When he gets interested in something, which happens a lot, Guy Yocom goes deep. Given the way one of golf’s all-time interviewers has been wired—abundantly by nature, sparingly by nurture, dynamically in combination—it seems he’s had little choice. Sixty years ago, when he was 9, Yocom began diving into the stacks of rejected old books Read more…
At 98, Bob Toski is the oldest living PGA Tour winner, having succeeded his friend Jackie Burke, who passed away in 2024 at the age of 100. Both men had magnetic personalities and shared mutually enriching relationships with giants of the game. Toski is now the last member of an era that was eyewitness to Read more…
When David Leadbetter met a student of equal intensity Editor’s note: In June 1985, instructor David Leadbetter teamed with Nick Faldo. Faldo willingly suffered through a difficult transition period that threatened to derail his career. But under Leadbetter’s steady guidance, the fiercely determined Faldo won the 1987 Open Championship and then five more majors. The Read more…
Whenever the subject is the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont, I think of Arnold Palmer. By all rights, the mind should go to the winner, Jack Nicklaus. It was his first victory as a pro, and the first of his 18 major championships. He beat the best player in the world, soon usurping him on Read more…
Editor’s Note—This story first ran June 29, 2016, in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Open, when the rules controversy surrounding Dustin Johnson’s final round was fresh in the memories of all those involved and the aftermath of the chaos that ensued was still being determined. What eventually followed were changes in the rules Read more…
Johnny Miller has gotten a lot of mileage for the 63 he shot at Oakmont Country Club on Sunday at the 1973 U.S. Open. Critics of Miller when he was the lead analyst for NBC’s golf coverage tired of the rhetorical shoehorn he often used to mention the feat. Maybe. But I think Miller deserves Read more…
Measuring caddie credit in pro golf is a subjective exercise. Few moments are as clear-cut as Steve Williams calling Tiger Woods off a bounced-in sand wedge from deep rough in favor of a risky, nuked and spinning lob wedge on the 72nd hole of the 2008 U.S. Open, setting up the most momentous 12-footer ever. Read more…
At this precise moment 25 years ago—early May 2000—the greatest golf of all time was being primed for liftoff. A then-24-year-old Tiger Woods, who had always played a wound golf ball with a balata cover, was preparing to put a new multilayer, solid-core ball in play. He believed it gave him an edge—less spin and Read more…
Brad Faxon always seemed to be two different players, each on parallel but dramatically divergent paths that never seemed to intersect. One was easy, capable of wondrous eye-hand artistry. The other had a dogged, fitful struggle whose triumphs put him in the conversation for best bad ball-striker in golf history. With short shots, and especially Read more…
“We act with all the authority not vested in us.” So said David Fay back in 1989, when he was the USGA’s executive director and Karsten Solheim was filing a $100 million lawsuit against the ruling body’s ban of the Ping Eye 2’s so-called U-grooves. Fay’s pithy switcheroo, which has somehow never been included in Read more…
Editor’s note: In celebration of Golf Digest’s 75th Anniversary, each month Writer-At-Large Jaime Diaz will interview key figures in the game to explore what happened when they were at the height of their powers. In June 1985, instructor David Leadbetter teamed with Nick Faldo. Faldo willingly suffered through a difficult transition period that threatened to Read more…
The news of George Foreman’s death at the age of 76 came as a shock. The two-time heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist was a force of nature, not only in his awesome physical abilities but also verbally, as a product pitchman and HBO boxing analyst, and especially in deep recall of an inspirational life Read more…
John Feinstein, one of the most prolific sportswriters in the history of American journalism and a longtime contributor to Golf Digest, passed away on Thursday. No cause of death was given. He was 69. In a journalism career that began at the Washington Post in 1977, Feinstein wrote more than 40 books, of which nearly Read more…
It’s funny. Even though Tiger Woods failed to win 296 of the 378 events he played on the PGA Tour, I’ve never thought of him being tortured by a tough loss. He was fine after a Sunday collapse that caused him to get boat-raced by Ed Fiori in his third pro tournament, 1996 Quad Cities Read more…
Editor’s note: In celebration of Golf Digest’s 75th Anniversary, each month Writer-At-Large Jaime Diaz will interview key figures in the game to explore what happened when they were at the height of their powers. In a period of 20 days in 1971, Lee Trevino won the national opens of the United States, Canada and Great Read more…
Well before I was a senior, I was captured early on by the senior tour for its cavalcade of living golf history and for the artful swings and the shots. That affinity has grown deeper with the years.
At the moment, it seems negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, are enmeshed in anti-trust regulation hell, forcing a harrowing holding pattern in which all of golf’s lawyers and all the kingdom’s men can’t seem to put what’s left of the tour back together again.
There’s really no one in the history of golf like Lydia Ko. First, there’s a pretty air-tight argument that Ko is the greatest very young player in golf history. Yes, including Tiger Woods, who from the ages of 15 through 20 won three straight U.S. Juniors followed by three straight U.S. Amateurs. But in the Read more…
Australian Golf Digest
