As a first time golf pilgrim in Scotland, the entire country felt like a playground. The Scots proved warm and welcoming, themselves either immersed in, or wholly supportive of, the golf culture that is virtually indistinguishable from the rest of life in places like East Lothian and Fife. The very idea of Scotland evoked a…
Another episode in our Scotland series, this episode contains the second half of my interview with author and Scottish golf travel expert, Graylyn Loomis, discussing his eBook, How to Plan a Scottish Golf Trip, which is available on his website, graylynloomis.com or on Amazon, and his experiences as a golf trip consultant. Our discussion touches…
If you asked me to close my eyes and said “country club golf course,” Louisville’s Big Spring Country Club is what I would see in my mind. It’s the best prototypical private local club course that I’ve played. It’s not a gem from a master of golf’s Golden Age of architecture, or big enough to…
A mini, pop-up episode containing riffs and an anecdote about playing golf angry. There’s a bit of a confessional about the struggle to keep my emotions and my the 16th hole at the Castle Course in St. Andrews, where instead of the anger getting the best of me and ruining a game of golf, it…
The golf trip to Southern Pines in August 2020 will mark my 8th consecutive year as a golf trip captain. Add in random long weekends and overnight golf excursions that pop up from time to time, and I’ve spent a lot of time chasing this crazy game far and wide. Each trip has been fun…
A pop-up version of the Blind Shots Podcast, this mini-episode is the “after” of a before and after collection of podcasts about an overdue golf lesson. It’s a little different from the standard interview format, more in the style of a rant or audio confessional, that I hope you will like. This will be the…
A pop-up version of the Blind Shots Podcast, the “before” of a before and after collection of podcasts about an overdue golf lesson. This is something a little different that I hope you will like. This podcast is a brief monologue about my fears, worries, and expectations the night before my first golf lesson in…
This is the revised story of how a retweet turned into a quest, ending at the Old Course’s first tee. This is the first episode of a series that focuses on The Scotland Experience I enjoyed in the fall of 2019, and all of the shenanigans, plans, dreams, worries, and luck that went into it.…
A new golf podcast from the author of OneBeardedGolfer.com discussing everything we love and hate about the game, sport, and business of golf.
There is something almost unspeakably powerful about experiencing a work of art that blurs the lines between the characters’ life experiences and your own life’s journey. When the story evokes questions, fears, joys, doubts, gratitude, and regret that you have experienced, you find the line between entertainment and self-examination three steps behind you. You live…
Let me tell me a story about how something so inconsequential, so incidental to the playing of golf can matter greatly to the golf course experience. Can a scorecard matter? Not what is written on the scorecard, not the information printed in ink or the scores scribbled in pencil, but the actual physical scorecard? Yes?…
Playing the ancient North Berwick West Links upon arrival to Scotland should be a required rite of passage for first time visitors. A course that exemplifies the very definition of links golf, it’s a foundational round upon which any golf trip to East Lothian, Fife, or Open Rota Quest can be built. The Setting The…
Standing in fairway of the 457-yard, par four 18th hole of the Leven Links, there was no decision. I was going for the green. As Fred and Matt debated their layup targets, I was brimming with adrenaline for opportunity to hit the perfect shot. Somewhere along my journey as a golfer, I changed. One of…
My relationship with golf course architecture, primarily from the standpoint of a player, is a continuously developing gambit. I know most of the names of the important architects from various eras of golf course design and I’ve committed a handful of template holes to memory so that I can pretend to keep up with a…
In a recent column in Golf Australia magazine, my friend Rod Morri made the case that the game of golf is in dire need of a long-term strategic plan. He is absolutely right. You should take a few minutes to read that column here. His essay acutely recognizes that the game of golf doesn’t need…
Ben Hogan is quoted as stating, “A good round of golf is if you can hit about three shots that turnout exactly as you planned them.” During the eight holes of golf I played yesterday, I hit exactly two shots that fit my definition of truly turning out exactly as I planned them. The second…
The following interview was originally published on the website of Golf House Kentucky, which is Kentucky’s umbrella organization for amateur and professional golf on April 24, 2019. Usually I both ask and answer questions myself, so it was a nice change to get to talk golf and answer of few questions with Ethan Fisher, PGA. …
On my journey from hacker to avid amateur golfer, conquering the weather and various environmental factors encountered on a golf course was nearly as big a hurdle as poor alignment, a bad path on the takeaway, and coming over the top on the downswing. Along the way I have cast out most of the old…
Managing expectations is a tricky proposition, in golf as in life. Balancing hopeful optimism and evidence from past performances without tilting expectations too far in either direction takes mental toughness and discipline, which probably requires a stronger mind than mine. The end of last season was a roller coaster ride that saw me playing the…
I don’t know if there are hard and fast rules on how many favorites one can have, but my list of favorite golf courses expands from the top each year. My trip to play Arcadia Bluffs resulted in its eighteen holes instantly earning a reverence that few golf experiences may ever match. It instantly became…
I never paid much attention to, or was really even aware of, golf course architecture until recently. I attribute the oversight to how I came to the game of golf and when I got serious about it. Now it’s a subject I can’t help but ponder with disturbing regularity. I played baseball growing up, where…
I am an enthusiast of great short golf courses, by whatever name they are called and however they are supposed to be played. Par 3 course. Short Course. Executive Course. Pitch and Putt. Putting Course. Nine holes. Twelve Holes. Eighteen holes. The labels make no difference, so long as the golf experience is engaging and…
There has been a conspicuous reduction in the number of new faces working the treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical machines at my local YMCA. It seems the six weeks of winter of 2019 has taken its toll on all the Resolutioners hoping against hope that “this was the year.” In order to avoid their fate,…
One bright, breezy Saturday this past December, I finally did something on the golf course that I had been telling myself that I should do for a long time: I played an entire round from the forward (red) tees at Kearney Hill Golf Links. What was supposed to be an exercise in changing perspectives turned…
In 2016, our annual Guys’ Golf Trip took us to the greater Indianapolis metro to explore the best public courses in the area. Indy is well-known for its many memorable Pete Dye-designed golf courses, but it was a course constructed by Dye understudy, Tim Liddy, ASGCA, that perhaps made the most lasting impression. The Trophy…