When you’re young, particularly if you grow up in an environment of stability and privilege, you don’t realize that much of the world is made up of damaged, broken people.

My father was a lawyer and politician; my mother worked as a newspaper editor, then eventually became a journalism professor. We were not rich — in fact, there was a time, shortly after I was born when my parents had very little money — but the life I led growing up in Missoula, Montana was almost entirely absent of strife or drama. When I watched things like The Cosby Show or Family Ties, I saw reflections of my own day-to-day experiences: Stern but loving parents; annoying but earnest siblings. There were vacations with sing-a-longs, arguments that ended in hugs, bills that were paid on time and family portraits at Christmas. My friends seemed to live a similarly idyllic existence. We understood that addictions and infidelities existed. They just weren’t present in our lives (as far as we knew).


Partially because of that privilege, The Jerry Springer Show, which became nationally syndicated when I was a freshman in high school, offered a window into a world that was as foreign as it was fascinating. I cannot pinpoint when it became appointment television for my friends and I, but I vividly recall dozens of teenage afternoons when we leered and gawked at the parade of misfits Springer welcomed on his show, people willing to shamelessly reveal their torrid affairs, and brawl over the fallout.

It felt more like a trip to the zoo than it did an afternoon talk show most of the time. I’d never seen a lion in the wild, just like I’d never seen a stripper confess she’d been having an affair with her husband’s brother, but I could observe each from a safe distance and suffer no lasting damage. If you were home sick, the episodes could feel oddly comforting, a quick dose of mindless escapism or schadenfreude to pass the hours as you nibbled on toast or Saltine crackers.

There was no humiliation that seemed beneath the show. A man once showed up to confess he’d married his horse. Hillbillies fought each other, shirtless, over unpaid utility bills. Strippers appeared out of nowhere like summer squalls, wreaking havoc and ripping out weaves, upending countless (already doomed) relationships. Sometimes a virgin got catfished, or a serial cheater was exposed as being neck-deep in baby mama drama. Furniture was frequently thrown. Tops got ripped off. More than once, a Nazi or Ku Klux Klan member got his ass kicked, which is especially satisfying considering, in 2023, the same kind of people get to befriend Kanye West and wave around tiki torches without catching a beating.


It was America’s weird underbelly exposed for entertainment, and Springer — a man who was once the mayor of Cincinnati, and whose parents escaped the Holocaust during World War 2 — seemed to float above it all. He was never the draw of his own messy circus, he was merely the master of ceremonies, gently nudging his damaged and somewhat-deranged guests to spill their tea so the audience (both in the studio and those watching at home) could sneer with glee or disgust, then chant his name when the inevitable eruption occurred. My friends and I enjoyed it so much, we paid for a VHS version of “Uncensored Jerry Springer Tales!” to be shipped to our house. My one recollection was that we found it mildly disappointing, our expectations raised too high by the promise of mayhem and chaos unsuitable for television.


Was it exploitative? Without question. Even though the guests signed on to be willing participants and air their messiest laundry, Springer certainly preyed on Americans’ bottomless appetite to be famous, if sometimes for the strangest reasons. The frequency that trans people were cast as the driver of relationship drama was, at best, abhorrent. Supposedly the show offered counseling to any guest who wanted it, though it’s hard to imagine many took them up on it. The point of Springer was to be the messiest version of yourself on screen, not go on the show with the expectation that any of your problems would be fixed.

Springer, to his credit, never seemed interested in judging his guests or their choices, he believed he was offering a stage to the kind of people that television wanted to ignore. He didn’t traffic in celebrity worship. He instead shined a spotlight on the kind of people who fill out every city and every town in the world, people who are trying to get by and live with — or hide — their desires or their mistakes.


“We didn’t have any celebrities on our show, just regular folks with no fame, little if any wealth, and very little influence,” Springer 

said on the program’s 25th anniversary.

 “It’s folks just taking a moment, which they rarely if ever get, to let the world know something about what they are thinking, feeling or doing. Admittedly it’s often crazy or outside the norm of accepted behavior, but what I’ve learned over our quarter century of shows is that deep down we are all alike. Some of us just dress better.”

When the news trickled out that Springer died this week at age 79, I realized I hadn’t thought about him in years. No one in 2023 needs a sick day if they want to tap into cringy drama; they can pull it up on their phone in seconds while waiting for their Starbucks order. Some people are convinced Springer opened the door to the further degradation of society, but the truth is, he more likely revealed than inspired it. Instead of the Jerry Springer Show, we have Instagram, Twitter or Reddit at our fingertips. People now embarrass themselves daily, and for free, hoping it will lead to bigger things.


Springer’s passing did allow me to revisit my naive teenage innocence and all the messes I’ve lived through since. I don’t know anyone who married his horse, but my friends and I — the same people who watched Springer regularly with bemused curiosity — now know a little about divorce and addiction, about heartbreak and drama. I’ve lived through some things that would make a decent episode of voyeuristic television. (Most of us have, by the time we reach a certain age.) When you become an adult, you grasp that no one’s life is the Cosby Show. Even the Cosby Show feels more sinister than Springer, considering what we now know about its creator.

Jerry Springer was not a philosopher or a sage. That would give him far too much credit. He was a uniquely 90s creature who endured even as the world around him grew more comfortable with the exploitation of relationship drama. But he also understood we’re all a little broken, and we’re all carrying baggage. Whenever a brawl would break out, he’d drift to the edge of the stage and fold his arms across his chest like a disappointed school teacher as he waited for things to simmer down. Then he’d ask the guests if there was any way they could reconcile or work through their issues.

As stupid as it was, as staged as it often felt, there was something endearing about his desire to stand there, amidst these peculiar people with an assortment of problems they were eager to share, and listen.

Nest Exclusive: Jerry Springer Was Here to Listen

Editor’s Note: We’ve heard a lot in recent years about how much middle-aged sportswriters are infatuated with Bruce Springsteen, so when our own middle-aged sportswriter KVV (something of a Springsteen agnostic) joined Casey Landman and her husband Jon for one of Springsteen’s performances in Philadelphia, we sent him to the show with an assignment. Write about what Bruce means to you, and explain why so many weirdos of your generation (and so many Big-Js in your profession) adore this man, even if you’re not exactly one of them.

I can’t say why, exactly, just that he’s never been a mythic figure to me. Yes, I’m familiar with the standards. I vaguely remember Ronald Reagan’s campaign misusing “Born In The USA,” thinking (like many who weren’t listening to the lyrics) that it was uplifting and patriotic instead of a broken man’s wail; a lament about feeling left behind. I laughed when The Sopranos slipped in a line from “Born to Run” and made Stevie Van Zandt sit there stone-faced. I have, when I was a cosmic kid in full costume dress, left a bar at 2 am with friends and walked the streets while belting out some mangled, not-sober version of “Thunder Road.” But I can’t name most of the albums. I have never 

pulled over to the side of the road and cried during the saxophone solo in “Jungleland.”

 I know sportswriters of a certain age are supposed to treat Springsteen’s songs the way orthodox scholars treat the study of the Talmud. It has become one of those cliches that is grounded in a lot of truth, but it has never fit in my case. I have friends who write (brilliantly) to his music, who would skip their kid’s birthday party to see him play in a football stadium. I’ve had bosses who have spent more time in the front row of Bruce’s shows than some of his roadies. It’s just never been my thing.

I am not indifferent — I enjoy The Boss for all the reasons you are supposed to enjoy him — but I have a theory that we only love the artists who find us at the right time, the right age, the midst of the right angst or heartbreak. For whatever reason, Bruce Springsteen missed me when I probably needed him the most.

I became a Jason Isbell person, which is a little like saying you prefer Max Homa to Tiger Woods. The whole world knows who Bruce and Tiger are. They are important pieces of Americana, icons to even casual observers of culture. Isbell and Homa are the artists you feel like you discovered when no one was there, and now you still feel a little protective of them, proud they climbed the ladder to find mainstream success, but deep down you’re a little annoyed you have to share them with the world. You were there when shit was bleak, but it still felt like they were speaking to you.

Some people may have that connection with Bruce, but I take a contrarian pride in the fact that I’m not one of them.

2. When my friend Jon texted me to say he had an extra ticket to Bruce’s show in Philadelphia, I couldn’t resist saying yes, despite all the words I typed in the previous section.

It was not a cheap ticket, even with Jon acquiring it at face value through his work in the industry. But there is something to be said, I think, about choosing to spend your money on experiences instead of items. Someday Bruce Springsteen will be gone, much like Tom Petty. I never understood how much I missed Tom Petty until I no longer had the chance to have him in my life. In my basement, there are thousands of dollars worth of golf clubs I no longer play, and books I’ll never get around to reading. There are piles of things I once cherished but no longer remember why I purchased them, and one day my children will throw them in a dumpster when I’m gone, or give them to Goodwill if they don’t smell like mildew.


There is something about the perniciousness of STUFF that is slowly suffocating. I don’t have many philosophical tenets, but one I do try to remind myself of is that experiences require zero storage.


3. He looks like an incredibly fit grandfather.

This was what struck me most of all when he burst onto the stage to sing “No Surrender,” the opening number. It’s not that he doesn’t look 73. He does. In recent years, he’s grown less vain, apparently accepting that there is a dignity to letting (much of) his hair go gray. He jogs and fist pumps and zooms around stage like he’s trying to inhale every last bit of whatever time he has left, but you’re also left with the unshakeable truth. He doesn’t have many of these left. This is the winter of his performing life. A finite number of shows remain. How many? No one wants to speculate. Why ruin the illusion that it can go on forever?

When you’re a massive Springsteen fan, I suspect you see him so frequently — in interviews, concerts, political campaigns, album covers — that the gradually aging process that every last one of us is tethered to doesn’t shock you. He is a part of your life, always. The coolest uncle. He ages, sure, but he’s immortal.

But if you’re like me, and he’s this nebulous concept that you don’t obsess over but still appreciate, he was frozen in the amber of your mind at a younger age. He is forever That Dude, wearing jeans that look like they were painted on, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up like he’s a Jet in West Side Story, 

yanking Courtney Cox (and her bob haircut)

 up on stage so he can sashay back and forth, two beautiful people radiating youth, possibility, energy.

It makes no sense, but I did not expect to see a man on the stage in Philadelphia who could benefit from scheduling regular colonoscopies. This is the curse of being beautiful once, of epitomizing youth and possibility. You are not allowed to be mortal. You’re supposed to be a photograph, a Greek god, eternal. Instead, he is the same age as my dad, I realize now. When each of them was born, Harry Truman was President.

4. The people in the audience at the Wells Fargo Arena are not broken heroes on a last chance power drive.

They are not the working class characters that populate Springsteen’s songs. They are mostly white, mostly upper middle class, mostly in their 50s and 60s. They drive nice cars and have 401ks. I was, I can say this confidently, one of the younger members of the audience. (Not the youngest, but certainly in the youngest third.)


None of that is any kind of revelatory observation, nor is it a particularly new critique. It’s easy to poke fun at the tone-deaf privilege of Springsteen audiences these days, to point out the hypocrisy of paying thousands of dollars for a ticket to a show so you can cosplay in the lives of characters who exist on the fringe of society, who are one busted engine or factory layoff from permanent misery. A lot of fans in recent years have been understandably pissed that Springsteen gave in to the allure of Ticketmaster’s predatory dynamic pricing model, meaning you essentially have to fork over a mortgage payment to see him perform these days. (The fact that we allow Ticketmaster to operate like a mob boss remains one of the most baffling choices in American life.) Backstreets, the fan magazine that has been covering The Boss for 43 years, 

announced in February that it was shutting down

, at least in part because so many hardcore Springsteen fans feel they’ve been priced out of his shows.


I have a hard time, however, blaming the fans who can afford to go to his shows, regardless of whether or not they’ve been gouged. To call them hypocritical kind of misses the mark. What is the dream, after all, of every working class stiff but to escape the gravitational pull of their broken hometowns, and will themselves into a better life somewhere else? These are the people who got out. (Or, just as likely, their parents got out.) A part of them never wants to forget that it could have gone another way.


They used to be cool and now they are not. But in the arena, they still get to feel cool. This is what Bruce reminds them of, a time when they weren’t rich and didn’t have to think about doing yard work on the weekends or saving up to make college tuition payments. They are IT managers and lawyers, dentists and software developers (and sportswriters!) and they have kids that roll their eyes when they sing along to “Hungry Heart” as they wipe down their fancy kitchen countertops.

(Those kids will understand one day, I promise, when they’re humming Taylor Swift songs or Kendrick Lamar songs in an underground climate-safe bunker, or in a colony on Mars, and their own kids feel a mixture of love and embarrassment.)

The people in the audience at Bruce shows used to be the kind of romantics who would tuck a cigarette behind their ear in a smoke-filled bar and make eyes at a person standing near the jukebox. They are the Marys and Wendys, the Bobbys and Eddies from Bruce’s songs who had the audacity to grow up. To keep living. It happens to a lot of us.


We ain’t a beauty — at least not anymore — but yeah we’re alright.

To a Bruce fan, this must feel like one of the most obvious sentences ever written. 

Wait, you’re telling me one of the best-selling artists of all time has many, many songs that are great? What a brave take.

But I was struck, in the arena, by how many songs I have absorbed into my bloodstream over time and can hum along to, even if I don’t know the lyrics. How ridiculously good is your catalog if 

 is maybe your 10th best song? Why was I, someone who would previously have described his Bruce Springsteen fandom as residing somewhere between admiration and polite indifference, playing an imaginary air piano during 

6. There are so many members of the E Street Band!

I know, technically, everyone on stage isn’t an official member. I will leave it to actual Springsteen fans — Bruce Tramps, I see they are sometimes called — to educate me on who is worthy of the designation and who is an interchangeable part. I’m not sure what I expected, other than Van Zandt dressing like an aging musketeer, but it wasn’t 

 on stage. “I think E Street is more like an avenue or a parkway these days,” my friend Jon quipped. Between back-up singers, roadies, keyboard players, a drummer, horn players and his wife (also a singer and guitarist, but absent for the Philly show), he has to be close to the 50-employee threshold where the law requires you to offer health insurance. (Just kidding! I’m sure various loopholes and shell companies have been invented to prevent this very thing.)

I couldn’t help but feel a little mesmerized by Jake Clemmons, the saxophone player of the E Street Band and also the nephew of Clarence Clemmons, the man who had that role from 1972 until his death in 2011. What a blessing and a burden it must be to live with the ghost of a family member on your shoulder every night.

It’s like Hamlet, except every night you have to nail the solo in Thunder Road.

7. Speaking of Thunder Road, I think it’s bombastic, embarrassingly earnest, a bit too operatic and also goddamn perfect.

I know “Born To Run” is supposed to be the better song, the American anthem that Springsteen wrote as a young man when he was trying to change his fate and also go down in history. It’s going to be the first line of his obituary, and it deserves to be. Rolling Stone named it 21st on their list of all-time greatest songs. But I love “Thunder Road” more, and for all the reasons I listed above.

I love it because even though you shouldn’t use the word “redemption” in a song about redemption, Bruce does. It perfectly captures the angst and longing of wanting to be SOMEBODY and be loved by SOMEONE but having no idea how to get there other than driving your car very fast toward the edge of town, hoping there is adventure beyond the swamps of New Jersey. (Or in my case, the mountains of Montana.)


I can remember listening to “Thunder Road” late in college, getting ready to leave my hometown. I was going to drive across the country and make it in the big city. Unlike the main character in “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” the record company had not given me a big advance, but a newspaper in Baltimore had given me an internship, which in my eyes might as well have been the same thing. So I was going to roll down the window and let the wind blow back my hair. This is, I think, the enduring power of Springsteen. Most of us have these earnest, operatic moments at some point, moments where we’re trying to bust free of invisible chains we can feel but can’t properly describe. I didn’t feel like my town was full of losers but needed to escape to figure out who I was.


Twenty-three years have come and gone since that moment. There are lines in “Thunder Road” that hit differently now, like being scared and thinking that maybe I ain’t that young anymore. These days, I like the 

acoustic version of the song where it’s just Bruce and piano

. The same lines that felt like a youthful howl of defiance can also read like a sad lament if you slow everything down and let your hair go a little gray, which is another reason the song rules.

But the operatic version is still magic. When Bruce sang “Thunder Road” late into his encore, nobody felt old. We were all belting out the lines of the song like idiot kids, trying to remind ourselves that, hey, we know it’s late, but we could still make it if we run.

Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director of No Laying Up. Email him at kvv@nolayingup.com.

7 Thoughts From A Sportswriter Upon Seeing Springsteen For The First Time At Age 45

In this Nest exclusive behind-the-scenes video, we've put together a compilation of all the outtakes and fun scenes that didn't make the final cut, highlighted by some commentary. We'll be releasing a behind-the-scenes video corresponding to each new episode weekly, so be on the lookout!

In a completely new spin on a familiar adventure, the guys take on unconquered territory in a visually upgraded experience in Australia.

Nest members, share your thoughts on all things Tourist Sauce: Australia below! If you aren't a member of The Nest, consider joining 

 (Psst — you'll also get fun behind the scenes content for each episode!)

No Laying Up’s original travel series explores the history and beauty of golf around the world. A visually-driven exploration shows the crew playing and diving into the stories of some of the most unique golf courses in the golf world — with fascinating characters to match. From Oregon, Ireland, Scotland — the guys' next adventure could be anywhere. But no matter the setting, you can expect the same humor and fun-loving wit from the No Laying Up crew.

How did No Laying Up's Tourist Sauce begin? The man behind the camera remembers | GOLF.com,

No Laying Up highlighting Michigan golf during new season of 'Tourist Sauce' debuting Wednesday | WXYZ Detroit,

Tourist Sauce

S9: Australia

Nest Exclusive: Tourist Sauce Australia, Episode 2 Behind the Scenes

Nest Exclusive: Tourist Sauce Australia, Episode 1 Behind the Scenes

KVV, Casey and Cody bring you this months announcements before jumping into the first LIVE airing of Nest Trivia. Thank you to the members who volunteered to jump on and have some fun!

Nest Podcast

2024 Nest Podcast

Episode 53: March 2024

In this Nest-exclusive video, Neil goes back in time and provides some thoughtful commentary on a compilation of Tourist Sauce Ireland scenes across each day of the trip.

In Tourist Sauce Season 4, the No Laying Up crew takes their average golf game across the pond to experience the dunes, wind, and 'craic' on the West Coast of Ireland. They are joined by Author Tom Coyne, the authority on Irish Golf.

S4: Ireland

Tourist Sauce Ireland: Director's Cut (Feat. Neil)

Neil and Cody kick off this month's Nest pod with a look at upcoming NLU content and events before we restart our Refuge member spotlight interview segment as we chat with Pete Couhig, the CFO of Wycombe Wanderers - an English football team currently in League One of the EFL system.

Pete talks us through the process of his family becoming owners of the club, the reception he's received as part of an American ownership group, the financials of the different tiers of English football and a ton more.

Episode 52: February 2024

Indulge in a throwback compilation of outtakes from the boys' adventure in the Bayou.

No Laying Up’s original video series highlighting the search for budget golf, interesting people, and good times all over the USA. Season 3 takes Neil & Big Randy through Baton Rouge and down to New Orleans with good food, good golf, and good people all along the way. 

No Laying Up’s Big Randy and Neil search for budget golf, interesting people & the mega bonus all over the USA. Challenged with a rigid budget, the duo embarks on a more familiar version of the golf world. Discovering hidden gems in your backyard and the obscurities of the world doesn't require being a part of the C-Suite. Neither does remembering why the guys love golf, from the laughs and lessons learned in between...and the friends they made along the way, of course.

From Iowa, Arizona, Southern California, all the way to Peoria — 

'Why don't we lean the other way?': How 'Strapped' became a YouTube cult hit | Golf Digest, 

Monday Finish: Homa's Secret, Sergio's future, No Laying Up's triumph | GOLF.com,

Golf vlog 'Strapped' airs its episodes shot on courses in Peoria, Pekin | Peoria Journal Star, 

Strapped

Louisiana 

Strapped: Louisiana Outtakes

Cody leads this month's Nest pod with Ben, KVV and Casey as we welcome the newest member of NLU to the Nest pod.

We then look at the Roost lineup with some new chapters joining the family and the events scheduled for the upcoming year. After that, we dive into the 2024 Trap Draw Goals podcast with some critiques and observations from the goals the guys put forward (29:40) before unveiling our own personal goals for the year ahead.

Facilitate 3 friends group hang out sessions

Handicap down to 15 (currently 18.1) - stretch goal 14 - super stretch 13

Find a coach to see regularly once moved (anyone have any Vegas coach recomendations that are not Butch Harmon?)

Bring scoring average of posted rounds down to 90 - in 2022 scoring average was 98.6 over 73 posted rounds, 2023 average was 95 over 80 posted rounds. Looking for 100 posted rounds in 2024 with the move to a year round golf area.

Do short game practice at least 30 times (30 minutes)

Play in at least 2 non-NLU/refuge competitions

Eat less meat/dairy - aiming for 800 plant based/vegan meals (approx 73%)

Strength training average 1 x a week (52 workouts)

Cardio 3 x a week - walking golf counts! - (150 workouts)

Make/Craft something every month (12 things)

Continue my DuoLingo streak (sitting at 49 days right now in Italian)

Read 6 books this year (I tend to just read a bunch of articles - need to get back into some long form reading)

10 new golf courses overall (five outside Maryland)

Charge my phone on a different floor than sleeping at least 5 nights a week

Spend two hours per month with Molly and Sophie

Plan/take one trip with my wife to new city

Get back to 0.0. But realistically be low enough to qual for US Am

Coach the Pink Panthers to the league title

Episode 51: January 2024

A fan favorite returns with our annual goals podcast as Soly, Tron, DJ, Neil and Randy pick our team's "Year of the _____" for 2024, review our individual goals from 2023 (27:00), and lay out our personal goals for 2024 (1:07:00).

Watch highlight interviews from the No Laying Up podcast.

Watch some of the highlight interviews from the No Laying Up podcast.

Interviews

TrapDraw Episode 270: 2024 Goals 

We close out the year with the December Nest pod featuring some spirited dental care discussion before a look back at some of our favorite trips, events, creations, rounds and more from 2023 plus a look at what we're #monitoring for 2024.

https://www.amazon.com/MANIAC-Benjamin-Labatut/dp/0593654471

https://www.amazon.com/Korean-American-Food-That-Tastes/dp/0593233492

https://www.amazon.com/Four-Foundations-Golf-Build-Lifetime/dp/B0B3RYB7ZF/ref=sr_1_1[…]1&keywords=the+four+foundations+of+golf&qid=1703792375&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Ocean-Journeys-Untamed-Frontier/dp/0451492943

https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Bullfrog-Leadership-Made-Simple/dp/1538707942/ref=sr_1[…]books&sprefix=wisdom+of+the+bullfrog%2Cstripbooks%2C89&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Vengeance-Survival-Vintage-Departures/dp/0307389049/ref[…]1703792456&s=books&sprefix=the+tiger%2Cstripbooks%2C99&sr=1-1

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023349-juicy-tomatoes-with-parmesan-olive-bread-crumbs

2023 Nest Podcast

Episode 50: December 2023 

Editors Note: Timestamps originally built for audio only version. There could be a slight time shift for this video. 

We are ten years into No Laying Up, a text thread among college friends that's turned into more than any of us could have imagined. Come along for a three hour conversation about the origins of that initial text thread, the website (21:30), the first podcast (35:00), Justin Thomas marking the first podcast appearance from a tour pro (55:30), the first detonation of golf television coverage (1:09:00), our Rory-DT news scoop (1:23:00), the first Tourist Sauce (1:50:30) and Strapped seasons (2:14:00), and a ton more.

A more extensive list of some of our favorite web posts, tweets, and other moments from the last decade:

https://nolayingup.com/blog/murder-suspect-caught-pounding-balls-in-pga-superstore

https://patch.com/georgia/woodstock/woodstock-murder-suspects-plead-guilty-get-prison-time

https://x.com/NoLayingUp/status/621377723177533440?s=20

July 2017: The Sistine Chapel of Tourist Sauce: 

https://x.com/NoLayingUp/status/889533605273382912?s=20

NLU Podcast, Episode 777: 10 Year Oral History

This month's Nest pod features Cody, Neil and KVV as we recap the NIT, provide an update on the future of the Killhouse, and a look ahead to navigating the holidays with young children.

Episode 49: November 2023 

It's time to review the NLU Census for 2023 as Randy, Casey, Cody and Neil handle the October edition of the Nest Podcast. Before the breakdown of the census we look at the upcoming NIT and a call to update your member profiles before the Nest member gift gets sent out.

We start our review of the census (12:30) with some thoughts on its structure and participation numbers. Then each of us weigh in on the following topics:

(53:45) - Demographics breakdown + equipment, gear and travel preferences and feedback on NLU content

Then it's Funktank time for Casey (1:30:30) to close us out with "Dead or Alive" and some hot seat questions.

Episode 48: October 2023 

Ben, Cody, Tron and Neil are up for this month's Nest pod with some debriefs on travel home from the Solheim and some encounters with various golf dignitaries during our trips back from Spain. Then it's on to a look at upcoming content projects, monthly awards and some Roost trivia ahead of the Roost Club Championship. We close with our father to be (Ben) stepping into the funktank.

Episode 47: September 2023 

Cody and Neil are back with this month's Nest pod featuring NLU Young Hitter Lauren Coughlin. We kick off the episode with some event updates and Refuge awards before bringing LC on board (16:15) to discuss her recent top ten finish in Vancouver, her progress and improvements on various aspects of her game and, as custom, a trip into the Funk Tank for some grab bag questions.

Episode 46: August 2023 

With most of NLU on vacation this week Neil calls in Mr. ChickPhilA, a.k.a Jon Landman, for this month's Nest podcast. After a quick events/awards update, Jon takes us through all aspects of his work in the business side of the music industry as well as the changes he's seen over the course of his career. We close with music themed editions of "over, under or properly rated" and the "dead or alive" game.

Episode 45: July 2023 

DJ and Randy join Neil and Cody for this month's edition of the Nest pod. After some initial events and awards discussion, the majority of the episode covers the return of Strapped - from the decision to restart the series around spring training in Arizona to the evolution of the show's format and our reaction to Shane Ryan's piece in Golf Digest - we hope this pod proves to be a nice supplement to the premiere of season eleven.


We close with Randy hopping in the funk tank as we learn about the big guy's least favorite athletes of all-time, his favorite refuge threads and then it's his turn at our "dead or alive" game.

Episode 44: June 2023

Cody, Neil and TC bring this month's Nest pod with a quick unexpected detour into injuries and surgeries before our monthly awards and a quick update on Roost events. Then, we debrief on Cody's recent TrapDraw appearance as well as NLU's ESPN plus broadcasts during the PGA Championship. We close with TC taking his turn in the funk tank for the latest on his recent travels to Scotland, upcoming content around the trip and our "dead or alive" game.

Episode 43: May 2023

On this month's Nest pod Cody and Neil welcome Soly to discuss the upcoming NIT qualifying events, some nightmare pet stories and then it's time for Soly to dive into the funk tank as he prepares to gain the #perspective of becoming a dad for the first time. Plus some home ownership talk and reflections on how NLU and covering golf has evolved in recent years plus our Dead or Alive game.

Episode 42: April 2023

Neil, Cody and Ben are joined by CTO Matt McClure (aka McShvantz) on this month's Nest Pod. After our monthly awards and event updates we get a thorough download with Matt on the inner workings of the Refuge and some current trends in coding and computer programming. We close with a few random questions and our "Are they dead or alive?" game.

Episode 41: March 2023

Neil is joined by Cody and KVV for this month's Nest Pod for some Year of the Blade discussion, the Are They Still Alive game, KVV's turn in the Funk tank, and Neil quizzing the two Montana natives with some trivia about their home state. Plus the latest Refuge awards and Roost events updates.

Episode 40: February 2023

Ever wonder what doesn't make the final episodes of Tourist Sauce? Well, we've created over an hour of bonus content from last year's trip to Oregon available to our Nest Members. It's raw footage from throughout the trip without music or much editing, but it's a peek behind the curtain for those wondering what gets left in the edit bay.

What is the Nest? It's a community of avid golfers and NLU fans around the world with access to a monthly pod, bonus content (like this), early access to sign up for NLU events, and other benefits throughout the year. 

If you want to get involved, visit the join page: 

No Laying Up goes to a lot of places, near and far - here are a few one-off videos from our travels that don't fit into other series.

All the other golf and golf adjacent videos from No Laying Up!

The Nest

Writing