Wikipedia Biography / Profile Background
Introduction :
Geoff Shackelford is a senior writer for the Golfweek magazine. He also contributes weekly to Golf Channel’s shows Morning Drive and Golf Central & has also authored eleven books so far!
Personal Life : Parents, Family and Education
- Geoff Shackelford was born in the early 1970s to Adrienne (mother) and Lynn Shackelford (father). Lynn was a professional UCLA basketball player.
- For his education, Geoff attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and was a member of their golf team and graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications degree in 1994.
- Geoff’s dad Lynn mentioned in an interview that playing golf was something that they could do together and goes on to say it probably wouldn’t be a great idea for Geoff to play basketball while carrying the Shackelford game.
- Lynn now works with Touchstone Golf, a company that manages and develops various courses and lives in Austin, Texas.
- Having studied golf courses all over the world, Geoff took a noted interest in the classic courses of the 1920s. He standbys as a design consulter at several classic courses and has even taught gold restoration classes at Harvard University‘s Graduate School of Design. He has also worked with noted architect Brian Silva.
Career, Job, Salary and Net Worth :
- Geoff’s golf writing career propelled when after college he had a chance to travel to many of the great courses in Scotland with his dad who worked with American Golf and after studying George C. Thomas, Jr.s book Golf Architecture in America cover to cover.
- Later, Geoff met a golf architect, Gil Hanse, who had read Geoff’s books and told him that if a project arises, he would love to work together. The opportunity arose in 2000 with a property called ‘Rustic Canyon’ in Ventura County. Geoff then teamed up with Gil and Jim Wagner and started laying plans for the golf course at Rustic Canyon. The course then went on to be named by Golf Digest as ‘Best New Affordable Public Course in America’ for 2002.
- He has also worked on another project with Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. The trio worked together on the Horse Course at the Prairie Club in 2009.
- His writing career comprised of eleven books including “The Golden Age of Golf Design,” “Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design” and “The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and his Golf Architecture”.
- In 2011, he published his first non-golf book about his visits with racing legend Zenyatta.
- Besides all this, Shackelford has been a part of numerous golf-related TV shows & podcasts.
Launching his Website :
- Geoff writes for and manages his golfing website, GeoffShackleford (dot) com, which he launched in 2003. He talks about the latest golfing news and covers the major tournaments while also writing of golf design.
- The website has its own Twitter (now called X) page where a “Quote of the day” is published in partnership with GolfWeek and USA Today. In 2017, the website became a part of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group network.
Interesting Facts, Height and Trivia :
- Geoff is active on his verified Twitter (now called X) account & has over 60,000 followers there.
- An awkward incident happened when Shackelford was tweeting about the NCAA Golf Championship. He sarcastically called one of the coaches a “van driver” and the tweet was received poorly with PGA players taking the time to tweet in their replies.