No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 977: Carolinas Road Trip - Tree Farm, Camden Country Club, Broomsedge, Pinehurst No. 10 & No. 2

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Soly and TC recently took a road trip north through the Carolinas to play several courses that have piqued our interest. We began in South Carolina with The Tree Farm, Camden Country Club (25:00), and Broomsedge (33:45) before finishing our trip in Pinehurst with The Donnybrook - an NLU Nest event - that provided us with a look at Tom Doak's Pinehurst #10 (49:30) and Pinehurst #2 (1:05:30). Support our sponsors: Rhoback The Nest Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Lang a podcast. Solly here, got my guy TC here. We just got back from a little golf trip and we're going to we're going to do a podcast

where we talk about our golf trip. TC, how does that sound? Sounds great. I hope other people are as excited about it as I am because it was a glorious four or five days in the Carolinas. I can't believe this is still a real job that we've tricked people into listening to these kind of things. But man, we got somebody posted a few things along the way, got so many questions about some of the courses we played and kind of reactions to it. We said, well, hey, we got a podcast might as well dump our thoughts and debates and all those things on there, which we'll get to all that in a second. But we'll give

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Well, ostensibly we had to be in Pinehurst on Thursday afternoon for the start of our Donnybrook event, which meant that of course we had to leave Tuesday morning to ensure that we got up there on time and checked out a few things along the way, but so we could make this into a business trip. Get you playing a little bit of golf. Yeah.

And we did some cobwebs off. To start the year, to made a bunch of goals, of courses we wanted to play in 2025 with kind of the mindset. We got a bunch of goals of courses we wanted to play in 2025 with, you know, kind of the mindset of we got a ton of great feedback on that, which, you know, was, was, I guess, a treat and a surprise. Got a ton of great invites and just kind of welcomes to a lot of places, which is not why we did it, but it's not, but it might be why we keep doing it, but it was a great offshoot. That's generous. Really like just

magnanimous people out there. Well, just yeah, the spirit, kind of the spirit of golf shined through in a lot of that. And it inspired us to get out and tackle on a little something onto a trip and make sure we saw some places. One of the places I wanted to see that was within driving distance is the tree farm, which we'll talk about. That was the first place we went to. You also mentioned another course near their Camden Country Club, which second course we played. And we'll get to. That was the first place we went to. You also mentioned another course near their Camden Country Club, which second course we played. And we'll get to that.

And then we visited another course in that same region, kind of the Columbia region, which is turning into just a massive hub for South Carolina golf, if you will. Broom's Edge, which kind of melted my brain a little bit. And I'm trying not to overreact to that one. And then finally made our way up to Pinehurst, played Pinehurst number 10 and Pinehurst number two. We also went around the cradle and pouring rain,

but those are the kind of the five courses we are going to highlight in this episode. Got a lot of questions about the tree farm of which TC, Benevolent TC is of course a member and had me out for the first time. For those that aren't familiar with what the tree farm is, where it is, kind of what, you know, everything you can tell us about it. What can you tell us about tree farm as a bit of an intro? Yeah, it's about 25, 30 minutes north, northeast of Aiken, kind of right along the interstate there between Aiken and Columbia. It's a Kai Golby, Zach Blair, Tom Doak, CoLab. Yeah, it's a great piece of land, sprawling piece of property. Used to be a tree farm, hence the name. And yeah, it's stay and play.

It's modeled on the Hoopy lunch to lunch model. Lodging just opened up in basically last fall. The storm going through there kind of delayed things a bit. So it finally opened last fall. So this was my second time going up and staying on property. I'd been up several times prior, just I would stay downtown at the Wilcox there in Aiken, but it's totally changed the,

like it gets better each and every time I go. And obviously opening up a new lodging and food and beverage operation is challenging. So seeing just the progression from even last November until now was eye-opening both on and off course. I think the course is just, it's a really, really big piece of land. So the course is pretty sprawling. And so to kind of see some of that, some of that framing and some of that detail work, especially on holes like one, two, three, that kind of felt a little bit unfinished before. Seeing that stuff start to pop is just remarkable. And Alex War, the

architect of the clubhouse and the cabins has done just an unbelievable job, you know, bringing that to life. And yeah, I mean, I'm curious to get your thoughts more than anything. I kind of was coming in a little more, I got almost intentionally blind. Obviously, Zach, as a friend of ours, we've talked to him a ton. We've talked to him on this pod about building Tree Farm. We've talked to him about his plans originally to build the Buck Club in Utah. And we've talked a ton of golf course design and architecture and things with him.

And obviously, going from an idea to an actual place is there's stark contrast. And I think putting the golf course aside for a second, I guess I was a little especially impressed and not necessarily surprised by this being the vision of Zach Blair, a professional golfer. I was surprised at how much detail went into the experience of it's like really hard to separate out the golf course, the tree farm and the experience of being there because we got to play it twice. We arrived around lunchtime, had lunch, played it in the afternoon, great dinner and hang,

had our fantasy baseball draft, which we'll break down in the second hour of this podcast, I'm sure. And then woke up, breakfast, and played again in the morning, had lunch, and then we were gone. We were there 24 hours, and my kind of just view and thought of it all evolved greatly over that 24 hours

into that I thought, kind of be a little blind on the golf course. And again, seeing Zach's sketchbook, seeing how he goes and plays multiple courses during a PGA Tour week to go see what other places are featuring and all the little quirks and weird things he's seen. I was honestly expecting the golf course to be a little weirder, a little quirkier, not to say that it's stock at all. It was just that was just an unfair expectation maybe, but it was just, it felt familiar. It felt like, I don't want to say something

I'd seen before, but I kept like trying to place it. It was a little combinations of a lot of great features of many different golf courses that felt familiar, but at the same time, I was obviously experiencing it for a brand new time. Second go around, we wake up in the morning, the light is different, the temperature is different, the tees are different, the pins are different. I saw it flex a completely different muscle where you kind of only can see it like two

times through, you get to appreciate, oh, this section of the green that I didn't pay attention to yesterday because the pin wasn't here. Oh, I didn't think about, now that we move tees, this now becomes a two shot hole when it was a three shot hole or maybe the opposite. And like seeing all the layers and unpacking all that, like I was trying to come up with like a list of the highlight holes and like we did this afterward and it was like, dude, I think we named like 12 or 13 of the holes. Like I were trying to find the weak spot afterward. And I walked away again with a kind of blown away from this aspect of one of the coolest

retreats I've ever been to, maybe the best retreat and hang I've ever been to or place that I'd be like, fuck, I'd love to just be a member then be able to take people is Ohupi. And we've talked about that. And like, I would say this like, gets close to 95% of the Ohupi experience while it's not finished. That's another thing too, is like you mentioned, watching it kind of be in progress and they've got some trailers there as they're still

working on all these different phases of the project. And it was just like, man, what a delightful 24 hours we had there of like a place to go get away and exactly like it's four and a half hour drive up from Jack's and we talked to Zach a bunch afterwards and he just, he's so curious as to like every person that he knows that goes there, like, give me all the, all the details of your stay.

And I just walked away just kind of like eyebrows raised. It's like, man, it was different than what I was expecting. But better in a way that I wasn't expecting, if that makes sense. It was just, it was a class, class operation. I was so impressed. Yeah. I think to. It was just, it was a class, class operation. I was so impressed. Yeah. I think to your first point about just it being a mashup of a lot of familiar elements of great golf, like it, you know, it feels like, you know, you definitely feel like that

Georgia, South Carolina element at times you feel like the bunkers are like, they don't have that kind of crazy rough, hewn wild. Like there's some orderliness to those, which is kind of almost like a little English Heathlandy. Like the fourth hole is like the 265 yard part three that's essentially five of Pine Valley. Like you've got some wonkiness. It starts with the part three as well. And so you've got kind of like the more that that experience on the front end, like, you know, one and 18 finishing right there by the clubhouse and the putting green is in now and the range is right there. Like it's just, it's such a central, it's such a great central hub.

And then you kind of come back to certain parts of the property. Like you definitely feel like you feel like you're exploring a big piece of property, but you keep coming back to familiar spots or getting these peaks. You're walking past seven green when you're teeing off on five, or you're walking past the pin on- 10 while you're playing four. On 10. Exactly. Yeah. You just, like you just kind of get these little previews and 10s this, you know, kind of McKenzie ish boomerang green around this dune and you got to kind of hit it up to left to get a proper look at it. So there's like, it's very restrained.

I think it's pretty, pretty wild like Tita green. And then you get on the greens and there's, there's, there's a lot of restraint. I think it's also just because I think Zach wants to get the place turned to like 1 million as far as the firmness and the speed and everything. But I think the opening stretch is cool. Like you got the par three and then you've got two is kind of this big sweeping dogleg, right? And then three, like there's quite a few half holes out there that if you want to just play an easy afternoon round, you can kind of, you know, grab a couple of beers and go out there and, and, you know, play, play from up teas or whatever, but then you can really challenge yourself and turn, turn,

turn a whole like three into a, you know, 490, 500 yard par four. Usually half holes means half on the easy side. They were like half on the hard side in terms of like a par four and a half, is a par three and a half. I mean, we played it from the back tee the second go round. It was driver for both of us, but like it is awesome golf land. I mean, it is just so much really fun land movement. Like it feels dramatic and it feels like it's really, you're really out there exploring, but it's not too hard of a walk at all, and it's not silly mountain golf at all either. It's just a great levels of elevation change.

To your point, you kind of, I don't know if I got the top of my head, I couldn't think of a place that like revolves around its clubhouse as well as this place does. Like you just, that 18 green is right there, one tee and that back patio faces that, it's like a perfect heckle deck. And then you just kind of keep coming back, you know, to like you said, to these

little points and you see the 12th green as you're driving in and you just, I don't know, it has these little zigzags and stuff that I don't really pay that much attention to routing. I hear like real architecture nerds really, really geek out over routing. I never pay that much attention, but weirdly this place, like the route made a ton of sense to me and it added to the overall experience, I think. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think to your point about the half holes, like I would say 18's a half hole. And then like, you know, 16's this, it's kind of the signature par five. You've got this punch bowl green. And I think that one plays much better as like a, from the mid-tees or from the up-tees as a very reachable par five into this punch bowl green.

And you're hoping to make a three or a four there versus, I feel like from the back-tees, like everybody's kind of trying to lay up to the same spot. It's not really realistic to get there. So I think there's, you know, but like two, like you can play two from the up tees and like it's like one of the coolest drivable par fours in the world.

So I think that's the cool thing is like being able to, like we didn't play a stock, hey, we're gonna play from the blues today then we're gonna play the tree monsters tomorrow. It was kind of like trying to give you a little ebb and flow for, hey, here's my favorite, you know, here's some of my favorite tees that we're going to play today. And then we'll play some stock tees as well. So you

just know how the whole is kind of intended to play. And then we can change those up tomorrow so that you get kind of the full experience and can kind of compare and contrast. Nick Roth, the superintendent, he's done a great job. Like the greens are dialed and just all the wire grass and, you know, kind of all that framing stuff that's going in is You don't realize how much it adds until like, you know, there's some holes that are kind of still, I don't want to say unfinished, like the golf course is finished and extremely playable. But all these things that you get in a mature golf course that you don't really point out or think

about or notice until you play a course that doesn't have everything grown in and have like, you know, framing and little brooms edge plants that are so like they just like speaks to the whole golf in the area. It's it gives you really big sense of place and it looks so natural. And you're we're kind of watching it in the growing in phase and just being like, Oh, I mean, you're, you're coming multiple times like, Oh, my gosh, this looks so much better. It looks so natural and you're, we're kind of watching it in the growing in phase and just being like, Oh, I mean your, your comment multiple times like, Oh my gosh, this looks so much better. It looks so much better.

And they have still this runway to, uh, you know, improve some of these small details that, you know, if somebody goes and plays this course for the first time in three years, they probably wouldn't think twice about it, but, uh, cause it's probably going to look so natural. And that's the thing. Yeah, that stuff looks natural, but man, it's tough to, it's tough to kind of get that going at first. So, but yeah, I mean, what was your favorite stretch? I, again, I struggled to get through this

part because I really sneaky like that five through eight stretch, five, like a short little par four. It's crazy good. It's really, really, really good. The six hole was, was another really, and then to describe the golf course overall, I mean, it's what you would expect in terms of it's wide, like it's quite wide. And I found it to be a couple, you know, if you're a higher handicap player, a couple areas where it kind of runoff short right of a lot of fairways might make your day a little bit challenging. It was quite challenging for me who was not, you know, hitting little poof, I hit my ball left. So that was one takeaway I had. But the four, five, six, seven, eight stretch, which makes, then I'm like, well,

shit, nine is really cool, unique par five. And then, I mean, 10 is one of my favorite, especially when we got to see that little sneaky pin around the back right part. And then you climb up the hill to 11 to like, well, that's the most natural looking golf on the entire golf course. And I mean, 12 is really hard. I don't want to dislike 12, but like 13, that was a heck of a par five and then 14. I fucked this hole up both times we played it. I barely I didn't really get to play it even. And that just looked like a whole lot of a postcard. And then you get to the radan and then a punch bowl par five and then an epic great little

short par three and then an epic drive it dri bowl 18th hole. And you're like, start to add them up. You're like, man, holy crap, that is a heck of a golf course. That's one of the cooler finishes I've played, I think too. To your point, like five plays along this little ridge line and green kind of falls away. That's a really fun hole and you've got the whole world, right? But the green is just tugging your eye to the left and you think think, Oh my gosh, I need to go left. But she did the first round and it's like, no, no, I need to be down there. And then six is, yeah, I think six is probably the best green side on the course. Like it's just this little

natural saddle, little dogleg left and same kind of thing. You got the whole world right, but you think, Oh my God, I got to cheat this thing up the left. And there's some cool tie-ins up the left. And then seven's an awesome little drivable four from certain tee boxes. Got about seven. Yeah. Or like, you know, I think it's a really cool two shot hole too. We had a nasty pin, like two off the front left corner there, but you can kind of tie yourself up and knots on that hole or make a really easy birdie. And then, and then, yeah, eight's kind of a wall buster, you know, big kind of almost double dog leg par four, crazy green.

I think nine gets a little bit of flack, at least in the early going just because it like it is so wide. There's definitely a line of charm up the left, you know, kind of elevated fairway line of charm up the left, but, um, no bonkers on that hole. And the green is, I think if you see that one, when it's really firm and fast and firing, you start to gain respect for it. You miss left or right of that green or long, you can start playing ping pong pretty easily. And so I think there's, there's definitely, uh, that

one's more of a grower. And then, yeah, you mentioned 10, you know, 10s just kind of like less than driver off the tee probably. And then, you know, there's like a little natural wash down there. Uh, and then a little dune and then, yeah, 11 is one that like Sally has perfect example of like, we played it from the backs the first day and you know, you're hitting five, six, seven iron in there. It's a big boy golf hole with a crazy, crazy, cancer green. And then you play the next day and you're worried about hitting driver through the fairway and you've got a wedge in and you can still kind of hang yourself.

For sure. So it was fun. I mean, gosh, the details of the food was tremendous. Really, really, really, really good. Breakfast sandwich was outstanding. The lodging was great. It was just an overall really, really, really good experience. So I got a lot of questions. It's like, what do you think of tree farm? What do you think of tree farm? And I'm like, honestly, you'd be kind of missing out just playing the golf course and not staying for some time and enjoying. It's just, I keep using the word retreat, but like that's the word I felt.

It's so quiet out there. You're not seeing any houses. You're literally looking at grass and trees and the clubhouse and the lodging. Like that's it. And it's just a clubhouse is so cool. Locker room cool. Great, great, just great vibe, welcoming vibe too

for a non-member as well. So. Yeah, Chef Fred, our our chefs done an awesome job. And yeah, it's kind of, you know, pretty far reaching, you know, menu, but it's kind of the daily thing of like, Hey, here's the two things we've got today for this meal or whatever. But yeah, I think too, like, you know, 13 is kind of the one that gets, that garners a lot of the,

it's going to hold out, like 12's a crazy green, really hard hole. I haven't figured that one out yet. But 13's kind of the one that gets all the acclaim or a lot of the pictures. It's a big sweeping dogleg right par five around this kind of massive gorge almost. And they call it the badlands down the right. Just seeing that kind of come in. I was joking with Sally and Rudy Arcadi. I was like, Hey, like we should start putting in like some of the stuff that's on the beach and like Normandy. Like those, those like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just cause like, yeah, it's, you do not want to be down there. And there's just all sorts of little railroad ties

and stuff like that. But yeah, and then I think the, you know, I'm still kind of wrapping my head around the Redan. I think it's a little bit, we had a back right pin the first day. So you kind of had to hit like a high fade into it to get it back to that spot. But that one is pretty severe and the kicker on the

right is pretty big. So you just got to really either hit the right shot or just hit to the back of the green and take your medicine there. To your point about Grower, I think my favorite part three on the course and one of my favorite holes on the course is probably the only hole that like isn't natural. And that's number 17. Like it was just kind of a flat, nothing piece of the property. And they had to kind of figure out and they built this, you know, kind of left to right angle par three green and dug out this, this big bunker up in front. And it's just such a great penultimate hole that kind of, you know, really just kind of, it's just such a touchy little shot. And if you want to force the issue and try to

make a birdie, you start flirting with, with bogey or double pretty quickly. And, but there's plenty, you know, there's a ridge to the left that you can feed your ball in off of if you want to get a little, you know, fade in there. So it's, it's just a really cool touchy little shot. And then solid you're, you're, you know, you're a combined even par on the 18th hole career now. Two six for my two numbers on the drivable 18th. So it's, we played it about what? Two 65 day one. I think we were probably like two 40 or something day two, I think we were probably like 240 or something day two even moved up even farther, but it's just kind of a little boomerang green like there's a front right part of the boomerangs to the back left and then also on that right

part north near the middle part is an upper tier. So it's kind of this one little special part of it that I mean you could play that whole four different pin positions and it could in theory take four different strategies. We kind of played it from a driveable distance because that's the most fun, but like where you would want to drive it to that pin that we played day one might be, it was very different than where you wanted to drive it for day two. And it was like a great, it was not a good three-wood distance. I hit this little like punch cut driver that needed to like steer into the slope that kicks right to left and like take the slope up to that top right tier. I could have hit 200 balls and probably not left another ball up on the top shelf, but it went to about two feet left of the

hole. Like it couldn't have missed the hole by more than that. Like literally like by math, it could not have missed by more than two cups. I don't think so. How cool would that have been to see, you know, for you to have confirmed that I have a par four ace. Well, and for you to have seen it going too. I know. Yeah, we got to see that one. But yeah, I think the yeah, it's such a cool finishing hole. And like, you know, there's big Adirondack chairs above it and you can see it from, you know, you can see it from

basically every spot in the dining room. And it's, yeah, it's like your eye is just naturally drawn to that green especially. But yeah, I think, I don't know, just yeah, congrats to everybody. I mean, it's the first place I've ever like, it's like pretty meaningful for me because it's the first golf club I've ever joined before. Like I, you know, I wrote a check and my wife was like, Hey, you're joining your golf club like four hours away. Like, you know, is this, you know, and I was like, yeah, like, you know, I believe in Zach and his vision and Alex and Drew and, you know, basically everybody that's involved and so to see it come to fruition is really, really

cool. And then basically to be able to see a golf course, like I, you know, I was out there with Zach a few times prior to even the routing being done and just, you know, hitting golf balls through the woods or, you know, going out with a rangefinder. Like I lost one of our drones there. I ran it into a tree. You never pointed out what tree that was. It was left of two green. But yeah, I mean, just seeing it in various stages of, you know, from a true just piece of forest to what it is now is pretty remarkable. So yeah, and Drew King,

the head pro who came from a Hoopie, he's created such a great environment. I think it blends the kind of, you know, having fun and the competitive element of the sport pretty perfectly. You can kind of choose your own adventure out there. And yeah, so it's, yeah, just glad you got to see it and can't wait to bring the rest of the squad. We're gonna put out, if I ever get to it, we're gonna make a little, little Instagram reel just with some highlights of the day. We're putting some clips in here in the YouTube version of this podcast as well for some of those. Great showers too.

I'd be remiss if you missed it. Great showers, great experience. It's just fantastic. Next up was a place I admit I had not ever heard of. I had never heard of Camden, South Carolina. Was not familiar. You I believe had this as a mention on our courses to play in 2025.

That was Camden Country Club. What intrigued you about this place and tell us about it. Yeah, I'd kinda, I think I'd mentioned Broom's Edge as well on there, but I just kinda went down the wormhole of like central South Carolina and just wanted to see kind of where else there was and people like, just through the grapevine, I'd kept hearing about this Camden country club place.

Hey, you got to see it. It's like, granted, like, like I would say, if I was to sum it up, it's like if Palmetto and Aiken golf club had a baby, like, just a wildly, it was, I guess, originally laid out by Walter Travis. It's right along the train line, similar to similariken Golf Club. It was a stopping point for a lot of wealthy Northeasterners on their way down to Florida for the winter. Big steeplechase event is held there right down the street every year. So, shades of Aiken as far as the equestrian culture there. Nice little downtown. We had an awesome little Mexican dinner downtown there. But yeah, so Walter Travis laid out the golf course

initially. And so there's still some little spots or some little markers where you see some of those green sites or whatever. But Ross came in and kind of really reworked the whole place. sites or whatever, but Ross came in and kind of really reworked the whole place. And yeah, it lived up to everything I hoped it would be and more like I texted Zach afterwards. I texted a bunch of people. I was like, yo, you got to go see this place. It's, it's, it's pretty wild. It's bold. It is like, like if you play it, like if you played there all the time, like you would, you would know how to play golf. You would know how to get the ball in the hole. You know, it kind of gets off to a pretty, you know, just a pretty standard start.

First of all, it's 6,300 yards from the back tees. But like I have played enough of these Donald Ross 6,300 yarders to like my radar was up before I even got there. I did not think this was going to be a walk in the park. They always get you with like a massive par three in there. They have ways he has a way of making 6300 yards feels super long and super challenging. And the greens reminded me of Palatka in Florida in terms of like the

small shape of them. Very, but very, very different condition than the greens in Palatka. The greens, Palatka are sixes or sevens on the stem, like they're comically slow. These were regular speed greens, but also with like a Pinehurst three tilt to them to the point, I think at one point I said, it's not the hardest course I've ever played, but I think it's the meanest. It was the meanest I've seen of just like, you got to get the ball into the right part of the green if you want this ball to stay here, and it's probably not going to. And you can do it. Like you can totally do it,

but it's just going to be very, very mean to you if you're even fractionally off. Yeah, it's a wall to wall Bermuda. I think they've had some big, you know, like they, I think there's four ball qualifiers there. They do it like a, like a lot of state events. I think they had a lot of money games back in the day, especially to data, all sorts of fun stuff up on the walls of the clubhouse, even just like great clubhouse of like, you go upstairs and like big ass room with a flat top grill and

all sorts of card tables. And it's just nothing pretentious about it. It's a golf club and man, it was, it's, but yeah, you really get started. I think your two, two was kind of a crazy little par three down the hill. Three is a big par five up over this hill. And it really got started at four in my opinion. Like four was, uh, four was just a dope, you know, par four along the property line. And, um, and then five was, was five of the one that, like, like I saw, so it was like a middle pin. I landed it right, like right at the stick and I still rolled off the

left side of the green. And then I tried to hit the exact same shot I was trying to hit again. Uh, and sure enough, same, same deal. Rolled off the left side of the green into the bunker. Like it, it had to have been like a, like a five or 6% slope on that entire left side of the green. Was it too much at times? No, because I felt like, all right, if you played there, like, you know know that like anything beyond the pin is.

It's too much for a first timer. Like I think honestly. I dig that of like, hey, this is a local member's. No, no, no, I agree. Oh, I totally agree. It is not our place. I was like, this is fucking sick. I was like, fuck, all right, now that I've seen the green,

let me go back. I want to go back and play it again. Cause now I know. It's like a 320 yard hole. Yeah. You know, but like, you know, he was saying like how they've had a bunch of college kids come out or, you know, and like they all want to hit driver. And then I'm like, no, like I see what's going on. Like I'm going to hit a five iron off this tee and be in position in the middle of the fairway. It was also hard to go to like a narrow golf course after playing tree farm. I mean, it

was just like your eyesight is just, whoa, it's like taking a weighted bat off your swinging away. Weirdly, like, I feel like I was just driving it up a Nat's ass at the tree. I was like, all right, like, I mean, I'm hitting my spots. I'm putting well, my wedges feel great. You would work with me on some of the Joe Mayo stuff. I said eight minutes. I think it took 90 seconds and we solved your shipping. Yeah. There's some bad stuff kind of rearing its head again. And there's some kind of trough of disillusionment. It's all set up. It's all set up. Yeah. Yeah. But, but yeah, no, that was kind of the five was kind of the welcome to welcome Camden deal, which yet. Sixth is a, is an uphill long par three, that whole I was telling you about, which used to be a, a uphill par four.

They have like a cool sign that showed where the Walter Travis green was. And then seven is this like 90 degree dogleg right par five, with just again, another diabolical green. And it just it hits really hard. Eight was a cool par three, nine, another cool par four, and then the back nine is totally different character. The routing has changed a bunch over the years. We got this awesome light. You cross over to the train tracks to play the 13th hole of par five, which is really cool up against the boundary line. And that's where we kind of learned some of the history of like, yeah, it was a golf course for the wealthy people that, you know, would stop over in Camden, stay in the hotel there. There was an old hotel that I guess is no longer there, but right near the train tracks that it's

like the perfect halfway point between New York and Miami. And I was like that, oh, that shit like that. I love that. I mean, that is why is why was Donald Ross here? You know, at that age, it was like, that, oh, that shit like that. I love that. I mean, that is why is, why was Donald Ross here? Uh, you know, you know, at that age, it's like, well, probably because there's a train track nearby. That's usually the answer. Uh, and that, that, that kind of tied to history was, was really freaking cool. Yeah. And you look over and you see a big long horse track there to the right, but like, yeah, 12, uh, 12 was that was that par three. Like I think they're going to do a bunker renovation and they taken out a ton of trees. Like you want to talk about just making incremental improvements to your golf course over a span of however long we talked to the pro for a little bit. And he was like, yeah, like we've just been kind of catching

up on deferred maintenance and just dusting this place off and kind of polishing it up. And, and just goes to show you like, you don't have to do it all at once or do something that, you know, it costs $6 million or whatever. It's just, or hire a fancy architect or any of that. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. That, that stretched like 13 into, uh, into 14 and then, uh, even that like little par three up the hill 16. That's I mean that hole was so hard. Like I was in that front right bunker. I was like, I'm not, there's no chance. I'm playing like my swing feels awesome. There's no chance I'm making par.

It was a tough, I would like to play that as our first 18 of the day. I don't think I was, I was ready for the fight on that evening as kind of a quick loop around and everything. But that was There's juniors out playing behind us and No idea. Best days of their lives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We stayed at this little kind of like social club, you know, right next door. It was what the spring Hill club,

I think in little cottage that was straight out of, you know, Butler cabin kind of stuff. I think I hit the cottage when we were playing the fourth hole. We heard a big loud bang when I hooked one. Uh, I'm almost certain that's exactly when we were staying in. So that was what Wednesday, uh, Wednesday afternoon, we played Camden country club. And then yeah, Thursday morning woke up and drove a little bit North Eastward. And Camden's what, 40 minutes outside of Columbia and drove a little bit North Eastward to Broomsteadge, which is about 15, 20 minutes away.

Yeah, which Broomsteadge, you may have seen pictures of it on social media. They're known for, I guess at this point, the flags, the pin flag hat or so yeah, TC is wearing that like it's extremely cool feature of they actually have like broom sedge is a plant if you're unfamiliar with that and they have like broom sedge leaves at the top of the flags like it looks like a broom essentially

the very top which I had seen that on social media. Immediately, you know, I was kind of like, Oh, cool, like, might be a gimmick. I had no idea if the golf course is cool. But like they got this detail, right? That's really cool. And can you I mean, can you give us kind of you're schooled on all this history of all this stuff and timelines of all this stuff. Can you give us kind of a background on on Broom's edge and who's responsible for this and kind of the ins and outs of before we talk about the golf course. Yeah. I'm probably not going to do it justice,

but just talking to our host and talking to Trevor, who's, who's the head pro and just kind of following along with the project here from the start. I've talked to Andy a bunch about it and a few other people, but I think basically Mike Kaprowski was kind was the brainchild behind it. He's got a background in Army intelligence, specifically topographic maps and troop movements and stuff like that. So he knows how to work his way around cartography and just kind of routing. And so he had retired from the army, had done some work for Kyle Franz down at Cabot Citrus Farms, and just kind of aspiring architect or architect in his own right and wanted to build his own course. So he kind of been scouting just various plots of land, um, assuming all over the Southeast and found this place. It was, I think like

landforsale.com. And it's a really, really, it's a unbelievable piece of property. You know, you're kind of driving in and you're like, man, where are we going? There's a blue, there's an air force base right nearby, but otherwise it's pretty much just kind of farmland and timberland. Yeah, it's much different from, like, I really appreciated it because it's such a different take on everything. Like, tree farm felt very familiar. This felt, you know, Broomstead felt more like cow club for me than, or, you know, like certain, it was just wildly different from a lot of the stuff I've played in the Southeast and, and, you know, in certain spots, like it's a really, it feels like a really big, bold piece of land when you're on the back nine, but then you, you know, you realize it's only a couple hundred acres and like, it's a very small piece of property when you're on the back nine, but then you realize it's only a couple hundred acres

and like it's a very small piece of property that they wrought the exact, you know, that the most out of, like they just derived the most value out of this land. You kind of start like the first four holes are kind of on this, you kind of go the other way and they're kind of, but at no point. Yeah, they're on their own little like almost paddock if you want to use it Australia. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, and they don't really feel, you know, but like in their kind of ballbusters.

Tough start. It's a tough start, a really long par four opener. Then you kind of play in between these two ridges in this par four second hole. And then kind of an easier shorter par four third hole, and then up on top of the ridge to play a par four, a longer par, a medium length par four with a boundary line on the right. And that like little section is like a completely different characteristic than the rest of it, which you get over to like an awesome par three.

And like those are great holes. Good holes, yeah. In their own right, like the way it uses the boundary line and you kind of, you kind of get out to those corners of the property there. And like I've played Astoria golf club a couple of times out in Northwestern Oregon and it felt a little bit like that in spots where you almost feel like you're playing between these dunes. But like, you know, you could, like it was, it was kind of an introduction into like, all right, you need to bounce the ball up or you need to land it on the front of some of these greens. Cause it's,

you know, there's there and there's, there's a lot going on off the tee. There's so much stuff catching your eye on a few of the holes. Like now you just gotta hit a good shot down the middle or take less than driver and really lay back. Uh, and then, yeah. And then you get to like, just almost this like amphitheater for golf greens around this lake. And then you get to like, just almost this like amphitheater for golf greens around this lake. And so you play kind of across and get in kind of get into that. And you've got back to back R threes, you know, long one that's kind of a kind of a do or die shot to a crazy green and then a shorter one with like more teeing ground and two greenality than I've ever seen. Yeah. And two greens. Yeah. I mean, it's, there's two. Yeah. And then

when you like cross over from, from there, like that sixth hole, um, is the par three where you play across the pond and you get back over to that other kind of main section, which is like, if you stand about in the hill near the clubhouse or like the, the building they're using as the clubhouse right now. So yeah, it was a hunting camp for these guys too, like these guys that they bought it from, it was a hunting camp and these guys had built this structure themselves, you know, to kind of just stay in like it was like a bunkhouse up top. And then they just kept all their, all their equipment and machinery for maintaining the land and everything downstairs.

So they've kind of refashioned that into like a de facto clubhouse for now until permanent structure gets built. But yeah, you look from there and you're just looking out on like just idyllic golf land, like massive. It just makes you want to go hit golf shots, massive fairways, but clear distinct holes that you can see. Like there's very few trees out there and the trees that are out there are very selective and it just

looks very natural like the seventh hole is kind of this little bendy little faint dogleg kind of almost leaning par four to the right and like it has this it's an awesome green that sits like you know you're tempted to cheat up the right and you as soon as you hit it over there you're like nope don't want to be here like this massive mound on this back right pin that we played. But if you played up the left, you'd have a good angle to shoot up that green.

I think that was one of the most understated holes we played on the entire trip. And also one of my favorites. It's like I was Yeah, and this whole like stretch of golf kind of melted my face. I mean, then you go and play this downhill 260 yard par three, the eighth next, then you go and play this downhill 260 yard par three, the eighth next, then you go play a par five back towards the ninth, and then you play a par four tenth that kind of has this big dip in the fairway and then you rise back up and you get to the

highlight, I think, which is the 11th hole, this short par three carved into the side of the hill. It looks like I have no data on the info on this looks like it's the first hole they built up there. They're like, okay, we're, this is the one we're doing. And then we're basing the rest around that it looks like the most mature. They're farther along, or I guess, farther behind in the timeline compared to like tree farm in terms of maturity. And like, they have no facilities built. It's still, I think they started shaping in 2023. And play is just like,

they're just got open for play in 2025, I believe, according to the website, but it's in great shape overall. It's yeah, it's in perfect golf shape. It just is it's clearly like in progress as you're doing it. But that hole is like, unbelievable, like the short left bunker that I found and buried in was one of the worst places I've ever been. Is a post yet kind of more like six at Dornec, but the opposite

slanted the opposite direction than the postage stamp, I think. And I was geeking out over that hole. We had to skip two holes, unfortunately, 13 and 14. Because I saw another hole in the do we were just pressed for time. I saw another hole in the drone that I was like, we got to play 15. I mean, 15 it's like 16 abandoned was the comp I made, but instead of like an ocean to the right, it's an OB line. And it's a, the whole, it gives you all the room in the world left, but the farther left you play, the more you're coming at the OB line that frames the right side of the hole with your second shot. It's a short four that, you know, you got to take that on at some point. And

I want to play that whole like 20 times because you put an OB stick right next to a green. Usually I'm going to complain about it, but this was such a brilliant use. Reminded me of like the second hole at talking stick, the core Crenshaw hole that kind of uses that's a par five that, but like the whole aspect is to use that boundary line. And that was just kind of road hole-ish too. And yeah, you know, or you to use that boundary line. And that was just- Kind of road hole-ish too in spots. You know, where- Good point. You got the OB all up the right

and you can bail out left all day long, but at some point you're gonna have to hit a shot. You know? Yeah, I thought, I mean, solid, your point, like that stretch from seven through 11, 12, I mean, it's just straight bangers, but like, even looking at ETF back towards the clubhouse on nine, 12th. I mean, it's just straight bangers. But like, even looking at ETF back towards

the clubhouse on nine, and you can see kind of, it's almost like a dolly painting where like the fairway is just falling off the side of this hillside into this bunker. And there's a ton of bunkers. Like they've got, like there's not that many bunkers at Tree Farm. There's a couple dozen. There's hundreds of bunkers at Prumes Edge. So they're still kind of figuring out which one, filling some of them in and kind of figuring out, hey, which ones are going to be natural, or which ones are going to be more of a, you know, a kind of traditional bunker. But like that, that hole was fascinating because you're playing back towards, towards the lake there. And then I thought the next hole was spectacular as well. Like, you know, almost shades of

like stuff you'd see in Scotland where, you know, kind of a blind drive over this hill and then back up towards the green, that hole. And then, yeah, obviously the par three. And then I thought the hole, the par four after the par three, the 12th hole was fantastic as well. Just really great, like natural fairway. And then you kind of head back towards one of the other corners of the property. Like that's what, like, it's one of the things I love about Kingston Heath. It's one of the things I love about, you know, like I'm trying to think, like Lidlm does this really well. Like I like, I like pieces of golf land that like maximize everything that's there and they get out to every, every

square inch of the property. And yeah, 13 and 14 look cool kind of back and kind of back and forth there. And then, um, yeah. And then it's a pretty, pretty rousing finish too. I, yeah, I was, I'm trying to get carried away with Broomstead honestly. I, it felt at minimum like a top 100 course in the U S. Um, I, I, I, you could convince me on the world, honestly. I thought it was really, really, really freaking impressive. I've been thinking about it a lot ever since then. It has the wow factor.

Like I, as I said earlier, like the two routes around Tree Farm gave me all the appreciation for it. Like Broom's Edge, like one round hits you really quickly in terms of just kind of the overall shock value. And I'm wondering if those cool flag sticks are carrying a little bit of the weight on that. I mean, they are cool.

Like they're very, very cool. It's a very sweet logo. You think about it, like we didn't have great light out there, like it was a cloudier, windier day and it's still absolutely shined. And then you get to, you know, you get to 17 and you're kind of on a different part of the property that almost reminded me of like the Lido

or something like that, where you've got just a massive area of like, you know, trees cleared and it's, it seems like the kind of place that's going to absolutely sing. Oh my God. You know, it like in the fall when you get the, like they've got some nice trees and kind of hardwoods that can change colors there. It's got personality. Yeah. And it's, and then, you know, you kind of play, you know, play back into that, but like a late

afternoon in the fall or late summer night out there would be magic. Because the way that the property is kind of the aspect of the property is kind of, you know, tilted a little bit towards, towards that setting sun. And yeah, I mean, the 18th hole is a just a banger of a par five with a kind of a hero shot there towards a, you know, over water towards it's not an island green, but you know, for all intents and purposes, with all the bunkers and everything up there, it kind of feels like it a little bit.

Yeah, it's, I don't know how to describe this part other than like, the way their greenside bunkers and greens sit and the way the shapes work around the edge of those bunkers and the way the greens sit in relation to the bunkers is like suits my eye 10 out of 10. Like it's what I love about Heathland golf of just, I just love the way these greens sit with these looks. It makes me want to hit golf shots into it. And they got all the details of all that stuff. So right. And I think about that 17th green, how that one sits and of course, 11, like the way that one's just like a postcard.

So, um, it is cool. We had some, we had some great, great hosts that drove up from Charleston long and just kind of a, it's two hours from Charleston. It's close enough to Charlotte. Um, you know, close enough to Columbia, obviously. So you've got some connectivity there with the Southeast. And yeah, it's just amazing to see outside of Aiken,

you've also got Sage Valley, you've got 21 Club, I guess they've started moving dirt. That's the Rob Collins. We'll see if it turns into the 36 hole club. I think they started moving dirt on one of those 18s. And then you've got old sawmill, which is, um, just real quick before we move up room such as under that, like this is, they do follow the UK model. You can read about on their website as well of like,

it is a member's golf course, but there is access to non members to the golf course and the details are, you know, they're still working through, I think how that works and the members have priorities and all that. But it does all that to say, it's not just some private retreat that nobody can access. Yeah. You can go see it, which is cool. Yeah. And then yeah, like old saw mills, the Tyler Ray one that he's doing kind of more between kind of Columbia and Charleston or towards Charleston. So yeah, just a ton of, ton of good golf going up in, in South Carolina specifically. And yeah,

Broome said, just like I was blown away by it and cannot wait to go play it again. And Sally, we didn't even, I played it on a previous trip, but, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention old Barnwell too. Yeah, we didn't play on this trip, but I want to make it there. And we probably need to talk about that place at some point too. But it's just a hub, man. There's so much golf going on around there and I've been itching to get up there and check out at least some of it.

I'm glad we got to do some of that. Yeah. And then, yeah, I think the Broomesteads guys, I think some of their investors or some of Mike's guys from there from Chicago area as well. So you've got Nick at old Barnwell Chicago guys. You got some Chicago influencer, you know, a lot of, a lot of people just seeking out the Southeast for better weather and good golf land as well. So, yeah. And then yeah, we hopped in the car and drove, drove a couple hours up to, up to the home of American golf.

That's exactly right. Made our way to Pinehurst for our event, the Donnybrook. We are hosting, was it 32 or 36? How many people? 36. 36 members of The Nest. If you're unfamiliar with what The Nest is, you can check that up at noleyingup.com slash join. One of the many great perks of The Nest

on top of the member discount, or the discount you get in the shop, bonus content, all kinds of amazing things. It's of course early access to sign up for events like this. TC, we've been to Pinehurst a bunch of times. I don't wanna say we are spoiled, but I don't wanna say like it's never lost on me,

but I just was so thrilled to hear so many people, one that had never been to Pinehurst as part of this trip, get to fulfill this kind of dream of getting there and playing it and the reactions of some people, one that had never been to Pioneers as part of this trip, get to fulfill this kind of dream of getting there and playing it. And the reactions of some people, especially sitting around with dinner afterwards to say like, yeah, Pioneers 2 was the most fun I've ever had playing golf was like, that was super rewarding of like getting to do that with a few of our members that had not been there and experienced it and kind of had that reaction of, uh, you know, again, we're spoiled and get to see a lot of these places, but like truly like walk where legends have walked and where the U S open is held.

Uh, that was just really, really freaking cool. So for the worst, some of the worst weather I've ever played a par three course in. Yeah. We could have done without the weather that we got on the cradle. Of course, the, uh, the par three course, but, uh, I saw, I didn't pack any of my rain gear. Forecast looked awesome. Get out there and I'm wearing shorts and a polo. And I'm like, all right, shit, just buckle up. Like gotta. That was a bad rain too.

There's some golf rains that can be kind of pleasant. You just kind of tough it out. That was tough. That did not go over well. Great, I birdied two out of the first four holes on the cradle and I'm like, oh my God, am I gonna play well on the cradle here? And then kind of ran out of gas on seven and eight. But yeah, we, yeah, great group.

And then, yeah, getting to get into play 10 again. So that was the itinerary was Piners 10 and Piners 2 and 10 was the first one up on the itinerary. This was my first time seeing it, first time ever being there. What was your reaction the first time you saw Pinehurst 10 and what was your reaction the second time? We got kind of a cool day, a little windy, tough wind direction that we played it in. Opinions are mixed on this golf course. I've net out very clearly on one side, but I'm curious kind of your evolution of your... I really like it. I think it's unequivocally the

number two best golf course at Pinehurst. I think it's number one and then a big gap. But I think this one, I prefer it's a number four, seven days a week. I mean, it's, you know, there's just more going on there. You know, I saw it maybe 16, 18 months ago when it was like not even open yet. And we kind of some preview play. So seeing it a little bit more grown in and a little, you know, some of that same thing at tree farm, right? Some of that, there was that, that, that framing is complete or more of another wire grass and the sedge, the sedge, uh, you know, going in really helps your eye and kind of gives you more depth and context. It's not a very lovable golf course. Like it's not

really very touchy-feely. First couple holes, like they're good hole. They're not bad holes, but I think it really gets, and then like three is a great par five. And then it really gets started kind of after that, I think. Like you really get into the meat of the golf course for, but really, you know, seven, eight onward. Biggest thing for me is just like being able to go to another campus of sorts at Pinehurst and just almost like exhale a little bit. There's just so much going on over there at that one through four clubhouse with this'll do and the cradle and, and the cradle and the deuce. It's just like Golf's national park a little bit. I think we've called it before. It's just so many people and it's fun and really, really social. But I think sometimes you just want to take a breath and get out into nature

and feel like you're in the woods or you're at a little retreat here or there. So I think, you know, they're still building in the clubhouse and kind of the lodging over there, but based on the looks of it, just, you know, they're off one and 18, that campus with 10, 11, and then I think an eventual, you know, short course or putting course or something like that will look, that'll be freaking awesome over there.

And it looks like they're kind of taking the perfect vibe with it. Yeah. I, so it was voted the best new course in 2024 by Sports Illustrated. And again, kind of how I've maybe felt going into the tree farm kind of, I've played a lot of Tom Doe golf courses. I've played a lot of resort golf courses in general,

a special made one. I had an image in my head of what it would be like. And it was different than what I expected. It was very clearly defined holes and in very like, clear natural settings for holes. And I think I was expecting more of a wide open feel to it, which I actually really liked like, how one how natural the golf holes looked, it just didn't feel brand new to me. I mean, I know, at the clubhouse with a lot of noise going on in the in the facilities going in. Yes, it did. But once you got out there did not feel it felt like it had

been there a long time, which I think is a great compliment to it. And it was hard. Like a lot of the feedback we got from the group, the scores were high. And it was challenging. I think it could probably- It was a win. Yeah, the win direction was really difficult. Some of the par fours were like lumber par fours. Par is irrelevant, I know, but it wears on your psyche a little bit, I know, to take head covers off to get into some of these par fours. But it was a stern proper test. The wind did whip out there a little bit

and it was the opposite direction of what it would typically expect and it made the course play that much harder. But I don't know, man, it was really fully grown in. It felt very mature. It felt like a fun challenge. I had a great time on it. I really, really enjoyed being out there.

It was a great walk. It'll beat you up a little bit. Like it's a long walk and one of the harder walks. And it just didn't, until we got to 11, I felt no mean spiritedness from Doke. Like there was none of it that was just like, fuck you, man. Like what are we doing here until we got to 11, which is this part three that left of the green

is like this drop off that you can't even imagine into these bunkers that like you end up on like these down slopes of these bunkers hitting the surface like 15 feet above you. I'm maybe only exaggerating the footage of that a little bit could have been a really cool hole at like 110 yards. We played like 185 back. It could be.

Yeah. Yeah. All that to say, I think that the, so it's like 6,400 yards from the white tee's par 70, which is too much golf course for a par 70. Like for Pioneers too, they'll play a par 70. For like a 10 handicap and 12 handicap. Yeah. Like the white tee should be like 6,000 yards for par 70. I mean, just like by Matt, that's equivalent to like a 6,700 yard par 72. You take a par three and make it a par five and that kind of changes that outlook. All I'd say, it played long. It was a bigger golf course

than maybe it needed to be. I didn't know what tees to pick. Nobody really knows what tees to pick. I think it could help people a little bit on that front. That's like legit. That's maybe reaching for a criticism because I would want to play 10 immediately again over four. Like 10 rounds between 10 and four, I'm at least seven, three, maybe eight, two on playing 10. Yeah. I'm with you there. There's a couple, there's a couple drivable ones in there, like number four, but I don't really know what the upside of, you can't get there. It's 300 plus. And if you can't get there, it just didn't seem like there was much benefit of like,

there's a big bunker up the right. I don't know. I just, I went through a little, a little empty. I was waiting for the, what's the catch? Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, five and six are, are cool holes. Like, you know, like you said, like lumber into six. But to me, like that was a pretty thrilling second shot and that big bend, you know, they're around five green was awesome. That was the one with the kind of the two bridges going along. Yeah. It's like they're, you know, there's, there's one ridge that runs the entire length of the, of the green and it's pretty, like we had a back

left pin, pretty brilliant little hole location. So we had some tough pins too. What do you think of eight? I love eight. I think it's sick. I mean, I think, you know, seven's a cool little par three. I know you didn't, you know, it's kind of a crowned green. And then you get, you know, there's a back bunker. We had kind of a pin right at the top of the crown and then eight, you know, I've played it twice now. It's kind of, maybe I've just hit good shots, but it was like, you know, kind of a-

So describe it to me. It's a totally blind tee shot. There's a massive, the picture you probably have seen is like there's a massive blinding mound off the tee that you got to kind of aim over. And like you can play down the right side, you can maybe get a peek at the pin to a green that's hidden again by another one of these big massive mounds. You can play up top and have a top view or if you kind of pull down the left, you're

going to have a blind approach into this screen. It's almost like something you see at Aurora or, you know, Cruden Bay or something like that. Like the left side of that fairway is just, it looks like there were bombs dropped on it and there's all sorts of crazy, you know, moguls and stuff. I think the, you know, it's a cool nod to like the history of the site.

Like it was the old sand vines, you know, there in the area. So you're, you know, you're probably a mile and a half, two miles down the road, kind of along that same train track that runs next to the cradle and, and, uh, number three, but it's, you know, and then I think the other, the land that they've got for number 11 is much more like, it's kind of much more like that really funky landforms and all sorts of remnants from the mining operation. So it's a cool nod to that. It's, you know, one of the caddies in our group didn't, didn't love it. And like, maybe like this is where I just get to like, maybe I'm just so preconditioned to seeing

weird shit that like, I love it. That's why I travel. That's why I go play golf. And, you know, that's not for everybody, but it's a cool green. You know, kind of a lot going on up by the green too. Like I think I haven't played it with a back left pin yet. And you know, there's a little bit of a bowl back there, but you get out of position and you can kind of start tying yourself up and knots on that hole. And it's the kind of thing where like, all right, if you don't really see the fairway or you don't get a good shot off the tee, you're probably not going to think it's all that cute or all that fun. You basically exit that green off to the right. And then you get out to, you kind

of get this big reveal out to where kind of, we're kind of the meat of the golf courses, um, back, you know, nine, nine through, was that 14 there nine through 15. So, um, yeah, nine's, you know, nine's a big ass par four as well. And you know, it's like four 70 from the tips, four 40 from the whites, even tens, like a 600 yard par five from the white tees back into that tough par three 11th and then 12. Yeah, 10 feels a little bit like that stretch 910,

910, 11. Where you're gonna lose 12. Yeah, it's just, it's a little heavy handed just with like not heavy handed in the shaping or anything like that. Just heavy handed like, holy shit. This is just like, this is like a barrage of just like, you know, very demanding golf shots.

Essentially. I think 10 is maybe a little bit, 10 is kind of a straightaway par five. We had really nasty pin at the front, which I, which I appreciated. But like, got to be pretty thoughtful with that second shot. If you're pulling on 11, I think it's a really good hole in a vacuum. It just feels a little mean-spirited. It's kind of an uphill 170 or uphill 180, and the green is really shallow and there's a bunker long right. And if you get in that bunker long right,

and you know, don't clip it right, the greens feeding away from you and you're down the left and like you're picking up essentially. Yeah. A lot of X's on that hole. Yeah. And then, yeah, I think 12 is one of the better holes on the property.

You know, all of Pinehurst. I think 12 is a fantastic par five. Really cool green. Just an epic kind of almost like without the water, like second shot on 15 and Augusta, like you're up on top of this hill with funky lies hitting down into this really cool green site. We had a really cool pin on that one. And then, yeah, I don't know, man, I was impressed. I think it's think it gets two thumbs up for me. A lot of people are asking questions about it and what we think. I think it's not where I would go. If you have a group of four or 15 handicappers, might not be where you want to go.

Yeah, I think low handicaps are going to love it. Yeah, that might be low cap privilege a little bit on it. And it's the kind of thing too, where like if you want to take a buddy's golf trip to And then, you know, parachute into number two or number four or number three or eight and kind of parachute in over there. But your center of gravity is, is 10 and 11. Once they build 11. Yeah. But yeah, like, you know, earlier we mentioned 13. I think 13s are cool. And then you know, you can go to the next level and you can go to the next level and center of gravity is 10 and 11. Once they build 11. Yeah. Yeah, like, you know, earlier, we mentioned 13. I think 13s are cool. It's a really cool hole. It's just it feels stuck between like being a par four and a par five. It's the

features that it's straight away, it looks straight away, but you got to play out to the right. And there's this big mound out to the right that you, you know, like you want to aim at it, you want to use it, but then it's like 20, 30 yards too far out to use it. And, and that was downwind even. Um, and then, you know, 14 is like this crazy par three. It feels more of like, Oh man, like, like this would be like a really cool short four.

Yeah. That green is a little intense for, for how long that par three is as well. And then I like, I think 16 is probably the best hole, if not, you know, one of the best souls on, on, on number 10, uh, just a long par four kind of along this ridge line, great green 17 is the par three over the water that doesn't really fit the rest of the golf course, but it's a good hole. Yeah. It's a cool, you know, fun little par 3 and then 18. I think 18 is a grower. There's a lot going on in that green, that kind of bunkerless hole and, you know, kind of gets you back to the clubhouse. But I think there's more thoughtfulness going

on there. So I know Angela Moser did a lot of the just work start to finish a lot of the finished work and details. And yeah, I'm really excited to see kind of her career develop and evolve and kind of where she goes next and kind of what her style looks like, you know, on a like, you know, checking back in on it in like 10 years, you know, on a like, you know, checking back in on it in like 10 years, you know? Yeah, no, I'm, I want to go back. I want to go back and play it again. It was a really fun test. And I like the 210 combo is a really good combo. Like you said, getting away from

the resort for a little bit. And I mean, 1010 feels like tree farming spots. Yeah, like that's probably one of the comps. That was kind of like first time I played it. I was like, Oh, this feels, it feels like tree farming. It's maybe six to eight months behind as far as the development and the, um, but it's like, I think to your point, like credit to Piner, it's just for a, it's like the first new course that they've built decades, but also like, you know, for how mature it feels and how far along it feels this early in the game is remarkable. So I would definitely have it on your radar to check out if you are, if you've been to Piners before, it's one more reason to go back. And another great reason to go back is Piners

number two, which I honestly don't think we need to spend a lot of time on. We've talked about this course a lot over the course of the years. I've once called it my favorite golf course in America. I'd have to think on that a little more. We've gotten to play a lot more since then, but it's definitely in the top three. Like it's just, it's so much fun. I just freaking, I call it, it is definitely my favorite hard course in America.

There's no more like US Open level of golf course that is this fun to play. Like TPC Sawgrass is a great golf course. It's not like fun to play. Like it's a great, great challenge. This is like skiing a really nice, it's not even like a double black diamond. It's just like a really fun.

It's like the back bowls. Yeah. Versus like, you know. That's not mogul. Like TPC Sawgrass is like, yeah, like, all right, cool. Like we're gonna be on double black moguls all day. And if you, if you miss your spot on one of these holes, like your ACLs gone, maybe both.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, sorry. I think it's, I still think this, I think it's the best public golf course in America. Oh, for sure. That, that or Tori. That's kind of, you know, what's that? That or Tori.

No, it's, it's incredible. It's worth the price of admission. It like, again, this might be my sixth or seventh time playing it. And we started on 10 and then we went over to the deuce for lunch and you're looking at it again and you're like, fuck me, that looks amazing. We just got off the golf course and for as much play as that place gets, you're sitting there and you're just cheering people through it all day long. It's in perfect condition. And it just has this totally different aesthetic.

I mean, we're getting it still dormant. The green hasn't really popped yet. And just look, it wasn't like crazy firm, but it looked like it could be. And then you get to these super crown greens and this natural landscape, like the way that they make all that native area look natural and they can let all those people trudge through it all day long and it still looks as, you know, groomed yet unrefined as it does. It's just golf does not get much any better than Pioneer's number two.

It's just, I'm yet to meet anybody that doesn't freaking love it. We started on the back nine, which I really dig. I think 10 through 12 is probably the weakest stretch of holes. And then I'm always kind of, you know, one, two, three, like, I mean, the, like the front nine is like

truly flawless. And like, you know, like I'm always kind of, oh man, like I wish I was warmer. I wish I was, you know, kind of more ready for the, for the, for the task at hand. But yeah, I mean, it's just, it just shows you that, hey, the way, the way to defend golf, I was kind of more ready for the task at hand. But yeah, I mean, it just shows you that, hey, the way to defend golf,

because we're playing it from way up too. And the way to defend is just great green complexes. And just pointing out certain stuff, I'm like, oh yeah, like the pin was there during the third round of the US Open or fourth round of the US Open. Like seeing how much they can dial that place up pin was there during the third round of the US Open or fourth round of the US Open, like seeing how much they can dial that place up at a moment's notice is truly crazy. But yeah,

playing like playing one, two, three, and then, you know, hitting four and like just seeing the look on people's faces that hadn't been there before, like seeing it all makes sense and five, I mean, so I was, I was like, I hit a good drive. Actually, no, I didn't hit a good drive. I kind of scrolled one up the right and I'm laying up. You know, I'm like 320 into five. And I'm like, all right, I gotta, you know, I gotta land this on the right half of the fairway here.

Fairway kind of tilts at, you know, 15, 20 degrees. Like it's pretty, it's pretty, uh, and it's tight. So like you really got either hit a cut or, and I hit a cut right half of the fairway and still didn't hang on to the fairway. And I ended up down in that little corner, that little sandy corner there. And then that, you know, hitting from a sandy lie to that then, you know, and then six, like my approach there is just like, all right, I'm going to, cause I knew you were a couple of shots. Like I think you were a couple of shots behind me. We'd seen you on 40 and so like six, I'm like, cool. I'm going long here. It's not, it's not.

I'm like, I'm going to go to the green. I'm going to go to the green. I'm going to go to the green. I'm going to go to the green. I'm going to go to the green. I'm going to, cause I knew you were a couple shots, like I think you were a couple of shots behind me. We'd seen you on four T and so like six. I'm like, cool. I'm going long here. It's not as long and just putt my way back up. I did like, that was the thing. I don't have to chip anywhere. I just, I just putt like seven, such a great hole, regardless of which, which tee boxes

you play from. Cause you got to worry about stuff on either side of the dog leg. And it's a great green. And then, yeah. And then seeing the look on people's faces, like when they saw eight green, I was like, yeah, this is where John Daly like walked off a golf course. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Uh, and then finishing on nine, it's like we have back left panel nine is like sick, man, this is awesome. And like, cool. Now, like now we get to go drink a zillion beers in the deuce and then we can, and then your guys, my homes and Kelsey were got back down by my homes. You didn't confront them after all your bad takes. We played the, the whole out game for the deuce, which is everybody picks a number between zero and four of how many balls hit the cup on the 18th green. Like you'd be surprised how many people end up scooping it.

And it's just always adds a layer of suspense as you're watching guys come up like, like I need three guys to hole out here and no, he scooped it. Gosh, it's just a great scene. And then you have the thistle dew putting green right there. And it just continues to impress me. And I hope I get to go back in next year.

You know what else? I like to stay at the Holly Inn. Stay at the Holly Inn this time. Stay at the Carolina, stay at the Manor before. I'd never stayed at the Holly Inn. Awesome location. And like, I don't know, it was just kind of breakfast I thought was just as good in there. And yeah, cool little spot, great little bar.

Enjoyed it. Great group, great people. Shout out of course to Aaron Gregory who runs our events, who does an awesome job as always. And we had people come in from multiple different countries for this little event and everybody tacked on. A lot of people tacked on some golfs. People went and played number three after we finished number 10, playing a little all

shots. People played tobacco road beforehand. Some people were hitting southern pines afterward. It's just an incredible, incredible area for golf. And man, TC didn't feel good to get out of the house a little bit. And, uh, you know, you know, it's, it's work for us. It's still a shitload of fun. And, uh, it was, it was a great, great way to kick off the spring and kind of get golf season going here. So, yeah, we got some bluebird days too. Yeah. It was nice three out of four days playing golf or just like cloudless blue sky, which, you know, mid March is,

is always a bonus. So, um, and you saw people were dogging me a little bit for winning. Neil said I won gross and net. The net was quota. So it wasn't just like, you know, I still like, I met like, I was playing on like a 1.5. I met really quota. You played really good. You earned it. I'm not going to dog you for it. It's not like Neil, I'm not sandbagging my way to victory. Right. And you won the gross, which I'm not upset about at all. I'm not losing sleep over that at all. But you won the putt off and everything.

We got to do the pain Stewart putt as part of our group as well. And we won two makes. Two makes in the dark. It was pretty difficult. We raised a bunch of money for the Evans Scholars, just a great all around event. So I'm going to move us to rap.

We're trying to keep these episodes tight, but fun to fund a debrief and brain dump on the experience. And we'll have some stuff up on our socials as well. And if you listen to this in your car, check out the YouTube version

as well. We're going to we're not going to blanket this one with drone footage, but we're going to get a few clips up there as well to support that as well. We're not gonna blanket this one with drone footage, but we're gonna get a few clips up there as well to support that as well. Yeah, and we'll get some social stuff up too. Amen. So TC, thank you for having me to your club

and for showing me around and organizing all this. And can't wait to do it again next time. Thanks, Alec. Cheers.