We’re trying something new for these mailbag columns. We opened a thread at the 

 to submit questions and have tag-teamed responses between the whole NLU crew. Hope you enjoy and get involved in the 

If you could live one PGA Tour Pro’s life, who would it be and why? –murph

Ryan Moore. 38th all-time in career earnings and zero chance he gets recognized going to the grocery store on a Tuesday night. That’s a hell of a win-win.

 For the same reasons, Charles Howell III.

 Adam Scott: Mr. Steal Ya Girl is physically gifted, got boy band ass, splits his time between Oz, Bahamas, and Switzerland (and probably several other non-extradition countries), has enough wins and a Masters to avoid any real “wasted talent” conversations from getting too in depth, owned his own plane (the real sign of “fuck you” money), and now seems to care more about surfing left breaks than reading left breaks. There’s more to life than golf for this guy. Sign me up, I’ll deal with the public recognition.

 Thomas Pieters (I’m assuming this is only forward-looking). He’s been around long enough to have made a lot of money already, but not 

the money so he’s still hungry. Crazy upside. Plays a worldwide schedule and possesses an EU passport. Definitely famous, but keeps a low profile. Gonna be a Ryder Cup stalwart. Still plenty of cool stuff he’s going to experience. Low-key funny guy too.

You get one of these two Sunday final pairings AND sudden death playoff at The Masters: Tiger-Phil, or Jordan-Rory. Which would you rather see? –misterfish1

 Tiger and Phil in a playoff at Augusta would be one of the most iconic, celebrated events in the history of the game. Full stop. It would be the cherry on top of the last 20-plus years of golf, a Hollywood-esque last act in the drama. It’s quite amazing (read: depressing) to think two of the greatest players of all-time, with the vast majority of their careers overlapping, in all likelihood won’t have a signature head-to-head battle for a major championship. If the ‘02 US Open is as close as we’ll ever get I can’t help but feel more than a little cheated as a fan.

 I think Randy nailed it. I kind of stopped reading the question after “Tiger-Phil.” Nothing else is close.

I think the interesting twist on this question is asking which young star you would want to see these guys go up against before their careers come to a close. For me, I think it’s Tiger and Jordan. JS has been the person whose dominance has most closely resembled Tiger’s (at least at a young age) and I think he feels like the player to me that is set up for the longest run of consistent winning (which would just make a duel like this age even better).

 Didn’t Spieth already end Rory’s career that one Saturday at Augusta when he slow-played him allllllll day? I’ll take a Monty/Norman showdown, final answer.

Is Rickie this generation’s Sergio Garcia? –Blewett

 When Sergio was 29 going on 30 he had 15 combined PGA Tour/Euro Tour wins. Rickie currently has 6. It’s not getting late for Rickie by any stretch, but with each passing year the career trajectory projections shift a bit. Currently, I’m liking a Fred Couples comp. I can imagine Rickie ending up in the 15 win (+ 3 Euro titles)/1 major territory alongside Fred. Where the comparison really solidifies, in my opinion, is in the popularity of the two guys amongst fans.

 I again agree with the Slender Man here. I think what made Sergio Sergio was that his losses were so catastrophic and heartbreaking that he was turned into this tragic figure (sometimes by his own doing, of course). Nothing about Rickie, even at his lowest, ever feels tragic. He seems to just generally be winning at life and any success on the golf course is just gravy on top. The Fred Couples comp is money.

 Everything above is spot-on (also take Randy’s stuff with a grain of salt, as he loathes the Rictator). As far as career arcs go, I’m starting to get a distinctly Adam Scott vibe from Rickie, only if Adam Scott cared more. Similar wins, similar close calls in majors, etc.

Ratio of strokes to pictures during a casual Zac Blair round? –PhilsSignedGlove

 It’s at least one photo every hole, usually more. So that’s what? 2.5 to 1?

I’ve not only never seen anything like it, I just can’t wrap my head around how he keeps all the photos organized. He’s taking photos constantly through every round, firing them all off to different group texts to illustrate different architectural nuances and then referring back to them all months later. The reason I wanted to include this question is because it’s a perfect illustration of how ZB can legitimately remember almost every hole he’s ever played. It’s incredible. We get done with a round and he can rattle off what each hole was, what number he had in and even what each of your shots did there. And he can remember most of this months later too. I’d say on a good day (and an average course), I can remember about 9-12 holes immediately after the round. After a week, that drops to about 3. He just seems to have infinite space for this stuff.

 Zac could probably give David Cannon a run for his money in terms of pictures taken over the past few years. The energy and mental organization he has to keep all this stuff straight continually blows my mind. He’s the RaynorMan in more ways than one.

 A more statistically relevant question would be “Ratio of strokes to, “this is the best (insert: hole, green, tee box, bunkering, layout, usage of native area, cart path) I’ve EVER seen” comments per round (minus the cart path line, RaynorMan would never say that). When you play with ZB, you have to relish the way he lives in the present. He might be Dori, from Finding Nemo, reincarnated as a dude in land-locked Utah. After the round he can remember every shot on every hole, but he can’t remember that he just told me the last green two greens might be the sickest green he’s ever played. It’s like active short term memory loss with no impact on the long term photographic memory. That’s wild man!

 I know this can sound cheesy (and I hope this person is not a sleeper cell with Big Insurance referencing those bad Zurich commercials where the players are taking lie detector tests about how much they love golf). But I think it’s kind of a fun one to think about every now and again.

I love it for all the reasons you’d think (you never perfect it, great company, challenge, etc.), but I think the main reason I love it is because there’s nothing else I’ve found that has so many different parallels to life in general. Legitimately every problem or high point in life can have a golf parallel/analogy to it (“Tin Cup” illustrates this really well in the therapy scene). But golf is also a perfect microcosm for people’s worldviews I think. You can learn so much about someone based on whether they’re obsessed with conditioning or score or architecture or equipment or hitting on the cart girl. You can see how people handle bad shots and how they gamble and whether they throw clubs or not. I can’t think of anything else that airs someone out quite the same way that golf does.

Golf is a perfectly imperfect blend of nature and sport. You’re outdoors amongst the elements, and battling the wind, the challenge of the terrain, the grass type, the trees, the hazards, all to put a ball into a tiny little hole. It’s hard as hell, so the genuine satisfaction that comes with a well-executed shot or a solid round hits you in the feels harder than it does with any other sport I’ve experienced. Almost all of the other sports I’ve ever played are played in the same dimensions, and are played directly against other people. With golf, the only defense you face is the course. The feeling when you stuff an approach is infectious, and you think about it all day until you get to tee it up again.

With Furyk this year, Stricker likely in 2020, and Phil seeming to fit better in 2024, who do we have for a 2022 Ryder Cup captain? More likely to be a first time captain or a repeat? –coliphant

It’s pretty safe to say that the U.S. has essentially adopted a similar model to Europe, requiring future captains to have at least served as an assistant captain. Cat will have likely been a 3-time assistant at that point, and he seems heavily invested enough in the process to want to take that leadership role.

Some media types that I’ve talked to think that we’re overthinking the Phil/Bethpage thing. Which Ryder Cup will be the first one that Phil misses? I honestly think in his mind he believes he’s going to be the playing captain at Bethpage, and I’m not willing to rule it out. That may very well be more of a pipedream than it is a prognostication, but that’s where my dream currently lies.

 Can I be honest? Are we in the nest? Unless it’s a gregarious personality or somebody willing to try something 

 outside the box, I can’t begin to muster the energy to care about Ryder Cup captains. Having said that, I hope it’s Phil or Tiger.

 I’m down with the Tiger call (especially if the Tiger Presidents Cup reports are true for Royal Melbourne). I’m not sure if he’d ever be down for it, but I think getting David Duval in there would be really cool. His highs were so good and it’s kind of become a shame that he doesn’t get more recognition for what he did. It could be the Jacksonville in me talking.

 Curveball – I’m going with Mark Calcavecchia. And he brings in Chris Dimarco, Steve Marino and Freddie Couples as ass captains, plus Dominic Bozzelli can hang out in the team room. Obviously there’s an Italian theme here with the event being in Italy, but I also think Calc would make for an awesome captain and his career is overlooked. He appeared on four Ryder Cup teams over a fifteen year period, and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is and still plays enough to have a pulse on things. Not sure Duval will be a great captain, but he’s certainly deserving.

I’ll throw in another couple wild cards in Stew Cink (he’s been on five teams!!!!) and Justin Leonard.

After Phil’s incredible win and ensuing post-round interview and press conference, I’m looking for you guys to put together your Top ___ (as many as you want) Phil interview clips into one glorious video. Please and thanks. –BettorThanMost

 For me, it probably will never get any better than Phil saying he was going to wear all black on Masters Sunday because he wanted to play aggressive and “studies have shown football teams get more penalties when they wear black.”

– Phil murdering Tom Watson in cold blood at the 2014 press conference.

– Phil explaining that he and Zach Johnson spotted the Internationals two holes and they still couldn’t beat them at the Presidents Cup in Korea.

– Oldie but a goodie: Phil’s “I am such an idiot” at Winged Foot.

May not be a popular take, given the NLU crew’s infatuation with JT – it seems like JT has really begun to rub people the wrong way (myself included). Sure it’s a lot of twirls and #toursauce when things are going well, but otherwise he comes across as whiny and immature when facing adversity. Why do you think he catches heat for many of the same antics that his buddy (spoiler alert) Spieth displays? –zman

 A few things here. I think the rest of the guys will say that “NLU’s infatuation” is actually just limited to me. The rest of the guys are probably able to maintain a much more impartial view of JT than I can.

I think it’s easy to forget how the tides kind of started to turn against Jordan last year. It’s not dissimilar to how young athletes in other sports get treated. On your way up, people are unfamiliar with you. When you can excel at your sport, you can do no wrong, and as the next big thing, everyone gets super hyped about the next rising star. With Spieth, television networks were barely paying attention to him prior to winning the Masters in ‘15, despite him having one of the most remarkable starts to a career in modern history. After winning the Masters (and later the U.S. Open), he was no longer the rising star. At the ‘16 Masters, he was treated entirely different by the internet crowd, as his pace of play was heavily criticized, as was his body language and dialogue with Greller. He was behaving and playing the same way he always has, but with the cameras fixated on him for a much longer duration, it shined a different light on it, and the nitpicking began.

The same cycle is happening for JT. Now a major champion, the focus on him is just different. If Luke List had done what JT did on the 16th, would people have even cared? I’ve never quite fully understood why mannerisms and body language factors so much into what a lot of people think about a player or person. I get that it’s the only thing viewers at home have to go off of, but it amazes me how fast people turned on Spieth considering all the positives he brings to the table. To me, what kind of guy a player is off the course, how he treats people, and what his peers say about him weigh much more heavily than behavior on the golf course.

 Relative to Spieth, specifically, I think JT exudes more cockiness. That’s my perception at least, and I’m sure some other people’s as well. And while cockiness has a negative connotation it’s absolutely not a knock against him as far as I’m concerned, golf is way better for strong and different personalities! But I do believe that’s why he elicits stronger reactions, particularly on the critical side, than Spieth does for similar actions.

 I agree with both Soly and Randy’s sentiment. I’d also add that I think his wardrobe makes him an easier target. Where Spieth is rocking bland shades of greys and poorly cut Under Armour threads that will only elicit shaming from someone like Tron, JT is usually wearing bright pants at least one round a week as well as shirts with obnoxiously large Polo logos. More often than not his outfits screams, ‘look at me,’ so when people do, and you are whining about a bad drive while being 5 under, it’s not a great look. The Happy Gilmore line often comes to mind when I watch him live in person: “If I wore pants like that, I’d kick my own ass.” For the record, I think that every time I watch Horschel…

 I’m shocked Soly didn’t have a whole lot to say on this subject (LOL). While JT rubs me the wrong way sometimes – I’m like 90% in. He seems like he gets it for the most part. Perfect example was the whole fiasco at Honda. I have zero issue with him kicking that dude out. It sounds like the guy deserved it. He just didn’t do himself any favors with HOW he did it. Tell one of the fifty marshals, cops and tour officials with the group to kick the guy out, otherwise it comes across like Webb Simpson snidely telling the Big Jungle Bird to “enjoy the jail cell, pal” and that’s just not a good look.


March NLU Mailbag (Part 1)

On the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand, perched high above the Pacific Ocean sits Cape Kidnappers, a 2004 Tom Doak creation easily among the most dramatic golf courses on earth. I arrived at the gate on a stunning December morning and pressed the button to call the Pro Shop and have them buzz me in.

Drive safe?! Huh? From the gate to the clubhouse?

Soon, I realized. Twisting turns over mountainous terrain and around streams and canyons continued for several miles until green grass mercifully appeared. At multiple points I wondered if there was a turn that I had missed. This video is from 

The pictures of Cape Kidnappers have been circulating in golf magazines for years. Chances are that you’ve seen the ubiquitous overhead shots of the cliffs at some point and not even realized it. Doak offered up the following summary of his first impression:

“When I arrived in Napier, they picked me up in a helicopter and flew me across to meet Julian, so the first time I saw the site was as you see it pictured in the magazines, from the air rather than on the ground. We spent all day on the ground, and then at the end of the day, we went back to Napier via an old two-track road, for miles and miles with a bunch of stream crossings. All I could think was, this entrance road is going to cost more to build than the golf course!”

Doak was referring to Julian Robertson, the owner and developer of both Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs up the coast. Mr. Robertson was insistent on routing the back nine out onto the narrow fingers along the cape and found an architect in Doak who was up for the challenge. The fingers sit 400 feet above the South Pacific Ocean, which shimmers below with a blue tint reminiscent of the Caribbean.

The cliffside holes are certainly the main attraction and the reason why you come. Heck, for $360 USD (for an international guest in the peak season) you better leave feeling like the views and experience were worth it. And you do.

With that in mind, I was genuinely shocked when I looked back and wondered whether I enjoyed the front nine even more than I did the back! While it doesn’t offer the same dramatic views offered by the back, the front makes up for it with intriguing land movements and shots that I wanted to play over and over again. Perhaps it helped that I knew next to nothing about the front nine before teeing it up, but Doak clearly paid particular care to this part of the property to ensure that the cliffside holes were not the only memory golfers take away from the day.

For example, the blind tee shot on the par-5 4th was a thrilling swing (photo cred: 

A small post serves as the aiming point, and while seemingly narrow from the back tee, the hole surprises as you crest the ridge to a wide fairway. There is also a speed slot on the left side that enables a look at getting home in two.

The front nine is not entirely inland, as you do get a taste of the views to come on several holes. As views go, the par-3 5th was among the highlights. The hole plays over a ravine to a green a protected by a cliff on the left side:

Yet another indelible shot was the approach into the par-4 7th, which trundles down a hill to a perched green guarded by bunkers on the left side:

Moving from the 9th green to the 10th tee, the ambiance and energy of the course certainly shifted. I knew I was about to play one of the most extreme nine hole stretches in the world. Heck, at that point I wasn’t even sure the land was suitable 

 a golf course. The wind got much stronger, and was beating dead-in off the ocean on that that particular day, which meant the holes out on the fingers would be even more challenging.

As it played dead into the wind for me, the 10th was beast at 475 yards and totally exposed to the elements. Thankfully the vistas helped distract from the score I carded.

The 11th is a par-3 that comes back inland before the 12th sends you right back out into the breeze. Similar to the 10th, the view from the 12th fairway makes the green look like it sits directly against the ocean horizon on an infinity cliff. This shot was one of the most thrilling of my entire trip to NZ:

The 13th allows groups to catch their breath a bit, however that doesn’t mean it was any less memorable. The tiny par-3 is the only hole on this side that plays along the coast (rather than back and forth from the coast), and typically plays with a cross-breeze.

Doak offered the following regarding the 13th hole:

Moving along the coast, after the short par-4 14th, the next stop is the 650 yard par-5 15th. It comes with a warning:

 is the hole you’ve undoubtedly seen pictures of. Aptly named Pirate’s Plank, the behemoth rides along a cliff to the left of the fairway and stops as far against the coastal wall as possible, with yet another infinity green against the horizon. Any shots left and long may fall for a 

Here’s one more look at the 15th (center) from way out over the ocean:

Playing into a stiff breeze, it genuinely felt like this hole wouldn’t end. There was nowhere to hide and it demand three solid shots. When I finally got to the green it it offered up the best vista of the entire property. This is the view of that sticks with you, demonstrates how special the property is, and truly illustrates how high above the ocean the course sits.

The tee on the short par-5 16th sits as far onto the cliff as physically possible and is buffeted by the most extreme wind on the property. Players walk 120 yards from the previous green back to this tee box. Doak ensured that players of all skill levels experience the scene by laying out four different sets of tees along the small sliver of land. I loved this stretch, as the back to back par-5’s are routed in opposite directions, ensuring a distinctly different wind on each.


Continuing the theme from the front nine, the two finishing holes that come back inland towards the clubhouse are two of the more interesting and strategic holes on the back side. The approach into the 18th green is nearly blind, and features a punchbowl green. In the context of an exceptionally unconventional course, an off-the-wall finishing hole just works.

I travel to play courses that provide a different experience than what I get at home. Cape Kidnappers achieved that objective better than just about anywhere else I’ve ever played. While the best golf courses in New Zealand are spread out across vast distances, I highly recommend carving out the time to get to Cape Kidnappers, exploring the country’s non-golf offerings along the way, and budgeting plenty of time.

Cape Kidnappers

 We gleaned questions from a thread on our message board, 

, and posed questions to the whole crew.

What PGA Tour event would you move (course, location, and date all count)? And if you could, where would you add a new Tour Event? -TigersWoods

 Speaking from the standpoint of what is most realistic and seemingly easiest, flipping Honda and Mexico makes way too much sense. I’m sure there’s a reason why this hasn’t happened, but this solves a lot of February/March scheduling issues.

 Michigan needs an annual Tour event. I’d flip Greenbrier and The National on the calendar and move The National into Michigan (I’m not tied to any particular course). The schedule would then go from Michigan to Quad Cities to The Open Championship (oppo event is the Barbasol in Lexington, KY) back to Canada and then Bridgestone in Akron. A legit Great Lakes Swing!

 The Pacific Northwest needs love too. I don’t know what courses, but I’d be alright with expanding the West Coast swing by a week or two at the expense of the Lone Star State. I’m way out on the Texas Swing. It feels mundane and blends together between all the majors. The Byron Nelson has always been meh (saved this year with everyone quaffing Trinity Forest), The Colonial is a landlocked, diet Heritage with no vibe (Dean & Deluca was the perfect sponsor as an overrated coffee purveyor but even they bailed), and The Texas Open feels like something the Club Pro Guy or Roy McAvoy should playing in. The courses all feel flat, hot, and long. No thanks.

 The Valero was the event that sprung to my mind as well, although I’ll admit I’ve never attended it. That’s the hard part with a lot of these events – for many of them there’s such a different vibe on the ground than what you see on TV. So in that respect, even if I think an event stinks from my couch, if the people that go to it each year (and the charities that benefit from it, etc.) love it, then by all means, carry on. I’d also like to see them move the second Playoff event because I think TPC Boston low key stinks. Not only are there 45 other dope spots in Boston that would be cool to see, but on years like this where you have the first three legs all on lush, tree-lined courses in the Northeast, things start to feel a little like Groundhog Day.

 Oh man (cracks knuckles and takes a deep breath)… I like all of the above. This stuff gets my juices flowing. Michigan needs a tour event (I love taking the National there like Randall mentioned). I’m also pouring more resources into the John Deere and putting it on a rotation that includes the Twin Cities, Des Moines, Quad Cities and other golf-crazed markets in the upper midwest. Get it a better spot on the calendar too. Hell, make it a playoff event.

I’m moving the Malaysia event to Japan, moving the Shanghai WGC to Australia. Like DJ said, we’re decamping from TPC Boston (which may already be in the works). I like Neil’s emphasis on hooking the Pac-NW up, unfortunately that ain’t gonna work on the West Coast Swing as it’s Jan/Feb up there and the weather stinks. So start the wraparound season in Napa, go up the coast to a new event in Seattle or Portland, and then you rotate the Canadian Open between Vancouver and Calgary for the next five years for the week after that and helps it avoid the post-Open Championship malaise it’s currently in. This removes a couple weeks from the bulk of the summer season, lets you move playoffs up to avoid football, and capitalize on the primo September/early October weather out west. I could keep going for another couple hours on this topic.

How can you be a proponent of rolling back the ball after the results this weekend at Chapultepec? Course played sub 6500 yards, winner at a very fair 16 under, lots of excitement, etc. -BigJake

 Apologies BigJake, but any argument against rolling back the ball that cites par or Chapultepec as an argument against change is misplaced. Chapultepec is a laughable layout that is simultaneously awesome to watch the pros play. But it has next to zero interesting architectural elements, and isn’t that relevant in the ball discussion as a hole.

There’s still plenty of tournaments played on shorter courses where the scores aren’t disgustingly low. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t an issue. Fact is, because of how far the ball goes, architects and tournament organizers have been forced to artificially protect par by growing the rough up, narrowing the fairways, shaving down the greens and hiding the pins. Eliminating fairway width also takes away strategic elements of playing a hole. When a player has nowhere to go but dead straight, every single player has to play a hole the exact same way. It's maybe the most egregious example on tour of a course that forces players to play each hole the same way – straight through narrow corridors of trees.

Dialing back the ball would help bring back so many of the architecture elements that many course designers intended to be considered when playing a hole. Bunkers will be in play and will require precision to play around or near them to provide the best angle at the pin, rather than being irrelevant and capable of being bombed over.

The farther we move the tee boxes back, the more the longer hitters will benefit. The farther the ball goes, the bigger advantage the longer hitters will have. If we dial it back 10%, a guy that carries it 300 yards will now carry it 270. A guy that carries it 270 will carry it 243. Yes, that’s only a three yard difference, but that’s not insignificant. And when you factor in roll, that gap between those two players will close even tighter.

 I think I like Chapultepec a lot more than Soly does, but I can’t disagree with a lot of his points. The reason scores were relatively protected on the short course was pretty simple – it was claustrophobic as shit off the tee. I think this was crazy fun to watch for one week because you get guys hitting recovery shots constantly (my favorite), but it’s just not possible as a solution from week to week for a million reasons. The downside of seeing a course like this “succeed” on Tour is that the casual fan sees a popular winner and assumes that means it’s a “good” golf course. This is how you end up with tight, punishing public courses that lead to 6-hour rounds, agronomy problems and all the strategic elements Soly mentioned being wiped away.

Did the Killhouse furniture come from a Goodwill or did you just find it in various alleys?

The #Killhouse design aesthetic is what I’d call ‘Chic Donation,’ a ragtag mix of Goodwill, free stuff people send Soly & Tron, and old furniture from the humble ATL abode of The Franchise and Peg (aka, Tron and Neil’s parents). The Patrick Reed couch was actually one of two in our family room for about 10 years. It has not aged well, and goes better with a darker wall color and a less sunny family room! My vision for the #Killhouse is a museum of useless golf history, objects that represent inside jokes that no one gets (see: welding mask), and mismatched furniture that garners stern but fair shit talking from the gallery during the live show. I think we’re well on our way!

 Fun fact–‘Chic Donation’ is an interior decor line bourne from the revolutionary 

 fashion line from infamous designer, Jacobim Mugatu.

What do you guys think has happened to Smylie? – assortment of Refugees

 I don’t think Smylie is that good. He got hot in Vegas and stole a win, went comatose for 3 days at Augusta, and then regressed back to where he should be. The problem is he upped his personal #brand on SB2k16, and got put in the convo with dudes that have been the creme de la creme from junior golf through today.

 Smylie’s an interesting story – Neil nailed it on the head, and that’s not meant as a slight to Smylie. You have to respect someone getting hot, taking advantage of it and having the confidence to keep riding it. He was a middling college player for three years at LSU (averaged around 74-75 each season) before he got v hot his senior year. Then he won in his first year on the Web Tour in ‘15 (an impressive five shot win at the tough Victoria National, probably the hardest course on that circuit), and then parlayed that into a PGA Tour card and went unconscious Sunday at the Shriners. He went from 71st in SG putting in ‘15, to 138th last season, and down to 158th thus far this year. 2016 was the outlier and he’s simply regressing to the mean. The mean is still top 200 players in the world, so he’s still very good. But it will be interesting to see if/how he keeps his card after his exemption from the win runs out this year. He’s only 26 and coming from a lower foundation than guys who were First-Team All-America through college. It does kind of suck for him that we wouldn’t be asking any of these questions if he hadn’t been overexposed by the media in a fifteen-minutes-of-fame type of way.

Tron/Soly, Give me one or two examples of something in the golfing world that’s still over your head or something you just figured out. – SplashShots69

 4 things stick out: 1) Will never figure out how Charles Howell III only has 2 career wins. 2) How does Jim Thorpe make contact with the golf ball? 3) How/why Tom Fazio is the current architect of record for 2 of the top 3 courses in the world. 4) The 2006 United States Ryder Cup team.

Also, I just figured out how to read grain about three months ago.

 Though addressed to Tron/Soly, this is an equal-opportunity mailbag schnitz, so I’ll happily answer the question. Here are a 3 for me:

– How they calculate FedEx Cup points: This is something I’ll never really care to understand though.

– The Grass following the sun throughout the day, which changes the grain and the break of certain putts. The big homie Will Smith tried to explain it in Bagger Vance, but I continue to mix up on whether into the grain or through the grain will make it faster/slower.

– The list of ways you can hold onto your tour card: Tron read it out loud one time, and it sounded like the U.S. tax code to me.

– How guys spin the ball back from 40 yards and in.

– How the ball seems to enter a different dimension when Rory hits driver, and it just continues to rise. Like, it looks like the Falcon Heavy entering a second burn. The ball should start coming toward the Earth, and it propels itself even further in the air and into the jetstream.

– How fields are filled out. I know there’s a priority list and all that, but I can’t name how guys at the bottom of the field get into out, and how the first alternates get cut out.

– Was shocked to follow pros and find out how many truly awful shots they hit. I’ve seen duck hooks, I’ve seen tops, blades, chunks. And on so many of those holes, they end up making par. And I can’t explain how.

 Does compressing the ball count? Or how about like three quarters of golf’s rulebook? In all seriousness, two putting techniques are way over my head: Plum-Bobbing and AimPoint. I’ve had several people try to demonstrate the former to me, and I’ve been given a pretty detailed explanation of the latter yet I still don’t have a grasp on either.

 care about course architecture or is it just something you talk about to try to seem refined and worldly? – GeneParmesan

 First of all, huge shout out to Gene Parmesan, who would have definitely been in the Pete Dye school of design – trickery of the eye and big, dramatic reveals.

I absolutely, unequivocally did not care about it 5-6 years ago. I couldn’t tell you why a hole was good or bad beyond the fact that a short par 4 gave you “options.” I was more into conditioning than anything else, which makes feel very sad to say. I think two things changed this: 1) Going to Bandon and Scotland for the first time made me realize that everything I thought I knew about golf was pretty much bullshit and that just hitting golf shots – trying to shape it a certain way or use the ground or whatever the shot dictates – is so much more fun and engaging than a 4-hour quest to try to break an arbitrary number. Particularly playing Doak courses for the first time was eye-opening to just how fun it is to see a puzzle of a green complex and give it your best to solve it in a different way each time. 2) Reading/listening to Andy Johnson’s work at The Fried Egg made the whole idea so much more accessible and opened my eyes to a million books, Twitter accounts, everything. I’ve been pretty burned out on the pro game the past few years and this has given me a whole different way to stay engaged with golf that I’m finding to be more rewarding and infinitely more interesting (other than when Tiger’s playing).

 That pretty much sums it up for me too. I’m a shell of the player I once was, yet I love golf more than ever, and that’s because of architecture. I grew up playing a lot of golf courses in/around Atlanta that, while well-conditioned, were (and still are) dogshit layouts that were built between 1955 and 1990. I grew up playing these courses and loving golf. I got back from college and lost the bug a little bit and got really into fishing. This was for a variety of reasons – frustration, non-walkable courses, not having a private membership in a city that offers next-to-nothing in the way of public golf.

A few years later, four things happened concurrently. 1) NLU was taking off and I was playing a variety of courses and adding to my perspective. 2) I played Sweetens Cove for the first time, which completely shattered my concept of what a golf course could/should be. 3) I bought Volume 2 of Doak’s Confidential Guide. 4) My wife and I moved to Boston and I fell in love with the game again. It didn’t matter if I was playing a historic country club or the local munis, the common thread was that all were either designs from legendary architects (even the scruffy munis) or were relatively recent designs from guys like Silva and Hanse, who lean on a classic design philosophy. Did it help that I played places like Myopia, Essex, Brookline, Yale, Taconic and Boston GC? Absolutely, that’s what really helped solidify it. But the light went on when I was playing accessible places like South Shore Country Club (a public Wayne Stiles design), Bass Rocks (a private but laid back Herbert Leeds design), George Wright Municipal and Sandy Burr (Donald Ross courses in Boston), and Red Tail (newish Silva design outside the city that is a blast). These utilized the same principles as those really exclusive places, yet were approachable and cheap and close.

When I met Andy Johnson, all of those things coalesced and the result is now that I realize 

 I enjoy golf: It’s the architecture and strategy of it. I look back on growing up and think about how it would’ve been different if I’d been exposed to classic architecture early on (and how much better I’d be as a player).

 For me, it wasn’t as much about architecture per say as it was discovering that there were different ways to play golf than in a golf cart, on a soft parkland course that weaves through houses. Playing through the UK and Ireland honestly felt like a different sport. Stateside, if the conditions dictated that I would have to hit a 6-iron from 125, I’m not teeing it up that day. In the UK I’m 

 those conditions. As D.J. alluded to, if you can give up thinking about a score, and just embrace the challenge of trying to play around a bunker, rather than bombing it over one, golf is infinitely more fun.

I guess inherently that goes back to architecture and course design, but I didn’t fully recognize the architectural elements that were making this so fun. I didn’t realize that a lot of these courses don’t have forced carries, or obnoxious water hazards, or super tight fairways. I just realized how much fun they were to play. It wasn’t until really reading Andy’s stuff that it got spelled out to me what the actual elements were that I was appreciating, even if I couldn’t spell them out myself. It’s hard to explain, but it was honestly difficult to get super excited about coming back to the states to play golf again after experiencing that euphoria across the pond. I can’t wait to get back.

In your opinion(s), will the USGA and the R&A ever go to a bifurcation of the rules? Why or why not? – aj_wehr

 Forever is a really long time, so it’s hard to say it will 

 get to that point, but I think it’s going to take a really, really long time for it to get there. The USGA had a buried line deep in the distance report that it has no intention of dividing the rules between the pros and amateurs, so I’ll take that to mean that it definitely won’t be happening this time around. (Whether it should or not is certainly up for debate.)

 I hope they don’t bifurcate. I want everyone playing the same ball and I want it to be a rolled back ball that spins more. Will they do that? Probably not. This sums it up for me:

Timber bats in MLB, tennis has managed the ball, AFL & NRL have limited interchange, swimming banned Thorpey’s suits… etc etc etfc. Golf is very lonely in the camp of sports that have let technology ravage the game. 

 I don’t think they will. I’d like them to bifurcate, and I think the pro game would be much more interesting if guys were forced to do more thinking than they currently do off the tee, and a rolled back ball would encourage that. But it would be too much of a shakeup to the entire golf industry for it to actually go through. Things will reach a tipping point when they can’t put tee boxes any further back than they have, but I honestly have no clue when that day will be.

In the Killhouse crew, who are the players that you would:

– Count on to sink a 10 footer to win a match

March NLU Mailbag (Part 2)

Avoiding hyperbole might be difficult when describing anything about this week’s Hero Indian Open venue, 

 in New Delhi, India. In a certain respect, it’s easy to see that Gary Player’s design team intended to create something that would leave an impression. The problem is that there are so many impressions–so much visual, auditory, and information overload–that the activity of watching (let alone playing) is more akin to a bad acid trip than an immersive and enjoyable golfing experience.

I can certainly appreciate that there are multiple schools of thought regarding the artistry of golf course design and construction. Art is open to interpretation, opinion, critique, and reverence. At this point, you likely know my preference for the now-cliché presentation of “minimalism.” However, I try not to be dismissive of courses with an appearance that is more manufactured–

–particularly if the course is resolute in creating a strategically interesting round.

Variably, even blind squirrel designers like Arnold Palmer and Gary Player find a nut once in a while. Their firms are given massive budgets, and are determined to move as much soil as necessary to impose their will on the land. They are often charged with creating something from nothing. We can have a hearty debate about the desirability of this school of design. My personal preferences aside, however, I never want to foreclose the possibility of a favorable opinion on a golf course just because it required engineering feats to come into being. I hope I am never that close-minded.

With all of that as a preface, the lack of architectural merit at this week’s stop in India is not worth debating, but is certainly worth a few hundred words of explanation: this course debases the game of golf and the European Tour, tarnishes the already-frail course design legacy of Gary Player (and Arnold Palmer, the front nine’s original designer, by extension), and makes me question the very reason why any human being would spend the exorbitant money to build, maintain, or play this course. DLF Golf and Country Club is a masterclass in being, well….

The DLF Golf and Country Club should be renamed ‘DFL’–dead fuckin’ last of the courses upon which I’d ever care to play. DLF, the most prominent sponsor of 

 and the namesake of this course, is an abbreviation for Delhi Land & Finance, a publicly-traded land developer.

DLF originally hired the King’s firm to construct a floodlit 18 hole course, which opened in 1999. In 2012, Player’s firm was enlisted to build nine additional holes, but the construction eventually turned into overhauling nine of the Palmer holes into Player’s style, mostly maintaining the routing. Those Palmer holes are now the somewhat benign front half of the Championship Course, while the back nine is comprised of Player’s original holes. The nine remaining holes of the Palmer course remain floodlit and standalone as the remnants of the original insipid track.

Not the Hero we need, but the one we deserve

The new design opened in 2015. Devoid of subtlety and nuance, DLF is a veritable hodgepodge of a dozen prominent “features,” including waterfalls, foliage, wooden bulkheads, rock-walls, and urban cityscapes–none of which blend together with any harmony. But the aura of this course really comes down to three overarching themes.

The most obvious of these themes is the use of faux-revetted faces on the expansive bunkers. Player’s firm described them “

” bunker faces. This is another way of saying “foam.”

“Geotextile” bunker faces. The design inspiration was chocolate soft-serve, apparently. Photo Cred: European Tour

I’m all for lower maintenance costs, and that is a justifiable consideration in the building of any feature on a golf hole. But does “low maintenance” outweigh the desire for blended natural beauty? Or playability?

I suspect that there was something else about the use of Geotextile revetting that Player wanted: to make a visually intimidating statement–fun, and function, be damned. It seems disingenuous to say the use of this product is to lower maintenance costs when the cost of the golf course overall must have been astronomical, and money is clearly no object for the developer. No, Globalist Gary wanted to make sure we were shocked by the aesthetic of this course. Even if it meant scenarios like this:

This looks like so much fun I can just hardly contain my excitement. /sarcasm. Photo Cred: European Tour.

The second obvious theme of this course is the man-made “quarry” that features prominently on the back nine, and particularly in the closing stretch. I cannot even begin to imagine how many thousands of boulders were transported to the site in an attempt to create the illusion of an abandoned rock well. Putting aside the silliness of over-engineering the once-flat area and the daft execution of the illusion, the resulting holes are strategically uninteresting for the better golfer, unnecessarily difficult for the mid-handicapper, and plainly impossible for the novice.

You may be surprised to learn that there is a golf hole somewhere in this Where’s Waldo scene. Photo Cred: DLF Golf Resort; Photo Cred for the feature image of the same hole: Clement Sordet.

The final noticeable theme of DLF is the collection of extremely undulating greens, where the tournament directors have, thus far, placed some pins in rather unpinnable areas. Of course, undulating greens are more often than not a desirable trait of a golf course. However, when greens with severe undulations are paired with turfgrass conditions that more closely resemble slightly furry concrete than receptive and appropriately slower grass putting surfaces, you end up with well-hit putts and chips falling off the face of the Earth. This happened with regularity in round 2, as Thomas Bjorn, Julian Suri, and James Morrison (in the video above) can attest.

Severe false fronts, heaving mounds, and some Salvador Dali looking bunkering. Are the walls melting? Am I transcending space and time? Is this the opposite of nirvana? Photo Cred: Golf Channel.

Commentators on the broadcasts for round 2 discussed the “shortcomings” of the course in light of the “engineering project” undertaken to build this monstrosity. One such shortcoming they noted repeatedly was the cross-section of speeds and undulation. These are very political ways of saying that the greens are borderline unplayable at these speeds. Certainly the best putter will prevail here this week. My biggest gripe is that building and shaping the greens from scratch, using no natural features whatsoever, means there is no excuse for over-contouring the surfaces. But everything about this course is over the top, so I guess we should all be none too surprised.

One last thought: this golf course is just as bad for the fans as it is for the players. The surrounds of many of the holes are cramped, with nowhere for patrons to stand, let alone build infrastructure for them to sit. Eddie Pepperell, as he usually does, said it best:

The great thing about the 17th hole in India is that it has 15,000 rocks and 15 fans. Most great 17th holes, have 15 rocks, and 15,000 fans.



— Eddie Pepperell (@PepperellEddie) 

After Shubhankar Sharma won at the Malaysian Cobra Pit (TM), I had set aside this week to do a full profile, as the Tour visits his native India and his home golf course. Then he had to go and have a “hello world” style moment at the WGC-Mexico last week, totally killing my plans. There’s nothing background-wise that I could share about him now that most of you haven’t seen or heard over the past week. So, rather than re-hash biographical notes, I’d like to just make a few quick points about how impressed I am with Sharma’s game, and more importantly, his mettle.

Although the 21 year-old was unable to close the deal last week at the Big Chipotle, he showed tremendous poise for any pro, let alone one playing in his first PGA Tour (and WGC) event. Sharma possess a fluid golf swing that is a marvel to watch. More than anything else about his very well-rounded game, his controlled ball-striking shines through, especially with the wedges and shorter irons. Coupled with his great putting and sure-handed short game, the ceiling is unlimited for Sharma’s physical gifts.

Sharma lines it up. Focus is not something he lacks. Photo Cred: NDTV Sports.

What impresses me the most, however, is his commitment. Sharma has logged thousands upon thousands of miles already this year, playing in back-to-back weeks multiple times with double-digit timezone differences in between. This week, with the added pressure of playing for his home fans, his main sponsor (and all the obligations that go with that), and his own internal desire to follow up a great performance in Mexico, Sharma got off to a rough start. He was +5 through his first nine holes, opening with an unsightly 41 on the difficult back side.

Rather than mail it in, Sharma dug deep. He finished his round with an inward half of 32 (-4), to grind out a first round 73. In round 2, starting on the easier front half, Sharma broke the course record with a nine-birdie, one-bogey 64, including a back nine 30! This places him in second place, four off the pace set by 

I cannot say enough good things about how impressed I am with this young man. Leading the Race To Dubai, Sharma looks poised to become a top player in the world this year. We are fortunate to be along for the ride.

I got supremely #ejected at work this week, so I’m putting the Baby Bjorns Ryder Cup tracking section on hold for now. I hope to debut it next week. Please stay patient–I think it will be worth the wait!

Golf Channel will be airing the weekend coverage, starting at 2:30 AM EST on Saturday and concluding at 7:00 AM. For Sunday, the coverage starts at 12:00 AM E

T, as daylight savings time begins at 2:30 AM. I’m going to be up and possibly live-tweeting from a tear in the fabric of the space-time continuum. See y’all in the wormhole.

The Eurozone: #6 (A little naan-plussed, to be honest)

That the Valspar Championship exists at all is remarkable.

Now in it’s 18th year, the tournament started as The Tampa Bay Championship, a silly season event in 2000 opposite the President’s Cup. The next year it was cancelled due to 9/11 (it was scheduled to be played opposite the WGC-American Express Championship that year). The tournament returned in ’02 as the Tampa Bay Championship presented by Buick when Buick execs decided they weren’t sponsoring enough golf events. It probably didn’t hurt that the Tampa Bay area was a target-rich environment for old people with disposable income who could be coaxed into a new LaSabre.

From ’03 to ’06 the event doubled down on being a generic auto-industry event as the Chrysler Championship (amongst other Chrysler events in Greensboro, Palm Springs, and Tuscon), playing in a vacuum the week before The Tour Championship, which put it right in the middle of football season in Florida. People probably didn’t even know the event existed!

2007 ushered in a new era with a scheduling change to the middle of the Florida Swing. Kirk Triplett brought his PODS swag to town in the the form of a two-year stint as the Portable On Demand Storage Championship. ’09 brought with it the advent of the Transitions Championship, which was essentially a week long celebration of Trevor Immelman and Kenny Perry fighting the good fight against harmful blue light. Transitions (headquartered down the road on the outskirts of St. Jetersburg) lasted four years before bailing. At that point EverBank, a regional bank out of Jacksonville, magnanimously stepped in as a one-year stopgap and essentially saved the tournament. Thankfully Valspar came to the rescue in ’14 and we the fans get to learn about paint products (in a city where huffing paint is probably pretty popular) and it seems like a solid fit.

To recap, in a span of fifteen years this tournament has been in bed with Detroit, big storage, big sun protection, big finance and now big paint, and survived a massive recession and a scheduling change. With the initial four-year Valspar contract now extended through 2020, a top-notch field – including some strong European-based talent – continued improvements to the golf course, huge ticket sales and a run of exciting finishes the past few years, the tournament appears set up for success well into the future. Crazy turnaround.

None of the recent success of the tournament would’ve been possible without a solid host venue. While the merits of the Innisbrook Resort at large can certainly be debated (if you’re going to be that close to the beach I’d rather be ON the beach and it’s been a process making the necessary improvements to get the resort up to snuff), the Copperhead Course continues to make for a solid tournament venue. With elevation change and large trees lining each hole the property doesn’t feel like the rest of the Florida Swing. Guys can’t fake it around there – the layout demands accuracy off the tee, the ability to work the ball both ways and the propensity to deal with green speeds that seem to increase annually.

Much is made of the “Snake Pit” and, despite my general aversion to nicknaming stretches of holes, this is an above-average closing stretch. Additionally, the 5th (one of the toughest par 5’s on the entire tour), 6th holes (MUST be in fairway off the tee), and 14th (long double dogleg par 5) demand discipline and accuracy rather than sheer power. The tour website offered up a comprehensive 

I’ll confess to not having very lucid memories of this event. The Transitions title sponsorship was fun for a few years with the Kenny Perry led marketing campaign. Since Valspar became involved, each year I look forward to Tron successfully wrangling Curt Schilling into 

 involving his (allegedly) painted sock and Big Paint, in general. There’s certain stuff that will always make me laugh, and that’s damn near the top of the list. As for the actual golf, I think Spieth’s win in 2015 stands out the most due to the significance it entailed (shaking off near-miss criticism and setting the stage for Augusta). Finally, I’d like to mention the optics of the Copperhead Course always intrigue me as a television viewer. It doesn’t have the look (i.e. tons and tons of water) like other Florida stops. I find that refreshing. I swear the year John Senden won the course looked like a midwestern parkland course in Fall. That may be completely in my head, who knows.

 – you headed to Tampa this week for the Valspar? One of the best tournaments of the year! 

Probably Lee McCoy balling out as an amateur a couple years ago. In all honesty I didn’t even know this tourney existed until we started NLU. I take that back, the Trevor Immelmann and Kenny Perry Transitions commercial where they’re barbecuing was top notch.

 The Spieth/Patrick Reed duel is obviously what springs to mind for me. Maybe even more than Spieth’s win, the disgusting up and down that Reed made to stay alive in the playoff was as good as it gets – You gotta remember, this is peak Reed fever. Let’s all watch it again.

 When I hear the word “Valspar” the first thing I think about is the guy that JT murdered with the driver off the deck. I think about the family that he left behind, and can’t get over the image of JT leaving a signed glove on his lifeless body, sprawled out in the rough under a tree where that man no doubt felt he was safe. The birdie he made on the hole just poured salt into the wound. The tournament should put a plaque in under that tree honoring that man, and JT should be forced to return to tournament every year to pay tribute.

I wrote about this in the preview a few years ago, but everyone remembers the significant “firsts” in life– first beer, first illicit sexual encounter in someone’s basement, first time stepping foot at Augusta National. Add first time experiencing “Spotlight Coverage” on Golf Channel. It happened in 2014 and Swantek, Immelman, Byrum, BRB, et al. bombarded my television with trackman stats, fresh camera angles, strong takes geared toward serious golf fans, and the perspective inherent when you take a diverse cross section of talent and show dozens of guys play the same few shots on the 13th hole. It was an eye-opening telecast that got me hooked, shed a light on the variety of trajectories on tour, and is something they’ve since incorporated to a degree on PGATour Live.

– In the lead-up to this year’s event I’ve heard Tracy West’s name pop up several times in interviews and conversations previewing the event. Sometimes people went out of their way to mention her. While ’15’s Spieth/Reed duel and last year’s Hadwin/Cantlay battle certainly helped attract eyeballs, 

West, the tournament director since ’14,

 had the vision and the diligence to ensure the event in a position to capitalize on those good breaks. I talked to a variety of tour officials, players and media and they were all effusive in their praise of what she’s accomplished. West consistently works her butt off, traveling to most events to create relationships with players and benchmark best practices. The consensus seems to be that Valspar and Travelers are in a league of their own with regard to doing the little things right, getting players there for the first time, and then letting the experience and venue speak for itself. Keep it up.

– Accenting a stacked field (Rose, Cat, Stenson, Spieth, Finau, Casey, Oosty, Sergio, etc.), the sponsor exemptions this week are an industry standard. Good mix of internationally relevant players, collegiate players and young pros with status who are clamoring for more starts.

 – Web Tour graduate who did not get in on his number due to the strength of the field.

– Awesome addition to the field and someone who should thrive on an accuracy-focused course.

– Another talented Web grad who didn’t get in on his number.

– The illustrious DJ DFunk, a colorful character who stayed in school after his standout collegiate campaign last year, will get his second look at a tour event (played the John Deere last year). 

– Perhaps this is a way of paying it forward – Stanger, who enjoyed a storied career at UVA, played with “La Maquina” at the Web Event in Colombia last month.

– Fort Lauderdale native/ currently a 

 and showing nice progress on the amateur and collegiate circuits.

– A popular element of this preview in ’14 and ’15 were the sections on the infamous Tampa strip clubs scene. Let’s run that back: 

Much like my man Adam, if you float in certain circles you’re probably pretty familiar with the reputation of the scrip club scene in Tampa. It also featured prominently in Alan Shipnuck’s book detailing Rich Beem’s ascent to the Tour in the late nineties, as Beem’s then caddie the late Steve Duplantis was a resident of Tampa and a strip club aficionado. Those two details dovetail nicely, as the Mons Venus is the most legendary strip club in a city legendary for it’s strip clubs (just behind 1990’s 

). This place has quite the reputation. Also if you haven’t read Shipnuck’s Bud, Sweat, and Tees, do so ASAP. (Coincidentally it also features Westward Ho Golf Club up in the Dakota’s rather prominently, which was designed by one, Larry Packard).

– The Web Tour is in Leon, Mexico this week for the El Bosque Mexico Championship. There are a couple of interesting variables in play: the course is at altitude; also the defending champ is in the field this week – a rarity on the Web Tour – as Matt Atkins’ number did not get him into Valspar. Always interesting to see how the first-year guys on the big tour tailor their schedules this time of year. Lot of guys won’t get into Bay Hill next week too, but no concurrent Web event. Then the season gets started in earnest in Louisiana.

– NEED AN UDPATE FROM A TAMPA RESIDENT: When I was a little kid they didn’t sell gum in the Tampa Airport because the place had wall to wall carpeting, like hundreds of acres of carpet. Year after year we used to vacation outside of Tampa, on Siesta Key, and I loathed flying in and out of there, as my policy has always been vacation = gum. The policy was borderline Soviet. Hopefully since then the military junta running TPA softened its stance on gum and quit terrorizing little kids (and adults like me who still enjoy Big League Chew).

– Other random thoughts: What’s up with Patrick Reed? Have we seen the best of him or is he building toward something in the coming months? … Interesting to see Cantlay skipping this week. … Stricker in form right now (won the famed “Cologuard Classic” last week for his first Champs Tour win). Could see him making some noise this week. … Rob Bolton threw out a Cam Smith stat that impressed me this week: He’s got nine top-20’s in his last ten starts worldwide. That’s low-key thicc.

– Saving the best for last, Chris Couch is in the field this week after a six-year hiatus. If you’re out there Thursday or Friday, I’d recommend following him just to see what that looks like. He hasn’t played a Tour event since WD’ing from the 2012 Wyndham Championship!

Couch is paired with Beau Hossler and Martin Flores and goes off first on Thursday at 6:50am. Stay tuned for some potential fireworks on a course that doesn’t exactly ease you back into the flow of pro golf…

Weekly Briefing: Valspar

After a week spent between the Melbourne Sandbelt and the coast of Tasmania, I had 11 days to spare before my family arrived for our scheduled Christmas vacation. This was my first ever time down under, and with that much free time on hand, I knew exactly how I wanted to spend it.

Even as a kid, I remember seeing pictures in magazines of Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers in the far off land of New Zealand. To a teenager that had never been outside the U.S., these courses might as well have been another planet. The concept of seeing them in person and playing them had never been on the forefront of my mind until I started traveling the world, and started realizing just how feasible it is to see places that you want to see.

American billionaire Julian Robertson is the man responsible for the development of both Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers on the North Island of New Zealand, which are consistently ranked in the top 50 courses in the world. Kauri Cliffs was designed by American David Harman, and the actual golf course itself is just a fraction of what the resort offers – helicopter tours, quad biking, farm tours, barbecues, and a spa. The peak season rate for an Owner’s Cottage (accommodating four adults) is equivalent to about $7,500 USD (!). It’s the epitome of a luxury resort.

But I’m here for the golf and the golf only, so I’m staying at a $40 Airbnb tonight. International Greens Fees run about $360 USD during the peak season. Is it worth the price of admission? Let’s see…

(You’ll notice significant differences in the lighting in some of these pictures. I arrived the night before and spent a pristine evening on the course photographing the course in the best possible light. Our morning tee time greeted us with a bit of a drizzle before fortunately clearing up for the all-world closing stretch.)

The setting of this golf course is one of the most magnificent pieces of property I’ve ever seen a golf course built on. The course was seemingly built with the intention that you should never lose sight of the ocean, which is nearly true with views on 15 of the 18 holes. The scene photographs incredibly well, surpassed maybe only by some of the other courses I would later play along this same eastern coast of New Zealand. The cliffs are perched high enough to provide a dramatic view all the way down the coastline to the south. Even if there wasn’t a golf course here, the destination would still be worth visiting and soaking up.

The land movement throughout the entire property is extreme. While I’ve never been to the Plantation Course at Kapalua, this is almost exactly how I would picture it. Jurassic Park + Pirates of the Caribbean, and golf carts are a necessity for all but the bravest souls (though I managed to link up with the only two gentlemen that dared to walk the layout on this December day). Despite the drastic elevation changes, the actual holes themselves don’t play 

 severely uphill or downhill, as many of the tough traverses are between holes. Harman did an excellent job of using the slopes to the benefit of his resort guests, with many downhill tee shots. It’s mountain golf without the annoying extremes and gimmicks. The fairways are wide and undulating, often inviting players to swing away without fear off the tee, and to use the contours to position their ball on the proper side of the fairway.

No Laying Up

Writing

March NLU Mailbag (Part 1)

Cape Kidnappers

March NLU Mailbag (Part 2)

The Eurozone: #6 (A little naan-plussed, to be honest)

Weekly Briefing: Valspar

Kauri Cliffs

Fansplaining: The Distance Debate

Weekly Briefing: WGC Mexico

Ryder Cup: Sauce Forecast

The Tara Iti Experience

The Eurozone: #5 (The Opposite Field of Dreams)

The Eurozone: #4 (Diplomatic Pearl Clutching)

Weekly Briefing: Honda Classic

Tiger's driver woes continue at Riviera

Weekly Briefing: Genesis Open

The Eurozone: #3 (All give, but no scalding take)

La historia de La Máquina

Friday Feels: Pebble