Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode I am joined by Luke Reese. Luke is
Speaker 1: the author of a new book, One for the Memory Banks.
Speaker 1: It's a story about traveling around Scotland and learning to
Speaker 1: play golf and kind of the culture of Scottish golf
Speaker 1: and golf in the UK. Really, Luke I have known
Speaker 1: for a long time. I caddied at a club he's
Speaker 1: a member at. He has had a long career in
Speaker 1: the golf world that started with Wilson Golf, but he
Speaker 1: has also been the president and chairman of the board
Speaker 1: of Peter Malar and is currently the chairman of the
Speaker 1: board of Shoe the apparel company.
Speaker 2: Luke wrote this book.
Speaker 1: He sent me an advance copy and we've been planning
Speaker 1: to do this podcast for a while. But really interesting
Speaker 1: book for any golf lover. It's got a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything for everybody. And one of the neat things
Speaker 1: that he's doing is that he is doing a large
Speaker 1: donation of the proceeds. Ten dollars from every book if
Speaker 1: you use our link, will be donated to the National
Speaker 1: Links Trust, a organization that we have covered in great
Speaker 1: detail on the website and the podcast that is just
Speaker 1: took over the leases of the Washington d C Municipal Courses,
Speaker 1: National Parks Courses East Potomac, Rock Creek and Langston and
Speaker 1: are a nonprofit that's raising money to restore those golf courses.
Speaker 1: So figure that's a pretty good cause and it fits
Speaker 1: well with The Fried Egg. So we are going to
Speaker 1: for every book purchased of one for the Memory Banks,
Speaker 1: Luke is donating ten dollars of the twenty seven dollars
Speaker 1: book to the National Links Trust. And to do that,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is go to the Memory
Speaker 1: Banks dot com, forward slash the Fried Egg and if
Speaker 1: you make your purchase through there, ten dollars of your
Speaker 1: book will go to the National Links Trust. So, without
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Luke Reaes and Uh a story
Speaker 1: of really his golf life and UH playing golf in
Speaker 1: in the UK, I miss.
Speaker 3: A green, for example, I'm already upset when I find
Speaker 3: my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when
Speaker 3: I find my ball in a bright egg Friday egg,
Speaker 3: the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg egg bride egg Lie,
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run.
Speaker 2: Off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Being somebody that's been in the golf business for Is
Speaker 1: there anything that compares to this in terms of the
Speaker 1: demand for playing.
Speaker 4: No, nothing, nothing's even remotely close.
Speaker 3: I mean, this has been I think right now we're
Speaker 3: experiencing in golf is just a people have gotten back
Speaker 3: to the love of the game and they're playing, and
Speaker 3: they realize it's outdoor, it's activity, you can do stuff,
Speaker 3: you can be with people, you can be socially just,
Speaker 3: and you can also be sort of close to each other.
Speaker 4: I think rounds of play are going to stay up.
Speaker 4: I would expect them.
Speaker 3: I think you're going to get a lot of people
Speaker 3: who have suddenly realized this is a good game and
Speaker 3: this is fun and it's a fun place to play,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think rounds of play are going
Speaker 3: to stay up. I think the only question that we'll
Speaker 3: have is as over time, as people start to get
Speaker 3: back towards having to work in an office, are they
Speaker 3: going to be able to slip out and play nine
Speaker 3: or slip out and practice chipping and putting or that
Speaker 3: sort of thing.
Speaker 4: And that's that's the big question to me.
Speaker 3: But I'm I think that people have realized that golf
Speaker 3: is a really good thing to do.
Speaker 1: I think I think you hit on one of the things.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's a great safe way to spend time,
Speaker 1: spend time with people and your friends, and that kind
Speaker 1: of ties into your book that just came out One
Speaker 1: for the Memory Banks. A uh Rivet agreed. I think
Speaker 1: it's neat because you've got you've got golf and architecture
Speaker 1: mixed in with human interest in a story of a
Speaker 1: great friendship, and ihip golf friendship as an adult is way.
Speaker 1: It's like underrated because of how much time you spend
Speaker 1: when you golf with somebody.
Speaker 2: I've thought about this a lot.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, even my best friends say, I
Speaker 1: see him once a month now, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I spend a couple hours with them. If I play
Speaker 1: golf with the same person every weekend, I'm gonna spend
Speaker 1: way more time over the course of the year with
Speaker 1: that person than even your best friend.
Speaker 4: Well hopefully they become your best friend.
Speaker 3: Okay, hopefully hopefully your best friend is the person with
Speaker 3: whom you're golf. I mean, I sort of I got
Speaker 3: just incredibly lucky, and I guess you know, first of all,
Speaker 3: you know, I came late to the game. I didn't
Speaker 3: start playing it's till my mid thirties, and I was
Speaker 3: a tennis player before that. Tennis is not a place
Speaker 3: where you play for fun with people. You're hitting the
Speaker 3: ball at somebody, they're hitting it at you. It's you
Speaker 3: against them. By definition.
Speaker 4: Golf is sort of a combination of you against the course.
Speaker 3: And it's and if it's match play, it can have
Speaker 3: a whole competitive element to it that can have a
Speaker 3: fun element to it, and you can celebrate their good
Speaker 3: shot and at the same time try to beat it.
Speaker 3: And I think that you know what where I got
Speaker 3: lucky was learning to play with some Scottish guys who
Speaker 3: were just amazing people and then who cared massively about
Speaker 3: architecture and who at the same time wanted to play
Speaker 3: new courses and wanted to play match play. And all
Speaker 3: three or four of those coalesced into this like perfect
Speaker 3: boiling pot for me of just an amazing golf experience.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I count myself as the luckiest
Speaker 3: guy on the planet because I happened to run into
Speaker 3: a former Scottish amateur champ and a low handicapped older
Speaker 3: Scotsman who gave me a golf architecture book as my
Speaker 3: first presence.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's a great way.
Speaker 3: It's a great way to get to get to know
Speaker 3: the game. And so you know, back your comment about
Speaker 3: your best friends, my best friends, the people with whom
Speaker 3: I'm texting until ten o'clock last night about whether you
Speaker 3: know they want to buy the new T three hundred
Speaker 3: irons or whether they want the TSI two driver or three.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are the kind of things that you
Speaker 3: sit back and look and go, that's the kind of
Speaker 3: stuff we talk about. And then we're talking about changes
Speaker 3: to MPCC Shorge Course and the new pro there, and
Speaker 3: it's just these are the types of things that have
Speaker 3: infinite variety.
Speaker 4: No one has ever called me and said, let's.
Speaker 3: Go play a tennis course at a new place, you know,
Speaker 3: a tennis court. It's just like they're all the same.
Speaker 3: They all have the same measurements, all the same dimensions,
Speaker 3: and it's just who am I going to play with?
Speaker 3: And we might be wearing different outfits, but that's it.
Speaker 3: And so it's just to meet. Golf is just this
Speaker 3: infinite variety. And then you have the history and then
Speaker 3: you have the architecture and it's all there. It's just
Speaker 3: a it's a cool thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Golf the course obviously, I mean this podcast covers courses.
Speaker 1: We think courses are infinitely interesting because of that variety.
Speaker 1: I something I really appreciated from your book was reading
Speaker 1: about how you got into the game late in life,
Speaker 1: but then you got a different upbringing than all of
Speaker 1: US Americans. You know, I always say that I want
Speaker 1: to denounce my American golf citizenship, that I want to
Speaker 1: be like A I want to be either an Australian
Speaker 1: golfer or a or a UK golfer. Of all my
Speaker 1: friends are like, you got to go there before you
Speaker 1: can even say that, you know, but I I constantly
Speaker 1: want to just I'm no longer an American system.
Speaker 2: You can.
Speaker 1: You have a legitimate claim. So you were take us there,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't want to spoil the book too much.
Speaker 2: It take us.
Speaker 1: You're working for Wilson's Sporting Goods at this point and
Speaker 1: you you're working in their European office, and uh, that's
Speaker 1: how you get into the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so it's.
Speaker 3: Very funny talking about renouncing your American golf citizenship. Don't
Speaker 3: do that yet, but I will say, we are so
Speaker 3: fixated on what did you shoot today? And we are
Speaker 3: so fixated on the pro game. We talk about the
Speaker 3: pro game so often as opposed to where are we
Speaker 3: going to play? And the benefit of the UK is manyfold.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Number one, you can play almost every single one of
Speaker 3: their courses as a regular person. You just have to
Speaker 3: write a letter, you have to show up, you have
Speaker 3: to be respectful, and it doesn't cost that much. So
Speaker 3: the great courses are open, they're members, they're frequently members clubs,
Speaker 3: but they're also open to us. The second thing is
Speaker 3: these golfing societies. Crewis around and they play there on
Speaker 3: different days and they're always playing the great places.
Speaker 4: So here's where I got lucky.
Speaker 3: I was a tennis player, played college tennis, blah blah blah,
Speaker 3: and I joined Wilson, which is the powerhouse tennis company.
Speaker 3: And you know, those of us from the golf industry
Speaker 3: don't think of Wilson in quite the same esteem as
Speaker 3: those from the tennis side. The tennis side, we're, you know,
Speaker 3: we're essentially the titleist of tennis, and we had this
Speaker 3: kind of power there and I came from it from
Speaker 3: that side, and all the top managers were all tennis guys.
Speaker 3: And somebody said to me, well, you know, golf in
Speaker 3: Europe is going to grow, and I thought I probably
Speaker 3: ought to figured this game out, okay, And I was
Speaker 3: fresh off of this really disastrous scenario which I was
Speaker 3: described the book of playing at Ballybunion before I even
Speaker 3: knew how to play golf. It's sort of like my
Speaker 3: third or fourth round of golf in life. And I
Speaker 3: went out in a fifty mint our wind, in a
Speaker 3: barber jacket and tried to play at Ballybunion, and I
Speaker 3: was like, why would anyone pay money to do this?
Speaker 4: It was just a disaster.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I feel like that's the scenario
Speaker 1: that so many Americans get dropped into, minus the leather,
Speaker 1: but it's at a golf course with water. Really it's
Speaker 1: really challenging for beginner and it's like, why do we
Speaker 1: do this?
Speaker 3: People should play from teas that are way further forward.
Speaker 3: They should play easier golf courses until they can handle them.
Speaker 3: And none of us can hit the heroic shots we
Speaker 3: watch on the TV. And so to me this is
Speaker 3: just sort of the funny part. But I'm in a
Speaker 3: meeting one day in my offices in Munich and I'm basically.
Speaker 4: A young sales rep. And I asked some guy to
Speaker 4: critique my.
Speaker 3: Swing, and he, in his Scottish brogue, goes, you know,
Speaker 3: as a and he sort of pulled the whole crowd in.
Speaker 4: This guy had that like presence.
Speaker 3: He's sort of like the you know, a combination Winston
Speaker 3: Churchill Arnie Palmer type personality. Everybody listened to everything he said,
Speaker 3: and he pulls me and goes, young, mister Reese, as
Speaker 3: a golfer, you'd make a fine salesman.
Speaker 4: Now here's my tip.
Speaker 3: And then he gave me a tip which was basically,
Speaker 3: never touched the grip of a club in front of
Speaker 3: a golf pro. Just basically, you will lose all credibility
Speaker 3: the moment you try to address try to waggle, he said,
Speaker 3: they'll know you don't know anything about golf. Okay, and
Speaker 3: the whole crew crowd just cracked up, and everybody thought
Speaker 3: it was funny. And I was sort of like slightly
Speaker 3: humiliated as a young.
Speaker 2: Salesman trying to sell.
Speaker 1: You're trying to go sell the self clubs, so you
Speaker 1: can't even grab yeah, and.
Speaker 3: I'm bribing self clubs and I could speak languages and
Speaker 3: I could tell people like how wonderful this club was
Speaker 3: and why the off center hits went straight and everything else,
Speaker 3: but I sure couldn't actually do it. And so I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god, this guy's humiliating, but it
Speaker 3: was sort of it was funny at the same time.
Speaker 3: And the next week, sitting you know, showing up in
Speaker 3: a little package. This is before FedEx and all these
Speaker 3: kind of things. A little package shows up and it
Speaker 3: was Donald Steele's Classic Links in the UK, and it
Speaker 3: was a book and it was a little note from
Speaker 3: this guy. And this guy was like seventeen years older
Speaker 3: than I was. He was a senior sales manager and
Speaker 3: he sends me this book and just says start reading
Speaker 3: this book.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: And there's a picture of Turnberry on the front, on
Speaker 3: the front, and you know, just and he just he
Speaker 3: told me what pays to turn It was his home course,
Speaker 3: which is basically western Gales, and he's like, you know,
Speaker 3: come learn about golf and learn this is where golf
Speaker 3: is really played.
Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, I could figure this out.
Speaker 4: I'll get it. And then I just became fascinated. And
Speaker 4: over the winter I just started reading more and more
Speaker 4: about this thing.
Speaker 3: And then James Dodson's book Final Rounds came out, and
Speaker 3: about that same time and To the Links Land with
Speaker 3: Michael Bamberger came out, and I was like reading these
Speaker 3: books and I'm like, this is authentic, this is real,
Speaker 3: and it's like and it appealed to me. It struck
Speaker 3: this chord that was so much deeper than anything tennis
Speaker 3: had ever done. In tennis, we'd sit back and talk
Speaker 3: about how Labor used to beat Rosewall but that was
Speaker 3: it okay, and you might beat him on a different
Speaker 3: surface or something.
Speaker 4: But in golf, it was like, wow, Bobby Jones played here,
Speaker 4: specifically at this course and this is where he shot
Speaker 4: the perfect round. I'm like, well, let's go play there,
Speaker 4: let's go truck it, let's go see what happened.
Speaker 3: So it was a chance to actually do what the
Speaker 3: pros do, what's happened in history, and for me, Links
Speaker 3: and UK golf just appeal to every.
Speaker 4: Aspect of that.
Speaker 3: And obviously I was lucky because we had a factory
Speaker 3: in Urban Scotland and Urban is right next to Western Gales,
Speaker 3: Glasgow Gals, Royal Troon, Prestwick, you know, just down the
Speaker 3: road from Turnbury, you could play a lot of good
Speaker 3: links golf and there are ten courses I didn't name
Speaker 3: that are phenomenal. And so we would just sneak out
Speaker 3: after work every day six o'clock at night and we'd
Speaker 3: get eighteen in and then go to dinner. And I
Speaker 3: just that's how I learned how to play. And so
Speaker 3: it was always fast, it was always fun. It was
Speaker 3: always match play. Never kept track of the score. So
Speaker 3: you don't get debilitated by having by shooting a nine
Speaker 3: on a hole. You pick up them and you've lost
Speaker 3: the hole and you move on.
Speaker 1: So I think the match play is so critical to
Speaker 1: that because like the the concept of you're out of
Speaker 1: the hole, you just pick up and you're get to
Speaker 1: move to the next one and it only costs you
Speaker 1: one is so valuable to a beginner, Like it's the penalty.
Speaker 2: Of a bad hole is so much less.
Speaker 1: If you play match play as a beginner, then as
Speaker 1: as a stroke play it is.
Speaker 3: And if you take stroke play, you ruin around with
Speaker 3: two bad holes. If you take match play, it's ten
Speaker 3: percent of the round, okay, or roughly, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a little more than ten percent, but not much more.
Speaker 4: So it's just like two bad holes. It's just two.
Speaker 4: It's two points against you.
Speaker 3: And that to me allowed me to get to move
Speaker 3: along and start focusing on trying to make pars as.
Speaker 4: Opposed to worrying about making a quad.
Speaker 3: Okay, and you know, a bad score just didn't matter
Speaker 3: because literally you just pick it up. It Also, it's funny,
Speaker 3: and it's what it's one probably a problem that I
Speaker 3: have in golf.
Speaker 4: I don't put nearly as well for a birdie as
Speaker 4: I do for a par lots.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just because it's it's exactly right, because
Speaker 3: so you know, if I'll sit down, I've got a
Speaker 3: ten footer for par I guarantee you the ball is
Speaker 3: going to go slightly past that hole and it's going
Speaker 3: to have a little more direct line. If it's for Bertie,
Speaker 3: I'm like, whatever you do, don't make bogie in this hole, okay,
Speaker 3: you know. So it's just, you know, it's it's just
Speaker 3: that's the match play non killer instinct where you're just like, okay,
Speaker 3: for a half, I'll ram this thing in for for
Speaker 3: a victory, I'm gonna make sure I get the half,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: So that's sort of the and I also played the
Speaker 4: guy who was a world class taunter.
Speaker 3: I mean his if you've read the book, you know
Speaker 3: BONDI was able to get in your head on every
Speaker 3: single putting stroke, every single time, and he could do
Speaker 3: it in the most subtle, you know, classic British way.
Speaker 4: But he'd say things and you'd sort of go, is
Speaker 4: this uphill? Sit downhill?
Speaker 3: Is it left or right? Is it right to left?
Speaker 3: What happens if it goes too far past? So it
Speaker 3: was it was nothing but fun.
Speaker 1: You're making me miss I haven't played a good match
Speaker 1: in a while, and I missed being those subtle lays,
Speaker 1: the sneaky subtle aays to just kind of rattle some
Speaker 1: face cage. They're the vest where they don't even they
Speaker 1: think you're room for them, but you're just you're just
Speaker 1: getting a little bit in their kitchen.
Speaker 3: I mean it's just sometimes like some of the things
Speaker 3: that that guy would do and I just still laugh.
Speaker 3: It's like he'd give you a gimme, but make you
Speaker 3: wait for a second. It's like icing your kicker in football,
Speaker 3: but everybody knows you're going to ice the kicker. The
Speaker 3: kicker's like, okay, are they going to actually use this
Speaker 3: timeout or am I gonna have to kick this one?
Speaker 3: And in putting, once you've been given a couple of
Speaker 3: pluts early on, you get somebody gives you a four footer,
Speaker 3: you know, early on instead instead of having you make it,
Speaker 3: and especially if it's a straight up to four footer,
Speaker 3: you give it now. Suddenly, you know, on about fourteen
Speaker 3: or fifteen, you go, man, don't you wish you'd practiced
Speaker 3: those four footers.
Speaker 4: A little more?
Speaker 3: You know, and it's just you're like, oh, crap, I
Speaker 3: hope I don't miss this one, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's yeah, it's that's like a perfect example of
Speaker 1: of GoF is you know, playing playing in stroke play stuff,
Speaker 1: I always I didn't like having a five footer early
Speaker 1: in a round, but I always liked if I had
Speaker 1: one and I made it, I felt like it was
Speaker 1: going to be a great day because it like you
Speaker 1: feel like you just you get you're you're in the
Speaker 1: right by set. And that's the thing that mashplay could do,
Speaker 1: is that you could get thrown off because you just
Speaker 1: don't put any of them, and then you're on your
Speaker 1: heels all day well and.
Speaker 3: You're standing back in match play and the Scots are
Speaker 3: world class with this. They're really good at giving generous
Speaker 3: gimmeis early on. They just don't make you put early
Speaker 3: things early on, and then they slowly tighten device.
Speaker 4: It's like playing against the python.
Speaker 3: You know, they're just they just wrapped themselves around you,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden you're like, I actually could
Speaker 3: win this thing. And now you're like, god, I hope
Speaker 3: I don't give myself a four foot of a testy
Speaker 3: four footer, and certainly not a left or right with
Speaker 3: a little downhill.
Speaker 4: You know those are those are you know the Oh god,
Speaker 4: I don't want to do it.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go past, you know, for a
Speaker 3: victory and then something you have to have a comebacker
Speaker 3: for a half.
Speaker 1: So psychological aspects of putting are just unbelievable. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious as somebody who who writes occasionally a moonlight as
Speaker 1: a as a writer on my website, I don't I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say I'm regular on it anymore. But uh, you're
Speaker 1: not a writer by trade, You've never been one. How
Speaker 1: do you just sit down and write a book like
Speaker 1: what did what did you do? What preempted it? And
Speaker 1: uh and how did how did the whole process of
Speaker 1: actually writing a book go for you?
Speaker 4: First of all, hang on, shame on you. You are
Speaker 4: a writer.
Speaker 3: I enjoy your headlines and your wise ass stuff.
Speaker 4: I enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I don't even write. I don't even write that anymore.
Speaker 3: Though. Whoever wrote nobody beats Cockrock two d and thirty
Speaker 3: three times in a row? That's really okay. I that
Speaker 3: was a belly laugh for me. I I've opened up,
Speaker 3: I have my cup of coffee. I look over and
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, that's just okay. So so don't tell
Speaker 3: me you're not a writer.
Speaker 1: That was well nice, Okay, I'm like a month contributor
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 4: Then guess what, You're a great editor.
Speaker 1: At a minimum, you're a great I don't even edit
Speaker 1: either yet. I've taken myself completely out of the writing.
Speaker 1: That's why it's improved.
Speaker 4: Then you're a world class manager. Okay, something.
Speaker 3: You're doing something right because if it were wrong, it's
Speaker 3: your responsibility. Okay, you are mister Friday. So if it
Speaker 3: comes out under your tagline, guess what, it's it's great.
Speaker 3: So back back to writing. Here's the funny thing. If
Speaker 3: if you look, we all know ten people at any
Speaker 3: given any given club that are just funny people.
Speaker 4: We just know. We all we've all played with them,
Speaker 4: we all have a good time.
Speaker 3: Everybody's like, Oh, that's the kind of guy you want
Speaker 3: to go play with, or that's the kind of woman
Speaker 3: you want to play with.
Speaker 4: And so everybody has that group of people.
Speaker 3: And if you're paying attention and listening to all the
Speaker 3: funny things that are being said, you realize that in
Speaker 3: a course of a lifetime you have a bunch of
Speaker 3: people who a bunch of funny events and a bunch
Speaker 3: of funny things that will could take place. I got lucky,
Speaker 3: and I mean just incredibly lucky to have like this
Speaker 3: Arnie Palmer type figure.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, that's what Bondy was.
Speaker 3: He was just this otherworldly, larger than life and funny,
Speaker 3: funny guy with a really classic, wry Scottish humor. He
Speaker 3: was that funny Scott and there could be very serious Scotts,
Speaker 3: and he was both determined and serious, but always funny.
Speaker 3: And so he and I sat down and we would
Speaker 3: play these matches and basically, you know, we started in
Speaker 3: life with me being you know, well below him, and
Speaker 3: then I became his boss, and I think that gave
Speaker 3: him even more fun to go beat me on the
Speaker 3: golf course, because a Scott would never ever disrespect his
Speaker 3: boss by trying to like lose customer.
Speaker 4: Golf's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: So I basically started writing these stories down twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: and every time he and I would leave, of course,
Speaker 3: you know, I would turn and I go, you know, Bonnie, listen,
Speaker 3: you're a lot older than I am.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna remember this stuff. So I'm going to
Speaker 4: write these things down.
Speaker 3: And so i'd write down where we played, what was
Speaker 3: the match result, was any great holes, any funny things.
Speaker 4: That happened, any funny things he said?
Speaker 3: And it was usually funny things he said, not I
Speaker 3: and I just sat down and sort of wrote them
Speaker 3: down one time, just on a piece of paper, and
Speaker 3: i'd write them down as you know, as i'd fly home.
Speaker 4: After matches or after you know wherever.
Speaker 3: And I had them all and then obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: I left. You know, I spent some time sort of
Speaker 3: turning them into Pseudo's stories. And then obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to ruin the book, but something pretty
Speaker 3: dramatic happened last year, last summer, and I thought I
Speaker 3: need to turn this into a book, and you make it,
Speaker 3: make it an actual book with a whole cohesive set
Speaker 3: of stories with the beginning and end and whatnot, and
Speaker 3: make it a journey and you know, sort of you know,
Speaker 3: with a hemming You know, I probably have a hemming
Speaker 3: Way type style in the sense that is very short
Speaker 3: and sort of punchy. Is probably the signe of not
Speaker 3: a great writer's.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I learned. I was a terrible writer
Speaker 1: when I started. I learned if I make it short,
Speaker 1: brevity is an unbelievable skill that more people that give
Speaker 1: wedding speeches need to follow. Brevity greatest greatest trait in
Speaker 1: writing and in speeches.
Speaker 4: I think you're right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, as so, you know, as I looked at it,
Speaker 3: the writing was just fun and I wanted to have
Speaker 3: a blast writing this thing and just having a good time,
Speaker 3: and it was so I wrote the stories and I
Speaker 3: try to make them sort of fun and amusing stories,
Speaker 3: but also stories that would tell on several levels.
Speaker 4: I wanted to tell the story of Bondie.
Speaker 3: I wanted to tell the story of Angus Moyer, but
Speaker 3: most of all Bondie, because body is was that seminal character.
Speaker 4: In my life.
Speaker 3: He's the guy who made me the golfer I am.
Speaker 3: And I would say several people who've read the book
Speaker 3: now say, so that where you picked up all those tricks,
Speaker 3: like that's that's how you became the match player player
Speaker 3: you are, And so that's sort of the fun part.
Speaker 3: And I think that if I look at you know,
Speaker 3: how I wrote it.
Speaker 4: It was for that. Then my second aspect was I
Speaker 4: wanted to give most of all American golfers a sense
Speaker 4: of what UK golf is all about and how they
Speaker 4: play what they do. And then I thought, look, there's
Speaker 4: a travelog aspect to it, and that's I don't want
Speaker 4: this to take place where he and I go play
Speaker 4: the same course over and over over again and I
Speaker 4: just tell those stories. I thought, let me go take
Speaker 4: you around the UK to a bunch of courses that
Speaker 4: a bunch of us haven't heard of and haven't played.
Speaker 4: And Andy, I'm shocked that you haven't played anything in
Speaker 4: the UK's on a separate.
Speaker 2: Topic, I gotta I got questions for that later.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we're gonna remedy that one. But so I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: let me do that. And then as I was in there.
Speaker 3: I thought, Okay, how do I make sure that I
Speaker 3: actually show the difference of a links course, because they
Speaker 3: look from pictures the same, an Irish course, an English
Speaker 3: you know, Irish golf, English golf, and Scottish golf. And
Speaker 3: that's why I used Hemmy Mcinaley, Laddie Lucas and Joe
Speaker 3: Carr as my three sort of examples of what prototypical Irish,
Speaker 3: English and Scottish golf would be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's drill into that a little bit. How would you,
Speaker 1: in short short, you know, classify each of them for
Speaker 1: the lay person that say, somebody that's ever been.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you've never been, never been, if you're gonna
Speaker 3: go to any one of the three, So first and foremost,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna go to to any English club, take
Speaker 3: your coat and tie. Okay, make sure that you do
Speaker 3: not make the mistake of walking into the clubhouse in
Speaker 3: your golf shoes, with your baseball cap on and a
Speaker 3: pair of sunglasses on top of your by you know, fact,
Speaker 3: just don't do it. You've got to walk in. You
Speaker 3: come in in a coat and tie, you take you
Speaker 3: go straight to the locker room, you put your stuff in,
Speaker 3: you walk around, you go have a you know, a
Speaker 3: cup of tea or a cup of coffee. You admire
Speaker 3: the golf room, You look at the golf locker room.
Speaker 3: You figure out all the stuff and all the history.
Speaker 3: It's it's an ambiance. It's all about you're actually it's
Speaker 3: sort of like only the East Lake or something like that.
Speaker 3: You're actually seeing the Bobby Jones Club, and every single
Speaker 3: club has some amazing amount of history there because it's
Speaker 3: where the game started.
Speaker 1: Then, so there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: extracurriculars involved before and.
Speaker 3: After, and then they go out and they beat the
Speaker 3: crap out of each other in match play, and they
Speaker 3: either play you know as two balls in match plays,
Speaker 3: sometimes four balls and or all they play all red shots.
Speaker 3: And you go play, and you come in, you might
Speaker 3: have lunch, You shower, you put your coat and tie on,
Speaker 3: you have lunch, then you go back and put your
Speaker 3: golf clothes back on, and then go back out. And
Speaker 3: so you're sitting in a fancy dining room usually having
Speaker 3: some form of it's not a vegan type diet. You know,
Speaker 3: this is roast beef plus more roast beef plus more
Speaker 3: roast beef, and you know, some potat and gravy, and
Speaker 3: then that's England and at night it's very civilized. It's
Speaker 3: very sort of old school. Scotland, on the other hand,
Speaker 3: has some symbols of that. I would say I always
Speaker 3: would take a blazer no matter what. But at the
Speaker 3: same time I don't recall that often putting a necktie
Speaker 3: on you're going in.
Speaker 4: The Scottish clubs are a little more the Scottish, you.
Speaker 3: Know, people are just a little more rough and tumble
Speaker 3: than the average English people.
Speaker 4: And the character that I.
Speaker 3: Talk about, Hammy mcinally is a guy who basically is,
Speaker 3: you know, he just wants to beat.
Speaker 4: You, and he wants to have fun and he wants
Speaker 4: to wire as crack as he does it.
Speaker 3: And Scotland, and I'd say Scotland golf would be it's
Speaker 3: still the same aspects.
Speaker 4: It's still much more civilized.
Speaker 3: It's still much more coat and tie, but at the
Speaker 3: same time it's very very open and very.
Speaker 4: Public Friday, it's Friday, but still in an office atmosphere.
Speaker 4: Then Ireland is just flat out fun.
Speaker 3: And in Ireland if you stop ten, you know, ten
Speaker 3: minutes before the course and ask where is Port martok
Speaker 3: golf club.
Speaker 4: You will you you'll be late for your tea time.
Speaker 3: If you have to get there within a half an hour,
Speaker 3: because they'll stop and go where are you from? And
Speaker 3: the next thing you know, you're just like, whoa, well,
Speaker 3: so would you know the Killarney so and so from there?
Speaker 3: Well they're from Killarney, but they originally came here. And
Speaker 3: the next thing you know, you're stopped. I mean I've
Speaker 3: stopped where people have said what do you think.
Speaker 4: Of my horse? And I'm like, are you serious? And
Speaker 4: the next you know you're on their horse taking pictures.
Speaker 3: And it's just Ireland is they just love life. And
Speaker 3: you know, I describe it one time in the golf.
Speaker 4: They play golf fast, but it's definitely an hour slower
Speaker 4: than the Scottish golf because the Irish just can't stop
Speaker 4: talking in the middle of the rounds. They just talk.
Speaker 3: They talk during before, after the swings, they just have
Speaker 3: fun and uh and it's just a good much more
Speaker 3: convivial atmosphere. I would say, course wise, the biggest difference.
Speaker 3: Ireland tends to have higher rough because he got more
Speaker 3: rain and it tends to get a little unruly. So
Speaker 3: I tend to like to play there in the spring
Speaker 3: or in the late fall once they've cut it back
Speaker 3: a little bit, because it's just the balls are you know,
Speaker 3: taking your with an angles andy, you can get a
Speaker 3: little tight sometimes.
Speaker 1: I've read that they've kind of fallen victim to the
Speaker 1: of what happened in America with thick rough and narrow
Speaker 1: fairways a little bit and a lot of courses could
Speaker 1: stand to widen things out a little bit. This is
Speaker 1: just from what I've read, and you know, talk with
Speaker 1: people about let's Pusswell.
Speaker 3: I'm a member. I'm lucky enough to be a member
Speaker 3: of Port Marnock and it's just the most amazing golf course.
Speaker 4: I just love playing it.
Speaker 3: But having said that, I went and played it before
Speaker 3: they held the broge M last year and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I've had enough of this course. You know. It's just
Speaker 3: like you know, and I consider myself a reasonable golfer,
Speaker 3: you know, four lost balls in I'm like, I've never
Speaker 3: i haven't lost four balls in a round and in
Speaker 3: a long time, and balls were just going into the
Speaker 3: rough and they're gone.
Speaker 4: So it just all depends, you know, when they get
Speaker 4: a lot of rain.
Speaker 3: If they don't cut things back, it can It can
Speaker 3: get pretty tough.
Speaker 4: So that's that's sort of the fundamental difference of the
Speaker 4: three places.
Speaker 1: Would you say that the the golf courses, the aesthetic
Speaker 1: style kind of mirrors the people too, Like where you
Speaker 1: on the you know, Iril, Irish side, you've got definitely
Speaker 1: the most rugged golf and kind of that would probably
Speaker 1: be a good way to you know, kind of bucket
Speaker 1: the the on the scale of the people. And then
Speaker 1: when you get to England, it's the neatest golf and
Speaker 1: the most formal. Would would would.
Speaker 2: That kind of fit on a sliding scale?
Speaker 3: You say that's I hadn't thought of it that way,
Speaker 3: but I think the courses would be you'd be more manicured,
Speaker 3: you'd have more of a of a manicured look in
Speaker 3: England on balance, and especially with the heathland courses west
Speaker 3: of London, you know, the whole, that whole, you know,
Speaker 3: London Heathland area, you know with Sunnydale, Saint George's Hill,
Speaker 3: Swinley Forests, they just have their beautifully manicured but they
Speaker 3: look very very natural. I mean, Harry Colt did an
Speaker 3: amazing job of making natural looking courses. And I would
Speaker 3: say in Ireland they can be rougher and tougher, and
Speaker 3: in Scotland they're a little more threadbare. And you know,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite courses in Scotland. I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: I love Royal Dorriic, but I love playing Brora, which
Speaker 3: is up there, and Brora is just it's sort of
Speaker 3: a combination sheet cal pasture that happens to be this
Speaker 3: world class golf course.
Speaker 4: And you know, they don't have a lot of mowing.
Speaker 4: They don't have a lot.
Speaker 3: It's just very natural and you're out there playing and
Speaker 3: you know they've gotten the little wires around the greens.
Speaker 3: It's just it's it's just a little bit more of
Speaker 3: a natural get out there, go play and then get
Speaker 3: back and you know, go go find some respite from
Speaker 3: the elements.
Speaker 1: In a way, it seems, you know, just from a
Speaker 1: casual onlooker, it seems like, you know, in this ties
Speaker 1: to your book and how you got involved, you know,
Speaker 1: into the game of golf. Was the Scotland just offers
Speaker 1: a much more informal version of the game than we.
Speaker 2: See in America. Well it's from a variety of ways,
Speaker 2: but well, part.
Speaker 3: Of its cost, part of it just the cost of
Speaker 3: playing the sport, you know, if you want to play,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean I follow the Friday you know, routinely,
Speaker 3: and you know, you if you look at the courses
Speaker 3: that you've described in the last let's call it fifteen days,
Speaker 3: how many of them are places that wouldn't cost somewhere
Speaker 3: around one hundred thousand dollars to join. You know, they
Speaker 3: might be sixty, they might be eighty, but it's real money.
Speaker 3: And then you have other ones that are a little
Speaker 3: less expensive. That concept is almost unimaginable in Scotland. You know,
Speaker 3: the vast majority of courses are going to cost you
Speaker 3: twenty five hundred dollars to join, if that, and they're
Speaker 3: going to cost just six hundred pounds a year.
Speaker 4: It's just it's just not much money to play. It's designed.
Speaker 3: It's sort of like being a member of the public park,
Speaker 3: and so Scotland has that much more natural open and
Speaker 3: the person you're going to play with could be anybody.
Speaker 4: It just so you're united.
Speaker 3: By a love of golf, not by a commonality of
Speaker 3: what your profession is. Then happen to have a love
Speaker 3: of golf, and that's sort of a different aspect to it.
Speaker 2: I'm curious this is just a question. I didn't think
Speaker 2: we'd approached.
Speaker 1: But when you were working for Wilson, how did club
Speaker 1: sales compare in Scotland per say, per capita golfer of
Speaker 1: equipment spend there versus the US? Was it significantly less
Speaker 1: or about the same or do you know that?
Speaker 4: Well? No, no, no, I know it quite well. Scotland's never
Speaker 4: been the kind of play if you want to go
Speaker 4: make money, Scotland's not your place to God's not the
Speaker 4: way to get it.
Speaker 3: There's still people will still send me a nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: eight Dina power wedge and say, you know, can I
Speaker 3: get this thing regrips, you know, And I'm like, it
Speaker 3: doesn't make.
Speaker 4: Grooves on it anymore. That's no longer a wedge. That
Speaker 4: could be a putter if you just straight it out.
Speaker 3: So you know, at some point, you know, my biggest
Speaker 3: fear about my book is if one copy will make
Speaker 3: its way all the way around Scotland.
Speaker 4: Everybody will read the same book and it'll be one book,
Speaker 4: and so I'll sell one.
Speaker 3: So it's just you know, I had a friend who
Speaker 3: called me and goes, oh, yeah, I love the book.
Speaker 4: I gave it to a friend and he gave it
Speaker 4: to a friend like no, no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 4: you're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're going to keep it tell him about it,
Speaker 3: and he's like, but then I wouldn't be letting the book, and.
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, my publisher's not going to be terribly
Speaker 4: happy with this process.
Speaker 3: You're supposed to tell people buy the book and take
Speaker 3: it with you on your next trip, so that way
Speaker 3: you can read.
Speaker 4: It while you're there. Okay. So that was my little
Speaker 4: plug for buying more books.
Speaker 1: Hopefully some people will be interested to buy it out.
Speaker 1: I've read it. I really enjoyed it. It was a
Speaker 1: you know, for me not going I haven't been there.
Speaker 1: It gave me the thing I liked about. It gave
Speaker 1: me a deep lens into not just the golf courses,
Speaker 1: and you know, you had some excellent commentary on almost
Speaker 1: every golf course that I you know, could think of,
Speaker 1: but it also gave me a lens into the culture
Speaker 1: and just you know, got me thinking a lot about,
Speaker 1: you know, just how different the culture is there and
Speaker 1: how how how different of a golfer you would be
Speaker 1: if you grew up in that situation playing there like
Speaker 1: I grew up playing golf with my dad at the
Speaker 1: local Muni. You know, my upbringing in golf is a
Speaker 1: lot different than somebody that maybe grew up playing Riviera
Speaker 1: every day. Like that, we're drastically different. We think about
Speaker 1: the game differently, and it's not neither one's right, but
Speaker 1: growing up in Scotland, like what you just said about
Speaker 1: the equipment, like that equipment is such a focal point
Speaker 1: of American golf and there it's it's an afterthought, you
Speaker 1: know it.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so if you touched on like three or
Speaker 3: four funny items there that are that are shocking and amazing.
Speaker 3: Number one, you know, as Bondie would say, we got
Speaker 3: we got our first set of clubs before we got
Speaker 3: our bike, Like you know, we and Americans sort of
Speaker 3: get a bike, you get a bike, you got trade bills.
Speaker 3: Listening there, he handed a little mini set of clubs
Speaker 3: and I was talking to Scott Kirkwood at it was
Speaker 3: the new pro at MPCC, and he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I used to be a bartender at the old Clubhouse
Speaker 3: which is in chapter twelve and Governor and he's like,
Speaker 3: we all grew up playing those little links courses and
Speaker 3: they all grew up playing these little munique courses where
Speaker 3: you're walking around and you're playing them and you basically
Speaker 3: just have fun and the little kids with the parents
Speaker 3: and there's a little science says no adults allowed, so
Speaker 3: kids are sort.
Speaker 4: Of just having fun doing it and playing it. That's
Speaker 4: that's number one. I think. The second aspect is, you know,
Speaker 4: we all grow up.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the problems we have is a
Speaker 3: lack of time, and a lot of people will say, okay,
Speaker 3: if I only have a certain amount of time, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get over to Scotland. I might get two
Speaker 3: or three trips in my life over there, or over
Speaker 3: to the UK, over to Ireland. And if you look
Speaker 3: at it, they say, okay, well then if I'm gonna
Speaker 3: be there, I have to play the old course, I
Speaker 3: have to play you know, CARDUSSI, and they've got to
Speaker 3: play where the Open's been held. And so you suddenly
Speaker 3: find people who are just tracking a very very familiar rota.
Speaker 1: And now what you've got is there's a thing where
Speaker 1: people like playing golf that they then see on TV
Speaker 1: like it is. It enhances your viewing experience no matter what.
Speaker 1: If you're familiar with the golf course. But you know
Speaker 1: there's also drawbacks right.
Speaker 4: Well, and and to me that's the wonderful aspect.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest key is if you're going to
Speaker 3: Royal Dordic and you don't play Brora, you've just made
Speaker 3: a mistake. You've missed a real job. It's sort of like,
Speaker 3: you know, Andy, you do an amazing job of just
Speaker 3: talking about things like Cedar Rapids Country Club or you
Speaker 3: know something, Davenport Country Club. I wouldn't have gone there
Speaker 3: if you hadn't talked about it, Okay, And we're talking.
Speaker 4: About world class golf courses.
Speaker 3: And Brora is one of those world class golf courses
Speaker 3: that happens to be twenty seven minutes from the you know.
Speaker 4: The first tea at Dorric.
Speaker 3: To get up that close and that way and not
Speaker 3: play it, it's just crazy.
Speaker 4: And when I had to.
Speaker 1: Go to hit a moment like that last week I
Speaker 1: was in I was driving to Prairie Dunes from the
Speaker 1: New King Collins Course land Man, and I drove through
Speaker 1: On the way down, I had to drive through Lincoln
Speaker 1: and at that point was I drove through Lincoln, I
Speaker 1: realized I'm as close to the sand Hills of Nebraska
Speaker 1: as I can get.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: So, so then I went to Prairie Dude.
Speaker 1: So in the back of my head, I said, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty close to Wildhorse and I really want to go
Speaker 1: see that place.
Speaker 2: Now, granted it was five hours, but well, I can't
Speaker 2: get closer.
Speaker 3: Well, and once once you're in Lincoln, Nebraska, Okay, first
Speaker 3: of all, you've just driven by Omaha Country Club, missed
Speaker 3: a great one. And then you say, okay, now four
Speaker 3: and a half miles from there, I could actually get
Speaker 3: to the turnoff where I turn right and I get
Speaker 3: up to Sand Hills and and Dismal River. So you've
Speaker 3: got like amazing courses. The problem is that's a long
Speaker 3: way away, and you're right, it is close. I look
Speaker 3: at these courses in Scotland and say, if you're going to.
Speaker 4: Be at these places.
Speaker 3: Bonnie and I were always like, let's go play all
Speaker 3: the fun places that we want to play, and you know,
Speaker 3: we were lucky enough to also work there so we
Speaker 3: were able to go play them after work. So I
Speaker 3: think that, you know, one of the crucial aspects for
Speaker 3: people is if you have enough time in your life
Speaker 3: and you have an opportunity to go play over in
Speaker 3: the UK play a whole bunch of these hidden gems.
Speaker 3: That's part of what the book has is I didn't
Speaker 3: just write it about the you know, the courses where
Speaker 3: they're holding the open. I wrote about a bunch of
Speaker 3: courses that people haven't played. And I specifically chose events
Speaker 3: that took place with Bondie and me at places that
Speaker 3: would make you say, I'd love to go to Macrie
Speaker 3: or Macrohannish, or I'd love to go to this course
Speaker 3: and play it and realize that it's off the beaten
Speaker 3: track and you can go play it multiple times, multiple
Speaker 3: rounds for no money.
Speaker 2: All right, So you give us a couple other off
Speaker 2: the beaten path ones.
Speaker 1: You've got obviously, uh Brora, you've got Macrohonnish, McCree. What
Speaker 1: you know, if we if I was if I was
Speaker 1: going on you know my I was supposed to go
Speaker 1: to the UK this year, but that that obviously got derailed.
Speaker 1: But say I'm going where where should I be going,
Speaker 1: you know, my first trip over there? And what are
Speaker 1: some some courses that might not be road of courses
Speaker 1: that you absolutely cannot miss.
Speaker 2: I know that's a massive question, is.
Speaker 3: That that question is so massive, and all I'm going
Speaker 3: to do is screw up by not including a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So, any I'm designed to get in trouble, I'm probably
Speaker 3: gonna bet kicked out of a whole bunch of accounts
Speaker 3: was I don't mention them, which is a real problem.
Speaker 3: So if we think about links golf, I think you
Speaker 3: first and foremost. It's an obligation if you're really gonna
Speaker 3: be serious about understanding links golf, to play some of
Speaker 3: the classics, you gotta go play the old course. You
Speaker 3: have to have played like a court Carnoustie, I think
Speaker 3: playing Prestwick, playing Turnberry, playing Truon. Playing those courses are great,
Speaker 3: But while you're at it, make sure you play any
Speaker 3: one of a number of little courses around there. There's
Speaker 3: peppered around by little. It's shocking that I would say
Speaker 3: Western Gales.
Speaker 4: It's not little.
Speaker 3: It's a world class golf course that's right near Royal
Speaker 3: Truon and you can play it. You're there, you're in
Speaker 3: the course, you know people. Now North Barrick is no
Speaker 3: longer a hidden gem. It's it probably was a hidden
Speaker 3: gem twenty years ago. There's nobody out there who cares
Speaker 3: about architecture, who hasn't seen it or fantasized about playing
Speaker 3: the pit or you know some of those holes, and
Speaker 3: who talks about the radan.
Speaker 4: So I can't call that a hidden gem.
Speaker 3: But I'd say if you're going to go to that area,
Speaker 3: you play Mirfield, which is just a top fifteen course
Speaker 3: in the world without question. Then you play North Barrack,
Speaker 3: which is another top course in the world. Then you
Speaker 3: probably should play Gullen number one, number two, you probably
Speaker 3: should play number three, then you play Dunbar and then
Speaker 3: if you can get on I'm joking Luffnut's new and
Speaker 3: obviously you know chapter twelve discusses playing leftist do or
Speaker 3: not playing it. So to me, every single region has
Speaker 3: its two or three rock stars and then has a
Speaker 3: whole complimentary list of great courses right around there. I
Speaker 3: would say, any golfer who hasn't played Royal Dorrick is
Speaker 3: You're gonna suddenly understand a whole bunch more about Donald
Speaker 3: Ross's if you do it. And it's not that it's
Speaker 3: not a Donald Ross design course, it's where he grew
Speaker 3: up and he it influenced him. And I think that
Speaker 3: when you look at Dornick and you look at the greens,
Speaker 3: You're like, wow, it's a real departure from Saint Andrew's
Speaker 3: Saint Andrews. The ground game plays quite heavily in I
Speaker 3: mean you can you can putt from way off the
Speaker 3: green at Dornick. There are a bunch of places where
Speaker 3: you could, but a whole bunch of places where you
Speaker 3: sort of have to fly it in and maneuver the ball.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more sort of a combination penal links
Speaker 3: style to a Dornick and then playing Brora Goldspeed and
Speaker 3: frankly a modern masterpiece which is Castle Stewart.
Speaker 4: You know you got to play those. To be this
Speaker 4: is a you sort of almost had to view it
Speaker 4: in chunks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a you know what you're talking about, mirrors
Speaker 1: a lot what happens in America with the lists. You
Speaker 1: know where this of course on the list. And to
Speaker 1: be you know, I'm lucky. I get to play a
Speaker 1: lot of great golf courses. But to me, the greatest
Speaker 1: thrill to this day is when I go just when
Speaker 1: I find places, when I find somewhere where I don't
Speaker 1: think you know, I'm pretty sure nobody's really ever written
Speaker 1: about or you know, recent one was like this place
Speaker 1: Eagle Springs, which you moved away from Chicago since nine
Speaker 1: to Holler and I remember being there, gone there when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I went back, and I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just got you know, another buddy and told me
Speaker 1: like even if you go, just play the first two holes,
Speaker 1: it's worth it. And I went back and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like an unbelievable spot and it's got it's
Speaker 1: much more. You know, you're gonna pay I think it's
Speaker 1: right now thirteen bucks to go walk, but you know
Speaker 1: you're gonna go hit some shots and have like some
Speaker 1: exhilaration from the game in a different way that you
Speaker 1: experienced at any top one hundred golf course, because they
Speaker 1: are they're just different challenges that could be presented by
Speaker 1: these days, you know. And I think that's the thing
Speaker 1: is is getting outside sometimes the comfort zone and going
Speaker 1: and seeing the new places.
Speaker 2: Even if it's not an alysty, you go, if it
Speaker 2: stinks whatever, you know.
Speaker 4: Well you've invested thirteen thirteen bucks.
Speaker 3: In America you invested four, you know, four hours, and
Speaker 3: in Scotland you've invested three.
Speaker 4: So it's just it's just.
Speaker 3: Not that much I mean, you know, you Andy, you
Speaker 3: have talked about Lost Sonia, Lynx or you know, places
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have gone to Los.
Speaker 3: Sonia Links, you know, other than you know, golf magazine
Speaker 3: and panel. I'm being a golf magazine paylist, but it's
Speaker 3: I would have naturally just gravitated there. I start reading
Speaker 3: about it, I'm like, I gotta go try it. I
Speaker 3: go out and play it, and I'm like, holy crap,
Speaker 3: this back nine is world class. You know, there's some
Speaker 3: amazing golf holes there, and.
Speaker 1: So well, the more the more time you spend there,
Speaker 1: you start to you start to think that the front
Speaker 1: nine might be better than the back nine.
Speaker 2: And that's the crazy thing.
Speaker 4: I I think. I probably I can certainly say, you
Speaker 4: know holes.
Speaker 3: You know, we we're not going to get into a
Speaker 3: specific debate on the poles two, three, four, five, but
Speaker 3: I think that, you know, the approach shot on number
Speaker 3: two is like one of those I fantasized about hitting
Speaker 3: it right now, and and so I'm like, gosh, I
Speaker 3: like hitting it down, and I know it's got a
Speaker 3: left right and the back to front slant, you know, slant,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 4: And I think I three putted.
Speaker 3: But it's just, you know, as we think about these
Speaker 3: great golf courses, I look at Scotland and say, the
Speaker 3: amazing thing is there are a hundred courses in Scotland.
Speaker 3: You could drop me on right now and say go
Speaker 3: play for the next three hours in a mash fan
Speaker 3: Andy and go have a blast, and we'd have a blast,
Speaker 3: and we'd find great parts of them because a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of these courses were built so naturally and they
Speaker 3: use the land and they're just different and names we
Speaker 3: don't even think about. And you know, I would say,
Speaker 3: go buy Donald Steele's Classic Links book. It's just a
Speaker 3: great one and it's sort of a companion piece to
Speaker 3: a degree to one for the memory banks. It's just
Speaker 3: as you look at it, it's the it's the course
Speaker 3: guide that I use and that Bondie and I would
Speaker 3: use to go pick out places, and of course he
Speaker 3: knew every course, but it's what we would pick and
Speaker 3: we would sit back a lot of times as we
Speaker 3: were setting meetings and say, well, okay, we have our
Speaker 3: budget meeting this quarter and he'd say where do you
Speaker 3: want it to be? And I'm like, well, how about
Speaker 3: we go south west England, and he's like, you're fancying
Speaker 3: Burnham and Barrow and Travos.
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 3: And I said, and Sultan, and he's like, how about
Speaker 3: Row West, you know, Devon And I'm like yes, And
Speaker 3: so we would go play three or four of these
Speaker 3: courses and just and you walk away and go. If
Speaker 3: that course were twenty five miles from New York City,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't be able to get on it.
Speaker 4: It would be a.
Speaker 3: Private course, and it would be one of the most
Speaker 3: coveted courses anywhere, and yet it's sitting out there in
Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: I think about that all the time whenever I play
Speaker 1: in a golf course. I'm like, God, imagine if this
Speaker 1: was around Chicago, because like Chicago is like the great
Speaker 1: desert of public golf. Like, you know, we have a
Speaker 1: few courses, but for the most part, like you put
Speaker 1: something in Chicago that's like, you know, a really great
Speaker 1: public course or something from scott it's just like God
Speaker 1: that that place would charge two hundred and.
Speaker 2: Fifty dollars and you'd never be able to get a
Speaker 2: tea time, and you would able.
Speaker 4: To get a tea time.
Speaker 3: It would just be the place that everybody talks about
Speaker 3: and I look at it and say, okay, or from
Speaker 3: another less, if it were a private course on the
Speaker 3: north shore of Chicago, you wouldn't be able to get in. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you'd now be looking at it going that course is
Speaker 3: that good? It's just sitting in a remote location or
Speaker 3: somewhere else. And I think that in the UK. You know,
Speaker 3: I received an email today from somebody from Warpleston Golf
Speaker 3: Club and it was.
Speaker 2: Old Willie Park.
Speaker 3: It's an old Willie Park course and it's where Joyce
Speaker 3: weather Ed won like strings of Mitch mixed porcels, you know,
Speaker 3: where you're playing all reight shot male female and you
Speaker 3: know she's obviously the best female player, and she won
Speaker 3: it with her husband and a bunch of other players
Speaker 3: like seven or eight times in a row.
Speaker 4: But I was like, it's just like one of these
Speaker 4: amazing courses.
Speaker 3: And yet we only talk about five or six courses
Speaker 3: west of London, but there are probably sixty that would
Speaker 3: be considered shockingly great if they were sitting right near
Speaker 3: New York City.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One I fancy is a broadcaster.
Speaker 4: Brancaster.
Speaker 3: So Bonnie and I played a match in Brancaster and
Speaker 3: the moat the actual we played it, and we were
Speaker 3: a little bit slow, and the water came in and
Speaker 3: the moat was broken, so we got stuck on the
Speaker 3: wrong side of the gate, which is actually the right
Speaker 3: side of the gate, so we had to miss our
Speaker 3: meetings and we just said, okay, we're here, let's go
Speaker 3: play on the right team. So I've actually been in that,
Speaker 3: like this weird situation where you go over a drawbridge
Speaker 3: which is sort of old English that makes you feel
Speaker 3: like Robin Hood and you're not that far from sure
Speaker 3: Wood for us there, and I'm like, okay, this is
Speaker 3: sort of fun. We get over there and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden they're like, oh, the bridge is being repaired,
Speaker 3: and I'm We're like, well, you can't drive over, so
Speaker 3: we're here, let's just go go back and and you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm I'm always willing to play on the emergency
Speaker 3: eighteen if you want to put an extra round in.
Speaker 1: So so with uh, you got one trip left, So
Speaker 1: you have one trip left?
Speaker 2: Where are you going where that region?
Speaker 3: That is flat out not fair. I don't think I
Speaker 3: can answer it. There's no chance, there's no way. I
Speaker 3: refuse to acknowledge that I got one trip left. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to do it.
Speaker 2: I well, let's just say where it's. It's your last trip.
Speaker 1: You you've done, You've hit everything up in the last
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 2: What's the place you're going back to?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 4: Do you want me to go to Links Golf for you?
Speaker 2: I mean it's up to you. You're you're you're a
Speaker 2: pecond Oh well, okay, I'm.
Speaker 3: First of all, I haven't been in New Zealand for
Speaker 3: a while, so I'm going back to play Tara eighty
Speaker 3: Golf Club.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's that's basically heaven or.
Speaker 3: So if I'm going to get stuck on one last
Speaker 3: trip and get me stuck there for the rest of
Speaker 3: my life or for eternity, I'm taking Tara Edie. If
Speaker 3: you haven't played it, it's it's a dope masterpiece, just built.
Speaker 3: Everything is natural andy in the world of It's a
Speaker 3: Lynx course with just.
Speaker 4: More hospitable climate. So it's sort of like the winter.
Speaker 3: Weather is like maybe Sea Island or something, and the
Speaker 3: summer weather is like Maine, and it's a Lynx course
Speaker 3: and it plays like a Las course one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: You're bumping and running and everything else. So that would
Speaker 3: be my place if I heard.
Speaker 1: New Zealand described as basically California with the tenth of
Speaker 1: the population.
Speaker 2: So it's just wonderful.
Speaker 3: Uh it's I think it's bigger than California, and it's
Speaker 3: it's yeah, that's exactly right. And it's just a it's
Speaker 3: a combination of mountains and vineyards and beautiful English countryside
Speaker 3: and volcanic rocks off the side, and then insanely nice people.
Speaker 3: I mean, these people are they're so nice. You think
Speaker 3: they're you know, coming a big city, you think they're
Speaker 3: actually out to fleece you. At first you're like, ye't
Speaker 3: be that nice, okay, and then they are, Okay, they're
Speaker 3: actually that nice.
Speaker 4: So to me, New Zealand is the place where you
Speaker 4: want to be.
Speaker 3: By the way, when you're in New Zealand, there are
Speaker 3: no poisonous snakes, there are no big animals, there's nothing.
Speaker 3: It's not like Australia where no coronavirus either. They well
Speaker 3: they got rid of it. They were they're they're they're
Speaker 3: actually able to follow rules. Like when the government says
Speaker 3: everybody shut up and go sit in your room for
Speaker 3: you know, for three weeks, they just do it.
Speaker 4: And three weeks later they all come out and they're like,
Speaker 4: is it gone?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gone, okay, and you know, and so they
Speaker 3: just behave differently. And so they're all out playing golf
Speaker 3: and they're with each other. They don't have masks on
Speaker 3: anymore because they don't need masks.
Speaker 4: But it's because they don't.
Speaker 2: They don't have snakes either.
Speaker 4: They don't have snakes either because they don't let them in.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, they were a bunch of rule abiding people
Speaker 3: who when the ships went from England, you know, all
Speaker 3: the hard chargers said we're going to America.
Speaker 4: Okay. You know, everybody was like, I want to go
Speaker 4: make my way. I want to go to America. They
Speaker 4: went and did it.
Speaker 3: Then a bunch of ships said, okay, you're a bunch
Speaker 3: of detainees. You know, you're you're in prisons of some sort.
Speaker 3: You're going to Australia. And so it's a rough and
Speaker 3: tumble place, it's a prison colony. And then there was
Speaker 3: this little group that went off to New Zealand and said,
Speaker 3: don't tell anybody about it. It's just this wonderful place.
Speaker 3: Let's be quiet and let's just be really really nice.
Speaker 3: So that's that's that's where my trip is but back
Speaker 3: to one for the memory Banks and UH and Scotland
Speaker 3: or a golf. I would say, if I have one
Speaker 3: trip left, I would probably actually do a tour and
Speaker 3: I would go chapter by chapter of my book and
Speaker 3: I would actually follow where Bonnie and I played, and
Speaker 3: I would probably just do it. I would start, I
Speaker 3: would I would probably start at London Links and play
Speaker 3: replay with somebody our match there where he taught me,
Speaker 3: you know, some certain rules and where I lost. Then
Speaker 3: I'd probably go out and do you know Western Gales
Speaker 3: where I had the opportunity to, you know, the two
Speaker 3: of us huddled in a bunker in the middle of
Speaker 3: a snow and we're both scared to give each other
Speaker 3: like a half because we're like, we're all squared, We're
Speaker 3: we've only got a couple holes left, but we can't
Speaker 3: even see any more of the snow's covering us over
Speaker 3: Then I think Macrea and Macrahonash was this island trip
Speaker 3: off the west coast of Scotland that was just this
Speaker 3: dream five day trip because you've got distilleries and pure
Speaker 3: golf and no.
Speaker 4: One else there and you could just you could just
Speaker 4: go around and around.
Speaker 3: You can just keep auto looping and you know, we
Speaker 3: were playing somewhere between forty five and fifty four a day.
Speaker 3: And as you know, I I tried to par whole
Speaker 3: number one at Macrohanash, which is probably one of the
Speaker 3: best holes in the world. Then to me after that,
Speaker 3: I'd love to go back to Wales and play Southerness.
Speaker 3: It was just a dream trip where my ancestors are from.
Speaker 1: I did a bunch of research on it Ian Wusom
Speaker 1: and I'm enthralled the people of Wales. They seem like
Speaker 1: the best.
Speaker 3: They're they're they're just very natural, very call it, you know,
Speaker 3: just just call it as it is. They're very straightforward.
Speaker 3: The golf courses of Wales are phenomenal. And if you
Speaker 3: if you only can play one course in Wales, go
Speaker 3: to Pinard.
Speaker 4: Hm, it's now, I I know.
Speaker 2: They pour crawl, people are going to be all over you.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no role fourth call is is just the
Speaker 3: class of Wales in terms of the best golf course.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, if you can only play one time,
Speaker 3: if you go to Pinard, You're just gonna be shocked
Speaker 3: at just how natural it is.
Speaker 1: Great advice, go go play Pinard rather than you know
Speaker 1: potential open course.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, and I don't mean to say don't play
Speaker 3: Fourth Call.
Speaker 2: No, but if you have one, see, but that's a
Speaker 2: good this good piece of advice.
Speaker 4: You forced me into one course.
Speaker 3: And but I would go play Tend, I'd go play
Speaker 3: Fourth Call, I'd go.
Speaker 4: Play Southern Down.
Speaker 3: They're all amazing, amazing golf courses, and so I just
Speaker 3: love being there. And you know, to me that whole
Speaker 3: tip and then then you just slip right around the coast.
Speaker 3: You've got a bunch of great ones on on the
Speaker 3: West coast. There are one hundred great golf courses to play.
Speaker 3: And obviously Bondie and Angus and I had a great
Speaker 3: match at Royal County Down, and you know, Port Marnick
Speaker 3: is another one that I want to go play again.
Speaker 4: Port Rush was amazing. So to me, I can't make
Speaker 4: one final trip.
Speaker 3: I know. That's an incredibly long answer and I was
Speaker 3: absolutely evasive there.
Speaker 2: Sorry, that's that's uh, that's good. That's so.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about your book. Where can people
Speaker 1: purchase your book?
Speaker 3: The book is available on Amazon. It's called One for
Speaker 3: the Memory Banks, and it's not about me. It's essentially
Speaker 3: about the people who taught me how to play, and.
Speaker 4: It's it's I don't know how you describe it, Andy, would.
Speaker 3: You say sort of a part travelogue, part human interest.
Speaker 1: I think I think there's a it's a it's like
Speaker 1: a you've got the the friendship story and and golf like.
Speaker 1: It's gonna pull on numerous bones in your golf body.
Speaker 1: It's gonna pull on your interest in discovering courses and
Speaker 1: learning about courses. But then it also has the story
Speaker 1: to go with it. That's gonna keep your interest. And really, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, even it pulls, it pull up some emotions, maybe,
Speaker 1: I hope Well.
Speaker 3: If if, if it doesn't pull your emotions to the end,
Speaker 3: you're human being.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's uh, you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Uh hey, I just didn't want people to feel bad
Speaker 1: if it didn't.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: But I think you're gonna laugh. You're gonna laugh for
Speaker 3: eighteen chapters and then you're gonna cry. And you know,
Speaker 3: one of my one of my good friends called me back,
Speaker 3: and he's a surgeon, and uh, he said, I laughed
Speaker 3: out loud chapter after chapter after chapter, and I said,
Speaker 3: and did you cry it all?
Speaker 4: And he goes, no, I'm a doctor. And I said
Speaker 4: what and he said, I get sad about dogs or
Speaker 4: horses or things like that. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: I don't want you handling me.
Speaker 3: He goes, no, you want me handling you because I
Speaker 3: can be you know there, So I think, you know,
Speaker 3: this is it's a human interest story. But it's it's
Speaker 3: absolutely something that I think will be a book that
Speaker 3: you hopefully will read a couple of times and make
Speaker 3: you want to go play these courses and that that
Speaker 3: to me was one of my big missions and play
Speaker 3: these courses in the kind of style and realize that
Speaker 3: we just had a lot of fun and.
Speaker 4: Frankly, we're lucky.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's just a and I think it's a it's a
Speaker 4: wise ass book.
Speaker 3: So it's definitely I don't think I think there's at
Speaker 3: least one course when I'm not getting in if I
Speaker 3: don't think they'll want me as a member after I
Speaker 3: described way.
Speaker 2: But that's okay, Hey you know their loss.
Speaker 3: Uh well I can say that. But so it's available
Speaker 3: at either the Memory banks dot Com or on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Either ones available, and uh, frankly, you know, I'm just uh,
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled to have gotten out. I'm thrilled at the
Speaker 3: early response to it so far that the publisher has
Speaker 3: just gone to a second printing.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so he had a congratulation.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We've had a whole bunch of people who've bought like
Speaker 3: one and then bought five more and said, I'm setting
Speaker 3: it out to my friends. I want them to to
Speaker 3: get this one or I want to start planning a
Speaker 3: golf trip with them. So that's it's been. It's been
Speaker 3: sort of fun there. And uh, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm enjoying this journey, in this ride, and I've
Speaker 3: had had I've been blessed in my my career, so
Speaker 3: I had a chance to write this all.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, thanks so much for coming on, Luke, and uh,
Speaker 1: I look forward to everybody reading your book. And you know, baby,
Speaker 1: we'll have a part two when I finally get over there.
Speaker 3: Andy, you are more than welcome, and uh, you will
Speaker 3: you know where to go, you know how to reach
Speaker 3: out to me, and I will gladly take you around
Speaker 3: a bunch of these places and actually experience play some matches.
Speaker 3: Well we can, we can play some matches. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure I could play against you. I think you're a
Speaker 3: little better golfer.
Speaker 2: That's what handicaps this for. I stink. Now, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: the worst I fed in a lot of time.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm sort of that, like, you know, I think
Speaker 3: in the u K probably be a five. In the US,
Speaker 3: I'm like a three, And I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 3: how if somebody is calling me a three, it's it's
Speaker 3: it's not right. So I I'll go with my UK
Speaker 3: five handicap and play.
Speaker 4: But then they only go three quarters difference to the handicap,
Speaker 4: so it's done. All right.
Speaker 5: Thanks, I've got new technology.
Speaker 3: H