Out golf professional tells the stories of golf at PGA Tour Radio
The British Open is one of Langston Frazier’s favorite times of the year.
Played this year at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, the British Open is the one Major golf tournament on the PGA Tour not held in the United States. That means early tee times: Padraig Harrington, Nicolai Hojgaard, Tom McKibbin teed off Thursday morning at 1:35amET.
“Just getting the opportunity to wake up early and have golf on TV,” Frazier told Outsports of his excitement for the tournament. “It’s completely different, that part of the world completely embraces golf in a different way than we do here in America. They appreciate it in a different way. The way you play is different.
“The wind and the weather are big factors.”
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The British Open also means more work for Frazier. He loves it.
As an associate producer for PGA TOUR Radio at SiriusXM, all of the Majors represent an intense week of coverage. Talk shows, news. No matter what happens leading up to or during the Majors – including the British Open – it means excitement and an opportunity to celebrate the sport Frazier has loved since his childhood.
The PGA Certified Golf Instructor first picked up a set of clubs at age 9. Hearing impaired in both ears, Frazier couldn’t play contact sports with the other kids. He first turned to tennis, but he “retired” from swinging a racquet after a month.
Golf beckoned next, and the First Tee program – aimed at empowering kids through golf – got him hooked.
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He’s pursued his passion of golf ever since. After playing golf for his high school team, he transitioned to focusing on the business of the sport, attending the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and joining the PGA Golf Management program.
“It teaches you how to be a golf pro,” he said of the program. “Running your day-to-day golf course. Typically it teaches you the program side. At my school it taught me the hospitality side of the industry.”
His career has brought him to Golf Digest, Golf Channel, Belle Haven Country Club in Virginia, Peninsula Golf & Country Club in Delaware and scores of other places.
His passion for the sport stems from a golf course’s ability to bring people together, four by four.
“It is a connecting sport. It’s one of the few places you can be with a group of people — at a Top Golf setting or a traditional golf course — for four hours and really meet the person and hear what drew them to picking up a golf club.”
To be sure, Frazier loves just playing the game itself as well. There are so many ways to complete a golf course, and every time he approaches a course is different. A shot goes here, a putt goes there.
“You have 18 holes nad 14 clubs and everyone trying to get the ball into the hole as fast as possible. It brings out the best of people. You get your highs, your lows, your problem solving. And you get some great memories out of it.”
Adding to Frazier’s great memories of the game is now the World Pride Capital Cup, held last month in Washington, D.C., and which partnered with the LPGA and USGA. The golf tournament celebrating World Pride in the nation’s capital brought together LGBTQ people from across the sport, getting to know one another and challenging themselves and each other.
It was “a once in a lifetime experience,” Frazier wrote on Instagram.
Yet combining his LGBTQ community and the sport he loves isn’t new to him. Living in College Park, Md., just outside of Washington, Frazier has found the local Lambda Links group — an LGBTQ golf organization designed to bring the community together around the sport.
“And at the national level too, working with the PGA of America,” he said. Frazier is involved in the PGA of America Pride resource group, PGA WORKS and other inclusion pieces in the Association.
Still, Frazier is a golf nut at heart, thankful to be working a career in the sport he loves and able to tell stories about the people in and around golf.
While he works to make the sport as inclusive as possible, Frazier said being LGBTQ “doesn’t affect my work. But does it enhance my work? Yes. It’s not a defining factor, but being a teacher and helping produce stories about golf in general, the importance of highlighting different parts of the community, definitely gives me a different lens to tell stories.”
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