You know her voice as the host of the DP World Tour’s outstanding broadcast coverage. But you probably don’t know Ali Whitaker’s unique, hilarious journey from living within a wedge shot of the par-3 fifth hole at Royal Melbourne West, where she was noticed by a renowned golf coach, to commentating at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome and 2024 Olympics in Paris.
My introduction to golf was extremely lucky. Firstly, because I was so fortunate to grew up on the Melbourne Sandbelt, but secondly because of a moment in 1998. The first Presidents Cup held in Australia came to Royal Melbourne in 1998. Around that time, my mum, my sister and I were playing golf at “Sandy” (Sandringham Golf Club) across the road. This was the old Sandy, not the cool, new renovated Sandy. We were on the first tee when the head pro at Royal Melbourne, Bruce Green, and the general manager, Bill Richardson, came across the road to Sandy to scout what was going to be the driving range for the Presidents Cup and logistics for that. I went to school with both their sons. Tom Richardson, Bill’s son, was one of my closest mates. As I teed off the first, I’m pretty sure I hit it in the trees. But for some reason, Bruce saw something, and said, “I’m going to coach you. Come see me at Royal Melbourne on the Monday after the Presidents Cup.”
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I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that someone was willing to coach me, at Royal Melbourne no less. My parents live on the back of Royal Melbourne, near the famous par-3 fifth hole on the West course. Bruce turned into a mentor and a coach. After school, I’d go down the end of the range while he was coaching other people, and he’d come and give me a tip in between lessons, and barely charged me. Often, he’d drop me home in a golf cart and I’d jump the back fence home. My after-school care in high school was Royal Melbourne, which is just ridiculous if you’re a golf fan.
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Bruce created a good culture between my parents, myself and the game of golf. My dad (George) was a professional athlete; he played soccer for Australia in the under-25s national team. We were never really lacking in ambition in the family, but we had a good relationship with each other around golf. It was competitive, but really fun.
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On my Golf Australia profile, which I wrote in my early days as a pro after college – and which you have kindly dug up for me – it says my most memorable moment was having my first-ever eagle on the last day of the last millennium at Royal Melbourne. I had a 3 on the 18th East, playing with Bruce, on December 31, 1999. I still remember that. I was 14 and had the ball mounted. I was using free golf balls we got from one of my dad’s friends who worked for P&O Cruises, and so it has a P&O logo on it.
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Another really lucky development was the group of people who surrounded me once I was accepted into the Victorian Institute of Sport. There were coaches like Sandy Jamieson and Denis McDade, Marc Leishman’s long-time coach. I went through the VIS with ‘Leish’ and Jarrod Lyle. We’d all go out to MGA (Melbourne Golf Academy) and practise, do drills together, have competitions, get physio treatment. Everyone was laidback, but motivated. Jarrod was one of the favourite men in my life, to this day. What a beautiful man.
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I’m so grateful for my experience going to college in the US. I went to Duke University in North Carolina from 2006 to 2010. I flew over and played the US Women’s Amateur qualifier in 2005 and came home to Australia for a few weeks after successfully qualifying and before the championship. While in Australia, I was in a car accident where I was rear-ended in my Toyota Crusade by a nun driving behind me. It was three days before I was due to leave for the US. I recovered, but played with a stiff neck. I played against Amanda Blumenherst, who was the best junior in America. The golf coach for Duke was out watching her, and he ended up seeing me play against her, and I got to the semi-finals. I was fortunate to get my ‘pick of the litter’ in terms of colleges. I was meant to play with Michelle Wie that week in the strokeplay, but she couldn’t get back from the Women’s British Open in time. I thought I was going to have a media circus for the first couple of days in qualifying, but I was able to lay low, under the radar, and focus on my own game. That would have been much harder had Michelle not pulled out. And, if I didn’t play against Amanda in a different section of the draw, the Duke coach probably wouldn’t have seen me play and recruited me.
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Duke was incredible. Our women’s golf team won the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Championship in my first two years. I walked into a team that had just won the national championship and we won two more.
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After college, I lived in Colorado for a while. Don Hurter was a golf coach at Castle Pines Golf Club, and he’s a great character. I had an amazing base there. We were allowed to live in a model (display) home owned by this guy called Patrick Hamill, who runs the Colorado Open, and I met him through those tournaments over the years. He was a donor to the University of Denver golf team. He lent us a fully furnished model home to live in, right next to the golf course.
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I don’t think I really fell in love with pro golf until I went to Europe and played on the Ladies European Tour. It was a tour that was much more aligned with my personality and sense of adventure. We were renting houses together, delegating washing and cooking duties, and playing in a different country almost every week. I think it’s still the biggest adventure of my life, and that’s saying something. I loved every minute of the LET.
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At the end of 2014, I had finished a round in the morning wave at an LET event in China on my birthday, November 23. At lunch, a producer from the TV crew approached me and asked if I would fill in as a commentator in the afternoon. The producer was looking for a European voice, but they gave me a crack with the mic. They gave me space and let me do my thing. By dinner that night, I was offered a contract for the next year if I didn’t want to keep playing. I had vertigo and glandular fever that season, so I was battling pretty hard, and as soon as commentary was on the table, I knew that these opportunities don’t come around that often. I took it and never looked back. I’ve always thought golf led me to my life’s passion, which is broadcasting.
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Women’s golf has come so far. And, this is just my opinion, I feel in women’s golf we still do not have enough ego. I’d love to see some of the stars of the women’s game back themselves more, and I think they do that quietly, but for whatever reason, there’s still [an element of] society telling them to be humble. I think there’s a difference between the men’s and the women’s game because the guys back themselves more and sometimes play the ridiculous shots. We need more of that in women’s golf.
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My favourite moment as a commentator, outside the majors and biggest teams events, happened last year. Lydia Ko winning the Olympic gold medal in Paris tops it all. She’s only got a couple of years before she wants to retire. The 2024 Games were likely her last Olympics and last chance at gold. For Lydia to keep her nerve down the stretch and win, and to secure the 27th and final point she needed to get into the LPGA Hall of Fame, was absolutely ridiculous. It will never be done again. It could not have happened to a better person.
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I’ve been lucky enough to know Lydia since she was 13. We grew up playing alongside each other, and then it shifted to Ko winning majors and becoming women’s world No.1 and I went into commentary. Thankfully, our relationship never shifted in the fact that the trust has always been there. I’ve seen the different chapters of her life and for it to all blend into this fairytale moment, I was bawling. I saw her and called her win at the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews a couple of weeks later. There’s this moment during the broadcast where she hugged her husband, Jun Chung, and I’m talking about their relationship, and my voice just keeps cracking. Lydia and I have laughed about it since.
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As for my favourite moment I’ve called as a commentator at the biggest events in golf, I’d have to say the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome ranks No.1. For Italian golf and European golf, it was massive. I’ll never forget the sense of occasion when the sun was rising in the morning of Friday’s opening session at Marco Simone Golf Club, and what we call the coliseum of the first-tee grandstands were full. The chants were wild. I’ve never wanted to say less in commentary than the first five minutes of the 2023 Ryder Cup. Hopefully, that was some broadcast IQ kicking in. Whatever we were going to say was far less exciting than the noise coming from the crowd. That was incredibly special.
