The Road Begins: GOLF CHANNEL's "Highway 18"

Posted by Ryan

Anyone who’s played golf knows that it’s a stressful game. But a typical round doesn’t also include a road race, tough trivia questions, getting dropped off in a swamp and having eight people trying to get you kicked off the course.

GOLF CHANNEL’s new 10-episode reality competition series Highway 18, premiering July 22 at 10pm ET, puts five teams of two golfers on the ultimate road rally through Florida, as they face golf challenges both on and off the course to stave off elimination and be the last team standing. “There’s a race element to it, there’s a golf element to it, and there’s this cooperation element to it and how two people work together to not only find where the next hole they have to play is but perform at the next hole,” says Jay Kossoff, GOLF CHANNEL executive producer of original productions.

The teams, as you might expect, are made up of colorful and often clashing personalities. But each competitor has a serious passion for golf and the skills to go with it. The team of Andy and Parker, two Southern buddies, party as hard as they play golf. Ashley and Ashleigh are blond, flirty BFFs who coordinate their outfits and hide their competitiveness behind ditsy demeanors. Friends Raul and Jameica, both with careers in golf, are known to hustle opponents. Siblings Rob and Charlotte are both perfectionists willing to do whatever it takes to win. And the father/son team of Peach and Jay test the maxim that father knows best.

“No one knew, when they were coming on to the show, what the show was about,” Highway 18 host Keri Murphy explains. “They were told to bring clothes and a golf bag. So they all thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be great! It’s going to kind of be like The Big Break,’ where they’re just going to play a bunch of golf. They had no idea. The physical strain, the race part of it, they didn’t know about. So every day to them was a completely different challenge, a completely different stress, and the emotions really got heightened through exhaustion and not knowing what they were going to be up against.”

Like when the teams were marooned in the middle of a Florida swamp. “They came out to the swamp — it’s full of gators — and they think that they’re going to have to do some sort of golf challenge. But really, they just had to find their way back,” Murphy says. “Getting them out of the swamp was pretty hilarious.”

But the surprises weren’t all mosquitoes and gators. “The World Golf Hall of Fame — when they met Arnold Palmer — that challenge was really amazing,” Murphy says. “They had no idea that when they got off the elevator that he was going to be up in the tower. I think for most of the players that was probably the highlight of the show.”

This show sounds like fun, so we’re going to blog it up. Instead of long, detailed blow-by-blow recaps, we’re going to do a “Quick 9” post after each episode — we’ll list our best nine observations, highlights, questions, complaints, predictions, jokes, etc. from each episode.

Photo: Credit: Mark Ashman/GOLF CHANNEL