No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 136: Bandon Dunes (Part I)

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

We made the spiritual journey out west to play some of the best golf the United States has to offer at Bandon Dunes. In Part 1 of this podcast, we break down Bandon Dunes and... The post NLU Podcast, Episode 136: Bandon Dunes (Part I) appeared first on No Laying Up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alright guys, we are pumped to break down our recent trip to band and doons. You're going to hear a lot of excitement from us about the experience. We want to just point out, and I'm kind of noticing as I'm editing it, that this may sound almost like an ad. We had that many good things to say about band and but I promise you, this is not sponsored. This experience actually just really resonated with us and felt it was definitely worthy of discussion.

We actually had to break this podcast into two parts because of how much we had to talk about. First though, one of the discuss, when you are traveling for a golf trip, how important it is to use luggage forward, avoid the baggage fees and the pain of hauling your clubs through the airport in and out of rental cars, ubers, whatever you're using to get to and from the airport, all this stuff adds up.

Luggage forward has 12 years of experience in the business of shipping your golf clubs, your skis, whatever you need ship. They ship to over 200 countries worldwide and they are a cost leader for places like Ireland, Scotland. And all over the United States, they offer a full money back guarantee when you do use them. They will even give you up to $25 towards your next shipment if your clubs are not there on time

or don't arrive back home on time. I can't tell you you how much less stress or how much stress this takes away from traveling So use use the promo code no laying up that's no laying up with no spaces We'll give you 10% off your next order And again, I can't emphasize enough how much stress they take out of my life in traveling So without further ado, here's our breakdown of our trip out west to Oregon to band and dunes. Better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast, a special episode today. We got Randy here, we got DJ here, we got Tron here, Niels here in spirit.

We are going to break down our recent trip to Band and Doons, I'm sure you saw a plethora of material and social media from us, probably to the nauseating level, I would say, maybe contain ourselves pretty well. Yeah, I'm Tron still there, I think, mentally. He looks like a ghost of himself having to be back here in Jacksonville.

I haven't checked Twitter in like six days. Time of standing still. It is. I'm just still recovering. One of the afternoons, Tron called literally one of the best days of his life. And he didn't like clarify with like his son, the day his son was born or anything. One up, one up. One up.

Okay, but it was on the same level. Yeah. We are going to break down the trip. We are not going to make this a shot by shot break down. I know some people are not the biggest fans of the travel episodes, but Band-In is often a topic of conversation. There's a ton of people listening to this

that have probably been to Band-In, a lot listening that either have a trip planned or have a goal of making it out there. So we just want to talk about what the experience was like. I think this was my second trip. DJ, this was your second trip. It was everyone else's first, but I can say, I don't know about you, DJ, that neither you or I

had experienced bandin in this way before I don't think. Yeah, we had a little bit of everything. I mean, it was kind of, I don't know, it almost felt Westworld-y a little bit, like someone was controlling things to make it a little too perfect for us. But the first time I was there, I was there with a big group and we had probably, I mean, 35 to 40 mile an hour wins for three straight

days, 36 a day, and got beat up pretty bad, and it was really fun. And I actually had a really good time doing that. But what we were missing was, you know, playing it the way it's actually supposed to be played. And so I was looking at the forecast and I was a little bummed when we didn't look like we were going to catch any wind. Sunday we got there, it was that same kind of 30-mile-hour gusting, even harder, balls rolling on the greens, all that kind of stuff. Then the rest was just postcard. Cloudless one day, the fog would roll in for a little while,

it's sunny, we're wearing shorts and t-shirts for, you know, for part of it, and then, you know, it'd be nice and cool in the morning. I mean, the whole thing was just drawn up, like, pretty perfectly. The nicest days of the year, I believe, was what all the people kept saying. I didn't know it could be that good in April, but Tron Randy, I want to know, I want to throw it to you guys for like, what were you guys expecting going into it and how did things maybe differ from that expectation? So my expectations were obviously high. You know, you hear nothing but good things about the place. For me personally though, I made a point to not really do a ton of research on the courses

and the resort because I think for your service there. Yeah. and the resort because I thank you for your service there. Yeah, well, I kind of wanted to see the place with fresh eyes a little bit and to experience it just with an open mind, with as little preconceived notion or bias as possible, but of course fully expecting it to be awesome. I think, you know, we'll get into a lot of the specifics, but I think the thing that stood out to me the most was the resort was really cool in that, you know, I was kind of expecting one clubhouse, kind of one point from which all these courses emanate from. And instead, it's, you know, of course you have the main lodge, but then you have the golf shops, you know,

the Pacific Dunes Golf Shop with a little restaurant over there. And the old Mac has a cool little golf shop and little restaurant over where it goes out from. And so while it's all banned, and you got kind of a little bit of a different sense at each of these places, not only in terms of the golf and the courses and whatnot, but even like the food, the menus varied just a little bit.

And so it was cool kind of being in one place, but getting this different feel at the different courses. Same goes for the golf courses too, right? Yeah, and the courses themselves are all, they all have their own unique flair and personality. And I think we'll get into that. Todd, is that, you know, I'm here to see here. Yeah, I kind of tried to take a similar tack. I feel like I've seen so much, so many pictures from there, but I never really was able to put it in them in context. It's not something that I think

can be, or it's very difficult to adequately represent like what the experience is out there through, just a picture or video or anything like that. And I feel like it was kind of, it was a whole in my perspective or in my reference, like I didn't have a reference point for bandin. So we were down at Barn Boogle in November and everybody kept talking about,

oh, this is like bandin a little bit and I'm like, oh shit, I don't, you know, I don't have that reference point. So, you know, it came out of from a similar point as Randy, just high expectations, but not really specific expectations, just knowing that it's gonna be really good, but not really knowing why or how. Well, that's what you touched on,

something I think is really interesting, which is like the experience of going there. And I was always in the same boat before I got there too Which was you know you look at these photos and you know They're their seaside golf holes and I mean they're obviously incredible and and this is not meant to like to To mean them at all But I mean you see kind of seaside golf holes all over the world and what you can't figure out is just What it feels like to actually be there and part of that is the travel of getting there. I mean, it's isolated in the middle of nowhere.

And you feel like you're isolated at this resort, but in a good way, you don't really feel like you have typical resort, like island fever sort of thing. You're just, you don't care if your phone is on or your phone is in the hotel or you don't have to drive anywhere because there's shuttles. I mean, it's just kind of like at peace the whole week is kind of how I always feel and that's like you said, it's really hard to come through. Like I've legitimately, I've PTBD. I legitimately have struggled to convey the experience to my life and like I've been walking around in the days the last four or five days since we've been back

and it should be noted that he still has his band-in-dudes bucket hat as far as I can. No, but I think too it's really, you know, like the whole, I guess not having been there I was always like, man this place is gonna be overhyped or like you hear so much about it and you know I was just kind of like man these guys are kind of dicks, who just keep, you know, just keep like, it's like no way to never live a hard. Yeah, and in a day, so I guess that's what we'll get into now. You ever go back to somewhere that you remember

from many years ago and you go back to it. You remember it really well and you go back and everything's smaller, everything just kind of doesn't built like seem as big in your head as it once was. I was afraid of that going into it. I thought, you know, like now that I've seen a bunch of courses in the UK and stuff, I thought bandin might seem a little,

maybe it doesn't hold up, not even close. Like I enjoyed it more this time around. I had more appreciation for it, kind of uncovering. Now that we know a little bit more about golf course architecture, how golf courses are run and just understanding that I just think it's so unique that we're so lucky and fortunate that Mike Kaiser had this vision to build this and that David McCleight kid crushed that first course. If he doesn't crush the first one, the second one doesn't happen.

And there isn't this like mythical golf resort heaven where you can go play four very unique golf courses and it's public and it's affordable. Like it could a lot of the best courses in America are not public golf courses and are hard to get access to. And if they are, TPC sawaggress is like 450 around right now. Like Pebble Beach is 550 around. These courses, like in April, I think it's $175 per round for your first round and then it's 90 for your second round.

So you get two world-class golf courses in one day for less than it costs to play, like Kewa or any of these other, you know, public highly renowned golf courses. And I don't know, like you alluded to the kind of remote nature of it. And it is tough to get there. But once you're there, that's part of the appeal, you know, it's the only the hardest of the hardcore golf fans are there. And you just have this common bond and kind of it was easy to get to. Right. Yeah Yeah, that's yeah. Totally. And it's you have that you know there's kind of a bar that got true clubhouse atmosphere of a kind of a private club that you all belong to. You know what I mean? I mean you just have a common bond with everybody that's

there and you everybody talks about what course you played so far. What do you think? Oh the conditioning of this one's blah blah blah and all that. So it's weird feeling kind of just innate like wholesale trust of everybody at this resort that you've never met. I mean, how often do we just leave your golf bags? I got my wallet, I got my phone, just, oh yeah, I don't know, whatever, it's fine. Where are you taking this? Yeah, I'm sure it's cool.

Go ahead, man. Everybody here is cool, I assume. Which they work. But no, I think, you know, we've talked a lot of them in this podcast. Most of the travel episodes have been in some capacity about links golf. And, you know, touring around the UK and Ireland showed me what just a such a more interesting style of golf playing along the ground, playing with the wind and throwing your yardage book out and not caring if

you have to hit a four iron from 100 yards, maybe if you want to get one under the wind. And I just, this is the only place I've played in the States, and maybe the only one that exists in the U.S. that plays similarly from a turf standpoint, from an overall wind, wind condition, firmness of the greens, and everything from T-degree in plays, the most interesting style of golf, and the most fun style of golf I've ever played. And I think that's one important distinction that sometimes I think people can get carried away a little bit with, you know, what, you know, why doesn't everywhere do this or what, you know, at band and they do this.

And it's like, well, like, it's a unicorn. I mean, it's like, the land is perfect. The development, the owners, the, you know, the property management grew, all that stuff is like, that just doesn't happen in other spots. And so it's hard to, you gotta almost take away the little things, like the restaurants and stuff like that, Rene, that you were talking about. And like, little things like that,

that you can replicate from Bannon, but you gotta just understand that, like, you know, short of having like a sandy seaside, you know, the public golf experience, like, you know, it's really hard to recreate that, which is what makes it so cool. And the steps they've made, you know, banded and being first, then came Pacific Doons. The third golf course, and we're going to break down the golf course in detail, is completely different than both of those. And then the fourth golf course is completely different than the three before.

The fact that they've added so much variety over the years, and I'm excited to see what the future of it's. I have no idea what they have, what future plans they have, but I mean, any excuse we can get to come back. Hope they build another golf course so we can go back. We may just, we're probably gonna go back anyway as it sounds like. Sure, we're going back in like October. Yeah, if they'll have us, we will be back. Oh my gosh.

We touched on it a bit. I want to quickly break down the ways there are to get there. So we're coming from Jacksonville. It was only one connection for us. We flew Denver to Eugene. It's tough to get to the West Coast from Jacksonville. Basically Denver is the farthest west you can get on the direct flight out of Jax. And then so you other have to connect in Houston, Chicago, Charlotte, and then fly into Portland or so. The Jax to Eugene thing was kind

of a... It was fun. I mean, it ended up working out. It was a of a, it was fun. It ended up working out. It was a close call. It was close. We were running. We were doing the home alone run through the airport a little bit. We had a little flight delay. You know, everybody wants to hear about the flight delay. Yeah.

So here's what happened. So we were sputting. How dare they? But you know, it worked out OK. We got to have a couple pops at the PG Tour Grill. That's true. We even live way under par. We were taking it way deeper.

But you know, flying into Eugene, it's two and a half hours from Bandon, but the appeal of that is that drive from Eugene to Bandon is spectacular. It's on like, I would prefer it as defying the North Bend. I think the part of the appeal too was the chowder at McManamins or whatever. Yeah, how good was that?

Rainy and I went back to makemanements in Eugene. Shout out to makemanements in Eugene. But the drive through the forest and along the river down the coast, it's, you know, it gives you perspective into how far away from big cities you are and all that. And you can also fly to Portland. I mean, as we were good delayed, we're looking into, like, can we get to Portland?

You can drive, I think, it's like four and a half hours. We were like in it, like, all right. Can we fly into Bo into like can we get to Portland? You can drive I think it's like four and a half hours. We were like in it like all right. We fly into Boise Can we fly in like Seattle? We had the whole pack Northwest and find a Reno and drive 10 hours like we're like how are we gonna get there and Still have golf to play on Sunday basically. Yeah, well, I found myself feeling very stupid once I like put it in perspective So I got like we have to get there tonight. Like, what, or what? You know, or we'll miss around. I don't know.

Well, how many are you playing? I don't know, seven. There was one player. But we can't miss one. The gate or the ticket counter agent was like, all right, you can fly to Dolas and then like Dolas to Seattle, Seattle to Portland and get there like you

know two hours before you would otherwise on that next flight to Eugene we're like all right cool maybe that's worth it there's another nine holes man there's also you could fly to North Bend North Bend is not is 30 minutes from Bayonet it doesn't fly to a lot of places but in the summer the San Francisco right in the summer there is a Denver to North Bend flight. So I think starting in June, they run that flight. It is the abandoned flight, essentially. So they've made it, you know, it's part of, you know,

we, Sean, about the Dream Golf book, the book about abandoned dudes, and they talk about the inherent challenges of it, and it not being near a population center, or near an airport, it was like, okay, is this thing really gonna work? Like a very serious question. We know we've talked about this with regards to Kaiser before, especially with, you know, Stream Song and Barn

Bougal and that kind of stuff, but imagine the balls it takes to just, I mean, plant your flag and like, try to make something like this work, or the vision it takes and all this, I mean, you can't like, commend those guys enough that actually made this thing happen because it would be, if you were an investor or whatever I mean, you can't like commend those guys enough that actually had made this thing happen because it would be, if you were an investor or whatever and you're reading things about golf, you're reading things about, you know, rounds are down and resort spending is now all this stuff.

Like, making this thing happen where it is seems impossible to me. And it's crazy. And not only is it important for golfers to go visit it for the fun factor, it's important for kind of golf history in the way things are going. Honestly, like we said, if McCleay Kid doesn't crush band and doons, the second course doesn't get built. There's not four courses there. San Valley probably doesn't happen. And then, I don't know, the stream song happened. Like the fact that the effect that this has had on downstream and in the way in house, she's on that. Right. I think Andy talked about this a lot too, Andy Johnson, but a lot of it even goes back one step further to Sandhills, where Kaiser was a member also.

And just him seeing, okay, this can work in the United States and people don't need to have, it doesn't need to be a TPC perfectly manicured with scissors kind of golf course. People are okay with that. That might even be the starting point. And I think, but you touched on it too, like with all of the bad trends in golf and the balls takes the build it, like this is bucking that trend and is a good trend towards golf, right? It's not excessive.

The clubhouse is not massive. Things aren't overpriced within it. We're going to get into kind of the total atmosphere here, but this is something in golf that is worth celebrating. Not only is it the most enjoyable experience you can have, but we want to emphasize it because of how important it is. You know, as first critical as we are of so many things, this is kind of, this is something in golf that is totally worth celebrating.

A quick break to remind you guys that summer is just around the corner. This means you're going to be doing. Hopefully, a lot more traveling. Hopefully, that means more golf trips, vacations, summer camp, whatever you do with your free time in the summer. Nothing is worse than heading out on a trip and realizing you forgot something important. So make sure you switch to an OGO bag. We are all using the OGO Mutant Travel Bag.

I can't emphasize enough how much stuff you can fit in these things. All of the OGO travel bags come with a signature thoughtful organization so that you'll have a place to put your most important things. There's smart features such as separated pockets for dirty clothes, dedicated place for your shoes, and it just makes your life easier when you get home. Be sure to make the most of your time off this summer upgrade to OGO and special for listeners of this podcast, celebrate it back to summer, but with OGO by saving 25% on all travel bags on OGO.com with promo code

NLU OGO, the world's best bags. Let's get back to the podcast. Yeah, let's give, we're going to do our ranking of the courses. We're going to highlight some of our favorite holes, we're, but we want to emphasize how torturous of a process that was and how back and forth week, it sucks to rate one of these courses fourth. It honestly does because they're all world class. And I think we're all gonna have very different ratings. But I wanna first find rating one of the four. I wanna get into, I wanna get first talk a bit about, one of the biggest takeaways we have

and things we talk about the most amongst ourselves, even more than the golf courses, is just kind of the whole atmosphere of the entire place. So for those that make, you know, try to describe this as somebody that hasn't been there, what you guys felt like you got treated from the staff and what, how that really added to your experience. I'll start. I thought the staff was awesome. I thought that the best way I can kind of like in it, the whole atmosphere is kind of like a ski town mentality, where life is

certainly not moving fast. And I think everybody who's there is genuinely happy to be there. And I think that shows in their interactions with people. And I guess if that's not true, they do a hell of a job of faking it. But I think, you know, Neil, Neil said it best and it was kind of like going to adult summer camp and that You're just out there and you can kind of do what you want and have fun I think what I was most amazed with was for being such a highly regarded resort There was just a real lack of pretension kind of among the staff and You never I never felt like you know you're kind of

walking on egg shells or you're scared to kind of do or say the wrong thing and that's just it's it was very relaxing and I think it kind of just puts you at ease and then the staff you know they're they're incredible like the starters every morning they they are engaging they they're funny, they're just, they just make you feel at home and they give you the sense like, hey, we're really excited to be here and we want to share it with you. And that's... I could have talked to the starters every morning. Yeah, I mean, even our guy, I think Mark, at the preserve, the very first time we wrote, it was just awesome.

But at the same time, not trying to kiss your ass. No, it's very fine line. Yeah, that's an important distinction. To me, true luxury isn't gold-plated everything, or people trying to kiss your ass. It's authenticity and anticipatory service. And just nothing's excessive about that. Kind of what you said about sharing.

They're excited to share this with you. They're excited for you to see what it's all about. Because they know already, like, hey, this is, I love being here. There's a reason a lot of those people are there. Like, Arkaddi, Squid, he went there for the first time and he was like, well, shit, I'm gonna move here. I'm gonna work here. I wanna spend my life here.

Yeah. And they aren my life here. Yeah. And they aren't there to galju. Like it's, you know, when you're done with your round, if you want a $10 sandwich, it's there. If you want fine dining, they also have that there. If you want, you know, they got an Irish bar in restaurant. They got this Asian theme going over at Band-In-Dunes and like nothing about it was excessive.

And just, yeah, golf trips inherently are expensive, but I don't think there's anything about Band-and-Dunes that I looked at was like wow, that's expensive and even the the lodging where we were It's very nice, but but again, it's like it just fits the property. You don't feel it's not I'm trying to think how to say this because I it is a compliment. It's not like Todd said It's it's not gold plated like I think it would be weird because it is a compliment. It's not like Todd said, it's not gold plated. Like I think it would be weird if it was just overly luxurious kind of out in the dunes of western Oregon. It's kind of understated and muted but just really nice.

Like there was like I mean I think other than showering and sleeping I think we spent probably 20 minutes. There's no reason to be in there. So the water pressure was good. The beds were comfortable. Right. They got the right details, right? And everything comes back to just golf.

Yeah. That's the center piece of the whole resort. There's nothing there that's trying to detract from why you're there in the first place. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So I think that hopefully that kind of summarizes, the overall feeling of being there and how that really adds to the trip. And here we are, I don't know how many minutes into the pot.

We haven't even started talking about the golf courses yet. So that's kind of how much the whole experience resonates. The golf courses are going to be in parts seven, every nine of this podcast. So we had five of us. So we kind of couldn't, we wanted to play a game throughout the week and we wanted to, we couldn't really play Wolfhammer. So we designed it. We made our own stable for game and it was really fun.

Shockingly worked out. I would recommend. Yeah. It will give you the brief summary as it was eight points for an eagle four points for a birdie two for a par zero for bogey and minus 2 for a double bogey. Net, all net. What made it interesting was we added in the concept of a multiplier. NBA jam, rally scoring. Rally scoring. So if you make a birdie or a net birdie, your next hole is worth double.

So if you make a par, that's now worth 4 instead of 2. And if you make another net birdie, your next hole is worth 3x. Or if you make an eagle, like that doubles it up, that makes it, you know, if you make one eagle, that makes it the next hole worth three X instead of two X. And Neal got all the way up to seven X. It's no surprise that he ended up winning the stable for it. It was like watching, at the end, it was like watching Tiger at Pebble 2000. He made it.

We're all just waiting to watch history. He made an eagle net double legal, which was already three times, I think I lost, he didn't even have to finish the final round and won the Betas pretty badly in stable for it. But if you're looking for a fun variation of stable furter, some fun game throughout the course of the week, I think the only way to make it clear was great.

The only thing I think that we all took away is that in order to kind of crush the runaway victory, you need to have a multiplier, a negative multiplier, as well. So big downside. You need to have some big downside. Cause you did have the multiplier. He had a couple like four X,

and then obviously he's standing with like a short-sided chip and he chunks into the bunker cause he's thinking about the four X double. And you lose 10 points. But there was no way he could come back. Well, I think his game was particularly well-suited for stable for multiple fights. Yeah, for scoring.

And his cap is officially in question as well. Yeah, yeah. 10 Hayden came out there shooting 76. I'm flagged that. Yeah. Flag for review. All right, so we're going to talk some, obviously, in pretty good detail here about the golf courses,

but I kind of wanted to start by just describing What makes what I think makes a golf course fun? I kind of want to hear from you guys as to what what how you describe a fun golf course because some of the comparisons I made earlier to TPC and Pebble Beach and something like Kioa people have maybe have a hard time Distinguishing just like really good views on the golf course versus like what really made it fun I think that bandin has and all the courses really had there have have the concept of the views yet the golf course versus like what really made it fun. I think that Bandin has and all the courses really have there have the concept of the views yet at the same time. You can always find your golf ball. The amount of golf balls that we played with on this trip, I think I brought a couple extra dozen and didn't even crack into them over there.

Giving the feeling that you had to take like a free swing at it, yet incorporating strategy and decision making, not caring if you got to hit a three wood from 160 or a three iron from 300 yards. Like I played at stadium a week before this trip, like from the tips and didn't have like a fraction of the enjoyment that I had at any single one round at bandit. I think those are the types of golf courses that need to be celebrated. I think it needs to kind of be like highlighted that that is kind of what sticks out to me and how fun they are was going and finding your golf ball and Almost always being in play. Yeah, I totally agree. I think something too is is you know if you're a 20-handy cap

You can go and for the most part You know if you got on trails and get a little sideways like that gets tough or I could see how packed Doomsday would get a little bit tough but like band-in and even old Mac like you know It's it's probably just as enjoyable for 20 handicap it as it is for the two handicap. Well the thing that I think I don't know that there's a long answer to your question probably but the the thing that makes it most fun for me and I think trails and Pacific Dunes do the best job of this is that they just give you like they give you enough rope to hang yourself

basically. And if you want to go out and you, that sounds fun. But if you, if you want to go out and you want to play ultra conservatively and you want to play to the fat parts of every fairway and the fat parts of every green, you can probably go out and shoot a number that you're going to be pretty happy with and you're going to go sit in the clubhouse and have a beer and it'll be fine. But they know, like the designers of all these courses inherently know that you don't wanna do that

and they make the risky shots so appealing that you can't resist and then you just find yourself in these horrible spots and it's completely your own fault. And as soon as you knew it going in. And you knew it going in but you did it it going in, but you did it anyways. And like that, I don't know, that is weird maybe, but that to me is really fun. I think that's as good as it gets.

And I think that all of us probably went through when we played, I don't know how many, 150 some holes over three days, four days. And so all of us, I think, kind of went through stretches where we were playing that first kind of golf, and you're like, oh, wow, like, I can, you know, I can't make a bogey right now. You can throttle it up.

Yeah. And then as soon as you're like, okay, yeah, now I'm hitting it so good, I'm gonna go for this shot, and then you boom. Deject. Yeah. I was talking somewhat Dave McClake kid, no big deal, before we went out. And I, and we'll get to this. I still think I put Bannon Dune's first

and I shot my two highest scores of the week at Bannon and I told him that. And he said what he said was like it seems like the most get up, he's like his readers, it seems like the most getable and it leads to overly aggressive play and then you pay for it. That's kind of the perspective I got.

I mean, yeah, like you said, as soon as we could start posting a couple good numbers, it's like, all right, let's get down and get it. Boom, 45 on the next nine. I think I shot, we played Old Mac one morning, and I shot the lowest nine I've ever played. No big deal. I shot two under on the back at Old Mac,

and then I shot 49 at Pacific Tooth. All right, so let's do that. We started, we got there Sunday, and the first stop we made was at Bannon Preserve. For those who don't know, Bannon Preserve is a 13 hole par three course. It has the same clubhouse as Bannon Trails. It was designed by Core Crenshaw as was Bannon Trails. Kind of a good warm up to the trip.

I think maybe the perfect warm up to the truck. It might be the book end. We book ended it. We played in the very beginning at the very end. Randy, what was your opinion of preserve? Yeah, it was great starter. You get out there with get to hit some wedge shots. I thought it's sneaky.

Sneakily has some of the best views on property. It's just a... Would you say low key? You know, low key. Yeah, maybe not even low key. I mean, it's regular key. Yeah, it's great. So we played it twice.

The first time we played it, we had our bags. We had, you know, carrying, push-carding. And I think the biggest thing for me was, the second time we played it at the very end, we just took two clubs. And, you know, thinking back, I think I had more fun just with two clubs and the reason is you just it forces you to kind of get creative try to hit different shots.

So I don't know I think I'd be curious what you guys think but I almost think the way to go is hey just grab you know two or three clubs walk and just have a good time enjoy the views and just really get creative and have fun out there. I think that for me, it was the best way to approach the preserve. And I think that sets you up well for the rest of the trip too. I mean, that's essentially what you're doing at a lot of the other. And I don't know, maybe this is just like the way that I play and I'm not good enough,

so I think I just create overly aggressive challenges to give myself a built-in excuse But like there were not very many shots where I was like okay, it's 140 I guess I'll just hit it my 140 club, you know full on and I mean you're the whole time You're you're thinking about which slopes you're using how high are you trying to hit it? You know all that kind of stuff so the preserve is a great warm up for that I thought it preserved to was the first day when we got there it was windy. Yeah it was. It was full. Yeah. Some of those part three holes were all those part four.

Yeah, but yeah and then you know like I think probably one of the toughest holes out there is that little 50 or 60 hard. The Dell. The Dell punch bowl thing. It's cool you know. It is just a it's a it's a great kind of glance into what golf doesn't have to be 18 holes, par fours, par fives, par three. That's why I love this. The 13 holes was like, why is it 13 holes? I don't know, that's just, you can do whatever you want.

Yeah, that's why we, because why not? Like, that's what we had money for, land for, or whatever. It's like a barn boogle, and yeah. Well, they're like, well, there's 20 good holes out here. You can just build 20. Yeah, I don't think any of us walked off we're like god damn. I wish that was really fun But like it was four holes. It's just not an official round

Well, and it's you know, you know, you let me obviously eliminate driver So you it's the benefits the most fun shots and golfer approach shots I think so you're essentially playing from the middle of the fairway you can choose your t's You don't have to set you don't have to play the same set of t's throughout that case you guys want to play this back You want to play like an eight sum if you want. Yeah, you want to play it all the way up if you want. Hit a little 50 yard filet, nine irons in there. And like, that's, and I know, it gives you, it's full-size greens, full-size slopes.

And every other aspect you would want of like an approach shot. It's not a mini course. It's not a pitch and putt. Like, it's, it's full, you know, you're're hitting some sometimes eight iron seven irons into some of them, but I don't know It's a great great warm up into kind of fighting the ball under the wind and learning to use the wind and the slopes and all that So and it's like I'm perfect for like the emergency of you know 36 holes wasn't quite enough today Let's go squeeze see if you can squeeze off the preserve They don't close it until 30 minutes after the last group has finished on any course So they keep it open like people play like into into the sunset pretty much just a good like best

Bet settler also. Yeah, you know if you had like just a fun. It's like having a giant by-hole Yeah, exactly exactly All right, so after that we went to our afternoon teatsime at Banan Dunes You mentioned we had about 30-mile an hour sustained wins, 40 mile an hour Gus. That's the top five windiest round I've ever played in, but that's part of the experience, and I don't think any of us were kind of lamenting it as kind of, all right, this is what you sign up for when you come to

Banan. It almost, the win, it was just relentless. There were a couple of times I just wanted to like crawl under inside a dune and just like, just take a break. Get it out of my ears for a couple minutes. Yeah, for sure I'm with you. It was certainly probably the windiest round I played. But it was actually like all things considered.

It was the best round I played all week. I loved, I'm so glad we started at band-in too. I think that was the course to really, I mean, we went around the preserve. But I think, you know, Band-In just gives you, it's just a great kind of intro. Intro, yeah, you just kind of get the full effect a little bit.

When you make the turn from, no one two and three, it kind of eases you in, and then you make the turn on the second shot, down to the ocean on four. It's this dog like down to the ocean, it kind of wipples down there, and you're just like, whoa, alright, yeah, we're here. That's your intro, yeah. That tee shot on four is kind of, you know, we got a huge downwind on it, and you got, goes down through these dunes, you don't see the green at all. You can see where the ocean is, and then it turns, and you are facing the ocean, and the green looks like an infinity pool up against the cliff. You don't realize how high up you are yet, until you get out to that cliff.

But I like doing it that way too, with Bannon being the first course built there, that kind of plain, we almost kind of, I think we actually did play them in order when they were built. I was thinking about, yeah. Yeah, they might have done that. But yeah, your intro to the ocean

is this kind of Eureka Wow moment of seeing it. And I think somewhere in that dream golf book, at Kaiser and Euromaclet Kid talks about the effect of building a hole at the ocean, building the whole at your view to hit people in the face with it. And instead of a difference I noticed at Bannon Dunes is there's

a couple more holes that play right at it compared to like Pacific Doons. Pacific Doons utilizes the coastlines to for great holes alongside of it, but that effect and we'll get to that twelfth hole too is a part of three that plays right at the ocean. But you know, they designed it with this prevailing wind that kind of comes from the right of from the north and you know, they have these mounds that you can use with the wind to shape balls back to the pin. That stretch and we're going to get to our favorite stretches is kind of kicks off my favorite stretch on the property I think. Yeah. And I should have started at the top. This was really my first links experience.

Whereas you guys obviously Australia and Sallie I know you spent a lot of time over in Ireland, Scotland. This was my first true links experience. And so, even the, like you just said, the microcosm of banding, kind of building up to that fourth hole, it was like that for me, but on this grander scale where, you know, it's like, oh my God, this is so cool. Like, you know, you get the mounting and the bunkering.

And then, you know, you come to the fourth hole and you see the ocean. It's like just kind of an overload of the senses. Yeah. To play it in that type of wind, we really didn't get the rain and I think I'm fine without that for now. But having that wind really whipped, it was like, man, this is kind of what it's all about isn't it and then the course was blooming. Oh There's yeah, there's pops of yellow the most vibrant yellow. I think I don't know

We got really fortunate with weather. I think it's emphasized that but April might be the play or kind of like spring might be the play It's less busy. Yeah, it's it's prices are lower. It's yeah, it's not quite the you know I don't know you're gonna get an unpredictable weather. Yeah, it's it's prices are lower. It's yeah, it's not quite the you know, I don't know you're gonna get an unpredictable weather. Yeah, all plenty long enough. I mean, Sunsets were after 8 p.m But we see I there's not like a 6600 yard option. They make you play the tips Which are like 7k or 6300 from the greens we went 6300 and we never went back It was like not even you don't even think aboutard's books get thrown out when it's that windy, but how much fun was golf to play from kind of shorter

than what we usually play at that? Yeah, and I was kind of surprised, I think, I mean, I try not to never talk about this, that I still had a ton of like four and five irons into greens from 6,200 yards, which is kind of a nice fun change of pace too. So yeah, I mean, it's also, it's obviously built for the wind and built for, you know, it's 6 it's 6200 yards, you know, kind of by design.

There's long holes and there's short holes. There's not exactly. And you're either, I don't think, you know, a lot of the time when you play, of course, three or four hundred yards, maybe too short for your, like, ability or distance, you're always having these awkward wedges in your hands and stuff like that. I really didn't feel like that was the case there. And even if you do have that awkward distance, you can put it. You can bump a seven iron. You can do so many different things with it.

I didn't think that the, some of the bunkering was, was pretty awesome from 6200 yards and that, I mean, Sali is, you know, far and away the longest player in our group. And there were a couple pop bunkers and stuff that, I mean, just never even registered with us off the tee. And you get up there and he's like, fuck, it might, I'd better not be in that pop bunker. And there were just a lot of like, nice little punches back to the really long player,

even under short yardage. But it was fun too, we got two looks at these courses, everyone but old McDonald. And some days that there's a certain bunker that's in play that's 340 out, and then the next day was like, okay, it's 210 to get over that bunker, that might be an issue. I mean, that's kind of where, you know, you can play the course in one win and look and be like, what's the purpose of these bunkers here? What's going on here? I don't understand this. And then you play it in the next

win, you're like, that's why, that's exactly why. And that's what, I don't know, it's so hard to design courses. I it's so hard to design courses. I would imagine so hard to design courses to play in two drastically different wins. And all of these courses do. I mean, there's a winter prevailing win, a summer prevailing win. But I feel like you could have played,

you know, we kind of got to look at them with different wins and they, you feel like you're playing a different golf course, but neither one feels less or more fair. Like it feels like it was, it was designed with the idea in mind that hey, we got to deal with both these conditions. And then one day we had kind of a slack,

like weird wind that was kind of transitioning between those two, you know, the North wind and the South wind and it was kind of coming straight off the coast. And that was, you know, they were like, we maybe get this four or five times a year. I actually, like, band and dunes, I think I liked it. I thought, like, I was so pumped to play the second round there,

and I liked it less the second time around. I agree with you. I think spoiler alert, I think this was, I think I would rank it fourth. I think we need to preface all of this, of course, with like, it's still one of the greatest golf courses I've ever played in my life. I'm ranking the whole... I love all my children. Yeah, the whole ranking thing is like, it's still one of the greatest golf courses I've ever played in my life. I love all my children.

Yeah, the whole ranking thing is like kind of pretty inherently flawed since they're all really good. But if I had to put one forth, I think I'd put it forth. And I think one of the things that McLeod kids had on the podcast, or I think it was a podcast, or maybe it was something else I was listening to, but he kind of talked about how, you know, Doke had the benefit of going second. And I thought that really, really, really shined through in that band and dunes is spectacular. And if you're looking at it as like, you know, this was the first course they did.

It's an awesome effort. It's great. Pretty much all the way around. But everything that it does well, I think Pacific Dunes just kind of amps it up and does throughout, whereas I thought that there were pockets of band and dunes, or even now, I'm struggling to remember three or four of the holes, which didn't happen in the first place. Like four, five, and six is one of the best.

Do you think the conditions played into that at all? I don't think so. Really? I don't think so. I mean, I think, because I'm trying to think like Pacific Dunes in that 35 to 40 mile power win could have gotten really almost over the top. Now I totally think and I haven't played Pacific Dunes in that conditions, but I almost think bandin is better suited maybe for that type of win. So yeah, you talked about rankings. I going into this, I kind of thought, I kind of, you know, everyone that ever said,

you know, banning trails was my favorite course at banning, at banning dunes. I kind of rolled my eyes out like, okay, like, cool trendy. I now see, I, I, I will never criticize anyone's rankings. If you like banning trails first, if you like all McDonald's first or whatever your order is, it can be the complete opposite of mine.

I can be like, yeah, I can see that. Like, if I go back, I go back the next time, I might change my order around. I might change my favorites around. But like you said, loving your favorite children, it's, I don't know, they're all truly amazing. And you hate to even put a course forth, but that was blasphemous to call Bannon forth,

whatever you said. When we talk about 12 at Bannon Dooms, that was, I think, the whole that kind of, it's like screwed me up for a while. I was like pretty shook after we played that one I just was so uncomfortable on the team in like such a cool way I don't know back down to the ocean. There's a bunker front front right front left on left front left a little kind of Rodani a little bit a little yeah, and it's in the wind just a little pop bunker

It's a little robot middle. It's like a roll hole bunker and it defines the entire hole. Like if it wasn't there, it would be a little part three. Did you say something like, yeah, a bunker's not even in play or something that you hit it directly into? Most people don't realize, you know, where that bunker is, it's the solid hit it right. You know, DJ's like, man, like I should just like, you know, 40% high-viron down to this one. I was so in my own head playing,

what was the wind was coming straight in, right? Basically like, so this first time? Yeah, it's off head playing. What was the win was coming straight in, right? Basically, like, so the first time? Yeah, it was off the right. It was hard off the right, but it was right. It was right in. Yeah. Kind of a kidney-shaped green almost, a little slanted kidney-shaped green.

Right at the ocean, just big kind of dune to the right of the green short right, protecting that time. And DJs just lost in the sauce. I was so, so lost. Everyone's like, what do you just hit it? I'm like, well, my ball's gonna get beat up and that wind, I'm gonna be 30 yards left.

I don't know. I'm like, you know what, I think the really smart, it was almost like the glowing brain meme a little bit when I finally hit, you know, like, I think the play is to just chip a five iron and like, 10 hop it up onto the green, which didn't go well. No footage is available in that shop. And then I think right after that, like 14 was directly into the wind, right?

And like, you know, we're hitting... That's 15, the part three. Or 15. So that's... And we're hitting, you know, 140 or four iron. Three woods. So that's kind of what I loved about Bannon was, it was clear into my, you know, the way I interpreted it was. You start with three inlin holes, and then you get introduced to the ocean, right? You get the, going right at it with four, you're playing alongside it with five, alongside it with six.

You come back inlin for nine through 11, for seven through 11, you get hit with it again at 12, and then you come back out 13-14, and then you get it again 15-16, and essentially 17. So it's kind of spaced out. There's not like a Pebble Beach stretch of four through 10, and then you get it again, 15, 16, and essentially 17. So it's kind of spaced out. There's not like a pebble beach stretch of four through 10 and then you go inland and don't really see it for a while.

I thought that there's probably, I would imagine the way they wanted to do it was it's not like, we don't want to front night in a back night here. We want it to flow. We want you to see it, hear it, and experience it kind of throughout the round rather than just go one long stretch alongside of it. I like that a lot. I think the best thing that I did, and you said it was, yardages were meaningless that first round.

And the best thing I did was swallow my pride into the win, a buck 50, buck 55. I wasn't going to try to muscle. I grabbed hybrid. And it was like, this gives me the best chance to get it as close as I can and Getting to play that type of golf Admittedly, I'm less than an elite ball striker, but it kind of it's like it doesn't matter Yeah, you know, you just truly you try to get it to a decent spot and then get it in the hole and that was really really fun How would you describe your ball striking? You know it comes and goes.

I made a lot of sloppy fives, which, you know, hey, it happens. Some of my favorite shots are when. Really apathetic. It would be the best way I describe my ball striking. You walk up to it to a shot and you're like, okay, get the yard and you're like, all right, this is probably a seven iron.

And by the time you hit it, you've like settled on four iron. Because you keep like trying to picture your shot and you're like, no, it needs to be lower than that. He's lower than that. And then you're just like, all right, forget the yard, let's just get this under the wind, get it running rolling up there. So, which I feel like is Link's golf, right?

And I feel like it, and we'll get to it, but that was kind of the biggest takeaway to me was, like, man, it's a fun way to play. And so yeah, we talk about 15th hole. I think I hit four iron from 150 in that, and then we turn around and played 16. It was only about 300 yards in the tees we were playing. And some of us hit iron's like over the green.

Like it's just complete opposite wind. You couldn't stop the ball. And it's, that's just like, like quintessential, the most fun style golf. You can put it on. I thought the par-fives on band-in-dune were really fun. I thought every par-five on the property was. I thought that week's Sonic,

I kept saying that to each other the whole time, was like, every par- par five was just so good. And we kind of talked like, the one, and in Australia, I thought that if we were to make a criticism, the par five's were just a bit weak overall. Yeah. I think for that whole trip, this was like the opposite. And we thought the par three's were stellar in Australia. The five's here are just, yeah, they were, they were some of the most fun golf balls to play. Seventeenth hole was really cool. Come back in with the canyon along the right side

and that kind of hero carry. And then 18 kind of, I think in general, all the course on the property, like the first and 18th hole is kind of, get ahead with a little bit of criticism. But I think that's more from a logistical standpoint, getting to and from the clubhouse. Well, there's some good stuff about the clubhouse

that he said on the podcast. Right. So initially they had envisioned that the clubhouse would be set where the current 16th green is. And McLeod kid was probably the most beautiful dramatic part of the property. And McLeod kid was less than 30 years old and was the least renowned of any of the architects

that were brought in to potentially kind of interview for the job and the things that he said. Mike Kaiser had this affinity for Link Style Golf and the fact that Dave McClade kid was Scottish and came from his background of understanding Link's golf. He kind of said, he bucked the trend in what a lot of people were going to do with the proposal. And he said, now the clubhouse got to be set back inland and we got to use this part of the land for the golf course. And that is what stuck with Kaiser the most to make him kind of conclude

towards having McLean kid built that first course. And now we have the 16th hole, which is one of the most more unique golf holes I think I've ever seen. I don't know what you would compare that golf hole too. I don't have anything off top of my mind. Yeah, that's a great question. So.

The other thing about Banondunes is just the clubhouse there and the whole That's the center of it all. Yeah, it's kind of the it's like the heartbeat of the proper. Yeah Kind of reminded me like sitting out there Like that 18th whole kind of remind me of Roebergdale a little bit where you're like you know You're not you're not on the ocean, but you can you get a big whiff of the ocean being up there But it's you're kind of it's more it ocean being up there, but it's, you're kind of, it's more, it's just a subtle reminder that it's about the golf,

not necessarily just the views. Yeah, and at no point do you look at that clubhouse, you're like, oh, this should have been on the ocean. No, it's in the perfect spot. Yeah. Does that adequately cover Ben and Dan's, we think. I can't think of anything else. All right, let's move on.

Quick shout, I'm sorry. Quick shout out to the green complex at 14. I thought very low key, maybe my favorite out there. Little par four set back against a dune. There's right at the base of a dune. And that's a more interesting hole. Like kind of, you're getting excited for the seaside holes again.

You kind of, all right, let's get through this one. And I think I even commented to you, DJ, I was like, yeah, this hole's kind of just okay for me. And then we had it in a different wind. And I was like, oh, now I see why these bunkers are here. And this is actually a lot more interesting this old than I originally thought. So that's kind of what in the book McCleik kid talks about

how he needed to make the inland holes interesting, right? I mean, people come for the seaside, but you can't let it feel like a wall on the holes away from the ocean. I think that's pretty well accomplished. So next morning, morning morning round Pacific dunes the number one rated public golf course in the US, Tom Doke, I think it was built two years after. Two years after Band-In was built and I think kind of similar to Band-In dunes it does a great job of giving you the views early and late in

the round right. So you get that that par there's a par five, the third that goes out towards the ocean that gives you a great view of the ocean. And then the fourth hole is maybe, maybe the best hole in the entire property yet it didn't win in our composite rankings. And we'll get to some of that. Like a par four set with the ocean along the right. It's every, every photograph, every, you know every postcard that they have at Pacific. So it plays along there and then the back nine has 10, 11, and 13 are all the holes right along the

ocean. But how did Pacific dunes differ from band and dunes in your guys' mind? Just more dramatic, like you said earlier, do you think it's just bolder? Everything's just amped up, a couple more notches. Like I thought, you know, I mean, obviously it's probably the most scenic place I've ever played. See it course, I've ever played. And yeah, I mean, like four was so hard, seven was so hard. Like on seven, if you're out of position at all off the tee,

like you almost have to lay up. Like I made it triple, I think that first round and like my caddy was like, yeah, I made it triple, I think that first round and like my catty was like, yeah I did, like I told you. So it's a great mix of holes, especially that back nine is, you know, we talked a bit about the preserve and how it bucks the trend of what a golf course is like. And back nine at trails, or I'm sorry, at Pacific Dunes is a part 35, four part threes, it starts with two part threes, and there's also three par fives on the back. I think that's my other criticism of band and dunes.

It's just 36, 36, it's par 72, whereas the other three courses are all par 71s, aside from the front nine, I think it trails, they all have something funky as far as more par threes or more par fives, or whatnot, you know, whereas I like the uniqueness of the... But that's where I almost think that's kind of like a result of, you know, when you're going first, you have to just be kind of...

Yeah, you've got to be kind of standard. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I think that's what it was for me. He saw the stuff that worked really well at band and just kind of turned it up to 10 on all of them. The bulkers are bigger, the dunes are bigger and just kind of turned it up to 10 and all of them. The below out bunkers are bigger, the dunes are bigger and a lot of circumstances and there's not like some of the bunkers like abandoned are you know sod faced bunkers that

are not very natural whereas Pacific dunes is probably the most natural of any of the golf courses out there. There are some good stuff. I don't know if Doke wrote the little passages in the in the yardage book But there's some really good ones like I think it's number seven. Yeah He says something like remarkable natural Yeah, well while making your way to the green notice the natural bunkering on the left side. It is quite remarkable Doke wrote his own copy for his yard which is pretty pretty great

But I don't know you just have I feel like you pretty great. But I don't know, you just have, I feel like you have more stretches, I don't know, maybe this isn't right, but I feel like you have more stretches on Pacific dunes that are just cranked up to 10, kind of, that you can, you spend an hour and a half at a time, you know, playing these incredible golf holes, whereas I think bandin' it was kind of more flashes

of that stuff. Like for me, I I thought I thought nine with the double green, such a cool hole. I think that's something that's like fairly unique. I think it's the only double green on the property, if I'm remembering right. And then you play 10-11 or back-to-back par threes that are and by double green you mean two separate greens. Yeah, there's a different upper and a lower yeah, uppers and downers But then you play ten and eleven which are these two Not not similar part threes but back-to-back part threes that both play it kind of along the ocean You know ten plays at the ocean. It's got two different teas which makes it like two completely different golf holes I wandered down to the lower tee,

the second time we played, and I felt like an idiot, because I'm like, oh, I'm like, I'd like had too many beers, and I walked to the wrong hole. Like, these guys are gonna think I'm an idiot, and I was like, oh, no, wait, never mind. We're good. Two boxes.

Yes, different T-box. But yeah, you just have those stretches, where 12 was, 12 was an awesome par five, 13's is another cool one along the ocean. I think that's the only ball I actually hit over the cliff. All over the world.

But, I mean, you know what I mean? You have that's to play those five holes as an hour and 20 minutes or whatever. And that just, that sticks with you a little bit more. I think I reached the singularity. Yeah, on that. That second round, around Pacific Dunes was almost life-changing.

I think that was part of why I've struggled to adjust back to reality here, because it's sensory overload. Not only does it, you know, are the views incredible, but you've got the wind and like the AC kind of kicks on, you know, where you get, you get a little bit of these like cool pockets or You smell cedar in the morning or like the soundtrack is just Insane when you get out there on that type of the property. So I think my only, I don't know But I feel like it kind of closes a bit weak. I think besides 1717 So I think probably the best for Dan. I've ever played at least the way it played currently from the run-up area, the fairway, and the way the green rolled. It was the most well-design or well-conditioned redan, how it's supposed to roll out.

And I think with the gorsen rollout. But 18th was, I didn't, again, comment theme on it, that somebody's course of the 18th hole was a weaker hole, but I thought it's some forgettable holes in that stretch. Again, but we're nitpicking when talking about that. Because- 18 was the only hole in Pacific that I really, like I had a kind of philosophical problem with. I think 18 might be the only hole in the entire property

I didn't like. But yeah, and I thought, I don't know, 15, 16 are kind of just a little bit forgettable holes, but again, it's such a torte de force for those first 14, 13 holes that I can see. It's totally justified. I actually didn't like Pacific Dunes the first time I played it and I have five years ago, but it totally redeemed itself.

I thought, is weird as it sounds, the yellow pins just resonated with me. I've seen the yellow pins up against that ocean. I thought that was just such a good look. I know that's probably the little thing. It's the very little things, but that's something that we'll get into a little segment later of things that are going to stick with you. I will remember those yellow pins. Well, I was very curious to see if, like, I was so pumped when we went on Australia, I played

bar and move on to dunes. And I felt like it was just kind of overwrought and like, too extreme and everything. And I think this was, this was such a better representation of dope, you know, from a seaside perspective. Everything was done with a little bit more restraint, a little bit more nuance. Yeah, I thought that was, I mentioned it earlier, but that's another spot where I literally went 49-35 the second time we played because it was like, you know, once you find your swing and you're kind of going along, it's like, if you're not doing anything stupid and you

kind of hit it in the right spots and you're not trying to be too overly aggressive, you can score and you can play pretty well. And that's what I think makes like a really fun golf course. It was surprisingly... On the front line, I was not doing that. It was surprisingly comfortable. That was my kind of thing. I remember coming off the real windy go round of bandendoons, the next morning very little wind really nice conditions and it was, I was almost on autopilot, you know, hitting

the ball decently and you know, you just kind of make your way around and it's very comfortable and you get to enjoy the sights. I think we'd have a very different take if the wind was blowing 40 when we were in the Pacific. Yeah, I think it would have been absolute carnage. I felt like I noticed a difference in the way even the ball sounded hitting the greens. It was firmer at specific tunes.

I don't know if that's intentional or from how they handle that from a conditioning standpoint. If that's, if you know, if it's... He does one of the best greens that we played on that. Yeah, pure screens. But the hardest thing was kind of like, we had to get used to really running the ball up on a lot of those greens.

But yeah, I thought it was, the two nines are very different. The back nine is obviously much more gettable. But it was, yeah, it was, we got to see Pacific dunes in the morning and in the afternoon. And that was kind of, we got, so the afternoon round, we played trails in the morning, we played Pacific in the afternoon. Or, is that right? Yeah. And we, like, it was sunny and, you know,

really nice when it's hit off, but it was getting kind of hot. And the fog rolled in about seven or eight holes in, and it was the most drastic change in weather on a golf course I've ever seen. And I ditched my long sleeves, I had nothing. And then it literally dipped 20 degrees probably in that time.

And, yeah, but that was kind of a zen-like feeling of playing that course in a different condition. We got the perfect sun the day before. It was cool to kind of see it in a different light because the band and experience is not sunny and roses all day every day. I mean, part of the experience is experiencing the different weather. All right, guys, we're going to cut part one right there as we're halfway through the four golf courses. The second half will be released later this week. We're going to talk more about what our favorite courses are,

how we would split 10 rounds amongst these four courses, what our favorite stretches of holes are on the golf course as well as kind of filling in anything else we missed out on in part one. So stay tuned for that. Thank you for listening and we'll check in later this week. Cheers. Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most.

How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. The most, better than most.