The Back of the Range · Ben Adelberg

Billy Hurley III - Folds of Honor Collegiate Preview

September 5, 2025·48 min·3 clips
Hurley played the Walker Cup while active duty in the Navy, representing his country on the golf course.
The conversation starts with Folds of Honor and Brookline. Ben brings up the Boston chapter event where he and Billy Hurley III had connected the week before around a first look at the Country Club. The tone stays easy. Hurley jokes about playing the seventh hole 25 times while everyone else saw all 18, the kind of aside that keeps the charity talk from getting stiff. Then the Collegiate moves into view. What begins as an event preview turns into a look at why college golf now sends players into tour life with fewer surprises. Hurley is pretty direct about the change. He remembers turning pro in 2006 after the Walker Cup, when the PGA Tour he knew had an average age around 32. Now, he says, it leans younger. He puts the current average around 27 or 28, because 23-year-olds are showing up with habits that used to take years to build. The explanation is practical: golf training, physical work, nutrition, travel training, summer amateur competition, and NIL support all speed things up. Agents show up earlier too. Hurley ties that to twenty-year-old players getting help that was not allowed 20 years ago. Ben mostly gives the thought room. The episode moves from Boston banter into player development without forcing it. Near the end, they touch Ryder Cup history, from 1987 at Jack's place to Kiawah, Brookline in 1999, and Europe's run through the 2000s. With Folds of Honor getting 18 hours on Golf Channel, Ben closes with the kind of camera advice that belongs in a golf-world hang.

As heard by us

A golf conversation that starts at Folds of Honor Collegiate and opens into college pressure, NIL, and earlier pro readiness.

This episode starts with Billy Hurley III and Ben Edelberg talking about the Folds of Honor Collegiate, then lets the conversation drift into how golf development now works around it.

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Why you'd press play

You want a golf conversation that moves from Brookline to how college golf feeds the pro game.

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