No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1017: NLU Presents: KVV’s Favorite Muni

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

What makes a great muni? As part of our on-going series about public golf, KVV writes a love letter to Forest Park, his favorite local track. In the back half of the episode, Neil, Randy and KVV debate what makes a great muni — and what makes a bad one Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our sponsors: Rhoback Oars and Alps If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music Better than most. Expect anything. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the NoLing, a podcast. Solly here. We are back with another one of KVV's narratives this week. I think you guys will like this one. It's kind of a love letter to his local Muni in Baltimore. Kind of a reminder that a good Muni is where the true golf sickos reside in our game. I did not grow up playing a Muni.

We didn't have Munis in Dublin, but I did grow up playing a lot of public golf courses, which has a lot of overlap with a good municipal golf course. But after doing about a thousand laps around those golf courses, I want those places to live on forever. And all the ones I grew up playing did not end up living on forever. So on the back half of this episode, Neil and Randy and KVV have a fun little round table chat talking about what they love about a true municipal core.

So stick around for that as well. Without any further delay, let's get to KVV. Okay. Seven, 25 on a Monday. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee.

I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the eighth tee. I'm standing on the 8th tee at Forest Park Golf Course in Baltimore. I think it's my favorite hole in all of Baltimore. I've been playing this hole for like roughly 20 years. It's a drivable par 4, it's about 280 from the back tees,

and there's a tree that kind of guards the left side of the fairway. Back when I was in my 20s, when I was a little bit more flexible at the gym more often, I could hit a little further. I used to be able to drive the screen. And I think it was one of those things that kind of got me hooked on golf. Like that rush of being able to do that and like how giddy my playing partners would be when I would do it. I haven't played here in about six months but I'm now a 47 year old dad who has a few extra pounds but you know what I'm gonna let one fly I've actually played the first seven holes in even par so I'm kind of hitting it pretty good and I'm gonna let one go here and just see let's hit a drive that maybe feels like a time machine,

right? Maybe gets back to our old days of young spry KVV. Hang tight. Got some motorbikes in the background as we occasionally do here in Baltimore in Forest Park. This is all part of the tapestry, folks. All right, let's go and fly. No, that is not it.

Damn it. Oh, they'll be fine another day. About a month ago, Neil and I got to do something on this podcast that's still hard to fathom. We spent a week walking around Augusta National during the Masters with microphones, capturing what it sounds and feels like to be on the grounds of the most exclusive golf course in the country, if not the world, during a major championship. It was electric. I don't know, he's sending it. Come on!

He's sending it. Come on! It's on. It's on! Yeah! Go get it, Rory! Go get it, Rory! Go get it, Rory!

Go get it, Rory! Go get it, Rory! Go! Let's go, baby! Let's go! God, he's chasing after it, Rory! Let's go, baby! Let's go! God, he's chasing after it! Holy shit!

As fun as that assignment was, as surreal as it felt to capture the roars of Rory McElroy winning the career Grand Slam, that's not really what made me fall in love with golf. As cool as Augusta National is, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's almost too perfect. Barely a blade of grass out of place, and it feels like someone is watching your every move.

Playing there every day would be a bit like dating the most beautiful person on the planet. A celebrity with a team of stylists and nutritionists and glad handlers, and paparazzi documenting everything, just waiting to pounce. How could you ever relax? Sure, it would be a thrill, but I would worry I'd live in perpetual fear that I was going to commit an unspoken faux pas, that I'd spill a drink or sneeze at the wrong time

and end up getting dumped. Not everyone was meant to marry into the royal family, and I think I'm one of those people. It got me thinking a bit. What's the opposite experience of going to Augusta National? I'm not talking about the worst golf course in America, a place with dirt fairways, mud greens, and a miserable old prick for a starter. That's not really fun golf. I'm talking about a place that still captures the starter, that's not really fun golf. I'm talking about a place that still captures the essence of what you love about the game, a place where you can tee it up for 50 bucks or less, where

you can wear your hat backwards and let your shirt tail fly untucked without a letter going in your file. No joke. I got a letter of my country cup file last year for committing these two crimes during a 6 PM Sunday evening round by myself. I'm admittedly a letter of my country club file last year for committing these two crimes during a 6pm Sunday evening round by myself. I'm admittedly a lot of things. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. One thing I've decidedly not is a snob when it comes to golf. I love changing my shoes in the parking lot, grabbing mediocre hot dogs at the turn,

and I love interesting layouts with good bones and good employees, even if they don't have the budget to look perfect. Forest Park Golf Course is about 15 minutes from my house in Baltimore, and there are a few places I love more in my adopted hometown. I used to play it often, back when I made about $700 a week covering high school sports for the Baltimore Sun. If you showed up at 5 p.m. and said you were hoping to walk nine holes, they often wouldn't even charge you. They'd just wave you to the first tee, tell you to play well. I played it less and less as the years went by, but it's always there, holding a space

in my heart. Fifteen years ago, I wrote a front-page story about the course's superintendent at the time, Joseph Eades, who happened to be a survivor of a double lung transplant. Eight years ago, the First Tee of Baltimore held a Halloween-themed putting contest for kids at the Forest Park Putting Green, and my daughters, dressed as Wonder Woman and Moana, putted around spooky gravestones and spider webs in their costumes. And a picture of the two of them reading a putt with the 10th T in the background

remains one of my favorite golf pictures. If you don't know Forest Park, that's okay. It's not gonna win any awards or appear on any of Maryland's must playlists. It wasn't designed by a golden age architect. It's 6,059 yards from its back tees and has a rating of 68.8 and a slope of 117. The bunkers could use an overhaul or at least better rakes. Its routing isn't complicated, it has a lot of holes that go up and back, and it crosses a city road at one point.

Drivers don't typically stop so you have to hustle through the crosswalk. Point. Drivers don't typically stop, so you have to hustle through the crosswalk. Its scorecard has ads on it from Carroll Motor Fuels, a local orthopedist, and a bourbon bar in Locust Point. I don't even think most people in Baltimore would call it their favorite muni. It doesn't have the reservoir views that Pine Ridge does, or the longevity of Lake Clifton, the oldest course in the city, or the history of Mount Pleasant, the course where Arnold Palmer won the 1956 Eastern Open. But it's a place that I believe best represents the public golf scene in my city. I think the spirit of it harkens back to certain places I've been in Scotland, off the beaten path, where you have friendly greenskeepers, limited budgets, quirky holes,

and an understanding that every lie might not be pristine. I feel a little guilty that I don't play it more often, that I'm a spoiled country club guy now. Last year, when the Baltimore Roost held an event at Forest Park, my daughter Keegan, then just 12 years old, inexplicably finished third in a field of 40 grown men and women, she hit a majestic seven iron into the 16th hole that I still think about sometimes when I remember what I love about this game. There are a couple holes at Forest Park, like the par 4 sixth and the par 3 eleventh, that

could be as good as any at my fancy country club if given a little TLC. The sixth requires this downhill approach to an infinity green. That's pretty damn cool. And if you squared the edges of the green, I could lie to you and tell you that Seth Rayner designed it when he came through town to do Elkridge Country Club. And you might even believe it. There are quirks that are harder to defend,

like back to back 200 yard par threes on the front nine and a par five on the back that could use some tree removal, but does make you hit nearly every club in your bag. Even if you've never been to Forest Park, I bet you've been to a course like it. You might even have a Forest Park of your own because Jen informs me that there are seven by that name in the United States. It's got great handmade breakfast sandwiches, a friendly starter, old guys playing cards in the clubhouse when it rains. It's got Jewish golfers teeing off in their yarmulkes, black golfers and Asian golfers

and middle-aged middle-class dads like me scraping it around on a weekday afternoon just trying to keep it under 90. It's even got a robust first tee program with young kids from West Baltimore just finding their way into the game. Jim Thorpe, who won three times on the PGA Tour and 13 times on the Champions Tour, used to hold court at Forest Park with his brother Chuck back when they attended Morgan State University. If you want to know what pure joy sounds like on a golf course, to me, it's the Wednesday

morning Forest Park senior group, which typically has about 80 golfers laughing and giving each other shit getting ready to fire up their carts and tee it up in a shotgun start. Let's go! Alright. Alright, let's go. We need to go on the boat. Let's go. How you doing, Her? Come on, man. How you doing, buddy? How you doing? What's up?

If you have heard of Forest Park, by the way, it might be because Noel Langing up took you there once before, five years ago, when Neil almost broke par after shooting 32 on the Front 9 in the first episode of Baltimore Strapped. Sister! Fuck yeah! Let's go, baby! Big bird! Randy, bring on the fucking pancakes!

He's out of earshot. What happened on the front? He just ended Birdie Birdie Eagle. He shot 32. Part 35, so he's 300. The back is 2914 yardage. Part 36. He's got a 273 yard par 4. 453 yard par 5.

He's going to have to work to not do it. So I'm making a turn and the marshal stops me, his name's Durell. He's like, how's it going out there? I was like, good, you know, just had an eagle on the night. He's like, ooh, Boris Parks, redden her legs for you, baby, we like that. I was like, we do, we do like that. One of the reasons I dug my teeth into the tea time shenanigans in Los Angeles and at Bethpage State Park is because Muni golf courses are what I grew up playing.

It's what everyone ought to grow up playing, frankly, if only to solidify the idea in your mind that a golf course doesn't have to be perfect or look perfect to be great. Every golfer, no matter how wealthy or successful they become, ought to have a favorite muni that they return to from time to time, if only to reconnect with the soul of the game. I've spent some time grumbling on this podcast about what's not working in the world of golf, and about how money and technology has complicated everything. So this episode, as part of our series Shining a Spotlight on Public Golf, I wanted to write a love letter to my favorite Baltimore public track

and encourage you to check out Amunee in your community, especially if you haven't teed it up there lately. When we come back, we'll dig into a bit of Forest Park's history and talk to some of the people who make it tick. Just like those ads for Carroll Motor Fuel on the scorecard, it's time for us to cede a little real estate to one of our beloved sponsors. Guys, I know we talk about Roeback a lot, but there is a reason why we do that. We wear it every single day. I live in these little technical shirts.

This is the long sleeve version. If you're watching this on video, I live in these all summer when the hot humid days, they're great for walks, great for going around town, great for just being around the house. It is getting to be summer. It means Roebackac USA collection is here, is one of the best collections they have. The designs are fantastic. They got so many great red, white and blues. Everybody needs a little bit more red, white and blue, especially come summertime, obviously around July 4th, but you want it for Labor Day, you want it for next memorial.

They load up on some red, white, blue. They got great print design stripes. You got American flag on the back neck for a little extra touch. The Delta Looper shorts are going to get you through summer. Each time I put these on, I'm more amazed at the quality of them. Stretch waistband, they don't wrinkle. They just are really, really, really solid. I can already tell they're going to last me 10 years. They're just great, great pair of shorts. Load up on some Roeback ahead of summer.

Code NLU at roeback.com. Get you a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. That's spelled R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, 20% off Polo shorts, and more with code N-L-U. Back to KBB. What role can a golf course play in telling the story of a neighborhood? It's an interesting question when it comes to Forest Park and the Howard neighborhood that surrounds it. Officially, the course dates back to 1934, when it was a nine-hole layout that cost 10 cents

to play on weekdays and 20 cents to play on weekends, according to a story I found in the archives of the Baltimore Sun. But the course's origins are even older. You could find real estate listings in the Sun Archives dating back to the early 1920s, listing property next to the Forest Park Golf Course, which was only five holes at the time, a part of a growing neighborhood that was almost exclusively white. In the 1940s, golfers from Forest Park would regularly hold matches against the city's

top country clubs, and frequently hold their own. The Sun often dedicated an entire page of the sports section to the fates of various amateur golf matches. But it would take years for the course and the sport to evolve with the neighborhood. And it was complicated by the fact that Baltimore was one of the prominent cities in the United States to practice redlining, a nefarious practice where banks would deny home loans

to black families seeking mortgages in certain neighborhoods outlined in red on a map. Even after the Veterans Association established federal programs for soldiers returning from World War II to qualify for mortgages. Well, I'm 87. I remember when I couldn't play here. Really?

Yeah, oh yeah. Man, back in the 40s, we couldn't play here until after the war. That's true. The only thing we could play was Carroll Park. Really, that's right. I remember Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, they used to come to Carroll Park. There was a brother around here, Teddy Rhodes, you probably heard him.

He was Joe Louis' golf instructor. That's right. Yeah. And I remember Teddy and those guys. That's right. Yeah. Man. So it remember Teddy and those guys. That's right. Yeah. Man. So it was after the war that finally they went to the big game. Yeah, 46.

Okay. Started playing here in 46. Oh. Yep. A lot of history. That voice you just heard, it belongs to James Lowry, one of the regulars in the Wednesday Forest Park senior group. He's one of my favorite Forest Park characters. He grew up in Baltimore and went to Howard,

but didn't really pick up the game until he was in his late 40s. He rolled up to Forest Park in a beautiful sweater and an Ivy cap, looking like Ben Hogan. Kind of playing like him too, to be honest. Mr. Howard, what's the state of your game? How you been playing? Last week I had one of my best games. I had an official eight in it last week. Well I took a seven on the last hole. Coming in with a

seventy, I was coming in with a 76. It's getting better because the weather's warming up. Yeah I can turn. That cold weather I couldn't turn. I wanted to talk golf but he couldn't resist filling me in on the joys of dating in your 80s. Pretty good for an 87, my man. I feel pretty good, man. I feel pretty good. That's great. That's great. The main thing, I'm still cognitive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all in your lives being told.

I'm great I'm still cognitive because my wife is no longer with me. I live in a senior citizen complex, so I'm able to tell 84-year-old women, you know, hey, if you blow the air out and do it, we can work, you know. What's up, killer? How you doing? What's up, young brother? Hi, how are you?

And man, senior citizen women are a mess. Oh, they? Oh my God. How so? Well, you know, they'll say things like, my last name is Lowry. Hey, Mr. Lowry, how's your plumbing? Is it still working?

They don't mess around, huh? No, no. And I'll say, oh, Ms. Rose, stop. How's your jaws? Can you still blow it up? Come on up and see. I'll say, nah, Ms. Rose, I'm scared of you. They are something man.

I think one of the things I love the most about a great Muny is the sense of community it fosters. Not only do the bunkers and trees start to feel like old friends, but the regulars do too. Forest Park is home to one of my favorite benches in all of golf. A bench with chipped orange paint that overlooks the 10th T and the ninth green. The names of 17 different Forest Park regulars are memorialized with plaques on that bench. Names like Morris, Adolf, Gilbert, Tai Ho, Clarence, Clifton, String and Freeze, Preston and Dallas, all choosing

this bench and this view as the place they wanted to spiritually rest once their time on Earth was over. The richest men, I suppose, end up with their own bench, but I think I prefer the idea of sharing a bench in the afterlife with a menagerie of people. The ones who watched your doffs and shanks, who laughed at your bad jokes, and did a shot of fireball with you when you made an inexplicable birdie. It reminds me of that John Prine song when I get to heaven. I hope it feels like a party. Everybody to your cars, to your cars.

Okay, I got a couple announcements. Listen up. Hey you guys, listen up. I got some good news, I got some bad news. Which one do you want to hear? The bad news is, I will not be here next week. The good news is I'll be back. Okay, have a good round and remember my favorite saying, that's good, pick it up. The Wednesday game, which starts at 830 Sharp, is such a delightful, chaotic cacophony of

sound and fury that there is always someone who forgets to pay. But the women who run the Pro Shop, Lisa, Eunice, and Marion, well, they know basically everyone. And eventually, they will figure out who forgot to check in. Even if it takes a while. Lisa has worked at Forest Park for 17 years. Before that, she worked at another Baltimore City golf course, at Forest Park for 17 years. Before that, she worked at another Baltimore City Golf Course, Carroll Park, for 13 years. Her stepfather was the head

professional there, so she spent her entire life around the game. I try to know all my customers, you know, whether I'm here or anywhere, you know, and everything. They're shocked at me because they'll come in, they'll call me, and I know their voices, or they'll call me and then I know their player card numbers right when they walk in the door. And he was like, you know my player card number, but I know your name, I can spell. They was like, what?

She's like, okay. I wanted to know, what was the biggest change Lisa has noticed in the 30 years she's been working at Baltimore golf courses? We get a whole lot of younger people. Now, a lot of times they were saying because of Tiger Woods, where he was, you know, first got out there. So then we have a lot of women that's here playing.

I mean, they had women when I worked at Curl Park, they had the women's group also. Okay. But then they had a lot more that's coming out nowadays, a lot of younger ladies of color, I should say. In addition to the Wednesday senior group, there's a Forest Park men's league, a women's league, a PGA junior league, and a first tee program. The course boasts the only driving range inside city limits.

The man in charge of wrangling this rodeo into daily submission is Richard Spencer Jr., the head professional. Richard grew up in Raynallstown, introduced to the game by his father and his uncles. When he was in high school, he used to beg the Forest Park starter to let him out at 6 a.m. so he could get nine holes in before school started. He graduated from the University of Maryland Eastern Shores golf management program and ended up getting a job at the Suburban Club, one of the city's private country clubs. He learned a lot there.

Nothing but good memories, he says. But when eventually the head pro job at Carroll Park, Baltimore's nine hole course, came open, he decided to take the leap. The Forest Park job came open two years later. I was curious, so I flat out asked Richard, while we hung out in the clubhouse one weekday morning and dined on a couple of Forest Park's outstanding handmade breakfast sandwiches.

What makes someone leave an assistant pro gig in an elite country club to work at a Baltimore, Muni? Well, the honest answer is I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me in the private space. I love the private space, you know, great people. But I just didn't see a lot of people that looked like me there. And that's the truth. And you know, in growing a game, you want to be in the, the public is the best way to do it, I would say.

Cause more accessibility, you know, you know, we're here to serve the community in the public space. You know what I mean? And yeah, I'm glad I did. Yeah. Is it probably less resources? Maybe.

Sure. Less money, maybe, but I think I'm fulfilling my purpose more being in a public space than private. The role that the head professional at Forest Park plays has always been pretty important to the community of West Baltimore, especially once Tim Saunders got the job in 1987. Saunders was a giant of a man, not only because of his imposing physical presence, but because of the gravitas he had. A Vietnam veteran who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service, Saunders spent 30 years

teaching people to play golf in Baltimore. He was born and raised in South Carolina, but Baltimore was where he chose to make an impact. When he wasn't teaching at Forest Park, he traveled to local hospitals and teach clinics for veterans and people with disabilities. Saunders started the women's program at Forest Park, doubled the size of the junior program, and he was responsible for just about every talented kid to come through. He talked about some of the course's biggest success stories in a local television interview

in 2015. Well, we got a lot of African Americans that have come here through our junior golf program and they've gone on to do better things. We've had some African Americans that come here that have gone to Stanford, Hampton, Johnson C. Smith, South Carolina State, inertia in North Carolina. We also have one junior golfer right now that's working at Wall Street. And we also have one that's a sports medicine doctor that has an office out in San Francisco, California.

So we've done a lot of things with juniors since they've here and we're trying to continue on. Saunders sadly died of a heart attack in 2015 while on a job at age 69. It was particularly devastating because he was the person who actually gave Richard his first job in golf, having him work as a spotter all afternoon on the 13th hole, one of the few holes with a blind drive, trying to speed up pace of play. Now Richard gives daily lessons and goes to clinics spotter all afternoon on the 13th hole, one of the few holes with a blind drive, trying

to speed up pace of play. Now Richard gives daily lessons and goes to clinics at the local hospitals just like Saunders did. I'm just a man. I'm really just trying to follow him. Just seeing the joy on someone in a good golf shot for the first't just hang around the pro shop. You gotta be willing to get up when it's still dark and put in some time with the maintenance guys. They're the people who make immunity function.

They're the ones fixing the equipment when it breaks, stretching budgets so they don't break, and in Baltimore, dealing with all kinds of unexpected variables, everything from wildlife to late night dirt bike vandalism. Without the maintenance team, led by Brian Woodland and Patrick Austin, it wouldn't even be a functioning golf course at Forest Park. So on a recent weekday,

I set my alarm for the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. and tagged along for their morning routine. All right, it's 4.02. I'm here, Forest Park Golf Course. I'm going to meet up with Patrick, who's the main maintenance dude. We're going to mow some lawns. So it's definitely the earliest I've ever been up in West

Baltimore, for sure. Well, let's get to it. Excited. Brian has been working at the Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation for 23 years, overseeing the maintenance teams at both Carroll Park and Forest Park. Patrick has been at Forest Park for 18 years. They're like a pair of point guards on the basketball team,

running a combination of set plays and also improvising from moment to moment, depending on the flow of the week. They cut the greens every day, but the rest of it is determined by how fast it's growing and what the budget can support. The rough might get cut once a week, but the fairways and collars and tee boxes twice a week.

What's the hardest part of it? Getting up. Yeah. Getting up in the morning. Going to sleep at the right time. Right. This time of year you're going to sleep, the sun's still up.

Yeah. What time do you guys go to sleep? Seven o'clock, eight o'clock. It's like, I like it though. I like it. Yeah. I I like it I won't be here this long. What do you guys like about it? Being outdoors. It, like a, a therapeutical factor, which is like sitting on the mower, just cutting.

It's like you can just tune everything out. When the mowers break, you can't just spend $90,000 to get a new one. There is only one mechanic for two courses. So Brian and Patrick have learned to improvise. Sometimes Brian just Google stuff and gets it to work. You have to know a little bit of everything in their jobs, including how to manage various personalities.

Most of the 10 person crew outside of Brian and Patrick are part timers, and some of them are a lot to handle. Brian laughed as he told me a story about one of the workers he was tasked with supervising years ago who would not work a second pass quitting time. If his shift ended at 5 PM, he'd drop his tools on the ground or shut off the mower in the middle of the fairway and start walking to his car. You have some pretty animated people come through here. It could be, it may not be, it may not be something you laugh at at the moment,

but you look back at years past like, this guy was pretty funny. Yeah. One thing I was surprised to learn, neither Brian nor Patrick have any interest in golf. Brian used to play a little, but he hasn't played in years. Patrick has never played, not even once. I joked with him that the next time I see a hole cut

three yards from the edge of the green time I see a hole cut three yards from the edge of the green, I'll know who to blame. Brian had to go check on his other course, but Patrick was happy to let me tag along for an early morning rolling of the greens. I could barely see what we were doing because it was still dark out, but Patrick was so skilled with the machine, it felt like he could have done it blindfolded. I know this podcast is making you want to go out and play a little bit of golf. When you are going out and playing some golf, you need to be wearing sunscreen. Ores and Alps make sunscreen that you'll actually want to use from clean ingredients that you

can feel good about putting on your skin. It solves a lot of problems that sunscreen creates, which you don't want to smell like a pina colada. It's lightweight. It's not greasy or sticky. It doesn't leave that white cast residue, especially for those of us with beards You don't want that white residue in your beard. It's simple fast easy to use They have travel friendly options and you can keep reapplying throughout the day. Keep it in your golf bag. That's a hands-free options

That's huge for me the glandular issues sprays miss sticks You don't get sunscreen on your hands men are not wearing enough sunscreen It's degrading their health only one in seven wear sunscreen on a daily basis and golfers are 250% more likely to develop skin cancers. Just do it. Lather up. You got to do it. You got to wear some sunscreen. You can take the skin quiz at oresandalps.com. You can also check out their products on Amazon. They got SPF 30, 50, 70. They got a travel size SPF 50, which is great for your golf bag as well. Big wide spray radius on it. You're going to be protected with Oars and Alps.

So go to oarsandalps.com or check them out on Amazon as well. Back to KBB. Here's an important qualifier to everything I've said about Forest Park being my favorite local Muni. It's not technically a Muni, at least not in the literal sense. Forest Park and the other Baltimore City golf courses aren't run by the city of Baltimore. They used to be, but that changed in the 1980s when there was a political uproar over the fact that the courses were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. A committee was formed,

studies were done, and ultimately a decision was made. The five City-run courses would be grouped together and run as a non- nonprofit, a 501C3. Tom Pierce, who is now the Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation's executive director, believes it was the first nonprofit of its kind formed to run golf courses in the United States. And for the most part, it's working. According to its 2023 IRS filing,

the Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation showed a revenue of approximately 8.1 million in 2023, while claiming approximately $7.9 million in operating expenses. Is it perfect? Of course not. As someone who has lived in Baltimore for the last 25 years, I am here to inform you that nothing in this city is perfect. The clubhouses remain aesthetically frozen in the 1970s. The cart paths on some

of the courses remain a mess, and the bunkers are about what you would expect from a Muni. But on a weekday, it costs $49 to play before 11am, and on the weekend, it costs just $57. If you want a cart, it's just $10 for 18 holes. All you need to do after you pay at Forest Park is check in with Bill Wyatt, one of the friendliest men in golf and the starter for the last 14 years. Been having a great time here. Yeah.

What makes a good starter, Bill? Somebody who's a people person, somebody who likes to have people up, but keep them moving. Okay. Because if you keep them moving, they happy. And that's the idea of keeping the course moving, keeping the people moving. My job is to make sure everybody's happy when they go up. Bill didn't even play golf until he was 50, but his girlfriend took him to a driving range for

the first time and encouraged him to take a few rips. He had a blast. Soon after she bought him a set of clubs. He was hooked. What do you love about it? Oh, hey, look, it's challenging. It's the most challenging game you can ever play because you're not playing against the other folks, you're playing against the course. I'm hesitant to give the abolished golf movement any oxygen, particularly on a golf podcast. I'm sure they think they mean well, but I mostly find the trend, which has gained popularity with young people on TikTok and Instagram in recent years, to be performative and naive.

But I think it's important to address here, just for a second, because it's places like Forest Park, urban green spaces, that are often targeted by people who think of golf as elitist and environmentally damaging. In California, a bill was introduced two years ago into the state legislature, hoping to incentivize local governments to turn some of their public golf courses into affordable housing. The LA Times editorial board even went so far as to endorse the bill, particularly in cases where the government is subsidizing golf course operations.

The bill died in committee and did not ever come to a full vote, but it's hard not to see it as part of a growing attack on golf courses. Baltimore does need more affordable housing. And occasionally, I see Baltimore activists on Reddit suggesting that Maryland look into a California approach, or that places like Forest Park could be put to better use. I asked Tom Pierce how he would respond to someone who believed Baltimore should turn my favorite drivable par-4 into condos. We don't respond. We have not had to, not gonna respond. I think it's short-sighted that they're looking for how do we make a dollar now?

I don't think, especially municipal golf courses should not be looked as cash cows. There are, it's brick and mortar, it's a low margin. It should look at that it's a recreational activity that's being offered to the community, especially when like our situation where we're operating, it doesn't cost the city a dime to have these. These are facilities that they're offering that to anyone

that they have in the green space that they have that they don't have to do anything for. I would argue that how much money do they make off the ball fields, the swimming pools, the tennis courts, everything else that the city runs and pays for their parks that they care of. In the case of Forest Park, I can even make the argument that the golf courses helping create a net win for the environment. That might sound like BS, but hear me out.

Anyone who has played it, and there are a lot of munis where this is true, can attest that it doesn't drain particularly well. Geographically, it sits in a bowl where water runs downhill and the water that comes from the surrounding neighborhoods is frequently polluted with chemicals and toxins that end up in the Gwyn Falls stream and eventually the Chesapeake Bay. If you get an afternoon of heavy thunderstorms,

parts of the 18th hole on the 9th fairway can have six inches of standing water. It's not particularly clean water. According to a $50,000 study the National Fish and Wildlife Department did, it's about 100 million gallons of water every year that runs across the golf course. So the course applied for and was awarded a grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and another from the Chesapeake Bay Trust to come up with a plan to help divert water into concrete riverbeds and then a couple ponds where it can eventually be cleaned. One of the ponds will sit just right of the Ninth Fairway, right about on the line where

Neil flagged a long iron into the par-5 unstrapped to set up his eagle. It might be the rare instance of a golf course adding water hazards that has met with some appreciation. On a recent weekday, Pierce had me hop on a golf cart and take a quick tour as he spelled out the plan, which is expected to break ground in the coming months. This area is, because this is all gonna get dug up and going.

That's right. As you can see, like all of this, this is basically, if you look at that picture, see all the, you know, they got ivy growing up, you can see those are all dead. That if we went over there, and I'm not going to because it just gets soupy. And that, if you look at this picture, this is basically where we are. All of that they're going to dig, we're getting permission to basically take out those dead trees. Dig that down, that'll be an initial collection and then right kind of through here, these are

called rifts, I jokingly call it the dry waterbed. That's when it's not wet, but it's where they put stone and it goes up, it goes down, it goes up. That way the moving water will run over the stones, help clean it before it goes into this collection pond. So this would just be, you know, once it's done, it'd be a day like this. It might not be wet. As I said, it'll be like a dry river bed and just be red flagged. And it's just a water hazard that just doesn't have water.

I know water management and flood reduction plans and sustainable infrastructure talk isn't particularly sexy. But it's kind of an essential part of how a golf course becomes a good steward to its community. The munis in Baltimore make up about 11% of the urban green space in the city. They're a real part of what keeps my East Coast metropolitan city from looking like a concrete jungle. And I think that's true in a lot of places. I don't have to think about all the logistics of it when I'm out for a stroll

because someone has already taken care of them. That someone has done it because they believe that Muni golf courses are part of a public trust, part of our shared space and sense of community. And I like to believe that's true, whether it's George Wright or Torrey Pines or Memorial Park or Forest Park. When I'm standing on the eighth tee at Forest Park,

I'm kind of reminded of all the places I've been since I started teeing it up here, back when it was all that I could afford. Since then, I've gained and lost friends, had a couple kids and gotten remarried, changed jobs and houses and even careers. I've joined three different country clubs and played about a thousand rounds at all of them.

Podcasting didn't even exist the first time I showed up at Forest Park. But Forest Park continues to exist, and so does my desire to drive the eighth green, even though I don't hit a draw anymore and I bend my left arm a lot more than I once did, fighting a losing battle against age and time. I decided to give it another shot recently, if only for the making of this podcast. I love to play the course on a summer evening when the neighborhood is quiet and the sunlight spills through the trees. When I showed up at the clubhouse at 5pm, they waved me to the first tee without asking

for my credit card. After a shaky par at the first, I birdied the second, and my round started to fall into a familiar rhythm. Alright, going full sed on, let's go. Come on, go! Oh, come on! Maybe, maybe! Let's go. I'm Kevin Van Valkenberg, editorial director at Noel Angham. This podcast was written and reported by me. Music selection and sound editing and mixing by Justine Pajowski with assistance from Charles

Van Kirk and Phil Bram. Additional editing by Todd Schuster and DJ Pajowski. A special thank you to the maintenance people on the Pro Shop cashiers and the teaching pros and cafeteria workers and cart washers at Muny's everywhere. Stick around as Neil and Randy and I dig in on what makes a great and a not great Muny golf course. Guys, thanks for joining me. We just did a little bit of a love letter to my favorite Muni golf course, and I wanted to bring in two of my favorite Muni golfers.

Neil, how are you? I'm doing fantastic. How are you? I'm a man of the people and I'm so glad to be joined by men of the people. Mr. Randy, how are you? I'm very, very good. You know, I appreciate you inviting me onto your municipal golf program here at KVV. I got some ideas. Maybe we can talk about shrinking the game, but that's for later on. That's fabulous. I was thinking to myself, who among us is not a spoiled country club kid? Uh, who among us gets to play the regular golf in the regular world?

And you, you two guys came up, not even just as a bit as like a strapped bit, but this is generally where you guys end up playing a lot of your, your golf. Guys. I said, as I detailed it in the pod, uh, forest park, uh, is like my closest Muni it's the one that kind of, uh, has been playing the longest in Baltimore. It's the one that kind of has been playing the longest in Baltimore. It's the one that kind of has the most emotional connection to me. I've taken my kids there a bunch. But I wanted to talk about Munis in general because I feel like they hold us a really important part and a place in our game. And I just want to kind of kick off with like a general sort

of discussion of like what's the first Muni that you really fell for that made it kind of made you love golf? Well, I don't mean to sidetrack us, but I like to get in a word about Forest Park. That is a place that I have a lot of memories of. It's a course that I can close my eyes. I've been there one time. You can see that appearance on Strapped Baltimore,

memorable round out there for me. It's one of those places I can close my eyes and pretty much picture every hole. I don't think I can do that for a lot of courses. I thought it was a delightful routing up and down some hills in the Baltimore area. I just wanted to say that. Now, to answer your question, KVV, Harding Park in San Francisco is, So I just wanted to say that now to answer your question, KVV, uh,

Harding park in San Francisco is, I think the, the, the Muni that comes to mind when I think of a Muni, I think that is, if not the best, I would say a top three Muni in the country. I just think they redid it. It's a really good example of a public private partnership. Charles Schwab and Sandy Tatum had a big hand in that. The place was not looking good back in the 90s. It was a parking lot for the US Open at the Olympic Club across the lake, and they did something about it. I think it's a really good example of how

municipality can work with some private money, private donors, and if you get the right people involved, you can do something really special. That's a course that's located in the city limits, very easy to play if you live in the city. They did not stack tee times and there was a really, when I lived in San Francisco, a really attractive and just good deal. If you were a city resident, you had to go get a city golf card down at city hall and Then you got you could play I think it was 50 bucks to play. It might have been a little bit more on the weekends I'm sure that's changed inflation Randy. We know all about all of these things, but I

Look at municipal golf. I bring that up because it feels like one of the few things that a city is Giving back to you, you know, in the form of a discount, it's always like, man, I got to pay taxes. And usually those discounts come in the form of well, you can pay less taxes, versus like, no, here is like a proactive discount the next time you want to play golf. It's, it's, I don't know, just a civic perk, one of the few civic perks. And so I think that needs to be celebrated. And that I always just felt great. I was like, man, I'm getting a deal out here.

This place is in great condition. It's a championship golf course. It's got cool trees and I'm getting a deal on it. So that's the course that comes to mind. I think Harding park is a true Muni. I think that there's, there's somewhere the line and I think it's kind of an undefinable thing. It's like the Potter Stewart thing. I know it when I see it.

Where a course just because it's public crosses over into not necessarily being a Muni. I don't know if it's even like I talked a little about the pod that like technically the municipality in Baltimore doesn't run these golf courses in Baltimore, but they're still Munis because they're kind of like, they formed a nonprofit and put together. Well, Randy, where do you think the line is between what's a muni and what's like a Torrey Pines or maybe Torrey Pines is a muni. I don't know, but there's a lot of like, you know, some of these munis, oh, we're charging 180 bucks for what's a public course. That doesn't really feel like a true muni in spirit to me.

No, I, and you got out ahead of the question that I was going to pose to you, Kevin, which is how, how do we, for the sake of this conversation, wish to define a municipal golf course? I would posit that Torrey fits my definition of a Muni in so far as if you live within, is it San Diego County? I don't know the exact County out there to Neil, to your point, like Harding park, it's a great deal. It's very accessible.

I would put Torrey in the, in the camp of like, this is a good example of what a municipal golf course can be. Now, if they want to charge high fees for out of towners, I actually have no problem with that. Um, I don't either that's a hundred percent. Kevin T yeah. To, to your point though, when I was thinking about to like truly what is like the first Muni that I connected with, I don't think it's technically a municipal

golf course it's it's the little Miami golf center now is its official name, but it's owned by the Hamilton party, Hamilton County parks, uh, body in, in Southwest Ohio in Cincinnati. So I guess it would technically be like a parks course, but that was the course. Me and my buddies, it was quite literally walkable from our house. We could get there on bike. We could get there on foot. We preferred when our parents would drop us off there. But to me, why I connected with it, one, the accessibility, both from like a very physical standpoint, like it was easy to get to, and accessibility from like being able to play

the golf course, obviously it had that as well. And I think beyond that, we can go into other areas, but what Little Miami had that I think is genius that whether it's a Muni or, you know, a city course or a parks course, they had a nine hole regulation course. They had a nine hole par three course. They had a pup, a course. They had a gigantic putting green and you have a driving range. And so having all those different options for, Hey, what are you in the

mood for today, or perhaps the regulation course is jam packed. You know, when we started going there, we didn't even bother with the regulation course. We just love to loop the par three course. Uh, sorry, my dog Arthur is getting excited about all this. It's all good. Muni golf talk. Maybe dogs come into Muni's.

Maybe that's what makes something Muni is you can get your dog can be running along there occasionally. Yeah, there we go. So that I want to shout out little Miami. Uh, that was the first one I truly connected to big part of why I love golf. But I think to, to your question that kind of set this up, I think of any like city-owned

golf course, county-owned, municipally owned, parks owned, I think where I kind of get away from like it's, it's got the spirit of immunity is just like a privately owned public golf course. And those can be great, don't get me wrong, but I don't think those are like Munis per se. I would, to jump on that definition question, I think if the county, state, whoever owns the land,

but somebody else operates it, I still think it's a Muni. And I would actually say that that's probably a good thing. As we've learned from this program, if you look at the New York State Park Commission running Bethpage, I think they're doing a horrible job in the management of that facility. A horrible job. I want to repeat that. Some guys up in Albany, they probably guys running, they probably never even been there. All right. So, do I like that it's TPC,

Harding Park? No. But again, public-private partnership is a good thing. And I don't think overall the government often does a good job with management. But if they can get out of the way and enable a private company or private individual to manage stuff, that's great. So in New York City, most of the public course, I think all of the city owned golf courses are run by Golf NYC. I have my issues with Golf NYC, but I think, I don't know if it's a super competitive

process for that management contract, let me put it that way. But I think that's better than the city parks commission running those golf courses. So I would say that it's still immunity even if the city doesn't operate it. I would throw out, this is kind of layers on top of all those points we just made, the $100 barrier is kind of like a line of demarcation for me. Like if you are a resident of that county or that city and you are paying less than $100, like I think that can sort of qualify as to sort of the kind of courses we're talking about.

If you're shelling out more than that, I know with inflation and all that, there's something about like George Wright in Boston and Morrill Park in Houston, and Harding Park too, as you pointed out, Neil, those are really good golf courses, but you don't have to pay more than $ bucks, which to me just feels like, okay, there's a reason why this is like, partially you're getting something back for your tax dollars here and that's what it should be. If you're outside of it and you want to pay 150,

like I get it, but that just number kind of sticks with me and sort of makes it more accessible to everybody who wants to play it. And I'm okay if, especially these days, because that's going to be a tough number to hit. If you got to buy a 10 pack or, you know, we got to, we got to get you a volume discount to get you under a hundred. I'll, I'll, I'll play ball with that, you know, but that's, I think what is going to lead into your next question, like what makes good Muni golf. And I think having that type of repeat, regular customer that isn't priced out, that is local, I think is a big piece of the formula.

Yeah. You guys have seen a lot of kind of, I'd say Muni type courses on, in your 11, 12 seasons of doing Strapped. What do you think, you know, has stood out to you as like, man, this makes for like a good golf course that like I would love to have my buddies play with or my kids grow up on whatnot.

I've tried to actually think a lot about this KVV and Neil, I know you'd love a good analogy. So I'm going to throw out an analogy here. It could be a little strange, but there's a school of thought that if you're looking for a great school of thought that if you're looking for a great Chinese restaurant, that you should look like you shouldn't trust anything above like a four star and, and really like the sweet spot is sometimes in like the three and a half star, uh, review. I think I have that right. It's, it's kind of a meme, but I truly think we can apply those principles to

municipal golf in the sense that Neil, you certainly can feel differently, but I really think the best municipal golf courses, the ones that we've enjoyed the most, they're not, you know, if, if you break it down across several variables, right, like costs, the cost can not be too prohibitive they're not, you know, if you break it down across several variables, right? Like costs, the costs cannot be too prohibitive to price out what would be like your everyday clientele, right? It's got to be accessible from that standpoint. Okay.

Conditioning, I would argue the conditioning can't be too exceptional because by virtue of having excellent conditioning, the price is going to go up and you're just going to attract a different type of golfer, which I don't know is like the true Muni spirit of golf. And so you keep going down, like the layout, does it have to be like architecturally important? No, I don't think it does at all. It's got to have a little funk. I think those make for the best courses, right? A couple odd holes, maybe a weird T-box, maybe, you know,

what, whatever it is, it's got to have some, like, a little funk creativity where you can, Oh, you remember that hole at that point, you know, you keep going down the list here, the routing, I would kind of throw that with layout. Friendly staff is an absolute must. I think there has to be a staff that welcomes and fosters a community atmosphere. And so usually that's, it doesn't have to be like a good bar, but there has to be like some type of bar, some type of like hangout place for people.

And again, it's, it's not like, I'm not talking like a nice, it doesn't have to be nice, anything. It just has to be accessible. It's got to be there. It's got to be consistent. You factor all those conditions. You don't, you don't want to be hitting the tippy top of that stuff because the price is going to go up.

It's going to be tough to get tee times. Everybody's going to want to come in and play it. I don't think that's what we're talking about here with what like a true muni is, or even needs to be tough to get tee times. Everybody's going to want to come in and play it. I don't think that's what we're talking about here with what like a true Muni is, or even needs to be. I think it's just got to be pretty good at a lot of things. The conditioning has got to be like good enough, right? The routing, the layout, it's got to be good enough. And that's really the sweet spot for me.

So that's, that's my very long answer to what was a shorter question. Well, let me build on that, Randy. By the way, love the Chinese restaurant analogy. Almost you want people that played that muunee once to give you a two-star review because it wasn't green enough. Yeah. From a conditioning standpoint, all I care about in all our years at Strap, I almost want it to be dirt and scuffed

up and problems basically tee to green. But once you get to the green and the surroundings, that's all that matters at Immuni. It's like, hey, these greens are pretty good. Like consolidate your- Do they roll pure? Yeah. Investment and your attention just on the greens and things within 30 yards. And I would say the other thing I do think is necessary is you gotta have some flat tee boxes. You run into that a lot and that's just, you know, just flight can be brown, but make sure they're level.

That's all I'm asking for, you know? They don't have to be pointing you in the proper direction necessarily. No, just flat that can I find a flat stance on this tee box? That's really, really important. So I think that those two things, but you nailed it with just kind of like above the Mendoza line across all of these areas.

I would add one there though that I think helps for me with Muniz is history. And you can't buy tradition. You can't buy class or history. But courses that have been around a while that have an older clubhouse, I just played in a Publinks qualifier yesterday at La Tourette over on Staten Island. Never been there. It is a New York run, golf NYC, city course, city-owned land. And it had this awesome clubhouse that looked like, I mean, it was like a brick farmhouse,

basically. You could have told me that Martha Washington holed up there during the Revolutionary War. I'd probably believe you. It had the green shutters, and it just looked like a lot of these trees out there had been there for 50 to 70 to 100 years. When there's little things around a property that makes it feel like it's just built into the furniture, basically, of the town, to the furniture basically of the town. I think that really, really helps. And it makes it something that, you know, people are going to want to keep around.

I think it's so, so just longevity I would add makes a good Muni. Yeah. I would throw a few things in there. They're kind of perks and not necessarily, but like, if you get like real food being made, like there's a grill and there's a person who like has seasoned on the grill and they're not just like throwing a hot dog in a microwave or pulling it out of a vat of boiling water. They're like actually smoking the Smokies back there

or they're making handmade chicken salad or some to that effect. Something about that just kind of- Like the homemade breakfast sandwich hits so hard at the MUNI. Or the cheeseburgers at Charleston, Muni, like that. Katie, that's exactly right. Almost like, yo, we have just a little bodega.

Like the guy down the street here in Brooklyn, they got a hot griddle. And I could do a lot of different things with this hot plate that I'm working with back here. And that's 100% all you need. And just some cheap beer. You got to have a beer special. Throw that in there. That makes a good one. A dog and a drink ticket with around, stuff like that is like, man, we're getting into like prime uni territory when we're talking about

like, hey, buy 18 holes and you get a drink ticket and a hot car. That's or the language. Hey, here's the six beers. It's 20 bucks. We throw a seventh beer in and we put it on ice in a little bag for you, which you can, you know, drop in your car or you can carry along that. Now we're talking like Valhalla shit. Yeah, right. Yes. I think what else makes a good Muni is you got to have Neil, I feel like you'll back me on this, but I truly think what else makes a good Muni is you got to have.

Neil, I feel like you'll back me on this, but I, I truly think what makes like a, a Muni special is you just got to have people hanging out there too. Maybe they're playing that day. Maybe they're not at, but you know what? They're hanging out. They, they, maybe they come and have a coffee there. They talk to the staff, they see familiar faces. Maybe they come in for an afternoon beer, but you gotta, I think it speaks to how these places, I think really the most important thing they are are places of community for the areas that they serve. Well, I think what breeds that,

and I'd add it to our list, is this is more of an abstract one, but it's, you know, when you see it, a give a shit attitude. Yeah. You know, like the buck stop, and that comes from the buck stopping with one or two people.

Like there's a GM, this guy's been around for a while, you got a problem, he's usually there, he has a good handle on how this operation runs. He's probably deals with the city or the state or whatever. And that I think that flows down at a place, which makes it a good place to hang out, you know, because like, oh, I'm going to see, you know, Greg, you know, if I show up, like, if I have a problem, Greg's going to help me handle it. Greg's going to be there. You know what? He knows me. He's going to help, you know, if I show up, like if I have a problem, Greg's gonna help me handle it. Greg's gonna be there. You know what? He knows me. He's gonna help. You know, he's gonna give me his best effort. And I know that's where so many things, like when we go to certain strap courses,

I will overlook so many issues with conditioning or whatever, because you know they're, you know, they're doing their best. If you have that person where you're like, man, they are just doing their best to make this work. That goes a long way for me. And then somebody who's trying to build community, I think you sense it, it goes back to people hanging out, but like, are they trying to foster community with men's and women's leagues, with a youth on course program, with, you know, they're trying to make improvements to the driving range, which is probably the best opportunity you have to like turn some type

of a profit is to invest in your driving range and a place where like, okay, that makes it a good place to hang out, a safe place to hang out, whatever, because you're going to have a lot of people there and a lot of people that care about the place because they're getting value out of it. Just a couple of things I wanted to shout out about forest park that, uh, you know, you guys mentioned guys playing cards all the time in the clubhouse, which is just like, that is so perfect for, uh, and then I mentioned this in the essay, the there's a bench that overlooks the 10th T there and it has like seven, 17 different names, uh,

on it of people who've played there and died and wanted their kind of last you know time on earth to be like looking out over this golf course that they had grown to love and I you know the idea that like you'd share a bench with a lot of different people who'd also played that course to me just struck me as kind of a really cool thing that's like that's a real Muni right there that's not like I'm so special I have to have my own bench that's like I want to be part of a community. I'm glad you said benches because just having nice benches out around the course is such a fun treat to experience when you're playing. Uh, and I would even throw in, like, they don't have to be like super good,

but just having like some water stations out there too. You know, we, we don't ask for a lot, but those are two nice things to have. out there too. You know, we don't ask for a lot, but those are two nice things to have. Got that 10th hole, dogleg left, short par four, know it well. That's a good view because it kind of dips down and then goes up and goes left. I can close my eyes and picture it. Yeah, you just want a place that's working with what they got. Like, okay, I'm going to do my best to make this, you know, this course fun or maybe one other thing I'd add to the list is Randy, you mentioned like quirk, but like a few holes that have been passed by with modern technology of like, yeah, blowing it over these, these trees on the left to, you know,

I'm trying to drive the green every time I play here. One or two fun shots where you're like, I can't wait to hit that shot on, on what is otherwise a crappy golf hole. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. All right. We've, we've talked about the good. I think we need to address the bad

because there's a lot of people out there listening right now. I'm sure who have a bad Muni that infuriates them. That doesn't seem quirky and charming. What would be on your list for things that are like red flags for immunity? I can kick it off with one. My, my number one is, uh, ball, ball marks on the green. I think if, if I could with the flushing meadow pitch and put another NYC Muni,

if there's one thing I could do with Randy and I talked about this when he was here in September, like how can you get beginner golfers or just people that are playing there to fix ball marks or to understand it? Like I was thinking about it, like, man, that would just take this place from, you know, bad to decent because it's just like moon craters, you know, on these greens and nobody, I'm sure 80% of the people playing there don't know that they're supposed to fix them. And so we tossed around a couple ideas, like what if you picked a hole every day, if you're running a course and you said like, okay, today the six, you know, as you're checking

them in, all right, guys, if you fix three ball marks on or 10 ball marks on the six green today, come back in and we'll give you a free beer afterwards. It's like, all right, well, how do you enforce that? Well, come back in and talk to me. This goes back to Greg, you know, this running the joint come, come in. You talk to Greg and Greg's like, what does the six screen look like? Which ball marks did you know, just a few, a few probing questions. If you're lying, see it, seeing if somebody's like panics, you know, game of honor. Yeah. And then it's yeah, game of honor, but making it personal like that, where you got to come in and talk to Greg about it and maybe rotate the hole every day. And, and

18 days later, you might have made an impact, but I think that's something, again, it goes back to like, all I care about is, are the greens and the green surrounds in, in decent shape or are they being cared for? I think that that's all you need from a conditioning standpoint. Yeah. Beg, you got anything that would be on your red flag list? Yeah, to me, I think a bad Muni or a bad experience at the Muni, like what are maybe some of the common things

that have caused that? I think it really boils down to either a staff that's just like mean or unaccommodating or a place that doesn't quite realize what it is. And I guess I say that in the sense of, you know, if we're rolling up to immunity and it's, you know, we're paying, I don't know, 50 bucks for a round of golf and it like, we all know it's like, listen, man, it's not gonna be on any like top 100 golf courses. But like, if that's the air they're trying to put forth

and they're almost trying to be, I don't know, I guess elitist or like, just trying to be what you're not. I think that would be the biggest turnoff for me for immunity. I think the best thing immunity can be is to understand what it is, who it serves, where it is, and if you don't do that. Yeah, that's, that's a big problem. And I guess that would kind of come from the top down and be a staff issue. I'm thinking that's more of a problem, probably with just like some

privately owned public golf courses. I don't get that sense very often in like a true municipal golf course. So yeah, I guess I'm with Neil in that, you know, if it's like really flagrantly bad greens, that's just tough for everybody. And if it's like impossible to get a tee time there. I think that's the other thing. Like you if it's like impossible to get a tee time there, I think that's the other thing. Like you have to be able to play these golf courses without like hunting tee times Monday night for the next 14 days or something. Like there's gotta be a bit of an accessibility

to actually get out and play. Or if it's a really popular place, is there a men's or women's club I could join that would give me access? Like if I'm willing to invest my time in the, into being part of their community, then I get some type of priority. I have no problem with that. A couple others, KVV that I would add to my bad list. I hate it when you have to take a cart.

Yeah. You cannot walk at immunity. That is a call that disowns it as immunity to me. It needs to be. And even if the course is hard to walk, I need to have the option to stop. And, and, and this goes hand in hand with an overbearing or, uh, you know, heavy handed starter or Marshall, like, you know, a guy that's just kind of not setting the right tone on the first tee. I have no issue with a guy really concerned about pace of play. I think that's

a good thing. But some guys are just, you know, oh, you've got, you can't, you have to have a cart, you know, just like, whoa, you're enforcing the wrong thing here, man. But I think walking and walkability is, is vital to a Muni course. I had a streak with, I had a buddy during COVID we would play every Sunday. And for like the whole year, it was kind of a mild winter in Baltimore. We probably played like 50 consecutive weeks and we, we checked it in a course. It was like one of the only places available. We hadn't played there in a long time and we thought that they allowed walking

and we were, they were like, no, absolutely not. You have to take cart. And we're like, no, no, like legitimately like we'll run between the holes. We, we kind of have this streak going of walking for 50 straight weeks. I'm like, I'm sorry. And we now look back and we're like, we should have just like walked out, basically said like, we're not, we'll just forfeit the tee time because this streak of never having taken a cart for a year is, is like super important to us. And they, we just didn't do it.

And it like kind of breaks our hearts. Cause like, when do you ever build up a 50 week in a row streak of walking again? But yeah, that was mad. I think the pace of play thing is huge because I don't care if people are wearing t-shirts, I don't care if they're beginners. I don't care like if they're, you know, just kind of bad at golf, they got to move along and the idea of like waiting, waiting, waiting into six, you know, five and a half hour round at your local Muni, that's maddening. There's a couple of Munis in Baltimore that are probably like more people in Baltimore would be like,

why'd you write this thing about Forest Park? Why not Pine Ridge or Mount Pleasant? And for me, straight up, it's like, pay us to play. Like those places just grind you to a halt. They have, might have prettier views. They might have a little bit better conditioning, but like, I know if I go to Forest Park, I'm going to be able to play in four hours and that is super important to me. Well, I'm going to say something. Maybe it's a little controversial in the context of our discussion here, but I, I think a real big turnoff to me is a place that you just get the sense that people are out, not necessarily

to play golf, but just to get shit face. Shit face. And I, I think there's gotta be a feeling of like, Hey man, we were like, this is a golf course. We're we're everybody's more or less like here to, to play golf. I hate the places where it just feels like, man, is this just like a bar? Is everybody just like getting absolutely annihilated and hitting the ball occasionally? So I would throw that on the list. I don't mind.

Like if you're there to drink, is your data drink as long as like golf is still the main priority. If you want to drink while you play golf, great. But like it's the bar aspect of just a man or I guess play fast. I've just been to too many places where you get caught behind guys and they get so drunk. They're just like, oh,, great. But like it's the bar aspect of just a man. Or I guess play fast. I've just been to too many places where you get caught behind guys and they get so drunk, they're taking for it. And it's like, Oh my God. What I was, what I was going to say is, uh, I like it when a course, a

Muni course allows people to walk the course, uh, or at Jack's beach. I remember there would always be some kids fishing. So it's like, Hey, you can come out on the course and like fish and, you know, obviously don't be acting a fool out there, but where you feel like it's kind of multi-use public space within, you know, with constraints, I think is great. I feel like really good with that with the, with the people walk in and doing their warm up, like they're, they're Tai Chi or whatever. Like that was one of my favorite parts of Harding.

And I know it's not really a Muni, but a good public course, I think a good model for public called Dobson Ranch in Scottsdale, where we had the NIT. I talked to our guy running it out there and he was, I was like, how do you handle pace of play? He's like, well, we get a lot of bachelor parties, you know, cause of where we're located.

And he's like, the best thing that I have come up with is if we know, if, uh, if I get the radio call that we got a group that is a whole or two behind, first thing we do is we drive out and we say, Hey guys, we got four free beers right here in this cooler. Why don't you meet me? You guys are on 14. Why don't you meet me on the 16th T and we can shotgun them together? How's that sound? And I thought that was so funny. He's like, that's just truly the answer. I spend, that cost me 12 bucks and it's going to lead to like my regulars being like, thank you for handling that. And I was like, God, that's, that's, he is Greg. His name is not Greg,

but that's Greg. Like I'm going to go take care of this. I got some ideas on how to do it. And I thought that was awesome. Yeah. Guys, any particular communities you want to shout out? I have a couple that just in my area, Northwest Golf Course in Montgomery County here, play there a lot. Very uninteresting layout,

but it's just super special to my heart because I've played there a ton during COVID and very much friendly staff, you know, good driving range, good, they have an inside nine, Randy, that we were talking about like a short course, which I love. And then Eisenhower Golf Course here in Anne Arundel County, it's actually an Andrew Green redesign,

where it's sort of one of its features is that it has no bunkers on the whole course. And they just made these like weird mounds instead of bunkering, but the green complexes are super cool. It's like kind of what an ideal Muni could be if like a cool designer was like, yeah, sure. Like I'll make this like special, but you know, at a sort of certain price point.

Yeah, they're Denver, great city owned golf courses out here in Denver. I would shout out Wellshire, which is just a kind of a Parkland actually Donald Ross golf course. It reminds me of the Midwest. I love that city park is a great one. They put some money into redoing it.

Uh, great little public course. Willis case is, is another of my favorites. So I really appreciate the city of Denver. The tee times are hard to come by. It's not super easy to grab a tee time, but man, the price is right. I think, you know, walking 18 will cost you like 35 bucks. The conditioning's usually very good. It's a nice place for me right now for public golf.

I'd first shout out Bobby Jones in Atlanta. I give them credit. They went with a reversible design to the course and trying to do something different. There's not a lot of good public golf in the city, especially in the city limits of Atlanta. So it was good to see the city do something different with Bobby Jones. I think it's very hard to get a tee time there as well. I don't live there anymore, but I think I bring that up to say there's a lot of uni

courses if you don't have the history and it's struggling, they're going to have to start rethinking uni golf to save that land. And I think I've been on the record saying this before, but seeing like par three course, shorter courses, messing with par, bringing in the ability to play at night. So if you do have a short course, like that's going to keep you in business because you're going to extend your operating hours by, you know, six to eight hours a day. I think some of these places are going to have to start getting more creative about making it more like Little Miami, Randy, where it's like, Hey, yeah, you have a really crappy 72 par 72 course. Why don't we make it a par 64 and we'll add a short course with the extra land,

or we'll invest in a new driving range, whereas another place where you can make some money. But up in the New York, in my area, I'd love to see them do that with Flushing Meadow Pitch and Putt, such an under realized asset, excellent location and land. If somebody, Steve Cohen, would expand the Park, $8 billion renovation to just a little bit wider. We could talk about it. But Lotterette, I called it out already, I think is great.

Montauk Downs is a municipal course out in Montauk that I think is really, really good. Has the history, the old clubhouse, good piece of land land. Pretty, you know, when I played it, it was pretty easy to get a tee time. So those would be the ones I'd call out. And then, well, shout out Marine Park. It's not municipal, but there's a high give a shit factor out there. I think it's a guy that owns it and operates it,

and I think he cares. And I think that's probably the best all around public golf experience in the city. Love that. Just one other one I would say, I grew up playing large golf course in Missoula and I mentioned that once previously on the pod. Apparently they were quite blown away that I would mention that.

So I'd love to give them a shout out. And then Canyon River in Missoula, Montana, it's like just outside the city limits, but it's run like a uni super, super fun. It's in the canyon there and you can have all kinds of views of the Clark Fork River stuff really, really good little spot. And it's like was under a hundred bucks last time I checked. So if it's my car, I'm going to give a shout out. There's a guy I know here in New York.

He runs this company, course maps.com. If you're looking for like maps of courses named Sev, he's, he does, he started making these videos of playing public golf in New York city and they're fantastic. It's like, it's almost like our old crash course videos, Randy, and there's 18 public courses in the five boroughs and he's got like content on all of them and kind of goes through like the, Hey, the location's good. You know, the good and the bad of each of them. So you can find him on Instagram course maps. If you're, if you're in that area, it's, it's a good follow.

Love it. Guys, I just wanted to give a shout out to a book that I found kind of in my research of this. I'm going to buy this because I sounds amazing, but John Gerrity, Randy, one of our favorite writers, he, he wrote a book back when he was working for sports illustrate about the worst golf courses in America. We basically just bounced around all throughout the United States and found what were the

dullest. It was not simply the dullest. The criteria for admission is simple. Something about the course has to amuse me. And Diker Beach, Neil, made it onto his... This was before the remodel. But one of the things he said about Diker beach was that, uh, you know, that it was like, uh, an old, uh, rusted out, uh, automobile graveyard essentially. And that's, uh, they used to have like old rusty car

bought. I don't know if that's still true. If you can see any evidence of that, uh, but that was one of the sort of, uh, things, uh, Pelham park. I don't know if you've been there, Neil and the Bronx, apparently multiple dead bodies have been found and dumped on in the Pelham park golf course. I haven't been to Pelham, but I spent a lot of time at Diker beach and I think he's spot on there. I would give Diker some credit. They, the conditioning's gotten better. Like the greens are pretty good, but that place is, is tough. They've got some,

they've got some apathetic starters. Like, you know, guys are just getting overrun. I don't know, man. Can't fight city hall type of vibe, which I don't like. But it has, it does have an old school clubhouse and it's just right there in the center of town. I mean, it's an experience at Diker. Yeah. Also on the list was Ponca Po Golf Club in Massachusetts was actually inspiration for the Rick Riley novel, Missing Links, which is a delightful read. It's just one of my favorite golf books. Yeah. Such a good book.

Anybody who kind of like doesn't really realize what Riley was back in his prime, you know, Sally and I talk a lot about Riley on the deep dive pods. Like that's just such a fun read. And it's like such a, you can tell the person who wrote it like really knows golf. Like there are plenty of corny lines in it, but it's got great characters and great tension in it and stuff. So that's about all I have, boys. I really appreciate you coming on here and talking to everyman golf with me.

We want these meanies to exist, KVV. Yes. We got to celebrate them. Absolutely. And we got to think differently about some of them. That's true. Amen. And we can't... Sometimes in my every man dreams, I think

about just quitting my country club and like just going to, to forest park every day and that someone's someone's really call me on that bluff. I'm sure my, my finances would appreciate it. Cause I look at that bill every month of the country club and I think, Oh my god. It's like, why don't I just pay $33 to walk at forest park every day? I could literally never spend all this money that my country club bill results. So, well, food for thought.

I get you there. Yeah. Well, I think that too, until I have to drive out the Beth page and my tee time gets canceled. So, then I'm like, I got to join a club. I got to, this is, I can't do this anymore, right? I can't do it. They're like, I really appreciate you continuing. No plans to join a club. All right. Thank you boys.