No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 244: Ireland Trip, Part I

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

After much delay, Part I of our Ireland Recap is finally here. Doonbeg, Lahinch, Adare Manor, Ballybunion, Waterville, and Dooks make up this episode, and we break down what we loved and didn't love about each place. Tourist Sauce Season 4 will be out later this month, and look for part II of this podcast on Tuesday night.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. This one is mega delayed. We had to record this two separate locations. I think we recorded the first half of our Ireland podcast in Greenville, second half when we were up at Cabot. I know it's been a few months since we have been in Ireland. You guys have been waiting for this pod,

at least some of you have, some of you may not care, which is totally fine. Taurus saw season four is gonna start some point in September. I'm not gonna promise the date just yet. We are working on it. We are plowing through the editing. We are trying to get through strapped first as well. Got a lot of stuff going on.

We're trying to get through it. I promise well. We've got a lot of stuff going on. We're trying to get through it. I promise It will come soon, but we're gonna release this is part one This is gonna span from the beginning of our trip, which was Dune bag and the dual in pitch and putt all the way through dukes and a lot of other courses in the southwest and Then we're gonna pick up the second half here. We'll post that remaining part on Tuesday evening. Before we get going Golf WRX, just released their best drivers of 2019. Epic Flash won every single swing speed category. I've actually never really thought of it this way,

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And that's about all I can say under the timeframe. So without any further delay, well, first make sure you go to calwaygolf.com, check out the Calaway Epic Flash driver. And without any further delay, here is our part one of our podcast on Ireland. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast.

We are all in the same room together for still not that many times. This has ever happened. But we are going to talk about our trip to Ireland for Torasauce Season 4. A lot to get through on this one. Good to be with everyone. Thanks for being here right and early in the morning. Yeah, we're kind of doing this on Irish time a little bit. It's like noon in Ireland, basically. So that's that's good. Give us some good vibes. Well, thanks for having us. Hey, what would you guys be doing in at noon in Ireland right now for your still there? What would you be eating? Probably there wasn't like a colon skink, like a food of the trip really necessarily. It was a lot of it was a lot of

Guinness, which I know is very cliche, but we'd probably be doing the Guinness the line challenge where you try to get your first sip, you try to get the was a lot of Guinness, which I know is very cliche, but we'd probably be doing the Guinness, the line challenge where you try to get your first sip, you try to get the white line of the Guinness between the letters and the harp. Probably enjoying a full Irish as well. I think we would have been post full Irish. We were getting a real-time post-it time.

Toasty, it'd been toasty, SCN, that this time. A nice bowl soup. They did have the pervasive seafood chowder, it was nice. Yeah, I agree with that. People are going to see the season and think that it is sponsored by Guinness. Let's just get that out of the way, but just to say, like, we're not saying, we're saying to drink Guinness only in Ireland. Come on, you're not doing that.

Exactly. But I'm saying the Guinness everywhere else sucks. Don't buy it everywhere else. That's a hipster. It's a hipster take. Yeah, I don't know if you could do it. No, it's true. No, I think Guinness is fine elsewhere. I agree with that

But it's not as fine as it is good. Are we in the nest? I couldn't taste it Well, they put the two different kinds of gas in oh, yeah, we learned all about it There's a whole thing about how it all it's basically based on where the pipes are located near the cat We got to pour our own Guinness behind the bar in the age we We got to pull our own Guinness. Well, that's we're pulling fine. That's why my mind didn't go. You're pushing. You should have been pulling. Yeah, I was that was not a high point for me. But for those that are familiar with our I guess for those that aren't familiar with our travel series, we did

season one in Australia. These are all live on our YouTube channel. We always do a podcast that goes along with it. Season two was in Scotland. Season three was in California. And season four was in Ireland. I think we're trying to mix up a lot of different locations around the globe. A lot of different golf experiences focusing on golf courses that are somewhat at least somewhat accessible to the general public and trying to bring some imagery to some of these places that hasn't quite, hopefully, maybe been covered yet. We didn't necessarily discover a ton of courses on this trip, but for the people in the

room that had never been to Ireland before, what was your initial takeaway of everything we experienced, Tron? I loved it. I loved every minute of it. I was very intrigued to figure out how it stacked up to Scotland. Not one that I didn't want to be comparing it the whole time, but it was. I think I liked the overall experience better.

Neil? Well, as the only guy here that had not been to Scotland, I didn't have anything to even compare to It was a better in the Scotland. I don't know if it was Brooklyn It was Strong to quite strong. Yeah, I'd say sure no at some point you hear a lot You got to go you got to go to Ireland you got to go to Scotland and at some point like can it really be that good? And I'm happy to say yes

Yes, it really can and it is that good. It was really, really, really fun. Randy, I'm assuming you had another soulful experience. Yeah, it sucked. It's job, so, so, so. It was fantastic, of course. I greatly enjoyed it. It is weird. I've gotten so many questions like we'll Scotland or Ireland and I I've decided I don't even I don't care like you just can't go wrong with with E. the offer play. Yeah they were both they're both great in their own ways. I will say Scotland lived up to at least in my mind going in. You think

of it being a little bit more rugged, a little bit grander in scale, at least like the dunes. And I think it definitely met those expectations. Ireland. Ireland. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Ireland. See, they're all the same to you. You're getting this thing as well, too. And so it is different, at least the trip we took to Scotland, it was different. Yeah, it was great time. Shout out to my guy Mike, the bus driver. Wait, it's made the trip extra special. Deeds, you have been on a brief visit to Ireland before. Brief golf, it was a lengthy visit, but not much golf the first time around. So it was good to yeah, good to check, you know, check a lot of boxes and pick up some bag tags while we were while we were over there. But yeah, the first time around we I was over there with my parents and

we were kind of like internal almost like countryside vacation type thing and I think that's where you really get to see just how good all the people, like literally everyone you're going to run into in Ireland, just how welcoming they are. It all sounds like a kind of a throwaway like cliche when you get into it. But I mean, the hospitality, the fact

that everybody's thrilled to have you there, it's like the most fun welcoming place you can possibly go to. So to also mix in like some of the best golf in the entire world, I'd say it was a positive. It's a good deal. On my experience. Yeah. I said that was a benefit to the second time around.

Well, similar to season three, I think we learned our lesson a lot with 36 whole days. And we that was we were limited to one day where we played 36 holes. And even that day was going to like, all right, we're kind of ready to be done playing golf. We're getting old. I know. It's, yeah. It's hard to do all of it in one day. It really is.

And I think kind of to the point also in Ireland, people always ask the difference between Ireland and Scotland. It's just different from an infrastructure perspective and the location of the golf courses. And people, you know, where do I go, Scotland? I'm like, first of all, Scotland's like five different golf regions to begin with. So you could, the benefit that Scotland has over it is you could park yourself in one spot, play two or three great courses probably, and then like four or five really good, not

top of the list golf courses. And I think that's kind of the difference. Ireland, the, are, are, are, on least on our trip, a lot of the courses golf courses. And I think that's kind of the difference. Ireland, the, or at least on our trip, a lot of the courses along the west coast are a drive to get from course to course. They're not that close. And to my experience, it's not, they don't have that depth of a second layer

of golf courses that you would find necessarily in Scotland. And it's interesting. So I wanted to kind of look that up and kind of validate that before I said it. And Tom Doke's Confidential a is a very very good source. It is not a tell all or it's not like It's not the Bible. Yeah, it's not the Bible. I didn't want to get sick religious there, but it's not the Bible But I was I was shocked to find this so of the top 54 courses in the British Isles in his confidential guide How many would you guess are in in Ireland not including Northern Ireland? What guide. How many would you guess are in Ireland?

Not including Northern Ireland. What would you guess? How many courses are in Ireland? In all the British Isles? In all the British Isles. The top 54 of the British Isles. 15? Yeah, I'd say like 10 to 12. Yeah, 10 was in my mind. Yeah, six. Six courses. How many do you think we played on this trip? Six three really yeah, I guess there was yeah, there's more in the South that we missed it was it was it was yeah It was kind of bizarre. I think he was a little harder on the courses that on on the West Coast Then I think any of us would have would have been it's kind of shocking now in his defense a lot of changes have been made to some of these courses since he last saw him a better manner being one of them. And as well as Trilly and whatnot. But it was I was just surprised by that. But that goes to speak one when I was counting them 25 of them were in

England. So I think we might need to do a tour of sausage in England. But like I said, it just doesn't have that same like the top of the top and all the courses we play on the strip were fantastic. I think we would have made a couple changes maybe if we could. But for us as well, discovering these, like we don't know the answer to these, we have to see and we have to go play them to kind of be able to speak on them. And I think we'll get to that with the very first golf course we played. Yeah. I'd even say with just playing 18 a day, the option then to play 27 was really nice.

Instead of feeling like, we're getting 36 in a day and you almost call an autopilot a little bit for a nine hole here, nine hole there. And also one thing we didn't do, which I think I'd like is to play one of these courses again either the same day or the next day. So you stay at one course and then you just play it two days in a row. Like I wanted another crack at a couple of them because the first look, I mean, it's tough with the winds blowing. For sure. So let's talk a little bit about how this trip came together. First of all, we were joined Chad Coleman, our buddy from Callaway.

Callaway is a partner on this series with us. He was the first phone call we made. And AJ Vell Pell was another guy from Callaway. It was supposed to join us on the trip. Turns out the birth of his first child kind of lined up, a little bit too close to it. He didn't, his child was not born while we were there, but going would have been a very, very, very risky move. Some would say flying a bit too close to the sun. For sure. And when that

fell through Tom Coyne, Randy's spirit animal spirit, what's your, what would you describe Tom Coyne as? Yeah, just a philosophical life coach. Yeah. brother and arms. Yeah. Yes. If you're somehow not familiar with Tom Cohen he's been on this podcast and please go back and check that episode out. But he is quite the celebrity around Ireland due to the fact that he walked the circumference of Ireland which was hilarious to hear him tell a waitress that and how fast that like went over her head. I was like no I, I don't think he literally walked the entire country and played every golf course along the coast.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm very flattered that anybody would be listening to this podcast, but if you're prepping for a trip to go to Ireland, you should really read Tom's book. Before you go to the podcast. Just put press pause now. Go read Tom's book. Yeah, they'd come back. Which we did learn on the court. There was nine holes.

The last nine, he says they'll never build another Lynx course in Ireland just due to environmental concerns. But at Karn, since he had been there, they had added nine more holes. So there were nine Lynx holes in Ireland that he hadn't played. And he completed that with us on this trip.

So that was pretty cool. The DJ Killmore none. The shout out to Acumus. On this trip, we also partnered with Tom Kennedy and experienced Ireland Golf. They're a golf travel company in Ireland. And we didn't know a whole lot about them going into it. We sent him a dream list of courses.

And he worked as magic and came back with the itinerary of a lifetime. And we were like, OK. This guy knows what he's doing. And it was tremendous. He helped organize everything for us. That's also something we haven't done with one of these seasons. I got a ton of messages, like, who'd you guys partner with?

Organize your trip for Scotland. We were like, well, the tourism board helped us with it, but there was no tour company. They were like, oh, wow, that's weird. I was like, okay, it's time to kind of do the tour company experience to see what that is like and present that on camera. And here, so what did you guys think? And right? Shout out to TC.

I was going to say the resident. Well, yeah, we've had some great experiences using Tron's dream travel. Yeah, in the past, that's what very they've been very out of hotel. Yeah, that's how the work and I, it's in a very, he, you know, he was, he was a full capacity for Ireland. He couldn't finish it.

There's a client. So yeah, outsourced it to Tom Kennedy, experienced Ireland golf. And it was really nice. It was really, I was trying to speak to, like, actually putting a trip. I would say experience Ireland golf, they're very, like, they're big enough to where, they can handle any of

your needs, but they're also small and scrappy and hungry enough to wear. You're going to feel like you're getting individual personalized experience and service where I don't know if you're going to get that with some of the other big tour companies. Yeah, we'd show up, of course, as there were a lot of like mega buses rolling in, and I'm sure it's great, but being part of kind of like a machine would not speak to me quite as much as keeping it small and intimate and with friends.

We're a small shop. We're a small shop. So it's really nice to partner with another small shop. That's what I said. And we kind of had the mini mega bus. Like we had a bus that was bigger than we needed for us as a group, but maybe we kind of Randy made a need that a little bit.

But we also had a driver, Mike, who I don't even want. I don't know where to start with that. I'm going to turn over to Randy. Mike, God. We've Randy enjoyed sitting up front with Mike more than the golf. Yeah, I ended up moving up front for all our drives. Mike, I think, was, first of all,

he's like one of the warmest, gentlest souls. Except when talking about Oliver Cromwell. Hey, what? Listen, of course. That is so right. Cromwell's a bad dude. Do you know why? So, yeah, one of the favorite things was, like Mike knew all the history and he used to work

like as a tour guide basically. Yeah. Driving the tour bus, you just kind of presented everything that you're looking at. Exactly. And so he's got one of those microphones in the front and he would just switch that on and he just go to town. He would tell us about the Pete and the bugs and the, the you know the history of each region it was just really it added a lot I think to the experience at least for me it kind of helps like set you in a place

and to know a little bit. But then he was like he was kind of quirky he had some like awesome quirks about him. First of all I one I just went, I think, if ever seen before. Yeah, he had a great wit. Was just very kind of dry and sarcastic, but then always just followed up with this awesome laugh. He was always trying to get us to be on time. And I think he would always overestimate the drive by 20 to 25 minutes

Because there might be a tree down We can't know until we get there Did you get your passport It was concerned about the passports. I appreciate it If he came running Joe, yeah, Mike I left Mike, I left my passport in the locker in the hotel. Oh, OK. I guess you won't be going home. You wouldn't take any shit off of us.

That was the best part. I think I had jet lag getting home and trying to get back on the East Coast time zone. I think I woke up every morning with, there's two hours to climb. We need to hit the road. You see there's sheep over there. That one sheep has multiple colors on it.

That's a promiscuous sheep. Which is like having, you know, when we were road trips like to Scotland, we had two different cars and all being in a van together with an Irish voice just placed you there much more than listening to Spotify and stuff dry. That made it feel way more like a local experience than how we treated Scotland. He was deep in the Rod Stewart CD as well. He was at what Rod Stewart CD that we just wore out the whole week.

Every time Rod Stewart comes on the radio now, we'll know you're the CD. We're in the Rodster CD. Oh, you mean now you know I'm like, it just takes you right back. But I will say, I would not want to drive a car. Well, that's what I was going to say. So the difference between the two trips, like when I was there with my family, it was like, I was driving everywhere. And it was like white knuckles.

Yeah, it is. And I've got a couple of, we must have mentioned that on a pod, like a couple months ago, because I've gotten, or a couple weeks ago, because I've gotten messages from people about like, hey, heard you mention like the driving, like I'm going soon, is it like, is it that bad?

Should I like not get a car? And it's like, it's not that bad. But if you are going with a big group and you can swing the idea of having a driver and not having to drive. Like it will make your life a lot less hacked. It's not like a necessary need to have, but it's very nice to have. It let, I think all of us decompress a little bit too.

For sure. You can get on the bus and just go combitose for a little while, which is awesome. To get a little kick it back like that. It's, so definitely don't want to tell people how to spend your money on a golf trip. But it's not cheap to fly to Ireland and play a lot of golf and stay in hotels and stuff. If you want to get the most out of it, spending the money also on the driver to take you around is I can't put a price on the value of that.

Well, I think that's more affordable. That element of the trip was more affordable than most like then I would have ever imagined to be. And I think the other thing, like, we've all driven on the left side of the road in Scotland and England and Australia, variously. And I think, you know, Ireland and the roads are just so much more narrow and so much more, like, you think that, you know, if if it says it's gonna take an hour to get

somewhere you typically in your head you're like all right it's gonna take 45 minutes or no it's gonna probably take you more than or if your mic is gonna take an hour 45. So and then well I've written in coins book and I didn't get a sense of this but it sounds like people in Ireland like to speed they like to go fast yeah which is also know, you don't want someone pressing on you, you kind of don't know like the etiquette of the roads and stuff. And it just was nice to like, this guy's got us. And we were good. And he definitely did.

Which Mike took us on roads, I think that we're the bigger roads. Like I remember when I was there with my dad when we drove like the Google Maps routes, like it took you on like one lane roads and there's too much traffic. So they know no product placement. No, we're not. No free ads. We're at product place. The one-lane roads. Make tech. I'll collarian. I'll collarian. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. You know, they're not right. You have to give equal time to ways.

Yeah. Apple Mac. Well, ways is owned by Google. Is it? God, everything's owned by Google. You guys are scum bags, you know. Listen, we'll take that off. But like, so yeah, it, if you look at a map and say, all we can try now, we can do that. Just know that you are getting yourself into something, it gets a challenge. It's not, I mean, people do it every single day. It's not like life threatening, I wouldn't say, but just know that it's stressful. And it is something. I feel like you're playing one giant game of chicken. Yeah, that's pretty much what it's like. When my dad was driving, he lasted 45 minutes before I pull over.

I'm taking over. It's like he was, he did not know where the left side of his car was. And he was like hugging the left side. At one point, he drove by a parked car. And he went under, like he would have hit the mirror if they were the same height. But he went under the mirror. And I was like, that's it. No, I'm doing this. I'm doing this There's a lot of like stone walls on the left side as well that you're as a passenger is pretty

It's a cliche, but Ireland is so green. Yes, yeah, and we had a chance to actually see that Yeah, because you're seeing this bus just going through all this different these different landscapes And I doubt it it would feel the same if you're driving or one of your friends is driving You're just because I think even being a passenger is probably even tougher than driving because you're so spooked of like Do you see that? Do you see this? Do you know how close he was there and moved with my bridge? Like, oh, he's got it. Come on. He's a long time So I think again like that I think is the main advantage that Scotland has over Ireland.

But again, the golf course is good. And we're gonna get to that. For the itinerary, we wanted to mix a lot of different experiences. Obviously wanted to play a lot of links golf. It wasn't necessarily that we were setting out to play all of the best courses in Ireland. It's like we said, it's kind of tough getting around

there. People were asking why we didn't go to Northern Ireland, why we didn't go to Old Head, I don't want to hear that one ever again. If you hadn't please, why we didn't play any courses out east, like we can only be there for a finite period of time and we set out with a great itinerary and I don't want to hear from my itinerary guy on this one. I was going to say if you want to really trigger solid any time you treat about travel just just respond with no this course question And it's yeah, you want to dig in enough on the no port region that you're going to where you get the full spectrum of places

Yes, but yeah, I think Northern Ireland that'll be its own trip and then old head will not be its own trip. Which again, we have none of us have played it. Stop asking us about it. Didn't fit the itinerary. I'm sure the views are incredible. Everyone I've ever talked to says the views are incredible. It's not the best golf experience, but it's like a great place to spend your day

by the sea above on the cliffs. Yeah, I want to go there and not play golf. Yeah. And they are not, and it's not that we're setting out to like, you know, help the businesses necessarily of all these courses, but they are flush with American visitors paying lots of money to play it. So they're doing quite fine. But anyways, wanted to play, obviously a lot of links golf, but we also went to see a

dare manner, which I think we kind of said was like the Augusta of Ireland, which is definitely not a links course. So we wanted variety, you know, we want to kind of different styles of links courses through dunes, flatter courses, and we got a lot of that. So the Augusta in the conditioning, correct. The condition. Yeah. Yeah. I think the similarities would stop there. It's not private. It's not correct. That's any of that stuff. And we'll

get to we'll get to all that. But yeah, it was absolutely wild. Wanted to get out about in the towns a little bit more than we have in the past just because we've overscadred ourselves with 36 whole days, which we definitely did do that. Plus, that's something with Scotland that like everything closes down at nine o'clock. Yeah, except for in St. Andrews. Like, you can't get a meal after nine. It's even tough. The beer there's like the tenants and they have Guinness on tap in some places, but you know, it's like a pain in the ass to get a drink after a certain point whereas in Ireland, they're like, you're not an issue.

You're kind of, yeah, you're kind of fighting them off. Yo, I do not want to have anymore. Well, we had some experiences in that regard. Our full itinerary we went, we started our, the day we landed, we flew over, we hit up the Dueling Pitch and Putt. We're gonna let Neil talk about that here in a second. We visited Dunebag, Lahinch, a dare manor, Bally Bunyan, Waterville, Duques, Trilly, Karn, County Sligo, and Innes Crone. Go ahead, itinerary guy who's listening. I'm just gonna give you a second to just yell at the speaker No, no, no, no, no

Dublin All right, well, what's going to break before we go to we flew into Shannon we did flying to Shannon which I Almost too short of a Five hours and 15 minutes. I think. From Boston. It's hashtag chat, if you've seen him on Twitter. Mr. Tag. Mr. Tag. He had a flight from Shannon when we're returning home.

Shannon to Boston, Boston to San Diego. And his flight from Boston to San Diego was longer than the flight from Shannon to Boston. So. Which he was very surprised at when he discovered that. Yeah, which he had a second. I thought we were home My town like fairly obvious, but yeah, if you're if you're near the east coast I mean I don't know what's called under

Very accessible. It was a lot easier for us to get to Shannon and say Bandon. Oh, yeah, from Jacksonville. Yeah All right, so let's let's go let's dive into the golf courses Rowing off the plane I think we just kind of wanted something to do We had an afternoon tea time at Dunebag Had some time to kill and was doing just some searching along the coast and solve a duel and pitch and put which I think really put a sparkle in Neils eye it sure did well first off mr. Tag and I were on the same flight out of JFK and

We're having a couple cold beers and we almost missed the flight which was I think I was a bad influence, Mr. Tag and I were on the same flight out of JFK. And we were having a couple of cold beers, and we almost missed the flight, which was, I think I was a bad influence on Mr. Tag. Sorry, tag. Anyway, we came off the planet and any red eye you're kind of groggy and sore. The, and as many folks probably know, my goal in life is to become the first rater of pitch and puss.

So I love them. I think they're awesome for the game of golf, and I think it was the perfect way to warm up before playing our first real round. You take a wedge out there, every hole is under, I'd say, 60 yards. Maybe 80 yards. You'll get like one that's about 80 yards. And you're deep in the conversion game as well. Between Peter C. R. C. R. C. R. C. R. C. R. C. R. C. R. C. R. C. yards. That was really an honor. And my associate, Mr. Sali, Captain Sali,

he taught me a trick, which I'll let him share, so I don't mess it up. You take the first, if it's over 100 meters, the first two numbers of the numbers, so let's say it's 110 meters, just add the first two numbers to that total. So it makes it 110, first two numbers are 11, it's 121 yards.

Yes, which is for the pigeon putt was really fun. It was like 53 meters, okay. Neil, what about you? It's about, yeah, it's got to be about 60, 58, 60. Neil went to Columbia, but he was not a math, no, it wasn't. Columbia College, it's a liberal arts education, core curriculum.

Anyway, the greens are about the size of it. I'd say it queen bed, right? And you just, it's just homically small. Yeah, you just, it's all about just, you know, hit the green and, and, but it's great for, you know, getting that wedge game dialed. And then this specific pitch and putt, we rolled up, there was nobody, there's nobody there. We just like parked the parking lot, went, walked right out onto this. I think there was an honor box. Yeah, an honor box. And we just got a love and honor.

Yeah. It's like, OK, there's a sign for one. And then over in the back, on the back drop was the cliffs of Moore. So it was like, we didn't even have to really go. We ended up stopping there for 10 minutes, but on the way out of Dueling. But it's an unbelievable backdrop.

So you can buy two of my favorite things, Vista's and Pitch and Puts. Listen, it was something special. You need to scale for rating your Pitch and Puts. What's like what's the scale gonna be? I know, I don't know if I'm ready to share that yet. A prior tier. But my C level is the flushing meadow Pitch and Puts

and this was better. Good for you. Good for you. But what do you guys think? But my sea level is the flushing meadow pitch and putt and this was better Good mix up there, but what you I mean what you guys think you guys enjoy the pitch and putt vibe Yeah, it was really cool. It was perfect way to start it. It wasn't I Always I always get nervous about like suggesting places on the podcast is like putting them in a relative You know, but if you are near there like it's a cool place to go check out if you're gonna go see the cliffs more It's like 10 more minutes up the road Right by Lehnch that looked yeah great to I mean there's there's that like I think that's the beauty of Ireland to there's Hundreds of these are coming in you can just roll up to them pretty much and and and that that vibe alone

Where you're not like I got to be on time. I have to, if you have some time to kill where you got off a flight and you didn't wanna push it too quick in the morning, off a red eye, it's an awesome way to stretch your legs. We, you know, it's probably took an hour, hour and a half, max. I mean, we had seven of us. There's seven of us, right?

And then you can play the skins games out there. It was a ton of fun to start the trip. Yeah, I think to your point, it's like, it's not the kind of place you'd even need to schedule out or anything, but yeah, if you're going to Cliffs of More, and you have an extra hour before lunch or after lunch, or you wanna bring two clubs or three clubs,

it's, I mean, it's so fun. Don't reroute your trip around. Around the position. But as Ranny says, I mean, the sea breeze has medicinal benefits. It's medicinal. Yeah, so I think it got us breezes has medicinal benefits. It's medicinal. Yeah. So I think it got us in the iris spirit immediately,

well, with the, you know, it was pretty breezy out there and it was very green. I'm going to say pension funds are making me physically uncomfortable. I think you should spend some more time there. You didn't embrace that discomfort. Yeah, you do. That's what learning happens. That's what happens.

On the edge of uncomfortable. All right, let's go slide over to Dune Bag our first round. I'm going to toss it around to different people here to talk about the golf courses. I want to say it's built by Greg Norman in 2002. It's gone through several softenings from everything we've heard. He screwed it up pretty bad and made it way too hard. The resort was also purchased by one Donald J. Trump in 2014. And actually on the website it's described as a Martin Haughtry redesign instead of a Craig Norman design, which I thought was very interesting. But let's hand it over to Tron here to start us off. Tell us a little bit about Duneback. So it was actually developed by the guys who did Kioa Island in South Carolina, a group of American guys. The setting on the like the clubhouse we had lunch there beforehand. I think

Brian Shaw was the pro. Could not have been more hospitable. But the setting kind in the bar room looking out, it was incredible. I think it was probably what you would imagine if Mike Kaiser would have built the clubhouse at Bannon Dunes on the ocean. That's what it would have looked like. Yeah, that's what I was. Well said. But yeah, man, Greg Norman, he fucked up that.

He's fucked up. Like, so I think I'm really glad we played it, because it gave A, you know, it's, it adds texture and kind of relative, you know, stuff to the trip, but it's also, it's like, man, it's such a good piece of land. And there's some really, really good holes out there. And I think the best ones you do feel like you're a band-in or a ballad on you and or wherever, but the other ones you're like, God, like this doesn't make any sense. You're a band-in or a ballet-bond-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-e-n-n-e-n Irishman, he's a really, really, really good amateur player too. So he won the West of Ireland, amateur championship a couple times.

And just walking around with him, seeing, he said, hey, this is one of kind of hot tree signature green designs or whatnot. And I felt like we were playing the same four or five holes kind of on repeat. Well, not even that. So I've played the Trump course in Aberdeen. And just to that, what you're saying, you're playing the same four or five holes, it's repeated over there on the other island

because it's the same exact golf course. Like I was stunned at the similarities between. And I felt like, honestly, felt like he had seen Dunebag and said, okay, I want this in Scotland. And this is what we're gonna build. And this is what it is. So that's exact reaction I had to it, but anyone else on Dunebag,

do we wanna address the elephant in the room first? The lunch? The lunch? I'm just kidding. No. Yeah, so the Trump ownership thing is something that's really interesting. There's no mistaking who owns the property

once you dress through the gates. That's what I think was news to someone. Well, yeah, so I looked at the itinerary. I didn't do a lot of planning for the trip, and on all our cheats, it was just Dunebag. Dunebag, everything said Dunebag, and then we pulled out. And the town is Dunebag.

And it was, you know, the flowers and giant letters say Trump, and I was like, oh, oh, it's the same guy. The great baby. No. Even though everything, when I say everything said Trump, it was like the wifi was like Trump.wifi.com. Like it was like really? Like, you know, and that's a whole other conversation

of like really, but yeah, I don't think that personally, and this kind of said, yeah, I didn't realize it until we got there. And then, yeah, it immediately clouds my thinking, like, oh, okay, I mean, all right. So it's just like, that's kind of the, the end of the year. Get it out of your mind.

Yeah, when you plaster of the, the, it's hard to get it out of your mind. Yeah, when you've plastered your name over everything and then that name is, you know, a absolute lightning rod. It's gonna affect like the way I saw it or the way, you know, it's probably perceived by anybody that watches the episode, right? So like, like, you said, we're not, wherever you fall and politically,

there's no changing your mind on that, right? Well, I, I wanna, again, we have to broach this carefully, but I think the worst thing you can do is, every review of anything Trump related always starts with, it's just about politics. I don't want to get political. And like almost, but it was like almost immediately when people found out we were there,

we're like, I can't believe you guys are promoting a Trump property blah, blah, blah. And I will say, if you're that principled in your beliefs and you would never play a Trump course because he, you know, that's who owns the golf course, like, that is quite clearly your right. I commend you for that. And I'm not going to try to change your mind that you shouldn't be that principled. For us, we wanted to play this golf course because a lot of people do visit this course

and are planning trips and want to know what the golf course is like. Come on top 100 golf courses right now and it's like it's rated the sixth best course in Ireland. Yeah. And we weren't going to just, we were not in the business to make the political statement of steering clear of it because of who owns it or because we're afraid of the controversy or anything like that. And I think, but to your point of view, I think we can objectively say that what we think of the golf course honestly has nothing to do with who actually owns the golf course. Well the ironic part they put they had to put a sea wall up

Climate change Something interesting. I thought they come in Extremely tasteful and I think that's because he bought the property, he bought the property 12 years after it was initially developed. So the like the little manor house and the cottages, it's all really tasteful and then they built the golf course like around this one little house on the property which is so I'm sure that'll shine through in the episode but it's I want to like kind of level set everything here one like it was On one hand it was probably you know, I guess like my least favorite course that we played on the trip on the other hand It's you know one of the 50 coolest courses like I've ever played

Yeah, it's a top 20 course. I've ever played absolutely So like let's let's keep it all in perspective here. And I don't want to come across as snobbs or anything like that. If you love really nice accommodations and really good food and crazy good views, this is probably a place you're going to really, really like. And I think we all loved it for that reason, right? You are seaside playing golf in Ireland for that.

It's like, you have to do really, really bad to make me have a bad time doing that. And it was not at that level for sure. Like, I had a good time. Yeah, and I think that, to your point, I'm kind of building the, building the dune around the house. So there was one, basically, when you build a place like this, you know, all the farmers kind of have to get together and do a collective and sell the land to the developer

and they got to figure all this stuff out. And so we started to hear these stories about, yeah, there was one hold out. This one family, they just would not sell their house. And so all of us were kind of like sick. That's got to be a story. Yeah, so be a deal with knocked on their Yeah, so being able to go to their door, because we're like,

content, yeah, because we're walking up and we're like, man, this is crazy. Like, they built this big dune around this house. Like they blocked their whole view. This is like, this is bullshit. What they're doing to these people trying to drive them off the land. And we've got got this whole story built up.

We talked to the surface of the beach. Yeah, it was like the, maybe the nicest lady we've ever met opens the door, invites us in. We've got our camera up. You'll see her in the episode, but she's telling us the whole story and she's like, oh, no, no, no, no. Like, yeah, we didn't sell the land, but like, yeah, I mean, like my grandparents

like grew up in this house. Like, yeah, we just, we're not leaving. I'm like, build the dude. Yeah, I was sitting in golf balls in my house. Yeah, we're like, what's the deal with that? She's like, yeah, no, I asked her to put that up. They were super helpful. It's like, it's great.

And so when you really started thinking about like the human kind of impact of a place like this, like without Trump coming in, the Trump corporation, whatever they're called, coming in and like buying the course and injecting money into it. This course was not in a good way, basically, before that happened. And so it's very, very plausible that this place just shuts down.

And while that might not be the greatest tragedy in the history of golf, for the people around, there's not much else going on. Other than working at the resort? Yeah, it's a few hundred jobs. I mean, it's like, it's most of the economic driver, if, you know, the vast most of the economic driver in this like little tiny town of Dunebag.

And so talking to her, I thought was like super eye opening just to really get a sense of Okay, you can you can boycott it and you can do all these things and like I totally support that I totally get it, but there's a little bit more to it than just Yeah, it's not all bad all good. Yeah, like there it's it's it's a gray area and it's nice to not just make that up in your head Yeah, which I think we were all beginning to do and then you you let someone speak for themselves and it's nice to not just make that up in your head, which I think we were all beginning to do. And then you let someone speak for themselves, and it's like, you know what, I had that wrong. Yeah, so.

Well, it's important to note too, I think, that I don't know much about the development of Doombag when it was done, you know, by when Norman built it in 2002, or how they got the land and all the environment, because there are environmental concerns with this kind of piece of property. These, there's endangered snailsils or frittals, right?

Snails. So they had to route the course kind of funky through this land. Which didn't seem that endangered to me by the way. They were everywhere. But the development, the Trump relationship with Dunebeg is very different from what I understand than what happened in Scotland, which was like a huge environmental concern is people fighting against it, fighting against it, and basically the local people there will tell you that he bullied his way into getting to build this course

on a place, and I think it was a golf.com reporter, maybe a golfie report that said Trump was quoted as saying, like, oh, we told them we were gonna protect these students and we're bulldozing them right now. And so the way the people and Aberdeen feel about that golf course, at least from, I get, I have not talked every person Aberdeen, but the sense I get is a sense of resentment around it. Whereas that is not the vibe we got, at least in Dunebag on the West Coast.

I think some of that's probably a scribe to the fact that he didn't actually build exactly. So I did, but I'm saying that just the vibe around it, you hear about a Trump course, international course, you would think that everyone is up in arms about it. But that was not the case in Western Ireland. It is the case that I understood in the Eastern Scotland. As far as specific, so the greens were a little slow. Oh, they were.

Oh, and this was the first one. And it was late April. They were probably five days away, maybe maybe from coming out of winter condition. It was like, clearly not ready. So everybody raved about the first hole there. I did like the first hole. Straight away in the best. Straight away in the best.

Straight away in the best. Like, opening holes in all of Ireland. I thought it was okay. Straight away in the best. Oh, but the, the, it was framed by a massive dune in the background. And it's kind of a handshake, part five. It was a really strong hole. It felt like the plastic version of Number 10 at Carn.

We'll get there. And then I thought 14 was like the signature hole. They had to totally rebuild that due to a storm taking out a bunch of the coastline. Randy almost had a hole in one there. I'm 14. I did. Thank you.

Yeah. And then I thought 18 was awesome. Great hole. It felt like, though, the course the Vi by God was like they went really hard for post-card holes. More than they did, like really fun, interesting holes. I said this to Toronto, I think when we were there, and for listeners in California, it reminded me a ton of Half Moon Bay, which is a Ritz Carlton,

where it was the only course I played that, maybe because of how old it was, like not that old, that felt like it was trying to be a Lynx course and wasn't a Lynx course, because it just felt like it was, oh, this is what a links course, this is how you, this is what it should look like. You know what I mean?

But it's like, why don't you just build the links course? You know, instead of like the post card holds is a great example. And like, all, you know, we'll get the, we'll frame the castle in the background and this will be perfect for pictures. So, in almost like a modern day, like Instagram. Yeah, and that's, do that, you know. That's a huge part of the golf world, you know? And like, again day like Instagram. Yeah, and that's, dude, that's a huge part of the golf world.

You know, and like, again, like, I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably pretty deep in, you know, into knowing what you like and what you don't. But there's a lot of golfers that are like, dude, we're on the ocean. Look at how good this golf course is. Yes. And that's fine. I thought that way when I was on the ocean at the Doom bag holes, first round of the trip, I was like like this is unbelievable. Some of the strongest holes of the whole trip were there like the

The par There's a par four or par five up the hill to the right like that was a yeah, that was a insanely good hole I Think four or five was a short par four. That was a really good hole like there's I think the I think the highs there were That was a really good hole. I think the highs there were exceptional in some of the best holes we played, but it just didn't fall. It was almost frustrating because the highs were, what was the one I kept raving about? Was it 13 with the big?

So they had one hole that was down. Sixth hole, which throws off all of our numbers. That's why we're especially. It was a part four that basically was all shielded by this dude on the right and you had to like if you if you hit it on the fairways for that fairway was really wide it was like if you get on the right side though like you're gonna be completely blocked it's gonna be totally it was just such like cool strategic hole and such an awesome like natural way to use the dunes and I think like Sal and I were playing together and we both got there and we're kind of like,

dude, like, where was this? Where has this been? And that's where it's like, man, when they hit it, it was almost like, you could kind of see, and that's where I think any criticism comes from, is like when you hit a hole like that, it's like, man, like this is what it could have been. Well, bringing all this together,

what Tron said about it, not having a ton of soul and what Karni said about it, like, the repetitiveness is like, the greens sit beautifully underneath the dunes as if you wanna stay in there and take a picture of it. Yes. And it isn't necessarily like a fun, like there's not a ton of entry to it.

But this is an unfair advantage that newer courses, I don't wanna say unfair advantage. It's just something like a newer course is gonna have more scrutiny over like what they've done with it than like a soup, a good older course is gonna have. I think if you go back to our Scotland stuff and you look, we felt kind of the same way going into Castle Stewart a little bit

where it's like every other course we played on this trip was built in 1886 and what did Gill Hance do in 2007 or whatever this course opened and then you get done with Castle Stewart and you're like, holy shit, that was good. That was so awesome. I think one thing to keep in mind is that we were, this was again, we hadn't slept in

24 hours. So we were pretty little chippy. We were cranky. Yeah, we were cranky. At least for coming down the back nine, I was like really tired and I was like, God, this is like taken. You know, it's Hilly and I was struggling a little bit. So I think that clouds a little bit of my opinion of it as well.

So that might not be fair. I would love to go back. I think it speaks for all these courses, but I would love to go back and play it again just to see how different the experience would be. I will say I don't think it's not a good course to play off the plane. Of course.

Because it was especially the first couple. And the wind was blowing pretty good that day too. More so than the conditions were really tough. The greens felt oddly disconnected from the surrounding landscape. Like they just put a green there and it didn't really interact with the dune or what. I was like at the base of the dune or in front of the dune but didn't really interact with it. And also I think there were a few holes out there that I was like visibly furious after

the thing. I was like this is bullshit. This doesn't use the hazard right at all, you know, kind of thing. So anyway, what do you think about Deuteron? It was for what it was, which is being by the ocean, it was fine. I saw it, I think your take was most closely similar to mine, where it was fine. Did I enjoy myself? Yeah, it was a nice walk, but when I look back and reflect

on our trip, it's tough to stand out with some of the other experiences that we had. Which again, I think it's worth pointing out, and maybe it's just goes without saying that our snobbery comes from, we're like extremely fortunate enough that we've gotten to see a lot of really cool golf courses. And so it's like we're we're ranking that kind of in that spectrum. It might be a different experience. And going to speaking to that, Chad had never played golf in Ireland.

He played some in Scotland. He got there. We were all kind of saying that a couple, maybe, if he thinks about the course he was going to do, that was one of the coolest golf experiences I've ever had. And I got a little bit cocky kind of told him, like, oh, just wait. For this trip, just wait. And then after Lehn's the next day, he's like, OK, I see what you're saying.

He didn't have that full perspective yet of what really like a really, really special Irish experience was like. And that's what we got the next day at Lehnich. So let's move on to that one. Lehnich is an old Tom Morris original layout and in 26, one Alistair McKinsey, sorry, Dr. Alistair McKinsey, rerouted much of the course. Over time, a lot of McKinsey's greens have been lost and it is, I mean, it is ranked up probably one of the top 20 time a lot of McKenzie's greens have been lost and it is I mean it is

ranked up probably one of the top 20 golf courses in the world of any list you'll ever see one of the top two three courses in Ireland and it's actually hosting the Irish Open this summer which is going to be awesome to watch these guys play this course DJ this is a course that I think kind of spoke to your soul in many different ways why don't you tell us a little bit about your experience there? Yeah, so this was you know on my first trip that I keep talking about that was I only played one round of golf and it was here So that was kind of like my picture of Irish golf. I'm like oh, they're all like that. It's great Like you guys really need to get over there But yeah coming back through at the second time was even better

Just kind of knowing a little bit more about what to look for. And everything, I mean, it almost, as much as it can in Ireland, I mean, Ireland and Scotland are two very different places, like we mentioned, but to me, it almost feels like going to, it's a feeling of kin to going to like the old course, I think, for me, and a lot of that has to obviously do with the history and stuff. But it's just, it's quirk that you don't see anywhere else. It's quirk that, you know, we say this all the time,

but if it got built today, I'm not sure I would love it as much as I do now, which is kind of a... But I do it in the middle of a barrel. Yeah, which is kind of an existential problem, I guess. But it's, like I just don't know how you can have more fun playing golf than you can at Lynch. I'm sure we'll get into specific holes and stuff, but I think for me it's like if I was

going to go to, you know, if somebody said you can go play one more round of golf, I mean it's in the top three places I think, you know, right up there with the ones you think, it's up there with Old Course and North Barrett and those kinds of places. So I thought it was, I have nothing but glowing, glowing things to say. And I'm gonna keep repeating all of those glowing compliments until someone else cuts me off. Go sign.

What did you think of the hints? Well, the hint was kind of the true welcome to Irish golf. I think for me, you know, we got in a good night's sleep. Great showers, great beds. And the big guy needs a good night's sleep. Great showers, great beds. And the big guy needs a good night's sleep. Yeah, we're at Trump team. Yeah, the logic was awesome there. Yeah.

LeHinch, well, the surf school is, right off the third hole. I think there's this little surf school, which immediately kind of puts you in a certain mood. And then yeah, the funkiness of the course is something I really, really enjoyed. Just different ways to approach the hole and really use the sloping. And it was a much truer, links experience than I think Doom Bag was.

I had a great time. It was a fantastic walk. I think a number of exceptional golf holes out there. Full of recommendation from Randy. I think Sally and I were playing together and he said something to me on the front nine where it was like number five,, four of the clondike. And it's like, you just said right now, like they put a dune there. It's like, it's the opposite. There was a dune there and they didn't have heavy machinery to move it. So it's like, well, we're just going to have to go over it.

And when you think about it that way, like, that's awesome. You know, that's cool. So, and so that is why if you build a modern course today, you build a modern course today like that, you can move it now. So you can't get the leeway. There is something, let's place this for people that may not be familiar with the scene, but the fourth hole is a par five that you tee off. Your back is towards the ocean and you tee off, you know, back towards the road, back into town.

And it's a shorter par five, but then you get there and there is a dune in the middle of the fairway and there's literally a guy that stands at the top of the dune with flags and directs traffic because the green is on the other side of the dune. It's kind of far away from the dune, but also like the 18th fairway runs across that. So you literally cross over the 18th hole and he's got to give you the signal when it's safe to hit.

Which I was reading about this. I think I probably should have done more research on it, but the dude probably wasn't at it, I don't think, but the hole was not originally like that. There was somebody that came in. One of the many rounds of revisions has been done to the course. Somebody rerouted a hole over that dude. So that actually wasn't original to the course, which I found actually pretty interesting. The merch server ever got here.

The next hole is the Dell Part 3 which we've, you know, you hear people refer to a lot, was truly the most blind of a Part 3. It's a massive dune. We got the best pin, probably. Back left pin, tucked in the back and you just hit over this white stone and trust that it's going to go 150 yards. That's the most fun hole I've ever played. It was so cool. I thought would be really dumb and I think it's kind of you know getting you know a lot of people get you know kind of turn their nose or turn

their head away at like golf course architecture talk but like if that's the kind of hole that if you don't have an appreciation for this kind of thing, you're gonna have a bad time. Yeah, absolutely. Knowing the history and kind of embracing the element of blind shots and just saying, like, dude, don't be but heard about this, like, get over it and just hit the shot. People have been hitting this shot for hundreds,

like, 100 years. It's not about you hitting this shot that's blind or needing it right in front of you. Go hit it and experience it. This is why you take the trip to go hit shots like that. That's really, well said. I never really thought about it like that, but Link's golf so much of it is not to sound too philosophical, but it's almost like a practice in just checking your ego and starting

to think about it like that where it's like, okay, cool. What's important here is what the course is asking of me, not like what I'm expecting to see from the course. I think so much in America, it's like, this is bullshit, like I should be able to do this. It's like, fuck you, man. Like, no, you'd erase the rub of the grease. Yeah, like if the golf course is manufactured,

like that's the way it feels. If the golf course is found in nature, then it's like, no, like this is what the land is demanding of you, you don't have any say in this. You can choose what shot you want to hit, but you don't have any power here. If you embrace that too with the Del, for instance, it's like, there's an element of suspense.

And I hit that one really good. I would look hit emitally, I don't know. I don't know. I've had it in 10 minutes before you walk up there. I did not do it. And then, like, I don't know, I don't know. I've been in there for 10 minutes before you walk up there. I did a good visit and then of course, I hit it long left. I didn't even say, I don't know, I like Randy, I put it with Randy and Tron

and all of us on the tee, those two are both like, hey man, congrats on the ace. That's it. That's so cool. Like that's for sure in, like a positive, that's it, we had Huey, caddy would who's been there for like What did he say 57 years? This is his 50's 57th year caddy He started when he was seven 57th the final year caddy

Yeah, and even he like he he never he was the most flatline guy ever and even he was like That was pretty good Of course I was with you. I was about 15 yards. Everything you're carrying back. Not to go back real quick, but I just pulled up Google Earth. Maybe one of the weirdest parts about the Klondike also

is that the landing zone, where you actually are supposed to hit your drive, is like 18 yards less. So there it is. So narrow. But it's got these huge, kind of like half pipe dunes that just kicked them all back in the fairway and then you're standing there. There's a little guy in a shed that hangs out all day and gives you a flag when it's when it's free and clear to hit. That's the best. That was what I might have been my best shot of the trip. The hit of five iron in there from just over 200 and he you know, he was kind of like

I got like a nod of a bruise. It's about like everything, but like just the biggest medal of my life. I was like, really that good? Yeah, it thumbs up. Like one and two are kind of whatever they get you out. Three's great, four and five are obviously all world. And you get to six and it takes you back out to the coastline

and that green on six and then seven eight. That stretch from three to eight. I know, Trum, we're going to let you have a whole period of time for the ninth hole. Yeah, the ninth hole. Wait till the ninth. We did a composite course, a composite course for the whole trip and we're not going to go through all that right now, but the four, five and six at Lahinch, all one, like the best fourth hole, best fifth hole, best sixth hole. That stretch was maybe, like the best 4th hole, best 5th hole, best 6th hole.

That stretch was maybe three of the best holes we played on the whole trip. And I was amazed that that three hole, and six is not the, maybe the least famous of those three holes, and that's probably my favorite golf hole in Ireland. I think that's so good. Yeah, absolutely.

You basically, well, so set it up, so you're hitting, I don't know what you hit, I hit like five out of the tee. It's like an iron, that there's three holes on that front nine at the hinge. They are, this isn't a driver. That's not the question we're asking. It's, there's a lot of land movement at a certain point in this fairway. So you probably don't want to hit it 270 yards, which when it's like firm on firm turf,

that means not hitting a driver. So hit it somewhere in this area and you're going to, this is about the approach shot. There's a lot of strategy into where you hit the t-shot still and then so it's just you're in play a lot easier and you have a nice approach to Really beautiful green sites and this one dog legs to the left and you turn the corner around the dune and it just sits there It's almost like an elevated version of the fourth hole at band and dunes like it unveils the sea and in this green is or the whole at band and dunes, it unveils the sea and this green is, the course is not designed to be postcard pictures and stuff,

but this is the whole that's like, bo-ho-ho-ho-ho. You turn the corner, that was the whole chat, I was like, okay, all right, I see what we're talking about. And even before you get to the green, you're hitting over this pit of despair that's probably 50 feet deep or something like that, there's a tiny like trash can size bunker

at the bottom of it. It's like the most meat-spirited bunker ever. Normally again, like I would be totally against like, man, who's like the worst players are here to get down there. That's just gonna slow everything down. But you go by it, you're like, ah, that's pretty cool actually. Well, there's also the weather. We had perfect weather coming through that stretch.

And the sun came out and you're going out to the ocean. So for us, it was the best looking hole, maybe, of the trip, but I can also see if the weather's gnarly, it could be really scary hitting into that green, into the wind, and you're just looking at the clouds rolling off the water. So that's an element, like I said earlier, if we could play a course twice,

thinking about a course that could change completely from day to day. Like that's one that would just be totally different. And it's like, I don't know how you guys find it. Like it's not easy. I thought it's like, I thought it's more like one of the more challenging courses that we played. I mean, there's a lot of spots to the back nine, especially as tough can lose a golf ball in the, the Miriam grass. I think my, I think my I think my Feeling or my sense of the course is skewed or like the sense of ease or difficulty is skewed because of Huey Dude, I didn't read a putt all day. He just told me hey hit it here here. He or like like just

Very very exact and he wasn't even reading them. There was all just from memory and knowing exactly what it does I probably I probably made 200 feet of pots. It never makes us leave. Similar to when they say that style in the broadcast, I don't know if that's good. It sounds good. I don't know what that number means. But it was funny. It was funny.

I think that was the day we got done. We were playing two separate groups. It was like Neil Chad and Sully and me, Tron and Randy. And we got done and you guys are like, yeah, it was hard. Nobody made any puns. It was like really? We made literally every pun that we looked at. The screens were perfect.

QE told us exactly where to hit it. And we've all played with two players and whatever. He's the best reader of greens that I've ever seen in my entire life. He's never I have nobody will ever ever pass it. It was unreal.

Two things to note. So I played this course maybe three years ago and everyone's like, well, what do you think the Dell? I think the Dell of fifth hole and I was like, I mean, yeah, it was fine. There's a five and a five A and I played five A. There's like a separate part three. Like they had the Dell hole closed. And this is the first time I actually got to play that but on the back nine there's an 11 and an 11 a we got to play 11 a and that is the original McKenzie Green there's only like two original McKenzie Green still out there and it's not a

great thing to be real routing. But the other 11th hole is actually pretty sick too but we got to play the 11 a part three, which is Let me talk about nine. Oh, sorry. We're doing a set of podcasts. So we know the course. We're all Raven about four or five six as is Tron and Tron TC can be prone to hyperbole at times. And he's saying like all these holes are all world and he goes, well nine, nine is the best the best hole I've ever played. And then somebody said, well, you just said that number four was like one of the best holes in the world. He's like, it might not be the best hole on the course. So that's all I've ever played.

So with that, T.C. please take it away. If you're minding me a little bit of 14 adornment where you gotta hit it down the left side if you want the proper view at the green, There's this big dune on the right side. The green's 56 yards long. If you miss left you're absolutely like you it's like a it's like Jones town over there. I represent that. I play the course twice. Joke's terrible. Horrible. That's horrible. Horrible misses left both times. The yardage book says if you hit it left it's certain bogey. I've got it up and down both times Take that you know it's cool. Yeah, I mean I think I shot like 92 both

I was just the way the way it uses the land and the way it sits Thought it was a magnificently simple. Yeah, it was it was funny. We like that stretch walking away three through eight I was like every place. I was like a zombie that was I just knocked my socks off and I checked my phone and the message from trance like hey did you draw number nine? It's the best one ever played. Well it might not be the best one. It's the best hole I've ever played. So it became a thing the rest of the trip was like that was I mean it was no nine at the hinge but that hole was sweet Like like so the part three 11 is is

Is sweet and then you get out there? You get out there to like 12 that long part five. I love that hold down the river down the river is so cool Driveable 13 you made a doose on that one right did yeah, I did. Yeah, it did. Randy made a birdie on that one. Everybody seems to be coming around. Good job, Randy. Way to go, Rick. Good job, Randy. Randy was getting a little tired of being treated like

specialty 3D, I think. And then whatever you hit a good shot. Way to go, Randy. Come on. Well, that was the last time Randy was a star. Oh, good job. You made a poo poo in the toilet. Yay.

Listen, Randy's playing the best golf in his life right now. He doesn't need anymore. Randy's a deity. Sherry Confelman. Dangerous ass 12 right now. I don't think Randy missed a fairway after like 10 or 11. Yeah. At length.

For the rest of the trip. That's true. And then we'll see then. Yeah, that one driver driver. He's got speed now. Oh, driver driver driver driver driver driver driver driver. He's got speed now Those 14 so like 14 through 18 you're like all right funs over you just get your dick knocked in I can't I don't know when this podcast is gonna come out But like I can't wait to watch the Irish open. I think it's gonna be yeah

I think people are gonna complain which is always a good recipe for tournaments. I love to watch I think there's gonna be spectacular shots hit. I think they got a chance to get some gross weather. They're gonna take it deep, I think though. They might, yeah. They're moving to the par-fives on the front. They're gonna make those par-fours. Par-fours are relevant.

It is irrelevant, but that night, after just a tremendous day, we got some dinner, we went to, was it called Cornerstone? The little pub in Chad called it the best pint. We had the whole trip, called it the best pint we had of the whole trip, the best kidnest we had of the whole trip. Which we were trying to rank them all and then halfway through we're like, dude, we're kind of drunk.

I got a sh**. We'll start raining too, which I think helps when you're sitting in a rental pub. Yeah, you know, it's raining outside. There's no way I'd be. Oh, we can have a very briefly, but like the town of Lehnches, part of what makes it so cool.

Yeah, I think, and it's like St. Andrews or North Barric, where you're sitting right in the middle of town and you're not necessarily playing through buildings or anything, but you can see the town from the entire golf course, and it just makes... It gets Randy so excited. It does. Graviards in town.

Exactly. It's great when someone's calling out like Ameth the Church people. Yes, for real. It's the best. Even if it's not a good line, I think it's the best. I think it's the best. Ameth the Church not a good line, I think the cows in the distance,

I aim with the geese. But it makes you feel like a true, in the best way, it makes you feel like a true visitor of that town, rather than just going way out of town into a farm field somewhere, which is great too, and different. What makes the experience so great is, the people in the towns, I don't wanna say it this way,

but they know who butters their bread. They know that tourism is what does this whole thing, that makes everything go round for them. So they treat you so well, and it's not kissing your ass, but it's like, they try to give you the best and most real and authentic experience, and that's what we got that night, at the 19th, which is the pub we went to around the corner.

I just feel like Irish people know how to hang out. Yeah, and we went there It's just the pub we're watching a I think a Liverpool match was on that night and and we're having a couple pints And then we're talking to the owner and he's teaching us how to tell us how to pour Guinness We end up behind the bar and he's actually teaching us how to pour the Guinness pole and pole the Guinness This is why I lost the battle. And we posted something on Instagram, on our Instagram story saying like, where we were and whatnot.

And somebody replied to the DM almost immediately, like, oh, the 19th, like, Patty, that guy is the best, the owner. He'll drive you home if you need to. And like 20 minutes later, we're like, all right, we need to go home. Let's get a taxi. He tries to call us a taxi.

He's like, yeah, there's no taxi. So I'll take you guys home. Which was like 15 minutes away. It was not close. And sure, if he leaves somebody else to work the bar and drove us to our hotel, like 15 minutes away, his daughter drove the other car, which I think scared the shit out of you guys that were in that car.

My only terrifying. But I was like, that was the night we're like, oh, so glad we're not doing 36 whole days and jumping out of town and getting to spend some time in town. Which the day we're recording this last night, Peter Burns for me, his PN, he called me asking for tips for Ireland. I was like, do just go to the 19th. And he sent me, we're talking about hurling

in the car with Patti. Patti gave us a hurling, I don't know what it's not called, a ball, but it's called a- Yeah, which is like a kind of like a field hockey sport that people play over there. And he sent me a video of them playing hurling in the street outside the 19th with Patty at two o'clock in the morning last night. It was like that's the experience right there. So that was, to me that day was the highlight of the trip.

I think, I think, I know we're going along in LeHinch, but to your point, Neil, I've wanted to kind of camp out at one spot and play it a couple times. I don't think there would be any question in my mind that it would be LeHinch. Is where I would do that? Yes. If you're going to play somewhere multiple days or stay or see more of the town or whatever, that's where I would. Good take.

Set up some roots. Very good take. It's top three favorite golf courses I've ever played right up there with the old course. Yeah. All right, moving on to the next course, maybe the least similar to any other course on the trip. We headed inland to a dare manor.

A dare manor was built. The golf course was built in 1995 by Tron's boy Robert Trent Jones by almost all reports it kind of sucked JP McManus the Irish legend bought it and gutted it He brought in the Faws and the largest barrel of cash you can imagine and built like the most pristine golf court I haven't seen all the golf course in Ireland There's no way that this is not the most pristine golf course in Ireland Neil this is this one kind of spoke to your soul.

He's a little bit of the strat boy got to got to step out and enjoy how the other side lives. So so a dare I got I got a good taste how the C suite lives and and I liked it. It's in a state and I should know it's a manner. Well, no, but like it is a matter, but I didn't really know what a man I didn't really know what a man was. I didn't have any manners. See, I don't really understand that. But, you know, there's all kinds of other activities. It's where McManus has his racing horses.

He's got, you know, ski shooting and falconry. And so, to speak specifically about the golf, it was by far the nicest manicured course I've ever played. And to give you a sense of that, I always got a bunch of no-ling uptees with me. And after I hit a drive, I usually, you know, guerrilla marketing, I'll just leave them on the T-boxes. So I didn't realize this, but on the fourth or fifth hole, I turn around and every T I've

been doing that with. The caddy was literally picking them up after I'd walk off the T-box because and I asked him he's like yeah we can't there's not literally nothing but grass out there like they pick up anything they see they're instructed to pick it all that's why we don't take you well listen I you know lesson learned but I that was kind of one of those like little real-world things where you're like, whoa, like I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not at the muni anymore. I'm not the flushing metal pitch and put it anymore.

But it was, I thought it was a delightful Parkland golf course. And I kept getting, and I think I told you guys this when we were there, I kept getting a Jane Air vibe. With like the castle in the background, it just felt like, and I'm a big sucker for castles So I thought the setting itself was Like something that it was very

Spiritual like secret gardens and stuff and my favorite hole was romantic. Yeah, it was it was really it kind of it had soul I thought yeah even for being new it had soul the 15th hole is my favorite. It's a drivable par four down the river with the castle just like looming. The big red mist could have taken out the castle. And it was, but it was, the castle just, like I don't even think some of the pictures will do it just as just how big it feels when you're, you know, walking underneath it.

So I think it's worth noting a course that in solid, I were talking about this, it's really nice to play a course that's that well conditioned, especially with the contrast of all the links courses we put that are very rugged and some of them rough around the edges. This was the exact opposite of that. And I was really happy that we played a Parkland course because again, it gives you a little bit more perspective to appreciate the different

ways of golf course can be built and It's not clear this place is expensive like it is probably like 400 euros around Manitory Cadillus, but I asked actually asked the guy about this to put that in perspective I asked I was like so you know, what's it? What's it cost like other members to join? He's like, it's you know, it's outrageous It's mental and I was like, so, you know, what's it cost, like other members to join? He's like, it's outrageous, it's mental. And I was like, well, give me a ballpark. And he's like, well, I think it's like, you know,

15, 20k, just initiation, just to join. And then it's probably another 10 yearly dues. And I want to be like, like, he was like, my reaction was like, are you fucking serious? He was like, yes, that bad. And I was like, dude, let me, let me bring you back to the US for a second. So not to say that's not a lot of money. It is a lot of money.

And to play a public round of golf, there's like 350 euros. That's, you could play five other courses for it. But at the same time, I'm like, this is still so much more sustainable and available. Like the probably it just kind of made me mad about US golf. Like hearing that this is outrageous and mental. And I was like no, it's not. What's outrageous is the way golf is played in the US. That's my rant. Go ahead.

Well, it's just going to say like the difference between the two here is that this is not a private golf course. Like you you can go call them up and book a tea time And then kind of some people were Giving us feedback of like why would you go all the way to Ireland just to play a fuzz? It's like exactly playing golf in the US like well, I guess what buddy this golf course if it's built in the US We don't get to play it. It's not a publicly available golf course and you it's like no shame about it It's like expensive and if but if you want to go play what I would it's the nicest golf course

I've ever played the best condition I've ever played and they said they were six days away from it actually being in the best shape It's gonna be a six days which was I was I the super intense like six days the super intense Yeah, you'll see him in the the tour sauce episode Maybe the the biggest pros pro that that we came across on this trip absolute Consumment scientists professional. Yeah. He was awesome. The wizard of the sub-airs. Yeah. You hear the sub-airs crack up.

Yeah. Well, yeah, about the sub-air stuff. Everything about it was just a really interesting place to play golf, walk around, and learn about. It's weird to picture like, what would a golf course look like if you had an endless budget, right? And we kind of knew that going in. And being somewhat of a snobby hipster that kind of makes my gears

grind a little bit where I'm like, oh gosh, it's just, you know, golf should be natural and the golf course is probably going to stink. And we got out there like, ah, we had gloves up. Yeah, it's actually pretty, it's pretty good. The golf course is, is pretty especially the back nine. I thought the front nine was, I don't want to be too close. The first eight holes were kind of cheesy. Yeah, I thought the front nine was, was pretty thorough away. I couldn't really remember too many of those if you pressed me on it right now, but I thought the back nine was, I don't want to be too good. First eight holes were kind of cheesy. Yeah, I thought the front nine was pretty throw away. I couldn't really remember too many of those if you pressed me on it right now,

but I thought the back nine, especially once you got to 12. Like 11 was the par three, that was kind of whatever. I like, no, it was, it was over. There was a river. It's over the river. Yeah, it was flashy. It's good for your Instagram list. It's a little bit look at me.

But once you got to 12, you get to, like that almost had to felt like you're dodging into like three or four different, like almost like climates or regions. Like 12 felt like you were in like Boston or Philly or something that big like Par-5 with the Stone Wall. And then you come around that corner, you get down into kind of like this bog

down by like the cemetery shot at the Randy. You get over there. And then like you get, all right, I guess a 14-bit and then you get to 15 you got the big imposing castle and like they've they've made no secret about you know sounds like it'll be a future Ryder Cup venue in 2026 it's like basically from what I gather a Dendil kind of wish the Italians would just go ahead and stuff up on the puns on theirs, but it was a perfect rider company. It was, and that's where it kind of going around at the beginning,

like going through that front nine holes, I was kind of like, oh god, dude, there's just, there's another example, the rider company being bought by the high is bitter, and the golf course is going to be boring, and then you get to like 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and you're like, holy shit, this is going to be so fun. Well, I will say the other similarity with Augusta is that I thought 17 was stinky.

Stinky and Nina. Cause you come off 16 and it's this epic hole. And then 17's like, the air comes out of the balloon a little bit, you like, go back behind the trees. That's what I was talking about. And then 18, I like 17 in Augusta too, that's it. It's not dramatic, but I thought 17 is a classical one. It's stinking.

It was like one of the highlights that little part for it But and I'll just talk about the bathrooms by 13 Caddy was like you have to go in these bad And so DJ Beat you would coin all this like one horse bathroom Yeah, and I told coin. I'm like, did you know I don't know like tools like we have So the three of us were walking into the bathroom and we opened it up. I guess there was like a marble. It was like a marble floor at air conditioning.

Yeah. It was I was expected. Honestly, but expecting a little bit more based on like if you're set up, if you're familiar with the pauses, uh, yeah, conversation, repertoire that it would you would you wouldn't be surprised by it at all. The Adair Manor was a tremendous I don't want to say experiment of like but it answers the question of like what would around a golf be like if you had a Perfect lie for every single shot you hit like the rough which is all I love

Like the fairway the even got a little bit spongy like the ball sat up on the fairway and the rough was not even rough It like was better. It was better to even hit out of the rough than it was the fairway. But they did a good job of like, you didn't want to be in the rough, you didn't want to be coming in from those angles into some of these greens. So it was just like, it was a mashing session of just flushing irons off of it. Daddy was mashing. Daddy was mashing a little bit. I didn't play very well, but it was so fun to just, and that's where it's been in the

ball everywhere. It was so fun to just, and that's where it's been in the ball everywhere. It was so cool. I love to try to pretend that, like, architecture and strategy means the most to me, but sometimes just like hitting balls off really, really, really nice grass is incredibly fun. It feels special. You're a pure four. I am a pure four. I love it. I kissed the ground at one point, and it was very clean.

I did not get any diseases in that graph. I thought that the golf course was in the best shape of any course I've ever seen in my life and probably ever will see in my life. I thought the accommodations were probably the nicest, not probably definitely the nicest that we saw. They gave us like incredibly nice places to stay. It was unfortunate almost that we stayed up so late drinking that we couldn't spend more time in the bedrooms because they were great. I thought all the, like they set us up with like falconry, that was phenomenal. I thought the food that we had was by far the best dinner that we had. All of that said, like, you would have a hard time convincing me, I don't want to be sticking the mud guy. You'd have a hard time convincing me to go to't want to be sticking the mud guy, but you'd have a hard time convincing me to go to Ireland

and not playing Link's Golf all the time. I think it was an awesome one-off experience, but to all of those things, I would rather play Carn where the turf was non-existent in some spots. And I just, I don't know, I'm curious what you guys think, but I don't want to be, descent is good to discuss. Well, I felt like that was like the first class party

on the Titanic. Yeah, yeah. Like, I felt like Leo, and I got invited, and I was like, we can go smoke Brandon, or drink Brandon and smoke cigars, and it's like, you wanna go to a real party? You wanna go to a Reedy's in Calarney? It was like, yeah, that's a real party. That is

serious. I thought it was interesting where JP Miannis, Ireland's richest man, owns place. His name is not found anywhere. Yeah. That was a great observation. Contra, to your point, Dej, I think if the golf course was something like I'd seen somewhere else, I would 1 million percent agree. And I would, I would seek out and say, don't go out of your way to play an inland course. You're there to play a link, golf. I thought this was a unique experience, a different experience to anything else I've

ever had. And worthwhile of heading inland. That, that kind of question you're asking of should I play a link, golf? Should I really stop playing links to go play an inland one? It was nice to get away from the sea for a day. Yeah, it would be effective of that should I play Link's call? Should I really stop playing links to go play on the one? It was nice to get away from the sea. Yeah, it would be perspective of that. I think it's important too.

It would have been better midway through the trip. It was kind of early in the trip. We didn't need a break from the wind and, you know, playing the links like beats you up a little bit. And if you're looking for, if you want to get a little posh in the middle of your trip, like, that is the place. Yeah, for sure. Sheesh.

Well, yeah, everything was just so tasteful. Yeah, it was. Especially they put the no-lang up logo on top on the on like the foam of like the least tasteful. Finally, that's what we're Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I know. You know the way to our hearts. Somebody rolled out the wet red carpet. No, it was it was tremendous experience and God, we hit it. We hit it hard early because the next course up was Bally Bunyan, which is it Maybe the best course in the world

The Led Zeppelin of our trip. Yeah, so that sandwich of Lehinch a dare and Bally Bunyan was it was it was it was a link sandwich if you will or I don't know if that's right. I like toast. It would be a Kind of a Parkland sandwich a parkland sandwich. A parkland sandwich. Yeah. Bally Bunyan is by all accounts, kind of looking through the dope conference guide. It's one of the few courses that gets two tens, 10 rating, but almost perfect rating, which basically means if you missed any one single shot from this course,

like you would be missing out on a true experience. 1925 Fred Smith, golf course, and Tom Simpson and Molly Gourlet revised it in 1936. Tom Watson visited in 1982 and that visit is really what put ballot bunion on the map. They have a statue there for him. Basically he came back and raved about it and said it was one of his favorite golf courses

in the world. Fred Smith, the FedEx guy. I think so. I think it's for FedEx. I think it's for FedEx. Point update in the part. I brought you by Fred Smith. Valley Bunyan, it's a golf course that, gosh.

You play it. I played Valley Bunyan for the first time after playing Bandin. Because I played it in that order, I'm like, oh yeah, they modeled it after Bandin. Really, it's like you see it. It's like, all right, this place is the inspiration for Bandin. It just smells like it.

It breathes like it. Some of the golf holes are so incredibly similar. Like the seventh hole at Balli Bunny and just runs right along the coast. It looks exactly like the fourth hole, pretty much at Pacific Doons, little less of an angle, but it's just some incredibly special golf holes. It zigs in and out, going to the sea, comes back and then back to the sea, multiple different times, exactly like they do at Bannon dunes. And it's got

wonderful quirk. There's back-to-back par-fives where you're teeing off over the previous green, which is a little nerve-wracking at times, but man, it's just, it's a complete golf course. And we got, this is the day that Storm Hanna started to hit the West Coast of Ireland and we got conditions. This was the day of conditions. Yeah, it was really tough. Winds rolled in a little bit later than we were anticipating.

I think we were expecting to be a blown over on our first 18 there. And it kind of ramped up on the back nine, but not to the point where. Well, to start the day, we went out to go drone it. Nope. Yeah, on the seventh hole, it was blown. Like the flag is, I got a picture of the flag going sideways. It was crazy. And that was of all the course we played, probably not the one to have brutally tough wins.

No. It was like, volleyball in his maybe the biggest big boy golf course that I've ever played. Like it just, I mean, Neil and I were kind of talking throughout the whole thing, just like trying to assign bands to each course, and maybe we run through those later, but we got to volleyball in, I think, Neil's take was spot on.

It's like it's Led Zeppelin where it's like, man, I really want to get into it, but I can't listen to it every day. It's too heavy. It's overwhelming. I need a break. So, which goes back to like a dare man or like, if you're getting that kind of weather, the whole trip, it would be really nice to go inland for a day and be like, all right, cool. Like, I still know how to play golf. I'm trying to think of almost like the American kind of equivalent. I don't know, I've never played Kiowa, but Kiowa strikes me as... That's a good take. Yeah, pretty good take.

It strikes me as a place where you just like get beat up, right? And I don't like the stadium course. The stadium course is like that too. Yeah, it's a second shot course. It is but and I'm not necessarily making a comparison But what I'm saying is like when you play a really really really hard golf course in the US most times I'm like all right, dude. I'm good. I'm like I don't really want to do that again like that was like It's not like fun getting beat up. I actually had like fun getting beat up at belly button Which was if that makes any sense like it's totally different.

So it's so good conditions though it was yeah because I played it when it's down and it is not that that challenging. Yeah it's just a yeah that was this was like a four or five club win day. Definitely. Later on it was like a eight club win day when we went out to the catch up. I thought the first six holes or five holes were kind of

whatever. Great. Brandy, there's a whole great. Brandy, there's a crazy good cemetery. That was probably one of the better cemeteries of the trip. Very much in play. Yeah, for sure. Randy was driving it so good he aimed at the cemetery

and decided to snap it all. You know Mike, our tour driver, his favorite joke, whenever we go past the cemetery, you know how many people are buried in that cemetery? I'd say no Mike, how many? All of them. So, two hours to Cologne. A-ha!

People are dying to get into that cemetery. But, and then it really turns on at like six. I thought, six, you kind of make that turn out to the ocean, six, seven, eight. Nine again, great hole number nine. It was no nine on the hinge, but it was a really good hole. Yeah, it might be more, it might be more, it might be more, it might be more,

more scrillex. Because on the seven just, whoa, it just drops. Buh, buh, buh, buh. But it's just got everything. It's like beautiful. It's like postcard beautiful. And it's also incredibly fun and playable.

And I really wish we could have seen it last year when it was totally baked out. Some of the pictures from last year looked absolutely insane. But it gets a ton of play. It is like one of the biggest stops on the tour that anyone that goes and plays golf in Ireland does. And if you go to Ireland and don't play it, you are a million percent missing out. I mean, it's just you can't, it's not, we'll talk more about Dune Beggar when we'll

belly button you because you're just like, oh yeah, that's like incredible. That's the greatest ever. Yeah. What about the cash in course? The cash in course. So they do have a second course there. It was built in the 80s when they, by Robert Trent Jones in 1983. They had this Doonlands, it was kind of on the north of there,

just on the other side of the course. And on the south, and they Robert Trent Jones built this course and it's okay, it's fun. We went out and played like Scotch ForSums. The Greens are just probably a bit too small and we also played it. We literally went out because it was a- There are two players in one.

Up for a 60-mount hour. It was the windiest round of golf in Europe. No reason we would have done it other than we kind of wanted to see what it's like to play in that much. So we took cards out on that one. The windshield on one of the cards in the group ahead of us blew out. Well, that's what we were saying.

I forget who was, were you riding with me or was Randy riding with me? I was somewhat, I was with Coinage. I think you were riding with me and it was like, sitting on his lap. It's so, so much. It's so much. We got to the top of one of the hills, where like, would you really get out by the,

up by the water and we're like, dude, like, I've never had to say this before, but like, we have to go in because we might get hurt by this wind, like, this wind shield windshield is about to like blow out into our face The like we're standing up on like you can just feel the wind coming. It was nuts It was like hurricane force winds and we're out there kidding hit it golf shots hitting yeah, try to hit like hooded wedges 190 I hit the best shot I had a trip was a three wood from 170 yards that didn't reach the greed. Yeah, and we get up to that

one of that par five green and you know we're playing you know alternate shot and there are Scotch four sums and skins and Tron goes to put his ball and his ball just starts rolling off the green And he kind of mickles it. Yes Trying to scoop it. It's said of embracing the rub of the grid, he tried to scoop it. It was so dumb. It was so much fun. I don't even know what to do. I think the dunes on that nine were actually bigger.

They're doing it. Right? They're pretty majestic. I think I had fun on that course. It's great if you go on through our expectations. And I think if they build something like the preserve, it bands and it's not a great compliment because it's called. That's what I'm saying. It's not a great compliment

because it's just like inferior to the old course. Like, the preserve at band-in is an alternative and a fun thing to go do. And it's a little bit more rustic in the way that they condition it. And there's just all sorts of crazy undulations all over the place and in the fairway. So there's like the shot values on some of the shots,

or great, you're probably gonna lose like six balls too, but like just go in with that knowledge, play all shot or something into some blast. Yeah, it's a good emergency nine. Yeah, totally. All right, onto Waterville. The original nine holes at Waterville date back to 1889. Eddie Hackett redid the course entirely in 1973,

and the Tron's Boy, The Faws, came in and revised the golf course. Randy, why don't you take us to Waterville? Yeah, I loved Waterville. It spoke to me. It was much more tranquil weather after a Bally Bunyan, which which helped I think. DJ we played together there and the word that kept running came out of our mouth so it was just a lot of elegant holes. Just a lot of elegant par fours, elegant par five. The front nine is good. I know Tron you thought it was maybe a little weak but I think that's probably only because the back nine is really strong. For me the some of the highlights the 12th is called the Mass Hole and it's this you know 200 yard

depending on what tease you know this three, over just a gigantic valley. And we got to play with Tom Coyne, which was cool. And he was kind of giving us some history. But it's called the Mass Hall because the Catholics in the area used to have to go down there to worship on Sundays because they weren't allowed to do it out in the open. So there's this deep valley where they could all get together and worship. Because the method is like you're persecuting. No, that's better than getting it at that.

You're a crombo guy. But when Hacker was building the course, I guess the workers, he wanted to build the green like down in the valley. The workers like, no, we're not touching that ground. It's sacred. And so, you know, as Tom Coyne said it, like, oh, Eddie was like, okay, cool. Like, let's just put the green up here then and we'll just hit over it. What a time to be a worker.

Yeah. Now, do you work it? Yeah. But I thought that was cool. Just for the history and the uniqueness, I thought that was one of the highlights of the trip, that whole strongholds, 14, 15, were really fun golf holds. And then I thought that the finishing three holes

were exceptional. 16 is called Liam's Ace, Liam Higgins, and Old Club Pro. Apparently Ace the whole, and it's like this 360-yard par four. I've heard it's set. For the life of me? Well, and so I guess he's prone to tall tails, but it's like for the life of me, I don't know how anybody could ace that. I think I had like drivers. Even downwind. Even it was downwind. It doesn't shape for any type of thing. Yeah. And then 17s is part three where we went back.

We were playing a T setup, but we went back and, or we went up and told strong armedists. They did play the back T's. Yeah, we played the back T's, which were at the highest point on the property. And from there, you just have this total 360-degree panoramic view of the property, the ocean. You feel like you're in the Caribbean a little bit. Yeah, like Hawaii almost.

Yeah, it's like the mountains and palm trees. I thought that was probably the coolest spot I stood in on the trip, maybe. So, which to show how bad this storm was that hit, there was sand from the beaches below that had blown up into the 16th fairway, and I'd coated the 16th fairway. It was like 80 mile an hour winds tonight before, no exaggeration. And then 18 was just this nice,

par five finisher right along the beach. So I'll turn it to you guys. I loved Waterville. The only thing that was unfortunate, they were redoing the clubhouse. And so everybody talked about it. It's a phenomenal place to sit and have a drink after the round.

So we didn't get to take advantage of the views in the clubhouse, but for the course itself, I loved it. Do they still have the transatlantic cable in there? I know there's all under renovation, but the course was basically originally built for people that were working on the transatlantic cable, which honestly, if I'm in the nest, I didn't know that was a thing until I visited there,

but they literally laid a cable in between Ireland and the USed of brothers. In the 19th, the hundreds underwater cables. How do they do that? In the 1800s, you know, Google's laying 10 of them just this year. I knew that. I didn't know that. How do you do the in the 1800s? You know Google's laying ten of them just this year I knew I didn't know that How do you do that the 1800 appropriate no free ads?

Listen listen, I have no affiliation with those guys anymore, but it's gross You should call your congressman about some of that stuff Anyways, it's in the corner the Southwest corner of Ireland And it's like not the closest point to the US probably but that's like where they laid the cable Which I thought it was nuts. I like to call it two things about Waterville one. I think it's top three, I think there's three logos that stand out. The goat at LeHinch, which is tough to beat.

Dukes. The frog. The toad. The nutterjack toad. And then the hare at Waterville. And I think the hare sums up Waterville. It's really classy. Yeah. It's a gentleman's club. That's how I felt. And the logo, I got a putter cover. I was one of the only pieces of merch that I

got on the trip. For Keisha. For Keisha, my putter. And I'm thrilled with it. And two, Tron has reestablished his nickname as Gutenberg. Because we had a, it's a great match play course and we had a match with 22 presses. He just kept pressing. He presses everything. DJ, we played in the group I had with Koyna. I was like, I don't think our experience could have been any different. No, I think we played for maybe five, five-year-old.

You maybe not. We canceled our match. We had a match right. And I was like, DJ, I don't even want to play you. Like, I'm just about Kind of just in my own world out here. Well, well, this used to rather did not do that Underrated part too that was the drive out there along the ring of carrying like that's a total scenery change and it that That route is worth driving even if you're not going down to play golf wild Atlantic way

That's exactly right. Next up, again, we had built in a day to not play golf on this trip. You guys were going to go to a bike ride for some reason, which I still didn't understand. Ride ding-o, baby. The storm had kind of changed those plans. It moved the bike ride back a day, which we no longer made that possible for our 10-ray.

So we decided to add around a golf. Cointin' I, we're going to try to make it to, I'm going to mess it up. count Shrebel, I believe, is how maybe it's pronounced. I think that's correct. Close enough. Sure, an Irish person doesn't know this is cringing. But we added dukes, a, just kind of,

Neil, much it takes to dukes. I don't, yeah. I actually think we played dukes for Four Waterville from Novastakein. I think it was a day after. You're correct. Right? Didn't we? Yeah, which is no big deal because they're in the same area.

It's not the record show. Yeah, but just I regret the error. No, that's okay, that's okay. But that's where I actually got the Caribbean vibes because there's even more, there's these mountains across the Bayes. But the funny thing about Duke's was it was the only course where there really weren't dunes. And so then I found that place to be a real change of pace because the wind was much more of a factor. Some of these other places you can almost get the ball below, some of these dunes, they're

hundreds of feet high, and kind of play below the wind. This place was totally exposed. Yeah, it felt like we'll talk about County Slaga later, but kind of in that same way it just felt very almost like Scottish. You know, whereas a lot of the other Irish courses you're playing, like you said, you're playing in and out of the dunes and the dunes kind of shape each hole. Whereas when you go to Scotland, it's kind of like here's the big open field that we're playing and Duke's was like a mix of both, It was kind of a gradually start up top on one and then you almost work your way down this gradual hill to the water.

And then nine and ten or like par five was I think is ten. It's awesome. I think eight through 13 or 14 there were unbelievable. The meat of the round was really, really good. And I like the vibe at Duke's. It was understated. It's kind of, they don't probably don't get as much of the fanfares.

You hear it with Bally Bunyan and stuff, but it felt like a real local club. Yes, exactly. So in the bar, it just was really, really laid back. And it felt like you were playing a place that normal Irish people play a lot. And you don't get that feeling of belly button or even the hinge, just because there's so much

visitor play without like, I felt like that was a course I could play every day, one, and like this is what quote unquote normal Irish looping golf is like. And in contrast to playing belly button the day before, it was like, this is the course I could play every day. Whereas the other one felt like, man,

I'm gonna need to go somewhere else, probably after two or three rounds here at Balli Bunyan. It was some of the best scenery. Like the mountains in the distance across the world. I think Hawaiian vibes, big time Hawaiian. I was kind of like getting off the bus, because you said it was supposed to be kind of like an off day. We hadn't really scheduled anything.

And so I was gonna get, like I was gonna skip and get some work done and get footage dumped and all that stuff. And you guys kind of were scouting out the golf course, walking around a little bit and like, hey, yeah, like respectfully, like knowing what we know about you, like I think you really should play this. This seems like it might be the mode, like the golf course is absolutely designed for you

just from a vibe perspective. So I'm very eternally grateful to you guys for pushing me to play because it was all it's funny. We saw we saw the hairs everywhere there and we saw some toads at Waterville. We didn't see any any of the toads at dukes kind of flip flopped on the logo there. Apparently our guy was telling us that there's like a bog on 16 there. If you really want to see some nutterjack toads, that's where they are.

You can go check it out. I promise they're there. You didn't see any. Pete land. I thought the second hole was really cool, short part four. And then I thought number 12 was like top five hole. We played the whole thing by the dude. Oh my god, that was so good.

Definitely no nine at the hinge, but it was really cool. It was a great hole. I decided to play that round without a driver, without any woods to see like, hey, what happens if I take the big right mix? That's five-close. That's a five-club right there. We're actually going to throw in an epic flash. Yeah, time for an ad read. No, but I hit the ball too high for probably the wins of Ireland.

No, no, no. But I thought that every week, listen for sure. But that had to give me a real focus on that round. Because I was like all right I have to hit certain shots which I think because But that had to give me a real focus on that round. Because I was like, all right, I have to hit certain shots, which I think because he's questioned on that long, I would encourage people to mix up their bag a little bit if they're going on a trip and playing six or seven rounds

of golf. Like I would do that again in the heartbeat, even though I didn't play, I could probably would have played better if I had the full bag. It's, it's how to drive. And what you did, you beat the shit out of me as well. I did, yeah. So, yeah, do that.

Yeah, I'll give you the last word. Big guy, did you blow over at all in the five club when we had on there? Yeah, I was, that was a tough, I was on the struggle bus at Duke's. You're the most aerodynamic for that kind of kind of kind of ditty. Yeah, the wing got me. It's one of those

things where it's like I was playing so poorly. It was challenging to appreciate the course. So that's, that was me, bro. And I would say Neil respectfully, like, don't take your drivers out of the bags. I think that's kind of a dumb idea. It helps you more. It didn't help you around. It helps. Well, what? What help you around. It helps you. Well, what did they do? They did it.

You don't think mixing it up a little bit. Like you were repping the dog bag in Scotland. It's the same. Yeah, well, I certainly courses, but I don't think it's the lifestyle course. Or the setting was probably a poor choice, but I still, I stand by the principle of it. Sure.

Hey, you don't have to justify it. So we'll take this offline. Last talk. Can we talk about 18? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

I can't let someone go. The dog bag though, you still have up here full. Like we had a drought. Yeah, you just like take out. You just went with the dog bag is. So six clubs. But you still have like a driver, hybrid, five. If you want to hire, nine iron, like to just

mine out all your woods is like really limiting for. I'm not sure what the upside is with that. But I was trying to see if I could hit like punch shots with my three iron. And guess what? I couldn't. You learned. And I learned. Well, this way, it's learning happens on the edge of a cuff. It sounds miserable and I would encourage nobody to do that.

Well, I still be DJ. Yeah. Listen, you don't have to explain it. Forget it. No, I still be DJ. Yeah. Listen, you live your truth. You don't have to explain it. Forget it. You know what? No, you don't have to explain anything to Randy. I love seeing the experiment a little bit.

Killing a little while out there. So 18 there was like a walled fortress around the green. It was this 18 was wild. Burm around the green and you had this narrow opening. That was a really cool hole. Yeah, the dunes, that's really well said. Like the dunes that they did have, they used like expertly. It was so cool.

Frang really nicely by that house too in the background. Yeah, that's a double chimney. Going back to the very first course we talked about though, like with Dune Beg not having a ton of soul, this place had soul. Like this is the place that like you go for that Irish experience. And that was great, Great bar in the club. And it is hard to, I think, if you listen to a lot of these podcasts or watch a lot of our videos, I think us having no expectations going into a place is probably helps your golf

course. It's like when we know everything about it going in, it can only disappoint almost, which is depressing reality. But when we go to Duke's, it's like nobody knew anything about it rolling in and we all walked away aside from Randy we all walked away just kind of raven about it all right that is it for part one thank you for tuning in stay tuned Tuesday night and to Wednesday morning part two and the rest of our trip will be released then cheers

at least then. Cheers. Let's give it a right club. Be the right club today. That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? The most.