00:00:11:20 - 00:00:35:01 Unknown Welcome everybody to Divots and Skins. We're back again this week to talk about golf news. All the places we've been golfing and everything else we got coming up in the future. So we're going to start with Sean. Sean. Shane Lowry had an amazing weekend. He was at the Irish Open and he just ran away with it. I mean it was no joke. 00:00:35:04 - 00:00:55:25 Unknown Yeah, he set a course record. I'm sorry. A tournament record for margin of victory. Bernard longer had it with, he had a ten stroke, I believe lead, before. And Lowry won by 11 or something to that effect. Yeah, but Lowry went 23 under, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. He started the day four under at not four under 15. 00:00:55:26 - 00:01:14:20 Unknown Under 1500. Yes. So he started out 15 under. He did have a couple of holes there where he was a little concerned. He wasn't doing great. But I'm like, you're so far ahead. What are you worried about? But I know some of the things he said is he was like, you know, you can't let it just go to your head and let it happen and it can get away from you really quickly. 00:01:14:22 - 00:01:33:01 Unknown But he did not let it get away from it was fairly close, you know, after the second day. And then he kind of, you know, took off the third day and, you know, left nothing to you, no chance on, on day four. He just absolutely ran away with it. The tournament was over before it started on the championship day on that Sunday. 00:01:33:04 - 00:01:51:14 Unknown But tip my hat to him because, everything he touched that day with his with his putter seemed to go in. It was amazing watching how many long putts he made. And these weren't easy putts, typical of links courses, very roly poly greens. And he he was drilling him center center cup every time. Yeah. It's really cool. 00:01:51:14 - 00:02:15:28 Unknown What's the awesome part about this is he actually won this this tournament when he was 22 years old. And that was in 2009. And so it has taken him this long to get back into that winter circle for, for this tournament. So it was really awesome to see him make that win and have a great day. And I love what he said during his interview. 00:02:16:02 - 00:02:36:23 Unknown One of the things that his daughter has said to him over and over again, and I love these golfers to talk about how their kids are like, hey, when you bring home a trophy. And so he was super emotional during the the on the green interview because he was like, I finally get to do what she asked me to do, and he gets to bring home the trophy. 00:02:36:25 - 00:02:57:25 Unknown He did have a little controversy, though. I don't know if you heard about this. He hit a shot and there were two guys that I believe were volunteers were crossing the fairway, and he said something like, they deserved to get hit and everybody had a field day over that. And I love how people picked the most stupid things to get upset about. 00:02:57:25 - 00:03:18:19 Unknown And he later said, he's like, I was just saying that they tend to get in the way sometimes. And he goes there, spectators that do it, there's volunteers that do it and sometimes they're going to get hit. And so it wasn't saying he wanted to hit them. He was basically saying they might get hit. Which brings us to our golfer gripe of the day. 00:03:18:19 - 00:03:48:07 Unknown I'm going to give you one. This is a surprise one for Jake. And I'm going to mention it because he brought it up. So I agree 100% with what Shane Lowry said. People I think, sometimes walk around with horse blinders on on the golf course irritates the hell out of me. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes it's, workers at the course, sometimes it's the cart girl really bothers me when you're, you know, in the middle of your back swing and all of a sudden out of your peripheral, you, you know, you see her come barging up through the middle of the fairway because for whatever reason, at times they don't have the common 00:03:48:07 - 00:04:05:13 Unknown sense to know that. Oh, geez. You know, a ball to the forehead is probably not going to feel very good. So I get really irritated by it. And I also say the same thing when people come over and hit on to your fairway. We've all done it. You cross onto an adjacent fairway, you have to go play your ball. 00:04:05:13 - 00:04:26:06 Unknown It's perfectly legal to do. It's not a problem. My the problem with it is when you have no discretion as to whether or not it's a good time to walk out in front of other players playing their ball. The player playing on the wrong fairway should always defer to the people who are on their own proper hole. So that's my great grape of the day from this golfer. 00:04:26:08 - 00:04:46:03 Unknown People need to be a little bit more cognizant and aware of other things that are going on on the course around them, and I have to agree. I mean, we see it all the time when we're playing courses that have really like close fairways. We you may be able to shoot into another fairway by a mistake, or you may slice it or push it or whatever, but I really I agree with him. 00:04:46:03 - 00:05:06:21 Unknown I really get annoyed when you just see a cart come flying out, and they're not even more interested in looking for their ball than they aren't interested in what's going on around them. And we've had instances where people have gotten hit or they've been really close to getting hit, and it's like, don't want to hurt somebody, but you can't feel bad about it either because it's not your fault. 00:05:06:21 - 00:05:31:05 Unknown Your mid swing, they walk out into your fairway. It's their fault. So I have to agree with them on this one for sure. Make sure you're looking where the hell you're going. Make sure you look at where you are on somebody else's fairway and find out where other people are, because it's your fault if you get hit and we're not hitting into you, if you're going the other direction or you're supposed to be on a different hole, that's not hitting into somebody. 00:05:31:07 - 00:05:51:03 Unknown So I have agree with Brett on this one. Look at where you are and pay attention and make sure you know what's going on around you, because it's your life and your body. It's going to get hurt if you're not paying attention. And again, like you said, the cart girls, I always laugh. I'm like, I think they should have to run around with the windshields up the way they go flying down the fairways. 00:05:51:06 - 00:06:08:19 Unknown I also have an issue when people pick up golf balls randomly on a course, when there's other golfers on adjacent fairways happen to us that do grapes. I know, I know, but I'm gonna. Here goes. Stop me if you can. I my wife hit one through a dog leg, put it right next to the tee box on another hole. 00:06:08:19 - 00:06:24:07 Unknown But she had a very clean shot in for her third shot on a par five hole. And we watched somebody roll up next to it and bend over. And then they took off and we went over to look for her ball. And it was nowhere to be found. And I can bet money they picked up her ball. I've had I've caught people before where I've asked them. 00:06:24:07 - 00:06:40:13 Unknown Hey, did you did you just pick up a title list and. Oh, shoot, I didn't see anybody, blah, blah, blah. It had some common sense. If there's people on an adjacent fairway and you see them and they're still behind where that ball was, there's a good chance they could be driving up to it at some point. So again, have some discretion. 00:06:40:13 - 00:06:56:25 Unknown Just like looking around the course, have some discretion as to what golf balls pick off. Hey, we all like to pick up, you know, free golf balls. I'm a golf ball hound. We'll talk at a later time about me being a tee hobo. But anyway, I like picking up lost golf balls, but I'll make sure they're lost before you pick them up. 00:06:56:27 - 00:07:16:05 Unknown Yeah, yeah. I mean, middle of the fairway is typically not lost or just into the rough. That's not considered lost. Now we have found them where people have missed them because the rough is 3 or 4in long and they just don't see it. But again, look around, make sure there's nobody else around. And I'll be honest with you, if there's anybody on any other holes, leave it there. 00:07:16:07 - 00:07:36:24 Unknown If you're hurting that bad for golf balls, I'd recommend ordering Amazon golf balls because they're cheap. Because I like to put them in the woods, and I don't want to have to keep replacing expensive golf balls. If that's your problem, look at the Amazon golf balls. So let's talk about the golf. We've been playing a lot of it, a lot of it. 00:07:36:27 - 00:07:54:05 Unknown We've been trying out new courses. Don, the director of our tour, has asked us to join him at a few different places all south of here. South and east of here, to look at courses that we potentially could be adding to the tour schedule for next year, the year beyond. And so we've hit a bunch of new ones. 00:07:54:05 - 00:08:08:19 Unknown You want me to rattle them off all at once, or do you want me to do them in order? Mentioned last episode that we were coming up on Labor Day weekend, and it was a long weekend and we had a bunch of stuff set up, including one that you surprised me with, where you were like, we're playing Monday too! 00:08:08:19 - 00:08:30:02 Unknown And we ended up doing how many rounds that weekend we did for, let me get this right. 1 to 4 rounds in three days. We're a glutton for punishment. But yeah, let's start with the first one, where we start that weekend. That weekend we started at a place called Apple Greens Country Club down in the Poughkeepsie area of New York. 00:08:30:05 - 00:08:48:18 Unknown Down in the Catskills. You've heard me say the Catskills a lot. That's not far south of the Albany region. Within an hour, you can be on the heart of the I'm sorry, heart of the Catskill Mountains. It's it's an absolutely gorgeous area. In that particular course, what was so unique about it was it was built into an apple orchard. 00:08:48:20 - 00:09:09:07 Unknown I don't know which was existed first or if they did that whole apple thing to kind of, you know, help name the course, give it some distinguishing features, something. But I'm going to assume that the apples were already there. Big long rows of apples line some of the fairways. Some of them are ripe, as Don and I found out, because we ate them and they tasted delicious. 00:09:09:09 - 00:09:27:19 Unknown But beautiful. Course. Yeah, I really like the way it was laid out with the apple trees in between. And there's some really neat spots where they had two rose apple trees. And it was funny because if you looked on, we used 18 birdies for our GPS. You look at the GPS, you could see where they were like cut out for the fairways. 00:09:27:19 - 00:09:48:08 Unknown And there's these ditch straight lines and these apple trees. And yeah, it was absolutely gorgeous. Of course we had a beautiful day to play. There were some definite challenging holes that we played and I really enjoyed some. We had one that was kind of it was a dog like left where you kind of couldn't see where we were going, and we all kind of shot the ball knowing that we needed to kind of go left. 00:09:48:09 - 00:10:05:21 Unknown We all ended up upright, kind of up on the hill, and then you kind of had to shoot down into a green that was pretty protected where it was. There were some really interesting holes there. I think the course was in great shape. I really enjoyed playing there, and I think it's definitely one that I'm going to encourage Don to add to the tour. 00:10:05:26 - 00:10:34:14 Unknown Yeah, I guess Don's big knock on it. One of the other players that was with us mentioned to him that the fairways and rough, it was hard to differentiate from the tee box. Because they hadn't cut recently. So you didn't get a real distinct look at what was rough and what was the fairway. Excuse me? From a distance, you know, when you're hitting 250 yards out or whatever and you want to land it in a fairly, you know, normal area you'd like to see kind of which way the fairway stops and you know, where the rough starts. 00:10:34:14 - 00:10:51:12 Unknown And it was difficult to distinguish. But Don did mention it's a privately owned course. If we go down there for tours and we tell them we were going to stop, they will probably more than likely give us a fresh cut off. Tee box was beautiful on that course. Greens were in beautiful condition on that course. I like that a lot as well. 00:10:51:14 - 00:10:57:06 Unknown So that was that was course number one for the weekend. Yeah, yeah. So. 00:10:57:08 - 00:11:24:18 Unknown One of our sponsors is Blueprint Leadership Development. Rob was nice enough to sponsor us, and I really appreciate him doing that. If you're curious about working with a coach, if you're looking for a business coach, Rob is awesome. I've worked with him for many years. I'll have a link to his information in the description. So go down there and check that out and find out more about what blueprint leadership development is all about and what Rob can do for you and your business. 00:11:24:20 - 00:11:43:24 Unknown Then we went where. Then we made the decision to travel up. We stopped and spent the night up in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was about a two hour, 45 minute ride northeast. It's it's not too far over the border from New York. If you're going straight due east from Albany, it's probably an hour and a half or thereabouts. 00:11:43:26 - 00:12:10:00 Unknown But anyway, we went to the first, very first course we did was Veterans Memorial. Yeah. So if you haven't been following us on Instagram, I highly recommend you do, because I tend to post a lot of the photos and stuff we take while we're at these different courses. And one of the really, really cool things that this guy was drooling over because he's a landscaper is they had this amazing sign that said veterans that was made out of hedges. 00:12:10:02 - 00:12:27:02 Unknown We had to pull him away from there because he's trying to figure out how they were doing it, how they made it so perfectly. It was like a kid in a candy store. It was absolutely hilarious. But that photo of that, like set up of bushes that set veterans is on our Instagram. So if you want to take a look at that, definitely go check out our Instagram. 00:12:27:02 - 00:12:45:14 Unknown That'll be in the description to check out that course. We got a little bit of rain. We started out in the rain. Everybody was super nice. They knew it was going to be a rough start, but guys like see the bright stuff in the sky. It's coming. And so they were really encouraging and trying to get us to like be happy about going out in the course. 00:12:45:14 - 00:13:04:01 Unknown They were busy. They were doing really well. But that course was interesting. It had some really fun holes. It did, I it made it particularly tough, I think, for everybody that was playing because of course, never over the course of the time we were there never really dried out completely because it had such a steady drizzle all morning. 00:13:04:03 - 00:13:20:11 Unknown And so hitting out of the rough particularly was, was tough. Your, your carry was not going to be near as far it was hard to gauge distances because of it. And I know some of us struggled a little bit with it. Sometimes you hit a shot flush and you thought it, you know, going to go 180 and stop at 160. 00:13:20:13 - 00:13:35:02 Unknown I mean, it was just the rough was significantly thicker than Apple Greens was. And then you had the moisture on top of it. Well, wet roughs harder to hit out of than dry rough. So it made it a tough day. And it was another course that had a lot of up and down very hilly course. Yeah, very hilly course. 00:13:35:02 - 00:13:54:20 Unknown Had some beautiful water. It was by the clubhouse that you kind of had to shoot over for nine, I believe it was the had to shoot over it to get onto the green on nine and then ten. Going back out was a par three that had this beautiful water feature. It was in front of it, didn't really threaten it too much, but water, it gets in your head. 00:13:54:21 - 00:14:09:08 Unknown So you have to think about it when it's sitting right there. But beautiful way to start. Hole ten was a par three. We played with a gentleman who was a young guy. He had only been playing for a couple months. Right? Yeah, two months, he said. And he was shooting. Well, now he's only been playing for two months. 00:14:09:08 - 00:14:26:01 Unknown So he did have his shots here and there. But a lot of his irons for his approaches were absolutely gorgeous swings. Yeah. He he was very newcomer to golf and well funny story was he told us that he went to buy a new club at the golf course, and he ended up coming home with a whole new set. 00:14:26:03 - 00:14:43:05 Unknown At one point he said because he he wanted to buy a club and he got roped into buying them, buying a full set. We don't know anybody that's friends with us that made that mistake. When they went with you somewhere. Tim might have been guilty of that too. Tim wanted to go. Just go look at new, some new hybrids. 00:14:43:05 - 00:15:00:16 Unknown And he ended up buying a whole new set of clubs as well. When we were down North Carolina, he accompanied me on a start down the Pinehurst complex. And I had a tournament that day. I told him, just take the car and run around while I was at the tournament, and he stopped into a golf shop, and next thing you know, he walked out with a brand new full set of clubs. 00:15:00:19 - 00:15:16:22 Unknown I'll ever forget that. That was funny. He told me that story and he was like, yeah, I never should have walked in there. So yeah, so he had a great time. He only played nine holes with us. Great. Great guy. Absolutely awesome to see how well he's playing and how much he's playing. He's getting out quite a bit last two months. 00:15:16:25 - 00:15:34:15 Unknown And do you remember what his name was? Dan. Dan okay. So Darren, if you're watching this because I know you said you were going to subscribe, it was awesome to play those nine holes with you. And it was really nice to meet you. And we had a great time. Then we went on to Chickpea Country Club in Chicopee, Massachusetts. 00:15:34:15 - 00:15:49:23 Unknown It's still Springfield for all practical purposes. You hop on the highway, you go up like an exit, and it took a piece right off the exit, you know, not too far. That's a that was a very nice course. That was one of Don's favorite out of those three. I think that was the one he favored the most. 00:15:49:26 - 00:16:13:20 Unknown I had my own critiques of it. The Greens were absolutely gorgeous. The tee boxes, some of them were nice. Some of them were really roughed up. And I don't know, you know, it's it's Labor Day weekend. It was it's always tough to judge because sometimes they're not going to give you fresh tees that weekend because you know, they know they're going to get a bunch of people that only golf a couple of times a year there, and they don't want to chew up, you know, an area that's that brand new. 00:16:13:20 - 00:16:32:25 Unknown Instead, they're going to chew up, you know, what was used the previous two weeks or whatever. Just let it go really bad and then they'll move them right after the holidays. So, but that was, it was it was a very nice course. I thought the outside edges of Chicopee Country Club were a little rough. Meaning if you get wide on the rough, there's a lot of spots where you ran into hardpan and areas like that. 00:16:32:25 - 00:16:51:04 Unknown And I thought it got, you know, a little squirrely. Don said to me, and I agree. You're not supposed to hit it out there. But I had to remind him that, oh, yeah, Don, we're amateurs, so we do hit it out there more often than we want to. So, And Don's also the guy that hits you call them Don down the middle. 00:16:51:05 - 00:17:11:06 Unknown You were calling him Donnie. Dependable. Yeah. Like, Dot is just one of the older guys that just has that swing where he's committed to. Okay, this is how I swing. This is what I'm going to do at almost every ball is down the middle. And it's absolutely hilarious. It talks about that as Brant Dyer spraying it left and right, trying to keep it in the fairway. 00:17:11:06 - 00:17:27:26 Unknown And Don's just like dude right down the middle. So I get it. He's like, yeah, you're not supposed to be playing out there. He's right. We're not. It's the same thing I said to people when I got poison ivy this year. If I didn't put the stupid ball in the woods, I wouldn't go trucking through poison ivy. So guess what? 00:17:27:28 - 00:17:48:29 Unknown I don't want to put the ball in the woods anymore because my poison ivy was awful. So he's right. You shouldn't be out there. But I really enjoyed playing on these courses with these greens that were absolutely butter. It's amazing. Of course, we've been playing at Brookhaven and they aerated. We understand that they need to do that. Not sure it was the right time of year to do it, to be honest with you. 00:17:49:00 - 00:18:09:27 Unknown We've talked about that between the two of us, but they did it. So we understand you have to chew it, that going from that to hitting a putt and actually having it stay on the green and not bounce all over the freaking place was absolutely amazing. I made some really nice longer putts, and I always feel like I'm going to make those longer putts on those type of greens. 00:18:09:27 - 00:18:31:10 Unknown You can't do it when it's like a lot of pockmarks or it's aerated. Yeah, you always want your golf ball to hug the green. You want to, you know, ideally if you watch PGA tour golfers from a worms I view they're hitting up on the ball, hitting just above the the hemisphere of the ball, the center point. They're hitting uphill on it because it puts a topspin on the ball and it keeps it really tight to the carpet. 00:18:31:10 - 00:18:57:17 Unknown So they get a super true roll. You watch a lot of amateurs from that same angle. They'll hit it at a funky angle, almost like on a downslope. And the ball will start right off the bat and it'll settle out eventually usually, but it starts out a little choppy and bumpy, or the smoother the greens are, the better for that same reason, the closer it stays to the carpet, as they say, the better change you have of the ball staying on the line that you picked, and hopefully you pick the right line and goes in the hole. 00:18:57:20 - 00:19:16:23 Unknown The other thing that that helps with, by lifting your club up a little bit, is not hitting the green with your putter. I've done that several times, and I did that several times over that weekend. So it's funny because I had mentioned to him that I had never really picked that up the last couple of times I watched golf until recently. 00:19:16:23 - 00:19:33:18 Unknown When they do, I like that worms eye view. I like that where they had the worms eye view and I could see where they kind of lift it just a little bit. So they're hitting that area of the ball. So every time I hit the ground, I'm like, oh, that's why you should do that. So you don't hit the ground behind the ball with your putter. 00:19:33:21 - 00:19:55:15 Unknown Don't do that doesn't help. You don't get any distance that way. So yeah I really enjoy playing on these greens. And then we got more Monday morning rolled around and I hadn't had enough punishment. So I decided, let's go give it a whirl at a local course. I hadn't played there before. My eldest brother passed away and I wanted to give it a shot. 00:19:55:17 - 00:20:14:22 Unknown Back when him and I played, he passed away, I believe, in the spring of 2009. And a few years after that. They turned it into an 18 hole course. A very challenging 18 hole course, because the nine holes that they added, essentially they cut into the woods to do it. So there's some really unique holes. 00:20:14:26 - 00:20:36:14 Unknown It's a fun course. It's one of the most beautiful views you'll ever see in the world. And I mean that literally, folks. You are looking out on hole ten. It's a par three that's downhill. You and you are looking out to the Adirondack Mountains to the left and right of Lake George. You're looking right down the south to north view of Lake George. 00:20:36:15 - 00:20:55:28 Unknown And it's absolutely spectacular. I challenge anybody to give me a course with a better view than that because, well, no offense, but as I told Jake, the ocean is pretty. It's, you know, neat to look at every now and then, but it's, you know, pretty flat and, you know, you know, not much going on with it as far as topography. 00:20:56:00 - 00:21:13:16 Unknown You get mountains right next to an absolutely pristine mountain lake. You can't get much better than that. So I have a photo of hole ten. I will put it in the video. You'll get to see it in a second. It is. It is one of the most beautiful holes. And it's really cool because it's a raised tee box. 00:21:13:16 - 00:21:29:18 Unknown Par three. So you're kind of looking out at the hole and you're looking right at the lake. And there's days it's it's a little hazy. There's days that it might be cloudy. But man, we had one of the best days for that view and it was absolutely gorgeous. You could see Lake George, you could see the mountains behind it. 00:21:29:18 - 00:21:46:23 Unknown You could see the boats going all over the place, because people are out there for Labor Day weekend, and it is one of the best holes on that course. Now, top of the world is a fun course. Like you said, it is challenging. It's got some really tough holes to have, a lot of woods involved, a lot of ups and downs. 00:21:46:23 - 00:22:05:10 Unknown So it's kind of like a mountain course because you do kind of drive up a mountain to get the course. And so it's a bit of a mountain course too. It's got some postage sized greens too, especially I think it's oh nine. I remember correctly coming in, that thing, I swear to God, is like the size of a quarter. 00:22:05:10 - 00:22:26:05 Unknown It feels like, because you're hitting into it and it's so small. But I'll be honest with you, it's it makes it challenging. It makes it fun. But fairways are open in places, so it's got its challenges, but it's not going to beat you up, and you're not going to feel like you got run over playing this course. But there's a really cool water hole that I was playing in different tee boxes. 00:22:26:05 - 00:22:41:19 Unknown You were playing the tee boxes that were kind of back a little bit, where you actually had to go across the bridge and get up on that tee box to be able to shoot over the water. That's a fun hole. People there at at the course, the people that work at the bar, the people that check in were all awesome. 00:22:41:19 - 00:23:00:15 Unknown They're really fun to talk to. And I know that is a very popular course in the summer. So I will tell you that if you come to this area in the summer and you want to play top of the world, you are going to pay a little bit of money and you're going to have trouble getting a tee time because it's a very popular course in the Lake George Queensbury, Glens Falls area. 00:23:00:16 - 00:23:17:21 Unknown So I did not realize that we went and played that you hadn't played the full 18. Yeah, I had only played, you know, the original nine and I don't I'm not positive because it had been so many years. You know, like I said, it was 2009. So you're, you know, you're looking at 17 years since I had last played it. 00:23:17:21 - 00:23:36:13 Unknown It's my math. Right. And so I wasn't sure if they mixed some of the old holes with onto the front and some of them onto the back or whatever. But regardless, it's an 18 hole course now, not particularly long. I played for the longest tees, and I believe there are only 6100 yards from the longest tees, so it's a little bit of a short course. 00:23:36:13 - 00:23:52:17 Unknown But again, the staff was fantastic, like you said. And it's not a country club atmosphere folks. By any stretch of the imagination. There's not a there's not a course ranger out there telling people to move it along. There's you know, they're not giving you a scorecard that tells you you got to be in by such and such a time. 00:23:52:19 - 00:24:08:11 Unknown It's a very laid back atmosphere there, which is kind of what you want when you're in the middle of the Adirondacks and such beautiful scenery. And we did have bluebird skies that day. It was absolutely gorgeous out. And the other thing that they do have there is they do have places you can stay. I'm sure they have packages for stay and play. 00:24:08:13 - 00:24:26:28 Unknown There's several different like areas and that that could have places to stay. There's a house that's right next to the clubhouse. It looks like it has a couple places you can stay. And it's really interesting. You walk into the clubhouse and it does feel a little bit like you go back in time. Like the interior is very log cabin. 00:24:26:28 - 00:24:46:15 Unknown It's it's like a lot of red wood, a lot of wood in there. But there's just something about walking in there. Feels like you kind of go back in time. It's it's got a little bit of mix, old and new because they have it's a stay in play type of place. They have lodging there on site. Everything from really small accommodations for just a couple of people. 00:24:46:16 - 00:25:04:01 Unknown A couple wanted to go all the way up to they have like full size, I think they call them apartments. They're not positive what they call them, but they're very large rentals where you can fit like a couple of families together in the same place. You know, where they have, you know, accommodations to sleep, 6 or 8 people. 00:25:04:04 - 00:25:30:04 Unknown So it's it's a really neat mix of the old and new. I felt the same way walking the clubhouse. It very felt very homey because the way I described it. But it was it was beautiful, beautiful place in a beautiful day. And I, you know, I'm I'm glad I got to do it again more recently. And it's going to be on my short list of places that if we're just banging around to do something we don't do regularly locally, that's going to be one of them that I'll pick for sure out of the top of my head. 00:25:30:06 - 00:25:55:17 Unknown I also want to do a shout out to Luxury Box. As I say every episode, it's where we get to record this. This is actually in one of the simulators that Dave has here at Luxury Box, and it's a great opportunity for us to showcase the room that we're in and showcase the screens and stuff like that, and eventually down the road, we hope to do more with the simulator to have some fun with people we have on the podcast. 00:25:55:18 - 00:26:13:28 Unknown But thank you, Dave, for allowing us to come here to use this facility and to record the podcast here in this room. It's a great opportunity for us, but if you're looking for somewhere to swing when it's raining out or it's cold or it's the winner, the luxury box is the place to go. And that's just one weekend. 00:26:14:00 - 00:26:45:28 Unknown We got another weekend to talk about. So it has been a little bit of a time since we recorded the last episode. So now we're going to talk about the following weekend where we did some more golf. So where do we go then? First we went to Casper Kill Country Club down in the Catskills again, down in that same area, the Poughkeepsie area, this time a little bit a little bit further south than we're Apple Greens was, not by a ton, but enough just a little bit, maybe 15, 20 minutes further up. 00:26:46:02 - 00:27:13:23 Unknown Casper Kill was a really nice course, I liked it. I really enjoyed it there because I played probably the best round I played in a couple of months. It's probably the third best I've played this season. I was looking at my stuff for us, amateur looking, so I, I did win two tournaments this year and I was kind of curious, like where I was with those wins and the one I won with the 90 I missed and came in second place. 00:27:13:28 - 00:27:35:29 Unknown So, well, Kona, I had the 90 at Fair Park. I had a 90 as well, but I missed winning by one stroke. And then my other win was a 97 at Wilt Wick. So I shot a 93 at Casper Kill, and I really felt like I was hitting well. I felt like I was I was shooting well, I was shooting into the greens. 00:27:35:29 - 00:28:00:29 Unknown Well, I was putting well and it just felt like an on day for me. And so of course, I liked that course a lot because I was playing well there, but it just it was a beautiful course. Again, the greens were absolutely gorgeous and when you can put and you just feel the stroke and you just feel it come off your stroke and you're not having to like, whack it, it just is fun to put on greens like that. 00:28:00:29 - 00:28:18:22 Unknown The course was absolutely gorgeous. Rough was a bit long there too, if I remember correctly. It was. And so there was definitely some times where I was like, oh, I got to go up a club or two because I got to get out of this rough. And sometimes it was like, oh, that settled down and you're really thinking about what you're shooting out of there. 00:28:18:24 - 00:28:38:12 Unknown Like, for example, one of the things that a lot of other courses, if I'm still 200 yards out, I have hybrids that I will use. But when you get into rough like that, you got no choice. You got to use an iron because you're never going to cut through. Yeah. Trying to lift it out of heavy rough. You know, none of us are PGA tour strength or quality of swing. 00:28:38:14 - 00:28:55:11 Unknown So trying to have you rough with anything that bulky, like a hybrid or a fairway wood is just typically not going to happen. You can try to play hero golf and do it. It typically doesn't end well. Your best bet is to chop it up as far as you can with whatever iron you're comfortable with, and go for the bogey if necessary. 00:28:55:13 - 00:29:14:13 Unknown So what did you think of Casper Kill? I liked Casper Kill. I call it a straight hitters golf course. It is not something where you want to be. And you don't have to be a super long hitter on that course to be successful. Which is great for someone like myself, because I'm kind of USGA standards for an amateur at my age. 00:29:14:18 - 00:29:35:22 Unknown I had said in the past, I hit the ball about 240 on an average drive. It's kind of right, you know, right up the wheelhouse for most everybody else. Again, that's my age. But it is not something where you want to get off line a lot, because they do have a fair amount of trees. It was much more closed than a lot of the other courses we played. 00:29:35:22 - 00:29:55:13 Unknown Apple greens had mostly apple trees. With the exception of the extreme outsides of the course, well outside the rough. Even so, for the most part, you know Apple Greens, if you were, you know, hitting out of rough or hitting out of anywhere and you were blocked by a tree, you were kind of not blocked because it didn't take much loft to get up and over an apple tree. 00:29:55:15 - 00:30:13:15 Unknown So they played completely different. But I will say that Casper Kill is, you know, one of those ones. I would love to go back on a day where I'm hitting a little bit straighter. I didn't hit horribly there, but I didn't hit my best, that's for certain. And I took too many early drops that I, you know, are just dopey. 00:30:13:15 - 00:30:31:24 Unknown And you never want to do those. But beautiful. Course, I love the I love the greens. Tee boxes are absolutely great. I think they had a couple of bad ones, but for the most part they were fantastic for you guys at home. That's how I always judge courses, greens and tee boxes. I don't think you should have to be hitting out of divots, you know, left and right on every single tee box. 00:30:31:24 - 00:30:47:08 Unknown And then when you're on the greens, I don't think you should have to worry about your ball bouncing like a Plinko disc. I think you should be able to, you know, pick a line and go pretty straight at it. And it's it's nice to see that, you know, that course did a very good job at keeping up with those two things. 00:30:47:11 - 00:31:05:27 Unknown And so then we traveled to another course and we actually played these two courses in the same day. Don had actually set this up. So we had a morning tee time, and then we had an afternoon tea time, and we had a little bit of time in between so we could chill. And and it wasn't a super rush. 00:31:06:00 - 00:31:21:26 Unknown Kind of wish we had an earlier tee time for the second one. But you have to be careful because you never know what that first one's going to take, and especially on the weekends, it could take you five hours, 5.5 hours to play around, and you don't want to get stuck rushing to the next, the next tee time. 00:31:21:29 - 00:31:42:11 Unknown So we had a little bit of time. And where did we end up for a second one? McCann Memorial Golf Course. And that was really interesting because we were sitting in a clubhouse having a drink, chilling, waiting for our tee time. And on the wall they actually had a basically a rendering of what they were doing to update the course. 00:31:42:11 - 00:31:58:23 Unknown And this was several years ago, and it was really interesting to see, like they showed where they were taking trees out, they were showing how they extended some of the fairways, they had lengthened some of the hole. So it was really neat to see, like how they put this whole thing together. And it was a giant map, but it was a really cool. 00:31:58:27 - 00:32:15:26 Unknown I was thinking, that'd be an awesome thing to have, like in my house. I just love that kind of stuff where you get to see like the the holes actually all drawn out. So that was neat. Yeah. And I talked to the course ranger at one point. Towards the end of the day, he was reminding us, I'll get to a different golfer grape on this one on another week. 00:32:15:26 - 00:32:36:03 Unknown But anyways, tell us carts had to be in by 7:00. Regardless, got talking to them. And come to find out a little history of the course. It was an IBM owned course. So. IBM owned the course. It was essentially an employees course that could go play it whenever they wanted. And then at some point they deemed it, you know, unnecessary to own. 00:32:36:07 - 00:32:58:18 Unknown And they I believe they gave it to the town of Kingston or wherever we were at at that particular time. It was only seven minutes away from Casper, which was kind of nice there. So close. Playing speed golf's always fun because it's my type of golf. That was my best round of the two, and that's exactly what I had to do, because obviously we we had to be back in by 7:00. 00:32:58:18 - 00:33:24:08 Unknown And I think we got the whole like 13, 14. And then we realized that we had to pick it up to get our, our carts in on time, and we made it through 16 that close through 16 and still had plenty of daylight left. And that's part of his grab. He's like, we had plenty of time. But it was funny because he and I have played speed golf before were like, okay day. 00:33:24:12 - 00:33:40:14 Unknown And usually it's our third round at a place and we're like, okay, we got to get it in and we're just you go up, you hit, go up, you go up, hit, and no practice swings, no thinking about it. And we found it. Sometimes that's some of our best golf because you're not having the thoughts, the the swing thoughts. 00:33:40:14 - 00:33:56:14 Unknown You're not trying to fix something. You're just like, I need to get the ball out there so we can go to the next spot. So we did a little bit of that and that that was kind of funny. And it was a little frustrating not to get those last two holes in. But I will tell you, they had the best carts. 00:33:56:17 - 00:34:14:00 Unknown They did. They had those carts were like sitting on a cloud. They they the nicest cart seats I've I've literally ever been on myself. And Jake and I have golfed all the country and, and and I've been to even more states than he has. I've been to some really, really high end courses, and I've been to garbage courses. 00:34:14:01 - 00:34:33:10 Unknown And so I've seen all iterations of golf carts. I have never seen one that were built like you were inside of a Cadillac. Are they? I they legit felt like leather seats. They were extra well cushioned. Everything about them was nice. Never been in the cart that felt was so comfortable. And you might think, is that really important? 00:34:33:13 - 00:34:54:12 Unknown I don't know, it might be for some people, but I'll be honest with you, it was a nice luxury to have because it was super comfortable. So yeah, so that that course was was good. I liked that course. I enjoyed playing it. There were a couple holes where I just felt like the greens could have been a little better. 00:34:54:14 - 00:35:16:12 Unknown But again these courses again it's a weekend you don't know like they get beat up. They were playing it later in the day they could have gotten beat up a little bit. But again they weren't, they weren't bumpy. They just had a couple marks here and there. Rough was long there too. And it was at the end, you know, it was the end of the day on a, on a very, very busy Saturday. 00:35:16:13 - 00:35:36:16 Unknown Yeah. So it didn't surprise me that they were cuffed up a little bit here and there. I mean, those things are going to happen. Yeah. Unfortunately, as my uncle, who's, you know, 83 years old and says to me all the time, I hate it when people don't repair ball marks. Now, he's six foot five and and, still takes the time to repair every ball mark that he leaves on a green. 00:35:36:19 - 00:35:54:00 Unknown Shout out to Uncle Scott for still sticking in there and doing it. He golfs five days a week and and he's still bending over to pick up, you know, every, every mark he makes on the green he fixes. And usually he'll fix an extra 1 or 2. And at that age, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't feel like bending over at six foot five, but he still does it. 00:35:54:07 - 00:36:08:25 Unknown And I've seen guys half my age in their mid 20s that walk away from, you know, that that all the time, not even give a second thought to doing that. And they're the same type of guys that walk away from, you know, raking a sand bunker or something like that. They, they don't think it's their responsibility to have to do it. 00:36:08:25 - 00:36:26:09 Unknown And they're dead wrong. Yeah it is. You do damage to the course. You fix it. Yeah. And the staff there was great again, like you said, that the guy that was kind of the starter Ranger that was kind of doing both. He was super fun to talk to, super like happy that we were there, that we were visiting the course. 00:36:26:09 - 00:36:42:13 Unknown We told him about the podcast. He was super excited about that. I will say though, I asked him for tips on the way out and he told me to just put it in a fairway. I'm not sure that's the kind of tip I was looking for, but thanks now. He was a super nice guy. He was super great to talk to. 00:36:42:14 - 00:36:58:10 Unknown We ran into him later in the round. He was out, I think, collecting garbage and doing that kind of stuff, and he just was asking us like where we were from and and how we were playing. And then we started talking about the podcast. And again, he was super awesome. And he was like, I'm so excited that you guys are here. 00:36:58:10 - 00:37:19:00 Unknown So really, really nice staff. All of these places have had amazing staff and they've been great to talk to. Don Don's been getting numbers and cards and things like that to talk to the pros there about setting up these tour stops and we don't know what's going to happen, but he's got a good list going now that we've been able to help him basically vet. 00:37:19:01 - 00:37:36:16 Unknown And I think he's got some stuff coming up for next year. If all of you are listening, earlier you heard Jake talk about the 97 that he shot, that, where he won at Wilt Wick. Wilt Wick was down in that same area, his private country club, very exclusive country club that we got to play only because we're on this tour. 00:37:36:19 - 00:38:06:22 Unknown Not because we're good golfers, not because we want to shell out the money, but only because we are on the US and tour the US and tour is literally for everybody. As Jake mentioned, he won Wilt Wick shooting in 97, now typically in his handicap range because he's in the 20 plus handicap group, which is called the Tiger Flight or his handicap group has people ranging from, you know, a 20 handicap all the way up to a 35, 40 handicap, some of them guys that are just starting, but they like the competition, they like the fun of being out there. 00:38:06:24 - 00:38:25:02 Unknown And on any given day, anybody that's played amateur golf knows that you can hit a little bit better than you normally do. In that particular case, Jake didn't hit a little bit better because normally he has to hit low 90s to win his flight, but it shows just how much this tour is for amateurs. It's built and bred for everybody. 00:38:25:04 - 00:38:49:11 Unknown He shot a 97 and he's still one. I've shot some rounds that I'm not proud of in the past. Like it wasn't what my goal was coming in. I usually want to be in the low to mid 80s. I've shot some high 80s that have won me tournaments. And it's nothing to shake your head at or be upset with or anything like that, or feel like you backed into because you still have the competition out there trying to do the same thing you're do you do, which is shoot the lowest score. 00:38:49:15 - 00:39:07:22 Unknown Jake shot at 97. And on that particular day it was the lowest score. Hats off to him. That's all his competitors can say. They wanted to do the same thing. They didn't get it done and he did. But I just want to stress that doesn't matter if you're young old man, woman, you know, short, tall, fat, skinny. Doesn't matter. 00:39:07:25 - 00:39:29:08 Unknown This tour is for everybody. We've won a bunch of times. We're going to be talking about that in weeks to come. And we've won a bunch of times in a very, very different ways between myself, Jake, and my wife. And we're going to talk about some of those throughout the course of the winter. But I just want to stress that how important it is for everybody to understand that this tour is for everybody. 00:39:29:08 - 00:39:57:08 Unknown It does not cost a lot of money. And as Jake mentioned, the tour schedule that we're kind of helping Don that are he's coming to a theater near you, as they say. But in this case, he's coming to a golf course near you. We've looked at courses in Massachusetts. We've looked at courses down in the Mid Hudson range, which would be, you know, the Poughkeepsie area, Kingston area, New Paltz area down in the Catskills, things out of the Capital Region, which is where our base is, the Albany region. 00:39:57:10 - 00:40:15:22 Unknown And then also don looking at courses in Western New York. Our first tour stop next year, to the best of my knowledge, is going to be leather Stocking Golf Course out in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. So there's a lot of good things on the horizon. I look forward to seeing more and more people joining the tour. 00:40:15:22 - 00:40:31:07 Unknown And I want everybody to know that this tour is for you. It's for you. You don't have to second guess yourself. Like I did when I first joined the tour, I second guessed if I had it in me to to be able to compete with people. And then I realized that's the nature of having a handicapped group that you're in. 00:40:31:07 - 00:40:51:28 Unknown Everybody's in the same boat. You're all guys that have a similar type swing and make similar type mistakes, and you're all competing for the ultimate prize for your particular group, which is the win. Yeah, I will say, as the person who shot that 97, I will be honest with you, it wasn't my greatest round. It wasn't a great round for me, but I had to battle for it. 00:40:52:04 - 00:41:11:19 Unknown I had a guy in my foursome who in the beginning and I told the story I previous podcast. I didn't realize he was in our fight, but once I realized he was in our flight, the little holes he came after me. He he struggled a little bit in the beginning came after me. He tried to close down some of those strokes in the middle and then at the end had some trouble and I was able to get the win. 00:41:11:19 - 00:41:32:23 Unknown But that didn't mean it still wasn't a battle. And so I think that's the fun part to note two is just because you're shooting a little bit higher score. Keep playing because you never know what's going to happen. Now the 90s, I will tell you that I shot were very different, that I could feel the difference. I knew when I walked off that 18th hole for a park that I had shot a really good round. 00:41:32:23 - 00:41:49:01 Unknown When I shot the round at Kona, I thought I shot a really good round, but I was because it was my first win. I was like, I'm not going to believe it until he puts the trophy in my hand. But I knew I shot a good round. That's different than shooting a 97 and being surprised that I actually was able to win that. 00:41:49:02 - 00:42:18:23 Unknown So I think that's the thing that Brett saying is it is for everybody. You're going to have those swings where you have really good rounds and you have really bad rounds, but you have the ones in between that are your average rounds. This is for everyone. I haven't playing on this tour. I've enjoyed being part of it because the competition makes the golf different, the competition makes you play better, and I think that's the thing that everybody needs to to know is that, yeah, it's competitive, but it's also fun. 00:42:19:01 - 00:42:38:20 Unknown We're all competitive, but the minute we get done with the round, everybody is sitting around having a beer, having a meal, talking about how their round went, that we carpool together. It becomes a community of people that absolutely love golf. But yeah, when it's time, we're competitive, but the rest of the time we're just having a great time. 00:42:38:22 - 00:42:58:17 Unknown So we would love to see this grow and we're doing everything we can to help Don grow it. And I think if you are interested, you should check out the U.S. Amateur Albany region, and there'll be a link in the description for that. Make sure you check that out. And as at any time the people could talk to Don himself, you know, look him up. 00:42:58:23 - 00:43:19:08 Unknown I talk to Don frame. He's the director of the Albany chapter. And you could ask him, hey, do you guys do any tournaments near me? And he'll give you a very straightforward answer. Oh, yeah. We're coming out to that area. Syracuse or or Poughkeepsie or northern New York or whatever. He will give you a very straightforward answer as to if and when we're coming out to an area like that. 00:43:19:10 - 00:43:35:21 Unknown So if you're only interested in playing stuff that's around your house, a lot of guys do it just so they can get into. That's one of the reasons I initially joined, is so I could get into clubs that I wouldn't have a chance because they're private country clubs. I don't have the coin to be thrown out 20, $25,000 and a bunch of different private country clubs. 00:43:35:21 - 00:43:52:22 Unknown Instead, I joined this tour for a minimal, minimal cost and as a result, I get to go to a bunch of beautiful, beautiful private country clubs that I wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to golf. And we're well aware that there are many of you that are not from New York State and not from the Albany region that are interested in this. 00:43:52:24 - 00:44:18:24 Unknown Go to the US amateur website. You will see that there's a listing of all the regions all over the country. So find the region that's near you. Click on that, find out who the director is, call them. But again, if you're interested in talking to Don, let us know. Don has talked to people from all over the place and and we'll point them to the directors that he may know that may help you in those regions, especially in the northeast to East Coast area. 00:44:18:24 - 00:44:34:14 Unknown He knows a lot of those directors and can point you in the right direction. So again, if you're interested, there'll be a link in the description. Make sure you check that out. We really want to see this tour grow. We're having a blast doing it. We're having a blast talking about it. And we hope that more people will join. 00:44:34:14 - 00:44:53:27 Unknown And I think you'll find the competitions a lot of fun. So before we close out, you got to rule of the day. I do what I'm bringing the smoke today for a rule today. Oh boy. And I mean that quite literally. See, one thing that's beautiful here about the luxury box, this golf simulator that is behind us is we don't have to deal with any. 00:44:53:29 - 00:45:16:00 Unknown Well, we'll call it climactic conditions. We don't have to worry about rain, because right now, outside, it is drizzling the heavy rain. It has been since 1:00, I think there abouts. So we were supposed to golf at our home course today. Brookhaven. And we just opted not to because we have this beautiful facility that a we shoot the podcast app, but more importantly, we're able to come here on crappy days or all winter long. 00:45:16:00 - 00:45:33:18 Unknown For us Northern New Yorkers, we come here and we shoot the simulator. It's it's a completely different game, some people say. And it is it's it's definitely different. Putts putting is different. We don't put too much into the putting. We do a ten foot or an eight foot gimme circle. But regardless, that'll bring you to my rule today. 00:45:33:18 - 00:46:02:05 Unknown In here you don't have any of those climactic conditions right outside. You do. What's one of the big things climactic. They have outside wind. So that brings where I'm going to that's this is where I'm going to bring it to the smoke portion of the podcast. So I found out just recently that if you see a buddy smoking a cigarette and you are observing what the smoke trails are doing, the smoke signals, as they call them in the USGA rulebook, it is perfectly legal. 00:46:02:05 - 00:46:21:02 Unknown If you didn't like that cigarette up to study what the smoke is doing, coming off that person's cigarette to see, okay, the wind is moving left to right or it's moving in my face or whatever. And you can use that essentially as a wind indicator. No different than looking at the top of a flagpole, which way a flag is blowing. 00:46:21:04 - 00:46:40:24 Unknown But sometimes you want to know what the wind is doing closer to ground versus up high, you know, and sometimes just the opposite, I realize. However, here's the rules part of it I couldn't. Then we have our buddy Tim from North Carolina Smokes. I've never even thought once to look over at him. All he's smoking a cigarette to see what the wind is doing to the smoke trail. 00:46:40:27 - 00:47:00:03 Unknown However, if I asked him to bum a cigarette off him and Tim looks at me cross-eyed because he knows I don't smoke and never will. But if Tim looks at me and says, well, you can't use a cigarette to check that out, even though I'm using his smoke trail to do it before then, Tim would be right. You cannot intentionally without incurring a penalty. 00:47:00:03 - 00:47:31:22 Unknown You cannot intentionally light a cigarette or any other smoking device and effort to gauge the wind. However, it is perfectly legal to use somebody else doing the same thing as doing it. So I suppose Milan in the short of it, as long as you don't tell somebody that you're paying attention to the smoke that's coming off your cigarette, you could technically, if you're already a smoker and everybody knows it, you could technically light up that cigarette and watch the smoke roll across the sky one way or the other, and that'll give you an indicator of, you know which way the wind is blowing. 00:47:31:24 - 00:47:51:09 Unknown It's not a perfect system either way, and I wouldn't recommend people take up smoking for the sake of their golf game. Or golf's bad enough for you health wise. You shouldn't add smoking to it. But just so you know, if you ever want to take a sneak peek at you're playing competition or you're playing partner that's in the cart next to you, if you need a cheat that day, it's perfectly legal to do. 00:47:51:09 - 00:48:07:25 Unknown Just don't light up your own and do the same thing. So I had a question. Am I allowed to take that individual and tell him he needs to stand over my golf ball while he spoke in a cigarette? That might be a little on the intentional side. All right. I'll make sure I don't do that next time. Play with Tim. 00:48:07:25 - 00:48:27:28 Unknown Tim, get over here. Stand over here. That is interesting. I did not I mean, it makes sense because it's like they can't tell somebody they can't smoke. And so I get it. Like that makes sense. But you're right. Like I never thought to look at that. No wonder John Daly was so good on you. That's why he smoked, wasn't it? 00:48:28:00 - 00:48:47:18 Unknown All right, so that's our role at the day. I swear he does not make these up. I don't know where he keeps finding these, but they are amazing. So if you are watching this, we want to make sure, because there's a lot of you that watch this that aren't subscribed. So we want to make sure that you do hit that subscribe button. 00:48:47:19 - 00:49:03:23 Unknown Make sure you hit that like button. Let us know that you like the episode. And more importantly, make sure you hit that bell because that'll tell you the next time the episode is going to come out. But again, a lot of you are not subscribed. Come on, hit that subscribe button and help us drive that subscription number up. 00:49:03:25 - 00:49:07:11 Unknown And with that, never leave a birdie putt short.