Articles by Tod Leonard

Hard-luck pro rewarded for his grit by pulling off rare PGA Tour feat

It sure seems that Philip Knowles deserved some golf grace coming his way, because over the last couple of years the 28-year-old from Florida has experienced horrible luck. He’s endured a freak injury and the recurrence of the very painful shingles virus—in his eye, no less. MORE: In stunning turnaround, Jake Knapp breaks course record Read more…

From the archive: Whatever happened to the 15-inch cup?

In the case of the short-lived 15-inch cup in golf, Golf Digest served as the leading guinea pig. Or was it the biggest sucker? In the June 2011 edition of the magazine, writer Jaime Diaz was tasked with documenting what was dubbed the Golf Digest WIDE Open at the Pine Needles Lodge & Club. “OPEN Read more…

U.S. Open 2025: From walk-on to major champion, J.J. Spaun’s college coach has seen him at his lowest and highest through the years

For years, since he coached J.J. Spaun at San Diego State in the early 2010s, Ryan Donovan has watched the golfer float between cockiness and crushing self-doubt. Spaun, the improbable winner of the U.S. Open at Oakmont on Sunday, came from humble beginnings, growing up in working-class San Dimas in L.A.’s San Gabriel Valley. Without Read more…

At the 1994 US Open, Oakmont, Arnie and O.J. merged on the most surreal day in sports history

Very few people will ever know what the true relationship was between Arnold Palmer and O.J. Simpson. As two sporting icons, were they friends, or merely fellow “actors” shooting very corny Hertz commercials together in the mid-1980s? What we do know is that their lives became unintentionally tangled in the most bizarre way on a Friday in June nearly 31 years ago.