Mike McLaughlin
Looking forward to it! It’ll be my first FEGC event and the course looks great w/ the renovation. Tacking on Philly Cricket the day after which should be cool after watching the pros play it at the Truist last spring.
Link to commentJustin Miller
Regarding the whole idea of "scarcity" with regard to the tour schedule, a couple items I would be interested to hear the group's opinion on:
- The comparison keeps getting made to the NFL. Sure the period in which the games are played is just more than 5 months, but is the NFL schedule really that scarce, there are 272 regular season games with multiple games going on at the same time. Often times there are two really good games at the same time, so you can't truly watch both at the same time. The NFL even added weeks with multiple MNF going on at the same time.
- Is a scarce schedule really a good thing for the PGA Tour? I dislike plenty of LIV, but part of the problem I found is that the schedule starts and stops and it is hard to have a sense for "is there a tournament or not this week". Whereas the tour is on every week, and over time we've built a clear sense for when big tournaments are up. Will people forget about golf if there are just fewer opportunities to watch it
- Avoiding the NFL - Ultimately that will shift a meaningful chunk of "important" tournaments to the warmer months, when golf fans are more apt to play rather than watch golf. I don't care what course they are playing on tv, if it is golf season, I'm choosing to play rather than watch other people play. By basically going all-in on the warm weather months, the tour is going to effectively be competing with the decision to play or to watch.
Link to commentNicholas Christie
Hey Brad - Warrnambool is a really fun course (famously Marc Leishman's home course) but if you're going to drive that far (train is way too much effort) then Port Fairy is the more special experience.
To make the drive worth it you could do also Peterborough (beautiful 9-holer on the coast), Geelong (crafty 9-holer on the drive there), Apollo Bay, and then Warrnambool and Port Fairy as your main courses....
Stepping back a bit though, for world-class golf the priority order is:
1. Sandbelt (RM, KH, Vic, PK et al)
2. Mornington Peninsula (The National, The Dunes, St Andrews Beach, Portsea, Sorrento, Moonah Links, Rosebud)
3. Bellarine Peninsula (13th Beach, Lonsdale Links, Barwon Heads, Queenscliff)
4. Yarra Valley (Cathedral, Healesville, Heritage, Eastern)
And then the Great Ocean Road (where Warrnambool is) would probably be the next.
Link to commentNicholas Crocker
Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes is incredible. The author Stephen Goodwin tells the story of Bandon well but also does a brilliant job of summarising a ton of key themes of golf course architecture throughout the book.
It's also really well written:
"The place could be described, to quote the words Mike wrote years earlier, as “nature perfected.” On the map of golf, there are not many holy places; from this height, it is easy to understand why Bandon has so swiftly claimed its place among them."
Link to commentMatthew Schoolfield
Great pod here. It's good to actually have a very long discussion of everything that is happening in one place.
Link to commentWesley Domeck
Awesome work and podcast! Great to see this getting the broader attention it deserves. Love the way Garrett connected the issue to the broader concept of quality of life.
Link to commentMike Ihm
Conversation about the next tour schedule has been ongoing. How do you think or hope news/coverage/dmcas etc will change?
Link to commentJoshua Lambert
Titans fan here, What’s the opinion of Saleh? Know he was kind of disaster for the Jets and wondering if we should expect the same?
Link to commentThis past Masters alone felt like it had more than one nomination. P’s hole-out on #17 and multiple candidates from Rose; probably highlighted by his putt on the 72nd hole.
I can’t remember if this was on Saturday or Sunday, but Bryson dropped his approach on 16 at Valhalla in 2024 to a foot away that was pretty electric.
In the non-major category, one that comes to mind right away is DJ’s putt at Olympia Fields in 2020 that got canceled out by Rahm matching him.
Link to commentAndy Johnson
Welcome to the forum PJ!
What Navy Pier attraction are you most excited about for your upcoming Chicago Trip?
Link to commentEvan Baldridge
Yeah they have a few go to holes. That hole, 18 at Sandhills, 8 at Sandhills. 3 at sand valley, the 13th at We Ko Pa. In general Bill Coore will often fill between two points at the green so I think you can find similarities at a smaller scale too.
Link to commentJordan Smith
Haven't had time to watch yet, but good for Garrett to be featured on a bigtime show like PTFO.
Link to commentEvan Baldridge
These holes are all vastly different, hard to call it a template. The one hole he does like to use a lot is the hell’s half acre. He has recently been building a short par 3 with a wide green surrounded by bunkers even wider than the green.
Link to commentEvan Baldridge
Yeah they have a few go to holes. That hole, 18 at Sandhills, 8 at Sandhills. 3 at sand valley. In general Bill Coore will often fill between two points at the green so I think you can find similarities at a smaller scale too.
Link to commentEvan Baldridge
These holes are all vastly different, hard to call it a template. The one hole he does like to use a lot is the hell’s half acre. He has always recently been building a short par 3 with a wide green surrounded by bunkers even wider than the green.
Link to commentHunter Williams
Awesome. Look forward to that. We're in Austin, TX but usually vacation 1-2 times per year on 30A so excited about this and Old Dunes starting to provide some options for some meaningful golf in the area.
Keep up the awesome coverage
Link to commentGarrett Morrison
Hey Hunter — An interesting project indeed! I've got a full report on it coming up in a future edition of Design Notebook. Perhaps the most notable thing about it is the private-but-accessible model they're trying.
Link to commentPeter M
That's an important question, I just assumed public because I just do not see a private course working there, unless it's going to be a PJ in and out type place, which who knows anymore?
I know the land is going to be cheap in that area, and if it's on sand it should be cheap to build. I would also assume the design fee will be considerably less than one of the Big 4, so it does have the ingredients to be a reasonably priced course. I cannot wait to learn more!
Link to commentBen Denison
Do we know if this will be public vs. private? I guess the question is is it possible to build a new course where the cost could be less than 300??
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