You hear the term I didn't have a lot of feel around the greens today,
let's say from forty fifty yards in most likely it comes from us as
players trying to feel one club to travel different distances that we might not practice
a lot, especially for amateurs. How do you lower your index? The
lower your index by hitting better golf shots through an eighteen whole round of golf.
It's about managing your missus. You hear that term when we may end
up in some in between yardages. And you've been here before, you understand
our golf courses aren't long on the scorecard, and you look at a lot
of three hundred and forty par four as you look at a lot of four
hundred and sixty par fives to where an avid golfer that looks short on the
scorecards. Where then we end up in some of those in between yardages because
we try to overpower the golf course. All right, This is David Schmidt
from Lee Summit, Missouri, and I played golf at Meals National Golf Course
in Morrensburg, Missouri. This is Golf Smarter number eight ninety eight Bandon Dunes
Golf as it was meant to be in the spirit of Scotland Ancient Links.
This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mines
to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host,
Fred Green. Today's episode features two guests back to back, and I
wanted to give you a heads up about this. Our first guest, Michael
Chopka, is going to provide us with a complete overview of the history,
the future, services, amenities and designs of the Abandoned Dunes Golf Resort.
And then we're going to meet the head teaching professional Abandoned Dunes, Kevin Phillips,
and he's going to teach us how to prepare and manage our way through
each of the five eighteen hole link style courses. Let's think of this episode
like we're playing thirty six holes in a day, which I'm going to be
doing twice coming up. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Michael, appreciate
you having me on. Fred. Oh, I'm so excited to visit you
and that's coming up in the next couple of days. I'm going to be
leaving this weekend to go up to Bandon Dunes and I love the line that
you guys have on your website Golf as it was meant to be. And
this is going to be my second trip. Last one was ten years ago.
I feel like I'm a better golfer now. I feel like I'm prepared.
I've been playing for weeks with the thought of just expect to be playing
in a lot of wind. It has been blown recently, but that's kind
of what makes bandon bandon, right. You gotta get that full Lins test.
So it has been blown, but it's not raining. It hasn't been
raining. We can use her some rain, but yeah, it's definitely no,
not until after I leave. Please don't rain till after. We'll talk
to Mother Nature. I'll make sure that happens right afterwards. Well, thank
you. I know that Mike Kaiser has a direct line to Mother Nature,
Mike Kayser being the owner and developer of this entire project. What is it
about abandoned dunes that makes it like one of the leading destination places for golf
in the United States? Yeah, I mean, I think for one,
is is just there's nowhere else like it. It is as authentic of a
links golf experiences you can find in the Condental US When you're comparing it to
all the great links courses in the British Isles, right, So there's no
doubt that it's just different than anywhere else. That connection to nature for our
guest, you know, I think that that dynamic of when you come to
Bandon, you're typically coming with a bunch of friends or family members of people
that you would want to be taking an epic golf trip with, you know,
so there's a sense of community that when you get here, the people
that you're playing with, as well as everybody else that's here at the resort
is just kind of a golf nut and it breeds this atmosphere that people really
resonate with. Golf nut is the key element here, I think, because
it's not easy to get to and there's a lot there for the golfer.
And I love that you said with friends and family, because I'm coming up.
I'm gonna be with a group of eight guys and three brothers son of
one of the brothers, and then each of those guys were able to invite
somebody, so there's eight of us, so it is friends and family all
in this group. That's incredible. Yeah, it'll be a phone one.
Yeah, So tell me about Tell like, it's not just a golf course.
You have numerous golf courses. Let's go over each one. Yeah,
and I'm going to ask you about them, but i'll, you know,
hopefully in part two of this conversation with Kevin Phillips, your director of instruction,
I'm going to get into details, but some overviews from you. When
we arrive, we're going to be playing at the preserve. Give me a
little give me taste about the preserve. Yeah, the preserves a great place
to start. That's our thirteen whole Part three course, which was designed by
Bill Core and Bankernshaw and opened back in two and twelve. Initially was designed
because there was I mean, a lot of our guests will come here and
play thirty six holes in a day, and the Preserve was an opportunity to
fill in some of the itinerary for guests that were traveling in it might not
have time to play eighteen on an arrival day or play eighteen on a departure
day. And then also for those guests that we're looking to play thirty six
holes back to back to back days. So the Preserve came in kind of
in the middle of the old evolution of the resort. You know, the
very first course, being being in Dunes, was built in nineteen ninety nine.
Our most recent course, the Sheep Ranch, which is another eighteen whole
course, is built in twenty twenty. So over that scope, in that
range of years, the resort has really changed considerably, um, you know,
and there's there's now five eighteen old golf courses that preserve the thirteen old
Part three course. We're building a new Part three course that's going to be
open sometime next year, and there'll be a nineteen old Part three course.
You'll see the construction will be under way. It's it's just to the west
abandoned trails and when you play the preserve on that very first day, you'll
be able to look to the south and see that course as well. So
yeah, it's um, it's always evolving, it's all, you know.
We're always listening to our guests to see how we can go about improving the
experience. And it's been a fun place to be a part of. Why
the decision to go thirteen holes in nineteen holes for them for the par threes,
Yeah, well it's far from traditional, no doubt. Our response on
that one is typically why not you know this dynamic of um you know why
eighteen holes or why nine holes? And you know certainly all about the traditions
of the game. But for thirteen holes, it made a lot of sense
for the band to preserve and enter and around with the spacing of it and
the amount of time that it takes to play the thirteen whole Part three course
in relation to the timing of your trips and being able to fit it in.
It takes about the same amount of time as playing a nine hole loop
on one of the eighteen hole courses. And we really, I think at
an even deeper level, we wanted people to get out of the I need
to break ninety, I need to break eighty. You know my best score
is something under forty for nine holes, you know, so more so just
like taking it hole by hole, shot by shot, rather than thinking about
these benchmarks of shooting a particular score. Yeah. I remember my last time
I was there, we played the Preserve when we arrived. Same what we're
doing. We arrived on Sunday afternoon. We're gonna do the clinic with Oven
and then we're going to play the Preserve. And there's one hole that is
very downhill, ye number nine on the preserve. Number nine, okay,
And I remember thinking, I'm not going to take a full swing here.
What I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna just keep the ball low and let
it just follow the ground and the ball just so. I hit it and
it disappeared because it's you know, going down, down, down, And
when I finally saw it again, it was five inches from the pin just
right. That might have been number six. Number six is kind of designed
that way, is excuse me not? Number six? Number five um is
also kind of designed that way as well, where you just kind of trundles
and rolls down to where the green is. A lot of people hit putter
off that tea box, and the same thing with like thirteen on the preserve.
It's kind of a tradition. You certainly should have everybody in the group
pulled the putter and put from the team because it's you know, again,
it's about embracing the links conditions, and the preserve is a great place to
get acclimated to the tight lies. And you're allowed to play as an eighth
some out there as well, so you know, in the sense of coming
together as a group of eight and being able to walk and catch up and
you know, get amped up and excited about the trip as a whole.
It's a great place to begin. Awesome for people who don't know, and
there are probably many. Give me a little geographical lesson of where Banded Dunes
is, sure, Yeah, So Bandon Dunes is on the southern Oregon coast.
The one oh one runs up and down, you know, all the
way from the border of Canada down into Mexico, and we're right there off
the one oh one, about two hours north of the California Oregon border in
the sense of some familiar locations in the state. From Portland, we're about
four and a half hours, you know, open guests that that fly into
Portland and then make the commute down from Portland then Eugene, which is about
two to two and a half hours away, so a little bit. Eugene
is the home of the University of Work. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
for all those Duck fans out there. Um, yeah, Eugene is just
you know, kind of slightly north and obviously east, about two and a
half hours. There's also guests that'll fly into Medford, which is another kind
of more regional airport like Eugene and and Medford have limited options in comparison to
Portland, U, but like those are the regional destinations where you could find
more NonStop flights from a number of different um cities throughout the United States.
Medford's about i'd say, about another two to two and a half hours away
from from Bandon as well. And then our closest airport is in the town
of North Bend. That airport code is OTA each and North be It's about
thirty five forty minutes north of Bandon Dunes, which is, you know,
right up the one on one, So we're we're in a transient area.
We're about ten or fifteen minutes north of where the town abandon is very remote
location, you know that I'm talking In the town Abandoned specifically, there's probably
five to six thousand full time residents that live there, and in Bandon there's
probably twenty to twenty five thousand that are up in the Coos Bay North Bend
area. And then in the town of Cokio where I live, which is
about fifteen minutes east of where the resort is. It's another small town similar
to Bandon. It's about four or five thousand people. So yeah, very
remote location. Yeah, and we're flying into oth which is nice. But
um, do you have a sense I'm sure that you guys do a lot
of questionnaires and things with you with your guests. Are most of the people
who come to Abandon West Coast based. Are We definitely bill see ourselves as
a regional destination, you know, with a majority of our guests coming from
Washington, Oregon, in the state of California, it's absolutely a global destination
as well. We've seen, you know, John Counther's are he's one longtime
sports editor actually up for the newspaper of the World out of Coos Bay,
but he now works for our team on our guest services team. He's been
tracking how many different guests are coming from different states, and it always amazes
me how quickly he tells me. He starts to tally again and we hit
all fifty states and X number of days. So people are coming in from
everywhere. And then in the summer months especially, it's much more of a
global destination. I think, just even traveling to the West Coast and seeing
the Oregon coast, which is just all inspiring in general. Golfer now golf
so there's a lot of people traveling from all over the globe to come experience
the state of Oregon in general in the winter months when it's a little more
unpredictable with the weather and the you know, you get the storms. We've
got a lot more rain over the winter months than we do in the summer,
and our traffic is much more regional the winter months. People that have
acclimated to it and get it, And being a Virginia boy, I can't.
I always thought it just rained every day in Oregon, and I probably
would still think that if I lived over that way. So, yeah,
everybody who's acclimated to it in the winter months, those are are typically the
guests that we see are people that are are familiar with what they're going to
get. All right, we're gonna so much more to discuss and unpack here.
We're gonna take a time out because we have some pretty wonderful sponsors that
want to let people know what they have to offer to the golf smarter listeners.
We'll be right back. So what is the best time of year to
come to Bandon for weatherwise? So you make sure it's gonna be dry,
it's gonna be windy, I'm assuming all year long, but as far as
staying dry, maybe get some nice days without wind. What would you suggest.
Yeah, you know, the experience certainly changes with the weather. The
cost also changes in relation to that weather. So you can come in the
middle of the winter, you come in December and January, and the golf
rates our one hundred dollars for a round of golf, whereas they're upwards of
three hundred dollars in the summer months July through kind of early October. So
you know, it kind of depends upon the balancing act of of what you're
looking for. If we're talking just specifically weather, A lot of people rave
about the weather in September and kind of early October. That's always been a
very popular stretch. We get two seasons. You get the wind that comes
from the north, the prevailing breeze. In the summertime. We're very,
very rarely going to have rain. We're very rarely going to have any sort
of thunderstorms or anythings, any type of severe weather in the summer months.
But it's just going to be you know, a little overcast in the morning
and that's going to burn off by midday and it's going to get windy in
the afternoon, and our average highs are probably you know, sixty five degrees
in the heart of the heart of summer. And on the flip side of
that, once we get to about late October, you know, early November
for sure, that's when the storms start to come in and you'll see that
prevailing wind from the north flip and it'll come from the south, and then
that's pretty good tell tell that we're gonna get some rain. So that's when
again the price just kind of dropped because the weather becomes a little bit more
unpredictable. And I've played golf in the middle of December when it was seventy
degrees and no wind, you know, and then I've I've played golf and
you know, almost every month where we've had similar types of weather. So
it's it's tough to say, you know, it's more predictable that you're not
going to get rained in the summer months. But some of the best cities
of the year are probably those secret days that happened in the winter wind the
wind lies down, so it's not a storm blowing through and you get just
some absolutely gorgeous weather and the temperature range like from the winter months to the
summer months for the coastal region doesn't fluctuate a whole lot. You know,
our highs in our highs in the winter are probably fifty fifty five, but
then it'll get up to about sixty five maybe seventy in the summer months.
So it's not a drastic change in the temperature. It's more the wet season
and then the windy season. Never snow. We had some snow this past
Um, it's past winner, which I've been this winter on the west coast.
Yeah, as you know, being being a northern California guy, it
was. It was a pretty crazy winner for us. But yeah, in
the sixteen years i've been here, I think I've seen it happen maybe three
times a before. It's very very rare to ge gets now. So you
mentioned I'm not going to ask specific prices, but you mentioned that the cost
changes depending on the season. Um, but what about if you're playing thirty
six holes or there a cost break for that or is it do you have
to be playing the same how does that work the same course or yeah?
Yeah, great question. So, so your first round of the day is
whatever the rack rate would be for that specific month. If you played two
rounds in a day, your second round is what we were referred to as
a replay rate, so that is half the cost of whatever your first round
rate was. Again, that change is being upon the month, and that's
good for any golf course that you would want to play here at the resort.
It's not like you have to replay on the same course that you played
in the morning. So you can play Pacific in the morning and then play
Banded in the afternoon, and your rate at Bandon it's half the rate that
you played that morning. That replay rate two. You know, as we're
heading into the long stime of the year right here in Tune, that replay
rate is good for as much golf as you get in. So if you
want to play fifty four holes in a day and you know you got the
bug to go back out, your third round would be free. And gosh
here in the summer solstice, we always on the Tuesday of the longest week
of the year, we always have about one hundred and forty golfers that come
out and play seventy two holes in one day and oh my gosh, yeah,
that group they all get one hundred dollars back for their fourth round.
That's a part of that's a part of that whole um, that whole event.
So it's pretty neat. But they've got a t off first thing in
the morning to get in that many holes. They're played early, and they're
they're averaging about a three hour pace. So it's um wow. You know,
as as I think of everybody that comes here as a golf nut,
that's like a completely different breed of golf nut. Yes, it is,
of course it is um. And there's no golf carts, Am I correct?
We're walking on all of your courses, on all of our courses.
Yeah, we do have carts for for guests that are visiting with a permanent
disability defined by the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, so you know
that that option is there for those, um that would absolutely need a part.
But everybody here is they kind of know what they're getting into as far
as going out there and walking. And we've got an amazing caddy program with
close to about three hundred and fifty almost four hundred caddies. A lot of
our guests take caddies, um, you know, for their rounds, but
you certainly can carry your own clubs, and we have trolleys or what we
refer to as a brickshaws here as all that that guess can use. Oh
okay, okay, um, but you guys don't have and we'll talk more
about the accommodations, but you don't really have the accommodations to accommodate if y
um, the PGA a PGA tour event, right, I mean that requires
TV trucks and it and you were so remote. Um, I can't.
Yeah, it would be a simple task. Yeah, you know, it's
it's certainly not a simple task. There's a lot of legistics that come with
that. When you know, we we do have a long term partnership with
the USGA. So we've got twenty um, excuse me, thirteen USCA Championships
coming to the South Coast over the next twenty three years. Um. We
just had the US Amateur which was a televised event in twenty twenty. Um.
Mister Kaiser, our founder and you know the Kaiser family in general passionate
about supporting the amateur game. So I don't foresee us hosting ANYPGA Tour events
or LPGA Tour events. But we're certainly very excited to be hosting all of
the the nation in the world's best amateur championship events, where our next one
is going to be the twenty twenty five US Women's Amateur, which will again
be televised Austen. Yeah, it doesn't doesn't bring in the crowds, and
you know, as far as again to your point, like the infrastructure of
our local towns and how small and kind of remote the South Coast is makes
it really tough to imagine tens of thousands of people being able to come in
and an experience an event like that. But yeah, the events that we've
hosted that NPC and Fox Sports previously have been a part of UM have just
been amazing events. And people certainly don't get to watch bandit on TV very
often, so the viewership numbers and you know, like just the overall engagement
of people watching those events have been quite impressive. Well, my younger son,
who's a golfer UM, he comes on an annual basis with a group
of twenty eight guys amazing and they spend a tremendous amount of money at your
house and take over everything that they can. It's pretty amazing. So what
are the accommodations for those of us who are staying on the property. Yeah,
yeah, So there's there's two hundred ten rooms on property. There's anywhere
from single king rooms that are in the main lodge, which was the first
building to be built back in the early two thousands, to four bedroom,
four bath growth cottages that you know, are like kind of set up perfectly
for that foursome that's going to come in with a common area and a small
little um, you know, like kitchen head and everybody has their own private
room and their own private bathroom and kind of the central spot. So the
growth cottages are extremely nice. Our newest accommodations on property are the Round Lake
lodges, which there's twenty four new rooms. They're just built within the past
two years. There's eight single kings that are in there and then sixteen double
queens and as far as the actual footprint of those rooms, there are our
biggest rooms on property. They're kind of like tucked in between the sixth Green
abandoned trails and then Round Lake itself. There's when you play trails, you
go from six to seven and you kind of cross over this central dune that
separates the resort east and west, and when you make that transition on trails,
the new Roundlake lodges sit kind of right there in that little corner there.
Awesome. Well, I don't I'm not sure. I didn't make these
reservations, but I'm hoping we have one of those cottage or two of those
cottages. That would be amazing. But we made these reservations over a year
ago. I mean, what's the demand and how far in advance did people
have to make the reservations. Yeah. Yeah, the demand is is through
the roof right now. I mean, golf is just as a industry is
booming. It was somewhat of a perfect storm for us with um, you
know, obviously just a game and in the industry was in an amazing opportunity
coming through COVID and out of COVID, with being able to provide people an
opportunity to separate and get outside and and still be active while participating and you
know, spending time with others. So so the game of golf just coming
through a COVID was and still is booming. And then we had on top
of that, we had our we opened the Sheep Ranch in June of twenty
twenty, you know, and then in August of twenty twenty, we had
the US Amateur, which really people were starving for watching sports on TV and
having things to kind of consume, and you know, the US Amateshire being
one of the only events that's able to stay, stay open and and be
played. Um, you know, all of that kind of just turned into
this melting pot of just an amazing and you know, also an insane amount
of demand. So yeah, we have booked out through right now the end
of October twenty twenty four. Um, oh my goodness, and we're recording
this in the beginning of June of twenty twenty three, so you've got like
seventeen eighteen months already booked. Yeah. As far as room reservations on property,
you know, there's there's a couple of different ways to experience the resort.
You certainly can stay off property and then pay an off property rate for
your rounds of golf, so there's still availability there. And then but as
far as I guess what we would call like the full long abandoned experience of
coming to the property, staying on property, being able to use our shuttle
services, and traveling to and from your rooms to all the different restaurant outlets
and all the different golf courses and like being on campus the entire time.
Yeah, that that experience is currently sold out through the end of October twenty
twenty four. Listen. I was hoping to just make this two quick segments
so that we can talk about golf with Kevin two. But I'm not done
with you, So we're going to take another break and we're going to come
back for one more segment. All right. So we've talked about staying overnight
and the various options that you have to sleep there or sleep off property.
What about food restaurants? What do you offer there? And for the people
in cottage who have a kitchenette, where can they go shopping? Yeah,
yeah, no doubt. Um. In the sense of cooking your own food
on property, not good options there. Um, it's more of the basics
and that are in the room. But there's a restaurant. Yeah. And
in the sense of you're gonna go to one of our restaurants for breakfast,
Um, that's all property. But making yourself a you know, a cup
of coffee or having a refrigerator put some leftovers and stuff like that. Um,
those types of options are are in the room. UM. We're currently
under construction. We're building a brand new fitting beverage oallet over at Old McDonald
which is going to be called Ghostree Grill. UM. We currently have a
steakhouse concept menu UM at the restaurant called The Forge in the main lodge,
so we're gonna be transitioning the steakhouse concept to Ghostrie Grill. And it's UM.
Building is just it's looking beautiful. It's coming together really nicely. It
should be open sometime later on this summer. We're getting very close there.
UM. But that's that's going to be an amazing upgrade in the sense of
just more space and more dining options on property. UM. At the main
hub where Banded Dunes is at, in the main Lodge and the Bandon Dians
Clubhouse, you've got two different dining options there. You've got the main lodge
which is the Forge as well as the Tuft of Puffing, and then just
down a breezeway you've got McKees Pub, which is kind of your hearty pub
food. UM. You know, they're both McKees is open for dinner.
Specifically the restaurant, the Tufted Puffing is open for breakfast and lunch. And
then the Forge is the dinner dinner concept of the steakhouse. That's um that's
currently being operated there in the main lodge. But then you also have at
Pacific Dunes, You've got Pacific Rill, which is open for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. You've got Trails in the same same situation breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. Trails is right now just doing private dinners, but they
typically are open full time for dinner service as well. We opened up a
new food truck up at the Practice Center which is called Charlotte's. So I
would certainly suggest on your trip coming up here to to check out and experience
Charlotte's. It's open from the morning hours until four pm. UM smoked barbecue.
Um. You can get you know, like pulled pork barbecue burritos.
For the morning, you can get tacos, and you know, for lunch
time frame, you can you can get like just a platter of you know,
all of your favorite barbecue stuff and corn bread. And Charlotte's is a
new place that's up there at the Practice Center that will look and feel a
little different than than when you were last there. And yeah, even up
that Sheet branch. You know, there's there's not a dinner um concept at
the Sheet branch, but you have breakfast and lunch that's offered up there at
the Sheet branch as well. So typically any golf course that you're playing at
there's a fit of average option as well. Well, I'm kind of a
pain in the butt kind of guy because one, I don't drink caffeine,
so I drink decaf coffee. Is West Coast, Yeah, I would think
that West Coast. You know, you're you're still in the shadow of Starbucks.
But also I'm I'm not a pure vegetarian vegan, but I'm a fish
eater. And you've mentioned pork and barbecue and steak and none of that's on
my diet. Well, I still be able to eat more, and there
there are plenty of fish options as well. Absolutely good. Yeah, I
go hunt out the Pokey bowl at Trails for lunch. Oh I'm in Yeah,
you'll love that. M Nathan and our offense. That's one of his
go toos every time we go up there and eat. You've got a number
of amazing fish options that are in the forge at that main steakhouse concept.
Um there's vegetarian options as well. Our chefs have been doing a really good
job of kind of change with the times as like more and more people are
making those sets requests. So that's that's very cool. You have plenty of
plenty here, Freddy, you're not gonna go starving. Good, Oh good.
I'm glad here it because I'm gonna be walking a lot. Yeah,
those days. Ninety holes in three days, there's a lot of walking.
So we're playing all five courses over the three days that we're playing Preserve when
we arrive and then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we'll be playing over ninety
holes. So let's just do a quick overview of each of the courses.
Um, starting off bandon Dunes. We're playing Monday morning. We're playing band
and Dunes. Yeah. David McClay get designed the first course created in in
nineteen ninety nine. Um, amazing walk you know you get out, Um,
you start heading out towards the ocean on three and four. Um,
there's been some change just to it over the recent years. There's been some
bunkers added on eight, there's been some bunkers taken away on eleven and seventeens,
some little tweaks that that DMK was making like kind of an anticipation of
the USAM. It's in grade shape. Is definitely one of my favorite favorite
walks on property. And when you get to sixteen, which is probably one
of the most like photogenic holes on the entire property. Yeah, it's that's
since a place really comes in when you play sixteen abandon all right, and
then in the afternoon we're playing Banned in Trails. Great afternoon course. Yeah,
a lot of people, a lot of people request to play Trails in
the afternoon, usually getting those summer wins are coming up in the afternoon.
Trails is still very lenksy golf course, but like it's kind of a you
know, it's a it's an authentic links course that plays more in like a
part of the setting. So you'll start the first and second holes and you're
in the dunes, and then once you get into three, you start to
be surrounded by the like the coastal pines and you know, the firs and
just like the evergreen forest that's right along the eastern side of the resort.
So Trails is there's there's two courses, Trails and Old McDonald that go east
of that main dune that I was talking about with Round Lake, And once
you get out past six and seven on trails and you get into that area,
it's it's almost like it says own little microclimate. You get a little
bit more protected from the wind, feels a little bit warmer, and a
lot of people like to play trails in the afternoon in order to dodge one
afternoon with the wind, okay, and then the next morning. Old McDonald
so all of the courses are link style courses, right basically, it's what
the land provided. You guys just kind of shaped things, but you didn't
redesign or yeah. Yeah, very minimalistic in general. Um, you know,
minimalism architecture is something that you hear kind of um as a common thread
with the resort um Corn french Off built Trails by the way, and Trails
was built and opened in two thousand and five. Old McDonald is a tribute
course to CB McDonald. So the holes aren't meant to be replicas. There
are more so dope's stance and take on what he felt like CB McDonald would
have done with that landscape. But a lot of the templated holes that we've
all come to know and play from the British isles at CB brought over and
instilled in all of his courses are out there. You know, you've got
the Eden, you've got the hogs Back, you've got the long and the
Short and the Brits and you're kind of taking a walk, you know,
walk back in time. When you're playing Old mcdonal opened, you'll pass by
the ghost tree when you walk up the ridge on number three, which is
the ghost tree. Yeah, it's a it's an iconic tree. Um,
it's an old port Orford cedar that's probably been just it's hanging on for dear
life right now, but it's it's certainly it's old and it's just this iconic
tree that you you have to aim right at to hit out over that ridge.
And then once you come up to the ridge on the top of number
three on Old McDonald, you're kind of presented with what the day is going
to look like. Um, So there's a lot of this isn't amazing lookouts
on Old McDonald where you can almost kind of see the entire golf course that
you're going to be playing. And you know, the first and second hole
on Old McDonald play to the east, of that same spine, that ridge
that I was telling you about, and you play. You actually play up
and over it on number three, just past the ghost tree. So I'm
sure you'll take a picture of the ghost tree. It's it's almost a given.
If it's the first time playing that golf course, you're gonna do it
awesome. Actually I did play Old McDonald last time I was there, Okay,
I do remember that. I don't remember which hole it was. It
was a part of three. It was one hundred and sixty yards into the
wind and I had to hit a driver and it still didn't reach the wind
was so strong. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Okay. Then
the afternoon, second day, we're playing Pacific Dunes. Pacific Dunes in the
afternoon is going to be a test. It's the shortest force a property,
but it's what I feel like. It's one of the Trigg air course.
It was the least the one that benches me the most. It's a Tom
Dipe design, second course to be built in two thousand and one, meant
to be and look and feel very rugged. You know, you're not gonna
see a bunker that that feels like it was shaped by man. As much
as it feels like, it's probably more shaped by nature, so it's it's
got a very natural kind of rugged look and feel to it. The greens
are the smallest on property, which is why I feel like in the afternoon
on Pacific brought me one of the tougher tests, just because there's a smaller
target to play from and when the wind whips up, it's definitely a stern
test, even though it's the shortest of all courses. And then we finish
up on the Wednesday late morning, we're playing a Sheep Ranch, which I'm
not familiar with at all. Yeah, Yeah, So sheep Branch has a
long history. There's you know, it opened as an official eighteen hole routing
and that's a part of a resort back in twenty twenty. But even prior
to that, back in two thousand and one, when Pacific opened, Dope
and his construction team had gone over to where the Sheep Ranch property was and
it had designed thirteen different green sites, and the Sheep Ranch for many,
many years is this mysterious kind of golf landscape where if you knew who to
ask and you knew how to get onto it, you could talk to them
the caretaker of the property, and you could get out there and you could
play, but there was no official routing, and you just kind of played
it from wherever you teed off from to whichever green you wanted to play.
And there was just one group that was out there every day, mister Kaiser
and then his initial um, you know, college roommate and also a business
partner in the recycled green paper industry, Phil Freeman, owned that property with
him fifty fifty and Phil and mister Kaiser, you know, back in two
thousand, say, late twenty eighteen, early twenty nineteen, decided it's like,
okay, it's time to formalize the Sheep Ranch as you know, official
eighteen old routing. Let's make it open to the public. Let's make it
a part of the resort experience that people can experience that he's a property.
Because there's a there's a spot it's called five mile point when you play the
Sheep Ranch, which is five miles from the mouth of the Coquille River,
which you'd be able to stand off five mile point and look all the way
down the coast to the south to the town abandoned and so basically a two
hundred and seventy degree view of looking north and south down the ocean. It's
just an absolutely iconic spot. There's two greens that play into that area that
are connected to both part threes, the third in the sixteen pole. And
yeah, as far as visuals of seeing the ocean and just be smacked in
the face by it, you know, there's ocean views on all eighteen holes
of the Sheep Ranch, and then nine of the green sites are right on
the cliffs. So you know, if you're coming here to get the ocean
views, you're going to play the Sheep Ranch. That's as good as it
gets. Wow, wow, amazing, And playing there in late morning early
afternoon is gonna you know, it's just got to kind of count for the
weather. No matter what it's, it's it's certainly one of the windier spots
um you know, compared to seeing it to trails. You yeah, we're
apples and oranges there, but yeah, yeah, it's it's it's out there,
you know, it's right out there kind of in five mile point.
My strongest memory, yeah, my strongest memory of ten years ago was it
felt like for four hours straight there were two leaf blowers sitting on my shoulders
pointing right into my ears on either side and just blowing a full blasts.
It's like all I could remember is the sound of the wind NonStop. So
I've been just trying to psych myself up for this. Um. You mentioned
mister Kaiser the owner, and Recycled Paper Products was his company. My brother
who's a tennis player, not a golfer, but he worked for He was
a salesman for Recycled Paper Products years ago, amazing ago. So wow.
Yeah, so that connection is there. Um, So what's the future of
the property and are there more courses coming, more practice facilities? What's going
on there? Yeah? So right now, we're currently under construction for the
new Part three course, which is again just just souf abandoned preserve. Still
finalizing a name there, but that should The seating for it is going to
start sometime this week, and then we'll be moving towards potentially preview play preview
play rounds later on this fall for a short window and then an official brand
opening at some point next year. You know, it'll be a growing time
period. But the team of broad Whitman, Dave Axelin, and Keith Cutton
are what kind of called my two Black Design Team, so they're going to
be the architects designing the course. Than just absolute pleasure to work with so
far. And they formalized their partnership back with the Nest at Cabot Cape Britain.
And they have a long, long history of building amazing golf courses and
being part of some tight circles that include the likes of Pete Die and the
Core and Crunchhall team and um, they've been around the Black They're they're quite
seasoned. M. Dave Axellent worked on sand Hills and um, yeah and
keep this, you know, I've been all over around. They're they're based
out of Canada, so I think a lot of people up and up in
Canada really resonate with the name. And we're looking forward to to help and
share, you know, the great work that they can do. When we
open up that golf course next year, um, Ghostry Grill, you know,
that's another brand new amenity as well. And then I think when we
have some more room for people to spread out in the sense of a more
golf which feels crazy to say, but you know, with five golf courses
and a thirteen whole part three course, and then a nineteen whole party three
course, we'll have the opportunity to spread people out a little bit more.
And the same thing with building the largest food and beverage oulet on property.
When the opportunity to spread people out a little bit more, and you'll need
more rooms, and then we'll probably be building some more rooms. So that
will be the next transition towards making sure that we continue to maintain the experience
that people have come to love for the past twenty five years, abandoned while
still growing responsibly and making sure that you know, people are coming here and
playing quick round of golf and enjoying it for what it's always been. When
I was there last, I have this vague recollection that there was construction going
on on an eighteen whole putting course. It did that ever happen? It
did happen. Yeah, that's just so much to talk about around here.
It's sometimes it's just easy to forget something. But that's called the pabole Lunchabole,
which is just off the patio of the Pacific Rill So it m you've
got the putting green for Pacific Dunes and the extension of what now is the
punch bowls a two and a half acre putting green and every afternoon we set
up a eighteen whole routing that you can put around. Each day the routing
changes and it's a it's a fun place to kind of go and settle a
bet or you know, if you've got some time to kill before dinner reservations,
you can go over there. There's a bar call the tap in,
which is connected right there to it each tea for all the holes that are
designed to have a little drink stand. So it's a it's a very casual,
fun spot that usually gets people putting a holler and about making a long
put awesome. Yeah, well, I was going to ask about the practice
facility, but you know what, I think we're gonna I'll talk about that
with Kevin and when we come back. But I appreciate you hanging out,
and I appreciate the audience hanging out because we got a lot more to come,
because we're going to talk to the director of instruction, Kevin Phillips,
right after we take one more break. Michael, it was great to talk
to you. I'll look forward to seeing you this week. Leisure. We'll
see you soon. Fred. Welcome to the Golf Smart Podcast. Kevin,
Hey, I appreciate you having me on here. Fred looking forward to it,
Thank you very much. So we just had a great conversation with Michael
getting a background Abandoned Dunes and getting information about the courses, about the property,
about the accommodations, the history of it. But let's now that we
have the director of instruction for the golf course. Congratulations on that gig.
Thank you. I appreciate. We arrive on Sunday, late Sunday afternoon and
we've signed up to do the Links Lessons clinic with you. Yeah, tell
me about that. What is the Links Lessons Clinic? So what we try
to do is essentially the Links Lessons have been going on for quite a while.
Actor instruction, Grant Rogers Um from day one. Who you were?
You were familiar with UM? So he started it actually interviewed him. Yeah,
yeah, he started a while back. I think it's a it's a
great UM feature for the resort. On kind of like what we've talked about
before is how how can you play better golf at at Bannon Dunes? How
can you play better golf at a golf trip that you've been you know,
chomping at the bit waiting for for for eighteen months. So really what we
try to do is put together scenarios of situations on the golf course that not
a lot of people or golfers UH might be in on a day to day
basis on other parts of the country. So the three topics that that we
cover UM, you know, for for a link specific style golf course is
um you know, greenside bunker shots, which I think are very important at
Bannon Dunes because having the soft sandy soil there's a lot of sand. You've
been here before, UM, and putting themselves in scenarios of what they might
find on our golf course. So greenside bunker shots, which I think are
very important. One thing that I always tell tell groups whenever they leave as
well is you know, dedicate some time, dedicate some time there's been five
ten minutes on on on bunker play green side bunker play, because there might
be a time on the on the golf course, whether it's here, whether
it's somewhere else where you might end up in a bunker. And trying to
simplify that approach to where you can have some confidence of seeing your ball in
a bunker and feel good about possibly walking away with not as big as number
UM. And then the second station we kind of cover that thirty five to
fifty yard UM you know, uneven lie tight lie, firm turf, kind
of bump and run chip shot UM, you know, into a you know,
an undulated green or anything like that. Talking about percentages and we'll go
more into that. And then number three we talk about long lag putting and
giving some putting tips. We have some of the largest green complexes in North
America UM as you may know Old McDonald our golf course. Old McDonald's actually
combined u square footage and square acres is the largest green complex UM in North
America. So those three areas I have found that it's it's very good to
focus on because it can be a position that you may end up on on
one of our golf courses. UM. And like I mentioned, I kind
of go over you know an an eighteen hole round of golf. You know,
it is one it can be a long round. And when we think
of eighteen holes, we think of playing and hitting our best shots and playing
the best golf for eighteen holes, and realistically out here is we're not going
to have a perfectly flat lie, there's not going to be any wind,
there's there's going to be uneven lies. It's not necessarily target golf out here.
So we try to stress being creative with your golf bag to essentially achieve
a better result or a higher percentage shot selection, a higher percentage club selection.
And it's more it's more about, you know, controlling the golf ball
directionally out here. It's not necessarily about trying to get the golf ball up
in the air to a certain distance of land by the golf hole. Is
you can you can get creative with your golf bag to think more directionally on
certain golf holes or situations that you might find yourself in where you don't have
a one hundred yard wedge in from a flatline with no wind, and thinking
more about target golf. So we try to stretch direction and thought processes on
how we can maneuver the golf ball in a more efficient way, a higher
percentage of way around our golf courses. Um So try to focus on those
three areas. I mean, there's always going to be a time to focus
on swea mechanics, trying to get better hit the ball, further hit the
ball, straighter um and if we can do that a higher majority time of
through the golf round, if we can, if we can hit the ball
better for let's say nine of eighteen holes on a golf course, where we
hit a fairway, we hit a green, But then what do we do
with those other nine of eighteen holes where we end up in situations that might
not be so favorable. And that's what we really try to stress is how
we can be creative with our golf bag when the elements aren't aren't so favorable.
And I think that helps a lot of people one shoot better scores.
And that's ultimately what we want. We wanted to play their best golf and
have a memorable trip and break a benchmark that they've never broken before at one
of our golf courses. I mean, there's nothing like going home until telling
your friends, you know, I just I just broke eighty for the first
time, or just broke eighty five for the first time, without necessarily feeling
like you just figured out the perfect golf swing. It's about maneuvering the golf
ball around our resort style golf courses in a much more efficient and higher percentage
way, and it seems to resonate a lot with a lot of people for
the first time. There's a lot of people guests that have come here.
They keep coming back every single year, so they kind of get a better
understanding. But especially when guys have only been here, you know, one
or two times, may have not have played all five golf courses, and
it can be their first trip and not necessarily understanding you know, what link
style golf is to them, and so we try to help resonate that with
allowing them to be creative with their golf back to essentially shoot lower scores,
and that's ultimately what we want. You've used the word creative a lot,
Yeah, just in your first answer. Yeah, And I've I've recently come
to this realization about how, especially on the short game, creativity really comes
into play. And that means practicing shots that you don't always do. How
you know, like you could take a full swing seven iron and maybe hit
it one hundred and fifty yards, but if you have to hit it under
a tree, right, you have to keep the ball low. How far
do you hit it that way? Right? Or if you've got a shot
that's you're only twenty five thirty yards off the green and the flags in the
back, you don't want to try to do pinseeking on that. And you
know, maybe if if in fact the flags in the back, and you
don't necessarily want to fly it and try to get it to stop because most
of us can't do that. So it's how much can you hit it low
and let it get to the front of the green and roll out right right?
Yeah, it's you know, again, after doing these interviews now for
eighteen years, there's so many nuances that I'm just starting to understand and discover.
Why do you say there's no target golf going on? Abandoned dudes?
Well, to me, um, you know, thinking about target golf,
and one of the things that I stress and a lot of our group clinics
is, you know, we're so in as players were so infatuated by the
distance that the golf ball goes in the air. You know, if you
if you're if your pitching wedge goes one hundred and thirty yards and you're playing
with a severe wind and your ball's on a down slope where it's an uneven
lie, that pitching wedge probably isn't going to go the full one hundred and
thirty yards, So taking a look at everything that can essentially affect a golf
shot, which could be the lie, your stance, the wind, all
those things play a factor in the result of the golf shot. And so
to me, and whenever I focus on on, you know, being more
directional, how do you keep the ball in control whenever there is wind,
when there's uneven fairways? And that's what I like to focus on more.
And one one thing that always comes up in every single group clinic that I
do, And like I mentioned the three stations, you know, we only
go back to let's say forty five to fifty yards, and you know that
I get a lot of questions a lot of time, how do you how
do you play when when whenever there's a lot of wind, And I say,
it's not it's not just not just the wind out here, right,
There's a lot to do with the with the uneven lies. And for me,
I always say is as players, we tend to lean towards trying to
overpower the wind. And and one scenario that that I like to use,
and I'll go into this a little bit more, but let's let's just say,
you know, use your range finder and you know it's one hundred,
it's one hundred yards, and you think it's playing one twenty five or one
thirty, right it's into the wind. We naturally have that yardage noted to
a certain club and and we try to get that full distance out of that
club. So if it's one hundred playing one thirty, and your pitching wedge
goes one hundred and thirty yards, we try to get that full one hundred
and thirty yards of carry of the golf ball in the air that distance while
also trying to keep it low into the wind, while trying to control it.
We're trying to get the full one hundred and thirty yards out of that
club while also changing let's say, if it's on a downslope or the balls
below your feet, it's a very difficult golf shower. Most likely we're not
going to get that full one hundred and thirty yards and that ball is in
the air being affected by the wind. Much more so to me, whenever
I'm playing with with a lot of wind, or when players are playing a
lot of wind, that tend to have more success is focusing more on the
direction of the golf ball out here right, So to me, that that's
where I focus on more is in direction, and I tell people is you
know, club up and less right. I mean, when it's breezy,
swing easy. We hear that term a lot, and I felt like that
has helped a lot a lot of players because I've seen, you know,
a lot of really well struck golf balls end up in fairly bad areas because
we're trying to get that full distance out of that club based on how far
away we are from the flag and it's up in the air for a longer
amount of time, where we can take a little bit more club, which
ultimately that decreases the loft. All right, we take let's say a pitching
layers. Maybe let's take an eight iron that's already decreasing you know, six
to seven degrees of loft, and that's automatically keeping it low or swinging it
easier where we're not having a steep angle of attack. That's decreasing spin.
That's how we help control the golf ball into the wind. Where amateurs can
struggle of flighting a golf ball into the wind because we tend to think we
have to put it in the back of our stance and hit it down and
close the club face. Well, when we use some of those high lofted
clubs, when we get within a hundred yards, all that that's doing is
creating more spin and allowing the golf ball to be affected by the wind a
little bit more. So I try to lean towards the realization of the golf
ball the distance it travels in the air, and I think that has helped
a lot of players, especially when it's downwind. When it's into the wind,
crosswind might be a little bit a little bit different, but try to
overpower the wind and take downwind. For an example, if it's one hundred
and thirty yard shot, playing a hundred, what you think you know,
it's a downwind. It's adding an extra extra thirty yards. So we try
to take our one hundred yard golf club mentally thinking about trying to hit it
one hundred and thirty yards or now everything starts to come out of sync where
we try to hit it a little bit harder and it gets caught up into
the wind and might be not as an effective golf shot. So trying to
control the direction more with a little bit more club and ultimately keeping that ball
low where I mean you've been here before, where there's there's a select few
areas around our green complexes to where we're not necessarily forced to get that ball
up in the air with trajectory and landed on the green. You can get
away with taking more club swinging easier, controlling that trajectory, landing it in
a much safer area. And I talk a lot. I'm a big percentage
guy, so I talk a lot about percentages in our group clinics. And
directionally, you'll have more success out abandoned dunes than you will of hitting a
perfect golf shot to get to travel the distance that we are so used to
our clubs going. Everybody knows their their clubs. We have, you know,
on average, twelve to thirteen clubs aside from our putter. We know
that those distances of those clubs that we hit right, I mean, whether
we have a graph or mentally, we know the distance of those clubs.
I feel like that gets that gets caught up a lot out here to where
we might not have as much success because all of those factors take place in
affecting the result of the golf shot. Interesting, listen, we're gonna take
a time out. We'll be back after a couple of words from our sponsors.
Kevin, you talked about the green complex is being big, very big.
So are we going to see there's possibilities that we're going to be seeing
puts of well over one hundred feet many times, or and then we're also
because it's link style of golf, are we going to be putting from off
the green as well? Yeah? Well, and again, you know,
every single golf shot, let's say within fifty yards around here at the resort
Um can allow us to be creative with the golf ball based on everything from
where the golf ball is lying to everything that's in between between the golf ball
and I do get asked that question a lot. You know, when when
should I put it off of the green? And to me that the two
things that play a factor into putting the golf ball in the green or off
of the green is one the distance. And you know, if it's seventy
eighty yards, you know maybe a putter might not be as effective because it's
longing the golf ball to much much lower velocity then let's say a seven iron.
But if you have things in front of you or in between the golf
ball and the hole that can't affect it. If there's a lot of contours
and undulations, you have to take all of those into consideration because the ball
is on the ground much longer. So to me as I look at everything
from from where my golf ball is lying to everything that is in front of
me to get to the golf ball, and depending on that will decide on
what club choice. I essentially try to use Old McDonald Old McDonald's. You
can have, you know, one hundred hundred and twenty foot putter, you
can be be off of the green, but if there's nothing in front of
you that's going to ultimately affect the golf ball. Differently, if there's you
know, slopes or contours on the left and it goes left and it goes
right, you have to take all of those into consideration. So trying to
find a much flatter landing spot to where the golf ball is only going to
be affected by by one thing. So there's the there's the club selection on
what you decide to use. If you decide to use a little bit of
a lower lofted golf club rather than a higher off to golf club of trying
to get it over some some landing spots without necessarily thinking about again, like
I mentioned of that golf ball getting on the ground close to the hole to
you know, to stop and spin it to the target golf mentality. So
to me, that has been been very successful and just analyzing everything from where
the golf ball is at and everything that's in between you and the golf hole.
And if there's nothing in front of you and you only have one thing
that's going to affect that golf ball, then by all means putt it.
But let's say you have maybe a little undulation and maybe one on the left,
you might want to choose something like a pitching ledge or or a gap
wedge or a nine iron that maybe give it a little bit a loft,
but then also that run to where it's going to hit a spot in that
area maybe before the green were only one thing is going to affect that golf
ball, and it's just helping simplify everything, and that's where most success comes
from. Out Here, Did you grow up playing links golf? Never?
Oh? So where did you grow up? So? I grew up in
in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Essentially I was born in LA but my majority of
my childhood is spent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I've spent some time in
Northeast New Jersey, New York City area, um down in the Pebble Beach
area, and then I've been at Bandoned Dunes for for about four years and
being a full time instructor. This is is really opened up, you know,
not only the love for the game. I mean again, you can
you can hit every single golf club from from the same yard, you can
be be creative. Um, but I mean there's no other golf like it.
I mean it is just extremely extremely I'm appreciative, and it's so much
fun because every single round of golf can can be different out here. Um,
you know, with five golf courses that all share a little bit of
similarities but all have their distinctiveness as well, um to where every single golf
shot can require something different. And that's really what It's just kind of you
know, gave me the love for the game again, and it's just it's
so much fun to be able to hit different golf shots and essentially achieve you
know the same thing, right, I mean what goes down on the scorecard.
So what is it that Bandoned Dunes has taught you about how to play
golf and and I put playing golf and hitting golf balls in two separate categories.
Yeah, exactly, yep. So what is it about bandon Dunes.
It's affected your game and impacted the way you look at the game well,
you know, to me, um, you know kind of to golf.
What we just talked about is allowing yourself to be creative, to think about
every every golf shot having a short term memory to where you know, we
might we're not going to hit perfect golf shots throughout an eighteen whole whole whole
round. If we do, great, but there are going to be some
rounds where where we don't. And to me, it has allowed me to
one, I mean think, think smarter, think, uh, you know,
more about a higher percentage shot selection and club selection and kind of taking
away like I mentioned, is how how far our golf club is gonna our
golf ball is going to travel in the air off of a certain golf club
and it's resonated over to you know, to other parts of the country when
I when I go play I mean link style golf again is a lot you
know, being creative when it when it comes to short game, it's not
always about you know, using a wedge and getting it to go, you
know, close to the whole um. And I ask people, it's funny,
is you know one question I always ask in our group planks, is
you know what's the largest yardage gap difference between two consecutive clubs in the golf
bag. You know, say, for example, you're nine iron goes one
hundred and forty yards or eight iron goes one hundred and fifty five yards.
We know that there's a ten fifteen yard gap where those distances. We have
an idea of how far that golf club is going to travel. And I
tell you, you know, the largest yardage gap difference between two consecutive clubs
is going to be from our our shortest distance golf club, our our sixty
fifty eight fifty six fifty four degree wedges all the way down to let's say
fifteen yards or a putter. I mean there's a there's a sixty yard gap
on average where you know, our our lowest distance wedge travels let's say seventy
five to ninety five yards. That's a pretty good distance of a lot of
people that end up in those situations. You lay up on a part five,
You you hit a different club off of a t on a short part
four end up in around ninety to seventy yards. We have a club that
goes that distance, but then what do we have from let's say seventy five
to fifteen yards? And a lot of players out here tend to use the
clubs that go the shortest distance, the closer that they get to the whole.
Now, all of those things play a factor, and you know now
that that contact has to become much more precise. You hear the term I
didn't have a lot of feel around the greens today. Let's say from forty
fifty yards in didn't have a lot of feel around the greens today. Most
likely it comes from us as players trying to feel one club to travel different
distances that we might not practice a lot, especially for for amateurs. How
do you lower your index? You know? And they say lower your index
by you know, hitting better golf shots through an eighteen whole round of golf.
It's about managing your your miss it's managing your misses. You here that
term when we may end up in some in between yardages and you've been here
before, right, I mean you understand our golf courses aren't long on the
scorecard, and you look at a lot of three hundred and forty par fours,
you look at a lot of four hundred and sixty part fives to where
you know an avid golfer that looks short on the scorecards. Where then we
end up in some of those in between yardages because we try to overpower the
golf course. All right, we have a four hundred and sixty yard yard
par five, and if you remember Pacific Pacific Dunes whole number three, I
use it as an example all the time. Pacific Dunes whole number three is
a fairly short part five where it's only about four hundred and sixty four hundred
and seventy yards, and we try to get the balls close to the green
as possible because we think the closer we get, the better our score is
going to be. Where when we get closer to that green, it's elevated
about twenty twenty five feet with a bunker that you can disappear in, and
large numbers can come from getting closer to the whole. So being able to
manage each golf hole separately, manage each golf shot separately, to think about
how we can essentially achieve a golf shot to be on the green a higher
percentage of the time. And another scenario that I use is, you know,
imagine yourself given five chances to get a golf ball on the green,
what what club selection, what shot selection, what direction can you use to
where you feel very confident that all five of those golf balls are on the
green. And it's something that we do and a lot of our group clinics
is we'll set up targets at you know, thirty five, fifty sixty five
yards all right, there is where we start to to gain strokes, right,
there's the statistic strokes gained. And we set up all five golf balls
on different lies, balling down slope below your feet, up slope, all
those all those different things, and players will tend to use one club to
hit all five of those golf balls. And the ones that are a flat
or lie where there's not a whole lot of wind and you're a fairly good
wedge player, we might hit you know, three or five golf balls in
a close proximity let's just say ten, fifteen, twenty feet where it's on
the green. But then I focus on the dispersion and the difference between those
two of five, the one that we might scroll over the green or we
might chunk off of a tight, tight line end up ten fifteen yards a
green. Focus on that, that dispersion, and then you know, I'll
take myself and some other instructors and we'll use a different golf club for every
single golf shot. You know, well, we'll use a wedge. If
it's a flat lie, we'll use a pitching wedge, or a nine iron
if it's you know, on a down slope, or if the balls below
your feet, we might we might put it. And out of five golf
balls, you tend to notice that the different club selections with each golf shot,
the dispersion of those five golf balls are now much closer in proximity than
they're five. Even though three or five might be close, but all out
of all five, all five of ours would tend to be a little bit
closer proximity. To me, that is a a high percentage shot selection and
club club selection is give yourself five chances to get the golf ball on the
green. What choices can you make to feel confident that you can get all
five golf balls on the green. And again there's no commentator saying, you
know, Kevin Phillips has a nine iron from forty five yards all right,
once it gets on the green, that's achieving a high percentage shot. And
that's where where Links Golf has really allowed me to one fall into my coaching
philosophy of of golfing smarter and thinking about higher percentages. Right. I mean,
I love that that mentality and success comes from shooting lower scores, not
necessarily hitting the perfect nine iron up in the air. And I've seen a
lot of well struck golf balls end up in fairly low percentage areas on the
green or off the green, and I've seen a lot of not so well
struck golf balls end up in higher percentage areas based on the direction and you
know the club selection. Wow. Well, you mentioned before about the greenside
bunkers have soft sand. What about your fairway bunkers. So fairway bunkers out
here, I mean, the the only difference between the sand that's on the
golf course and the sand that's on the other side of the courses on the
beaches. The sand just gets raked every day. That was what was naturally
there so it's a very soft and beach like sand and greenside bunkers especially is
difficult. But fairway bunkers always tell people is you know, we tend to
try to pick it clean because we feel how soft the sand is. We
don't want the clubhead to dig into the sand. Or if we hit you
know, a centimeter behind the golf ball, I have a fairway bunkers,
ball's not going to travel as well. And again it goes into I tell
people not to focus on the result of how far we were trying to hit
the golf ball in the air. Is focusing on contact a little bit more?
So maybe we're really focusing on hitting you know, the sand in front
of the golf ball, almost taking as to a tight live fairway shot.
Is you know, we always should it ball first, ground second. Same
thing goes out of the fairway bunkers out here. Maybe we take a little
bit more club maybe we ground our feet a little bit more and focus solely
on the contact of ball first and sand second, where we don't have to
pick it clean because we're trying to get the full yardage out of let's say
our one hundred and fifty yard golf club we have one hundred and fifty yard
fairway shot in your eight iron goes one hundred and fifty yards. We're thinking
about getting that full distance out of that golf ball by making perfect contact and
picking it clean. So where to me is maybe take a little bit more
club, focusing more on the contact, maybe not swinging as hard, and
that's what's going to help us control the golf ball a little bit more and
shrink in that dispersion of a possible miss hits. Where now, if you
focus on contact, that golf ball is going to one be hit solid and
it's already a little bit lower lofted, it's going to be controlled into the
wind a little bit more. Typically, it's going to end up in a
fairly better position than solely being stuck on the one club that we feel that
goes that that distance trying to hit it out of a fairway bunker. M
you're gonna take another time out. I want to start breaking down each course
when we come back, Kevin, are there any holes on any of the
five golf courses where the wind is at your back? Are you always hitting
into the wind on these courses? You know it varies throughout the time,
of year, um, through the summer wind and the winter wind. Um.
You know, every golf course has its its distinctions, but also a
lot of similarities. Um. You know, Pacific Dunes, for for example,
it was designed based off of a north and south wind and and and
and during during the summer, when the wind's coming out out of the north,
the first three holes played dead into the wind. Then the next three
hole play played down when it's going north and south. So the golf course
changes throughout the year based off off of the wind and what holes become become
more difficult. Um. You know, it's it's very seldom to where the
wind is going to be the same throughout the entire golf course. UM.
On every single golf course. I mean ultimately they're all built a little bit
north and south with with some holes that are going east, east and west,
you know, from the coastline to the coastline. Um. But depending
on the time of year, the golf courses can can change drastically with just
based on what direction the wind is coming from. And that's the way the
golf courses were designed. And so it's so much fun to play golf year
throughout the year because it's it's not hitting the same golf shots every single time.
The golf hole is never going to play the same every single time.
Part of the year, fairway bunker might be in play off of the team,
wherein then another time of year might it might not be. So it's
allowing again, every single golf shot to be different based on every single,
every single golf round. What advice would you give to the amateur golfer on
how to read the flag right? How to read that? You know,
you'll you'll see that the flag is blowing in the wind? Is it is
it, you know, just limp? Is it just kind of flopping occasionally?
Or is it stiff? Right? I mean, you've got you've got
to be able. There's not a lot of ways to read what the wind
is doing, except, you know, not legal ways at least you know.
I once heard that's like caddies were going, well, why do you
think we smoke? It really tells you if the smoke can tell you not
only what directions going, but if it's swirling and if it's you know,
quick or not. So, how do you read and this is for any
golf course anywhere when you get wind coming in, how do you read the
flag to say, Okay, I need to go two clubs up on this,
or I need to go three clubs up on this. You know,
I would say a good rule of thumb for me trying to decide um a
club selection based on the wind is whatever your initial reaction is based on on
the yardage and how many clubs you think that it's going to be in the
wind is always take one extra. To me, it has always ended up
in a better result of taking one extra, because what just club up,
always always always club up. Maybe too, yeah, but if you're going
into it, and like I have a memory of and I mentioned this earlier,
but I have a memory of a part of three that was one hundred
and sixty yards and I took out my driver and I still didn't reach the
whole right. There are times of the year that that that that may happen.
There are times of the year that that that may happen where there's just
a substantial amount of wind to where you can't take enough club, you can't
hit it over the green. And and that's what I always say, is
just just just take whatever whatever your initial thought is and and take extra club.
And if you think it's a two club win. If you think it's
you know, one hundred and twenty yards playing one hundred and fifty, take
your one hundred sixty one hundred and sixty five yard club or take your one
hundred and seventy yard club and commit to a controlled golf swing. And that's
where I feel like playing better in the wind is we tend to try to
overpower it. Let the club do that for us. The clubs are automatic
or manufacturer and designed to launch the ball further distance wise. So take a
little bit extra club and really commit to focusing on a controlled golf swing and
automatically do I ahead, ahead, I'm sorry, I mean automatically. By
taking more club, is one going to decrease the loft of the trajectory and
the number two, swinging more controlled is going to shallow out the angle of
attack to where it's not creating as much spin when the golf ball gets into
the air, which is going to cause it to be less affected. So
always always go more out here, and it is going to achieve a better
result a higher percentage of the time. Okay, so you club up take
more than you think, but I'm not sure that you've answered my question on
how do you read the flags? I mean, do you use the flags
to tell you what how much to clob up to a point I do?
I mean, there's not a whole lot of swirling winds out here where you
can throw grass up on the tea box and a blow one way and you're
like, well the flag's doing that. Um, you know, I base
it off of uh, you know times if you come here during the summer,
the wind's going to be blowing in from from the north and it's going
to affect let's say, half half of the golf course. Is when I
tell you I read reading the flag is commit to where you think the wind
is coming from. One holes that have faced that same direction. So again
the holes, a lot of holes are built north and south, and the
holes that are playing into the wind, regardless of if the wind or if
the flag maybe flowing a little bit left or maybe flowing a little bit right,
it's it's still essentially blowing into you or vice versa if you're playing holes
holes down wind. So if you're reading the flag to me, whenever I'm
reading reading a flag, is I think about the direction of the golf hole
and where the wind has been blowing throughout throughout the round, and then commit
to that decision that if that hole is facing north and three holes ago you
were playing another hole that was facing north in a similar direction, is commit
to that decision of what you think that that the wind is doing. Very
rarely do we get a swirling wind. There might be a few occasions on
our Band and Trails golf course, which is kind of tucked back into the
trees a little bit to where it might be a little bit difficult to judge
the wind. But being able to understand that where the wind is coming from,
once the ball gets into the air, that's where it's going to be
affected. So it might be a little different on the tea box where you
throw grass up, but then the flag might be doing a little bit differently.
But based on the wind direction throughout your golf round, is commit to
that because that's what's going to affect the golf ball once it gets in of
the air. So I do look at the flag to answer your question,
But when I'm looking at a flag, I'm looking at the direction of the
golf hole and where the wind has been blowing from throughout the course of the
round, and that has helped me gauge the wind a little bit more successfully
than basing it off of each individual golf shot out here. M fascinating.
Okay, um all right, let's let's pick on each course for a bid
here. Uh okay, morning round Bandoned Dunes. Our first round is morning
Bandoned Dunes. What's unique about this golf course? What's special about this golf
course? You know? But by no go walking into it? Yeah,
you know, band into me the original? Um, you know, it
kind of checks off all the boxes for for all the resort golf courses.
Um. It has um some strategicy style golf holes, it has some gettable
part fives, it has some quirky part fours, it has um, you
know, some some dark part threes. Um. So bandon kind of checks
off all all of those boxes to where, again, every single golf hole
is going to be different. Um for each nine there's no nine holes out
here that are very very similar. Um. They all they all share some
characteristics, but all very distinct in their own cells as well. Um.
So Banded Dunes early in the morning is is you know, being able to
understand that that every hole can can be different and that's allowed you know,
again, allowing us to be creative with essentially how we get the golf ball,
uh, you know on the green or close to the whole band you
know Bandon Dunes who whole number one, if you remember correctly, it's a
shorter part four where you don't have to hit driver off of the tea box.
There's a bunker that's about two hundred and forty yards out to a green
that's elevated and a dog leg right and you know the next couples you've got
a driver hole. So every single golf hole can can be different starting from
the tea box. And you know, if you haven't been here before,
is always think of the safer play. You know, not necessarily what you
look at on the plaque on the on the tea box of that distance is
thinking the safer play, the higher percentage golf shot starting from the tea box
and then reloading on the next hole and a very short term memory. So
analyzing every single golf hole course management, hole by whole management, and Bannon
Dunes checks off all of those boxes to where they have every single golf hole
through an eighteen whole round of golf is a different outcome, a different game,
A different starting point to where you can you can play each golf hole
to your advantage and whatever whatever club you feel confident in hitting based on the
makeup of the golf hole, and um, you know, we might have
some golf holes that fit into into our confident part of our game. You
know, if we like hitting our our hybrid a lot. You know,
a lot of players hit hybrids off the tea out here because it's not very
long. It could be their best club is go go to that club.
You're not gonna be penalized for being a little bit further back in distance.
But if you're you're in play and you're in the fairway, you're ultimately in
a better position to achieve a lower score on that golf hole. Do you
recommend being, especially if you're not familiar with the choruses, to be a
little more conservative your play and not be aggressive. Yeah, I would say
the more conservative conservative that you can be, and the more control you have
over the golf ball, the better the outcome will be at the end of
eighteen holes. And what about trusting your caddies as far as after they see
you hit three balls, they're like, okay, I know your game inside
now I tell people all the time, trust your caddies are We have some
of the best caddies in the country. I mean we have four hundred caddies
during the summer, some that have been here since day one. They've seen
thousands and thousands of golf shots and we have a very very well experienced caddy
yard. Always trust your caddy and they are very good about I mean they
caddy for different different groups and different players that are coming in every single day,
and they're very good about picking up on on your strengths and on your
weaknesses. And they they go into you know, they they kind of bounce
off of the idea of of golfing smarter and thinking about a better outcome that
may not necessarily be um, a shot that you are comfortable with, right.
I mean, once we get closer to the hall, I hear that
the courses can't can't get very tough. So I always say, trust your
caddy. They they've seen a lot of golf balls roll around those golf courses.
How many tea boxes are there? Uh so we have some combo teas
as well. Um, but five tea boxes essentially going from the back tees
to our our green teas to the forward tease UM to then are what we
would call our not our junior teas, but our intermediate teas. And then
we do have tea boxes that are a little bit more forward for for beginners.
But then we also have some some cobo as well, you know,
like a Blue Wide or a Green Gold or things like that. UM.
I think there's seven total T box combinations that you can you can play out
here with different course loption ratings. I can't imagine you get a lot of
beginners going out there. You know, since the kind of the outbreak of
golf after COVID, I mean, we've seen a larger variety of golfers come
out here than I think that we ever have before. You know, we've
seen you know, right now we're in our Junior band and East the program
to where a paying adult if you bring a junior that's under the age of
twenty two I believe, gets gets around for free. UM. So we've
seen a lot of fathers, sons, mother daughters. UM. We've seen
spouses walk along the golf courses now because it was the only thing to do
outside essentially, so ever since the outbreak, we've seen a large variety of
golfers to where every single level of golfer can't can't enjoy the golf courses out
here, and so we've we've seen a lot. We do see some beginners,
some advance obviously with the us A partnership and a lot of our USCA
tournaments, we see some more advanced golfers. But we crossed the spectrum.
We see every single level of golfer. We got four more courses to cover,
but we're gonna take another time out and we'll do it when we come
back. This week on Golf Smarter and Mulligans is our final entry into our
tribute to doctor Glenn Alba, who passed away at the age of ninety one
in February twenty twenty three. This sixth episode, originally published as numbers seven
hundred and forty eight of Golf Smarter in July of twenty twenty, was our
final conversation with Glenn before his health deteriorated. But that doesn't mean he still
wasn't sharp. Here we learn about his last book, called The Clutch Golfer
Formula, how to hit exactly the shot you want, precisely when you need
it. Let's talk about what you call in the book a failsafe preshot routine.
The one we offer in Clutch is laflow fires. So he stayed behind
the ball. And you say walk, I mean you walk into the strategy
and it's just submitted to that SIT's your game. Then you walk in the
same number, step and set up and you loaded lading. It means that
you load in the target, You load in the swing that matches what you
see, and then you're far away. Those words have meaning, see feel,
trust, think box, playbox, any words you use in a routine
that connects to what you want to feel. So the routine is a start
system and you don't have to be a thirteen point two to have a routine.
That's Golf Smarter Mulligan's episode two hundred and fourteen, our last of six
episodes featuring a great mental game coach whom we recently lost, but one is
legacy to live on Doctor Glenn Alba, author, coach and pioneering sports psychologists.
Check out our show notes or the blog posts that Golf's arter dot com
to learn more about Glenn, how to get either of his books, and
information about donations in his memory. Please subscribe for free to both of our
golf podcast, Golf Smarter, published every Tuesday, and our sister podcast that
revisits the best of Golf Smarter, called Golf Smarter Mulligans, being released every
Friday from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Audible or wherever you're
listening right now. Our second round is going to be in the afternoon,
and that's going to be Bandoned Trails on our first full day. So we're
playing thirty six on Monday, We're playing thirty six on Tuesday, and eighteen
on Wednesday. And so Bandoned Trails. What do I need to know?
What is unique about this Bandoned Trails? I mean, that's a that's a
golf course that I can play every single day. I mean, it's just
a tremendous design. It's a whole lot of fun. It's it's the only
golf course where you can get penalized off of the tee box on every single
golf hole. It's the only one that goes kind of fun. You find
that's fun well, it makes well and it makes you concentrate more of of
standing on a te box and managing that whole individually. Of you know,
it's not just it's not open it's not. I mean, it still has
a lot of links golf characteristics, but it's not just you know, hitting
your driver as far as you can and being able to spray it left or
right of the fairway. Um. So the focus on bandon trails is starting
from the tee box. If you can be in more fairways on bandon trails,
you will have more success and more confidence of playing that golf course.
And again that that's controlling the golf ball, maybe playing a little bit more
conservative where it's not going to penalize you as much of being a little bit
you know, further away from the golf the green are being a little bit
shorter distance off of the tea. But if you're in the fairway, you
can still play very well round of golf out there rather than losing a golf
you know, losing three or four golf balls off of the tea because there
is some penalty areas off of the tea box. And is it um when
you when you're off the fairway, are you in tall rough are you just
undulated grounds? What? What's the little a little bit of both? Um?
You know the fairways are still fairly wide, um, you know,
just the property itself is fairly large, but there is a significant amount of
distance in between you know, our natural fescue dunes and rough before you get
to some of those tree lines. Um. But not not like tall thick
rough. There's some fairway bunkers that are strategically placed, um you know around
bannon trails that that can affect your your second shot or your approach shot.
But as far as the rough, I mean, there is some sign significant
difference of being able to possibly miss a fair way, but not to an
extravagant uh you know amount not not losing a golf wall out out into the
trees. And again, the more control we have over our golf ball,
the earlier we get it on the ground, the more that we control it,
the less effect it's going to be from being able to to get blown
off into the trees or or to lose a golf ball of tea, because
that's frustrating. You can play six really well, you know, six holes
of golf fairly well, and then you get to the seventh hole and you're
feeling confident, and then we lose a golf ball and it's like shoot there,
you know there, there's that big number in one golf round that we
tried tried to avoid so being able to have a short term memory. Go
to each tea box with a with a different perspective, and that's where you'll
find a little bit more success. Short term memory an important thing. What's
your favorite hole? What's your favorite hole? And Bandoned trails, you know
that's tough. Um. You know, to me, the my favorite hole
and one of my most memorable golf rounds that that I've played at Bandon Bandon
Dunes Golf Resort has been on Bannon Trails and it was burst off in the
morning fall time and getting out the whole number nine, which is our Furthest
Court or Furthest golf hole that that's inland um and some of just that whole
makeup and the trees just kind of getting lost out into the woods, not
realizing you're, you know, less than a thousand yards from from the ocean
and the beach. Uh that whole makeup and there's a there's a signature tree
that's kind of on the left side about one hundred yards out that when you
walk up to you just don't realize how tall it is. And it's a
part five. So you're sitting there right by and you're just looking at this
tree like, man, I I can't believe I'm right here on the coast.
It kind of brings it kind of brings you down a little bit,
and it's just it's a really really cool golf hole, very memorable because you
kind of just get quiet and get lost back there. You're gonna see some
wildlife, you might see some turkey crossing the fairway, but it's a really
cool, uh golf hole of makeup and just getting lost in the trees and
not realizing you're, you know, less than a thousand yards from from the
coast. Wow. The next morning we're gonna be starting off morning tea time
at old mac Old McDonald. So what's what's unique about this course and what
do we need to remember? Old McDonald is, you know again it's our
largest piece of property, um largest green complex. The biggest advice that that
I would say is stay away from the fairway bunkers. Every everything is is,
you know, is so large. There's fairway bunkers where you know,
we have railroad ties and stairs that are going down into it. And staying
away from the fairway bunkers. If you can go around them. That's the
biggest piece of advice. It's large fairways, large greens, but the fairway
bunkers a are where a golf round can can go haywire very quickly. M
Old boy, okay, stay old McDonald in the day away from the fairway
bunkers, all right, and trust your caddy. Um let's see here.
Then we've got sheep Ranch in the afternoon. Uh no, eight, what
are we doing here? What did I'm looking at it? Yeah? I
think we end with sheep Ranch. I think we played Pacific Dunes. Okay,
do we switch those around? Oh boy? Okay, uh so let's
let's talk about sheep Ranch. Okay, she Sheep Ranch to to me can
be the most enjoyable golf round on the resort. Um. I mean it's
to me, it's the best opening hole in golf. Um takes you right
out to the water. Um. You know, there's there's nine total greens
that are that are on the edge of the coast. There's over a mile
of golf from tea box to fairway to green that that is as on the
coast. Um. So it can be one of the most enjoyable golf rounds
on the resort. Nope, nope, no sand, no bunkers. We
don't have to worry about staying away from from those. Um. But it's
our most exposed golf course. It's our it's our highest elevating golf course.
So that's where the wind really really comes into play, to where you can
go back to that concept of controlling the golf ball of a little bit lower
trajectory, being creative with your golf ball to achieve the same result a higher
percentage of the time. Um. It's one of our shortest distance wise,
UM, it's one of our smaller piece of properties. Um. But just
going out there and enjoying it and again taking away that concept of how far
the golf ball goes in the air. I mean, you can have a
lot of fun out there with with every single golf holl I mean, and
taking the views. I mean, it's some it's the best views on property.
You sit up by the clubhouse and you can see, you know,
the golf course and you see all the golfers out there. I mean,
it's pretty spectacular. Wow, amazing. You really love it there, don't
you. I am very appreciative of being being out here. I mean,
it's it's spectacular, Sweet gig, Sweet gig, and then we end up
our final rounds. Canna be a Pacific Dunes? Tell me that the Pacific
Dunes, I mean being being the the highest rated golf course on property.
Um. And you say the most part rankings, and it's and it's our
highest rated UH slope and rating as well, um, even though it's not
very long on on the scorecard. And I use specific Dunes as an example
a lot of times in a lot of my clinics because it is our most
strategicy style golf course. So it's a you know, some short and quirky
part fours where there are only three hundred and twenty three hundred and forty yards,
there's you know, four hundred and sixty yard par fives that play both
into the wind and downwind. The back nine, you know, it's one
of the most interesting back nines that that you know, I've I've ever played
on a golf course. Is you know part three, part three right there
on the water and then you gotta then you gotta part five, then part
four, Part three, Part five. I mean it's a very strate Tjuri
style back nine and that that you know, to go back to Bannon trails
of being in play off of the tea because there are some penalty areas.
Pacific Dunes is more strategicy on on placement of the golf ball. Uh,
it's actually one of our smaller green complexes, but more of the undulated greens
and so ground the greens can be very difficult to go to your point to
where I man if we're if we're greenside or around there, the golf course
can become very difficult. So placement off of the tea box and approach shots
and and managing each golf hole differently. Whole number one it's only about you
know, three hundred and seventeen yards. I think it is on the scorecard
from our green teas, which is about seventy seventy five percent of our golf
rounds that are played. Um. But once you get to two hundred yards,
it's a severe downslope right to left to a green that runs left to
right, which can be a very difficult golf shot. So there's where managing
each each golf hold comes into plates where you only want to hit a club
that travels two hundred two hundred and twenty yards because you want to be able
to see the green. You want to have somewhat of a flat lie and
you're not up there, it can be a very difficult starting hole, which
we never want to start off the golf round at you know what could be
our favorite golf course at the resort on a on a low note. We
want to walk away with a good score on the starting hole. Well,
listen, I'm really excited about coming up and getting to meet you, and
I will tell all my partners on this trip to listen to this stuff because
you provided with such valuable information not just for playing abandoned dunes, but a
lot of valuable information for playing golf. And I really, yeah, yeah,
I firmly believe the mental part of the game plays a big, big
factor and it can help you be successful, especially out here. I mean
to create a memorable trip. You're you're out at one of the top golf
resorts in the world, playing some of the best golf courses in the world,
and nothing is going to make that more enjoyable and memorable than than breaking
a benchmark that you've been trying to for for so long, or hitting a
memorable golf shot. Um, you know, getting the golf ball close to
the hole when you know you hit a seven iron from from eighty yards when
you have a forty mile an hour wind. I mean, nothing is more
memorable than those golf shots that always bring us back. I mean, it's
it's it's so cool, ire Oh, it's amazing. Well, uh,
these days I'm shooting regularly. My average score over the last twenty rounds is
like in the low eighties, eighty okay something, right, So I'm hoping
to break ninety on these That's that's that is the goal. It's like,
just see if I can break ninety and I'll be really happy and think about
think about what we what we've talked about that today. Absolutely, how do
we how do we shoot lower scores? You know, it isn't necessarily about
making more more birdies, right, I mean, it's it's about managing those
those misses. And you know, a quick little example that that um you
know I'll use is take take John rom for an example, when he won
the Masters. What did he do the very first hole? A double bogie?
Did right there? Triple bogies? Yeah, I mean he started off
very bad at the biggest tournament of the year, and instead of thinking about
what he needed to do for the next seventeen holes of golf to make up
for that that bad golf hole, which I feel like a lot of players
tend to do, and they have a bad golf hole, they tend to
try to think about what they can do to make up for that and instead,
and I fall fault to it as well with myself, but having a
short term memory and going into each golf shot with a with a different outlook,
and he went to the next te box, he focused on hitting a
good tea shot, focused on hitting a good approach shot, and throughout the
course of the round when I think he made ten birdies nine ten birdies,
so realistically, he played let's say, ten holes of golf really really well.
Then he played the first hole of golf not very well, all right,
and then what did he do for the next the seven of eighteen holes.
He was managing his game. He was managing the golf course at Augusta,
which can be very, very tough, and that's where you start to
break those benchmarks. You know, if you have you end up in a
greenside bunker two or three times in a golf round, and you're able to
get out of that bunker successfully those three times and maybe walk away with a
par, maybe walk away with a bogie at most rather than a big number.
Then you take a couple approach shots from fifty yards, you're able to
have some success with maybe using a different club because you're in and in between
yards, you have an uneven lie, you have some win being able to
successfully get the golf ball on the green a couple more times. Then we
have a couple, you know, seventy eighty nine hundred foot puts. How
do we walk away with you know, maybe a few less three puts.
I mean just those that add up out of you know, eight or nine
holes, and we have more success Let's say six of those eight holes.
That's where the benchmarks are going to be broken. That's where strokes are naturally
going to fall off the scorecard again without feeling like you just hit the ball
for eighteen holes the best that you ever had in your life. It's I
don't know if you watched Ted Lasso, but he talked about there's a great
line reeses, think like a goldfish. Yeah right, It's just like,
think about what's in front of and you know, only for the next few
inches, and don't worry about what's behind you exactly, and it's like,
yeah, that translates to golf really well, very well, Fish, very
well. Yea, all right, Kevin, thanks so much, man,
and I'll see you next week. Yeah, my pleasure, Fred, thanks
for having me on here. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys out here
in a few days. Next up to honor the twenty twenty three US Open,
we'll meet Charlie Meacham, author of a really fun new book that you've
got to check out if you love golf history. It's called Arnie and Jack.
Stories of my long friendship with two remarkable men. And to close off
that episode, we'll hear a quick conversation with Golf Smarter ambassador Jen Shawl,
who, in preparation for my windy rounds at Bandon, I played with her
at her favorite course in San Leandro, California called Monarch Bay. Now,
if you've ever flown into the Oakland Airport and sat on the right side of
the plane, you've seen this link style course just before you touch down.
And then in two weeks we're going to celebrate episode nine hundred. Wow.
Thanks This week go out to David Schmidt of Lee's Summit Missouri for being our
newest Golf Smarter Ambassador. David chose Tony Manzoni's video of the loss Fundamental as
his gift for leaving a voicemail, which is all that's required to gain our
official designation of Golf Smarter Ambassador. You know you two are eligible to win
one of three great prizes just by sharing with us where you live and where
you play. You can select Tony's video, a glove and glove storage compartment
from Red Rooster golf dot com, which jen Shaw was wearing. Red Rooster
is a unique glove subscription service that offers many styles of gloves in twenty six
sizes for both men and women. Then you also have a third choice,
a box of X one balls with the golf Smarter logo from Odin Golf,
which I'm taking with me to abandon now. Odin is a golf brand that
sponsors and pays everyday golfers these tour quality balls, and I'm telling you that
they're really good, but they're a fraction of the price of what you're usually
going to pay for similar quality balls. And when you use the code golf
Smarter when you check out, you'll receive an additional twenty percent off the order.
The link for odin Golf is in today's show notes. So please,
I want you to become a golf Smarter Ambassador. Send me an email and
I'll get back to you with some instructions of what to do and what to
say. Just right to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com. If you
have any suggestions, comments on today's information and actually this really long episode,
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