No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 274: Carolinas Recap (Pinehurst, Kiawah, Myrtle Beach, & More)

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Tourist Sauce, Season 5 is coming! With our new season set to air on Tuesday, January 28, we present the accompanying podcast, detailing our road trip through North and South Carolina from late last year. We take you through the format of the new season, as well as detailed debriefs from Secession, Kiawah, True Blue/Caledonia, the Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Scene, and the Wilmington Municipal Golf Course. We wrap things up with Pinehurst No. 3, Pinehurst No. 4, Mid Pines/Pine Needles/Southern Pines, Pinehurst No. 2, and finally Tobacco Road. Special thanks to the presenting sponsor of Season 5, Original Penguin.  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 Laying Up podcast. We have the full freight all five of us here Just everyone go ahead all at the same time just say introduce yourselves all at once Sully here across the table new podcast studio the guy that put it together, Mr. Neil Schuster. Thanks for having me.

Trinaldo, fresh off of vacation. Welcome back. Oh, I feel awful. You're supposed to be a rejuvenated after vacation. Alex got altitude sick. I got the flu now. Oh, God. The studio's too tight.

Yeah, why are you down the blue? I don't think it's... Big guy? Overdose environment. See, sweet. Out there and tell you right. Mr. Randy? Hello, Sully.

I am Randy. And Mr. Puy. Hey, how are you? I'm wonderful. All right, this podcast episode is going to be a bit of our preview for Taurusaw Season 5, which is hitting the airwaves one week from the launch of this podcast. It will be first episode, it will be Tuesday, January 28th, I believe. Allegedly. Allegedly, Season 5 is presented by Original Penguin, a new partner of ours.

You will see us decked out in Original Penguin clothing during the season, which was in the Carolina's division between South and North Carolina. But first, before we get going, let's give a shout out to Original Penguin. I'm wearing it right now. This is completely unintentional. I just find myself wearing it on a nearly daily basis. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I've candidly didn't know a ton about it

before we started talking about doing a deal. The merch started a deal with Original Penguin. And yeah, I've been wearing it like since we got back. I love it. Great fail. Great, different variants of styles. Tell the folks the family history. Oh my grandmother was a seamstress at original penguin.

The little falls minister said how about that? Gazing wear? Out of the months. Yeah, yeah. Making underwear for the GIs. Make it underwear for the GIs. So you're welcome. That's it.

I always eat all we you speaking German right now. They've had for that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so cool history, but yeah, cool clothes. I've, you know, it's been a thrilling, fulfilling partnership. Great party boy shirts. It's a wide range of shirts. A lot of patterns.

You can go shuttle and you can go. That's gonna say the fact that you can pull out something for the merch's our party boy look and the conservative Randy You know they have plenty of blues for solid Finding a blues team different blues Tron is able to flex both ways You know, he's got a pattern pattern pants a lot of subtle stuff. It goes both ways true actual quote from my fiance The first time I put one of the shirts on shit the quote was, I can't believe that you look like you actually have style. That's actually a real thing that happened.

So, congratulations. I've been dealing with that ever since. Maybe that's why I find myself wearing it so often. But awesome partner to work with, you're going to be hearing a lot more from them over the coming months. We're really excited about this season. This was a quick little road trip.

We did, we actually broke it up into two parts which helped a lot, I think, for us personally. You will see a wide range of golf courses. one private one, some high dollar public ones, some medium dollar public ones, and some low dollar public ones, and some lowest of low dollar public ones that involve just the putting portion of the game of golf, which may be our favorite episode of all of them. Yeah, fingers crossed, how the premise for this season, we're not gonna spoil any of the action that happened on it, but each person,

each of the five of us were given $101 bills to bet with, and that has to last you the entire season. And there's some stakes involved with it, which will be detailed in the series. But basically, first one out, has to do something pretty embarrassing. The winner of it all gets the money, has to do something pretty cool with the money. At least one third of the money has to do something pretty embarrassing. The winner of it all gets the money, has to do something pretty cool with the money.

At least one third of the money has to be spent in some public way, which I believe is a suggestion made with the FedExCup money. Five million needs to be spent. It's kind of a be the change you wish to see in the world in the situation. So the course lineup goes from secession to Kiowa, and then we have a Caledonia True Blue episode.

There's both going to be the same episode. Then we are going to be having the Pup Pet episode and then the Wilmington Municipal course. Then we made our way to Pinehurst. We played number three at Pinehurst, number four at Pinehurst. We divided and conquered between midpines, pine needles and southern pines. Then we came to Pinehurst II and finished at Tobacco Road. So that is season five. Why don't we go straight to the first golf course?

We're gonna kick us off, is the Stratboy at the Private Golf Course Session? Listen, I had the assistant that we visit the practical course. Well, there was some outreach to a newsletter that I put out with an invite to Session as these guys like to joke. I had an issue calling it succession.

You're deep with the Roy Fowell. I had an issue calling it succession. You're deep with the Roy family for a while. I had an issue or still had it. Well now it's a bit. Now it's a bit. I couldn't tell if it was a bit or not. Well at first it probably wasn't. You're playing it off as a bit. Now it is.

But no, a huge shout out to Jan Malanowski and his two sons Richard and Ted for hosting us at Sesson. It's in... You're for... I always... It's one of those words I say it right and then I forget how to say it right and I always say it wrong. My technically would be Port Royal. Port Royal? It's in Port Royal. Well it's actually on... so it's in the low country and Beaufort right? I guess next to Paris Island where the Marine Corps does basic training.

Shout out to Sean O. Yeah, thank you. And Kat. Yeah, and Kat for sure. But it was founded in 1985, so it's not the oldest club that we played. It's relatively new. You know, national membership, I think there's only so many local members. Was it 50 or 100?

I can't remember. I think they said 50, 50 local members. Was it 50 or 100? I can't remember. I think they said 50 50 and they live within 50 miles within 50 miles. Yeah. Which is an interesting vibe. It was originally designed by Pete Die, but after a disagreement with the founding members, it was finished by Bruce Devlin. Did you guys get any more insight into the disagreement with Pete Die? It was all over a tree. Was it? Yeah, that's what Jan was saying. It was all over a tree that basically the owner wanted to keep his tree and I was like, no, we're not keeping that tree. He walked away.

So he basically said, all right, cool. And so Devlin was one of the associates, Devlin. Really good player in his own room. Oh, great player in his own room. It's an Australian, right? So that was my big takeaway from it. It felt like all the brilliance of a Pete Diarrouting without any of the Kiki and the Teeth surgical technician,

you know, like very flat. All the bunkers stacked sod bunkers. I'd love to go back there and play like in the early fall when it's just super firm and crispy. Well, I've played it in June and that's why I recommend that we go we go back and it was the greens were turned up to you know twenty five and they were because they were close down the they closed down the course uh... from basically like july through august

like you know national membership no one's really coming down uh... in the summer so uh... there's a cigarette burn them out and then it's closed and then we kind of you know fix it back up in the in the fall so i they're just like, yeah, we're just gonna burn them out and then it's closed and then we kind of fix it back up in the fall. So I thought that was a cool vibe. Which I don't think I really fully understood what national membership meant until we went here. Yeah. It's like, no, no, this is just a place for people to come vacation. Yeah, it's like you stay on site. You ultimately like second or third club for people. Yes. Yeah. Which again, isn't like the most relatable thing to anyone here?

I don't think, but it resonated. It was cool It was a really cool vibe in and I think it comes across pretty well in the video of like what what it represents Sure And there is like a civil weird like I got it not weird, but like a cool homage to the Civil War Not so much in the the South will rise again, but it's kind of like two sides Which is kind of what two sides, which is kind of what I was expecting to have. Same, but I went down in June, I said the same thing like, man, you know, it's got like an altered Confederate flag, American flag logo, you're like, whoa, yeah, but then you

talk to them. And actually from the website, a quote that I think sums it up is, the club takes its name from the original articles of secession for South Carolina to withdraw from the union that were drafted in Beaufort in 1860 shortly before the first hostilities and what became the Civil War. It is a doff of the cap to the area's landmark place in the national story, an acknowledgement of the events in all parties, not an invitation to argument, which I think sums it up pretty well because it is an uncomfortable topic,

and from the outside looking in, it feels like it could be an invitation to argument or a lightning rod. So actually the four of us, So Sally, DJ, Tron, and I went, Randy was competing in a triathlon that day? That's correct. Did you win? Did not win.

No split, no split. You know what I did win though The hearts and minds of the people who I think that's exactly right, but I thought it was interesting we were Dej asked for a scorecard and we said a picture through and they're all named after civil war battles and Randy was like is that like? Is that serious? You know, it was like it from the outside looking in, it feels like, whoa, like this is very uncomfortable in a way, but then honestly, from being there on site and kind of learning like what the history is,

you kind of think, yeah, this is what that city or town is known for, and this is how we're going to remember that situation. South Carolina, the first state to lead, but that's exactly right. That can't be lost, it can't be. But I would say this is one of the first state to lead. That's exactly right. I can't be lost. No, I can't. But I would say this is one of the most interesting

side to just with the membership, like most of the guys are from New York, Boston, Chicago. Yeah, we were joking. It's kind of carpet back. Carpet back or central. Yeah, exactly. So that was kind of a weird or cool depending on your perspective, kind of disconnected

on all this succession stuff. Yeah, but I'd say, you know, talking about the core specifically, one of the more interesting ones, looking at the drone footage, I mean, it just really stands out as a very unique piece of land played through the marsh area.

The tide comes up and down. Like we were lucky, we got low tide. And low wind. I didn't realize how much it, like, it comes up eight, eight, 10 feet. You can go find your ball in it and play it out of it. And it's a couple of few hours later, we would have go find your ball and play it out of it and it's a couple of few hours later we will be in addition to the fish and balls out of the water. So we all I mean I think we all played pretty well and found it to be a fun kind of carefree,

relaxing, wide-and-a-goals. But a great match play course I think was the consensus where you know hey the course isn't beatness up but you know there's a lot of birdies to be had from your competition So you better be playing good golf. Well, let's go around. So favorite hole I'd 16 I think was my favorite the par five the kind of dog legs to the right kind of going out towards that point The finish is just it's memorable Like the stretch you just outlined there is the ones that came to my mind immediately. I love I love 14 Yeah, that dog like left

Kind of like that might have been where the tree disagreement was. I think like up by the green on 14 which normally I would think like the less trees the better but I'm kind of down with whoever was fighting to keep that one because it's one of the more unique holes that I think we played on the trip. I know I promised no spoilers but DJ tied himself to that tree. That episode wouldn't let him tear it down. That's right. No, so I think for us, this is only the second time I think we've done a private golf course on Taurus sauce, and I think... Well, I mean, Australia was technically...

Yeah, technically. ...the private one. Yeah, well, you can... If you're a visual... International visitors can call up to roll, all those courses in play. Yeah, but if you're a... If you're a locally, you can't go to one place. Local, listen, for sure.

How it fits into the season, I think, was a question we were all asking. I think it just kind of netted out to like, this is a cool vibe, a cool place that we're gonna tell the story of. No, not everyone has access to it, but it was super welcoming to us. Like, if you're a guest there, they were super cool

and it's gonna make for a good video. So I don't think it's like, hey, call up. Call up. Call up succession and get a tea time. I know that's not, that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the season, but it was a good kickoff to like our season and the bets.

And I think it has a cool story. Yeah, I think one of the things that, I know we've talked about this a lot with Taurusos is not to get like meta or selfreflective here, but I don't think it's like, we're not a travel agency. Right. I don't think it's like, okay, we're going to go do all the work so you can go play on your trip.

I picture it much more just like, hey, here's, let's go show off different places in golf and you take from that what you will. But yeah, I think if you're coming at us and like, why would you show this? It's private, I can't go play there. I'm like, I don't really care. That's not totally our problem. Like, you know, I see where you're coming from. And, but I think we balance the scales.

And potentially ask for a show for people. Like, man, I would love a chance to play there one day. And I think when you look at the itinerary of the trip, that was probably one of the few like low country vibes that we played in. Kio was ocean, you know, even Caledonia, True Blue, those are more inland, it feels like. Yeah, it doesn't look like anything else we played.

It's kind of support what you were saying there too, is like if you can't call up and go play it, like hey, here's your chance to actually see it. Like we got the video, we got the footage of what it actually looks like. Yeah, and I hope that doesn't come off the wrong way. Like I don't wanna say, you know, we're just out here taking advantage of all the invites,

but I'm just like what you're saying. Like I don't think it's not necessarily something that, you know, we're just, we could have gone and played it and not filmed it also. You know. Yeah, that's true. Sorry, I've kind of dug us down, but yeah. That's all right.

I would like to point out two other things. One, the vibe. Whenever there's a wrap around 360 porch, I think that's usually a good indication of, you know, there's some you're in the right spot. Yeah, there's some relaxing to be had. And the locker room had a big time high school football, like locker room vibes, which for a private club is kind of a good, you know, it's pretty cool vibe. It's like you stay on site it's from talking to the the folks there felt like they invite a lot of you know almost clubs over from the UK to do like Ryder Cup style matches they have like a North South member the Blue Grey Tournament. We had two Scottish caddies. Yeah. I got a quick

question though I'm thinking like my high school locker room was exceptionally shitty and smelly. Like, is that? No, it's like a big square room. He was putting on high-bite nails. It's meowing to the mayor's cave. No, no. No.

No, but like with wood, like very simple locker room with no bays, it was just like one big open room with like a few chairs in it. There was one big room full of bitches. Yeah, no. Neil was quite taken by, they had a foam roller that vibrated. They vibrated with one roll. Yeah, you were on the hook back when you were talking to the client.

Yeah, that's just not true. Like, the last thing I'll say about the course is, for me, it's not like an ultimate bucket list check off, one time. It's a course that I would want to play eight times because I think you would really learn the strategy of the whole. It's not so amazing one time, just go experience it once because once I don't think you get the full experience because how wide the fairways play and how many different ways you could play those holes.

I feel like it's the place I'd want to go for in five times, which is pretty different than the next course on our list. I think if we're ready to move on. Well, yeah, definitely. I was just going to say for a maybe a member podcast in the future, we also talked about which characters of succession we were all related to. So we can save that. That's just a little teaser for maybe something in the future. I was also like Deva Shoutout to B for just in general, like it's such a cool town.

And kind of what Charleston, I mean Charleston's always been a much bigger city, but what Charleston, kind of the atmosphere Charleston used to have before it's absolutely blown up for the last 20 years. Had almost a little bit of the southern pines vibe to it, which is, you know, you have all these military people who have never been there before and they go there for training and kind of look around and are like, man, why don't I live here? This is great. And so you get a lot of people who retire there

or whatever, which I think we saw later in the trip as well. All right, a quick break here. We got to talk about something we have not talked about yet. You heard us talk last year about the engineers at Calaway, how they started using artificial intelligence to design the epic, the face in the epic flash driver last year. That continued into the new year with the new Maverick driver.

We're not gonna talk about that now. We actually had a down at PGA so I had to get our driver heads. Like actually today, I'm really excited about that. But those psychopaths in the R&D department have gotten so advanced with their use of AI that they're using it to design this year's maverick irons. So I guess, technically, that makes sense to me.

I guess if you start with finding out how the technology works in the largest head, and figuring out how you downsize it into smaller clubs, I don't know if the wedges and putter and golf ball are next for AI. But in any case, Callaway used AI to design unique faces for every single iron in the set, resulting in what the number one irons in golf are known for, tremendous distance, feel, and control. Now, here's the part that really interested me. There's the Maverick irons, the shot shaping

and sleek Maverick Pro irons, and the ultra forgiving Maverick Max. I think when I heard about these clubs, I thought they were kind of more of a, just a forgiveness club, and that's all they would be that they wouldn't apply to lower handicap players But the Maverick Pro Irons have got my attention. So artificial intelligence has optimized all of them And there's something for everyone check out Maverick Irons today at Calaway Golf dot com. That's Calaway Golf dot com Let's get back to the podcast

All right on to the next course stop to the ocean course at Kiowa Island, a famous Pete and Alice die. They're both credited with the design on that. Opened in 1991, which I actually didn't know. I didn't realize it opened the same year that it hosted a Ryder cut. It also hosted the 2012 PGA and Will

host the 2021 PGA. I think the most important takeaway or thing that people should know about Kiwa is it's a really challenging commute for all of Gulf media. So I think that's like the biggest, most significant thing that's going to be a big storyline coming into 2021, which is just a year away. And our thoughts and prayers go to everyone that's commuting from downtown Charleston. I hope that everybody gets a taste of it at Wingfoot

this year just to prep a little bit and get some reps for next year. How bad's the commute from Wingfoot? I don't know. I just assume everything around Wingfoot's really expensive. So the price date, like, two hours away. I will say, we had the wrong location for the course plugged in the GPS, and it was an after 15 minutes,

and we were like, oh my God, this is far. There's not a good direct route out to the silent. It's a wild little neighborhood. Yeah you got through a gate and then it's like the 15 mile an hour like you know private development. It reminds me of sawagrass except like 800 times bigger. Yeah basically. Yeah it's a wild wild history of like, you look at this property and it's like, you don't look at it and say, like, oh yeah, there's a golf course right there. Like, it was tough to build this place.

Let me pause there. Because I think about this all the time when we go to places like this, shout out to the guys who are literally building these golf courses. Because imagine, we saw how many alligators and snakes in the four hours we were out there, it's like 30.

Imagine just going in when it's just like, nothing but complete swamp. And just be like, yeah, can you go? And high. Go build a golf hole there, could you? I felt the same way it streams on. Which is like, yeah. God, who?

Streamsong scares me more than that. This is terrifying. Yeah, so thank you to those guys. They had to build. It was pretty stress-free for us. It was Alice dies guys. They had to build. It was pretty stress-free for us. It was Alice dies idea. They had to build up like the actual holes. Because it was going to be no, almost no views of the ocean

if they had built it on the level at which the ground had already sat. So like the first step was building up a layer of whatever is underneath these fairways and greens to build it up so that people could have a view, which is what really exposes it to the wind. It's like one of the most wind swept courses you can play in the US. Also, it tips out at 8,300 yards. That's kind of a mess now. It is, but it's just fun to say. Kind of out and back routing, but the first four go out, there's a sideways hole, the fifth, and then six through 12 all go the

opposite direction, six through 13 really, and then 14 through 18 come back towards Clubhouse. So you're going to get an equal amount of holes that play downwind equal amount into the wind and they have flexibility on all of the holes to be able to move the T's back. They're never going to set it up at 8300. But like if it's going to be super downwind say on number six, they can move that T back to like 520 on a par four. But if it's into the win, they're gonna move the T way up from there.

So, in a tournament they're never gonna play it anywhere near that. And you know when I played it about 7400 plus, which it was a challenge. It was a war of attrition on the shore. It was. A lot of war stuff. First two, you know, you got the war by the shore. Yeah, civil war.

Maybe a little stolen valor. Yeah, civil war. Maybe the little stolen valor. Maybe. Might be a little bit. I would say though, having played it from all the back there, it wasn't the length that really felt the most challenging. And it's just a hard golf course from whatever to you play it from. I mean, it's very difficult.

It was a battle of, it was a mental battle, too, because it's one of those courses where the wind is just always in your ears. So you're just like, God, just leave me alone for a minute. I just want to get down in a ditch and just have some quiet time. So I struggle with the mental aspect of playing in the wind and then you add in the distance. It's pretty gnarly. Well, I think it's mostly in how the green sit, the angles at which the green sit are just make you uncomfortable.

And it's classic Pete die. Like number nine. Yeah, I keep thinking back to number seven even, and then coming down 15 or 16, the par five even, just sits at an awkward angle and it just messes with your head. And it's just more severe than like say TPC sawgrass, which I think, I mean, I've played a couple of other Pete dies,

I think, but that's sawgrass I've played the most. And that Sawgrass doesn't intimidate me really anymore, like, visually, just because I've seen it enough that I'm like, okay, there's room there, there's room there. Kiwa, like, it intimidates you. Like, there just doesn't look like there's that much room. The fairways are plenty wide, but it just doesn't feel like that when you stand up

and you can't miss, like, if you miss it, you're in the shit, like, it sucks. I think that's something kind of interesting. I think we're saying that on a podcast, I think when Pete died, passed away recently, we were talking about some of this stuff where there are so few people who get to play a Pete die golf course as they're everyday golf course.

And I think what you're saying about sawgrass is probably the closest where it's like, you know, when you get to play it a bunch of times, you kind of start to figure it out and you get less intimidated and blah, blah, blah, something like Kewa that, you know, is $500 or whatever it a bunch of times, you kind of start to figure it out and you get less intimidated and blah blah blah. Something like Kioa that, you know, is $500 or whatever to go play. Like most people are probably going to play their ones. And so it's kind of a weird, I don't know, it's a weird way to think about some of these, you know, bucket list type places is, you know, no matter what your attitude is going in, like you're probably not going to really get it, which is kind of a weird,

just a weird place to be for these kinds of courses. You're probably not gonna have a good score. You're not. You're not interested in it. I guess makes you wanna come back. Maybe? Well, I'm kinda sorta straight up. Like, I don't like you.

I just, I don't like the vibe on the island. I don't like the, I just, it feels vanilla to me and I don't like the cough course. I had a feeling that we might have experiences take. And I understand where you're coming from. You're allowed to feel that way. Yeah. I've played it twice now.

And, you know, like I respect it. I think it's a good, it's a good place to have a pro event. There's some really, there's some holes I love out there, but I just don't, it's not fun. I don't like the grass. I don't think it's, it's wrong to say like it's not fun. I think you go play it because the Ryder Cup is there, Tor Pro's play it every now and then to the PGA championship.

It's tough, it's scenic, and like you're there for the challenge. Like it markets itself as an extremely tough golf course. And it's not like Pinehurst, I think, and we're gonna get to Pinehurst obviously, markets itself more. It's like yeah, it's tough, but like you're gonna find your golf ball, you're gonna be able to play it,

you're gonna be able to put it around the greens, and it has an ease to mid-handy capers. This is a mid-handy cap it's tough, but like you're gonna find your golf ball, you're gonna be able to play it, you're gonna be able to put it around the greens, and it has an ease to mid-handy capers. This is a mid-handy caper's nightmare, like this golf course. But I think people go to play it to, say they've played Kiyowa, to experience it, to see the views, and I went there maybe 10 years ago and saw it, and I was like, damn, I wanna go play it. Like, I know it looks hard, but I do wanna go play it.

But I agree with what you said, I think this is a place you go to play one time. I don't think they count on a ton of return rates. Nobody, I don't think people go like, oh, time for the annual trip to Kioa, man, I just love playing that golf course every year. I think people do that abandoned. I don't think you do that at Kioa.

Yeah, and I, so I kinda almost had the opposite feeling trying where I thought I would not like it. And I liked it a lot more than I thought I was going to, I guess, and I think the biggest aspect of that is That me you and Randy did not play it at 7400 yards We played it at what like 63 or 64 or something like that and that was like the biggest thing Which doesn't matter because you're playing yeah like ten holes in a road downwind for sure That's that's true, but you had a lot of like that's the thing you hear when you go in the golf shop

and you hear like from the starters and the caddies, it's just like to the point where it just becomes like white noise. It's like yeah, make sure you play the right tease, play the right tease, play the right tease, but cannot stress how important that was for my and enjoyment of the golf course, because I thought like we didn't hit that many drivers, which I thought makes it a lot more fun,

almost in a kind of counterintuitive way, because you're in play a lot more, you're caring about which side of the fairway you're on, because the fairways are massive. And I think if you are playing the right tease, you take advantage of that. Because if we were playing it all the way back, we would have been swinging from our heels all day just to get to the fairway, and just to keep it in play, whereas I think moving up to 63, 64, 100 yards, whatever, all of a sudden you can see a lot more of the golf course, and you can see it in front of you and really make a choice on what you have to do, which is I would assume a lot more how the tournament golf plays out there.

So the challenge is still totally fair from up there. Totally. Yeah, I mean, it's still there. I mean, it's just like sawgrass for me. I find it harder to play sawgrass from farther up than I do from back, except for the Part Three. It's just because it takes driver out of your hand and I'm better with driver and I'm three-footer for three-hour.

I was able to embrace the challenge. We did it for video purposes. It's not like if we were on a trip, we'd be like, oh, it's time for the test from the tips. We didn't come in with the attitude of like. We didn't have the right mindset. Plus it was a match. So the first four holes I'm out of play

and I'm like, I would never, it's point of it. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you bummed eating gets played the tips? No, not at all. I think I kind of just shake out more where Tron is in that. It was, I'm glad I played it. I can say I played it, but like, honestly, I don't really remember any of the holes.

And not to say it's not seen it, because if you're right on the water, there's a nice sea breeze, but it just... it didn't grab me like other courses on this trip, did. That's a really good point about the holes do run together for me. I can remember, I remember just like 17, the par three, that's probably the hardest par three in the country. Yeah, since team's pretty gnarly. But like other than, I got some snapshots up, but the front nine is all just a blob, and I think a lot of that is because you're trying so hard.

You're trying to keep your head above the board. Yeah, you're fighting the core so much that you don't have time to like, you know, like look up and be like, oh wow, look at this, you know, look at what this fairway means. It's like each either like, man, like where's my ball? Or it's like, yo, look at the ocean, you know, it's like in between of that, it's like, you don't have a ton of space to comprehend.

I actually, to be honest, I thought it would be harder. I didn't find it that hard. I like, I made a mess of a lot of holes on my own, but I felt like it was, it, so many people come in with the attitude, like they're already defeated by the course before they even started, because they know it's gonna be hard. And I just, I didn't think it was insanely hard. I think if it was narrower off the tee,

I could see that coming to that conclusion of like this is crazy hard, but I felt like it just wasn't the most, again, it wasn't the most fun ever, it's not the most fun golf, the balls aren't feeding towards the hole, there's not like slopes to play it off of, all the slopes like kicking your ball away from the hole.

I just, I thought it was like more doable than I thought it was gonna be. I think part of that is, because the first time I played it, we had a crosswind. Yeah. If you have a crosswind, like, forget about it. You can't keep your ball in play.

Yeah, that whole thing is not a big of a weather. Yeah, we had a win from the North, like from the Northeast. So it was, it was pretty much either in, like it was other down or in. But I mean, like that, that short part four on the front is really, really good. Number three. Number three, that's an awesome hole.

Number two is the two. The parfas are great. Yeah. Some of the lines that the caddies were telling us that, you know, the pros take off the tee. I'm like, really? Really? But that was, I think, the most important takeaway for me was like, I'm more excited to watch the PGA Championship after having played it.

And that's why I think you would check people go to kill. Yeah, exactly. You don't go there playing like three times in one week and it's not like, yeah, I'm not giving it a strong endorsement, but it is what it is. And I don't think it markets itself any differently than what it is. Yeah. So I think going back to the take, I had earlier, it's a matter of it lacks soul for me if that makes sense.

It just doesn't, there's just not a whole lot of character authenticity there. Well, what like resorts do you think have that? I mean, band and, band and I would say Pinehurst does, for sure. You know, even places up in Michigan that I've been, they have, it just feels like the bag tag barrier is hard to make. Yeah, to respect it. I think it kind of goes in line with the time frame

in which it's built, right? I mean, Band-In has been built more recently and changed the way that all these other resorts do things now. And Cuba has not changed. Pinehurst has changed over the last 10, 15 years and mostly partially at least in response to like bandit and how that has worked out. And Kewa, which is built pretty close,

eight years before Bandit was built, it hasn't been refreshed, hasn't changed. The timing might, I don't know if they have a plan to do that. It's so much more residential too. Yeah, it's just totally different experience. Yeah, I don't want to compare it to bandit, but I'm just saying as far as like,

just like everything just feels like the way something nice is supposed to feel, right? There's nothing distinctive about it, there's nothing. And golf course wise, this is the time period when shit was just being built really hard. Like everywhere it was, which is being built really hard and before this new movement of like, yeah, let's not make it that hard,

people that pay a bunch of money to play and play maybe once or twice a week. So. I was going to say it reminds me of the way people play like Beth Page Black. Yeah. It's like, I don't think there needs to be many more of those types of courses built, but the fact that like a place like Beth Page or Kiwa exist, it's like, yes, that is, you're going there because it's, that's challenge and it's going to kick in the teeth. And if that's what you're looking for, you know, then good stuff. But yeah. All right, let's move it on.

Big Randy, we're going to throw it over to you for a course that resonated pretty, pretty strongly, I'd say, in Caledonia, in Myrtle Beach. So this was kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd say, from Kewa. And the specifics to get him out of the way, located in Polly's Island, which is about 45 minutes south of Myrtle Beach. It was open in 1994. It's the first solo design of Mike Strands. It is the technical name of the properties, the Caledonia Gulf and Fish Club, which I think is important to point out, just because I think it connotes a certain imagery,

at least in my mind, a certain expectation of what the property will look like. And I think at least to me, it fulfilled that image in my mind. So I think the things I wanna say about the course, spoiler, I say it on camera, but this was like one of the 10 favorite domestic courses I think I've been to. And upon reflection, I think there are a couple aspects that really stood out to me.

One, I just found the whole property to be really beautiful in the sense that you have big, live, majestic oaks, the landscaping, the flowers. I just thought it was a really pretty piece of land to walk around. I have some literature from my friend The Foss. Yeah. I mean, it was really well manicured. Yeah, I was just taken by the setting. Again, when somebody says golf and fish club,

I think in my mind that you think there'll probably be some bodies of water. You kind of think streams, ponds. And it has all of that. Maybe some brooks, some babbling brooks. Yeah. You drive through the gate, and the clubhouse is certainly not ostentatious. It's a nice clubhouse, great porch.

Wrap around porch to Neales Point. Exactly. And I, Great view of the 18th hole. Great view of the 18th hole, all of that. I thought you kind of feel away from the hustle and bustle a little bit. There are no houses on the property, there's no arbitrary out of bounds.

You're not hitting into people's backyards ever. So you're walking through this piece of property that I think is really pretty. It's relatively small, like piece of land, which I think speaks to some of the brilliance of Mike Strands and the way you routed it. It's just such a walkable course. You know, the last kind of comment I had on that is we're in South Carolina. In my mind, this course could have been somewhere

in the northern part of Michigan. It could have been somewhere in Montana or Idaho. It was just very kind of rustic and outdoorsy. And I really like that. So I think those two factors, and then you bring in the golf course, which is really interesting. The way Strance uses sight lines and bunkering

and puts contours into the green. I mean, it's a flat piece of property that's been built up in a way that, I think it's not demanding necessarily, but I think it extracts, in my mind, it kind of makes you want to paint a mental image of a shot and then try to execute that shot.

So I think it really extracts that creativity of, oh man, this is kind of what I want the ball to do. I can use this contour, get it close to the hole. And then the fun of it is, you know, seeing if you can execute that. So I thought, as far as that goes, it was much more an exercise in playing golf than just like playing golf swing and hitting targets, which was quite enjoyable. The last thing I'll say, this round was myself, Tron and Sali and Double Boogie Dave and Faithful Listener Supporter,

Double Boogie Dave. It tips out at like 6,500 yards. It's a par 70. For me, who's more of a certainly mid-handy cap, it was very enjoyable. I didn't find it daunting, though I did find it challenging. And so I guess my question to you guys is, you know, better players. Did you find that same? Oh, stop. Oh, come on. Don't say that. Did you want more of a challenge? Was it too easy? That was the only thing where it's like, well, I don't really have that perspective. So I was curious what you could say. Well, it is twice. No, I think it's definitely an extra isn't discipline.

It's not a cake, walk 6,500. You just can't bully it. There's no opportunities related to this, like, cut dog legs or pound drivers and have flip wedges in. I think it's totally interesting. Well, the only holes you can do that is like that first par five on the back. Is that 10?

Yes, 10 is a par five. Yeah, 10's long. Yeah, there's another par five on the front that you can kind of is like that first par five on the back. Is that 10? Yes, 10 is a par five. Yeah, it's 10's long. There's another par five on the front that you can kind of cut off a little bit of you to five bunkers and whatnot, but it's just, it's not easy. There's nothing easy about it. Kind of mystifying, I feel like I haven't really played it well.

I played it three times now and haven't played it well yet and I don't have a good reason why. I think it's extremely interesting. I think it's, I've not played all the strands courses. It to me though, I played True Blue, which we're gonna talk about next. I've played Caledonian, I've played Backer Roach, we're gonna get to High and Play Bull's Bay.

But this is the most tame strands of the three that I've played. I don't feel like it's as bold. I think he's very limited with what he had size property wise. I agree it's a totally enjoyable, casual stroll through the Carolinaolinas. I really enjoy it and people always ask us for recommendations in Mertle Beach and like I send them to Caledonia and Trubu.

I think that's the best places you can show up and play in Mertle Beach. So I think to that point, one of the notes I wrote down was, you know, reading like Mackenzie, right? The spirit of golf should be, it should be playable. Good course should be playable for mid to high handicaps, yet still challenging for the best players. And I thought that's what Caldonia for sure.

Really gets right in that. It's kind of a throwback to that golden age ideal. There's so many visual tricks and deceptions. Like I'm thinking about number seven. It's a part four you tee off and there's these bunkers that flow right into the lake. There's massive gators down there hanging out in the bunkers and and then it wends back to the right and the green looks like it's you know just a normal size green and then you get up there and you're like, oh my God, this green goes another 30 yards back into the right.

There's this massive tree up front in the right. It's a cool intimidating, that whole thing. And there's a bunch of variety. Like there's dog look right, it's dog look left, I think the 9th hole is par three, it's maybe 90 yards. Yeah, yeah, it tips out,

I think it like one, they can stretch it, I's maybe 90 yards. Yeah, yeah, it tips out, I think, they can stretch it, I think, to 18. When they really want to challenge you. But massive bunkers in the front, you're like, yeah, it's a little flip, sand wedge or blob wedge, but you better have your distance right, or else you're gonna be either plugged in the front bunker

or have it exceptionally tough up and down. And then you make the turn. That's the, yeah, I wanted to shout out, as you know, Tron, I know you're a big soup guy, and especially a chowder guy, they were, they were serving clam chowder there at the turn, which was just such a nice little touch. I imagine they probably don't do that in the summer, but, you know, it was kind of a chilly day when we were there, and it was just, you know, the perfect little cherry on top of the whole experience.

To me, the back nine is way stronger than the front nine. Once you turn onto the back, I don't think there's really a weak hole. Come, eight teams, a bit of a funky hole, but I wouldn't call it weak. You keep sick. One and two, the start's kinda slow, and then in the middle of the front,

just kind of okay for me, starting with nine, though, even eight with the par five, it gets really good. So it finishes, it leaves you with a really good taste. It's eight, the par five, it's with the lake, and it's a cool green, teardre green. The first time we played that, I, there's that covered bridge over on the right. Oh, God, I forgot.

I was like, dude, I got to punch it through the covered bridge. God, I got that big. I hit it straight here through the covered bridge. I got that. I get it. You're through the cover bridge. That was definitely the best shot ever. So yeah, to kind of put a bow on it, I think, Sally, like you said, if you're in the area, certainly if you're in Myrtle Beach, I think it's not only, you know, should you play it in your, if you're in the area,

I think it's a type of course. I would gladly, you know, go play it as part of a trip. I the only recommendation, I guess, I would gladly, you know, go play it as part of a trip. I the only recommendation, I guess, I would tell people is, don't just roll in and roll out of the place. You know, if it's like the first round of a 36-old day or something, I'm not sure you're going to get quite the appreciation. I mean, maybe you will, but I found it to be, take your time there.

You know, enjoy a drink on the back porch. Help maybe spend the night, go fishing. I think soak up the property, because that to me is like the biggest asset the place has is the entire property. So great porch. Yeah. Let's move on to the two party boys here for they went over to True Blue.

Yeah, so while you guys were having your delightful nature walk, I mean, in Neil, we're doing hand-to-hand combat with True Blue across the street. I think when people say, you know, why is Mike's trance so good or what, you know, I hear this name a lot, like what was his whole aesthetic? I think if you go see these two places either in the same day or in two days, like you'll see all the different muscles

that he had to flex. Because everything Randy said about Caledonia, like I almost felt like True Blue in a bad way, not in a good way, just was the complete opposite. Like it was massive, it was like vast, wide, big ass holes, huge greens, you hit it anywhere off the tee and everything was all about the second shot. And I thought it was like absolutely thrilling. I loved it. greens, you hit it anywhere off the tee and everything was all about the second shot.

And I thought it was like absolutely thrilling. I loved it. Yeah, I would say I agree with all of that. It was a big vany triumph to the basket. It's his out. I would describe it. It was, and it was also a course that I tried to bully a little bit because it makes you feel like, oh, look, you just, you know, big wide fairways.

I got to fly these bunkers and then you just start getting yourself in all kinds of trouble when you get over the ridge And like, oh no, I don't want to be here. Like I fell for it. You know what I mean? I had that in my notes and then I'm the mark First time I played it though. Another round out there. I would think I would thoroughly enjoy it Never played a place that I've been so overwhelmed by how wide it was. Yeah. Like it feel, then you think it should be super easy because you start hitting like big spinners because you like don't have a target.

Exactly. Like I'm just gonna wail on this one. Yeah. Plenty of room up there. And then like, oh, man. When you lie, it's so hard. Yeah, exactly. Which I think is so cool when you have the property

to do that. So yeah, I had that in my notes that like, I mean, we've talked a lot about Pete Dye already, but it felt very Pete Dye in that, you know, it never, it was almost the kind of place like, I'm sure there were a couple of force carries, I know like the couple of the part of the reason stuff, but it was one of those places like you could almost play it with a putter, like it was so wide and so just like hit it anywhere. We don't recommend that.

We don't recommend that, but my point being, like, there was always a way out, but he was always just tempting you just enough, and I think, no spoilers, but I was the recipient of Neil falling for this many, many times on this day, getting hit in the head, many, many times. I was on the head of the hammer with a hammer. I had to give DJ my money.

I got kids, you know? But he was, it's like, strands just shouting at you, just like, dude, don't try this. But you can. You can if you want, like, don't do it. Well, what was your... Do not do it.

What was your strands take? The... Do you want me to enlighten the folks from the last strand set? Well, we've had a few conversations about golf architects over here where we've, you know, this is completely a Metaphor or a very very figurative, but you know this only speaks for Neil. The old does not speak no No, no, no, the other takes are more you guys where Trana has said that Tom do it courses remind him of an abusive lover

Where is it a dominated you can't you know, he's you can't quit him, but he's you quit him, but he's abusing you a little bit. Whereas Corn Crunchyaw is more tantric, where it just keeps going and going and going. I said to DJ on number 10, I was like, Strand says he's a porn star. I mean, things are big and just intimidating, and it feels very statured. And then even like looking at your thoughts on true blue like

sometimes you know the porto can be a little sensual. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, seeing Caldonia I'm curious. Well I would say that's more like the late night HBO stuff you know. A little bit more like oh yeah. Yeah yeah's a art film. Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit more like, no, it's more about the storyline. And whereas, Caledonia was just like, no, man, we're gonna get to the goods here. But it is. It's big and bold and like, you know,

there's a lot of visual tricks as T-Shit said. Like, is there really not much room up there? Everything else we say is just gonna be like, through the lens of that. So we'll try. Well, TCS for the take. So I had to offer up. I think it's essential.

So I also think, so it's a former Indigo plantation. Exactly. It sits on what used to be the True Blue Indigo Plantation. So how about that? That's cool. That's wild. Open in 1998, so four years after Caledonia, it's typically cheaper than Caledonia. Like sometimes as much as like $50 cheaper, which I thought was kind of wild.

Having played both of them, I think I would play not to undercut my associate randy whatsoever, but I think it would probably be maybe a 7-3 if I was going to split 10 rounds. It would be 7-3 true blue probably. It's a lot different stretches out to like 7,100 yards. Like I was saying, it's just a massive piece of property. But as far as like the actual golf course, I thought the par-fives were fantastic. I thought even it might have been,

gosh, I'm trying to think other than Kiowa because you guys played it all the way back. It might have been the only course that we played on this trip where like all the par-fives were true, like three-shot holes. They're three-shotters, you got nine. Except for number nine, I think you got to number nine and two, but even that shot was like a really tough, weird,

like long iron over this mask. Going for it probably wasn't the point. Exactly. It's like, no, just put it on the right side and 50 yard shot. But I thought it was cool that that was almost the whole golf course in a nutshell, was like, you're not gonna get there and two,

don't try, just like put yourself in the right spot, don't try to do too much, don't try to do anything crazy, or you're gonna get punched in the mouth, or you're gonna be on the wrong side of a slope, or all these things, like to your point, so I think there's so much width out there that you're kinda just lull yourself to sleep on, like, well, I don't really have to aim at anything specific,

and then you go see where your ball is, you're like, fuck, I wish I was on the right side of the fairway, I can't do anything from here. It's a little bit like, we'll talk about tobacco road later on in this episode, but the par 5s there are similar where they're not that long, but strands has such a good job of placing hazards and changing, like making blind shots.

So it's like, no, you just can't. The play is not to go for it. You know, you gotta have three solid golf shots. And then I thought, you know, the other thing that we'll definitely talk about it. You know, you got to hit three solid golf shots. And then I thought, you know, the other thing that we'll definitely talk about it, to back a road, but, you know, many people say, it's trans is very, very quirky as well. You see a lot of that in the third hole, the part three, which is just like, it's like an hourglass green over the water, which is, you know, like a kind of standard green

shape for part three's, but for some reason, he puts just a massive mound in front of the green. So it makes it almost like a blind shot, and it's all just of his own doing, like it clearly didn't look like that before he got there. But it takes what is like a pretty simple 130 yard shot, and all of a sudden you're like, God, how far is it to cover that ridge? Is it going to spin back into the water? How much room do I have behind that?

Like it just completely changes the complexion of what should be a very easy shot. And so I think he's, he's also been doing that and I loved every second of Truple. Which I don't know if we spelled out that these courses are literally across the street. Literally across the street. So it's a, I would, you can do them both in one day

if you really wanted to, but you could also make two visits down to there. It's pretty far south of main part of the middle beach. It's about like 45 minutes we drove from north middle beach I think, but worth it. I would definitely are. 100% and also I make a comment on the vibe. We came back over to Caledonia to sit on the port. I think the vibe there is much more felt more local, more laid back, whereas we were on golf boards and

They thought he was so cool on the golf DJ was so excited when we picked him up and then he couldn't do a U-turn so that stuck Which was awesome golf boards are kind of hard, but that was that was a great course form because of how wide open It was like you know, you're like doing swallowing down the fairway. It's great. I've got a question. What is in the girl? Rice is it like a rice? No, it's a die. I think it's clothing. They would die to denim, right? Yeah, I think it's what they used to die clothing It's blue. That's what true blue. Yeah, oh I get it now. All right, next was the putt putt I think we're gonna we're gonna skip that I think for the purposes of this podcast. I would love to say I'm breaking down. Yeah, no, I mean, this was one of the things,

you know, did a whole lot more research on this, you know, really figuring out which there's probably 50 different pop-up courses in Myrtle Beach. So figuring out, you know, some of them have bad turf conditions, some of them like, like really digging into the world of pop-up. It's been a tough fall down there.

So, it's tough growing soon. And yeah, so we really, we were told to skip Mount Atlantis, which was complete disgrace. Yeah, terrible turn of conditions, I guess they fired their suit. So, and then a couple of other places that were on our short list that we ended up skipping.

And we did the we actually went to two day once about 36 whole facility And then we went to another place where they have the US masters Putt putt turn every year. We got deals on golf now for to get the t-times and what at what a subtle The the place where they have the you know championship. Oh my god. It looked jungle again Yeah, it was jungle again was first wine rumble. Yeah, jungle a good like you know a little bit more like windmill stuff and crazy shots but the Hawaiian rumble was just you like all this an easy hole But it's like no you got to hit that brick. Yeah, and if you hit that don't hit that brick your three But I totally understand how fucking stupid this sounds

But it was legitimate like golf design. Yes, it was incredible. It was awesome. Yeah, it was minimalism. It was so cool. There was no obstacles, it was just like slopes and bricks. Yeah, had to hit the right side. Couldn't be above the hole.

Yeah, literally a turn. Great turn. Very minimalist. They had an active volcano. That was there. That's why they built the course there. Yeah, that's true. We did try to do some drone flyovers.

It was too close to the airport. We couldn't get drone footage of the pup pup course. Of course, this bit. I got it. Fucking love pup pup. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, DJ has talked about... I think that would be my ultimate dream documentary idea would be...

If anybody's ever seen the King of Kong, the one about the professional Donkey Kong players, I think doing something similar about professional pup pup would be essential to the discourse. Tell me how loud somebody's... They got all the champions pictures up there. There's this Ukrainian woman that absolutely rubs shit. The guy that owns the place is one in a couple times.

Which he's the course designer, yeah, yeah, he's got CB McDonald's That's gonna be a fun episode a lot more to come on that one wine rumble in jungle You might be this might be the national and Chinatown of 30s 54 whole day and we went to hooters in the middle Don't spoil it We had we had a myrtle beach trip From myrtle beach we went we drove to Wilmington

Where we teed it up at the Wilmington municipal golf course tron lunch take us there. Oh Yeah, place was rejuvenating 1926 like 31 dollars to play They redid it a couple years ago. Just did a fantastic job. The Greens were among the best we played on the entire trip. If $31 might legitimately of all the places we played, that's on my short list of best deals in the country. Actually, I'm sorry, it's $37.

Oh, never mind, it's awful. It's not that. It might be the mega-munity. Like, I don't, I mean, I know there's, like, Tori Pines is a muni and what, Beth Peech and a muni. I think you should leave this to the experts, a big guy in myself. Well, we'll be the judge of that. The fans, I think.

Fantastic. Yeah. It truly, I mean, strong approval. Try and take us through the specifics, but yeah, it was such a good golf course. Yeah, I mean, just, you know, long kind of, like basically how you can describe it is like, you could call it PINERS number 10 and move it, you know,

100 miles west and call it PINERS number 10 and charge $250 or $300 for it and people wouldn't bad enough. Yeah, yep, it's a good way to put it. There's the part fours were strategic and just challenging and tough. Great part three. Not a spectacular piece of property, but also a lot of variety to it.

There's that part three. There's a whole part three that's amazing. The whole part three that's amazing. The number three was a great hall. What I remember the most about this place is off the tee, it's pretty friendly. The fairways aren't super wide, but the greens all dictate, greens and pins, like you can see the pin

and the green from the tee, and it was dictating where I was aiming. And there were several par-forers where I'm aiming straight into the rough. Like they took down a ton of trees as part of the renovation. I'm like, I don't care about being in the rough, I need to create an angle here, and I'm aiming between two different fairways and trying to hit it there so I can hit like a wedge from the proper angle. And that was so fun to kind of chart your way around that way. And I was, to me, the Wilmington Muni was the

highlight of the first leg of the trip. I know we played bigger named courses, but maybe it was just kind of lower expectations that come with being called a municipal course. And of course, I'm not so not familiar with municipal, I've never played a municipal before, according to the Strat Boys. And I love it. You seem like a fish out of water, though. I was like,

they could have it opinion. I just say you should probably leave it to the experts. He kept asking where the men's grill was. Yeah, it was weird. It was like, it was iconic the best beauty you've played, probably or men's grill was. Yeah, it was weird. It was iconic. The best beauty you've played, probably, or what? Semipublic course. That was a be a different category.

Yeah, that's a different category for sure. I want to shout out the 16th, which was a part three. I hit driver off the team. That holds it. To end it. 240 yards dead into the fan. It's still my can tips. Yeah, I mean, it's 67, 84 from the tip.

The whole hunk 67. But yeah, I mean, there's plenty of uphill holes. There's no wasted space either. It's one of those routing that you look at and vintage Ross, I mean, back and forth, but at no point does it feel back and forth. And I think this course is gonna match up, I don't know how to say this exactly,

but our footage in the way it looks is not going to match up as well as it plays, if that makes sense. It's not beautiful, it's not stunning, it's a totally good shape, but there's nothing visually stunning, amazing about it, I would say. It looks like a municipal court.

It looks like a little scruffy in some places, but the greens rolled absolutely perfect. The turf played absolutely perfect, and I couldn't praise it anymore. Which is crazy too, when you think about the fact that they get 50,000 rounds or whatever per year. I mean, it was just immaculate. Shout out to John Fought.

He was the renovation guy, renovation architect in 2014. It's an absolute jewel for the city of Wilmington. Neil, I did want to point out your high school locker room take from earlier. I thought I walked into the clubhouse at Wilmington and I immediately smelled an old gymnasium. I get to have that old basketball smell to it.

Well, I wasn't coming out to smell it. Success. That was just more the look, but that is... Yeah. Which I like, it was just like, oh my God, it's like, I'm back at basketball camp in the summer. Yeah. It was cool, too, when we pulled up there. There was probably six or seven groups ahead of us.

And I think just the regular men's game that was out there. And they've got a first-tea facility right next door to there. Which is cool. They built a whole short course as part of the renovation as well, which I think is either free or extremely cheap for kids to go play. And, you know, really, like,

I just enjoyed Wilmington the city. I'd never been there before. Randy had been up there the week prior. Randy the whole thing. Yeah, that's where the triathlon was. I'm like, you know, that was the first time I'd ever been there. And it was a really, really good experience. I think what I found interesting about Wilmington for how it sits essentially on the ocean,

right? It's the ocean and the beach are right there. It's actually more of a river town because it sits, you know, maybe, I don't know, 5, 10 miles in off the ocean, and you have a river that runs right parallel kind of through downtown. A bit like Jacksonville, in that way. Yeah, exactly.

Tons of history, lots of historical markers, but then, you know, kind of in that southern city that's, you know, they just have a lot of local bars, restaurants, shops. It was very, it was cool to experience. Vibrant place for sure. And like, kind of, like, low-key isolated. For the rest of them. Yeah.

It wasn't close to everything. We were driving back through our separate places and it was like, holy holy shit this place is out here Yeah, a couple great local Sherpas we played with as well Kevin and Mike and the boys that came out to show us around I think that has added so much to these trips is just You know even just going around and like hey look at that and they changed this and Bob a ball like those kinds of little touches have been awesome somebody put a no-ling up sticker on the bell Which I assume was you.

It was not me. Yeah, there was like a bell that's like, like ring when the green is clear. And Neil was playing in the group in front of us. I was like, oh, well, Neil put a big ass no- Obviously. Put a big ass no-ling up sticker on this bell. He's like, no, that wasn't me. That was our, that was our, that was our, there.

It must have been the same guy that yelled Icarito on the 18th hole at the Genesis last year. Just complete mystery. We have no idea who it was. I know, it's crazy. This wrapped up the first leg of the trip and we came back a few weeks later and set up shop in Pinehurst. We stayed at the Donald Ross Cottage

for the Dornic Cottage. The Dornic Cottage for the extent of the state. Well, the Doddy's place. It's right off the third green at Pinehurst 2. We saved Pinehurst 2 for last amongst the Pinehurst courses. We started at Pinehurst number 3. None of us had ever played it before going up into this. DJ, why don't you take us there?

So the best endorsement I can give of Pinehurst number 3 is, I'm sure everybody has at least one around a year where you just completely lose like where the bottom of your swing is and it's just like an alien life form that's living inside of you and you just can't make contact with the ball. That was me at Pinehurst number three and I loved every second of playing that golf course. I think I shot it's 5,100 yards. I shot 90. I think it was literally my highest score of the year on a golf course where you should not

do that. Well, it's definitely not. I cannot speak highly enough about the golf course. Like short does not easily. Yeah, but it's not a short course. Yeah, not really somewhere you should have ideas of whatever kind of handicap I am. But no, so designed in 1910, or open in 1910,

I should say by Donald Ross, you're going to hear a lot of, a lot of Donald Ross in the next 40 minutes of this podcast. For context, that was three years after he opened number two, restored in 2017 by Kyle France. You're going to hear a lot of Kyle France in the next 30 minutes of this podcast. 5,100 yards, like I said, it reminded me a lot of, it's kind of a lazy comparison maybe, but just a shrunken down number two, right? I mean, it's the restoration put all those sandy areas and kind of scruffy native grasses

and stuff back in. It plays through kind of like a housing community a lot more. Just to back up a bit though, this is, I knew nothing about Pinehurst 3 going into this. It's not marketed very hard by Pinehurst. It included, and I would imagine not included in a ton of packages. This is a course that the members like to play. A lot of the older members of Pinehurst love playing number three and love playing number five.

They tend to gravitate towards the odd numbered Pinehurst courses, which is what we heard. It was kind of a blind spot, but it is designed more for the members than it is a ton of guest play as two and four are. Yeah, and I think, you know, you mentioned packages, so like most of the people who are going, I actually shouldn't say most, I don't really know what the breakdown is, but I would assume many of the people who are making their big Bucket list pinehurst trip are going to play number two, they're going to play number four, and then they're going to have some leftover days to kind of play whatever else. And I think number three is it, you know, you can look at it. It's very popular too. I've not played number eight. I have anything there. Shout out to Fox.

It's hard. You could look at it two ways. You could look at number three as like a come down after playing number two. Like I just got my all my teeth shattered on number two, and now just take me back to somewhere a little more comfortable. Or you can look at it as what a perfect warm-up for playing number two, which is how I would probably prefer to look at it. If you were going to play number two for the first time, I would love to play number three first, because I think the green surrounds after this renovation, especially the green

surrounds are similar. I don't think it's quite as severe as number two, but they're smaller. They're a lot smaller. They're harder to hit, which means you're going to miss a lot more greens, which means you're going to be chipping a lot more. You just need to... It takes you a few holes if you even get it at all to get the feel for how to play around those greens.

Starting with around at number three, I think is a much more low stress because everybody wants to play well at number two, and want to like hang up a good score. And I think number three is kind of like the best training aid you could possibly have to go do that. Yeah, I think too. Is it tragic that they chopped up some of the holes and built condos and housing and all that on number three? Because it's probably a shell of what it once was.

Absolutely. But does that make it any less fun? No, and so I think, you know, that's part of it is people. Also, some of the houses are so ridiculous. That is like legitimately enhance my experience. Some funky modular condos. Yeah, like right of seven, there is literally a sign that says, if you trespass here, you will be shocked.

And North Carolina is kind of weird. It's got some weird energy in some places. But I mean, should the first hole was what? Like, 280. Yeah. I was a little nervous after the first two holes. I was like, it felt like a, not a miniature golf course, but it didn't feel like a real, full, complete golf course.

Sounds like Randy. Well, but then from three on, I'm like any one of these holes that we played from number three on would have fit on any of the Pinehurst courses, I thought. Yeah. That par five. Number 11.

They like to make sweeping dog like Ryan. Yeah, that is one of the best holes at Pinehurst. So Tron mentioned to reuse the three. They did chop up a couple to add some houses and enhance some of the other holes, which means that Kyle Frans in 2017 he added two part threes, just kind of shoehorned him in. They both kind of didn't feel shoehorned in, but they also didn't feel totally out of place either. I didn't think.

I think it was numbers four and eight, four is the one over the water, which is kind of weird to hit a shot over water at Pinehurst, that's not really something you see very much. And then number eight was the one that was kind of perched up on that hill with the, I mean, they were all impossible greens, but that one was especially tough. One of the things I thought was really cool

about the restoration, looking at like some old photos and stuff. And you could definitely say the same thing for number two and number four when we talk about those. But one of the things that these restorations do, so if you see pictures of Pinehurst from the 80s or 90s or when you had, even when paint Stewart was winning there,

and all you see is just green grass as far as the eye can see, I think when they put a lot more of these like native areas in, everybody thinks about how it plays around the greens, but when you look at it from the tees, you have these native areas right off the tee, which I think makes the whole thing feel a lot more three-dimensional. Like when you have nothing but green grass and everything's the same color, you don't notice any of the context. Your eye doesn't like, your eye doesn't pick up much of anything other than, you know, here's the whole right in front of me, whereas when you have these little layers of scrub and then grass

and then more scrub, the whole thing just feels a lot more dimensional, which I think just makes you a little more uncomfortable, which is kind of the point of a 5100 yard golf course, right, is to try to trick you up via your eye and your head you know not being able to play a 260 yard par four or something like that. 16 and 17. 17 was my favorite green complex especially I think that pin was a front where we played it it demanded like the most precise little wedge to to find this little sliver of green I thought. And then if you scrape one to the right off the tee,

or you're hitting it off the roof of one of the corners. Yeah. It's just like a microcosm of, you had to hit some really good shots. Yeah, it's such a, it becomes such a cliche, but it's one of those courses that if you played it every day and you figured out how to shoot good scores, you would be a much better golfer. It would travel, you know,

not all whatever 75s are created equal. I think that would be a really good one out there. I would say like as of maybe five or six holes in, you don't, you've forgotten that you're playing a short golf course. Yeah, like it just feels like playing golf. Yes, you know, the first couple holes just do feel like, okay, they're cramming a lot of holes

into small piece of property. But the rest was just like, no, I'm just playing golf. I got none. What was the whole, that par four over the hill? Is it four, five? That's five, five. Five and then six is this par three coming back. Seven is this crazy dog life.

And that feels exactly like something you'd see on two or four, it just shrunk and down. Right? The scale's not quite as big. Like the scales not quite as big, the corridors aren't quite as big, but it all feels exactly the same. Would you say it's fair to say, I'm not telling people book a T-time

on number three at Pinehurst, but if you're there, and if you played number two, we played number four that day, and you're craving some more golf, obviously the cradle's an option, the Fistledo's an option, but three complements another round of golf really well.

I think you can easily do both in one day. Totally a great second round of the day. You don't need to make a day out of playing number three, and I can't speak to one or five. I think they're probably somewhat at least similar experiences, but they're great additives into and compliments to the experience. It's not like, I mean, if you're gonna compare Pinehurst to Bannon, it's obviously not,

if this is the third best or fourth best course at Pinehurst, it doesn't compare to like the fourth best course at Bannon Doons, obviously. It's not the same depth, but it is a cool, different compliment to it, I will say. Yep, cool. Next up, Pinehurst number four, Mr. Neal, let's take a step.

Definitely, so number four, I think Neal, lunch, take us there. Definitely. So number four, I think it's gotten a lot of attention. I think the resorts put a lot of effort and attention behind it, so Gil Hans redid it, what was that two years ago? Originally a Fazio? Originally a Ross. Originally a Ross, then Transmentor Tom Fazio.

It's been, it's had, it's been groped by quite a few people. It sure has. I think the whole Jones family had their hands on it at one point. I could have assigned this one to DJ. We also wrote a golfers journal story in this one. Fasio put a bunch of pop bunkers into it, right? Yeah, it's like an homage to Scottish golf, the Fas through a bunch of shotgun blasts

and a bunch of pop bunkers out there. But also, I shouldn't, I don't know, I've never played it when it was like that, but yeah, a lot of pop bunkers, but then also a lot of rough around, so it's not like the ball was rolling into him. It's just very peculiar. Well, it seems like they've, and talking to my caddy, Joe's Wickel, shout out to Joe, it feels like they've taken number four, and they've made it much more like in the same spirit as number two.

And I think for people that are traveling to Pinehurst as a resort, that's awesome. You want to play the native area and the sandy type golf that you basically came for, the area is known for. I think Hugh or Joe is telling me that the members don't like it as much because four was provided variety when they used to play it when it had the Isalia bushes and also it's Carpathan only I think they don't like either. Yeah, also good sense that the members are pioneers don't like any of that. Well, true. But I think you know as far as you know the resort goes I think it was an awesome upgrade and I thoroughly enjoyed I think it's an easier course than number two.

No doubt about it. I think it's a more relaxing, similar style of golf. It feels a little, it's bigger. So you gotta hit the ball. It's like a modern, almost like a modern take on number two. So I would definitely kick it over to DJ who'd definitely more of an expert on it than I was. No, I think that's pretty much it.

I mean, I, like Gil re-did it, but the holes have not changed a lot. There's two on the back that have changed, but for the most part, the corridors are all the same. Yeah, which is really cool, I think, because it's cool to see what two different sets of eyes do with the same piece of property, right? And I think that there was a lot that changed for the better. So like I said, I hadn't played it when it was

in its previous iteration, but I love number four now. And I think like you said, Neil, it's nice. It's number two might very well be the best public off course in the country, but like I, there's no way I could play it every day. Right. It would be exhausting. Number four, I think I could play every day.

I'd love number four. Well, it is so different than two and that number two you cannot Get away with anything you cannot like off a two you can a little bit But with approach shots like an okay shot is not good enough You will get punished for it a ball will roll and end up in a gully or roll off a green to the side or long or short and Number four you can get away with it I got played when we were there in September, I felt like I played the same round of golf

at number two and number four. And I shot 84 at number two, and I shot 73 at number four. Like it's just way friendlier around the greens and it just lets you get away with stuff way more, and you can make way more parts out there than number two. That's the difference. Statically, I get what you're saying in the like,

the ground is connected, the two properties are actually literally connected, and it just rolls from one, but they are very, very, very different golf courses. But I think it's like a really, I don't know. I know it sounds almost like you're kind of manipulating people a little bit, but I think it's a really smart thing by Pinehurst to do it that way,

because it makes people feel like they're doing something very similar, except they walk off and they're like, man, I just, like you said, I just shot 12 shots better than I did yesterday. Like that was awesome. Like I'm thinking about our event that we had in September. There were a lot of, coming off of number two, it looked like we're in the mash unit. Like as people are drinking beers, they're just like exhausted and just beaten the fuck up.

And coming off number four, everyone is just like so much happier and smiling. And we might have drank too much the night before. That's certainly possible for sure. But yeah, I just think it's really cool to have both. I want to get that on the record before Tron says how much he doesn't like number four. Before he does that, I'd say my favorite holes were the back-to-back dribble fours. 15 and 16. Yeah. I think that's a really cool stretch. Which 15 is only drivable for you I really enjoy four and I actually played four pre-restoration or renovation or whatever and I think it's

So much better now. I wanted to shout out though. I think number two is such a fun part five the the green complex and I also think 18 is is a really nice finishing hole. I'm gonna say in the Sega Positivity, 116, 1718 are like four of my favorite holes in the whole property. Yeah. All right. Number two. You know, number two? However, two. Yeah.

One number two is the hole where you whiff the chip. That one. For sure. For whatever reason I've never,'ve I always score better on number two than I do number four. I don't know I just number four always to me. How many times have you played number four? Four now. The new number four? Yeah. Okay. It just feels like lipstick on a peg a little bit to me where you know there's it doesn't flow as much. There's some really good holes out there. I think, you know, the holes are,

and I think for what, for all the acclaim it's gotten, I don't think it's even in the same zip code as number two. And for what they charge for number two versus number four, like there's only a $75 difference between the two and the high season, I think that's just criminal to me. But yeah, I mean, there's definitely some good holes. There's a ton of variety. But a good example for me is number nine,

it's a par five, Hell's Half Acre. But the Hell's Half Acre, the only people it's affecting are just shitty resort play. Because it's the... Explain explain what the hazard sets up. So you know you tee off you don't have to worry about the bunkers off the tee. And then on the second shot it's pretty you know you're not you're not worried about it if you're if you're hidden if you can hit it over 200 yards in the air, you're not worried about it. But if you're a resort guest who's just kind of duffing it down the fairway, you basically have to lay it up to 170 yards out or try to hit this hero shot that you can't hit. And I'm all for it.

But it's either like make it a little bit narrower or it just doesn't, there's just some details missing in certain spots. I enjoyed number nine, but that is a very good point because I can't hit the ball. I think it's a cool one. I think it's a really cool, like really cool green. It's good for low handicap. Yeah, and it's visually very interesting. So, and then like the par 5fival on the water on the back,

was that 13? Yeah, I think that whole suite, but it doesn't flow with the course. That's a fair take, but it is an awesome. But that's another one where I think he's, you know, I don't wanna make excuses for it, but like he, you know, he's kinda dealt his hand already. For sure, well, you know what I mean?

That's my point, I think they did a good job, but I don't like, I don't think the bones and the, like they use all the same corridors and everything. I don't think,? That's my point. I think they did a good job, but I don't think the bones and the, like they use all the same corridors and everything. I don't think, which is not my opinion. Which is interesting in itself, because like the land is by far the most dramatic land on any of the golf courses. So like I think that there's, the land is fantastic and so like there's clearly

something there. So yeah, to have weak holes is kind of interesting, I guess. I think 17's probably the sexiest, like one of the sexiest holes in the whole property. Just straight away, par five, slopes way down and then comes back up and really, really handsome green up there. And then 18, I think, is better than 18 on number two.

Yeah, that holds great. Dog leg, right. kind of double dog leg. Yeah, like, and just really cool driving hole, and they can put that panel over on the right and make it diabolical. I like number four a lot. I think it, I was okay on it when we played it from the white tease, and then when we played it

from the blue tease this time around, it made way, way, way more sense. I think it's very important course to get from the right T-box. I like that you can get away with more things on that. It just felt, I just flowed a lot better as far as just the, I don't know. It was a weird squeeze, like I said,

from the whites and from the blues it felt a lot better. But I would disagree on the flow. I think it flows great. I really, really enjoy the golf course. I thought it grew on me from the second time compared to the first time. I think first time I was kind of, eh, I was expecting a little bit more. And then second time through, I'm like, oh, now I kind of see what's going on here. From this T-Box, this T-Shot makes a lot more sense because of this reason, blah,

blah, blah. And I like it. I love number four. Dividing between the two, it's still very extreme. So in that, I agree, I think it's like probably eight on number two and two on number four for me. I mean, it, two is just, you can't compare it. It's, it's number two is one of the most special golf courses in the world. And if people have interpreted, and I can see how you can get to that conclusion of how it's marketed, that like number four and number two are the ones, like it is so very clear that four is, is inferior to number two, and I don't think anyone out there would even remotely argue it.

There's a lot of resort players that probably would like to play four more than two because they value how they would play more than two. I think that's important. That's the important caveat is like if you're talking from a golf course architecture standpoint, like number two is not in the same realm. Number four is not in the same realm. Number two is in its same realm. Or, you know, number four is not in the same realm. Number two is in its own realm. If you're talking from, yeah, the enjoyment of, you know,

what's better for a resort guest? Like, it's also maybe not a question either. Right. I guess probably a lot of people who play number two that don't need to play number two. Yeah. On the flow, don't like it. Comment.

Like 11, 12, 13 is really where it loses a little bit of gas for me. 11's part three. Yeah, that just goes down to left. Respectfully, disagree too, because I think 12 is 12's the par four to the left, right? Which I think is like, that really cool green.

Awesome, cool green with some weird kind of like deceptiony kind of ridges in front of the green. I think that, I don't know, there's a lot of ross even like in those holes that have, has been put back in. I love, on the second time, again, this is what life is all is important. 13's a lot of Ross even like in those holes that have been put back in. I love, on the second time, again, this is what, 13 is all as important. 13 is a little out of left field. Is, I agree there.

It's important to play the right tease in that where the fairways start to bend and where the challenge comes in and hitting the fairways comes into play a lot more strategically from the right tee box. Like if your ball is, if you hit it 270, playing the right tee that, you know, it matters. Well, I'm saying, if you hit it 270 and you're right T that, you know, it matters.

Well, I'm saying, if you hit it 270 and you're playing too far up, like the design or the goal of a lot of T-shirts goes out the window. Like the one hole number eight, like when we played it from the white T's, you could just blow it right over the cross bunkers. It kind of took away the strategic element of like once we played it back, like nobody could blow it over a Hubert good, but nobody else could blow it over those bunkers. So we didn't mention the Hubert was on this trip also. Yeah.

Shout out to the young haters, Justin Hubert and Lauren Kaufflin as well. Shout out to Hubert's toys. Yes. We played Hubert's toys. No free ads. That's right. Anything else on Piner's floor before we move on?

The only constructive criticism I'd add is I've played it twice. Post renovation in the pace has been so slow. The only constructive criticism I've had is I've played it twice. Post-Renovation in the pace has been so slow. For a very walkable course, that's not as severe as number two. Around the greens, they got to figure out a way to pick up the pace. Paces better, both times I've played two compared to four. It has been very noticeably fast-round two.

Third hole, that par four Just absolutely has my number. I cannot get off the tee on a hole. That's a cool hole That's a really cool hole. It's a cool green. Yeah, I'll think the way you played on four affects your opinion of for sure No, but I'm I'm I'll be the first to admit that but but I also there's just there's some par fours out there that just don't I don't know like They just don't fit my eye and there's not my kind of golf, you know. Fair. All right, next up we did a big divide and conquer day. Tron and I went to midpines. The strap boys went to pine needles and DJ and Huber went to southern pines.

Tron wants you to kick us off with midpines. Midpines is fantastic. The only knock on it, I think, is that they oversee it in the winter, which I don't know why you do that up there. Donald Ross, I think 1921. Donald Ross. Restored by Kyle Frans.

And actually, you Kyle Frans lives on property, Kelly Miller. The president of Midpines and pine needles offered that up to him, had a chance to sit down with him before the round, and just great hospitality, great host, and the hotel on the side, the whole place just feels like a throwback. I think there's only really one week call out there, I would say. Except the one with the rate. Part five's are great, there's some great part fours. Part three is, that's the closest I've felt to the sand belt.

And like maybe, you know, I'm sure Ohoopie or Congress and we're like that, but they're all been that 150, 170 range. But man, it is like really, really pushed up bunkers and kind of terrifying lips there in front. I'll say it's one of the most weirdly aesthetically pleasing golf courses I've ever played. And that, especially with what, if you saw pictures of it before what Kyle did, it was so unappealing to the eye, but bringing back like the native areas and the brush and redoing the scent, the color, the sand is so vibrant, and that the way the sun hits through those pines, and there's a lot

more land movement to it than a lot of the courses at Pinehurst. It's only about 15 minutes from Pinehurst and this is a place that like, is why we always recommend people going to Pinehurst. It's not only the courses there that are fantastic, but the other experiences you can have there and you have to build in time for midpines, pine needles and southern pines because of how like the proximity is so good and how great these golf courses are. It's challenging, it's tough, but I guess there's a lot of lay-em-oomit to it. There's some unbelievably good holes

on that back nine. That stretch of 14 and 15, I think there's a par four that goes up this ridge and then 15 is a dramatic par five. I hope I have those whole numbers right on the back nine. It's tough. We put the way it uses that hill on the back, it goes back and forth along this hill. Just spectacular like use of the land. And you gotta hit every shot in your bag too. I mean, it's definitely not long,

but it's yeah, there's some short, like almost drivable par fours. There's just a great variety of you know lengthy par fours Yeah, every club in the bag gets a good use that it is it is a brilliant brilliant golf course in great shape And we were there. I want to go to another crack. I except played so bad that day And I just felt like I wasted one of my favorite courses. I've played and definitely anywhere in the carol It's a great value for what you're you know know, I think other than maybe, you know, high season, you know, mid day on a weekend,

it's maybe above 200, but otherwise it's, it's like, it's for one, two, one, two, one, two, one. First time I played it, I was like, okay, I was probably, I was probably 400 bucks, right? And then I went in and I was like, no, I like, whoa. I rate like 150 today, I was like, whoa, okay. That is very, very reasonable for that experience.

So, right, directly across the street, you could walk it if you wanted to, is Pine Needles? Strat boys, do you want to tell us about that one? Pine Needles was, I thought a treat. So Neil and I played it with Lauren Kaufflin and her husband. We should introduce who Lauren is, by the way. So she's one of our newest young hitters. She is an LPGA player Went to the University of Virginia What other biographical information am I missing? It's all it's all gonna be in the episode

You're just gonna you're gonna be hearing a lot more from us on on Lauren Kaufland this coming year So as you like pine needles mid pines very close to one another owned by the same family. I think what's cool about pine needles and needle can chime in. I thought getting to play it with an LPGA player was a treat because pine needles is really one of the epicenters of the women's game was bought in 1954 by Peggy Kirk Bell, who was an outstanding amateur player in the 40s and 50s, and then was instrumental in the founding of the LPGA tour. She would call Pine Needles home, had a house right off the 18th taught there for over 60 years.

She was stranger about her grandmother. That's exactly right. There were many people done there. They're right. L Just stranger about his grandmother. That's exactly right. Well, many people don't know. They're right. Lavian's great grandmother. And so I should go back. The pine needles itself is a Donald Ross originally opened in 1927.

It was restored in 2017 by Kyle France. And so the Clubhouse, it's a really pretty piece of property, great facilities. The clubhouse has done a great job of showing off the history of pine needles and also of Peggy Kirkbell. Lots of pictures and articles hung on the walls. I think Neil and I enjoy to game a pool downstairs.

There was a pool table, a ping pong table. We sure did. Yeah. And so it's just very inviting, I guess, the course itself, it kind of goes up and over and across terrain. It's, you know, hilly is relative for that part of the country, but there is some elevation on that course. I think it's pretty walkable. The only thing like getting to that number three, the part three, you know,

you have a couple instances where you might have to walk a little bit from green to tea. They insisted we use carts. Yeah. So they put us in carts. So we rode, but you could, you could walk it if you really wanted to. They've heard legends about the strap voice, pace of play. Right. It's too fast. It's like the Pinehurst Court.

I mean, it's like all these courses and that the fairways are wide. But if you get off the fairway, right, there's like really no rough. There's native area, there's sand, and then you get into the tree. So if you miss fairways, then your know, your second shot could be a little dicey. You might have tree trouble. You might, you know, depending on in the native area where your ball ends up, it could be a little dicey. But the green complexes are interesting. They're not as severe as number two. You love green, green complexes. I say complex because I think it's complex guy. Well, I think I think in my mind, like like complex I think of the surrounds in the

shapes. How would it interact with all the? Yeah, it's truly more of a complex where it's some courses like, oh yeah, it's just the short grass in a circle and there's really not much around it. Whereas pine needles, man, if you miss a green and it rolls off the green, you're down a bank and it's shaved and all of a sudden it's like, oh god, how many of you can get this up? There was some big drop-offs. That's what I noticed.

More so than number four, similar to some of the holes on number two, like number five, the par five on number two, like if you miss long left there and you're like 20 feet down in a gully. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, in a gully, there were. How many times did you miss long left there once? It was me on the same day. It was two or three.

Yeah. We'll talk about that later. There were many times. Did you miss log left there once? Uh, it's me on the same day. It's two or three. Uh, yeah. Let's not we'll talk about that later. Uh, but I thought it was a very, very, very enjoyable round of golf. Yeah, it's just highly recommended. For sure, enjoyable. Uh, the last thing, uh, a couple things. It's gonna host the 2022 US women's open, which will be the fourth time it's hosted that event. The other shout out the in the rough lounge, I thought was was. It looks like a whole Swiss hotel, you know, like a Chelle A. Like there's a hotel there and the bar and grill was great. It's one of those where the bar is set below floor level. Yeah. So it was it's just a cool spot to have a have a

drink after the round. Neil and I both I thought it was just such a enjoyable day. Comparing in contrast to them, it's it's just a little bit bigger. I think Pine Needles is. I remember going, I played him both in one day a couple years ago and mid-pines you need to hit a couple of irons off-teens, you need to shape some shots and then Pine Needles you got and pound some drivers. There's plenty of room out there to hit some drivers. I would say that I didn't, you were talking about how visually appealing midpines is. I didn't feel that, I thought it was a nice walk in the woods, but I didn't feel like pine needles was visually all like I look at the look at the backdrop of this hole or look at

the and I think I think what goes into that is that pine needles, there are a number of holes where you can't see the green complex from the teeth. And so it's, it's shielded a lot of times. I shot out, Trump. Moving on, DJ Dick is the Southern Pines. Southern Pines was awesome. That was awesome. That was awesome.

That was one of my favorite days of the trip. Historic little, little 18 hole golf course built in 1906 by Donald Ross. Fun fact is that he built nine holes from what I've gathered and there's a ton of conflicting information and arguing information about Southern Pines, but what everybody can seem to agree on. It's the first nine open in 1906, and then the second nine opened in 19,

sometime between 1910 and 1912. Was it the first one he built in the area? Well, right. So then in between those those he built number two, between building the first nine and the second nine at Southern Pines, which is kind of fun. There's also an abandoned nine that he did, which is a whole other piece of the property.

It is totally striking and weird to see now because you can see all the shapes, you can see where all the bunkers are, but it's all just completely grown over and it's like a cross-country track. Basically? Like a par six over there or something? I don't know, I'd have to check on that.

Okay, get back. I thought that'd be. That sounds vaguely valid, right? Like, yeah, there's a par six. Yeah, shout out to, we played with a local friend of the program, Cody, who has taken us around, showing us some of the stuff and sharing some of the local legends. The way to kind of describe Southern Pines is it has all the aspects of every course that

we've described in Pinehurst so far except it's 50 bucks. And it is like, if you want to call it the strapped course to the sea suites that are surrounding it, I suppose you can do that. But it has all the bones of a Donald Ross course. It's got all the shot values, the green complex, the land movement, you know, all the things you want to throw out. It has all of those except for it's a $50 golf course. It's definitely a little tired, a little sleepy, a little rundown. It's a nice change of pace, weirdly, from, you know, if you're going and playing all these beautiful, immaculate, well-run golf courses

all around Pinehurst, it's kind of different to be like, yeah, just go grab any cart and like, go ahead. And then go out there and just play like a world class, kind of shaggy golf course. It's very much a vibe that I like. What I remember about the end of this day, where we all kind of debriefed and told each other about the day, was the surprise that how much huboer loved it.

Yeah. Based on what you just said, like the shaggingness, like pros love courses that have great conditioning. Like that is a, like a minimum barometer for them that they need to clear, which it so-and-fines doesn't seem to quite have, to the extent that the other courses do. And I will say that the conditions when we were there were fine. Like I've seen a ton online,

it was just some stuff. And people were like, oh my god, I would never go there. The greens were so bad last time I was there. And there was no grass on the fairways. And so like that was not our experience. Like everything was just lit up on golf. Yeah, exactly.

Everything was in awesome shape. In comparison to the other courses, where I'm saying, how much he enjoyed that course even with that factor in there was like, I was like, hey, how to go today is unbelievable. And I think the reason is, it feels like a place where people play golf every day.

It feels like, we say this when we get back from strap trips all the time where it's like, do you say what you want about equipment companies and grow the game initiatives and all that stuff, but just go hang out at one of these places for a while. This is where normal ass people play golf. This is how most people are introduced to the game. This is how most people play every week.

This is how people sneak out away from the kids for two hours to play nine holes on a Thursday night. These are the places where people go. And the fact that you have that vibe with, like, literally world class architecture, I mean, every single hole you stepped up on the tee, and I like, I just had like a big dumbass smile on my face every time we got to the tee box,

because I'm like, God, this is unbelievable that this place is $50 to come see this place. It feels like you're, I don't know, it kind of feels like walking through a museum or something. I thought the same thing. It's speaking of the Elks. Yeah, so that was going to be my last point.

So the big, there's a couple of points of contention about Southern Pines in that it is owned. Since I think around 1960, the Elks Club of Southern Pines owns the golf course. So you probably haven't heard that. There's not a lot of Elks clubs Southern Pines owns the golf course. So you probably haven't heard that. There's not a lot of Elk's clubs that own a lot of golf courses.

So I'm not sure, Randy, you're an Elk. Well, I'm waiting initiation. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's probably some, I don't know, I don't even want to like wait into what I'm sure are very complicated local politics. But the places it's owned by the Elk's Club, I think they march very much to the beat of their own drum,

and maybe don't do things very similarly to the way a lot of other golf courses do them, which is sick. Yeah. But I think they've been trying to kind of unload this place for a while. I think the Alps Club is maybe possibly looking to divest their interest in Southern Pines Golf Club, and it seems like they always get to the end, like

they'll find buyers and they'll get to the kind of like the end of these deals and they just fall apart. And from everything I can read and again, I'm sure it's endlessly more complicated like when you get into the local politics of it. But from everything I can read, a lot of it has to do with the lost nine holes, which is just like this vacant land now. And what a lot of people who want to buy the golf course want to do is buy up that land and develop it, like, kind of obviously, like that's what you would think a lot of people who

are looking to buy this land would do. And the else club to their credit, I think, are very much like, no, this is like an old Donald Ross course, like you can't develop this, you can't put houses up, like we need to be thinking about restoring this, not, restoring this, not putting up houses. And so that's been the big sticking point and a lot of these deals falling apart. But the big news, even like since we played it in December, they have signed a letter of intent to sell it now to a group of investors, which includes the aforementioned Kelly Miller, the president of our CEO or CEO.

I forget what his title is, of the group that owns midpines and pine needles, who is in L himself as well. And who is in Peggy Kirk Bell's family? Exactly, and Stringer Bell's family. Correct. Yeah, and David Bell. So anyway, so we could have a whole other separate

conversation about what that means for Southern Pines. I know I've only been there once, but from the outside looking in, I think it would be sad if some of that local, you know, kind of where the locals play, vibe was to go away. On the other hand, if you wanted to spruce it up and restore it and, you know, make it another one in the portfolio of golf courses you can go charge $150 or $200 for, like you're not that far away from doing it. So it's just going to be very interesting to see what happens there.

It'd be so cool if they could do the three, three nines. I always love going in. You can kind of take one of the nines out. 27 hoses. Right amount of golf for a day. Yeah. All right. Talk about the town of Southern Pines,

Gerseck, just because I think that, that really, really cool, interesting, like, meaningful place. Yeah, that was the first time I'd, I've been to Pinehurst, I don't even know, four or five times, and I think literally, that was like the first time I had really left the resort and gone out into the town and eating at some different places

and seen some other places. Yeah, it's so, I mean, the resource is great. Nobody likes the resource more than I do, but it's great to get out and go see some other stuff. We had to drag you out of the spa. That's faulty. Well, I think it's interesting. It's on the backside of Fort Bragg.

So a lot of the higher ups in the military and special forces live over again in southern pines. Oh to the cat For sure, but also like like we went to the the Irish pub One night and we're at trivia He's one of the foremost weapons experts He's one of the foremost weapons experts. Oh, man. We're there with a Harshist goat ever He we walked and he's like you guys playing trivia. I've never seen we are now. How much do we owe? I've never seen a more I mean this so sincerely. I've never seen a more earnest

Yeah, trivia host in my life. He was so passionate about it. So passionate. Remember he was on He was unveiling the new picture idea and it wasn't idea, and it wasn't quite going as he had planned, but it's like, God damn it, it's not how I intended this to go. And so it's like this whole very stuff-aware, comical situation, and we're there with Jim Moriarty, the great golf rider who lives in Southern Pines, and he just leans over, he's like, you realize that's literally one of the world's most

foremost expert weapons, experts realized that's literally one of the world's most foremost expert weapons experts. That's a country. He's just like fumbling with this overhead projector. They're like Stanley Goodsby's. Yeah, it was unbelievable. Oh, but there's some great restaurants. I think I ate at Chapman's three times at your rep. The bar at Chapman's was.

Chapman's at that place. That bar kept your hand in his business, too. Yeah, for sure. Moving on, two courses remaining, one of which is Pinehurst number two. I hogged all the major championship venues for the sake of it. Very cool. Yes, really cool. Pinehurst two, I was good.

I've said it before. It is still my favorite course I've ever played in the United States. I've never played somewhere that's kicked my ass so hard that, but doesn't deter you from wanting to go back out there. Like you walk off shooting 85, like I wanna go right now, I can do it, I can do it. I got it now, I got it now, and you go out and do it again, and you just, you don't have it, like you just don't.

It's just totally mystifying golf course. You don't lose balls, the fairways are wide. The native area is usually very playable, yet you just never feel comfortable over an approach. I don't ever feel comfortable over an approach. It's so demanding for a low handicap player, but it's very welcoming to a high handicap player because of the run-up areas you can put from everywhere.

Like I said, it's wide fairways and you're going to find your ball. I played there with my uncle a couple years ago and he's like, I have never had more fun shooting 97 in my life because I did not lose golf ball once. I'll say like the first two times I played it, I played so well and I didn't have any scar tissue on it. I didn't have the fear yet and once I played it once without my top game, I started to realize how much bite the course actually has.

Like good shots, I said this earlier, good shots are not okay. You don't get away with anything, it's just like okay. You have to hit like very great shots to very conservative targets. And I wish I could explain why that's so fun to me, but it is just like the most engaging and thought-provoking challenge

that I feel like I've had stateside. Watching Hubert play from, he played from the US Open plates, shot 69, 169, 17 parts in a birdie. And... No, bogey free from the USO for tees. And didn't make a putt outside of six feet. Yeah.

It was like a clinic. But yeah, I mean, there's some like, Donnie's place, Donut Cottage was on the third green and which is possible with most high of alcohol. Yeah, maybe like Cottage was on the third green, which is possible with most diabolical. Yeah, maybe like the coolest green in the country. So being able to go out there and, you know, like I feel like I hit the first four greens in regulation

and I was like, holy shit, like I'm playing my ass off and then, you know, and then like, you hit one bad shot. You're like, oh, there it is. All right, I just tripled. Well, what I love about it is how much the green shapes are like commensurate with the whole length. So three is like 352 yards, which, you know, you'd sound like, oh, an easy hole.

No, it should terrify you the most of any of them because it is the most diabolical green. Four, the next hole is like one of my favorite par fours in the world, long as par four, winding up the hill to the left. Big green and maybe one of the easiest ones, and then you come back on five, reachable part five, but weirdly wildly deceiving.

It doesn't look that crazy to your eye until you realize it is one of the hardest greens anywhere. Even one. One, yeah, punches you right away. I've never played a place where you walk off like, okay, that was okay What I'm well though? Oh, that was double. Yeah, how do I make double and then but again? It doesn't deter you from wanting to keep going or like make you want the first time I play there I

On the first three holes legitimately felt like I didn't miss a shot and I went seven six seven I'm hitting it great I went 7, 6, 7. I was like, do you have anything to tell you? Like I'm hitting it great. I got on what I'm doing wrong. To your point, I played it twice. One time I had the shanks with Saul, yeah, I shot. Was that fun?

No, I shot 94, and then this time I played, and I thought, damn, I kind of hit in the ball well. I shot 94. Can you please, please, share your take that you gave, that you said to me on the course about the breakfast club. Oh, yeah. Well, because I was you just get so frustrated. It's one of my previous takes was also it's like baseball parlance. It's like the easiest O for four you've

ever had. Like, God, this picture's not throwing much, but I just can't. I can't hit it. And so walking up the, yeah, the 10th or 11th fairway with Neil, I'm like, you know what, this is a course that's seen in the breakfast club. Where, what's the principal's name? Who could say it? Who could say it? But Donnie's the principal. Yeah, Donnie's the principal.

I'm your bender. I'm bender just sitting there, just mouthing off. Like, yeah, give me another double. I don't care. Donnie's like, all right, there's another one. Like, screw you, man, give me another one. I don't care. My square card's ruined. He's like, all right, there's another double. I don't care. Don's like, all right. There's another one like screw you man Give me another. I don't care my square cards ruin. He's like, all right. There's another double You want another double Randy? I got you all summer

No, yeah, no Your scores are ruined. I don't care It's like no so number five you could you could legitimately make Eagle or or triple I was like, no, so number five, you can legitimately make eagle or triple. I have been greenside into and made eight. Yeah, like very easily. It's such a nasty, nasty green. Like slopes right to left, back to front.

And then six is one of the more diabolical part three greens I've ever played in my entire life. Again, every time I've tried to describe this course, I feel like I'm describing a miserable experience, yet somehow it is not, in no way. I said, if people like watching Royal Melbourne on TV and like dream of playing a golf course like that, but don't wanna go to Australia,

I think Pyners 2 is as close to that exercise as I've experienced eight side. It's not similar, but like the idea of, you know, just battling and trying not to have balls roll out into bunkers and playing slopes and realizing how important the angles are into certain greens is like, that's as good as you can. I think I feel like Pioneers weirdly gets a bad rep because 2014 US Open was boring because of Kimer just blowing people away The next one's gonna be so good, but his performance was so

Yeah, unbelievable and the honestly NBC did a really like Johnny Miller Like he's literally coming up the 72nd hall like oh, he's going with the putter yet again It's like he's done this the entire time and you have no appreciation for how great he's put it from off the green Which is so hard to do that was a week Trump was tweeting about how bad it was. Brown it was. Brown it was, how bad it was for golf. It's interesting too. And that's interesting too.

A lot of the native areas have really grown in now too, to where it's not like, there is some penalty whereas then it was very much like you're probably going to get a good lot. Now it's maybe a quarter or a half shot penalty. So I think one of the things that's important to keep in perspective, which will lead into a decision that Neil and I made is I think everything you're talking about is so true,

but I think it also is so dependent on how good of an iron player you are. And like, it's all distance control. It's all distance control. And so a lot of this stuff is like, like yes, watching a professional golfer out there, it's like the best exercise of watching, love testing a professional golfer.

It's like dude, you can do stuff that like, if I hit it there, it's either, you know, three times out of 10, like it's an accident that I hit it there. Like I'm just not a good enough iron player to actually like execute these kinds of demands. So I can get it around the green, and I still have a great time. The point is, if you're an average player, like I would say most of us are, you're gonna miss a lot of greens,

just because that's the nature of the beast, which is why I think Neil and I decided to play hickories, which is something they started offering. And I know all this, it sounds like so punchable in hip-story and all that stuff. But like legitimately was the most fun I had on the whole trip. It was because of the golf course, I think. Top two or three round of golf of the year, last year, easily. Most of the joy of the experience, we played a tee up. We played with Lauren and Randy played up with us and we, what was it, 62, 100 and it

got so much fun. It was so much fun. And with the hickories, I don't know, just you are in a complete chess match. It's so fun. You're kind of like, okay, I know I hit this nibble. I maxed it out of like one pen, so then it's all feel. It's like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

and when you can run the ball up like that, it's possible to have it all be fed. And it feels really good when you hit those clubs. But you don't think golf swing as much with those I imagine, you're just. No, you don't think golf swing as much with those I imagine. No, you don't at all. I'm like, I should have played the Hickory's at Rome over in East with us.

We should. But we had to go out. We had to go find content. You had to get a haircut. The last two times I've played there, I've not chipped. That's the TCW. That's the TCW. I find the short game shots really fun.

Like, they're really hard, but I find them so fun. Well part of it is like, you know, oh yeah, so like I didn't pot well or whatever, like no, like the reason you didn't pot well is because you hear iron's like shit. Or like, you know, like it's, and I think like 13 is the, that's the part four up the hill to the left. Yeah.

Like that's such a nasty, nasty hole. That's awesome. You got a degree none. I landed it past the pen and it came back and it came all over. It took like 45 seconds for the ball to stop rolling. Cause that whole thing is. Because it's a big face. I love it.

I can't wait to go back. There's like, there's 15 holes that are the best hole. Yeah, out there. I mean, I, like I had never played Pebble Beach until last month. I played Pebble Beach. I don't even think Pebble Beach is in the same class as pioneers. If that's not the best public course in the United States,

it might be the best course I've played in the United States period. Yeah. I'm getting more. I'd say as Gary Player would say for the love of golf, you've got to go. You've got to go. You've got to go.

Last but not least, tobacco road, final round of the trip, TC take us there. Yeah so tobacco road another Mike Strands one thing with Strands I want to maybe you know cover a little bit is I think the myth of Mike Strands is maybe taken on a life of its own where see the the association that Neil made earlier the podcast. Yeah Neil you're not helping. You guys asked for, you asked for my take and I had share. And, you know, I certainly respect, like, I don't think, you know, some of this, like, he does a lot of stuff, right?

He throws a lot at you, there's a lot of visual tricks and all sorts of stuff. Is it all, like, does it all work? Probably not, but like, he does, is 80% of it work? Absolutely, and it's really cool. And there's certain stuff You're like dude like the fuck was that like that, you know But but for the most part like it's it's it's incredibly interesting and like

You just feel Invigorated when you're playing and it should be said that you know we talked about how different true blue was from caledonia and It should definitely be said that tobacco road is like the most extreme aspects of both of those courses turned up to a million. Yeah, turn it all all the way out. Well and I'd say it embodies you know shout out to the the brough creek guys but it embodies like it was an old mine and the owner of the company was like yeah this would be awesome land for a golf

course. Yeah and they just build a golf course basically in their backyard. And it's like, hey, let's bring this guy in to do it. And we've got these crazy landscapes because of how we've mined it. Can you do something with this? And he just, he did. It's awesome.

And so going back to France too, I think it's interesting because like, it's not easy to do something that's truly and wholly unique. Totally. Right? And especially at a time, you know, we talked about Kiwa. Like when Kiwa's going up and everybody's like,

God, just make it so hard, just make it like punish people, make them lose golf balls, all that stuff. And like, to back a road, it's not easy for sure. But a lot of it, again, is visually, I think, that it's a lot easier than it looks. And I think to your point, he just bucked all the trends of the moment. You rode around on horseback. I didn't ride on horseback.

Yeah, it's full. We hadn't really mentioned it, but if you don't know anything about Strance, there's a lot more to be learned about him. He tragically passed away. I forget what year 2006 or something like that. But he was a young guy in mid 50s or something, I believe, throat cancer and passed away. And so, yeah, it's weird to see tobacco road in just like the directions he was going and the more confidence he was getting and like, it would have been really

cool to see how far he would have pushed it on future projects or if he would dial the back or what would happen. I gained a lot of appreciation for tobacco road in Caledonia after playing Monor Rapunzel the short course because you saw a lot of the same features or a lot of the same devices that he used but just on a really like world-class piece of land and kind of a little bit like a little bit turned down almost like it was a little bit more editing in it. Right. And but then, you know, like I would see something there and then I'd be like, man, like that

reminds me of that whole tobacco road. And then you realize like, all right, like that's where he started with the idea at tobacco road or caledonia. And so he was just getting started. So I think that was, that's such an important thing to note is like if this guy had another 10, 15, 20 years of fine-tuning, you know, all of his philosophies, it would have been so impactful.

Not only fine-tuning, I think one thing you said, like, you know, for certain people, some elements just might not agree with them and they might not like it. And I think that's kind of the real artist in them was he was willing to try a bunch of Different stuff and like any I think good artists. It's like some some might not land But yeah with 15 20 more years. It's like shit. What else would he have kind of come up with or where else would his mind have gone? I think one of the most interesting things that I took away it was the only time I played tobacco road but you know we talked about Pinehurst number two how a lot of the slopes are

repelling balls away from the hole and it just that makes it even harder. When you stand on some of the fairways and you're looking into some of the greens at tobacco road like they're the most mean-spirited looking things ever. They look alien and you're on a different planet and just impossible. But I found, and maybe it was just where the pins were or where I happened to hit the ball or whatever, but it seemed like the slopes were a lot more helping. More often times, not they're helping your ball get closer to the hole rather than pushing it away from the hole, which I think is a cool balance between how hard it looks and how it actually plays. So big takeaways.

I think like 15 is a perfect example of what you're saying, DJ, where do I hit it here? I don't even see where the green is, and then you get up there and you're like, oh, this is easy. Right. Yeah. But with the pro, which was so just talking about the experience that day too, it was absolutely freezing. It was like 28 degrees and warmers.

The coldest. Yeah, like on the range, the, you know, oh, that's right. The ice bucket was frozen. The water. The club cleaner. We're all frozen. So we put with Chris, who's the GM.

God, one of my favorite people I've met in golf. Chris Brown. Yeah. Not that Chris Brown. Yeah, just, I mean, super tall. Shout out to Randy. Shout out, thank you. But yeah, just just, he's been there.

That was the other thing that really stuck with me. Everybody that we talked to, it was pretty much been there since the beginning and like the Super and you know, helped chance, trans-shape the course. Just a really like, you could tell it's a special place. The owners are, you know, they met us there. They're super involved with the place and it's like a labor of love. But yeah, Chris was fantastic, but like having that local knowledge was absolutely

like essential. Yeah, I think that that might be the the episode I'm most excited to come out I think that's gonna be it's really good stuff and the par-fives are just oh my god Out of control, yeah, I was like the biggest takeaway was I can't like think of a more engaging and fun set of par-fives That I've ever played like they and the we played with the little one of the assistant pros there and she was telling us like, he always gives you a route that is like, cut it off. You wanna cut it off, like, play to the left side of this fairway and you can cut off the big hazard, you can carry this all over and it gives you a safe route. And I could, and all of the options.

Do not do this. He gives you, if you want. He gives you a safe word. It was just so fun. I was honestly, I hear so much about tobacco road going into it, I was nervous to be let down and I felt like, yeah, I'm just supposed to like this. Like I have to, everyone loves it.

And I liked it even more than I thought I would. I honestly thought he could have dialed the crazy up even a little bit more. People say that it's a craziest golf course. I didn't find it that crazy, maybe just because I was programmed going into it to know that it was gonna be different. You also consistently get the ball airborne.

Well, yeah, but- A lot of those people don't. Yeah, that's true, but like, I just, it didn't get weird, weird until that one part for 17, or was it 16? The dog leg left. That was a little bit weird. That was a little bit weird, though.

But yeah, it was like, it could have gotten even funkier. I loved it. I thought it was freaking, it could have gotten even funcier. I loved it. I thought it was freaking amazing. I can't wait to go back. I'd love to play it. Great finishing hole. Great finishing hole.

I mean, it just, it had so many layers. It was a big, there's a big fireplace in the middle of the clubhouse. And you just, like these big leather couches around it. I just love celebrating different things in golf. Like that was bold. That was aggressive. It was gonna piss some people off and for a place that like,

you know, relies on people showing up and paying a green fee to keep it going. It's not the easiest thing to support. Like a lot of people make golf courses to make a ton of money off of and I just didn't feel like that's what this was. And I love that. So one thing to note too.

So we ended up playing tobacco-rode a day later than we had anticipated. We got rained out. We were exceptionally lucky with the weather considering the time of year, especially early to mid-November there for the second leg. But we went to the Tufts Archives the second to last day, which was a treat. Yeah, that's like the entire history of Pinehurst and Donald Ross just kind of rolled up into one building.

If you're ever in Pinehurst, it's a really cool way to go spend a morning or an afternoon when you don't have anything to do. We're sitting there in the secretary of the Donald Ross Society's in the archives doing some research there. It was just it kind of brought it all life. I mean, really, otherwise with like Carolinas, I know we skipped a large portion of the region as far as mountain golf.

One of the reasons for that is just a lot of like private, you know, there's Diamond Creek and Way to Hampton. And there's some good Ross courses up there, built more forest. There's a lot. You couldn't cover it all, yeah, of course, but I feel like we captured, you know, what, at least part of what the vibe is like for golf in the carolinas. And different, different flavors, different tastes,

different people. We're excited for people to see it. It will be premiering Tuesday. Okay, we're going to go evenings for the premieres for the next come for the upcoming season Taurus sauce season five presented by our partner original penguin on Tuesday January 28th episode one It's gonna be a ten episode season and look forward to seeing how it plays out and who takes home all the money And how they spend it that's gonna be the fun part Thank you for tuning into an lengthy episode of the podcast and

back with the regularly scheduled programming this coming weekend. Cheers! Cheers! That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.