This Veterans Day, we join forces at Southampton Golf Club on Long Island for a special occasion—an exhilarating Four-Ball match featuring two remarkable adaptive golfers, Mike Browne and Chad Pfeifer. Fresh off their stellar performances at this year's Simpson Cup at the legendary Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Mike teams up with Neil, while Chad partners with Cody in a spirited "Artillery vs. Airborne" showdown.


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Veterans Day at Southampton Golf Club | NLU Film Room

In a little Strapped boys reunion, Neil gives Randy a tour of a place that's had his heart for years. They indulge in his favorite golf and food, then encounter the true magic of the city. 

City Tour

Golf, Food, Magic | Neil and Randy Explore Brooklyn

Greetings. I’m a father now. More on that later.

I’m very happy to be back. Let’s dive in.

As I write this, I’m in the midst of a seven-match losing streak against my friend A.J. It’s brutal. His course, my course, neutral sites. It doesn’t matter.

I’m including this for a few reasons: First, because he’s worked hard, improved his game and played some very nice golf and he deserves his due. But also because it’s helped me realize something important that I’ve become very thankful for.

A.J. and I became friends a few years ago when I moved to Milwaukee and we were thrilled to learn that both of us were 6-handicaps. This, of course, meant that we could play matches straight up, without strokes. “Real golf,” as Randy, Neil and PacMan Jones would say.

Our first two matches were both dead ties, with each of us sinking big putts at the final hole to even up the day. Even our third match was tied when we got to the 18th hole. I finally got him, 1 up, which I only include because it was the first and last time I beat him since we started keeping a spreadsheet of match results.

Part of what makes golf great is that the handicap system allows people of all skill levels to (theoretically) play an evenly matched, competitive game against each other. That system works great. But as someone who is typically on the receiving end of strokes from the people I play with, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something just a bit hollow about “winning” a match when the other guy clearly and objectively played better golf. (Hopefully, Soly isn’t reading this, because our matches are exempt from this feeling.)

What’s most fun about finding an equal sparring partner like this is that even as your handicaps drift apart, as they often naturally do, both of you know that you’ll always see each other as the players from those first matches. And the thought of giving or receiving pops will repulse both sides forever.

When Tron first moved to Florida, we played dozens of matches straight up and had back-and-forth slugfests. His game has since taken a leap that I can’t keep up with. He’s clearly a better player than me, but every time he’s forced to give me two a side, we both feel a little grimy because we know how much more fun it is to be on a level playing field. If you have a golf friend like this, I hope you appreciate how great of an asset those even matches are.

My practice has plummeted this fall and A.J. has gotten consistently better. Realistically, our handicaps are no longer the same and the fine people at the USGA would be pulling their hair out watching us continue to play straight up. But each time I get beat, the itch to get back out and play again gets even stronger. And when the streak finally ends, it’s going to feel so much better than any 5-for-4 ever has.

Page Break

My wife Justine and I welcomed our first kid back in September, a little boy named Charlie. He rules (or at least he seems to – he doesn’t say very much). We are over the moon and enjoying every minute of it.

Since Charlie was born, I’ve gotten countless messages from people who are about to become parents themselves. Here are a few stray notes and thoughts from the past two months for them to take or leave (and for experienced parents to hopefully get a laugh at):

• The most important takeaway of the earliest days was simply to stay ahead. You can’t get behind in the count because you have no chance to hit a 2-strike cutter. You have to anticipate, plan your next move and maximize your time, which is something I’ve never been very good at. If you have five minutes to do the dishes, those are the five minutes to do them. If you’re getting ready to give him a bottle, think of everything you might need within arm's length over the next 30 minutes. The last thing you want to do is realize you left his pacifier downstairs when the shit hits the fan (or your arm).

• The weather over the first month was a joke in Milwaukee. Mid-60s, leaves changing, cool breezes off the lake. As a result, Justine and I both quickly realized that long walks served the multiple purposes of:

a) Getting out of the house and feeling like a human being

c) Giving the other person a quiet house for an hour or so

I would almost always opt for the baby carrier over the stroller on these, which I love. Sometimes we would just walk to the coffee shop, sit outside on benches and watch people go by. The best.

• Of course all the cliches are true and spectacular: The awe you will have every day for your partner, the fact that there are varieties of patience you didn’t even know existed, etc.

But if I’m being honest, a lot of the first few weeks can feel more like feeding a sourdough starter than what you’ve always pictured as “parenting.” It’s pretty procedural and impersonal, particularly without all the built-in physiological connections that a mother has with the newborn.

But, man. When you get a few weeks in and he starts squeaking and smirking and making funny faces…

• It’s maddening how often you have no idea what to do and end up hearing “it depends” or “do what’s right for you!” All you want when your brain turns to sleep-deprived mush is for someone to tell you exactly what to do. That’s not going to happen. I suppose it’s probably for good reason.

• I only read a few books before Charlie arrived: “Bringing up Bebe,” which came highly recommended by Tron and a few others. And “Moms on Call,” which is much more of a how-to reference manual than a parenting philosophy. Both were great in their own way, but reading them before the baby came probably did very little for me. I’m re-reading parts of them now that I’m 2 months in and, unsurprisingly, it feels like I can finally translate the language they’re written in.

 consideration to the consequences of Googling things because it’s impossible to unread what you’ll see. I’ve never been a huge Reddit guy, but honestly, a lot of the parenting and newborn threads are incredibly helpful, calm and rational, and do a great job of putting any worries into comforting perspective and plain English. That’s become my go-to instead of wading through the “technically it could be the worst disease you’ve ever heard of” answers on most medical websites.

• Charlie was in the NICU for five days after he was born. Thankfully, it was for some very mild breathing concerns that kept our nerves to a minimum. Every day, we would get up, go to the hospital, and spend all day hanging out in his room and peppering his nurses with every question we could think of about how to take care of a newborn. I never would have chosen for him to have to spend time in there, but in reality, having those training wheel days where the pros could show us how and why they did the things they did made me so much more confident when it was time to actually go home.

Without fail, every single person we met in the NICU – from the doctors and nurses to the assistants and cleaning staff – was a compassionate, thoughtful pro that put us at ease with well-timed insights, empathy and humor. I can’t fathom what it would take to do that job every single day, let alone for the decades that many had been there doing it. I’m sincerely grateful and thankful those types of people exist and will remember that group forever.

When he was dealing with some jaundice a few days in and needed to sit under those blue bilirubin lights, I made a quip to the nurse about how she should draw eyes on the masks to add some personality. I laughed so hard when we came in the next day.

• I’m naturally a night person, so I gravitated toward the graveyard shift, handling overnight feedings. Luckily the playoff baseball was electric (apart from one inning of a certain Game 3). Outside of that, I watched a few Apple+ shows: All of “Slow Horses,” which I can’t recommend enough. I also got all the way through “Shrinking,” which is kind of like “if they let the people on Scrubs say the F-word.” I like it. It’s a fun late-night delirious watch and Harrison Ford is a treat.

Now that baseball is over, we’re rounding into full-on Oscars prep and it’s movie season. Watch this space for more updates.

 I pretty vividly remember the low point of those first few weeks.

 It was between 3 and 4 a.m. and Charlie and I were downstairs. He hadn’t been a huge crier so far, but he was in a full meltdown. I was trying every trick I had ever read – shushing, burping, changing, football cradling, swaying, rocking, bouncing, walking, swaddling and unswaddling. He had zero interest in any of it.

I knew he didn’t need a new diaper, but I gave him a full outfit change anyway, just to see if anything would click and make him stop. Pacifier? F*** off. Bouncy chair? Go to hell.Now things were moving quickly and the first uneasy waves of panic started to waft in. Surely the cries would wake up Justine during the few hours of precious sleep I was supposed to be giving her. And worse than that, I thought, maybe every night would just be like this. Forever. Me reduced to a pleading puddle, begging for answers from a little 8-pound time bomb who was so frustrated that he couldn’t give them to me. I used to do fun stuff, and now it’s just going to be this.

Suddenly the crying stopped and the room finally fell silent again. I rewound the previous seconds, trying to figure out what secret combination of moves had cracked the code. We were near the window in our dark living room, but the streetlights were throwing enough light for me to see that he had locked eyes with me, something he had only done a few times since we brought him home. The panic was gone and in its place was one of our first moments of what felt like actual bonding or connection. I slowly brought him a little closer to my face to allow us both to get a better look.

Then he vomited all over me and his brand-new set of pajamas. I paused, looked upward to the ceiling and took a deep breath. I looked back down at him and we both tried to figure out what to do next. I took another beat. Then he let out what has to be pound-for-pound the loudest fart in the history of Wisconsin. I was awestruck. After that, he took a deep breath and let out a big, satisfied exhale, turned his head slightly and fell asleep. I laughed for a half hour.

Thanks for reading. You can reach D.J. at 

GHIN & Tonic, Vol. 25 (D.J.)

KVV and Soly are back with another deep dive pod. This time we look at two golf feuds featuring a couple of hall-of-fame players who went toe to toe over a rules infraction at a Skins Game and one landmark event in Ryder Cup history that a certain group of golf media just can't seem to get over.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining 

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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

921: Golf Feuds Deep Dive

The Nest Invitational Tournament (NIT) is No Laying Up’s year-end championship and the culmination of our 2024 event series presented by YETI. This year, 96 participants spanning 4 countries traveled to Dobson Ranch Golf Course in Mesa, Arizona in hopes of becoming the 5th NIT champion. For more information on how to qualify for the 2025 NIT and No Laying Up’s upcoming 2025 events schedule, 

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MESA, AZ — For 54 holes, Ben Reinhart (@reinben) was struggling to hit a draw.

It hadn’t truly mattered. At least not yet. He’d been playing great golf through the first three rounds of the No Laying Up Nest Invitational Tournament at Dobson Ranch, and now he was in the thick of the finals, in contention.

He wasn’t leading, but anything and everything felt possible.

Still, it was a bit like showing up at a party without your most reliable friend.

A draw, in recent months, had become one of his best weapons — a big, booming, beautiful, right-to-left ball that seemed to scoff at the wind and dance on jetstream before it tumbled back to earth. That draw had helped him earn a berth into this tournament, his first appearance in the NIT, when he rode it to victory at The Olympic Prolific at Gearhart Golf Course. But ever since he showed up in Arizona, it had deserted him. Maybe it was a blessing, he decided. After all, you could miss right everywhere at Dobson. He was going to lean into it.

But when Reinhart stood on the 13th tee at Dobson Ranch, a Par 5 with a sharp dogleg to the left, he decided he would try — one last time — to turn a ball over. He picked out a line with his caddie, Calvin Cotton, and set up over the ball. He pulled the club back, coiling his body like a predator ready to strike, and fired his left hip. He hammered his drive with a vicious lash, then watched as it rocketed toward the dogleg.

If it went straight or drifted right, it might end up in the trees.

But gently, for the first time all weekend, his ball began peeling to the left. It cut the corner and came to rest more than 300 yards from the tee.

“My best drive of the week,” Reinhart said.

He had just under 200 yards, roughly a good 6-iron, left into the green.

An inflection point had emerged. This was his chance.

“That pin was kind of tucked behind that front bunker,” Reinhart said. “So I just aimed at the right part of that green thinking, ‘If it doesn’t draw, I'll be pin high, and I'll have a putt at it. But if it draws, it’s a great shot.’

Cotton, who has been Reinhart’s best friend since they were in college together at the University of Washington, knew the shot was something special seconds after it left the clubface. He told Reinhart as much as they watched the ball reach its apex.

“Every time you hit a good one, I let you know when it’s in the air,” Cotton said. “But I didn’t know how close it really was until I heard the people around the green were like ‘Woah!’”

The ball finished inside 10 feet, and when Reinhart trickled in the eagle putt, he soared up the leaderboard and grabbed control of the tournament.

There would be a few nervous moments down the stretch, including a clutch par on 18 when he hit a flop shot over a row of carts to make a par that secured the win by a single point, but once it was over, it was the approach for eagle that stood out as the shot of the NIT.

“Just hit one of the best shots I've ever hit,” Reinhart said.

In the five years of its existence, the NIT has produced a wide array of winners. We’ve had mid-handicaps and high-handicaps grab the title, and even an emerging LPGA star put on the plaid coat after a 2-day torrential rainstorm. But the connective tissue is ultimately how badly each of them wanted to win this meaningful-but-ultimately-meaningless golf tournament. Reinhart is no different.

“It’s just fun to have that exhilarating feeling,” Reinhart said. “And that's what I love about playing in the Roost events is that you get a little bit of that, but it doesn't actually matter. You're there with your friends playing golf and that's what it's all about. And so it was definitely a similar vibe here.”

Reinhart, 31, lives in Seattle and works for AWS in their billings operation team, but he grew up in Port Townsend, Washington, a small waterfront community on the Olympic Peninsula with around 10,000 residents that sounds like something you’d read about in a literary novel.

“It is a Victorian seaport, so there's a lot of old Victorian houses,” Reinhart said. “There's a wooden boat building school, so there's a little harbor and stuff. It's kind of a seaport.”

He learned the game around the age of six from his father, Steven, and they did countless loops around the one golf course in town, the 9-hole Port Townsend Golf Course that has a rating of 32.9 and a slope of 114 and tips out at a menacing 2,700 yards. He played for his high school team, but more for fun than fanfare.

“I wasn't very good, but it was fun, at least where I was for high school sports, it was the most laidback,” Reinhart said. “Everybody was out there just to have a good time.”

After graduation, he went to the University of Washington and didn’t have a lot of time for golf. The game slipped away from him a bit, as it does for many young people. But when Reinhart was living in the dorms, Cotton (who lived on a different floor of Haggett Hall) walked into the common living area one day, sat down, and they started watching a Seahawks game together.

They didn’t realize it right away, but a friendship (and eventual golf partnership) was born.

“I was never into golf,” Cotton said. “My grandpa was a big golfer and I have a distinct memory of when I was 10, my grandfather took all his grandsons out to play golf and I hit the ball into a tree and just burst into tears. It wasn’t for me. But when COVID rolled around, Ben messaged me and was like ‘We can’t do anything. All we can do is go outside and play golf. If you’re ever going to learn, now is the time.’ The rest is history. The bug hit me pretty hard.”

They started playing together every weekend, and Cotton gradually got better and better. When Reinhart and Cotton both qualified for the NIT, they made each other a promise they’d caddie for the other person if either made the finals. When Reinhart finished +7 over his quota in Round 2, it became clear he was likely going to be in the mix.

“I didn't want to embarrass myself,” Reinhart said. “It was kind of the bare minimum expectation. I knew if I just kind of kept my head down and played my game, I'd be in it.”

Cotton and Reinhart talked their way through some tense situations in the final, including a wild sequence of events on the Par 3 12th when Reinhart chunked his tee shot woefully short of the green. It landed in one of the cement canals that winds through Dobson Ranch, then ricocheted backward. It left him with a 55-yard pitch over the bunker to a tucked pin.

“I was like ‘Well, I’ve got to hit with it in order to get it close at all,” Reinhart said. “And when I hit it, I thought ‘Boy that is going to be really close to not clearing that bunker.’ It just barely did and rolled out to like six or seven feet.”

He made the putt for par, securing a crucial two points. Then on the 16th hole, Reinhart cold topped his driver off the tee, leaving him in no man’s land and still nearly 250 yards from the hole. He thought about laying up to the corner of the dogleg, but knew he was almost certainly going to make bogey, and possibly worse. He and Cotton talked it over and he decided to hit a high draw with a hybrid, and Reinhart hit possibly his second-best shot of the day, drawing it around a tree and leaving it in front of the green. He didn’t get up and down for par, but the easy bogey secured yet another crucial point.

Reinhart didn’t want to know where he stood in the tournament when he got to the 18th tee. He was too nervous to think about it and tried to block out a dozen spectators repeatedly asking him if he wanted to know his position. As it turned out, he needed a bogey to tie Dustin Ball of the High Cotton Club and a par to win outright.

His drive found the massive bunker in the middle of the fairway.

Reinhart decided his best bet was to advance the ball as far as he could, and he nuked an approach with a hybrid that went way right of the green, nearly the 10th hole. A massive train of golf carts was now blocking his path to the green, and with the sun sinking low in the sky, confusion briefly reigned. Did Reinhart want the carts moved? Was there going to be enough light left to finish if he did? Did he realize he was chipping 

Reinhart and Cotton talked it over. They decided the carts could stay. He was always going to hit a flop shot, so why complicate things? He nipped his pitch with perfect tempo and watched it climb into the sky, arching over the row of carts. It landed softly on the green and rolled out to 20 feet. A burst of applause filled the dry Arizona air.

He lagged his birdie putt to 18 inches, then marked as the rest of the group finished. He still wasn’t sure where he stood.

“That’s about when I heard Cody and Neil saying on the live stream that I had a one-and-a-half footer to win the NIT,” Reinhart said. “I was like ‘Oh shit.’ It puts a little more pressure on you. I felt pretty confident about it, but still, there are 96 of your friends watching. I know I rushed it a bit.”

It didn’t matter. Reinhart’s par putt tumbled into the hole, and a big grin slowly spread across his face. He was officially No Laying Up’s Champion Golfer Of The Year.

“I don’t think I’d ever won a tournament before this, certainly not in high school,” Reinhart said. “This is definitely the biggest thing I’ve ever won. I was telling LC [Lauren Coughlin] after it was over, that it’s just fun to feel a little nervous and then step up and hit a shot. It’s super low stakes, obviously.

“But that doesn’t make it any less fun.”

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director at No Laying Up

2024 Nest Invitational Tournament: Reinben Reigns Supreme

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