Golf is unlike other sports. It's a lifestyle. It opens so many doors
for you travel, personal introspection. So I wanted the book to be not
telling the reader what courses they should play. There's a little bit of that
in there, and there's a little bit of what countries you might find enjoyable,
but it's all personal experiences. I don't care how good of a writer
you are. You can't describe a golf hole so that the reader is going
to give an actual picture in their mind. So when I write about the
golf hole, like the first hole at the old course at Saint Andrew's,
it's not about the hole itself. It's about the experience of playing that hole,
because that hole was unlike any others. Hi, this is Edward app
from can Law, Alberta, and I played golf at Stuart Creek Golf and
Country Club. This is golf Smarter number nine forty eight, one hundred ideas
for creating your own golf bucket list with the author of the book, Jeff
Thorrison, is golf Smarter sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds
to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host
Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Jeff. Thanks Fred,
pleasure to be here. It's great to have you on. This is a
book that I first of all, you're an excellent writer, and I was
really entertained all the way through everything that I've read up to this point,
and I'm still reading it. All right, Well, thank you, appreciate
it. All right. So, and you've been a writer for a long
time writing golf. So yeah, started as a reporter on coming out of
college, doing news and politics and that sort of thing. Started my own
business in the early nineties, and then in nineteen ninety four we started a
just a whim actually started a golf magazine, which grew into a golf magazine
that had issues in seven different cities here on the East Coast. Well,
okay, so yeah, So since about ninety four, I've done my share
of golf writing. So the idea of a golf bucket list is on everybody's
mind and everybody must have one, although I never really thought of it as
a golf bucket list for me until I started reading this and then started going,
well, wait a minute, this is a great idea. I should
have a golf bucket list, right, everyone should. Yeah, you know,
there's a ton written on golf bucket lists, and they're roll about what
courses you should play in, what countries you should travel to. And I
tried to take a little bit of a different approach on this. It's more,
you know, golf is Golf is unlike other sports. You know this
it's a lifestyle. It opens so many doors for you travel, you know,
personal introspection, things like that. So I wanted the book to be
not telling the reader what courses they should play. There's a little bit of
that in there, and there's a little bit of what countries you might find
enjoyable, but it's all it's all personal experiences. And I say early in
the book that I've been very fortunate to be able to do not all these
things, but most of them. And I don't care how good of a
writer you are, you can't describe a golf hole so that the reader is
going to get an actual picture in their mind. So when I write about
a golf hole, like the first hole a deal course at Saint Andrew's,
it's not about the hole itself. It's about the experience of playing that hole.
Because that hole was unlike any others. I mean, it's relatively not
the script, flat, uninteresting hole, but it's all the circumstances around it.
It's the people, they are watching you, it's the history, is
the fact that every great player who's ever played the game has stood on that
same piece of ground, exactly that same piece of ground and hit that shot
that you're about to hit. Wow. So that was the That was the
intent is just to suggest some things that you might find interesting. Well,
that's what I loved, especially about that particular you know, in each each
of your elements let's call them because they're not chapters necessarily, but they're just
tidbits. They're they're short, they're really quick. So it's a great it's
a great gift book because it's quick reading, you know, keep it next
to the toilet type of thing reading. Right, And when you talked about
number one at Saint Andrew's, I was able to, like you were able
to express your feelings and the emotion of standing there and being watched, and
I really thoroughly enjoyed that. Well, thanks, and yeah, that's exactly
the intent is. Because you know, there's been thousands of articles written about
Saint Andrews in the first hole at Saint Andrews. But it's really until you're
actually there and standing on the t box and all the people are milling about
watching you, and and all the history kind of collapses in on you because
you're right there in front of the old course clubhouse and there's members, you
know, it's very exclusive in there, and they're looking out the window watching
to see what's going on on their first tee. So so yeah, I'm
trying to give you that experience, still hopes that you'll say, oh,
yeah, I got to do this well. I want to. I want
to pick a bunch of those apart with you, And mainly because talk about
bucket list. I've partnered with a golf travel company here on the podcast,
and we're going to be taking golf adventures twice a year for the next couple
of years hopefully everybody, you know, health permitting, but I'm going to
be doing hopefully next in twenty twenty five. In the fall of twenty twenty
five or late summer, we're going to try to go to Saint Andrew's.
We're going to try to play there. And there's other places in your book
that I want to talk about because I want your advice about going to these
places, and we'll get to that in a minute. But when you talk
about early on and you had number seventeen whole Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass.
But what I loved is what you wrote about how you stated other sports teach
equality and teamwork and that great things can be accomplished if everyone does their best,
works together and lifts each other up for the common good. Golf will
have none of that. Golf teaches that the world is cruel, a cruel,
harsh place that the Cosmos couldn't care the hell less that you broke at
you last week. With every new round, you must prove yourself again,
well, stated my friend. Well, and that's nowhere more appropriate than at
the seventeenth hole that Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, Because again, it's a
shot that you've seen everybody hit. But until you stand there and you look
at that green, and the green is actually I believe it's the biggest green
on the course. But until you stand there and you look over all that
water and you think about all the bad things that can happen, it's you
know, TV just doesn't do a justice again experience, right, and I
had that kind of experience. I did a golf smart adventure with some listeners
back in two thousand and nine. We went to Scottsdale and we played TPC
Scottsdale the week after the waste management opened and the grand stands were still up.
They were empty, but they were still there. And when we walked
on to number sixteen, like my knees were shaking. I'm just hitting to
the green, but with all those stands around there, I could just feel
it. And you talk about that's one of the places you need to put
on your bucket list is to go to that event. Well, yeah,
that one, I believe that's in the same chapter. And yeah, answer,
then the chapter of tournaments you need to do it? Just chapter three,
right, Yeah, I mean, and that's one I haven't done.
All you know, cards on the table, that's one I haven't done.
But you know, you watched on TV and you think, just how cool
is this because it goes against everything the professional tournament golf kind of stands for.
You know, the crowd is rowdy and they're not really paying attention to
being quiet when there when the player is hitting and refreshing change. I think
there should be more of that. I think there's room for more of that.
And professional golf, well, you know, there's another golf entity trying
to do that, and I don't know if it's connecting very well with the
fans. I tend to agree, let's take a time out. We'll come
back and we're going to find out how the heck you got to do all
these things. We'll be back with Jeff Thorrison on his book The Golf Bucket
List right after this. Well, you just mentioned that you haven't done TPC
Scottsdale at the Waste Management open and you know, and there's parts of the
book where you I get frustrated with people when you're you make it seem like
the West Coast is a different continent. This East Coast bias is like,
all right, we have a nine o'clock meeting. Excuse me, that's five
in the morning for me. I can't do that, right, What do
you mean? Oh? Yeah, okay? And like when you came out
to Bandon Dunes is a good examples, Like why would I go to the
west when I can go to the east and just play those original courses?
Talk about Bandon Dunes. I mean, yeah, that's kind of the the
issue we have here on the west, on the East coast New York.
I'm New York and Washington centric, so it's easy to hop on a plane
out of Dulles or JFK and land almost anywhere in Europe the next morning,
and getting to Bandon Dunes is flight here and a connection there. And then
you gotta somehow get from Portland to been to Oregon, which is not the
easiest thing, whether you drive or well or fly right, But that said,
it's worth it. Uh spectacular West Coast Links golf is very different from
Links golf in the UK, but it's not any worse. It's modern links
golf, but the courses are spectacular, the shots are crazy. I forget
which hole it was, but there's a couple of t shots that are just
spectacular on that property. Uh so yeah, so definitely worth it. And
you also had an affinity towards Pebble Beach and the you know, the Monterey
Peninsula. Yeah like that. I've only been there one time. I only
played Pebble Beach one time. Me too, but you know, again,
you know, not try to tell people what their bucket list should be.
But for me, that was another experience that kind of goes beyond what you
see on TV or what you read in the magazines things like that. You
know, playing those ocean side holes are just you know, you don't get
that very very many other places. Right. So, I'm just north of
San Francisco and it's a three plus hour drive for me to get down to
Pebble. And you know, you don't want to necessarily stay at the lodge
there because it becomes incredibly expensive if you do that. But if you know,
the only way you can get a tea time is if you book your
room in the lodge. Otherwise, if you call within twenty four hours ahead
of the time you want to play. So that means like, oh,
I just booked six am tomorrow morning at Pebble, I have to leave house
at two. Oh yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be doing that.
And even for me to get to Bandon Dunes is an all day event if
I fly through Portland after rent a car and drive a couple hours, or
I can fly to a small the Bend airport and then take an hour shuttle.
You know, so just because I'm on the West Coast doesn't make it
that much easier to get to places like that. Yeah, that's so in
those states that are like ten types the size of our states here on the
East coast. It's right. I can imagine travel is difficult. I can
be, and I can be the Oakmont or you know, any of the
New York City courses, Philadelphia courses, those are all leave at eight o'clock
and tee off a noon type of things. Right. Yeah, So what
I'm really curious to understand is how did you start the list? I mean,
at what point did you go, oh, wait, this is part
of my bucket list, or did you intentionally like I've got a bucket list
to do well. So kind of an interesting story is that the publisher Vello
Press, had the idea of a bucket list golf book and came to me
to see if I would want to write it, and I said, yeah,
that'd be all right, but here's what the way I would do it.
And I sent him back an outline of the ten chapters and the ten
things within each chapter. So there's one hundred little essays, and you know,
they liked it. They hired me, gave me my teeny weeny advance,
and I wrote the book for him and So the idea of the bucket
list for me was more just an accumulation of thirty years of traveling and playing
golf, and based upon a lot of many of it basedupon essays that I
had written at some point over the years. So it just occurred to me
that, you know, these are things places you might want to travel to,
courses you might want to play, things you might want to try,
things you should do that a lot of golfers don't do. And so it
was more for me it was more of a matter of just compiling the list
as opposed to sitting down and saying, well, where should I what should
my bucket list be? I've done look the bucket list things. Yeah.
Yeah, So then they all were kind of work related. You had done
these things, they were you know, you've achieved these things not to be
because not just because you wanted to go out and do them, but because
it was work related. Yeah, well too, so in the ear early
and this is just by dun luck that the timing that we started the magazines
nineteen ninety four, some kid, Nick biker Woods is becoming a thing in
golf, and he's bringing all these people into golf. So the magazine just
took off and and grew. We were making good money. I had a
lot of everybody wanted to be in the golf space at that time, not
just golf companies, but car companies, restaurants, things like that. So
what of the ways that that some of these came about was every year we
would take our biggest advertisers on a golf trip Scotland, Ireland, Wales,
I think, always in the UK. But yeah, so so some of
those experiences come from that. So I'm just from traveling with friends. Yeah,
I got I got the sense that you the UK staff, the way
you write about it is you've done it multiple times. I've again, Yeah,
I've been very fortunate to go to all of the kingdoms of the UK
more than once. I'm part of a group that goes to bally Bunyon every
year. I don't go here, so uh we go. We travel with
a couple of international members so we can play ballyt Bunyan for I don't know
a quarter of the price that if you booked through a tour company. So
so some of that, some of some of the adventures essays come from from
that group. Yeah, just kind of a combination of everything. Yeah,
and luckily for us, the golf travel company that we're working with, he's
he's it's a husband and wife team and he is from there and was part
of the Saint Andrews, one of the teams. He was one of the
team captains. So he's got his ends and he can get he can get
tea times where you generally can't, and get him at a reasonable rate as
well. So that's one of the things I'm really excited about doing partnering with
this group. Yeah, there were early on and again back in the early
nineties, there were a number of people who had those types of connections,
and I think that's dwindled over the years because there became so many tours trying
to get tea times and all these famous courses. You know. The one
thing that you know, we used tour operators a couple of times, but
after you've been there a couple of times, you realize it's really pretty easy
to do yourself, especially the Internet. Yeah, and you can save not
trying to offend tour companies, especially if they're one of your sponsors. But
these are things that with a little work and a little time behind the keyboard,
you can pretty much do yourself these days, but you got to do
it, and that's the thing that makes it hard. Like I told you,
I did this trip to Scottsdale and just the logistics of doing it myself
was just overwhelmed. So that's why I'm really excited to partner with somebody who
knows what they're doing. We also did before before that trip, we had
one to Prague and we played golf for a long weekend in Prague with some
listeners who came from various parts of Europe and the United States, and that
was unique. That was interesting. Yeah, I know, there's a couple
of good courses outside of Prague. I've been to Prague, but not to
play golf, right, And actually I've seen some marketing recently from the Czech
Republic involving golf, so that might yeah. There couldn't even tell you the
name of the courses we played. It was like two thousand and eight or
something. It was a long time ago. Wow, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, that was a while ago. One of the other t shots that
you have in chapter one is something that I have done, but you didn't
mention that part that I was hoping you talk about. It was again they're
so brief, but they read quickly and they're they're fun and funny. Teeth
of the dog Cosa de compo in the Dominican Republic. What is it number
seventeen or eighteen that you're hitting over a runway? So, yes, or
you've been you were there a while back as well. Yeah, Yeah,
it was my brother in law's wedding. It was a destination wedding and so
and he was East Coast base. Yes, and you get these spectacular ocean
side holes, a few on the front, a few on the back.
That ended seventeen then eighteen turns back towards the clubhouse. And you used to
hit over an active runway and it wasn't as you know then, it wasn't
an active runway for small planes. They had a seven forty seven from Many
or Fort Waterdale or wherever, not a seven forty seven seven seven thirty seven
landing there a couple of times a day. But it's they've since built an
airport. Well now it's the Punta Cane at Airport, Puntakana Airport that you
fly into when you have to drive to costume the copal. Yeah, so
there's last time I was there it's been about five years. There's no evidence
that the Rungway ever existed. And oh wow. The cool thing about that
though, was the little thatched roof terminal where you everybody would go in.
They'd go through customs and they give you a little tropical fruity drink and well
Dominican Republic. I just remember having to look left. Look, you know,
you're looking down the fairway, but then you got to look left,
and you got to look right, and you got to look up. It's
like lock up below. We're gonna take another break. We'll be right back.
And before we start talking about other places to go and things to do.
You started off the book going I'm a human in your forward cracked me
up. It's there are people out there that are just using AI, especially
in travel, to compile different aspects of cities or whatever and slapping their name
on it and calling it a book. And you buy the book, or
you know, you read the book and you know AI cannot write very well,
well, you should edit it. I mean take it as a you
know, a first draft, right, but if you're going to do it
there, Yeah, but there are people out there who are just scamming.
I mean Yeah, exactly. They're putting a pretty picture on the cover and
hoping you buy their book. Right. So, the I'm going to go
back to the Golf Travel company, like I said, Next year we're going
to hopefully go to UH Saint Andrew's. Later this year, we're going to
do a couple's trip. We're going to go to Portugal and it's going to
be three rounds of golf over nine days. And my wife will be coming
on this one as well. So the days that we're playing golf, the
non golfers will continue to, you know, tour and go shopping and probably,
knowing my wife, they'll go to spas. Okay, I'm going to
play golf, you go to a spa. I'd like to go to the
spot too, but I know you don't want to play golf. And so
have you ever played in Portugal? I have not. I haven't even been
to Portugal, played in Spain. Oh, you should come on the trip
with us September. Yeah, it's gonna be fun. And it's gonna be
a small group too. It's only going to be six couples. Oh,
it's gonna be It should be a lot of fun. It should be a
lot of fun, okay, but us destinations that I want to talk about.
What I'm really hoping is that next spring we get to do the Robert
Trent Jones Trail. Let's talk about that one for a few minutes, because
you you got into a little more detail and I loved it, and I
would love to hear more. I mean, it's hard to do the whole
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in one trip. So many spots, and most
of the places have two or three courses or two courses and a die whole
course or a short course. Yeah. The interesting thing about that is not
only the quality of the courses, but I think the vision with what as
not only to how it was built, but to golf in the future.
And it was built before. Really this Tiger Woods kind of athletic golfer bureau
where you know, Rory McIlroy is hitting the ball three hundred yards in the
air, probably even longer than that now. But some of the courses extend
over eight thousand yards. Wow, So I would advise not playing them from
the back to I have not, I mean I promise I will not.
Eight thousand yards is a little uh, it's still a long walk. But
it's also a cool way to see Alabama right again, kind of a you
know, not an East coast state, now a West coast state. A
little different than both of those places. And the Rock Trent Jones golf Trail
will get you to a lot of the cities and towns in Alabama. Yeah,
it's a different type of Alabama. I actually last month went on a
civil rights tour of Alabama doing Birmingham, Selma, and montgomer Interesting and it
was absolutely fascinating. Got another guest coming up in the next couple of weeks
who wrote a book about doing his own bucket list playing the top one hundred
courses in the country. But there is a man who grew up having next
to nothing growing you know, growing up without electricity and without water and stuff,
and he has a fascinating story. So I really I'm excited to be
able to talk to Jimmy James about that one because of the experience that I
had in Selma and Montgomery, very very powerful. Highly recommend that trip to
people. Yeah, and if you can incorporate golf to it, it's going
to be a completely different viewpoint of what's going on in Alabama. Yeah,
I imagine that your two trips are going to be quite different. And yeah,
yeah, so how many trips? How many courses are on the Robbert
Trent Jones Trail you were I currently, I can't remember exactly that. I
think there's eight or nine sites, but again, most of the sites have
two or three courses. I think, Wow, you have twenty seven to
thirty courses somewhere. Yeah, and they are so yeah, so you can't
do the whole thing. You pick and choose, but I don't think there's
any right or wrong decisions when you're picking the using from those courses. And
I have not played them all or even but you have played some of them,
yeah, but I haven't played close to all of them. Yeah.
Oh, maybe we'll do it for multiple times. But there's so many different
places in the United States that I want to try to do to attend to
go to. Let's see, So how about Pinehurst. Now that's another place
I'd love to make a trip coming up in the future. There's multiple courses
at Pinehurst. What can you share with us about going there? Oh?
Yeah, So for me, Pinehurst is a five hour drive. We go
down there every year with a group from our club we have about thirty six
guys that go down. Wow. We don't always play at the resort because
there's so many outstanding courses down there. I'm Pinehurst Number two obviously is the
pen down there. I keep calling it the recent Crenshaw Core redesign, but
it's it's got to be close to ten years old, if not more.
It is really spectacular. I've played both the pre design pre redesign and the
post redesign. Uh And while the holes all follow the same layout, the
greens are in the same place as the tea's are in the same place as
the view. The periphery, the ball sand and whatether they call it,
the scrub grass that grows in the sand is all much different than what it
used to be, which is just traditional tree lined fairway ralph green layout.
Now the now Pinehurst has put in a lot of effort into redoing their other
courses as well. So the number four course, which was an original Donald
Ross course, was recently redesigned to think by Gil Hants that's become a spectacular
course. The first course, which was just kind of a small shortest course,
was redesigned. They just right about now they're opening their tenth course,
and I'm not sure what it's called. It's open in time for the US
Open this year, and it's on the site of an old golf course called
the Pit. So yeah, that's like the American golf Mecca. And then
outside, within just a few miles of the resort itself, you have Pine
Needles Midpines, both Donald Ross designs from the nineteen twenties thirties in that area.
In the next town over in southern high this is Son of Tines Golf
Club or country Club, another Donald Ross design. If you're a Donald Ross
fan, you have to get to Pinehurst. Are you a fan of golf
architecture or a student kind of? I mean I like the classic designs.
Uh. You know, here on the East Coast we have a lot of
Tilling Hasts and William flann and Donald Ross courses, so those are intriguing to
me. Yeah, we have the Alistair McKenzie Alistair McKenzie as well. Yeah,
going a blank on the one right down the road from you, the
public course. Yes, I played that once when it was at the tail
end of a six year drought and it was in horrendous ship. It was
not fun at all. Yeah, So dried out. It was in January
after a torrential rainfalls. This was back in ninety five, ninety six.
I think, so we're going back. But yeah, Pinehurst for the golf
officionado and the aficionado of golf architecture is a must awesome. Let's take one
more break and we'll be back right after this. Jeff, what's your favorite
place in the country to travel to in the United States to go play?
Because in your book, you you know, I mean, you're not just
Pinehurst and we have to already talk about Pinehurst. We've talked about Bandon Dunes
and the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama. But there's other locations in the
Midwest and in the Southwest, in you know, north Theast. There's so
many places to go that I'm just trying to figure out, you know,
what other places can we do if we do one trip a year in the
United States and one trip internationally because I want to go to New Zealand,
I want to go to Australia, what kind of trips can we do?
What do you what do you think? Yeah, that would be hard to
you know, it's it's hard to narrow it down to just one because there
are so many great trips to be done. Big Cedar Lodge in the Ozark
Mountains, Yeah, tell me about that. So I got a group of
friends who are there right now actually, But that's the Tiger Woods design.
I believe it's his only public, publicly accessible course of the few that he's
designed. Paynes Valley is the name of the course. It's just it's big,
and it's wide, and it's hard, and it's spectacular in the big,
wide, and hard. Those are three words you don't nicearily hear describing
a golf course. But yeah, you don't think of the Ozark Mountains and
it is as a golf destination. But there are a number of good courses
at the resort there. And that's the Bass Pro Shop. Johnny Morris built
that in one of those kind of spare no expense types of uh of resorts.
There's some really interesting golf in Northern Michigan along Lake Michigan and Inland.
Right which courses stand out in your mind? In northern Missisan Bay Harbor is
probably the one that stands out the most just because of its uniqueness. The
holes along Lake Michigan, the twenty seven holes there and each are very different
ones along the lake. Ones built in an old quarry and the other one
is uh, I think just through a wooded feature there. But then there's
there's a couple of uh. There's several courses of a resort called Boyne Mountain.
Rob some Robert Trent Jones courses. There's a Donald Ross tribute course.
Very interesting stuff up there. You know, Florida take take your pick.
Yeah you could. If you want to do one US trip a year,
you could do it for the next twenty years in Florida and not go to
the place. You know, the you know, to pick the favorite though,
and I'm a big first fan. Yeah, it's convenient. I've played
almost everything down there. Uh. There's great courses and there are good courses,
but there's really not many bad courses down there. That's good to know.
It's good to know. Tell me about destination Color. Okay, Yeah,
so again along Lake Michigan, big and hard and wide. Pete Dye
will you know it's Pete Die. I'll say it is best, but you
know, the better word is maybe you know, diabolical. Seeing that course
and that's d y E course on on TV. So everybody knows how hard
it is. Uh in the Straits course there black Wolf Fraud, Uh,
several courses there. Wisconsin actually has two more golf destinations at sand Hills and
Aaron Hills. Uh just come on within the last twenty years, which I
have not been to. So yeah, so Wisconsin is you could spend a
couple of weeks in Wisconsin play some awfully good course courses. Yeah, but
it's not necessarily you'd want to go to Chicago and try to play around there.
You want to like move up to Michigan and in northern Michigan and has
some great courses obviously some great private clubs. Yeah see, but that's you
know, private clubs. All of a sudden, if you're not a member
of something, it's hard to get reciprocal, you know, and get on
these courses. It's not like flying over to the UK and playing their private
clubs where they welcome you and you can play bally Banyan and yeah, what
up about that? Many exactly. I feel sorry for the good English golfers
and Scottish golfers and Irish golfers who want to come over here, and I
mean there's some good they could play. Bethley Black and there's plenty of good
sorts. But you know back in I know, Mont or Shnecock, right,
one of the we talked earlier about, you, you know, discovering
the West in the United States, and you discovered the great golf in the
Coachella Valley of Palm Springs, Palm Desert area. Yep. Yeah, a
lot of good golf there. I was there. It's been many years for
that one as well. Some great courses down there, but yeah, and
you know the ones you see in the Scottsdale in Las Vegas, Palm you
know, Palm Springs, Scottsdale, Las Vegas. Yeah, and he's got
a lot of great golf something to do during the day in Las Vegas.
So yeah, take your clubs and play some great golf there. A short
drive back towards the east from Las Vegas is Mesquite, where there are some
spectacular courses. Have you ever been down to San Diego I have Tory Pines.
I have not. But when the weather here for December through March is
awful, that should be that should be on my bucket list next or yes,
we're your next book. Yeah, yeah, awesome Again. The book
is called The Golf Bucket List one hundred Ideas for Enjoying the Great Game of
Golf by Jeff Thorson. Jeff, thank you so much for your time today.
I enjoyed the book and enjoyed the lessons that I've learned from doing it
and helping to build my own list. Oh well, good, Yeah,
let me get you posted on your where you're off to next? But your
trips here that you've got plans sound great? Oh? I hope you are
as inspired as I am. What I take away from that conversation is that
golf is about experiences. Whether it's getting a hole in one, which I
did in Las Vegas with buddies in two thousand and nine, or sinking a
sixty foot putt, which is etched into my mind from our Golf Smart adventure
to Prague, or as I mentioned, walking up to a tea box that
is surrounded by grandstands like we also did with Golf Smarter Listeners at TPC Scottsdale,
or the winds at Bandon Dune's or the pot belly pig that greeted us
each week on the fourth hole at Adobe Creek. What makes golf unique compared
to most other sports. It's all about the experiences we have when we're on
the course. Now, I marvel at my friends who can recall almost every
hole we've ever played. I can't do that, but I still want the
opportunity to experience the thrill, the beauty, the frustration and the joy that
only golf can offer. So why don't you join me and my wife this
coming September in Portugal to create our own experiences together. We're going to be
playing in Villemorra, which moosts five exceptional golf courses that were built and designed
for those with exquisite taste who are eager to do something different. We start
our sightseeing tour in Lisbon, but then take a short bus ride to Villemora,
which has beautiful sandy beaches, fine dining, chic bars, and more
so the views are fantastic. You heard Jeff talk earlier about going with thirty
six guys on his annual trip to Pinehurst. But here's the great part of
our trip. We're limiting the size of the group to six couples, so
that could mean as many as eleven or as little as six golfers, quite
manageable since my wife, Joanne is not a golfer, which is why I
said as many as eleven golfers for twelve people. But golf isn't required on
this journey, so you too can bring a non playing partner to take in
the sites, sun, exploration and relaxation while we're on the golf course.
We're partnering with t MII Golf Travel Company to handle all the logistics so that
twice each year you and I can check off some of our own golf bucket
list items. This is a nine day trip that includes three rounds of golf,
walking tours, wine tasting, and a boat trip. Again, this
is a couple's excursion. Non golfers will experience an optional spa visit, sightseeing
and shopportunities. If you'd prefer, you can play golf every day while we're
in Phillemora. The trip is scheduled for September fifth through the thirteenth, twenty
twenty four, So clear your calendar and let's do this. To get all
the information pricing and download the detailed pdf, please visit TMI goolf dot com
slash golf Smarter. If you have any questions, you can write to me
directly. I want to thank this week's golf Smarter Ambassador Edward Appt, who
plays at Stewart Creek golf Course in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. Now I
looked up the course and my goodness, is that abuse full country that surrounds
the golf course and the photos from around the course also show visits by both
black bears and moose okay that I want to see. Would love to play
up there with you someday, Edward, Thanks for sharing. As our newest
Golf Smarter Ambassador, Edward took advantage of getting a free copy of Tony Manzoni's
video of the Lost Fundamental. When you request to do an episode intro,
you'll receive a choice from three free gifts that includes the private link to Tony's
video of the Lost Fundamental, a glove and glove storage compartment from redroostergolf dot
com, the best online glove subscription service, or a box of premium flight
golf tees a tee above all. So right to Golf Smarter Podcast at gmail
dot com and I'll get back to you with some simple instructions on what to
do, what to say, and how to take advantage of your free gift.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, for a episodes,
or need more information and want to discuss our September Portugal adventure, Please write
to Golf Smarterpodcast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred button when you
visit golfsmarter dot com