Golf, at its core, is not really about golf. That's the central thesis behind We Need a Fourth, the new podcast from Cooper Manning, Kenny May, and Brian Bombgardner — three men with wildly different relationships to the game who share one conviction: four hours on the course with someone tells you almost everything you need to know about them.
Three Very Different Golfers
The trio are quick to acknowledge that their affection for golf is not evenly distributed. Kenny May, by his co-hosts' assessment, loves golf more than the other two combined — though the game, as he admits, does not necessarily love him back. Bombgardner plays from the tips, navigating the course with a leg brace that his partners mercilessly mock. And Cooper Manning has arrived at a personal philosophy that is both simple and non-negotiable: he will not play golf with people he doesn't like.
"Someone can invite me on the greatest trip," Manning explains. "We're going here — and I'm like, who's going? And if it's a bunch of bozos, Coop is out. I'd rather play an absolute muni with two guys in football jerseys and get a story out of it than suffer through some fancy spot."
Golf as Meditation — and as Character Reveal
Bombgardner frames golf as his version of meditation. He doesn't do yoga, he's clear about that. But four hours on the course, focused on nothing but getting a small ball into a small hole, completely resets him. The phones are away, the distractions fall off, and for a stretch of time that's increasingly rare, there's simply nowhere else to be.
But beyond the personal reset, the group argues that golf functions as one of the most reliable social diagnostics available to modern men. Spend a full round with someone and you will find out, without much effort, whether this is a person worth knowing. You can ask anything. You can watch how they handle failure, frustration, and four hours of enforced proximity. You can't hide.
"If you spend four hours playing with someone, you're going to find out a lot," Bombgardner says. "Is this a good fellow? Do I want to hang around him again? You find out — because you can ask him anything."
There is, however, a well-understood limit to what gets discussed. May notes the familiar dynamic: come home after a round, and your wife wants to know everything about your playing partner — is he dating anyone, how's the job going — and you realize you have absolutely no idea. You know he shot an 82 and had a good back nine. That's the deal.
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Hosts laughing about coming home after a round with nothing to report about their playing partners
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Stories From the Course
No conversation among serious recreational golfers stays theoretical for long. The group trades genuinely good stories.
Bombgardner recalls a round in New Jersey, years ago, with producer Mark and actor Chris Pratt. A few holes in, Pratt threw out his back on a shot and told the group to carry on without him — he'd wait. Mark and Bombgardner played the full 18. Coming up the fairway toward the 18th green at twilight, they spotted a figure lying on the grass with his knees up. It was Pratt. He had been there for hours. They drove him back to New York City, and he climbed out of the car fully bent over, called it a great day, and hobbled off.
"I love when people get hurt in a self-inflicted way," Bombgardner says. "I don't know why."
May matches this with a scene from Dyker Beach in Brooklyn: a notoriously bad golfer steps up to the tee and, against all odds, strikes a goose with his shot. The goose does not survive. And Cooper Manning raises the stakes further — a round with two clients that devolved into a genuine fistfight after one shanked a two-iron directly into the other's lower back at shin height from a nearby bunker.
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Hosts reacting to the story of a golf ball killing a goose at Dyker Beach
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What the Podcast Is Actually About
The show's title, We Need a Fourth, is ostensibly about finding a playing partner for the round. But the hosts are transparent about what it's really describing: the search for good company. Golf is the vehicle. The destination is the conversation — the kind that happens when you're outside, unhurried, and temporarily insulated from everything else demanding your attention.
The podcast features long-form interviews that, by the hosts' own description, leave nothing on the table. Guests get asked about golf, sure, but also about everything else. By the time an episode is done, there is, as Bombgardner puts it, nothing left of the onion.
We Need a Fourth launched September 15th with two episodes, releasing new installments every Monday.
