ANALYSIS and COMMENTARY

In case you missed it last November, I joined Connor Lewis in Episode 54 of the TalkinGolf History podcast to discuss the Masters. When did the Masters become the Masters? And when did it become a major championship? Those burning questions and more are answered in this podcast.

Link to The Masters: The Making of a Major
 

Both Bob Drum and Arnold Palmer have recounted how the two of them conceived of golf's "modern grand slam" on a trans-Atlantic flight shortly after Palmer had won the 1960 US Open at Cherry Hills. In 2016, Katherine Bissell repeated the story told to her by Drum:

While Palmer is known for many things, he is least known for the one thing that is most important historically. On a flight across the Atlantic in 1960, he invented the modern grand slam of golf.

It happened when Palmer was on his way to the British Open, after having won the Masters and the U.S. Open that year.  One person aboard the plane was the late Bob Drum, then a sportswriter for a newspaper in Pittsburgh. As Drum told the story to me, Palmer asked Drum what it would be if he, Palmer, won the British Open and the PGA in addition to the Masters and the U.S. Open.  Drum said he replied that it would be the equal of Bobby Jones’ grand slam. According to Drum, Palmer said, “That’s what...

Last week, Brandel Chamblee created a stir with critical comments about golf instruction that appeared in a two-part interview by Golfweek's Adam Schupak on March 24 and 26.¹ In response, instructor David Leadbetter penned a scathing "open letter" to Brandel that was published in Golf Digest on March 27.² That same day, Golfweek's Eamon Lynch chimed in on Twitter with the following Tweet, and David fired right back:
For those unfamiliar with the Lydia Ko-David Leadbetter saga, here is a recap:

By the fall of 2013, 16 year old Lydia Ko was a rapidly rising star in women's golf. In October, she announced her intention to turn professional. At that time she had accomplished the following: youngest person ever to win a professional golf tour event, the youngest person ever to win an LPGA event, and, in August 2013, the only amateur to win two LPGA Tour events. In all, Lydia had won five professional events while an amateur and, at the end of 2013,...

On July 15, 2015, the University of St. Andrews announced a significant discovery found in a cache of papers donated by a local family that had not been examined for 40 years: a unique photograph of Scotland’s greatest ever golfer, Young Tom Morris, in action on the St. Andrews links:

Although in the university's possession were studio poses of Young Tom (also known as Tommy), no photographs of him actually playing the game were known to exist. The university's photographic archivist, Trevor Ledger, explained the significance of the discovery: