Episode 245: The Best Courses You've Never Heard Of

Um, before we get to the show, I wanted to talk a little bit about my article that, uh, just appeared at Andscape.

Uh, if you look online within ESPN Andscape, um, there's a story that I did about, uh, an interesting fact, which is this year at the majors and the tour championship, the number of African pl- African American players that participated, participated in those events, not one, but participated in, in those events, were a grand total of zero.

And I, I saw this statistic, and I kind of felt it was true.

I checked into it, and it was true.

So the article is about, um, really how that came to be, uh, what the history was of African American participation in the, uh, the major tournaments and the, and the PGA Tour, uh, overall.

Um, sort of the height of that which came to be when Tiger, uh, was obviously winning, but there were multiple, uh, African American professionals playing in the tournament then, even more before then, but how that gradually fell off, and interestingly, what is being done to, to, uh, uh, reverse that trend.

Um, and, uh, it, it's, it was really interesting for me to write that article, both to get a feeling for the history of the game and how it got into this position, but also to talk with some of the most, uh, uh, most influential people in the game, uh, to talk about what it's going to be, and that includes, uh, the head of the USGA.

Um, we talked to him about, um, what can be done, uh, to change this.

Uh, we talked to the head of the World Golf Foundation.

Uh, we talked to, uh, a, a number of people about why are- where and why this is happening, what thing, things are being, uh, done, and when we can expect to see more players both participating on, on the tour and, um, more, uh, African American players and Hispanic players, um, players of color, uh, participating and perhaps even com- pr- competing and winning, uh, these events.

And as we all know, it's gonna take time.

Uh, it's a gradual process.

But I think it's a very interesting story.

Um, you could have written a book about it, and you have, uh, a limited amount of space that you have to work with, so there were some very interesting people that we d- did get a chance to talk to.

But, um, nevertheless, I, I think it's an, an interesting article.

I think it's an important article.

And, uh, please have a look, uh, at the article.

Again, it's on Andscape.

You can find it Andscape, Michael Williams, and, uh, if you Google those two things, you'll find, uh, a number of articles that I've done for them, but the latest is this article about, uh, participation, uh, in the major championships.

And I, of course, would be very interested to hear your opinion.

You can hit me up on, uh, Twitter and on Instagram, MichaelWilliamsTV on, uh, Instagram and MichaelOnTV on, uh, on, uh, uh, Twitter, X, whatever you wanna call it these days.

Um, look, I, I've had a number of people respond to me to, uh, this, to respond to this story, and of course, people have some very strong feelings about it.

Most people, uh, uh, appreciate the article and the research and the fact that there are people who are looking to do something about this.

Um, there are s- sorry, some people who are wondering if we even have a problem.

So they s- they basically said, "So what if there's no African Americans, no minorities on the tournament? Maybe they don't wanna play." Maybe that's the case.