Episodes

Today’s episode presents the first half of my conversation with Chris Boysel, who is the Head PGA Professional at Kearney Hill Golf Links here in Lexington. He is one of those golf pros blessed with natural enthusiasm for golf and the gift of gab. It was a fun, engaging conversation, with this first half making the case for silly season golf, how to structure a men’s league in modern golf, and what it was like to host the PGA Junior Boys National Championship in 2021 at Kearney Hill, among other...

A wandering, wonderful with Chicago's Kris McEwan, a gentleman with one of the widest spreads between his golf playing handicap and his golf conversationalist index.

This episode presents the story of the once and future Park Mammoth Golf Course in Park City, Kentucky. And to help me tell it’s story, we’re speaking again with friend of the podcast, golf architect Brian Ross.

In this second installment of The Americans in Wisconsin Roundtable with friends of the show, Matt and Fred, we pickup where we left off in Episode 2, moving from the discussion of the Sand Valley Course to this week’s insights on The Sandbox Short Course, the Mammoth Dunes Course, and the luxury the resort experience that happens to offer golf that is the Sand Valley Resort.

Jim and I discuss out-of-the way golf adventures, old-school caddies, unsung heroes of construction, and of course, his excellent new book, The Secret Home of Golf: The Authorized History of King-Collins Golf and the Creation of Sweetens Cove. Plus if you stick around to the end of the interview, Jim profiles his 10 favorite Blind Shot holes in Scotland. It’s a special treat and a helluva to-do list for golf enthusiasts everywhere. The Secret Home of Golf, available from back9press.com The Links...

Erstwhile friends of the show Fred & Matt join me to discuss the annual summer Guys' Golf Trip. This 2021 version found us at Sand Valley Golf Resort. In this first edition of the Americans in Wisconsin mini-series, we discuss the gem that this the Coore + Crenshaw designed Sand Valley Course, caddies, walking golf, and tacos.

Recommendations of where to play golf if you're visiting Kentucky.

This is the final Americans in Pinehurst Roundtable, this time with friend of the podcast John Mark Kennedy, wherein we delve into that most special of Sandhills' courses, Tobacco Road. I’m often asked by folks that haven’t made the pilgrimage to Sanford, North Carolina, what makes the course so special, and I invariable struggle to come up with a satisfactory response. On a piece of land with a complicated history, from tobacco patch to mining and sand extraction, it now looks and feels like it...

Welcome to another episode in my series of discussions about Public Golf in America, this time through our local scene here in Central Kentucky, Justin Mullinnax, PGA. After serving as the head golf professional at Kearney Hill Golf Course and Gay Brewer Jr. Course at Picadome, Justin is now charged with overseeing Lexington’s golf leagues, adult clinics, and championship tournament schedules, basically to be the engagement manager for Lexington golf, for beginners and serious players. While the...

Today, Fred and I recap what made our recent Winter Golf Getaway to Chattanooga, Tennessee so special and fun. We lament a canceled event at Sweetens Cove, the mother of all Plan B’s, and also do a brief deep dive on what makes Black Creek Club a very special place. Black Creek Club is the…

A front nine of thoughts to close out the winter off-season and move towards the active spring golf window, a monologue riff on what we've been up to at the Blind Shots Podcast and what we're looking forward to. Topics include a recent golf trip that was ruined, then miraculously salvaged, all within a half of an hour, what I learned by being a golf trip participant instead of being in charge, and why I'm hopeful that golf can actually get "smaller."

It’s Round Four of The Americans in Pinehurst Roundtable, with erstwhile friends, Matt and Fred. In this episode we discuss a bit of a Sandhills Unicorn: a relatively new golf course, by Pinehurst area standards. I mean, of course, the Dormie Club, the 2010 Coore + Crenshaw masterwork located just 10 minutes from the heart…

In Episode 26, Scott Laffin and I bounce around ideas golf and golf course businesses.He has carved out a non-traditional role for himself in golf course design and construction through is firm, Feature Golf Consulting, as the guy behind the guy. A professional landscape architect by training, he’s enjoyed backdoor access and hands-on experience to some of the most exciting projects of the last decade, including the original Sand Valley Course in Wisconsin, and the newly announced Lido Course re...

Today’s episode is another in my series of discussions about Public Golf in America. This version is a special treat, as I have a wide-ranging discussion with one of the smartest, most intriguingly credentialed people working in golf, Mike McCartin, co-founder of the National Links Trust. With a bachelor’s degree in economics from that esteemed school in Durham, North Carolina, and a masters of landscape architecture from Georgia, experience as a working golf course designer and builder with Ren...

It’s Round Three of The Americans in Pinehurst Roundtable, with our friends, Matt and Fred. In this episode we contrast two courses that I strain to find nominal similarities, but in reality, couldn’t be much more different. I’m talking about Donald Ross’s Southern Pines Golf Club, and Rees’ Jones New Course at Talamore, both in Southern Pines, NC. Talking about these two courses with Fred and Matt bring back plenty of great memories, and some deeper thoughts about golf trips and the Sandhills. ...

Welcome to the second episode of The StoneCrest Series, an in-depth look a very special golf course in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Brad Reynolds is the course's superintendent and general manager, so there's few people who could know StoneCrest better. We talk everything from collapsing greens to amazing scenery to community assets and municipal course operations. It's such a treat to get insights about the golf industry and a specific golf course from someone who lives it everyday. I may...

Welcome to Episode 22! To start the new year, I bring you the voice of someone new to the game. Many of you are lifers or golf tragics, like me. I find chatting or playing a round of golf with someone that has just been newly bitten by the golf bug to be a wonderfully nostalgic exercise that helps realign perspective and priorities more toward where they deserve to be, in golf (and life). Golf is supposed to be a game, remember? She has caught the golf bug something awful and this was my chance ...

The COVID-19 induced golf boom of 2020 was one of the weird silver linings in a year unlike any other. Participation rates, numbers of rounds, and memberships sold were up across the board in places where golf was deemed a relatively safe form of recreation. For the purposes of this discussion, it paused many municipalities' slow assault against public golf courses, as revenues once thought gone forever again filled city coffers. Unfortunately, this era of good feelings sentiment doesn't extend ...

We welcome golf course architect Brian Ross in Episode 20, the first of a small series of episodes focused on one of my favorite and most special places in golf, StoneCrest Golf Course in Floyd County, Kentucky. A couple of hours southeast of Lexington, high on the mountain ridge above the city of Prestonsburg lay one of the most unique golf courses in the world. Constructed as part of a mountaintop removal reclamation site, StoneCrest offers a championship golf course in a remote part of Appala...

Welcome to Episode 19, an audio essay about golf friends and The Brotherhood of the Bogey. Thoughts on a page that I spoke into the microphone, essentially. A private message from a listener regarding an Americans in Scotland episode sends me down a path of introspection of who I play golf with, why, and what the next evolution looks like. I digress into a brief synopsis of why a recent swing change is the real deal and why I really mean it this time, I promise.

It’s Round Two of The Americans in Pinehurst Roundtable, and in this episode we visit one of my very favorite golf courses in the world, Mid Pines Golf Club, and it’s worthy brother across the street, the Pine Needles Golf Course. I’m a sucker for a period piece, and Mid Pines has the vibe of vintage cool practically oozing up through its firm, sandy turf and sandy, native grass waste areas. And it’s a perfect walking course, to boot. Gentle slopes that lead to some of the most subtle yet captiv...

What starts as a grill room debate with one of my best friends about Tobacco Road Golf Club evolved into a deep dive into blind shots on the golf course. At issue are the merits and differences between blind tee shots versus blind approach shots. To help settle the point, I tap friends and experts from a broad cross-section of the golf world to talk with me about blind shots.

This is Short Game Session 11 – A monologue of thoughts on a wild Club Championship week that included playing for keeps with a 5-wood, a great old course, and bad nerves before a driver fitting. Come for the golf talk, stay for the amateur physics lessons. Links for the show: The results of the…

Welcome to our new Americans in Pinehurst series. Familiar voices from a new setting, as Fred, Matt, and I provide tales, laughs, and analysis on our experiences in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. This week we discuss how we began our 2020 Golf Trip at the Pinehurst Resort, playing Pinehurst #1, The Cradle, and the Thistle Dhu putting course. Links: Pinehurst No. 1 The Cradle Thistle Dhu Putting Course