The History of InsideTheRopes.com
Here at InsideTheRopes.com (ITR) our goal is to inform the core golfer about the latest news from the PGA Tour, as well as other major golf tours around the world. The site began its operation at the 1998 Masters Tournament.
Founder of ITR, Tom Auclair, is the Tour's Iron Man. Tom has not missed a PGA Tour event in more than nine years. At each event, Tom conducts video interviews with all of the day's leaders. All of these interviews can be found in the right column on page one daily. Archives of all the video interviews can be found by clicking the video tab on the top menu bar.
Each interview is exclusive, which makes it extra special for you, the viewer. Rather than watching a scrum interview as you would see on the nightly sporting news, the goal of ITR is to make you feel as if you are sitting down, shooting the breeze with the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and all the players on the PGA Tour.
Golfweek columnist Jeff Rude once wrote of Auclair, "The iron man of the PGA Tour is not a player but an entrepreneurial multimedia golf junkie. His name is Tom Auclair, and he is the game's ultimate road warrior. Just hearing the details of his pre-2001 Road Odyssey can make one tired."
T.J. Auclair, Tom's eldest son and the site's former senior writer, joined the ITR team following his graduation from the University of Rhode Island in May of 2002, where he studied journalism.
Providence Journal columnist Jim Donaldson once described the father/son duo as, "The best father/son team to hit Augusta National since Jack and Jackie Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters."
Donaldson also wrote that ITR is, "The Augusta National of golf Web sites."
In January of 2006 T.J. moved to Atlanta and a life that didn't include living out of a suitcase for 46 weeks a year. He is the junior editor at PGA.com. Please check out that site and read his great articles and columns. To get to PGA.com, simply click here www.pga.com.
In January 2005, Tom's younger son Kyle, joined the ITR crew as a fulltime photographer. In just one full year on the PGA Tour, Kyle established himself as one of the best golf photographers in the business. His work led to the introduction of the Flash slideshow feature on page one.
One day in the summer of 2005, Kyle said to his dad, "I love this game too much to watch it through a lens."
Tom was proud of Kyle's ability to put his feelings into one sentence that summed things up beautifully. Kyle went home and began working at a local golf course to pursue his goal to become a golf teaching professional. After a year, he decided to return to life on the tour. Kyle is now traveling weekly with his dad and honing his skills on a daily basis.
Thanks for visiting and come back often!