177 – Player Profiles: George Knudson with Lorne Rubenstein

welcome to the podcast an absolute joy to get you guys on really enjoyed chatting to you guys when it feels like
ages ago now when did we record the podcast which I would highly recommend people to jump over and listen to by the
way when did we record that five or six weeks ago I think yeah it feels like ages ago I think Christmas has been
since so you’re kind of Christmas was coming up because we did the dirt so the I mean Henry he’s gonna who’s gonna tell
us about the dirt because that was what I was terrified about doing to be fair on your podcast yeah so the dirt is
something that we came up with as a uh a little starter to the podcast that it began as just a walker and I have a
segment called mud ball Monday where we get on every Monday every Monday and it’s quite what quite literally what it
sounds like it is a mud ball we don’t know what we’re going to talk about it can go any sort of Direction sometimes we have a concept and sometimes we do
ones like we recorded today where we did just exclusively the dirt which is what we have been drinking eating reading and
thinking in the last week or so and so we each take those four letters and just
kind of battered around for for 10 minutes or on in today’s case about 45 minutes about those four things so
um yeah the the the exclusive dirts we uh we’ve just started trying that and I’m really intrigued to see how that
goes people have taken really well to the concept that we keep hearing like we love the dirt we like hearing you guys
talk about that stuff and so we kind of have taken that run and said okay well here comes some episodes where that’s
all we’re gonna do um so we will see how that goes but yes I promise so they sort of stick with
that because I should add you guys are a golf podcast like the Thai is a golf
podcast so you know do they stick with that even or does it tangently kind of flow into golf or do you just stick
solely on the process of making coffee the great stuff you’ve been cooking all that kind of good stuff that’s a good
question I would say every 5th to Tenth podcast my thinking might go in the
direction of golf but you are not thinking about golf enough that is just not enough
by and large it does not it does not include a lot of golf so yeah seemingly people are pretty interested in what we
have to say about just other sort of random stuff um but Tom that’s a good call out if we are uh quote unquote a golf podcast I
probably should be thinking a little bit more about golf but uh I think I think probably 10 percent of the time I might
be off golf 90 of the time I’m thinking about how I’m gonna stop shanking the ball or
maybe how I kill my duck hooks it’s usually about my golf but yeah that was going to be my next question but but I
like that yeah that’s dead on Tom how long have you been in that state of mind has that been a
forever thing or is this a phase well interesting we got uh right back in the
80s this is weird I feel like we’ve been interviewed when we got right back in the early days we got giovaliante on uh the sport psychologist he talked about
Flow State about how you can get into that flow state where you don’t need to think about golf well I’ve never I’ve never met Flow State I don’t know who he
is so I have to think about my golf pretty much all the time if I’m even gonna try and succeed and it’s usually
met with failure I’m perfectly honest but you look that’s not where you was because we’ve we’ve done we’ve done me
plenty on this podcast you are uh podcast the Thai podcast you started
when we started uh I think it was June 20
2020 Henry does that sound right I believe it was 21. yeah June 21 moving
into two years here but um still haven’t crossed the two-year Mark okay what was the uh what was the reasoning behind it
why did you feel like you wanted to get into golf podcasting I mean Henry and I played golf in high school we actually
met uh prior to even us playing golf primarily as a sport
and uh the two of us met and started practicing and playing together over a course of time
you know into our college Years we talked a lot about golf offline and
and when we were playing golf but we had just assembled a bunch of photos
from from playing golf and just having experiences and we started throwing up those photos on
Instagram that was kind of a common thing to do there were lots of other folks sharing photos of golf I was
mildly interested in Golf Course architecture at the time we were having conversations about
what we enjoyed playing uh recreationally what we enjoyed playing competitively and very much still
learning about the game and I would say that’s when our interest was there and we matched that with
just kind of putting a product out even though it there wasn’t really much to offer and
kind of at that point kind of got connected into the golf sphere whether it was golf
Twitter or golf Instagram which do have their differences but
ever since then it’s been this continuous ongoing conversation between
the two of us and it has very much evolved through competition through playing in college
um through my own interest in architecture and the podcast seems like another phase of that process
but it’s been perhaps the most enjoyable so far do you feel like it’s two-way I
am what I mean by that do you feel like I guess it’s yes it’s good to be able to
kind of talk about Golf and release content and you know there’s some maybe gratification around that but also it’s
like an education in and of itself almost certainly that’s how we find it yeah Henry feel free to come in here if
you uh want to share any more context but the idea behind the name the tie
is that golf in and of itself seemed like something with an end and
what really felt enlists was talking to people within the game and
hearing how they viewed it differently than us how they were raised differently within the game how they
caught the game at a certain portion of their life and how golf can still represent a very minor
portion of your life but it can have an impact a big impact at times in other
areas and so the podcast was an extension of us already being interested in that piece
and the name the tie was really behind trying to
uncover some of those thoughts that we had just through letting other people explain that whole concept
by all accounts uh we’ve got a pair of ball Strikers on our on our hands are
you two both fairly handy have you been in the army college golf that’s like eyes light up you know anything you
think Tom’s almost close to start sending you swing videos here for some some sort of Health I think it’s a good
turn into a therapy session for him I heard I heard some past tense use there which is very very apropos of the
conversation there were there was a time when um we were both half decent at the
game that time is not now uh those those days are much behind us um but yeah we uh we still enjoy getting
out there and kicking it around we’re we’re both getting into the mid amateur age and so
um you know a lot of a lot of possibilities to be held there so we do we do really enjoy some competitive Golf
and have certainly played a bit in our past you’re very modest though aren’t you I mean obviously when we record the
podcast I kind of get that sense very modest about your own playing playing abilities you know I don’t want to put
you on the spot and make you say how great you were but you know is there a difficult adjustment do you find coming
out of playing maybe Collegiate Golf and I don’t know where that was and to what level and then realizing maybe that it’s not
going to be the full-time job but actually do you learn to enjoy it differently doing do you learn to enjoy
it more or less because it must be such a strange adjustment there’s nowhere near the same level of kind of college
level golf played over in this country there’s some universities there there’d be some high-end players but by and
large I think if you really want to make it in the top tier a lot of people are going to go out and play in that American sort of Collegiate system you
know ideally D1 and stuff but yeah not everyone makes it and only a small percentage you know what’s that
adjustment like and I guess you’ve got a wider peer group as well right you know I’ll spin it slightly and say that and I
to this day it was actually just playing golf at a par 3 course about an hour ago with a friend and was essentially asked this sort of question and um he kind of
said to me he was like you know why why did you not want to turn pro like he was asking me about some of my friends and
peers and people and you know just calling it like it is like I was referring to people that I used to compete against who are now playing on
the PGA tour they’re playing at Pebble Beach this week and asking me okay so why did you not choose that path and
honestly I don’t have a great answer there it was never um yeah if I had a great answer I would
say it but it just never was what I really wanted to do to be completely honest and so I kind of started to feel
this myself like probably about two and a half years ago I was as I was kind of encroaching on that last stretch of
college golf recognizing that even though on paper and you know rankings wise and some of those sorts of things
probably would have expected me to to think about going and play professional golf I just knew that I would rather go
get a regular job pursue other things in life but continue to compete and so with that I started to think about okay well
if this is something that I do want to do for a long time but maybe not so much as a profession you know how should I
think about it a little bit differently and that you know this has kind of been locked up with the podcast but starting to think about okay well competitive
golf maybe it’s not something that I want to do to cash my uh my bill paying
checks maybe we’ll cash a couple checks here and there especially when Walker and I get on the course but nonetheless like thinking about competitive golf is
something that I’m truly passionate about and you know enjoying that experience alongside architecture and
the culture of the game and all of those different sorts of things so I don’t know if that’s a great answer but I did always feel that you know when it comes
to college golf I mean yes 99 out of 100 guys that you play with especially at the top levels are absolutely trying to
play as a professional but I think that yeah there was a bit of a disenchantment on my end of you know guys that were
maybe a junior in school and didn’t feel as if they were quite on that path they wanted to do it but they could kind of
see the writing on the wall that it wasn’t going to work out and it just feels like a lot of those guys end up not really liking the game all that much
I kind of decided to just like spin that on its head and say you know what I’ve known that this probably isn’t what I
want to do as a profession but I do really enjoy competing so let me just come out here and have like a ton of fun
when I’m playing competition and I think honestly that if there’s any sort of like later career
amateur success that I had I think a lot of it had to do with that that I felt like I was enjoying myself my time out
there a lot more than a lot of the other people were because I wasn’t I wasn’t so enthralled with you know well am I shooting the scores that this guy is who
is now playing professionally and and you know that sort of rat race that you get into is that same for you Walker would you
say very different actually and this is something that Henry and I have talked a
lot about over the last three years you know I knew probably by the
beginning of my my sophomore year at Wofford College that I it was same as Henry like I ate wasn’t
on the trajectory that would have given me a really uh hard decision or an easy
decision to play pro but it wasn’t something that that fed me and I struggled throughout my entire you
know playing career but particularly the first year and my third
and fourth years at school just kind of battling my emotions on the golf course not only
uh externally but what it what it did to me mentally uh I put a little bit too
much value into my scores on the golf course and I think similar to Henry
I approached golf competitive golf college golf as a way to
create this sort of environment that would make me better at whatever I was doing that was what attracted me to
College athletics and it was great for doing that I just think I I was a little bit immature in
the way that I went about getting better and expecting certain results of myself
uh looking beside me rather than what’s in front of me and so by the time I left
college golf it was a break that I needed had I continued it I think I would have known the
outcome and it wouldn’t have been favorable it certainly would have would not have resulted in
a successful pro career and you know we got called off uh
because I graduated in 2020 so we got called off in March I was you know gearing up for uh our end of year
tournaments and was just burdened by my own expectations
whatever else we got called off of the season and I was kind of forced to get away
from the game for a little bit and it started a whole nother it took a while but it started a whole nother sort
of appreciation of the game and has removed me from a lot of those things that I talked about earlier
it’s fed into the podcast I think I think I’m still figuring it out frankly but
I just see the game in an entirely different light than I did when I was playing competitively and it’s been
wonderful and that’s quite a short break as well like that Sergeant drop but that’s a short break of a couple of
years and there’s like a real big change there in terms of your outlook on the game you know I would say I’m 36 I’d say
20 years ago I was highly invested in my score and there’s been a slow Tom’s gonna laugh here I can see his face
cracking on the Pod but there’s like a yeah it’s like there’s no overnight change there to do that in two or three
years to radically change how you’re looking at the game that’s quite it’s quite big I’d say it had it it really
Sam it had a lot to do with talking to different people honestly you know we
started the podcast uh in 22 but we had a lot of conversations about this sort
of thing as I was leaving school and and starting to work and
um so at the time I was in my first job out of school was in Nebraska and I was
working with Robin Tad uh King Collins golf doing land man and we played a lot
of recreational golf after work had I not been there had I been doing
say what I am now it would have been entirely different it was very much environment that allowed
that sort of transition to take place we don’t get many people on the podcast that go through the college system I
think the college system is uh somewhat mystery to most of us um can you try and as difficult as this
may seem can you try and sum up what it’s like to be in the college system the the level of golf how difficult it
is how competitive it is because I imagine it’s a it’s a world where similar to the
program if you’re not going lights out you’ve kind of going backwards but I honestly don’t know a huge amount about
it it’s incredibly competitive I mean it is easily I I’ve thought about this over time not that it was something that I
was considering necessarily but you know you’d see some kids turn pro out of high school and you know it can be a decent
path depending on your situation but by and large in the states like Far and Away the best opportunity to really
improve at the game and the way that things are going with PGA Tour U and all the rest it’s obviously going to become more one-to-one with just like the
opportunities that you have but in terms of competition the courses that are played in the college system the way that you know you travel around the
country and see different types of golf and kind of get used to what it’s like to travel as a professional and then
just straight up the competition like if we want to just quantify it if you look at guys that play at the top schools and
get to play in all those top tournaments like those are as highly ranked from a wagger standpoint as any sort of you
know amateur Championship US amateur Western amateur the best college events are just as good as any of those yeah so
if you’re um you know if you’re playing in all of those top things then like you just you are playing against the top players I
mean I’ll throw out a couple names here and apologize for the name dropping but in 2019 I played I guess that would have
been the final week for Victor hovland Matt wolf and Colin murakau the last
tournament they would have closed yeah wasn’t it that was a big big year right so I played with all three of those guys
during that NCAA Championship and that’s like very end of May early June fast
forward like six weeks and you’ve got more akawa and Matt wolf like in a playoff for the PGA Tour Tournament you
know and so I think that gives a sense of like how competitive it is you look at the top guys like for any Bettors out
there if you want to just go look at the American college golf rankings and like start taking bets on PGA Tour events 18
months from now you’re going to do pretty well the guys who are at the very top of it at this point and this is why the PGA Tour use stuff has come out like
if you just look at it kind of in the last five ten years the Tip-Top college players not only are they probably going
to be good professionals like they’re flat they’re ready already you know that’s a funny couple words put together
but former teammate of mine for example Michael Thor bjornsson I don’t know if you guys saw that name on a DP tour but
I mean he’s a junior you know I’ve got to play a couple years with him and yeah he’s still amateur isn’t he he went really close in um Dubai didn’t he yeah
he he was tied for the lead after the second round he tied for fourth last summer at The Travelers Championship on
the PGA tour and again this is a guy that’s like just barely crossed the halfway mark in fact because he started
like his freshman year was cut short with with kovid you know he’s not even really halfway through college golf and
he’s out there exactly like crazy and he you know he’s
ranked like fourth in the college golf system they’re guys that are ranked ahead of him you know for example people are going to get to see in a month or
two here Gordon Sergeant play at the Masters like maybe I’ll sound slightly crazy but I’m pretty confident in saying
this like Gordon Sergeant is going to be very very qualified to be in that field sure he’ll be nervous he hasn’t played
in the Masters he hasn’t played a bunch of professional tournaments but like I’m not saying he’s he’s as good as the top 10 guys in the world but he is not one
of the bottom five players in that field you know these these top guys are unbelievably good and that’s just a
credit to you know how many great players there are in the college system and it just becomes that much more competitive every single year as an
example uh what is what does a week look like for I know this is going way off Taco you know this is this is what we
talked about earlier we don’t really stay I’ll stay on on calls with these podcasts but what does a week look like
for a college golfer is there a huge amount of Education um in there or is it just like full-time
coaching how does how does that all look I I will try to stay between the lines here and not let my competitive juicers
get the best of me I I went to a pretty high level Academic School and so there was definitely a good bit of academics
baked into that there are certain programs I will not name names at the moment there are certain programs we’re in the
UK all right Henry’s on the other side I’ll throw it out there so I already
said mount wolf and you know he went to Oklahoma State those are not my favorite guys they don’t do they don’t do as much school as some of us do like it I went
to a place called Stanford University um anyway with that on the record um you know there is going to be a
varying level of academics depending on what sort of a school that you go to
um and then from there I mean the golf and the you know the fitness regiment and all of those different things it’s
intense I mean I I summed it up at some point it’s it’s probably pushing a good
um you know know NCAA might hop on me for saying this because technically there’s a rule that says it you can only
mandate 20 hours a week as a coach that players have to be at practice and have to be applying and qualifying rounds and
things like that but that said like any sort of qualifying around any 18-hole
round you would play goes on the books is three hours and so let’s say you’re driving an hour to get there hour to get
back five hours to play like realistically it can be more like a seven eight hour Endeavor
um so anyway all of that sort of stuff aside I think a pretty decent way to think about it it’s like a pretty solid
40 hours a week when you’re in season plus you know the academics that you have which for the final time varies
depending on uh on where you’re at that’s crazy that’s insane I played um
over Christmas actually I played with a chap down at Dale who’s just um in his first year and American College on the
west coast and he was just saying like every morning six in the morning they’re out they’ll play 18 holes they’ll hit balls when you say 20 hours I’m thinking
that sounds that sounds like it’s a massive low ball like it’s it’s got to be more than 20 hours of training but
people want to get to the top don’t they so it’s fascinating and in terms of the topical side of the tie because they
just want to hang on this a little bit there’s a few threads I think to tie together no pun intended
um there’s very good Sam it was a great great cigars now that’s the thing when you do 171 episodes of this you just
start to real really and then you can slap yourself on the back while you’re at it which is quite good exactly another great thing about
it it’s my podcast anyway look um the topics you guys cover on the tie
um they kind of cross over I think a little bit maybe with some of the stuff we do there’s architecture themes
there’s history themes there’s cultural themes what’s the bit that really kind of grabs you in the game like how does
it all come together because um it’s broad but it’s kind of Niche and
dialed and intense right it’s like a it’s like a fairly deep connection with the gamer sense you guys have yeah um so
Henry and I actually have different main interests within the game right now I
would say uh we we wanted to come up with three very clear
metrics for how we Define the Pod that is culture of the game which is intentionally broad
competition which I I would say Henry takes the Forefront on uh and then
architecture which I take the Forefront on and those are our primary interests we have interests outside of those two
uh those three and um but primarily that that’s what we tackle
and the goal with with keeping those three I mean within those three sort of verticals you
can hit a lot of stuff relative to golf and outside of golf um but you can also do a really Niche
podcast with a a very certain type of guest and uh that’s been really fun yeah
it’s great and I suppose The Sweet Spot of the game is when those three things Collide you know I think you can have
great architecture but if the company or the environment around it’s no good it’s like okay you
know and you can have really great competitive goals but it’s like on what on what land you know when you get all
three of those when I think about the magical days golf that I’ve played invariably it’s been competitive you
know like it’s good fun playing a match or something that’s where you’re in it um but it you know how those three
things kind of collide is quite cool um so just in terms of the process then of
that that whole sort of Journey that you guys have been on with the podcast you’ve been through a load of episodes now did you ever hear a pointer sort of
like fatigue or you know is it like hard to sort of maintain Cadence and and kind
of keep the rhythm going is it what kind of keeps you in there really with it all I’ll give I’ll give Henry a lot of
credit on this he’s been you know in this thing we we’ve talked online and offline about this concept I really
enjoyed uh Sam I really enjoyed your thoughts when we did a podcast uh prior
to Christmas time just about learning through the Pod it is an evolution and it never uh really
stays the same the communication uh between you and your mates the the
communication between Henry and myself um the consistency of it all how you
deliver stuff on a week by week basis like I give a lot of credit to Henry on that stuff because he’s really played
the leading role in in that sort of thing but um it really is a game of just kind of
balancing what each person’s good at and and consistency is really not fun most of
the time but I’m always proud of the fact that we put out content on a week-to-week basis and as long as you
get okay with uh realizing that it’s not gonna not all gonna be uh the best stuff
you’ve ever put out the act of putting it out is as important as the quality
that I think that’s really been the growth of late you know I think that’s um one of the things that we struggled
with is I mean you don’t want to admit it but that you know they’re not all as good as each other and sometimes you’re like
certainly some if you fall out the swing of it and you feel like well you know we put them back together and you’re like
it’s you know it doesn’t feel like that we’re doing as good a job as we can do but we’ve got to get out there because
we’ve got to start the wheel spinning again um it’s interesting what you said about earlier on about the dirt because
um within our podcast we’ve got a couple a couple of strands that we can pull on the course Diaries being one which is
where we talk about um visiting places sometimes we do it with [Music] um
with significant people from the courses and let’s do it with ourselves and the eclectica team being another that you
can just kind of lean on and that structure where you’ve got the dirt and we’ve got to collecting 18 just provides
a structure around that you can just kind of let it all it becomes so much easier just to
just to fit it within that structure rather than trying to think of a thousand questions to ask people
um do you find it difficult to you know try and get your guests on your
podcast or think about who who you want on who you ought to be engaged with then trying to reach out to those people
how’s that process work work with you guys yeah I think that there’s there’s a there’s definitely a challenge to that
um we we do that a bit separately I will say like Walker will will kind of have
his list of people that he’s interested in you know a lot of the time that does as he talked about sort of our three tenets of culture architecture and
competition a lot of the people he’s speaking with are going to be more in that architecture field so it’s going to
be some superintendents certainly some Architects different people as well people you know there’s a journalist on
recently um a lot of different options there but by and large it’s better to think about
Walker kind of going towards those sorts of people and then for me I certainly enjoy talking to you know a few uh
professional golfers and just general competitive golfers here and there but then I’ve also found a lot of interest in like talking to people like
yourselves people that other people that have podcasts and they’re just generally interested in you know the sorts of
things that we are interested in um but you know it’s it’s a constant Challenge and we talk about this a lot
I’d be curious to hear your guys thoughts on this of like you know how many people do we want to pick on who
are more of what we would refer to as like a retention pod like okay we know that based on what people like within
our podcast like this is the kind of person they want to hear from versus okay well here’s someone that I’m either
really interested in or you know this person has like a very strong reach and it might allow us to kind of introduce
ourselves to a new audience you know thinking about all of those different things can be a bit complex because say
you pull someone in and you know the podcast gets a lot of listens you get some good feedback on it and you know
that it’s a little bit out there in terms of your current audience but you know kind of that iteration of like how
much do we satisfy who’s already listening versus you know trying to continue to grow there’s some challenge
there it’s a great great comment I don’t think there’s a good answer oh yeah I think that way that works for us is
it’s almost like if you if you read the title and you don’t know who the person is that’s in the title so I’ll give you
an example A friend of ours journalist Dan Davis has been on the podcast couple of oh good twice my last year at some
point he built it uh golf course in his back Garden um you know most people would read that
will read that title and say you know cookie jog off with Dan Davis if you haven’t heard about it it’s pretty much
going to be a good podcast you know if you have heard them if it’s cookie jug off with Eric Van rooyen for
instance or something like that you know what you’re getting you know you know what’s going to come up it’s going to be good lessons there’s you know you’re going to get a good good number of
listeners because people want to hear from professional golf or whatever but arguably if you don’t know who we’re interviewing probably a better podcast
yeah it’s a really good shout out that Henry the weird thing is we’ve got to talk about your travel itinerary but at
the moment the group therapy is too much fun and hopefully it’s insightful for the listeners but
and you nailed it there like maybe we never really think about it that consciously I think you know the process
of iteration with the podcast is like so good in of itself that maybe you naturally do it you know we were doing
it in 2020 and I remember everyone was in lockdown so we were just kind of frantically speaking to people that we
found interesting in the game and then through process of that you were bringing in different people on
different topics and I think Mike Clayton was an early one for us where it was like oh this this stuff really
resonates like I’m finding interesting but it’s clearly you can tell by the Numbers it’s like this is really resonating it’s an interesting point how
much do you service the podcasts are weird because they are almost Echo Chambers really in and of themselves
right people talk about stuff that resonates and you can keep wearing that out you know as long as you want until
you know and it’ll it’ll keep going but then sometimes you almost want to
surprise people with stuff like we’ve had some thoughts about some podcasts we want to do this year
stuff that will surprise people when they open up you know their iPhone on a Monday morning and they’ll be like whoa
was not expecting to see that and that’s quite interesting um we certainly never don’t think
thinking and consciously necessarily about the listener numbers but it is always interesting to think about you know maybe accessing different people
that might not have heard of it but ultimately trying to provide something yeah that’s different you know like it’s
it’s interesting to get a fresh take I think sometimes we can get caught into this particularly with architecture I
think it’s really easy for that to become a bit um I don’t know self-indulgence not the
right term but you go and say it’s very easy for us to all sit here and say the hole should be wide and there should be
angles and you know we should have loads more short grass and it’s like yeah great that’s that’s like definitely on
Trend right now um but like there’s space for another school of thinking in there and there’s
space for a bit more friction and some alternative views I think so and I think if you it’s kind of extrapolate that out
across the wide again um yeah that it’s kind of it’s quite cool
to get into some different people Sam I got a follow-up comment and then a question back to you guys
the thing about architecture you know I’ve talked I talked to uh about this with with DJ pieowski at no
laying up he was saying that early on when they started doing a lot of stuff
on golf courses they found themselves being so repetitive about
width and angles and uh you know certain Architects and
uh things that you see that look cool but are hard to describe and uh without
doing it like redundantly and um I’ve always said this about good golf
course architecture is that you could put anybody in these sorts of positions on certain
golf courses at certain times of the day they don’t have to be a golfer they don’t need to know how to get the ball
Airborne but anybody everybody would appreciate the beauty or the
significance of that place some more than others but how do you convey that feeling
without actually putting somebody there it’s really hard thing to do
and um it’s a lot easier it’s a lot easier with the Drone which
you guys are crushing us on and I I’m loving the content but uh
yeah I guess the the follow-up question that I had uh was how do you guys get out of the
box do you have to do that systematically do you have you know exercises to get
out of your own thinking and come up with ideas that are uh outside of the current
yeah there’s loads of ways this could go and by the way this is a great segue Walker into your travel itinerary
because we’re kind of getting into that zone I think um what do you think Tom what are yours
hello hello now I think the way that the we’re by no means any experts in in
architecture we’ve now listened to a lot of Architects and we’ve now
uh you know talked a lot about Golf Course architecture over the the last three three in a bit years and it’s kind
of like you say it’s difficult to convey something to someone who who hasn’t been
there but I don’t think we ever try and go down the route of coloring in a golf course what what we try and do typically when
we’re talking about places that we’ve been is talked about it from an architecture standpoint in terms of
broad strokes but mainly focus on History these places now we’re blessed if you if you go to
any course down the road unless it’s like a post-war course you know you’re looking at something that’s
between 90 and 120 years old maybe maybe up to 150 years old so these places have
got an abundance of history that we can lean on um and that architecture invariably
changes over the over the history of those golf courses so that’s kind of the way that we like to approach it I think
if we stood there and kind of preached about you know the James braid and his
his revisionist architecture or old time and how when he set our golf courses it
there’s basically not a single Golf Course left there is old home and someone’s got in and changed it or I
think that we would quickly become quite repetitive I think I think the excitement comes through so I think you
know maybe you guys are probably really similar in this regard but you know I think ultimately it’s
sentiment like everybody who plays this game has an appreciation for Golf Course architecture they might say they’re not
into golf architecture or they might not read a book they might not they might not sort of know who Tom doake is but I
guarantee you everybody who plays this sport can tell you a golf course they enjoy in a golf course they didn’t enjoy like that’s that’s 100 fact right now
they might not put the same stock in the you know the Nuance of the bunker style
the consistency of transitions between the greens they might put more stock in the views and what the course looks like
or how quick the surfaces play but fundamentally they all have a way of appreciating golf courses so I think we
try and you know maybe color in as much as things that we actually like so I you know I really like you know sort of
things that would be maybe sort of more half past short short courses yeah I like short purple so so when you get
really animated about a golf course it’s because oh there’s a lot you know and it’s like oh Sam really likes this place
like it’s really clear that Sam loves it’s clear that Bruce and Tom also really like it but it’s really clear
that Sam’s going totally over the top now about Ely so that’s kind of how you do it maybe through a sentiment I’ve got
no idea but yeah I think the great thing is and you guys will be the same and
this is the segue into the the trip and what we did for you guys and you guys looking at a travel itinerary for us is
that we all have different tastes and what we appreciate in the game I think like I’m guessing you know I’m seeing
you guys not in we have different things that we like and therefore you know being subjective
is probably the biggest strengthen this trying to be objective I think is probably where you kind of get get stuck
somehow yeah I was just I was going to use that to ride right into our itinerary here and I’ll provide sort of
some high-level thoughts about how we went about this and then um I’m going to kind of toss it over to Walker to really run through some of the courses and and
how we decided to piece the whole thing together just before we do should we jump into what’s happened so I am a you
guys have already talked for an hour and yeah yeah you’re pretty much best friends I I’m on the outside of this so
let’s talk about the task you set uh you guys at the tie uh set Sam and then and
then the the report so Tom what happened was and we guys we’ve been messaging bit
for a while and we’re like let’s let’s do a podcast together and I was like yeah cool well I’d love to come on and chat to you about golf in Britain and
I’m fascinated about go up in the states and you know invariably we don’t always get as many opportunities to play golf
either side of the transatlanta because we won and Henry and Walker were like Sam put together a budget golf itinerary
I’m going to give you fifteen hundred dollars for five days up to seven rounds
of golf and I was like messaging them like crazy before I was like guys I cannot spend fifteen hundred dollars in
the UK it’s literally impossible all I’m going to be doing is reeling off England’s best seven course here like
it’s just crazy so I kind of I think I came down to a thousand bucks for seven courses and then I built you guys some
crazy itinerary which is like 150 pounds I think for five courses something ludicrous
um and we left it there and then it was like I’m really Keen to understand where visiting golfer in the US would go
on a bit of a budget like I know that access is definitely one issue
and if you go to resort places it’s also very very expensive over there because
there’s a standard and an expectation of the game I think in America therefore it’s just a it’s an expensive
game in the US I think it’s kind of yeah certainly that’s my my belief anyway what would a budget trip look like
what that budget was there’s been some negotiations is it fair to say Henry there have been a few yeah we uh so we
did five courses five days we only are covering Greens fees here so we if you
start to get into travel and some of the different expenses like the fifteen hundred dollars is literally gonna bust
in about you know one day and if you ever stop by a pro shop you’re just completely gone but under a thousand
bucks we’re able to piece together five courses within the Carolinas so we’re
both from Charlotte North Carolina there’s North and South Carolina um and you know we we started with
kicking around some ideas of okay should we start up in Virginia and kind of make our way down maybe get into Georgia as
everybody knows you know just the state of North Carolina I reckon is probably pretty similar size to the whole of
England and so we decided to just keep it a little bit smaller keep our scope between just the Carolinas and you know
to do this the idea was we wanted to to kind of give a taste of the Carolinas so
some really great American architects who have had like a really solid piece of the Carolinas and so we wanted to
give some different concepts there and you know and then also touch some
different parts of the state so there’s some mountainous golf which we stayed a bit away from there’s a lot of Sandy
golf there is more just sort of Parkland as you may think of it and then there’s the beach there’s a lot of coastal golf
as well so we made a nice little Loop to where we’re going to hit on each of those different things we also included
we we included one Resort course which we’ll get to all of that we recorded a bit of public golf and then we also have
some private courses but ones that are going to be a little bit more accessible because if we’re being honest to keep it
under a thousand dollars we did have to bank on the okay well we can go to this pretty good course and if you pay the
accompanied fee then you’re able to keep it a little bit lower as you alluded to the problem with America one of the
biggest issues a accessibility is there when you get to the very top courses but then you know start to think about okay
so the ocean course Pinehurst number two um you know Harbor Town some of these
big names that may come to you that you see on the PGA Tour all public and those are all going to run you like
if we’re being realistic it’s five six hundred and probably a caddy as well and
it’s gonna take you five hours you have to play with three people who are not gonna break that Green fee just hardly
uh Pine S2 is so slow I had a friend who just came back from there and he said six hours to play Pinehurst two I didn’t
I got the sense it was possibly the least enjoyable course of that trip in the Carolinas so I’m psyched about this
I’ve been to South Carolina once can I just add just a point on the culture can
someone put some color around that I thought the culture and just the the people around the Carolinas was
unbelievable it just has such a nice chilled weight everyone looks like they’re walking in slow motion Southern
Hospitality that’s what you hear Fair take drive and and talk in slow motion
too it’s uh depends on where you are but South Carolina North Carolina the
more I travel some of the most underrated states in the country just um just before we jump in
um because we don’t get to to speak to many people that are played a whole bunch of of uh of American courses that
can fill us in on this what yeah I know this is very difficult to to compute but
what’s kind of the percentage private to public courses out there is
it is it majority private that’s the kind what I’m led to believe about America but is that real is there was
there is there a ton of public golf as well yeah I want to provide context here because it
it varies significantly I’ve talked to friends about this from other parts of the country depending on where you are
so for a bit of context I you know grew up in the Carolinas and then went to school in California which total other
side of the country I now live in Texas so I’ve been around a bit Walker Walkers traveled plenty but has stayed more in
the Southeast and it it depends drastically on where you are so take for
example where we’re from Charlotte North Carolina by and large it’s it’s private and you have tears to that so you’re
going to have you know a couple like higher end pretty difficult to get into nice private courses you’ll then maybe
have five or six or seven courses in the city that are you know pretty good courses good architecture nothing crazy
a little bit cheaper and then you’ll probably have another whole tier that is still private but really not very good
it’s it’s no better than just your general public golf course in fact a lot of public courses may be better and then
in this particular part of the country if you’re talking public golf it’s it’s really bad like hardly maintain pained
it’s it’s pretty sad really um because there’s just no good public golf to be played and frankly where I
live now in Texas it’s fairly similar where Walker is in Florida also going to be fairly similar there’s a huge
difference so there should be the term public and then Resort so like Pinehurst Kiowa Island those that’s Resort golf
yes it’s public but like oh yeah that’s 500 feet you know gotta stay all of those different things that’s a
completely different thing and so then what I wanted to provide Concepts on is so take for example like Los Angeles Los
Angeles you have six seven eight ten like Tip Top tier great private golf
courses you know the Los Angeles Country Club Bel Air Wilshire Country Club Riviera very very difficult to get into
Uber exclusive great golf courses but then what I think is great actually about places like California New York
even has a little bit of this at times in certain different parts of the country is that from there if you’re not in one of those tips top places
everything else for the most part is public and so you still get a lot of really good golf at varying levels you
know you might have your 150 or 200 Public round but then you also have you
know your 80 round you’ve got your 30 round but they’re very clear tiers to the public golf whereas I think that a
lot of parts of the country it’s just like a bunch of tears to private and if you’re not a member of a private course like there’s there’s hardly any even
half decent golf to be played I’m gonna add just a brief bit of context and it’s obvious but it it’s important to note
the obvious here and that the majority I’m not saying all of it but the majority of the land in the UK is God’s
gift to golf I mean it is it this land
could there could be a number of things done to it but golf is on the short list you know if you’ve got a piece of land
that was zoned a certain way and and just kind of makes sense for it to be a
golf course at uh you know it’s been taken over by the city the city’s had it for a long time
it’s you know it has clay and a ton of roots drainage issues
just by nature of like a p l it’s going to be way more difficult to get a public
style you know business off the ground and this is
something that I see a lot of primarily on the East Coast I see a lot of it in Florida where
if you have the proper you know financing behind a club you exclude a
certain group of people but you’re able to manufacture something that works because of the money behind it
it’s not that the goal was to be exclusive it’s that people were focused
on creating a good product and you were given X and you have to put something
into it to get y which is why you get the private exclusive
there just aren’t that many examples of wonderful land that have been allocated
towards uh public type business models and this is I think primarily why I see
it it’s not anybody’s fault necessarily um
but it’s got to be the the model that that changes when the when the land
isn’t as good and that’s my belief I mean I think you’ve absolutely I’ve
actually never thought about it in that fashion and when you put it like that like there’s some courses up in Scotland
that there are you know rarely slower than five a little bit further north you
know Aberdeen that sort of way that the land is so good the Sandy land is
just so good that they can get by with two green Keepers someone man in the bar and a GM and that’s it maybe not even
the GM sometimes one guy does it all but you can kind of get away with it because the you know the the Fescue grows and
you can cut it quite long into existence just get away with such low maintenance
because the land is so good that you can kind of I mean very very interesting let’s not digress any further we’ve got an
itinerary to hear this I’ve not seen it I’d send it through I’m actually pumped to see these five courses are you gonna
you’re gonna tell us where we’re gonna fly into as well yeah we sure are oh we’re dialed Tom we got this okay okay
Walker this is on you how about it let’s go baby uh the people are going to be
flying into CLT Charlotte North Carolina and we will begin the trip from that
point our first stop of this trip is going to be a tiny little place called Camden
Country Club Camden is a is an old horse Town
um it’s got a lot of soul talking about culture it’s a it’s a place where you’re not
gonna find a lot unless you’re really looking for it and unfortunately on a
trip like this it’s a place that grows fonder in your memory as you play at two
three four five times but Camden is one
of the very very few I would put it inside maybe the top 15 20 courses in the U.S that are just flat out
underappreciated in terms of its history now Henry and I both grew up playing
Carolina’s Golf Association events lots of really great competition as a junior
golfer with um you know State guys who are really figuring out how to play good golf and
got to play this tournament called the Creed Invitational named after a guy
named Jimmy Creed who’s influential in the club this golf course it was a Donald Ross original in 1916 of which
Walter Travis came in and did some work in 1923. and uh Chris Spence has followed up in
in 2011 to kind of clean it up and uh restore it to some of Ross’s you know
original contouring particularly around the greens but you know guys you you guys would get it
walking off the first green it’s very unsuspecting it’s quite flat there’s some movement in different corners of
the golf course but really it’s just some very simple dirt moving around the
Contours of the green that make it absolutely brutal classic Donald Ross
can’t go long on a lot of these greens really fast and slippery Bermuda you
have to pay attention to the grain there is some unfairness in play you can put yourself in positions where you just
say man I don’t know what the hell to do with this one I mean it’s just
it’s a golf course that makes you kind of hang yourself um with your own decision making two
three sometimes four shots after you’ve made uh what you didn’t know was an error and um it’s one
of my favorite places to play you can play Camden it is private you can play it as a guest for just over fifty
dollars so it’s amazing I just you know most people wouldn’t even know that you can you know clubs that are private
America there’s like you said at the start I think really Henry is like there’s different tiers of private it’s like yes there is the British model out
there it’s maybe how we perceive American Healthcare it’s like there’s a genuine belief in Britain that we have
the NHS and if I get run over in the way on the roads in the US they will leave me out on the street as long as long as
I unless I have a credit card or insurance and it’s like no there are varying degrees of it that’s fascinating
so that’s a Donald Ross original isn’t it strange that history is pretty much
written by The Victors you know like and what I mean by that is not far away you’ve got Pinehurst and I’m not saying
Pinehurst isn’t the jewel in the crown for Ross or anything like that but you know you’ve got to think in those days
when those courses were set up stylistically and stuff they would have all looked not looked the same but like
they would have had the same cared love and attention that Ross would have put in he wouldn’t have put in huge amounts more effort at Pinehurst than he would
have Camden but it’s just almost circumstance for whatever reason means
that maybe that’s not as loved you know and it’s it’s great to hear that those sort those places are benefiting from
these Restorations because they’re breathing life into it um just a thought really more than that
I think it’s like yeah I’d like to add though I think that was infinitely more detail than anything Sam gave you
um did you listen to that podcast of course I listened to it impressive it was like two hours so
that’s that’s a good one yeah it was but that’s the thing I’m not economical with my words I think we’ve met twice now Henry you know that like I but yeah I’m
not economical words that was eloquent and beautiful yeah thank you sir one thing I’ll add
there and this is going to play right into the second course as well which once again I’ll let Walker take off on but you know Sam you mentioned how you
know there there don’t seem to be a lot of courses in the states that exist where you can kind of follow a little bit more of the British model and you
know they’re willing to let you come in and play as a guest it’s funny how so yes if you look at some of the top ones
I’m not going to throw out names here by any means but if you were to sit you know write a letter call the pro shop at
you know insert Tip Top Golf Course by and large you’re gonna like someone’s gonna pick up the phone and be like WTF
are you doing calling me asking if you can get on this golf course that’s just how it is but there are courses like
this where at Camden if you called him up and said hey I’m coming over I’m from England I’ve heard this is an awesome
Golf Course heard a lot about Donald Ross you know a lot of cool golf courses in the Carolinas and I’ve heard great
things about Camden I’d love to get the opportunity to come out and play 100 what have you and this next one we’ll
get to is the same way and one this is a little nugget for anyone that makes it to the central part of the country from
the UK this is probably far-fetched but I’m sure people have heard of Sandhills Golf Club probably the best corn
Crenshaw they’re notorious for the proper with a nice note sent to the club
they will let you on if you tell them for your appreciation for corn Crenshaw Golf and if you make your way out there
um they are known to let people get on so just just a thought for anyone that ever finds themselves out in central
Nebraska it’s the most um I don’t want to bracket this is as as
certainly in in the UK I think you can do this I don’t have any experience in in the US but I think a nice letter goes
a long way and much better than picking up the phone and being like oh here we go and I want to come set your course
record but I think just a nice letter you know it does tend to go a lot further than I think that a phone call
if you’re going to do something like that we’re probably after life advice at this point I think that I think that extrapolates to anything you know get
out your pen and a nice bit of nice bit of paper and uh you know people appreciate that a little bit more okay
gentlemen that’s a beautiful start 50 bucks Camden what a shout Henry I was going to introduce our next
one but uh I’d like if if you would dig into our our second one of the day yeah
I can certainly do that um so second course on the list and this is this is one that we have a lot of
passion about and really not that Camden isn’t great as well but this is like a big kind of double underlying
recommendation for anyone that makes it over to the Carolinas Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken South Carolina it’s going to be
about a two hour drive from Camden and I I will throw out that yes we’re both from Charlotte and so maybe people are
thinking that’s the only reason we said CLC it’s actually you can get a direct flight from Heathrow over to Charlotte
it’s a very large airport and so good opportunity there we go Sam Williams
Sam’s repping the head cover right now got the Palmetto head cover 1892
um so originally laid out by Thomas Hitchcock I if we’re being honest here don’t know a ton about Thomas Hitchcock
I believe he is very important to just the general area of Aiken the woods that surround the forest surrounds the entire
our Golf Club referred to is the Hitchcock Woods once again we’re still in Horse Country so there’s actually if
you go on like a Sunday to Palmetto and you drive around the surrounding area you’ll see some Polo being played so it
really is kind of this time capsule of a part of South Carolina where there’s some really neat stuff that goes on
really fantastic Sandy terrain and that’s why you’re finding some of these hidden gems there
very rolling piece of property I think it’s underrated in that regard and you know the real magic here is that
McKinsey did a lot of work at Palmetto it’s about 25 minutes down the road from
Augusta so the story actually goes that the grounds of Augusta the whole concept
was laid out in the clubhouse at Palmetto because it you know predates it by what are we working on 42 years here
I think Augusta is like 1934 or something like that so earlier than Augusta but a lot of
work done by Mackenzie and you’ll see it right away with the bunkering you walk past the clubhouse you get out there the
putting green actually kind of shares almost with the 18th green certainly with the bunkering and you’ll see it
right away with those bunkers on the 18th hole it’s about a shout out short par fours it’s about a 300 yard Par Four
and the bunkering just screams Mackenzie right away um Tom Doak did some work in about 05
and then Gil Hance is uh the architect in Residence at this point he did some
work in 07 and you know frankly what what you hear around Palmetto is that they keep asking Hants to come back and
work on this and that and hence kind of says like you know it’s it’s pretty darn good as it is and what makes it so great
is there are a ton of parforers and the green complexes are just super super
interesting you have a ton of different things going on it actually starts out with six straight par fours which is
very unique has a couple great par threes the seventh hole if anyone’s ever seen a picture of it we can probably lay
that into the episode here um one of the cooler par threes out there it really mirrors the seventh at
Cyprus as well and so really neat course to kind of paint some context for people that haven’t maybe gotten the
opportunity to play McKenzie stuff before you know you’ve probably heard of Cypress Point sure everyone has seen
Augusta but you know it’s not easy to get to play those courses if you really kind of use your imagination and frankly
you don’t have to all that much you can really really see some of that stuff at Palmetto
um you know along the lines of what Walker said with Camden as well I’ve gotten to play Palmetto quite a bit and
and as well in a tournament called the Palmetto amateur they dial this thing up and I mean if you break par you’ve done
very very well the number of four and five putts you’ll see on these greens is a bit outrageous so this is going to be
one of our strongest recommendations overall and once again same deal as Camden if you were to call him up and
say hey I’m coming over you know I heard a lot about the course supposed to be great they’ll absolutely let yawn
probably gonna run you 50 or 100 it’s not very expensive um and just a really really neat place
to get to play golf the two things that are really great about Palmetto are the the first is that
you have just this ginormous range in the elevation of the property and also
in what the golf holes are like people talk all the time about Pine Valley and
how there’s no bad hole in the golf course I’ll run you just through the front nine at Palmetto you have very
short Par Four very awkward weird Par Four very long Par Four very trick and
tricky second shot Par Four one of the wildest Greens in the world
on five uh the most uh half par hole I’ve ever seen in my life and six you
have the just this absolute Target uh it’s like playing darts on number seven
uh right of the green is is screwed left of the green is worse because uh you’re
gonna go right of the green and then you’re just screwed for your third uh
you know eight is this unassuming golf hole where the first time you play it you’re like yeah this is that one dud of
the golf course and then the more you play eight you realize how great of a golf hole it is and then nine like the
rest of the golf holes has so much character to it that what seems like a fairly simple golf
hole given the undulation of the of the whole turns out to be the best golf hole
that you could have ever placed on on that strip of land and by the time you finish 18 at
Palmetto you’re probably going to be frustrated you’re going to feel like you’ve left a lot out there you’re you
will have had a great time got a kick-ass walk-in I mean it’s coming down I mean it really is in Augusta in the
sense of like by the time you’re kind of you know heading up 14 ready to go back to the clubhouse I mean you’ve gotten a
workout in already and you’ve got some really good decisions to make and some shots to execute down the stretch so
the pound for pound Palmetto is just one of the greatest values uh you can find
it’s really good stuff I got absolutely thumped by these boys for including the
18th hole at Palmetto in my eclectic 18 which basically means that’s the best 18th hole I’ve ever played and we’ve got
a bloody good one at our home Club I will add but Palmetto is the strong Contender for
loads of holes in that exercise is so good it’s so good like it’s you know I
think there’s I mean building on anything you said there because you’ve covered it all
so perfectly I don’t want to say anything about the course beyond what you’ve said it wouldn’t add anything like that was brilliant
um but there’s an ineffable quality in the air isn’t there with the with the rocking chairs on the veranda
sea breezes in the clubhouse Brooks and the pro shop it’s yeah it’s
magical absolutely magical um Sam one thing I’ll throw in there that’s that’s all like those are great
takeaways having only been there once and um probably should have said this from jump but so Walker and I have this
concept and this is actually a mini series that we’ve done with our podcast as well we refer to it as house Theory
which I think more commonly you would hear you know Place making or just the general sense of place like how good is
a place within what is presented to you there how um apropos to the conditions and just
the entire area is it and that’s kind of the idea of what we wanted to capture with some of these courses is places
that truly have that great sense of place and just as you put it there like when you walk to pound when you walk into Palmetto Brooks in the Pro Shop the
old school Clubhouse the rocking chairs you’ll have you know some people that are super into architecture like
ourselves that are going to be out there seeing this sort of gem and then you know a lot of the other people that play are just kind of you know good Old South
Carolina boys from Aitkin South Carolina and they may or may not even realize how good they have it but you know the sense
of place of Palmetto is is really really high and again just something we
probably should have said from jump that’s that’s a bit of what we wanted to capture with some of these different golf courses yeah no for sure and
there’s there’s one ad to you talk about Augusta there being nearby and I might have this wrong but like my
understanding I’ve been there once we spent three days there back in 2018 I think 2019 2018. and um
obviously though 1892 they’re one of the pretty much in that founding sort of core group of the USGA sort of golf
courses around sort of the time of Chicago and some of those um I think they’ve got a letter in the
Pro Shop there’s a room at the back of the pro shop around to the left which is like I said a bit of an archive room and
they’ve got a letter from Augusta National it’s sort of mid-30s saying you know look we’d really appreciate it if
you can sort of send some people up to our Golf Club at some point you know when they come and visit the mighty Palmetto because you know Augusta
National would like to be considered by these people as a worthy stop-off as well and it’s just incredible isn’t it
you sort of see that that letter and the history and there’s obviously this great sort of you know not quite relationship
necessarily between the club but there’s obviously you know a huge amount of reverence for Palmetto as a place I
think in in South Carolina which is just incredible yeah very well put I’m just gonna throw
in there that um I don’t like Palmetto uh because I was supposed to be going in 2019 and I was
done for work commitments and I couldn’t go and then I booked to go in 2020 and then covered hit so it’s kind of my
bogey course like I really I’ve been booked in to go there twice and it’s been Kai washed twice so it’s one of
those things when people talk about it it really stings it’s so good it’s so magical we’re an hour in and we’ve got
two courses I knew this was going to happen but there’s so much good stuff to one Earth but I yeah I cannot tell you
how good I thought Palmetto is and how worthy it is I’ve been on that list I’m delighted you guys included with it Sam
we booked out all day and this was like uh this was just the best course number three
um how many Pete die courses have you guys played I’m curious zero
all right so this is great I’d love to like I actually am quite interested in this this is cool this is a little
Financial engineering here around the cost as well let’s we’re gonna go ahead and throw that out I’m amazed we’re not at Aitkin next
we we thought about Aiken we were getting heavy on on the cork there’s there’s some more cork to come
um you know Aiken let’s let’s go ahead and throw it in there it was kind of on the backup list and so you know if you
get out to Palmetto earlier in the day and you wrap up by noon you decide to slide over and find some barbecue and
pop in Aiken or wherever you know it’s gonna run you 30 bucks to go play Aiken Golf Club in the afternoon so that would
still keep you under the a thousand dollars and that’s a good shout Sam that if people have extra time in their day
this could be a good opportunity to go see Aiken if we’re um if we’re dye and Quirk are we at Harbor Town
it’s a good question um we’re not we’re not we’re always amazing I felt that dye was important
and to be frank with you I’m not uh from a competition standpoint and a recreation standpoint
I’m I’m not Pete dye’s biggest fan just in terms of the product but I think we
all realized the uh the benefit that the dye family has had on the great golf
courses that that we love particularly in the U.S has sparked just this uh this movement back towards Golden Age
Golf Course architecture with a modern twist new equipment new Agronomy all the rest but
um I think it’s important to like respect what what Pete and Alice died did the
golf they made particularly along the entire East Coast I mean you’ve got Crooked Stick you’ve got Sedgefield uh
you’ve got Carlton River Plantation which is the course that we’re going to be diving into today we’ve got TPC
Sawgrass I mean they’re and I’m they’re a bunch of others that I’m not listing including Harbor Town
but dye did some really really interesting stuff and looking at it
through a tournament player’s lens you know the way that he disguised
different features particularly towards the green with uh mounds and bunkering
and making bunkers uh further away intentionally smaller uh or or bunkers
closer to you intentionally larger to throw off your perception it’s genius stuff it’s just not it’s not my palate
you know but Colleton River Plantation is in Bluffton South Carolina it’s going
to be a little bit I guess south of Charleston is that right Henry
it’s a great question let’s go with something I believe it is itself no one will check we’re okay
to an hour it’s in between Charleston and Savannah so it’s about an hour 45 to
an hour yeah that’s not good not bad I was losing the plot there with my geography but I think that’s right I
think it’s like an hour south of Charleston and it’s the kind of deal to where if you took a boat North you’d
probably get to Charleston in 20 minutes but it’s like an hour 10 drive it’s brutal around there but
Pelton River Plantation is private I mean we’ve gone with three privates in a row y’all should be beating us over the
head but um once again accessible private right exactly so
um the guys I you know it it seems a bit grudgy like it it seems like it would be a stuffy
Club but everybody there is just fantastic like I’ve never met um you know a pro or an assistant Pro or
anybody on the maintenance staff or any of the staff out there that are like less than less than wonderful I mean
they’re just great people but the golf course itself is challenging uh kind of
tells a story and it’s it’s got some quirks to it like I know you guys have some short flag sticks
over there in the UK yeah yeah they work they definitely work for visual visual deception yes for sure and it fits in
with the theme at Carlton River quite a bit you know it’s classic die in the
sense where you’ve got a portion of the golf course that goes back into the trees you’ve got a portion of the golf course
that definitely utilizes uh you know what the primarily the east coast and
the Southeast U.S does so well which is water hazards and uh and then towards the the latter
half of the golf course really the last six or seven holes you’re you’re on the water and your primary task is to
control your ball in the Wind so you really do get three flavors
um shades of kale island or not really quite a lot like you and not as not as
Coastal so this is like Marshland I don’t know if you’ve ever really seen that but um kind of like back Waters not not
right out on the sand and Beach um but you know a lot of the same stuff you’re within you know four miles of
being at the actual Beach I’m just um I’m just I’ve just Googled it um one thing it’s absolutely stunning
like it’s a beautiful beautiful looking Place immediately the first hole is called
handshake
is called the best I have ever built bold I was gonna throw that out there
yeah there’s the plaque on the First Tee that Pete die says this is the greatest golf course I’ve built or something like
that um yeah a bit of color that I’ll provide around it it is one of those places for sure that you get there and you feel
like you’re in kind of a a golfer’s Oasis you know it is a it is a golf club
among an area and I do really like the Hilton Head area and just the entire low country of South Carolina but there are
a lot of clubs baked into there that are a little bit more of they’re kind of this private Escape where golf is the
courses are good but it’s more kind of Tom Fazio Robert Trent Jones stuff it’s
meant to be just uh a vacation of sorts or a holiday sort of place where the
golf courses are just nothing special this is more of a true Golf Club where you can tell as Walker started to put it
with with the pros and everyone that people really care about the golf itself people aren’t out there to just have a
hit and giggle and have a million drinks and just play for nothing it’s a little bit more of a golfer’s course which is I
think I think is one of the super cool things about it and you know the other reason I I from jump I mentioned that a
little bit of financial engineering here that they are going to be open to letting some people on and you know in a
part of the country where you’ve got a lot of good Pete die stuff but your cheapest Pete die option up and down the East Coast if you think about the big
names of TPC Sawgrass Harbor Town the ocean course and and by the way I love
all of those courses they all are particularly the ocean course and Sawgrass I’ll really highlight the ocean
course fantastic if you’re a 20 handicapper maybe try to play somewhere else but if you’re pretty good and you
want to pay for it really Great Courses but it’s going to be like 600 if you can
get the accompanied rate at Colleton River it’s going to keep you down around 100 which is part of the reason why we decided to include it wow I’ve got um
I’ve got a question which might take us off on a tiny bit well I don’t know whether to ask this question before or
after we’re finished with uh I sound nervous about asking the questions [Music] I’m looking at it I mean it is absolutely stunning uh the third hole is
called Redan um it’s not really sort of template stuff in America what’s that sorry
you can’t skip it it’s uh it’s a bit of a Redan it’s shades of a Redan but
you’re not getting the real kicker um but it’s about three but apart from that it’s definitely my question is kind of
is it it’s weird because I think you know I think that CB McDonald all
the template whole stuff has come originally from the UK and a lot of them are based on UK golf holes but it’s just
not a thing here like you would never say oh this this this course has a Redan or or a beer it’s or whatever
um I don’t know where I’m going with it but like is it a big thing in America if you
have like something that looks like a template hole on a golf course yeah so
it’s part of the golf education I think I see it dripped in a lot of a lot of
different places and I’ll call out threes golf here which I think we’ll be hearing a lot more of in the next few
months uh you know threes golf was a concept started in Greenville uh by a
guy named Davis cesna and uh it they’re going to be doing quite a few of them around the U.S to try and uh you know
kick up the the public golf uh kind of think Topgolf except real golf
you know getting out there and playing real holes that might one day include fours and fives but for now it’s just
threes and there’s a lot of sort of template like action in there and I think it gets people talking it’s
you know I do think it’s important to be wary of like the oversimplification or
the over manipulation of template holes because the
they were built but the original templates as I understand it and I haven’t been over to the UK but
they were built into features they were a solution to move water
um without destroying a feature that existed in nature whereas in the U.S we
largely don’t have a template to begin with so we interpret something over
manufacture it and now you have you know laser leveled grades with you know a
trough running through which would be a beer it is it really a beer it’s you know decide for yourself but
I think there’s a little bit too much uh people are just playing with the dough a little bit too much you know but your
clubs that are iconic that leverage those so I’m you know I’ve not been there but I’m thinking National Golf Links to America which is largely based
on template holes receiving Donald pioneered that he was you know he’s I
don’t know whether this is a bit of a reach but he’s kind of like old time in America for a golf right I mean he was you know founding member you know first
amateur Champion I believe in the US you know he really kind of kick-started that whole revolution in that country with the game and for whatever reason
templates were his thing right so you know maybe there’s a there’s something in that it does feel like it’s much more
part of the Lexicon you guys than than us like we would definitely never reference her unless you were kind of
reading a lot of golf course architecture stuff you probably wouldn’t get into it um to pass out by Tom and those courses you
mentioned you know the CB and Seth Rainer courses anytime you see a template on those sometimes it can be a
bit far-fetched but I guess by and large if it’s centered around the concept of the green so if it’s a Redan if it’s a
beer it’s like Chicago Golf Club Yale Country Club of Charleston yeamans Hall
the list goes on and on those are going to be pretty true template holes like the red-ands of those courses the beer
it’s it’s gonna very well resemble what the originals may have looked like but yeah it’s it’s a good shout out of Tom
that we uh I don’t know how to put it we get off a little bit around our uh
thing and the the intent behind it is always clearly a positive one because it was you know when you’re building out
the infrastructure for golf in the US it’s like what am I drawing inspiration on well you know and if you read Robert
hunt or any of the great writers it always comes back to the the great Scottish courses and the great English
courses that have been around forever and a day and they’re taking some of the most provocative green sites and trying
to build them in you know whether they play the same will look the same I think frankly is kind of not quite doesn’t
quite matter just one more point on the die thing because you know I’ve got no sample to draw on with die limited again
like rtj Fazio all that sort of stuff how would you you know my understanding
as a Layman on this one would be that die stuff maybe take some of the Aesthetics a little bit of Trent Jones
and Fazio with some of that kind of more recent build stuff but it’s trying to push strategy into more of a modern game
a little bit more so is that a fair summary I don’t know yes yeah yeah it’s it’s deception and
you know each of these Architects have their way of doing I guess three things moving
water uh moving whatever loose dirt was around with the equipment they had
and then like creating a routing you know if you can do those three things you can build a golf course over and over and over and over and uh when
you’ve got dirt to play with the question is where do you put it and uh how do you challenge the golfer through
that you know the way that Pete and Alice I did it was um
they they just kind of make you hate yourself as a golfer you know you you look out into the distance and you see
this tiny sliver of place to land it and then you get up to your ball and you’re like oh I should I have half a football field here to Land it and um but after a
while you start to say hey this is just um this is just how this guy approached design and
uh you know if I’m gonna learn to be better at this I’ve gotta have more guts that’s kind of who Pete die was
I think in closing the man who put it best last time the PGA well I guess two times ago that the PGA was played at the
ocean course in 2012 there was a press conference with none other than the goat himself Tiger Woods and they asked him
you know what are your thoughts on the course what are your thoughts on Pete die and he said oh you know it’s a lot like TBC Sawgrass you know Pete makes
you think that you don’t have any room kind of claustrophobic but uh it’s actually a lot of room it’s just it’s just deception you know so uh that’s
what’s so great about Pete egy he makes you feel really really uncomfortable out there but realistically if you get a
couple restaurants you can you’d be very comfortable with it yeah he’s definitely going that is the best it’s tough that’s
good that’s so tough to follow Henry thanks for the sound bite yeah thanks
but thanks for this week stand by brought to you bye that was awesome dude that was a world-class Target impression
World cast I had to get it in there so great stuff so Carlton River Plantation that is your third course guys I’m
liking this this feels like variation two courses left why are you taking this all right so we’re going up north in
just a little caveat here we can hit this in our honorable mentions of which we have quite a few but uh we’re going
to be heading up north to Pinehurst our first stop in North Carolina is going to be Tobacco
Road we’re getting a little Mike strats in after uh Pete Dye which is just a
head spinner but if you wanna if you want to just kind of ease into things I would get over to um Charleston
Muni and go play that and get a little bit of template action in that’s going to be some more real deal stuff in that
that round you can get in for I think just under 40 bucks which is awesome I hear it’s a little slower there but uh
that’s just a caveat if you want to have potentially a long day uh go play some more Golf and then take advantage of the
food scene in Charleston on your way up to North Carolina all right that’s that’s what I would do when you say that
however to do the food scene that’s just like it’s just a known as a bit of a Mecca right in the area for yeah I mean
I’m not gonna we could talk about that all day and I’m certainly not going to but yeah Charleston if you’re if you’re making the drive from Hilton Head kind
of up north towards uh towards North Carolina that’s going to be where you’re going to want to stop to find some some
true kind of Top Class American restaurants love it yeah okay Guys Tobacco roads probably in my top few
courses that I am absolutely desperate to play yeah
Sam it’s really interesting I actually I haven’t been on Tobacco Road in forever but I remember it like it was yesterday
you know if you’re interested in Golf Course architecture or if you if you hear people talking about Golf Course
architecture and you’re like why is this guy so into this like it just it’s cool
I get it different golf holes it doesn’t make much sense like go out to Tobacco Road and we can we can talk after that
it’s it’s just a resetting experience on what
you can do with land and pushing the boundaries and it’s not the best golf in the world like
I’ll say it right here and and there’s some exciting strengths stuff coming uh I know Todd Hill
Tot Hill Farm was just purchased in North Carolina and that’s going to be uh restored to uh you know strance’s true
Vision in the next few years but you know we’ve got very few of these you
know templates these these trance properties to work with they died because he was
young when he died wasn’t he we’ll mention Caledonia here in our honorable
mentions as well Caledonia is one of my favorites but Sam I’m confident in saying that there are less than seven or
eight in the U.S I was going to say maybe up to a dozen but yeah it’s um yeah here’s the list
one two three four five six seven eight nine so we’re right in between it
wow and almost all of them yeah two of them in North Carolina
um three of them in South Carolina and then he did Monterey Peninsula where
they’re at for Pebble Beach this week and then a few in Virginia as well so this is kind of the hotbed for Mike Strand stuff coastal South Carolina and
then North Carolina yeah Bulls Bay is another really good shout in Charleston
it is private it maybe is a little bit harder to get onto but it’s not
impossible by any means and again with with these courses that are rooted
historically in in good architecture showing appreciation in uh many ways can
get you on pretty easily so yeah I mean there’s not a whole lot to
say and Henry I’ll let you dive in here on on Tobacco Road other than
it’s a it’s a resetting experience you go out there you’re looking some golf
courses particularly tree-lined golf courses and the Carolinas can can get you basically just thinking about what’s
what’s ahead of you um what’s the classic line that people say it’s right there in front of you you know yeah Tobacco Road it’s not right
there in front of you it’s you know what’s in front of you and it’s oftentimes 180 you know 270 360 degree
views and you’re trying to process there are a lot of questions that you really
won’t have answered until you’re on the Green and the questions are different I mean
there should I carry this ginormous Chasm uh will it offer me the kind of
payoff that I hope it will if I don’t pull this off will I even be able to get my ball out why even be able
to physically get my body out um and then there are some more intricate
shots that are that that have like less nuance and they’re pretty simple but
they have just enough of that that strength Vibe where you can bring balls off of slopes
and try a number of things it’s just it’s one of those rounds after getting hit in the face a little bit with
Colleton River Plantation that may bring you back to Earth a little bit yeah what I’ll provide there
is that I’m going to start like a little high level here and say that you know I think in architecture we all have our uh
kind of hopes and dreams of what courses may look like and by and large I believe that you know just because you can do
something doesn’t mean that you should do something but that said there are those people that are willing to push
those boundaries and put some stuff out there that is going to be really novel and interesting and that’s kind of what
Mike strantz was about and that’s what Tobacco Road is you’ll you’ll you’ll hear some people that play it and
they’ll be like that’s the best golf course I’ve ever played that was unbelievable and while I would disagree
with those people I think just simply that some people would have that sort of reaction to this sort of a golf course
speaks to what Mike strantz left in that you know you’re going to play some greens that look like a freaking
starfish and you’re like this is a little crazy but at the same time like
it’s really cool to get to hit some wedge shots and shorter clubs into greens where you’re hitting in into
these tiny little fingers and you can as Walker put it you can use all these different slopes it’s it’s a pretty
photogenic course I’m sure some people have seen on Instagram pictures of like the 13th green and just a lot of wild
stuff out there and once again I I’m not going to go out here and say that this is like the greatest Golf Course ever
but it’s going to run you about 125 quid I think that getting to see something
that Mike strantz has done is a really important thing especially to the Carolinas and the novelty of Tobacco
Road the fact that he was willing to do some of the stuff that he did I think is a super healthy Point kind of it’s kind
of something you were mentioning earlier Sam that you know we get into this group thing with Golf Course architecture we all talk about you know it needs to be
wide and let’s take away trees and we talk about corn Crenshaw and Johansen that stuff’s all fantastic and it’s all true but experiencing something that’s a
little bit on the edges every now and then I think is a great thing and it’s really important and Tobacco Road is
some of the best of that to me yeah I sense that Tobacco Road is gonna doesn’t matter who you are the first time you
play it’s going to leave you looking at golf course design in a different way it’s provocative and you know everyone
everyone I know well most people I know absolutely loved it and there’s one guy just didn’t get it at all and I think
that probably speaks to its quality you know just the fact that it leaves people with those kind of polarizing
feelings and I love that about it because you go talk to someone about it and you know it’s almost when you play a
golf course that you enjoy so much and that you you think is really good and you kind of know is really good it’s
almost challenging to talk to someone about it because you know let’s let’s throw out an example like you go play North Barrack and then you ask someone
who someone else who plays it and you’re like hey what do you think you’re almost a little nervous because you’re like I don’t want to get in an argument right
now what happens if this guy says oh I hate North Barrack you know Tobacco Road if someone came to me and said that they
hate the place I’d be like I can understand why that is and I’d love to hear more about what it didn’t
do for you and then if someone said to me you know this is the best golf course I’ve ever played similarly I would say
okay maybe I don’t fully agree but I can understand where you’re coming from and I’d love to hear that so just if nothing
else a course that provides a bit of discourse I think is a healthy thing in the industry 100 100
Sam Tom do you guys like to sit on a course for three four
five days before you create an opinion about it or do you kind of have an idea right when
you walk off the choice yeah the way that we
structure what we do is often at most we’ll have it one day somewhere
um at worst sometimes it’s four hours on site and we’ve gotta we’ve
got to be gone but lifting it out of the cookie jar sort of sphere of anything to do with that just engulf generally
I think there’s a very big difference between first plays and repeats as well so I think you know yeah ideally you’d
Play Somewhere loads um but if you just play I think there’s a
lot of courses where I look at them differently after seven or eight rounds than I did after the
first pretty much all I would say um and that can work good or bad as well
I would add sometimes the first play is the best play you’re ever gonna get and sometimes the thousandth round is the
best you know I throw a soft teaser in here we uh we’ve been working on some stuff
along those lines with some we’re not super into rankings necessarily it kind of goes back to what I was saying about
this concept of sense of place house Theory how gives it how good is a golf
course within itself and I’ve come up with this sort of algorithm to to rate
some courses kind of on that metric and one of the big numbers in there is you know what I referred to as a a trend
over time which is you know if you play a course 10 times was it a 90 the first time and is it now a 94 like to me
that’s that’s a very big thing for a golf course if it gets better over time it should get some points for that
whereas you play it the first time and it’s a 90 and now you’ve played it 10 times and it’s like an 82. to me that’s
that detracts a little bit from a golf course you know it’s like that restaurant that if it’s good every single time and you’re still excited
about going back that’s an awesome thing whereas if you go the first time it was pretty good and then the fourth time in
you don’t want to go again to me that that’s a knock on it I think I think for like for us
um most things uh most post-war things for Britain um tends to be I mean it’s a sweeping
generalization but most post-war apart from if you think in the last sort of 10 15 years uh certainly you know 50s to
70s 80s was something you could play and you’re like okay I played that I’m
not not sure I’d go back again whip I think the ultimate course which is the the one that I mean I’ve still not
played it enough uh to to to comment on this but I hear from everybody is the old course
um the one that you can play it once and you’re kind of like yeah I get it and kind of the first time you play you’re
showing all of the situation and the history and everything around it that you just enjoy it nonetheless but every every successive time that you play it
you realize that it’s oh right I can’t put my ball there either I can’t pull up all that there’s where I need to go and
it kind of builds this huge picture in your head of it’s so subtly different every time you
play it and whereas like you say most of them you just a lot of the stuff now that we get that you just kind of get it
yeah I’ve seen that yeah we could we could go on this for quite a long time actually and I’m I’m
adamant we won’t but I would oh my God you’re great I know I think
it’s a great show it’s a great show but I am mindful but I it is
we should definitely do some think about first place and repeats as well like it’s it’s a great topic like it’s more
podcasts to come between the Thai and cookie jar so if anyone’s enjoying this they’ll be more
we’ve had four Architects we’ve had a mix of public and private
because the name has been thrown out a couple times and and not in the most positive of lights but I’m gonna do my
best here to spin things because this is a place that I am super passionate about and as we’ve saved a few dollars here on
getting to some you know accessible privates as we’ll call it and then also a little bit of public golf we are going
to wrap up at Pinehurst number two and I do truly believe I I’ve been really
fortunate to play some different countries as well but particularly around the states played a lot of really good golf and when Pinehurst number two
is good now as you said earlier like it can take a lot of time I should say that almost
every time I’ve played it in fact I think it is every time I’ve played it it’s been in competition so it’s a
either you just don’t really care how long it takes or it’s going to be a little bit quicker but it’s not the north south amateur
north south amateur and yeah we played um let’s see we played the high school championship there one time our state
high school championship I played a U.S amateur there one year um and so that that changes things a
little bit but from a course that although if you’re a 22 handicap or something it’s probably not going to be
super fun when you actually get to know the place and you break it down you can run the ball up you can putt the ball
around the greens which I’m not much of a chipper so I do put the ball around the greens um you know there aren’t a bunch of
forced carries like if you’re a 10 handicap this is a much more approachable Golf Course than a lot of
other places are going to be and the true genius to number two I could talk about it all day but but I’ll try to
just encapsulate it in a couple simple points which is that you know it is kind of the OG Donald Ross thing to go see in
the states I believe if you know Ross grew up in Royal dornick and so if you get the chance to play dornik and number
two and really put your head around it and think about what he probably learned from dornick and took to two it’s a
really cool thought piece the final thing that I’ll say is as I alluded to with the fact that a tin handicapper can
run the ball up they can put it around the greens they can play it for a scratch golfer or a plus two
handicap or whatever it is a lot of that stuff I actually think provides a little bit more challenge than just the typical
aerial American Pursuit and so while most really well quote unquote good or
difficult golf courses in fact diverge good and bad players significantly I
actually think that number two converges them a lot and I think that’s really really unique of hard Golf and it’s just
a place that that you can you can send a 10 handicap out there and tell them to have fun and go see what they can do you
could any day of the week just about if you told them hey there’s going to be a U.S open played out here in three days
they could tighten up the greens firm up the golf course take a little bit of water off of it and it would be ready to
go um Pinehurst itself is it really is you
know it’s probably one of those places you hear a lot about and you kind of Wonder like is it really all it’s cracked up to be now by no means but
bear with me I am not trying to compare Pinehurst to St Andrews but I believe that Saint Andrews is kind of placed
similarly that you would hear about of you know it’s this magical place it’s the home of the game you would wonder
I think that some some people would certainly hear that and wonder you know when I get there is it really going to
be that great and for me having been to Saint Andrews I thought that the town itself was just unbelievable that you
can feel the culture there’s good food it you know the bars are amazing the golf is incredible Pinehurst is similar
to me the golf is really really neat you have that true sense of place that we’ve mentioned multiple times today that
you’re trying to capture there’s some really good old school restaurants and number two is objectively the Crown
Jewel and this is kind of where you know keeping it a little bit lower on the budget throughout the trip we’re going to go ahead and pony up the four or five
hundred dollars that’s going to cost top off the trip we’re going to finish it off as well with if you play number two
and you get the right deal there’s this little course that that Gil Hance put in four years ago five years ago called The
Cradle which is like I mean I think the music yeah I think the longest total is 80 or 90 yards but you know go get your
head beat in if it’s a hard day at number two have a bunch of four putts you know ping pong it around the greens
and then finish your trip off at the Cradle have a couple stiff bags averages you can grab a shower at Pinehurst
before driving back to Charlotte it’s going to be an hour 40 minutes and you can get out of there so that’s our final
course of the trip Walker I’m interested to hear if you’ve got any color to add around there but those are my thoughts on the cradle and number two
none nothing to add on number two that would add any more value um and Henry’s spoken passionately about
two for a long time I mean the the golf course is what it is it’s really good
you can over complicate it it’s easy to get mad at uh from time to time but it’s
one of those that just kind of keeps knocking down the door on this primary trip we have hit we have
hit and these are just the notables here Donald Ross Walter Travis Aleister McKenzie Pete Dye Mike strantz cord
Crenshaw who I’m given slight credit for for the restoration of number two Tom
Doak and Chris Spence and then so you know we got through this
list obviously there were others that didn’t make it and we say okay well what what are we missing here what could we
have possibly tied in if we had uh more money or more courses and you know I
personally looking for a little bit more Rainer uh we’ve talked to uh Kyle France on the Pod I think he’s just doing
unbelievable work King Collins golf um Dan Proctor and Dave axle and have
this wonderful course in uh Tennessee and then Riley Johnson and Keith Reb
those are kind of the highlights that didn’t make the primary list this year but I’d be happy to go into some of
those courses as well we could do it another time but I think all-encompassing you’ve got five courses
really seven potentially eight in that primary list that will knock your socks
off will be a really comprehensive trip to the Carolinas and a representative of you know what the land and the Carolinas
has to offer I think um it’s an interesting one the old the old me I’d say maybe the five
six years ago Tom if you decided where you’re gonna go on a golf trip
probably would have stole Florida California pretty much it but I wouldn’t really have ventured far from there
um you reeled off a whole bunch in North and South Carolina and of course you got a few more on the way as well you’ve got
some notables with the number 10 at Pinehurst you’ve got finder
Tree Farm um you know Walker mentioned Kyle friend we did a podcast about a course that he
has coming up called broom sedge it’s going to be really neat um so yeah the Carolinas the land just just starting
there I think is a bit underrated for golf and and what’s already there I I think also gets you know maybe
underrated as the long is the wrong term but but overlooked there’s some overlooked stuff
um you know we haven’t even mentioned a ton of other names that are really solid but um you know the weather is another thing
to call out that you can go to the Carolinas this time of year it’s it’s a bit of a crap shoot you know you might
get 10 degree converting to Celsius here you might get you know 5 to 10 degree
weather but but on the right day you might catch it 15 even pushing 18 degrees I’ll take 10 now I’ll take five
and run okay this time yeah there’s some chances that you’re going to get really good weather this time of year and and
there’s some really cool stuff as Walker put it there there are a ton of great Architects to dabble in in the Carolinas
um and maybe most importantly we you know there’s one name that hasn’t come up today but Tom Fazio no fods so uh
from the Carolinas but not on our itinerary there’s an
interesting point though um because like I don’t think it’s something that we think about in Britain if people are going to fly over to do a
Carolina strip when is the best time to do it because there are times where it’s it’s not good
maybe really uh you can do this trip year round which is
the best that’s the that’s the short answer if you really want to make this into a valued trip I would recommend that you
do this during our winter oh really spring spring and fall just the same but
uh really like a nice fall on the Carolinas is really good you know I’ve
talked before on some of the Twitter threads you know I think we can all agree that that fine Fescue you know
firm Turf with sand bottom is just about as good as it gets as a golfer I mean you’ve got really nice lies
um you know good club Turf interaction uh some nice bounce to the fairways but
coming up in a close second is Bermuda grass that that’s dormant and healthy
with a good root structure and a sand base and in most all these golf courses you’re going to have a sand base and
um even if you catch it on a little bit more like a a pretty wet day this golf is just as exciting and worth
playing which I think is is worth a mention you know you’re going to see rates increase in the summer
particularly um at the public courses just because they can afford to charge more
but you know I think you could have just as good of a trip in the fall or the winter
as you could in the summer it’s quite hot in the summer too it’s really hot in the summer you don’t
want to come in the summer my strong recommendation would be just kind of straddle the winter like maybe late
November kind of kind of between I guess well I guess for you all Thanksgiving doesn’t really hold a lot of water but
around Thanksgiving time honestly couldn’t be the worst idea ever because people are going to be pretty busy in
the states with that holiday and you know if someone were to come over from the UK there wouldn’t be all that much going on that would certainly be a good
weather time and then you know as I mentioned you could come at the end of January and you very well might get very
good weather if you get unlucky you could catch some some colder days and get some frost delays but I would say
you know early middle of March would also be a very good time to look at because I would say eight times out of
ten you’re going to catch really solid weather around that time and all the things Walker alluded to you get some really great ground conditions at that
time of year as well to play some of these cool courses what a brilliant bit of travel wisdom and if I’m honest the idea of putting a
budget on this when you hear people talk of Pinehurst particularly Pinehurst II
with almost Messianic terms um it’s it’s kind of puts you under the gun to think about whether it’s really
worth it and actually the real proof point in that is the fact that we’ve given you a thousand bucks and it’s like yeah you know what if I was if I was if
this is what I was living by this is exactly what I’d do and I’d still Pony up for the Pinehurst too as well within that
um any further we’re going to make this a Joe Rogan length episode and I think I
think we end on that like you guys put a ton of effort into that and I think massive thank you from me and Tom like it’s so Illuminating to hear about these
courses when you know loads of those I’d not heard about some I’m desperate to go
to want to have real nice fond memories of it’s just really exciting to hear about that sort of stuff and the and the
idea that you can piece together something without needing tons of privileged access yeah okay thousand
bucks is a lot for five rounds of golf but if you’re going a long way and it’s you know that’s just a that’s just a lot
of effort so I think big thank you on behalf of the listeners as well really for piecing that together and I really hope people do go out and do that
because um like the way you’ve sold that trip there like boy where do I sign
thank you guys I mean first off uh the first part of this whole thing is is talking about it on
both ends both on cookie jar and the tie the second step is actually doing it in
practice so we gotta we gotta book our flights over to you guys and let you guys show us uh I guess the the 10
courses that we covered nearly and then the world that’s it we’ll do it we’ll do it on our end as well we’ll 100 be
playing and tearing it up I mean based on some of the stuff you’ve been saying particularly Henry I was half expecting
you to be playing early September in San Andreas to be honest with you so uh I might make it over for that I’ve been
other than the selectors I mean we’re going to be out the Walker cup um can’t wait for that so who knows if
you can uh if you can get over for that maybe we could have a little uh we can have a little event or something a
podcast walk a cup yeah through the side of it you could assemble aside and we could assemble the
side and we could have at it that’s that’s a heck of an idea for sure
um guys yeah totally guys this was a ton of fun let’s uh let’s keep our heads together on uh other sorts of topics I
think there’s there’s all sorts of stuff that we can do um but let’s keep thinking about you know some more more
things we can get going back and forth I think people are going to really enjoy us doing these sorts of round tables
um and and again kind of a a world of opportunity of things that we can talk about so so let’s be in contact on it at
all cheers guys thank you for that