[MUSIC PLAYING] When something happens to your car, you might say, "Noooooo!" "My car!" But what you really need to say is something that can actually help. Like a good neighbor, state farm is there. Just like that, state farm is there to help you file your claim right on the state farm mobile app. So just remember, like a good neighbor, state farm is there. State Farm Bloomington, Illinois. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. In fact, Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/podcastfree. All lowercase, Shopify.com/podcastfree. Shopify.com/podcastfree. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INTERPOSING VOICES] That's Smiley Copan for '61. Wow. I'm Smiley Copan, and this is the Smiley Show. Welcome back to another episode of the Smiley Show. And this one's going to be a little bit different from our usual shows that watch Smiley. This is becoming like a theme now, as we open the show, and Smiley's got some sort of exotic beverage in his hand. What are we working with there? What do you think it is? That looks to me like a latte of some sort. There must be a brisk chill in there. What is-- tell me a little bit more about this latte. Was this-- did you get this at the Marine Hotel? I don't understand why they put a spoon in here. Do people just elevated vibes? Like, do people having a spoon and drinking? Well, maybe-- if they think you're going to add a little something to it, you know? That is some mixer. Some sugar, some cream, a little dollop of ice cream, things of that nature. Wow. A little bit of ice cream in here. That could be something. It's 538 by right now, by the way. So to these people that get freaked out is like, dude, you're drinking it. I mean, latte is not absurd by any means, as far as the metrics for caffeine. But still, it kind of wigs some people out. Some people don't drink coffee past lunch, and they can't sleep. This won't be a problem for me. I could be in bed two hours after this. I'm on the same boat, and I think that's probably says something about my levels of caffeine intake, which I really-- that's all my listed things I want to work on. Or just your lifestyle. Yeah, listen, we're parents of young children. So I think we get a little bit of a pass in the caffeine department. But I mean, this is really going to take us on a tangent. But I'm worried about my heart a little bit, Smiley. And so as a result of that, I'm back in the tennis game. Played tennis for the first time last night. Ran around a little bit. Was 15 minutes, and I thought my chest was going to explode. Really? Tough scene. Tough scene. Yeah, we really need to get back to the party. We need to get Charlie on the old workout program, huh? We do, because we moved with the Peloton. The Peloton was packed up. That was my main source of cardio. I've kind of-- I have a love-hate relationship with the Peloton, so it's been a lot of hate recently. Do you want to follow me on Peloton? Oh, yeah. Do you have a Peloton username? Oh, yeah. It's like my username, I have for everything. Do you want to hear mine? You're going to love mine. Yeah, give it to me. Chaz cycle cycles. [LAUGHTER] So there you go. It's one of my better-- it's one of my more creative user names that I've ever made in my entire life. But it was after watching Blades of Glory once. I was like, you know what would be a good Peloton name? Chaz cycle cycles. And so there it is. That's incredible. I got to-- Are you a low impact guy every time? You know, I-- golly, I love that this is how-- I love we're just-- we're tangent to now. This is fantastic. I am at risk of revealing a little bit too much about my Peloton persona. I'm committed to Olivia. Like, Olivia's my girl. Like, Olivia gets me right. She's like a little smiling assassin. You know, like, you know that if you're going to ride with Olivia, like, you're going to sweat, it's going to be worth the time you put in. So I do anything in the Olivia family. And then also from time to time, I'll do a lane break. You know, because I like the video game aspect. And they got some good tunes on there. But just-- I'm just lane breaking Olivia. That's all I do. OK. Noted. What's your game? You low impact guy? Sometimes, what I'm not feeling it, and then the competitive spirit I mean takes over. And then it doesn't turn into low impact any longer. I like doing, like, 20, 30 minute rides in Tabata. And, god, what would be the other one I do? Hi, is it high intensity? That's-- yeah. That's it. Yeah, hit. Hit and Tabata are, like, same family, like cousins, in a way. I just structured a little bit differently. Yeah. That's typically what I do. I don't think I've done a Peloton ride in probably a month or two, if that's kind of-- I've got some cobwebs on it. My literal-- it's now-- it used to be in my office. It's now in the garage. It has a literal cobwebs on it. So we have investment. Pelotons. I mean, if we really want to go down that road, yeah. Like, there was that boom. There was the pandemic boom, which was huge for the company. And then they invested a ton of money in, like, tread and new instructors, and this and that. And now they've kind of had this, like, turn of people who are no longer doing it. In fact, I think my monthly subscription is now dormant, because I was using it so infrequently that I said, let's pause this and we'll get back to it when we're ready to kind of literally and figuratively-- I think we're there until we just talk about that. I think we're there, but I will say, dude, and this happens to me every year when Wimbledon's on. I'm like, you know what I should do is get back into tennis. And so I gave it a shot. I hit with my buddy last night. He was, like, actually good at tennis. He's going to stream me up a little Babilat racket. My guy, Carlito Salcaraz. I'm going to just stand lockstep with him and get out there. And, you know, I'm trying to do 6 AM tennis twice a week. May 20th. May 20th. It's the last ride. I don't even know that I have the app on my phone anymore. You know what's bad about it when I walked into the app? It didn't even recognize me. Like, I had to-- that's when you know. That's when you know you need to get with it, kid. I'll do you one better. When I went to go click on my app, it did-- it done that thing where I hadn't used it so long that it was no longer loaded on my phone. It was like, I have to reinstall this app. [LAUGHTER] Just a bunch of dad things going on. Dad things, man. Dad things, indeed. Well, that's-- I love that we started here, because this actually sets a nice tone for what we're about to do for this episode, because we are-- you were currently listening to this. Well, Smiley is somewhere in Ireland, just golfing his ball, taking in all the sights and sounds, probably consuming all sorts of Irish beverages with good company. So I'm thrilled for you in that respect. Yes. And this is post-open week. What we decided to do here, because we've been on sort of a Scottish golf theme for a while. We just-- we have the Scottish Open in North Barrick. We move, of course, to Royal Troom. It's an air shower. Air shower, I think you're saying that right. OK, all right. Yeah, I'll take your word for that. Sound better than what you were saying. Yeah, air shower, air shower, yeah, whatever. Royal Troom in Scotland. That's the main part. So of course, we had a British Open in Scotland. And I, of course, on the front of all this, was on my own little sort of Scotland golf trip. My first adventure over in Scotland played 12 courses, played 13 rounds over eight days with my dad. It's absolutely phenomenal. And so what we decided to do here is a little bit of a trip review, a little bit of a show and tell action. I've got some notes. I've got pictures. I've got videos. And for any of you out there that have a Scotland trip on your bucket list, maybe this is sort of a helpful reference if you are trying to figure out where you want to play. If you want to hear a first-time perspective, there's a lot of people out there that have done this a million different times. This is like my first kind of dipping my toe in the pool. So that all sounded good to you, smiling. Yeah, no, basically, we are doing a blog, except we're not typing it. We're going to talk about it. And I'm going to have plenty of questions throughout. I think that for any golfer that has fallen in love with the game and has not played golf in Scotland or better yet in Ireland, that would be something you need to put on your bucket list. Because I was thinking about this walking around this morning at Royal Trune, that there's not a whole lot of things I love more than links golf. I was thinking about a list of things that would be above it. And it's up there. It's top five. Links golf is top five of my favorite things in the world. I could not agree more. And experiencing it for the first time for me was it was like the first day when we played a more modern course for our first course, done Donald. But still, the elements and the sort of course conditions remain similar, if not the same. And it was the delight in setting my bag down. And instead of doing my customary pulling out my 56 degree and hitting some short chip shots, pulled out a pitching wedge and a seven iron. And I was going to warm up the bump and runs and seeing how far I need to carry certain shots so I can land them and run them up on the greens. This is the delight in trying to shape different shots and do things differently in Scotland than you would ever do for the most part in the United States. That part of it is just it's so much-- and it's two things. It's what happens to the ball in the air with so much more wind and elements that we normally experience in the United States. And it's what happens to the ball on the ground, with these sort of firm approaches and roles and contours. It's truly, it's a-- I'm sure at some point in time, if you play the game of golf, you play a course, you're like, wow, that's really unique and fun. It's that almost every single time you go out and play, which is just amazing. Yeah, it's tremendous. The fact that I think with mainly modern US golf courses that I would say amateurs typically play and pros as well, just the game that we're accustomed to is if you're playing a residential area, you've got a bunch of OB stakes. If you're playing in Florida or somewhere else near some water, you're trying not to hit it in the big lakes. But when we're talking about links golf, it's such a unique experience with the turf and the mounts and figuring a way to be OK with just some insane bad-- insane bad bounces and it opens to bad areas. But you can just see shots and play them and use the ground. And I think that's what makes it so fun versus what I was just referring to earlier, which is for the most part, American golf is the shots that you hit and see or shape with the hole or shape with the tree line. And in links golf, you're just shaping it with the way the land goes and the way the wind is blowing. And that's just the beauty of it. And typically, the greens aren't as fast. They're slower. God, it's the best. Top five. It's the best. It's that red fescue that rolls it like an eight or a nine. It's unlike anything that we put on for the most part in the United States. Because even of course, running at that speeds the United States, the surface would feel different. It would feel soft or it wouldn't feel as firm. It's a delight. I mean, it's something that kind of to your point on the land, it feels like land is largely untouched. And in some places, it's literally untouched. And so we'll get into that. So smiley, look, I've got a big old stack of yardage books, scorecards. I'm going to go through this thing chronologically with for you. Let me, where are we starting? Because I want to fall along in the Google machine. Well, here's the first place I'm going to start with the big shout out to the places I got to stay, which one of them is right behind you, Marine Trune. We stayed at three Marine hotels, Marine Trune, Marine North Barrick, and then Rustic's also in that same family of hotels. And so Marine Trune. Shout out to my boy Ben Welpren. He's part of that whole deal. So shout out to my boy. Shout out to Ben, shout out to everyone there. The service was top notch. It's funny you're holding up a latte there because I immersed myself in British culture. I did English breakfasty every day. Just like, let's just, we're going to rock out T on this trip. We're going to lean in. We're going to do the local customs on this trip. So I did that. First place we stayed was where you are right now, Marine Trune, which this is literally, it couldn't have been a 200 yard walk from the hotel. This is the 18th. It's the Royal Trune mining. I see it right here. I see the 18th. And by the way, where you're standing, you are half in balance, half out of bounds. Did you know that? Yes, yes. I found that out today at a rules meeting that, and you know, what's going to be crazy about this is when you're listening to this next Wednesday, is one of there's a big scuttlebutt about how this is an OB right here. And we find that out on like Sunday late afternoon with the group and some dude catches a flyer, hits it out of bounds and loses the golf tournament. We're going to be talking about it forever. But here we are, half in, half out of bounds. Charlie Hume here at the 18th. And if you're not watching, you need to go watch. Because I think we might be previewing history right here. He just didn't know it. We very well could because it's because not knowing where the traditional Sunday pen placement is. I mean, if they put this thing in the back of the green, there's five yards to this dividing line, maybe seven yards. I mean, it is a very fine margin. So annoying the fact that it's that close, right? I thought it was, I thought it was cool. My one regret was I didn't fully walk around Royal True when I was there as you asked me to do the time that we were playing so much golf that we just did not have time to do it. But also shout out to this Slazinger sweater that Dennis Paulson of Inside the Robes gave to me. It just came in handy for these photos. So that is where we started. I'm going to go through this for you chronologically. So the first place I played, "Dundonnell Links." So this is sort of a, it's a newer course. "Dundonnell Links" is a newer course. It is designed by Kyle Phillips, the same architect who designed Kings Barnes. So he's got a track record over here. And I, let's see here. I'm looking with you. - Wow, that looks sweet, man. - Oh, it's right here near True. - It's right near True. In fact, it was, I think it was like an 11 minute drive from the Marine True. And to me, and it's also, we're going to talk about Western gales. It is just on the other side of the Scott Rail train track from Western gales. So it's not on the ocean. But for me, I think a lot of these courses get stick for, you know, the modern ones get stick 'cause they don't have the history or they're like, I think you gotta evaluate it in a different category. And the thing that I loved about "Dundonnell" was, it is, it had a, it was a modern course, but it had the linksy feel, but it still had like the modern infrastructure. So, and I'll show you a picture right here. We were there just days before they were hosting a, the open final qualifying. So here's my dad on the first tee with the, with the, you know, the signage up for that. And it's like, I think, I saw videos of Sergio playing "Dundonnell" just like days later to qualify for the open. And so I-- - Oh, it's Sergio. - It's a point there, okay. - To me, I felt like it was, help that I played good, which will be a common theme here. I opened the trip with a 76 and I was like, oh man, like, I might play good out here. That was not the case for most of the trip, but it was, I thought it was a very kind of fair test, but had, you know, burns and the rolls and the sort of the long grass and pop bunkers. And to me, I felt like it was, it like, I just, I think it was a nice way to enter the trip is a sort of migration from playing American golf to playing Scottish golf. It's like, here's a little halfway point to kind of dip your toe in it. And then we're gonna get you going. I-- - The clubhouse looks nice too. - The infrastructure was fantastic, Smiley. Like really and truly, I think that's a part of it. It's like, there's definitely a charm in some of these older courses, but for ones that are being built new, it's like, you kind of got to match that with facilities. And like, I mean, we were in and out of there through playing Turbary Ailsen afternoon, but I was like, can we hang around and hit the steam room and maybe like, you know, hang out here for a little bit, get a bite to eat. So-- - It looks great. - My favorite hole I'll show you here was the 11th. It's their sort of rendition of the postage stamp. - Yep, I saw a picture of that. - Yep. - Yeah, so you can kind of see the, you know, those sort of the bunkering in the front. It almost had a little bit of a-- - That's not postage stamp. That's much more redan-mucking to me, right? - Same, although it didn't have the, as much of the redan front-to-back tilted green quality. You know, it was more of like, it was sort of a flatter green. It just, I think basically the reason why they call it their sort of postage stamp is, I'll show you this right here in a second, is it's a very narrow green. And if you go low-- - Oh, it's so a super shallow, okay. - It's super shallow, and let me show you what's on the other side of the screen. - It's a drop-off. - Anytime you have stairs going into a pop bunker. That's a place you do not want to hit it. - You see the rakes, how they have, the big debate with rakes is if, should you leave your rake in, we're out of the bunker? Well, they've solved it here by having the hook on the end. It looks like a candy cane if you're not watching here on YouTube. And it's brilliant. It's, oh, well, this is how they all should be. - Hey, smiley, can you hear me? - Yep, just pick it up. - Okay, sorry, yeah, I just, you dropped a little bit. All right, perfect. Yeah, yeah, there was a wonderful variety in rakes on this trip, which was kind of fun. There was some at like, pan mirror that had like this sort of heaviness to them, and there was almost like a roller on it. Like three or four different rake styles over here. But yes, as you alluded to the candy cane rakes here to kind of hook it on the edge of that pop bunker, I thought we're fun. I love that whole, the 11th. I also love the 13th. They called it the unlucky 13th, which is like a 430 yard par four from the tips. And there is a good story that they're telling us about, I don't know which Pro Ama was, maybe it was the Dunhill, but whatever Pro Ama was, JP McManus playing with Rory McElroy. - Oh, okay. The way this green sets up is there's a kind of slope in the front and a burn in the front. And so you got to really carry it all the way up there 'cause it could roll off. There's a pop bunker on the right side and a pop bunker in the back. And there's like a severe sort of runoff on the back right side of the green. So you really got to be precise with this approach shot. So Rory's over the ball. He wants to hit a sand wedge. JP's adamant that he should have gap wedge, hits it into the back bunker, make six, lose the tournament, Rory reportedly, very unhappy on the back. So that was kind of, and it seemed like a short little simple enough hole, but I thought there was so many holes like that in Scotland that were just, they had teeth to him even though they were short. So done Donald really loved it. Cool strip, trip starter. And one, if you're over there and you're trying to kind of do a mix of old and new, big fan of done Donald. Great place, great place to get going. So that's not all. It seems like a really cool spot. And then throw in, you know, you didn't get the opportunity to play Royal Trune, but you can, Royal Trune is a private club. I think it's an expensive club to play. I think it costs probably 500 bucks or 500 pounds. I think it's pounds here to play this course, but you're able to kind of play a pretty good mix, of course, is if you throw in done Donald Royal Trune, Western Gales is another in the turnberry. So it's a really good area that we're in. It's a fantastic area. I mean, there's, and that's you kind of got to do the trip in pockets. Like, you know, the big regret being a Donald Ross guy is not getting all the way up North to play Royal Doorknob. You could, I was actually talking to TC of no laying up about this throughout the trip as he was exchanging messages about some pictures. And he was saying, "Don't force it. "Like just do what you can do on a trip. "Don't try to jam it all in. "You're going to come back "and you'll pick a different place, "even if it's been time there." So we did force a lot in, but, you know, I think it's a nice reminder of like, pick a spot and really immerse yourself in that spot. There will be other Scotland trips in the future if you really love the place, which I certainly like. - I'm, I'd like to try to find a way, 'cause it's overwhelming when you look at how much good golf there is, like you're talking about. And that's good, that's some good advice from TC. To me, I didn't, TC does not strike me as like the level headed guy when it comes to advice like this. So I love that he's speaking the truth in love when it comes to the addiction of checking off the list of golf courses of places you wanna play in Scotland. - That man is passionate about so many things it seems. I don't know him well, but it's funny that we've exchanged notes. He shot me a few notes when I played Sand Hills. That guy's a passion for good golf courses and good architecture. So it's always fun to play a course and then hear him sort of chime in. You're like, "Oh, good. "I got the TC course on the score." - It's a lot of fun. - TC is the, if you will, he's like the PFT in golf, just a... - Yes, yes, yes. - He's not afraid to put a take out there. And whether you like it or don't like it, which in the past, like him and I butted heads because he was pretty brutal to me and when I was playing like crap, but when you got a bit, you got a bit and you got to stick to it. So respect the game. - So that's done Donald, then played Turberry Ailsa in the afternoon and Kali, man. Like here's the best way. And this is, I also started giving shout outs to the caddies along the way. So Derek was on the bag. Derek had to watch me make a mess of this place. To me, this place reminded me in terms of feel when you're playing it to Pine Valley. And let me describe what... - And this is where, sorry. - This is Turberry Ailsa. - Oh. - So duel in the side. - So Turberry, what are you calling it? Turberry, what? - Ailsa, is that different from another? - Yes, Turberry, Trump, one team. - That's correct. So it's Trump, Turberry is the whole resort. And then there's Turberry, Ailsa. And then the second course, I think it's called King Robert the Bruce. - Oh, okay. - It used to be called Kintyre. - Is Ailsa the main? - Ailsa's the main that's the numerous open championships, duel in the sun, Stuart Sink and Tom Watson in '09. Like it was in all these places. You go to these places. - It looks incredible. - It is gorgeous. I'll share this photo I have up with you right now. - The night toll is like their version of Cypress, right? - There you go. - Night toll right in front of you. - Oh my gosh, there's the wind off the left. That wind is... (laughs) So this was a wind off the left day, smiley. - Oh my gosh. - I hit so many space balls. I took, I was aiming off this tee, like almost left of the lighthouse and still ended up right of the green. (laughs) - The last open they had there was '06, is that right? - '09. - '09. - That was the Stuart Sink, Tom Watson. - So tell me, is it a shame that they'll never go back? Is it the Trump thing? Is that why? - It is the Trump thing. And here is, let me just be very clear. - It's a shame, right? - Because it's such a... It looks amazing. - Let me be very clear about this. I have, there's no political assignment to this. In fact, I am the furthest you'll find from someone who is politically inclined. (laughs) I just wanna enjoy good golf, talk about good golf, play good golf. For all of the grief that Trump catches, like I'll say, pros and cons here. Cons are, I think this place, the sort of infrastructure around it has grown a little too ornate for a course that has such a rich and deep open championship history, right? Like it's a little bit too fancy compared to some of the nicer, or the other history steep clubs you go to and you see the cool club houses in Prestwick. It's such a great example of just you walk and you're like, wow, this feels like history. Now, the pros. - Muirfield, probably the same way. - Muirfield is probably the same way. What Trump has done with this course, whether it's him or an extension of who he got working for him, is so brilliant in terms of taking it back, they got a bunch of 1950s era aerial photos and took it back to that sort of version of the course and it's brilliant. I mean, it's just, it's where they moved greens out for some of these sort of scenic positions, over the water away from, like a lot of the greens were pulled further back and now they're in these more dramatic locations. It's a brilliantly designed and routed golf course. And I think that sometimes it gets lost in the ownership whose name's on it. You know, and to me, I don't think that's fair. It's like, I'm just trying to evaluate a golf course on some merits and I'd say, yes, it is a shame the opens not come back. Now, part of that might be, you know, travel, it's location, how do you get there and what's the infrastructure and all that sort of stuff? It is a little bit out of the way, but I'd say in terms of just a sheer, evaluating a golf course in a vacuum, this place is unbelievable. And so I'd say it looks unbelievable. Just the big rock out there. Oh my goodness. And so here, I'm gonna show you, here's looking back at, this is the 15s. Where does this rank for you for the trip? It is, so it's interesting. It's like, and this routinely appears in the top 10 in the world in courses. A lot of times, top five, this is the 15th tee. So you're looking back into the clubhouse, you're seeing the sort of vastness of the property, the ocean is to your right. You know, so this is what I say here is like, why compare it to Pine Valley is, it's one of those courses that you know there's so much, there's so much history there. There's so much, in the way, it's a brilliant course, but you're kind of smiling through gridded teeth because it's just beating the crap out of you, especially the when we were playing it in. And it's like, I think it's a brilliant course on the vacuum. It wasn't one of my favorites simply because I just found it immensely challenging and just like, it'd be hard to play there every single day 'cause you'd just be like, really again, another like mid to high 80s score? Like I've had enough of this. - Where do you think I would have ranked it? - I think you would have found this to be one of your favorites on the trip, if not the top. I mean, I think, I mean, on a list that includes, so the full list all is gonna lay out now. Dun Dunnell, Turner Bear, Ailsa, Western Gales, Prestwick, North Barrick, Carnousty, Pan-Mure, St. Andrews, Jubilee, Crayle, Balcomi, Dunbarney, St. Andrews, Old Coast, and Kings Barnes. Like if it was you, I bet the ones you would have liked the most would have played so much golf. Oh my God, I was like, when's he gonna stop? I think you would have liked Turnberry, Carnousty, Old Course, and Kings Barnes. I think those would have been your favorites. - North Barrick, it's in my top five of, yeah. - We'll get to North Barrick. - Yeah. - North Barrick, maybe my favorite place in the entire golf world. - My, all right, so the question I have about, actually not a question, something that I was talking to Scotty, Sheffler, and Sam Burns about today. They were talking about mulligans, and then somehow it sparked a conversation in that Travis Perkins, Sam Burns, and Scotty, Ted Scott, and Scotty, and Sam played at Turnberry, I guess, maybe earlier this week. - Just this last week. - Yeah, right. And they played, like, a partner every six holes, so you flip a T for it, and it's just so happened. It was pros versus Joe's on the last six holes. And I guess they were saying, based on the shots that they were given their caddies crap for having too many shots, and they were carrying them somewhat in the first 12 holes. And then the last six holes that Sam and Scotty won, three of the first six holes, and they were giving them for it. And on the fifth hole, or actually the fourth and the fifth hole, so it'd have been 15 and 16, Ted and Travis both had these incredibly bad whip outs that ended up losing the match. And Scotty's like very, I would say his personality is, like he's kind of goofy, loves, like, office comedy. And he was just smiling ear to ear, thinking or talking about taking Ted Scott's money. Just like that gives him so much excitement getting caddy, getting caddy money. - I love that so much. I love that they were out there because I think for those guys, it's gotta be a little bit of, I mean, I guess you think of a professional player and they're playing so much golf already. And I think I heard J.T. say this at one time. It's like, buddy, we don't have a ton of chances to play other golf courses 'cause we're so busy playing the ones we got to play for our tour events. And so it thrilled me that they got to go to a place where hopefully the open will come back at some point in time down the road. And I think that getting to see a place like that is super cool and especially fun that you got to guide us competitive as Scotty that was out there just delighting and taking Ted's money. I'll show you here on that topic. This is that famous plate. The Tom Watson doing the sun, the seven iron from 178 yards to two feet when that's 1977 open. So, I mean, cool history out there. And yeah, let's open makes it back 'cause that was a really, really cool one. So that is Turnberry Ailsa for you. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms. Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. In fact, Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/podcastfree. All lowercase, Shopify.com/podcastfree. Shopify.com/podcastfree. (bell dings) Now, we flip over to Western gales. This place, I'll tell you what, dude. Western gales and spelled, as you're looking it up, G-A-I-L-E-S. So there was an agent walking out with his clubs right now 'cause it was hilarious. It's like, did you get a good play? And the truth right now is like, now I'm heading to Western gales. It's like the guy that showed up to Augusta National for the practice round with his golf clubs. That's what this agent just looks like right now. He was going to play Western gales. This place is, I feel like for so long, this was considered a hidden gym, but it's really just not so hidden anymore. And as I kind of tell you about it, I'm gonna share this like, my dad took this sort of 360 degree view video of me on one of the T's where you can kind of just get a feel for the land. This, to me, is-- - Looks linksy. - So linksy, and one of the places where the least amount of land was moved, right? Like you really get the sense when you're out there that this is exactly the way the land was before they put a golf course here and they put it in and it fit perfectly. And it is, it's got this really cool routing where it's almost like, I'd call it like a racetrack routing 'cause you go like, you go first full holes or kind of on the inside going out. And then you loop back around and you're playing like five through, I wanna say like 12 or 13 that are going back right along the ocean side. And then you flip back again and play like whatever it is, 13 or 14, 18 home on the interior right back up to the clubhouse. And so, it was funny 'cause that's, this is the day where first four holes left to right wind, shooting a million, like why am I ruining my chances of having a good time out here in a place I was looking forward to. Then flip around, I'm like, I'm the best player in the world. Like I wanna, I like, sign me up for mini tour events. You know, I forget which hole was. I hit the, in the cat, he's like, God, it's the longest driver I've ever seen here. I was like, oh, how about it? And then you flip right back around and then you remember, oh wait a second, this is why I'm not getting out in the back course. Yeah, I see that. - Yes. - That's true, Lynx, man. This is, this is the type of golf course that I love to play. I wouldn't wanna play it every day, but it's a, it's the type of Lynx golf that I love because, oh, look at you, you're chipping lefty. I love this. - This was the calm war. I saw calm war, I would do this at the Renaissance and I always share the second shot of this. - Oh, that's great. - You'll see the first shot didn't go so well. This is the first hole. Hit it right above the pop bunker. Whoops, not so good there. - Oh, man, oh, that's what we do though. - Player two though. - Player two, pretty, pretty good. - I think that's a shame you didn't share everything with that 'cause I think that makes it better. - Whoa. - I was saying, it's the opposite. - I'm not, but listen, I'm not a producer. You're here, you're the producer. So, what do I know, right? - I'd say that I think you're-- - Oh, man, what a beautiful pick I'm looking at here. - It's, it's, and here's another cool thing for those who are football slash soccer fans out there. So I got a guy I'm a bad guy, he's named Steve Murray. We start talking, you know, like, hey, you know, what's your background? I'm telling him, hey, my wife played soccer on call. He said, oh, I played football growing up. Who'd you play for? You know, I played professionally. Played for Celtic and Nottingham Forest. And if you know it, like, he played for Brian Clough at Forest when they were coming off winning, you know, I guess, it's the, oh my gosh, why am I, it's called the Champions League now, but I think it was called just the European Cup at that point in time. Like, he played on some of the greatest teams in Nottingham Forest history. And this guy's just on the bag, just shooting the breeze with you out of Western gales, telling these amazing Brian Clough stories. That's him, he was the other part of this trip, 'cause there was so many times where you got to have a caddy that was just the best hang. And you almost, that's part of the experience though. Totally, it's totally. And you're trying to take in the course. You're like, I want to remember all these holes and you get to the end of the round and you're like, you sit down and have a pint and you're like, trying to think about it, but you're like, what I'm remembering is just hanging out with my buddy, Steve is telling me Brian Clough stories. They're like, that's, that's amazing too. So I just, I loved it. I thought it was. - What's the best caddy name of the entire trip? There's has to be one that's like, like Iggy or something like that. - Last round of the trip, which we'll get to was an amazing crescendo at Kings Barns. - Struin. - Struin. - S-T-R-U-A-N, Struin. And you could sell, he'd done this a million times 'cause they have the bibs with the names on the back. So he comes up, shakes your hand, hi, I'm Struin'. I'm like, he just turns around with that saying word and just points to the back of his thing. And I was like, oh, Struin. He's like, you might've done that a few times before, haven't you? - Like the Struble. - So that was, I mean, Western gales was, it's my brother's favorite course. There's so many delightful holes. And I just think just the natural element of it was amazing. I'll share one more photo with you here of the locker room. - It was just you and your dad, right? Your brother didn't go on this, right? - Were they pissed so they didn't get the invite or what? - I was supposed to go on a trip in high school with my brother and my dad to Scotland. And I was more concerned with travel baseball at that point in time. - Oh, okay. - So this was like the sort of the makeup for that. But this is, I mean-- - Whoa, how good is that locker room? - Look at the light coming into the locker room. And just the, I love a locker room that is not too over the top, but that has like that classic feel. And I stepped into this one and I was like, man, special, special place. And there's a locker where they have all like pros that have come in and played who signed the locker. Tom Watson had just been out there. They said Tom Watson was unbelievable as a putter. Like just was talking to the cat, he's getting input, but just 'cause he knew every contour out there was incredibly respectful, they just loved him there. So just really, really cool stuff. So that is Western gales. So now we flip over to Presswick. And Presswick, let me tell you man, this one delighted me. Like it's the original open championship venue. - Yep. - It is, and I've even got, I've got a picture here. This was my homage to Aaron Ride Day. For about the first 30 minutes we were out there getting ready, this was me. - Oh my God. - Double race, rain hat. And if you zoom in here on this flag, you can see this is, it's a flag that's commemorating the first open championship ever played at Presswick. They've since changed the routing, but it is, there's like one original hole though, right? - There's an original hole that is, it's like Chris Cross's multiple holes. What it is now is like they eventually reformatted, it was a 12 hole routing. - That's right, that's right. - And you very much can tell the difference between the 12 ones that are more original and the six newer ones. It's like almost midway through the front nine, you're like, huh, this course has changed a little bit. And then you get back on the back and you're like, oh, here we go. This is what I was experiencing to start this route. Like to me, and this is such a bad comp, but you know how much I love Tobacco Road? And it's like, if Tobacco Road was built like hundreds of years ago with all the quirks and the fun, it would be Presswick. And it's not a slight to Presswick in any way, shape or form. - Yeah, I'm trying to get a feel for it. This is like unusual compared to the ones you've just, like there was a clear identity in the other ones that you've said. - This is first tee, you're literally next to your flat. - It's so flat. - A real weight, it's like it's a road. - I'm looking at it right here and it's a super flat fairway, just looks like SK would be hitting three on his second shot on the tee box. - It is tight. It's very tight. You're hitting a lot of irons. You're hitting a lot. Like there was a par five, the first par five cardinal, the third hole. It is the most bizarre stretch shots where you're just like, just trust your caddy because he's like, just hit it there and you're like, really? He's like, yeah, this is about how far you want to hit it. And then the next shot shot, same thing. And then all of a sudden you're up next to the green and you've got a little pitch in for, or you're close to the green up for a par five. And it's just a, the whole thing was so much fun. I had a caddy chick who was hilarious who actually recently carried for some of the four play guys. I think Frankie and Riggs were over there. Maybe he was Frankie and Trent that he was on there and just was hilarious jokes all day long. - Great. - Yeah, that place was special. The 17th hole Alps is like 394 yard par four where you hit this first shot kind of down this valley and then you have a completely blind, like you have to head over a big hill and down to a green. - This one seems of the ones you've shown me, like the Quirkiest, without, without a doubt, the Quirkiest. And to me, you come to Scotland for some of that Quirk. And I, this is right. - Does the Quirk turn you on a little bit, Charlie? - Quirk gets me going a little bit. It's a little hot and bothered. I mean, I think, you know, we can recap it at the end. Like, I mean, I think Presswick, North Barrick, like I loved Western gales a lot, but I'd say like, press with North Barrick and we'll get to Crayola Balcomi where like my three just like, I don't know any other golf courses in the world that are like this. And for that reason, you know, I would come back and play it all the time. Also got to look, you know, as you know, World's Documented Merch guy got to give a shout out to the MVP of the trip, which was obtained in the Presswick shop. This Presswick Grayson windbreaker, absolutely MVP. You're going to start seeing this pop up in every other course because I think I wore it every day after this was just lightweight windbreaker, just a great place, simple little logo. - I'm not convinced you're showing us this because you feel like your finish makes you look like a pro here. - Well, I mean, if you look at the footwork there, do you know anyone else has footwork like that? You know, I don't know. - Yeah, I didn't know, I didn't know Cameron Young was out there playing Presswick. We had a couple, we had a couple of very nice people who I may or may not have paid in my mention saying, hey, that looks a lot like Cameron Young one. Oh, I'll take it. So that's Presswick. Then we move to what you and I I think share is like, I mean, this place is just amazing. North Barrick, West Links. - Don't need to do your North Barrick. I got that one on the list. - You know that one. So I got to talk about that one. And everybody knows our feelings of this. I think if I can take a bit of the lead on this one as I set this up for you, North Barrick is for, if you've never heard of it, first off, go do a little bit of research about this place because many of the template holes that you see that architects across not only the country but the world use the designs and the templates of these holes. And it's just fascinating to me because North Barrick was built in what year? Can you why? - 1832, 1832. And I think that's the insane part about it to me is how they can look at this piece of land in 1832 and be able to have just the mind to create something so special like this that would be usable in 2024. I think that to me is why North Barrick is such a unique experience because you have, especially when you turn the corner after I believe that ninth hole and then you go on that back nine, you got the hole on 13 with the stone that runs up right of it, the pit, right? Thank you. And then you run into the famous redant hole followed by the Brits, then the punch bowl and you just have these, the amazing finish as like similar to St. Andrews as you go out and you come back in and you just keep on coming closer and closer to the town of North Barrick, that is what makes that experience so cool because it has that St. Andrews vibe but you have the history of, man, you're on a golf course that is on this incredible piece of land and just has this unique charm that you feel like you're playing in something that is like a little slice of heaven of a golf course that it's just fascinating to me. I think that is so perfectly said. I think the comparison to St. Andrews is absolutely one that came to mind for me because it is all those things you mentioned. It's the course itself. It's this amazingly fun figure eight routing where you're starting out and you're winding in and then you're kind of coming, you know, you're going back out and then you're looping back around in and then making your way home. It's the people there. And by the way, I got to give huge shout out thanks to Stuart, Paul, Martin and Katie who could not have been more hospitable at North Barrick. Like just, you know, got a set up for an extra round the night before when we got it after press week, played the next day. My caddy Gordon was unbelievably good. Even like there were two members. This guy, Jake and David, who were the first night called us up to the tee at 15 in Redan. We played 15 and 16 with them and then we had to hop in for dinner. I mean, I just, everything about this place, the way that the club and the town mesh where you have people walking their dogs or riding their bikes through. We're out there the first night and this guy's whole family came out to meet him on the tee and walk with them through the chorus. There's a little, there's actually, there's a little kids chorus, a little kind of short, they call it the Wii Links where you might have seen Victor happen out there to a deal with FedEx and some junior golfers there recently. It is the town itself. The whole thing is just, it's the feeling I want to feel when I'm around the game of golf. And they have just, you know, organically nailed that to such a tee. I would put 13 through 16 up against any four holes in the world. - Yeah. - Pit. - 100%. - Perfection, Redan, Gate. Just a delight to play. Gates, that last beer, this is, so just a couple I'll share with you briefly 'cause, you know, you cover a lot of North Barrick and why we love it so much. So here's, here's Pit. You can see this, that sort of stone wall in the background. You have to hit an approach shop over that into Pit. I so badly wanted this birdie putt to drop and it was like tracking and then the last minute just dives to the right, unfortunately. But like, this green, this little slender green behind this stone wall was just. - Oh, oh, I shouldn't have said a word. (laughing) You see that house in the background? That was our rental house. Was it really? I would come out after the Scottish Open and when I was there last year and go play, just, I would play that loop. It was like six through 13. - Oh. - Fantastic. This is my dad a perfection. This is the next hole, it's a 14th. It's basically, you hit this kind of like iron off the tee and then you have this blind approach shot down to a green city right on the edge of the water. The caties kind of tells you like, hit it out right. - Oh, that's right. That hole was wild. So good. - I tried to go for it, shocking. - Did you really? - Yes. - I love that. - I love that play. - That's a great name for that hole. 'Cause if you're gonna go for it, you need to be pretty much damn perfect. - Perfection. And then here's the next hole. Here's the famous for Dan, as you mentioned. - Can't see the green. This is the temple hole. You kind of see the bunkering up there on the right side where it's that tilted front to back green. And basically, how you play where Dan is right, you hit it to the right side of the green. It should, if you landed the correct distance and cover the bunkers, it should kick and run back to the pin. And it's a really hard shot to pull off and quite rewarding when you do it well. - It is because everything runs away. And it was fun watching Jordan and JT play the shots there 'cause they get kind of golf nerd out and wanna try to play all the fun shots and use the slopes. And JT was playing like a hook five iron and trying to fly that bunker. And like almost play like just like a chippy little draw, hit it like 140 yards and have it chase up that hill because it was downwind and they couldn't stop it on the green if they were gonna go right at it. So they were like, all right, can we kind of like chip hook something in there and run it up? So it was fun to watch them like try to play that shot. - Well, it's just this course calls for so much creativity and it's the joy in playing golf again, like links of course, but also this course specifically. And I just got a close for North Barrick with the shout out to my dad for the greatest birdie I think I've ever seen in my life. So he, this is 16, this is gate. It's a par four, there's like a little kind of a burn or a little rock wall separates it. And then it's a beer it screams. So which you'll see here in a second basically. - How do you say it? Is it up a ritz? - They were saying beer it's over there. I mean, B-I-A-R-R-I-T-Z, you know we're talking about Google. And it's that big front of the green and then a dip in the middle and that elevated back of the green, right? So the pins back here, he crushed like a 310 yard drive to get to here. He's got a little like 60 yard lob wedge in here. He nipped this thing. You're gonna see him reacting into the shot thinking that he's hit it off the back of the green. Nips this thing up there, stops it on the back of the green, has like 25 feet for birdie and jars the birdie putt the caddies were in. - Oh, you love to hear it. - It's his belief like how in that like we, you so rarely see, you know, people make birdie at this hole, let alone with that back pin splashing. - Especially the back pin. - And so. - Oh, look at him. - That was my highlight of the trip. To see my dad make birdie at gate, the 16th hole in North Barrick. So phenomenal, phenomenal place. - I think, what's the takeaway here? So North Barrick, obviously Charlie and I both love it, but I think the lesson that you can take away from this is when planning a trip, whether it be Scotland, whether it be Ireland, whether it be anywhere, you have to start with your number one golf course. And if you're going to circle a course, start with North Barrick, North Barrick and plan your way around the trip with that. Because I think it's very overwhelming when you want to play North Barrick and then let's drive four overs across and let's go play this one. Like it's, there's so many good courses around, around a lot of these famous courses that once fine and you can just play the area and be totally, you can be totally satisfied with how good the golf is in that certain area. So like for instance, if you're going to go to North Barrick, play there, then you can go play Cohen. If you can get on Mira feel great, but there's plenty of other great golf courses right around there that, - Archer Field, I think. - Yeah, Archer Field's where they pull the Scottish open. So that's kind of what I'm, that's my advice right now. - I'd say if I'll come back, I'm going to say when I come back because I will, this is the trip I want to do, is go set up shop at the Marine North Barrick and bring the family here. Let's just speak it out there to all the people with young families with wives. Take, go, go here, go to North Barrick, stay here. - It's a great town. - Like, don't play 36 every day, play 18 a day, go into town, do stuff with the family. You can schedule some, some night trips into Edinburgh, do some stuff in the city, go out to dinner. It's, you know, less than a half hour way to go to Edinburgh. That's where Mira feels based. If you have friends in high places, like, wait, what, what, dude, life is not that easy. Like when you got young kids, or you're going out to Edinburgh with the kids, what are we talking about, Troy? Like these, you're too far into the clouds. I got to bring you back. 'Cause you're, you're, you're talking nonsense right now. You can't take the kids to Edinburgh. If you take the extended family, you do some trade off nights for babysitting. - Okay, now you're talking, if you're just taking the wife, fine. But I don't see how the kids, the young kids can go and do this. And they can play the Wii links in North Bering. - Oh, totally. I don't know what I'm saying. - You lost me with going into, into the town in Edinburgh and getting, like where are we just, we just transitioned too hard there. - And you know where else, by the way, before we get off the topic, the place you put me on last year, Musselberg. - Oh yeah. - I can't believe we didn't play Musselberg with Hickory's. Like that's near Edinburgh as well. So there's a, if you, if you pick a home base, if like this is your home base in North Bering, you could do a lot of great stuff there. - Yes. - And that's, I'd say, okay, maybe smiley's right. Maybe you need to bring an extra set of hands if you want to do something nice out in Edinburgh. Probably fair. I'm just, I'm being ambitious here. I'm dreaming, I'm shooting for the stars. I'm saying, if you want to try to pull off a family golf trip to Scotland and you're bringing everyone with you, try North Bering. I think you can find some good things for everybody there. - Well, it's a quaint town. It really is these hotels. And even if you do Airbnb's, whatever, are all great. So, okay, the Scotland vlog continues. Had a brief little laptop charger break, international outlets. Those are still mystifying. So, but we are back and we are kind of moving into the next portion of this trip. I think we actually segmented this nicely because we are headed to the, to the stretch of the trip that beat me up pretty good, smiley. I won't lie. The scores, you can go look at my gin if you want to or I can just share them with you. But it got, it got rough in there a little bit. And that started with the most fitting location, which was Karnusti. Karnusti is, if you are a fan, or follow the Premier League at all, English football slash soccer, there is a sort of a running meme or joke of, you know, you talk about a skilled player, you know, Messi's so great this and that. It's like, yeah, but can you do it on a cold rainy night and stoke? That to me is Karnusti. It's like playing this away game in a hostile environment. You know, we went in there, it was a dreary day. It was drizzling rain. You know, those beautiful scot rail trains that were blue and wide, we've seen running along done Donald and Western gales. You got out to Karnusti and the paint was wearing off and just the whole atmosphere was kind of like, all right, like I want to go in here, but I'm going to get booed and spit on, but I just kind of grind and get a result. And I'll be honest, like that gave me so much juice. Like I just the whole thing of like, it's the most demanding test and golf and the most demanding open. Like I, I love that change of pace. It's a grindy test on every single shot. I made the cardinal sin smiley of opening par birdie and thinking that I was going to like, light it up a Karnusti. And then I hit my tee shot on three and let me show you where my tee shot on three. Oh my gosh. And that's at the tone for the rest of the day. Could you get that out? I hacked it. I think I might have ended up taking it on playable. I think I hacked it once and it moved a little bit. Like up to where it was like, you know, move a couple of feet, but it was sitting up a little bit. And then the second one, I just chipped. Like I was, and I wasn't trying to advance it to the green from there at all. I was literally trying to chip it out, but it was like a hack to get it to a playable position. And then like a chip to get it to where then I could hit a shot into the green from there. So yeah, it was it was. And I'd say that it was again, like I found it. I found that aspect of it to be, you know, fun in its own way. Like you could definitely could not go out and play Karnusti every single day. That would kill your desire to play golf or do anything fun. But as a sort of change of pace, it was it was fun. It was just like, all right, like, I know what I'm signing up for. Let's go out there and try to kind of get the best of this place that's ultimately going to beat you up. And I like that. I thought that was cool. It looks like a golf course the way this would it be considered a burn that kind of runs across a lot of like. I feel like that seems to be the characteristic of this place. I get confused sometimes with all these golf courses. They all, you know, it used to be just like whenever they pop up in an open championship, I remember it just for that week and then, you know, eight years later, like I don't really remember anything until it gets on TV. And I'm trying to find which, which hole. I know that 18th one is the famous van develle hole so that you know that the burn kind of weaves its way in and out. But who was the last winner to win at Karnusti? Oh, that's a that's a great question. Let me actually look that up because I guess right now is. Oh, interesting. OK, it's very recent. Yeah, I know it is because I remember. There have been two since van develle. Care to guess who won each of those. I'm going to go with Tom Watson. No, OK. There are two two Europeans who have been in around that Ryder Cup team. You know, you could also you can almost call them both stalwarts. Give me. Padra Carrington, bang. Padra Carrington 2007. That was 2007 and then 2018 who you have winning in 2018. 2018. Why do I not come? Why does this not come to mind? Was this the year that Adam Scott was about to win? Was that an 18? You know what? I'd have to go back and look at that leaderboard. I can look at that, but who won an 18? Francesco Molinari. I'm interested to see if that was the same. You pulled out leaderboard. Because somebody beat Adam down the stretch. And I don't know if it was this week. So Adam finished T-17 that week. OK, so let's see here. He finished it too under for the tournament. Francesco won an eight under. How about this for a list of T-2s that week? This is actually while looking back this leaderboard. So tire finished. He was T-6 at five under. All right, your T-2s at 600 were Xander Schoffley, who shot three over on Sunday. Oh, which, you know, if he shoots around, or even Parry wins the tournament. Justin Rose, Rory McElroy, and Kevin Kizner, who also shot three over on Sunday. So he was right in there in and around it. The picture I'm displaying now is, of course, that iconic burn on the 18th. And you can kind of see if you zoom in there. I'll try to hear they have Vandevel's name etched in that sort of stone there, you know, John Vandevelle 1999, which was, you know, obviously worth taking a picture. Also on the topic of burns, I just put it up there a second ago, but I'll put it back up there again. Nice little in-house beer, Berry Burn. I was drinking tenants all week long, which is a fantastic beer, by the way. I need to try to track that down. But Carneusey had their own in-house beer, and this was their sort of logger, Berry Burn. And I believe that's the Berry Burn right behind it, right there, that I'm drinking in front of. So I was royal with him, by the way, for Adam Scott. And that was in 2012, so 2018. I don't know what I was thinking. That's not even close, as far as being within the range of the similar timeframe of when I thought Adams. This is here, I got you here. This is the 16th, that long par three that Tom Watson always had trouble with. You know, kind of gives you a vibe for the course of that sort of, that long rash everywhere that's that sort of, you know, amber color. A lot of that you got a good feeling. (laughing) So much of that everywhere. You look out and it's like this amber and green contrast, and you're like, there's too much of that amber. That way left. That actually, that did go left. That did, here's how you know, here's how you know. When I do that high finish where I hold the hands up, that's me trying to save from going left. When my hands are lower, that means I've pushed it right. I've started to kind of figure out where these shots are going based on just finished position. Yeah, that was me saying, oh, stop going left. Stay right. Yes, but that, but that was, I mean, I don't mean to keep it too brief on Karnusti, other than to say, it's one of those places where, if you're going to Scotland for the first time, and you're in the area, you absolutely have to play it. Because it's just like, there are so many, you know, other places that are kind of off the beaten path, you can play and that you'll probably enjoy more. But just the history that's there and being able to say you played it and kind of did the test, that's why I thought Karnusti was a cool, was a cool course, but it will beat you up. Right now, I have actually played Turnberry and Karnusti, played them both on Tiger Woods 2000. Yes, that's great, great tracks. Great video game. In fact, I got to see if they're on Tiger Woods 04, because I need to fire that. Is that was for the one I'm thinking of, not 2000? 04 was the iconic one with the DMX, you know, intro and-- Gotcha. I mean, that was just iconic. Yeah, I got to fire that all though. I second favored one was, I mean, it's hard not to put the one when they, when a gust they got into, into the game, but when you could do the range, like practice, if you remember, there was a, one of them had the range feature, which you could play games on that. That was a four, that was no one. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, 04 had like the warehouse where you're hitting it targets. Are you talking about a different game? Maybe. Oh, 04 had like all the graphics one of the showable-- Oh, the graphics one way better than the 04 one. No, it's, it's, it was in, in our generation, or at least our decade of, in the, in the teens, probably. Yeah, I mean, you know, it could have, it could be an ongoing feature, but yeah, Tiger 04 is great. Although I, it's, I think for most people, they bought the deluxe version. They're already playing EA Sports College football. I mean, definitely by the time you're listening to this, I'm playing EA Sports College football. Is it like the, I'm doing that right now as you're listening to this leading North Carolina to a national championship dynasty out on the recruiting trails? So there's going to be a lot of time set aside for that. That's neither here nor there. That's carding to see for you. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms. Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. In fact, Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/podcastfree. All lowercase shopify.com/podcastfree shopify.com/podcastfree. We flipped over to Pam here in the afternoon. Pam here. Let me tell you, let me tell you, P-A-N-M-U-R-E. So once again, this is actually, Paul at North Barrick reached out to his friend David at Pam here. Let him know we are coming. And we got the best welcome from Andrew and Reese over there at Pam here. This place was like, if you're like Charlie, you're super anxious, you're super stressed right now. Like, just take me out to Pam here, put me on the 14th team, just let me just spin around on 360 degree circles. And I promise you I'll walk off that course 30 minutes later without a care in the world. Just a giant, anti-anxiety meditative player. So this is actually, this really cool thing about this is that when Ben Hogan won the Open at Carnusi, this is where he went to practice. Go over to Pam here. Just hang out there. I love so, so this starts where Reese kind of took us into this little club room area, Pam here with all these cool, you know, memorabilia, kind of this back corner over here underneath the chandelier that I'm circling they had, they have these silver clubs that every captain of the men's team adds another golf ball to and the golf ball is authentic to the era. So the dimples change on it, all this cool stuff in there. And then they give you this like token here for, for cool, like it's like, it's like this drink that they distill on site. It says, you know, it's officially known as putting juice. So I've got a picture here of my dad pre around with a little glass of kumbal in his hand that we had to kind of get us going for the round. They could like could not have been more hospitable there as well. The whole vibe there was amazing. We even had a pint on the back and Pam here, but I'd say, I mean, I got to show you some of these like these pictures here's a picture from the 14th tee that is just, and it's just mind blowing, how beautiful is places like this is a high ground yours look, and the whole terrain looks like this, where all these grass is blowing, definitely a tough test. And for some stupid reason, I decided to tip it out at this place, like didn't do anywhere else. I'm like, yeah, let's give it a go. Not great. But like tips are 6,500. Yeah, like it shouldn't feel long, but it definitely, definitely punch you in the gut. So I mean, I thought, you know, this is the 12th hole as you kind of lead up to, I got this great picture here that I'll show you here to this like burn the sort of meanders across the hole with the green kind of tucked up there on the sort of inside those trees. Oh, look at that. I love that. Wait, is the green right on that in the peninsula or things like if you can see my mouse, it's up. It's kind of up here. Is that a kind of three? No, there's a par four. So this is like, actually, this is like, what does this burn doing then? I'm confused. This is all this is like, so you're, you're actually landing your approach shot kind of short of this and to the left of this. And so this would be to catch anyone who's trying to like aggressively push it up. I don't even think you could reach this depending on where you're team from, but if you wanted to, this was kind of ward you off and trying to hit up close there. I mean, if this grass didn't do that already, it's such a cool burn that it kind of, I'm not saying that they should have put a green right there, but how would be kind of dope right there in that little pocket right here to surround it. Yeah. Yeah. That's sweet. I mean, what do I know? What do I know? No, no, it's actually interesting that you say that because the green is like, so it's like, it's almost like the burn was there already and, and they just decided that this is the best way to land for it. The elevated green, there was like this protection from this grass right here. It's almost like sort of like a mound or a hill that protects shots from that side. And there was like a little open area and then another mound close to the green. The whole, this whole hole was so unique and distinct, but I just, I mean, this place was truly like, it was funny kind of juxtaposing it against car news. See, because I was like, if we came back, I'd probably just come out here and play it a couple of times. Like I just, it was just delightful. Now the wind was below in that day and it really kind of analysis was not swinging a great that day, but it was, yeah, I made the cardinal cent of birding the first hole and just was down hill. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So Pam here. Cool. Cool clubhouse too. Really cool. And I think that was the kind of the joy. It was, you know, we're talking about structures that are authentic to that time period and space. That one nailed it where it was like this, it looked like this really modest little sort of quaint building from the outside. And then you go in and it's just like steepness rich history with just the, the rich red carpeting and all the memorabilia cases. It was just like a slice of incredibly cool Scottish history. So this was, this was near the top of my list. One of my favorites and the people there were great as usual. So Pam here, highly recommend Pam here. Where we go to next was so that closed the day and we're in the middle of like the wind stretch here. So then the next day was played, how many, how many do we have left? We have one, two, three, four, five courses left. Lots of golf left. So this is, this is, let me just, this is Jubilee. I'm just going to just play this video for you. You can just get a sense for what the day was because you can see the grass ripping over there on the left side. You can see the hoods. This is St. Andrew's Jubilee and this is my hood ripping by. I mean, it is, you played Jubilee in the old course, but those be the two that you played. Yeah. Those were his Jubilee on the St. Andrew's list of like courses. Is it the fun one? Like what's the vibe at this one? This one, it used to be a shorter course that I think, I want to hear what the locals say about Jubilee, like where, what, what's some of the cat? Our catty Scott at Pam here said this. He was like, and I think he's right. If this course was 50 miles in any other direction, it would be a destination, but kind of like spy glass hill in a way, it suffers from being in the shadow of the old course. I think that if you're there, I mean, there's sort of a debate as to whether like it's clearly old course and then like, you know, there's a debate between Jubilee and new. I thought Jubilee was a lot of fun, but it was also kind of like, there's some random features like, I'll show you, you're like, did you play it before? Did you play it before the old course? I did. Honestly, you'd like to play Jubilee after you played the old course because you're kind of like, looking around, you know, looking for that a little bit of something, you know, what I mean? It's like, ooh, is that the whole on the old course, you know what I mean? So you're constantly reminded of, man, I could be playing the old course today. So I think that would be, if anything, I could do anything to improve Jubilee. It's to play it after the old course, especially if you've never played it. It would be like, there's an arguments whether you want to like, warm up with the old course as we did where we played around the morning and then play the old course, you know, once you're warm, but you're kind of kind of run out of energy. Like I think the cool part, you can kind of see in this video, this is 17T Jubilee and you can seek on out in the distance, the town of St. Andrews. And so there was a lot of that of like looking over and seeing the place where we were about to play where you kind of get the excitement up and looking at sort of the sidelines there. So I mean, I thought that it can get overlooked. It can get overlooked. It can get overlooked. I think that's where we're at. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's one of those ones where here we are talking about home bases. If you're going to make your St. Andrews your home base, definitely play Jubilee. Like that's, that's a good course to kind of play in that area. Like it's worthwhile. If you're going a lot of other places, like it's not like on the, it wasn't on my must list, but I'd say like it was a perfect little day paired with where we went next, which was, is one of the first courses you eliminate. If you had to like, if, if you're running out of, if you're looking at my list, I mean, I hate to do this to courses that I, I enjoyed every one of them. But like if you're looking, if you show me the list I have right now and you're like, which course are you removing first? Like it's Jubilee. Okay. So. Say less. Like we've, we've, we've identified the issues, the, the strengths, and it's time to move on. And the place we're moving next is I'm thrilled to share it to you about this place you. So this is a place called Crayal Golfing Society. Okay. They have two courses here, the Balcomi links be played, which is the, the much older version of it's, this, this course was built in, or the society began in 1786, smiley. What the hell is this? Balcomi, this, this is not far from St. Andrews, like probably 20 minutes, 25 minutes. And then there's a second course called Frankhead that was designed by Gil Hance and the mid late 1990s. And you played both of them. Only played Balcomi. Craig had apparently is like a really exacting championship test and so Crayal Golfing Society has two courses. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. Yes. And you played which one? Balcomi. Okay. So I'm going to start you here with shout out to my dad because he kept doing this weird dad thing where he kept taking these panoramic photos. Oh, I remember this, the photo. Yeah. But it's like, in the video of you on a part three, yes, I'll show that to you. I think that's the hole I'm looking at. Yes. That is the hole you're looking at. So like, look at the, I mean, look at the views here, this stunning, just looking out the ocean. It's a weird panoramic where I'm moving around. So I look like an alien. Here's another. What have you ever taken a panoramic and it actually works and it actually, actually gets the job done, but it was just like my dad's go to thing. He was like, I'm just going to keep busting up panels. But I mean, it is actually, it's funny, like with humans removed, like you get a sense for this property in this land. It was so flat, hardly any longer. So, so like a fun play. Now, the thing that made it tough to stay was it was blowing 30, 40 miles an hour, but it was like just this beautiful vista right next to the ocean. And one of the most fun and finishing stretches that I've ever, like, definitely the most fun finishing stretch I've played on this trip and maybe the most fun finishing stretch I've ever played. So here's the, here's right in that mix. This is the 14th here. And this is that down. Yeah. Okay. That's the picture I'm looking at too. This should be like a 155 yard shot that with no wind, you can play like 135 sis downhill. I'm holding a five iron in my hands with a left, right wind. I'm just trying to kind of, you know, as best I can trap low and it's spinning to the right. Here's how Creole Balcomi finishes, smiley. It goes the 13th is a par three crag head. The 14th is a par three, the cave, the 15th is a par four mill dam. The 16th is a par three spine cop, 17th is a par four road hole and 18th is a par three, the quarry, five par threes in the last six holes. You got, let's see here four par threes, four par threes, two par fours and the last six holes and all par threes are delightful and different. Like the one right before this hole, the 13th is an uphill par three with the wind ripping off rights left where you got to carry it up hill, long way. Then you got this downhill par three, then you play this par four that's out with the ocean on your left hand side, can't hit it too far, so to run through. Then you have an uphill par three and, you know, where you got to carry like the sort of rock face and then you're playing a par four downhill and then you have a downhill par three to finish it like the whole thing was just a golf at its most fun is what I'd say for Creole. It might take away so far and all of these golf courses you've been walking us through. This to me is the golf course you start on. You start on this course and the reason why you find your golf ball, you knock the rust off and on the first tee, you give it the old, you know, the old stretch and old practice wings and man, just hadn't played a whole lot, guys, you know, we'll see what I got today, all of those words that are the, you know, the classic things that you say on the first tee when you're playing like crap and you know you're not going to have it that day. This is the perfect course to start because you'll work your way through your golf game out there. Yes, you're going to get exposed, but I think it sets you up for, hey, like I didn't have to go to the pro shop to get more golf balls, you know, I still have the one ball I teed off with. This is where you got to start your trip is from all of the things I've heard that it that is such a good call, like even spinning that through my head right now, it feels like, yeah, why didn't we start? I mean, we didn't know where you finished your trip. You don't finish your trip going just delightful fun. Like Scott was going to be a fun thing. Now let me tell you what else because you mentioned the first tee. So when you get to the first tee at Crayal, this is what they give you right here. I'm going to try to hold some show you this says, set a pack of Zins, oh man. You could probably fit a Zintin inside this if you wanted to. This is not a patent. It's not a ten. It's emergency supplies. You sure it's twenty twenty four supplies. Let me tell you. Some Zen Bambinas in there baby couple of Scottish lip pillows for the road. This is what comes inside this kit. They have a little like packet of whiskey, like it's like a little plastic whiskey that they it's like Balcomi whiskey that I guess is distilled near sight, like somewhere in the area local and they have this thing called tablet. What tablet is is like, they're just like sugar cubes effectively. It's like they mix like vanilla extract and like these little it's almost like it's like a biscuit, but it's a sugar biscuit. So I'm out there. I'm making huge numbers early on and I'm just like throwing the whiskey back, throwing the tablet back, feeling good about life. Like I'd say that this is when you go to a place where you play as bad as I did, but you still have as much fun as I did, that's when you know it's a keeper. And so I love what you're saying like, that's a great call. Go stay in St. Andrews, you know, look around the city, get started, but go play Crayo first and then you're just like, I'm ready to go. I'm a little turned off by the name, but also kind of turned on, if that makes sense. Because you show up to a place and I feel like you're on your like tiptoes because you want to be on your best behavior because you're in a golfing society. Crayal golfing society. I feel like I should be wearing all white and I'm and after we finish our round of golf, we're going to play some badminton and some croquet. That's like what I had pictures when I typed this in. But after getting some, some whiskey on the first scene, some buttermilk biscuits or whatever you're talking about, that to me kind of like maybe we're at this kind of frat party that that actually it's the name sounds really serious, but we like to have a good time that to me is encompasses what I believe the Crayal Golfing Society is. We know what's so funny about that is I have the same sort of thing. I was like, this is, this place is so unique to all the other courses and they call themselves a golfing society. What's hell going to be about? What I think it came down to was it, they seem to have this amazing club ethos. The caddies are members, like we had two guys who are members who are out there caring for you. So they played the course a million times. They know the course and it's just part of a thing you do. It's like, if you're a member of the course, we have guests that are coming in. We want to take them around the course and help them enjoy this thing and appreciate it. It's so opposite from the States, right? Completely, right? That's why I golf so cool over there. And I think that's a whole other bigger point you can make of just like, you know, we talk about like growing the game ad nauseam and look, the club structures are the way they are in the United States, but really and truly over there, it's a completely different sort of stratosphere, the types of people that play the game and the way they appreciate and love the game. People to me like bottle that up, like we need more places like that where the members are so invested, where you're getting whiskey and tablet, the first tee, where you're playing this up and down all around, like, you know, this is sort of wild test next to the ocean, but the grass isn't long. So you find your ball and I, it just delighted me so much. It kind of has the feel of going to me. I don't think you can. I didn't think you played going, but it's similar to that in that you can find your golf ball. It's on a pretty cool piece of land. It looks a goal and much it's got a little bit more hills to it than it looks like this golf course does. But just being able to go whale at it, go find it and go hit it again. And just seems up next to the water, great character to it. And I love the fact that your cat is a member that that's also a bit of a bump in the rankings for me. This, I tell you why when I typed it in, I had it, I kind of had it at the bottom of the list. And I think from a golfing perspective of the course I've looked up of, because if you're not doing Google images with all of this, you're doing it wrong, falling along. And it doesn't, there's nothing about like any pictures that I'm like, it honestly doesn't compare to anything you've, you've done. Like, I feel like Jubilee in here don't have the images, like some of the other places you've played. But it seems that all of that kind of gets erased with just the overall experience with the membership, how unique it is, and just the playability factor. 100%. And I wish, I mean, there are more images I can pull down the road. Maybe you can find some of those on the internet, maybe some of those you can't. But like, it really, it is stunning playing along the coastline for the first few holes where it's like, there's just beautiful, some beautiful, but then you turn around, you're more inland. It's almost like you feel like you're in the Midwest, like they're like, feels a grain or something next to you. And thenoons ask literally on some of these where it's just, all right, I wouldn't find it. I would be delighted to like come back and play both courses. Like, I would love to see what Gil Hanson did with rolling Scottish countryside for one of his first ever courses, like to play Craighead as well. And they say that it's a huge score disparity, like they have their club championship and like they're, you know, you'll go out and shoot close to even par if you wonder about Comey. And then you turn around, you flip around and go try to play Craighead. And it's like, you know, four or five over is a good score. So it's really, really interesting. Okay. So I don't think we get that far into krail golfing society when we started, but that was a bit of a, uh, hilarious, uh, explanation of that place where we had an expert on my type. We're heading to Dunbarney, uh, Dunbarney also lives in that modern category. I think they finished this course in 2020. So do you, M B A R N I E? Um, are we in order in these? Like, is this the chronological order, chronological order breathtaking piece of land smiley, incredible ocean views, um, yeah, this is, this is, yes. This is first tee they greet you with two shots of whiskey. Uh, so this is actually hilarious, dope, so dope. Uh, my, my dad, uh, who I don't think has ever had hard alcohol in his entire life. Like we left this trip, like he was all about scotch, scotch whiskey, I guess you call it or you know, whatever, whatever the Scottish Friday is, god, this is good. It was, it was phenomenal. So like that's what they greet you with at the first tee. This is, I, I'm pretty sure this picture is walking into the first fairway here, whereas like early morning, just this beautiful sort of pad, this mix of modern with all, you can kind of see these roles along the fairway, just really good use of the natural land there. Um, I, I, I should look right here that the guy is fantastic dude, this is my favorite one I've seen from pictures. So this was, this was such a funny day, Smiley, because I, my dad, who I think came into the trip as a 15 handicap, I think he plays close to a 12, he shot two over par at Dunbarney. Just cleared it. Just lit it up this day. Had such a great time. I on the other hand, listen, if there's anything that we learned on this show the past few weeks is that we don't blame caddies. Okay. Not the caddies fault, we're not, we're not going to get anywhere near the player hits the shots. Okay. With all that said, I was power ranking caddies. This one might be near the bottom of the list. I'm going to show you here. This is the fourth hole, hit it up here in this pop bunker, really thrilled with this shot kind of splashed one out, had a little, you know, par save coming down the hill. Obviously, a left edge putt was assured it was a right edge putt missed it. And that just kind of set the tone for the rest of the day for me. I was just, I was like, okay, I'm, I'm reading my own puts now. Um, one of those days, huh? Just one of those days. And you must have played good the day before is the confidence was a little higher. You show up. You're like, you know what? I know I'm a, a, a five handicap. I know that's what you read there, Bob, but I actually shot 74 yesterday. So pay a little damn respect to my game and when I'm bringing showing up with today, so if you screw up another read like this, you're out of your guy. Is that kind of, which, is that my kind of right there on and or no, you know what it was really is that I'd been playing so bad and, and the next round was old course. So I was like, Charlie, just give, find something on the track, find something, just play halfway decent golf so that you can go the old course and play well and coming out of this, I'm like, I'm just going to just make him a mess of the old course is going to be terrible. I will say that that, that, look, that normal standing, those images you're seeing, this place is unbelievable and it's fun. It's creative too. Like there are multiple drivable par fours that have little unique parts about them where it's like you can go for it, but the way it's bunker, like you're dead in a pop bunker in the front. If you go long as a run off and you've got a short sided pitch shot back in where you're not even guaranteed to make a par. I think, again, it's one that probably gets critiqued because it's new in a certain way. But like, I take, I basically, I take done Donald Dunbarney and Kingsmore on to put them in a separate category, like evaluate them the whole different way than I evaluate the rest because they're modern Scottish courses and I thought all of them were beautiful, delightful, you know, well routed, a great fun proposition. So I think that, yeah, Dunbarney was, it was, I really wish I'd played better at Dunbarney, but it's a place I'd love to go back to and see again and kind of just mix in on a trip where it's like do some classic old, do some new. So that's my Dunbarney for you. So next we go to the old course. I don't need a Google. Okay. I don't think you need to Google the old course. This place was, I mean, it's not like I need to go in depth on what this place is. Everyone knows the old courses. I would just say like there is nothing in the world like the first T jitters at the old course, when you got everyone sitting, you got people behind on the street watching, you got people over on the putting green watching. It looks like it is, it should be like the one of the widest fairways in the world, especially because you also have the 18th fairway to use as well, but somehow it's still the most nerve wracking tee shot. Like I kind of like chunk drew a three wood out there to find the fairway and just, you know, kept the nerves down and made par on the first hole. But it is, I mean, I just think that there, you know, you got it. If you're going, you kind of have to play the old course because there's just nothing like walking in the same place that people have walked for hundreds and hundreds of years. The feelings on the first tee, the feelings on the teeth, the road hole, the feelings on the teeth, the home hold is looking around and being like, golly, I've seen this so many different times. And now I'm here playing it. This is unbelievable. Like it sounds like anything else. Question for you. Do you think the old course is outdated and where technology is now? Do you feel like it's, do you think it's a hard enough golf course for what today's modern technology is and how good these guys are? I think, thank you, Paul, hang up and listen. Paul, there's a level SEC radio. I'd say the old course in a lot of ways reminds me of like Pebble Beach and that it has a ton of history, but it really doesn't beat you up too much. Like it's pretty much out there in front of you. Like you can definitely hit it in some bad places. You can definitely hit it in some long grass. You can make a mess of that place. But for the most part, it's defense is always going to be the elements, right? The wind, you know, if it's rainy, that's what's going to kind of, you know, keep scores down, right? If you don't have that, of course pros are going to rip it up. I think that, you know, but I still wouldn't go away from a place like that because I just think there's just nothing like, there are just places that make you feel a certain way. You know, if you love golf, you love the game, you love its history, regardless of like the actual course itself, you're just going to step on that place. You're just going to be like, there's, there's nothing that can make me feel this way except for the old course. And that's kind of where I net out it on a net out on the old course is like, you know, a lot of the holes, you know, kind of run together because that's, it was, they're just using the land that was there, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And so it's not this tricked up, you know, kind of, you know, wild, it's, you know, press what gets so different from this, like this is a very different sort of thing, but it's the old course. And I'd say the other thing too is that you're signing up for a long, long round, it's going to be a five hour round. There are zillion courses out there and it's all packed for sums. The thing that probably took me, you know, by surprise of it was the hang was so good. The caddies were hilarious. Like we had a guy. My caddy was Jake. We had this caddy Scott who was on my dad's bag who carries in the Dunhill. We were doing trivia and jokes the entire time, like just like it was a five hour round that did not feel like a five hour round. And I think that's like maybe one of the best compliments I can play, pay you to a place is that it just, the time flukes, it was such a good hang and such a good experience. Yep. I haven't played it. It's got to be number one on the list for me. It's, and this is by the way, shout out to Scott for taking the best video, I'll maybe ever have my golf swing in the entire life where he just ran up on these, like, give me your phone. It was like, okay, he just ran up on the sill and just got me absolutely launching a rocket three wood. I believe this on the six holes and Andrews. And I don't have the volume up now, but you can hear the switch kind of line by his phone. So shout out to you, Scott. You killed it. And I think too, the other thing too is, oh, I hit it in the road hole bunker, which was the only double I made all day. I was too over going to the road hole bunker and I hit it there and kind of zoom in and see how I was feeling about hitting it in the road hole bunker. That's what the bunkers look like this week at true and then they're just there. It's just a tough scene yet. I almost got it out on the first, first try, but just didn't quite get up the riveted face. And then, and then honestly, too, I just say, you know, you're talking about the feelings of this place. Like this was for me being with my dad on this trip, like this walk up 18, you can't beat it. Just looking around, taking it in like this is your, you're finishing out your round the old course. I think go play this course with someone you love and you care about, you want to make memories with because you're going to be able to share that for a lifetime. And I think that this to me, our second to last round of the trip, walking up that fair way, looking at russics, looking at just, you know, the old course hotel, everything. It just, it's just, it's a top three feeling and goal, you know. So you all didn't finish the trip on this, this course, but that's a mistake. I, I, so I would have agreed with you, however, so we're looking at the forecast the next day. It's just going to King's Barnes next, it's supposed to be a ton of rain, it's supposed to be a miserable day. I'm like, all right, I shot 76, the old course, I'm thrilled with that. You know, is this our last round or we have one last round King's Barnes is it. So I, I shot, you know, I, I'm, I'm, you know, whatever happens at Kingsborough happens, it's going to be, you know, rainy, messy, close to St. Andrews, it's about 20, 25 minutes away. Okay. King's Barnes is like, I've heard it described as it looks like the Pebble Beach of Scotland, just these beautiful, just kind of carved into this kind of sloping hill on the side with the ocean on your left. You can kind of see this is a view from the 60 right here. Kind of. Yes, very much so, I'd say that here's, here's me on the 12th tee. This is apparently Ernie Elle's favorite par five in the world that this reminds me so much of 18 at Pebble Beach, where it's just like the ocean on your left hand side. I'm looking at her here too. It leaves you around just a really, really cool view and there's so many views like this on this entire course. Good balance, dude. That was sweet. You like that? God, that was a bad tee pick up too, man. You know, I, I, it laid on the fairway and I made birdie smiley. So I know I trust me. I see the, the cheeky grin on your face. You like that? I liked it. Yeah. Listen, I got a, I got a balanced thing, but you know, Scotty Sheffer's got a balanced thing too. So it's, it's, I'm, I'm not equating my, my game to Scotty Sheffler, but I'm just saying, you know, just talking about a tee pick up to gross. I would say, um, so, so, I mean, the place is beautiful. Here's another kind of like Vista, you know, you can kind of see. And it's also like top notch, like modern clubhouse. They have the Dunhill here and you just look out and see the ocean there on your left was just a, a, a throw of a place. And honestly, I love finishing the trip here because it was, um, it was, it was just nice to kind of go out again, like the way we kind of came in with like sort of got American vibe to it, um, got a high end vibe to it, uh, had a little sausage roll here at the turn with some HP sauce on it. I'm now addicted to HP, the brown sauce, like everything was great there. Uh, and, and then smiley, the biggest reasons because I careered it in Kings Barnes. I shot my career low 200 par 70 at Kings Barnes. I still cannot believe it happened this week. So I thought I was like, I thought I was fully out of energy ending this last day of the trip. And then just showed up and we found the rounds going well. We found this, this 20 pence coin on the, on the ninth sea box. And my cat, he's drew and picked it up and he said, uh, he said, this is good luck. Like you got to pick it up and I used as a ball marker for the rest of the round. And we were, we were flirting with, uh, you know, maybe not breaking par towards the end. There was a par five, the 16th where I hit it in a, in a pop bunker in the fairway and then pitched it out and then hit a gap wedge almost off the back of the green cause I was so juiced up. But then I turned around, made a little 50 footer for birdie coming down the hill to keep the. Oh, sure you did. So it was just, I would just say like Kings Barnes was amazing in so many ways, but it was also just like, it was a perfect way to finish the trip. Beautiful, beautiful course, top notch, perfectly conditioned course. And of course where I think like, if you get, if you get a banner day, like we got an amazing weather day, it's like you can just go low and have a good time and, and just say farewell to Scotland. And that's exactly over under, I got two questions over under how many golf balls do you think you played with the entire time? It's a good question. I brought way too many. I think I was going to need way more. I think I brought two dozen. And I think I probably, if I had to estimate, I think I probably lost, wait, you only brought two dozen. Uh, yeah. So 24 golf balls, yeah, you didn't have to get more. Wait a second. You know what? I might have had like, I might have had like six in my, in my bag already, like six in my bag plus two dozen in my suitcase. All right. With all the golf that you played, that kind of surprises me. I thought we were like going to be in the three or four. Listen, we're, we're confident in our ability to find the golf ball these days, the younger version of you would have needed about four dozen. I think that's what my dad brought. He was bringing like extra, like he was bringing like dozens to the course so he could take it to the next golf course like that. I don't think it's going to get that bad. He's like, no, no, no, I just, I need to have in case, I think I probably lost in the neighborhood of like six to eight golf balls the whole trip, which I'm proud of. Um, fun fact when my brother went, he played with one golf ball the entire week. Still don't know how he did that, uh, which is, yeah, amazing, not, not sure how, how or why he did that, but he was a very good golfer at that age, middle of the face, Hume. Uh, more so than I do. That's for nature. So that's, that's a very long and extended Scotland trip. If you made it this far, congratulations, you got to you. Thanks for hanging and sticking with us. But I mean, I just say, I mean, to, to just to wrap the whole thing up, I'd say absolutely it's a bucket list thing. You got to do it. We hit some of the main highlights on our trip. You could definitely kind of go off on a beaten, you know, a less beaten path and try to find some other stuff to do when you do your trip. But I think, you know, whatever you do, you can't do it the wrong way. You know, it's just go and enjoy it and cram as much golf as you can get in realistically, but don't overdo it to the point where you're like, not enjoying anymore. Um, but it's, it's a, if you love golf, it's a must, you got to go play links golf and you got to do it in Scotland. Hell yeah, brother. Uh, looked like a great trip, especially with pops, man. Um, definitely have my own rating system of those 10 that you played. Uh, I'll keep that to myself, but I think everybody kind of knows where I stand based on the excitement versus the non-excitement of some. So yeah, I'm actually curious, like, what were your, what were your top three? Uh, the one that was the last one, um, not Kings Barn, uh, done, done Barney, done Barney was up there, for sure, Turnberry, that I think those would be my top two. Um, and then North Barrick and, um, in the old course, the North Barrick and the old course would be top four. And I don't think I have a fifth. I think those are like a strong top four for me. And after that, I think you can kind of mix and match a little bit. There you go. I love it. We got, and that's a great thing about Scotland too, everyone can, can like something a little bit different. So that's it, Smiley. I think we've, I think we've spoken enough about Scotland at this point. I don't know that anyone else is watching this, if you are, congrats to you. Uh, and this is, I guess we're heading into three and open. Uh, so hopefully by now you've seen our one and done picks and or we're going to be having an Instagram live with Smiley joining us from Ireland, where he, he's going on a golf trip that perhaps will recap some point in time. So definitely look forward to that. So enjoy your week. We appreciate you watching and listening, and we'll be back here talking to you again very soon. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Join Smylie Kaufman and host Charlie Hulme for a unique episode of The Smylie Show! With Smylie in Ireland on a golf trip of his own, Charlie takes center stage to recap his recent trip to Scotland with his dad, where he played 13 rounds in eight days. Listen in as Charlie recounts playing some of the world's most historic courses in the birthplace of golf, including Turnberry Ailsa, North Berwick, and the Old Course at St. Andrews Links. And go check out the full episode on our YouTube page for all of the included visuals!
