Shell's Wonderful World of Golf

Country

United States

How it feels

Two professional golfers play a stroke play match in a different country each episode. The show includes details about the host country and the players chatting between shots. It feels like a friendly foursome traveling together.

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What happens

Shell's Wonderful World of Golf was a televised series of golf matches which began in the 1960s. The program was sponsored by Shell Oil. It was a part of the tradition of "challenge matches" between pairs of professional golfers, which were the earliest form of professional golf competition, but have now been almost entirely replaced by large field tournaments. On a few occasions, three players competed (see table). No matches were staged between 1970 and 1994, when the show was restarted by Jack Nicklaus Productions and hosted by Gary Player. Gene Sarazen was the host for most of the earlier matches. Each contest was played as a stroke play match, rather than match play. It began as a pre-recorded one-hour program on Sunday afternoons, and was notable for also including information about the host country for that week's show. It also included some of the conversations between the contestants between the shots. As such, it allowed the audience to feel they were part of a foursome traveling with the competitors and host, as opposed to being just a spectator in the gallery. In December 2025, Sports Business Journal reported that the PGA Tour and Pro Shop Holdings were working on a reboot of the series, the tour having filed to trademark the name "Wonderful World of Golf". It was not clear if Shell would be involved in the rebooted series. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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