Alex Beach Heads to the 2022 PGA Championship
The Golf Leif
The small town of Stillwater, Minnesota, population 18,000 give or take several hundred, has a shorter golf season than places that typically develop elite players. The small town on the St. Croix River that separates Wisconsin from Minnesota has produced a number of notable athletes, among them are Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Phil Housley, Chris Engler, who played 195 NBA games over five seasons with five different teams, and relief pitcher Glen Perkins, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins from 2006 through 2017 and appeared in three All-Star games. When Alex Beach, who grew up in...
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Bill Smittle, Elite Putting Coach
The Golf Leif
Putting accounts for 36 strokes of par on an 18 hole course - approximately half of the shots you attempt in a single round of golf… if you’re a scratch golfer. For good putters, it’s fewer than half, and for bad putters, well… you know what Seve Ballesteros meant when he answered “I miss, I miss, I miss, I make!” when a reporter asked him about a four putt. If you’re solely a weekend golfer - a golfer who plays, say, 10-20 rounds a year - putting is probably not something you practice. And if it is, you maybe roll a few putts before heading to the first tee, and that’s the...
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Cory Crelan and the Retro Golf Club
The Golf Leif
Hello, friends, and welcome to The Golf Leif. I’m your host, Leif Skodnick – a minimally talented golfer living in Rye, New York. Golfers – and if you’re listening to this, you are one, or you’re listening to this to humor me – are nostalgic. We’re nostalgic for places – where we played our first 18 holes, where we first broke 100, 90, 80, and so on, favorite courses we’ve played or places we’ve dreamed about visiting, like Augusta, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, or St. Andrews, and perhaps most of all, the clubs and balls we used to use. A few months ago, while...
info_outlineHello, friends, and welcome to The Golf Leif.
I’m your host, Leif Skodnick – a minimally talented golfer living in Rye, New York.
Golfers – and if you’re listening to this, you are one, or you’re listening to this to humor me – are nostalgic. We’re nostalgic for places – where we played our first 18 holes, where we first broke 100, 90, 80, and so on, favorite courses we’ve played or places we’ve dreamed about visiting, like Augusta, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, or St. Andrews, and perhaps most of all, the clubs and balls we used to use.
A few months ago, while doomscrolling on instagram, I came across the Retro golf Club account run by former assistant pro Cory Crelan, who has amassed an astonishing collection of vintage iron sets, persimmon (and some vintage metal) woods and putters in a garage in Wilton, Connecticut.
There are brands and club lines from the past that jogged my memory - Ben Hogan and MacGregor irons, Orlimar woods, Zebra putters, to name a few.
I had to find out what exactly Cory was going to do with - literally - van loads of vintage clubs, so I figured I’d ask him myself.
You can find Cory online on instagram @retrogolfclub. Check it out for a walk down the fairways of your memory.