VSGA‘s Golf in the Commonwealth Podcast

We’re taking a quick break from the meet the hiker series to celebrate the recent Virginia Golf Hall of Fame ceremony where we inducted seven amazing individuals who have left their mark on golf in Virginia over the course of their careers, a few of which are even still shaping the game, Kandi Comer, Wayne Jackson, David Partridge, Richard Smith and Wynsol Spencer are all members of the 2020 class...

This is the fifth in our meet the hiker series and an opportunity to meet our hiker Brian Wright…Brian was one of our at-large hikers who voluntarily signed up for this challenge. Brian lives in the Richmond area and recently joined Lakeside Park Club…when we first put out the opportunity to sign up as a hiker to the VSGA membership, Brian was the first onboard and has been super gung-ho throughou...

This is the fourth in our meet the hiker series and an opportunity to meet our hiker Glenn Gray…Glenn is the most veteran of our hikers with this being the fourth time he’s participated in the 100-Hole Hike. Before we get to the conversation though, we want to thank our amazing sponsors and donors who’ve helped us raise over 30 thousand dollars right now to support Youth on Course efforts here in...

This is the third in our meet the hiker series and an opportunity to meet our hiker Don Bostic. To-date Don is leading the way in our fundraising and if he exceeds $10,000 raised will earn a trip to Pebble Beach with other hikers from across the country who reach the same benchmark. Don actually lives in Florida but is coming to Virginia to hike and support the VSGA which is amazing! He’s the exec...

This is the second in our meet the hiker series and an opportunity to meet our hiker Josh Stueve. Before we get to Josh, we do want to thank our amazing sponsors and donors who’ve helped us raise over $23,000 right now to support Youth on Course efforts here in Virginia. Obviously walking 100-holes in a day takes strength and endurance and our friends at Adams Performance have come on as our offic...

Part of the fundraising effort for Youth on Course is the annual 100-Hole Hike where staff members, volunteers and friends play 100 holes of golf in a day, walking, and raise money from their friends, family, colleagues, networks, etc to support Youth on Course here in Virginia. Kent Holubar is one of our hikers. Kent has been with the VSGA for more than a dozen years and as manager of junior golf...

In this bonus episode of Golf in the Commonwealth, we have interviews with Bryce Corbett, a rising sophomore whose final round 62 tied the competitive course record and earned him a third-place finish. We also have a conversation with Independence Golf Club's Director of Golf, Drew Clements. Drew and his staff managed so many of the operations that made the 2021 State Open a success and finally we...

The 2021 State Open of Virginia presented by Virginia Lottery began Friday at Independence Golf Club. The field of 144 had great course conditions and scored well on the fast greens. Post round interviews include 2020 champion Mark Lawrence, Jr., 2010 Champion Evan Beck. Lawrence and Beck are both one shot off the lead held by our third interviewee, Robb Kinder. Our final interview of the episode...

The VSGA's Matt Pochily and Chris Lang visit with five competitors in this week's State Open of Virginia presented by Virginia Lottery to hear about the state of their games, how the course has changed since the event was last held at Independence and what to expect at the event. In this episode, you'll hear from four-time State Open champion Jay Woodson, former Director of Golf at Independence Go...

Matt Pochily and Chris Lang of the VSGA breakdown the bracket for the opening round of matches in the 108th VSGA Amateur Championship hosted at the Country Club of Petersburg.

We’re sharing this on Tuesday, June 29, 2021 after the first day of qualifying for the 108th VSGA Amateur Championship at the Country Club of Petersburg. The first round saw 36 players under par, the low 32 players through 36 holes of qualifying will advance to match play. For this episode we’re sharing some of the interviews with did with players after the first round. We’ll start with Mehrbaan S...

For this week’s episode we have a conversation Matt Pochily had with Bill Keene, the superintendent at Blacksburg Country Club. We first talked with Bill in the spring of 2020 as Covid quarantine was beginning and golf was booming, at the time, Bill was the president of the Virginia Chapter of Golf Course Superintendents Association and we did an Instagram live on some of the precautions superinte...

This week we had the pleasure of talking with the head women’s golf coach at Old Dominion University in Norfolk Mallory Hetzel. Mallory has a record of playing at the highest levels from her time at the University of Georgia to the Futures Tour after and then got into coaching but has received her amateur status back and continued to compete winning back-to-back Carolina's Golf Association Women's...

This week we're very excited to share the conversation Matt Smiley and Matt Pochily had with Lanto Griffin at the AJGA event that bears his name in Blacksburg. They caught up with Lanto during the first Lanto Junior Championship at Blacksburg Country Club, a club where Lanto had opportunity the play a lot of golf growing up where he is now offering the opportunity for a new generation of juniors t...

This week we're sharing what it sort of behind the scenes footage from the grand re-opening of Belmont Golf Course in Henrico under the management of the First Tee of Greater Richmond. We'll use these interviews for a video which you’ll be able to find on our YouTube channel but in the meantime we wanted to share them here in their entirety.  The event took place on May 24 and included speeches fr...

Our guest this week is another former VSGA member with aspirations and opportunities to play professionally, in fact, the opportunity to play in this week’s PGA Championship at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. We’re talking with Larkin Gross, the 23 year-old assistant professional from Springfield Golf & Country Club in Northern Virginia who earned his way to the PGA Championship after a third r...

Our guest this week has achieved what many of us have aspire to, succeed in all levels of amateur events, play college golf and now play professionally. We’re talking with back-to-back VSGA Women’s Amateur champion from 2012 and 2013, UVA grad and Symetra and LPGA Tour player Lauren Coughlin. Lauren grew up in Chesapeake, attended the University of Virginia and has called Charlottesville home sinc...

This week we’re talking with a former VSGA member who grew up playing golf on the southside of Richmond at Brandermill Country Club and Clover Hill High School and then as a member of the James Madison golf team but has since moved about as far west as you can get in the continental United States and to one of the most beautiful resorts in the country, if not the world at Bandon Dunes. We’re talki...

This week we’re talking with Corey and Eric. These guys were both in Matt's foursome during the VSGA One-Day event at the Country Club of Petersburg. What felt special about that day and this conversation is that none of them knew each other going into this round but four hours later could have sat and talked longer than they did and were already setting up the next time to play. They’re both at d...

This week we’re talking with a couple of golfers whose names are annually among the top of VSGA leaderboards…not the leaderboards you’re thinking of in events or championships though…the perhaps more coveted leaderboard of number of rounds played in a year. Kate and Rob Tidgewell, of River Creek Club in Leesburg, posted a combined 538 rounds in 2020…and those are just the number of rounds they pos...

This week we’re talking with PGA professional Troy Thorne. Troy is a Virginia native, graduate of Old Dominion University where he was a member of the golf team and now head golf professional at Hobbs Hole Golf Course in Tappahannock, not far from where he grew up…and, when Troy came out of high school he was a recipient of a scholarship from the VSGA-VIP Scholarship Foundation and is now giving b...

This week we’re talking with Carrie Abernathy. You may recognize Carrie’s name from our weekly Clubhouse email where we’d featured her in the member spotlight a few weeks ago…but for those who don’t know…Carrie’s an event planner, podcast host and blogger through her blog A Woman with Drive where she shares ideas on leadership, elevating women and golf. She’s also recently begun contributing to Go...

This week we’re talking about the Golf Digest Hot List. As a VSGA member, you’re receiving a complimentary subscription to the magazine and by now have probably caught the issue which contained the 2021 Hot List of new clubs and products. In flipping through that you may have seen today’s guest, Buddy Christensen. Buddy is the owner and president of GolfDom, a golf store in McLean, Virginia which...

This week we’re talking with one of our VSGA staff members, Director of Championships and Golf Operations, Josh Coates. With the tournament season opening in the next few weeks we wanted to have Josh on to share news on the upcoming events and venues and how the schedule comes together. This conversation is co-hosted by Matt Pochily and Chris Lang. We hope this conversation inspires you to visit V...

This week’s episode is with physical therapist and sports performance coach Dr. Kyle Adams. Kyle is the owner of Adams Performance in Richmond where he works with some of the area’s best athletes including golfers who are often seen atop VSGA junior, amateur and senior amateur leaderboards. In this conversation he shares how the things we see at the tour level work their way down to his athletes a...