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Speaker 1: com slash Fried Egg member SIPC. Welcome back to another
Speaker 1: edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. In today's episode, I
Speaker 1: am joined by Michael McCartin and Will Smith. These two
Speaker 1: have formed a nonprofit foundation called the National Links Trust.
Speaker 1: This nonprofit will focus on the restoration and preservation of
Speaker 1: municipal golf in the United States. Their organization plans to
Speaker 1: start with focusing on East Potomac, Rock Creek and Langston
Speaker 1: Golf Course, three municipal courses in Washington, d C. Which
Speaker 1: are managed by the National Park Service. The National Park
Speaker 1: Service is starting an RFP process for their next operator,
Speaker 1: which will be granted a lease up to sixty years.
Speaker 1: This long term lease will allow the properties to have
Speaker 1: significant investment put into them and hopefully improvement of the courses.
Speaker 1: The National Blink Trust hopes to be an instrumental part
Speaker 1: in these three courses future Michael mccarton was a guest
Speaker 1: on episode of one and twenty one when we discussed
Speaker 1: in detail his thesis on the East Potomac golf Course.
Speaker 1: Since that podcast, he has become more involved with the
Speaker 1: RFP process and the other municipal courses in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: For this episode, we will lead into our conversation with
Speaker 1: Michael and will with a highlight from our earlier episode
Speaker 1: with Michael.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 4: A brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida, egg Frida,
Speaker 4: egg Frida, egg, egg Frida, egg bride egg.
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 1: Flat flat land, pretty pretty modest, nothing crazy. And they
Speaker 1: hired Walter Travis. Ye, Who's Walter Travis? Where does he
Speaker 1: fit in at this point in his career?
Speaker 4: Walter Travis was an amazing golfer in his own right.
Speaker 4: He won the US Amateur and the British Amateur. One
Speaker 4: of the best golfers in history and was extremely well
Speaker 4: known at the time and had trans you know, transferred
Speaker 4: his talents from playing golf actively to being a golf
Speaker 4: course architect. At that time, he had built Garden City
Speaker 4: and Aquanic in Vermont and was kind of at the
Speaker 4: height of his powers as a golf architect. He was
Speaker 4: working at the time at Columbia Country Club in Washington,
Speaker 4: d C. And Walter Harbin, who was a member there
Speaker 4: kind of an influential guy in the Washington DC golf scene,
Speaker 4: recommended Walter Travis to the people in the Washington d
Speaker 4: C Planning in a group to design the course at
Speaker 4: East Potomac Park. And he took a look at the
Speaker 4: course and was like, well, this is reclaimed land from
Speaker 4: the Potomac River. It's relatively flat, it's kind of shaped
Speaker 4: in this triangular shape going downstream in the river. It
Speaker 4: kind of looks like San Andrew's honestly if you look
Speaker 4: at it in any But yeah, he was. He looked
Speaker 4: at the site and he said, you know what, this
Speaker 4: is the perfect place to build a reversible golf course.
Speaker 4: And he was he was a proponent of reversible courses.
Speaker 4: Why right, Well, because especially in this in this case,
Speaker 4: they're a great way to create variety day to day
Speaker 4: and also spread out the wear and tear from a
Speaker 4: maintenance perspective, and when you think about how that applies
Speaker 4: to a municipal course, where the idea is you're going
Speaker 4: to get a lot of people around. It's open to everybody,
Speaker 4: and at the time, there weren't a lot of avenues
Speaker 4: to play golf if you were't a member of a
Speaker 4: country club, so they were planning for a lot of golf,
Speaker 4: and the idea of a reversible, you know, course makes
Speaker 4: a ton of sense in that scenario where day to
Speaker 4: day the way people walk around the place is different,
Speaker 4: and so the wear patterns that in a different situation
Speaker 4: might cause maintenance problems over time, you know, you can
Speaker 4: spread those out and keep the entire place in better shape.
Speaker 4: At the same time, if you play one day in
Speaker 4: one direction and then you play the next day in
Speaker 4: the other direction, it feels like a totally different course.
Speaker 4: So you get a lot, you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: bang for your buck in that scenario.
Speaker 2: You had a great quote in your thesis.
Speaker 1: Good golf architecture and affordability are not mutually exclusive. Municipal
Speaker 1: golf courses need to feature quality design at a price
Speaker 1: locals can afford to play frequently, and that's the ethos
Speaker 1: of this whole thing is that at a core East
Speaker 1: Potomac set out to build the greatest municipal golf course
Speaker 1: that in the country, and they did it by building
Speaker 1: a golf course that was still exceptionally challenging for the
Speaker 1: regular player, but so playable for the regular guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you think about it, it hosted a
Speaker 4: major tournament in its first full year of existence and
Speaker 4: still got one hundred thousand rounds through it that same year.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's crazy to even think about it, but
Speaker 4: that one hundred thousand round number comes from a full
Speaker 4: on cross section of the golfing community in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: At that time, probably heavily skewed to non country club
Speaker 4: members who are just starting to play.
Speaker 2: All right, Michael, you're back on second time.
Speaker 4: It's a huge honor. This is great. Two times is
Speaker 4: more than is two times more than I thought I
Speaker 4: would ever do it.
Speaker 1: And Will Smith So, co founder of the Outpost Club,
Speaker 1: former aspiring golf architect, world traveler.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nice to be with you, Andy and Michael.
Speaker 3: Tough to follow the footsteps of the greats like Colin
Speaker 3: she And and Jeff Ogilvy, but we'll do our best.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we're here today a little follow up from
Speaker 1: Michael and I's pod over the Winner about East Potomac
Speaker 1: and the Washington, DC area municipal golf courses. So we're here, Michael,
Speaker 1: why don't you give us an update where we're at
Speaker 1: with those with the RFP process. I know we talked
Speaker 1: at length, so anybody that hasn't listened to that pod
Speaker 1: be sure to check it out.
Speaker 4: Sure. Yeah, So the RFP scheduled to come out in
Speaker 4: the middle of May, and will and I have been
Speaker 4: trying to chart it course forward to try and make
Speaker 4: sure that you know, everything we talked about in the
Speaker 4: first podcast actually happens. And that's basically to you know,
Speaker 4: try to honor the histories of East Potomac and Rock
Speaker 4: Creek and Langston through restoration of the East Potomac and
Speaker 4: Rock Creek golf courses to the Walter Travis and William
Speaker 4: Flynn designs, but also just preserving the accessibility and affordability
Speaker 4: of the courses. And based on you know what, we
Speaker 4: know a lot more now than we did at the
Speaker 4: time that we talked Andy, and it's kind of amazing
Speaker 4: how many people have reached out to us part of
Speaker 4: this process, you know, after we were on your podcast,
Speaker 4: and we've gotten two people and had meetings that we
Speaker 4: probably couldn't have had otherwise. So we wanted to say
Speaker 4: thank you for that exposure. What we want to accomplish requires,
Speaker 4: you know, the right partartners. So one thing we've been
Speaker 4: doing is just kind of having conversations with people who
Speaker 4: either would put in a bid or would be interested,
Speaker 4: you know, as part of a bid that we might do.
Speaker 4: And so we're trying to keep our options open at
Speaker 4: this point. But yeah, so to bad.
Speaker 1: You know, you guys are forming a nonprofit called the
Speaker 1: National Links Trust, and it's centered around maintaining restoring municipal
Speaker 1: golf courses. At first, the main focus right now is Washington, DC,
Speaker 1: but the grandiose vision is a organization that really protects
Speaker 1: and attempts to make municipal golf, especially in city center better. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's kind of the key thing that we've
Speaker 4: learned as part of this is just the reaction that
Speaker 4: we've gotten has been from people who care so much
Speaker 4: about municipal courses. It's the place where people learn, it's
Speaker 4: the gateway to golf for a lot of people. Nowhere
Speaker 4: is that, you know, it's incredibly true at East Potomac
Speaker 4: and the the DC courses, and we realize that the
Speaker 4: you know, what people are feeling towards ease Potomac applies elsewhere,
Speaker 4: and and it does feel like the the golf courses
Speaker 4: that are in those situations are subject to you know,
Speaker 4: pressures and things that that other courses don't, and they,
Speaker 4: you know, in a lot of a lot of ways
Speaker 4: need help to kind of maintain their you know, their influence,
Speaker 4: you know, both from you know, an accessibility and affordability perspective,
Speaker 4: but also on the architecture side, where like you've done
Speaker 4: a lot of work, you know, shining a light on
Speaker 4: Belmont for example, you know, the story of Belmont and
Speaker 4: the story of East Potomac where these once great designs
Speaker 4: have kind of eroded over time, you know, is something
Speaker 4: that happens pretty routinely, especially when you're talking about courses
Speaker 4: that were built in the twenties and thirties. And so
Speaker 4: you will will and I've like thought a lot about this,
Speaker 4: and I'll let him talk a little bit about it too,
Speaker 4: but thought about the need for somebody to say, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, the golf course is important too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, part of the
Speaker 3: reason why we all love the game is the diversity
Speaker 3: and of of the courses and the fields that we
Speaker 3: get to play on. And it shouldn't. Good golf course
Speaker 3: architecture shouldn't just be for a certain subset of the
Speaker 3: golfing populace. It needs to be for everybody. It needs
Speaker 3: to be. It needs to be. We need to have
Speaker 3: affordable and accessible good golf course architecture to engage beginners,
Speaker 3: to keep people coming back, to bring people back to
Speaker 3: the game, and places like East Potomac can be and
Speaker 3: are the fields that people need to keep playing and
Speaker 3: it can be a huge improvement on the course there.
Speaker 3: And we think we can we can help tell the
Speaker 3: story and make it make it a reality.
Speaker 4: There are only so many hooks into the game, right.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of reasons why people start to play,
Speaker 4: but architecture is generally not one that's paid any attention to,
Speaker 4: and especially at the places where people learn. And and
Speaker 4: I think it's you know, overcoming it has or doing things,
Speaker 4: you know, especially in something that presents a cool problem.
Speaker 4: I mean, like a good example would be one of
Speaker 4: the courses I played growing up had a stupid little
Speaker 4: pond and the yeah, architecturally it's not that great, but
Speaker 4: it was a hazard. Like anytime I hit it over
Speaker 4: the pond as like a seven year old, you know,
Speaker 4: it's like a big deal, you know. But that sort
Speaker 4: of thing can be presented thrill Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: but think about it if it's actually done well. You know,
Speaker 4: if there's a golf course that that you know, compels
Speaker 4: you to think about what you're doing and try for things,
Speaker 4: you know, like a carry or thing or things like
Speaker 4: that where you pull it off, it's it's it's thrilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think something that you've said to me a
Speaker 1: bunch that really sticks with me is that the dirty
Speaker 1: secret about in golf is that great golf course architecture
Speaker 1: doesn't cost anymore than mediocre golf architecture.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, when it comes to a place like
Speaker 4: Rock Creek or East Potomac where there's so much deferred
Speaker 4: maintenance into the courses, they're going to have to to
Speaker 4: fix the drainage at East Potomac, they're going to have
Speaker 4: to put millions of dollars into the place. And if
Speaker 4: you you know, at the same time as you rebuild
Speaker 4: everything in the you know, aftermath of fixing drainage. To
Speaker 4: build your average course or to build something great, it's
Speaker 4: exactly the same, you know, amount of effort and time.
Speaker 4: It's really just the thought and you know point of
Speaker 4: view of the of the architects and builders and people
Speaker 4: you know who are influencing the direction of the course
Speaker 4: that that determines the quality of the outcome.
Speaker 1: I think that we've seen a growing trend with restoration
Speaker 1: across the country, but it's mostly been in the private space.
Speaker 1: When you look through the big cities and across the country,
Speaker 1: there's usually a great golf course that's municipally run in
Speaker 1: almost all of them, and that's I think the when
Speaker 1: you look at the great opportunity there's obviously you know,
Speaker 1: these are the most popular golf courses, whether they're they're
Speaker 1: great or they're present and of the way they are now. Really,
Speaker 1: I think the end of it is the product, and
Speaker 1: we're in a product driven society, so it should only
Speaker 1: help to have more people flocking to the game of
Speaker 1: golf if the products great.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and uh and you know, I want to commend
Speaker 3: to you on some of your writing on this issue.
Speaker 3: It really helped me sort of realize that this isn't
Speaker 3: just a d C opportunity or a d C issue,
Speaker 3: that this is a national opportunity that we need to
Speaker 3: get people back to the game or into the game.
Speaker 3: And the architecture in the fields is to me the key.
Speaker 3: And as Mike point out, it's no more no more
Speaker 3: expensive to build a great golf course than it is
Speaker 3: to build a mediocre bore one.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the other thing I think that people focus
Speaker 4: on now more than ever, and it is incredibly true
Speaker 4: for us, is that, yeah, the democracy of the game,
Speaker 4: like bringing things that are available to people, you know,
Speaker 4: with tons of money and members at a bunch of clubs,
Speaker 4: you know, because when you combine that with the idea
Speaker 4: that great golf course architecture doesn't cost anymore, it's it's
Speaker 4: kind of crazy that there aren't more significant courses that
Speaker 4: are available to the public at a reasonable price given
Speaker 4: all of that, And it's about it's about prioritizing the
Speaker 4: right things in the process. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the points of this National Links Trust idea
Speaker 4: is to provide that, you know, startup capital to make
Speaker 4: the types of changes that are being made at private
Speaker 4: clubs around the country, but make that available to the
Speaker 4: places where so many people can actually go out and
Speaker 4: experience it.
Speaker 1: With East Potomac and the National Parks Courses here in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. It's a it's a pivotal point right now
Speaker 1: with the RFPs opening up in mid May. What are
Speaker 1: the initial goals for the National Links Trust for this
Speaker 1: project here?
Speaker 4: Well, first, we have to find the right partners as
Speaker 4: part of this process. We're open to working with entities
Speaker 4: that we're going to put in a bid anyway, as
Speaker 4: well as you know, organize our own. So we're really
Speaker 4: going down the path of you know, both both trying
Speaker 4: to work with with those people who are already involved and
Speaker 4: trying to you know, bring together our own group. And
Speaker 4: we've had a lot of great conversations along that that way,
Speaker 4: and we're we're kind of gearing up to to do
Speaker 4: our own bid because we don't know exactly how people
Speaker 4: will react when when the RFP does come out.
Speaker 3: In me, Yeah, we're we're trying to get our ducts
Speaker 3: in a row, trying to get gather as much information
Speaker 3: as possible, but also put together a group that can
Speaker 3: respond to the to the RFP when it comes out,
Speaker 3: both both from a partnership standpoint but also from an
Speaker 3: advocacy standpoint. You know, this is a political exercise at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, and and we're going to
Speaker 3: need to We're going to need to uh to talk
Speaker 3: to the people up on the on the hill in
Speaker 3: the National Park Service and and and share our vision
Speaker 3: as widely and broadly as we possibly can.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the sharing of vision is kind of the the
Speaker 4: thing that kind of brings people into the fold that
Speaker 4: you know, just like whether it's this podcast or we're
Speaker 4: having you know, a get together today. You know, we've
Speaker 4: we've had such a great response from people from all
Speaker 4: over kind of the community in DC, and everybody can
Speaker 4: contribute in different ways, and so kind of getting the
Speaker 4: group of people who are interested together, figuring out ways
Speaker 4: in which everybody can can make a difference in the
Speaker 4: process is also a big part of that. And kind
Speaker 4: of playing to everyone's strength.
Speaker 1: Obviously with the properties there's you know, they're right in
Speaker 1: the city, they're i mentally valuable. Any operator that takes
Speaker 1: over has the opportunity to build a great business around
Speaker 1: this in terms of what are what's the vision in
Speaker 1: terms of the properties and what type of golf the
Speaker 1: National Ink Trust is trying to promote.
Speaker 4: Well especially as it relates to the three DC courses.
Speaker 4: Rock Creek and East Potomac are the like most straightforward,
Speaker 4: and that they had great designs, you know, to start out,
Speaker 4: So then you have to kind of look at it
Speaker 4: from a business perspective. We want to get back to
Speaker 4: those great designs. East Potomac happens to be a great
Speaker 4: business right now. If the driving range makes a ton
Speaker 4: of money, the golf courses are full, there's not an
Speaker 4: immediate need to do something tomorrow in order to fix
Speaker 4: the business. At Rock Creek, however, the back nine is
Speaker 4: fully overgrown by trees and you know, you have to
Speaker 4: walk single file down the fairway is if you're not
Speaker 4: going to get hit by a branch, right, So there's
Speaker 4: an immediate need there to do something to help the business.
Speaker 4: You know, We've kicked around some ideas and we have
Speaker 4: a pretty clear vision for what we should accomplish there.
Speaker 4: One of the one of the things that's unique about
Speaker 4: Rock Creek is it's on the you know, the drive
Speaker 4: home for hundreds of thousands people in the DC area
Speaker 4: commuting to and from work. East Potomac has a driving
Speaker 4: range that kills It makes a ton of money every
Speaker 4: year Rock Creek is actually more convenient for a lot
Speaker 4: of people, but it doesn't have a driving range. That
Speaker 4: could be a great option for just turning around the
Speaker 4: business of Rock Creek quickly. There's if you were going
Speaker 4: to go down that route, you could preserve nine holes
Speaker 4: of the William Flynn course and build a Part three
Speaker 4: course or a kid's course or something like that and
Speaker 4: really cater to you know, what people have time and
Speaker 4: ability to do, you know, in this day and age,
Speaker 4: you know, with family commitments and everything. You know, having
Speaker 4: a place where you can go and spend an hour
Speaker 4: or two playing golf or getting your kids involved is
Speaker 4: incredibly valuable, and Rock Creek is just kind of sitting
Speaker 4: there waiting for something like that to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're at a really interesting point in
Speaker 3: sort of municipal golf in uniteds America. There's so many
Speaker 3: great programs. The people are rethinking what municipal golf can be.
Speaker 3: You know, while we're sort of developing this concept and
Speaker 3: ideas were forming in my head, and I got to
Speaker 3: go down and see Winter Park nine and see the
Speaker 3: way that that seamlessly integrates to its community, the way
Speaker 3: it engages the community through programming that's not necessarily golf
Speaker 3: focused and golf driven. You know, these are all the
Speaker 3: things that we want to look at and learn from
Speaker 3: and you know, potentially bring to the facilities here in
Speaker 3: in d C. It's I think it's a really exciting
Speaker 3: time for municipal golf. People are starting to think broader
Speaker 3: and and out of left field and and uh trying
Speaker 3: to bring new ideas, and so we're excited to to
Speaker 3: keep folks, you know, keep keep chasing those downs.
Speaker 4: One last thing. You know that we've talked a lot
Speaker 4: about the Part three courses that are popping up around
Speaker 4: the big resorts and how popular those are. And then
Speaker 4: you know at Pinehurst or abandoned Sam Valley, it's another place.
Speaker 4: It's another thing where that should be. You know, that's
Speaker 4: that's a perfect scenario for a municipal course. You know,
Speaker 4: East Potomac has a Part three course and it's the
Speaker 4: you know, the first course I played and then I
Speaker 4: graduated to the White Course, which is you know, an
Speaker 4: executive length course, and then the Blue and just to
Speaker 4: have facilities like that where you can you know, get
Speaker 4: some experience and then move up, you know that that
Speaker 4: should be another function of municipal golf and and it's
Speaker 4: something that you know a lot of places have room for.
Speaker 4: And I think there's now the appetite and recognition that
Speaker 4: that's important.
Speaker 1: You know, today, I think in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: the resort are almost like the innovators on the golf spectrum.
Speaker 1: So they, you know, especially in the golf course, they
Speaker 1: have a very monetary reason to be on the cutting edge.
Speaker 1: And short courses popularity boom at the resort level should
Speaker 1: signal signal to the operators at municipal level like this
Speaker 1: is working and build course. That's something really stuck with
Speaker 1: me when we did the podcast about the Sandbox was
Speaker 1: when he was growing up, Part three, courses were like
Speaker 1: second class citizen for golf, Like there were the golf
Speaker 1: courses go to when you didn't have time to or
Speaker 1: couldn't get a tea time at the big golf course.
Speaker 1: And anybody that's played, whether it be band and Dunes, Preserve,
Speaker 1: the Cradle and Pinehurst or the Sandbox of sand Valley
Speaker 1: or you know, I know that Big Cedar Lodge has
Speaker 1: some short courses and country clubs are starting to pop
Speaker 1: up with short courses.
Speaker 2: Is if you do a.
Speaker 1: Good job, if you put the time into designing this
Speaker 1: short course, it's not uninteresting. Like you know, Ogilvie, Clayton,
Speaker 1: Kaking and mea OCCM did a great one in Dallas
Speaker 1: at Shady Oaks Country Club and you know, walking around there,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is infinitely interesting and you could
Speaker 1: set it up a number of different ways and tests everything.
Speaker 2: It's those golf courses.
Speaker 1: Also at the modern time, with technology, people have less
Speaker 1: and less time for eighteen holes. At the municipal level,
Speaker 1: they almost make more sense than they make.
Speaker 2: The resort level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to go on like
Speaker 3: a randmre set type rant against the scorecard and pencil set.
Speaker 3: But you know, golf is golf is about being outside.
Speaker 3: It's about being outside with friends and family. It's about
Speaker 3: engaging your mind and engaging your body. And we don't
Speaker 3: need to put these into these four hour eighteen whole boxes.
Speaker 3: It can be shorter. It can be you know, twelve
Speaker 3: par threes, it can be thirteen par threes, it can
Speaker 3: be you know a mix of short fours and threes.
Speaker 2: It can be anything.
Speaker 3: It's about being outside and being with friends and so yeah,
Speaker 3: sure the Kaisers have had touched on something they figured
Speaker 3: it out, and yeah, I think the resorts are leading
Speaker 3: the way and it's definitely the municipal golf and even
Speaker 3: private clubs have you said, are starting to follow suit.
Speaker 1: So how can people help with the National ink streuss?
Speaker 1: What can they do to pitch in? And you know,
Speaker 1: say they're in LA or other areas other than d C.
Speaker 2: How can they get involved and help?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's early days, you know, at this point.
Speaker 3: You know, we would love for you to go to
Speaker 3: our website nationallink trust dot com, fill out the form
Speaker 3: that's at the bottom or the pop up that will
Speaker 3: come up, and get on our mailing list. We are
Speaker 3: in the process of forming our five and one C
Speaker 3: three and our nonprofit status and starting up a way
Speaker 3: to be able to take donations and hopefully that will
Speaker 3: be coming here in the next few weeks. But you know,
Speaker 3: drop us a note, let us know how you want
Speaker 3: to get involved, and you know, follow us on social
Speaker 3: media at National links Trust on Instagram. I think it's
Speaker 3: at links Underscore National on Twitter. Join the conversation. We'd
Speaker 3: love to hear from you and and you know we'll
Speaker 3: be coming at you asking for things soon enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The other thing I'd add is that it would be
Speaker 4: great to hear from people about courses that they're passionate
Speaker 4: about and think are good opportunities that fit in this mold.
Speaker 4: You know, we're you know, we grew up in the
Speaker 4: DC area. We love the golf courses here, but this
Speaker 4: I think is bigger than just DC, and we want
Speaker 4: to hear about places that have a similar opportunity that
Speaker 4: people are passionate about.
Speaker 3: And we'd love to hear success stories places that have
Speaker 3: sort of gone down this road and improve their golf
Speaker 3: courses and seeing seeing results and different different techniques that
Speaker 3: people have used to engage the community and maintain affordability
Speaker 3: and accessibility to these golf courses. You know, we want
Speaker 3: to learn.
Speaker 1: I think the huge opportunity of this is obviously Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And these golf courses. East Potomac was built
Speaker 1: to be the model municipal but when you look at
Speaker 1: scaling beyond DC and the way a communiticy community can
Speaker 1: interact with a golf course, but also from a public perspective,
Speaker 1: people travel the major cities all the time, and the
Speaker 1: ability to have you know, golf courses within the metro
Speaker 1: area that you can have a great experience, a great
Speaker 1: golfing experience.
Speaker 2: About everybody wins in this scenario.
Speaker 1: The local community has a golf course that is accessible,
Speaker 1: beginner friendly, affordable, and you know, very convenient, you know,
Speaker 1: making golf more convenient. And then also for the person
Speaker 1: that might be in Chicago, like you're probably going to
Speaker 1: get to d C before the end of your life,
Speaker 1: so you know, hopefully you get there and you've got
Speaker 1: a great golf course to play that you don't have
Speaker 1: to get in an uber or rent a car and
Speaker 1: drive forty five minutes to find a place to play golf.
Speaker 1: You know that the closeness to the city center is
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing things about these municipal golf
Speaker 1: courses across the cities.
Speaker 4: The other thing I would I think that goes with
Speaker 4: what you're saying is that and it's kind of like
Speaker 4: ties together. Lot of what we're saying is that these
Speaker 4: places should be geared towards not just the hardcore golfer,
Speaker 4: because we know they're the places that people start, you know,
Speaker 4: learning the game. But in thinking about successful examples of
Speaker 4: courses that are really truly part of the community, they
Speaker 4: also involve other uses outside of golf, whether it's like
Speaker 4: hiking or just you know, whether it's winter park where
Speaker 4: you have programming around the clubhouse that gets people there.
Speaker 4: I haven't been there, but I've heard of that. The
Speaker 4: DC courses are actually like great examples of that. East
Speaker 4: Potomac has a road and kind of walking trail along
Speaker 4: the river and it's really and it's a park that's
Speaker 4: really well used. Rock Creek is like actually part of
Speaker 4: the city's major park and people can hike around the
Speaker 4: edges of the course. It's all about kind of bringing
Speaker 4: people together and when you have people coming from outside
Speaker 4: the area. Not everybody in a group necessarily plays golf,
Speaker 4: but to have you know, things for people to do
Speaker 4: in the area so that it's a legitimate, you know
Speaker 4: stop that involves you know, everybody in a group is
Speaker 4: It's also important and you know, these are like civic
Speaker 4: spaces and they should you know, cater to you know,
Speaker 4: the use of golf, but also too, you know to
Speaker 4: anything else that kind of fits in the in the area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, like the most famous example would be San Andrews,
Speaker 1: which park on Sundays.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It's it's inclusive.
Speaker 4: I mean, the whole point of this is to be
Speaker 4: inclusive to beginners too, you know, to good golfers and
Speaker 4: to non golfers.
Speaker 1: Make it easy for people to play golf and make
Speaker 1: it even easier and more enjoyable for them to come
Speaker 1: back and play more.
Speaker 2: It's really the really the goal.
Speaker 1: Right absolutely, So thanks for you guys coming on. I'll
Speaker 1: provide links in the podcast and probably do a little
Speaker 1: write up about it and promote it on our social
Speaker 1: media channels so everybody knows where to find you guys,
Speaker 1: and it will be a really fun journey to get
Speaker 1: to follow and see where this goes. It's it's exciting
Speaker 1: and I think for golf it's it's extremely needed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's something there's a hole that in the current landscape
Speaker 1: that it fits to help, at the very least advise
Speaker 1: communities on how to move forward with their golf, especially
Speaker 1: if they're invested in being in the golf world, in
Speaker 1: the golf space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Andy, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 3: It's it's been a pleasure to talk talk golf, talk
Speaker 3: to National Links. Trust with you and Mike here.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 2: We do the digging for you