Nearly one year after embarking on our Bandon Dunes adventure, Fred, Matt, and Dave reconvene one final time to tie the bow on our experiences on the Oregon coast. We discuss the highs and lows, what we loved and what we didn’t, and what we’d do differently on our next adventure out west. Matt also gets in a few kind words about his experience and the course at Bandon Crossing, which he played solo before the rest of the game arrived.

I’m taking my family to the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon this month. To prepare for our adventure, I called on long-time friend of the podcast and unofficial Scotland correspondent Kieran Clark to talk about what we can expect to experience, as well as the current state of Scottish golf. Kieran is a St. Andrews-based writer for, and Social & Community Editor of, Golfshake, the leading digital golf platform in the UK. He’s generous with his time and quick with his wit, which makes him one of my favorite golf conversationalists.

The boys finally get around to discussing Bandon Trails, which Matt and I were absolutely smitten with, from start to finish. A masterwork of routing and shaping from Coore Crenshaw set inland among the still-wooded dunes and logging trails, the course is almost the perfect mix of difficulty, beauty, and diversity for golf.

Golf course architect Brian Ross rejoins the show to discuss how Park Mammoth GC continues to evolve two years after its grand re-opening. With a new, permanent clubhouse under construction, a new short named “The Boneyard” that Brian is designer just announced, and the announcement of a new putting course to come, it’s an exciting time for Kentucky’s new favorite public course.



We also discuss larger trends Brian sees across the golf design industry, why he’s a frequent collaborator on projects, and what’s next.



Brian Ross Golf Design: https://www.rossgolfarchitects.com/



Park Mammoth Golf Club: https://parkmammothgolfclub.com/




8th green, circa 2000



PMGC 8th green today



Such a cool hole

The Fields Golf Club in LaGrange, Georgia, is one of those special places with which I felt an instant connection, a feeling that grew stronger with each step on my first walk around the course. It’s a special place with a remarkable story derived from some of the ideas and principles that best capture what’s right in public golf.



In this conversation, I sat down with filmmaker Hagen O’Neil of Palmer Pictures (https://www.youtube.com/@PalmerPictures) to discuss the background and process of making his wonderful documentary film about the course, “From Red Clay to Fairways.” Using the color personalities that form The Fields leadership team, Hagen brings the course’s Phoenix-like rise to the screen, while exploring the principles of community and public golf writ large, as the divide between luxury and every day golf experiences continues to widen.



The film is embedded below for your convenience. Watch it. You’ll laugh, you’ll think, and you might even want to visit. Then give my conversation with Hagen a listen.









My two trips to LaGrange have been marvelous for largely personal reasons. There are likely small cities like it dotted all across the country, which makes me wonder if they all could their own version of The Fields. Golfers of all stripes would be better for it if they could, as “Red Clay to Fairways” makes abundantly clear.



Three words of thanks. First, thank you to Hagen for an incredible afternoon of laughs and conversation, with a little golf worked in. Second, thanks to Ashley Young and Ace at The Fields for their enthusiasm and hospitality. And finally to Thomas Dunne of McKellar Magazine for both supporting Hagen’s vision for the film, and for continuing to connect the McKellar launch party events to such wonderful golf experiences.



If you love great golf storytelling, head over to the McKellar website and check out their boxed set of past issues. Timeless golf stories don’t have an expiration date. You can thank me later.



The Fields Golf Club: http://www.thefieldsgolfclub.com/



From Red Clays to Fairways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOd-WPDD6PY



McKellar Magazine website: https://www.mckellarmagazine.com/

This is the Sheep Ranch episode, the fifth of our Americans in Oregon series highlighting and detailing Matt, Fred, and my trip to Bandon Dunes last summer. The Sheep Ranch, an instant Coore + Crenshaw hit with the golfing public, provides a more relaxed experience than it’s bolder neighbors just down the majestic coast line. The heritage of the site is well respected by the wonderful “core course” feel created by the course’s long sight lines and kinder, gentler dunescape mounding.

The Kentucky State Park System is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2024. This episode is the first of a new series wherein I’ll profile Kentucky’s state park golf courses from time to time. To kick off this new endeavor, I was honored to sit down recently with the Commissioner of the Kentucky State Park System, Mr. Russ Meyer. We talk the breadth, mission, and funding of Kentucky’s state park courses, as well as highlighting some of the much-needed improvements that are on the way.

This is the Pacific Dunes episode, our fourth of this season’s “Americans in Oregon Series.” A golf course of almost unanimous acclaim, it’s the golf course that brought architect Tom Doak into the larger golfing public’s consciousness, that showed people how spectacular coastal golf in America can be, and what natural, minimalist golf architecture can be. For the second time, it was also the setting for watching up close and personal as my friend Matt shoots the round of his life.

Friend of the Show, Chris Boysel, PGA, returns to talk about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we think we’re going in golf in central Kentucky, and to an extent, in golf writ large. Chris oversees Tournament Operations and Player Development for Play Golf Lexington, the omnibus organization responsible for municipal golf in Lexington. We discuss the tournament and programming offerings, the varied ways that women and juniors can get into golf in the modern golf landscape, and how competitive golf doesn’t actually have to be all that competitive. It’s a good conversation, I think you’ll enjoy it.



Play Golf Lex Am Tour: https://playgolflexamtour.golfgenius.com/pages/8094464179999631895



Play Golf Lex Junior Tour: https://playgolflexjrtour.golfgenius.com/pages/9332787473866058407



Lexington Championships and tournaments: https://www.lexingtonky.gov/golf-tournaments

This is the Bandon Dunes episode, the one about the original course at the Bandon Dunes Resort, the one that started it all. This is where it began for Oregon as a golf destination, for the Keiser family golf empire, for golf architect David McKlay Kidd, for fun overtaking difficulty as the chief goal of golf, and for a new type of destination golf, far from the things of man. It’s a truly great course that Matt, Fred, and I have a great time remembering, analyzing, and lusting to return.

Ethan Fisher, PGA, returns to the podcast to discuss his article over on OneBeardedGolfer.com revisiting the life and demise of the shooting star of Kentucky golf at the start of the 21st century, Old Silo Golf Course in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. It’s a fascinating, cautionary tale from the collapse of the most recent golf boom (before the recent Covid-19 golf surge). Old Silo’s rise and relatively rapid collapse are a case study on how not to survive in the competitive golf course landscape, and we wonder aloud together if the right lessons have been learned in the interim.

Our 2nd installment of the Americans in Oregon, discussing our experience on the Old MacDonald course, and the awe and wonderment of realizing the scale of the Bandon Dunes operation. Plus, a heretical idea so crazy I’d could only get away with it because it’s on the Internet.

In this first installment of the “Americans in Oregon” series, we set the scene at Bandon Dunes through our impressions of the Punch Bowl putting course, the 13-hole Bandon Preserve short course, and an examination of the resort’s vibe through our lodging and accommodations experiences.

Matt, Fred, and I reconvene at the Americans in Scotland round table to discuss whether golf trips truly need a “trophy course” to anchor a buddies golf trip. It’s big-picture discussion based on the small details we’ve accumulated in a decade or so of golf trip experience.

Today, I welcome back to the show author, journalist, and all-around good guy Hal Phillips. He is the author of Generation Zero: Founding Father, Hidden Histories, and the Making of Soccer in America. He weaves together the threads of the various growth, regression, and re-birth cycles that culminated in USA soccer arriving upon the world stage in earnest at the 1990 World Cup.

We happen to be living through a tumultuous time in men's professional golf, and I wondered if Hal might recognize any familiar story lines from his lived experience and research for the book. He did, and there are all worth ruminating upon further. Also, Hal's book is great, and you should buy a copy. Generation Zero available on Amazon.

Golf course architect Nathan Crace ASGCA of Watermark Golf stops by to talk me through the USGA and R&A decision to "roll back" the golf ball in the coming years. Nathan is smart enough to make it make sense, even to someone like me.

I speak with Lie + Loft founder Luke Davis about his journey to and within golf. Golf art and golf imagery has come a long way in the past decade or two. Once the exclusive province of the coffee table books, luxury travel publications, and the architecture issues of the mainstream golf publications, artistic depictions of golf’s playing fields have been devolved to the people in the digital age. Famous golf holes, once locked away behind the iron gates, are now available for viewing from every angle of still life photography, and probably available in drone video form.



So how a boutique shop like Lie + Loft stand out among an increasingly crowded field? Well, that’s what we talk about. It’s a wide ranging discussion that begins with Luke’s origin story and ends at our mutual love and concern for public golf in America.



Lie + Loft website: www.lieandloft.com



In my office right now, from Lie + Loft.

On the ninth night of Christmas, I struggle with the fact that I am what is holding back my putting.

On the eighth night of Christmas, I contemplate how my local golf club professionals fulfill a role that I formerly found in my barber, my bartender, or my colleagues. Talker. Friend. Listener. Confidant. Fellow traveler. They are the fabric that binds me to my golf community, and the tie that binds that larger community together. And I’m better for knowing them.



I’m incredibly comfortable here, even when I have no money to spend.

On the seventh night of Christmas, I lament the circumstances of my own making for the silo of swing speed in which I find myself. I have thoughts.



Somebody should go ahead and call Child Services.