Linked by Friendship, Driven to Improve in Life

Alumni, Eli Strait and Mike Shade, Help People Through Golf

BY ISABELLA BROWN

Connected by their love of golf and dedication to improving their game, Gardner-Webb University alumni, Eli Strait and Mike Shade, created a successful podcast called, “Chasing Scratch.” These two could never have guessed their podcast would reach far beyond the game of golf. Two friends, one dream, and several swings of a golf club later, they have accomplished just that.

Strait and Shade recall their memorable journey from becoming best friends to podcast hosts. It was a beautiful day in Boiling Springs, N.C., when Shade first visited Gardner-Webb. “It was the perfect day,” Shade said. “I was just like, ‘This is the place.’ Me and my dad played at the Riverbend golf course. Then, we walked through campus.” Shade remembered thinking, “this is where I wanna be.”

Shade, who is originally from Greensboro, N.C., only lived a small distance from campus unlike Strait who lived more than 450 miles away in Lexington, Ky. “I had never heard of Gardner-Webb,” Strait admitted. “I was a basketball player and wanted to play college basketball. Gardner-Webb said, ‘Hey, you know, we’re in North Carolina.’ I went down for a visit and just fell in love
with the place. And that was really how I ended up there, through basketball,” Strait said.

It didn’t take long for Shade and Strait to become friends.

“We met on the first day,” Shade said. Finishing his thought, Strait continued, “In the same freshman orientation class.” Now, after two decades of friendship, the two often complete each other’s sentences. While they hit it off right away, it wasn’t until their junior year that they became close friends. “We happened to have a Spanish class with Teresa Phillips, who was an awesome professor, and we just had a blast in her class,” Strait noted. “She fully embraced our unique personalities. That was really where we hit it off. Pretty much our whole senior year, it was just us hanging out.”

Shade added, “We spent many an afternoon at Riverbend after class. We were playing golf every chance we could.”

“I felt like the sun was always shining the moment I saw Gardner-Webb. I always felt like it was God saying, ‘Hey, this is right where you need to be.’”

Eli Strait

After graduation, the bonds of their friendship still held strong, even when Strait moved back to Kentucky. “I’d call Eli, or he called me every single day after college,” Shade said. “There was always something to talk about.”

“For 20 plus years, we essentially have talked every day,” Strait affirmed. Their many conversations eventually led to thoughts of doing a podcast, but they hadn’t landed on a topic.

Then, the idea came to them after one of the three or four golf trips they plan every year. “One year, we went on our yearly golfing trip over the summer— the one we got so excited for—and I thought we were gonna play so well and we played so bad,” Shade expressed.

“After the trip, we were like, this has got to stop happening. And we said, well, what if we just try to get better? We’re still going to be great husbands and fathers, and we’ll be great employees, but in that little time in between, what if that’s all golf? Maybe that’s our podcast idea!”

What started as a personal challenge in 2018 to improve their golf score, the “Chasing Scratch” podcast has gained international fame and a devoted audience. “I would never have thought we would be in season seven of anything,” Shade said. “We thought we would do it for one year. Eli bought us mics (and) we recorded for seven months before we put an episode out because we didn’t know what the story was going to be. But then we got to the end of season one, and more people were listening to it than we thought. And we did improve a lot. So, we were like, well, let’s do it again!”

The friendships Strait and Shade have had the opportunity to build through the podcast have been the most impactful aspect. “It’s been awesome,” Strait shared. “Whenever you have listeners write in and say, you know, that thing that you talked about, it helped me be a better dad, or helped me be a better spouse, or we had so many people during COVID write and say, ‘Man I was so isolated, and your show got me through COVID.’ Every time somebody writes something like that, it’s like, wow, that’s amazing.”

Through it all, both friends look back with appreciation on their experience at Gardner-Webb: the place where their friendship began. They are excited to continue the tradition of hosting their final show of the season in the area. “Every year, we end our season by coming back to Gardner-Webb, and we play at Riverbend,” Shade explained. “Because of the opportunities we’ve had, we’ve been offered to go to other places for that last event of the year. And it’s never even a question—because we always want to come back (to GWU), that’s our favorite place to be.”

The community, campus, and special friendships are something each one cherishes deeply. “I always used to tell my wife that every time I had to go home during school, whenever I would drive back—it didn’t matter what the weather was—I felt like the sun was always shining the moment I saw Gardner- Webb,” Strait said. “I always felt like it was God saying, ‘Hey, this is right where you need to be.’”

“It’s a special place,” Shade affirmed.

*You can find Chasing Scratch: A Golf Podcast on your favorite podcasting platforms.

Writer Isabella Brown is an English major who graduates in December 2024.