World Am Player Series: Brian Katrek
In our latest installment of the World Am Player Series, PGA TOUR Radio host and golf media personality Brian Katrek tells us how he has been coming to the PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com World Amateur Handicap Championship for years, both as a member of the working media and as a competitor. See and hear why the World Am is so important to him – and be sure to visit the World Am website on Wednesday, March 11 when 2020 event registration opens!
Brian Katrek:
Here for those who we may not have told you, we are in Myrtle Beach!
John Maginnes:
Myrtle Beach.
Brian Katrek:
World Am has just started. It’s already starting to smell good. These Sticky Fingers people walk by with food. I can smell that. It’s going to be fantastic!
Brian Katrek. I’m 46, and I play in the scratch flight. Flight one. The best flight.
I married into a golf family. My in-laws got married in Myrtle Beach, over 50 years ago. And I met this girl, and we started dating, and so I come on the family vacation. I’m 23ish years old. I don’t play golf. I never really cared about golf. Golf was boring. I tried to play everything else. We come to Myrtle Beach, and there’s the family golf trip. And I’m invited on the family golf trip, and I got addicted. I didn’t even have clubs, but it didn’t take long for me to get completely addicted to the game.
I didn’t want to be in the golf media. I was going to be the next host of Monday Night Football. And then all of a sudden, Tiger wins The Masters in 1997, and it only took about three or four years before it was all golf, and what a time to be covering this game.
Best thing that we do with golf talk radio is that we can talk about a game that everybody plays. The key to a good broadcaster is knowing what you don’t know. And being able to compete has really helped me learn what I don’t know, and what these guys can help me with. To play at a flight with 50 other guys that are exactly my size, it’s awesome to get to measure myself against them.
I cannot wait to come back every year, whether I had a good week or a bad week, other guys in the flight had good weeks, bad weeks. Most of the time it’s good days, bad days. I can’t wait to get after it again. I want back at it again next week. This is just the time to be here, and it’s a fantastic week playing the World Am!
