Five Players from the Fall and Golf in England

think Joseph had had some great notes. Great it was a fun, fun chat, and we talk about that as well as the kind of new live rules and regulations. No more fifty four holes, they're just seventy two. So we talk with Joseph, and then I'm joined by our very own Garrett Morrison and Matt Rushes, both of whom do a lot of golf course and golf architecture content

for us. Obviously, Garrett has his Designing Golf podcast. We talk about their recent trip to England, so kind of about golf in England, the highlights of their trip where they kind of hit the Surrey area as well as the southeastern coast of England. So it was a fun chat about their trip. And yeah, that's the podcast and we will we will get rolling. But first if you need to roll a suitcase around, you should talk to

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your first order out of way. All right, let's get to Joseph leamania on the Fall.

are born at this period. Maybe not stars, but good PGA tour players start to gain traction and you know, get their winning chops contention, and a lot of times a good fall leads to a breakout year on tour the following year. So you have been, you've had your eyes glued to the TV. You've been, you know, go just haven't missed a beat with the Bay Current. I was in Austin a couple of weeks ago and I said, do you want to go out to dinner? And he said, no,

the Bag Current is coming on. I can't miss it. So anyways, I figured there's no better person to talk to you about the Fall and what's going on. I gave you the task. Let's talk about five players that you've been impressed with this fall.

And most of these are going to be young names.

And I think that's the part of the Bank of Utah Championship performance that will resonate and will stick with me the longest is that he didn't do it by gaining ten shots with his putter. He smashes the ball off the tee like high one eighties ball speed, elite speed, strong command, like he was changing up his trajectories. I don't know how much you watched at that tournament, Andy, but he was hitting the low bullets like some of the high launch drives. The guy has a lot of game,

apparently has a really strong work ethic. Like I think this is somebody that we could be talking about as a top twenty player in the world this time next year potentially, right, it's hard to say, but he actually he has the game in the skill set that looks like it could translate to the next level.

the guys. I think Michael Brennan was like twelve, but it is not inconceivable, like to see the twelfth player in an NBA Draft, be the best player in the NBA like Tyrese Haliburton I think went twelve, Giannis went fifteen or sixteen, nicolea Jokicic went in the second round. You talk about baseball, you look at the top one hundred prospects lists, it's not always the number one prospect

that ends up the best player. I think if if I were going to make a comparison, not and this is not a meant to be like an Apple's apples compared if you were going to put Scotti Scheffler on a PGA tour U list when he was at Texas, he would have been in the eight to twelve range. He was a He was kind of one of the last players selected onto the Walker Cup team at LACC, which gives you an idea of like where he fell

in the grand scheme of things. And this is like projecting prospects in any endeavor is almost is so difficult and so challenging. There's obviously can't miss people that come up, but there's there's no reason why Michael Brennan doesn't end up being the best young player in the game. That's it's conceivable and based off what he did in Latin America. I think it's like it's like he has real results on a real tour, which you know, not a lot of people have ever played on that tour as well

as as he has. You know, he I think he played in fifteen events and had twelve top tens.

next two years. But he's twenty three, and we are seeing all of the best golfers in the world play their best golf between twenty seven and thirty five. He's got three four years to develop now has his PGA Tour card. I'm excited about what he could do next year, let alone three years from now, when he's had a little time to develop and he has that proven track record he won eight times in college. Andy like he's not coming out of note stud.

is he wasn't. I think like one of the challenging things that the Leuke Clanton's of the world, the Gordon Sergeants of the world that are just handed a PGA Tour card are going to have to deal with is that they have faced zero adversity generally, and they get to the PGA Tour and all of a sudden, you know, their entire life, they've been this big fish in a small pond type thing and they go there and it might take a couple of years to work out and

that adjustment of not being necessarily the guy. We saw Clanton and I think, like I'm not selling Clanton stock or anything, but you saw he had this meteoric rise as an amateur where like expectations are low, like you you're playing in these events and it's like, well, whatever happens happens, and you know, since then, it's bet he's cooled off a bit. He's been a good not great player on the PGA Tour, and I think that is going to be some a normal cadence for this number

one player on PGA Tour. You similarly, it feels like Michael Thorpjordson, after a year and a half on the PGA Tour is starting to put it together. And that is like an example of that. Michael Brennan. He went from being the guy you know in the acc A Great Golf Conference, a one of the bona fide top players in college golf, and you get shipped off and you got to go figure out life in Latin America and Canada, and that is like that's work. That's a

huge adjustment. And he went down there and just dominated. And I think that that experience will lend him a lot of benefits where he doesn't necessarily take things for granted like someone who has just handed a PGA Tour card.

You reference somebody like Luke Clant, like I think what we're seeing andy a lot of these golfers who are struggling their first few years on tour, and even like Ludwig has not been as consistent as I think a lot of people expected him to be, myself included. I think often what happens there is when golfers aren't on they don't necessarily have the well rounded skill set and they haven't learned all of the other shots they can

go to to produce consistent results. So when you're twenty four to twenty five, you're somebody like Luke Clinton, you're feeling a little bit off with your swing, you're suffering some adversity, you see some of those poor results. So I'm eager to see what Michael Brennan again, give him a couple of years, but I don't think we should expect much until he is twenty six or so anyway. So I'm just very optimistic about what we've seen from him so far.

it can go. And what I was like so impressed with was it's like Sunday, he's leading by four or five basically all day and he is still just all out assault with the driver on that golf course where I think so many people would have put it in neutral and been like okay, like I'm just gonna avoid penalty strokes and try and like kind of plot my way around the golf course. He just kept doing what he was what he planned to do. It was hyper

aggressive on a golf course that punishes over aggressiveness. I thought that was what impressed me the most was he dismantled a golf course that with with long drives, on a golf course that penalizes generally the bomb and gouge methodology.

a legit PJ Tour event. Now he's put up three straight top tens hits the crap out of the ball like a high one eighties ball. Speed guy. I don't know. He has put together a pretty decently He won on the Challenge Tour, he won on the DP World Tour. I want to say he has something like eight wins worldwide. He's twenty six. Andy Like, I don't know that I expect this guy to be a top thirty player on the PGA Tour next year. But sometimes, like you're mentioning,

stuff develops on its own timeline. Garrickkgo t seven at the Pro Corps, second at Sanderson, fourth at Bay Current, another good opportunity this week at al at El Cardinal. I don't think it's crazy that we see a leap from him and he's a pretty good PGA Tour player next year. Not a superstar, but he's somebody to keep an eye on.

paint them as bad things for golfers. I think if you look at like the longevity of a career, if you're able to come through where things don't go your way, it leads to a better, you know, career in the long run because you have handled that kind of stuff. And I think it's just like an important aspect of golf. Like it you know, you'll you'll look at like Kyle Moore Kawer right now that's struggling right up into Bill

this year. He's never had any of that in his life, and it I think it probably gets more difficult to deal with the longer you go without it. And I'm very you know, Higo. I remember, you know, there are a lot of Ryder President's Cup buzz around, Higo, and I think like it's an interesting aspect of next year.

And obviously the President's Cup is not the Ryder Cup, but these guys like the more there there's more international talent than ever before, and most of it's young, and it's like if some of these guys could take a step, it makes that competition a lot more interesting.

of his career. So yeah, I don't again don't think this is a top ten player in the world, but I'm keeping an eye on him. Anything else with Higo Andy or should we move?

strokes gained approach. Some of that is because he's not playing the strongest field, so you can, you know, lower those numbers a little bit. But he's a very good ball striker. When you have a great ball striker who stinks with the putter, you see a lot of you see some missed cuts, you see some T eights, some T fifteen's, they struggle to break through because obviously the putter is just you know, negative four for the week is really hard to recover from, especially under me, Like.

to keep an eye on. Again, I don't know, I think he's still probably gonna stink with the putter even with the broomstick, but it's a notable equipment change for a player that's very talented.

a ball under the tee. You want to talk about do D like I know there's an Instagram guy that's do D King. Rico Joey is do o D King forever. He would you know, He's played the National Championship and he would just drop the ball on the ground and hit it off the ground because it was like its fairway finder. I think Rico I saw him play witness one of the greatest like twelve whole stretches I've ever seen. I think he was ten under through twelve at Rich

Harvis Farms in the National Championship. Then it kind of fell apart, but it was like an unbelievable sensational t degree game. I think the big thing is, like, like so much stuff with golf, when you are so uber talented in one area, sometimes other other aspects of your game can can slip off. With Rico, it was always like the driver swing. What made the driver swing so good kind of made the wedge swing really bad, cleaning up wedges. And this is like so much the case

of young players. Right, we just talked about Garrit Kigo. You come in and especially now with the game, the driver is such a you know, if you can drive it really great, you can get hot with other things and get up onto the PGA tour and then it becomes it's like wow, Like when you look at the guys that are thirty five and have been doing it for fifteen years. I think a lot of these kids look at it and as like, look at how good

they are at every single aspect of the game. I might be able to, you know, hit the driver better than them. But like game manager, like course management, mistake management, dealing with like the bad stuff that happens to you on a golf course, wedge wedge proficiency, all of these things are generally I think think where younger players why you're seeing what you said at the top twenty eight to thirty five being the kind of golden years of

a career. It's when you still have your speed speed and you really kind of just stop being an idiot,

you know. I know there are like things with like Decade and other course management tools and course management coaches that are helping kids, but like the number one thing, just like your golf swing, when you can self correct, when you're able to diagnose a golf course and understand what you should do in a situation that's rooted in like the idea of like this is a good miss this is where I shouldn't miss it, you know, this

is where I should be aiming. But being able to adjust on the fly and understand that that comes in your late twenties. That's when you figure out the game. It's also when you start to like have life moments that make you realize that like if I make a bogie and I three putt, it's not the end of the world. Like other stuff happens in life that's way worse than this, Like it's where her life kind of interjects into golf. So I think, like Rico Hoey, I

am like the biggest supporter. I have golf swings on my phone still of him in college. I'm a Rico Hoey fanatic. So I'm hoping that the putter, you know, if he's a top question to you, if he becomes a top fifty putter in the world, where where does he go?

arm lock. But like to me, like I do not understand how any putter who's like in the bottom quartile of the PGA Tour, if you're not experimenting with with these other forms of putting, whether they're broom or or arm lock, I understand the sanctity of the game. I appreciate anybody that's like, I don't want to go to a lock putter because of you know this or that.

But for the livelihood of your career, We've seen so many players just transform, and I think I don't want to say that it's just like is an ultimate remedy, because like putting at an average PGA Tour level means you're one, you know, one of the probably five hundred best putters in the entire world of golf. Like that, that's not an easy thing to become. And I think even the low end of the PGA Tour is exceptional at putting if you compare them to a great amateur player.

But I think, like there everybody should be experimenting with this stuff. And we've seen, you know, like when when Sean said Hoe he's going to long putter, I immediately was like, watch out because he's so good.

a six footer late on Sunday with the broomstick. But again, his results should improve, and that immediately makes him a pretty formidable golfer on the PGA Tour.

Was a great college player at Stanford. Smashes the ball, but it was long and wild for his first couple of years on the PGA Tour, and especially again, I think some the injuries played a role in that. Now he's eliminated the wide misses and he's hitting it much more straight and you're seeing consistent results. He has five straight made cuts. One of those is the Bay Current Classic No Cut EVM, but he finished third at it, so I think it's reasonable to just call that a

maide cut. Far more consistent in twenty twenty five than he's been historically, and given his pedigree how good he was in college, I honestly don't know that there are many players twenty five or younger to be more excited about, Like I think there's a good case that you should be more excited even about thorbe Jornson than Brennan. But they're right there next to each other. Some of the best young talents in the world.

trying to be is more consistent. Everybody's trying to be more consistent, and to see some of that consistency come through for a young player, I think, like, you know, this is the thing, it's gonna be kind of the theme of this pod. Everybody gets these high expectations. Everybody loves to talk about prospects and the hope of prospects, and then so often it doesn't pan out in that you know, we live at this immediate, instant gratification world

and golf is just not that. It takes time. And I think people will underrate how good seventy five on the PGA Tour, who's been doing it for twelve years is and they might not have the most eye popping numbers, and it might not be the most impressive guy to watch on the range, but there's so much more that goes into being a tour pro than just track man numbers.

lot of technological change. So his argument was that you see more stability, probably a little harder to break in as a young player, and a run like the one that Scotti is on is probably more likely to persist in a period like the current one. We'll see what happens with the rollback, but it's not that significant of

a change anyway. So I think I'm wondering if that is also I think that's a reasonable theory for right now why it's also hard for a young player to break onto tour, Like you have a bunch of guys who are twenty eight to thirty five used to the equipment, have been playing the same course as year and in year out, it's hard to break into that. What do you think of that theory?

to workplace. It was for labor and they looked at tennis in the evolution of tennis from you know, the wooden racket to the oversized racket and what it did and it causes like this U shaped curve and effectively, when technological change happens, younger generations are are are have a huge advantage over people that have learned how to do the profession with old equipment because they have to relearn skills like hitting a driver fundamentally changed with a

solid core ball and four hundred and sixty c state heads and different players all of a sudden popped like I think this is a way that you might look at Kenny Perry and be like, why did Kenny Perry get great all of a sudden, Well, like there was this seismic technological change, and all of a sudden his skills and his his swing in his motion was more rewarded than say a Justin Leonard, who was a great

player pre this technological boom. So the what this study proved out and why they did it was that when you introduce a seismic technology like say AI, what's going to happen is that younger generations are rewarded for effectively two two like work forces. So if you think about like in life, it's a lot longer, but in a tennis career that's like five to seven years. So if you think about golf, we have probably normalized. I think

that's a great take. We've probably now normalized because the mass technological innovation, they are still getting better, they're getting more forgiving, you know, the technology is getting better, but not in a huge way. That seismic change probably ended about twenty twelve twenty ten is where those drivers all

were four hundred and sixty ccs. The golf ball was the solid core ball and TrackMan had come in, and if you think about a golf career, it's probably about five to seven years, and we're right at the end of it where things would technically normalize and we would go back to a sport where you know, twenty seven to thirty five is like the golden years, and it's not weird to see somebody compete until they're forty two.

up and comers I'll get it. So I think we are in a stable period of not just technical innovation but also strategy, and so we're probably seeing a pretty stable period of the top ten in the world rankings relative to history. Not there will still be a lot of turnover.

the golf ball like mid one eighties. Again, like a lot of these other young golfers.

eight starts. He's starting to peak. I think this is the type of golfer where if you were Brian Rolapp on the PGA Tour, you'd want to say, like, hey, how do we get him on tour and make sure that he doesn't go sign somewhere like live when you have a very promising young talent like this. I don't know that there aren't many golfers. There's a basket of them who are let's say twenty one, twenty three. We've hit on a few of them, but guys showing a

lot of promise. I don't know that we know exactly how his game stacks up in strong fields, but seeing the consistent results over the last couple of months from him, I think he's somebody you got to keep an eye on over the next six to twelve months.

now with a Q school. To me, I would say the overriding thing here is they're trying to get world ranking points proving they have open pathways seventy two holes of stroke play. And the other thing it feels like is that they are trying to compete with the DP World Tour that has historically been Golf's world tour. What are your thoughts on live and their moves?

rewarded in the official World Golf ranking system. So even if liv does get OWGR accreditation, I don't know that they're going to be thrilled with the points that they're given. And then on top of that, the PGA Tour having all these seventy players signature events, they're getting OWGR points. It is a little bit of an own goal from the PGA Tour that if they had bigger fields like ninety even one hundred and twenty players, they'd be getting

a significant a higher OWGR allocation. So just from the standpoint of trying to attract talent and saying, hey, we have OWGR points now too, the PGA Tour could make could shore up their sales pitch a little bit by expanding their own fields. I think the way that this is going to play out from an OWGR standpoint is

going to be pretty fascinating. And I don't know that when the PGA Tour went to a seventy player field for their signature events, they necessarily considered this because it is a little bit of an own goal in reducing their own OWGR out allotment.

just merely by being invited into the league. But I think the mckibbon success story is if you're awarded OWGR points and you have a real pathway to play your way into majors, I think you just hit on it with Anduel Ayora. Does this become a more a heeling proposition because of just how much they play for on a week to week basis, And listen, there's the quality players on the European Tour that would boost the bottom half of that league.

kind of behind you. It is interesting to at least look at the complexion of the league that there aren't that many golfers or peaking between that twenty eight and thirty five range. I don't I don't think that's coincidental. Like there's a couple names obviously rom Niemann, Bryson, Patrick

Reid's kind of at the tail end of that. But I think the sales pitch is most compelling for those guys like in Anhelliora a mckibbon, now that the pathways, now that they're getting OWGR points, potentially it's not a bad sales pitch, especially for an international players under twenty five.

and like anything it's uh. But then on the other end, the idea of being able to to play golf without having to worry about so many of the things and also support yourself in the sense of I know where my home is, I don't have to worry about paying a physio, or I don't have to worry about like do I have enough money to to you know, set up the team that I want around me? Is is another is a better fit to that? But I think it does come with like it is slightly less competitive

and serious tour. Not I think it's going to remain to be that. It is going to continue to be that until a lot of the mainstays who are just kind of winding down the ends of their careers and padding their bank accounts are gone. Like you know, it

seems like Liv's going to be here to stay. All signs point to that, Like what does LIV look like in five years when Phil Micholson, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Graham McDowell, those types aren't on the tour, Anthony Kim aren't on the tour and it's real golfers.

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That's Mali Nui Venison dot Com slash Egg thanks to Mali Nui. And let's get to Garrett and Matt about England. All right, Matt Garrett, welcome back from England. You guys are back from a long, lengthy, golf heavy trip abroad. I mean this is a marathon trip. So you guys went with a group of fried Egg golf club members to England and it really experienced both Surrey, the Heathland area of England near London, as well as the Southeast.

I'd love you know. One of the things I find most interesting as American going abroad to different locales, whether it's Ireland or Scotland, those are the two that I've been to, is just the golf culture and how they're different across the how they're different across that different islands. How would you surmize and characterize English golf culture.

I was more so taking photos and documenting stuff. But there's just people roaming these golf courses like at all hours of the day walking their dogs. There's always signs saying like public footpath right through the middle of these golf courses, and I was honestly like a little nervous like going to like into these pro shops and having to ask like, hey, can I wander the course with like this group of golfers. Like I thought there would be like the American style thing. We're like, oh, no,

you can't, that's a liability issue. But no, it's like welcome there where the golf course is just like an extension of the local communities and people are just roaming about with their dogs, enjoying the land for what it is, even if they're not playing golf. So I thought that was one of the coolest things that was immediately apparent.

the country. But the feeling for an American used to American private club culture is that these clubs are very relaxed, that you show up feel comfortable, that there's a real walking culture, and the courses are part of their neighborhoods. They're an extension of the living spaces of the people who live around the courses, and so that that gives these clubs a very nice homey feel.

they're they're often like right abutting town obviously Scotland. There's you know, lots of great examples of courses that a butt into the town, where you start in the town, you play out of the town, and you come back to the town. In America, you could count like the number of courses that have that sort of feel on your hand on like one hand, where you start in town, play out and play back and the course is a

functional part of societ. And I like my one lasting images whenever I go abroad is always like I love when I see kids like pushing a push cart to a golf course from a residential area, and it's like I as a kid, I went to a public golf course and I rode my bike with my back, with that on my back, but it was like a mile drive. It was a mile long bike ride. It wasn't just walking down the street to the golf course. And I

just think that it. You know, you read so much about about like things that promote longevity in life, and so much of it is like you know there obviously there are a lot of things relationships healthy eating, but like one of the big determinants. Is is just walking. Yeah, And if you think about golf, it promotes two of those things, like relationships, like friendships that through through golf. Like I think it's kind of crazy, like my wife doesn't play golf and you I end up with. I remember,

I'll never forget. When we did our wedding wedding advice, she was like, who are these people? I've never met them, and I'm like, I've played golf with them for like my whole life, like I've read a lot. I spend more time with them than most of my friends, Like they know everything about me. Like it promotes relationship, but also if the culture is walking like it is abroad, it also is a It's just an incredible longevity sport for your overarching health as you age in life.

This is the historical use of this kind of land for English people, and the golf courses are there as part of that history, but it's not the sole use of the land. I don't think the people who live around Woking Golf Club or Sunningdale Golf Club would accept a reality where the land of those golf courses would

be inaccessible to them. And so you can see the people in these neighborhoods using the heathlands in the way that they've always been used to basically walk their dogs and to go out and get some light, exercise and fresh air. And that's so tremendously healthy. If you look into the history of Lynxland, it's the same thing. The Lynxland is really good for one thing, and that is recreation.

It's not good for farming, it's not it's not really good for anything except for the uses that it's put to uh on in in these in these coastal areas in the UK. Golf and walking and so yeah, like Matt I was, I was really inspired by how these pieces of land still have multiple uses going on. It's

not just golf, it's also a community recreation spot. And you have a sense that the people who live there, know how to use this land, and would not be persuaded to uh to to you know, fence it off and devote it only to golf.

like such a great opportunity. I mean, and these courses are what two and a half two two and a half hours apart from each other at the most, So you could play in the Surrey Hills one day and then you're on the water on the coast the next day, and you get these two very different styles of golf. For the most part. I think the turf is pretty similar across the board. It's a little bit different when you get into the hills and the trees, but it's just like amazing the variety that you can get in

such close proximity. I don't know if I could really compare it to much anything in the United States, like if you were to compare it to a trip of Bandon. Like Bandon, it's all fairly similar. Trails is the biggest outlier, but the variety in England, and then just the caliber of how good these golf courses are. I think it's honestly like probably nothing really else comes close to it in the world.

to play great all the time. And obviously one of the things that unique about about the Heathlands is is is you get that kind of parkland feel, but it's on a sand base, which is extraordinary, right.

certainly of older vintage. But I think you can get a similar type of variety and and and array of interesting courses if you go to Melbourne. But there's there's really nowhere else that that aside from Melbourne that comes close to this trip that we just did. And so that's probably the main reason that I would recommend it to anybody. It's completely unique.

London on the train out to these locations. So they certainly are accessible by rail.

We had a thirty six whole day at Royal Saint George's, and I think that was likely the fan favorite from all the people on the trip, So you can definitely like just go there and play multiple courses multiple times.

one where you could definitely play thirty six holes and have a really good day. Then there are twenty seven holes at Prince's Golf Club. Now I would say that Prince's was the least of the golf courses that we saw in terms of quality, but still really enjoyable, still right on the ocean, still on a legitimate piece of links land, twenty seven holes. You could definitely devote a day to that, or even a day and a half, and so you could construct a fantastic trip out of

just visiting that piece of coastline. Little Stone is also a really good Yeah, it's a I think, yeah exactly, Yeah, it's a CB McDonald was inspired by one of the holes at Littlestone. I think it's a Harry Colt course and it has has kind of a heathling character. But it's close to the coast. So that's a terrific golf course that's roughly in this area that you could also visit.

And then you know, above all, I think just traveling to this area is so fun because the towns of Sandwich and Deal and and the towns that are kind of up and down this stretch of coastline are so interesting in and of themselves have a lot of history.

You know, one of these towns that we were close to, I forgot the name of it, but was the town where all the ships launched during the Dunkirk evacuation because it's one of the kind of shortest trips across the English Channel to get to to get to France on the other side, and so that's where that's where a lot of the boats that they sent out to evacuate people set off from. And I'm you know, there's there's

so much interesting history to learn about there. Pretty nearby is where swimmers art when they swim across the channel. They do that they do the channel crossing, and you know, Matt and I literally had a moment where we were looking across the channel and could see France on the other side. It's it's it's very very close there.

like bright white cliffs, which are really cool. But another thing that's really cool about the three courses and Princes Royal, Saint George's and Royal Sinkports is they're all within like maybe two miles total of coastline, maybe three miles whatever it is. They're very very close in proximity, essentially all their property lines touch each other. But the formation of dunes between these three courses are like so vastly different. It's like when I was there, I was like scratching

my head, like just in disbelief. I was like, how can these dunes be so different and so close to each other? Because each three course has like a very distinct kind of formation of dunes in size and the way they look and the way they kind of interact with the golf courses. So I think that in itself allows you to go there and it doesn't just feel

like you're playing three really similar links golf courses. They're all very very different and right there where you can literally walk between them if you really had to.

even though it is the same stretch of Lynxland. You know that all these courses basically about each other.

at Royal Saint George's. These greens are incredibly sophisticated and natural and beautiful and interesting, and so it's it's one of the most complete golf courses from tee to green that I've ever seen. So so Royal Saint George's was sort of a cut above for me.

golf courses that we saw on the trip. And then you know Sunningdale Old absolutely brilliant golf course that Matt actually didn't get to see, but but such an interesting heath Lynd golf course that would probably come come in third for me on my on my list of favorites.

them of which one's the best. Like the set of greens at Royal Saint George's are almost mind blowing, Like there's not a single one that you wouldn't want to like skip over miss They're just absolutely incredible. And then out of the Surrey courses that I saw Garrett mentioned, I didn't get to go to Sunningdale, I made a little bit of a side quest to the Addington Club,

which was really cool. It's kind of ongoing a lot of renovation restoration work under Clayton Devrees and Pond, so there's a lot of cool stuff happening there which was really fun to see.

haven't done just a full shutdown. It seems like a very sensible project.

and what they're looking to restore it back to. As well as the original architect, Abercrombie, that was like his home course and he was constantly revising it over his lifetime, kind of like the stories you hear of Mackenzie at pas Tiempo and Donald Rossett at Pinehurst Number two. So it's almost like this one architects like baby and child who he nurtured and was constantly evolving throughout his career.

So it is really a cool golf course to go see and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a trip to this area. But the last course I wanted to touch on. I'd agree with Garrett and Royal. Saint George's and Saint Port's is kind of one and two, and then Saint George's Hill, which is a hairy Colt design in the heathlens. It's on a very like, pretty severe piece of land, a lot of hills, pretty good walk, but it's it's an incredible golf course, really cool golf

holes throughout the front nine. I really enjoyed. Was was all I got to really walk and play, and then I had to to to skirt off and fly the drone to take some photos. But that one really sticks out in my memory and when I really hope to get back after they complete a lot of their restoration work. They have scheduled next summer.

like blowout styled bunkers that were really dramatic looking. So we'reclaiming a lot of that stuff from back in the twenties, kind of this ruggedness of the site and then green expansions, maybe expanding some of the corridors just a little bit.

The corridors are plenty wide for play and the trees don't really come into play, but I think opening it up a little regaining some of the heather kind of off the sides of the planing corridors is just gonna to send that golf course to like a very very high tier of golf course in the world.

really really great. And I think the same could be said of the new course at Sunningdale Golf Club, which is another Hairy Colt design from the nineteen twenties. Gil Hants has a plan out there right now to remove quite a few trees, but aside from that, just to widen things out a bit, uh, you know, take the greens back to their former dimensions, recapture some intricacies of

the bunkers. And if you do a little bit of that work at these golf courses then I think it's it's really gonna stun people what they what they look like afterwards. And so Saint George's Hill and Sunningdale New for me are in a similar category. They are these extremely well preserved Golden Age designs that just could use a little bit of TLC and then and then they'll really shine.

with a walking path on top of it. But the course used to flood quite a bit, and I think in the eighties they built this this giant berm to help the course from flooding. But this pole plays right up along that and directly in line with you can see the green through these massive dunes. You'll see the flag sticking up. But the fairway goes down to the left kind of plays down into this hollow, and then if you go that route, you're just gonna hit a

wedgshot up to this green. But the green is perched up on this like really high point and it falls off on all sides. So from the tee like if it's down when, which it was when we were there, the caddies are just saying, like send it, like everyone go for the green if you had the distance. So you just like see this flag poking up out of these wild, undulating dunes. So there's two ways of like

go for it or play it safe. And then even if you play it safe, you're down in this fairway and you're just looking up with this green like probably fifteen twenty feet above you, and it's a pretty small green. Entire green pitches away from you, so you have to have like a very precise wedshot to get it close, but it's bunkerless, like it plays over this tumultuous land and it just looks like a hole that like you could just play one hundred times and never have a bad time planet.

a lot of candidates there, you know. I think that you know, when I'm when I'm thinking of a hole that I want to put in my backyard or a green that I'd want to put in my backyard, I go more toward some of the heathland courses that we saw and the and the reason for that is that the architecture in the English heathlands is so interesting to me because it was really some of the first great inland golf architecture.

And so you know, architects who were working on these heathland properties were inventing the profession basically as they were going along, and that gives the architecture there a kind of freedom and spontaneity that you don't really see many places. And a great example of just the weirdness of golf course design and the heathlands is at Huntercombe Golf Club.

The first golf course that we saw Willie Park Junior golf Course from the first decade of the twentieth century, and the greens there are incredibly inventive and you can tell that they were built by somebody who was just trying things and who didn't know what a golf course green should look like, and so they have this wonderful creativity to them. Specifically, the fourth green, the green on the fourth hole at Huntercombe Golf Club is absolutely incredible.

I'm not exactly sure how to describe it, but it has a severe two tiered construction with a very low section on the right side, and it's just and the whole thing is a little bit sunken down into the ground. There are these sharp edges all around it. A couple of times recently, the American architect Andy Staples has built versions of this green at a couple of his courses, specifically at Meadowbrook Golf Club outside of Meadowook Country Club

outside of Detroit. On one of the holes there, he built kind of a replica of the of the fourth green at at Huntercombe. And yeah, it's just so fun, so spontaneous, so creative. That's the kind of green that I would that I would want to have in my backyard. There are a couple of examples of of these types of greens, of these of these really eccentric greens at Huntercombe that would be equally equally fun to to try

to replicate. And then at Woking Golf Club as well, there are some versions of like double plateau greens there that just kind of come out of nowhere and and you look at them and just say, you know, why, why can't architecture be this free and quirky anymore.

I think just like going there and spending the day like walking around this ancient castle would be really cool thing to do and kind of sad that I didn't have more time to do that.

little bit more. I mean, I think you know when you we we spent a week basically seeing Heathland golf courses and then and then going down to the to the Sandwich Coast to see the Links golf courses, and you just wonder what you could do with two weeks. Basically, you'd probably play Royal Sink Ports twice. You'd you'd probably check out Golf Club, you'd probably hit a couple more Heathland courses like Swinley Forest, and maybe go check out Walton heath to to really get a more complete sense

of what Heathland golf is like. And and so those are the things that are kind of on my mind. But I'm not sure for a week long trip like we did that I would really do anything differently. I think it was basically a perfect trip for the amount of time that we had, and so for anybody who's looking to put together a week long itinerary in the Heathlands and in the southeast coast of England. I think we did a good itinerary and I think you should pretty much copy it if you do something similar.

trip like this with a bunch of strangers. Essentially, I think I knew one person on the trip outside of Garrett that I'd previously met, and then by the end of the trip, like everyone's exchanging phone numbers and saying, hey, if you're ever in this area, come check out my club and I'll host you, and all different kinds of things like that, Like people are already setting up future trips with each other just from you know, spending a quick week with a like minded kind of golf nut

creates these kind of lasting relationships. So I think that was one really cool thing to kind of sit back and watch develop as the trip went on.

what's everybody doing for dinner? You know, we're going here, you know, maybe one other group's going here, And it was like kind of like everybody melded together and you

saw everybody getting along and everybody friends. It's it's a very it's an interesting, like just social experiment, these these trips, and it's fascinating to see obviously, like I think like when you share a passion like golf, it makes it really easy to make friends because you're starting from a ground of like, oh, we have a common interest that we can always fall back on talking about if there's

a dead spot. And that's been my favorite experience about the trips is just watching watching the people and and them interact. And I think it I think like the thing that I didn't think going into it that I walk away with is like, this is like an exceptional way to go if you if you can go, but you like, these trips are really hard to do as a as a single or a twosome or even a foursome, and it's really hard to organize a time where eight people can get together to go somewhere for a week.

And these trips, I think the value of them is like, if you want to go somewhere, this provides you a wonderful opportunity to go somewhere and have everything taken care of for you, and you know you're going to make friends along the way.

And so yeah, these it's it just feels very natural the way that these friendships and connections form over the course of a trip like this because you all start from a common basis of you love golf, You're you're passionate about travel and golf courses, and from that foundation, I personally find it very easy to build relationships with people. And I think that that's uh yeah, that's that's something both Matt and I really appreciated on this trip.

the stuff that you guys will make from England. I know that there will be a guide, there will be a lot of social videos, there will be a lot of course profiles written on the website. So I can't wait to see all the stuff you guys produced from a once in a lifetime trip. Thanks for coming on, Thanks say thanks all right, thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. We will be

back next week. I think we're going to do a podcast with Kevin van Welkenberg about some big topics in golf and look forward to doing that. And big thanks to p J. Clark always for producing and editing this podcast. Thanks