A Preview of Royal Troon

have heard of it. We're digging into the history and architecture of Royal Troon and also discussing some of the other great courses in its area on the west coast of Scotland. To help me do all of that, I'm bringing on Sam Cooper. Sam is an associate for the architecture firm Clayton, Devrees and Pont and he has played literally every Links course in Great Britain. That's not an exaggeration, just a description of his very ambitious Links from the Road tour, which he took a couple of years back

and is currently writing a book series about so. In addition to discussing Royal Troon, I thought I'd also pick Sam's brain about some of the courses that he saw around Royal Troon because he saw them all so really fun. Episode ahead. And by the way, if you enjoy Sam Cooper's contribution to our podcast, then check out his podcast Golf Badgers. That's a fun listen as well. Sam's a great guy and a really sharp architecture mind. First, though, I thought i'd talk a little bit about our sponsor,

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in the Liverpool area. I'm I'm an ignorant American here these discisions.

just another one so far. But yeah, we've had three pretty memorable well certainly certainly two and a half as have been very memorable and one that was a bit of a washout last year, which was such a shame. But they're brilliant. They consume everything, they take over the town. It's only a small Hoylake itself. It's not big, it's just this little coastal coastal town twenty five minutes we

are from Liverpool itself. But it goes from I don't know how many of us that live here, but not many, and then all of a sudden a couple of hundred, maybe quarter of a million people descend for the week of the Open, so naturally it's sort of really does take over and it is a real buzz buzz for the week and leading up to us as well.

all of them, but Davicenzo he won it seven. He didn't win win again, but not like he was someone that necessarily had an enormous streak. But Peter Thompson did he won again? I think, no, of course he did. So he won in the fifties and Walter Hagen won in the in the twenties. But yeah, I guess, I guess at least let me think about this quickly, maybe six or seven maybe more never won another Open championship, So you can you can draw it reasonably, I'd say.

every links course in Great Britain. But let's dig into trun specifically broad strokes, not talking about any specific holes yet. What's the history of the design here? How did it evolve from from its earliest form to its Open Championship form?

a few years time. So it's old, you know, it is. It's old. Not necessarily old in absolute Scottish terms, but yeah, no it is. And I think it was probably safe to say it was shaped by its early professionals, you know, the source of the Willy Fernies, the guys who when golf really was growing in that late part of the twentieth century, it was the it was sorry the nineteenth century, forgive me, it was those Scottish professionals who really then

went around built new courses in the area. I think Willy Fernie was he the Open championship in eighteen eighty two, maybe, but he was for many many all of the course that sort of exist in that Ayesha region, going down to Dumfries and Galloway. As you get close to the border,

in Southwest Scotland. There were so many that he would have had a hand in laying out or popularizing or playing matches, opening matches when the course, you know, drum up that popularity because golf was later to Southwest Scotland than it certainly was to the to the east coast of Scotland. But of course Prestwick next door to Truon was probably an intrinsic part of it. It was early

days and its history. But really in our modern era, you know, it is true this is well known for the Open Championship and not Prestwick next door.

have twenty three before Truon had its first. But if you were to think how many they had when the open Rotor then sort of grew at all by the time Muscleborough joined, By the time that the old course joined, you had three courses between twelve hole Prestwick, between nine hole Muscleborough and eighteen holes and Andrews. As it ultimately became that just you know, they picked a number, well, what's a common multiple thirty six holes and you know

it's a three twelve, four nines or two eighteens. And really to think that virtually every golf course in the world then becomes eighteen holes when the first open rosso if you can call it, that was three courses with three different numbers, is just world's away from where it came from.

adapted to the Saint Andrews model. But there are some nuances in that history and some little sort of roads not taken that could potentially have been taken, that are very interesting to think about now, because we could be facing a very different golf landscape had become the standard number of.

sort of as the norm. So there are so many, as you say, lit or quirks and nuances and points in time, and I think if we were to think of golf, this is just my minus of philosophy, especially having grown up at Hoylake and thinking a lot about one distile point in time where where Royal Liverpool was a point that sort of pushed the game of golf forward. You know, it's easy to think that golf moves forward uniformally and sort of constantly, and it's just not the

case at all. There are just certain points and junctures where things really really explode and change move forward, and then perhaps they're followed by a lot less or maybe even a bit of regression. So it's just timing all of these things.

to one another. But it's that section from the seventh when you cut in land round to the sort of twelve thirteen where for me, that is the most memorable and interesting part of a golf course. It is a lot more memorable and interesting than perhaps some give it credit for, but no more so than that postage stamp. And yeah, I think different stories. You get so many conflicting things whether it was Braid who had a hand,

whether it was Willy Fernie who had a hand. You know, you've got these beautiful illustrations that we all associate with Bernard Darwin's Golf Course of Great Britain and Ireland book. Those beautiful illustrations sort of think for true it shows or there you go right there? Does it show the.

the form that it has now at that point. At least the green site was.

But you know, despite being tiny, I think that it's a hole that has a lot more subtlety than perhaps first first appears. And perhaps that's what makes it such an enduringly interesting hole that we will always talk about when the open goes back to Trune.

the embodiment of this. They are greens. Where As the pin moves around on day to day in the Open Championship, as the wind changes direction and strength, as you know whether you are attacking or whether you are defending, you know whether the ground has gotten particularly firm or whether it's a little softer, all of those characteristics kind of combined to maybe slightly change how you might play the hole.

And I think if you just think of a typical penal hole, that's probably not really going to be the case, you know, just you might end up playing it the same way irrespective of those conditions. And I do think that the postage damp is that slice anomaly, because with such a deep green, it's it's sort of broader, which isn't say wide, because it's not wide at any point, but it's a certainly wider at the front to the green.

I think I measured it almost fifty feet at the front and certainly under thirty feet at the back, so it gets narrower. So you have this point you stand on the tee, and if that pin is right at the very back of the green, you might say, well, you know what I'm going to I'm going to take a club less which you can do over one hundred feet of green, and play to the front of the green.

I've got less club, so I'm probably going to be slightly more accurus and I've got twice the width to actually aim for because I know that I can two put and that's all I need to do. I just need to avoid, you know, the blow up, the disaster that might come if you try and be too greedy, too aggressive and you know, don't quite execute. So you know, it is that battle between the golfer's ambition and you

know the pride coming before the fall. So it's probably a little more strategic really for a hole that people wouldn't necessarily ever think that hole has any strategy that comes into the mind.

execute a shot that is just really uncomfortable. I think there's a lot of commonality between between that tension and what you get on the eighth t at Royal Troon.

can play it forward as well. I think it can be sub one hundred yards and ninety nine yards if they push the tea forward. So you know, there's got to be players who maybe started the week thinking, nope, I'm going to play short of the pin if it's there, or really try and be disciplined and realistically never going to have a very long put because it does have

a slight false front. So as long as you're on the green, and again you know what's the maximum put, you might have forty something feet, so you're never going to walk off if you've hit that green really worrying too much about about three putting it. But they might just get tempted into taking something, biting off more than they can chew, and then and then coming to regret it, you know, And that's the source of real common honesty. I guess between there in AUGUSTA.

do you really not want to be? And where is it kind of maybe okay to be obviously dependent on pin position.

a yard where it's going to pitch. Probably the question, and it's probably the thing I love most about watching the Open Championship, especially when the wind is blowing, which unfortunately it hasn't for this a while. But can you manage your spin? Can you control the spin? You know, it's something that we being golfers of you know, a million miles off their caliber, but it's something that you just have absolutely ground into you from being a little

kid playing golf. If you play golf in the wind, can you sort of dead arm your pitch into the wind, take the spin off, Can you, you know, get a bit more spin when it's down wind, get it higher, get it landing a bit softer. You know, I'd say my standard of golf and theirs is just the distance between the two is absolutely astronomical. But it's a skill that you kind of need in Britain that you don't

necessarily have in other parts of the of the world. So, you know, to come back to your question, spinning it off the false front and into that bunker that's short of the green. Well, then you're going to invariably be left with you know, the kind of bunker shoss. Who was it it at Rawst George's when he on the sixteenth and he kept and he left it coming back down into the bunker three or four times? Was it Thomas Devey? That? Well, you know you end up with that memories.

as it can be. Prevailing wind would be source of into off the right, so it's entirely possible that you've spun the ball back there, and then you think, oh, I've now got to actually make sure that the last thing you want to do is then compound your initial mistake, and it's so easily done, so I'd say that is that's disastrous. I seem to think that coffin bunker was actually dug to stop people playing into the bank, the hill that you referred to, the dune that the hole

is cut into, and then sort of letting it bounced down. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure where I read it. So again, historians will be screaming at their podcast provider.

that holes. Augusta. If you've got short short right, long left miss pattern, then then that coffin bunker is not only in play, but to be plugged under the back lip of that coffin bunker is entirely possible, because if you've just come and you've put another two yards to carry on, all of a sudden, with such fine margins, you can be absolutely up against it, quite literally, so

you never really want to be in there. So I would say the one that I'd most like to be and is probably that back right one, because if you're going to end up back right, then realistically you don't miss long, right, do you. Something's gone wrong? So if anything, it's probably helping you out a little bit. But there are no real good options for missing it, and that's why I think so many of them would just play it. This will say to take the medicine and try and try and walk off with four threes.

of the hip cool hidden holes at Royal Troon. But it's just so interesting to talk about number eight, and I'm glad we did that. But stepping back and looking at the course more generally, let's go back to the routing you mentioned this earlier. There are these two really clear phases, or three really phases of Royal Troon's routing. Two kind of separate pieces of land. One is the flatter stretch of land that go out to the dunes. Then you have the dunes holes, and the routing there

starts to get a little bit more varied. Right, the holes are kind of wrapping around each other and doubling back, whereas when you're on the flatter land, you're just going out and back because you're the whole point of the course. The whole point of the routing is to get out to those dunes where the seventh through the twelfth holes sit.

And they're wonderful dunes, wonderful golf holes. But if you were to make an argument for the first six holes on the course and the last six holes on the course, the holes that more or less run out and back and sit on the kind of subtler seaside land. What argument would you make for those holes? What should people look for? Why might they be considered.

So you know, I know that sounds like most of the holes, but effectively you go from let's say eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve thirteen, so that kind of section there, I think they've got fewer than two bunkers a hole on average, and that's with five of them on the postage damp. But you know, you've got fewer than two bunkers a hole, whereas I think I saw on the opening in the closing holes, you've got an average of nearly eight bunkers a hole. And for me, the first time I stood

on that first tea and it's a beautiful spot. You've got the you've got the sea immediately to the right. You don't really really sit on the water like you might do down the road at Turnbury at Trum, but you know, it's always there and it's a beautiful backdrop, soors playing away from the the town of Trun itself, but my enduring memory is always of avoiding the bunkers.

And you know, again, I think most recreational golfers, most of us amateurs, really think of the challenge that wind provides, being when you play into the wind, and yeah, that's definitely the case for you know, when your biggest concern is can I am I square as you know, my square as impact? But when you are slightly above that in terms of your you're plussing your way around a golf course when the pros are there, especially if it's firm.

And we talked, I think we've had one of the wettest, certainly one of the westest periods that I've ever lived through. So it's very unlikely that Truan will be as firm as it as it could be. But you know, if it does firm up enough to really let them worry about it, then I'd always argue that great holes are actually harder for the best players when they're played downwind

rather than into the wind. You know, you think into the wind, You think of you think of that two iron that Rory McElroy hit at the Scottish Open last year at Renaissance, and it was, you know, massively, massively into the wind, and all the story was, well, the normally hits its two iron and I've stopped two eighty or whatever, and you hit at two hundred yards. But the point is that landed and it near enough stopped. Well,

that's the benefits of playing into the wind. If you are driving into a sea of bunkers in front of you and it is down the prevailing wind and it is firm, the challenge isn't can I reach X, Y or z. The challenge is how do I stop my ball running that bit further losing all control and all of a sudden, you could have you could have played the first six holes at Truon. You could have been in a bunker on every single one of them.

his two iron near enough everywhere. And you know, it is the difference between the real artist, the guy who has complete mastery over not just the distance this is ball flies through the air, but can control the spin, can control the trajectory. Because you know, if you were to say, oh, I've got one, four seven into this, what do I hit? Well, as soon as you get in funky conditions, there is no right answer to that

question anymore. So I think that let's hope there is a bit of wind, or at least as far as I'm concerned, let's hope there's a little wind and it can get as firm as it possibly can, because I think that the player who can control not just their carry, not just their accuracy, but their trajectory, the shot shapes and really think about thistle more and can also be tolerant of, you know, a dodgy bounce into a bunker

and not let it phase them. You know, their skills that are rarely tested, and certainly the opening run of holes at Truon gives us opportunity to really test a different type of skill set. This is often required.

part of the world, but many others. You know, how many boundary holes can you think of garrison, the open rotor even that have that have a hard boundary that came from a railway track, And you know, it's it's big part of the reason these golf courses were built in the first place, where they were and how they were accessed, and it is, it is a key part, key part of it. So Troon's eleventh is is probably one of the most famous versions of it. Now it

used to be a part five. I think it's now four nine eight, and it's of course, you know Derisory four hundred and ninety eight yards, Well that's going to be a part four surely. But you know it's a hole that's straight into the teeth of the wind, and you know it's a it's a great hole in that it will undoubtedly rattle the players. They've got to navigate it,

they've got to survive it. But it's perhaps slightly less of the classic boundary hole that that you know, you we might read about in our nicest soul nice as a books on course, architecture or the rest of it, but it's not because there's now so much gorse down the left which never used to be there. It was always was a question of how far left you bail out because you don't want to be on the on the railway track, and you know, and Bunkard's source of

short left of the green accordingly. But now it's going to be as it has been in the last few Open championships, you know, sort of pretty narrow into the wind. You know, you've turned back against the against the against the prevailing wind on the tenth t so you know, you really really are digging deep, just trying to hit two to you know, something that will find the fairway,

something that will find the green. But you know, it is it is undoubted are going to have a role to play, as it has in many of the previous Opens.

But there the tenth hole, the tenth hole is probably what most people really think of when they think of links golf and you know, blind t shirts and fairly giving way to sort of rough ground in the middle and no one because I think on that whole, but it is, you know, it's a beautiful, beautiful setting just slightly away from the the far points of the course. You're only a couple of hundred yards from being on Presstwick.

But it's a beautiful place and it's a beautiful part of the course, and it is I think one of the great strengths of Truon that you have such different challenges and different types of golf all blended together and in one golf course.

live them anytime soon. I'm not sure I love watching that course, but I think it's similar to Royal Troon in the sense that it doesn't stand out for people like the old course does, or like Saint George's does with its incredible duneescape, or like Carnousti with those amazing, very difficult holes at the end with the burn Royal Troon maybe has a little bit of trouble standing out in the open Roda. But I think one thing that it does have going for it is this variety of landscapes,

of types of holes. It has two different kinds of routing principles within one course. It has the out and back, but it also has the mere field circular swirling routing in the dunes, and so it really does combine a number of different attributes that you look for in links golf.

best holes in Scotland their sixth hole. But it's it's a hole that is sorry, it's a course that this is similar in that you have the clubhouse, you have a corridor really of holes that take you from the clubhouse in straight linear fashion to then a much broader site with more with grander more dare I say, interesting lands that you then meander and navigate round and then and then you sort of get to the end of that broader part of the course and come back to

the clubhouse. So you know, it's not it's not unique in that sense, but it is certainly on the open, on the open rotor. Yeah, to to have a bit of both probably is because yeah, Rawson, George's, Hoylake, Birkdale with them, they are all sorts of broad, rectangular ish massive generalization, but broad sites. So to have this kind of you know, almost like a letter P shape with the with the narrow section and then broadening out is

is a little different. But really I think the way that you've just put your finger on that really important issue is for me almost more representative of the problem with golf in general, the fact that, you know, how often will we say of our own courses that we get to play on, you know, every day, every week,

every month, whatever it might be. You know, with the mark of a great golf course, I don't think many people would disagree is one that gets better every single time you play it, And just as I think most people would probably except that I think so often the exact reverse is also true. There are courses that just low you away the first time you play it because

they're so grand, so dramatic. But you know, by the time you've played them two, three, half a dozen, ten times, you go, oh, you know what, it's still beautiful and the views are still amazing. But actually, you know, on reflection, I'd rather play at, for example, the Old Course or Cornosty or Milefield or Rye. You know these courses that every single time you play them they get better and better.

And I do think that is a slight affliction on the game in general, if you go and play somewhere once and then you move on to the next one. With victims of our success that we have so many wonderful golf courses to go and play. So why would anyone logically go and play True four times when they could also go and play Western Gals and Prestwick and Tumbury and Glasgow Gaals. You know all these places is

in nearby. You probably wouldn't. But because of that, I do think that you lose a bit of the nuance. And perhaps you know, in our line of work in the architecture business, you almost can get tripped up by trying to stand out on playing number one rather than just really concern yourself with a hole that gets best and best for every single time you play it.

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every golf course maintenance operation. To learn more about the GS three, visit the USGA Green Section's website at gsshop dot USGA dot org. All right, let's get back to my interview. So Sam, I want to talk about all of the golf around Royal Troon, and there is a lot. But first I think people should know how you became familiar with these courses. Tell me about your links from the road project.

they managed that extraordinarily weird parcel of time. But where we were in England, we were locked down and Harritt, my long suffering wife, she and I were us at home and you know, we were sort of we worked for ourselves, so we weren't able to furlough or or anything. But we were coming up between projects and the world

was just so strange. We just said, look, you know, why don't we probably never going to have an opportunity like this again, to almost take a bit of a sabbastic or bit of time out, bit of time away from everything that we've just fallen into into the groove of doing. And you know, the juxtaposition between being locked down in our home. Our summer holiday that we'd had

in twenty nineteen was actually driving holiday. So we drove with our two dogs around the route called the North Coast five hundred and I'd encourage anyone to actually just google those words north Coast five hundred and you'll see one of the best driving holidays vacations that you could ever take. And this effectively goes all through the Scottish

Highlands and all the way around. And we spent a couple of weeks doing that, and I'd played, you know, like many people, you know, it wasn't meant to be a goal holiday, but the clubs found their way into the car and I managed to play at Dornoch, and I managed to play it at Brora, and I played this amazing nine hole course called Durness and that was

that was it. That was the extent of it. But all through the lockdown, you know, a few months later, we was sort of just thinking back to that freedom and our lack thereof during the COVID period and thought, well, wouldn't it be nice to go exploring again. So we sort of gone into the into this van life stuff and you see it on YouTube, and that's probably when we ran out of things on Netflix to watch. That's what we started watching instead.

finished it off. And the idea was we'd go and spend what remains of the summer in twenty twenty and the autumn, as long as the good weather would hold, driving around and having a bit of an adventure. And that's what we did. And of course then I thought, well, look, if I'm going to do this, I may as well indulge my passion for links golf. So that's exactly what it turned out to be. So I thought, well, you know, maybe over the course of my lifetime. It would be

nice to play links golf courses. That's my real passion, that's what I love. So I started pulling together a list, and you know, there are bucks and there are lists of things generally that you'll find and they're all slightly different. And I had a few that I thought had been missed off some of the general wisdom things. So I thought, well, I'm to pull my own list together and I'm going to go and see them, And before you know it, it had turned into a bit of a grown arms

and legs. So from September through till Christmas time twenty twenty, I played seventy five different courses, probably one hundred and cinc rounds over them, because you know, we had a few that I kept going back to. But then twenty one I played another hundred, and then twenty twenty two I sort of finished off the last fifty, which was comprised of two hundred and twenty five. This I had ended up with on my list, so that was really

the source of whatever. It was. Third of a life crisis to go and ended up playing all of the links and coastal courses really of England, Scotland and Wales, Great Britain.

You're got to generally sand. You want real sandy, undulating ground that might have population near enough to warrant building a golf course, and the right people who have been there at the right time. And you know, nowadays you'd say most of those parts of the country that have amazing, amazing june Land but don't have golf course already built there, well they never ever will because it will be protected and all the rest of it's from an environmental perspective.

So Trun and the Ayrsha region just fortunately had most of those things combining at the right point in time. Really, and yeah, there are now oh gosh, I suppose we best think of a few of them, but there are probably more links courses of equality in that this will stretch almost running as one contiguous course really one immediately after the other, and they're probably more there than anywhere else in well, in terms of links golf the world,

because there were more than anywhere else in Scotland. Say that's just to say the world.

Open Championship venue and all of that. So an enormously important course and location in golf, and a lot of this region kind of grew up around that that it turned this place into a golf place. But if you look at it now, just on Google Earth, there's this great little green pathway that goes through this whole area. So tell me about that, Like, take me through. What if you were to play, if you were allowed to do this, you could play all of them?

you'll find for golf absolutely anywhere. And so if you if you were to tee off on that first hole there, I'm pretty sure the members of Truon and Prestwick do this to this day and they have this sort of cross country match a bit like the hagen Hoof that they have down in Kent where they basically play Deal roll Saint Port's Rolls and Georgia's and Princes in and

they play there and back. Well then yeah absolutely, but they do the same thing there and they'll play from the first t they'll play up to the boundary, play the holes to the boundary between Truon and then you sort of walk across and then play the back nine of Trouon from the tenth te going into the clubhouse. Then probably have lunch there and then and then do the exact reverse, and thirty six holes later you you sort of stumble stumble ounce to the clubhouse at the

back where you started, having played entirely across country. But as we say, you could keep going if you'd made it then to the eighteenth Vos Troon. Then they've got the Portland Course next door course that most people say Aliston McKenzie did a bit of work on, But the Portland Course is adjacent, just over the road, so you could probably hit an iron over over over there and then that sort of But one of the great provisions

of municipal golf in in the UK. In Troon South Ayrshire Council, they have a brilliant, brilliant array of municipal golf courses and there are three in that particular part. There's the the Futherton Course, the lock Green Course and the Daly Course and and you know then all necessarily one h hundred percent links courses, but they have more

links holes than you'd ever really expect to find. For the I don't know what the green fee is, maybe twenty pounds, you know, not negligible in the grand scheme of the Grand scheme of golf nowadays, So you can sort of play across those three, so we've now played six courses, and then I guess from there you could probably find your way over the over the road onto Carmanic Barassi, which has got used to be a sort of quite compact eating whole course, and they expanded it

so now they've ended up with twenty seven twenty seven holes, so they've got the little Hillhouse nine whole course there, so you can play those two. You have to keep count for me, Garrett, because then you can sort of

pop over the fence at the far side. Maybe you'd go on to let me think about this, Maybe you go then onto Dundonald New, a new course of the area, but you know it's immediately a Buttz Barassi, and then you'd hop over the rail way, assuming you can avoid the avoid the eight thirty six going through to Prestwick, and you'd be on Western Gales, which is absolutely one of my favorite courses in that part of the world.

And then maybe the final one that maybe you'd need a three wood from the corner of Western Gales onto Glasgow Gales, but I'm sure you could do it with the right wind. And then what's that that's thick end of ten golf courses that you can that you can play from one to the next legitimately, well not legitimately, and I would encourage anyone to do that, but you know, at least it's it sort of demonstrates and shows just how rich it is as a region for great golf, because it's it is extraordinary.

coast of Dunbar, it's got brilliant, brilliant golf. But so too does a share and I would say that I don't know what the ratio is between people going to East Lothian and not to Airship, but it's out right now and it absolutely should be because it's not just those You've got West, You've got Urvin bog Side, which is you know, I only didn't include it because you can't hit it. I don't even think even Bryson could could get from Glasgow, Gales.

which is entirely worth playing. And then you know, in the other direction south of Prestwick, the old course at Prestwick, you've got you've got Preswick St Nicholas, which was sort of founded out to the Mechanics club that old Tom Morris sorso founded as the Artist AND's Club, a sort of Prestwick originally. But that's a brilliant, brilliant, quirky, gorgeous as a golf course. And you know that's before you get even to the big names further down the coast

of Turnbury. So all of that, it's probably one of the richest and it's also yes, you've got the you know, you've got the expensive, big hitters, well known courses. But then I'd say some of those courses I've just rattled off there, the Glasgow Gales, west kill Bride, Irvan Bogside,

Preswick St. Nicholas. You know, anyone will go there, and I would guarantee that you go there expecting to love Troon and Turnbury and you know what you will, you absolutely will, But you'll also talk about the PRESWICKX Nicholas and ah, well have you heard of Glasgow Gals. Do you know that that's part of the six older golf club in the world, you know, do you know?

after nine. But you know it is probably that's going to be up there with raw sint Port's, with the old course for having some of the most undulating rippling links, true links ground that you'll find anywhere, and all of this, all of this coastline here is under the source of the Watchful Eye cross the water of even more amazing golf because you can take little ferry, which is probably another reason that there's so much golf there, because it

was the source of the ferry route between England and Glasgow for a long point. You know, if you used to take the train from England up to from London, if you went from London to Glasgow before they connected the Lake district bit in the middle, then you go up to Fleetwood and then you get a ferry sort of a round and you get the ferry to this Aysha coast and then you get the railway fee you pick up the railway for your last journey into Glasgow. So you know, maybe that has had a part to

play as well. But you know, just further out on the islands, you see there you've got the Isle of Aarn, beautiful famous Isle of Aaron where one of my favorite courses happens to have twelve holes, Shiskin Shiskin's over there. And then you keep going and then you get to the famous Kintyre, famous Mullkin Tyre. They're not famous solely by Paul McCartney, going and living and singing a bounce it, but far more significantly for golfers. Jim Hartzell writing about

Dynavity and Macrahannish and all of those extraordinary courses. So you know, look west is a bit of advice that I really would give because there are you know, there's three weeks worth of golf over there, and it's it's beautiful and you.

a late twentieth century discovery. You see very early writings about this kind of mystical course way out on the west coast of Scotland that just you know, blue people's minds. But you can go there now and it's fairly well known now and there are more courses out there now and then and then just keep going if you want it. You can could just kind of get lost out there amid the you know, just these very remote places.

of the game. But for many, many people, I think anyone I know who's who's been over there. No one goes away and says, oh, it's really disappoint into with the speed of the greens at Askin.

consumes a lot of loss of my time. But I had all of these photographs, video, the source of the notes, the memories, and one of the things I really wanted to do, having visited so many beautiful places, is that you know, I can write something about Lithm or about trun or Turnburrey and tell people, realistically maybe a little bit more of what they already knew, and it's not going to make one job of difference. Really, if you haven't heard of turn Beurrey, then you're probably not picking

up my book. If you want to know more about it, then that's great, but it probably won't change your opinion on whether you should play it or not. But just like we've talked about here, there are so many places that maybe they don't have eighteen pure amazing links holes. But I'd actually make a case that very very you know, like places you could count on your finger and toes

actually fill that criteria. So even the very very best, world renowned links course are not one hundred percent links holes. And therefore you know there are there are probably one hundred and fifty places that you should go out of your way to play, and you don't have to spend four hundred and something pounds on a green fee. You can spend forty pounds on a green fee. And like we were saying there, it's it's you can talk about

for a long time. So actually, you know, putting the you know, not the underdogs, but so also shining a light on places that I really would love more people to go and see was the motivation for this. So we've done this as a book series because otherwise, you know, two hundred and twenty five courses, a few photographs and they were writing about all of them that end up being one thousand pages if you're not careful and then and then definitely no one's going to read this or

buy it. Then, so we're splitting us into volumes and doing this as a quarterly quarterly thing. So it's almost there, it's volume ones, almost out. Links from the road dot Com. We're we're selling them on there, so if they're not available yet, they will be not not long afterwards, and hopefully people will We'll find some places in each volume that they know they know Abous already, and and a lot more in each one that they'll never heard of that they might actually just go and visit one day.

Mike Clayton, famous Australian golfer and architect, a great golf mind who has been on the podcast a number of times. And Frank Pont has has worked in the UK and in Europe quite a bit. So this is this is one of those super group firms. You are working in their Great Britain office. What are some projects that you can tell me about that you've been occupied with recently.

I end up getting most involved with. Then for Frank, he would there's not many people I've come across who know more about the golf courses of Harry Colt or Tom Simpson.

colleague Joe McDonnell. And you know this time in fact, there you go so here and I both from both grew up at Hoylake and you won't find anyone better at communicating the ideas, you know, in that sort of visual that visual way that he has of constructing all of the things that you actually need to communicate. Because you can try and you know, maybe pull the wall over people's eyes and say, oh no, trust me, it'll

be fine. It's hopeless unless you can properly communicate what it is that you want to change or want to do and have people scrutinize it for its merits or otherwise. Then I've always had the opinion you shouldn't change something if people if it can't stand up to scrutiny, then don't do it. So, you know, getting to work with Joe and really sort of taking that philosophy approach, and yeah,

we're lucky. We work with some wonderful historic clubs, especially around the coast, and a few few sorts of new places as well, so we have a really beautiful mix of the things that we need to to really get ours teeth stuck into and trying to make the most and restore some of the strategy from courses where it might have been slightly lost over time.