He joins Tom Coyne on the TGJ Podcast to discuss his passion for history, his start in golf course design, love for his job and why William Flynn is his spirit animal. 

In 2004, software developer Mark Sweeney was fed up with missing putts. So he dedicated two years of his life to creating a system that delivers perfect reads. He called it AimPoint. 

You’ve seen players from Keegan Bradley to Lydia Ko to Adam Scott straddle their line and read their break in finger-widths. Now, hear from the inventor of this peculiar but effective strategy, as Sweeney and host Tom Coyne dig into this method that took 100,000 lines of code to get right. Along the way, you’ll learn how Golf Channel’s virtual putting line came to be, how a group of third graders helped unlock an AimPoint mystery, and why you might already be a much better putter than you think.

Tron doesn’t hold back on Twitter. Soly shared his No Laying Up origin story in #7, and DJ’s byline is a regular in The Golfer’s Journal. But what about the member of No Laying Up whose presence, quite literally, overshadows them all? 

Phil Landes (aka Big Randy) has become one of golf media’s favorite characters via his appearances across NLU’s platforms, yet a part of him is ducking the spotlight–not an easy feat at 6’8”. He joins the podcast to talk with Tom Coyne about how a former accountant and freshmen basketball coach came to find himself drinking out of the Solheim Cup, and whether this dream job is a dream job after all. In this honest and insightful discussion, Phil reflects on living with two names, his current romantic circumstance, how we’re all just a different shade of short to him, and why he doesn’t want to meet your dog.

You know Rick Reilly from the back page of Sports Illustrated, where he delivered 800 words of humor, heartbreak or heroism every week for 15 years. And though you’ve seen him at St. Andrews and read him at Augusta—his ‘96 opus on Norman’s collapse is an all-timer—you’ll be surprised to discover just how deep his golf obsession goes. Reilly, who joined the Broken Tee Society earlier this year, jumped into our members-only Discord server to talk with Tom Coyne about his lifelong love of the game, which he has distilled into his new book So Help Me Golf. The stories within—from a fraught relationship with his dad, to the myriad cheating methods employed by sitting US presidents, to tales of POWs and drug-mule caddies—cement him as one of the finest golf scribes of our time.

Conor Moore believes he has no accent. But when the Irishman is impersonating the world’s most famous athletes, he’s got them all. Though this episode sounds like a cast of many, it’s just Moore and host Tom Coyne going deep on the art behind his sketches (hint: don’t call them impressions), the toughest athlete to impersonate, and the time he was (jokingly) cursed out by Tiger Woods. Cameo appearances from Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Greg Norman and Rory McIlroy highlight this lively conversation.

We've all heard it: "Drive for show, putt for dough." But after speaking with Mark Broadie, the godfather of the game-changing Strokes Gained model, we're rethinking that position. Professor Broadie joins Tom Coyne live in the Broken Tee Society Discord server to unpack golf's ongoing data revolution, and why you're trying to shave strokes in all the wrong places.  

Mark Broadie is the Carson Family Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. In the mid-2000s, he developed the Strokes Gained model by manually tracking and analyzing thousands of golf shots from amateurs at his club in Pelham, New York. After gaining access to the PGA Tour's shot-tracking data, Broadie refined his model, then released his seminal book Every Shot Counts in 2014. He now works on the USGA handicap research team, operates the GolfMetrics stat-tracking app, and advises a number of professional and amateur players.

Ryan Carey wasn’t looking to become the world’s foremost golf memorabilia auctioneer. A lawyer by trade, Carey started Green Jacket Auctions as a side gig to feed his passion for the game’s history. 16 years and one very expensive set of irons later, Carey and his team are riding high and traveling the world in search of the next great golf item.

Carey joins Tom Coyne live in the Broken Tee Society Discord server to offer a glimpse into the career that’s taken him everywhere from Tom Watson’s home bar to Perry Maxwell’s basement. Plus, he details the record-breaking sale of the “Tiger Slam” irons, and delivers an otherworldly prediction when asked about the Holy Grail of golf collecting.

Unless you’ve already dug into Charlie Warzel’s profile in TGJ #21, you’ve probably never heard of Ben Garner. You’ve likely never heard about the kid who used to beat Tiger Woods (sometimes) and who buddied around SoCal with the future superstar, two kids who understood what it was like to live beneath the shadow of demanding golf dads. 

Ben Garner joins the Golfer’s Journal podcast to discuss what happened between being unbeatable and being beaten, to where he couldn’t even look at a golf course or tell his old friend how he was really doing. If it all sounds like a typical wayward prodigy tale, you’ll want to listen to hear where Charlie Warzel finds him, and how it all came back to Ben in abundant and unforeseeable ways.

Tom Doak has a reputation for being difficult. Golf media has described him as socially awkward and emotionally remote, traits that are often overlooked in favor of the brilliance he’s brought to course designs around the world. But there is much more to Tom Doak and his public persona than people have discussed or know about–until now. 

With unflinching candor, Doak digs deep on “my media reputation as an asshole,” discussing what he’s learned about himself through group therapy and addressing his complicated relationships with peers like Gil Hanse and David McLay Kidd. It all makes for a riveting conversation about the forces that shape our lives–some that we might change, and others that we learn to accept.

Dottie Pepper has little sympathy for the modern professional golfer. But you can’t blame her—the beloved CBS analyst and 17-winner on the LPGA never had anything handed to her. She turned down a Dinah Shore sponsor's exemption in college because she couldn't afford to travel; she borrowed $5,000 from her grandfather to play in the 1987 U.S. Open; and her parents rented out their house to horse jockeys and trainers every summer to pay for her junior golf. So, no, she’s not interested in hearing about no cuts and guaranteed pay days. 

Pepper joins Assistant Editor Casey Bannon to discuss the current state of the professional golfer, the value in taking the hard way, criticisms of the broadcast, writing her first book and what’s currently in her garden.

Thomas Friedman has been the foreign affairs Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times since 1995. He’s also in the Western Golf Association Caddie Hall of Fame. He’s been to Saudi Arabia, and he’s been inside the ropes, caddying for Chi Chi Rodriguez in the 1970 U.S. Open. In short: He knows the Gulf, and he knows golf.

Friedman joins the podcast and explains how the reality on the ground in Saudi Arabia is much more complex than what’s being reported in golf circles and why the LIV golf experiment thus far “has been a colossal failure as an effort to improve their image."

He also discusses life as a golf diehard, including stories from his time as a member of both Seminole and Beirut Golf & Country Club, how golf has led to some juicy scoops in his Pulitzer Prize-winning career, and why politics should be kept off the course.

Brad Faxon joins the podcast on the heels of a thrilling U.S. Open finish to reflect on what made Brookline such an enjoyable venue, and why we’re now seeing the fruits of his labor with Rory McIlroy.

The pride of Rhode Island also dives into the current state of the flat stick, giving context to the rise of mallets and AimPoint green reading. But stick around for the time Greg Norman called Faxon to an impromptu players-only meeting before the 1994 Shark Shootout. Those details might sound familiar.

Shipnuck joins the TGJ Podcast to unpack all the factors at play with LIV Golf, including money, ego, legacy, morals and the PGA Tour's own culpability in creating competition. He also takes us into the phone call with Phil Mickelson that became national news and ultimately forced Phil into hiding.

Featuring host Tom Coyne, TGJ editors Travis Hill and Casey Bannon, and ESPN's Kevin Van Valkenburg.

From cleaning clubs to writing blogs to announcing the biggest events in golf, Shane Bacon has lived a golf life well beyond his years. He joins us via the Broken Tee Society to discuss how he went from grinding on the mini-tours to taking center-stage in the Golf Channel’s lineup as co-host of "Golf Today." Plus, he walks us through an evolving landscape in golf coverage, as off-the-course drama rivals on-the-course action for attention.

Over the next 30 minutes, we will attempt to refocus your energy, and recenter your mind, with a meditation designed specifically for golfers, but not just for golfers.  

If you are new to meditation, well welcome – this is a beginner friendly exercise.  And if you are experienced in the art of mindfulness, we hope you’ll find some new ideas and sounds to work into your own routine.  

Either way, we think you’ll find that the benefits of meditation will carry on beyond this brief session, and hopefully, out onto the golf course with you.