Articles by Jerry Tarde

‘What I want to be when I grow up’

After 37 1/2 years, there’s a new superintendent at the No. 1 course in the country, which is kind of a big deal. The old guy, Rick Christian, has retired at age 60, and therein lies a couple of stories. I was a new member at Pine Valley Golf Club when he was named head Read more…

Four risks to golf’s momentum

A popular Irish golfer—who has flip-flopped so many times I’m not sure where he stands now—spoke the unvarnished truth when he said he used to be opposed to the PGA Tour partnering with LIV, but looked at how much money he made last year, and, well, you know, it’s all good. The game’s ongoing success Read more…

The shot that made Tiger Tiger

If you’re a golfer, he needs no introduction. Butch Harmon is the greatest golf teacher of all time, the most outrageously under-appreciated figure yet to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and Tiger Woods’ coach in his formative and peak years from 1993 to 2004—ages 17 to 28. “The way I put Read more…

The real score is Jack 20, Tiger 18

Long before Tiger came along, the pals of my youth were Hoganophiles or infantrymen in Arnie’s Army. I was a Nicklaus guy; I studied all things Jack. My first act of civil disobedience as a teenager was getting a Philadelphia public-library card under false pretenses in the name of “Jack Nicklaus.” I used it to Read more…

Why golfers climb mountains

I must know a couple of thousand people on a first-name basis who play golf, but I know only two who climb mountains. I went to Arizona to see one of them on the way to see the other in Kansas. I asked the first what I should ask the second. They’re both in the Read more…

My unlikeliest golf friend you need to meet

I have the unlikeliest golf friend that you need to meet because a round of golf with him will change your life—or at least inspire you to look at the world differently. Jim Yong Kim was born in 1959 in Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world at the time. His father was a Read more…

How much golf is too much golf? Let’s find out

A great wind is blowing off the sea, a source of courage or pain for golfers. I’m reporting from the battlefield of links golf in a howling, moaning gale on the southwest coast of Ireland at the 16th World Invitational Father-Daughter Tournament. My daughter Sam and I are not accustomed to playing every day, and Read more…

Phil Mickelson made 47 holes-in-one, and I believe him

Last fall an 11-year-old named Holden Bautista made two holes-in-one in a single round, and, even better, Tiger Woods was an eyewitness. The kid asked Tiger if he had ever made double aces—“I mean you’re the GOAT, so it would be expected?” “You had to go there,” replied Tiger, laughing. “I’ll give you that one.” Read more…

How Mike Keiser invented the Remote Architecture Movement

You might say it started when W.P. Kinsella wrote a baseball novel in 1982 called “Shoeless Joe” that used the haunting refrain, “If you build it, he will come.” The extraterrestrials of Stonehenge may have had the notion originally, but Kinsella’s mantra expressed perfectly that if you create something worthwhile, people will beat a path Read more…