Upon hearing news of Knight’s passing on Wednesday, Pepper took to Twitter to share her own personal brush with the college basketball great, remembering a time in 1996 when she bumped into Coach Knight while in the middle of a nasty slump.

So sad learning of the passing of Bobby Knight. Coming off a mega-low in my @LPGA career, I met Coach in June of ‘96 in Fort Wayne. He said, “You could play for me.” I said, “No, Coach. I’d be a bricklayer.” He said, “Yes, you could. You’re tough enough.” Turned my season around.…

— Dottie Pepper (@dottie_pepper) November 2, 2023

It’s amazing that such a simple compliment—“you’re tough enough”—could spark Pepper to four wins in as many months, but such was the power of Knight’s words. It’s a testament to Pepper’s own skill and perseverance more than anything, but it’s also proof of Knight’s ability as a motivator. Needless to say, if you can convince college kids to go to bed early and not drink beer for over 40 years, you can talk anyone into pretty much anything.

Main Image: Icon Sportswire

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By Daniel Rapaport
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — The inevitable happened early Thursday UAE time. In perhaps the least surprising bit of news any golf fan could hear, Tiger Woods has been elected into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

“I am both honoured and humbled to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame,” Woods said in a statement. “This past year has been such an incredible journey, and the support I’ve received from my family, friends and fans has been overwhelming. This achievement is the ultimate recognition to never give up and keep chasing.”

Woods is the first member of the Class of 2021 picked by the Hall of Fame’s 20-member Selection Committee. The Committee voted on Wednesday from a list of 10 finalists. Additional inductees will be announced later, according to officials with the Hall of Fame. Specifics on the formal induction ceremony, which will take place next year, are also to be determined.

Woods, 44, has amassed 15 major championships and a record-tying 82 PGA Tour victories over his storied professional career. He’s one of the few phenoms who end up surpassing expectations—Woods won three straight U.S. Junior Amateurs and three straight U.S. Amateurs before turning professional in 1996.

He won his first major at the 1997 Masters, where he set the scoring record of 18 under par and won by a record 12 shots. He’d add 13 more majors over the next 11 years—including winning four in a row, the Tiger Slam, from the 2000 U.S. Open through the 2001 Masters—before winning his 15th last April at Augusta, after an 11-year drought marked by personal and physical struggles.

“Tiger has done more for the game of golf than anyone ever thought possible, and his historic feats on the course are only one aspect of his impact,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “His imprint on the game is immeasurable, and his unparalleled legacy is one we look forward to celebrating as he’s inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame next year.”

Woods holds a number of PGA Tour records, including the most made cuts in a row (142) and most weeks spent atop the World Golf Rankings (683).

The only surprise is how soon Woods has been elected into the Hall of Fame—the minimum age for enshrinement had been 50 until it was moved to 45 earlier this year. Woods will turn 45 on Dec. 30.

The announcement comes during the Players Championship, which Woods is missing for the first time since 2017 to rest a sore back. He has maintained throughout the year that the singular goal of his preparation is to be ready to mount a strong title defence at Augusta National next month.

The remaining finalists who are being considered to join Woods are Johnny Farrell, Padraig Harrington, Tom Weiskopf, Susie Maxwell Berning, Beverly Hanson, Sandra Palmer and Dottie Pepper, and contributors Tim Finchem and Marion Hollins.

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I was lucky enough to get a crack at Jim Nantz’s famed backyard golf hole—with the man himself doing play-by-play. #Blessed #ButNotQuiteBlessedToMakeAnAce pic.twitter.com/Dw8CYPEhSG

— Alex Myers (@AlexMyers3) February 4, 2020

This bucket-list experience actually happened back in June during U.S. Open week, but the footage was under an unofficial embargo until the legendary broadcaster, who also happens to be a Golf Digest colleague, wrote about his personal golf oasis for the magazine. Sadly, I didn’t make it into Nantz’s column with the likes of Jack and Arnie. But thankfully, I have my own column, so you better believe I’m going to make sure as many people know about this as possible. OK, we should talk about other stuff now. I guess …

WE’RE BUYING

Webb Simpson: You know how Andrew Landry randomly won a few weeks back after missing five consecutive cuts? Well, this was the exact opposite of that situation. Simpson has been on an absolute heater since a T-5 at last year’s Masters, including four runner-ups, so a win was just a matter of time. The guy never has a bad week. Seriously, look it up:

While superb iron play (second in strokes gained/approach) and some added pop off the tee have him back among the game’s elite players and up to No. 7 in the Official World Golf Ranking, the most amazing part of his career resurgence is the putting. Here’s a guy who actually snapped his trusty long putter over his knee in 2014 with the anchor ban approaching and who many wondered if he’d ever win again when he sunk near the bottom of the PGA Tour in strokes gained/putting for two seasons (174th and 177th). But he’s finished fifth and 11th the past two seasons and is currently seventh in the stat. Remarkable.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Patrick Mahomes’ golf swing: No, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Super Bowl MVP has other athletic talents, and yes, this is an old video, but it deserves another look following Mahomes leading Missouri’s NFL franchise to a title.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8G8R9KpaKA/?utm_source=ig_embed

What a stud. And his golf game is only going to get better after having a green installed in his backyard in October. In fact, some people* (*me) are saying that was the turning point in the Chiefs’ season. Patrick, I’d love to come by and check out your backyard golf hole as well. Let me know.

Graeme McDowell: Padraig Harrington daggered McDowell over Thanksgiving when G-Mac asked about a spot on this year’s European Ryder Cup team. Well, it’s not a joke anymore after McDowell’s win at the Saudi International. Pair that with Lee Westwood’s recent win and the old “Ole Ole Ole Ole!” gang might be getting back together at Whistling Straits in September.

I might have to have a rethink on my potential vice captains @Graeme_McDowell @WestwoodLee https://t.co/IYV3txCFaj

— Padraig Harrington (@padraig_h) February 2, 2020

WE’RE SELLING

Graeme McDowell’s warning: I’m all about the European Tour enforcing slow play under its new policy, but slapping G-Mac with a bad time after he gave an on-course interview to Sky Sports makes about as much sense as the Iowa Caucus. G-Mac is great with the media. Mid-round interviews are great for fans. But yeah, let’s do something that flies in the face of both. That rules official must be a real hoot at parties.

Brooks Koepka’s mid-interview thoughts: Speaking of mid-round interviews, Koepka probably speaks for most tour pros when he said this: “I won’t do it,” Koepka said. “I’m not interested in talking about what just happened or the difficulty of the holes ahead. I’m just focused on one shot at a time, where my ball’s at. I understand why it might be beneficial for the fans, but I don’t get it.” C’mon, Brooks, lighten up. Then again, the guy is World No. 1 (at least for a few more days) so he obviously knows what he’s doing.

Tony Finau’s final rounds: As our Joel Beall pointed out, it’s not so much that Finau chokes on Sunday (Sorry, Johnny), but he never quite seems to do enough to get the job done. This week was particularly heartbreaking with his four kids there to see it—had Webb’s five been there, we’d have quite the youth basketball game on our hands—and following days of Finau tributes to his sports idol, Kobe Bryant. But a final-round 70 wasn’t enough to close the door, leaving Top Ten Tony still open to criticism for being stuck on one career win. Close doesn’t count, sports are tough. Just ask Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy Garoppolo.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour heads to Pebble Beach for the AT&T Pro-Am, AKA that tournament where you will see more of Alfonso Ribeiro and Larry the Cable Guy the first three days than you will of the tour pro actually leading the tournament. On a personal note, I’m happy to see one of my all-time favourite athletes, the recently retired Eli Manning, teeing it up. Now there’s a QB who could get it done in a big spot.

Random tournament fact: Phil Mickelson is the defending champ. That seems like longer than a year ago, doesn’t it? Phil also happens to be the name I could have been listed below on Jim Nantz’s “Rock of Fame” had I made a hole-in-one. Of course, that didn’t happen. Good luck to those fortunate enough to get a crack at it this week.

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

—There will be another playoff between two guys with nine combined kids: 1-MILLION -to-1 odds

—Phil Mickelson will win this week: 25-to-1 odds (Actual odds)

—Phil Mickelson will tell other ageing athletes all about his diet this week: LOCK

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Even by cheesy promotional tournament photos, this is something else:

Congrats to DJ and Patrick Reed on their squad winning the Big Game!

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (GOLF COURSE CATEGORY)

When my man Greg Snedeker isn’t shooting The Grind videos with me, he’s working on much cooler stuff like this with my man Jim Nantz:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8HrVMbJbdX/?utm_source=ig_embed

Just hearing Nantz say, “majestic,” is worth watching.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (GOLF TOURNAMENT CATEGORY)

The Waste(d) Management Phoenix Open never fails to deliver:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8C3bZGh6Sa/?utm_source=ig_embed

It’s just too bad Jim Nantz wasn’t narrating this too.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I tell you what, for a guy that I never knew, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced sadness for the death of someone that I never knew like I did with Kobe. And my caddie and I were talking about it the other night and I asked him, why do you think, you know, this one feels different? I mean, many, many people have died in my lifetime that I knew of, but I think, just, it hit home to me. He’s seven years older, he’s 41, he has four kids, I have five; he has four daughters, I have four daughters; and he seemed like he was at a place in his life where he’s so excited about what’s going on around him, what he’s giving back to, what he’s involved in. So I think that made it hard, but I hope his wife Vanessa and his kids have felt what we have seen with what people are doing and how people are talking about how he impacted their life. So, yeah, I watched the Lakers game the other night and LeBron, the tribute, so I’ve been thinking about it all week. And I love what they did on 16 today, 24 on, 8 left. My caddie and I were actually trying to figure out that last night. We’re like, I’ve never seen that pin, what are they doing? And we didn’t really think about it until this morning. But, yeah, I mean, my heart’s still heavy, as I’m sure the world’s is, it’s going to be awhile.” —Webb Simpson on Kobe Bryant. Well said, Webb. Of course, I’d expect nothing less from a fellow Wake Forest man.

THIS WEEK IN PGA TOUR PRO-WAGS PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

Pat Perez’s Air Jordans collection is a sight to behold:

To the point that he had an entire room built in his new house just for them:

Well, for most of them, at least.

THIS WEEK IN PHIL BEING PHIL

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8EY3ZljoSx/?utm_source=ig_embed

That’s pretty good. And so was Phil’s week as he finished T-3 in Saudi Arabia after back-to-back missed cuts on the PGA Tour to start 2020.

THIS AND THAT

CBS Sports’ Dottie Pepper came on this week’s Golf Digest Podcast to talk about the eerie scene at Torrey Pines and the time she got sick celebrating her biggest win. Dottie Pepper is awesome.

https://soundcloud.com/user-96678684/cbs-sports-dottie-pepper-webb-simpsons-putting-turnaround-pebble-beach-best-bets

Brooks Koepka will lose his World No. 1 ranking next week to Rory McIlroy. Just a guess, but Brooks isn’t too concerned. … Congratulations to former Golf Digest colleague Bill Fields for winning the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. They couldn’t find a nicer—and more deserving—golf writer to give this to. … And finally, a current Golf Digest colleague was honored in a much different way:

Hey, it’s better than Sam’s other nickname, Sammy Spillz.

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Would you take Brooks or DJ in a game of tackle?

How much is Pat Perez’s shoe collection worth?

Will I ever be invited back to Jim Nantz’s house?

The post Patrick Mahomes’ sweet golf swing, Pat Perez’s sick shoe collection, and what it’s like to play Jim Nantz’s backyard hole appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
Dottie Pepper—like Johnny Miller—has become such a popular broadcaster that many golf fans forget her playing career includes two major championships. But Pepper has also forgotten a lot about the aftermath of her second Nabisco Dinah Shore title (now the ANA Inspiration) in 1999. Just not for any reason you’d expect.

Following her celebratory plunge into Poppie’s Pond, Pepper contracted a bacterial infection that caused her numerous trips to urgent care and pretty much took her out of competition for the next six weeks.

“I still don’t remember the flight back,” Pepper recalls. “I was seriously sick.”

As Pepper explains, the incident helped spur the tournament to put concrete on the bottom of the pond. Although, that posed a different problem years later when Stacy Lewis’ mom broke her leg. In any event, Pepper, now the lead on-course reporter for CBS Golf, took time out of her schedule to hop on this week’s Golf Digest Podcast.

In addition to sharing stories from her playing days, Pepper told us what it’s like to track Tiger Woods as he looks for his record 83rd PGA Tour win, and what it was like to follow him at Torrey Pines on the day basketball legend Kobe Bryant died. The 17-time LPGA winner also talked about her transition from player to broadcaster and revealed the cool perk that comes with announcing certain holes at the Masters.

Plus, Sam Weinman and Keely Levins joined me to talk about Webb Simpson’s putting turnaround and a possible rival to the PGA Tour. And then Stephen Hennessey and Christopher Powers stopped by to offer their best bets for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and a crazy Super Bowl prop bet that hit. Please have a listen:

https://soundcloud.com/user-96678684/scott-stallings-transformation-charlie-woods-swing-amex-picks

The post Dottie Pepper on tracking Tiger, getting sick after her biggest win, and the cool perk of being a Masters announcer appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Laughter is the best medicine, so they say. Dottie Pepper, at least, was laughing, though nervously so, in the wake of her memorable close encounter of the weird kind.

A decade ago, during the third round of the U.S. Senior Open on the East Course at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo., Pepper, in her role as an on-course reporter for NBC, came face to face—close enough, anyway—with a black bear.

“Kid,” NBC’s resident raconteur and comedian Roger Maltbie said during a commercial break when the threat had passed, “you picked the wrong day to wear white.”

Bada boom.

The U.S. Senior Open returns to The Broadmoor this week, and though Pepper won’t be there, her story is worth revisiting, given that the black bear was the most memorable part of the championship.

We say this with no disrespect intended for the winner, Eduardo Romero, also known as El Gato, the Cat. Hey, in the food chain, a bear is higher than a cat.

The Broadmoor sits at the base of Cheyenne Mountain (home of NORAD, incidentally), and wildlife abounds—deer, mountain lions, foxes, snakes and, yes, bears.

“We’d been told that they were around,” Pepper said from her home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Tuesday. “It was discussed in the production meeting and we were kind of told what not to do, like, ‘don’t run.’

“I heard throughout the week they had been making their presence known in the compound. A mom and a couple of her cubs were in the dumpster every morning. We knew that. It was drought conditions, and they were coming further down the mountains to get food.

“Obviously, we know they’re out there. We were hearing while on the air that there was a bear seen over by [hole] No. 11 or 12.”

Pepper wanted more assurance that it was not in her vicinity.

“Guys, tell me again, where’s that bear?” she asked those in the production trailer.

“Oh, don’t worry, Dottie, it’s going in the opposite direction.” The opposite direction of whom?

Pepper was on the left side of the 13th fairway when the bear came charging over a rise and straight toward her.

“I look up, and thank God we were in commercial break,” she said. “Here he comes full tilt, and he’s coming right at me. ‘It’s the bear! It’s the bear!’ He was making a deadbeat for me.”

She dropped her yardage book and tentatively began to run. “Then I remembered, you’re not supposed to run,” she said.

The bear eventually passed by and then through the fans on the left-hand side of the fairway—“they split like the Red Sea,” she said—and eventually made its way through the West Course and back into the wilderness.

“It scared me, but also made me realize his fur is kind of moving with him. It was so perfectly shiny, sort of like black, but you didn’t know if it was black, purple or green. It was so big, so fast and so beautiful.

“Everyone else was laughing their tails off, and I had this nervous laugh. Gary [Koch, another NBC broadcaster] said that it could have been really bad. It hit me that night when that clip opened on [ESPN’s] SportsCenter, how big he was. I could have died. It might have seemed funny at the time, but I didn’t sleep well that night.”

Pepper has a photo of the bear closing on her hanging on a wall in her home, as does Bernhard Langer, who was in the 13th fairway and was a nearby witness to the harrowing scene.

Anyone familiar with Pepper’s playing career would likely recall how fierce a competitor she was. I noted in my story for Golf World that week, “the bear might rue the day were it to have tangled with the famously feisty Pepper.”

Thankfully for Pepper, and the bear, we’ll never know.

The post Dottie Pepper recalls her harrowing encounter with a black bear at the 2008 U.S. Senior Open at the Broadmoor appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.