Our favorite Golf Digest portraits of 2019

If you read any issue of Golf Digest or spend any time on GolfDigest.com, it’s obvious that our articles are meticulously written, thoroughly edited, always fact checked and consistently held to a standard we are proud to put our name on. What you may not know is that every photo that accompanies these articles goes through the same rigorous pressure test as the words you read. There is a team of photography editors at Golf Digest who spend countless hours researching our subjects, producing the photo shoots, editing the photos and presenting them in a way that brings visual life to these stories. What you see below is just a small selection of our favorite images of 2019, a showcase of portraits that give character to the characters you’ve read about. —Ben Walton

Like most every golfer, rapper ScHoolboy Q’s origin story with the game is unique, as we learned in our May interview: “It was a bet. We were in the studio, and my boy starts talking crazy. He’s a fashion designer who grew up playing with his dad. He says golf’s too hard for me. Bets me 10 grand that I can’t make a birdie in two years. At this point, the only golfers I’d heard of were Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Arnold Palmer, and him only because of the drink. In less than 10 rounds I made a birdie, sank about a 70-foot putt, and it was over.”

Not long after we sat down with Kuchar for a profile, news about what went on with David (El Tucan) Ortiz, the local caddie he used to win the 2018 Mayakoba Classic, broke. Needless to say, the focus of the story changed.

Alfonso Ribeiro has built a career out of making people laugh, but there’s one thing we learned you won’t catch him joking about: golf. How seriously does he take the game? He plays three times a week and sets aside five to six hours on a fourth day just for practice. His Handicap Index has been as low as +2.0, though it had crept up to 2.4 when we interviewed him back in February.

England’s Tommy Fleetwood, our cover subject in September, continued to impress with his play in 2019.

It’s safe to say our readers have a fascination with how far Dustin Johnson hits his drives. (OK, we do, too.)

In the midst of Tiger Woods’ monumental win at the Masters, James Adducci claimed part of the spotlight. The 39-year-old from Wisconsin wagered $85,000 on a Tiger win—what he says was the first sports bet of his life—and earned $1.19 million for his effort.

Thomas Keller is the only American-born chef to hold two three-star Michelin ratings simultaneously. That, and his interest in golf (he’s a regular at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am), made him a natural to speak with when we were looking for someone to take on the challenge of making a good pimento-cheese sandwich.

Besides being one of the LPGA’s most accomplished players, we learned in her February Q&A that So Yeon Ryu has a passion for music, ballet and cooking.

PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, less than a year into his new job, was the subject of a My Shot interview in which he shared his big thoughts on golf, business, new ideas and the NJA rule.

Think it’s audacious for a 20-year-old to win a PGA Tour event in just his third start as a professional? We did too, so we had to catch up with Matthew Wolff to learn all about the young man with the fun last name and crazy swing.

While golf clubheads are mostly made overseas, golf balls are primarily made in the United States, in four small American towns. Our equipment editors, Mike Stachura and E. Michael Johnson, visited the folks who work on the production lines, like Scott Andrade (above) at Titleist, and learned about how the golf ball business helped save these local communities during tough economic times.

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