Watch Now: Former OSU golfer Danny Edwards remains `Driven' in new roles at PGA

PGA historian emeritus Bob Denney refers to former Oklahoma State All-American Danny Edwards as “golf’s multiple renaissance man.”

In 1970, Edwards caddied at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills. He was a competitor in his next two majors at Southern Hills, the 1977 U.S. Open and 1982 PGA.

This week, Edwards, who grew up in Oklahoma but now lives in Florida, is back at Southern Hills for the PGA Championship.

“A combination of things bring me here — to see some friends, remember good times here I had playing, spend time with my brother (David) and his family who live in Stillwater,” Edwards said.

And he’s at Southern Hills in two different roles — as an author and instructor.

Edwards’ autobiography, “Driven” written with Denney, was released last month. It wasn’t hard for Edwards to come up with the title as he also has been involved in racing.

“As the book says, ever since I was a kid I’ve always just really been driven to do the best I could do and beat everybody I could in a fair way,” Edwards said. “I’ve always had an interest in a lot of different things and reveled in the challenge of them.”

About 90% of the book involves stories of his varied career in golf as well as a race-car driver.

“Through the years, because I had such a diverse and unusual career with golf, my car racing, business building, politics — guys were always saying to me, ‘Edwards you ought to write a book.’ And then when COVID happened I decided to do it, started writing stories.”

Edwards’ pro golf career included five wins on the PGA Tour, a victory in Japan’s Masters, a top-20 finish in each of the majors, and two years as president of the Tour Players Association in the late 1990s as he was an advocate for the PGA Tour to become more transparent about its revenues.

In the late ‘80s, he dropped away from playing on the Tour for a while and founded Royal Grip with the goal of developing a comfortable-feeling golf grip that lasts for a longer period of time. It became one of the largest golf grip manufacturing companies in the world. He also was the founder of the GreenFix Golf Ball Mark Elimination System.

The remaining 10% of the book is devoted to the a new chipping method he developed, the “Chipping Equation”. At the PGA Championship, he is demonstrating it to some of the club pros here participating.

“I want to introduce to them a better way to teach their members how to chip,” Edwards said. “I started to do some research about four years ago on chipping and clubs; I wanted to find out if there was a science behind my belief that horizontal momentum was a golfer’s friend around the greens, and I found out that’s what the case was. It became very clear that lob wedges were inconsistent.

“Horizontal momentum whenever possible is how we should be playing shots around the green. But I had to have a formula, a method to calculate a landing spot and a particular roll. I’ve been teaching it now; I wanted it to be very simple and accurate, and people have said it’s changed their game.

“There’s not a harder game than golf, but chipping is not hard if you have a system and a formula to be able to calculate where to land the ball. It’s been very rewarding,It’s going to change the game of golf because everyone can do it.”

Edwards, 70, was motivated to develop Chipping Equation while playing in Wednesday Pro-Ams on the PGA Tour and seeing his amateur partners struggle.

“I would see amateurs and their struggles through the years,” Edwards said. “I thought there’s got to be a better way. My goal is to give people some hope they can take a stroke or two or three off their scores.

“I always agonized every Wednesday in the Pro-Ams at the inability of my amateur partners to chip. When you understand the intricacies of the game as a player you realize how important chipping is.“Edwards taught himself to play golf at age 14 in Edmond, where there wasn’t a golf course at that time. In 2½ years, he became a state high school champion, then went to OSU where he was a three-time All-American, and at age 22, he was low amateur at the British Open in 1973. A year later, he tied for fifth at the British Open.

“I came a long way in a short period of time,” Edwards said.

Edwards also took another fast track in racing while he was on the PGA Tour.

Denney said, “He was the most humble and unassuming type of guy rubbing shoulders with some of the greatest people in the history of racing — Roger Penske, Rick Mears, Danny Sullivan, Bobby Rahal. I learned a lot about racing from the book. I wasn’t a big racing fan, but Danny showed me an appreciation of it; he had such great hand-eye coordination and reflexes to be able to do it.

“Can you imagine a guy as he did in 1982 winning the Greater Greensboro Open and two months later he’s winning the June sprints at Elkhart Lake, then goes to the Houston Open the following week and he’s saying, `I don’t think anyone around here knows what I did yesterday.“

Edwards was a multi-sport standout at Edmond. He also was All-State in basketball and enjoyed playing baseball.

His first memories of a Southern Hills major are from the 1970 PGA where his roommate caddied for Ben Hogan, who withdrew after two practice rounds. Edwards, who recalls it it being “brutal hot” caddied for Dallas club pro Eldridge Miles. Edwards’ outside-the-box advice that led to him for scrambling for a par on the opening hole.

“He said, ‘Son we’re going to get along real good this week,’” Edwards said.

And four years later, Edwards was tied for fifth at the British Open. Edwards’ best finish in a Southern Hills major was a tie for 22nd in the 1982 PGA, where he enjoyed playing a group with other former OSU golfers Mark Hayes and Lindy Miller.

“I think he’s one of the great overachievers and hardest workers of his generation,” Denney said. “Without the tools to become a monster driver he became a success in golf because of his diligent work.”