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.”
After a weekend of walking the MidSouth’s best nine-hole courses, I’ve been thinking about my experiences in terms of what sets Sweetens Cove Golf Club and The Course at Sewanee apart.
On the ninth night of Christmas, I struggle with the fact that I am what is holding back my putting. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More
I contemplate how my local golf club professionals fulfill a role that I formerly found in my barber, my bartender, or my colleagues. Talker. Friend. Listener. Confidant. Fellow traveler. They are the fabric that binds me to my golf community, and the tie that binds that larger community together. And I’m better for knowing them.
Thoughts on the social and social media silo that I’ve landed in focused on golf swing speed and hitting the ball farther.
A playing partner, especially a randomly assigned one, can make or break a round of golf.
A rumination and three cheers for that collection of golf courses that are truly familiar, old haunts that are comfortable to play, no matter how long it’s been since it was last played.
On the fourth night of Christmas, I ponder my golf present and future after a fourth month forced layoff from the game.
On the third night of Christmas, I spend a few moments reflecting on the role and importance of daydreaming in golf. Daydreams sometimes turn into plans, and, occasionally, even come true. That’s enough to get me through, enough to keep me motivated, and the romance of the next adventure.
On the second night of Christmas, I reflect on what it means, if anything, that I played the best golf of my life in 2022. Can I continue to get better? Or is this as good as it gets? And will any of it ever be good enough? Happy Boxing Day, everybody
On the first night of Christmas, I look back at the courses I played for the first time in 2022. Merry Christmas everyone!
This episode is another installment of the Americans in the MidSouth episode. This time, Fred and I share memories and platitudes of the Course at Sewanee, located on the campus of Sewanee: The University of the South, just up the road roughly 50 miles west of Chattanooga.
To me, the Course at Sewanee, a nine-hole, 2014 Gil Hanse renovation, does community golf hub unlike most anyplace else I’ve visited on this side of the Atlantic. It is an arresting and engaging golf course, folded seamlessly into the fabric of the University Domain up on the Bishops’ Mountain. The greens and the visuals at Sewanee are superb, perfectly nestled into the larger landscape of the course, all of which left a lasting impression upon me, and a desire to return sooner rather than later.
Kieran Clark, the Digital & Social editor at Golf Shake, lives in St. Andrews, Scotland, which gave him a unique experience when the 150th Open Championship was played there on the Old Course this summer. He gets to the essence of what make the Home of Golf so special on any given day, and how those magical qualities are amplified by the buzz and excitement of an Open Championship.
Three years ago, Matt, Fred and I embarked on a journey to the Home of Golf. That trip, those places, that golf, that Scotland, it changed us forever. So much has changed since the fall of 2019, so on this third anniversary of the trip, the fellas and I get together and reflect on such…
The Do Something Golf Club in Lexington is bringing golf into the schools and communities that otherwise might not otherwise have any exposure to the game we love. Its founder and driving force, Shed Lacefield, shares the journey of his brainchild program that began as a few kids learning to swing a golf club after…
What the fellas found at the end of the Road to Savannah Harbor.
I was charmed by what I found at The McLemore, high atop Lookout Mountain above Rising Fawn, Georgia. In this conversation with Duane Horton, president of The McLemore, as well as the Scenic Land Company, and Charlie Rymer, McLemore Executive VP, we discuss how the community and development is transitioning from a traditional golf residential…
Lawrence Donegan’s essay titled Adventures in Junior Golf from McKellar #5 was the most important article I’ve read in 20 years. In it, Donegan examines the Youth Sports Industrial Complex through the lens of his experiences as the dad of a junior golfer, weaving tales of woe and lessons learned with the bad and the…
My conversation with Mike from the Chasing Scratch Podcast, tracing his and Eli’s journey towards a scratch golf handicap and a community they never expected.
Matt Considine is a co-founder of NewClub Golf Society, an official golf club modeled after the golf societies of Great Britain and Ireland. NewClub offers a home to golfers that desire the best elements of a golfing community: camaraderie, competition, and a commitment to stewardship of the game we all love. Matt’s passion has become…
Each August, on the heels of our annual golf getaway, I reflect on what revealed itself in the build-up, execution, and aftermath of the three (or sometimes four) day spectacle. Organizing those thoughts into something coherent and valuable takes as long to plan as the actual golf trip. Here is my attempt for the 9th…