No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 175: Mailbag (Part I)

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

In part I of our November mailbag podcast, we talk about the American golf model compared to the UK model, municipal golf, the course we’d most want to play in the world, some recent Twitter... The post NLU Podcast, Episode 175: Mailbag (Part I) appeared first on No Laying Up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! All right guys, we got a fun one for you today. Been waiting a little while to actually do a mail back podcast like this. Wanted to wait till the off season or the fall season, I guess you could say, to give

people a chance to ask any questions they might have could be about the upcoming PGA tour season, make predictions for next year or anything about what we do, how we do it. We actually ended up, there were so many good questions, we ended up actually making this into two parts. I was planning on releasing this next week, but we're gonna do one episode now, one episode next week. I'm actually hitting the road for a little vacation

in Europe for 12 days, so scheduling out some podcasts while I'm gone. While I am gone, if you are looking to add some new podcasts to your rotation, there are two that are on my playlist, both reside on the Callaway Podcast Network. First is the ship show pod, not the shit show. I mean, it is kind of a shit show, but it is not what it's called.

The SHIP, SHIP show podcast. It's got connects listeners with the cool things that are happening inside. Callaways marketing team, new products, limited releases, and they got a lot of stuff coming in January, especially, which we're pretty excited about. It's got personal stories and a lot of goofing around as well. So join Jeff Newbarth and AJ Volpel

for new episodes every Tuesday. And if you're into the geek year tech side of the game, and a lot of people ask us to do tech equipment stuff, which we're not just, we're not that dialed into all the details and the nitty gritty of the tech stuff. But if you're into that, then you got to listen to the fitting room podcast, Nate and AJ, they do a deep dive into the world of fitting and technology and help golfers all over the world decide which clubs they should be using. Just search Calaway Podcasts on iTunes or Spotify and subscribe to their channel.

Now it gets a part one of our Mailbag Podcast and expect part two early next week. Thanks to everybody that sent in questions and enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Langout Podcast, a little Mailbag edition joined here by Tron Carter, DJ Pi, and our fourth guest, Mr. Peter Kessler from the perfect club. Peter, welcome to the show. How are you? Oh, he just stormed out after being mad about our recording equipment. What a menace. Oh, the same. Maybe the ultimate menace. For those that don't know what we're talking about, Peter was not a fan of the Taurusos trailer on Twitter and has melted

down into it. I believe the last count was about 130 replies. Which is not it's funny, but it's not it's kind of I'll tell you two things. He is not mad and he is not gay. He's not. He's made two of those things very clear that there's a lot of other mad gay people that he has been calling out on Twitter. It got very homophobic. It got, it's almost to the point we're trying to figure out we're having serious conversations as to whether or not it is a parody account,

which all signs point to it not being a very good account. Like a lot of his previous tweets were very specific and very detailed. I've never been more excited about receiving criticism though. Like sometimes criticism stings a little bit, but this is like so clearly off the rocker that's like, please keep going. We didn't even say anything.

We barely said a word. All I did was say the reviews are in and it just started pouring in. And he, I guess he reached out, I was looking back through emails. He never emailed. It was, I think he reached out via DM and said, Hey, call these five radio show hosts.

They'll tell you I'll be the best guest you've ever had. I don't think he knows the level of vetting that this show goes through. We will not be doing that. So that leads me to the first question. Also, if you want to get on the podcast, email, email, solid, ask to get on. That's the best way to do it, for sure.

You shoot right to the top of the list. Leads to the first question. So we sent requests out. We kind of wanted to do this off-season mail bag podcast where any questions go, just to kind of help facilitate the discussion. And the first question we're going to tackle is from Brad Eland.

He said, similar to what you asked, Gankus, have you had any run-ins or haters from the traditional golf media or entered entities? Are you seen as disruptors to how they do it? Who wants to start? I guess I'll start here. I just want to give a shout out to our boy, LD. LD.

Lawrence Donigan. Long ball Larry. I think he's the proprietor of... No, tell us in the name of the magazine. Okay. No free pub. A journal out there. We're just going to call it a journal just because I think there's only one issue as well. But yeah, he's he's really been probably the most critical of us and of golfers journal as well. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Don't not dive in and not take the bait. Yeah. Now that's that's okay. The answer not diving in. I'm not taking the bait in this. No, that's a good answer.

The answer is, yes. Usually, I would say it's from people that really don't pay close attention to it. I mean, maybe some people that actually hate us listen to every podcast and follow it very closely, but usually it's from people that are very surface level understanding of what we do. I think they can tend to confuse us and our fan base with

another particular kind of fan base that we don't really necessarily think we associate with. But usually it's like, we just kind of steer into it and like confront people about it and by the end of it, we usually end up like out the other side and they like on a decent relationship with most people. Yeah, I think most people just don't care. And whatever. I think everybody's getting busy with their own stuff and it's just some people get mad online about things, but most people I think that people just don't care. And whatever. I think everybody's busy with their own stuff. And it's just, some people get mad online about things, but most people I think.

That's, I think they're like, the war or are super helpful. Like there's been a ton of people that have been crazy helpful. For the most part, people are very, very, very, yes. For whatever reason, it seems like we've missed the establishment, Brit. Yes.

Yes. Journalist. Yes. There's been a significant Brexit from our For sure, but yeah for the most part people are our understanding of what we do and you know Let people go let us go about our business and we mostly let people go about their business on the contrary I would love to read Kessler's last tweet. We're on Kessler Kessler watch right now as he keeps fired him off The last one was not a reply was It was to the whole damn world,

which they've got to run. Tron should not have told me I need to get help and to get right because I criticized a promo. We can debate that all day. When you take someone of my knowledge and as having produced golf's best body of work, he should probably remember who the master is. He's relatively in dirty diapers stinks. Which kind of makes me think it is for for its art because that is like the Tron Carter catchphrase. Stinks, stinks, fucking stinks. I, well, the only rebuttal I have is that my tweet to him was like, hey, we don't have any beef with you, man. And I wasn't really talking about his criticism, I was talking more along the lines of the 130 replies

that he made to. Like, we did the criticism. And he was harassing anybody that replies to him in a very uncomfortable way to the point where we're recording this on Halloween. We tried to frantically put together a Peter Kessler Halloween costume. Yeah, we were just gonna go down to the plate against Ford to try to snag a couple perfect clubs that turns out their clothes

Yeah, Pond of each or RIP to the permanently close. Yeah RIP I've found some good clubs in there back in the in the day, but didn't come to look elsewhere Moving on from that. I thought that was a good segue there. We got a lot of you guys know if he fires anything else Okay, you're Kessa watch here. We got a lot of really good questions I hope to get to as many of them as possible. This one's from Dan Quigley. He said, I thought your questions to Zach Blair

about the membership model at TBC were great. What business model slash club structure do you prefer and feel we need more of in the US? I'll start with this one. Try and start it with the hard one. For me, I mean, it's all dependent on what your situation is, I guess. But for me, speaking very personally,

I mean, I think the biggest improvement we can make is probably to municipal golf. I mean, just having places that, I think a lot of people have brought this up. But, and actually, I'll throw out some of the places we visited for strapped as well, like in Iowa, some of these places that are university courses and munis and stuff that you can go out and you can play for 20, 25 bucks and they're in good shape. And the greens are portable.

I mean, those are the places where I think I have no numbers to back this up, but it seems like the places that make up that kind of fatty middle of the game, and they're the places where I think I have no numbers to back this up, but it seems like the places that make up that kind of fatty middle of the game and there are the places that seem to be disappearing the fastest. So as far as different, you know, how to make that work, I know I'm talking about it both sides of my mouth because that's incredibly difficult to make work from a municipal standpoint and an economic standpoint and all those things. But I mean, that's the places with that seem to make the most immediate impact as far as

hashtag growing the game, which we can debate whether that's good or not. I don't know. But yeah, that's where my mind goes immediately. I look at our kind of American golf model versus that in Scotland or England or Ireland or wherever. And it comes down, for me, it comes down to, there's so many social things attached to so many golf courses around here and so much infrastructure attached to it. When really it's like, all you need is 18 greens or nine greens and, you know,

you don't even need a driving range. And it's like, there's just so many unnecessary costs. And like the game has been coupled with pools and tennis. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing in many instances, but I think if we could decouple golf from other social elements, it would be beneficial for golf and probably beneficial for those other things too, because then it's like you have kind of a purpose.

Yeah, we're figuring out how to make those work for the golf course. I mean, just looking at, they just, going back to my own example here, but they just redid the entire Jack's Beach Muni, and one of the biggest things there was actually rebuilding the range. And so that's one of those things that I'm like,

well, yeah, I guess I've never really spent that much time there. So it's easy to say, yeah, ban all ranges, but they're like, no, that's like, well, yeah, I guess I've never really spent that much time there. So it's easy to say, yeah, ban all ranges. But they're like, no, that's like, we're the bulk of our, that's free money for us. And it's just little stuff like that where it's decoupling, but also just figuring out how to almost optimize. But doubling down. Yeah, exactly. And that's where it's like, whether that's a range or a putting course or figuring out,

making it a bar that people want to hang at rather than You know of fake four star restaurant sort of a thing, you know, it's like Little stuff like that that just feels like we're still way off from a lot of the places you mentioned And I think at all in the question I think is kind of even more related to private membership my private clubs and memberships But but I think they're all related. Like basically, I could be wrong on this. I mean, I know there's some large resort courses in Scotland and Ireland and such that are true public courses, but kind of not in the model of what we're talking about with municipal

courses. But there, all the courses are member clubs. You have different golf clubs that are members of a golf course, yet they're all almost all of them open to public play and they charge tourists, but very pretty high prices, relatively speaking, compared to what the members pay. And it's a model that I would love replicated in the US, but it's totally different. The whole thing is different and going back to what you said about pools and tennis courts and food and beverage.

It's the way Americans treat golf is very different than how they do it there. The course that kind of, it could just blew me away the most and the structure you're talking about was West Lanks in England. We showed up there. That clubhouse is smaller. I almost think than the downstairs of our house here.

And there is nothing else. Got astroturf in the, like, as the carpet. Yeah, you just carry your clubs right through there. And it's nice and like you can go in there and have a drink and a beer, and then some food afterward. But you go right through there and it's nice and like you can go in there and have a drink and a beer Aff and some food afterward, but you go right through and just there's this big field with awesome golf holes laying out there And that's what the club is. There's no poolers and tennis courts and Just the whole market is so different there. They don't have as many people

Like you do in the US that have I don't I'm not doing an economic study here But it seems like the model in the US is almost like, all right, there's gonna be a bunch of really average country clubs, but the demand for those is still really high because one, because the public office is not that good, and when you go play it, it's five hour rounds, and it's just not, you're not getting very good.

You don't get, it's hard to get everyone in one place, whereas if you belong to a club, you can get in games with members and get to know people, but the cost of maintaining the courses is way different here, because the soil types are different. And it's just, you know, you have more seasons that you have to kind of battle here.

And it's a huge, huge layer upon layer upon layer to basically say. They have tourism to subsidize it too. Correct. And like, for sure. For sure. Like the cost of like my dad's country club in Columbus is more ex-way more expensive than like a membership at Royal Dornick which is absolutely insane but like

that's what the market dictates in Columbus Ohio for what you would charge for you know a membership so I would like to see on that note just I'd like to see how the math shakes out with getting I'd like to see how the math shakes out with getting, I feel like everything I'm gonna say is gonna sound very obvious or something, but just what the math shakes out with getting more members at lower cost, just because I think that trying to drive members at high costs and then those members realizing, holy shit, I do not use this as much as I would like,

is probably what's driving a lot of people away from these kind of like middle tier country clubs. I mean, I've seen a lot like where I grew up too, where it's just you have the hot extremely high end clubs, which are not going to go away, you know, ever because there's always people that are going to join them because of the prestige or whatever. And then you have kind of the lower end public golf, you know, whatever, but it seems like the the room in the middle is kind of where it's going to get, it has been getting squeezed out. And it's just these courses that have to charge high prices

and also don't get to play. And so where I'm getting out with all this is like, think about a course like, I'm trying to know you've played there too, but like, to Conic, where there's a small, you know, the student population makes up a lot of it, I think, but there's a small but passionate group that lives there and plays it all the time. But I think, but there's a small but passionate group that lives there and plays it all the time. But I think where they make a pretty good amount of money

is just with all of their national memberships, quote unquote, which is if you live outside 50 miles, we're gonna make it so cheap for you to join here and just feel a sense of ownership and feel like you wanna get back there and feel like you wanna bring your friends there. And it's almost something like that, like doesn't really exist here in Jacksonville,

where it's like either we're gonna join a club that's super high-end and we're gonna pay a pretty good amount of money to do it, or we're just gonna play public golf. I mean, there's nothing I would consider myself like right in the middle of that spectrum, and I just, I don't know, I'm gonna always tend out of time, tend falling on the public side because I'm the community element

that's then then how you enforce you know that's how you get people meeting each other playing together and also how you enforce pace of play or how you enforce. Sure. Well, there's a huge aspect to that because I've thought about this all the time with like another thing I think that the that the British and Australians do really well is like social clubs. Also, where it's like, you know, we're a golf club, we don't necessarily have a course, we just travel around together and like how much more golf would that make you wanna play?

If there was a group of 60 people that are like, oh, are you gonna be there on Sunday? Like we need you there, we've got this match, we've got this medal, we've got this, you know, whatever, rather than just, you know, I've said this a hundred times, but rather than just like, hey, do you three wanna to call and we'll see if there's a T time and we'll go and it's going to take up six hours and it's going to cost a hundred bucks. And they treat it much better.

Like, you know, it's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's a tradition to, you know, then I get away or release from the real world. Yeah, exactly. They say like 90% of the rounds that they play, that somebody told me, so I'm not sure on the stat, but like they play our playing competition. The idea of drinking beer while you play golf in the UK is not a thing really at all.

And I think that, so I don't know, I guess it's kind of a weird twist on the question, but I can almost see that being a big help too is almost like more social clubs. And certainly there are people who do this, like Outpost Club and Friars Club and even like Sugar Loaf social guys.

But yeah, just maybe like formalizing that just like within cities, I'm sure these exist. But there's no one really like beaten down our door. Decoplined them from a physical location. Yeah, just getting groups that like get people playing regularly and have a sense of community, I think like you said. Yeah, I think, like you said. Yeah, I think that some of the questions stem from some criticism for Zach, I guess, from

making the buck club a private club, but I think that the term private club can be misconstrued a bit. Private doesn't mean a gust of national level of can't get on. There's golf clubs that you can write letters to and go play on a company. They want to know who you are before you come and you'll pay a decent price, but that's exactly what you do in Scotland. The model isn't fully the same way, but there are a lot of places where you can write the club and either a member will take you out and you can play. I know that there's a different sense of feeling like you belong or feeling like

you're welcome somewhere at a lot of places, but I would be shocked if the Buck Club was a walled-off place that nobody will ever see or experience if you're welcome somewhere at a lot of places, but I would be shocked if the Buck Club was a walled-off place that nobody will ever see or experience if you really truly want to. I don't, again, but if you're building a golf course, there's a somewhat of a model for, with the band and dunes, with the San Valley, with a stream song for building these public resorts,

but all of those things have something in common. They all have multiple golf courses. They all have made this a death- Critical mass. Yeah, they don't pop in for the day. Exactly. And that's not kind of what he envisioned with the Buck Club.

And if I'm not trying to advocate for it, but just trying to say, listen, this is not a perfect world. Could we make it? I would love for it to all be public and we could pay $50 and everyone could go play it, but it's not a cheap thing to maintain. Part of it too is he just doesn't know what it's going to look like until he figures out

the financing and all that stuff. So it's in flux. I don't think he wants to nail down anything and then people come back at him if it changes later on. Right. And this question that kind of leads to this question too, from Jeremy White. He said, how often do you play public-slash-munity courses? Strap was awesome, especially because it involved courses. People would actually play without a second mortgage.

Once Jack's beach is done, we'll play like a lot of music off that thing about Jacksonville is, you know, people reach out to us all the time. Like, hey, I'm going to be in town. Like, where should we play? And I don't feel like comfortable recommending a public course here. Yeah, you got to drive quite a bit. I mean, Tron and I, you know, I know when you first moved here, we played Jack's Beach all the time. And, you know, not now that that's been close for shit.

I mean, since January. Yeah, almost almost a year now. And I was thinking about that the other day. And I mean, it's not lost to me that like I'm fortunate that we travel quite a bit and play a bit on the road. But man, I was thinking about that the other day. And I mean, it's not lost to me that, like, I'm fortunate that we travel quite a bit and play a bit on the road. But man, I was thinking about like where I play when I'm at home and it's like, I kind of just don't.

Yeah, a lot of time. But, I mean, really, your point, we used to go out two or three times a week and go by the evening. Yeah, the evening holds at 12 holes out there and in an hour and a half and just fly around. I would say, you used to play a lot at a high park. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually, I lived in Boston. I didn't belong anywhere. I played all over the place up there. I mean, you can walk out your front door and stumble upon a Donald Ross within 20 miles. But yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things too. Like when I go somewhere, I like to see the full spectrum of public golf and private golf. I think, but yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things too. I like when I go somewhere I like to see the full spectrum of public golf and private golf. I think you know, Sally and I obviously play a certain role Strap, you know, but which you know really I think we're probably just as big a proponents of Definitely a public golf as yeah, I hope that that was that was a gag

You know, I don't know, whatever. And we're happy to keep playing that role as long as people get it a little bit. But people say about, maybe we are golf hipsters, which is fine, but like, sweetens cove being golf hipster-y is like, no, we're trying to say this is like a unicorn in the golf world, talking about, for as much as we get for playing private golf, like this is the public amazing, cheap place that people don't really fully understand how great it is. And we travel to it multiple times per year now

to go visit and play it and hang out there. And it's like, I'm not saying it's the model, but like the idea of going and creating a place is just nine holes that has amazing greens and building fun weird golf shots around it Is probably should be the model like for public municipal and it almost has a self-selecting clientele right because you get people that come in from the local area that don't really understand it or they're just They're just going out not really about the golf just going out trying to hit some balls and and drink some mirrors Which is fine, but they're they don't see the value and the course and everything, and

it's kind of lost on them and they don't really come back, but it's like catnip for a golf enthusiast. I think the other place that kind of comes to mind is probably the closest approximation of the UK model in the States is Positimpo, which is, I mean, technically that's a private club, but they hold a certain amount of, you know, basically help subsidize it with a certain amount of T times every day. It's not cheap. It's like $250.

Which is similar to Scotland. Yeah. Dornick probably costs right around that a month. The old course costs a little more than that, which is, but yeah, I agree. That's probably the best comparison to the model. And again, I've never seen the books of a private club or a public court. I don't know how the finances work. You can kind of figure out pretty quickly what courses have the higher costs and which

get the most revenue and stuff like that. But, I mean, it's a tough science in the market, in the maintenance costs being what they are in the US. I think it's kind of the main driver. Would we agree with that probably? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that the only real like private courses you look at the number of private courses being built right now, I think that probably illustrates how the model is working

in the US. I mean, more than anything, I think you see a lot of like public courses going private because they've been trying to make it work and can't and so they're going to try to get their money from a smaller group of passionate people. But yeah, I mean, dude, I don't think any of us are pretending to have all the answers, but I definitely don't think any of us have all the answers. I mean, I think we can speak to our experience here. But yeah, I can't imagine trying to make one of these places go right now because it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly tough. I think the solution just lies in making it easier for people to co-play golf.

And that comes back to the munis. Typically, if you live in a city, your closest clubs are either going to be the super exclusive private club that has that awesome real estate in the middle of the city or city owned munis. And those are the ones that, if it was possible to go and play nine holes in an hour and 15 minutes, so many more people would go play and do that if it didn't take three hours to play nine holes. Yeah. But just making the munis, I think it was what they're doing with Jack's Beach is taking

out some forced carries like Cutting down the time it would take to search for balls let people go hit the ball find it and get it in the hole And it doesn't have to be perfectly manicured But like having that be the key basics to build around is what was the title of your golfers journal article? Tron I think it's it's the moon. It's the munis stupid like just figure those out just make and you know It's cool toot. It's the muni's stupid. Like, just figure those out, just make, and you know, it's cool to see the progress kind of with what happened with Goat Hill and what's happening here with Jack's Beach.

Winter bar, winter bar, like those kind of places are the ones. Bobby Jones and Atlanta, they just redid that, they turned it, like it was the most, probably the most dangerous, just not like dangerous like crime, like dangerous like you're gonna get hit by a ball. Course, I've probably ever played.

Shout out to the old course. And they actually just turned into a reversible nine-hole course and like one of the only driving ranges in the city. Yeah, that's interesting. There's definitely progress being made in a lot of places and we'll continue to celebrate that. So you had to answer the question and we'll play a lot more public golf once Jack's beat opens back up, which reports are all that it's.

Oh my God. It's good. I've been out there like probably four or five times and shout out to all the, you know, Thomas and Spencer and Sean and Steve and all those guys on the the Jack's Beach Golf Association. But I also do think keeping it, you know, kind of in, in perspective here that like we got a bit of a unicorn situation too and you know a shout out to the the Jack speech city council because there's not a lot of city

councils. Correct. Willing to spend money on this kind of stuff either. So they had like some kind of funny concerns which one of which was that the course if they built a too big of a putting green then it was going to take away from the venture landing which I know you guys are big into adventure landing. I haven't been yet. The mini golf place.

The main thing. Brandon, I went. Yeah. That sounds delightful. But yeah, the golf course is, it's what you said. I mean, I think a lot of what golf is just fighting and I mean, it kind of feels like every conversation eventually meanders its way back to this.

But just getting to the point where you're just changing people's minds about hard does not always equal good. And difficult does not equal good. And changing, that was some of the funny city council stuff was you had this architect Harrison Mincey who come in and pitch the city council and like, hey, a couple of these holes are like fucking stupid.

That's my words, not his words. Just, hey, this is dumb to try to have, you know, most of your players are seniors and trying to have them hit 160 yard, carry off a downslope to an raised green is like not a good idea. And the people in the city council are just kind of like, yeah, but, you know, that hole's hard. Like, that's a good hole. We should leave that one alone. It's like, well, whatever. Why are we talking? So anyways, to their credit,

they defer to Harrison on all of these changes. But the point is, like, yeah, just having somebody go out and play 18 holes and say afterwards, like, hey, was that fun or was that not fun? Is so much better than like, hey, how hard was it? Did you get your dick punched in? Wasn't that sick? It's like, there's no difference hey, how hard was it? Did you get your dick punched in? Wasn't that sick? It's like, there's no difference between miserable.

Difficult and challenging. Yeah, the old horse is challenging. Sweden's Cove is challenging. It's not difficult though. It's challenging and there's a dividing line. If you play well, you can shoot a couple in a part easily. But if you get to aggressive at some pins,

you can find your little double down on you rather quickly. And 15 handicapped can play the wide fairways and all that stuff. So I agree with this, but the model of like tight fairways and making a course really hard is what kind of has set golf back for a long time. And we're getting through to like figuring out

that being able to find your t-shot is like very, very important to enjoying golf. I'm just gonna give a shout out to the Jones family. So on that note, there was a question, someone who simply goes by TD, who says, unpopular question, and I love the place, but we'll sweetens, lose its charm now that it's becoming mainstream. I've been three times, love it, but will it become your local hipster startup brewery that blows up, becomes too popular, too crowded, too mainstream and loses its charm. I would say, uh, while a valid, valid question, and I think that that could happen, you know,

to a ton of different places, it's like physically impossible to happen at Sweet and Cold, because it is in the middle of nowhere. Like, in robs there and, and, and there's like this just group of caretakers that kind of live in Huntsville and Chattanooga and Nashville and Atlanta that like go in for the weekend, like Chico from Midtown or like, you know, Mark Allen, like these guys are like their hilarious characters, Alabama, like they don't, they won't suffer fools, but at the same time, like they're, they're keen to show you the place and what it's all about and they kind of kind of hold the spirit of the place. It's not just the course itself. It's the people that are passionate about it.

Yeah, and I don't think there's a great deal of steps between being like gritty, charming, upstart, and becoming lost in your own cool things. I don't think it's any risk to be a little run, but. I mean, if that hasn't happened with Winter Park, like in the middle of a city and with golf channel down the street, and all that stuff, it's like, it's so far gone from. No, if anything, you go to Winter Park now, and you're like, oh, this is cool. Like, there's people around.

Like, we're all kind of on the same page. And maybe I can meet some new friends here. It's more of that kind of vibe than just over. I mean, the old course, like lose it's cool because it's so popular. And then if it, you know, let's say God forbid that that does happen, like man, the game must be in a really, really, really good place.

Because when that happens, all speaks to Randy's shrink the game theory that really we don't need to be growing the game. We need to be shrinking the game so that we have like we need to have the game just big enough to where courses stay open. Yes. But not too big so that we never have to wait on groups. We'll let him talk about a theory at a future podcast. I cut, sorry, I don't know the name of this this question we got, which was I think I think we all know you've gotten to play some insanely good golf courses in last year, but what course do you most want to play that you haven't ever played before? I think mine's Cyprus.

Yeah. I think that's the first one. Like, Alistair McKenzie on the C with just all of the, I think there's a lot to that course. I honestly don't know a ton about it, but from everyone that ever played it and everything I've ever read about it is like, like this is where it's at. Like this is the center of the maze. It's probably the one.

I know Augusta will probably a quick answer for some people. I doubt it would be for this room, but as I see some disgusted faces across from me, but Cyprus would be probably number one for me. Go ahead, D. Jim. Well, no, I'm so, I was gonna say Cyprus, so you. That's okay. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's,

would be up there for me, for sure. I mean, there's national and fishers and pine valley, obviously. Like, I mean, I think you can kind of throw a dart at the top 10 for me. For sure, I haven't played a ton of super, super, super elite golf courses. So I think probably a lot of the usual suspects for me. I'm trying to come up with something a little more off the grid. I'm gonna say sand hills. Ooh, good job.

I just got to feel like it's just the grid wouldn't it? Yeah, I just kind of the golf experience too, more than, yeah. Those images of how remote that course is, the aerial images for that are pretty incredible. I'm gonna go way off the rankings grid and just out of pure curiosity, you know what I really, really, really wanna play is Blue Jack. In the big-

Big cat national? The big cat national, just not because I think it's like, God's gift to golf, but I've never played any of the cat's courses. Is that the one that's open at this point? Yeah, the next one made the one that, there's the one that's open at this point? Yeah, the next one will be the one that... There's the one that's right.

Ozarks. One in Mexico, right? I don't know if that one ever got off the ground or opened. I think it did. What are the ones supposed to have the information there? Yeah, I don't know. That was about DM Monta or whatever. Yeah, I think that...

I don't know, I just think that'd be super interesting to see what the cat brings to design. It's supposed to be kind of like an Augusta light with like all the vibes, which sounds like something I would be interested in. Say, I don't know. That's very off the grid answer, but I'll throw it out there as out of peer curiosity.

I also, on the public front, I really wanna go play La Sonia. Yeah, for sure. Up in Wisconsin, I've never been there and dying to go. It looks just wild. Yeah, there's a in Wisconsin, I've never been there and dying to go. It looks just wild. Yeah, there's a bunch and a perpetual shout out to Andy Johnson, the Friday egg, but he does a great job of uncovering a lot of stuff that are, you know, a lot of $30 courses that rock it to the top of my list.

Lasonia definitely, definitely chief among them. Car for the course asks, and I think this one's for DJ. Any chance you'd be interested in sending Strap to Alaska next summer, I'd host a round or two. Strap is kind of a success if they get saved to say it. Yeah, it's people were into it, it's great, because we already have another one shot, so I'm glad that it wasn't people just ripping it to shreds,

shout out to Kessler. But yes, short answer, yes, long answer, I don't think next summer. I literally, when we came up with this idea, we picked Iowa just like totally randomly and I forget what we were talking about the University of Iowa course, Fink Pine, which I played like a million years ago and I was like, oh, of course it's great.

Rainy's like, I've never been to Iowa. It's like sweet, let's go to Iowa for the first one. But that's a long way of saying that the next thing we thought of was like, we should do this in Alaska. That would be the best. And the more we thought about it, the more we're like, all right, we need to like, that needs to be an event. We need to like build up to Alaska.

And so I want to get a couple more under our belt. We've got a couple more ideas on where we want to, where we want to go. We just shot the second one up in the Northeast, which is, I guess, but painting the big part of the country with a pretty broad stroke. But it's good. Keep it big.

Yeah, keep it big. But Alaska is, I mean, that would be, I would go tomorrow if I could, although. Hey, you know, you got to talk to us about the budget, man. For sure. Well, that's certainly true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a little bit worried about your carbon footprint, too about the budget. For sure. Well, that's certainly true. Yeah. You know, a little bit worried about your carbon footprint too.

Getting them for sure. Yeah, that's fair. That's valid. Definitely. Um, maybe you can go plant trees. We can dogs ledge. Maybe we would help ease that. I don't know. We'll get creative there. Uh, Philip Johnson asks the next tour, uh, tourist sauce travel location. Ideas. We're going to keep them a little close to the chest. I think we know where we're going for three and four. Can we say domestic?

Domestic for three, international for four. And the carbon footprint's going to be hot and heavy. Yeah, we're going to the top. For number three. We will be domestic and we'll have hopefully three and four shot by the beginning of May, obviously next year. So, got some good location. Season five, we're kind of figuring out what we're going to do with this series.

I mean, every season we want to be very different. Hopefully you guys feel the same about season two being very different than season one. We're still definitely learning how to do this. We have a lot to continue to learn, but really excited about Want season two that we're currently working on What we have planned for three and four and then yeah five might just be off the wall We may like really go forward in five and may are So yeah, it's we're hoping that it continues success. Appreciate everybody's support

And if you haven't had a chance to go watch it on YouTube, please do. There's also a refuge, a refuge thread. We should give a quick plug to the refuge because there's a very vibrant community of people in there. But it's not big by any means. It's kind of the sweetens cove of golf. Bibes, which boards.

Curated. So focalment. That's the one. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, the refuge is our message board attached to our website if you're not familiar with it and that's your look. Fill with the refugees.

Yeah, if you're looking for a way to pass time during your day, there's some excellent. It's kind of, I don't want to speak for everyone, but it's exactly what I dreamed of with the message board. I think it's like very good to check in daily to see what people are saying and can. So thanks to everyone that's helped contribute to that and bring it along. So we do read it a lot and we interact a lot on there. So please check that out. Yeah, there's a threat on there about future locations.

So if anybody has any, we absolutely check the message board very frequently. So if anybody has ideas, like, you know, the golf world is only so big. So we've, I think probably scoured a lot of them, but there's always stuff that pops up on there that we had never thought of. Or that people that have predicted our plans down to the letter. Yes, this is like, okay, well, this is where they're going for four.

So we know a lot of those things. Oh, okay. We're not trying to keep it a surprise, but until you shoot it, you never say, oh yeah, we're having this person on the podcast until it's recorded because it always gets cancelled. What's the worst one that got cancelled? Can you hear people out? Yeah, I mean, like Reed has committed several times and has not worked out. There's someone which I'm so...

Something really uncharacteristic. There's been some of it's committed since last July that hasn't been... Two people have been committed since last July and every time I ask it, just getting pushed a little further down the road. So, and yeah, it's a challenge, it's quite a challenge. Which one of the questions is from West Canestauri, Will Ricky Fowler ever be featured as a guest?

Probably not. I think we can unequivocally say no. And that's really nothing against Ricky. No, not at all. Despite Randy's protestations. We have definitely, all I'll say is we've definitely made several attempts and we have not gotten close to making it happen, even though I maintain a good relationship with Mr. Fowler. So another good question we got from John Figo Flynn, fantastic name. Would you swap your interesting slash cool golf related jobs to be a pro on the web.com or Euro challenge tour knowing the dedication sacrifice travel and very small likelihood of serious success?

It's a good question. So you're basically giving me status for the year? Well, it's kind of like you are a current skill set. I don't think that's that. It's kind of cool. Although that would be sweet as well. I don't want to say a midling tour pro, but where is the line, I guess, is the question of,

if you were this person's career, you'd trade what we do for their career. If that makes sense. Would you trade your career for Tai Trion, probably not? Would I trade my career for Steve Weakcroft? Basically. That's kind of the question. I don't know, that's right.

I would say for me, it's going to be a no for me, Doug, just because I mentally, I know I would just, I would completely collapse in all the biggest moments. And you don't really have to worry about that in this job, which is nice. You have a nice little. Like this is equivalent to the biggest moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like me not remembering the name of Tigers Golf Course a minute ago, which we edited out, or maybe left it in, or whatever, like that's the equivalent of just like three putting the last hole

of Mr. Cut in this job, which is not a big deal. So that's very nice. The pressure is very good. I just, I know that like you could give me a great skill set and I would find a way to like screw it up. So, I think I'm with you too. That's of no. The pressure is very nice. I just, I know that like you could give me a great skill set and I would find a way to like screw it up. So, I think I'm with you too. That's of no interest to me. I'm trying to balance that with like,

I also have no killer instinct. Like I, one good week. If someone's better than me, it golfing. Oh my God, cool, all right. Yeah, that's fine. Maybe let's assume the question kind of guaranteed you at least some success in golf. And it's like, and you know,

some guys don't make a ton of money. So that means you had a moderately successful collegiate career at the least kind of, yeah. I think so, but you also just kind of look and see, oh yeah, like that guy, like I just finished T20 and like on the PGA tour and he made more than I'll make this year. It's kind of like pretty good. You know what, it might be worth all the travel and sacrifice.

Well, they did say it's a very low chance of success, so maybe you make it work. Yeah, you know, maybe, and obviously there's something to, Well, they did say it's a very low chance of success. So maybe you make it work. Yeah. And obviously there's something to, like, this is not, this is the furthest thing from us begrudging anybody who does just like grind out a career on these tours for a long time because it's awesome that people can do that.

But, A, I think like the travel would be, like we travel enough to where I'm like, oh my God, the last thing I wanna do right now is get on an airplane. I can't imagine traveling three times more than we do now, that seems awful. And consecutively. Consecutively.

Yeah. 16 weeks in a row on the web tour. Yeah, I think a lot of guys have started to figure out a little bit of the balance where it's like, okay, let's bring my wife along to Cadi or let's figure out weeks I can take off for weeks we can road trip or weeks we can do whatever. But yeah, I mean, for a lot, like,

let me say this way, I think if you were a 23 year old, like single guy and you were gonna do this for like three years, I think it would be for sure. The best. Yeah, let me off. Shillow it about yourself. But as like an old, I think it would be for sure. For sure. The best. Yeah, I don't need to show it to you. But as like an old dumpy like 30 year old married guy, like no, I just like want to be at home.

That's the last thing I want to do. And I want to reiterate, reiterate, I guess, how much we respect the guys that do grind it out. And that's the kind of thing, like seeing how hard it is. And I think I forget where we were. I think it was maybe Philly this year where we were talking. It's like, man, imagine, no, it couldn't be Philly. There's no cut I forget where we were. I think it was maybe Philly this year when we were talking. It's like, man, imagine, no, it couldn't be Philly.

There's no cut there. But we were like at an event. We were like, imagine getting there, getting your family there, getting to the hotel, like paying a couple thousand for like two hotel rooms, maybe for you and your family, and like you get there and your coach is there that week. Can you practice your friends, your pro-am,

you're paying a caddy, and then then you go out and miss the cut. No, you go out and you make a quad on the first hole. Yeah. It's like what I always think about. Like, imagine if you go out and you triple the first hole, it's like, okay, cool. Well, I guess I lost this week. Yeah.

And imagine, I think this is an important distinction on this question in particular, is they say, again, that's probably not the only challenge to her. That's my mental process. You imagine playing on the Euro challenge tour and going to, you know, from wherever they play the week before to Kazakhstan and playing like shit the first few holes and being like, yeah, I'm in Kazakhstan for the next two days and then I got to figure out how I'm going to get to Hong Kong or...

And then Kenya and... Yeah. No, I agree with kind of the age thing. If you're fresh out of school and willing to kind of put in the work and having, no, I agree with kind of the age thing. If you're fresh out of school and willing to kind of put in the work and having at least that possibility of future success, that's definitely worth it. And it's awesome, and I guess, this is maybe a better way to say what I've been trying to say.

It's cool to see the guys who do have the exact opposite mental approach to what I'm just gonna do. Because you look at, like I know he's a buddy of ours, but you look at someone like Justin Heuber, who wasn't like a highly recruited college player, he wasn't like a standout in college and decided to turn pro, didn't have great years early going

and then has just kept like fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and now he's super close. Yeah, he was really close last year to getting his tour card and it's just, I don't know, it's just like those kinds of stories I'm like, that's awesome. I could not do that. That's why I would give up. It's the margin, you know, it's those guys that like it, I don't know, like watching the CJ cup, you know, it's no cut in the last place guy makes almost 20 grand. And he gets as basically as expenses paid for like versus, you know, on say even the web tour championship, you miss the cut and you're, you know,

you still have your card for next year, but it's like back to the drawing board. All right, I know I have, I know I got to play 25 events next year on the web tour. And yeah, probably look at a close to a hundred thousand dollars in expenses Yeah, related to that question I cut the name off this one again. Sorry when I copy pasted it But if you could have he wrote these questions if you could have any job in professional golf

What would it be and why outside of media being a tor pro anything? Outside of that. Oh anything it could be like if you had a job in professional golf What would it be if you could have one? I think I, InfoMersho for the perfect club. The perfect club. I think I would really, I'm sure that there are caddies that listen to this that are gonna roll their eyes,

but I think I would like to caddy for probably not very long, just going back to all of the reasons I just light out, like they're travels travels like I gosh imagine you know talking about like a Kind of middling Tour like touring professional and how hard they have it like the caddies are six times worse Yeah, you know just I know a lot of guys get stipends and stuff But at least back in the day, too. It's like yeah, if your guy plays well like you don't get paid either. You have no control over this really, but you might not get paid.

But anyway, it's kind of budget for the next year when you, yeah, depends on how well my guy hits the ball on the ball. Yeah, it's the ultimate nomad lifestyle, which is pretty cool. I think I would want to do that for a little while. I think that'd just be fun to, again, kind of be in the circus and be in the competition without really having my week mental game to have to be to blame for everything. Although certainly, you've proven that you can affect the outcome of professional golf tournaments as a caddy as well. Yeah, you certainly can. I guess it's the question who has the best job in golf?

Does Jim Nance have the best job in golf? For what it gets? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, like on paper, but like I wouldn't want to do that. Yeah, then you think about, you're like, all right, I'm not mentally tough, like getting just roasted every week. Yeah, for sure. That's what I mean. That's what the mommy's for.

That is what the mommy's for. I would get roasted for announcing for like several million dollars in a thing. I would trade places with like Bill Kor Gilhance or Tom Doke. Yeah, I feel like then you get to live. I know it's not an easy job and I know it. Probably one of the harder jobs in the planet. You have all these stakeholders and the travel's crazy.

But I feel like somebody that I can'ts does it right where he goes and lives there, he brings his wife with him. his kids are older now, and he really gets to immerse yourself in the local culture, and I think that's, there's something to be said for that, it's cool. And you can kind of inject as much art into it as well, right?

It's not necessarily the same thing every time each piece of land is different. And yeah, it's a good answer. And you're moderately famous, but like in certain circles. Yeah, you can drop into a complete enemy whenever you want. Yeah, that's a good point. I try to think, I try to look at this question from like, what are the negatives of this job?

I think like for Nancy's job, it's like you work all the weekends, all the golf weekends, and you're away from your family like a lot, but it's not the same grind as being like a PGA tour pilot. Like trading like lives with Rory or Speed or something like with all the sponsor obligations and I get like they make a shitload of money. Like what I do, what I trade our job for that, yeah,

like I would, but like it's also not that great at times. I would like to see, and this is maybe a bad idea to say out loud because there's probably a million pieces out there like this. And so I really don't care because I haven't looked them up, but I would like to see what Nancy's like to like Monday to Friday looks like on a week that he's calling golf on Saturday Sunday because I know we rip on CBS plenty, but I have no doubt that he is grinding, you know, to some extent on those days and show up. No, I'm curious. I'm curious what it is for him. Nance or Hicks or whoever is like they do other sports too. For sure. So that I think that's the thing with Nance.

He does NFL and he does college basketball. That's what I mean. Like, we have in three weeks of, you know, kind of like being very lousy fair about professional golf, like I feel like I'm completely out of touch with what's going on. Like, imagine prepping for the Super Bowl and then trying to come back in the next week and do in, you know, whatever. Speak for yourself, I was dialed into the Sanderson for a change.

I did catch the back nine of the Sanderson was invigorating. That's what the Fredux couple do to you. It was awesome though, but that's like your guy won. Well, you know, even if he didn't win. You know what was awesome? Well, lowercase A, awesome. Watching someone like DJ Trayhand, being like holy shit, like DJ Trayhand looks kind of like jacked and

Like this is wild like this is the same guy that you know been seeing pop up on you know every 25th leaderboard for the last like 15 years like dude still still grinding it out and he's going again He's playing the same group is you know freak show Cameron champ who's just hitting it 200 yards past everybody and you know that Freak Show, Cameron Champ, who's just hitting it 200 yards past everybody. And, you know, that was awesome. It was fun to watch. It was so many preaching with art. Yeah.

Um, so I forget the Fred Ex Cup is a big part of it. And I don't know if we've ever, have we talked about the Fred Ex Cup on this podcast? No, we have not. Uh, well, you go ahead. Not for the, I miss the, I was flying to Paris and I missed the draft and you guys gave me all the good players. So the season long race for the Fred X Cup, F R E D E X C U P. Uh, Freddie Mitchell.

Well, shout out to all the Freds. It's kind of in general. Smith, Fred, I think it started with, uh, Tron's young son, uh, Freddie Schuster. But, uh, yeah, we just kind of decided to dedicate it to all the threads at this point. And we each drafted teams of six from the web.com tour graduate list. And basically we're looking at ourselves

and kind of like, okay, how do we A showcase like what someone's career path is like when they leave the web tour? Like how do we follow that a little more closely and be a little more keyed in on that? Also, how do we make Shriners interesting? Why do we care about... Why is John Deere considered a major? Yeah, and it's like how do we kind of get ourselves pumped up for these events?

Because if we don't think they're important, then really doesn't seem like anybody kind of does. So, uh, so yeah, so we each drafted teams of six. Uh, the stakes, I believe, are the winning team. This is all aggregate money, uh, at the end of the year, the winning team, uh, NOU is going to magnanimously pay for a pizza party for the winning captain. And of course, the winning players are, are involved. are involved. I've made pretty good contact with most of my players, Cam Champ. You have not responded to any of my tweets. So if you're listening, get in touch. I would like to see you get first pick of toppings

after grabbing the first win in. Wow, celebrating already. First win in the history of the Fred X Cup. And yeah, so that was kind of what the winner gets. And I think the loser has to take the Wonder Lake test. Was that it? It was results, Paul. And publish the results.

So I guess that's something that's gonna happen too. And then there's gonna be a mid season. Yeah, a couple mid season fun points. Yeah, one ad drop, I believe, before the Masters. Was that right? And then, yeah, a couple bonuses worked. Anyway, so there's a whole podcast about it. Go check it out.

If you're listening to this mail-back podcast, you're trying to kill some time in the off seasons. So go listen to that one on the trap draw. But legitimately, it made, and maybe part of it's just kind of like creating your own reality here and just assigning, assigning meaning and reality to whatever you want, but that made the, it's the same as gambling

or the same as whatever. I mean, it's just, it makes it so much more fun when you're like, oh shit, like I'm really, like people were tweeting after we posted that podcast, like, I don't know what's wrong with me. Like, I've never even heard of Max Homa, and now I'm like listening to the podcast, and I just heard him on the FredEx cup, and I'm like, really riding for him to make the cut. I'm pulling up shot track on Friday afternoon. But it is, it's fun. So I don't know, make some bet with your friends or Oregon

involved in the refuge. There's a FredEx cup thread on the refuge as well. All right, guys, we're going to cut it at that for part one. Stay tuned for part two next week. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you then. Cheers. Let's give it a right club. Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most.

How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Expect anything different.