Golf Channel is celebrating 20 years on the air with anniversary-themed initiatives both on-air and online surrounding the official anniversary on Saturday, Jan. 17. On-air plans will include a Morning Drive appearance by Joe Gibbs, Golf Channel co-founder, on Saturday, Jan. 17 as he looks back on the evolution of Golf Channel dating back to its earliest stages. 
“This is an exciting time for The Golf Channel and I salute president Mike McCarley, and his senior vice president of programming Tom Knapp, for continuing to successfully lead a skilled team of producers, writers, editors, photographers, and their many other executive and supporting staff, who all help the company bring forth some of the best coverage in golf,” says Debert Cook, publisher of the African American Golfer’s Digest. “The Golf Channel has been instrumental in featuring the diversity activities hosted by our publication, and, they have continued to reach out to us when they need information that is classic to our readership.”
McCarley (pictured above), an accomplished American broadcasting executive, assumed the post at Golf Channel in February 2011 after more than a decade with NBC. He is a protégé of former NBC Sports & Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol. GolfChannel.com editorial content will include a first-person testimonial from Golf Channel anchor Rich Lerner about some of his favorite moments covering the game dating back to Golf Channel’s early years on the air, as well as a column from Morning Drive co-host Bailey Mosier, who asks Tour players what advice they would give their 20-year-old selves.
The network also will feature other anniversary themed content throughout the weekend, including online photo galleries based on Golf Channel’s New York Times Best-Seller The Golf Book. In early 1990, cable-entrepreneur Joseph E. Gibbs began his quest to launch a 24-hour golf network. As fate would have it, that same year Gibbs opened up his Birmingham, Ala., home to host one of the pros playing in the PGA Championship. That pro was none other than The King himself, Arnold Palmer. An immediate friendship developed between the two and that bond sparked the idea that became the GOLF CHANNEL.
