‘The Long and the Short of It’ Golf Podcast Off to a Cracking Start

There’s a new sports podcast in the South African market, and it’s giving local golf fans access to some of the biggest global names in the sport. The brainchild of Hot 91.9FM radio presenters Simon Hill and Dylan Rogers, ‘The Long and the Short of It’ launched towards the end of last year, and has already racked up an impressive list of guests, including six-time major champion Nick Faldo, South Africa’s greatest golfer Gary Player, former US Ryder Cup captain Ben Crenshaw, renowned agent Chubby Chandler, long-time Ernie Els caddie Ricci Roberts, former Europe Ryder Cup captain Mark James, and two-time SA Open champion and former Players Champion Tim Clark.

Hill and Rogers are the producers and presenters behind the podcast, with well-known South African golf personality Dale Hayes bolstering the line-up and bringing his extensive knowledge of the game to most of the episodes.

“We’re having the best time putting this podcast together,” says Hill. “We’re all mad about golf and just love being able to sit down with these big personalities to hear the great stories they have to tell. And they have many!”

There are now over a million podcasts worldwide, and in the UK alone more than four million people listened to a sport-based podcast in 2020, according to research firm Rajar.

“The audio space is rapidly increasing, and sport is playing a pivotal role in its future. Where radio and TV have stood for so long, we now have podcasting,” said Nick Keller, Sport Industry Group Chairman and the man behind the UK’s recently-launched Sport Podcast Awards.

“The podcast market in South Africa may not be as developed as in the likes of the UK and US, but it’s an emerging space with huge potential, and it’s one that provides the platform for quality content targeted at niche audiences,” says Rogers. “This makes it ideally-suited to the sports space, and with ‘The Long and the Short of It’, we’re taking what we believe is great golf content to an audience of golf fans that is hungry for it.”

That audience is growing, with Hill and Rogers recently concluding a distribution deal with GolfRSA that sees ‘The Long and the Short of It’ reach approximately 100,000 South African-registered golfers via the GolfRSA newsletter, whilst the podcast can also be found on sportindustryawards.co.za and in the ‘Dale Hayes Golf Chat’ weekly newsletter.

‘The Long and the Short of It’ can also be accessed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.