It's the last What's Burning at the Killhouse of 2024, but we're still keeping it just as random as always. We've slotted plenty of room in here for stick-your-neck-out worthy predictions for 2025 — but there was a variety of experiences and fun to reflect on from 2024. Time to dive in.

Let’s start with golf. What was a course you played for the first time this year that was memorable, either because it was good or because it was bad?

- I played 45 total courses this year, about half for the first time. So, needless to say, a lot of different directions we can go with this one. The obvious choice is probably the Old Course Reversed, but I’ve written and spoken a lot on that. But in terms of not being able to stop thinking about a course and continually yearning to return, it’s Royal Adelaide. I adored the layout, the atmosphere, and the entire experience. It’s the sort of course that makes you consider (even just for a brief second) moving to the opposite side of the world so I could play this golf course every single day. 

 Irvine Bogside (Weird!!! Wonderful! Affordable!), Prestwick, Dunbar, Western Gailes, Lido, Brambles, Shorty’s, and Colorado Golf Club are other notable first loops from ‘24 that I think about often.

 - Many different ways we could go with this, but I’m gonna say Ocean Dunes on King Island. I hadn’t heard the best things about the course and had low expectations going in, but had such a freaking blast playing that place. Some of the best views of any golf course I’d ever played, and it had so many high points. There was definitely an added element of being about as far away from home as physically possible, and having the course to ourselves which made it much more special. The ocean holes were ridiculous, and the inland holes were thought-provoking and inspiring. Man that place rules.

 – The one I keep thinking about is Sedge Valley, the newest course at Sand Valley Resort here in Wisconsin. Sedge is a par 68 that only played about 5,200 yards from the tees we played, but every single hole presented such a fun challenge and kept a smile of joy or frustration on your face the entire day. One funny thing about most “strategic” golf courses is that most resort players (myself included much of the time) aren’t good enough to keep their drives in play and get the full effect of dynamic second shots on every hole. At Sedge, the whole scale is shrunken down, allowing bad players to feel like they have a fighting chance on every hole, while great players can’t help but try to hit heroic shots all day (and suffer mixed results). I can’t wait to play it again.

I’m not a top 100 chaser, but I had a good year on this front: Cypress, Fishers, RM West, Cal Club, and San Francisco Golf Club. All of them were fantastic, but my most memorable round was a Friday afternoon loop with friends back in July at the recently renovated Golden Gate Par 3 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. This 9-hole course out by Ocen Beach was in AWFUL shape when I lived in San Francisco. It’s now an interesting short course with tee shots ranging from 60 yards to 180 yards in the middle of one of my favorite cities. I was blown away by the thoughtful design and routing on a small plot of land, and I’d recommend anyone visiting San Francisco make a field trip out to Golden Gate Park to see it.

 - How is it possible that Tourist Sauce was just this year? Legitimately, every single track we played for that series is memorable. I still dream of Royal Adelaide and Royal Melbourne–what a delight those were, in every sense. But it was the course I played for fun on the back end of the trip that is the most memorable for me. Tara Iti, north of Auckland, New Zealand, is my pick. I played it on an absolute bluebird day, with winds that were pretty tame. Not only is it one of (the most?) beautiful settings I’ve had the pleasure to play golf in, but the good mood carried over to my game that day too. Vibes were high as I broke 80. As for the course, I found it interesting, stimulating, and ultimately very fair–not things I say after playing each and every Tom Doak design. There’s a reason it’s one of the best courses in the world and I feel like I got to play it on a day that couldn’t have been any better.

This is always the hardest question for me to answer because I get to “see” but not “play” a bunch of really cool golf courses. We travel the world for golf and most of the time I do it behind the lens of a camera. But this year, I ventured off on my own quite a bit and experienced some once-in-a-lifetime spots. NGLA, Shinny, and Southampton are all in the running. But they are all great and I hate splitting hairs. I could nitpick North Berwick vs Dunbar, but someone else will do that. The Schuster Brothers and I got to play Cypress during a perfect weather day in February. But for me, it was The Old Course with Big. I carried great shame for a long time because I have been to St Andrews multiple times, but I have never played golf. That changed this year during the AIG Women's Open week. I walked the golf course while calling Open Radio all four days of the competition. You end up in spots most rarely do because they are just slightly off of regular target lines (mostly 45 degrees off a player and preferably downwind, so your voice doesn't travel as far). You spend a lot of time ahead of the group you are calling, so most shots are coming towards you and not away. Every course I walk, I try to do my best to look at it backward or from green to tee. But calling live radio forces you to do it. It also revealed a lot about the Old Course that most people do not understand their first time through. There is a dream list of partners that I would have loved to share the experience with, and Big is always at the top. There is no better partner to make you stay in the moment, realize how fortunate we are to be there, and take some extra moments to let it all sink in. It is an experience that I will always cherish and a memory I will never forget.

 - How can I pick just one? I was lucky to play many new-to-me courses this year, including my first overseas ones. I am going to have to go with Carne. It was the one I had been thinking about the most leading up to playing, and it lived up to the hype. The scale of that place cannot be overstated. The drive up from Westport was gorgeous. The wind was not blowing a zillion KPH. The Guinness at the end of the round was phenomenal. Just a perfect day of golf on the edge of western Ireland!

 - Colorado Golf Club. A modern (read: wide) course with parkland vibes and firm conditions is just about perfection for me. A true nature walk with intrigue on every swing. It answered the question “what would you do if you had all the money” for me. I am buying 600 acres in the foothills of the Rockies and hiring Bill and Ben to build me CGC 2.0.

 — Dunbar. It just nudges out North Berwick and Prestwick, perhaps in part because it’s a bit more off the beaten path. I got to play it on one of the nicest days of the year in East Lothian, and there was barely a breath of wind. I loved the routing, how it hugs the old wall on the way out, then weaves toward the sea and back like a figure eight. Just a delightful walk with tons of fun shots and no pretension.

A number of stars — Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth, Will Zalatoris, Patrick Reed, Allisen Corpuz, Minjee Lee, Leona Maguire — had disappointing years in 2024. Who are you hoping, or predicting, will bounce back in 2025? (You don’t have to pick someone on this list.)

- It’s Zalatoris for me. He’s really really good, he might just lack the most important ability…availability. He’s an authentic, well-adjusted dude, and American pro golf gets more interesting if he’s involved, especially in a Ryder Cup year, even if just for making picks more difficult for Keegan. He strung together some positive results toward the end of the tour season, so hoping he can carry it forward. Obviously, my colleagues are going to go with Linksmaster Jord, which, listen, I hope so, for my sanity and for Greller’s sake.

 – My portfolio is full of so much Spieth stock that I desperately need a 2025 bounceback if I ever hope to retire.

 From the list above, Hovland is the most likely to bounce back. He has the talent, youth, and a singular focus on golf that bodes well for digging himself out of a rut. I’d highly recommend 

 to KVV’s excellent profile if you haven’t already. Though he isn’t listed, I hope JT also has a bounce-back this year. 2024 was a disappointment, but when you look at his 

, it’s hard to imagine him fading into mediocrity at 31.

- I sure am hoping Jordan Spieth gets one!

Spieth, Vik - sure. Cam Young……come on man. Looking for more from Maja and Linn.

 - I would love to see Vik turn it around. I have always enjoyed watching him, and I appreciate his whole vibe. It would be nice to see him in contention more next year, so I selfishly get to see more of him on my TV in whatever crazy outfits J.Lindeberg has him wearing.

 - Maja Stark had some flashes but nothing exceptional. I am hoping she wins a major next year.

 — This might be wishcasting, but I’m going with Spieth. I think the wrist has been causing more problems than he ever let on, and now that it’s fixed, he’ll get back his special sauce, hitting great iron shots. It’s stunning that he was 15th in Strokes Gained Off The Tee last year, but 138th in Strokes Gained Approach. Clearly he’s figured out something that works with the driver. If he can just recapture his elite iron play, he’ll be a Top 20 player again.

 - I refuse to be held hostage by nostalgia…what’s Danielle Kang up to these days? She’s kinda on the ropes with her status – she finished 144th in the CME rankings this year. I’d be very intrigued by a comeback era.

Every season from 2015 to 2024, we’ve had at least one player win their first major. Who will become a first-time major winner in 2025?

- Thomas Paul Fleetwood, likely at Portrush. TBD if the PGA is going to be a true major or just a Designated Elevated Signature© event.

 – It’s the holidays. What the hell? Tommy Fleetwood.

I’m going to go with Viktor Hovland. I’m buying the dip after everyone lost their shirts predicting he’d win one in 2024.

 - I am going to take the layup here and predict Jeeno Thitikul wins her first major this year. And it could be the first one of the year, at Chevron.

 — It feels too easy to pick Ludvig Åberg, so I’m going with Patrick Cantlay to win the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

 – The 2024 rookie of the year. I like Nick Dunlap at Oakmont!

What was your enjoyable or interesting meal of 2024? It can be a restaurant you visited, a meal you made at home, or a meal someone made for you.

 - In the midst of being with people non-stop for a few weeks straight between a family vacation and then Scotland, I had a quiet mid-afternoon meal at a place on the east side of the Isle of Arran that looks like a roadside seafood shack from the outside, but is so much more than that. I sat at the Mara Fish Bar and ate half the menu over the course of a few hours while I sat on a stool on the front porch and gazed out at the Firth of Clyde a few feet away across the street. Oysters, scallops, mussels, mackerel, local chanterelles, all leading to the crescendo of a local lobster risotto. Some of my most cherished memories are meals with others, but sometimes it’s really nice to be alone with your thoughts, world-class food and unfussy food made with love and reflective of a very specific place in the world. 

 - Bern’s Steakhouse in Tampa. Had heard about it a ton, but wondered how unique could a steakhouse experience truly be. Well, the food was obviously incredible, great service, drinks, great company….but the tour of the wine cellar was truly next level. I believe they have about a half a million bottles of wine (not a joke!), including some from the mid-1800s. It’s just row after row after row after row of bottles, stacked to the ceiling. I’ve never seen anything like it. And then from dinner, you graduate to the dessert room, which is like an entire additional restaurant with private booths for after-dinner cocktails and ridiculously good sweets. Wife and I almost made a special trip down there for a babymoon in July, and can’t wait to go back.

 – There’s a place near our house called Lake Park Bistro. It’s a fancy, white table cloth, classic French restaurant that’s located inside Lake Park and overlooking Lake Michigan. It’s an institution, but it’s very tired looking from the outside – I’ve walked past it roughly 600 times since moving here and have always thought it looks like going to someone else’s Grandma’s house for dinner. But when some neighbors of ours very kindly gave us a gift card for the place, Justine and I made plans for LPB to be our first proper dinner out since having Charlie. Maybe it was the thrill of being out of the house like adults (maybe it was the Old Fashioneds), but dammit if it didn’t deliver. I had a filet au poivre that made me sincerely happy and a mushroom soup that I asked the waiter if we could buy by the quart and freeze just to have at the house. Top 2 or 3 soup I’ve ever had in my life.

I’m a massive fan of a good hotel breakfast spread. The kind where you sit down, place an order for a nice coffee with the waiter, then immediately get up with a plate and choose your own adventure at a breakfast buffet. During our trip to Portugal and Spain in September, Carson and I stayed at the Sublime Comporta resort, and they had the best breakfast spread I’ve ever seen. All three mornings, it was a 2-hour experience with 3-4 courses. I’d start with the fruit and yougurt and granola, with a little homemade and freshly squeezed “juice of the day.” Then, I would explore the meats, smoked fish, cheeses, jams, and different homemade bakery items. Finally, I would request a simple omelet with ham, green peppers, and cheese, and explore the daily offering at the hot bar before grabbing one more chocolate croissant on my way out.

 - My answer goes back to my trip to New Zealand last winter. My wife’s cousin took a group of us out on his boat to a little place called Rakino Island in the waters near Auckland. They call it ‘Pizza Island’ because on this island, which has maybe a dozen or so full-time inhabitants is a little pizzeria called Woody Bay Pizzeria. It’s a man and his son who cook made-to-order pizzas in a wood-fired oven. The pizza was excellent, as was being able to eat it in a swimsuit and flip-flops after we splashed around in the water at the beach. The most memorable meal. If you’re ever in Auckland with access to boat, check it out!

The meal we cooked as a team on King Island. From the cheese board to salads and sides, open fire cooking meat and fresh seafood. We each had our roles. But sharing that meal after a long day of work at one of the most beautiful places in the world is something I will never forget. Great food, even better people.

- I love pizza so I was so elated to have dinner at 

 the night before the NIT in Phoenix with Neil, Ben, Cody, Jordan, Lauren and John Pond, and my husband, Jon. No reservations are taken so we got there and took advantage of Bar Bianco (literally in a house next door) for a few rounds of drinks. When it was time to eat, we had a big table outside to enjoy the warm fall evening. We ordered one of every pizza on the menu and all the salads. There was not one thing to dislike about any of it. The pizza was perfect, the company even better.

 - This is an easy one. My beautiful mother turned 60 this year. We hired a local chef (and one of our friends) to develop and cook a 5-course tasting menu at our home. The food was centered around classic dishes with an Indian flare. It was an unbelievable experience watching a true pro cook in my kitchen and create extraordinary dishes - though it was humbling to realize the level of food that can be prepared with my own pots and pans far surpassed anything I have done. If you are ever in Kansas City, you have to go check out Of Course and Chef Swetha.

 — There is a restaurant in Baltimore, Magdalena, inside the Ivy Hotel, that doesn’t get nearly the attention that some of the fancier restaurants do, but my wife and I had an exceptional meal there this July for her birthday. The food, drinks, the service, the sommelier, the atmosphere — all of it was incredible. I remember oysters, beet salad, duck confit, short ribs, some incredible desserts. My city is an underrated food town, and I have no shortage of places to recommend when people reach out, but Magdalena is one of the places I send the real ones.

 – The least sophisticated answer is slotted for last. There’s a two-way tie. I’ll start with Jim’s Smokehouse BBQ in Austin, TX, which is a banger of a food truck that sells BBQ meats by the pound. Their black angus brisket is to die for…and mixed with the mac and cheese…I’ve ascended. I also have no idea how that good of a key lime pie found its way to a food truck in Texas, but it did, and the strawberry sauce is the perfect touch.

This is tied with Raising Cane’s, which has officially become my favorite fast-food chicken establishment.

We travel a lot for work. What is something that frustrates you about traveling that you would change if you were given magic powers to do so?

- I’ve built entire columns and podcast episodes around this, so there’s a lot to pull from. But often I’m talking specifics, and what gets washed away in that is how far behind the rest of the world the United States is in airport infrastructure and investment (and without reasonable alternatives like trains). There’s a lot of shitty airports in Canada and the UK, but on the whole, I’m impressed whenever I travel abroad - the terminals make more sense, they’re better staffed, and they’re actually preparing for the future and not just trying to catch up to the present. Just generally less bullshit.

 - How hard it can be to get in and out of Jax efficiently, and how isolated I can feel in the southeast. I was spoiled living in Amsterdam and being able to get to the airport in no time and hop to another country in a heartbeat. The only downside of living in Jax (aside from the summers) is the lack of ability to get to many places (especially internationally) without connecting.

 – The inefficiency (and high cost) of train travel in most of the United States. I can’t tell you how much I’m dying to travel around even just the Midwest by train and how disappointed I am every time I look into actually doing this.

What's Burning at the Killhouse: 2024 Round-Up

Self-described "Tightest Person in the World" Tron Carter steps into Dr. Greg Rose's office for a physical wake-up call.


We're always working on our games, but we could use some expert intervention. "Game Improvement," a brand-new series brought to you by SERVPro, is designed to put us on the right track.

Game Improvement

Tron Visits the Titleist Performance Institute

An update on real GHIN, as the USGA pushed out the GHIN Rewind this week and mine contained some surprises. We’ll dig deeper this week on the podcast, but I’ll get it started here. 

 I will likely end the year at a 2.1, the exact same spot I started. The 61 rounds is light.

I played at least eight rounds of alt shot that I couldn’t post (many at home) and then played another six rounds on courses that aren’t rated or postable. 

Of the scores I posted, I love seeing the variety: 43 different courses across 61 rounds. Seeing new courses is why I play golf. My “hardest round” also turned out to be the absolute best round I played all year - a 1-over par 72 at Western Gailes on a windy, grey day. It wasn’t the lowest score of the year but it was absolutely the best golf I played, and the 76 rating and 146 slope make sense. On the flip side, the “easiest” course I played according to the ratings is the Lagoon Course at my home club, Ponte Vedra Inn and Club. This could not be further from the truth. It’s a sub-6000 yard par 70 that’s rated as a 68.4 and 126 slope. This year the superintendent grew the rough up, the greens are fast, there’s water everywhere and there are six par-3s, six par-4s and six par-5s, and it’s HARD. Members and guests tend to scoff at it because of the yardage, but if I wanted to sandbag I would play there on a weekly basis and my index would shoot up. 

We’re recording our beginning of 2025 “Goals” podcast in the coming days, and I’ve already decided one of those goals is going to be 100 rounds posted.

My friend Garrett Morrison from Fried Egg Golf is down in Melbourne, Australia this week on a whirlwind tour of the Sandbelt and I am positively jealous. I cannot wait to return down under, and get to Hobart and Perth and Kangaroo Island and back to Adelaide on the next trip and then dig a level deeper in Victoria to see Yarra Yarra, Commonwealth, Woodlands, the various courses at The National, and Healesville. Balancing that and a proper New Zealand trip is going to be a tricky thing over the next 18 months.

Speaking of Australia, the Australian Open (golf, not tennis) is a disgrace in its current iteration. Pitiful purse, paltry corporate support, sparse crowds in Melbourne, a neutered golf course setup, and a contrived co-ed format that’s great in theory and a mess in practice and short-changes both genders. National opens need to be celebrated and the winners rewarded with exemptions into the majors, but that’s also a two-way street and they need to be serious competitions befitting their title. Based on conversations with nearly everyone I know in Australia, I’m close to placing a fatwa on the entire Golf Australia organization. Get it together!

I am grateful to the dozens of people who reached out and offered up dozens of the “old” version of the Cypress Point Club plastic ballmarkers and then sent them through. I mean, look at this thing!

This is how I feel after Cal Club into Sea Island into Tree Farm into a father/son trip to Boston into Thanksgiving into Ohoopee into Randy’s wedding and then back to Ohoopee and then down to West Palm for TGL Media Day (seeing “The Spear” and “The Temple” in person is going to be majestic) this week, and I think I need to detox/chill out at home for a few weeks and get my feet under me:

recent podcast conversation between Andy Johnson and Bob Crosby

. My friend/oft-collaborator Wolfie has told me repeatedly that Bob Crosby might be the smartest, most enlightened dude in golf, and this episode certainly supports that.

Speaking of Wolfie, we recorded a “Best Golf Countries” Office Hours episode that will be coming out later this week. It’s my favorite OH ep we’ve done yet - be on the lookout for it. And in the meantime, catch up on our recent episode on 

On the newsletter front, Kyle Porter’s conversation with 

Rufus Peabody last week in his Normal Sport newsletter

 was fantastic. Rufus is someone who the more I learn about him, the more fascinated I become.

I took my older son Freddie up to Boston before Thanksgiving for a Celtics game and to show him where he was born. It was great to go up and also a reminder of how much I don’t miss the weather and gray and cold. We hit Pammy’s, Modern, the Celtics facility thanks to some gracious hospitality from a friend, got to see Anthony Edwards in person, saw a Celtics win, and Freddie was a trooper as we walked a lot. Fun weekend!

Randy’s wedding weekend in Austin was a blast, too. It was a very stereotypically “Austin” long weekend, with dinner at a buzzy coastal Mexican spot called Este, brunches at Sour Duck and June’s All Day, lunch at Perla’s, and a late-night meal at Dai Due. All were fantastic. Caught a Wilco show at ATX Live. Caught up with some Austin friends I don't get to see enough. And stayed at the South Congress Hotel and drank way too much at the hotel bar with the NLU crew, Randy’s family, and college friends I hadn’t seen in over a decade. I’m still recovering. Also got to meet DJ and Justine’s new addition, Charlie, and then share some drinks with David Ruff, from Washed Media, though I have not dabbled with his Guinness + espresso combo yet, I remain intrigued.

My 24 hours in a Waffle House punishment will happen in the next two weeks. Some of my buddies told me this weekend that a fantasy league they’re in makes the loser of their league here in Jax take a Greyhound bus to Cleveland and back, so I consider myself lucky with the WaHo stakes.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love this video. I watch it almost daily and it makes me laugh every single time.

I’ve got three pet peeves to harp on this week:

Bars and restaurants are not cleaning out their draught lines. This is an epidemic, and quite frankly, it needs to be regulated because it’s fucking gross and a health hazard. So many establishments rely on draught beer for their highest margins, yet they don’t want to do the work to properly service these systems and clean out all the shit that builds up in there, especially if they have a wide variety of beers. Do better! In the meantime, I’ll be extremely choosy about where I imbibe pints.

I’ve made my feelings clear on CLEAR (it’s a disgrace with OR without TSA Precheck), but I’ve got a couple of bones to pick with the Atlanta airport. Normally, on the (maddening) new “Analogic” machines the TSA is commonly using, there are three or four stations to put your bags, then you push it into the second level, then the machine automatically takes it to the bins to third level in a regimented way. In Atlanta, at least on the international side (where I tend to park), passengers are forced to push their bins all the way to the third level, which results in the people on the end of the line pushing their stuff onto the conveyor while the other 2-3 spots closer to the machine are forced to wait. I must’ve waited while 5 different people from that last spot go their stuff in before me. I witnessed several Diamond Medallions (who should know better and be more considerate) do this and was appalled. The world’s busiest airport needs to do better and fix this. Also, the parking garages at ATL don’t have a system where it recognizes your license plate and automatically knows how much you should pay. Instead, you have to put your ticket into the machine. That’s just not acceptable these days. I’m thankful for the ease of parking at JAX and the systems they have in place.

While IAH has some of my favorite airport restaurants and I generally like flying through there, the online ordering at the various “OTG” restaurants is a disgrace. I can’t talk to a human being. At the “Little Purse Dumpling Den,” we ordered dumplings, a bowl of ramen, edamame, a glass of sauvignon blanc, a Sapporo, and a bottle of San Pellegrino and it came to over a hundred bucks and took forever. Similar issues at EWR in Terminal C. OTG is a borderline-criminal organization that should lose its license to operate in these airports.

NFL/CFB Quick Hits as the #BallKnowers are on hiatus until January due to scheduling constraints and holiday break:

The Falcons continue to piss me off. The offense is so bland and uninspired, even in last night’s flaccid victory over a moribund Raiders team. I realize that Cousins can’t really move, but the scheme isn’t putting him in a position to succeed and I’m not sure it would be any different with Penix. It was interesting to watch them on a split screen with the Bears/Vikings game on at the same time. Kevin O’Connell’s on another level right now with some of their concepts and it’s really fun to watch. (Look for their QB coach Josh McCown to get some HC looks in the months ahead, too.) Same deal with Flores on the other side of the ball. It’s also really fun to watch how bad the Bears are. Awful penalties, horrible protection, and Caleb just isn’t accurate. He deserves credit for not losing his mind in the midst of this disastrous rookie season, but his footwork, rhythm, reads and ability to play on-schedule just don’t seem to be good, at all. And that’s a continuation of what we saw at USC, the only difference is the game is just faster in the NFL and he can’t get away with it. Not impressed.

On that note, I miss Coach Flus so much. His post-game pressers, pre-halftime quick interviews, and general demeanor made me so happy. The timeout fiasco at the end of the Thanksgiving game was the highlight of the NFL season. Rarely are we gifted such staggering, no-holds-barred ineptitude and hilarity, and when we get it we need to cherish it. Reminds me of Urban’s tenure with the Jags. Still can’t believe he stayed behind in Ohio and didn’t fly back with the team after the Thursday night game against the Bengals and THEN got nabbed for <redacted> at Urban’s Pour House the next night! And now he’s gainfully employed on the worst pre-game show in sports!

I can’t figure the Ravens and Texans out.

There have been a lot of Eagles fans in the DMs crowing about the current winning streak. I remain steadfast in my belief that Sirianni and Hurts are frauds, and I’d encourage everyone to wait until after the playoffs to reach out. Howie’s built a heck of a roster and he’s on another level when it comes to evaluation on DBs. It’s a very good defense, I’m a big AJ Brown fan, and they’ve got some predators up front. Time will tell.

Just wasn’t Los Niners’ season. Injury apocalypse. Not quite sure what they should do moving forward - it’s an old roster and Purdy’s about to get very expensive.

The Jaguars not firing Pederson and (especially) Baalke by now is extremely concerning.

The Bills are very good and I’m not sure how you defend them. The Packers are really good and I was very wrong about Lafleur. That performance on Sunday night in Seattle was awesome. Meanwhile, the Rams offense has been a joy to watch this season. They’ve been involved in three of the best games I’ve watched all season.

Super impressed with what Dave Canales has done over the last 6 weeks or so. Sitting Bryce Young to press pause on things and restore his confidence was a great move, and he’s working wonders. Jalen Coker is really good at WR. That team is playing hard.

It feels like we’re a year too early to judge #Baugh down in San Diego. That’s a bad skill position room made worse by injuries, and when McConkey is out there’s just not a lot they can do, no matter how good they are upfront. But if Herbert was the generational QB talent that all the dipshits like Ruiz say he is, he should be more of a weapon.

At some point, the Saints have to rip the bandaid off and just bite the bullet on the salary cap/dead money front. What a bad place to be as a franchise - absolutely rudderless, yet unwilling to embark on bottoming out. Same deal with the Titans. What a bad, vanilla-ass team.

On the college front, the progression of Billy Napier this season has been interesting, and a lesson in patience. Florida fans were trying to run him out of there after the first third of the season and then that team played hard, won some big games, played some good teams hard, has something special at QB in DJ Lagway, and the recruiting is good. He came in and wanted to recruit high schoolers and develop and build the program the right way and it’s paying off. Patience!

The Georgia Tech/Georgia game was the best thing I’ve watched all year. Neil and I were in Atlanta that night with our whole family and we all stayed up watching through all the overtime (which is gimmicky and I long for the old college OT.) I’m pretty agnostic as it relates to both programs, but I found myself captivated by GT - it was like watching the college version of my high school team, running option concepts and just generally being crafty. And then I watched Brent Key’s postgame presser and it’s clear he’s building something there and it’s about more than just football. I’d send my sons to play for that guy. Consider me a fan from here on out.

Last thing on the football front, if you don’t subscribe to Holly Anderson and Spencer Hall’s 

 you should! And here’s why - this, on the Ohio State loss is them at their best:

GHIN & Tonic, Vol. 27 (TC)

With Cody on the bag, Neil tries his chances at the Long Island Mid Amateur, hosted at The Bridge Golf Club as D.J. watches on.

NLU Film Room

Neil Plays the Long Island Mid-Am at The Bridge | NLU Film Room

In this NLU Special Project, we relive Vijay Singh's dominant 2004 season, which might be the most underappreciated in modern golf history. We also look back at Singh's unlikely ascension from the island of Fiji. Through various tours in far-flung locations around the globe, he ultimately challenged and briefly overtook Tiger Woods as the best golfer on the planet.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining 

: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at 

A fresh, funny discussion of all things golf from the guys at No Laying Up. Episodes air twice a week and topics include tournament recaps, interviews, deep dive player profiles, golf travel, and more.

No Laying Up Podcast

933: Vijay Singh Deep Dive 

Office Hours returns as Michael Wolf welcomes Tron Carter to purchase/draft their best golf states. 

Presented by Holderness & Bourne. Head over to hbgolf.com for all your holiday shopping.

Presenting Office Hours with Michael Wolf (@bamabearcat).

Office Hours

Office Hours: Best Golf States

We are lucky at No Laying Up — you could even say blessed — in that we get to interact with so many people in golf over the course of a year.

We travel to weird and fun places, we meet people obsessed with their craft at the highest and lowest stations in the game, and we share stories and break bread, then talk about bogeys that could have been birdies. It remains the best job we could have accidentally chosen, and we are thankful that you come along for the ride and ultimately make it possible.

Whenever the holidays pop up on the calendar, it feels like a natural time to reflect on why we enjoy this sport so much, and why it speaks to us in a way that almost nothing else does.

Professional golf can be alluring, yet maddening. From time to time, the scale tips in the wrong direction. Everyone could see some of that disillusionment reflected in the eyes of fans this year. But “professional golf” and “golf” are not the same thing. That’s an important distinction to keep in mind, and one that was a clear theme as we gathered together (

when we cast a wide net that covers at least some of what we love about this imperfect game.

For starters, we are thankful for the gift of 

 for the excuse to cross state lines, borders, mountains, or oceans, and see courses that — until this year — have only existed in our heads, or as a collection of pixels on our screens. Collectively, we got to see a dozen bucket list courses this year, both old and new. Many places, we’re already plotting a return.

Maybe it’s weird to be thankful for the 

 at Sheep Ranch on a sunny day is old hat to you. It’s possible you’ve seen the coffin bunker on the 

 at Royal Melbourne beneath your feet. But a few of us got to experience those things for the first time this year, and when a place you’ve long dreamed about exceeds your already-absurd expectations, it’s a reminder that some cathedrals in this game really are worth making a pilgrimage to experience.

We are particularly thankful this year for the country of 

— for the people there, their infectious humor, and their respect and love for the game, even when it often goes unrequited by the rest of the world. The courses, pound for pound, are unparalleled. We’re already eager to return.


Speaking of returning, we’ve fallen deeply in love the last few years with the 

, that magic piece of rock in the middle of the Firth of Clyde and all the little mysteries and flourishes she offers. We’re going to make a regular pilgrimage here for the foreseeable future. A round at 

 will always fill up our cup, and help us reconnect to what really matters, and a few nights at 

 are often a recipe for the best sleep of your life. Get there if you can, just don’t tell too many people, okay?

We are thankful, especially at a time when artificial intelligence continues to bleed into every aspect of life, for 

 whose sons are picking up the torch and running with it. We are grateful too for 

, dreamers who are imprinting their own stamp on the game and leaving it better than they found it by creating places worth seeking out.

We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention we are thankful for 

, who we appreciate more with each passing year. One of us even got the chance to play 

 this year. We’re still thinking about that eagle chip that almost dripped in on the second hole and the story we’ll tell our kids one day.

A couple of us have moved to new cities in recent years, and we’ve reluctantly left behind the courses and playing partners we’d grown to love. But in our new places, as we’ve begun to put down roots, we’ve been extremely thankful for the way golf offers 

, the way it allows you to find your tribe and integrate into a community.


in Las Vegas, or the randos we get paired up with at 

 in Milwaukee, or the delightful weirdos we cross paths with at 

 in Brooklyn. There is something intimate and revealing about sharing a round of golf with a stranger. Occasionally those chance encounters will lead to lasting friendships. That you can forge a life-long friendship on a course in Australia the same way you can forge one at your local muni is a nice reminder that the world is only as small as you choose to make it.

And while we’re thinking of it, a hearty shout out to local golf associations, particularly the ones where events are well run, have excellent pace of play and are hosted at interesting courses. The 

 deserves a specific call out here, but chances are there is something similar in your area you should embrace. It will take you places you would never play otherwise.


 who create the surfaces we play upon and turn a simple grass field into something so much more. The same goes for the 

 the men and women who are often underpaid and unappreciated. They are around the game way more often than they ever get the chance to play it, and the majority of them take way more pride in their work than their paycheck will ever reflect.

Living in a place where you can't play golf in the winter has made a few of us reflect on how grateful we are for 

 and those rounds when it feels almost like you’re getting away with something like you’re cheating the calendar. The Florida boys will never understand the rush of teeing off with a fellow lunatic when the temperature is hovering just south of 50 degrees. The later in the season you play, the more fun it gets, even on days when you can see your breath as the last putt drops.

This might come as a surprise, but we are thankful for the fire hose of content this year churned out by 

, and how committed he is to entertaining the audience, whether he’s trying to win a major championship or making a hole-in-one by hitting wedges over the top of his house. No matter what you think of Bryson, he is good for the sport. He makes our jobs more fun. When he put down his U.S. Open trophy and climbed back into the bunker at Pinehurst with 

, then instructed Wagner on how to recreate his remarkable up-and-down, it was the best television segment of the year. At a time when a lot of people within the sport are as riveting as a dial tone, Bryson has tapped into something riveting. And if you don’t like him, he makes for a formidable villain. We are excited to see whatever is next.


, two superstars who have forced everyone to chase their level of excellence. It’s essential to have superstars in your sport. Neither has the flair and thirst for the camera that Bryson does, but that’s not a bad thing. A quiet commitment to excellence is alluring in its own way, and the fact that they’re more interested in chasing history than they are likes or subscribers should be the skeleton of the professional game. Professional golf — despite its best efforts — is not a YouTube channel. It’s a place where the most skilled golfers in the world vie for trophies and records. No two golfers grasp that better than Scheffler and Korda, but we’d feel foolish if we didn’t mention we’re thankful for 

, who reminded us this year that you can control your own destiny if you just keep chipping away at the rock in front of you.

We are thankful, especially when we think about grit and drive, for people who don’t give up. People like our friend 

whose spirit and energy in the face of MND

 is a testament to the same qualities that made him a standout golfer before the disease took those skills from him. And for our friend 

, whose relentless positivity and force of will in the fight with cancer — and bout after bout of chemo — has given us a much-neededhard-pressed perspective in our own lives. Trego, with his 

, was the MVP of our Nest Invitational Tournament at 

 this year. We are hard pressed to think of a better evening than the one we spent sipping whiskey with him under the stars at one of America’s best munis.

 of something can make you even more grateful for its eventual return, and that was golf for a couple of us this year. When you can’t play the game, either because of injuries or work obligations or parental responsibilities, it forces you to appreciate it in new and different ways. It makes your love evolve and helps you understand the depths of it. Some days, we’re content just visualizing the shots we hope to one day hit. Our swings are never disappointing when we lay in bed at night, imagining the holes we yearn to play when life offers up the chance to return.


 the ones who encourage our infatuation with this strange and beautiful game. First and foremost, for our 

, because they never fail to celebrate our wins and encourage us to push for more. But we are also thankful for the chance to share this game with our 

 Some of us are already there, basking in the glow of the 

 disappointment. Some of us are still in the stage where we’re just changing diapers and trying to hold it together until nap time.

Time marches on, either way, for all of us.


If we’re lucky, if we pass down the stuff we love without pushing too hard, someday they might be stubborn enough and curious enough to insist on making their own lists.

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director of No Laying Up.

No Laying Up is Chris Solomon, Todd Schuster, Phil Landes, Neil Schuster, D.J. Piehowski, Ben Hotaling, Casey Landman, Cody McBride, Kevin Van Valkenburg and Jordan Perez.


Let us know what you're thankful for in the 

NLU 2024: What We’re Thankful For

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