Neil
GHIN: What’s on my mind golf-wise? I played my last round of 2025 in freezing rain last week. I’m finishing the year at a 1.0 handicap on the number. That’s the lowest I’ve ever been, and I think my best is still ahead of me. I’ll be hibernating the next 3 months in New Jersey, so I need to commit to a stretching routine and figure out a net/practice setup to stay fresh through the winter. What I learned in 2025 is that I get a great deal from golf when I play in competitive events. I can’t wait to sign up for MGA tournaments in 2026 and see if we can get down below a 0. From a pro golf standpoint, I’ve been checked out since the Ryder Cup (which has been nice), but I’m definitely bummed about The Sentry getting canceled. It’s a bummer. Watching golf in Hawaii the first week of January has felt like a new year’s tradition akin to watching The Rose Bowl or setting a bunch of goals. I also have really fond memories of our trip to Kapalua back in 2023, and it’s hard to believe that trip was three years ago. That said, I also understand the PGA Tour calendar has to change and modernize, and annual golf in Hawaii just might not be logical or part of the future. Candidly, I don’t know a ton about the situation in Maui right now, but we’ve got a podcast coming out in early January that should be a good deep dive into the situation.
Tonic: I’m back at my (new) desk after a 3(ish) week paternity leave. Since October 2nd, I haven’t missed a Mock Neck Monday, moved to the hills of New Jersey west of New York City, welcomed Wesley Schuster into the world and felt the Houdini punch of the hidden cost of homeownership. The good news is everyone is healthy, getting just enough sleep and I’m digging the slower pace and additional space living outside the city. I’ve learned I’m a pretty simple man. I find following the directions and building furniture therapeutic. As a result, I have inadvertently started a robust collection of Allen wrenches, and I got a good chuckle out of this meme. I’ve also enjoyed more intense projects like setting up my floating shelves and adding slat walls to the garage. Is it genetic that when you become a father, you suddenly love and appreciate a well-organized garage? In other garage news, I’m losing my forever war against cardboard. I’m down bad, but I’m fighting the good fight with a fresh box cutter and these electric scissors.
A couple of other products I’ve enjoyed over the last month during my nesting phase:
- My Mom sent me a link to this ClubDocks wall mount for my golf clubs, and I love it. It’s nice to get the clubs off the floor and almost feature them as a work of art, instead of stuffing them in the closet. I’ll probably get a couple more for the garage.
- Ken Burns’ American Revolution docuseries has been excellent. In the past, I’ve zoned out on Ken Burns' Civil War and Vietnam documentaries because there’s too much information to take in over an 8-12 hour period. With the American Revolution, I feel like I’m rewatching The Wire or The Sopranos. I already know the broad strokes of the story and almost all the characters, so I’m able to lock in on the details. It’s fantastic, and I’d put Ken Burns on my Mount Rushmore of filmmakers. Also worth noting: Mel Gibson did such a good job modeling the villainous Colonel Tavington (aka Justin Rose) character off of Banastre Tarleton in The Patriot. Banastre was a bad hombre.
I’m hard at work on 2026 goals, so look out for our annual Goals podcast on the TrapDraw at the end of the month!
Casey
GHIN: While it’s late in the year, I still have a bunch of golf to play here in Las Vegas to close out the season to achieve my goal of posting at least 80 scores to GHIN (hooray for warm temps in December). Looking back on 2025, I’m happy to have found a club to join with a great, massive group of women who help to push my game forward. I got down to a 13.8 over the summer, shot my lowest score ever (82), and got my average score down another stroke and a half over last year's average. I love that I am still able to see a measurable improvement in my game! Bring on 2026!
Tonic: Yee Haw! December in Las Vegas means one thing - the National Finals Rodeo is in town and for 10 days the city is overtaken by cowboys, cowgirls, and all kinds of Western lifestyle fans. It timed up perfectly with the release of No Laying Up: Flathead Valley (Montana). I took in the opening night of the Rodeo from The Tavern at Fontainebleau, where Austin, TX, Michelin-starred restaurant La Barbecue was hosting a pop-up event, and the roping, bucking, and barrel racing events were being shown on the big screens in the sports book. Then on Saturday, I headed over to Cowboy Christmas, which was over 500,000 square feet of Western gifts, apparel, furniture, tack and more. The overpowering smell of leather products hits you in the face as you walk in. Of course, I bought my first pair of genuine western boots (and a cowboy hat too). Visited the big Yeti set up, too, and saw some golf-related items as well. Next year, I need to work on getting tickets to see the actual rodeo in person! Enjoy this snapshot from my visit.
D.J.
GHIN: I was a late scratch from a content filming trip this week due to an apocalyptic HVAC situation at home, which means that my golf year appears to be officially over. A few stray thoughts as we get ready to flip the calendar to 2026:
- I shot 94 in my first round of the year, playing Timuquana Country Club with Soly and Tron in early January. Walking off the 18th green, I thought to myself: At least that will probably be the worst round of the year. And it was! There was a strange comfort in that all season, knowing that the worst was behind us. I might try to really tank one this January somewhere, too.
- I will end the year as a 5.8 handicap, the lowest I’ve been in quite a few years. I wish I could pin that to something actionable and specific, but here’s what I’ll say: When we did the Personal Golf Spotlight episode in June, I was an 8.2. Talking out all the swing thoughts and craziness in my head and finding a little community in the emails and responses that followed that episode legitimately helped me relax more on the golf course in the second half of the year. I also switched to the Pro V1 (from the X) right around that time. I don’t know if it was either of those things, but neither seemed to hurt.
- My final birdie total this year was 57, an extremely paltry number, but it is what it is. Hammer the over in 2026.
- The round of golf I keep thinking back on the most is Royal County Down – the weather, the light, the company, and, of course, the world-class golf course. So rarely do you get a day that checks every single box, and you also pay it off by keeping the ball in front of you and playing halfway decent. I’ll be thankful for that one forever.
Tonic: Now that baseball season is over, we have fully entered Movie Watching Season, as I’m trying to pump up my numbers for my TrapDraw goal of trying to watch 100 films in 2025. Some random bits and bobs from there... Justine and I have been on an old movie kick lately, and I really forgot just how much ass The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) kicks. I remember watching it with my dad when I was a kid, but I remembered almost nothing about it. Highest recommendation possible for a winter evening watch that has so much more going on with it than I ever realized. A few others we fired up recently:
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953): Delightful. Shout out to Little Mr. Spofford.
- The Great Escape (1963): Overrated compared to Kwai
- Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962): Weirdly long, but I legitimately laughed out loud a few times. Great birdwatching scene in there for Soly.
- High and Low (1963): Absolute whipper of the highest order and some of the coolest shots and staging of all time
- The Battle of Algiers (1966): Required viewing after One Battle After Another
- All That Jazz (1979): Spectacular and devastating. What’s that, you can’t find it on streaming? Innnnteresting.
- The Philadelphia Story (1940): Classic for a reason.
On the documentary front, I watched Paris is Burning (1990), which had some of the best documentary editing I’ve ever seen. Then I watched MegaDoc (2025), which was a trainwreck documenting a trainwreck, but made me feel better that even the people in that movie didn’t know what it was supposed to be. They should have listened to Shia. Since Netflix is a hot topic this week, I watched some of their recent offerings: Train Dreams was a lovely watch for a snowy afternoon. A real “watch with a hot cup of tea” type of movie that’s gorgeous to look at, but maybe a hair too clever. Frankenstein had some promise, but ultimately fell flat for me (wtf was that CGI?). And Jay Kelly was… rough. Hard to fathom me not liking a Noah Baumbach movie with George Clooney, Adam Sandler and Laura Dern, but here we are. It was like Jerry Maguire, but without any human beings and worse music. A couple of random ones that I was reminded always hit, no matter the situation, because they are pitch-perfect movies: Lost in Translation (2003), Bottle Rocket (1996), and The Truman Show (1998). I hadn't revisited any of them in way too long, and greatly enjoyed my stay in each.
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