Former Sanford Herald sports editor has found a home at Pinehurst Resort, where he’s become a voice for the legendary course and a raconteur of some of the game’s biggest (and smallest) moments
By Billy Liggett
Two years into his job as social media and eventually media relations manager at Pinehurst Resort, Alex Podlogar had met some of the biggest names in the sport of golf.
But, he’d never met the biggest name.
On June 9, 2014, Podlogar had access to a part of the resort very few others had — the veranda overlooking the 18th hole at Pinehurst No. 2 just days before the start of the U.S. Open that year (the last time it hosted).
There — enjoying the view, swaying back and forth in a white rocking chair — sat
Arnold Palmer. The King. Winner of 62 PGA tournaments and seven majors. Mr. Half Sweet Tea, Half Lemonade himself.
Podlogar watched, cell phone video camera at the ready, for 20 minutes as Palmer chatted with golfers coming off the green and others braver than him who approached him to say hello. When the courage finally reached his feet — and when he was sure Palmer was OK with a little human interaction — Alex approached him and asked for a quick video interview for Pinehurst’s social media.
“It’s always a little weird to approach celebrities,” Podlogar says. “But Palmer is beyond that. He’s such a figure. It took me a while to work up the nerve to talk to him, but of course I’m glad I did. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
There have been several “pinch me” moments for Alex Podlogar in his 12 years at Pinehurst. This month, he’ll be working his second U.S. Open in 10 years, and thanks to the USGA’s partnership with Pinehurst Resort — North Carolina will host four more Opens between 2029 and 2047, and Pinehurst is now home to a seven-acre golf mecca that includes the relocated World Golf Hall of Fame — these major events will be a regular occurrence should Podlogar choose to don the Putter Boy polo well into his 60s.
A longtime Sanford resident and former sports editor for The Sanford Herald between 2004 and 2010, Podlogar has what many golf lovers might consider a “dream job.” His office overlooks a championship course. One day, he’s helping put together a video narrated by Sameul L. Jackson, and the other, he’s walking the fairways with Michelle Wie West as she reminisces about her first and only major championship a decade earlier.
This month, his job will be a mix of wonder and exhaustion. Roughly 100,000 golf fans will converge on Pinehurst for this year’s U.S. Open, and millions more will be watching on TV, following along on social media and visiting the USGA and Pinehurst Resort websites for updates and information on everything from tickets to where to park and how to get around.
Podlogar has spent the last several months — in his role as media relations manager — preparing for this moment and helping others prepare, whether it’s pre-taped videos for NBC’s Open coverage or helping PBS with their hour-long documentary to air during that week.
“It’s been a lot of reaching out, a lot of asset management, a lot of arranging visits and filling requests,” he says. “One day, it’s helping a crew get footage at [course designer] Donald Ross’ cottage, and the next, it’s showing off our brand new golf course [Pinehurst No. 10], our first original course in 30 years, created by one of the most acclaimed architects in the game.
“There have been some 5 a.m. call times for me, getting down here when it’s pitch black so I can have golf carts lined up and everything staged and ready to go. It’s a lot of balls to juggle. It’s been a unique experience and a challenge, but it’s been fun at the same time.”
When the first pro tees off on June 13 and the Open is officially underway, Podlogar’s responsibilities will shift a bit from event planner to journalist. His favorite part of his job is what got him in this career in the first place — writing. His dream job growing up was always sports writer, and Young Alex always envisioned himself covering his Cubs in Chicago or manning the sports desk for a large-market newspaper.
Stops in Forest City and Sanford were meant to be stepping stones toward that goal, but the newspaper industry hasn’t been kind to such dreams over the last 20 years. Podlogar left the industry in 2010 to work for two years as assistant sports information director at nearby Fayetteville State University.
All of those jobs prepared him for Pinehurst. At the small market papers, Podlogar worked hard to “find the story” in the smallest of games — he treated 20-3 blowout wins in high school softball with the same care as he would a UNC basketball game.
“I told myself from the beginning, ‘I’m going to find joy in this,’” he says. “To me, the fun part of the job was writing the leads and the kickers. I can’t tell you how many times I broke the rule of, just, you know, telling the final score in a game story and instead waiting until the eighth graph so I can set it all up with the story within the game. I liked writing about what it all meant rather than what happened.
“I mean, eventually we’ll get to what happened, but I wanted to tell a story more than anything. What was the key moment? Why did that one pitch in the third inning change the course of the entire game? All of that ended up helping my development as a writer. And so when I’m covering a North and South Amateur now, it may be the eighth or 10th paragraph before I tell you who won, because first I want to tell you how we got there.”
At Fayetteville State, Podlogar learned the role of “media liaison,” a role that has served him well in Pinehurst. His decision early on to send a Pinehurst flag and some swag to notable Tony Kornheiser when he was hosting Pardon The Interruption on ESPN paid huge dividends when Kornheiser decided to hang the flag behind him during his broadcasts.
More than the publicity, his back-and-forth with Kornheiser turned into a friendship, and they recently played together in a Media Day foursome with Kornheiser’s son.
A trip to Pebble Beach in California as a Pinehurst representative led to walking a few holes with another legend, Jack Nicklaus, who was there watching his son compete in an amateur tournament.
“It’s all pretty surreal,” Podlogar says. “There have been relationships I’ve made with people — golfers and writers that I’ve admired for years — that I never imagined I’d have. The Kornheiser thing still baffles me. He’ll pick up the phone on a Sunday morning and call me just to ask how it’s going. How’s my daughter doing? It’s crazy.”
That chance meeting and impromptu interview with Arnold Palmer in 2014 led to another big moment a year later.
While working on a history project for Pinehurst, Podlogar came across a photo — “a beautiful black and white image of a youthful Arnold standing with his father near the 9th tee of Pinehurst No. 2.” The timestamp on the photo read 1954, making Palmer around 25 years old at the time.
he knew The King was in declining health. That’s why he rushed to send the photo to him with a letter that read, in part: “Thank you, Mr. Palmer, from all of us at Pinehurst, for your lifelong affection for our home. Few people have meant more to Pinehurst in our storied history than yourself, and your father. It’s a story we are blessed to tell, and one we will continue to tell for decades to come.”
Alex had heard from others that Palmer always wrote back. Because of his health, he didn’t expect it.
But the letter came. A sincere “thank you,” a promise that the photo would find a prominent place in his clubhouse in Latrobe, and a shaky signature. Palmer would die a year later at the age of 87.
“Whether Palmer himself dictated, typed or even thought about that response is of no concern to me,” Podlogar later wrote for pinehurst.com. “He signed it, and while the signature he crafted for so many years to be legible for his legions is written with a shaky hand, it only means that much more.
“Pinehurst will never be the same without Arnold Palmer. Thank God for memories — and photography.”
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Follow Alex Podlogar’s writing and work at Pinehurst.com.
And wonderful memories they are.