Ken Venturi on Feherty

As I watched Feherty spend an hour with Ken Venturi, all I could think about was what it would be like to play 18 holes with him whilst he spun stories for 4 1/2 hours. Seeing that Venturi is one of the few people still alive who has played or met every great golfer since Ben Hogan, the yarns he spun on Feherty are merely the tiny tip of the iceberg. While famous for his participation in “The Match” (the legendary foursome of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Harvie Ward), Venturi has a stable full of stories and anecdotes spanning decades and including icons from every industry (including old blues eyes himself, Frank Sinatra).

Typically, my blog posts from the Feherty show consist of a bit of history about the guest, some of the shows highlights and a dash of my own opinion. The problem with writing about Ken Venturi is that you need about 40,000 words to begin to capture the man. I mean he won 14 times one PGA tour, including a US Open, and then spent 35 years in the broadcast booth becoming the voice of golf. There is just no way to sum that up in 400 words. To his credit, Feherty understands this and does a great job of just listening to Venturi (which of course is what many of us did on Sunday afternoons in between napping on the couch).

So if you want to get some golden snippets from Venturi, go watch the episode, or you can do what I am going to do, read more about Ken Venturi and some of the other legends of golf. Yes, I have read “The Match”, “Five Lessons” and a few other golf books, but a short hour with Venturi has re-ignited my interest in hearing about Bing Crosby’s “Clam Bakes”, Hogan’s temper, Nelson’s pure swing and all of the other characters of the game.

Fortunately, Wade is a big golf historian and will surely have some reading suggestions, but I would love to hear your input as well.