Gooch explains why there’s ‘y’ in Talor and why he didn’t continue tradition

When you read this year’s RSM Classic winner’s name, Talor Gooch, you may think there’s a typo, but there’s not. His first name is intentionally y-less thanks to a family custom. 

“My mom’s side of the family just spelled names weird and so they just wanted to keep the tradition going,” Gooch, who notched his maiden PGA Tour win on Sunday, said after Round 2 on Sea Island. “Nothing special other than they just wanted to make life hard on me, I guess. It’s a pain in the butt a little bit.”

Full-field scores from The RSM Classic

But the tradition isn’t exclusive to Talor. His mother’s name is “Amber,” spelled A-M-B-R-E and his sister’s name is Cassidi, spelled as it sounds but with an “i” rather than a “y” at the end. 

“I mean, especially all the women in the family on my mom’s side, all their names are spelled uniquely,” he said. 

But when the 30-year-old Oklahoma native and his wife, Ally, recently became parents to a baby girl, Collins, they ditched the ritual. 

“It wasn’t unique, no. We cut the tradition,” he said. “I don’t want her to have to deal with all the struggles I had to with the weirdly spelled name.”