Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday Eg, Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 1: off of the use. Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about the host
Speaker 1: of the upcoming Open Championship, Royal Troon Golf Club. Might
Speaker 1: have heard of it. We're digging into the history and
Speaker 1: architecture of Royal Troon and also discussing some of the
Speaker 1: other great courses in its area on the west coast
Speaker 1: of Scotland. To help me do all of that, I'm
Speaker 1: bringing on Sam Cooper. Sam is an associate for the
Speaker 1: architecture firm Clayton, Devrees and Pont and he has played
Speaker 1: literally every Links course in Great Britain. That's not an exaggeration,
Speaker 1: just a description of his very ambitious Links from the
Speaker 1: Road tour, which he took a couple of years back
Speaker 1: and is currently writing a book series about so. In
Speaker 1: addition to discussing Royal Troon, I thought I'd also pick
Speaker 1: Sam's brain about some of the courses that he saw
Speaker 1: around Royal Troon because he saw them all so really fun.
Speaker 1: Episode ahead. And by the way, if you enjoy Sam
Speaker 1: Cooper's contribution to our podcast, then check out his podcast
Speaker 1: Golf Badgers. That's a fun listen as well. Sam's a
Speaker 1: great guy and a really sharp architecture mind. First, though,
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Speaker 1: egg EGG. All right, let's get to my conversation with
Speaker 1: Sam Cooper about Royal True. So, Sam, you live in Liverpool,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, not far from Royal Liverpool. You
Speaker 1: live in Hoylake. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you live
Speaker 1: in the Liverpool area. I'm I'm an ignorant American here
Speaker 1: these discisions.
Speaker 2: I am just winding you up. That's exactly where I live.
Speaker 2: I'm in Northwest England, but I'm about a five minute walk,
Speaker 2: maybe a four minute walk to the Spike Bar. It's
Speaker 2: at Ropool Golf Clubs. So yeah, I'm pretty pretty lucky
Speaker 2: where we are.
Speaker 1: Pretty good place to be. I assume this means that
Speaker 1: you went to the Open last year, or that you
Speaker 1: were at least around the Open. So what was that experience.
Speaker 2: Like every day? Yeah, well it was very different from
Speaker 2: the two other Opens that we've had in my lifetime
Speaker 2: at the club, twenty fourteen when Rory won, and of
Speaker 2: course two thousand and six when Tiger won. It seems weird.
Speaker 2: I never would have believed if at the time you'd
Speaker 2: said Tiger wouldn't win another Open championship. Since since then
Speaker 2: and same for Rory, Let's hope both of them are
Speaker 2: just another one so far. But yeah, we've had three
Speaker 2: pretty memorable well certainly certainly two and a half as
Speaker 2: have been very memorable and one that was a bit
Speaker 2: of a washout last year, which was such a shame.
Speaker 2: But they're brilliant. They consume everything, they take over the town.
Speaker 2: It's only a small Hoylake itself. It's not big, it's
Speaker 2: just this little coastal coastal town twenty five minutes we
Speaker 2: are from Liverpool itself. But it goes from I don't
Speaker 2: know how many of us that live here, but not many,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden a couple of hundred,
Speaker 2: maybe quarter of a million people descend for the week
Speaker 2: of the Open, so naturally it's sort of really does
Speaker 2: take over and it is a real buzz buzz for
Speaker 2: the week and leading up to us as well.
Speaker 1: I haven't thought of it this way before. But there
Speaker 1: is kind of a royal Liverpool curse, right Tiger, Tiger
Speaker 1: wins there, Rory wins.
Speaker 2: There, and we never again, never again?
Speaker 1: Well or opens.
Speaker 2: I like you, I've not really thought about it either,
Speaker 2: but if you, if you were to go back, we
Speaker 2: were historically, you know, in nineteen thirty, we were the
Speaker 2: last Open Championship that Bobby Jones won, although I'd say
Speaker 2: that's for slightly different reasons. You know, he sort of
Speaker 2: hung everything, everything up the end of that year in
Speaker 2: that pretty impressive year that he had, but he won
Speaker 2: the Open Championship of his Grand Slam here at hoy
Speaker 2: They in nineteen thirty. But yeah, so maybe not for
Speaker 2: all of them, but Davicenzo he won it seven. He
Speaker 2: didn't win win again, but not like he was someone
Speaker 2: that necessarily had an enormous streak. But Peter Thompson did
Speaker 2: he won again? I think, no, of course he did.
Speaker 2: So he won in the fifties and Walter Hagen won
Speaker 2: in the in the twenties. But yeah, I guess, I
Speaker 2: guess at least let me think about this quickly, maybe
Speaker 2: six or seven maybe more never won another Open championship,
Speaker 2: So you can you can draw it reasonably, I'd say.
Speaker 1: So look out Brian Harmon another way.
Speaker 2: That's it now, game over. I'm sure if he puts
Speaker 2: anything like you did for that week last year, then
Speaker 2: there's nothing that he couldn't win. Really, but that was
Speaker 2: just I wonder what the likes of Lous Stagner and
Speaker 2: the guys would make of that pussing performance statistically.
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume they would think it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: You never know, you never know, you never know what
Speaker 1: the garrett In any case, changing the subject real quick,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Royal Troon. Yes, this is why I've
Speaker 1: brought you on the pod first and foremost to discuss
Speaker 1: the venue of the Open Championship next week. Truon. You're
Speaker 1: very familiar, as we'll discuss more in depth later with
Speaker 1: every links course in Great Britain. But let's dig into
Speaker 1: trun specifically broad strokes, not talking about any specific holes yet.
Speaker 1: What's the history of the design here? How did it
Speaker 1: evolve from from its earliest form to its Open Championship form?
Speaker 2: Well, you forgive me, I'm no historian really on Truon's
Speaker 2: complete evolution, but like many places it did, it did
Speaker 2: change the loss and I think that is a distinction
Speaker 2: that we make in Britain. This is slightly lost on
Speaker 2: your side of the Atlantic, you know. So it was
Speaker 2: a going from nine whole corres courses and then extending
Speaker 2: and expanding. But you know it's back in eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: It's quite quite some time ago now that well, what's
Speaker 2: that almost one hundred and fifty years in in just
Speaker 2: a few years time. So it's old, you know, it is.
Speaker 2: It's old. Not necessarily old in absolute Scottish terms, but yeah,
Speaker 2: no it is. And I think it was probably safe
Speaker 2: to say it was shaped by its early professionals, you know,
Speaker 2: the source of the Willy Fernies, the guys who when
Speaker 2: golf really was growing in that late part of the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, it was the it was sorry the nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: forgive me, it was those Scottish professionals who really then
Speaker 2: went around built new courses in the area. I think
Speaker 2: Willy Fernie was he the Open championship in eighteen eighty two, maybe,
Speaker 2: but he was for many many all of the course
Speaker 2: that sort of exist in that Ayesha region, going down
Speaker 2: to Dumfries and Galloway. As you get close to the border,
Speaker 2: in Southwest Scotland. There were so many that he would
Speaker 2: have had a hand in laying out or popularizing or
Speaker 2: playing matches, opening matches when the course, you know, drum
Speaker 2: up that popularity because golf was later to Southwest Scotland
Speaker 2: than it certainly was to the to the east coast
Speaker 2: of Scotland. But of course Prestwick next door to Truon
Speaker 2: was probably an intrinsic part of it. It was early
Speaker 2: days and its history. But really in our modern era,
Speaker 2: you know, it is true this is well known for
Speaker 2: the Open Championship and not Prestwick next door.
Speaker 1: Right, This, this evolution that you spoke to earlier, from
Speaker 1: nine holes or sometimes like six or seven halls or
Speaker 1: eleven halls to eighteen holes is one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting general stories in early golf, the way that eighteen
Speaker 1: holes eventually became standardized and Royal Truan is sort of
Speaker 1: an example of that.
Speaker 2: You should do a podcast absolutely on how many holes
Speaker 2: should you know, this is maybe getting slightly off topic,
Speaker 2: but how many golf how many holes should a golf
Speaker 2: course be? But you know, if you think that, or
Speaker 2: forgive me, I think maybe maybe Prestwick had the first
Speaker 2: twenty three Open Chapel well whatever, No, no, of course
Speaker 2: it wasn't that at all. But I think they did
Speaker 2: have twenty three before Truon had its first. But if
Speaker 2: you were to think how many they had when the
Speaker 2: open Rotor then sort of grew at all by the
Speaker 2: time Muscleborough joined, By the time that the old course joined,
Speaker 2: you had three courses between twelve hole Prestwick, between nine
Speaker 2: hole Muscleborough and eighteen holes and Andrews. As it ultimately
Speaker 2: became that just you know, they picked a number, well,
Speaker 2: what's a common multiple thirty six holes and you know
Speaker 2: it's a three twelve, four nines or two eighteens. And
Speaker 2: really to think that virtually every golf course in the
Speaker 2: world then becomes eighteen holes when the first open rosso
Speaker 2: if you can call it, that was three courses with
Speaker 2: three different numbers, is just world's away from where it
Speaker 2: came from.
Speaker 1: If anybody's out there, if anybody out there is interested
Speaker 1: in looking into this history. Peter Lewis, that's the name.
Speaker 1: Peter Lewis, the historian, wrote a great book called Why
Speaker 1: Are There Eighteen Holes? And essentially his thesis is that
Speaker 1: Saint Andrew's influence was such that every other course eventually
Speaker 1: adapted to the Saint Andrews model. But there are some
Speaker 1: nuances in that history and some little sort of roads
Speaker 1: not taken that could potentially have been taken, that are
Speaker 1: very interesting to think about now, because we could be
Speaker 1: facing a very different golf landscape had become the standard
Speaker 1: number of.
Speaker 2: Holes absolutely and the great you know St Andrew's historian
Speaker 2: Roger mcstravic would say, well, if that explosion in popularity
Speaker 2: had coincided with the point in time when Saint Andrew's
Speaker 2: was twenty two holes rather than eighteen, then then maybe
Speaker 2: it's a different number again that actually prevails as the
Speaker 2: sort of as the norm. So there are so many,
Speaker 2: as you say, lit or quirks and nuances and points
Speaker 2: in time, and I think if we were to think
Speaker 2: of golf, this is just my minus of philosophy, especially
Speaker 2: having grown up at Hoylake and thinking a lot about
Speaker 2: one distile point in time where where Royal Liverpool was
Speaker 2: a point that sort of pushed the game of golf forward.
Speaker 2: You know, it's easy to think that golf moves forward
Speaker 2: uniformally and sort of constantly, and it's just not the
Speaker 2: case at all. There are just certain points and junctures
Speaker 2: where things really really explode and change move forward, and
Speaker 2: then perhaps they're followed by a lot less or maybe
Speaker 2: even a bit of regression. So it's just timing all
Speaker 2: of these things.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Royal Troon, the eighth hole, the
Speaker 1: famous postage stamp. How much do you know about how
Speaker 1: this hole came about?
Speaker 2: Well, it's as good a place to start as as any,
Speaker 2: isn't it. It's probably the most famous, certainly the most
Speaker 2: famous part three on the on the open rotor. But again,
Speaker 2: you know that is I think Troon would be well
Speaker 2: characterized as generally a bit like Hoylake, you know, a
Speaker 2: sort of a flatter course that goes out and certainly
Speaker 2: the first half a dozen holes and the last let's
Speaker 2: think about it, maybe the last five holes run parallel
Speaker 2: to one another. But it's that section from the seventh
Speaker 2: when you cut in land round to the sort of
Speaker 2: twelve thirteen where for me, that is the most memorable
Speaker 2: and interesting part of a golf course. It is a
Speaker 2: lot more memorable and interesting than perhaps some give it
Speaker 2: credit for, but no more so than that postage stamp.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think different stories. You get so many
Speaker 2: conflicting things whether it was Braid who had a hand,
Speaker 2: whether it was Willy Fernie who had a hand. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got these beautiful illustrations that we all associate with
Speaker 2: Bernard Darwin's Golf Course of Great Britain and Ireland book.
Speaker 2: Those beautiful illustrations sort of think for true it shows
Speaker 2: or there you go right there? Does it show the.
Speaker 1: For people who are listening to this audio only I've
Speaker 1: interrupted Sam by holding up my copy of the Golf
Speaker 1: Courses of the British Isles by Bernard Darwin, and on
Speaker 1: the cover there's this wonderful illustration by Harry Rowntree or
Speaker 1: painting of the postage stamp, which really puts an emphasis
Speaker 1: on the doom that the greens cut into. But this
Speaker 1: illustration dates back to I would assume at least nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: though I'm not sure that the whole really had taken
Speaker 1: the form that it has now at that point. At
Speaker 1: least the green site was.
Speaker 2: There, yeah, and changed, and the famous coffin bunker I think,
Speaker 2: certainly added afterwards. But it was well, so the story goes.
Speaker 2: I know there are many different retellings of it, but
Speaker 2: it was it was Willie Park who described it as
Speaker 2: being skimmed down to the size of a postage stamp,
Speaker 2: wasn't it? And you know it's God, has there ever
Speaker 2: been a better description of a golf hole, you know
Speaker 2: that becomes eponymous. It's perfect because that green is miniature.
Speaker 2: But you know, despite being tiny, I think that it's
Speaker 2: a hole that has a lot more subtlety than perhaps
Speaker 2: first first appears. And perhaps that's what makes it such
Speaker 2: an enduringly interesting hole that we will always talk about
Speaker 2: when the open goes back to Trune.
Speaker 1: What are some of it subtleties? Like, what's what's the
Speaker 1: secret sauce of this hole? Aside from the fact that
Speaker 1: it's a very small green, a penal green, a short hole,
Speaker 1: What's what's the secret sauce here? Well?
Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting that you've just said, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's short and it's penal, and of course you know,
Speaker 2: of course you're right. I think I did some I
Speaker 2: wanted to sort of make sure I wasn't imagining this.
Speaker 2: But the green is so small, it's only two hundred
Speaker 2: and something square feet two hundred and seventy you know, I.
Speaker 1: Think they've expanded it slightly for this year, but like
Speaker 1: at the front, but two.
Speaker 2: Square meats I should say, rather that's that's the Atlantic
Speaker 2: between us, that gets that imperial and metric. But the
Speaker 2: green itself is it's deep. You know, it's almost one
Speaker 2: hundred feet front to back. And I always make this
Speaker 2: point because people just think, oh, it's tiny green, and
Speaker 2: of course it is. But I think that for me,
Speaker 2: the best part three is on the open rotor. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of the the eleventh Fitz and Andrews being absolutely
Speaker 2: the embodiment of this. They are greens. Where As the
Speaker 2: pin moves around on day to day in the Open Championship,
Speaker 2: as the wind changes direction and strength, as you know
Speaker 2: whether you are attacking or whether you are defending, you
Speaker 2: know whether the ground has gotten particularly firm or whether
Speaker 2: it's a little softer, all of those characteristics kind of
Speaker 2: combined to maybe slightly change how you might play the hole.
Speaker 2: And I think if you just think of a typical
Speaker 2: penal hole, that's probably not really going to be the case,
Speaker 2: you know, just you might end up playing it the
Speaker 2: same way irrespective of those conditions. And I do think
Speaker 2: that the postage damp is that slice anomaly, because with
Speaker 2: such a deep green, it's it's sort of broader, which
Speaker 2: isn't say wide, because it's not wide at any point,
Speaker 2: but it's a certainly wider at the front to the green.
Speaker 2: I think I measured it almost fifty feet at the
Speaker 2: front and certainly under thirty feet at the back, so
Speaker 2: it gets narrower. So you have this point you stand
Speaker 2: on the tee, and if that pin is right at
Speaker 2: the very back of the green, you might say, well,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm going to I'm going to take
Speaker 2: a club less which you can do over one hundred
Speaker 2: feet of green, and play to the front of the green.
Speaker 2: I've got less club, so I'm probably going to be
Speaker 2: slightly more accurus and I've got twice the width to
Speaker 2: actually aim for because I know that I can two
Speaker 2: put and that's all I need to do. I just
Speaker 2: need to avoid, you know, the blow up, the disaster
Speaker 2: that might come if you try and be too greedy,
Speaker 2: too aggressive and you know, don't quite execute. So you know,
Speaker 2: it is that battle between the golfer's ambition and you
Speaker 2: know the pride coming before the fall. So it's probably
Speaker 2: a little more strategic really for a hole that people
Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily ever think that hole has any strategy that
Speaker 2: comes into the mind.
Speaker 1: I love that description because it gets at what most
Speaker 1: great short part threes have in common, and that's the
Speaker 1: mental battle on the tee. This is what's so fascinating
Speaker 1: about the twelfth hole at Augusta National. Obviously a bit
Speaker 1: of a longer hole, but still, especially for the pros
Speaker 1: these days, a short part three. But what you go
Speaker 1: through in your mind when you're standing on that tee
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out where to play your ball,
Speaker 1: and then standing up to the ball and trying to
Speaker 1: execute a shot that is just really uncomfortable. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of commonality between between that tension and
Speaker 1: what you get on the eighth t at Royal Troon.
Speaker 2: I wonder care how many players have in their mind
Speaker 2: before they play any shots of the championship. You know,
Speaker 2: they go and they play the practice grounds, practice rounds.
Speaker 2: They have their strategies in place, and they say, right,
Speaker 2: this is what I'm going to do. And how many
Speaker 2: of them actually change it because they get tempted into something.
Speaker 2: You know when that pin because it's one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty three yards that hole, it's not long, and they
Speaker 2: can play it forward as well. I think it can
Speaker 2: be sub one hundred yards and ninety nine yards if
Speaker 2: they push the tea forward. So you know, there's got
Speaker 2: to be players who maybe started the week thinking, nope,
Speaker 2: I'm going to play short of the pin if it's there,
Speaker 2: or really try and be disciplined and realistically never going
Speaker 2: to have a very long put because it does have
Speaker 2: a slight false front. So as long as you're on
Speaker 2: the green, and again you know what's the maximum put,
Speaker 2: you might have forty something feet, so you're never going
Speaker 2: to walk off if you've hit that green really worrying
Speaker 2: too much about about three putting it. But they might
Speaker 2: just get tempted into taking something, biting off more than
Speaker 2: they can chew, and then and then coming to regret it,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's the source of real common honesty.
Speaker 2: I guess between there in AUGUSTA.
Speaker 1: If you had to rank the five bunkers on the
Speaker 1: postage stamp according to how little you would want to
Speaker 1: be in them, what would your ranking be? And just
Speaker 1: to clarify, you've got the coffin bunker green side left right,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm getting any of these wrong, deep
Speaker 1: bunker green side right, and then pot bunker's short left
Speaker 1: short right, and then one long right, So there are
Speaker 1: five bunkers, not all of them are hard against the
Speaker 1: green or anything. So what's uh, you know, where where
Speaker 1: do you really not want to be? And where is
Speaker 1: it kind of maybe okay to be obviously dependent on
Speaker 1: pin position.
Speaker 2: I never really thought of that, but it's such an
Speaker 2: interesting question, and I guess comes again back to that
Speaker 2: point of what's the winding, where's the pin, and how
Speaker 2: firm is the how firm is the green. But one
Speaker 2: of the things I particularly look about it, I seem
Speaker 2: to remember you'll remember this better than me. I'm not
Speaker 2: very good on championship golf. But was it Tony Fenw
Speaker 2: who almost hold it last time and then it's spun
Speaker 2: off into the bunker? Short?
Speaker 1: It could have you know, that's that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I should remember that, But I don't that sounds right,
Speaker 1: That sounds like something that would happen to certainly.
Speaker 2: Say that it's certainly something that can happen. And again
Speaker 2: I think it's it's a good illustration that bunker, the
Speaker 2: interaction between you know, a really really short that's you know,
Speaker 2: pinished front and tiers forward and you have got suber
Speaker 2: hundred yards, Well, it becomes then a challenge not of
Speaker 2: can you carry the ball ninety nine yards? Yeah, of
Speaker 2: course these guys can. They can tell you too, half
Speaker 2: a yard where it's going to pitch. Probably the question,
Speaker 2: and it's probably the thing I love most about watching
Speaker 2: the Open Championship, especially when the wind is blowing, which
Speaker 2: unfortunately it hasn't for this a while. But can you
Speaker 2: manage your spin? Can you control the spin? You know,
Speaker 2: it's something that we being golfers of you know, a
Speaker 2: million miles off their caliber, but it's something that you
Speaker 2: just have absolutely ground into you from being a little
Speaker 2: kid playing golf. If you play golf in the wind,
Speaker 2: can you sort of dead arm your pitch into the wind,
Speaker 2: take the spin off, Can you, you know, get a
Speaker 2: bit more spin when it's down wind, get it higher,
Speaker 2: get it landing a bit softer. You know, I'd say
Speaker 2: my standard of golf and theirs is just the distance
Speaker 2: between the two is absolutely astronomical. But it's a skill
Speaker 2: that you kind of need in Britain that you don't
Speaker 2: necessarily have in other parts of the of the world. So,
Speaker 2: you know, to come back to your question, spinning it
Speaker 2: off the false front and into that bunker that's short
Speaker 2: of the green. Well, then you're going to invariably be
Speaker 2: left with you know, the kind of bunker shoss. Who
Speaker 2: was it it at Rawst George's when he on the
Speaker 2: sixteenth and he kept and he left it coming back
Speaker 2: down into the bunker three or four times? Was it
Speaker 2: Thomas Devey? That? Well, you know you end up with
Speaker 2: that memories.
Speaker 1: My memory is gone on getting.
Speaker 2: Again, but everyone will be able to.
Speaker 1: You're talking about a long bunker shot.
Speaker 2: Longer than you'd want, you know, not Bryson at Pinehurst long,
Speaker 2: but longer than you'd want, and you've got to get.
Speaker 1: It, especially on a one hundred and twenty yard hold. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: what am I doing here? Given that I just like
Speaker 1: hit like a half wedge into the screen.
Speaker 2: That's that's you know, if you find yourself there, you
Speaker 2: want the you want the do over, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the one that you want to take again, So that
Speaker 2: that would be one that depending on how you sits
Speaker 2: in that bunker, it's easily recoverable, but it's also easy
Speaker 2: to compound your mistake, especially if the reason you've ended
Speaker 2: there is because the shot the hole is into the wind,
Speaker 2: as it can be. Prevailing wind would be source of
Speaker 2: into off the right, so it's entirely possible that you've
Speaker 2: spun the ball back there, and then you think, oh,
Speaker 2: I've now got to actually make sure that the last
Speaker 2: thing you want to do is then compound your initial mistake,
Speaker 2: and it's so easily done, so I'd say that is
Speaker 2: that's disastrous. I seem to think that coffin bunker was
Speaker 2: actually dug to stop people playing into the bank, the
Speaker 2: hill that you referred to, the dune that the hole
Speaker 2: is cut into, and then sort of letting it bounced down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm pretty sure where I read it. So again,
Speaker 2: historians will be screaming at their podcast provider.
Speaker 1: But I like the story, so let's stick with That's a.
Speaker 2: Great story, isn't it. But it's true. You know, you
Speaker 2: could absolutely imagine with that high left back point and
Speaker 2: if we were you know, say that the wind is
Speaker 2: into and off the right hand side, and most people
Speaker 2: are right handed, and you know, gains the beauty of
Speaker 2: that holes. Augusta. If you've got short short right, long
Speaker 2: left miss pattern, then then that coffin bunker is not
Speaker 2: only in play, but to be plugged under the back
Speaker 2: lip of that coffin bunker is entirely possible, because if
Speaker 2: you've just come and you've put another two yards to
Speaker 2: carry on, all of a sudden, with such fine margins,
Speaker 2: you can be absolutely up against it, quite literally, so
Speaker 2: you never really want to be in there. So I
Speaker 2: would say the one that I'd most like to be
Speaker 2: and is probably that back right one, because if you're
Speaker 2: going to end up back right, then realistically you don't
Speaker 2: miss long, right, do you. Something's gone wrong? So if anything,
Speaker 2: it's probably helping you out a little bit. But there
Speaker 2: are no real good options for missing it, and that's
Speaker 2: why I think so many of them would just play it.
Speaker 2: This will say to take the medicine and try and
Speaker 2: try and walk off with four threes.
Speaker 1: Listen, I can imagine a number of types of swings
Speaker 1: that I could put on the bar that would put
Speaker 1: me in that back right bunker, namely the kind of
Speaker 1: heey bladed wedge, but obviously that's yeah, it's not quite
Speaker 1: as in play just cuts through the wind, yeah, exactly right,
Speaker 1: the wind cheater into the back right bunker. All right. Well, well, Sam,
Speaker 1: I didn't intend to actually do a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the postage stamp hole. I was more thinking like, let's
Speaker 1: swerve away from the postage stamp and talk about kind
Speaker 1: of the hip cool hidden holes at Royal Troon. But
Speaker 1: it's just so interesting to talk about number eight, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad we did that. But stepping back and looking
Speaker 1: at the course more generally, let's go back to the
Speaker 1: routing you mentioned this earlier. There are these two really
Speaker 1: clear phases, or three really phases of Royal Troon's routing.
Speaker 1: Two kind of separate pieces of land. One is the
Speaker 1: flatter stretch of land that go out to the dunes.
Speaker 1: Then you have the dunes holes, and the routing there
Speaker 1: starts to get a little bit more varied. Right, the
Speaker 1: holes are kind of wrapping around each other and doubling back,
Speaker 1: whereas when you're on the flatter land, you're just going
Speaker 1: out and back because you're the whole point of the course.
Speaker 1: The whole point of the routing is to get out
Speaker 1: to those dunes where the seventh through the twelfth holes sit.
Speaker 1: And they're wonderful dunes, wonderful golf holes. But if you
Speaker 1: were to make an argument for the first six holes
Speaker 1: on the course and the last six holes on the course,
Speaker 1: the holes that more or less run out and back
Speaker 1: and sit on the kind of subtler seaside land. What
Speaker 1: argument would you make for those holes? What should people
Speaker 1: look for? Why might they be considered.
Speaker 2: Bunkers bunkers in a word, in a word, bunkers. I
Speaker 2: think they've got maybe abouts of hundreds, just under a
Speaker 2: hundred bunk is at Truon, but most of them, and
Speaker 2: I really do mean most of them are on that
Speaker 2: flat section there. I think it's something like two thirds
Speaker 2: of all of the bunkers are on the last you know,
Speaker 2: the first, the first six or seven, and the last four.
Speaker 2: So you know, I know that sounds like most of
Speaker 2: the holes, but effectively you go from let's say eight, nine, ten, eleven,
Speaker 2: twelve thirteen, so that kind of section there, I think
Speaker 2: they've got fewer than two bunkers a hole on average,
Speaker 2: and that's with five of them on the postage damp.
Speaker 2: But you know, you've got fewer than two bunkers a hole,
Speaker 2: whereas I think I saw on the opening in the
Speaker 2: closing holes, you've got an average of nearly eight bunkers
Speaker 2: a hole. And for me, the first time I stood
Speaker 2: on that first tea and it's a beautiful spot. You've
Speaker 2: got the you've got the sea immediately to the right.
Speaker 2: You don't really really sit on the water like you
Speaker 2: might do down the road at Turnbury at Trum, but
Speaker 2: you know, it's always there and it's a beautiful backdrop,
Speaker 2: soors playing away from the the town of Trun itself,
Speaker 2: but my enduring memory is always of avoiding the bunkers.
Speaker 2: And you know, again, I think most recreational golfers, most
Speaker 2: of us amateurs, really think of the challenge that wind provides,
Speaker 2: being when you play into the wind, and yeah, that's
Speaker 2: definitely the case for you know, when your biggest concern
Speaker 2: is can I am I square as you know, my
Speaker 2: square as impact? But when you are slightly above that
Speaker 2: in terms of your you're plussing your way around a
Speaker 2: golf course when the pros are there, especially if it's firm.
Speaker 2: And we talked, I think we've had one of the wettest,
Speaker 2: certainly one of the westest periods that I've ever lived through.
Speaker 2: So it's very unlikely that Truan will be as firm
Speaker 2: as it as it could be. But you know, if
Speaker 2: it does firm up enough to really let them worry
Speaker 2: about it, then I'd always argue that great holes are
Speaker 2: actually harder for the best players when they're played downwind
Speaker 2: rather than into the wind. You know, you think into
Speaker 2: the wind, You think of you think of that two
Speaker 2: iron that Rory McElroy hit at the Scottish Open last
Speaker 2: year at Renaissance, and it was, you know, massively, massively
Speaker 2: into the wind, and all the story was, well, the
Speaker 2: normally hits its two iron and I've stopped two eighty
Speaker 2: or whatever, and you hit at two hundred yards. But
Speaker 2: the point is that landed and it near enough stopped. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the benefits of playing into the wind. If you
Speaker 2: are driving into a sea of bunkers in front of
Speaker 2: you and it is down the prevailing wind and it
Speaker 2: is firm, the challenge isn't can I reach X, Y
Speaker 2: or z. The challenge is how do I stop my
Speaker 2: ball running that bit further losing all control and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you could have you could have played
Speaker 2: the first six holes at Truon. You could have been
Speaker 2: in a bunker on every single one of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, distance control becomes chaotic when it's downwind, and when
Speaker 1: you have a firm surface, especially but downwind, that exact
Speaker 1: distance control kind of slips away from you a little bit.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're going into the wind, and you're a
Speaker 1: good player who can control trajectory and spin to an extent,
Speaker 1: then you can kind of rely on it a bit more,
Speaker 1: even if your ball is not going as far as
Speaker 1: you're used.
Speaker 2: To absolutely, and because it's not then the absolute distance
Speaker 2: that matters. It's the that's when a bit of the
Speaker 2: artistry does come back. You know, you think twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: at Carnousti and it was so firm, it was as
Speaker 2: baked down as you could possibly get. Well, you know
Speaker 2: who starts the back nine leading well Tiger Woods and
Speaker 2: I think two thousand and six. I think back to
Speaker 2: the Open that we had at Hoylake where he famously
Speaker 2: hit one driver for the four days, and he hears
Speaker 2: his two iron near enough everywhere. And you know, it
Speaker 2: is the difference between the real artist, the guy who
Speaker 2: has complete mastery over not just the distance this is
Speaker 2: ball flies through the air, but can control the spin,
Speaker 2: can control the trajectory. Because you know, if you were
Speaker 2: to say, oh, I've got one, four seven into this,
Speaker 2: what do I hit? Well, as soon as you get
Speaker 2: in funky conditions, there is no right answer to that
Speaker 2: question anymore. So I think that let's hope there is
Speaker 2: a bit of wind, or at least as far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned, let's hope there's a little wind and it
Speaker 2: can get as firm as it possibly can, because I
Speaker 2: think that the player who can control not just their carry,
Speaker 2: not just their accuracy, but their trajectory, the shot shapes
Speaker 2: and really think about thistle more and can also be
Speaker 2: tolerant of, you know, a dodgy bounce into a bunker
Speaker 2: and not let it phase them. You know, their skills
Speaker 2: that are rarely tested, and certainly the opening run of
Speaker 2: holes at Truon gives us opportunity to really test a
Speaker 2: different type of skill set. This is often required.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about one Dunes hole. I'll let you choose
Speaker 1: either ten or eleven. Both of these holes got to
Speaker 1: be are are pretty wonderful and really fun to watch
Speaker 1: and impressive to look at in a way that some
Speaker 1: of the holes that we're all true are not immediately
Speaker 1: impressive to look at. So which one of those holes
Speaker 1: is the one that you think about the most and
Speaker 1: what do you think about when you think about it?
Speaker 2: Well, when we were talking about the postage stamp, you
Speaker 2: said we should avoid the obvious pitfalls of talking about
Speaker 2: the most obvious holes, and with eyes wide.
Speaker 1: Open, I've gone to the other two most obvious holes.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go right into the exact same mistake
Speaker 2: and talk about the eleventh because it really is. You know,
Speaker 2: the eleventh is called railway and it doesn't take a
Speaker 2: genius to see why. You know, it is really the
Speaker 2: kind of hole that so many golf courses in this
Speaker 2: part of the world, but many others. You know, how
Speaker 2: many boundary holes can you think of garrison, the open
Speaker 2: rotor even that have that have a hard boundary that
Speaker 2: came from a railway track, And you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: big part of the reason these golf courses were built
Speaker 2: in the first place, where they were and how they
Speaker 2: were accessed, and it is, it is a key part,
Speaker 2: key part of it. So Troon's eleventh is is probably
Speaker 2: one of the most famous versions of it. Now it
Speaker 2: used to be a part five. I think it's now
Speaker 2: four nine eight, and it's of course, you know Derisory
Speaker 2: four hundred and ninety eight yards, Well that's going to
Speaker 2: be a part four surely. But you know it's a
Speaker 2: hole that's straight into the teeth of the wind, and
Speaker 2: you know it's a it's a great hole in that
Speaker 2: it will undoubtedly rattle the players. They've got to navigate it,
Speaker 2: they've got to survive it. But it's perhaps slightly less
Speaker 2: of the classic boundary hole that that you know, you
Speaker 2: we might read about in our nicest soul nice as
Speaker 2: a books on course, architecture or the rest of it,
Speaker 2: but it's not because there's now so much gorse down
Speaker 2: the left which never used to be there. It was
Speaker 2: always was a question of how far left you bail
Speaker 2: out because you don't want to be on the on
Speaker 2: the railway track, and you know, and Bunkard's source of
Speaker 2: short left of the green accordingly. But now it's going
Speaker 2: to be as it has been in the last few
Speaker 2: Open championships, you know, sort of pretty narrow into the wind.
Speaker 2: You know, you've turned back against the against the against
Speaker 2: the prevailing wind on the tenth t so you know,
Speaker 2: you really really are digging deep, just trying to hit
Speaker 2: two to you know, something that will find the fairway,
Speaker 2: something that will find the green. But you know, it
Speaker 2: is it is undoubted are going to have a role
Speaker 2: to play, as it has in many of the previous Opens.
Speaker 2: But there the tenth hole, the tenth hole is probably
Speaker 2: what most people really think of when they think of
Speaker 2: links golf and you know, blind t shirts and fairly
Speaker 2: giving way to sort of rough ground in the middle
Speaker 2: and no one because I think on that whole, but
Speaker 2: it is, you know, it's a beautiful, beautiful setting just
Speaker 2: slightly away from the the far points of the course.
Speaker 2: You're only a couple of hundred yards from being on Presstwick.
Speaker 2: But it's a beautiful place and it's a beautiful part
Speaker 2: of the course, and it is I think one of
Speaker 2: the great strengths of Truon that you have such different
Speaker 2: challenges and different types of golf all blended together and
Speaker 2: in one golf course.
Speaker 1: I think you've put your finger right there on what
Speaker 1: does make Royal Troon distinctive and memorable in the open ROTA,
Speaker 1: because I think in general Royal Troon is maybe one
Speaker 1: of the less loved open Road of venues, especially now
Speaker 1: that it doesn't seem like the Open's going back to
Speaker 1: live them anytime soon. I'm not sure I love watching
Speaker 1: that course, but I think it's similar to Royal Troon
Speaker 1: in the sense that it doesn't stand out for people
Speaker 1: like the old course does, or like Saint George's does
Speaker 1: with its incredible duneescape, or like Carnousti with those amazing,
Speaker 1: very difficult holes at the end with the burn Royal
Speaker 1: Troon maybe has a little bit of trouble standing out
Speaker 1: in the open Roda. But I think one thing that
Speaker 1: it does have going for it is this variety of landscapes,
Speaker 1: of types of holes. It has two different kinds of
Speaker 1: routing principles within one course. It has the out and back,
Speaker 1: but it also has the mere field circular swirling routing
Speaker 1: in the dunes, and so it really does combine a
Speaker 1: number of different attributes that you look for in links golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it always reminds me a little of Panmyo. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever well next door to Carnousti,
Speaker 2: the course where Ben Hogan famously practiced before his fifty
Speaker 2: three Open Championship win there and perhaps one of the
Speaker 2: best holes in Scotland their sixth hole. But it's it's
Speaker 2: a hole that is sorry, it's a course that this
Speaker 2: is similar in that you have the clubhouse, you have
Speaker 2: a corridor really of holes that take you from the
Speaker 2: clubhouse in straight linear fashion to then a much broader
Speaker 2: site with more with grander more dare I say, interesting
Speaker 2: lands that you then meander and navigate round and then
Speaker 2: and then you sort of get to the end of
Speaker 2: that broader part of the course and come back to
Speaker 2: the clubhouse. So you know, it's not it's not unique
Speaker 2: in that sense, but it is certainly on the open,
Speaker 2: on the open rotor. Yeah, to to have a bit
Speaker 2: of both probably is because yeah, Rawson, George's, Hoylake, Birkdale
Speaker 2: with them, they are all sorts of broad, rectangular ish
Speaker 2: massive generalization, but broad sites. So to have this kind
Speaker 2: of you know, almost like a letter P shape with
Speaker 2: the with the narrow section and then broadening out is
Speaker 2: is a little different. But really I think the way
Speaker 2: that you've just put your finger on that really important
Speaker 2: issue is for me almost more representative of the problem
Speaker 2: with golf in general, the fact that, you know, how
Speaker 2: often will we say of our own courses that we
Speaker 2: get to play on, you know, every day, every week,
Speaker 2: every month, whatever it might be. You know, with the
Speaker 2: mark of a great golf course, I don't think many
Speaker 2: people would disagree is one that gets better every single
Speaker 2: time you play it, And just as I think most
Speaker 2: people would probably except that I think so often the
Speaker 2: exact reverse is also true. There are courses that just
Speaker 2: low you away the first time you play it because
Speaker 2: they're so grand, so dramatic. But you know, by the
Speaker 2: time you've played them two, three, half a dozen, ten times,
Speaker 2: you go, oh, you know what, it's still beautiful and
Speaker 2: the views are still amazing. But actually, you know, on reflection,
Speaker 2: I'd rather play at, for example, the Old Course or
Speaker 2: Cornosty or Milefield or Rye. You know these courses that
Speaker 2: every single time you play them they get better and better.
Speaker 2: And I do think that is a slight affliction on
Speaker 2: the game in general, if you go and play somewhere
Speaker 2: once and then you move on to the next one.
Speaker 2: With victims of our success that we have so many
Speaker 2: wonderful golf courses to go and play. So why would
Speaker 2: anyone logically go and play True four times when they
Speaker 2: could also go and play Western Gals and Prestwick and
Speaker 2: Tumbury and Glasgow Gaals. You know all these places is
Speaker 2: in nearby. You probably wouldn't. But because of that, I
Speaker 2: do think that you lose a bit of the nuance.
Speaker 2: And perhaps you know, in our line of work in
Speaker 2: the architecture business, you almost can get tripped up by
Speaker 2: trying to stand out on playing number one rather than
Speaker 2: just really concern yourself with a hole that gets best
Speaker 2: and best for every single time you play it.
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Speaker 1: dot USGA dot org. All right, let's get back to
Speaker 1: my interview. So Sam, I want to talk about all
Speaker 1: of the golf around Royal Troon, and there is a lot.
Speaker 1: But first I think people should know how you became
Speaker 1: familiar with these courses. Tell me about your links from
Speaker 1: the road project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what stage of life crisis you'd
Speaker 2: call it. Maybe slightly before middle crisis, but put a
Speaker 2: bit beyond quarter I think up into too much damage
Speaker 2: as a goal for that's be optimistic, but certainly, certainly
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would disagree with the with the
Speaker 2: latter half of the term. But when COVID sort of
Speaker 2: came and everywhere had a slightly different approach to how
Speaker 2: they managed that extraordinarily weird parcel of time. But where
Speaker 2: we were in England, we were locked down and Harritt,
Speaker 2: my long suffering wife, she and I were us at
Speaker 2: home and you know, we were sort of we worked
Speaker 2: for ourselves, so we weren't able to furlough or or anything.
Speaker 2: But we were coming up between projects and the world
Speaker 2: was just so strange. We just said, look, you know,
Speaker 2: why don't we probably never going to have an opportunity
Speaker 2: like this again, to almost take a bit of a
Speaker 2: sabbastic or bit of time out, bit of time away
Speaker 2: from everything that we've just fallen into into the groove
Speaker 2: of doing. And you know, the juxtaposition between being locked
Speaker 2: down in our home. Our summer holiday that we'd had
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen was actually driving holiday. So we drove
Speaker 2: with our two dogs around the route called the North
Speaker 2: Coast five hundred and I'd encourage anyone to actually just
Speaker 2: google those words north Coast five hundred and you'll see
Speaker 2: one of the best driving holidays vacations that you could
Speaker 2: ever take. And this effectively goes all through the Scottish
Speaker 2: Highlands and all the way around. And we spent a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks doing that, and I'd played, you know,
Speaker 2: like many people, you know, it wasn't meant to be
Speaker 2: a goal holiday, but the clubs found their way into
Speaker 2: the car and I managed to play at Dornoch, and
Speaker 2: I managed to play it at Brora, and I played
Speaker 2: this amazing nine hole course called Durness and that was
Speaker 2: that was it. That was the extent of it. But
Speaker 2: all through the lockdown, you know, a few months later,
Speaker 2: we was sort of just thinking back to that freedom
Speaker 2: and our lack thereof during the COVID period and thought, well,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be nice to go exploring again. So we
Speaker 2: sort of gone into the into this van life stuff
Speaker 2: and you see it on YouTube, and that's probably when
Speaker 2: we ran out of things on Netflix to watch. That's
Speaker 2: what we started watching instead.
Speaker 1: And this is like a whole culture. There's there's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I'd never been camping, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: incredibly lazy and all the rest of it. I've never
Speaker 2: been camping. But you know, we were sort of driven
Speaker 2: to strange things and we thought, well, maybe this is
Speaker 2: a good idea. So when we were allowed to go
Speaker 2: back into the real world again, we managed to find
Speaker 2: a van that someone had conversed into, a pretty nice
Speaker 2: camper van, and we sort of tweaked it, changed it,
Speaker 2: finished it off. And the idea was we'd go and
Speaker 2: spend what remains of the summer in twenty twenty and
Speaker 2: the autumn, as long as the good weather would hold,
Speaker 2: driving around and having a bit of an adventure. And
Speaker 2: that's what we did. And of course then I thought, well, look,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to do this, I may as well
Speaker 2: indulge my passion for links golf. So that's exactly what
Speaker 2: it turned out to be. So I thought, well, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe over the course of my lifetime. It would be
Speaker 2: nice to play links golf courses. That's my real passion,
Speaker 2: that's what I love. So I started pulling together a list,
Speaker 2: and you know, there are bucks and there are lists
Speaker 2: of things generally that you'll find and they're all slightly different.
Speaker 2: And I had a few that I thought had been
Speaker 2: missed off some of the general wisdom things. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm to pull my own list together and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go and see them, And before you know it,
Speaker 2: it had turned into a bit of a grown arms
Speaker 2: and legs. So from September through till Christmas time twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: I played seventy five different courses, probably one hundred and
Speaker 2: cinc rounds over them, because you know, we had a
Speaker 2: few that I kept going back to. But then twenty
Speaker 2: one I played another hundred, and then twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: I sort of finished off the last fifty, which was
Speaker 2: comprised of two hundred and twenty five. This I had
Speaker 2: ended up with on my list, so that was really
Speaker 2: the source of whatever. It was. Third of a life
Speaker 2: crisis to go and ended up playing all of the
Speaker 2: links and coastal courses really of England, Scotland and Wales,
Speaker 2: Great Britain.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, that sounds amazing. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us have had, you know, fantasies about doing
Speaker 1: something exactly like that, So it's pretty cool that you
Speaker 1: got to do it. Zeroing in on the region of
Speaker 1: Royal Troon though, Yeah, this is South Ayrshire, right, this
Speaker 1: is the region where where you find Royal Train and
Speaker 1: all these other wonderful golf courses on the west coast
Speaker 1: of Scotlish. Just give me a sense for why this
Speaker 1: is such a great area for golf.
Speaker 2: Well, like many things look really, I suppose you know,
Speaker 2: you can go all the way around the British coastline
Speaker 2: and there will be pockets of great golf. Then there
Speaker 2: will also be hundreds of miles where there's very very
Speaker 2: little or nothing. And you know, you've got to have
Speaker 2: a bunch of different factors that's all combined at the
Speaker 2: right moments in time to actually to actually end up
Speaker 2: with an area. This is like yesha, And you know
Speaker 2: what have you got to have? You're going to have
Speaker 2: You're got to generally sand. You want real sandy, undulating
Speaker 2: ground that might have population near enough to warrant building
Speaker 2: a golf course, and the right people who have been
Speaker 2: there at the right time. And you know, nowadays you'd
Speaker 2: say most of those parts of the country that have amazing,
Speaker 2: amazing june Land but don't have golf course already built there,
Speaker 2: well they never ever will because it will be protected
Speaker 2: and all the rest of it's from an environmental perspective.
Speaker 2: So Trun and the Ayrsha region just fortunately had most
Speaker 2: of those things combining at the right point in time. Really,
Speaker 2: and yeah, there are now oh gosh, I suppose we
Speaker 2: best think of a few of them, but there are
Speaker 2: probably more links courses of equality in that this will
Speaker 2: stretch almost running as one contiguous course really one immediately
Speaker 2: after the other, and they're probably more there than anywhere
Speaker 2: else in well, in terms of links golf the world,
Speaker 2: because there were more than anywhere else in Scotland. Say
Speaker 2: that's just to say the world.
Speaker 1: You've pointed this out to me in our previous conversations.
Speaker 1: But there is like this kind of unbroken stretch of
Speaker 1: golf that you can play basically starting at Prestwick or
Speaker 1: maybe even farther south than that, but Prestwick being the
Speaker 1: founding course of the region sort of Old Tom moved
Speaker 1: over from Saint Andrews to start up Prestwick and it
Speaker 1: was his baby and it was, you know, the original
Speaker 1: Open Championship venue and all of that. So an enormously
Speaker 1: important course and location in golf, and a lot of
Speaker 1: this region kind of grew up around that that it
Speaker 1: turned this place into a golf place. But if you
Speaker 1: look at it now, just on Google Earth, there's this
Speaker 1: great little green pathway that goes through this whole area.
Speaker 1: So tell me about that, Like, take me through. What
Speaker 1: if you were to play, if you were allowed to
Speaker 1: do this, you could play all of them?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you're right, it's only it's only reasonable to
Speaker 2: start at Prestwick, seeing as as most of the golf
Speaker 2: in this part of the world did start at Prestwick.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know it's these old tales, how true
Speaker 2: they are of old Tom Morris being on the old
Speaker 2: course and playing a gussy percha golf ball and falling
Speaker 2: out Land Robertson and.
Speaker 1: In the feathery business. He was like, you dare play
Speaker 1: the gutty. But there's no real historical.
Speaker 2: Tales, aren't they. There's no one. There's no one, I
Speaker 2: don't think who overheard that conversation still still living. So
Speaker 2: we'll have to have to to take it with maybe
Speaker 2: a grain of salt. But that's the story. And then
Speaker 2: over he went and took took his young family over
Speaker 2: to over to Prestwick, and they had this magnificent piece
Speaker 2: of land to build golf on. And I would say
Speaker 2: piece of land where especially the old holes are at
Speaker 2: Prestwick is just as good a piece of land as
Speaker 2: you'll find for golf absolutely anywhere. And so if you
Speaker 2: if you were to tee off on that first hole there,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure the members of Truon and Prestwick do
Speaker 2: this to this day and they have this sort of
Speaker 2: cross country match a bit like the hagen Hoof that
Speaker 2: they have down in Kent where they basically play Deal
Speaker 2: roll Saint Port's Rolls and Georgia's and Princes in and
Speaker 2: they play there and back. Well then yeah absolutely, but
Speaker 2: they do the same thing there and they'll play from
Speaker 2: the first t they'll play up to the boundary, play
Speaker 2: the holes to the boundary between Truon and then you
Speaker 2: sort of walk across and then play the back nine
Speaker 2: of Trouon from the tenth te going into the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: Then probably have lunch there and then and then do
Speaker 2: the exact reverse, and thirty six holes later you you
Speaker 2: sort of stumble stumble ounce to the clubhouse at the
Speaker 2: back where you started, having played entirely across country. But
Speaker 2: as we say, you could keep going if you'd made
Speaker 2: it then to the eighteenth Vos Troon. Then they've got
Speaker 2: the Portland Course next door course that most people say
Speaker 2: Aliston McKenzie did a bit of work on, But the
Speaker 2: Portland Course is adjacent, just over the road, so you
Speaker 2: could probably hit an iron over over over there and
Speaker 2: then that sort of But one of the great provisions
Speaker 2: of municipal golf in in the UK. In Troon South
Speaker 2: Ayrshire Council, they have a brilliant, brilliant array of municipal
Speaker 2: golf courses and there are three in that particular part.
Speaker 2: There's the the Futherton Course, the lock Green Course and
Speaker 2: the Daly Course and and you know then all necessarily
Speaker 2: one h hundred percent links courses, but they have more
Speaker 2: links holes than you'd ever really expect to find. For
Speaker 2: the I don't know what the green fee is, maybe
Speaker 2: twenty pounds, you know, not negligible in the grand scheme
Speaker 2: of the Grand scheme of golf nowadays, So you can
Speaker 2: sort of play across those three, so we've now played
Speaker 2: six courses, and then I guess from there you could
Speaker 2: probably find your way over the over the road onto
Speaker 2: Carmanic Barassi, which has got used to be a sort
Speaker 2: of quite compact eating whole course, and they expanded it
Speaker 2: so now they've ended up with twenty seven twenty seven holes,
Speaker 2: so they've got the little Hillhouse nine whole course there,
Speaker 2: so you can play those two. You have to keep
Speaker 2: count for me, Garrett, because then you can sort of
Speaker 2: pop over the fence at the far side. Maybe you'd
Speaker 2: go on to let me think about this, Maybe you
Speaker 2: go then onto Dundonald New, a new course of the area,
Speaker 2: but you know it's immediately a Buttz Barassi, and then
Speaker 2: you'd hop over the rail way, assuming you can avoid
Speaker 2: the avoid the eight thirty six going through to Prestwick,
Speaker 2: and you'd be on Western Gales, which is absolutely one
Speaker 2: of my favorite courses in that part of the world.
Speaker 2: And then maybe the final one that maybe you'd need
Speaker 2: a three wood from the corner of Western Gales onto
Speaker 2: Glasgow Gales, but I'm sure you could do it with
Speaker 2: the right wind. And then what's that that's thick end
Speaker 2: of ten golf courses that you can that you can
Speaker 2: play from one to the next legitimately, well not legitimately,
Speaker 2: and I would encourage anyone to do that, but you know,
Speaker 2: at least it's it sort of demonstrates and shows just
Speaker 2: how rich it is as a region for great golf,
Speaker 2: because it's it is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you're talking about a place that
Speaker 1: you can go and just stay in one town or
Speaker 1: one area and play a trip's worth of golf, this
Speaker 1: would have to be one of the best places to
Speaker 1: do that, right up there with with East Lothian.
Speaker 2: And categorically categorically and you know, East Lothian is unbelievable,
Speaker 2: of course it is. And you know, between the Millfields
Speaker 2: and North Barracks and Gunn and you go down the
Speaker 2: coast of Dunbar, it's got brilliant, brilliant golf. But so
Speaker 2: too does a share and I would say that I
Speaker 2: don't know what the ratio is between people going to
Speaker 2: East Lothian and not to Airship, but it's out right
Speaker 2: now and it absolutely should be because it's not just
Speaker 2: those You've got West, You've got Urvin bog Side, which
Speaker 2: is you know, I only didn't include it because you
Speaker 2: can't hit it. I don't even think even Bryson could
Speaker 2: could get from Glasgow, Gales.
Speaker 1: To he's working, he's in the lab, he's in the
Speaker 1: weight room, he's working at it.
Speaker 2: There's no limits of science. I'm sure someone said that before.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's it's it's a brilliant It doesn't
Speaker 2: sound very linkxy, but it's but it's a beautiful. It's
Speaker 2: got some of the quirkiest brilliant holes that you'll find
Speaker 2: in the area of the coast. You've got westkill Bride,
Speaker 2: which is entirely worth playing. And then you know, in
Speaker 2: the other direction south of Prestwick, the old course at Prestwick,
Speaker 2: you've got you've got Preswick St Nicholas, which was sort
Speaker 2: of founded out to the Mechanics club that old Tom
Speaker 2: Morris sorso founded as the Artist AND's Club, a sort
Speaker 2: of Prestwick originally. But that's a brilliant, brilliant, quirky, gorgeous
Speaker 2: as a golf course. And you know that's before you
Speaker 2: get even to the big names further down the coast
Speaker 2: of Turnbury. So all of that, it's probably one of
Speaker 2: the richest and it's also yes, you've got the you know,
Speaker 2: you've got the expensive, big hitters, well known courses. But
Speaker 2: then I'd say some of those courses I've just rattled
Speaker 2: off there, the Glasgow Gales, west kill Bride, Irvan Bogside,
Speaker 2: Preswick St. Nicholas. You know, anyone will go there, and
Speaker 2: I would guarantee that you go there expecting to love
Speaker 2: Troon and Turnbury and you know what you will, you
Speaker 2: absolutely will, But you'll also talk about the PRESWICKX Nicholas
Speaker 2: and ah, well have you heard of Glasgow Gals. Do
Speaker 2: you know that that's part of the six older golf
Speaker 2: club in the world, you know, do you know?
Speaker 1: Then you'll find it Western Mention Western Gals, right, and
Speaker 1: that everybody I know who has played that course has
Speaker 1: said amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is, and it's right on the water.
Speaker 2: It's sort of it's out and back, but the clubhouse
Speaker 2: in the middle, so you sort of returned to us
Speaker 2: after nine. But you know it is probably that's going
Speaker 2: to be up there with raw sint Port's, with the
Speaker 2: old course for having some of the most undulating rippling links,
Speaker 2: true links ground that you'll find anywhere, and all of this,
Speaker 2: all of this coastline here is under the source of
Speaker 2: the Watchful Eye cross the water of even more amazing
Speaker 2: golf because you can take little ferry, which is probably
Speaker 2: another reason that there's so much golf there, because it
Speaker 2: was the source of the ferry route between England and
Speaker 2: Glasgow for a long point. You know, if you used
Speaker 2: to take the train from England up to from London,
Speaker 2: if you went from London to Glasgow before they connected
Speaker 2: the Lake district bit in the middle, then you go
Speaker 2: up to Fleetwood and then you get a ferry sort
Speaker 2: of a round and you get the ferry to this
Speaker 2: Aysha coast and then you get the railway fee you
Speaker 2: pick up the railway for your last journey into Glasgow.
Speaker 2: So you know, maybe that has had a part to
Speaker 2: play as well. But you know, just further out on
Speaker 2: the islands, you see there you've got the Isle of Aarn,
Speaker 2: beautiful famous Isle of Aaron where one of my favorite
Speaker 2: courses happens to have twelve holes, Shiskin Shiskin's over there.
Speaker 2: And then you keep going and then you get to
Speaker 2: the famous Kintyre, famous Mullkin Tyre. They're not famous solely
Speaker 2: by Paul McCartney, going and living and singing a bounce it,
Speaker 2: but far more significantly for golfers. Jim Hartzell writing about
Speaker 2: Dynavity and Macrahannish and all of those extraordinary courses. So
Speaker 2: you know, look west is a bit of advice that
Speaker 2: I really would give because there are you know, there's
Speaker 2: three weeks worth of golf over there, and it's it's
Speaker 2: beautiful and you.
Speaker 1: Could keep going too. That's the thing about this area.
Speaker 1: You could keep going out into the islands and find
Speaker 1: more kind of out of the way places. Macrahanish, which
Speaker 1: you mentioned, was sort of the traditional farthest reach of
Speaker 1: a links golf journey, you know, and this course has
Speaker 1: been written about going way way back. This is not
Speaker 1: a late twentieth century discovery. You see very early writings
Speaker 1: about this kind of mystical course way out on the
Speaker 1: west coast of Scotland that just you know, blue people's minds.
Speaker 1: But you can go there now and it's fairly well
Speaker 1: known now and there are more courses out there now
Speaker 1: and then and then just keep going if you want it.
Speaker 1: You can could just kind of get lost out there
Speaker 1: amid the you know, just these very remote places.
Speaker 2: One of the courses, beautiful places for my money in
Speaker 2: the world, you know, those Western aisles going up the
Speaker 2: highlands of Scotland. You've got to accept a change of
Speaker 2: culture in golf. But for me, that's entirely part of
Speaker 2: the charm, part of the beauty, you know, the fact
Speaker 2: that you then get to these honesty box courses where
Speaker 2: you know, maybe it's the sheep who have most recently
Speaker 2: cut the grass rather than the latest, the latest Toro Hanmoher,
Speaker 2: But you know it is it is a different version
Speaker 2: of the game. But for many, many people, I think
Speaker 2: anyone I know who's who's been over there. No one
Speaker 2: goes away and says, oh, it's really disappoint into with
Speaker 2: the speed of the greens at Askin.
Speaker 1: They go on golf Pass and leave a review. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: are unacceptable.
Speaker 2: If you just want to play quick greens and boring
Speaker 2: architecture like there's there's thousands of places. But if you
Speaker 2: want to go and play something that you'll remember for
Speaker 2: the rest of your life and have had an extraordinary
Speaker 2: source of beautiful, memorable journey to actually get there, then
Speaker 2: fill your boots because there are you know, there are
Speaker 2: dozens of places.
Speaker 1: All right, Sam, let's let's close with what you're working
Speaker 1: on right now? What what are your plans for the
Speaker 1: Links from the Road project? You're writing a book, right
Speaker 1: am I allowed to say that at this point?
Speaker 2: No, No, you very much so. Yeah. So source of
Speaker 2: half my time is the I say, day job. It's
Speaker 2: not really much of a job, is it sort of
Speaker 2: designing working on golf courses. But but that is probably
Speaker 2: consumes a lot of loss of my time. But I
Speaker 2: had all of these photographs, video, the source of the notes,
Speaker 2: the memories, and one of the things I really wanted
Speaker 2: to do, having visited so many beautiful places, is that
Speaker 2: you know, I can write something about Lithm or about
Speaker 2: trun or Turnburrey and tell people, realistically maybe a little
Speaker 2: bit more of what they already knew, and it's not
Speaker 2: going to make one job of difference. Really, if you
Speaker 2: haven't heard of turn Beurrey, then you're probably not picking
Speaker 2: up my book. If you want to know more about it,
Speaker 2: then that's great, but it probably won't change your opinion
Speaker 2: on whether you should play it or not. But just
Speaker 2: like we've talked about here, there are so many places
Speaker 2: that maybe they don't have eighteen pure amazing links holes.
Speaker 2: But I'd actually make a case that very very you know,
Speaker 2: like places you could count on your finger and toes
Speaker 2: actually fill that criteria. So even the very very best,
Speaker 2: world renowned links course are not one hundred percent links holes.
Speaker 2: And therefore you know there are there are probably one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty places that you should go out of
Speaker 2: your way to play, and you don't have to spend
Speaker 2: four hundred and something pounds on a green fee. You
Speaker 2: can spend forty pounds on a green fee. And like
Speaker 2: we were saying there, it's it's you can talk about
Speaker 2: for a long time. So actually, you know, putting the
Speaker 2: you know, not the underdogs, but so also shining a
Speaker 2: light on places that I really would love more people
Speaker 2: to go and see was the motivation for this. So
Speaker 2: we've done this as a book series because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty five courses, a few photographs and
Speaker 2: they were writing about all of them that end up
Speaker 2: being one thousand pages if you're not careful and then
Speaker 2: and then definitely no one's going to read this or
Speaker 2: buy it. Then, so we're splitting us into volumes and
Speaker 2: doing this as a quarterly quarterly thing. So it's almost there,
Speaker 2: it's volume ones, almost out. Links from the road dot Com.
Speaker 2: We're we're selling them on there, so if they're not
Speaker 2: available yet, they will be not not long afterwards, and
Speaker 2: hopefully people will We'll find some places in each volume
Speaker 2: that they know they know Abous already, and and a
Speaker 2: lot more in each one that they'll never heard of
Speaker 2: that they might actually just go and visit one day.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm looking forward to that. And finally, as
Speaker 1: you alluded to earlier, you worked for Clayton, Divries and Pont.
Speaker 1: It's a great architecture firm that works all over the world.
Speaker 1: And the principles of the firm or Mike Clayton, Mike
Speaker 1: Divrees and and Frank Pont, and they each have kind
Speaker 1: of their their domains of golf architecture. Mike Divrees has
Speaker 1: worked a lot in the United States, mostly in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Mike Clayton, famous Australian golfer and architect, a great golf
Speaker 1: mind who has been on the podcast a number of times.
Speaker 1: And Frank Pont has has worked in the UK and
Speaker 1: in Europe quite a bit. So this is this is
Speaker 1: one of those super group firms. You are working in
Speaker 1: their Great Britain office. What are some projects that you
Speaker 1: can tell me about that you've been occupied with recently.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess, as you allude to there, we all
Speaker 2: sort of have our own little passions within it. I
Speaker 2: think that a mistake, maybe on our side of the
Speaker 2: pond and across Europe, that you might fall into is
Speaker 2: being too much of a generalist. And I think you've
Speaker 2: probably seen I've got a reasonable passion for links golf
Speaker 2: and strategic golf and and that's really soort of what
Speaker 2: I end up getting most involved with. Then for Frank,
Speaker 2: he would there's not many people I've come across who
Speaker 2: know more about the golf courses of Harry Colt or
Speaker 2: Tom Simpson.
Speaker 1: He's the authority on Heathln golf.
Speaker 2: Well exactly that Garrisons. And I think the beauty of
Speaker 2: this is we end up with we do our own bits,
Speaker 2: and we collaborate and and hopefully end up being greater
Speaker 2: than the sum of parts for it. But you know,
Speaker 2: we're a small, small office in Britain. Someone who I
Speaker 2: think has been on your podcast before is my great
Speaker 2: colleague Joe McDonnell. And you know this time in fact,
Speaker 2: there you go so here and I both from both
Speaker 2: grew up at Hoylake and you won't find anyone better
Speaker 2: at communicating the ideas, you know, in that sort of
Speaker 2: visual that visual way that he has of constructing all
Speaker 2: of the things that you actually need to communicate. Because
Speaker 2: you can try and you know, maybe pull the wall
Speaker 2: over people's eyes and say, oh no, trust me, it'll
Speaker 2: be fine. It's hopeless unless you can properly communicate what
Speaker 2: it is that you want to change or want to
Speaker 2: do and have people scrutinize it for its merits or otherwise.
Speaker 2: Then I've always had the opinion you shouldn't change something
Speaker 2: if people if it can't stand up to scrutiny, then
Speaker 2: don't do it. So, you know, getting to work with
Speaker 2: Joe and really sort of taking that philosophy approach, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we're lucky. We work with some wonderful historic clubs, especially
Speaker 2: around the coast, and a few few sorts of new
Speaker 2: places as well, so we have a really beautiful mix
Speaker 2: of the things that we need to to really get
Speaker 2: ours teeth stuck into and trying to make the most
Speaker 2: and restore some of the strategy from courses where it
Speaker 2: might have been slightly lost over time.
Speaker 1: Well, Sam, thank you for coming on the podcast. Really
Speaker 1: fun talking to you. I thought this was great and
Speaker 1: best of luck with your endeavors with Clayton, de Ris
Speaker 1: and Pod. I'll be looking out for that stuff and
Speaker 1: also with your quarterly series links from the road. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on and enjoy open Week.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me Garrett. Great fun.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by
Speaker 1: PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. If you enjoyed this deep
Speaker 1: dive into Royal Troon and into all the golf that
Speaker 1: you can play in South Ayrshire, then I can just
Speaker 1: about guarantee that you would like what we're doing in
Speaker 1: Club TFE. This is Frida Egg Golf's membership. Just go
Speaker 1: to the Frida egg dot com slash membership to see
Speaker 1: what it's all about. All right, thank you for listening
Speaker 1: and we'll be back again soon with another episode.