tiple paths toward some answer—your answer.
The goal was always to light the flame and then
remove himself from the conversation and let
it do the teaching. Not quite Lord of the Flies,
but a way to learn. Because you found your
answer in your way, you then owned it, not just
accepted it. The school sits students and teach-
ers at an ingeniously devised, oval-shape table
called a Harkness table, perfect for discourse,
especially in smaller groups. Fifty percent or
more of a student’s grade is based on the quality
of their participation at the table.
Many sat at the table, including our two
daughters, some more famous than others.
At an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am some years
ago, I introduced myself to Huey Lewis, know-
ing he’d been a student of my father’s. “Your
dad was Jim Waugh?” he said. He turned to
Alice Cooper. “Alice, get over here. You see
this guy? His dad is the man—best teacher
ever!” Huey is a brilliant guy, scored 800 on
his math SATs back in the day. He majored in
engineering at Cornell. He also played a little
music along the way.
My dad is my hero, my role model, because
of how many lives he’s impacted, how many
lives he’s made better. At 92, he’s still doing
that every day. Our dining-room table at home?
A Harkness, of course.
● ●●
when i think of the future of golf, the Hark-
ness table comes to mind. Creativity is going to
be key, because golf is facing some serious exis-
tential threats that can’t be solved by policy or
any single mandate. All sports face challenges
today, and golf is no exception. Our sport has is-
sus with time constraints, societal ADD, access
and sheer difficulty. It’s complicated, and we’ve
been too preoccupied with protecting success-
ful formulas of the past rather than looking cre-
atively toward the future. The PGA of America
can do better here. I’m not making a call to blow
anything up, because golf obviously remains
an incredible engine for good. Charity, health,
social opportunities, material benefit for people
in the industry and the pro game come immedi-
ately to mind. But preserving the status quo isGolf Digest is a registered trademark of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Copyright © 2019 Golf Digest Publications All
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Continued from page 92 dangerous. Wayne Gretzky says
players should skate to where
the puck is going, not where it’s
been, and that applies to how
we look at golf.
● ●●
so where’s the puck going?
In Korea, there are two mil-
lion green-grass golfers and
three million virtual golfers. In
America, Topgolf is growing at
20 percent per year. I believe
the PGA of America was afraid
of Topgolf ’s onset and initial
popularity. It just wasn’t what
we did. A few years later, here
we are partnering with Topgolf,
even staffing them with PGA
professionals. Far from being
intimidated or confused by
Topgolf, we’re embracing it. I’d
like to see us not merely utilize
these innovations, but expand
on them and perhaps originate
some of our own. I’d like to
see traditional golf as the end
point, but how we get there is
wide open.
● ●●
remember the scene in
“Back to the Future” where
Michael J. Fox plays “Johnny
B. Goode” and the crowd goes
wild at the innovation? And
how he breaks into Jimi Hen-
drix-like stuff, and suddenly
there’s silence, and he realizes
he’s gone too far? That’s where
we are, risk-wise, in golf. Top-
golf is rocking it, found a sweet
spot, been the perfect disrupter.
We’re going to support inven-
tions like it, and we’ll likely hit a
Hendrix-like chord or two. We’ll
learn from it and move on. Suc-
cess never comes at zero risk; it
doesn’t work that way. We want
to be a part of the inevitable dis-
ruption, not a victim of it.