Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a brid Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg Egg, Fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 1: to run.
Speaker 2: Off of the Welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 2: Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Uh.
Speaker 2: Today I am joined by Garrett Morrison. We are going
Speaker 2: to talk about his big trip a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago to the Great State of Maine. He went on
Speaker 2: a journey, played a ton of golf in Maine over
Speaker 2: the course of a week, and I think it's a
Speaker 2: pretty cool golf trip that nobody really talks about it
Speaker 2: talks about. I'm super excited to chat with Garrett about it.
Speaker 2: He's been wanting to do this trip for some time.
Speaker 2: I've wanted to do the trip for some time and
Speaker 2: glad that a member of the Frida Egg staff got
Speaker 2: out there and finally did it. Before we get to Garrett,
Speaker 2: let's talk about our partner for this podcast, really a
Speaker 2: real partner.
Speaker 1: We are.
Speaker 2: I guess you could say we're in cahoots with good
Speaker 2: Walk Coffee. We have a couple blends. We have the
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Golf Blend and we have the Shotgun Start Blend.
Speaker 2: This is a great way. I am a happy subscriber
Speaker 2: to good Walk Coffee. I travel a lot. I get
Speaker 2: two bags a month sent to me. What I find great.
Speaker 2: I just had run out of coffee literally to the day,
Speaker 2: got my two new bags. What I love is I
Speaker 2: never have to go to the grocery store. I never
Speaker 2: am out of beans in a morning because I am
Speaker 2: a subscriber to this coffee. We have a deal for you.
Speaker 2: If you use the promo code fried Egg, you'll save
Speaker 2: twenty percent off your entire first order. Now, if you
Speaker 2: start a coffee subscription like what I was just talking
Speaker 2: automatically gets sent to you. You guys can get the
Speaker 2: beans ground, you can get them full full beans. You'll
Speaker 2: save thirty percent on your first order, then ten percent
Speaker 2: on all future shipments. I find this to be a great,
Speaker 2: great way to get your coffee Listen, Coffee is what
Speaker 2: gets you going in the morning. You don't want to
Speaker 2: not have it, and this is the best way to
Speaker 2: do that. So go to Goodwalkcoffee dot com slash fried Egg.
Speaker 2: Use the promo code fried Egg, and I would sign
Speaker 2: up for that subscription. The two blends are the fried
Speaker 2: Egg Blend, which is a light medium light roast that
Speaker 2: is what I drink personally, and then the shotguns start.
Speaker 2: If you're more of a dark roast coffee person, that's
Speaker 2: for you. So check that out. And thank you to
Speaker 2: all that subscribe and support us with this coffee. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get to Garrett. All right, Garrett, I gotta ask
Speaker 2: amazing flight that you took. You went Portland to Portland.
Speaker 1: I did. That's a feature of this trip for me,
Speaker 1: that I started in Portland, Oregon and went to Portland, Maine.
Speaker 1: It was not a direct flight.
Speaker 2: Buttland to Portland directly. It seems out of principle there
Speaker 2: should be one.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's an automatic kind of promo idea
Speaker 1: for some up and coming airline. But I have heard
Speaker 1: stories about people accidentally going to the wrong Portland. I
Speaker 1: heard a few of those stories while I was in
Speaker 1: Maine when I mentioned that I that I live in
Speaker 1: the other Portlands, as they call it in Portland, Maine.
Speaker 1: People do sometimes find themselves in Portland, Maine Portland, Oregon
Speaker 1: when they wanted the other one, which is quite a
Speaker 1: situation because they are not close to each other.
Speaker 2: What how do how do port How does Portland, Maine
Speaker 2: differ from Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: You know, in some ways, they're kind of similar. They're
Speaker 1: both these port towns, right, they're named after the fact
Speaker 1: that they're port towns, and they're they're kind of northern,
Speaker 1: and the you know, the landscapes are not totally dissimilar. Obviously, Portland,
Speaker 1: Oregon is is substantially bigger than Portland, Maine, and in general,
Speaker 1: Oregon is a more populous state than than Maine. So
Speaker 1: you feel like you're kind of out of the out
Speaker 1: of the normal, you know, modes of city life. When
Speaker 1: you're in Portland, Maine, it doesn't feel like you're in
Speaker 1: a metropolis, whereas Portland, Oregon is a big city.
Speaker 2: I think their golf scenes are a little different, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, certainly, Maine's golf scene in general is very traditional,
Speaker 1: very old, very deeply rooted, whereas Portland, Oregon's golf scene,
Speaker 1: although we have a few old courses, is more new fangled,
Speaker 1: and that's that's part of the character of the states
Speaker 1: as well. Maine has been around for a long time
Speaker 1: has has been settled by Americans or Westerners for for
Speaker 1: quite a long time, whereas Oregon was part of the frontier,
Speaker 1: and I think the golf kind of represents that. In Maine,
Speaker 1: it's very traditional and that's part of the reason that
Speaker 1: I was interested in going there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this trip has has been kind of
Speaker 2: like circled on the fried Egg editorial desire things that
Speaker 2: we've wanted to do for a long time as a company.
Speaker 2: I think like one of the biggest virtues of the
Speaker 2: trip was the accessibility of it. There aren't a lot
Speaker 2: of places where you can go play a bunch of
Speaker 2: Golden Age golf designs that are affordable, open to the public,
Speaker 2: and interesting. What I would I would I guess like,
Speaker 2: how did you like, how did you go about planning
Speaker 2: this trip out? Because I think that's one of the
Speaker 2: challenges why it might be difficult to comprehend doing is
Speaker 2: like where do you start? How did you go about
Speaker 2: starting to plan this trip and decide what courses you
Speaker 2: were going to see and where you were going to stay.
Speaker 2: I think those are kind of initial hurdles.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you said Golden Age accessible, Golden
Speaker 1: Age golf course designs. I would also say pre Golden
Speaker 1: Age golf courses are in abundance in Maine, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of them that you can play just
Speaker 1: for a normal green fee, and it's a type of
Speaker 1: golf that you just don't see very often because a
Speaker 1: lot of the courses that were built before the Golden Age,
Speaker 1: before the nineteen tens and twenties in America were redesigned
Speaker 1: in the nineteen tens, twenties and thirties. In Maine, a
Speaker 1: lot of those courses that were built in the eighteen
Speaker 1: nineties or the early nineteen hundreds haven't really been touched
Speaker 1: since then, and that's part of what makes them special.
Speaker 1: And so in planning the trip, I really focused on
Speaker 1: seeing those golf courses, those old golf courses. There are
Speaker 1: some good modern courses in Maine, and I heard about
Speaker 1: those from various people that I would run into at
Speaker 1: these older courses where they would be like, are you
Speaker 1: going to Boothbay Harbor, Are you going to Sugar Loaf?
Speaker 1: Are you going to Belgrade Lakes? These are some of
Speaker 1: the modern courses that are well regarded in Maine, and
Speaker 1: I would tell them no, I think that where we're
Speaker 1: at right now is kind of cooler and what I
Speaker 1: came to Maine to see. But that's not to say
Speaker 1: that those courses that I mentioned are not good. I
Speaker 1: think Boothbay Harbor especially is considered to be very good
Speaker 1: and looks very good. But I didn't go to Maine
Speaker 1: to see good modern golf. I went to Maine to
Speaker 1: go see something from the eighteen nineties that hasn't been
Speaker 1: redesigned since then. And so that is to me what
Speaker 1: was special about this experience on primarily coastal Maine. There
Speaker 1: are also some courses inland in Maine, but coastal Maine
Speaker 1: is where I focused, because you got some courses right
Speaker 1: on the ocean that were built more than a century
Speaker 1: ago that are just there and where else can you
Speaker 1: find that? So I went to Maine to find something
Speaker 1: that I couldn't find anywhere else, and I was really
Speaker 1: satisfied in that expectation. So you know, in laying out
Speaker 1: the trip, there were many different iterations of this. I
Speaker 1: had a huge list of courses that I could potentially
Speaker 1: have seen, and I ended up selecting ten of them,
Speaker 1: which was very hard to do.
Speaker 2: So so the ten were and this probably will mean
Speaker 2: nothing to a lot of people because you won't know
Speaker 2: the names through them more thoroughly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll talk about them.
Speaker 2: Blank, Bonnie Golf Links, Grindstone Neck Golf Club.
Speaker 1: Should I say them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yes, I know how to pronounce them, panob Scott Valley
Speaker 1: Country Club. I had to. I had to ask about
Speaker 1: the pronunciation of that one. They call it. They call
Speaker 1: it Panabi sometimes in Maine. Northeast Tarbor Golf Club, Cebo
Speaker 1: Valley Club, Mcgunta Cook Golf Club, Wahwanack Golf Course, Portland
Speaker 1: Country Club, Poland Spring Golf Course, and I think I
Speaker 1: might have skipped North Golf Club. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: great names in there. First of all, Maine really knows
Speaker 1: how to name its golf courses.
Speaker 2: A little bit naming well.
Speaker 1: I think there's some some Native American influence on the names,
Speaker 1: and they're just wonderful sounding. You know where Mcgunta Cook, Like,
Speaker 1: where the heck does that come from? But in any case,
Speaker 1: those are the courses that I saw. A big help
Speaker 1: in planning this trip was Brian Schneider's itinerary from a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago. You had Brian on the podcast
Speaker 1: to discuss his experience in Maine, and you touched on it,
Speaker 1: but you didn't really go super in depth on it.
Speaker 1: But Brian covered his trip to Maine in a really
Speaker 1: wonderful way on Instagram, and I was following those posts
Speaker 1: and keeping an eye on which courses he thought were
Speaker 1: really remarkable, and those ones kind of got an extra
Speaker 1: check mark in my book. But a lot of these
Speaker 1: courses have been on my personal map for a long
Speaker 1: time because it's just the type of golf that I
Speaker 1: want to see that I'm kind of obsessed with. You know,
Speaker 1: nine holers that are more than a century old. Yes,
Speaker 1: please sign me up for that. So that's what I
Speaker 1: was focusing on, you know. Blake Conant also was a
Speaker 1: good resource here. He knows about these kinds of courses
Speaker 1: and has researched them. So ultimately I decided to spend
Speaker 1: a good deal of time in the region known as
Speaker 1: down East Maine. Now, to be clear, the coast of
Speaker 1: Maine moves mostly east, right, it moves northeast, but mostly east.
Speaker 1: So the deeper part of Maine, when you get past Portland,
Speaker 1: which is kind of in the kind of southern or
Speaker 1: western part of the state and clos ish to Boston,
Speaker 1: it's not that hard to get to Portland from Boston.
Speaker 1: When you go farther into Maine, you get into a
Speaker 1: territory called down East Maine. This is where Acadia National
Speaker 1: Park is on Mount Desert Island. Beautiful out of the
Speaker 1: way places, not very heavily populated, though there are some
Speaker 1: towns throughout. And this is the region where I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of my time because quite a few of
Speaker 1: the courses that I was really keenly interested in were
Speaker 1: in this region. So I spent what some people might
Speaker 1: think would be an unusual amount of time in this area.
Speaker 1: It would have been reasonable to spend an equal amount
Speaker 1: of time in the Portland area and seeing all those
Speaker 1: golf courses around there. There are more golf courses there,
Speaker 1: and they're very interesting as well, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to emphasize the Down East region, so I stayed there
Speaker 1: for a while, and then toward the end of the trip,
Speaker 1: I went into the Portland area, and I also saw
Speaker 1: a couple of places in what they call the Mid
Speaker 1: Coast region, which is kind of between the Portland area
Speaker 1: and the Down East region.
Speaker 2: So that's about how far of a drive is it
Speaker 2: up to the Down East section from Portland.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting question because there are many different
Speaker 1: routes you can take, and not all the roads are
Speaker 1: super efficient.
Speaker 2: Through me.
Speaker 1: A few hours. It's basically to get to the Down
Speaker 1: East region, which is a big region, so it depends
Speaker 1: on where you're going within it. But to get from
Speaker 1: like Portland to Bangor, Maine, which is kind of the
Speaker 1: biggest city in the region that I'm discussing, third biggest
Speaker 1: city in Maine and approximately where Pinobscott Valley country Club is.
Speaker 1: To get from Portland to Bangor, believe, it's about two
Speaker 1: to two and a half hours of driving. The night
Speaker 1: that I got there, I got in late. I flew
Speaker 1: in to the Portland airport pretty late. I got up
Speaker 1: early in Portland, Oregon, and by the time I got
Speaker 1: to Portland, Maine, it was, you know, nine ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: and I just relied on Google Maps, and I ended
Speaker 1: up just taking the craziest route to where I was
Speaker 1: going in the Downeast, like literally just taking country back
Speaker 1: roads completely pitch black, dark, no signs of civilization around,
Speaker 1: and I was on no road for longer than like
Speaker 1: five miles. So it was really it was really quite
Speaker 1: a drive. I don't know if i'd recommend it, but
Speaker 1: that was I think the more direct route along the coast.
Speaker 1: If you're going along the coast, you're gonna do some interesting.
Speaker 2: Driving interesting and then that middle area is kind of
Speaker 2: reachable from either of those two sections, i'd imagine, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, the mid coast area where the main coastal
Speaker 1: cities as far as I know. Apologies if to geography
Speaker 1: nerds if this is wrong, but Rockport and Rockland, which
Speaker 1: are well named these because they're very rocky, those cities
Speaker 1: are in the mid coast region, and that's where mcgunta
Speaker 1: Cook Golf Club is, and that's where also I took
Speaker 1: the ferry to North Haven Golf Club from. So that's
Speaker 1: and while we'n not, golf courses is around that that
Speaker 1: region as well.
Speaker 2: You talked a little bit about the pre Golden Age design,
Speaker 2: and then there's a number of Golden Age designs. What
Speaker 2: stands out about that pre Golden Age design, specifically in
Speaker 2: Maine and the types of golf that it yields versus
Speaker 2: the more refined Golden Age architecture in Maine specifically.
Speaker 1: Pre Golden Age, what you get is very natural golf
Speaker 1: course design because they weren't spending much on constructing a
Speaker 1: golf course to an extent, they didn't really know how
Speaker 1: to construct a golf course, at least in the modern sense,
Speaker 1: and so the course of are just laid out on
Speaker 1: the land. The greens are very simple, and in Maine
Speaker 1: you have a lot of rocks. Sometimes those rocks have
Speaker 1: not been removed from the fairways and so they actually
Speaker 1: create this kind of lenxy bumpiness, especially at Grindstone Neck
Speaker 1: Golf Club, which was designed by Alex Finley, I believe
Speaker 1: is a lot of the history of these courses. Of the
Speaker 1: architectural history is super hazy because it hasn't been researched
Speaker 1: all that well. But Alex Finley was a, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the first wave of kind of Scottish American
Speaker 1: golf architects who built a lot of the first versions
Speaker 1: of courses that you know about. Grindstone Neck was his work, evidently,
Speaker 1: and it still is his work, and it's very very natural.
Speaker 1: What you'll also see in pre Golden Age design is
Speaker 1: some stuff that might strike you as strange. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: greens that are completely blind from the approach, stone that
Speaker 1: are blocked by some kind of natural impediment that was
Speaker 1: not consider it a bad thing to do pre Golden Age.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was considered a good thing to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: put a little kind of you know, obstacle right in
Speaker 1: front of the green. So these hazards that you had
Speaker 1: to carry carry hazards were not verbotant in this era
Speaker 1: as much as they became in the Golden Age and
Speaker 1: in our current era of golf architecture. So you'll see
Speaker 1: strange stuff like that. You'll see some features that may
Speaker 1: not look totally natural to your eye, the chocolate drops
Speaker 1: and things like that. You know, features that were built
Speaker 1: to resemble Lynk's land but don't really completely resemble linksland
Speaker 1: that look obviously artificial. So you'll see some of that.
Speaker 1: But in general, the main thing that strikes me about
Speaker 1: those kind of Victorian era or pre Golden Age golf
Speaker 1: courses is just their sheer naturalness because they did not
Speaker 1: spend much on constructing them.
Speaker 2: That's state I think, like just in general, a different
Speaker 2: style of golf. Like one of the things that I
Speaker 2: stands out to me about this golf trip is just
Speaker 2: the immense variety that you could get in design styles,
Speaker 2: like different experiences, which it's cool, like if you were
Speaker 2: going to go on a food tour, for example, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't go just get all the same style of food.
Speaker 2: You'd go to a city or an area. You'd go
Speaker 2: to a food.
Speaker 1: Truck, you'd go to the Michelin Star restaurant. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's the neat thing about this
Speaker 2: trip is the variety. Let's you know, let's stay a
Speaker 2: little general before we dive into some of the more
Speaker 2: you know, nitty gritty at the trip. Roughly, what are
Speaker 2: you looking at from a cost standpoint for this trip
Speaker 2: in terms of green spees courses, if you wanted to
Speaker 2: go pick off a couple of these, what was the
Speaker 2: kind of the range of greens fees and the accessibility
Speaker 2: of most of the courses.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a pretty big range of green fees.
Speaker 1: You know, some of them were higher than I expected,
Speaker 1: and some of them were lower than I expected. But
Speaker 1: Blank Bonnie Golf Links is an outer box golf course.
Speaker 1: You put twenty five dollars in a mail slot and
Speaker 1: you can play all day. It's a nine hole golf course.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the low end. Right. Wahwaana Golf
Speaker 1: Course is a lovely public, everyday golf course that is
Speaker 1: very accessible that's around thirty to forty bucks for nine holes,
Speaker 1: and I believe there's a good deal for eighteen holes.
Speaker 1: The higher end of publicly accessible golf courses that I
Speaker 1: saw is more represented by Keebo Valley and especially Northeast
Speaker 1: Tarbor Golf Club. Northeast Tarbor is a very refined golf course.
Speaker 1: One indicator for a main golf course that has a
Speaker 1: higher maintenance budget is that the fairways are irrigated.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: That's one quick and dirty way that you can tell,
Speaker 1: you know, because a lot of the courses that I
Speaker 1: saw the fairways are not irrigated, which I absolutely love,
Speaker 1: by the way, But Northeast Tarbor is extremely well maintained
Speaker 1: and a beautiful golf course with a good sense of
Speaker 1: place to It's not like it's sticking out from its
Speaker 1: setting more than the other golf courses, but it is
Speaker 1: a more refined golf course. That green fee is more
Speaker 1: up in the two hundred dollars range, I believe, and
Speaker 1: it's only really public in the shoulder seasons during the summer.
Speaker 1: It's a member course. You can play it in those
Speaker 1: kind of pre summer and post summer months when the
Speaker 1: golf course is still playable. So that's the low end
Speaker 1: and the high end. So from Otter Box to Northeast
Speaker 1: Tarbor Golf Club is approximately the range, a pretty big range,
Speaker 1: but there's no five hundred dollar green fees out there.
Speaker 2: In terms of must sees, is what we're like, the
Speaker 2: absolute this is, you know, the star of this trip,
Speaker 2: the stars.
Speaker 1: The concept of must see is so tough when it
Speaker 1: comes to Maine because you know, I would say a
Speaker 1: place like Blink Bonnie is kind of a muss see
Speaker 1: because you just have to have the experience of going
Speaker 1: out and playing this kind of amateur architecture golf course
Speaker 1: with holes that literally cross over each other and putting
Speaker 1: money in an outer box. I think that's an experience
Speaker 1: that you should have. But in terms of courses that
Speaker 1: are just at a very high level architecturally and important
Speaker 1: in that way, Keebo Valley comes to mind first and foremost.
Speaker 1: I think for a long time, Keebo Valley was considered
Speaker 1: the great course, the great course of the of the
Speaker 1: down East region of Maine, and it has a wonderful
Speaker 1: and pretty complicated architectural pedigree. But for a long time
Speaker 1: that has been kind of the course in the region
Speaker 1: and I think Northeast tarbor Is is up there with
Speaker 1: it as well. So those are the those that's I
Speaker 1: think you have to if you go to this region,
Speaker 1: you have to go to Keebo Valley. That's the I
Speaker 1: think that's the number one UH must see on the list.
Speaker 2: And just so so we're you know, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of this trip, then with the shoulder season availability
Speaker 2: of Northeast Heart, it seems to me that, like right
Speaker 2: when you went is the ideal time to go.
Speaker 1: I went right after Labor Day, and yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good time to go. It's also a time when some
Speaker 1: clubs in the region, maybe not many of the courses
Speaker 1: that I played, but certainly Portland Country Club, a lot
Speaker 1: of those courses air rate right at Labor Day. And
Speaker 1: so if that's not something that's to your taste, I
Speaker 1: don't personally really mind it that much. But if you
Speaker 1: would prefer to see the greens at their absolute highest level,
Speaker 1: then the last week of August might be the ideal
Speaker 1: time to go to Maine and probably the time when
Speaker 1: you're going to get the best weather. But I went
Speaker 1: the week after Labor Day and the weather was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: People kept telling me it was the best weather they
Speaker 1: had seen all year, and it almost literally couldn't have
Speaker 1: been better. But I do think that in general, like
Speaker 1: so because you can see a place like northeast Tarbor,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the summer residents move out of
Speaker 1: Maine during or after Labor Day, it is a good
Speaker 1: idea to kind of go to Maine in September because
Speaker 1: you can access the courses a little more easily and
Speaker 1: you can kind of be free. What I would have
Speaker 1: liked to have done on this trip if I hadn't
Speaker 1: been doing it for professional reasons, is just go out
Speaker 1: and drive and kind of like if I see a
Speaker 1: sign for a golf course, go play it. I think
Speaker 1: that would be a really wonderful way to do this
Speaker 1: golf trip, and you could definitely do that in mid
Speaker 1: to late September.
Speaker 2: I would love to probably go to Katia National Park too.
Speaker 2: That sounds like something like I think like one of
Speaker 2: the other appeals of this trip is like the idea
Speaker 2: of a family trip like this is very very doable,
Speaker 2: where you play a couple rounds of golf, you start
Speaker 2: to pick this off and you know it could be
Speaker 2: a part of the country where you say, I want
Speaker 2: to go back there over and over again, and you
Speaker 2: eventually cover the whole you know, great golf area of Maine,
Speaker 2: but you're doing it while, you know, while not burning
Speaker 2: capital in your household.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, it would be a great family trip
Speaker 1: because there's so much else to do, and for a
Speaker 1: family trip, I would recommend in the down East region
Speaker 1: staying in bar Harbor, which is the town where Kiba
Speaker 1: Valley is and Northeast Tarbor is about a fifteen minute
Speaker 1: drive away. Bar Harbor would is the resort town. It's
Speaker 1: the busiest resort town that I saw that would be
Speaker 1: a great place to stay. Rockport would be a good
Speaker 1: place to stay. Bangor is a beautiful town and the
Speaker 1: University of Maine is just outside of it. And so
Speaker 1: those would be really good places to find a neat
Speaker 1: hotel or resort or something like that and stay with family.
Speaker 1: They would have plenty to do and you could go
Speaker 1: out and play some golf.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask what were the towns like, what
Speaker 2: was the what were the people like? You know, I
Speaker 2: think like people in the towns are play an intricate
Speaker 2: role and why people love going to the UK to
Speaker 2: play golf. I think, you know, a lot of American
Speaker 2: golf destinations. One of the things that you miss out
Speaker 2: on is that you're at a resort and you are like,
Speaker 2: I'm in this resort and I am here, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of like Disney World, where I don't get to
Speaker 2: experience the culture and the essence of the area. What's
Speaker 2: the main like in terms of like, you know, I
Speaker 2: know you were busy with golf, but what was it
Speaker 2: like when you were in the town getting food, get
Speaker 2: you know, coffee, different you know, provisions, what what? What
Speaker 2: do you find you know, interesting about the towns and
Speaker 2: culture of the areas well.
Speaker 1: I will say I wish I had been able to
Speaker 1: do more of this. I went to Dunkin Donuts more
Speaker 1: often than I would have liked. You know, no disrespect
Speaker 1: to Dunkin Donuts, but I sure, I'm sure there was
Speaker 1: a good local coffee shop and bangor that I could
Speaker 1: have gone to when I played Pinopscott Valley. But I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time on the golf courses. I
Speaker 1: was photographing the golf courses, putting the drone up, playing
Speaker 1: you thirty six holes a day the first couple of
Speaker 1: days I was there, So there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: time to explore the culture and the towns and things
Speaker 1: like that. But from what I did see, the towns
Speaker 1: are beautiful. The seaside towns are just the kind of
Speaker 1: charming seaside towns that you dream about, old fishing towns
Speaker 1: that have since kind of turned to tourism but still had
Speaker 1: that feel of a town that's untouched by time. These
Speaker 1: are the kinds of places that you keep driving by
Speaker 1: over and over on your way to coastal golf courses
Speaker 1: in Maine, and so they're kind of just picturesque and
Speaker 1: beautiful and just what you want them to be. The people,
Speaker 1: and primarily I met people at the golf courses, the superintendents,
Speaker 1: the pros, the gms. That's who I would be talking
Speaker 1: to when I got to the golf courses. I reached
Speaker 1: out to the superintendents at every single course that I visited.
Speaker 1: Didn't get to meet all of them, but and I
Speaker 1: would typically talk to a pro or talk to a GM.
Speaker 1: They were the best. They were amazing. They were so
Speaker 1: excited to show off their golf courses. They were so
Speaker 1: full of information and so full of passion for what
Speaker 1: they were doing at their golf courses committed to the
Speaker 1: old style of golf that these courses represent. Kevin Conley
Speaker 1: at Grindstone Neck immediately comes to mind. Just a down
Speaker 1: to earth guy who maintains Grindstone Neck. Is the superintendent
Speaker 1: there and also the primary contact, you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to make a tea time you can kind of
Speaker 1: just get in touch with him and things like that.
Speaker 1: He was so welcoming and had such great ideas about
Speaker 1: what he was doing at this golf course. He's a
Speaker 1: superintendent who has worked at some high level clubs in
Speaker 1: his past, and Grindstone Neck is in the area where
Speaker 1: he grew up, and so he just moved there and
Speaker 1: is now maintaining that golf course in exactly the way
Speaker 1: that it needs to be maintained. And it was lovely
Speaker 1: to meet him, and I think of him as kind
Speaker 1: of a representative of a lot of the golf course
Speaker 1: people I met in Maine. They were some of the
Speaker 1: most impressive and friendliest people that I've met on any
Speaker 1: golf trip.
Speaker 2: When you say maintained the way it should be maintained,
Speaker 2: what does that mean?
Speaker 1: No irrigation in the fairways, nice and firm in late
Speaker 1: summer and just very simple. The fairways are super wide, right,
Speaker 1: there's not like a defined contour to the mowing lines
Speaker 1: of the fairways like you see at a lot of modern
Speaker 1: courses in a corridor that's open or that shares holes.
Speaker 1: It's just mown out and it's it's very simple, straight
Speaker 1: lines and there are two primary cuts that are used.
Speaker 1: There's not all these all these intermediate cuts. It's very
Speaker 1: straightforward maintenance and the nature along the sides of the
Speaker 1: holes is completely intact. It is exactly what it looks
Speaker 1: like if you were to take a hike through Acadian
Speaker 1: National Park or whatever other park in this region. It's
Speaker 1: not the golf course is not fighting its setting. It's
Speaker 1: just sitting there. And yes, this approach to maintenance can
Speaker 1: can have some drawbacks when it rains. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: a place like Grindstone Neck or Blink Bonnie or Kuba
Speaker 1: Valley can get a little bit soggy because there's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of high tech drainage infrastructure to dry
Speaker 1: off the golf course. There's no subair under the greens.
Speaker 1: I'm sure whatever the weather rains is what the golf bears.
Speaker 2: Yeah twenty years, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll be all be have historical renovations done right as
Speaker 1: they as they say. So, yeah, that's the I was
Speaker 1: there during a good Weathereriod during a druy period. It's great.
Speaker 1: I'm sure. If it's rainy then yeah, you're you're roughing
Speaker 1: it a little bit.
Speaker 2: If you send If we send too many people on
Speaker 2: this trip, then they'll have money to do the historical renovations.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's what I sort of fear. Maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't publish this podcast.
Speaker 2: So we've talked a little bit about some of the
Speaker 2: golf courses. I wanted to do kind of some superlatives here.
Speaker 2: What was the best value? And I'm going to take
Speaker 2: Blake Bonnie the twenty five dollars all day, because we've
Speaker 2: already talked about that's cheating. Yeah, we're gonna take that
Speaker 2: one out of it because we've already talked about it.
Speaker 1: Gosh, the best value is a little tricky. I would
Speaker 1: say probably Wawanak golf course. This is a Wayne Styles course. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Wayne Styles is a Golden Age era architect who
Speaker 1: worked a lot in Maine. You see a lot of
Speaker 1: golf courses designed by Styles and Van Cleek in this region.
Speaker 1: His partner during the nineteen twenties was John Van Cleek.
Speaker 1: Styles also did some well known courses in New England,
Speaker 1: including Taconic and farther toward Portland. In Maine, Proutsneck Country
Speaker 1: Club is very well regarded a course that I did
Speaker 1: not see on this trip. They're not particularly interested in
Speaker 1: coverage and so that was a big reason that I
Speaker 1: didn't go to it. But there are many accessible, public,
Speaker 1: affordable Wayne Styles golf courses that you can see in
Speaker 1: Maine and in the neighboring states. Is one of those
Speaker 1: golf courses.
Speaker 2: What would you Yeah, I think like Styles Van Cleek
Speaker 2: to me would be like the underrated seventies rock band
Speaker 2: that has a lot of good songs but nobody really
Speaker 2: knows about. Yeah, I don't know what the rake comp
Speaker 2: would be for that, but that's how I would describe them,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they're they're the they're the hidden indie band at
Speaker 1: this point, and you're you're proud to wear the T shirt.
Speaker 1: But you know, maybe in a few years they're going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit overexposed. They'll get signed by
Speaker 1: a major label and people will think they're they're a
Speaker 1: bit passe. But yeah, I mean that, you know, Styles
Speaker 1: is one of those names that golf architecture nerds kind
Speaker 1: of whisper to each other, and you know, in a sense,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like where Langford and Moreau was before
Speaker 1: you completely overexpose them and ruin them.
Speaker 2: Andy right, I don't think they're ruined at all.
Speaker 1: There's Langford and Moreau is amazing. This is what people say.
Speaker 2: There's sometimes about our coverage of more awareness.
Speaker 1: There's more awareness around, more understanding of Langford and Moreau.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that Wayne. What I saw of Wayne
Speaker 1: Styles on this trip would make me think that he
Speaker 1: was an architect on the level of William Lankford, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to the internal contouring of greens. Styles
Speaker 1: as greens, as far as I could see, were pretty simple.
Speaker 1: There are some interesting things going on at the exteriors
Speaker 1: of his greens, the way he kind of builds up
Speaker 1: the shoulders against slopes. There is kind of a Wayne
Speaker 1: Styles signature there that you can see at courses like
Speaker 1: Wahwanack and North Haven. But in general, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to beat the drum for Wayne Styles as loudly as
Speaker 1: I might for Langford and Morow though I think that
Speaker 1: Styles and Van Kleek were very good routers of golf
Speaker 1: courses and their natural approach to golf architecture is something
Speaker 1: that I really appreciate and enjoy. So whenever you see
Speaker 1: that Styles has designed a course, go seek it out.
Speaker 1: And in a place like Wamanach, you're going to pay
Speaker 1: the thirty dollars or something for nine holes somewhere around there,
Speaker 1: and that's hard to come by anywhere.
Speaker 2: There's a ton of nine hole courses. What's the reasoning
Speaker 2: for the propensity of nine holes? I have a theory,
Speaker 2: but you know, I'm curious if you know anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to hear your theory. Here's mine. It's
Speaker 1: simply that main golf courses often did not have the
Speaker 1: funds or the reason to expand to eighteen holes. So
Speaker 1: when they were established in the late eighteen nineties as
Speaker 1: nine hole courses, as many courses across the country were,
Speaker 1: they did not then have the reason in the nineteen
Speaker 1: teens and twenties to expand back to to expand to
Speaker 1: eighteen holes, bring in another architect to redesign the nine
Speaker 1: holes and add another nine holes, as so many courses
Speaker 1: did later on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I agree with that. I think
Speaker 2: you see a lot of nine holers in the rural Midwest,
Speaker 2: or nine holers that were designed in the twenties and
Speaker 2: thirties and then they were, as you said, expanded and renovated.
Speaker 2: It often ruined. You know, David Gill comes to mind
Speaker 2: as just a hit man. And there's the worst thing
Speaker 2: you can you can the worst thing you can see
Speaker 2: is a gil a gil a Gill credit to the design.
Speaker 2: You know that some bad stuff happened at that old
Speaker 2: school golf course. So I would agree with that. I
Speaker 2: think like a lot of these towns, like I think
Speaker 2: it's like kind of telling and maybe something that a
Speaker 2: lot of municipalities, a lot of towns that have golf
Speaker 2: courses that might not be that popular should consider as like,
Speaker 2: would we be more popular? Do we really only need
Speaker 2: nine holes from a maintenance, from a land use like
Speaker 2: it's like and I think there's I think, like, honestly,
Speaker 2: a lot of days, I think nine holes is the
Speaker 2: right amount of golf.
Speaker 1: Especially now that pace of play is what it is.
Speaker 1: When you hear about how people played the game. In
Speaker 1: the early days, eighteen holes was considered to be a
Speaker 1: two and a half hour to three hour pursuit that's
Speaker 1: no longer how we see it. And so nine holes
Speaker 1: certainly does into people's days a lot better than eighteen holes,
Speaker 1: and it can become part of your everyday life. Place
Speaker 1: like Grindstone Neck, a place like mcgun to cook Golf
Speaker 1: Club or Wawanak can just be there for you on
Speaker 1: a weekday. And that's the beauty of it. And I
Speaker 1: think also architecturally speaking, a lot of properties have the
Speaker 1: ability to contain nine good holes. Yeah, but not eighteen.
Speaker 2: I mean you see it so often, like you hit
Speaker 2: a dull stretch of land, you like.
Speaker 1: Just chop this off right, yeah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or you see something like a hole that would be
Speaker 2: better as one hole that's two holes. Yeah, you see
Speaker 2: that all the time. Or you see like a congested
Speaker 2: area that it's like, oh, if we got rid of
Speaker 2: some of these holes, it would be better. Back to
Speaker 2: the main question is quite superlatives. Sure, what was the
Speaker 2: most unique experience?
Speaker 1: No doubt North Haven Golf Club. This was my favorite
Speaker 1: experience on the trip. Might have been my favorite golf course,
Speaker 1: though Portland Country Club was by far and away the
Speaker 1: best golf course that I saw on this trip, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. I loved Portland Country Club, but as
Speaker 1: a full experience, there's nothing like north Haven Golf Club
Speaker 1: that I've experienced before. You get on a ferry in Rockland, Maine,
Speaker 1: seaside town, and you spend an hour riding on that
Speaker 1: ferry out to this little island. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a chain of islands out there. There are a few
Speaker 1: different ones. The town of north Haven is where this
Speaker 1: ferry took me. I took my golf clubs along with me.
Speaker 1: Was literally carrying my golf clubs on the ferry. Got
Speaker 1: off the ferry at the dock in north Haven and
Speaker 1: walked to the golf course. You can take your car
Speaker 1: with you if you want, but you have to reserve
Speaker 1: it. It costs a little more money and the golf course
Speaker 1: is pretty close to town.
Speaker 2: So you just saw he took I got off of
Speaker 2: the ferry and walked with your clubs there.
Speaker 1: That's right. It was amazing. It was about a fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty minute walk and I got out there and
Speaker 1: it was just what you would imagine. It's a country
Speaker 1: golf course. There are a few people there who work
Speaker 1: in the shop and maintain the course. I ran into
Speaker 1: the president of the club who was going out at
Speaker 1: about the same time that I was such friendly, again,
Speaker 1: down to earth people. It was great to talk to them.
Speaker 1: And this course is just what I'm looking for when
Speaker 1: I'm going to Maine. It is on the crest of
Speaker 1: this hill sort of, so a lot of the fairways
Speaker 1: run on side slopes, either on one side of the
Speaker 1: peak of the hill or the other side, and it
Speaker 1: is incredibly wide. These are not tree lined corridors. There
Speaker 1: are trees around the golf course, but they never they
Speaker 1: never planted trees on this golf course. This is again
Speaker 1: one of the things that's a blessing about not having
Speaker 1: the funding to make changes to golf courses after they're built.
Speaker 1: They never had the money to do a tree planting
Speaker 1: beautification program. So in the core of this golf course
Speaker 1: it is untried and these fairways just connect to each other.
Speaker 1: It's a big sloping field that you're playing golf on,
Speaker 1: and that the way that the holes use this land
Speaker 1: is very clever and very sophisticated. It was designed by
Speaker 1: Wayne Styles in nineteen thirty two. So actually, as as
Speaker 1: the courses I saw on this trip go, this was
Speaker 1: a fairly recently built golf course nineteen thirty two is
Speaker 1: actually not not before a depression?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what are the last want?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, this was just as things were kind of
Speaker 1: shutting down. You know, you saw a few courses being
Speaker 1: built in America in the early thirties, but then as
Speaker 1: it became clear what the circumstances were.
Speaker 2: The only courses were being built in the depression were
Speaker 2: oil oil towns, Perry Maxwell getting work in the Oklahoma
Speaker 2: and the oil hubs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. It'scummy Perry Maxwell taking the oil money.
Speaker 2: Different different kind of oil money than today's oil money.
Speaker 1: That's right. This is not a sovereign wealth fund North Haven,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the vibe of the golf course.
Speaker 1: Then it has this one hole that's out on the coast.
Speaker 1: You walk from the fifth green through this little path
Speaker 1: that goes through a tunnel of trees, and then you
Speaker 1: arrive at this tea that's right on the ocean, and
Speaker 1: you play a little par three that goes over this
Speaker 1: tiny cove to a green that's set on this kind
Speaker 1: of spit of land that extends out. I think if
Speaker 1: they were to remove the trees along the left side
Speaker 1: of this hole. There are trees between the hole and
Speaker 1: the ocean. If they were to remove those trees, and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I think they should, because that
Speaker 1: tree removal takes money and I'm not expecting a course
Speaker 1: like this to spend a lot of money on a
Speaker 1: course renovation. But if these trees somehow just went away,
Speaker 1: say they were knocked down in a storm, this would
Speaker 1: be a much more famous golf course because of this hole.
Speaker 1: But in any case, you play that hole and you
Speaker 1: go back inland, and I think, really the great holes
Speaker 1: at this golf course are the ones along these slopes.
Speaker 1: They you know, it's one of those courses. It's I
Speaker 1: don't want to make an unfair comparison, but like the
Speaker 1: old course at Saint Andrew's, you stand on a tee
Speaker 1: and you're not looking out at a defined hole. You
Speaker 1: have an awareness of where the green is and your
Speaker 1: task is to get across the land to that green.
Speaker 1: But the way the holes are set up does not
Speaker 1: give you directions about how to do that. And there's
Speaker 1: something to me so pleasurable about that, and that's why
Speaker 1: I enjoyed north Haven so much, and just the experience
Speaker 1: of being out on the island. You know, you're kind
Speaker 1: of out there for the day. It takes a day
Speaker 1: to take this trip. That that's the that's the thing
Speaker 1: that's difficult about it. I almost didn't take this trip
Speaker 1: because I was like, do I really want to spend
Speaker 1: one day basically seeing one golf course when I'm spending
Speaker 1: every other day seeing three, maybe even four golf courses.
Speaker 1: But it was totally worth it, and I'd recommend it.
Speaker 1: You end up taking the ferry back at about three
Speaker 1: forty five pm, so you're just.
Speaker 2: So people live out there in the summer.
Speaker 1: People more people, far more people live out there in
Speaker 1: the summer than live out year round, but there there
Speaker 1: are locals who are there year round as well. And
Speaker 1: when I was waiting for the ferry, I got back
Speaker 1: to the town about an hour hour and a half
Speaker 1: before the ferry left, and I just sat there and
Speaker 1: waited for the ferry, obviously, and.
Speaker 2: In the shops with your golf clubs.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just set the golf clubs out on the
Speaker 1: street and left them there because I was like, nobody's
Speaker 1: taken these. It's an experience that you don't have very
Speaker 1: often in modern life, where you're just waiting around for
Speaker 1: something and there's not really there's shops with internet and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but it's not something that you're thinking
Speaker 1: about doing, like looking at your phone or it's always
Speaker 1: just kind of being there. And there are these local
Speaker 1: kids who are playing a game of hide and seek
Speaker 1: around the downtown area, like running into shops and asking
Speaker 1: the shopkeepers if they could hide behind the counters and
Speaker 1: things like that. And so I just got I got
Speaker 1: a little sense of what that local life is because
Speaker 1: a lot of the summer residents had left by the
Speaker 1: time I was there. Again, people leave around Labor Day,
Speaker 1: and it was a beautiful experience. I loved it, and
Speaker 1: I want to do it again.
Speaker 2: All right, let's uh, now you got the most most
Speaker 2: unique experience set? Yeah, which course do you feel like
Speaker 2: has the most potential?
Speaker 1: Penobscot Valley Country Club? Donald Ross design legit Donald Ross Design.
Speaker 1: The way the routing works in and out of the
Speaker 1: corners of this property is definitively Donald Ross. Is not
Speaker 1: one of those courses that he spent a day pointing
Speaker 1: at things at he designed. This golf course has a
Speaker 1: really good set of grains, looks and feels like a
Speaker 1: Donald Ross golf course on a very very good piece
Speaker 1: of land. This club. This course absolutely screwed itself. About
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, they decided to build a big
Speaker 1: iceore of a clubhouse. It was a private club at
Speaker 1: this point, and the clubhouse, apparently, from what I heard,
Speaker 1: bankrupted the club. It is just a wonderful representative story
Speaker 1: about something that happens pretty commonly and shouldn't happen. The
Speaker 1: course became public after that got purchased by a golf
Speaker 1: course operator that was mainly regional, and this operator decided
Speaker 1: to renovate the golf course. They called it a restoration
Speaker 1: in the late two thousands. They did the renovation right
Speaker 1: around two thousand and seven, and I think you already
Speaker 1: know where this story is going. The renovation wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: They did some weird things with the bunkers. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they did those things. They kind of made
Speaker 1: them me look like these wavy edged modern bunkers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: super bright white sand does not look like anything Donald
Speaker 1: Ross ever built. Donald Ross never constructed little frilly wavy edges.
Speaker 1: They made this decision to build these bunkers. They added
Speaker 1: some bunkers. It was not really a faithful historical project.
Speaker 1: Of course, the recession hit and this operator seems to
Speaker 1: have tried to divest itself of a lot of its
Speaker 1: golf courses around this time, and it seems to me
Speaker 1: that the club was in no place to maintain these
Speaker 1: new little fancy bunkers, and the edges of them have
Speaker 1: literally caved in over the years. So they used to
Speaker 1: be these these fancy, little fiddly edges. Now they're just
Speaker 1: like these raw walls that have caved in because of
Speaker 1: weather and other factors, and just the fact that they
Speaker 1: don't seem situated to maintain anything that takes intensive maintenance.
Speaker 1: And so I actually kind of like the look of
Speaker 1: the bunkers now. They look to me this is this
Speaker 1: is sort of an esthetic choice that that I would
Speaker 1: sort of endorse. But I don't think they're very easy
Speaker 1: to maintain right now. I think they're problematic for the
Speaker 1: maintenance team at the course, and they're starting to be overgrown.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have kind of thick weeds growing
Speaker 1: in them. This is a struggling course that has been neglected,
Speaker 1: that has been treated poorly, that has really wonderful, authentic
Speaker 1: Donald Ross bones. It's gonna be a fantastic golf course
Speaker 1: and the land is truly very very good, especially on
Speaker 1: the back nine. Wonderful up and down undulation to the
Speaker 1: land while still being quite walkable. There's even a semi
Speaker 1: volcano hole. All sorts of stuff out there that people
Speaker 1: would love. It needs, it needs a bit of TLC,
Speaker 1: but it needs the it needs the right kind of TLC.
Speaker 2: Just just seems small, just like a like a superintendent that
Speaker 2: gets super into it and can make some you know,
Speaker 2: do some stuff in the in the shoulder seasons right.
Speaker 1: And has it has a proper budget and team, which
Speaker 1: is not easy in Maine because the season is so short.
Speaker 1: But it seems like they could do something there for sure,
Speaker 1: because it's not This is not a a hard luck
Speaker 1: kind of town. This is a university town. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are there's a community that could support this course
Speaker 1: in its in its recovery. But as it is very
Speaker 1: fun to play, I didn't mind anything about the kind
Speaker 1: of shabby conditioning of it, but I could see where
Speaker 1: it would be hard for the course to control what
Speaker 1: was going on, especially in some of the.
Speaker 2: All right, one another question, sure, best golf course, And
Speaker 2: then the second part is which course would you play
Speaker 2: the most if you were if it was near you
Speaker 2: could take any of them, put them right in your backyard. Effectively.
Speaker 1: Best golf course is Portland Country Club. I mentioned that before,
Speaker 1: another Donald Ross design. This one extremely well taken care of,
Speaker 1: but well taken care of in a way that I
Speaker 1: completely approve of. Ron Pritchard and Tyler Ray have been
Speaker 1: doing historical work there for about the past decade and
Speaker 1: they have done an absolutely terrific job. This course still
Speaker 1: feels old. They did not rebuild the greens. The greens
Speaker 1: are what they have always been and what they should be,
Speaker 1: and it is a wonderful, wonderful set of Donald Ross greens,
Speaker 1: one of the best set of Donald Ross greens I
Speaker 1: think I've seen on a very beautiful seaside piece of land.
Speaker 1: And there are kind of two main areas of this course.
Speaker 1: One is by the bay, Casco Bay, and the other
Speaker 1: is kind of back in the woods, and both pieces
Speaker 1: of land have something going for them. There's good land
Speaker 1: movement throughout. The routing is pitch perfect, a lot of
Speaker 1: great golf holes. This is a strong, strong golf course.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people consider it the best
Speaker 1: course in Maine, and I can see where that assessment
Speaker 1: comes from. What course would I play? The most, I'd
Speaker 1: probably go with courses that I've mentioned already. Grindstone Neck
Speaker 1: would be one that I could play every day and
Speaker 1: be very happy about. Simple seaside golf, absolutely beautiful, so
Speaker 1: interesting and natural. Keebo Valley is I'd love to have
Speaker 1: Keebo Valley as my local course. I can't believe the
Speaker 1: luck of people who live in bar Harbor a year
Speaker 1: round and just get to play that golf course North Haven.
Speaker 1: As I've already mentioned, I adore. The one that I
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned though, that would be a great candidate for
Speaker 1: playing every day is mcgunta Cook Golf Club. One of
Speaker 1: the craziest courses I've ever seen. Andy Well was.
Speaker 2: Crazy about it.
Speaker 1: Well. I don't know a lot about its architectural history.
Speaker 1: It seems like it was designed primarily by a greenkeeper
Speaker 1: initially in the early early nineteen hundreds, and then a
Speaker 1: landscape architect completed the course. I believe it's a nine
Speaker 1: hole course. Private club completed the course in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen tens a landscape architect whose name I have not
Speaker 1: seen before. And so this golf course feels as though
Speaker 1: and this is a compliment, feels as though it was
Speaker 1: designed by somebody who doesn't know anything about golf. That's
Speaker 1: a compliment because it is so utterly distinctive. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it. The most obvious place to go
Speaker 1: in try to portray how unique this golf course is
Speaker 1: is the three holes number four, number seven, number eight
Speaker 1: that have greens that are literally set behind or set
Speaker 1: on massive rocky ledges or formations. The fourth hole is
Speaker 1: a short part three where what you see from the
Speaker 1: tee is a big rock formation coming out of the ground.
Speaker 1: The green is on the other side of it, completely invisible.
Speaker 1: This is about one hundred yard hole. That's what the
Speaker 1: hole is. The eighth hole might be the wildest golf
Speaker 1: hole I've seen ever. Maybe the green is literally perched
Speaker 1: on top of a forty foot high pile of rocks,
Speaker 1: just sitting there on top of a huge pile of
Speaker 1: rocks coming out of the ground. I think it's natural.
Speaker 1: I think I don't think they just pushed a bunch
Speaker 1: of rocks together. So it's that kind of course. Just
Speaker 1: you know, you could say it's a Victorian architecture in
Speaker 1: the sense that there are barriers between the approach zone
Speaker 1: and the green. This is something that golf architects would
Speaker 1: sometimes do in the era before the Golden Age, this
Speaker 1: was considered an interesting and fun way to challenge people's
Speaker 1: golfing abilities to have these carries. But talk about a
Speaker 1: course that uses what it's got. That property has rocks.
Speaker 1: This golf course really emphasizes that the rocks are the hazard.
Speaker 1: There's one bunker on the entire course and it's on
Speaker 1: the ninth hole, and it's actually I think they could
Speaker 1: probably get rid of it. So that's what this course is.
Speaker 1: It uses the rocks on its property and it's wild.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know how to begin describing
Speaker 1: what this architectural philosophy is, because I think it's one of.
Speaker 2: One that's amazing.
Speaker 1: All Right.
Speaker 2: So we've talked a lot about this trip, a lot
Speaker 2: of the What were a couple courses that you that
Speaker 2: you missed that you want to do the next time
Speaker 2: you go to Maine.
Speaker 1: Well, I should. I haven't talked about I didn't talk
Speaker 1: about Poland Spring, which is the last golf course that
Speaker 1: I saw. Also a very worthy, beautiful golf course with
Speaker 1: views of the bodies of water where they drew the
Speaker 1: Poland Spring water from. You know, Poland Spring water you
Speaker 1: ever had poland spring water. Yeah, they sell this all
Speaker 1: over Maine and it's a main company. And this golf
Speaker 1: course is basically on a mountain above this valley. It's
Speaker 1: really beautiful and there are a couple of greens that
Speaker 1: were designed by Walter Travis. I think they've been softened
Speaker 1: over time. But it's funny you go around this golf course,
Speaker 1: you can immediately tell which greens Walter Travis built because
Speaker 1: it's so completely obvious. So that was a really fun
Speaker 1: experience to see that golf course as well. Also a
Speaker 1: very accessible course, affordable green fee on a resort that's
Speaker 1: been there since the late seventeen hundreds. I wish I
Speaker 1: had more time to explore the resort campus. But it's
Speaker 1: a kind of a wild place. Looks like it may
Speaker 1: may have been a commune at some point. It feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, the people who stayed there might have had
Speaker 1: some weird religious ideas. Potentially it could be that kind
Speaker 1: of place. So another fascinating place in Maine, about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes outside of Portland. Golf courses that I missed
Speaker 1: were were many. There were many golf courses I missed.
Speaker 1: I just scratched the surface on this trip a couple
Speaker 1: of golf courses that maybe aren't super interested in coverage,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go see golf courses that I
Speaker 1: could tell people about and that the courses were excited
Speaker 1: to have me tell people about them. But Casting Golf Club,
Speaker 1: Old Willie Park course up in the down East region,
Speaker 1: really cool looking place. Prattsnet Country Club again one of
Speaker 1: those courses that's put up as a potential best course
Speaker 1: in Maine. Candidate Wayne Style's golf course right on the coast.
Speaker 1: Abenaki Golf Club another coastal golf course, a very very
Speaker 1: old vintage that looks really interesting. On the more public
Speaker 1: side of golf courses, I wish I had seen Island
Speaker 1: Country Club, another down East Island golf course that you
Speaker 1: don't have to take a ferry out to it, but
Speaker 1: I really would have loved to see that. There are
Speaker 1: a variety of old clubs in the greater Portland area
Speaker 1: that I didn't get to because I chose not to
Speaker 1: spend as much time in Portland and in the Portland
Speaker 1: area as I could have. But there are many many
Speaker 1: cool club golf courses there that are accessible to the public.
Speaker 1: Riverside Golf courses Portland's municipal Course, and I wish I
Speaker 1: had seen that. I would like to go back and
Speaker 1: see that. I believe it's a Wayne Styles golf course,
Speaker 1: and it is. It's the local muni. And so lots
Speaker 1: of lots of courses that I wish I had seen.
Speaker 1: Those are just a couple that maybe top the list.
Speaker 1: I didn't explore much inland Maine golf. You know, the
Speaker 1: farthest Inland I went was Panabscott Valley and then Poland Spring,
Speaker 1: and so there were many opportunities for interesting golf in
Speaker 1: the more mountainous and forested parts of Maine. You could
Speaker 1: spend plenty of time exploring those courses as well. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing about Maine golf. I'd still to this day,
Speaker 1: I occasionally run across the name of a course that
Speaker 1: looks really interesting that wasn't on my list and is
Speaker 1: just in a random little town in Maine and has
Speaker 1: nine holes and it's designed apparently by Alex Finley or
Speaker 1: something like that, And I'd like to go see that
Speaker 1: golf course, but I'd have to spend a lot longer
Speaker 1: in Maine than I actually.
Speaker 2: You got to move from one Portland to the other Portland.
Speaker 1: Now, that would be a story. The Portland to Portland
Speaker 1: flight is one thing, but the Portland to Portland move
Speaker 1: would be That would be a book.
Speaker 2: All right, Garrett, You're gonna have a lot more about
Speaker 2: this trip on on the website, our website, the Frida
Speaker 2: Egg dot com, as well as in CLUBTFE and I'm
Speaker 2: assuming on socials. So looking forward to seeing more and
Speaker 2: more seeing some of the visuals. And thank you for
Speaker 2: coming on to tell everybody about a great value trip
Speaker 2: that very few people think about.
Speaker 1: I hope people enjoyed hearing about this. Let us know
Speaker 1: if you enjoy this kind of episode. Andy did one
Speaker 1: recently with Matt about his trip to Nebraska, which sounds wild.
Speaker 1: There was a point at which I was thinking about
Speaker 1: going with Matt on that trip, but I'm kind of
Speaker 1: glad I didn't, because only a man in his mid
Speaker 1: twenties as Matt is could have survived the amount of
Speaker 1: golf that he that he played and saw.
Speaker 2: Packed it in.
Speaker 1: He really backed it in, but obviously he saw a
Speaker 1: lot of amazing stuff and it was great to hear
Speaker 1: about it from my perspective. But if you like this
Speaker 1: kind of episode where we kind of do a portrait
Speaker 1: of a region of golf, then let us know, give
Speaker 1: us a shout and say if you like this kind
Speaker 1: of episode, because obviously we enjoyed doing them. This is
Speaker 1: the kind of golf that we love playing and talking about,
Speaker 1: and we hope that everybody out there likes it.
Speaker 2: Too, all right, thanks Garrett. Today's episode was edited and
Speaker 2: produced by PJ Clark. Big thanks to PJ. As I
Speaker 2: mentioned at the end of the podcast, there a lot
Speaker 2: more details about this trip will happen in Club TFF.
Speaker 2: This is our membership. This is a place that we
Speaker 2: put a lot of time in producing content and we
Speaker 2: think if you enjoyed this podcast, you probably enjoy Club TFF.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year we
Speaker 2: are doing We're attempting to do a lot of things
Speaker 2: in the next year that really add value to this membership.
Speaker 2: So sign up. It's one hundred and twenty for the
Speaker 2: year it's and you can sign up at the Frida
Speaker 2: egg dot com slash membership and it gets you all
Speaker 2: the access to all of our the content we've produced
Speaker 2: in there for the last two years that for the
Speaker 2: most part is evergreen, So there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: to explore in that membership, and thank you guys for
Speaker 2: listening to the latest episode and all the support of
Speaker 2: the podcast. We'll be back next week with a couple
Speaker 2: of new episodes. Thanks again,