Both Sides of the Ball

Bo reflects on his return to the leaderboard with a second place finish at the 2021 Palmetto Championship at Congaree Golf Club. He and Farrell also cover this weeks US open at Torrey Pines. 

Phil Mickelson won the 103rd PGA Championship to become at 50-years-old the oldest winner of a major championship. Bo and Farrell look back on the historic win and the wild scene that ensued on the final hole with the raucous gallery. They also look ahead to the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in June and Phil's chances of completing the career grand slam there to solidify his legacy. Maybe, they suggest, the win at Kiawah Island may have been the greatest achievement of his career, taking him out of the shadow of Tiger Woods.

Steve Scott is best known to the golf world for nearly beating Tiger Woods in the 1996 U.S. Amateur at Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon. On the 25th anniversary of one of the most epic U.S. Amateur finals, Scott is releasing a new book, “Hey Tiger, You Need to Move your Mark back: 9 Simple Words That Changed the Game of Golf Forever. With Bo and Farrell, Scott, now a PGA Club Professional, discusses that historic match and how it has shaped his life and impacted the game.

Summary: Golf is one of those sports where when you come out of college there is no team to help you transition into life as a pro. Pro golfers are independent contractors who pay their own bills and plan their own transportation. It's especially hard when you're a young player without significant financial resources or connections. That's where Ken Bentley comes in. The former Nestle executive started the APGA Tour in 2010 to increase diversity in pro golf and to give mostly minority players resources to prepare their games for the PGA Tour. With Bo and Farrell, Bentley, a former college tennis player, shares his vision for the APGA Tour and some of the lessons he got along the way from icons like tennis great Arthur Ashe.

B.J. Little, a 16-year-old participant in the First Tee Metro Atlanta chapter, is the future of golf, whether he becomes a PGA Tour player, U.S. Senator or the President of the United States. In a wide-ranging conversation on Both Sides of the Ball, Little wowed Bo and Farrell with his maturity, ambition, leadership qualities and love for the game of golf—assets that were sparked first by his grandfather who introduced him to the game, but nurtured and accelerated by his participation with the First Tee.

Roger Steele has a perspective on the game of golf that you should know. With Bo and Farrell, the Chicago native explains his advice to beginning golfers, trash talking and handling people who underestimate your golf knowledge because of the way you look.

Bo played in four Masters and Farrell covered the tournament for many years, but they still get chills talking about golf's mecca. Bo tells the story of his hole in one on the Par 3 16th in the 2012 Masters on his way to a final round 64. They make picks and reflect on the significance of the club making Lee Elder an honorary starter at this year's event. They love the Masters and the reverence they hold for it comes through in this wide-ranging conversation.

A Detroit native, Sommer Woods is the tournament lead for The John Shippen, a golf event in late June that will give the best African-American amateurs and pros an opportunity to qualify for the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic at the Detroit Golf Club. With Bo and Farrell, Sommer explains the challenges and opportunities of diversity and conclusion in golf. She brings a soulful energy to the game as only someone from the Motor City could.

Tisha Alyn is one of the hottest influencers in the world of golf. The 27-year- old SoCal native is making the game cooler, fresher and more accessible. With Bo and Farrell, Alyn takes us on her journey from the grind of the mini-tours to a one-woman act on the world golf stage. She recalls the first time she met Phil Mickelson and his impact on her confidence and waking up sweating after nightmares of hitting hooks and the pressure of hitting shots at celebrity events.

The U.S. Amateur and U.S. Amateur Public Links champion played nearly a decade on the PGA Tour before retiring in early 2000 to pursue a new career as a golf broadcaster. With Bo and Farrell, he shows off the humor and golf knowledge that have made him a popular podcast host. Full of fresh insights on players and trends in the game, the 35-year Pilot Point, Texas explains his favorite gambling bets on the golf course and how he still has a passion for the game and competing with his friends from the tour.

Bo and Farrell tell us what they were thinking when they learned the news of Tiger's wreck in Los Angeles on the morning of February 23. They look back at Tiger's magnificent career to look forward to his long rehabilitation and the longshot of him ever being as great as he was when he was the best player to ever play the game. They talk about the untimely deaths of some great sports heroes from Len Bias to Kobe Bryant to put some perspective on what it means to have our heroes taken from us.

For three decades Rick Smith has been one of the most respected golf instructors in the world with clients that include major champions, Phil Mickelson, Lee Janzen, Jack Nicklaus, David Duval, Vijay Singh and Greg Norman. With Bo and Farrell, he discusses the current state of teaching, his own ups and downs as a player and working with some of the best players in the world. On Mickelson, with whom he helped to three major wins, Smith relives the nightmare of the lefty's unraveling at the 72nd Hole of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot and the sleepless nights he had after the championship.

In a 40-year career as a golf writer, Pete McDaniel has written three books, a documentary and appeared in numerous documentaries as an expert, most recently HBO’s two-part series on Tiger Woods. With Bo and Farrell, the Asheville, N.C native and retired Golf Digest senior writer,  recalls his roots in the game as a caddie, covering Tiger Woods, friendships with black golfing pioneers, and the career he wanted as a songwriter.

Sidelined from the PGA Tour with Covid, Harold Varner III took some time to have a wide-ranging and candid conversation with Bo and Farrell about life on and off the tour. In his laid-back southern drawl the 30-year-old Charlotte resident takes the fellas down a fun winding ride through speaking out after the George Floyd murder, battling nerves at the 2019 PGA at Bethpage, topping his tee shot in front of hundreds of fans at the Genesis Invitational,  duck hunting, his dislike of HBO's Tiger Woods documentary and his charitable foundation. It's an honest reflection from a man not afraid to speak his mind or have a good time. 

Kamaiu Johnson, a 26-year-old African-American pro golfer, is making his PGA Tour debut at The 2021 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. With Bo and Farrell, the Tallahassee, Florida native shares his heart-warming journey from taking up the game at 13 to dropping out of school to being homeless to struggling on the mini tours to securing sponsorships that are allowing him to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time PGA Tour member. In this wide ranging conversation, Kamaiu explains how golf saved his life.

No matter your political bent it’s easy to concede that Donald Trump has been an unusual president. In this latest episode of Both Sides of the Ball, Bo and Farrell have a wide-ranging conversation with Rick Reilly, the 11-time Sportswriter of the Year award winner and author of Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, to try to gain more insight into Trump the golfer and man. Reilly tells one funny story after another from his book about Trump cheating to win on the golf course. Bo and Farrell also share their own Trump stories in this unfiltered conversation with one of the best-known sportswriters in America.

In late 2020, Teddy Greenstein made the leap to Pointsbet, a betting website, after a 24-year career with the Chicago Tribune, where he covered golf and Big 10 football and basketball. With old friends, Bo and Farrell, Greenstein discusses his decision to join the fast-growing world of online sports betting, some of his favorite memories from covering golf and the basics of making golf bets. 

Most people know that in 2020 world No. 1 Dustin Johnson won four tournaments, including the Masters and the $15 million FedEx Cup. What is less known is the role that his diet plays in his success. Chef Michael Parks is the man responsible for filling Johnson up with food that  provides the fuel to beat the best players in the world. With Bo and Farrell, Parks reflects on what it's like being Johnson's personal chef, his plans for a cookbook and some of the perks of the job. 

In case you missed it, Bo & Farrell had a wide-ranging conversation with Michael Collins, an ESPN golf personality, aka America's Caddie. A former comedian and caddie, Collins serves up a hefty dose of funny stories of his escapades as a tour caddie, as well as some perspective on the decline of the black caddie.

With a generous donation from NBA star Steph Curry, Howard University's golf program is being revived after 40 years of dormancy. Sam Puryear, a 50-year-old Winston Salem, NC native, is charged with building the men's and women's program at the HBCU in the nation's capital. With Bo and Farrell, Sam shares his vision for the program and how golf can be an agent of change in the life of young people, a lesson he chronicles in his new book Diamonds in the Rough, about his years at the East Lake Foundation in Atlanta.

In 2014, Ben Reiter, then a Sports Illustrated baseball writer, wrote a cover story predicting that the Houston Astros, one of Major League Baseball's worst teams, would win the World Series in three years. After the Astros fulfilled his prediction in 2017, Reiter detailed the team's rise in his book Astroball. When it was discovered that the Astros had operated an elaborate sign stealing system that many viewed as cheating, Reiter set out to uncover the truth of the scandal with a six-part podcast. With Bo and Farrell, Reiter discusses the nuances of cheating in baseball and golf and how the podcast gave him a second chance of getting the story right.

When Alan Shipnuck was a college intern at Sports Illustrated he landed his first cover story in 1994. At 21-years old he became one of the youngest staff writers in the magazine’s history. Over the last 25 years, Shipnuck, now a senior writer at Golf Magazine, has crafted one of the most unique voices in golf journalism—at once playful, funny, sincere, meddlesome, and deeply reported. With Bo and Farrell he talks about covering today’s best players as he looks back over some of his favorite moments through the years with a joy that comes with an abiding love for the game. 

For TaylorMade, Tony Starks writes product descriptions and website content for the worldwide golf brand. For the game of golf,  the Little Washington, Virginia native is a steadfast ambassador of diversity and inclusion. With Bo and Farrell, the Morehouse College graduate discusses his diversity and inclusion work with both TaylorMade and PGA Magazine and how he married his church pastor and how she met him on the range at Torrey Pines Golf Course for their first date.

Bo and Farrell have an intimate conversation about the Masters and the Augusta National Golf Club. As a participant in four Masters, Bo knows the course very well and the satisfaction of making the game’s most select field and being in contention on Sunday. Here Bo recounts his favorite memories from the tournament, including the time he had a hole-in-one at the par 3 16th hole. Farrell, a Georgia native, reflects on what the the tournament means to Black America and the significance of Lee Elder being a Masters honorary starter.

On the PGA Tour there are just four African-American players.  Andy Walker,  the 45-year-old African-American and Lynn University men’s golf coach, wants to change that with the creation of the UGA Developmental Academy, which will nurture  African-American golfers for careers as tour players and employment opportunities  in the industry. Walker knows what it takes to compete on the game’s highest level. The Phoenix native  was a member of Pepperdine’s 1997 men’s golf  national championship team, as well as a Korn Ferry Tour veteran. With old friends, Bo and Farrell, Andy shares his vision for changing the face of the game and reviving the spirit of the UGA, the black golf circuit that before the integration of the PGA Tour in the 1960s was the chief proving ground for the best black players. 

First Tee President Greg McLaughlin joins Bo and Farrell to discuss the success and challenges of the organization that has reached more than 15 million young people since its founding in 1997.  While only at the helm of The First Tee since 2018, McLaughlin has closely watched over the years  the organization grow into a behemoth in the game.   Bo helped start a First Tee chapter in his hometown of Richmond, Indiana.  And Farrell has challenged through his journalism and community work the First Tee's impact on  underserved youth. Their perspectives guide much of this lively conversation with McLaughlin, who as the Tournament Director at the 1992 Genesis Invitational gave a 16-year-old Tiger Woods his first exemption into a PGA Tour event.

For years Mac Barnhardt was one of golf's top agents—shepherding the careers of the likes of Davis Love III, David Duval and Brandt Snedeker from his perch in Sea Island, Ga., where he created a sanctuary to develop and nurture talent. But in 2018 he was, in his words, fired by the company that bought his company. Now he's reemerged with a plan to revolutionize the way athletes are managed. In a wide-ranging conversation with Bo and Farrell, Mac provides some of the insights and stories from his long career and his pursuit of  the next client to lead to a great career.

Lt. Colonel Dan Rooney, an F-16 Fighter pilot in the Air Force Reserves and a PGA professional, has combined his love and admiration  for golf, military service and flying to create the Folds of Honor Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to families of military men and women who have fallen or been disabled while on active duty in the U.S. Military. Lt. Colonel Rooney, who played golf at the University of Kansas, tells Bo and Farrell the story of how an experience with the family of a fallen soldier led him to start Folds of Honor, which has awarded approximately 24,500 scholarships since its inception in 2007.

Think Bill James, a  pioneer of baseball statistics or the Moneyball story of how Billy Bean used stats to make the Oakland A's a viable MLB franchise. Now think about the man who revolutionized the use of statistics in the game of golf. That man is Mark Broadie, who joined Bo and Farrell to explain Strokes Gained, the revolutionary tool that changed how the best players in the world evaluate their performance and strategy across the various areas of their games.  Sean Foley, who wrote the foreword to Broadie's book, Every Shot Counts, calls the Columbia Business School professor one of the most influential minds of the last 20 years in the game of golf. 

Mariah Stackhouse, a 26-year-old four-time All American at Stanford, is the only African-American with full status on the LPGA Tour. The Atlanta native is poised to make an impact on women and African-Americans in the game of golf. With Bo and Farrell, Mariah shares the love, faith, self-belief and purpose that has driven her to the elite of women's professional golf. 

For more than two decades, Michael Bamberger, a Golf Magazine writer, has brought an unconventional and often quirky sensibility to his coverage of Tiger Woods. Bamberger discusses The Second Life of Tiger Woods, his look at the 15-time major winner's resurgence after a long downward spiral in his career. In the second segment, Sameer Pandya, a literary and cultural studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, talks about his maiden novel, Members Only, which is about race and privilege at a predominantly white tennis club. Both these writers are brilliant at bringing sports and the game of golf into focus in a deeply thoughtful, historical and intellectual way that is sure to engage and challenge fans of this podcast. 

Loud, outspoken and a sometimes outlandish dresser, the 36-year-old San Jose native and three-time LPGA Tour winner is not your typical reserved Tour player. Whether it’s about Black Lives Matter or LGBT or Covid-19 protocols, she isn’t afraid to speak her mind. With Bo and Farrell, Christina is funny, honest and grateful about her life in golf.

With stints at Newsday, the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, where he covered the NFL and the PGA Tour, Damon Hack is one of the most respected sportswriters in America. At the Golf Channel since 2012, the Los Angeles native and father of triplet boys has responded to the current social unrest with a weekly segment on the Morning Drive that places golf at the center of the conversation about race in America. 

When Sean Foley speaks it's a window into the mind of a man equally at home with both The Golfing Machine and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The 46-year-old Canadian native has been an instructor to some of the best players in the world, including Tiger Woods and Justin Rose. Often waxing eloquent in the lyrical cadences of some of his favorite rappers and civil rights heroes, Foley is destined to use his stature to make an impact on the world larger than the game. With Bo and Farrell, he is at his best — at once explaining the evolution of his teaching methods and then expounding on the nature of race in America.

In 2005, Jason Gore was a sectional qualifier in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and nearly won the championship. Now 15-years later, he works for the USGA as the Player Liaison, where he has the task of providing a player's perspective on course setup at this year's championship at Winged Foot. With Bo and Farrell, Gore talks about that magical week at Pinehurst, his new job, his playing days and the rough at Winged Foot. Gore's colleagues at the USGA, Steven Schloss and Charlie Howe, join the episode to offer their unique perspectives on the U.S. Open. As the Chief People Officer, Schloss is the man tasked with leading a 125-year-old organization to greater diversity and inclusion during a time marked by racial strife. Howe, the Championship Director, speaks with gratitude of the bonds he forms every two years at a U.S. Open site and the challenges of holding a tournament during a pandemic. 

No matter your political bent it’s easy to concede that Donald Trump has been an unusual president. In this latest episode of Both Sides of the Ball, Bo and Farrell have a wide-ranging conversation with Rick Reilly, the 11-time Sportswriter of the Year award winner and author of Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, to try to gain more insight into Trump the golfer and man. Reilly tells one funny story after another from his book about Trump cheating to win on the golf course. Bo and Farrell also share their own Trump stories in this unfiltered conversation with one of the best-known sportswriters in America.

Bo and Farrell visit with old friends, Tim O’Neal and Alan Bratton. O’Neal, a 48-year-old journeyman pro golfer who has seen everything in 25 years of his pursuit to reach the PGA Tour, shares the story of how he let his best chance of making the tour slip away at the 2000 Q-School. Bratton, the Oklahoma State men’s golf coach, talks about some of his young players now on tour, following a legend as the coach at his Alma Mater and what a young Bo Van Pelt was like when they were teammates at OSU.

Bo and Farrell react to the response of professional sports to the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. While the NFL, the NBA and WNBA, Major League Baseball and the NHL engaged the moment with boycotts and statements of player solidarity around addressing social justice issues and police brutality, PGA Tour players at the BMW Championship mostly said very little and continued business as usual. The PGA Tour did issue a press release but it wasn't enough for Farrell, who is disappointed that the golfers didn't act en masse as many of the other athletes had in other sports. Bo offers reasons why his colleagues didn't say more and is hopeful that the PGA Tour's legacy of charity will carry over into social justice issues. Both Bo and Farrell agree that the game's past response to the social justice and civil rights issues have already bore perhaps the greatest fruit of the game to this generation: Tiger Woods. 

In episode No.2 of Both Sides of the Ball, Bo and Farrell have wide-ranging conversations with Jeff Champ, the father of rising PGA Tour star, Cameron Champ, and Michael Collins, an ESPN golf personality. Bo and Farrell learn what the Champ’s are doing through their foundation to grow the game and help underserved youth. A former comedian and caddie, Collins serves up a hefty dose of funny stories of his escapades as a tour caddie, as well as some perspective on the decline of the black caddie.

In this premiere episode of Both Sides of the Ball, co-hosts and long-time friends Bo Van Pelt and Farrell Evans explain how the social unrest in America during the Pandemic led them to start this podcast that will use the game of golf as a platform to ask deeper questions about our society and culture. The show's first two guests, both PGA Professionals, Mark Wood and Earl Cooper, demonstrate the breadth of the show's reach. Wood, who has been Bo's teacher for 20 years, brings a seasoned insider's perspective to equipment technology, instruction, and the PGA Tour over the last 40 years, while Cooper, an African-American millennial, is charged to shake the foundation of the game to make it a more accessible place for all people. "Silence is not ok, Cooper says. "We need to vocalize where we stand on (racial injustice and equity).