Episodes
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Youâve likely never heard of Warren Stephensâor his magnificent and critically acclaimed Arkansas golf retreatâand thatâs by design. Recently, host Tom Coyne accepted a rare invite from Stephens to The Alotian Club, perhaps the quietest club ever to crack Americaâs top 100. The golf is eye-popping, with 18 rollercoaster holes slashed through the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, but the family behind it is where the real stories lie. Youâll meet Stephens, club founder and chairman of one of the nationâs largest privately held investment banks. Youâll hear tales from his father Jackson, a former chairman of Augusta National who presided over perhaps the most successful IPO in American history. And youâll learn how the family is giving back to the game with the Stephens Cup, a collegiate tournament hitting a few small, out-of-the-way locations like Shoreacres, PGA Frisco and, yes, the Alotian Club.
The Golfer's Journal and this podcast are made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTThe Golferâs Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist.
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In 1989, IMG agent Hughes Norton showed up at Earl Woodsâ front door. Tiger was 12âbut Norton could see the future. He would go on to become Tigerâs first agent, inking the future legend to record-setting deals with Nike and Titleist before he hit one ball as a pro. But, as youâll hear in Nortonâs new sit-down with host Tom Coyne, all that fame and fortune came at a heavy price. In this interview, Norton pulls back the curtain to reveal the soaring highs and stomach-churning lows from his 35+ years as one of golfâs premier agents. Fleshing out tales from his new memoir, Rainmaker, Norton offers blow-by-blow accounts of previously unseen Tiger moments, sheds new light on Greg Normanâs decades-long grudges, offers an inside look at the birth of IMG and reflects on how history may just judge Arnold Palmer as the gameâs true moral compass.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented byâ â â â â Titleist â â â â â
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During college in 1979, Tommy Hyland ran across a basic blackjack strategy book. Nearly a half century later, he is the kingpin of the worldâs longest-lasting and most successful professional blackjack team, and one of the seven original members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Hylandâs gaming isnât limited to the table, howeverâhe is a longtime competitive amateur golfer within the Philadelphia section, and has qualified for five USGA championships. Hyland brings host Tom Coyne on a wild ride through his 50-plus years in gambling, including the highs (cleaning Vegas out during a 1982 prizefight) and lows (losing six figures in one nightâwithout visiting a casino). Plus, Hyland elucidates the parallels between professional gambling and amateur golf, details his unlikely Lucas Glover US Open windfall, and duels Coyne in a live hand of blackjack, which was only going to end one way.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ âTGJ Podcast is presented byâ â â â @titleist â â â â
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Jon Sherman has developed a career, and a +2 handicap index, out of teaching boring golf. As the strategic mind behind Practical Golf, Sherman has parlayed his common-sense lessons into a series of bestselling books and PGA Tour coaching gigs. We recently sat down with him for a BTS member-exclusive video series designed to elevate our membersâ on-course decision making. But as Bobby Jones noted, golf and tournament golf are two very different things. In this new interview, host Casey Bannon chats with Sherman about his new book, The Foundations of Winning Golf, which focuses on the fundamentals of succeeding under pressure. The two spent time discussing strategies for leaning into tournament nerves, the value of putting your game on display and the alternative ways that Mackenzie Hughes defines success, among other insights. Tune in and start racking up Ws.
Watch Jon Sherman's six-part master class: https://glfrsj.nl/PBG
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented byâ â â @titleist â â â
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Northern Ireland was a different place when Scotsman Kevan Whitson took the Royal County Down head professional job in 1992. The country was still enmeshed in the Troubles, golf travel hadnât yet boomed, and the club saw 1,500 visitor rounds a year. But Old Tomâs layout at this low-key membersâ club strung along the Irish Sea has always been world-class, and RCD now rightfully claims its place as perhaps the greatest links in the world, as well as a fixture on every golferâs bucket list. Host Tom Coyne sat down with Whitson to walk through the changes heâs overseen in his 30 years at the club, the balancing act between providing an elite visitor experience and serving the clubâs membership, and his memories of hosting everyone from Jack and Arnie to Rory and Rickie. Plus, Whitson offers a few points of advice for anyone gearing up to take on the 2024 Irish Open host venue, and lays out how Royal County Down may just be golfâs answer to Emily Post, with every hole teaching players to mind their manners.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented byâ â @titleist â â
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If you know, you know: Itâs Poosh! If thatâs gibberish to you, pop in those earbuds and meet Micah Pueschel, frontman of reggae band Iration, published contributor in TGJ No. 29 and humble golf nerd well aware of the âinsaneâ run heâs on. Before helping to lead Iration from a college bar band to a world-touring festival headliner, Pueschel grew up at a now-defunct nine-hole muni near his home on the Big Island of Hawaii. As he tells host Tom Coyne from the Iration tour bus outside Columbus, golf took a back seat for many years, but safe to say that the bug is back in a big way. Pueschel expands on his abiding love for Soule Park and its unpretentious SoCal character, runs down his eye-popping list of courses played this year, and opens up about his experiences with âthe most nerve-wracking thing in the world.â Hint: itâs not playing shows.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented byâ @titleist â
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Last week, TGJ became one of the first media outlets to visit â TGL's performance labâ (which is different from the SoFi Center where competition will be held) in West Palm Beach, FL and preview the first of roughly 30 new digital golf holes designed specifically for league competition starting in January 2025. Managing Editor Travis Hill sat down with golf course architect Beau Welling, one of three designers behind the development of what Tiger and Rory are hoping will become an entirely new style of golf. So how were the courses designed? â How does one play a hole?â Will they play out of real fairway grass? How does this spinning green work? And will Tiger and Rory's ambitious new venture actually catch on? All these questions and more are answered on TGJ Podcast 169.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented by @titleist
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
George Solich, the youngest of five brothers from a lower-middle class family in Colorado Springs, grew up a caddie. A few decades later he has become a business titan, having developed and sold three successful companies in the energy sector. And to hear him tell it, everything leads back to golf. Today, Solich is the President and Chairman of Castle Pines Golf Club outside Denver, and on the eve of the PGA Tourâs return to this epic Jack Nicklaus design for the BMW Championship, host Tom Coyne sits down with Solich to learn how and why he brought pro golf back to Castle Pines after a lengthy absence. They also discuss the pivotal role that golf and caddying has played in Solichâs lifeâfrom his first loops at 13, to becoming an Evans Scholar, to giving back through his Solich Caddie and Leadership Program and the Western Golf Association. Solichâs story is a case study in the life-shaping power of the game, and one any golf fan will appreciate
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
Garrett Hilbert is one of the six founding members of Dude Perfectâa group of college friends that have parlayed dorm-room trick shots into a content empire that includes 60 million YouTube subscribers.
In this conversation with host Tom Coyne, Hilbert delves into the origins of Dude Perfect, how theyâve managed to build a massive audience around a demographic of 5-15 year olds, and how they've used it to introduce the next generation to golf. They also discuss how new content ideas come about, like Rory McIlroyâs world-record for most 300 yard drives and the longest putt ever made with a hot dog.
And then thereâs Augusta National video heard around the golf world in which Dude Perfect and Bryson DeChambeau kicked soccer balls and threw footballs down Amen Corner. Hilbert peels back the curtain to reveal how that video got approved, the criticism they received from the golf world and why they felt it was important for kids to see it.
Thereâs no sport that Dude Perfect hasnât touched, but itâs clear from this episode that golf plays a special role in Hilbertâs life. Here are the receipts to prove it.
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â â â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â â â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
As half of the team behind legendary far-flung layouts like Cabot St. Lucia, Te Arai in New Zealand and Tasmaniaâs Barnbougle Lost Farm, Bill Coore has spent his career crisscrossing the globe. Heâs built epic golf at every stopâbut not even Coore can conceive of 18 holes at the South Pole. Earlier this year, host Tom Coyne sat down with Coore at Bandonâs 25th anniversary celebration to discuss not just his builds in Bandon, but his recent travels to Antarctica and Patagonia. Whales and sea lions make an appearance, as does a plane with a steel-plated underbelly (and a custom penguin paint job) capable of negotiating gravel runways. Seeing this alien continent through the eyes of a seasoned traveler is illuminatingâand frightening, as Coore details in his harrowing experience of nearly being blown clean off a mountain in the Patagonian wilderness. If youâre wondering what golf architects do in their spare time, tune in.
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
An 11-year career in the NFL might be one of the least interesting things Dhani Jones has ever done. From a near-death experience while fishing in India to hunting dwarf alligators in the night in Gabon to trying different sports around the world on his TV series Dhani Tackles The Globe, Jones has seen and done it all. The former hard-hitting linebacker joins his regular playing partner Tom Coyne on the TGJ Podcast to discuss the importance of saying âyes,â staying curious, and why he considers golf âthe ultimate explanation of life.â
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
Remember Edoardo Molinari? 2005 US Am winner, Ryder Cupper, and brother of Francesco? Well, he qualified into this weekâs U.S. Open at Pinehurst and recently added a few new titles to his resume: Chief Data Strategist for Arccos and 2025 Ryder Cup Vice Captain for Team Europe. Having reinvented himself as a golf data wizard, Molinari joins host Tom Coyne to unpack his proprietary modeling service that Viktor Hovland, Matthew Fitzpatrick and the rest of the European Ryder Cup squad used to thrash the US team last September, plus his thoughts on Pinehurst, his "politically incorrect" opinions on golf in Italy and his shockingly fast round at Bethpage recently.
While âDodoâ offers player-specific insights to his stable of golfers (which now stretches to some three dozen across the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and beyond), this conversation is chock-full of nuggets for the everyday golfer. If you subscribe to axioms like âkeep it below the holeâ and âfind the right side of the fairway,â get ready to challenge your thinking.
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The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here:â â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
The New York Times calls Billy Collins Americaâs most popular living poet. The Golferâs Journal calls him a fine golfer as well, and a lover of all things Irish. When it comes to his poetry, Collins says, âI have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who Iâm talking to, and I want to make sure I donât talk too fast, or too glibly.â In this conversation with Tom Coyne following a week-long stay at Donegalâs Rosapenna, Collins doesnât talk too fast or glibly as he describes the magic of Irelandâs northwest, and for the first time shares a freshly-penned tribute to links golf.
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist -
Watch the latest TGJ Film here.
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Though at first glance it may read as a third-line act at Lollapalooza, golf architecture diehards know the Cavemen as the unsung heroes who have helped Jim Wagner, along with his partner Gil Hanse, rise to their position as one of the finest design-build firms in the game. Wagner joins fellow Philly native Tom Coyne to offer an inside look at his firmâs process, and the collection of globe-trotting, earth-moving shapers responsible for masterpieces from Ohoopee to Ladera and beyond. Also on the docket: Delco talk, the long-awaited Cobbs Creek renovation, and a future project Wagner calls âCruden Bay in Texas.â
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Read the written version of this episode hereâ .
50 years ago, Trevino, Nicklaus, and Richard Nixon (???) got tangled up at Tanglewood Park Golf Course in North Carolina during a PGA Championship that has since been lost to history. In this episode, eminent golf writer Jim Moriarty refreshes our memory of an all-time major that everyone, including its protagonists, canât seem to remember.
The Golfer's Journal is made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: â â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
TGJ Podcast is presented by Titleist
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The Golfer's Journal and this podcast are made possible by reader support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: â â https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYTâ â
Watch a new TGJ Film about Cabot Citrus Farms here.The Golferâs Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist.
At 12 years old, Ben Cowan-Dewar built a golf hole on his familyâs farm east of Toronto. By the time he graduated college, he owned a golf tour operator running trips in 20 countries. At 24, he set out to build the best course in Canada. 12 later, he had the top two. Now, with Cabot St. Lucia online and Cabot Citrus Farms welcoming guests to a new breed of Florida destination golf, Cowan-Dewar sits down to discuss his journey, and the hallmarks of the Cabot brand heâs helped to build. Entrepreneurs, dreamers and golf junkies alike will find common ground in Cowan-Dewarâs tales, which include his foolproof advice on decision making, why he said no to Mike Keiser when every instinct told him to say yes, and the inside story behind the trademark ding at the bottom of every Cabot cup.
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This is part five of a five-part TGJ Podcast series which chronicles the origin, evolution and inner-workings of The Masters. The series is voiced by David Owen and based on his best-selling book, The Making of the Masters.
Part 5: As its founders begin to decline, the mythology around The Masters only grows stronger
The Masters is paused and Augusta National is forced to become self-sufficient in the wake of World War II. In the 1970s, the club must endure the passing of Bobby Jones and the shocking suicide of Clifford Roberts. But the club and tournament move on, going to untold lengths to preserve their legacies that still reverberate today.
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
The Golfer's Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist
The Golfer's Journal is made possible thanks to our members. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYT
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This is part four of a five-part TGJ Podcast series which chronicles the origin, evolution and inner-workings of The Masters. The series is voiced by David Owen and based on his best-selling book, The Making of the Masters.
Part 4: The evolution of the Masters broadcast
In the mid-1950s, the Masters innovates by partnering with CBS to broadcast the tournament on national television. As is the case with everything at Augusta, chairman Clifford Roberts has his fingerprints all over it as he works with legendary producer Frank Chirkinian to elevate the commentary, pacing, visuals and commercial load. The modern golf telecast is born.
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
The Golfer's Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist
The Golfer's Journal is made possible thanks to our members. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYT
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This is part three of a five-part TGJ Podcast series which chronicles the origin, evolution and inner-workings of The Masters. The series is voiced by David Owen and based on his best-selling book, The Making of the Masters.
Part 3: The Augusta National Invitational Tournament is formed
By 1934, Augusta National is struggling to attract new members and raise the necessary funds to execute the clubâs vision. With this in mind, the first annual Augusta National Invitational Tournament is held, and Clifford Roberts must convince Bobby Jones to play in it. In an effort to boost ticket revenue, the traditional three-day event is stretched to four, and Roberts has some strong opinions on how to improve the fan experience.
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
The Golfer's Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist
The Golfer's Journal is made possible thanks to our members. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYT
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This is part two of a five-part TGJ Podcast series which chronicles the origin, evolution and inner-workings of The Masters. The series is voiced by David Owen and based on his best-selling book, The Making of the Masters.
Part 2: A deep dive into the design and strategy of Augusta Nationalâs routing
Thanks to his renowned designs at Cypress Point and Pasatiempo, Dr. Alister MacKenzie is hired to build Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts a golf course in Augusta, Georgia. The spectacular success of the project means that every hump, bump and contour is scrutinized. But as the course changes to adapt with modern championship golf, not every tweak is immediately embraced.
A transcript of this episode can be found here: https://glfrsj.nl/MOTM2
The Golfer's Journal Podcast is presented by Titleist
The Golfer's Journal is made possible thanks to our members. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider becoming a member here: https://glfrsj.nl/MembershipsYT
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