No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1088: Courses We Saw for the First Time in 2025

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Back in February (Ep 958) we set out a list of courses we wanted to see for the first time in 2025.  Now, nearly nine months later, DJ, Soly and TC have regrouped to debrief on the places we were able to check off our list and what stood out on our 2025 travels.  Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Rhoback 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

Be the right club. Be the right club today. I mean, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back.

to the no langa podcast my name is dj we're going to be doing a little a little following up today we did an episode earlier in the year about courses that we wanted to play in 2025 listen the what really kick this off is that the weather has started to really suck around these parts i feel like my new courses list is maybe not entirely closed but it's getting pretty darn close i think i am what i am at this point for 2025 you are what your record says i am what my record says that i am and so i we take a little look at, you know, some new places we saw this year, what we thought, favorites, underrated courses we saw this year and so on. To help me do that, got my guys, who are going to be enjoying some better weather than I am

over the next time. So we're not done. We're not quite done. You guys are not done. That is, of course, solely, Chris Solenberger. Holly, how are you? Stressful morning here, Dej, but, you know, this was a great, a really fun episode in February. Got so much great feedback on it.

got so many great invites. We didn't know what we were spawning when we started this, but it's going to be an annual thing because we got so many great invites. And it was motivating. It was, you know, putting stuff down on paper to go out and look, did I go 100%? Did anyone come close to doing 100%? Absolutely not. That wasn't a specific goal. But I definitely played some golf courses this year because we said out loud, we wanted to do it. And it's easy to get caught up with doing other stuff and knock it out and explore and see a little bit. I didn't do great. I know TC, I think you have a lot to be proud of. as we recap this year.

But it was, I'm glad we did this and I'm glad to revisit it. My guy, that is, of course, going to be our third chair today, TC. My guy gets around. We were sharing some notes. We were saying, you know, how many new courses you got. Everyone's a little sheepish to put their number out there. DC, you did well this year. Yeah, so far.

And we've still got another two months to go in the year and weather's good down here. Didn't knock off a bunch on the actual list that I, like, of places where I called my shot. But I've played about 80 rounds of golf this year and I've played 29 new golf courses. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's about, you know, a little over a 33% clip is new courses, which that feels like a really good place to live in. Data-driven decision. You say it with a smile. That's what makes me happy. It's like, yeah, I did good this year, man. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I put, I put on some pants this morning and the last time I wore these pants, we were at, um, uh, we were at, uh, Cap Rock Ranch.

Oh. And I found a tea in my pocket that said respect to canyon. Well, we're going to be talking about that. I'm sure that trip's going to come up a lot out to Nebraska, but. So I, first of all, uh, who we presented by today. We were presented by our friends at Roebuck. Fall golf is here. And it's not, golf season is not over, especially down here.

But man, those crisp mornings are hitting pretty, not, no, down here, it's not over. Yeah. It's kind of over up here. It looks so gray. I wish I could show you guys what it looks like outside my window. I mean, I think we're between 65 and 78 the next 10 days here. Like I'm bummed to be leaving tomorrow for a couple days. I left my house in three days until I just brought the trash back in.

Oh my gosh, it did a nice day out here. But it's perfect for those hoodies and joggers. I got both of those on right now. Roeback is, of course, our go-to for polos. Hoodies, joggers, pants, all of it, best fit, best feel. It's as simple as that. The Delta pants are our favorite pants. I've got them in every single color that they make.

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when you get them out of the suitcase is a great comfort. The Fulton vest, we're going to talk a little bit about merch later on as well, but I got, I know you're a big Fulton vest guy, and the fleece is what I like, we did a photo shoot earlier this year, or a couple weeks ago.

And I claimed the fleece. I was like Dege where it rocks the fleeces so well. Like I want this one. I don't have a fleece. I'm taking this one with me. You don't know when you're going to wear it. I know. It's been kind of cool.

It's been a nice piece in the mornings to throw on. Great layering piece as well that Fulton vest. And of course the Hezzy hoodie. We wear them almost every single day. They're so soft. There's just no better feeling they're wearing a Roeback hoodie fresh out of the package. So getting into fall. Go to rowback.com.

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let's go, let's get into it. We made reference to a podcast we did earlier this year, kind of calling our shot on courses that we wanted to see. We had a bunch of different buckets. We had kind of like a within an hour bucket. We had day trips, Golden Age, Wildcard, and then a bucket list list

as well. T.C. I'll start with you. How'd you do on your list for 2025? Again, I did pretty well as far as seeing new courses this year. And I saw plenty of courses within each bucket. They just weren't necessarily the courses that I'd picked out. So I've kind of got them bucketed by like, I mean, a lot, most of them are golden age. So got them bucketed by country. Went down to Argentina.

Played five courses down there, Lecumbre, El Poutreio de Loretta, Mardo Plata, Buenos Aires Golf Club. Jockey Club Red. I missed Jockey Club blue down there. That's on me. Yeah. I played some golf in England last month. Played the Berkshire Red, St.

George's Hill and Sunningdale Old. We can talk more about each of those. I played TRI North in New Zealand, along with a couple repeat down there. And then domestically, it just went ham. Sally and I did Camden Country Club and Broom sedge on the front end of a pinehurst trip those two were on your list that was on your day trip list and you check those off accomplished yeah still water uh which is you know kind of a new bobby weed

one down here uh really cool little spot played there um that was that was a priority yeah a lot of ball splitters that was a priority getting to some places here in jacksonville that or you know kind of in northeast florida that uh so and and still still some time to to kind of cross off on some of those I played Oakmont for the first time. That was lovely. One that just knocked my socks off, melted my face off, Camarack up in Greenwich, Connecticut. Played that on our upstate trip. That was incredible, as was Country Cup of Troy, Glens Falls, Figuerlo Field Club, Sunnyside, Part 3.

I played Medina number 3, which was awesome. Mike Cocking is the future guys, and I think the future's here. I think it's just cocking is the future. I think if I remember the phrase right. Played the renovated oak marsh. And then, yeah, played some stuff out in Nebraska. Played Mullen Golf Club. Bayside, Frederick Peak, the horse course at Prairie Club,

which was among the cooler ones of the here. Cap Rock Ranch, got to respect the canyon. And then played Caves Valley, Rolling Road, Brooke Hollow, just a couple weeks ago with you guys. That was awesome. another golden age, Keith, Keith Foster restoration there. And then I played one that's not even open yet, Luling down in, down south of Austin.

And another, that was a Kyle Franz course, and they've got a cocking mead and Ogilvie course going in there as well. So all in like really, yeah, really fruitful year. And I think we're going up next week to play great dunes up on Jekyll. and then I've still Sally I've still got it on my list to get to St. John's whichever one's the good one Golf Club

St. John's Golf Club. I know it's hard for us the C-Suite did not say country club but when everything is St. John's, just don't say country club. St. John's Golf Club is the one that we got. Let's do that before the end of the year. Yeah, let's do that and then yeah, a couple other ones I can knock off down here in this area as well. TC I put a question in here. I don't know if you

took it and ran with it, but any themes to your year, you know, this is kind of always our favorite on like the Trapped Rock Goals podcast, the year of X, the year of Y. I was curious if you, you see any groups, any patterns emerging in your list of courses? Um, yeah, actually, I played a lot of, I'm trying to think, I played a lot of like unexpected stuff. I think the, like, even the Golden Age stuff played a few McKenzie's played, but like the Charles Banks one, the, uh, the phones brother or the you know the phone the two phones right at oakmont um kind of like you know the uh brook hollow the tilly um yeah just just you know and then yeah played some proper ross

canton country club um you know glens falls um but yeah i think just overall it was like the stuff that i set out to play i played some of it and that was spectacular but it was the other stuff that kind of came along on those trips that really knocked my socks off. And then also, I played some great par three courses this year, which like that, that really filled up the tank. I think that was that was a huge dub. Well, that maybe leads into my list because I had, you know, when I was thinking of the themes, I was like, I think my theme this year is, I'm going to call it DJ's big year of little courses. Just all, all as I'm, as I'm spelling all it out, I'm going through my gin, I'm going through my photos, I'm going through,

my, my calendar. I'm just like, where did I actually play this year? Just a lot of short courses. Nine whole courses, big world. Yeah, maybe there are no little courses, just little people. You know, who knows, who knows? But I played, and these are in kind of like no particular order, but Shelter Harbor, not a little course, very, very big course.

We'll talk about that more later. Marion golf course, little Marion, they like to call it up there in Massachusetts. Weakapag, which is a like nine whole course. Club. We'll talk about that one a little bit more. I played the new short course at Lockle Bell that's opening next spring, which is very fun. Royal Port Rush, Royal County Down, Castle Rock. Saw those in the Northern Ireland video. I played the sandbox for the first time. That's a little course. You can watch that one on our YouTube video, YouTube channel. By the way, it's crazy you hadn't previously played the sandbox. The only other couple times I'd been to San Valley

were like either in and out or day trips or I was there on the, you know, when we played 10 courses in two days didn't really have a lot of extra time on that trip the fact that you didn't play the sandbox when you were trying to play 10 courses it wasn't that would have been cheap it wasn't in the top 100 yeah maybe it should be in the top 100 it might if the top 100 hardest for sure i played the commons or or at least most of the commons which is the 12 whole course it's opening at sand valley next year i played spring valley golf club look that one up if you want uh central Wisconsin. I kind of got a lot to say about that one. Maybe we could get to it later. I played Angel Park with Casey out in Las Vegas, played Shoot Park, which was on my list as a place

I wanted to get to. A little nine hole course down in Racine, right by the lake. Made a little Instagram video about that one. We'll talk more about that. And then TC, I had a lot of these. I didn't play these courses, but weirdly, like when you're filming on a lot of these trips, you end up getting just as good of a sense of the golf course. I feel. like because I'm watching you guys hit shots and trying to set up shots and whatever. So Bayside, Mullen Golf Club, Wild Horse, Frederick Peak, Caprock, Prairie Club, the horse course you mentioned. And then I'll also shout out the one hole at Jim Nance's house.

I'm going to count that as a short course as well and a new course that I saw. I did shake a ball. It was a foam ball, luckily, off of his roof, maybe more than once, if I'm remembering right, it was battling a pretty decent little case of the shanks there. But yeah, shout out to him for having us out there. So I'm going to call it, yeah, my big year of little courses. But, Sally, what about you? Well, as I said, I went to my, to Nancy's house several years ago with my dad.

And he was the first one to start hitting balls off the, you know, I didn't know they were foam balls yet. And my dad hits like a swooping draw, even with wedges. I mean, he's aiming at windows of Jim's house and just hitting these sweeping draw. And they're not hitting the house, but I'm freaking out. I'm like, oh, my God, dad, you're going to break one of his windows. And then find out they were foam balls was a nice relief. But I did okay.

on my list dege um you know i wanted to the courses that wanted to play within an hour were oak marsh the die course at white oak forest and still water we got to oak marsh we did a little video there we got to still water as well i was supposed to play ocean forest next week i don't think it's going to end up working out um so i almost got three out of the four there really was throwing out the line of the die course at white oak for somebody to to you know that's one that you don't get that without a really special invite i'll just echo that one if someone can has a way in for that one. I would like to check it out at some point.

We talked about that one in detail back in February. We were like, what, 200 people have ever played that? Ever played it? It's not great. Yeah. Day trips, we wanted to go to the park, Congaree, tree farm, and Colusa Pines. We made it to the tree farm.

Maybe make it to the park here somewhat soon. We got to get that one kind of squared away, but Congare and Colusipines were not close to happening. Golden Age, I wanted Seminole, National Golf Links, and Swinley. I don't think I knew Seminole was under construction when I put Seminole on the list. I wasn't going to get there anyways. Swinley Forest did not make it over to England this year. But I did play national golf links this year.

That was number one on my bucket list. You actually said that exact same thing in February when I put this on my list, T.C. So I just listed back to that one. Got to check off the number one on my bucket list course. Didn't get to Holland or England, as mentioned. Also played Oakmont. That was one of the top five on my bucket list. Having played it, I don't think it.

I would put it on my top five of golf courses. I had quite a challenging experience there, and it's definitely a lot more hard than it is fun. But that one, we conquered. Camden Country Club of TC, Broomsege. These were not on the list, but new courses we experienced. I know you'd mentioned you wanted to play Broom Sedge, T.C. And we rocked that one.

That was one we could talk about a little later. Pinehurst 10. Kind of forgot we played Pinehurst 10 this year. And I feel like I need to go play that one again and just like fully digest that addition into the, the Pinehurst portfolio. I think our immediate takeaway was like, that's clearly the second best course at Pinehurst already.

And we feel like we haven't really talked about that one that much. Loclebelle, Blue Mountain, and Brown Deer, which was featured in the Milwaukee video. That was a great stretch of golf. I'm putting Oak Marsh on the new courses list, T.C., because that was a brand new freaking course that we saw and kind of talked about several months ago. Also played Southampton when I went up to Long Island.

That was one I always wanted to play. right next to Shennecock there and had a great time there. I played Edgewood Country Club in West Virginia. That was the four-ball qualifier video we shot. And then the Brooke Hollow in Dallas. That was, man, that one, I've never played golf like that in Dallas. The firm fast conditions as pure of a golf course, Keith Foster renovation that they did there was excellent, excellent. I was kind of blown away by that place.

That was one of the highlight rounds. I'm putting Hyde Park on my new courses played in 2020. because that experience a few weeks ago was very different than the experience I've ever had at that golf course in terms of condition and playability. And so that was a brand new experience at Hyde Park. So that's going on my list, too. Man. Yeah. For those that are not familiar, we've talked about Hyde Park a lot.

Some of the greatest bones in the history of bones, I think, T.C. Would you, I'm sure you would agree. Yeah. Now the skin and the hair and some of the soft tissues growing back as well. It's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a legitimately great golf course. I love, I love that place. And it's, it's, it's in better shape than I've seen it. Since I moved to Jacksonville.

Yeah. It's only going to keep getting better in all like that. It's such a good routing. We'll see more of that in March is, uh, is our little tease there. Uh, anything on the, uh, TCL, start with you on the, the big, like the ones that got away. The foul tips. Oh, yeah. That happened.

Uh, yeah. Well, first of all, another one that, that, that I think we're going to, I think we're going to knock it off here in a few weeks. The temple and the spear. I didn't know if you wanted to break that news or not, but yeah. So may get down there. Another one. These are, of course, the TGL holes, the theoretical holes.

We kind of had it licked, and then the dates just didn't work out. They're having their, their member guest was Scottsdale National playing the bad little nine in the other course. The guys from Jackson Con Design reached out and they were like, hey, we'd love to have you. And they're having their member guests down there this coming week and wasn't going to be able to extend the trip long enough to take advantage of that. Had to get home and pitch in on the home front. So I think the one that really I was going to go to Leeds in Northern England in May. And I ended up going up to tree farm, like a solo trip up to tree farm for three days instead because the weather forecast was just so bad.

Like they were getting just their big storm kind of for the spring. It had been like awesome weather in the UK up until then. And then I just kind of had the wrong week picked out. So I really want to do that. I really want to go see a lot of that McKenzie stuff, the Moretown, Allwoodley, you know, just that. that, like, there's 10, 15 courses I want to see up in that, that area. But that's kind of the one that got away on the international side. And then I'm trying to think.

I was down in New Zealand and I really wanted to figure out a way to get to para para umu or however you pronounce it, a, um, advance mea culpa on that one. But, uh, I feel like you put this on in February and you licked the pronunciation. You had it. And now I feel like you're not as confident in it. Yeah. You have it down. See, just go for it.

Hit the hole. You're going to get cancer again. Yeah. Yeah. Well, either way, I want to see that place. It's just, you know, you got to fly down to Wellington from Auckland and go see that. So that'll be, that'll be firmly on my 2026 list once we start crafting that out. I had a couple on the, within an hour, just not getting to Eagle Springs is inexcusable.

You were so excited about that one in February. That was one. I had, I had it on the calendar and had to scrap it for at the last minute for something. something else pine hills country club is another one up near sheboygan that like is just so easy many many many people have reached out thank you to all of you who have and it's just inexcusable that it hasn't happened uh monacoa country club's another one i just don't make it up there but uh had some very fine people reach out there so we'll we'll make some of this other wisconsin stuff happen tc i was glad you got to medina number three gonna definitely beat up our guy roger rachel

for a little scholarship package there maybe have him take me out there next time he's uh if he's ever home for more than 24 hours at a time uh maybe get out there with him but that place looks awesome and i can't wait to see what they have have done especially ahead of the president's cup it's really good it's uh it just some slight of hand from from ocm it just kind of keeps you off balance it'll be a really good match play venue i'd never seen it prior like i'd never seen it And looking across at some of the other courses there, one and two, those look like remarkably fun. And I was really impressed by that place because it's three courses, big, big club, massive clubhouse and all that. It didn't feel like a factory. Like there was a cool sense of

camaraderie and just a cool social element to it where I feel like everybody knew each other in the best way. It seemed to be on a great path. You know, work Doca's done there and now this, like it, Dinah 3 was just, it was just dull. like it was just kind of falling into a lot of the traps a lot of like top I'm using air quotes here American clubs have fallen into

over the last several decades and like they got they pulled themselves out you don't want to go the Hazeltine route man they just thoughtful you don't want to do it especially growing up like whatever 45 minutes or an hour from there the amount of times in my childhood

that I just heard like oh man Medina number it's like way do you get out there way do you see how hard it is you're going to love it just like that doesn't No, thanks. Yeah, I think I'm all right, probably. But didn't scratch off any of the bucket list five, although I will say Cypress Point was on that

and got to walk it about 12 times during the- Which might have been better. In the Walker Cup, which might have been better. So, yeah, I'm counting that as a quarter point, not even a half point, but a quarter point towards. I would say a half point. You'd say half point. I mean, yeah, that was, we got to walk it in peak condition, too.

Like, at absolute and watch other people hit the shots that were required out there. I mean, that was that, I had a, I feel like I had a better experience walking it during the Walker Cup than even I had playing it. That was a top three golf experience I've ever had. But, yeah, I would put, I would put hanging out there for two days during the Walker Cup above having played it a couple times. Well, let's, let's keep moving down the list here, because we're going to try to keep this one moving. But Sally, I'll start with you, favorite new course you saw this year and why. If I can quickly do the, the, what got away from me. I had, I had Garden City on the hook, um, on my trip up to,

to Long Island and, um, good husband, very, very good husband and dad of changed my flight back a day because of, um, some, some pending illnesses going on there. Also, I just sent a cock on the hook. I've played that one before, but had that one on the hook and lost it, but, uh, listen, whatever. Uh, favorite new course? Is that what you asked, Dege? That is. Felt like I was overreacting in the moment and I've been trying to give it time since we were up there in March. You see Broom said. I'm not. I'm going to say Broom said. I'm I'm going to say Broom Sedge, man. Wow.

It was so freaking cool. And again, like, National Golf Links met the expectation. Like, I'm not saying BroomSedge is a better golf course than the national golf links. But it was, I feel like we saw it in a, in a, in not its final form. And it just had so freaking much of what I love about a golf experience. The walk was fantastic. Can you set the table a little bit? Where are we?

What are we talking about here? This is what near Columbia, T.C. Is that how you would describe? Yeah, probably 20, probably half an hour north of Columbia. So there's this kind of whole entire area and strip of kind of sandy soil where you're seeing so many of these golf courses pop up. We have tree farm, you have old barn well, there's T.C. can speak this. There's 21 club is somewhat in the region.

I'm not the best of geography in this area, but it's north, just a little bit northeast of Columbia. And we saw this on the same day we played Camden. Is that right? We're about 20 minutes down the road from that. But it is, if you've seen pictures on Instagram, it's the place that has the, the sedge broomsticks, like kind of, you know, the really cool, unique, you know, flag sticks that you'll see on the greens. And just a really impressive, vast open property, really wide fairways, yet has so much, like, kind of old school character within some of these corridors and the trees that they did leave in there just kind of set this really, really fun scene of. a ton of playing with,

but it narrows up at the greens into really precise shots. Like you just have to be, it's welcoming, the challenge is really good. And then you get to this 11th hole and it's just like one of the coolest par threes I think I've played this year of just sits perched into this hill,

really short, maybe 110, 118 yards, something in that range with cavernous, massive super penal bunkers. And I just, the way the bunkers cut into the greens was just so visually striking. and the attention to detail around all the bunkers

and how they're not all straight edge. They just have so much character. There's so much character for a brand new golf course, I think. And there's no clubhouse yet, at least as we were there. And just the depth of holes. We had to skip a couple of holes.

And I was like kind of, you know, I was sad to have done that because the experience was just was really that good. And I have not stopped thinking about that golf course. It was just very, very cool. Solly, the one there, I can't stop thinking about seven. Oh, that par four. That again, I can't,

I didn't even want to bring that one up. I don't know how to describe that and do it justice for how good that golf hole was. But like I blew it way right and it's hard to describe how toast I was. It's kind of like three at Tamaquana with like the dog, like right par par four. And you just got to be in position to hit a really tough green to hit. And like I could hit towards the green, but it was really hard to get anywhere near the hole from that. So like you need to play up the left and chart your way onto the, that's kind of like a Donald Ross-ish perched up green that one. And that hole was so good.

And then it leads right into eight, which is like. like probably the most dramatic par three on the course this 260 downhill to this massive massive green kind of reminded me of eight at old macdonald without the beirits just kind of like the setting of the shot you're hitting there and i was just so tickled around that stretch too because six is a cool par five too back towards the water like that little stretch in the middle uh of brumstead was such a memorable experience the uh yeah i think just generally speaking the that's the closest thing i've seen to the postage stamp that that that's that little part three they described, and then just, yeah, the way it dances up and over that, that ridge multiple

times is crazy good. My little, you were there, TC, my little carried away on this place. I just, I just need, I think I need a heat check on it. I think it's awesome. I think, um, I'll be curious to know, like, over the next five, 10 years, there's a lot of eye candy out there that they're going to have to take care of, uh, be curious to see kind of how, which bunkers stay, stay maintained. which ones don't.

They were still finishing off some of the stuff along that, that, you know, kind of bunker face on one of the par fives. Yeah, I'll just, I'll be really curious to see how it develops. I saw last week or a couple weeks ago, they just announced plans for a clubhouse and a halfway house, which is really cool, but really appreciated the place. I think the head probe there, awesome guy. And just a generally, like, just a good feeling when you stepped on property.

So I'm really excited to see what they build up there. Why don't I go next? Because I had a kind of similar surprise on mine. Of course, Roe County Down, Royal Port Rush, those are probably the coolest, the best courses I played that were new this year. We talked about those a lot on other podcasts and on our Northern Ireland podcast that we did. But I'm going to give this one to Shelter Harbor, which is, of course, that Neil and I played during our vaunted influencer tour. you can watch that on YouTube and I think similarly Sali

and the reason I'm jumping in next is like I think it was yeah it was just a similar experience where Neil's like hey we're going to play Shelter Harbor I'm like great I don't know what that is I don't know where we're going I don't know anything about it I'm going in as a complete blank slate and I just really loved it

it's Charlestown Rhode Island it's a herzded and fry golf course kind of close to the water but not on the water feels like you're at at the ocean but you're not on the ocean. It was like that makes for a cool dynamic. We kept talking about it in the video, but the limbed up red oaks almost felt like you were on some sort of like

Savannah or something. I've just never seen trees limbed up that way, like really tall trees that are completely limed up and just look almost like something out of Dr. Seuss or something. It's just really, really cool. And it's just this modern, I don't know, it's a part of the country where it feels like all the golf courses are 100 years old,

which is great. And there's a ton of charm. that. And so I think it's very impressive to drop a modern course into that that also feels like it fits. And that's how Shelter Harbor felt to me as big, brawny piece of land, but also just a very fun walk through a lot of very neat land. I love seeing some, I'm not the biggest architecture guy in the world, but connectivity between two courses that you really like. Aaron Hills is a course that I really love that Herzden and Fry did. And this land is on its face, absolutely nothing like Aaron Hills until you start kind of like zooming in and looking a little closer

and a little closer and you're like a lot of these like it's very rocky but a lot of these kind of short severe hills are kind of a little bit like the you know kind of glacial land that Aaron Hills sits on and there's a lot of marsh that they had to kind of figure out it's not like a real link style sort of thing and it's just it shows up in like specific shots Neil and I were talking about where you know one of the things I I'm not a great chipper of the golf ball and so I love that's why I love playing overseas and I love being able to keep it on the ground and bump three woods and eight irons and kind of hit these little like scooting shots and I was just laughing about it. I was like man, there's two courses in the United States that I played a ton of like

three wood bumps around the greens this year. And it's Aaron Hills and it's Shelter Harbor. And those two courses were done by the same design teams, same construction teams. And like that's just a very fun kind of calling card. And it speaks to how they built their greens and how they maintain them and just a lot of little things like that only saw it once would love to go back shout to our host tom goldberg was a great great host uh it was sight of one of my favorite moments of the year where neil and i were driving around past the range and from a we've mentioned this in the video but from a long long long ways away neal sees this one guy hitting balls on the range from probably three for like 200 yards away and neal just like flippantly just pulls out

of the eight billion people on the planet just pulls one guy off of his head he goes who's that Allen. And we drove by and it was Ray Allen. It was crazy. It was crazy that that happened. And so it was just a really fun day, really cool golf course. Very glad I got to see it. One that'll stick with me for a while. But TC, what do you got? Favorite, favorite new course you saw this year? It's got to be sunny and old. I texted Sally right afterwards. I was like, yeah, that'd be the best we've ever seen. Yeah. I've played with three, three, their younger members that, I'm, I've been. I got linked up with just, you know, just sent me a DM and said, hey, would you want to come out? And true gentlemen of the game, like awesome hospitality.

Every hole. I mean, like, I just, I love the Heathland style golf. And it just speaks to me. And I mean, every hole was was a banger. I guess Gill's, Gil's going to do some work there. The short par fours were incredible. the little halfway house was maybe my favorite in the world

just everything about it I loved it and I need to get back and play it and play the new course as well which sounds delightful too but yeah it's just like it's emblematic and kind of synthesizes everything I love about Heathland stuff and just makes me want to go

play Heathland golf two or three times a year like we need a direct flight from Jacks to lunch and because I am going to beat that thing up. The moment I always go back to because, you know, we talked about this with Port Rush and Royal County Down and stuff. It's like, oh, yeah, I know that's like Sondingdale. Yeah, one of the world's great golf courses. You know, I couldn't tell you a bunch about like the holes or the specifics

or what's there or whatever. But I just remember so vividly flipping on the Curtis Cup a couple years ago. And as soon as it came on TV, just being like, holy shit, what is, what is that play? Oh, that, of course, that's Sunningdale. And it just knocked my socks off, just even like being able to watch it on TV. And I'm sure in person it's, you know, 10 times better. And then you get done and you have lunch on the patio there. And then you get these two, I think it's two trees.

It's like the English version of Augusta, basically, with even more striking and more stunning and more sense of place there. It's their logo. That big massive tree is their logo, yeah. So I think it's actually two trees. right there and then there's dogs running around everywhere it's just everything that i love about golf in the uk and you're here like you know the number one course or you know probably the best 36 whole facility in the world and and sure enough like you know it's it's either that or real melbourne and sure enough you're just standing there and it and it it still embodies all the stuff you love

about golf in the UK with the dogs and it's just awesome the best and just the way that the way those golf holes sit on the land and the way the green sit again i wish i had a better way to describe just why that's so inspiring and so fun like it just back when the golf courses were really designed around the land being the obstacle that you that you need to conquer it it's it to me is always the most fun style of play and it's it's so firm it's so fast as all these elements of lynx golf without getting beat up by the wind uh and it it's just like marries up classic what we would consider classic american golf versus like british style links into one beautiful the best features of both parts of those exist at like sunningdale it's just the

best i think ruling par three is too i think when we start our our twenty six uh planning list here or wish list or whatever we want to call it i it's just become so clear to me that my biggest it's my my biggest uh blind spot in my golf uh playing career here is like i just haven't played any of those golf courses and i think it's it's weird because it's a you know small facsimile of it, but playing Sedg Valley at Sand Valley, which is like, you know, kind of the one course in my like orbit here that's based on those types of golf courses was one of the most fun experiences I've had in the last couple years. And it just, yeah, there's kind of no real excuse not to get over there and see a lot of those. Dej, I would almost describe it as you said

haven't played those golf courses. I would describe it more broadly and like you have not experienced that style of golf. Yeah. It's a whole different genre, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's almost like you could you could throw me on any of those courses and just have so much fun it wouldn't matter what course you landed on over there you would just love that style so much indeed you would like st george's hill is awesome and like some of the holes that i can't stop thinking about are out there but i think like the barksher red you'd be like okay this is like i could play this place every day for the rest of my life and it's not going to beat you up you're playing offense you're pinning your ears back but there's enough there to really keep you honest as well and And it's like one of the better walks in golf. And there's dogs. I mean, that's, you've made the sale already,

but that's, that's just going to be this signing bonus there. Yeah, I'm, I'm in. This is sold. That sounds great. So I'll go back to the top of the order.

Biggest, uh, or most pleasant surprise, we'll call it that of the year. I might surprise you with this one, Dege, but I am going to say brown deer. Yeah.

Hello world. I thought that was just like, you know, again, a golf course, I would say that you would set out on a list of like, I need to see this course in my life. But it was if I lived in Milwaukee, and especially if I, like, if I had that in Chicago when I lived in Chicago when I was 25 years old and I was becoming re-obsessed with golf and just like hating, paying $90 to play very below average golf. If I had like a place

like Brown Deer, which you tell me, what does it cost to walk that golf course on a, on a weekday or weekend 40 bucks under 50 dollars and it is just a I described it like this you know it's just a great place to play golf like there's golf courses you go to experience and you experience the but I know exactly you know what I mean like if you're obsessed with golf like you don't go to brown deer and like a geek out over the architecture and the holes you're just like you're playing golf you're just really excited to play golf and the holes are fun they're good they're solid it's in great shape and it's very fun to play but like you're just there you're there to play golf right and it's it's a great walk a really fun flow of holes it's not like just dull par fours on repeat i think a lot of

you know i don't like a lot of like really affordable public golf courses can kind of go a particularly dull route for what i'm saying of just like you know you're trying to turn people in and out and like maintenance and design kind of fall off to the side when you're trying to become a fact it didn't feel like a factory just felt like somebody really gave a shit about um about the craft about maintaining it about everyone having a really good experience there and i had so much fun and i just kept thinking i would literally play that course every single weekend if i was the 25 year old living in milwaukee uh and and had the free time to do it because it's just a great place to go play golf i love it that warms the heart there's a lot of people that do exactly

that uh scott willecie is the the head pro does an awesome job uh lots of lots of lesson programs and and kind of like it's just a every time them out there, man. I'm just like, man, this is a community asset. Community good. You know, there's just so... The rarity of that speaks to, like, how kind of pleasantly surprised I was by all of it, you know? Yeah. God, I love it. I love it. It's a, it's an awesome. And not having that really here. I mean, we have Jack's Beach, which is, you know, we've, we've talked a ton about and it's, and it's a different category. I don't know how to describe why it's, it's so different, but it's, uh, of course. It's, it's better. Yeah, it really is better. And I think

host PJ tour event like that's the level of golf course that you get to go play for under 50 bucks there meets the threshold yeah of yeah and I think I've I've thought a lot about why it hosted a PJ tour event because it's on its face it's it's it's nothing crazy right it looks like it looks pretty I don't say pretty blah but I mean it's it's pretty if you put Bryce and DeChambo out there right now you'd shoot about 38 right like it's it's not a hard place to solve until you get to like the greens are very small very pitched and if there's a lot of spots where I forget second green second hole yeah like I'm trying to be like yo I know this sounds like a

cliche but like you got to be below the hole like if you chip it a foot into the rough above the hole you're going to make a six like it you cannot stop it close to the hole and it's just a very fun little hallmark of public golf which is like small pretty pretty firm greens that you have no chance of chipping it close to the hole is where I go out there every time and I'm like this place is so fucking easy. How do I keep shooting 85? This is not should not be that hard. And it's just because it's it's almost got a little bit of like Pebble Beach syndrome, you know? Hyde Park's got that a little bit too. Yeah. Like good luck man. Like hit it because it's it's always this thing where you like beat yourself up all day like man, I miss that green. I miss that green. I

miss that green. It's like well you only missed it by like 40 feet. You know, it's just the greens. are really small. And so that kind of gets in your head and then you start pressing and it's just, I don't know, man, it's just a fun test. And it's always fun to think about Cory Pavin shooting like 28 on the front front line or whatever it was. You just asked him about this. Yes, Helen, I just

talked to him about that. It's great. You go to the house, there's pictures of Bovan Pelt and like Lauren Coglin, what is a Symmetro event out there? It's just, it's great. I think it just goes to show you how important greens are, because I'm looking back at my list and like nearly every course that I really loved had great greens.

And it doesn't matter what like Mardal Plata and one of the other ones down in Argentina or the sunny side par three up in, you know, upstate New York, like great pitch back to front greens that just made you think. The horse course had great greens with a ton of slope in them. Slope is good. Slope is interesting. Slope is what differentiates between a good and a great shot

or a bad and a good shot. Whereas I think there's just way too many instances over the last 30, 40, 50 years that they just stopped putting enough slope in greens. Yeah. You get back to that. I feel like we are. T.C., what was your biggest pleasant surprise?

Oh, I'm kind of going back and forth here because it's almost like to be a surprise, you don't have to, like, you can't really have huge expectations. So, gosh, I think it's, I think it's Lecumbre, the first, first course I played down in Argentina. Just the place with like the 68-yard part three. Yeah, yeah. And I had some expectations.

We drove out of our way to get to it. And I mean, I don't know what it measures from the tips, probably. I mean, they've had the, you know, they had the, the Argentine open down there at various. points but i mean it can't be more than 5500 yards from the tips and uh it's like it just sits up on like kind of up in the mountains it almost feels a little bit like you're up in in ohai or santa barbara uh kind of up in the in the in the valley there it's 6,000 7 yards the tips par 70 tiny greens great little short par fours dramatic piece of land it feels like Southern California, as far as, and just, you know, cool trees and truly a members club.

You know, there's, it's kind of a lot of people from BA have vacation homes up in this area. And then there's plenty of locals as well. They were having a big, big tournament to honor a lady who had passed away. And like, it was like her kind of memorial golf tournament that day. And just a great club and cool little clubhouse. Yeah, Ivesenzo made a 12 on the 66-yard par 312th during a tournament there. So I loved it. It was just a just a delightful little walk.

Everything that I love about golf, and it doesn't have to be 7,500-yard course. It's a 6,000-yard course, and there were plenty of kids out there as well. I would shout out on our YouTube channel, the Argentina video that you and Cody and Ben and Wolfie made earlier this year. If you haven't watched that, go check it out. It's basically like a, you know, very, very souped up episode of tourist sauce spanning a bunch of Argentinian golf.

It's, it's awesome. One of my favorites that we did this year in Lecumbre, obviously shines in there. It makes me very jealous that I was not on that trip. But I'll continue to be the Wisconsin homer here. And on my most pleasant surprise, I'll talk about Shoup Park. And the big reason I want to talk about it, it's a nine hole course down on Lake Michigan in Racine, just south of Milwaukee. the big reason I want to talk about it is that I think it's about to undergo a pretty substantial renovation by the Kaiser's there's a they're kind of in their one year like fact-finding

feasibility study period right now and it is an unbelievably awesome piece of land it's tucked back in this little this little windpoint neighborhood right by this lighthouse in just I guess north of Racine and yeah it sits right in the lake it's got these unbelievable coastal views that are all kind of a little grown over just with like scrub and brush and it's got really cool holes two different parts of the land you you uh you cross a road which i know you guys always love uh and it sounds like the kisers are going to come in and hopefully revamp it into this slightly different 12 hole routing uh that man if they get that dialed and they get some resources pumped into it they're going to probably build a the clubhouse that's

there is awesome, and it looks straight out of a, uh, you know, your favorite golf Instagrammers, uh, aesthetic. Like it's, it's really cool, very old looking, very classic like little muny clubhouse. Uh, but if they put just a little bit of infrastructure in there, uh, that is going to be like a main stopping point between landing in Chicago, driving up to Milwaukee to go to Aaron Hills or Whistling Straits or Sand Valley or whatever. It's like, textbook for hopping off a plane playing 12 short holes looking at the lake having some tacos like or brots or whatever it's just it's such an awesome piece of land and uh i'm so glad i got to go see it i need to go down there with justine i think she would absolutely love it easy walk

short course cheap i think it's 12 dollars or something to go play i mean it's like it's fucking it might get too big it might get too big that's i think some of the uh some of the concerns of the neighborhood there but yeah shout out to our guy jason yonkey brought me out there that's where he grew up and learned how to play golf so i got i had a great day with him and his brother grant out there but uh guys we kind of land the plane here anything else in the in the notebook anything else you want to expand on tc i got to think there's some directions we could go here yeah oh a i i know i'm going to get roasted by some of the other people in england of just like wait you know sunningdale this posh hyper exclusive place it represents everything that you love about english

golf i get i get i get all that as well from the actual course yeah and and the guys i played with were freaking awesome like the best of that club but um but i think that that's almost like representative of just the other places i've played over there of i've played new zealand i've played woking i've played and then on the street Barkshire and St. George's Hill and it just rolled everything I loved about each of those courses kind of into one thing. Sally, I even stopped thinking about the fourth

hole at St. George's Hill since I played it. I haven't played that golf course in six years and I immediately I know exactly what the fourth hole is. That's such an endorsement of a golf course of like when the holes stand out so boldly.

I mean, play with great great hosts there. Club general manager who's about to shepherd him through a big, big restoration with Brian Schneider. Like, that place is a show of what it's going to be here in the next five years. Is it the 10th or 11th? I think the 11th holes of par three that they're going to. It feels like Pine Valley back in there. And then, yeah, like the barcks are like, I need to get back there and play the blue course as well.

But, Dej, I think, you know, I go back to like holes that I, that I haven't something about. the 11th hole at Mr. Belting's place Payside Part 5 God, I'm so excited for the Nebraska video to come out That is like, that's going to be an all-timer man But yeah, the part 5

TC's video might have just cut out He might have just Mr. Belting's calling him to the principal's office Yeah, he's not supposed to be streaming during school I don't know if TZ can still hear us or not But the 11th, the par five is like We always joke about this it's become like a very fun joke of the list of true par fives like par fives are going extinct

all around the world all around the country uh there's only a few par fives left and the 11th at bayside is is one of them it's like what was it tc 1200 yards or something it's like just like death on both sides uh pitched kind of like fairway that like almost like pyramids up in the middle and then just runs off to both sides i that was the perfect example of water i'm like dude i don't need to play this whole i'll watch you guys play this And then you almost made a birdie. You, like, lipped out for birdie. Yeah.

Unbelievable. Yeah, it was incredible. Just, yeah, like, truly like knife said just the closer you get to the green there. But yeah, that place just, and like that, that's such, that's a trip that, like, I think Neil liked Wild Horse more than he likes Sandhills. That's a trip that people can take. You can go play Bayside and Pelican Beach and Frederick Peak and, and Wild Horse and Prairie Club. Like, the horse course of Prairie Club was freaking awesome.

Like, that's, that's my favorite. thing even more so than the Argentina stuff. That's my favorite thing we filmed this year. It's not out yet. I can't not wait for people to see it. But it's just that represents the best of golf in America, in my opinion. Even like at a course like Caprock, you expect all the stuff along the canyon to be really good. You got to respect the canyon. That stuff is awesome. But the stuff away from the canyon was just as good as well. And, you know, Gil and Jim did an awesome job there. Yeah, God, Nebraska, man. It gets my, gets my juices full.

Nebraska and London, those might be the headquarters of golf. Developers. I think Sandhills is going to be my number one on the bucket list now of the just, it's time to, time to address this. I just don't remember anything that could be more your shit. Well, you said this, it's funny, you said that to Neil. This was on Neil's bucket list. Yeah.

Neil loved it. Don't get me wrong. He just, like, wild horse is just that good. Yeah. Yeah. And he didn't like it. getting his ass beat, I think, as well, from what I heard. Spoilers.

I was just going to say, Neil was not, is not able to record today. He was with us on the new courses we wanted to see in 2025. He listed a lot of, I think he listed more courses than T.C. Actually, it's pretty close. It was a very, very lengthy list. He is reporting. I asked him for a report on what he was able to check off. He picked off Sandhills, Sywinoy, Terry Eadie, and Maidstone.

are the four Pooning the hampton That he played Didn't get to Spring Lake Hollywood Garden City Prairie Dunes Crystal Downs Gamble Sands

Cabot St. Lucia Teeth the Dog Banff Eastward Ho Old Head Lawsonia St. George Locian Club Northwood

Kenyatta by Terry Hot in Lederra Orly Terry Hot Don't like Terry Hot shirts

God we might need to All right Last thing I Not caniata wrong through on this. Last thing I had was Weika Pog, which we also played in our influencer tour video. The only thing I wanted to say about this one is just we need to normalize nine whole clubs. I think the idea of a, you know, not that more places need to be private, but if you're looking for a place, I just thought the nine whole private club vibe was very interesting.

It was a ton of couples. it was a ton of like hey we love golf but not necessarily like a go out with the boys for 14 hours type of spot like pop in play nine holes have lunch get out i'm like man that describes uh what my golf life is looking for right there and so our we had a great day out there will farnsworth superintendent took us out uh awesome guy doing a bunch of great stuff out of that golf course and i just that concept of nine hole clubs was something that i'm like man there's There's just not a ton of those. And I really love that vibe and that idea.

But it's all, anything else from you? I do want to give a shout out to what we got going on the pro shop. We did, like I mentioned, we did a little photo shoot when we were out in Frisco and like just got me super checked up about all the things rolling into the pro shop. You can go to store. Dot no laying up.com. See all the new arrivals as well. I know the merch czar is running some Black Friday, Cyber Monday special.

He's going ham. He's going to absolutely. NEST members already. Your nest member discount has gone from 15% to 25% off of everything in the store. I believe that's between now and the end of Cyber Monday, which is December 1st. There's a limited inventory on things like the H&B and Roebatt collections, the new head covers, accessories, and more. So get in there early. Take advantage of your early access sooner rather than later and get shopping.

Again, there's a lot of great, great stuff in there. And the discount is massive. Hats are definitely back. Good stuff in there. I was crazy everything we pulled out of those boxes to take photos. I was like, God, I want to keep this. Yeah, I want to keep this first. Maybe not the first time, but it was up there.

I'm kind of like, I don't know, man. You taking this one or am I taking it? We're both more in large. I'll take it if you don't want it. Yeah, it's the ultimate compliment. But guys, this is a blast. I love, I love recounting it. I love hearing what everybody got to go out and see.

I think we got to get a lot of these on video too, which is great. So another push to head to the YouTube channel. We've still got a lot more coming out. year so go check that out and otherwise guys we will uh we'll catch everybody next time cheers crack on