Just over a decade ago, our own Grant Boone helped launch the PGA TOUR Radio Network as well as his golf broadcasting career. As he tells us in his own unique way, both the network and his career have come a long way.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

First off, congratulations to Team Scotland for its playoff victory over Team Bubba - the twangy tandem of Florida Panhandlers, Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum - at the World Cup in China. The only downside of winning a Chinese tournament is that 10 minutes later you're hungry for another one.

Second, if you had JFK's daughter in your "Sweet Caroline" office pool 35 years ago, you can finally collect. The other day Neil Diamond revealed he was inspired to write his first big hit after seeing a magazine photo of Caroline Kennedy. Click here to see another bombshell Diamond dropped in a Gap Jeans commercial. (At least I think that's Neil Diamond.) Remaining mysteries from the music world:

1. Phil Collins' "Sussudio" 2. Dan Aykroyd's appearance in the "We Are the World" video 3. Mick Jagger's perpetual 24-inch waist 4. Rod Stewart's sex appeal 5. David Lee Roth's solo career 6. Marilyn Manson's...actually pretty much all of Marilyn Manson

Third, GMT mourns the passing of Joe Nuxhall. He's best known for becoming the youngest player in Major League Baseball history - before or since - when he pitched in a game for Cincinnati as a 15-year-old high school freshman. But to me, he'll always be "The Ol' Lefthander" who did the Reds' radio broadcasts with Marty Brennaman in the days of my misguided youth. (I still have no idea what makes school girls interested in the opposite sex, but I can report with certainty that the list doesn't include watching a guy furiously twist and tweak the radio dial of his '82 Chevette Diesel trying to find a station 300 miles away that only comes in after dark and even then with more static than a pair of dress socks fresh out of the dryer.)

The only crush I had was on Marty and Joe. Spent nearly every summer night with them for the better part of a decade. As an announcer, Nuxie was an unabashed homer and was especially so when the Reds hit homers. When Johnny Bench went deep on Johnny Bench Night at Riverfront Stadium in 1983, Nuxhall barked, "Get outta here, baseball!" And in September of 1985, when Pete Rose took an Eric Show offering the opposite way to become baseball's all-time hits leader, you could hear Nuxhall behind Brennaman shouting, "Get down! Get down! Yeah!"

In the 9th inning of each game, Nuxhall would make his way down to the field to host the "Star of the Game" show, which he'd always wrap up by saying, "This is the Old Lefthander, rounding third and heading for home." Safe travels, Joe. And thanks for the ride.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm skeptical that someone 20 years from now will be proffering paeans to the media outlet where I cut my teeth broadcasting golf. In January 1997, I was doing radio in Dallas, anchoring hourly sportscasts and reporting from big events like Super Bowls and Final Fours when I learned of an incipient outfit in Atlanta called PGA Tour Radio Network that would broadcast live tournaments and produce other Tour-related programming.

Somehow I convinced them to give me a tryout. They flew me to Atlanta on the same day they were auditioning Bob Trumpy, a broadcast veteran I grew up watching whose guttural bass tones make James Earl Jones sound like Mike Tyson. Trumpy played 10 years for the Cincinnati Bengals, then spent the next 20 calling football, golf, and other sports on network television. With his resume including initials like NFL and NBC, I figured I was SOL. But in an upset of biblical proportions, I slew the broadcasting Goliath - who's nearly as tall as the Philistine of yore - and landed the gig after dazzling the PGA Tour Radio Network folks in my audition. (There were also minor details, such as the fact that I came at a fraction of Trumpy's price tag and agreed to lug my young family and a U-Haul to Atlanta to work full time instead of freelance. But I think mostly it was that they were dazzled.)

PGATRN was the brainchild of a riverboat gambler named Warren Elliott, whose brain unfortunately didn't sire any other offspring when it came to such technicalities as how to actually convince radio stations to carry our broadcasts or persuade the occasional advertiser to spend its media dollars with us. Elliott had George W. Bush's swagger, if not the President's command of the English language.

A group of three investors in Louisiana bought the bill of goods Elliott was selling, as did the PGA Tour, which no doubt looked at a national radio network as condign spoils for a league about to hit the jackpot in rights fees from its first television deal since the arrival of Tiger Woods.

To get the network on the air, Elliott assembled an experienced production team. That was the good news. The bad news was their experience was in other fields. One came from TV, another from advertising. A couple of others came and went before I even shook their hands, much less learned about their industry expertise (or lack thereof). Their common denominator was a love for golf.

I remember thinking shortly after I alit in Atlanta that this seemed like a bunch of guys who really liked "ER" deciding to open a hospital. They were having a blast. And then the patients started showing up.

Next week, part two of PGA Tour Radio Daze. It might be more appropriate to call it #2 based on what my wife and I found on our first night in Atlanta at the company's corporate apartment. A paean, it wasn't.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. His column appears on PGA.com each Wednesday and every day during major championships and other big events. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.