The Thing About Golf Podcast

He’s not a household name or a prolific tournament winner but at the age of 48 Cameron Percy continues to achieve something most never do: keep his card on the most competitive Tour in the world. Golf aside, Percy is an engaging personality and interesting thinker whose political views often see him at odds with his peers. Yet he remains both popular and likeable as you’ll hear in this wide-rangin...

Technically, writing is just the putting together of words to form sentences. However, like golf, that undersells by quite a margin the gift some have for it.  Jaime Diaz is one of those gifted people, a giant of the golf writing fraternity who somehow remains as genuinely humble today as the day he started in the business. From his work with Tiger Woods and Seve Ballesteros to the drama of the 19...

In the past three decades the high profile golf coach has become a thing.  What was once a behind the scenes job, now often comes with a dash of celebrity and the names of those who work with the game’s best are easily recognisable. But not Denis McDade.  McDade is the very definition of humble, quietly guiding the games of some of Australia’s best players of the past 20 years – including Marc Lei...

2023 will mark Lee Westwood’s 30th year as a professional and while the game’s Grand Slam titles have eluded him, he has achieved every other measurable milestone in the game.  At Whistling Straits last year, he matched Sir Nick Faldo’s record for most Ryder Cup appearances with 11 and was one of only three players to win his singles match in an otherwise heavy defeat.  Westwood has played — and w...

He wasn’t a prolific winner but Nick O’Hern might be one of the most consistent golfers Australia has ever produced.  Never one to overpower golf courses, the left-hander nonetheless spent a lot of time near the top of leaderboards at the highest levels of the game. In this in-depth chat with host Rod Morri, O’Hern talks about how he went from a handicap of four when he turned professional to bein...

For a generation of golf watchers, he was the voice of CBS broadcasts, breaking down swings courtesy of the Konica Minolta BizHub Swing Vision camera between bringing insightful on course analysis.  But there is much more to the Peter Kostis story than his TV work, from his own playing background to his coaching work with Tour players, like Paul Casey.  Find out all this and more in this engrossin...

Brendan Jones is one of Australia’s most successful yet lowest profile international golfers. 15 times a winner on the Japan Tour, Jones is the very definition of laid back and in this chat with Rod Morri explains, among other things, how he could take a year off during the pandemic to be a landscaper — then almost win in his first start back. 

A career in journalism outside the game has informed and shaped Eamon Lynch’s work within it, making him one of the most important public voices of this modern tumultuous time in golf.  In this Masters week Thing About Golf bonus episode, John Huggan sat down with the Northern Irishman at Augusta National to find out about his connections to golf, the modern media and —most importantly — The Maste...

He might be best known for a brilliant hole-in-one that ultimately embroiled him in a lengthy legal dispute with the tax man, but there is much more to Vaughan Somers than that magical 6-iron on the 17th hole at Coolangatta and Tweed Heads Golf Club in 1981. Somers played the European Tour for 11 years in an era many believe was the circuit’s Golden Age. From 1977 to 1988 he saw and played with Se...

She made history by captaining back to back winning European Solheim Cup teams and finished top-10 in 18 different majors with one win, at the 2009 Women’s British Open. Catriona Matthew is one of Scotland's most decorated players (and the 1996 Australian Women’s Open champion) but what makes her tick? John Huggan has spent much of his career — and hers — writing about Matthew’s play and sits...

In urban centres across the world there is pressure on public courses and the space they occupy. From developers looking to profit from housing, to councils keen to convert courses to parks, many believe golf is not an efficient use of public space.  But as our guest on episode 60 will attest, that is a narrow view of the role public golf plays in communities.  PGA professional Sandy Jamieson is a...

It was one of the most brutal Opens in recent memory but Paul Lawrie's brilliance in winning at Carnoustie in 1999 is all too often overlooked.  The comical scenes of Jean van de Velde wading in the burn beside the 18th green dominate most people’s memories of that event but that does Lawrie a disservice.  To win, despite starting the final round 10 shots behind was rightfully the highlight o...

Geraldine O’Callaghan is one of just a handful of female course superintendents in Australia.  A one-marker, who plays pennant for Melbourne’s Southern Golf Club and holds a pilot’s licence in her spare time, Gerri was recently appointed to the top job at the recently redesigned Sandringham Golf Links. With Sandringham being managed by neighbour Royal Melbourne Golf Club, that means Gerri is in th...

He’s best known by an entire generation for his TV commentary, but Frank Nobilo was a formidable player in his day.  Struck down by injury long before his prime, the New Zealander has built a second — and almost as impressive — career in the commentary booth. A deep thinker with a naturally analytical mind, Nobilo gives great insight into every facet of the game in this candid and detailed chat wi...

TV is how most of us consume the bulk of our golf and those who are the face and voice of the medium help shape how we view the game. The BBC’s Hazel Irvine has been one of the best in the business for more than 20 years and offers some terrific insights into both the game and – the broadcasting of it – in this chat with John Huggan.

The notion of the career amateur is long gone but among the last of that crop was today’s guest, two-time British Amateur champion Peter McEvoy.  One of the best of his generation, McEvoy was a stalwart of UK amateur golf for decades from a successful amateur playing career through to captaining two winning Walker Cup teams. Over that time, he has collected his fair share of wisdom about the game...

There's almost no end to golf instruction and it’s a world that can quickly overwhelm players at almost any level.  Enter Dr Karl Morris and co-author Gary Nicol and their ‘Lost Art’ series of books.  As you’ll hear in this in-depth chat with Karl Morris – a sports psychologist who has helped some of the world's best players win major championships – there is an awful lot involved in pla...

He’s been one of the game’s great storytellers for more than 30 years and while he retired last year the work of Guys Yocom will endure for generations to come. He is best known for his iconic My Shot column but Yocom has a resume far beyond his magazine work. A natural story teller with a flair for fun, Yocom sits down with long time friend and former colleague John Huggan for a lengthy chat and...

When you think of the world’s golf hot spots it would be fair to say Iceland doesn’t spring immediately to mind.  But not only is the Nordic country golf mad (the game is second only to football in participation) but it is home to some of the world’s most interesting courses.  Icelandic course architect Edwin Roald is one of the industry’s most thoughtful and eloquent speakers and in this wide-ran...

John Huggan describes Neil Coles as the best golfer Americans have never heard of.  An aversion to flying meant one of the United Kingdom’s best players had limited exposure in the US but that takes nothing away from his remarkable resume.  Coles played in eight Ryder Cups between 1961 and 1977 and is credited with 50 professional victories in a playing career spanning more than 40 years.  Huggan...

Like so many in golf Christian Hamilton originally dreamt of being a Tour player, but there are a whole army of golfers with a disability that should be thankful that career path never panned out.  Now the Programs and Inclusion Senior Manager at Golf Australia, Hamilton sees his role as ensuring the future of the golf population in Australia reflects the actual population of the nation more accur...

For a generation of golf fans Roger Maltbie is known only as a TV commentator but the NBC stalwart is so much more than that. The winner of the inaugural Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village in 1976, Maltbie was also a legitimate contender at more than one major and is a five-time PGA Tour winner. Known among his peers as one of the game's more colourful characters, this lengthy chat with...

He's coached some of the best players in the world to some of the game's biggest titles but to sit and talk to Ian Triggs you'd never know it. In a world where being a high-profile coach can be a lucrative business, Triggs is as happy working with Brookwater's double digit handicap members as he is mentoring rising stars like Elvis Smylie. In this enlightening chat with host Ro...

Peter Alliss might have had golf’s most recognisable voice but it’s almost a dead heat with Scotland’s Renton Laidlaw.  In a career spanning more than 50 years there is barely a medium he hasn’t contributed to, from books and newspapers to magazines and TV.  Renton, as he is simply known to so many, sat down with The Thing About Golf’s John Huggan to reflect on a lifetime in the game unlike few ha...

Who would have thought that a summer spent in the UK visiting family would prove the start of a journey that ended in Australia's first Masters green jacket?  Phil Scott, father of former World No.1 Adam, chats with The Thing About Golf host Rod Morri about his accidental start in the game to Adam's surreal 2013 Masters victory and almost every facet of the golf industry in between.  Fro...