There’s a certain amount of eye rolling that accompanies the announcement of a new podcast, especially when it veers from the conventional model—wry observations from behind a microphone, with some special guests sprinkled in along the way. There are plenty of good ones out there, and for several years Golf Digest had one as well, a lively show that brought in important golf voices for conversations on the game.
But at some point, we realized we could bring another dimension to our podcasts that emphasized our strengths as golf storytellers. No longer content to just have conversations, we wanted to provide the type of depth in audio that Golf Digest has long applied elsewhere. Which brings us to Local Knowledge, our new podcast that will dive into a single complex topic each episode, weaving together a combination of reportage, interviews and other elements into compelling bi-weekly shows.
You can listen to the first episode here:
Our first episode, “Golfing While Black,” examines the story of the Grandview Five, a group of black women in Pennsylvania who joined a golf club in spring 2018, only to have the police summoned by the owner midway through their first round. Host Daniel Rapaport draws on new interviews, public documents and original reporting by Joel Beall in Golf Digest to take audiences through events that began on a fairway two years ago and continued in courtrooms months later. It’s a story that touches on everything from gender issues to slow play, but it’s also one provided new context given the nationwide protest of racial inequality following the death of George Floyd.
These are the type of stories we’re excited to tell in Local Knowledge, but they won’t all be so sobering—or sober at all. A later episode will study the effects of alcohol on your golf game, and whether it’s true it can free up your swing (Spoiler alert: maybe). We’ll also talk about the best players in the world, and why even some golfers with elite skill sets are still left on the fringes of the pro game. There are answers in there, but it takes some explaining, which is why we want you along for the ride.