GHIN

We hosted our annual season-ending event this past weekend in Arizona. I’m confident it was the best one yet. It proved that we could capture the magic that we had the first few years at Jax Beach at a venue elsewhere. The golf was fun and competitive, and while not the most thoughtful course off the tee (I realized after my first round that shipping driver off every par four and par five was the play), it offered a really interesting challenge for iron play. A confluence of factors - shaggy, wet fairways coming out of a recent overseed application (and the associated mudballs); firm, awkwardly slow greens that were very smooth and consistent; extremely sloped greens and a willingness to cut holes in provocative spots - made for a unique challenge that wasn’t just a putting contest. You had to hit the ball close to score, which had me wishing the tour would stage an event with a similar setup at some point and lean into the sort of golf that the general public often plays, instead of every week offering the same perfect surfaces and predictable hole locations. Variables!

Beyond the inherent pleasure of watching people grind on low-stakes (yet meaningful) competition, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, and caddying for Joe Mayberry in the finals, the unequivocal highlight of the entire event was Lucas Beaudoin, the magician who Neil and Randy met at Liberty National a couple months ago and insisted we book for the event. Along with D.J., they hadn’t shut up about Lucas for months and I thought “Oh, that’s cute, a magician.” Well, two nights in a row Lucas performed and made me feel genuine joy and amazement. The humility, personality, and thoughtfulness with which he operated was a highlight - a true mastery of craft that is all too rare these days. I’m incapable of describing it all, rather I hope one day you will have the opportunity to watch and interact with Lucas, if you haven’t already.

That NIT stuff was really stretching the bounds of “golf.” Alright, back to some other recent stuff that’s more golf-y.

I met my colleague Ben down in Palm Beach a couple of weeks ago and we played some golf, filmed, and ate some good food (more on that below) with friend of the program Nico Darras. The first stop (after Istanbul) was the Palm Beach Par 3, which is always a blast. It may lack variety (all the holes are seemingly 70, 120 or 170 yards), encourage aerial shots to a frustrating degree, and always shock to see how many people ride carts, but the piece of land is spectacular and there’s a bunch of flourishes. The next day we filmed my episode of our ServPro Game Improvement Series up in Hobe Sound in some serious conditions (stay tuned for that!) And then we played The Park, the old West Palm Beach Muni that’s been sexed up in a big way. A group of influential locals brought in Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner to re-do the golf course and it’s fantastic. The front nine plays over less interesting land on the East side of the property, with a few standout holes (the 6th hole, a rollicking par four over several ridges with a green site that wouldn’t be out of place at Royal Melbourne, is all-world) and green designs that make you want to play over and over again. And then you make the turn to the back nine and it feels like something straight out of the Melbourne Sandbelt, with holes doglegging over exceptional ground and a ton of variety. I loved it.

On the flip side, it’s quite expensive and the insistence on caddies before 9 am feels heavy-handed and out of place for a muni, especially since these aren’t local kids, but full-time caddies like you’d find at a Streamsong or well-regarded private club. I often prefer to take a caddie, but feeling like we were being descended upon in the parking lot by guys looking to pick up a loop when I just wanted to have a pushcart and explore the course on my own was jarring (and was part of the reason we booked a post-9 am tee time - any earlier and caddies are mandatory). We played on a Thursday morning, and the course was mostly empty prior to 10 am, which unsurprisingly, coincided with the time that carts were allowed. Aside from a couple of writeups I’ve seen, my only real prior exposure to the course was “The Match” with Rose Zhang, Lexi Thompson, Rory McIlroy and Max Homa, which, after playing, was seemingly played on a routing comprising the least interesting nine holes on the course, and was curiously staged at night, which minimized the aesthetic strengths of the course. The clubhouse and entire complex are impressive, with a substantial back porch, multiple food and beverage offerings, a huge practice and range facility, and a short course that garners mixed reviews. Yet I need to return on a weekend and see how it’s all being utilized, as my impression, and that of a variety of locals I talked to, was that the community got something it wasn’t really asking for, at least in its current presentation. On the whole, the entire operation feels a little like a white tablecloth experience when there’s really an appetite for a great neighborhood bistro with a menu that can flex from a low-key Tuesday dinner to a Saturday date night. In any case, they got the hard part right - the golf course is damn good and surely plays differently every day with consistently windy conditions, a variety of teeing options, and spectacular greens. Excited to return and see how the entire experience evolves.

Candidly, I don’t explore Florida with any intention or regularity, and that needs to change. I plan on heading down I-95 more often and dipping a toe into more of the well-regarded existing courses along the East Coast, as well as the two dozen or so new layouts. The amount of development going on down there is truly crazy.

Putting a bow on golf travel: Will Bardwell’s initial dispatch from his recent trip to the Scottish Highlands is excellent. It’s unexpected and approachable travel writing, and Golspie deserves more love than it gets. Dornoch is the star in that region, Brora is the darling, and then everything else is sort of disregarded. Will’s itinerary digs deeper into the region than most visitors get, and I’m excited to read the next piece.

TONIC

The trip to Jupiter/West Palm was a culinary delight. It’s a really interesting place with a ton of layers and different little pockets, and while I’m not sure I actually like it on the whole, I am fascinated by the entire area. Nico crafted a thoughtful itinerary of his favorite spots that showed a wide range:

  • Joseph’s Classic Market - SE Florida’s version of Erewhon. The most expansive prepared foods case I’ve ever seen. Outrageous people watching.
  • Al Fresco Pizza - a space that feels uniquely Palm Beach and all-world wood-oven pizza. The same proprietors run the restaurant at the Palm Beach Par 3 - highly recommend it!
  • Food Shack - Holy shit. This is the sort of restaurant that I didn’t know existed anymore. Blends various ethnic influences, great ingredients, high-level skills, and a daily menu with comfort food and a strip mall location that I think is a few doors down from the infamous former “Orchids of Asia” spot. In love.
  • Juno Beach Cafe - everything I want out of a local breakfast/lunch spot. Exceptional entrepreneurialism and consistency plus some fun spins on classic dishes. World-class hot sauce.
  • Havana Restaurant - West Palm spot right up the street from The Park. Popped by the walk-up window for jet-fuel coffee and empanadas before we played. Walk-up windows are highly underrated and too rare.
  • Aioli - world-class bakery and breakfast/lunch spot. The daily specials were on-point, the service was friendly and anticipatory, the candied bacon was an unexpected flourish, and the bread was so good I bought a sourdough loaf to take home.

A lot of flag football lately, which I’m really thankful for. The team that my older son, Freddie is on, is the epitome of what youth sports should be. The practices are both fun and skill-building, the games even better, and the coaches, all with boys on the team and one of whom recently retired from a long NFL career, vibe really well together. They sat the boys down before the season and said “There’s going to be some teams that we’re better than, there’s going to be some teams that are better than us, doesn’t matter, we’re gonna treat everyone with respect and have fun competing and be nice to each other.” At the end of each practice, the coaches play the kids for 10 minutes and it’s 3-on-10 and I could watch it all day. During the games they manage, they’re so cognizant of playing time and get everyone involved. The experience has been a rejuvenating reassurance that there are great coaches and parents out there who are capable of keeping things in perspective.

On the subject of perspective, our younger one, Gus, is incapable of keeping the Jaguars' successes and failures in perspective.

The Jags had been in London for a couple of weeks, and the day after they returned Alex took the kids to the car wash (which, if you don’t have kids, is like a cheat code - they LOVE it), and as they’re waiting, they see a guy in Jags apparel with a team key card/credential and it turns out he’s one of the support staff guys. Alex tells Gus he works for the Jags, and Gus walks up and asks him if he works for the Jags, he says yes, and then Gus says “Well the Jags stink!” He responds, “I’ve been hearing that a lot this week, but I don’t mind when you tell me that because you’re a passionate four-year-old and you care!”

We went to Whole Foods the other night after practice to snag a quick slice of pizza and a bowl of soup, and Gustav was wearing his Christian Kirk jersey (he almost exclusively wears jerseys). Who is in the deli section? Christian Kirk.

Me: “Hey, there’s Christian Kirk, show him your jersey!”

Gustav: “That’s not Christian Kirk.”

Christian Kirk: “Hey, that’s my jersey.”

Gustav: “No, this is Christian Kirk’s jersey.”

Christian Kirk: “I AM CHRISTIAN KIRK!”

Then Gustav got really quiet and nervous and we took a picture. Then they went to the game this weekend and Kirk broke his collarbone, which means Gus likes him even more now, as he broke his collarbone playing football earlier this year.

Anyway, welcome home to Los Jags after a few weeks in London. While the season isn’t going the way we’d like, Coach Pederson is probably on his way out and GM Trent Baalke and the roster he’s constructed are problems, I feel fortunate we have the Jags and happy they’ll be here for years to come with the stadium project. I don’t mind the London games and would like to go to one soon. It’s all we’ve got in town as far as major sports leagues, so it’s a significant point of pride and can dictate the mood around town. I imagine Buffalo and Green Bay are like that tenfold.

In the same vein, it’s fun to have lower-stakes teams in town, too. We've got the Jumbo Shrimp, a Marlins affiliate and a hockey team, the Icemen. We took the boys to the Icemen opening game. They are the Buffalo Sabres’ ECHL affiliate (so lower-level minor league hockey) and they were playing the Florida Everblades, the three-time defending league champs from Southwest Florida. Los IceMen were in control the whole game, and then it got chippy and they lost their edge in the third period and lost in OT.

Then a massive fight broke out at the end after the game, which the boys got a big kick out of. Freddie said “Our Coach wouldn’t be happy, he told us to respect the other team. I said “Yeah, Freddie, but sometimes you start there and then realize after a few matchups you just straight-up don’t like those guys. And that’s okay.”

As you can tell above, the increased time at home in the fall is really fulfilling. Random consumption/observations:

  • Speaking of hockey, this article was particularly thought-provoking about the various tax environments inherent in the wide variety of markets the NHL has franchises. And it’s food for thought for whenever the NFL inevitably expands internationally.
  • My lime tree isn’t producing fruit this year and it’s really got me bummed. It was a dry, hot spring and I think that’s got it all out of sorts.
  • My friend “The Party Doctor” has me really into sake. It’s clean, fun, and versatile.
  • Stone Crab season started a couple of weeks ago and the seafood at the local fish markets is aspirational right now. Buckle up!
  • I usually try to recommend a social account I’ve been following lately - this week let’s do Midwest Modern, which I’ve been following on X for a few years. Josh Lipnik is an architecture/culture buff who travels to all corners of the Midwest and posts interesting pictures of buildings, storefronts, signage, statues, etc. Not a week goes by that something doesn’t stop me in my tracks and spur me to look up a town on a map or dig deeper on Wikipedia.
  • I wished Curt Schilling a happy 20th anniversary of the 2004 ALDS when he painted his sock. “The Dutchboy” and I had some memorable interactions a few years ago before he blocked me. That 2004 MLB playoff stretch was during my freshman year at Miami and it feels like yesterday that Soly and I were huddled around an old TV in the dorms watching those games.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle memorialized the beloved bouncy sidewalk at SFO. Going to miss that thing dearly.
  • I’ll leave American Airlines’ misdeeds (and $50M fine for mistreating wheelchairs!) for a TrapDraw session with Randy, but I did want to congratulate my hitters at United on a provocative 2025 route release with flights announced to Mongolia, Greenland, Madeira, and Bilbao, among other routes. Truly some left-field stuff! I was also thrilled to see that they’re taking a conscientious approach to elite status and bumping it up a reasonable amount to protect the value of the perks/availability of upgrades, while also not allowing people to straight-up buy status through credit card spend like AA does. If everyone has status, status doesn’t mean anything. A lot of similarities to the PGA Tour’s recent changes (which we’ll discuss in detail on the pod.)

Lastly, it’s election season so I thought I’d share my political priorities, all of which should be bipartisan and wildly popular:

  1. Let’s start vigorously enforcing violators who hang out in the left lane of roadways with multiple lanes. Repeated violations should result in the loss of a driver’s license and possible jail time. This will also help our economy as efficiency would improve drastically thanks to improved travel times. We also need to educate new drivers on this being a foundational societal good.
  2. FaceTiming in an airport or public space should be outlawed. Doing so without headphones should result in the removal of someone’s ear.
  3. Place any groups walking three-wide (or more!) in airports on the no-fly list. I imagine there is a significant overlap with those who drive in the left lane.
  4. And then we need a few TSA reforms around the removal of gate lice, those who crowd the luggage carousel, and an evaluation of the aptly-named “Analogic” machines that have become prevalent at checkpoints around the country and instead of speeding things up through the use of AI and machine learning, have both ground security protocols to a halt and allowed for various inconsistencies around when/where to replace a bin.

I look forward to serving you.