August 21, 2024
Name Game
The Game of Storytelling The two W&L alums driving the content for Golf Digest share how the sport lends itself to unexpected stories and why it’s important to take big swings editorially.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of W&L: The Washington and Lee Magazine.
Golf Digest is one of the largest golf publications in the world, with readership ranging from professional golfers to casual competitors. Playing large roles in shepherding the 70-year-old golf media brand are two Washington and Lee University alums: Max Adler ’04 and Mike Stachura ’86.
At the helm is Adler, the publication’s editorial director and vice president. He oversees the magazine’s content, be it assigning articles to writers or collaborating with them on projects. In addition to writing feature stories, Adler uses his monthly editor’s letter to pose questions about golf culture and behavior. Prior to joining Golf Digest, Adler was a member of the men’s varsity golf team at W&L, where he earned a degree in studio art, and a golfer for the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he earned a master’s degree in English.
As senior editor, Stachura oversees the magazine’s equipment coverage. During his 32-year tenure at the publication, one of Stachura’s most notable achievements is the development of Golf Digest’s annual “Hot List.” This buying guide offering honest equipment reviews has become a go-to resource for readers searching for the best new gear.
Stachura — a journalism and philosophy double major at W&L — previously worked as sports information director and W&L Magazine editor at his alma mater before making the move to Golf Digest.
We caught up with Adler and Stachura about their love of golf, career highlights and the future of sports journalism.
What do you love most about sports journalism?
Max Adler: I’ve always said that golf is a game of conversation. You go play for like four hours, but your actual time spent hitting the ball is probably 10 minutes. So, people just look to fill the gaps, and it becomes a game of storytelling.
Mike Stachura: It’s a remarkable venue for the unexpected — for the stories that people relate to so much. There’s always a winner and a loser, and each of them has a story that’s compelling. I think there’s something about sports that either takes us out of the craziness of our normal life or actually returns us to a fundamental part of who we are.
What inspired you to pursue the sports beat?
Stachura: My dad was a high school football coach, so I was sitting in press boxes when I was 7 years old. And I was banging out stories on the typewriter in his office before I was in high school — stories that no one would read, but I was writing them.
Max, you’re a longtime golfer. How did you first get involved with playing? And what was your experience like on the golf teams at W&L and St. Andrews?
Adler: I grew up in a small town 30 minutes outside of Manchester, Vermont, which is home to the Ekwanok Country Club — routinely rated by Golf Digest as the No. 1 course in the state. I started caddying there when I was 14, and they let us play after work.
I fell in love with golf and wanted to try to play in college, and I had a wonderful experience on the Washington and Lee team. With the NCAA, we had such great support: a coach, buses, planes every now and again.
At St. Andrews, we had a ton of natural talent, but the British University Sports Association is more lowkey — you get a shirt and a bag from the university, and you’re kind of on your own for all other costs. And win, lose or draw, you’d usually have a meal and beer with the opposing team. It was a different sports culture but with the spirit of competition just as strong.
Tell me about one of your favorite Golf Digest stories.
Adler: I recently played America’s best new golf course [Ladera Golf Club] with its founders, Irving Azoff and Eddy Cue, which was neat because I was able to tell the story of a unique and unlikely golf friendship between two titans of the music and tech industries. [Azoff is founder of Full Stop Management, and Cue serves as Apple’s senior vice president of services.] Only through golf would I ever get to hang with two guys who’ve had such an outsized impact on shaping our world the past two decades and hear their stories of how they did it.
Stachura: I had a really cool chance to sit down with a golfer named Patrick Cantlay who was far and away the No. 1 amateur in the world. He had a career-threatening back injury and put down his clubs for more than a year. In the course of wondering if he was ever going to play again, his friend and caddie Chris Roth was killed right in front of his eyes in a hit-and-run accident. … Not only did he lose his ability to play, he lost a touchstone of his entire life. How he navigated his way back really made for an interesting personal story that I got to tell.
In terms of editorial coverage, what is your ultimate approach or goal?
Adler: It’s a balancing act. I want to make sure that we’re producing a variety of content that appeals to our core readers — avid golfers who have been reading Golf Digest for decades — yet, at the same time, produce stories that are welcoming and inclusive to all the new golfers, as golf is having a bit of a cultural moment.
I’m always thinking about taking big swings, too. If we miss, that’s OK. But if we can connect two or three times a year with something really great that’s head and shoulders above everything else, people will remember Golf Digest positively.
Mike, you helped launch the “Hot List,” an equipment review guide that has become a massive success. What’s the story behind the project’s development? Stachura: It was a risk for Golf Digest — they had everything to lose. When the concept was originally suggested to me, I said, “Well, there are two ways you can do this. You can do it where it’s not a review and no one gets upset, or you can do a real, exhaustive, scientific and complete process, but you risk offending a lot of people who financially support your business.” We chose the second option. I don’t have an exact number, but I would say in terms of lost advertising revenue, the “Hot List” has probably cost Golf Digest between $15 million and $20 million. Now, we’ve made up that difference in other areas — other advertising opportunities were presented because we took that risk.
Have you seen the sports journalism world change over the years? Where do you think it’s headed?
Adler: I started in an era when the final putt would drop on Sunday, and it wouldn’t be until Wednesday or Thursday that people would read about that tournament. And now, obviously, it’s so much more instantaneous. Whereas we used to work on these bigger projects — could be a 3,000- word story about an event — writers need to be more responsive. They’re live tweeting; they’re doing a short post now and working on it so that it’s a better post maybe five hours from now. It’s a little bit more frantic.
Stachura: Sports publications have to decide what the relationship is between your [journalistic] responsibilities and the business end with manufacturers. It was a lot easier to be above the fray when there weren’t a lot of other competitors making side deals with manufacturers. I think the trouble for places like Golf Digest is to figure out if they have to make those same deals to get access or to still be relevant. The challenge is to still be who you were and to put the reader and end user first.
How did your time at W&L impact or influence your career?
Adler: I ended up taking classes in every single building on campus; I was a real generalist. I think this broadened my perspective on the world. Being a journalist is nothing you really train for. A pure liberal arts education is probably the best preparation for so many jobs — it especially proved to be the case for mine.
Stachura: What I learned most from my W&L education, and my experiences as an employee there, is that you don’t have to know how to do everything. You just have to know how to learn to do everything. I was also surrounded by brilliant people that I knew were way better at anything than I was, and they enabled me [to pursue what I wanted to do] and allowed me to develop an ability.
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