No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 864 - Recent Scotland Travels: The Old Course Reversed, Royal Troon and places in between

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Soly and DJ are joined by Tron calling in from vacation to relive our recent trip to Scotland where we played Royal Troon, The Old Course in both reverse and traditional routings, several of the other offerings in St. Andrews and a number of other courses as well. 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 NLU Pro Shop Special: Use code HEAT for 20% off any polo if you buy two hats. Add all products to your cart before using the code (offer ends 7/7/24) Support our partners: Rhoback fanduel.com/nlu  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the right club today. Better than most. Better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Noah Lang podcast. Solly here. Got my guy DJ Pye. Hello, DJ Pye. Greetings, guys. Happy to be with you. What a topic. What a day to talk about it. I'm just I'm buzzing guys. I'm chuffed. Can't wait.

TC is so excited to talk about Scotland Golf. He's calling in from his vacation, work-cation. I don't know exactly what it is. Where are you calling in from, TC? Calling in from the palace here in Copenhagen. We're in this outrageous Airbnb right next to the Royal Palace. And yeah, vacation right now. And then it'll turn into a work-cation probably next week.

There's some podcast topics that are relaxing to talk about, you know? This isn't a stressful one. This is kind of an extension of the vacation. Well, plus you can sit, you know, you're in Copenhagen. You can, and then like, you can, you know, you don't have to take a PTO day today. Like you're doing work today.

Like there's no, you can send that over to Neil. I'll send that over to Neil. I'll send that over to Neil on your behalf. Update that in work day. Shout out to our friends at Row Back. You all know Row Back. Best fit, best feel this summer. We are living in to our friends at row back you all know row back best fit best feel this summer we are living in it you all know you already know we think they

have the best polos and hoodies on the market but their everyday shorts are the most versatile shorts on the market they are essential here in Jacksonville Beach during a very hot day in the summer they got an elastic waistband you trying to show off the shorts was that what that was please I'm not trying I think I successfully showed off a less elastic waistband for extra comfort and fabric ready for any activity.

They got a clean look. You can wear them with an untucked polo or a workout tee. They're incredible. We always tell you about how comfortable the rowback polos are, but the designs are what make these the best polos on the market.

They're fresh off our releases. Some really fun golf prints that are a play on words. And if you're a golfer, these are for you and beyond the hoodies and cue zips, the crew necks. They might be our new favorite item. The fabric is buttery soft, it has perfect stretch, can be dressed up or dressed down.

We wear them over polos for a nice look or with joggers for a relaxed fit. And once you feel the fabric, you will understand what we're talking about. If you haven't already, time to load up on some Roeback, both for yourself and for others. Use code NLU at Roeback.com for a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week.

That's r-h-o-b-a-c-k dot com 20% off bottoms q-zips hoodies and more with code nlu summer isn't the same without rowback. All right guys today's episode is gonna be about Scotland golf. It's not gonna be about the entirety of golf in Scotland That would be about a 12-part series, but we have you know a bunch of it We've taken a bunch of trips to Scotland in the past, but we had one pop up this past spring. We can talk a little bit about how that all came together. We kind of, or Dej, why don't you tell us a little bit about how it came together?

What the real core of this trip was, what else we tacked onto it? Yeah, the core of it was the chance to play the old course in reverse, which is a concept pretty wild and heady to unpack and think about. It's something we'll probably get to a little later in this episode, but the crux of it is everybody knows the counterclockwise routing of the old course. Way back in the day, the routing actually used to be clockwise. You used to play from 1T over to 17 green and then from 18 tee to 16 green and so on until you made it back around.

And so the Lynx Trust was opening up a chance to for public play to do that. Generously offered us a spot to go over there. And once we had, you know, it's kind of like the three of us like looked at each other and we're like we had a very, very busy spring already. We had a lot going on. We had just gotten back from Australia and it was kind of like a, all right, we're absolutely not traveling. No more, no more dates on the calendar. What day do you guys want to leave for Scotland? Cause like that's, you know, we obviously have to add this.

And it was kind of one of the only things in the world that are just like, yeah, I'm going to have to add a week. Like I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry. This is going to happen. This is a truly like once in a lifetime opportunity. And so we took it. So once we had that on the calendar, then that's where that's TC's music. Right? Like, okay, what else are we going to do while we're there? Ended up being kind of a perfect fit.

You know, we have the, the open championship is in trune this year. So we, you know, hadn't done any video stuff there. So it was a good chance to go see that before the open. There was a bunch of other stuff at like St. Andrews itself, like at the at I always hate to call it like a resort. I guess it's kind of a resort. You know, you've got all the courses like right there next to each other. There was a bunch of those courses.

We hadn't really done anything on the new course, the castle course, which like, oh, we might as well make some video stuff about that. TC and I took a trip over to Aaron, which I know is a very special place to him. So it kind of just ended up being like this amazing week long sort of adventure that kind of sprung up. I don't want to say out of nowhere, but I mean, it was not on the calendar, like, you know, as of like December. So it was kind of a miracle that it, that it all fell together. TC, did I miss anything? No, no. I think when, yeah, when the Lynx Trust folks kind of dabbled this in front of us, it was like, oh, okay, yeah, we're going to shut everything down.

And then I'd never been to the West coast before I'd been to like the Western islands, but I'd never played trune or any of that before. So it was cool to fly into Glasgow and see trune and see that part of things. And then, yeah, as we're wanting to do, you know, carve out a day or two here or there and go get off the grid or go do weird stuff that nobody would ever in their right mind think to do like, like what DJ and I did for the day over an errand. Well, and that's what we've done these podcasts in alignment

with Taurus season we've done where you know, you travel these places, play all these cool places, some stuff makes into video, some doesn't, and you don't get necessarily get the chance to talk kind of in long form about the experience and describe it and all that. So this is kind of meant as a compliment to some video stuff. That's if you're listening to this right away, we're releasing this on July 3, the video stuff is not out yet, but we'll be rolling out here over the next several months in terms of a true, true preview video. Play the old course, we're going to, you know, have a film room of the old course in reverse

plus a whole film about the old course in reverse. Then we're gonna play the old course, the natural routing as a little preview of the AIG Women's Open, which is gonna be at the old course this year, as well as a couple of videos, one on the new course, which I am going to absolutely rave about later on, as well as the Castle course. It often highly talked about golf course.

We've never actually filmed there. Thevus had never played it before. So we're going to cover a little bit of all of that in this episode, but hopefully it will not spoil the videos for you as we've done in the past, but it's merely meant as a compliment. So first leg of the trip, we fly into Glasgow and we head straight for Royal Trun. Now this is important for when you do watch the videos. This is the end of March and it was a wet winter in Scotland. It was wet everywhere we went in Scotland. It was wet for I think five of the six rounds or whatever that we filmed while we were in

Scotland. So we got over to to Trune and I got a crappy if I'm wrong guys, it did not feel like they were four months out from one of the biggest golf tournaments in the world. The infrastructure was not in yet and it was just a quiet little setting and it's kind of amazing that the whole golf world is going to convene on Trune here very shortly. Yeah, I think it's going to look a lot different from what we saw. A, we were playing off mats. B, we stayed at the Marine Hotel right there off the 18th hole and you will not be able to see that during the opening. There will be grand stands

all up along that. So I don't know what I necessarily expected with Trune but it was a lot more dynamic and nuanced and I think I'd always heard that it's a proper championship course but doesn't have the most character, the most personality and I felt like I kind of walked away with an appreciation for the place and a yearning to return under good weather and proper conditions. Like you said, we get good weather most places we go. And I think we got paid back a little bit this trip. And Bandit.

And I was going to say, Bandit videos are coming out too. I was playing golf for just like a month and a half straight, just like in, in my rain gear. Shout out to foot. I was going to say, which this is a great time to shout out our rain gear partner foot joy gave us a lot of different options and kept us dry, man. It was a greatly needed. If you don't have a good set of, this isn't even an ad. If you don't have a good set of rain gear and you're going on a big golf trip, you have

wasted a wasted, wasted an effort in a trip because you absolutely need to be prepared for some of this stuff. Waterproofs, Sully, waterproofs. That's right. We're in Scotland. Sully, on that, on that point of going to Trune and just kind of feeling like a sleepy town. I mean, I know people say this all the time, but like can't be overstated how cool and unique that is to golf. I feel like I mean that was one of my big takeaways is you know outside of Green Bay. Well, I guess just like the Super Bowl is never going to Green Bay but like the point is like the Super Bowl is not going to Like these little towns of you know, four thousand people right and like the biggest events in golf

when it comes to the open championship do and And just trying to think, wrap your head around like, man, where does everybody stay? How do they train everybody in? Where do the cars go? Where do people park? Like it is a feat to really like think through that stuff. And it's just, it adds so much more of a unique dynamic to it. Tron and I were talking about this the other day that it's like, it's maybe the only championship in the world where it's like, yeah, it's cool that, you know, Scottie Scheffler and Kellen Morkawa and Rory and all these guys are gonna be there, but like, even if they weren't,

like this show is not really the players. It's much more like the towns, the golf courses, the kind of like spirit and feel of the tournament, which is just always cool because I haven't been to that many road of courses realistically. And it's always cool to take another one off. Also want to shout out the Marine Hotel was fantastic. That was just like a really, really cool, kind of reminded me a little bit of the, what is it Tron in Dornick, the golf hotel that's kind of right next to the first tee at Royal Dornick there. It's just a similar kind of

proximity, but it's all upgraded inside and just like a really fun, you know, not, not a lot of golf vacations you come back from and you're like, man, I picked up a lot of like wallpaper tips. Like that place just has like really cool vibe inside. It was, it was great. I'm not sure how many people are looking for wallpaper tips. I wasn't either. I wasn't either. It was just an added bonus. Six years ago, we're talking about dog legs and pop bunkers. Now it's still wallpaper in that marina.

It was sick. I think the other years ago, we're talking about doglegs and pop bunkers. Now, it's the wallpaper in that marina. It was sick. I think the other thing when you go over there too, is just, just, you know, even more so than St. Andrews is the number of golf courses within what a five mile radius there. It's, it's insane. Dunn-Donald's right down the street, Western Gales, Turnberry is not far from there. There's two courses at Turnberry. There's a whole bunch of there's like 54 holes of forgetting the name off top my

head of the little municipal course, the city course, just Yeah, couple blocks there from from true. And there's another course, just opposite the street of Royal Trin and like, it's is that the Portland course? Is that right? Yeah, it's it's just a golf heavy community. And I've been there during the Scottish Open when it was at Dunn-Donald in 2017. And like, that's the only other time I've been to the Western part of Scotland and it was bustling.

That's why it was like kind of a shock. It shocked me of how sleepy-ish it felt was just like, the last time I was there, the restaurants were overflowing into the streets. You'd see Matt Fitzpatrick leaving dinner with his track man. And like, it was just the coolest feel of just watching, seeing all these players out locally in the community and,

uh, you know, tying in into, uh, into the event is great. So he took his track man to dinner. He was getting, he was, uh, yeah, he, he had his track man when he was getting into a car. If I remember, I always used to give him shit about, uh, every time I see him, he's carrying his track man. And then I, I think I have the picture somewhere. I'll pull it up. Actually. He was getting into a car leaving dinner from, uh, from there. Probably keeping his, probably keeping his stats on, you know, calorie intake. I found it. Tack angle and all that stuff. I found it. Here he is. I

don't know how well you can see that, but here he is getting into a car, uh, getting into a car, holding his track man. There it is. So I kind of struggle to describe Trune a little bit as a golf course, because I've said this in the past, I think there's no bad golf courses on the open road. Just prefacing that right now, there is not a bad one. TC thinks we're all saying Georgia stinks. I don't think it stinks. But I don't think it's a bad golf course. I just it's not what I want when I when I watch the open. It's more aerial. That's fair. And I think it's fair to say that Trune is on the bottom half of courses on the open rota. It's it's it lacks

something that is really unique and distinct other than the postage stamp. There's nothing I can really like I can't define the course in a sentence like oh, here's here's the style that which I think is a compliment to it honestly, but does it make it stand out? Does it make like Royal Port Rush has massive dunes. Royal Living has 252 bunkers on it like. Birkdale has all you know these just kind of paints a really clear image in their mind in people's minds. Trune doesn't

really quite do that. I'm not even sure that's a knock on it. Like it's just kind of like it's hard to set the scene for what makes this course unique to the Open Rota. And I think it backing into the answer is like this is Western Scotland's open venue, right? Like this is the kind of like St. George's is like London's quote, you know, extension of London's open championship venue. This is Western Scotland's venue. They're going have 250,000 people there, it's gonna be the third highest attended open championship in the history of it. And it's a really, really good championship golf course they've lengthened. You guys want to guess how many holes

they've lengthened? I know we saw a bunch of them, but like 31 holes, nine holes, they've added 195 yards to the golf course, which wasn't golf courses designed in 1800s don't necessarily have the space to do that. But they've linked only 195 yards. It looked like they've added 1200 yards. But they're adding on to what they've already added on right. So like it's a bunch of holes where you have to walk off the green and walk back into the right, not back into the

not just back into the right. I mean, back into the right. Always. It's like the old course. It's like it's again, you're just going to retread the same grass to anyways, not back into the left. Not just back into the right. I mean, back into the right. Always. It's like the old course. It's like, it's again, you're just going to retread the same grass to anyways, not to make a technology but the sixth hole is going to be 623 yards along this hole in open championship history and also the postage stamp I believe is going to play 99 yards on one of the day and will be the shortest hole in open championship history. So it's an interesting routing in that the

first six holes kind of all go in the same direction they typically play downwind and it plays rather interesting routing in that the first six holes kind of all go in the same direction. They typically play downwind and it plays rather benign in that stretch. So, you know, every, uh, I've done a bunch of deep dive episodes and we're going to have a deep dive episode on the, on trune next week's podcast. But everyone always says, go get on the front tiger. So you gotta get on the front cause back, you gotta just hold on. And so you see a lot of red numbers go out and then get coming home is really tough. There's a lot of just ball busters on that back nine. And then it starts to gain a little bit character after the sixth hole, the par five where seven kind of comes inland away from the water and has a really cool dog like right par four that kind of sets underneath this dune. And then I'll say this, the postage stampage stamp the eighth hole it is going to be focused on

it's going to be talked about a lot deserves every single piece of hype possible it is an I was still hoping that's where you're going to go yes nearly perfect golf hole in terms of you know just how easy it can play with with no wind how hard it can play with wind the it's I hope they do a good job of illustrating how deep the bunker is short right, how dead the bunker is long left, how far down below the putting surface. Everything is down to the right. And it's a genius, genius golf ball. Unfortunately, when we were there to play it, we didn't get to play it because it was a temporary green on the

eighth. But I can't attest even just walking out on it. It is and I got to play like six or seven years ago. But it is like one of the coolest golf holes on the entire road. Also funny how the the temporary green would have been like one of the coolest holes at any other golf course. You know, I think I hear you say all that and I did not play the course. I was filming you guys. But in a way, you almost get like a better feel for the course doing that. I feel like because you're less focused on like where your specific ball goes. This is a weird comp and I'm building the plane as I'm flying it here.

But in a way parts of it remind me of Pinehurst number two in that like it's it's hard to distinguish individual features and you might walk off of it and be like, ah, yeah, what was what was the seventh hole again? What was the 11th hole again? What was the, you know, yeah, I think I, that was back in that corner of the property. I know like the, the primary focus on driving is not the same, you know, like this is going to be a much tougher driving course than pine forest number two, but I still think it's going to be like an iron players paradise, right? Like I don't think anybody's, nobody's faking it here. No, it's going to be like, if you look at the list of winners, I mean, it's other than your guy

win a date with Todd Hamilton, it's like, it's, it's a lot of world number ones. It's a lot of like heavy, heavy hitters. Uh, it feels like it's going to be, you know, a Scotty or a Colin or a Rory or, you know, TC your guy, Tommy, this might be, this might be Tommy's music. Tommy said this one circled for a while. I think you've had this one circled for Tommy for a while. There's a lot at stake here. I'm not making it up. I'm taking my cues from him. My big takeaways were how much more interesting the Greens were than I thought they were going

to be. There was a lot of short grass runoffs and cool little knobs and shelves off the front sides of greens. I think the other thing was just how subtle and nuanced a lot of the angles are on the holes where we had it from an atypical wind. So the wind was coming out of the what? Like straight out of the east. Normally it comes off the water out of the West. So, you know, we didn't really get to experience it as it normally plays, but on the way back in, you would have just varying degrees of slightly, you know, slightly tacking against it,

coming in off the, like in off the left, but at slightly different angles to where it's going to interact with your golf ball a little bit differently on each iron shot or you know, some of that to whether you're on one side of the fairway or the other, you know, it could be almost a, you know, dead in or straight cross depending. Yeah, those were kind of my two big takeaways just walking off the course of like, man, this is, it was just like, and that's, that's six or seven through 13 stretch or 14 stretch, which is like, whoa, that was super dynamic. And then it was hanging on for dear life after that.

Well, it's also worth noting Western Scotland gets a lot worse weather than the Eastern side. They get a lot more rain. I can't say necessarily they get more wind, but there's just it's exposed out there. I mean, I walk, going back and looking at highlights from 2016. I don't know if you guys remember that Friday afternoon of it just getting absolutely biblical biblical on that day. And the guys got the bad side of the draw and fill in stents and we're on the good side of the draw and all that. Like it, it, it can,

it can get spicy out there and it's hard to like predict how the course is going to play. Like, because you just don't know about conditions whereas St. Andrews like even in some conditions you can kind of give a little bit of an estimation as to how the course is going to play. One thing I was thinking about with these tees kind of going back and to the right the way they are on repeat like just almost every single hole I'm wondering how well that sets up for faders and again this is worth pointing out like for the folks who watch the video, we played the winter tees, which are for a lot of the holes were a completely different angle than you're

going to see during the open. But that was something that I just kind of was thinking of in terms of kind of almost all of the holes, at least especially going out, you're kind of set back into the right, which puts you at a little bit of an angle of the fairway that just kind of looks like it wants to promote a fade. Now, almost everybody's a fader on the at the highest level pro golf as it stands now. Bryson's not just not Bryson. I don't. Yeah, I think I think Bryson things interesting too because there's some holes, you

know, like if you were going to knock him for anything at at Pinehurst, and I don't mean to start on like a negative, but like you got away with a lot of the wayward drives there, right? Not something you can do at this golf course away with a lot of the wayward drives there, right? Not something you can do at this golf course. Like a lot of people I think think Lynx golf is like, oh, you kind of spray it anywhere and you might be in the hay and you probably have, maybe you have a bad angle, but like you can find it. There's a couple holes on that back nine and that are like RET city.

Like there, there's a lot of like lost ball out of bounds, like heavy gorse bushes and property lines that are, you know, and not that these guys are blowing it off the property typically, like they'll, they'll favor the other side, but I'm trying to think like, uh, what's the railway hole 11, 11, 11. That's like a dude fitted in the fairway or like you're going to keep that. It could be a quick sleeve there for somebody, you know? Yeah. That was another takeaway for me was just the, the amount of commitment you had to have on your tee shots of, you know, played a lot of links golf. And I don't think I played a course where it was tough to discern what your line should be.

And that was from the winter tees much less. I can't imagine playing in another 100 150 200 yards back and certain certain cases where Yeah, like, like, there's just not a whole lot of texture out there to be able to like, my depth perception was off the entire round. Yeah, you need like a rangefinder to see some of those like open tees.

It's like, again, I think it was 11. You guys played way up, didn't you? And that back tee is like, it's insane. I 50 or something back there and it you're, it's just crazy. I think we have some footage in the video from when we went back there, but like, it's, it's like totally blind for back there. You're just looking at Gorse in front of you and it's not blind, like a mound in front of you. It's just, you got to hit it over this Gorse,

Gorse with some faith. And like to the right is Gorse, the horse shout out to bacon and the railway line right there. Like again, looking back at these past ones, there's been so many massive, massive numbers made on 11, like just whole groups making triple on this hole. And you know, if the wind is like off the left, that becomes like the hardest golf hole in the world. But it's so cool when you do that back tee. You're looking at all this course can't really see fairway. But like if you just like do a

little lean to the right, you can see the pin way out there in the distance, like just right around all of the Gorse and along the kind of the stone wall that sits there. It's I think this was the hole where Thomas Peters snapped a club over his leg and just threw it into the Gorse back in 2016. And I was starting to think of this. It's kind of like there I forget what the the phrases for Marion, there's like what the phrase is for Marion. There's like three six hole loops at Marion.

It's like one is like the comedy, the tragedy, and I forget what the order of the three is because it just kind of plays in three different parts. The drama is a comedy and the tragedy, I think. That sounds right. That sounds right. It kind of works here. Like you play six holes along the,

with the kind of the water to your right to start out. And then you come inland for seven, eight, nine, 10 is a really interesting, you know, kind of intimate Gorsi par four out there 11 is that railway right along there and 12 kind of sneaks back out and then 13 through 18 is coming right back into the exposed part again, coming in home it really is like instead of having two nines, it's almost like three six hole sections of the golf course. And

it's fun to play, man. It's very fun to play. Again, it's just a hard one to talk about and describe, right? I feel like I can describe Carnoostee a lot better. I can describe Liven a lot better. I can describe Birkdale, Liverpool. I can describe a lot better than Truen, but it's a very worthy venue. And all that to say, Lynx Golf, you don't have to be super complicated with. Like you just don't have to be. If you maintain it right, I will say, again, looking back at all the highlights, people make putts, pros make putts at Royal Trim. Like they can putt these greens better, it seems like to me,

than other open championship venues. Granted, it was only Stenson and Phil that went apeshit in 2016, but like Justin Leonard won in 1997 by making everything he looked at. Todd Hamilton made everything he looked at in 2004. And it's, that's just something that stuck out to me watching a bunch of the old highlights is like guys can absolutely fill it up when you get on these Koreans. Cause there's not an undulation when you get on them.

Try for show puff for dough, Solly. I've always said that. Only other thing I want to shout out is that the house in the, in the middle, TC, I know you're going to be all on that one too with the, there's just a rate, like it's a big, you know, not by modern golf course standards, big, but like it feels big while you're out there, just a big piece of property. And there's just a house that is like right in the middle. And it's just like a private residence. I don't really know the story. I don't know who lives there. I don't know if I'm sure the club has tried to buy it for the last 150 years and they just won't, won't sell it. But yeah, I think during the open, like there's just going to be people living in the middle of the golf

course. It's just, it's so freaking funny to me. It keeps coming up as like an aiming line as you're going around, you know, and it's just, it's the delight. I love stuff like that. It's called black rock house. The golf doc, Jeff Ritter did a story on golf.com about it back in 2016, but it's, yeah, it's so sick. It's an unbelievable spot. It really is. Yeah. It's one of those things too. I mean, you can feed early, right? You get those three shortish par fours early

and then you've got four is a par five, five is a par three, six is a par five. So it's kind of like you said, Sally, that first six holes, it's like, that's kind of the, I assume that would be the comedy, that'd be the fun. Yes, right? Yes. Okay, yeah. For sure. And then, yeah, and then you shout it out.

I think seven is- So cool. Yeah, seven's where it really, like, that's where it really gets colorful and interesting. And, you know, I would say, I would say the middle stretch is kind of the comedy, right? The middle stretch is kind of like, Oh, like, this is this is outrageous. Yes, it gets just so fun. And they're the way it starts weaving to because you're

just feels like you're playing a traditional routing for those first six holes, we're going out, we're coming back. And then it's like, Oh, no, we're gonna start zigzagging here, all of a sudden, you get in a groove with a particular wind, like you're going to be facing a ton of different winds in that little middle stretch. And yeah, and I mean, nine is really fun. And then 10 is such a interesting driving hole where you're driving it over this knoll. And as someone who hadn't played the course before, you're

like, where the hell am I going here? It's truly a, you know, you don't see that on championship golf courses all that much. Right. And then, uh, yeah. For such a, like a flat, you know, Scottish golf just tends to be like very flat and very kind of nuanced. There's like some, some pretty significant dunes out there that you guys were going up and over, you know, there's spots like 10 is a good example, like almost feels like LaHinche or something, right. And like these little spots. And I remember seven

was seven, the one you're TNF down the hill, right? And you've got like all the different angles to pick and the wind is just hammering your ball because you're hitting it so far downhill. It almost, it almost feels like a different, not a different golf course, like it fits with everything else, but it's a different challenge than what you're expecting

and probably what's going to come across on TV. And it's a cool finish too. Like there's, I think there's certain spots where it almost felt like macrohannish where, you know, like you, you hear about how this, this course is flat. And then you get to holes like 13 called Burma. And it's got all sorts of rips and yeah, like there's all sorts of, you know,

kind of almost looks like kind of bomb scars right in the middle of the fairway. Same thing with 15 as well. And then there's two fun par threes on the way in as well, which you know, you can kind of like, you can get caught with your hand in the cookie jar on both of them there. So yeah, just, I don't know, I really, really liked it. I'm a lot more excited to watch the open now that I've played it before. 100%. And hopefully people feel the same just watching the video and all that. So just want to shout out our guy, Michael Stewart, that you guys played with.

He joined us for the day. Touring pro that is from Troon. He plays a ton at Royal Troon, played in the open last year, made the cut, battling some injury stuff right now. So I know he's very bummed. He, he's kind of had this talk about having this one circled. I mean, I think he's like had this one on his calendar just forever since it was, since it was named, uh, to be this year and, uh, bad timing to be battling some injuries. I saw he did not make it through, uh, final qualifying, which is a bummer, but I'm sure he'll have,

he'll have a great week anyways, but just a fun, fun guy to meet, fun player to follow kind of on his, his pro golf journey and just an absolute gent. So appreciated all of his wisdom and insight. He's actually going to be on the video as well. So he'll be given some commentary on, on each hole and how they're going to play for the pros and what the lines are. And a ton of great insight from him that we just recorded the other day. Fantastic.

Deeg, speaking of qualifiers and everything, congrats to your guy, Team Rose. That was a magnificent performance at Burnham and Barrow yesterday. You know what? There's something to be said for that, right? We call these guys pampered fucks all the time and I know it's not that big of a lift to go show up to a 36 hole qualifier. But listen, Rose has had a lot handed to him in his, in his career. He's, he's had a lot that he's earned, but I appreciate when those guys have to go slum it and you know,

punch their ticket. That's great. There's going to be a lot of action at the open championship and you can get in on a lot of that action on Fandel, whether you're playing golf or betting on it, there's nothing worse than first T jitters. But with Fandel, you can crush your first bet off the tee because right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed with any $5 bet. That's 150 bucks win or lose. Not to mention TC is cooking up

parlays on the regular out there. They do such a great job of like putting up our no laying up specials out there. I didn't know they were like going to take our our picks like from a bunch of the shows and put them up on the site for everybody to see out there because you know, I'm hoping we've been sent out some winners for some folks, but check that out on FanDuel. You can go for the green all PGA tour season along with bets like longest drive close to the pin outright winners and more.

FanDuel.com slash NLU hit your first bet right down the middle of the fairway with FanDuel America's number one sports book. FanDuel official betting operator of the fairway with Fandual, America's number one sportsbook Fandual official betting operator of the PGA tour must be 21 or older 18 older in DC and President select states gambling problem called 1-800 gambler visit rg-help.com first online real money wager only $10 first deposit required bonus issued as non-retributable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt restrictions

apply C terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. All right, we're going to detour off. You guys went off West, we're going to talk, we're going to come back West at the end of today's show. But you know, we ended up going East St. Andrews, a place we've been many times before, but we're getting ready to do something for the very first time. Take us to a brand new golf course that none of us had ever played before DJ Pi the old course reversed the oldest the old course yeah mentioned it at the beginning but the crux of this was this idea that was cooked up by the links trust you know golf course historians and architecture buffs kind of know the history here but going back to the 1700s, the, the old course actually used to play,

you know, quote unquote in reverse anti-clockwise TC as they, as they like to say, uh, counterclockwise. So what that meant was obviously the holes were not in different places. Uh, all of, you know, everything existed as it kind of does today, but instead of going from one T to one green, you would go from one tee over to 17 green, the road hole green, and then you would play from 18 to 16 green, and then you would play from 17 to 15 green, and you would pretty much, there's a couple exceptions, but you would pretty

much do that all the way around until you got back to number two tee, and then you would hit from kind of the Himalayas over to the 18th green, so you're kind of crisscrossing that big one and 18 fairway there. And so they did this up until about 1870 when old Tom Morris, uh, finally flipped it to the, the anti-clockwise routing, uh, that we all know today, which by the way, I don't, I don't think I've ever taken a deep dive on just like what the reaction was from the people in those days. Let's go off the bat.

Let's say from the TC. That's what I mean. TC, I know we've got that book. We've got to dive into kind of some of the, what have they done here type of old Tom has lost his mind. I don't think it was all or nothing thing. They were playing it for agronomy and kind of rest purposes. They were playing it, you know, both directions.

So people had gotten exposed to both directions. And then I think old Tom basically raised his hand and just said, Hey, this one's superior and I'm the guy. So yeah. Yeah. Who wants to speak up? Go ahead. Go ahead. Try it.

So you mentioned it there, but that was kind of the point was like, not only are, do you know, some of the bunkers play just like drastically different. I mean, that's kind of the main thing you hear about the old course when you go visit for the first time, it's kind of the Augusta is more hilly than you realize on TV type of meme about the old course, but there's, you know, every caddy,

everybody who's ever played it will tell you, like you go stand on some of those greens and you look backwards and all of a sudden you see these bunkers that are like, oh, that's why those are in play. Because if I was hitting this the other way, that would be exactly where I'm trying to drive the ball. And granted it's, you know, it's 70 yards off the T that I just played. But man, if I was flipping around, that thing would be

exactly where I'm trying to hit it. And no better. Times even on the natural routing, the bunker, like one 80 that you didn't think about downwind might be a thought into the wind as well. Like some of those it's, it's insane. Sorry. Precisely. Yeah. So there was that kind of like added level of, you know, dynamism that would made the course really cool. It was also like a very practical agronomy reason, as TC said, you know, just thinking about the old course, anybody who's been there,

you know that like there's a lot of kind of funnels with the way the dune land works. There's a lot of balls that kind of all end up in the same spot, especially in, you know, some of the popular spots off the tee, some of the popular spots around the greens. And so playing it in reverse just kind of scatters those divots. So, you know, gives the course a little bit of a rest. And so there's a very practical reason that they did it as well. So anyways, all of this is to say, this is kind of always percolated in the background. Occasionally, the Lynx Trust would do these days for a handful of RNA members or like very, very select VIPs where they would say like, hey, we're closing the course today

and we're doing a reverse day. And those are just like, almost kind of like these mystic days that like barely anyone, I think, you know, between the three of us, we've probably known a very small handful of people who have ever actually done it. And the wolfie, of course, he was like, Oh yeah, I did that back in like 1992. Like it's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. I don't lie. Everybody's freaking out about it. Catch up guys. Jamie Kennedy did a video about it. A friend of the program that we went back and watched, but yeah, there's just not that much out there about like what it's like to do. And part of the reason is because it's never really been opened up to the public, which the Lynx Trust, the St. Andrews Lynx Trust did this year, which was great, great thrill. They put

together a package. I was reading about this on golf.com. Tell me if you guys think this is a good deal that they put out there. $725 to play around on the old, around on the old in reverse and around on the castle course. And I think you got a bunch of other like kind of knickknacks and stuff. Or, or, or TPC sawgrass once. Well, like 16 holes at TPC sawgrass. You don't get to play 17 at 18, but yeah. Yeah. So it's, it was a crazy popular deal. They, the ballot for this, you know, just went nuts. There was all kinds of people that ended up getting it and having to kind of book these like semi last minute trips, much like us to do it. And we were just very, very, very, very, very

thankful to the links trust for, for offering us a, a foursome in a spot to play it. And we were just very, very, very, very, very thankful to the Lynx Trust for, for offering us a foursome in a spot to play it. So that's kind of the background, the history. Soly, I guess, what was your kind of, what's your lasting impression? I feel like I've had more people reach out to me about this, like this a weird comp, but like I went to the sphere a couple of weeks ago and the old course in reverse. And I feel like I've gotten similar questions about both of those two things, where people are just like, man, I've heard of that, but like, I just, I can't wrap my head around it.

Like how, like how was it? Explain it to me. And so that was kind of the genesis of doing this pot, I guess. So I'll let you take it from there. I was expecting it, I guess, to be a tiny bit gimmicky. That's kind of the word I come up with in terms of like, dude, it's a, it's a, for a hundred, over a hundred years now, the

golf course has played the other way, right? And it's maintained the other way. And like, there's not like a run up area to the back of the first green, which is the 17th hole that you play in reverse, right? Like, there's, there's moments, there's definitely moments throughout the course of the round where you're like, oh my God, I'm, I'm this, I'm totally playing a hole backwards, which can be really fun. Like we, if you ever, I've been on a place, we played cross country golf at Sweden's co.

We've, we did it at the nine hole little, or the course on King Island there. We made up our own holes. Like that can be really, really fun, but it hits so freaking hard from the jump in terms of real golf holes, like very real golf holes. And the very first hole you play is from the first tee to the coolest green in the world, the 17th hole. Like you play one of the most insanely fun, cool holes from the jump.

It was downwind for us. I wanted, I thought about like driving it over the burn. Like you could try to drive the 17th green, which is like the coolest for golf architecture nerds. Like that's like the most fun shot maybe in history. And it just is like three, four holes into it. I was just kind of like looking around like, coolest for golf architecture nerds. Like that's like the most fun shot maybe in history. And it just is like three, four holes into it. I was just kind of like looking around like,

holy shit guys, is this as cool as, it kind of snuck up on me how cool it was gonna be, which sounds silly. Like this was kind of a, as soon as we heard about this, we flew across an ocean to go do it. But then even being out there, I was like, holy crap, man. This is such a wild and fun experience. And it was right before we teed off,

it was like, it was hitting me. It was like, you don't get a chance to play. Nobody gets a chance to play a lost golf course. This golf course doesn't exist anymore. It's not how it's played. You can't play the lead. Oh, there's a replica of Lido obviously in Wisconsin now that you guys recently played, but the lead Oh, on my island is gone, right? That's a classic golf course that is gone. But this is like a step back in time

to get to play this in reverse. And the shots are just so fun. Like that's the whole golf course itself, I've, you know, equated to being like a skate park. Like it's just, it's fun and it's an adventure. It's like you don't, you're not defined by, here's where you have to hit it and here's what you should do.

You have so many options to do all this fun stuff. And it's not the hardest golf you'll ever play, but it's the most fun. Like it's just an adventure to get to do it in a different reverse routing, almost cross country routing. It was just fricking awesome, man. It experience blew me away. I'm raving. The weather we got was absolute shit. It was the worst weather you could play golf in. It's wind and rain 45, maybe 45 degrees and 45 mile an hour winds balls oscillating. It was awful, but man, I'm just smiling, just ranting and thinking back on this TC. Yeah, I think, first of all, I got to shout out Clyde Johnson

who played with us. Yeah, you know, St. Andrews based golf course architect and he's literally his life's work is based upon the old course. And so to be able to kind of share the experience with him was really enlightening. Pointing out little observations throughout and all the little bunkers having names and little nicknames for certain mounds or certain, you know, the Elysian fields or Miss Granger's bosom or all that stuff. It's awesome. I mean, Sally, like you said, the, the, I think the high points were definitely kind of along the edges, right? You've

got the, the second shot into the road hole or even, you know, the, the, the drive and the second shot into the 16th green, you know, around the hotel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, and then the stuff out on the Eden green as well, like the seventh, like the playing into the 11th, like that left side of the Eden green as a par four, um, I've never been more afraid of like hitting it in two bunkers before, like the bunker off the tee and the bunker short of the green.

Those were the hardest second shot I've ever seen in my life. It was, yeah, I was like, Oh, like, like this is, this is not ending up anywhere. This is not going to be a hundred yards into the Firth or, or the, the, the, uh, yeah, estuary, or this is going to be in that bunker 10 times out of 10. And just to, just to linger on that while we're there, because I mean, that's probably the best hole, right? That's what everybody has always said, even before you get there. Can we, can we build up,

can we just do an explainer on how, just how the routing and mapping works, right? So just for math, for those listening, so that you play, so basically what's gonna add up is the hole you're playing and the green that you're playing to on the normal route. So the one on the reverse course and the 17th green are going to add up to 18. So similar to how like the double greens all add up together on the traditional routing. So like the first

hole you played a 17 green, the second hole you're playing the 16 green. But to visualize this, you're really playing, so the first hole you're really playing like the 18th fairway, right? And the second hole, you're really playing the 17th fairway to the 16th green. Third hole, you're playing the 16th fairway to the 15th green and so on and so forth. And you build up along this routing. So you're the par fives are the same, like you're still playing the same par fives, but you're just like playing them to opposite greens, which is, is that right? No, you're not. That's not right. No, that's not

right. You're playing the, you play the par fives through the 13th green. Uh, and I was going to say the system kind of breaks down once you get back to like the crossover there, because you're playing from like the 13th tee up to the seventh green or the 11th green or however you want to decide, you know, 11th green. It all, it works. It know what I mean? There's 11th green. It works. It's, yeah. Yeah, I think historically too, that's kind of weird. Where they say, hey, like crossover wise, like back in the loop there, they're saying,

you know, potentially it was already reversed or, you know, they didn't, like there's some consternation there, but I mean, you know, shot back, like we talked about, all right, so hitting your seventh hole, but hitting to the 11th green, that's spectacular. And then you turn around and you play a par three from there into what was that the test eighth hole so playing into the 10th green and that was just a dynamic, awesome hole, incredible pin and we had a

really windy day. I think 45 degrees is probably generous. I think it was probably right around 39 or 40. I could have used 10 more degrees. But there's these dynamic spots, but I think a lot of the substance was just playing a lot of the holes that weren't gonna knock your socks off. The par fives were great. Playing into 13 as a par five was spectacular. And just having to step up on a lot of these T's and trust your line, knowing that, hey,

this stuff is up there. I have scar tissue from playing at the other direction for the stuff. And now, all right, I have to worry about that stuff that I've been in prior the other direction and knowing that, you know, there's, there's a bunch of other things that I haven't considered and you just commit to it and trust it. I think the only place where it got a little bit wonky was probably 13 or like, like 12, like, like 12 was kind of, and I think that's really where it was more, I think if the mowing, like if they did this more often, the mowing lines would probably be changed a little bit or they would, they would take out a bit of course here or there just to give you a little

bit more of a, of a visual cue as to where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think even like the coming down the stretch too, like you've got, you know, you've got the, you got the new course off to the left and you've got all this course in the middle kind of right where you want to hit it. So you can either blow it way left or way right. And there's course up by the greens.

And then we asked, not out of bounds as well, like when that wind's coming off the side, that's a good question to ask. Yeah. And I mean, shit, even the side, that's a good question to ask. Yeah. And I mean, shit, even the, the, the, like the shot from, you're going down two fairway

into one green and one green, instead of having the swelcom burn in front of the green, you have it behind the green and you're hitting a long iron in. And it was like, holy shit, this is, this is even, this is far better than the first hole on the main course. You guys were so worried about that burn long in the green. That's all you guys are talking about. Fucking burn is long. How are we going to hit that shot? How are we going to do that?

Well, we were straight into the wind at that point. I feel like the wind changed like three times and it just stayed into us the entire round. So pausing on that seventh hole, TC, which we were talking about, which is if you've ever played the old course, hopefully a caddy has pointed out that like there when you tee off on the 12th hole, which is a short part for all kinds of fairway bunkers, you don't see a lot of them from the T and if you get past them, they'll look. They'll tell you to look back and say if you notice that you know these bunkers can't see him from the

T. That's because they're all like this is the way the hole originally played back up to this green. So that's like the highlight hole. I think that's the one we were looking forward to playing the most. And like that was, it was sweet. Like it was so cool to hit that shot up into that very, very challenging green for the Eden par three, the 11th hole on the on the traditional routing into coming from that way was I think I remember I came up like 50 yards short on that shot into the wind like not even close. I think specifically on that. So again, I think, if I remember, I came up like 50 yards short on that shot into the wind. Like not even close. I think specifically on that, so again, I know the numbers are confusing, but the 12th

hole on the normal routing is just a short par four. And the reason you don't see those bunkers is because it's so far downhill, right? So the hole, it's like the only hole that really plays like downhill at the old course. And so because of the angle, like all those bunkers are kind of benched back into the hill. And it's it's what's all 340 350 something like that. It's like down. It's usually downhill downwind. Like, you kind of just bang driver like up by the green and nobody really gives all that much thought to that hole. And you flip around and not only do you have those bunkers in play, but it's uphill, what? 30 feet. Yeah. Like it's significantly uphill. And it was straight into the teeth of the wind. And it was 45 degrees. And you're terrified about hitting it in any of those bunkers,

which is just like a career ender. So I remember I had I had five iron in. And I think I was still like I was still 40 yards short, 30 yards short. It's like I try to hit like a 200 shot. Basically all I'm thinking about is DJ, DJ not being able to get out of the bunker. The hill bunker. Yeah, the first, you know, the first time

we played on the pour sauce and being like, all right, if I go in there, like, I gotta be able to get it out in the first shot. So. And where the pin is, is, you know, if you're picturing the Eden green, so now we're back thinking about the normal 11th hole, the part three, our pin was like up on that top left shelf. Right. So you're coming in with a five iron and it's even like, you're playing to the

smallest part of the green as well. So it's, it was just like, like if you had enough club, the play would almost be just like blow it over the green probably. Right. And like, be just like blow it over the green probably right and like that wonky up and down yeah horrible horrible horrible so as as easy like quote unquote easy so a good example of like an easy hole would be the it would be our fourth on the way going out right so if you're picturing the the 14th hole on the normal course the par-5 hell bunker all of that what i always picture is like you know the difference between rory mackleroyroy and Cam Smith at the open where Cam blew it over that green because the whole green on 14 kind of runs away from you. As you know, it's a par five and that kind of makes it a little more interesting. Cam blew it over the green. He had a very simple chip up the hill,

easy up and down for birdie. Rory left it short. He had a downhill chip that he couldn't stop by the pin. And like, there you go. That's kind of, that's the championship right there. When you flip that around, now all of a sudden it's like, oh man, I'm hitting like into this receptive, you know, receptive green with a wedge that's kind of pitched back at me. Like this is like the easiest shot in the world.

Like what a completely different golf hole. So you have a couple of those where you're like, man, this is like, this is so much more comfy going this way. Uh, and then you have the, the other edge of the sword, which is, you know, the seventh, which is like, this is the hardest fucking golf hole I've ever, I've ever seen in my life. There's spots too, where you're, you're playing, you know, some of those greens are so big, like they're some of the biggest greens in the world where you're playing into the, what was that, two and 16 or three and 13,

and it's, sorry, three and 15. And it's just, you know, like, you know, there's plenty of real estate up there. You know, you're, you're, hey, I've got, I've got a runaway truck ramp here or whatever, but there were certain spots where I'm thinking, all right, instead of taking on this trouble on the front, I'm just going to go like 40 yards long and approach this back. I'm going to chip back in from the, from the normal direction that I'm used to. There's so many cool, uh, like I said, there's, there's definitely spots where like I'm playing a golf course in reverse, like backwards. It's like, uh, like Neil's analogy for the sixth hole at Pacific dunes. If it's somebody wearing a, a suit,

a blazer backwards, which I never really understood, but it kind of works for some of us. Don't understand it. And also it makes perfect sense. But like the playing into the 12th green, like you're, uh, our sixth hole, like you're playing, there's a bunch of these bunkers that kind of the centerline bunkers that are in 13 fairway, which kind of divide the sixth fairway and the 13 fairway that just kind of drive the decision making there. But now you're playing in reverse, and you don't want to go too far down that fairway because you run into Gorse and the approach shot from there is

over some Gorse and like kind of blind if you play too far right, which I did. And I have to hit this totally blind shot over this to this 12th green. And now the mound that separates the middle of 12 green, there's a little bowl in the front of that green, but the pin is up on top. Now you gotta worry about going long

and down the slope into that lower part coming from the opposite direction. It's just like your brain working backwards on all I know this whole coming from this way. You know, sometimes it was easier and sometimes it was like a lot harder and D del flash flash up the image of that of that the the hole you were describing there, which is four in reverse, which is against playing to 14 green like you've got cottage bunker out there that was 237 to reach but you

also have what's that other bunker there is Sutherland Sutherland bunker sitting right there in the middle. Sutherland bunker. And you do try to lay up to it and you can't really bomb it up there because you have all these other bunkers that are I never even knew were there up there. It's just, gosh, it's a fricking chess match

against old Tom or I don't even know, whoever was before old Tom, I guess. Shout out to the Lynx Trust as well for an excellent yardage book. It's awesome. Exact same as the regular routing just reversed and like it was thoughtful and all the yardages were correct and like it's like a perfect yardage book

for a real course basically. The other big hole I want to shout out, TC, you kind of briefly touched on it, but after you play the world's hardest golf hole up the hill into the Eden Green, you stand on what is the 12th tee right on the edge of the world, right up next to the estuary, kind of like probably the coolest spot to stand on the golf course. And you play a par three, the completely other, not the completely other direction, but like 90 degrees left of where you would normally be looking. So normally if you're looking down the 12th fairway, take 90 degree turn to your left and you're playing over the corner of the Eden green over to the 10th green as a par three,

which is the definition of solid. What you were saying earlier, like how many times have we stood on golf courses, just be like, man, like look at from here to here, like that would be a sick part three. And then you actually get to do it. And it played so long that day. I remember talking to those kids in the pub afterwards, they were hitting driver in there, I think. But there's like, but there's so much room to, you know, try to bang one up there and roll it. Like you can play the shot in 55 different ways. It's just, it was such a cool golf shot. I think that's like visually maybe the, maybe the coolest, like when I've showed that one to friends, people have been like, Oh my God, okay. That's like, this is awesome. And makes total sense.

And that was one that I wasn't even thinking. I was like, ah, that's kind of a connector. Like that's going to be a kind of a lame shot there. And did you look at, that's the best part three on the whole golf course. Like that's better than, than maybe 11 and eight. Like that was fricking incredible. I'll say Mike Clay, do the Moritz, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm a lame shot there. And you're like, that's the best part three on the whole golf course. Like, that's better than, than maybe 11 and eight.

Like that was freaking incredible. I'll say Mike Clayton, do the more you talk about this, Mike Clayton would freak out at this because he's the king of on Twitter of like holes that aren't holes of just alternate routings. And like this is this little stretch of stuff. And then from there you play. Here's a quick image of that part three again on paper like doesn't look like anything special. Like it just doesn't. But the way that that bunker played short, uh, left and frame

it there was like, okay, well you cannot go in that at any cost. But then you play from 11 T to nine green, which is just like almost like the same hole, but just a slightly different angle and the bunkers are all the centerline bunkers are all different for that one was I love that. I do too. Shit on nine all the time. I think it's, it's like this perfect breath in the middle of the round and you're trying so hard to make birdie that you almost get in your own way and you have to just, you know, like you can overcomplicate it very, very quickly. And then it turns into, you know, a lag putting competition or lag putting competition or it kind of puts more stress on your chipping.

I'm like, all right, this is a very straight, this is a couple of very straightforward shots here, but can you get the ball in the hole? The ninth is like, to me, it is the most very, like it's the most antiquated golf hole on the course of just like, this is a totally old style. It's a completely flat, incredibly flat, just massive green. It's one of the most basic golf holes ever. It's kind of like, I've said this before.

It's like the Mylunia template. Yeah, I equated it to the old baseball video games. I don't know if it was Griffey or MLB or whatever it was. You could play in like old ballparks. Like the Polo grounds was like 258 down the line, but 570, I'm exaggerated, 570 to center, like it didn't make any sense, but I love that, that was so fun. That's what it's like playing like that,

that little spot on the golf course is like, these holes are really like, they weirdly do make sense, but like, you know, whatever design it this way, again, it looks incredibly basic on paper. And, but it's just like, that's the, part of what makes Scotland Golf, and especially at the old course, so special, is like, you're just in touch with this level of

the spiritual nature of history, right? And I freaking love traveling around Europe and seeing all these historic places and I freaking love golf. Like when you combine those two, it just hits this cord within me that I that is just like part of the reason why I love my two favorite things to do are like travel and play golf. And like that that that little stretch weirdly hits so fricking hard for me. And then you get to eat a steak pie at the turn there and get some more Bob roll. They

didn't let me share it though. I decided to do Bob roll and Kuvassia. God, that's, that's good. I think one thing that that corner kind of like highlighted to me. So like you said, in the normal routing, you're playing nine is like a dead straight hole and 10 is pretty much a dead straight hole. You know, it's basically down and back and in the reverse routing, you're basically crisscrossing, right? So you're kind of like making an X. You're playing from the right T to the left green and then the left T to the right green. And you kind of do the same thing with one and 18, right? And it's a very similar, like in the normal routing,

it's down and back and in the reverse, it's crossing. And if you think about hitting that shot from number two, like what's the right way to say this? If you think about like going from number 18, like playing 18 the normal way, you have so much room to you can blow it left, you can hit a big cut, you can hit a big draw, you have so much room to, you can blow it left. You can hit a big cut. You can hit a big draw. You have so much room to mess with when you're hitting from number two. So you're jammed all the way over on the left and you're playing

all the way to that right green and the wind is hammering off the left. All of a sudden that fairway feels like it's like 15 yards wide. Like it's crazy what changing it's the like, it's the widest fairway in the world and you're not wrong. Tiger would always say that that thing about like man none of these young kids understand how to like create an angle for themselves on the tee box and how like you know sometimes it makes sense to really maximize over on the left side of the tee. Sometimes it makes sense to maximize on the right side of the tee. This is like the full whole version of that make sense to maximize on the right side of the tee.

This is like the full whole version of that, where it's just like, man, changing this angle is like, is making this so much harder and more interesting and like more fun in a lot of ways, which is where Sally, like, I don't disagree on, you know, yeah, there's a couple, there's some spots where it feels like you're playing a backwards golf course, but sincerely I would say that's maybe like three spots and it's probably like 15 spots that are like, man, this is like, this is a crazy compelling golf hole. I don't I don't know if it's like better than, you know, the normal, but it's like it's not laughable to think so.

Well, it's the same kind of like cons. I mean, it's the same greens and kind of concepts right there. It should play this good backwards. And I think the 12th hole, which is 80 to six green where you're playing back around seven is like the most dramatic dogleg hole on the course. And you're kind of playing that in reverse to some rough and gorsy area. That one certainly felt like you're playing backwards. But that's kind of fun. Like, that part's fun. Like it, it, it definitely

gave it that cross country feel 70 to five green again felt backwards just based on where some of the rough and mo lines like you're talking about TC. Again, if the golf course was maintained differently, it could be a really normal looking golf hole. And then three tee to one green, there wasn't like maintained area behind one green. So that was the 17th hole. But those are the three that were kind of like, okay, that this totally feels backwards. And somehow those were again into the wind.

I don't know how that actually happened to us. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. But I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing? If you had to boil it down. A lot of directions we could go here. As much as I want to say the, you know, the shot, the second shot into seven, you know, normal 11 green, I'm going to say it was the next shot after that was- The part three.

And I'd love to say it was the shot into 17 green, but I boned a wedge over the green and onto the road. So that, that one didn't necessarily agree with me. I hit a great drive there. But yeah, I think it was that next shot of just, cause it was so unexpected and so dynamic and so do or die. Soly. I mean that, that start start, it's a wedge you're hitting into 17 green, which is your first hole. But like, it just starts so hard.

You're playing the road hole in reverse. Like it's just, we had an easy pin too. We did. But that second hole, which is playing into 16 green around the hotel as well. Like I misjudged the wind. I hit a four. I thought it was kind of hurting us a little bit. I hit a four and roughly 60 yards over the green almost out of bounds. But that shot was like thrilling to wrap it around the wind was kind of off the right and I thought into but it turned out was helping but that was such a thrilling shot of like hitting it around the hotel the other

way. Gosh, I really could keep going because and playing into 13 green so that that would have been what the fifth hole the par five like that was a really, really good one as well. But yeah, I think the par fives are maybe, I don't, again, I don't want to say better, but like, I would listen to the conversation that the par fives were more fun going the opposite direction.

So I'm, I'm with you that like the concept of like playing over the hotel with like a different shot than you're used to is just, is so sick. And like TC was saying, like, yeah, you hit that one like 60 yards over the hotel with like a different shot than you're used to is just, is so sick. And like TC was saying, like, yeah, you hit that one like 60 yards over the green, but then you were just like in the normal spot for playing the 16th hole, you know? It's like, oh, I've hit this shot before, we're fine.

Well, and then it was funny, we're playing into, I think DJ and I, like the wind is howling out of the north, northeast, and DJ and I are playing that same stretch, but going backwards to one green. And we're up by the wall. Like we're over by the jigger in up 17 fairway, 120 yards right there. So, you know, and then I mean, shit, somehow like into 18 green, I think I had seven wood. Like I hit a really bad tee shot,

but the wind was howling and I'm like, how do I have 160 yards in here and it's playing 220, 225? It was an out of body experience hitting of a fairway wood into that green. We lost our hands at that point too, I think. I think we're toast. What was the slack thread you sent through a preview of the video?

Do you remember which one it was in of how bad the weather was that day? Like we're not somehow not doing enough justice for how bad the weather was on this day. Like it is, and I don't say I kind of had forgotten a little bit about it until you sent through that, just a little tease of the video where we're like walking up on the back night

and it's just a total slop fest. Even the Scots were like, hey, I wouldn't be like straight up worst weather I've ever played in. And it was like probably the most fun I've ever had on a golf course. Like we were, we were positively giddy afterwards. And I think that was the worst golf course I've ever played in. And I think that was the worst golf course I've ever played in. And I think that was the worst golf course I've ever played in. And I think that was the worst golf course I've ever played in. And it was like probably the most fun I've ever had on a golf course. Like we were, we were positively giddy afterwards.

I mean, it was just, it was the best. I think I started crying at one point. Yeah. In the, uh, in the done vegan. And I'm like, man, that was like one of the most enriching, rewarding, just like really, really soulful experiences of my entire life. And I guess the, the, you know, the big reveal here, if it's not already out everywhere else is like, I think the link stress is going to start doing this every year.

So I think this is like, I think they're going to try to keep like a, you know, five, six day window each year for opening this up to public play because I think they, you know, it was a great raving success. Start investigating that situation because if you get the ballot, if you're one of the lucky winners to get a spot to do this, it's one of the rare ones. We did a little contest with the Lakes Trust and we ended up meeting the contest winners, great guys that came from San Francisco, kind of like on a bit of a whim. And it was funny seeing some of the Instagram comments and whatever from people, because in our heads, we're like, God, I don't know if people are going to like, you know, they got like two weeks notice. Like, I don't know who's going

to like, just drop everything and book a flight and get over there. And like all the Instagram comments were like, Oh, I mean, like, I could just find another job, you know, like, I could just get like another, like, yeah, I can't do this, though, you know, like this is, this is irreplaceable. Like, yeah, I could just find another job. That's what we do. It's just, that's kind of, but that kind of sums it up. Do I have your permission to share that 14 second clip that you shared on our, on our Slack channel? I found it here. Here's it. Here's a sneak preview for those that want to see it.

I found it here. Here's, here's it. Here's a sneak preview for those that want to see it. Yeah. Big shout out to all, all of our camera, camera ops, Andrew and Patty and Ben. And that was a, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, people start doing math out in coastal Oregon, West coast, the Scotland, bleak. All right, TC, let's transition into the old course. We got to play the old course, the traditional routing the next day. We filmed that, of course. We'll have a video, of course, on all that, which we've made a Taurusos episode on the old course, but I've never really fully filmed around. I even closed to fully filming around on the old course. So look out for that. But we've gotten to see the old course several times here. We got to see this was the worst weather

I played the old, again, bad weather again, the next day, worst I've ever seen the old course in. But any takeaways from this go around on the old? Yeah, I think playing it in the reverse made me appreciate it even more. The old course, this is the seventh time I played it, I love it so much. Somehow it gets better every single time. Just because there's so many layers to it, right? There's, you know, like you can play it. All right, you can kind of try to force the issue and you can, you know, or you can kind of bail out down the one side all day long and make hard pars easy bogeys kind of

thing. But I think being, like we were playing for a competition amongst ourselves too. So we were playing for the Lynx Master jug. And so we did like an aggregate scoring thing. So that was kind of fun to have in our back pocket as well and compete a little bit. And I think it was, yeah, it's just one of those things where like, after playing the day before, you're, you're kind of looking over your side or looking,

you're walking backwards a lot looking, oh man, like, all right, that that makes more sense. Now I can kind of triangulate where that is now and everything. So I think we had the same pins, right? The next day. I think so. Yeah. Playing, you know, both ways to the same pins was super interesting as well. Just, you know, you kind of, I think the holes that I love on the old course stay the same. And then I feel like I appreciate the holes that I didn't love the first time that much more each time after like, perfect example, Sally's 12. I think 12 is just like the, you know, we've talked about it on this pod already, but just a brilliant little par four and it's, it's kind of a, you know, simple, but not easy kind of thing.

And you've got Tom Watson saying he just still doesn't know how to play the hole. Like you've properly mystified the true links master, right? It just sets off such a good cadence. 12 into 13 is probably one of the funkiest holes on the course. Kind of plant uphill into that green and you've got a decision to make off the tee is that how aggressive you want to get there and how far down you want to push it. 14, obviously the par five, you got a massive green there and that was kind of the difference in the open championship as well. Like when Rory and Cam, Rory hit it into that slope and Cam hit it past the slope. I think 15 is a vastly underrated hole and 16 as well. I think like

15 and 16 for my money, they don't get near the notoriety of 17 or even 18. But I think those are like 15 and 16 are why I love the old course. You're trying to hit it down that fence line on the right side to earn that angle. You're playing with fire a little bit if you get a little bit of a gust or you push it a little bit. You're hitting wedges into those holes, but it's such an exercise in distance control where there's some really awesome pins that you can put in on 15 and especially 16. This is pretty well-worn territory, I know, but it's not the, it's not the most thought-provoking

first hole in golf, but it's the best first hole in golf. It's not the most thought-provoking 18th hole in golf, but it's the best 18th hole in golf. You know, all that stuff from when you make the turn at 11, the town just keeps getting bigger and bigger as you play back into it is like, there's just so many, there's so many tangibles and we could sit here on the podcast for five hours talking about like the nuances and the specifics and, but there's so many more intangibles of just being there and what it's like in the town and it's just adds up to this one plus one equals 17 type of feeling that you have when you're there. And, you know, we talked a lot about it in the film that's coming up, but like the way it remains constant, you know, it, it, it doesn't change.

It's someplace you can always come back to and rely on being the same as the last time you were there. And TC, you said it about kind of like learning more about it playing in reverse. I was likening it to, you know, when you start a video game or something and like the whole map is black, and then you walk over here and then that part of the map gets uncovered. And then you walk over here and that part of the map gets uncovered. It's like you were saying, Tron, it's like you've played it seven times. I'm sure you still don't feel like you've like solved it,

but you've got a lot more of the map uncovered and you know, playing it in reverse was like a great chance to hit all these spots that are like, Oh man, I've never been over here before, but now I'm going to file this away in my kind of like mental notebook and just learn a little bit more about it and a little bit more about it. And it's just like this lifetime puzzle that you never quite solve, but you're always think you can. And it's just, I think it's also like in perfect proportion for golf games like ours too, right? Where like

the distance is never going gonna get to some spot where the golf course feels like brutally difficult. You know, it always seems like something you should be able to play because you can, you can hit it far enough. You can hit your irons good enough. Like you should be able to really like take this thing down, but there's always enough challenges

to make it really, really hard, but fun to try to do so. So it's just like in perfect scale for golf games like ours. And it might not be a scale for the pro game anymore. And they might have to do weird things to, to trick it up and put pins in outrageous spots and whatever. But like for games like ours and like most of the listeners to this podcast, it's just, it's the perfect challenge. It's as fun as you can ever have playing golf. Yeah. You can execute all day long out there. Like you can execute pretty much all the shots

of your eight to 10 handicap, except for maybe, like maybe the shot into 11. You know, is, is, is kind of a kind of litmus test on your game a little bit. It's an ask. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, you know, I think overall there's, there's all sorts of, you know, there's all sorts of like little mental hurdles that you have to clear or Sally, like your skate park analogy is great. It's and playing it, playing it backwards or even playing, I think that was the first time I ever played it in like really bad weather or just bad weather at all. Where say like, you know, it's like, oh my God, I want to hit that rail over

there. I've never been able to use that kicker before because I've been down been on the right each time here. So it was, you know, it's fun to be able to use the different features and the different little elements on each plane. I have a statement and I'd be curious if you guys would agree like playing the old course in reverse was once in a lifetime potentially and such a cool experience. And I'm gonna remember so much about that day. It was great. The old course in reverse was once in a lifetime potentially and such a cool experience.

And I'm gonna remember so much about that day. It was great. The old course traditional is a better golf course, right? There's a reason why they play it that way. Definitely some cool holes on the reverse, but like the old course traditional is, it's a symphony. It's like perfection. What's your split if you had 10 rounds between the two?

And if let's say the agronomy was, was set up for, for the backwards as well, like, you know, the mo lines on some of those weaker holes, seven, three traditional, like if I'm eliminating the special nature of playing it in reverse, like that, that would probably be fine. Yeah. I was right around seven, three or six, four even. Yeah. Yeah. It would be interesting. Like the old course in reverse, the reverse version with firmness, which we did not get.

Yeah, maybe we love that even more. Maybe but again, it's just worth like the get the old course. But the first time first two times I played it, I did not have the affection. I won't say what I will say now, which is like it's my favorite golf course in the world. Like it just wasn't there yet. It took I've told the story before, but it took a caddy that like, would point out some things to me would explain the strategy to me would send me down the wrong fairway to have the right angle to the back right pin on 15

would do blah, blah, blah would do all this stuff that like, once it unlocked, and once I saw it in a different way, and once I understood why that bunker was there, and blah, blah, blah, all of that that adding up to like, as soon as the uncovering of the map thing you're talking about Deidre was like, holy shit, this place is like, you can't maybe understand it all in one go around.

And it just keeps continuing to elevate for me for so many, it hits just so many different notes. And I'm like, back in 2015, when I played for the first time, my notes were how cooler are your views on your golf course? Like, that's what I cared about a lot. And that's what a lot of people care about. I'm'm like back in 2015, when I play for the first time, my notes were how cooler your views on your golf course. Like that's what I cared about a lot. That's what a lot of people care about. I'm not saying you're wrong. But as I grow up got more appreciation for golf experiences, golf courses, and all that. Now I'm paying more attention to what's

right in front of me, like what's right at my eye level, instead of looking out past the golf course. And it is just like the coolest feeling to go around that place and just have fun. It's just so fun. There's not that many golf courses that like the word fun is the first one you'll use. But that's where I always come back to with the old course no matter how many times I play it. Like I, I still just want to flip right back around, go straight to the first tee and go do it again because it's just the most special walk

you can have in golf. Here, you just, you know, in golf. You would write letters to courses asking them how good are the views on your golf course? Please send me a picture before I decide grace the grounds. I think everything I was saying about the scale and the proportion of it as well kind of lends to the other big reason we want to do a video, which is that the women's open I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point.

I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. Alex, where you guys were kind of talking about that, that whole debate about, you know, basically men saying that the women's game is more relatable and how that can either be like a backhanded compliment to a woman, which I understand how they would take it that way. Or I think I'm much on your guys's page where it's like, no, I'm trying to say like the ultimate compliment. Like you guys are like my, what I'm capable of doing physically, you guys are the best in the world at actually like executing. And so I think the women's open will be like just watching a bunch of people that are like, man, that that's what I've been fucking trying to do at this golf course for my entire life. And I just cannot do it. Like you guys can actually

do it. And I can't wait to watch that execution test. It's going to be good. And like the late, you know, the ladies too, with all right, like spin is at more of a premium or two, or, you know, I think the way that the LPGA sets up a lot of the mate, a lot of their venues week to week, there's not a lot of creativity involved. So, you know, seeing the ladies have to get creative and use their heads and really think a lot. I think it'll separate out some of the

most creative best players in the world. And I have a take about the old course. I said this when we walked off of it. And I'm willing to be critiqued and criticized by anyone that wants to write in a letter for me, write in about this. But you said you were saying they should put a waterfall in the bird. I do. I think they need some modern features and some comfort stations out there. No, I think they could use a few more fairway bunkers. Like more for the modern game. Some of the bunkers are so well placed and there's some holes where like truly I can't

get myself into trouble here at all. There's a couple holes where the strategy is what's so good on so many of the holes that the ones where you don't have to think about it, it's just a bit lacking. And I think a couple just a small centerline bunkers that are just like, dude, you can't, you got to Lee hug the left here, or else you're gonna fall into that one, you got to hug the right to stay away from that one. I don't know if that's even possible at this stage to add bunkers to the old course with, you know, all of

them having names in the history behind all of them. But for the modern if to keep up with the modern game more than just like tricked up greens or, you know, tricked up pin positions, just a couple more would be could could add some interest to a couple holes. I have to think more about the specifics of that. But there's several tee shots out there that are just quite easy. Just like I just kind of hit it out there.

Imagine how pissed some like 75 year old RNA member that's been playing it his whole life would be if he just hits it. It is like they finished construction. He just hits it into some bunker in the middle of the fairway that hasn't been there for, for years. That's right. It's also, it's like a living, you know, it's a living, it's a living document, right? And it's, uh, I think it's, it's constantly, yeah, I think that's one of the beauties of golf in Scotland, especially, you know, the Australians it's, it's constantly, yeah. I think that's one of the beauties of golf in Scotland, especially, you know, the Australians do a great job with it, but I think the Scottish, especially just, Hey, we're going to reevaluate this based upon the current game.

You know, and we're going to, we're going to make it the best golf course it possibly could be regardless of history. Um, I think one of my favorite little features is there's that little tuft of gorse in the burn. It's great. Again, we could do a whole nother pod about just the old course. Maybe after the next time we'll go, we'll, we'll, we'll do that if that works. But well, I asked you, I asked you this on the reverse. What's your favorite shot on the, on the old, the, uh,

the anti-clockwise routing. Second shot in 17. All right. Well let's throw that one out. Oh, come on. It's first shot on 17. First shot on 18. The second shot into 14. That's such a fun dynamic shot. The T shot on 11. So fun. I mean you, you shout it out. I was like, it's the biggest ask from like a higher handicap perspective. Like, man, when you pull it off, like that, that was a, I hit it close there one time in my life. It was like,

windows whipping straight in. I had like four iron and I ended up somehow hitting it to like three feet. And I've just been chasing that dragon for like the rest of my life. Every time I step up there, I'm just like a little taller. It's like, Oh, I got this shot. I just blow to the bunker and make triple and whatever. But that would always sticks with me. Honestly, I get super. Like if you got a little helping win,

I get super hyped for the tee shot on nine. I get really a ton of anticipation of like 350. Got to avoid a few bunkers. And like, if I do, I'm going to have an eagle chant like from 350. Like I'm going to have an eagle chance here if I hit a good shot, or I could be struggling for bogey. If I, if I find one of these bunkers, that would always get to be quite a thrill. Even two and like two, three, four, like those second shots into those holes are

really cool too. Cause you start establishing a cadence for the day, but then you've got, it's really tough to discern where the pin is too. Like there's so much shit going on in those greens. Well, it also, it also can like compound in a bad way, right? Because like the whole thing about the old course is like all the troubles on the right, you can play left all day. Where do most, you know, high handicaps hit it?

Like they hit it kind of weak to the right. So like you can, I've played out there with people that are playing the first time and it's like, number one, they hit it out of bounds. Oh shit. Okay. I'm reteeing. Number two, oh my God, I'm flirting with out of bounds. I'm in the gore, so I'm played out there with people that are playing the first time and it's like, number one, they hit it out of bounds. Oh shit. Okay. I'm reteeing. Number two, oh my God, I'm flirting with out of bounds. I'm in the course. I'm hacking out. Number three, oh my God, I'm on the OB line again. Like it can get, it can get real very fast, which is like, you know, again, the reverse is like, oh, you hit it right all day long. You've got all the,

all the room in the world over that way. You know, so it's kind of a fun, fun mix. What's the worst spot to miss on the golf course? T.C. What's like, please, please don't drop me here. I've put it through a windshield on 18 before. I'd say that's up there. It is park at your own risk, but you know, I was trying to go down that right side. I think we had a back left pin. That would be up there. I think. That was a great story. That didn't the starter like prank you the next day. Yeah. So the next day we're playing the new course, really excited to play the new course. Love the new course and out there early, you know, and probably three or four groups early, hanging out on the tee and starter comes up with the caddy master and he's like, Hey TC, the owner of the car,

he's called and he's not happy. And I was like, the caddy told me not to, like, I wanted to leave a note. The caddy told me not to leave a note. I promise. I promise. And he was like, well, he's really upset and he's going to take you to civil court. I'm like, I'm losing it. I'm like, I promise. I wanted to do the right thing. And he told me that I

have not to leave a note or anything like that. He's like, I'm just messing with you. But he let it go on for a good six or seven minutes. I mean, there's hell bunker, there's hill bunker, shell bunker, the Strath bunker, any of those, none of those are good spots to miss at any point., none of those are good spots to miss at any point. Long left of or long right anywhere long on 11. You're talking about Bailen out there playing that one reverse. That's, that's death back there.

What's up? We're there for the Walker cup. Dylan Menente and Gordon Sargent were playing a practice round and, and Dylan hit it over, they're playing all shot and Dylan hit it over that green almost to like, so over 11 green, it drops down probably 15 feet and Dylan hit it over that green almost to like so over 11 green it drops down probably 15 feet and then it immediately comes back up to the 12th tee and I think Gordon basically was left on like the upslope of like that back hill and just had to hit like a like a downhill flop shot to a green running away from him it was just like it was the worst place I've ever seen a golfer be it It was awful. And of course he hit it to like seven feet. Moving off the old, uh, onto we're not going to, we have problems. We won't spend nearly

as much time on these next few golf courses. Um, but we'll get a lot of questions. I got a lot of people going to St. Andrews for the first time. Um, I, you know, I always ask about their itineraries and I get physically upset And maybe I shouldn't get this upset. But I get upset. If you go to St. Andrews and your itinerary does not include the new course. I'm going to pass a little bit of judgment on you. Like I not not judgment on that's that's harsh. I'm gonna say if you walk off the new and didn't like it, I will pass judgment on you on that one. Right. A lot of people

don't know to go do this. Like you hear you go to St. Andrews, you want to play the old course deal because I don't play the new course. What was the Yeah, I'm just not a big modern architecture guy. 1991 when was that? No, it's been 1897 by old Tom Morris. Okay. And it is a vastly different experience from the old and it's just a necessary experience. It is on the same strip of land. So the whole way out the first eight holes basically run but up against the

front nine of the old course. And the routing more of the you know, it's kind of a clockwise routing. It's not the same traditional way of the old course. But like it's it's, it's more of the the direction of the reverse old course of going out there. And it is just I just described as it's pure links like it's the old old course is a one of one experience. Crazy double greens, massive undulations like the new is just straight golf holes right and it is just fairly simply routed

golf holes with pot bunkers. It's not overly penal. They've done such a great job maintaining it over the years of cutting back course and just kind of letting you hit it in a lot of places. It's great for all skill levels, really eases you in. It's got a few epic holes, but it's not like it has just total standout holes everywhere, it's just no bad holes.

No, no, not even, no mediocre holes throughout it. And you can play irons off the tees, you can hit bump shots up, you can hit wedges up, you can hit long irons, you can do any kind of shot from any spot. There's just really well positioned pop bunkers in so many different places. Like the seventh hole really makes you make a decision off the tee, you can't just pound driver there, they kind of bottlenecks and do around a bunch of bunkers. The eighth hole is one of the best

par fives that have played in Scotland. It's just this tremendous three bunkers that separate right down the middle of the fairway. You got to make a decision off the team. Am I laying up short of those? Am I going over those? And the green set back between these two dunes right up by the estuary, right out where you get to eight T on the old course, transitions you right into the ninth hole, which is a 225 yard punch bowl par three that runs along the estuary,

right to your left. And then you start working your way backwards in towards the clubhouse from there. I freaking love this golf course and I could not recommend it any higher if you are making a trip there. It's super easy to get out you can play it in a you know in three and a half hours probably it's not a miniature golf course in any way but it just does not take a long time to play this place and you don't like need need need a tee time there. If you show up there and say, Hey, we'd like to get out

at some point today, they'll probably figure out a way to work you into it. So if you have a half a day open in any way in St. Andrews, it's not the most taxing round of golf you're ever going to play. But I just cannot say enough great things about this place. And I really, really, really think you should play it. Yeah, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, really, really, really think you should play it. Yeah. Here, here. I think the par fives are awesome.

Par threes are dynamic. The way it uses the dunes to the way the dunes kind of front some of the greens. Like that stretch from what seven through 11 or 12 is just like as good as it gets anywhere in Scotland, much less St. Andrews. And I would say I would co-sign to this like beyond the new course, the Jubilee's got some exceptional holes. It can beat you up a little bit in spots.

It's pretty dynamic and pretty electric. There's some pretty severe slopes and such. I think the front nine on the Eden is up there too for some of my favorite golf in the area. The back nine, there's a couple of the worst holes in Scotland that they built when they got rid of the driving range. But there's some Harry Colt original holes on the Eden course. You can go whip around the Eden and the front end of the Eden in 75 minutes. It's awesome. Yeah. I think everybody stresses out for good reason about like this bucket list kind of feeling that you have when you go to Scotland and like, Oh my God, I'm going to miss something.

I'm going to miss something. I'm going to miss something. I need to go play here. I got to take a drive here. Like on the floor of again, like it's weird to call it the resort, but like the floor of like, you could never leave St. Andrews and have an exceptional exceptional golf trip and play world-class golf every day you know and that's kind of how all of all of those courses feel. So I had co-signed

everything you said about the new Jubilee and Eden are both a blast. It's just it's great man it's very like again it's like what I was saying about the old like it's just very in proportion golf it's not gonna beat you up it's gonna it feels it just feels right I don't know I have a blast every time I play truly any of those golf courses, they all feel like bonuses, right? Like built off of off of the old and how, you know, magnificent it is and how popular and famous it is. It's like, you don't expect everything else around it to be to hold a candle to it. And so

your expectations are almost like low when you go in and you just end up having a great time with all of those walks. And I'll like, I don't want to, it's either seven, three or six four. That's my old and new course split. Right? I mean, I if I had 10 rounds, I wouldn't want to spend all 10 on the old honestly, I love playing the new it's such a great. It's such a great compliment, right? It's so not similar. It's on the same

stretch of land and it's not at all similar to the one next to it that it's like such a great variety. And to me, Jubilee is well worth your time. It's a clear rung below new for me, but they've also done a great job maintaining that over the years. There's some funky holes on Jubilee. Some not. I think the highs are just as high. Yeah, there's some good holes. The eighth hole Jubilee is just fantastic. Like this dogleg left, bending par four

that sits in these dunes. Like there's some seriously, seriously good golf holes out there. Couple of that are just kind of funky. And it's it's the Jubilee has been many different iterations over the years is the fourth incarnation of the Jubilee. And it was opened in 1989. I think this version of it. I mean, this 18 old version of it. And it's, it's it's again, worth your time. I just like you cannot, you just can't miss the new when you're there, honestly,

and I would rank it old, obviously, one new Jubilee Eden would be would be my ranking of the four that are that are all right there. But I think Eden is worth your time too, if you're spending a lot of time in St. Andrews. But I think if you're in St. Andrews for three days, like the, the, the, at least the front nine of the Eden is not to be missed. Yeah. Like go, go out and have a afternoon Twilight knock out there. The next one gets a, it's a, it's an interesting wrinkle in

the conversation, uh, in the discourse. Dej, where you, we're heading off property to this one. We are, we're going to drive up the road to the disc course. Dej, we're heading off property to this one. We are, we're gonna drive up the road to the Castle Course, which is probably, what, 15 minutes or so? Outside of the town of St. Andrews, stunning piece of property. You get some unbelievable views out there, which we will talk about.

So, the golf course here opened in 2008. It was designed famously by David McClay kid off of the success of his, his golf course abandoned dunes kind of seems like the links trusts effort to keep up with Kings barns, which was built fairly recently in, in the area as well. I think that opened in 2000. I think there was some anniversary stuff as well about, you know, this idea of, of, all right, it's time to add a new course to the portfolio here.

Immense, immense pressure that David McClade Kidd was under to be the guy who was tabbed to add a course to St. Andrews, the most famous golf destination in the world, the oldest golf destination in the world. Like, hey, why don't you just come up with something, uh, you know, something brand new. It almost feels like somebody, you know, going into the Louvre or, you know, any famous art museum and just be like, yeah, why don't you just paint something to like hang, hang next to the, the Mona Lisa here? You know, we,

we just want a lot of people to see what, what we're doing, uh, with modern stuff as well. Controversial reception to the golf course. I don't know if you guys want to get into kind of big picture thoughts now, or if we want to talk about the Tom Doak of it all, where do you think we should go? Take us there. What's it look like? What's it like?

Is it like the old course? Is it like the new course? It is not like the old course. It is not like the new course. I would say it's the best comp for me, again, Wisconsin centric is Whistling Straits. I mean, it's a big, expensive, shaped, bold piece of like, it's kind of bending the earth to your will a little bit. And the result is that,

man, it's stunning to look at. It is unbelievable. Unbelievable views. It is immaculately maintained. is unbelievable, unbelievable views. It is immaculately maintained. The golf is like, it's kind of one of those like, you can have as good or as bad a time as you want based on your perception of the place. It photographs incredibly well. There's some truly thrilling golf shots. The greens are outrageous.

Truly like, truly- Which, if the greens are outrageous now, I can't imagine what they were like, you know, there were a few that were maybe a little turned down, which I felt like, I felt like, Oh my gosh, I wish they were more outrageous. But yeah, there's, because that was the rub starting out. Right? Exactly. And that's, that's what I was going to say is like, we, we did not really see, this is my first time ever playing the golf course. So we did not really see like the golf course that a lot of these ratings are

based on. And the most famous one is Tom Doak and his confidential guide ranked 288 golf courses in and around the British Isles. The only one to receive a zero on his Doak scale ranking system was the Castle course. And if you guys would like me to read, explain a zero. I would love to. Zero is not a one. Yeah.

A zero is quote, a course so contrived and unnatural that it may poison your mind, which I cannot recommend under any circumstances reserved for courses that wasted ridiculous sums of money in their construction and probably shouldn't have been built in the first place." End quote. So they've softened the golf course a lot since that review was written. I think this kind of blew up because the confidential guide is like an amazing resource and Tom is probably the most educated, smart mind on a lot of this stuff and knows what he's talking about and has like all kinds of amazing insights that have helped, I think all of us understand more about golf courses. And this kind of blew up because golf.com kind of highlighted this ranking and, you

know, it became a pretty controversial piece understand understandably, because Tom and David McClay Kidd have designed golf courses, not together, but alongside each other at a number of different resorts and are contemporaries. Some people saw this as a pretty direct shot at more of a PR. Obviously, it's a direct shot. I think people saw it more like a PR like, this is intentionally controversial. I don't think Doke totally works that way. I think he was like, trying to write a critical book and trying to give, you know, a... This book was also for friends and colleagues too. Like it wasn't like a widely circulated... Like it wasn't like a widely circulated.

Exactly. Correct. And, uh, one of the, one of the great things about Doke is that he, he also used to be like a very prolific poster online. He used to be on golf club Atlas. There's all these old threads you can, you can find. And actually this is like from, he hopped on golf club Atlas. I went down a wormhole and like found the original thread of where he was kind of posting a lot of this stuff from like 2014 even. This is like actually the expanded part of

his review said quote, I feel for David because a lot of the criticisms of the course are things that one might say about the old course if it wasn't so famous. The greens are huge and wild. It's hard to discern the strategy from the tee. However, the severe tilt of the land and the size of the greens yield a lot of recovery shots to greens that are up over your head. And the moonscape of the course is only appealing when you're looking away from it across the bay towards town, trying to one up Kings Barnes, a heralded course just up the road turned out to be a formula for excess. He continues. This is now not part of his review, but part of the golf club Atlas post. The course was rated zero five five.

Ran, who was another Raider in this book, Ran Morissette hadn't seen the course and the others each gave it a five, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement. It's one rating out of 288 in the book. I am certainly not rating it that way to be controversial. Golf.com is choosing to focus on it to be controversial. It's my honest opinion.

You may all choose to play the castle course every day for the rest of your lives. If you want, I can't imagine hard to disagree with like honestly anything that's in there. Right. I think Dokes review of the place is, is fair, right. It based on his definition, like it, and that's not to say the golf course is not worth playing. Like I had two different things. I think there's, yeah, I think there's two different things in play here. I think, A, I think Dokes issue is there shouldn't have been a golf course built there in the first place. Right. Right. Because this was, this was farmland, flat farmland that they had to do something with to create a golf course. When we were there in March, April was like, the slop was real. Like

it was not, it's not links land. And I think just to even linger on that too, it's not like I think the reason it shouldn't be a golf course is because it was like so wildly expensive. And like, it just leads towards in his opinion, and I think probably in ours, all the wrong trends in golf, right? Where it's like you could there are probably spots in five where it's like, man, you can make a golf course for for 600 bucks. And this one probably costs like tens and tens of millions to, to do all of this. Yeah, that's, that's, that's right. And it transitioning into what, what we think of the

golf course, right. And, and, and we, so for the video, we're not going to spoil it, but we went out and played a scramble out there, which I think helped our impression of the golf course. And it's always an interesting, you know, not to race to the end of it in terms of like, what do you recommend on this? We can kick it off by that and kind of then discuss it. But I always struggle with when people have the castle on their itinerary for their first trip to Scotland, I want to nudge them towards like what I like more, which is kind of the new and the Jubilee and that kind of nature and just being near St. Andrews. But Krayle, Ely, you know.

I want to point people towards why you go to Scotland, which is these historic, amazing golf courses and it's not, it doesn't have to be a bucket list one. It doesn't have to have the greatest views like you want to go experience Scottish golf culture and like this, the Castle Course is not Scottish It doesn't have to be a bucket list one. It doesn't have to have the greatest views. Like you want to go experience Scottish golf culture. And like this, the Castle Course is not Scottish golf culture is not how I would define it.

Right, yet does it have great views? Do you look back at, and did I have a good time out there? I had a good time out there. I really did. I mean, it's, again, it's just like some tough competition around it. Not special enough to me to recommend that you leave that main area to go out there and play. But that's not to say it's not a fun to me to recommend that you leave that main area to go out there

and play. But that's not to say it's not a fun golf course to play. It's not enjoyable. It's just not what I'm looking for out of a Scottish golf experience, especially if I'm going for my first time. I think it makes you appreciate going back into town and going and playing those kind of flat, you know, links link courses. It's definitely a big walk to like it's it's on, you know, you feel like playing those kind of flat, you know, links link courses. It's definitely a big walk too.

Like it's, it's on, you know, you feel like you're kind of traipsing up and down the side of a big hill. There's some dynamic spots, like number four is a par five. That's, you know, really like the four, like four and five back to back par fives there. And then that stretch, like eight and nine are awesome. Like nine and 18 played in this double green.

But similar to kind of how we all felt about the cash-in course at Bally Bunyan, we played it as a modified scotch foursome, like alt shot. And it's really fun for an off day or for a recharge round to just go out and hang out and not have to worry about, you know, controlling your golf ball, you know, for all 18 holes for 80 shots that day. Right. And I think where the disconnect is, cause I agree fully with what you just said, but I think this is where Doke would point out, like it's also wildly expensive to play. And so it's really hard to be like,

Oh, like our off day kick around, shoot the shit day is also going to cost us 300 bucks. And it's a brutal walk. And you know, I don't actually know what the rate is. It's something it's, it's not cheap. And so it is a bit of a, yeah, it's just, it's kind of choose how, however you want to feel about it. Right. Because Sally, I'm, I'm with you. I feel exactly the same way. Like I had, I had kind of had a blast out there. And that was because we played a scramble. Yeah. And it was, but we had a great time. We took some great photos.

The visuals are going to be amazing. Like standing on 17T, which is like almost like a Cabot style part three, like you're hitting over this ravine. You see the town in the background. It's hard to like stand on that T with your arms crossed. Just be like, man, fuck this. I fucking hate it. Like what a joy to go through. You got to earn, you got to earn getting there though. Like, I mean you got to climb up like the climb up 10, 11, 12,

13 to get, you know, to kind of get to that because it is a super dynamic closing stretch. Like 15, that second shot into 15, if you get a good drive is absolutely dynamic. Like this shot over a burn and then you go, and then yeah, like you said, 16's cool. And then 17's just all world and 18, you almost have to suspend.

All right, wait, where am I hitting this? How far right am I taking it? Especially if you're playing a scramble and you've already got one in the fairway too. So yeah, it's definitely the kind of place too where if the wind was blowing, it would beat the shit out of a high handicapper. Totally. Yeah. I mean, Sal, you said like, skipping ahead to the, what's your recommendation? It's fun to have an opinion about. It's kind of like we're riding that out. And again, I'm with you. I don't think first trip to Scotland, it's like, I would probably recommend building a baseline of go play the new, go play the Jubilee, Eden, Crayle, Anne Strother,

all of those types of places. I think you're going to learn a lot more about golf, but man, if you've been to St. Andrew's four times, five times, and you're looking for something different, like, I don't know, go check it out. It's, it's, it's worth seeing. Like it's fun to talk about and think about. If you like views, go there. Like the views are the best of, I mean,

it's definitely the best of St. Andrew's courses. Like it's, it's legit. I mean, the setting is awesome. It's really cool. The higher up you get, the more views you get. Some of those 18th green is shared. Is that shared with the 9th green there, right there with the clubhouse right there? It's sweet.

Again, it's not like, again, it's just not true. It's like whistling straights on a more dramatic, with a little tethero mixed in. Yeah. Like if you, I don't know, if you gave me 10 rounds between Ely and Kings Barnes, I'm probably going like 10, nothing Ely. Yeah. If you gave me 10 rounds between Ely and the castle course, I'm going 10, nothing Ely, but that doesn't, you know, like that's just because I'm not going to Scotland to play these types of golf

courses. But I think a lot of the locals that play on the links card, they're like, oh, this is fun to do. It's like a nice offbeat change of pace. I would put Kings Barnes clearly ahead of the castle for me. So I would too, but I still don't like, I would say if you gave me 10 rounds between Castle Stewart and Kings Barnes, I'm going like nine one Castle Stewart. I think Kings Barnes is pretty contrived personally.

And you hate Kings Barnes. I do. I think it's the set of Frank Tits. I think there's a, I think it's fine. There is something to the idea as well. If you're, if you're getting really, really deep and geeky into this stuff, I think there's something cool, just like you would watch a film director or a band or whatever, to see how they've evolved over their career. Like, this is a wildly important piece of David McClay kids career, right? Like you go see band and dunes, you go see the castle course,

and you go see mammoth dunes and you're like, man, what, like, whoa, like this is the same guy. Like what happened? Like, tell me this story. Like, this is fascinating, you know? And like, that's where I think people can roll their eyes. But like, when you start looking at golf courses as works of art and, you know, looking at where inspiration came from and what the intent was and all that stuff, like you got to kind of understand it from a 360 degree view. And I think the castle courses for a Scottish guy coming back, kind of a follow-up

to the to the first album type of thing. Like just it's important to see. I think it's very interesting. That shot on 17 is like worth the price of admission. It's so cool. It's fucking spectacular. So cool. I don't know. Choose your own adventure, but I don't think it could go wrong. Play it or don't. I think both are both are good options. Oh, it's, uh, it's so, it's so interesting how often that conversation comes up. And it is kind of like a literally just had it like last week. I'm like, okay, here's just, here's exactly what you're getting into. Here's what you're doing. Here's what you're missing out on by not playing the new and playing the castle. So, um, uh, I am going to have

to take off here. I know we're not gonna wrap up the next five minutes. I've got a hard stop at noon. But we, so if you see me, if you don't hear my voice on listening in your car here for a second, that may be why. But TC, take us out west. You guys, before you guys came out east,

you took a trip over to Aaron. And then last year, you also took a trip with Jim Hartzell that is documented on our YouTube channel as well. But this was, I don't know if we ever got a chance to fully talk about all this stuff on the pod or even if we did, we can kind of reheat a bunch of that now. But you guys had a great one.

Yeah, I would direct people. We had Jim on the pod. We kind of debrief the documentary as well as- That was episode 741 TC. 741, there we go. How many are we into this now? Like what episodes like eight? Yeah. So anyway, we talked to Jim on the pod. I would recommend going back and listening to that one. But, but yeah, because we're insane and morons, we decided to, we had what? Like we had a spare day basically. And we played Trune in the morning.

Yeah. We had to get from the west coast to, we had basically a travel day to get from like the west coast to up to Fife. And so it was like, well, we could, we can wake up in the morning and we could just drive. It's going to be a long drive. And I don't know, we're probably going to be tired and we're probably not going to play too much golf and whatever. Or. Yeah. Or we could go, we could, so we took the ferry over. We got, we wrapped it true. And at what noon, one o'clock. Yeah. And, uh, and we took the ferry over to Aaron basically to go see my friends,

Greg and Ewan. Now your friends as well. That's just kind of how it works. So for the ferry ride, I mean, you tell me the ferry ride. It's like one of the most blissful, delightful things you can do. I think it's the best. It's a ferries are one of my favorite things. I miss the Jacksonville ferry greatly going over, you know, to from Mayport over there. I've just, uh, my in-laws make fun of me all the time and how much I'm always talking about hopping on, on ferries. So I know the ferries are a source subject over there as well because they tend to run very irregularly and they're having some issues and a lot of these islands just rely so heavily on this ferry traffic to get visitors there, to get residents there and back. It's a

mess that you can dive down, a wormhole you can dive down at your own leisure. But yeah, we took the ferry over to Aaron, which was great. We ended up meeting up with Ewan and playing Corrie Golf Club, which is one of your favorites, one of Jim's favorites, a little nine hole spot that like in times, I mean, gosh, in times it looks like a backyard course. In times it looks like the Swiss Alps in times it looks like, you know, kind of Cullen or it's just, it's, it's a crazy dynamic, uh, little nine hole golf course that, that feels like you're in three or four different places, uh, just winding over this like really small piece of property, unbelievably fun holes get out there and, you know, carry your bag and walk around it

and you know, an hour and 10 minutes or whatever it took us to play. That set us up to go stay at the Corey Hotel, which is another place that pops up in the When Revelation Comes film that we did last year. One of my favorite things in the world, little mom and pop glorified B&Bs basically. The Corey hotel is just fantastic. I know you can proper restaurant, proper bar, sir. Wolfington's the site of you know, the sir. Wolfington's picture. Exactly. Very dog friendly establishment as well. Yeah, I would say Corey Corey, like it feels like I think it was originally there was an old mine up there kind of midway up Goethe fell and this is where the miners played golf back in the day kind of itway up, goat fell. And this is where the miners played golf back in the day,

kind of near the town of Sannox. I would say it looks like you're playing in Lord of the Rings scene. Yeah. And then you basically head over to the other side of the island. You had to cross this, it's almost kind of like the Saddleback Road on like the big island of Hawaii. And you're over on Shiskin. we had the first time I went over with Jim, we had a really cloudy kind of gray couple of days and the sun finally broke through right as we were finishing up and we had the opposite this time. We had just this clear day. You could see over towards Kintyre, you could see the Ailsa Craig off in the distance

and just a brilliant, brilliant crisp morning. And I mean, you tell me it's a 12-hole course and it kind of defies explanation. Totally. I had read a lot about it. Tom Coyne wrote a piece for the Golfers Journal about it that I absolutely loved. It was a big part of his Scotland book as well. You and Jim had just raved like lunatics about it. I saw the visuals from the film that you guys did and weirdly is like this 12-hole golf course on the end of the world was like, kind of like in my top five of like my bucket list.

I was like, yeah, man, I'd love to play like national golf links and I'd also love to play this like super weird course in the Western islands of Scotland. And so that was kind of the big impetus for you and I spending the day to go do it. And God, it lived up to the expectations. I mean, kind of struggle with the words a little bit. Like it's just, it doesn't look like anywhere you've ever been. I mean, it just both looks like absolutely perfect golf land and also kind of defies description a little bit. You know, it's like you've, it both like fits perfectly and it looks like nothing you've ever seen. Outrageous, huge rock outcroppings, weird, cool, like trails up through the, you know, up through the,

these kind of like outcroppings to get to T boxes, thrilling golf shots and stuff, you know, not gimmicky. Like I feel like you probably hear a lot of this description and you see some of the photos and it, it almost looks like a glorified like pitch and putt, not the case at all. Very proper golf course. You have to hit like every club in the bag. You have to hit really proper shots to score well. And just watching like you and, and Greg navigate the place was really fun. You know, they play there all the time,

absolute like add it to your list type place. The people were the best people on earth. You know, it's just like just so hospitable and love hearing where you came from and why you sought this place out. The golf course, it's like the most hostile, you know, just environment for a golf course, like around. And the people that, that keep it looking like a golf course are putting up a pretty heroic effort to do so. I think Stuart's one of the best in the business. He's just a character too. Like I'm glad you

got to meet him and he rolled up on his new tractor that he's all excited about. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's people like that that the golf is excellent in Scotland and right there with Australia as far as like best in the world. But I think it's the people that you remember long after you've come home from the trip. 100%. And I think my other big takeaway just as it pertains to the listeners of this pod

is when I watched the film that you guys did and when I've heard Jim talk about it and heard other people write about it, I'm like, oh my God, this must be a day and a half trip to catch all kinds of connecting fairies to get out there. And do you know like yeah that's just like not realistic for me to do and when you actually like spelled it out it was like no we're like here at trune where they're going to be playing the open championship one of the biggest tournaments in the world and like no we can just go it's like a you know it's like an hour ferry like we can there's one leaving in you know 90 minutes like we just got to drive to the ferry and hop over like it was much much more accessible than I thought it was. And I know there are islands that are not like that. And you know,

there's more of those like Northern like Northwest islands that they get really far out there that Jim loves to explore, but this was not really one of them, man. It was, it was pretty accessible. And it's one that is like very doable if you're doing a West coast of Scotland trip. It feels like you're on the edge of the earth and you're a 45 minute ferry ride away. It's the best of both worlds, right? And they've got a, you know, a different ferry that's down from the Shetlands or the Orkneys running this summer. That's got more capacity and

more reliable. Yeah, the ferry thing, if you want to Google that, CalMac ferries, it's like a whole, I mean, it's a whole political hot button over there in Scotland. But where, you know, it's really keeping some of the people in Aran kind of hostage, right? A lot of people are moving off the island and all of that,

because it's just hard to run a business when you can't rely upon your main, you know, your main kind of source of revenue and all the visitors. But yeah, I mean, I'm planning a trip right now for... I'm going to meet Jim over there, our friend Dan Horner, who was in Toursauce season one. I'm going to be over for the open and staying over near Trune, going to hang out at Presswick for two or three days. And then I've never played Western Gales, never played Turnberry, basically never played anywhere on that coast except for Trune now.

So I'm going to play Presswick, St. Nicholas, all of those, but then go to the open Thursday and then Friday, go over to Aaron and stay on Aaron Thursday night, Friday night, and then head back over Saturday, go back to the open and all of that. And it's just, it's one of those things where, you know, provided the ferry's running, it's a world away and it's no different than like your commute to the office, if you live 45 minutes outside the city.

Yeah. Deeply worth seeing. So I'm very thankful that we were able to do it. And then the next day we had an awesome day too. So like I was saying, we kind of had, you know, all day, like it was one of those days where you have like one thing on your to-do list where it's like, you just gotta get from, from point A to point B and take however long you want to take to get there.

And so you and I have a propensity for, okay, it's a three hour drive. Like why don't we take nine hours to do it? We'll stop at a bunch of places. And so we ended up, yeah, taking the ferry back gorgeous morning for ferry travel, you know, sun kissed morning to come back across the Firth there. And we ended up driving from essentially Trune up to St. Andrews and stopped it four or five places kind of like inland Parkland places that had been on your list for a while. Yeah, we got duffed by traffic a little bit between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

But we were initially gonna go to Brunsfield, which the little like par three, like we pitch and putt there on the west side of Edinburgh. We scrapped that and we just said, hey, let's stop by Aberdour. That's it. Yeah. So we stopped it. We're just rolling across and I'm like, man, there's all these golf courses on the north side of the Firth after you cross over the bridge from Edinburgh to get to Fife. There's all these golf courses on the way to St. Andrews, the way to Kings

Barnes, the way to Crayle, Dunbarney, Ely, even Carnoustie that everybody just drives by and they're right there near the water. Like I just, I want to see what like they're either the most flat Parkland ish, poorly maintained. Like what's the, what's wrong with these golf course that nobody ever stops at these. So we stopped at, uh, so the first one we stopped at Aberdour and, uh, met, met a delightful gentleman there, walked a few holes with him. That place was cool. I mean, the first two or three holes there were like, holy shit, this place looks awesome. Definitely. You know, amazing views across, across the first there, you look back over into Edinburgh and it just, yeah, really, really cool spot. Yeah. And, you know, we're, we Firth there. You look back over into Edinburgh and it just,

yeah, really, really cool spot. Yeah, and you know, worth mentioning this spring, this winter and spring in Scotland was among their wettest ever. It's just been miserable, miserable winter. But you know, so definitely not a sand-based soil or anything like that, you know, very, very kind of sloppy. But, you know, of course, looked awesome.

There's these cool rock outcroppings popping up and cool little town too. Like these are kind of the bedroom communities of Edinburgh, but very, you know, some people that are either retired or can work remotely or, you know, have to cross the bridge just a couple of times a week because I think that would be a pretty big commute otherwise. Delightful when you think of an Edinburgh, like Prim and Proper suburb, this is what

you would think of. And then we headed further down and we went to Burn Island, which is that place, I mean that place, extremely dramatic, cool old clubhouse kind of sits up on this bluff. You can see, you know, it's near, near huge hog beach as well. Which we desperately drove around looking for a sign or something. Yeah, it was a real bummer. That's one of the regrets we got. I think you have to hike to huge hog beach. So we got to put that our, our bucket list for next time. But again, that's that like Burn Island. It looked like there was some really cool holes going up

and down this hillside there. Drone spectacular. I can't wait to go back and look at the drone footage. I don't think I've dug too deep into it. But again, it was like, holy shit, this is the total curve ball from what you'll see in the rest of Fife, even a few miles down the road in London in Levin, but worthwhile nonetheless. It's spectacular, cool kind of parkland golf.

And then we went down to Kinghorn, which I kind of melted our brains a little bit. That's the one I haven't really stopped thinking about since. Unbelievable piece of land. You could see the entire golf course from the clubhouse. Nobody was there. They were kind of packing up for the day and you know, there's one woman in the shop and like, she's like, what are you, who are you guys? What are you doing? We're like, oh, we're just like, I don't know.

We're just looking at golf courses. She's like, you don't want to play? Like, no, we're just going to like throw the drone up if that's okay. She's like, yeah, I don't give a shit. Do whatever you want. I'm heading out. And so flew the drone around and like it starts sprinkling and this giant rainbow comes out. I mean, it was just like this unbelievable kind of 10 minutes and just looked like a

spectacular, spectacular piece of land. Like I said, you can kind of see every whole big like wide open type of paddock, but tons of crazy dune land. Like the more we took the drone around, like we'd take it down low. I'm not sure if it's a joke, but it was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke.

It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke.

It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was like just the coolest golf course ever. And I think it was like 17 pounds or something to play there. Like it just, it was a joke, amazing views. It was,

it was really, really cool. So it was just, again, like we've always said, you know, the quickest thing is like, when people are like, Oh man, I'm taking a trip. Should I go to Scotland or Ireland? It's like, well, that's like a super complicated question, right? But like the overarching thing is Ireland has like great highs, you know, but they're all kind of an hour apart from each other or two hours apart. You got to drive to all these different regions where Scotland is like, man, you could throw down,

get an Airbnb anywhere and there's probably eight great golf courses within 20, 30 minutes of where you're staying. And that was like another great example of it. You know, like when we were talking about the castle course and like, Oh, go have just like a fun day playing a scramble with your buddies. Like you wouldn't do that because the castle course is so expensive. You could definitely do that at Kinghorn.

You know, it's so there's courses like that all over the place. You know, comparing Ireland and Scotland to I think Scotland, the floor's a lot higher, right? The fairway bunkering is probably gonna be a little bit more thoughtful or better. It's just more proper golf, I think. It's just, you know, maybe, because most of it's been around since late 1700s, mid 1800s, whereas a lot of the golf in Ireland

was built in the 40s, 50s, 60s, you know. So, you know, it's kind of a credit to Ireland that they've caught up as fast as they have. But yeah, I mean, I feel like I learned so much about the championship courses or the top 100 courses when I play a place like, you know, when we played kill Spindy on Tora sauce or like planning, you know, like next in a couple weeks, we're going over like on the East Coast, we're going to plan North Barrett because I love that place. But also like when you go play Dunbar, when you play the Glen, I really want to go play King Horn, like they in and I'll learn more about, you know, golf and five playing those places and what makes the

championship courses, what they are by comparing and contrasting. And also, sometimes the championship courses that they're just that they're championship courses. And I don't want to do that every day. I don't want to get the shit beat out of me. I want to go, I want to go hit fun golf shots and play more par threes or be able to just go play a match instead of feeling like I'm girding myself against the course a little bit. So it's like when you go to Carnoustie, go play Panmere. There's so many B-side and even C-side courses that you can go play.

And really, I mean, same thing here. We really wanted to go play London. I think they were doing a bunker renovation during our trip over. I've never played Levin before. I've driven past it. But London's fantastic. And I think that way too often gets overlooked within Fife. But I think, you know, the beauty of Scotland is there's, there's no bad, there's no wrong answer,

right? Like even for the most part, the central part of the country is probably a, probably a blind spot for me or the, or the Southwestern part of the country. And, you know, but like driving up through that, you go play pit locker or your boat of garden or even like there's all sorts of little places where you can just go get lost for the day. And it's not a waste of a day. It's, it's, it's essentially like, guy, go, go discover something that, you know, barely any other Americans or, or, you know, I mean, shit, like, sometimes you talk to Scots, and they're like, well,

shit, man, I have never played over there. Like, I haven't even explored my own country, kind of like you have. That's kind of the badge of honors when you roll into those parking lots and you start talking to people and they hear your accent and they're just like, huh, why are you here? What are you doing here? It's a really fun, I don't know, you're just going to meet more people and get more stories and it's just going to be a much more enriching experience probably than a really fun, I don't know, you're just going to meet more people and get more stories. And it's just going to be a much more like enriching experience probably than like, Oh, I can't wait to take an Instagram photo of the 11th hole like everybody else did.

Well, and it's so, it's so much, it's so much more inexpensive to, and there's just so much more quirk. I like quirk. I like weird shit. I like, and quirk isn't allowed on a lot of championship golf courses, right? On a lot of crazy touristy spots. So I think there's, there's a certain sense of, you know, Hey, you want to go see the stuff that truly makes Scottish golf special, go get off the beaten path a little bit. So here, here. Well, TC, that was, that was our trip. I mean, we, uh, you know, we saw a lot, we did a lot, we uncovered more of the map and

there's still another lifetime's worth of shit to keep going and doing. So fun being with you. Anything else to add before we wrap it up? No, I'm still thinking about the old course, regular way and reversed. I mean, it's as good as it gets, man. It's truly, it's truly, it's, it's the most worthwhile golf experience you'll ever do, you know, either direction. Indeed. Well, uh, thank you again to the links trust for, for making this possible and kind of giving us the critical mass to, uh, to take this trip. Uh, I cannot wait to get back. Thank you to you, Sally, Andrew, Ben, Patty,

everybody that helped with all the filming over there while we were there. Thanks to Footjoy, thanks to Yeti, who kind of was another big impetus for us going over there. I can't wait to get back, TC. I know you're going back very soon, and I'm very jealous. So I can't wait to follow along. All right, thanks for listening, everybody.

We will be back next time. Cheers. that in. That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? For Fandl, you must be 21 and older or 18 and older in DC. In President-elect states, Fandl is offering online sports wagering in Kansas and an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit Fandl.com slash RG in Colorado DC Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia call 100 next step or text next

step to 53342 in Arizona 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut 1-800-9 with an Indiana 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 1-877-770 stop in Louisiana. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Visit 1-800-gambo.net in West Virginia or call 1-800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline.ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-hopeny or text hopeny in New York.