Two days before the Ryder Cup officially started, the fans around Bethpage Black’s 16th green produced a roar for a beautiful approach shot that managed to stay below a front-pin position. Even more impressive? It didn’t come from any of the 24 players on either Team USA or Team Europe.
Instead, Noah Kahan had pulled off the stellar approach shot. And it was the musician’s turn to be serenaded as he approached the green.
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Kahan and fellow singer/songwriter Kane Brown were in the midst of earning 6.5 points for their own Team USA as part of the Ryder Cup Celebrity All-Star Match, an event won by the Americans. And although the Vermont native has played plenty of big crowds before—including at sports venues like Fenway Park—doing it with his clubs instead of his guitar was a lot different.
”That was an amazing experience,” Kahan told Golf Digest on the most recent episode of The Loop podcast. “The fairway at 18 and then hitting the five iron up there and just being in front of all those people was a once in a lifetime event.”
But a few days later, Kahan was involved in another golf event that meant even more to the 28-year-old. And one that won’t be a one-time thing.
Kahan hosted the first Folk and Fairways, a golf outing and concert at Spruce Peak in his home state. The two-time Grammy nominee said the event was years in the making with all the proceeds benefitting his mental health charity, The Busyhead Project.
”For me to be back home and connected with where I’m from was really cool, but what was most amazing was all the conversations we had with some of the donors and sponsors and just folks who attended the event about mental health,” Kahan said. “And it really reaffirmed that there’s a need for more support in Vermont and a lot of really brilliant minds working in mental health.Got together and we talked about how we could help our state, and it just felt really empowering to feel like everybody was agreeing on this problem and finding ways to use their resources to raise money to help fight it.”
(Photo: Patrick McCormack)
The two-day event raised over $1 million, bringing The Busyhead Project—named after the title of Kahan’s first album, Busyhead—to $5.5 million raised since launching in 2023. Kahan hopped on The Loop to talk about his new golf outing, his blossoming career, his improving golf game and his favorite Vermont courses.
Plus, the guys break down Tommy Fleetwood’s latest win, the Colt Knost “amateur” debate and expose a golf scramble myth. Please have a listen:
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
