I received a message this afternoon from my friend, whom we’ll call…Charlie…which, in a roundabout way, informed me that I did not win the Swilcan Package Advanced Tee Time lottery to play the Old Course in 2026. I’ve never been so happy for such a crushing defeat. Why? Because sometimes karma gets you what you…
Golf Inc. recently hosted a Clubhouse Design Showcase webinar, allowing several prominent architects and interior designers to display their recent projects and discuss trends they are observing in the industry. While not explicitly limited to a subgenre, most of the discussion involved redesign, expansion, or adding on to existing clubhouse spaces rather than new construction,…
It’s time to make a swing change. Not a little tweak here and there but a real change to what I’m trying to do with the club.
I didn’t blush, but it was nice to hear nonetheless.
Nearly one year after embarking on our Bandon Dunes adventure, Fred, Matt, and Dave reconvene one final time to tie the bow on our experiences on the Oregon coast. We discuss the highs and lows, what we loved and what we didn’t, and what we’d do differently on our next adventure out west. Matt also…
I’m taking my family to the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon this month. To prepare for our adventure, I called on long-time friend of the podcast and unofficial Scotland correspondent Kieran Clark to talk about what we can expect to experience, as well as the current state of Scottish golf. Kieran is a St.…
The boys finally get around to discussing Bandon Trails, which Matt and I were absolutely smitten with, from start to finish. A masterwork of routing and shaping from Coore Crenshaw set inland among the still-wooded dunes and logging trails, the course is almost the perfect mix of difficulty, beauty, and diversity for golf. Podcast: Play…
Golf course architect Brian Ross rejoins the show to discuss how Park Mammoth GC continues to evolve two years after its grand re-opening. With a new, permanent clubhouse under construction, a new short named “The Boneyard” that Brian is designer just announced, and the announcement of a new putting course to come, it’s an exciting…
In this conversation, I sat down with filmmaker Hagen O’Neil of Palmer Pictures to discuss the background and process of making his wonderful documentary film about the course, “From Red Clay to Fairways.” Using the color personalities that form The Fields leadership team, Hagen brings the course’s Phoenix-like rise to the screen, while exploring the principles of community and public golf writ large, as the divide between luxury and every day golf experiences continues to widen.
This is the Sheep Ranch episode. Perched against the coast on the bluff just north of the Pacific Dunes and Old Mac golf courses, the Sheep Ranch struck me as a bit different than the rest. A much ballyhood Coore Crenshaw masterpiece, it’s more familiar to other experiences than I felt on the rest of the Bandon Courses. Sure, it’s in a unique, almost magical setting, but it was flatter, with fewer visual disruptions. It felt like a core golf course, with long sightlines largely unbroken in most directions. Gentler, calmer ground led to a gentler calmer golf experience, at least on the morning we were there. Later that afternoon, the caddies told us the winds were upwards of 40 mph at Sheep Ranch, where we played in, at worst, a nice breeze that morning.
The Kentucky State Park System is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2024. This episode is the first of a new series wherein I’ll profile Kentucky’s state park golf courses from time to time. To kick off this new endeavor, I was honored to sit down recently with the Commissioner of the Kentucky State Park System, Mr. Russ Meyer. We talk the breadth, mission, and funding of Kentucky’s state park courses, as well as highlighting some of the much-needed improvements that are on the way.
This is the Pacific Dunes episode, our fourth of this season’s “Americans in Oregon Series.” A golf course of almost unanimous acclaim, it’s the golf course that brought architect Tom Doak into the larger golfing public’s consciousness, that showed people how spectacular coastal golf in America can be, and what natural, minimalist golf architecture can…
Friend of the Show, Chris Boysel, PGA, returns to talk about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we think we’re going in golf in central Kentucky, and to an extent, in golf writ large. Chris oversees Tournament Operations and Player Development for Play Golf Lexington, the omnibus organization responsible for municipal golf in…
This is the Bandon Dunes episode, the one about the original course at the Bandon Dunes Resort, the one that started it all. This is where it began for Oregon as a golf destination, for the Keiser family golf empire, for golf architect David McKlay Kidd, for fun overtaking difficulty as the chief goal of…
Ethan Fisher, PGA, returns to the podcast to discuss his article over on OneBeardedGolfer.com revisiting the life and demise of the shooting star of Kentucky golf at the start of the 21st century, Old Silo Golf Course in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. It’s a fascinating, cautionary tale from the collapse of the most recent golf boom…
Our 2nd installment of the Americans in Oregon, discussing our experience on the Old MacDonald course, and the awe and wonderment of realizing the scale of the Bandon Dunes operation. Plus, a heretical idea so crazy I’d could only get away with it because it’s on the Internet. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe:…
In this first installment of the “Americans in Oregon” series, we set the scene at Bandon Dunes through our impressions of the Punch Bowl putting course, the 13-hole Bandon Preserve short course, and an examination of the resort’s vibe through our lodging and accommodations experiences. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio…
Matt, Fred, and I reconvene at the Americans in Scotland round table to discuss whether golf trips truly need a “trophy course” to anchor a buddies golf trip. It’s big-picture discussion based on the small details we’ve accumulated in a decade or so of golf trip experience. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Spotify…
We happen to be living through a tumultuous time in men’s professional golf, and I wondered if Hal might recognize any familiar story lines from his lived experience and research for the book. He did, and there are all worth ruminating upon further.
I’m honored to welcome Nathan Crace, ASGCA to the podcast to talk through and help me understand the much ballyhooed USGA decision to “roll back the golf ball.” Watermark Golf – http://watermarkgolf.com/nathan/ Moonbay Media – http://www.moonbaymedia.com/ Nathan Crace, ASGCA – https://asgca.org/architect/ncrace/ Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | TuneIn | Deezer…
Beyond those surface level conversation starters, though, there’s enough trust in our mutual discretion to speak freely about what’s going right and what has gone terribly wrong, in golf and life. Golf professionals listen to a lot of what people want to complain about, so I think they enjoy the idea of someone actually listening to them for a change.
Two things happen simultaneously to tank an otherwise improving golf year. I get busy, forgoing additional in-season golf lessons, and I get greedy. Greedy for lower scores. Greedy for swinging the club faster and hitting the ball further. Greedy for getting better faster.
The Flag Game works like this: each player receives a flag with their number written on it. The number is the sum of par for the course and that player’s course handicap. Each player’s number is how many strokes they get to use to get as far down the course as they can, and their flag is planted wherever their final allotted stroke comes to rest.
I speak with Lie + Loft founder Luke Davis about his journey to and within golf. Golf art and golf imagery has come a long way in the past decade or two. Once the exclusive province of the coffee table books, luxury travel publications, and the architecture issues of the mainstream golf publications, artistic depictions of golf’s playing fields have been devolved to the people in the digital age.
To experience Elie is to play golf simply for the joy of it, through one’s eyes, heart, and imagination, rather through a range finder lens and the tally on a scorecard. Golf legend and five-time Open Championship winner Peter Thomson remarked of the Elie links, “It’s quirky and it’s the most enjoyable course I know. If I had my way, I’d build Elies all over the world.”