Holly Sonders is an American professional golfer, sports broadcaster, and reporter, who is probably known best as the host of Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive”. She is also an influencer, entrepreneur, and Instagram model who has gained massive recognition thanks to her career and dating history.
Early life, family, educational background
Holly Sonders was born on 3 March 1987, in Marysville, Ohio USA. Her mother Sandy Niederkohr was also a golfer, while her father Dan Niederkohr is an optician. She has an older brother Ryan.
When Holly was a child, her mother golfed every day at Marysville Country Club and took her along. She would watch the process, and eventually became interested in the game, and started playing when she was five, participating in her first tournament at Marysville County Club at the age of six.
Sonders attended Marysville High School, during which she played on boys’ soccer, baseball and golf teams, as she indicated in an interview with Adam Woodard. She matriculated from high school in 2005, receiving multiple offers thanks to her excellent athletic records. She chose to study at Michigan State University, majoring in Journalism, and graduating in 2009.
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Career
Career as a golfer
Holly embarked on her golfing journey at a young age, winning her first organized tournament when she was only seven years old. In high school, it was challenging to find five girls to form a full golf team, so Sonders competed individually. In 2001, as a freshman at Marysville High School, she finished third in the state tournament. In 2003, she finally managed to find five girls for the team, and competed in a state tournament – Marysville finished sixth, while Holly herself was second behind Kathleen Ekey.
After enrolling at Michigan State University and joining their Spartans golf team, Sonders’ talent started shining through. She was coached by Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, whom she described at the time as one of her best friends; her guidance mixed with basketball experience helped Holly unveil her full potential. After her sophomore and junior seasons, she acquired Academic All-Big Ten honors. She also contributed to the Spartans’ Big Ten Conference Championship in 2007; the team participated in the NCAA Championship twice.
Holly had torn the meniscus in her right knee when playing basketball in high school, but didn’t get proper treatment. Consequently, she was forced to undergo surgery when she was in college to remove the cyst and repair the meniscus. Even though the surgery was successful, the recovery was still difficult for the young golfer, so she chose to combine her education in Journalism with her experience in golf, and become a sports reporter.
Career as a sports reporter and broadcaster
Holly started her reporting career with smaller channels to gain some experience, frequently switching between jobs. She landed her first job as a reporter at KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas, and later joined the Big Ten Network when she became a reporter for WBNS-10 TV in Columbus, Ohio. After garnering enough knowledge, she applied for the opening at The Golf Channel, successfully getting the job in 2011, becoming the co-host of the popular shows “Morning Drive” and “School of Golf”; she also appeared in the show “Playing Lessons”.
In 2014, Holly transferred to the FOX Sports network, covering the US Open golf in 2015. She was also a reporter for National Football League (NFL) games, appeared in the channel’s flagship news programs, and was the guest host for the TV shows “Undisputed” and “Herd”. However, her experience with FOX Sports wasn’t untainted – in 2015, she caught the spotlight with a scandal when she made a joke during an interview with winner Jordan Spieth – not only was she harshly criticized by the public, but she was also demoted to post-game shows. She continued as a broadcaster for the channel for four years following the incident, parting ways with FOX in 2019.
In 2021, she returned to television in Oscar De La Hoya’s boxing show “Bally’s Fight Night”.
Career as an Instagram model and influencer
After leaving FOX sports, Holly started paying more attention to her Instagram account, posing actively at the beginning of 2019, occasionally sharing slightly revealing pictures. In the second half of the year, she started posting pictures in swimsuits and underwear, dramatically increasing the number of her followers. She started collaborating with brands and companies such as Mason Pearson, Puffy Delivery, and TeamUP Fitness APP. Concurrently, she began posing for the photographers Collin Stark and Justin Price.
Eventually, she created her website hollysonders.com, on which she shares exclusive adult content that is only accessible via a paid ($9.99) monthly subscription. As her audience increased, she collaborated with more brands and photographers. Currently, she has around 660,000 followers on Instagram.
Career as an entrepreneur
Holly is also an entrepreneur too. She launched her first NFT project in 2021, featuring exclusive photos that she hadn’t shared before. She released 10 albums, each of them containing 100 pictures – the value of each album was $10,000, as the package included exclusive lifetime membership to Holly’s NFT community, AMA Zoom calls for NFT holders, early access to future drops, and the prize draw for Golf Day with Holly.
In July 2022, Holly launched the dietary supplement brand Masculen with Oscar De La Hoya, featuring five products specifically made for men: Immortal, Top Gun, Titan, All Night, and Lights Out.
Personal life
According to The Sun, Holly Sonders is currently dating famous Mexican-American boxer Oscar De La Hoya; they met in 2021 when Oscar was starting a new boxing show and was searching for a host. He reached out to Holly and convinced her to join his show, and they felt the spark immediately when they met in real life. To express her love for Oscar, Holly had his picture tattooed on her shoulder blade. Not only does the couple have a romantic relationship, but they also do business together.
Oscar is a former professional boxer and a boxing promoter, who was active between 1992 to 2008; he won 11 world titles in six weight classes. The media started calling him “The Golden Boy of boxing” when he won the gold medal at the Summer Olympics in 1992. To honor his Mexican descent, he acquired dual citizenship (American and Mexican) in 2002.
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Previous relationships
Holly had three notable relationships before meeting Oscar. She started dating Erik Kuselias in 2011, they became engaged in 2012, and married shortly afterwards. However, their marriage wasn’t long-lasting, as it was revealed that he had been married and had children. Such events stirred up the relationship, leading to divorce in 2016.
In 2019, Holly started dating American football coach Kliff Kingsbury just as he was getting appointed as lead coach for the National Football League team Arizona Cardinals, however, their relationship ended shortly afterwards. The same year, Holly started dating sports consultant Vegas Dave. The couple became engaged after dating for a week, but split up in the spring of 2020.
Holly Sonders doesn’t have any children.
Hobbies, favorite things, and interesting facts
- Holly resides in both Las Vegas and Beverly Hills, frequently switching between them;
- Her favorite brands are Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Louboutin;
- She drinks edible collagen every day to improve the elasticity of her skin;
- Holly takes good care of her skin by using high-quality skincare and getting various treatments regularly;
- Holly and Oscar are planning to create a reality TV series, but details are unknown for now.
Appearance, clothing style
Holly is 35 years old; she has long brown hair with light greenish eyes. Her height is 5ft 8ins (173cm), her weight is about 132lbs (60kgs), and she has a slim athletic figure as she exercises regularly. She likes to wear various styles depending on her mood – She might wear casual clothes with heels one day, and show up in formal attire the next, but wears evening dresses for special occasions. Holly uses make-up regularly.
Net worth and salary
Holly Sonders’ net worth is estimated at close to $6 million, with her annual income now amounting to $2 million. She has accumulated most of the wealth through her professional career, including through sponsorships, and modeling on Instagram.
