When really, really good isn’t good enough: Inside one golfer’s attempt to live the dream.
-March 2017 for GOLF Magazine
“Golf has earned its reputation for elitism and inaccessibility, but the professional game is actually fairly meritocratic in a way that lends itself to dream-chasers. After all, to be a top pro you don’t need to be young, tall, fast, thin or muscular. You don’t have to be able to dunk a basketball or throw a football 40 yards with the flick of the wrist. You don’t need to get drafted to the big leagues or sign with a team. If you can always shoot the lowest score, you’ll make money and move up the ranks, and if you keep shooting the lowest score you’ll be on the PGA Tour. That possibility didn’t mean it was smart to eschew real jobs in favor of turning pro alongside my college teammate and coconspirator, Cody Semmelrock. But it meant we were giving ourselves a chance.”
Is Donald Trump Making America Hate Golf Again?
-April 2017 for GQ
“That he campaigned on coal yet governs while golfing is an easy criticism to lob, and, inevitably, some of that outrage has rubbed off on the game itself. With the president now serving as the most famous golfer in the country, it makes sense the sport faces renewed criticism, the same type leveled by the party of President Xi: that golf, like government, continues to look like a game only for millionaires and crooks.”
The Decision: Fulfill your wildest dream, or keep your conscience clean.
-May 2017 for GOLF Magazine
“There were moments, sometimes full days, when he was cloaked in a darkness. A different Landon would emerge: sullen, or standoffish, or enraged. I saw him snap a wedge over his knee like a piece of kindling, and I saw him punch a hole through a golf cart windshield, a decidedly disproportionate response to losing a $10 match. Landon was hardly the only one who battled a sense of despair on the Florida mini-tours—frustration was the only thing we all had in common—but his despondency ran deeper.”