Episode 11: Chandler Withington - Ryder Cup Preview & Life as a Golf Artist

This week we welcome Chandler Withington to the Top 100 Clubhouse. Chandler has worked as the assistant pro at Seminole, the number one assistant at Merion, and was head pro at Hazeltine National during the Ryder Cup 2016. We discuss what it takes to win a Ryder Cup, his good friend Davis Love, and his new career as a licensed artist for the PGA, the USGA and the R&A. 

Top 100 Clubhouse is brought to you by Eden Mill, St Andrews. 

Transcript

James Henderson
 0:00:00
 The Top 100 Clubhouse podcast is brought to you by Eden Mill. Bring the tradition of distilling whiskey and gin back to St Andrews, the home of golf. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Top 100 Clubhouse, the ultimate podcast for golf course enthusiasts worldwide. I'm your host James Henderson and we're about to embark on a journey through lush fairways and breathtaking landscapes, as well as delving deep into the minds of fascinating individuals from every corner of the golfing universe. Get ready to explore the world's top golf courses through the eyes of those who know them best. This week on the Top 100 Clubhouse we have Chandler Withington. Chandler was head pro at Hazeltine for the 2016 Ryder Cup and we go into what it takes to win a Ryder Cup and also him meeting his hero, Davis Love. Enjoy. Hello Chandler, how are you?

Chandler Withington
 0:01:03
 James I'm wonderful. Great to meet you at the Walker Cup and great to be on with you now. That was good fun wasn't it? The Walker Cup was a hell of a place. I love the Walker Cup and for it to be at St. Andrews, for the weather to be the way that it was, was magical. I've been looking forward to getting over there for so many years and it didn't disappoint.

James Henderson
 0:01:26
 Yeah, it's a special tournament and so many good people around as well. The fact that you're just walking on the fairways watching these best golfers, amateur golfers in the world is amazing.

Chandler Withington
 0:01:37
 I think that's really it. I've told a number of people for years now, I'm like, look, everyone talks about going to the majors and the majors are great. The Masters, US Open, Open Championship, PGA. You should want to go to those, but you should really want to go to Walker Cups. You shouldn't miss Walker Cups because of what you just said. It's the intimacy that you get that you don't get in the major. I've heard so many people say, like, you know, the 150th Open at San Andreas, it was great because of the atmosphere, but you really couldn't get that close to the golf. Whereas, you know, Walker Cup, we're walking right down the middle of the fairways behind these great players like Gordon Sargent or Preston Summerhay is on down the list that will eventually get to the PGA Tour, European Tour, et cetera. You're watching them up close and personal with barely a gallery rope and it's pretty special.

James Henderson
 0:02:26
 Yeah, well, when you can just walk across fairways, it's wild.

Chandler Withington
 0:02:30
 Well, especially for me, like I've still never played the old course. And so for me to walk right down the middle of the fairways, get close to the greens and really get a feel for the golf course with your feet, you know, hopefully that'll really prepare me for the time that I do get to come back and play.

James Henderson
 0:02:45
 Well, when you do come back, you're going to have to get in touch with me. We'll get you some good golf courses. So tell me how you got into golf.

3
 0:02:52
 What's your?

Chandler Withington
 0:02:53
 Yeah, I think my introduction to golf was more of an accident than anything. I grew up on the East Coast of the United States here in New Jersey. I grew up playing baseball and hockey. Those were my first two loves. And looking back, I don't remember having a single friend that played golf. It just wasn't that sport for young kids at the time. This was the late 80s, early 90s, still five, six, seven years away from Tiger Woods. My impression of golf growing up was, well, that's the sport that old men start playing when they can't run, jump, catch, swim. When all the athleticism leaves you, you start playing golf. We had an extra neighbor who was a fire chief. He smoked cigars in his driveway, and he's the only person that I knew that played golf. That was just my impression. It was like, okay, when you get to the twilight of your life And you really can't do anything else. That's when you start playing well, we ended up going down to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina the spring of 1992 at our spring break and We met our you know, the Gulf more golfing side of our family my cousins and uncles that play golf We were actually staying in a house on a Harbor town it was the week of the PGA Tour the MCI Heritage at the time was going on, and the PGA Tour of golf was going on in our backyard, and my cousins who were around my age were saying, all right, let's go watch golf. I'm like, nah, you go have fun, I'll pass. You know, I'd rather sit inside on a nice sunny day. But I think for anyone who's watched professional golf live, you know, the first time you see it live, it hits you and it captures you, especially when you go sit behind a Par 5 tee like we did and watch these guys hit drivers. This was right around the time that metal was coming into the game. You still had some players playing persimmon, 1992 I remember Bernhard Langer hitting a persimmon driver. He won the masters the next year. So, but a younger player came around and hit a persimmon driver out of sight. And he was younger back then it was late 20s. And he made it look so easy. It sounded like a gunshot and the ball just went forever. And I was like, you know, we've never seen anything like that. You know, I want to do that. Can I ever learn to do that? So we followed him around the rest of the week because he was the young player. I learned later he was the local favorite. And he ended up winning the tournament, so he immediately became my favorite player. And driving home to New Jersey from that trip, I remember telling my dad, you know, golf, you know, that wouldn't be the worst thing. And I came home, didn't know, again, didn't, my family didn't play, my dad didn't play. So my education as a kid was I would VCR that player whenever I saw him on TV in contention tournament, I'd turn on the VCR and record and I would rewind and watch and I'd go in the backyard and just try to imitate what I saw, you know, his golf swing. And my favorite player growing up was Davis Love. That's who I wanted to be like. And I've tried to emulate ever since. That was my start. I got into caddying not long after at Somerset Hills in New Jersey. And eventually went off to a professional golf management school, which is something that, if you had asked me at the age of 12, golf's gonna be your life. I hadn't even touched a golf club to that point. So it was a great accident to end up in the game of golf, but I'm so glad that life took me to Harbour Town in the spring of 92 the way that it did.

James Henderson
 0:06:09
 It seems to be a reoccurring theme that a few of the people that I interview who have gone on to do great things within the golf game tend to be people that didn't grow up around golf or I don't know whether that's added a drive in them to be able to, I don't know, appreciation for the game greater than someone who grew up with it? Not sure.

Chandler Withington
 0:06:31
 I listened to your podcast with Bob Ford and Bob had a similar story. I know Bob's story, I haven't spent time around him, but maybe, you know, everyone has a different journey and the light bulb goes on for people at different times. But I think it's more the people that, as you go along with golf, that surround you, that feed into you. You talked about, you know, by listening to Bob Ford, talk about Lou Worsham. And Lou Worsham fed into Bob Ford, and I had people like that in my life that helped grow your love of the game. So I think there's finding the game, but then there's the people around you who just help you develop that love. And maybe that's, you know, where Bob and I both got lucky.

James Henderson
 0:07:10
 Who was the people that, who was the person or people that helped you develop your game?

Chandler Withington
 0:07:16
 Well, it's a long list, right? I think when you look back, you realize how many people had their hand in it. But the first person was the pastor of our church, a man named Mike Grubbs. He was, you know, again, we don't want to know so many people who play golf. But Mike, he made me my first set of clubs and took me down to golf camps in Pinehurst and was that guy that first kind of helped me understand why this game is so great and then I got so lucky to work for really a disciple of Bob Ford, a former assistant from Oakmont. His name was Greg Lecker and I found Greg at Canoe Brook in New Jersey when I was just starting my summer internships from college. I ended up going back and spending three straight summers with Greg and I think as I still look back now 25 plus years, 30 years in golf, Craig is easily still my biggest influence and most impactful person who shaped me as a golf professional and person who loves the game.

James Henderson
 0:08:12
 So, you went to work at Seminole. How long were you at Seminole? I got to spend a few winters at Seminole

Chandler Withington
 0:08:20
 and it happened right after I got out of college. I went to a small school in North Carolina called Campbell. It's just above Pinehurst. And I went back. Well, I didn't want to go back to New Jersey coming out of school. I think my mindset was like I had so much fun in school, I didn't really want to grow up yet. And so I didn't. I moved just up the road to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I had a great job at Governor's Club coming out of school. But a couple of summers out of school, I went in for a performance review. I got handed a two-week check and I got laid off from my first job. And that was the moment that I kind of had to step back and look at my life and, you know, as being a golf professional, who I want to be and am I ready to assert myself and find out if this is really who I am. And luckily I got the opportunity to go back to New Jersey, work some more for Greg Klecker at Canoe Brook. And again, Greg had worked for Bob Ford at Oakmont and Bob Ford had just started spending winters at Seminole a few years prior. And without even really getting an interview or a call, remember Greg just said, hey, you're gonna go spend the winter at Seminole with Bob. You know, I just come off, almost getting knocked out of the industry and here I am now. I'm going to spend a couple of winters around one of the best. And that was such a blessing just to watch that man operate on a daily basis, both as a player, a teacher, a mentor, a coach. But as a golf professional who has to handle so many different personalities that come through the turnstile at Seminole, Bob has so much grace. And I think, I listened to him again on your pod, when I listened to him talk about his time around Arnold Palmer, Arnold had that gift of just making everyone feel important, the people that were right in front of them. And I'm glad I got to be around Bob for a couple of winters, it served me well.

James Henderson
 0:10:20
 It's a great skill to have, especially in golf pro jobs. He's an amazing man. So, you spent a couple of summers with Bob at Seminole and then you moved to Merion,

Chandler Withington
 0:10:34
 was it? I did. You know, we spent a couple of winters at Bob and, you know, Bob was really hitting his stride, if he wasn't there already, with how many assistants he was sending out for

7
 0:10:48
 Mogmont.

Chandler Withington
 0:10:49
 And then, to add Seminole to it, you think you kind of knew if you got to spend time around Bob, it was going to prepare you to be a head professional. And I felt like I was heading down that road. And in the winter of 2006, I was expecting to go back to Florida. If Bob said, look, I think you've got all you need from me. I think you're ready to go and become a head professional. I had started interviewing for head professional jobs. And then at the same time, a friend of mine just down the road in Philadelphia, I was in New Jersey for the winter, called me. His name was Kevin Muldoon. Kevin was heading out to become the first assistant at Shinnecock Hills, but he was leaving Marion and the other two assistants were leaving Marion. And he kind of walked me into the interview with Scott Nye, the pro at Marion. And, and, um, I think while I felt like maybe I was ready to be a head pro, going to be the lead assistant at Marion was going to further prepare me for that. And to get a chance to even work at a place like Marion, you know, who wouldn't take advantage of that. So, uh, it was the great, uh, detour, if you even would call it that. And, um, you know, get to spend, I think my mindset going in was, well, I'm going to be here for a few years and, uh, and I'm ready to go and then off I'll sail. And I think the harsh reality sets in James that when you're trying to get to the top of the mountain and being a head professional, there are only so many opportunities. It's pretty wide berth when you want to be an assistant. There's a lot of opportunity there, but the only one person who can get to the top of the hill is a professional. And as good as I thought I was, all of a sudden you find yourself competing against the first assistant from Oakmont and the first assistant from Winkfoot and Shinnecock and all these other great clubs. And it's real competitive. And I think when I thought it was going to take me just a few years, I ended up being at Merion for six until I could really figure out the combination to the safe and breaking through and getting the opportunity that we did at Hazeltine in the fall of 2012.

James Henderson
 0:12:41
 The amazing thing about you, I can imagine it must have been quite difficult for you because you're going from Seminole to Merion to then going for a head pro job and there's very few head pro jobs in the world, let alone in the US, that would compete against working at Seminole and Merion. So did you have an expectation of quality of golf course or standing that you wanted to uphold?

Chandler Withington
 0:13:09
 Well, I think you're actually touching on something that's very valid. I think a lot of other assistants that have followed me and been at similar clubs have the same mindset. Is I think my biggest fear was having worked at some of these great places is that I'm gonna go to a place where I'm not as excited about playing the golf course as I was at those great places. That was really it for me. It was not the stature of the place, you know, top 100 or a championship. Yeah, I was happy to go to the Fixer Upper. I just wanted to be excited about the golf course. I wanted to know that if I were in my office and it were pouring rain outside that I would still want to go play the golf course. That was my fear was I'm going to take one of these jobs and not be excited about the golf course. So I actually interviewed for a number of smaller jobs that I was just excited about, some in Philadelphia, that I was just excited about the golf course. And I really hadn't figured out how to communicate who I was and how I could help that club yet until I got some help. I had a great coach who came along at the end of the road here, helped me understand how to kind of put those things all in a line to where it was a fitted Hazel team. But that was, I think what you hit on is just, that was my fear. It's not so much the standing of the golf course, but it's just wanting to look forward to playing that golf course all the time, because once you get to a place, that's where you're probably going to be for a long time.

James Henderson
 0:14:32
 Yeah, absolutely. And what did you offer Hazel team that they were looking for when you managed to...

Chandler Withington
 0:14:41
 Yeah, I think I actually asked that question in the first interview, was, you brought me out here from Philadelphia, you gave me an interview, you obviously think I can help you in some way. What is it that I can bring to here? And I remember the response was along the lines of, well, you know, you've worked at some great places, Seminole and Marion. We want you to kind of bring the eyes and ears that you've had at those two great places and come here and continue to help us grow. And I was interviewing at Hazelteen in the year that they were celebrating their 50th anniversary. And look at how much they've accomplished in 50 years. They're actually still a club that's growing and evolving and cementing their legacy and their identity. So they wanted me to kind of bring those eyes and ears in. They liked that I'd been a part of preparing for major championships. We have, you know, we've gone through preparing for the 2013 US Open at Marion. And I think having someone who's been around some of that with the USGA and the PGA was gonna help specifically with the Ryder Cup only four years away with the time that I was interviewing. And they liked the network of, again, working at places like Seminole Marion, working for the Masters. The network that I was gonna potentially bring in there would help, and I think they also felt like some of my best years were ahead of me. They knew there was gonna be a learning curve, which I would tell you there certainly was. In not being a head professional before, they knew there was gonna be a learning curve with that. But I think they also felt like I could be molded and find myself. I was potentially replacing a man who had been in the seat for 37 years in Mike Schultz at Hazeltine. And I was only 34 years old at the time. I hadn't lived as long as he'd been the pro there. So, you know, they bet on me. I think I remember, you know, hearing Bob Ford talk about it in a podcast. It's like Oakmont bet on Bob Ford and Tim Curo and the committee at Hazeltine took a bet on me. I was in the finalists. That was sure from the farthest, sure thing that there was. But they took a chance and I'd like to think that I helped them out for the nine years that I was there.

James Henderson
 0:16:40
 kind of reach the peak in the Ryder Cup, hosting a Ryder Cup. From an outside point of view, you might have had the different experiences that getting a 20 handicap at a 2 or something, but the... just before we move to the Ryder Cup, I want to ask, what's the difference between being a head pro at a major tournament and being a first assistant at something like the PGA? So, two major tournaments and then having two different roles.

Chandler Withington
 0:17:16
 Well, I think when you're a head professional at a place that's going to host a major championship, I think the first thing you realize is that it's not all on you. So you've got the chairman for the tournament from the club, who's really the point person of the club. You have the director from either the U.S. chair, the PGA, And those two people are in constant contact and communication and really doing all the heavy lifting and planning. Really as a professional, you're more in a support role more than anything. So take the Ryder Cup at Hastings National, you had the chairperson, who was Patrick Hunt, working with Jeff Hintz from the PGA. Those two people are really taking a lot of the work. I'm just kind of a, hey, if there's anything you need me to do. More of my role for the Ryder Cup was to just be an ambassador for the tournament, really engage the local community, help them understand they may not even know what the Ryder Cup is. And I did so many talks and presentations on here's what this tournament is and here's why you don't want to miss it. You know, in our tagline, our tagline now, which we laugh about, and you know, I was able to say with a straight face because we believed it, never been done before, was this will only come around once in our lifetime. You know, don't miss it. It's changed. It had never happened before, but we thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, turns out it will be coming back to Hazeltein in 2029. But really, I think that was my hat was I don't have to do all the planning for this, that there's so many people that are more involved in that event than I am. I just need to help tell the story that when people are at Hazeltine and guests are playing golf, it's some of the questions we talked about before we got on the air, which is, what are the logistics? How is this gonna look and feel if I come out and attend? What do I need to know? And answering so many of those type of questions and being so well-versed in the history of the tournament was really my sweet spot. So I was all too happy to talk about that event, you know, for the years leading up to it.

James Henderson
 0:19:18
 From a club point of view, what were the complexities that you had from hosting Tournament? You obviously talked about engaging the local population, but outside of that as

Chandler Withington
 0:19:32
 well, what other things did you find difficult? Well, I think before I got there and I got to Hazeltine just after the 2012 Ryder Cup in Chicago, the executive committee had gone to Medina in 2012 to really research what are the logistics of this event. You've got 40, 50,000 people coming to your property, how are we going to get all these people into the property and off the property? But I think Hazeltine really started looking at the fan experience in Chicago. Chicago had a lot of traffic challenges around Medina. So Hazeltine was trying to look at how do we flow the buses? Where are they going to come from? How are the people going to get in and out of here? And thankfully Hazeltine's really kind of located in a corner of Minneapolis that gave a lot of free flow to get people in and out of there. They didn't want people to be standing in bus lines for hours and waiting in traffic and missing the golf and panicking because they can't get a seat on the grandstand that they want. But then also once on the property, what is the fan experience? And I give the club a lot of credit for having the foresight. They actually changed the routing for the Ryder Cup in a unique way that they could. It would only work for the Ryder Cup, but they kind of made a crossover there at holes four and 13, where they kind of split off the last five holes. And that was done specifically for the fan experience of what are the last five holes and how are people going to see that kind of golf for the last five holes that the matches get really tight and the seventh hole ended up being a better hole than than 16 for that right so seven became 16. So for them to see that routing I think was really the hidden genius and to pull it off the way that they did. I think for the years following the Ryder Cup, every time somebody was like, well I was here, I said, what was your experience like? And it was all positive. They got to see what they wanted to see and of course you can't replicate the energy and the excitement and the moments that a match like Patrick Reed versus Rory McIlroy gives you on a Sunday morning or the weather or the outcome. So all of that plays into it, right? I think Hazeltine Nationals history in major championships, if you went back, you know, 30, 40 years prior, the 1970 US Open, the first round started with 30 to 40 mile an hour wins and everyone's shooting 85. And it really handicapped Hazeltine for a number of years because the players, you know, Dave Hill's like, what are we doing here? It took Hazeltine about 20 years to recover and get another chance with the 1991 US Open. So when weather and things like that and the outcome go your way, I mean, look at, you know, Ryder Cup's coming back to Hazeltine. It clearly went their way that week. And those are the things that are so out of, there are things that you can't control, but there's so many things that you can't. And when the things that you can't go your way, it's, you know, you just kind of thank the gods, don't you?

James Henderson
 0:22:26
 Do you think the USGA and the PHA like the fact that Rhys Jones is involved within the club?

Chandler Withington
 0:22:34
 Well, I think what I know about majors these days, architecture is becoming more of the talking point. And look, there's an arms race going on here in the states isn't there between Gilhans and Ingegreen and Cora Crenshaw. But look at you know we're not coming to us yeah well look just where major championships are getting played. Oak Hill just had Ingegreen renovation. LACC just had a Gilhans renovation right. Pioneer just had a Cora Crenshaw renovation for next year for the US Open. So all these great major venues, Baltus Royal just got upgraded and Congressional just got upgraded and Medina is going through it. And you know, you can go on down the list, Oakland Hills, right? So I think when you look at, if you go back to when Hazeltine started in 1962, Robert Trent Jones was touching so many of the US Open golf courses at the time. And Hazeltine was founded by a former USGA president, Totten Heffelfinger. He was able to get Hazeltine kind of in that lineup at a time that not a lot of new clubs were getting at it. I think when I look back at US Open history, I think it was really just Hazeltine and Atlanta Athletic that were able to get into that lineup in the 60s and 70s. And so you had Robert Trent Jones take the golf course for so long, headed down to his son, Reese, who's handled the golf course since. But don't know if you saw the news, the recent news with Hazel team, they've kind of put Davis Love as the architect on record. And I don't know what that looks like, but Davis is gonna be the next person to put his hands on the golf course. When and what and all the details, I don't think anyone knows yet, but they'll make a change direction. I think that's just in line with what we're seeing with major championship venues. It's just the way that golf has been is probably not the way that golf is going to look like for the next 50 years. We're all waiting to see what's going to happen with the golf ball and how is that going to impact how the game is played at the highest levels and what does a championship test look like. But I think aside from the golf course, what makes Hazeltine such an attractive venue for both the USGA and the PGA is just the land. And what Hazeltine has in spades that so many other clubs would love is they, when they opened the golf course in the 60s, they just, they grabbed all the land. There was so much out there. They went so far away from the city where no one was. It was hard to recruit members, you know, because you were so far out there. It was hard in the 60s, but over time has become one of their biggest assets. It's just the flexibility of the land because it's become, look at the Ryder Cup, doesn't fit in many places anymore.

James Henderson
 0:25:22
 Do you know the acreage of the property?

Chandler Withington
 0:25:26
 I think Kayslateen was somewhere around 750 to 800 acres, just total property. That's a lot of property. It's a lot. But take, I think, infrastructure for the Ryder Cup in 2016 was something like over a million square feet of temporary infrastructure. I imagine by the time it comes back in 29, you know, it could potentially double. So, look at these first D-Grand lanes that you saw in Paris, and we've seen what they're building in Rome. The Ryder Cup just continues to go like this, and I think the PGA looked at it and said, we've got a place that this fits, and the results and the weather, and the way the golf course was set up was so well done that we'd be smart to come back here again.

James Henderson
 0:26:08
 I remember watching that, you mentioned it earlier, Patrick Reid-Roy McIlroy match and thinking wow this is something special, there's a different atmosphere in the air. And I know this is controversial but I do think that it's sad that Patrick Reid's not going to be at the Ryder Cup. He's like a pantomime villain in the UK. It's great. I really enjoy watching it. That's one of the things the Ryder Cup provides. It's a story. It's almost like a pantomime in a way. It's probably more engaging than a standard tournament. Why do you think the Ryder Cup has that ability? And if it's to do with match play,

Chandler Withington
 0:26:56
 why is there not more match play played? Well, I think some things are tough to replicate. Yeah, look, they've tried with the President's Cup, haven't they? Right? So the President's Cup started in the 90s, but you really need to have history and a rivalry that there's a chance that either side could win. And look, we saw that with the Ryder Cup. Jack Nicklaus saw it with the Ryder Cup. He goes, look, this thing's gonna go away unless the other side has a chance to win. And maybe the USA bit off more than they could chew in taking on all of continental Europe, but it made a shift, didn't it? You know, when people like Seve Ballesteros was able to start getting involved from Spain. And now you kind of look at the President's Cup, it's really been dominated by the USA for the last 20 years. So when you kind of have one side controlling all of it, you lose interest. But with the Ryder Cup now, both sides can win, right? It tends to go back and forth. And USA is still trying to figure out a way to win overseas for the first time in 30 years. But I think what makes it so intriguing to your point is, when we go to the Masters, you know, you may be rooting for Rory McIlroy and I may be rooting for an American Jordan Spieth You know anybody else But when we go to a Ryder Cup, we're all rooting for the side So the cheers get louder the moments get greater you're playing for your country slash nation, right? So there's a little more on the line you're playing for 11 other people that you're you're on a team with So we're all rooting for a side and to the comment you just made a minute ago, I think people may not ever root for Patrick Reed or a villain like that individually, but put them in the stars and stripes. And we love, you know, all of a sudden the things that drove us nuts, Patrick Reed's swaggered memory unit comes on and says, I'm a top five player in the world. You're like, stop it.

3
 0:28:45
 But you're on our team?

Chandler Withington
 0:28:46
 All right, let's go. And I think, you know, those villains that, I mean, look, Ian Poulter used to get under our skin for years. I'm sure Seve had the same effect and Paul Weisinger probably had the same effect, you know, to European fans. You need those types of players. And I think, look, it's controversial to pick Justin Thomas, but you need those types of players on your team that, one, I think, you know, Patrick Reed had the swagger to say, look, put me out first. I want to go first and for me being close to it in 2016 I realized there's not a lot of players that want that moment they really felt that they're happy to play in the middle there are very few players that are conditioned to say give me I want to go first Graham McDowell did such a great job in 2014 you think about those players that sometimes play in that first match Paul Eisner was like you know put me out first thing at 70, you know, as a rookie, I want it. They're rare breeds and when they come along I think you try to keep them on your team as long as you can. You know, look, I think Poulter got picked for his last four Ryder Cups because he may never win an individual major but he's so, his DNA is so well built for match play and the Ryder Cup is not for everyone. I would say that just being close to it. There are some players that just, they may do well individually, but the Ryder Cup is a different culture in that it's sink or swim and you find out pretty quick which one you are.

James Henderson
 0:30:13
 Yeah, no, it's quite an amazing, and especially with the atmosphere, a lot of these players won't have experienced the chanting on the first tee in their first ever Ryder Cup match. They will never have experienced that. So when the course was set up at Hazeltine, it was set up for essentially the US Bombers, right? Was that a game plan from the start? Yeah, I think, well, I think for me personally,

Chandler Withington
 0:30:39
 it became very personal for me when they announced Davis Love was gonna be our captain. I cared about the Ryder Cup, but then once they announced Davis, I was, you know, he's coming off of a really hard loss in Chicago in 2012. So, um, my mindset shifted into what is he going to be asking me about? How can I help? And, uh, my family had just given me the last 20 years of Ryder Cup on DVD, uh, the winter prior to 2014. And I went about just immersing myself and I would have been doing this stuff anyway, probably. Uh, but I went about watching the last 20 years of Ryder Cup and trying to really understand why we keep losing what is Europe doing and it just watching you know something started sticking out at me and then I started putting numbers to what I was seeing and that really started sticking out and by the time Davis showed up I had my homework done and at the same time we had a group start kind of wooing the PGA, they were called Scouts Inc, with their own studies and findings that were very similar to mine. And I think Davis's strength in doing it again was he was willing to acknowledge things they could do differently or better. And at the time he was kind of saying, look, we really haven't played the numbers game, maybe it's time we start paying attention to it. And Paul McGinley wrote a fantastic book, which almost kind of gives us a little bit of why that did so well in 2014 called Landscape for Success. And Paul McGinley had a great approach to how he set up Glen Eagles. It's really to the strengths of his team and to the weaknesses of the Americans. And we tend to see this go back and forth. I think we're seeing the rough is getting grown up at Marcus Simone, right? So with Hazeltine we're kind of looking at, look, yes, we do have some guys that can absolutely send it But what really got me surprised Davis was how many great wedge players he had from 75 to 125 that year yet Phil Mickelson, you know speef cooch Zach Johnson, there were a number of other great wedge players from 75 to 125 that Initially going into it his mindset was we're gonna play the part 5 shorter To try and make more birdies And I think what we tried to help them understand was your best chance of making birdies in some of these part fives is to really stretch it out. Paisley had three holes that he could play over 600 yards, was to really stretch it out into like, let's make this a three shot hole. It's gonna be at your advantage. And once they started understanding the collective strength of the team by the numbers, it really then shifted, how do they select the golf course?

James Henderson
 0:33:11
 That's amazing, your research. So what other parts did you find that Europe were better

Chandler Withington
 0:33:18
 or that America were better within that team? Well, I think when you look back at the one prior, if you looked at Glenn Eagles from 2014, I think Davis's initial reaction was, we just need to get a little better at alternate shot. I think from a 10,000 foot view, that was pretty obvious americans a loss of the one and also shot at lenny goals as a look at the issue goes on the numbers they're not that bad and also shot on par threes and fours america was actually even if not a little better uh... that they don't have shot in europe was but on par five second annihilated as if you can understand why palm again we put the blocks down at five oh five on holds to sixteen eighteen And he had a great driver with a great mid-iron player. So I think he had Rory driving for Sergio, Stenson for Rose, Duboussin for McDowell, and it was either, somebody was with Kimer, Donaldson, Jamie Donaldson was with Martin Kimer. So he had a guy that like on the 16th hole at Glen Eagles, there's a bunker out there at about 280 that they could fly and then the great mid-arm player would get them home in two. Whereas the Americans kind of were sending out a five-guard basketball team, essentially just as far as length. So I think on those holes, you know, we had, like, you know, Jim Furyk was driving for Hunter Mahan, for example. And somebody was driving, maybe Cooch was driving for somebody else, and we couldn't carry that bunker at 280. It was cold, a little bit of wind, and we kept driving into the bunker and then we had to lay up and we're making par or bogey or worse and losing to the fours, right? So again, McGinley had a very intentional setup to get his players to understand, here's how we're gonna play these par fives. And again, when I started looking at the numbers, like that's the Ryder Cup, was par fives an alternate shot? Like it just, that ended it right there. And getting Davis to understand, all right, now let's play it backwards. If you're going to have a pair like Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson, where do we want Zach hitting the third shot from? Let's ask Zach, where does he want to play that shot from? So we had a contingency plan for if the wind is blowing 30 miles an hour out of the south, we wake up, you know, if it's, we've had six inches of rain overnight, the ball's not going to roll. You know, we can control where we put down the team markers. That's what the home team gets to do. So I think it was just giving a little more intentional thoughts of like, look, we have great players. I think USA's mindset for so many years was, we just show up and we play golf, we're gonna win. Europe's pretty good.

5
 0:35:53
 We need to give a little more thought to this.

Chandler Withington
 0:35:54
 Let's actually be intentional on what do we have within our team? If we're gonna pick players, let's do it with some intent on who we're going to pair them with and how are they going to play this golf course. Again, there are only so many things that you can't control. After that, you actually have to go out and hit the shots, but you can potentially set yourself up for success. So I think somebody said it recently, I think the great test of a Ryder Cup is can you win on the road because it's not set up to your advantage, it's set up to their team's advantage. Maybe only, maybe almost too much to where we really haven't had a close Ryder Cup since 2012. I get the feeling that we're coming into one here in a couple weeks, but it may have become too much of an advantage that the home teams have really figured out how to set it up for their advantage. And you know, the Ryder Cup is the best when it's close. It's suffocating. No, it's so good. It's suffocating when it's close. So now I've actually like my mindset with Ryder Cup is like, I really don't even care who wins. I just want it to get weird on Sunday.

James Henderson
 0:36:58
 Yeah, that Hazel Titan, not Hazel Titan, that Miracle Medina, that was, yeah, I've watched that video about a hundred times. Always pops up in my Sky Golf. Anyway, so obviously they're going to tighten the course this week. Marco Simone and Europe have got a bit of form coming in. What do you think about America's chances?

Chandler Withington
 0:37:26
 Well, I mean, every time they head over there on paper, you go, yeah, look at who they got. This shouldn't be that close. And that's where Europe thrives. They know that. They know that's the mindset coming in. I think sometimes what's really tough for America, look at you know, Zach Johnson's put himself out on a ledge here with some of his picks, right, is I think sometimes that you know Americans play with the weight of expectation and Europe loves the underdog card, they've been playing it for 30 years ever since Jaclyn took over, right, is they love to be like, look, everyone thinks they're gonna win, you know, so we get to go out there. And I think one of the great chapters in Mick Inley's book was excitement, not fear. And Europe tends to play with that excitement and that joy. And it's an opportunity for them. Whereas Americans feel like, well, the only thing we can do here this week is lose. And that's the great mental challenge is can you play can you play to the level that you're expected to when you're expected to win. I think that's been the real hurdle for America for for 30 years especially when we had Tiger Woods right they have Tiger you know that was Tiger was a like a bull seeing red you know if you gave a player like you know John Rom you know in a singles match against Tiger in 2018 like I get a chance to beat the great Tiger Woods in a singles match, but like that is such a like on Toro You know for a Spanish player like that, so I think You know you these things they don't get played on paper you know the Ryder Cup doesn't care that Brian Harman's the open champion or that Wyndham Clark is the US Open champion like that is That's just more gas in the tank for Europe. You know, when they get a chance to have this great stage to show that they're equal, if not better players, especially in this format of match play. Yeah, the narrative feeds very well into how they are motivated as players. Just going back to something that you mentioned earlier, but you speaking to Davis Love and becoming friends with Davis,

James Henderson
 0:39:29
 that must have been quite an exhilarating experience from the first person that really got you into it to then him actually now becoming the architect, probably the course you spent the most years. Is that quite a, I don't know how to describe it, it's almost manifested by you. It's quite amazing.

Chandler Withington
 0:39:57
 It is. It is. I remember sitting in my office in February 2015, Tim Roseport, who's passed away since, remembered me from my time at Seminole, and he texted me late one night. I was the only person still in the office to say, look, I remember you from your time down here. Your story and your appointment with Davis, you deserve to know they're gonna name him as captain on Monday. And I looked at that text for 15 minutes. James, I think there were times along the way where I would find myself walking to my car going, is this really happening? I can't believe this is happening. And there were other moments where I would walk to my car and be like, I was made to be in this moment. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. I think that the next fall, I was in New York City for Davis Love's Hall of Fame induction in New York City. And in Davis' speech, he talked about, if you play golf long enough, things will come around full circle. If you just kind of keep your eyes open. The 2016 Ryder Cup was a collision of my life in golf to that point. I mean, look, Tom Lehman was the first professional golfer I ever met, who's from Minnesota, was the first assistant captain named. There were so many things along that line, which is confirmation that I was at the right place at the right time. And sometimes all the stars line up and 2016 was one of those years for me. Quite amazing. So moving on from the Ryder Cup,

James Henderson
 0:41:24
 you decided to step down as head pro at Hazeltone, want to spend more time with your family. Is that because the job was so encompassing? And why is it so encompassing if it is?

Chandler Withington
 0:41:49
 Being a golf pro, I think first it's a labor of love with the game and the people that play it. And I've said for years, I think you get into the golf profession because you love the game. You stay because you love sharing it with other people. And that's what applied to me. I think when I was an assistant at Marion, I met my wife in Philadelphia, but coming up through Seminole and Canoobarook, and when you're young and single, like there's nowhere else I wanted to be. I didn't want to go home at the end of the night. I'd play golf till dark or stay at the club till dark and wake up the next morning ready to do it. But as time goes along and you add people to your life in such a great way. My wife and now we have three girls, three daughters that are now 12, 7, 4. The expectations of your time now get spread out a little wider and it's tougher to put in those long hours and those long days knowing that, you know, there are people that are missing you on the other end. I think just the realization that I got to James was the summer of 21. I don't know if you've ever watched the movies Back to the Future, the whole series, right? I was watching Back to the Future that summer with my oldest daughter, and Marty McFly ends up back in 1955 and accidentally interrupts his family's story. And as time goes along, he has this picture with his brother and his sister. He's getting erased from the photo because the story is now changing and he's no longer in it and he's panicking and trying to get George McFly to step up and knock out Biff and put the whole thing back together again. And I think what just slowly started to dawn on me was just looking at my wife's Instagram that summer was, you know, there's so many pictures of her and the girls and I'm not in it because I'm at work. Look, golf is a game that when the sun is up and the weather is warm, people are going to play it. And the expectation of the golf professionals, they're going to be there. And I just had that inner tug of war that summer of, is this me for another 10, 20 years? And will I look back with regret that I missed? My daughter at the time was already nine, 10, you know, I've already, you know, another nine years, she's going to be off to college and she's gone. And, uh, I'd seen a statistic recently that, you know, as a parent, about 90% of the time that you spend with your kid will be from ages 18 and under once they go off to college and start their life, you're lucky to get 10% of that. And, um, just that realization, you know, my wife and I have in serious talks that summer about who are we and where are we going? And getting to that fall of 2021, that was a difficult decision because it it meant giving us something that I love for people that I love. And also just the complete fear of what else can I do? Being fully transparent was we didn't really have a plan. It was just more of an intentional, we're going to put the family first with this, but I was able to get to a place of peace of being like, look, I've had a blessed road. What the game has given me as a golf professional is more than I will ever give it. That was hard to let go, but it was the right thing for our family. Two years later now, I don't have any regrets about that decision. Surely there are so many things that I miss. I miss the people. I miss the game. I don't play as much as I did. I miss the staff and just all the day-to-day stuff that you deal with, all those little moments that you celebrate with people, not just the really great ones, like somebody, a birth of a baby or a wedding or somebody's lowest score or a hole-in-one or a club championship, whatever those things are. But I think what I also just started to realize as a golf professional is you grieve with these families because they've become a part of your life. And when they lose someone, it feels like you lost somebody in your own family. So I enjoyed being in the crosshairs of all of those different relationships for as many years as I was. But I just was able to wake up, I think, luckily in time that if I had to choose one road from here on in, it was husband and father.

3
 0:46:04
 Yeah, absolutely.

James Henderson
 0:46:06
 So you've started a new project now, not new, but you're doing the Archive 22 as your new business. Explain a bit about it. Well, I think, yeah, I think similar to

Chandler Withington
 0:46:16
 what I shared about my entrant to golf, this venture that we're on right now was not anything that we saw coming. And I would put in the accidental category as well. My first dream, James, growing up, before I even found golf, my dream for years was I wanted to be an architect. And that was all driven by these great trips that I had with my dad as a kid, where he'd take me around the country to these great cathedrals and sports, specifically baseball stadiums, these old relic buildings like Tiger Stadium, the original Tiger Stadium, Candlestick Park, or the Astrodome in Houston, or Wrigley Field, Fenway. You know, I was so captivated by how different all these buildings were. And this was right when Skydome in Toronto was built with a hotel into the stadium. So I was really intrigued by just the future of stadium architecture, Camden Yards, that has been built in Baltimore, which was a throwback, which so many places have followed that blueprint now. I thought I was gonna be a stadium architect was my mindset. And so I was always doing blueprints and architectural tools and engineering going through high school. And then I think rubber met the road and the harsh reality changed. I was not a great student. I met with my guidance counselor. Neither was I, don't worry.

6
 0:47:36
 We all turned out fine.

Chandler Withington
 0:47:37
 But my guidance counselor was kind of in the, hey, I'm glad that you want to be an architect, but we've got to figure out plan B or you don't quite have the grades for it. And thankfully, golf was there and I wouldn't change a thing. I would not. In the fall of 2018, we gave birth, well, I shouldn't say we, it was one person gave birth. My wife gave birth to our third daughter, Charlotte, and everything went smooth, but on our ship home from the hospital, she started experiencing some chest pain and tightness and wasn't quite sure what was going on. And thankfully, I think, like listening to your gut on do you lay for it, lay up or go for it on a par five, she said, you know, I'm gonna call my doctor. This doesn't feel right. And thankfully we went back to an emergency room, they ran some tests and they discovered a blood clot in her lung.

5
 0:48:29
 Which is a widow maker.

Chandler Withington
 0:48:30
 Pulmonary embolism were two words that I'd never heard before in my life. Thankfully, they were able to get a rush to a downtown hospital, treated. Everything's fine, a week later we were able to go home, but we're all pretty shook up in the process. And I think I usually am traveling and going to the places that are warm in the winter and traveling with members. That winter I was just going to stay close to home and just be there for her and just the realization of you know life looks a little different than it did before. So Minnesota winters are dark and long and cold and I needed something to do to occupy my mind. I love reading but I wanted to do something else and I thought about getting the drawing board back out for so many years and this just seemed like the right time. So I got the drawing board out and I just started drawing things. It was just a way of killing time. It was a hobby and as time went along I started drawing things that were around the history of the game and the championships and all the things that I was talking about all the time when being at places like Marion and Hazelty and you're talking about the history all the time. And I kind of just wanted to have Wikipedia for my wall and a quick reference to point at something when people come in my office, you know, James, where are you from? And what do you love? And where have you been? And it was more of a conversation starter than anything. And it kind of took on a life of its own, the accidental marketing tour that we had in the summer of 2019. I gave it to Tom Coyne, who was gonna go around America and play all the US Open courses amongst many others. But I just drawn this thing that I called the history of the US Open. I said, look, Tom, I can't sell this, but I can give it away. Here, take some, give it away. And as time kind of went along, people started asking me about it. And we didn't see that as the next step of our career when I stepped away from Hazeltine. But in the fall, the few months after I left Hazeltine, I was helping Shane Ryan write a book on the Ryder Cup. And I sent him this piece that I'd drawn on the Ryder Cup. And he was kind of like, what is this? Explain this. And when I explained it to him, he published an article on Golf Digest on Christmas Eve of 2021. And it was right at that time that we were trying to narrow down what is the next road? And I think the artwork wasn't even in the top 50. But the more we gave it thought, I said, maybe this could be it. And maybe it could allow me to be home as a father and husband in a way that I wasn't before. If we can make this work. And I think my wife kind of essentially gave me the cuticle talk, which is like, you've got one year to make this work. If it's not making money, we've got to figure something else out. But I think it was more of a she believed in me. She believed in us. It's become so much of an us story more than me. And it has kept me at home and around what our girls are doing on a daily basis. And I'm so thankful to be on this journey with her. And more people have come along with it. But, yeah, it was just born of my love for the history of the game and a drawing ability that I had as a kid and just wanted to kind of unearth it and draw things that, again, I was drawing for an audience of one. I was drawing for me. I wanted to just have something that if I was happy with it when I was done, on my wall it went. But what it's really become over time is just, it's a great conversational piece that everyone has a different attachment with these pieces that I'm making, and it's just fun to be a part of it.

James Henderson
 0:52:00
 So, the interesting thing from our point of view is we know at Top 100 Golf Courses that it's not easy to use the logo of a Top 100 Golf Course. So can you explain what happened there and how you've gotten acceptance from all these

Chandler Withington
 0:52:20
 Top Golf Courses that are very protective over their media? Yeah, I just mentioned two words before, Pullman or Amalyst, I never heard those two words before. And when I left Hazeltine, I never heard the words intellectual property before. I knew enough that, again, when I was at Hazeltine, and people were like, well, I wanna buy it. I'm like, well, yeah, all these logos, I don't know how this works, but I'm pretty sure I can't sell this. I can't just take Shinnecock's logo and decide to make money on this. So I called the USGA, I said, look, don't even worry, I'm not selling these out of my basement. I'm gonna give them a little bit. So when I went back to the USGA in the spring of 2022, I said, look, we've kind of joked about this before, but how does this look? These pieces with logos, is there any way for us to even move forward with this? They said, well, the header is about all we own, US Open. That's our piece. All 51 other logos don't belong to us. So you're gonna have to go get permission from all these clubs. Yeah, I think there's two roads, James, right? And one is very tempting. One is don't ask anyone and just go. And hope that your phone doesn't ring. Make as much money as you can. Sell as many as you can before you get shut down. You know, my wife and I, that was never on the table. You know, we play a game that you call the rules on yourself when no one's looking. That's not the spirit of the game. If I were to get a call from Marion and be like, what are you doing? I mean, that's a death sentence. In the game of golf, it's like changing your scorecard to the scores table, right? So, so hard swallow, you know, we're gonna have to do this the right way and I don't know how this is gonna go. We may get one yes, we may get 50 no's, but let's at least hit the putt. Let's find out, you know, let's find out. I think what gave us a sense of optimism was when I looked at the US Open clubs, you know, I knew more than half of the golf professionals because of the work that I've been in. So we were able to at least get the conversation. And I think it's a new request that had never been done before to try and get all of these clubs to think the same way and be on the same piece of artwork. It took a lot of groupthink. And you say to everyone, like, look, here's how this agreement is gonna look. You're giving me permission, not ownership. It's a permission. I have no ownership of these logos. They can be rescinded tomorrow if they're not comfortable with how it's going. So there's an amount of trust that's being extended to me. But I think what they discovered as we went along, James, was it's a piece of artwork which celebrates each club's involvement with each championship. What's the PGA Championship, the US Open, the Ryder Cup are the pieces that we have out right now. It's, look, you know, Marion's had it five times and Wingfoot has had it six times and Oakmont has had it nine times. And it started in Newport in 1895, but Aaron Hills and Los Angeles Country Club, they're the new kids on the block, but each of these clubs, it's not a lot of them. There's 51 that have hosted a US Open. I think each club is so proud of their involvement in their association, that championship, and the members at these places, whether it's Midlothian or Glenview in Chicago, or Chambers Bay in Seattle, they're all so proud to have hosted this tournament that when that made sense to them, the opposition to it started to melt away. I think there's a really great, there's a great prominent club just south of us in Chicago that said, look, you know, we've never given commercial use of our logo. That's kind of a non-starter. We don't, we don't do that, but, you know, we're proud of our association with USGA and the US Open, and this is tastefully done. It's well-dotted. You know, if it didn't look good, I don't think they'd be interested, but they felt that it was a very tasteful representation of each club's association with the championship, and the hand-drawn nature of it really set it apart. You know, if it were a digital print, and somebody just copied and pasted the logos on there, typed up all the letters, you know, it probably wouldn't have the appeal that it did, but they understood it was really what it was born of. It was my love letter to the game. It wasn't ever done with this intent of like, well, this is going to be a career. I'm going to drop off a few. But I think once they saw it as a win for their image and their association with the championship, we were able to move forward. It wasn't quick. I would tell you there's probably three to 400 people in my network that every time it got sticky or it came to a halt at a club, inevitably somebody from my life would just raise their hand and be like, I've got it. Let me go in and talk to people. And enough people advocating for it. It was an emotional process. I'd say some days I'd wake up and say like, we're absolutely getting this done. And then the next morning I'd be like, nope, it's all going to fall apart tomorrow. But I think now we're not even a year old with the first piece of the US Open, but I think if you were to ask the clubs, I think each of them would say, we're really happy with how this has gone and how it's represented us and engaged people in the history of the game, especially from the USGA standpoint. In terms of logos, it's a big talking point in golf, which of course is the best logo. What's your favorite? I love, I mean, Merion's always going to be sentimental. I think people point to that as one of the really obvious distinct wicker basket with the scotch broom. But I love things like the Chicago Golf Club, you know, with Far and Shore. I love logos that have that feel of, you know, the Scotland area. But, like, you know, think about Liverpool, like, You'll Never Walk Alone, or Port Marnock had that, like, B-up in their logo. I love logos that have a little bit of that mindset in it. So Chicago Golf, which is one of my favorite golf clubs anyway, I love that logo. And favorite one to draw?

James Henderson
 0:58:11
 Well, I love anything that has detail and complexity,

Chandler Withington
 0:58:14
 you know, like the congressional with the capital logo, anything that has complexity that I can get into with the tip of my pencil, I'm all for. You know, if it's just a couple of interlocking letters that that's not going to take me that long. I love the, you know, give me something that's that's really hard, especially the ones for the Open Championship with all the shields and the detail, you know, something like... Are you going to do an Open Championship one? I have done it, it is done. I read through the Clare Jug this summer and you know, we're going through the same process that we went through with the other three right now and just trying to engage the 14 pastos clubs and do it in a very respectful way, I think again, remember like These lugnuts don't belong to me You know They belong to these clubs and if they're comfortable with how this would work then we'll move forward but if they're not like No hard feelings again that this belongs to them. It does not belong to me. So if you ever see it get out in the marketplace, it'll only be because those clubs saw it in the same light that the other clubs did before.

James Henderson
 0:59:22
 So I think we're probably gonna call it very soon. We've been going for an hour, which is quite impressive. I always end on the same things. I wanna hear your top five favorite golf courses, doesn't have to be five, someone said 13. So I just wanna hear what the golf courses that mean the most to you, that you would go and play if you could only play those courses for the rest

5
 0:59:47
 of your life.

Chandler Withington
 0:59:48
 Yeah, I think that's, there are variations to that question, you just kinda hit on one that I like to ask people a lot. And it kinda reminds me of David McLeod Kid one time was telling me, he goes, the way that you know you're playing a great golf course is if you get to the 14th tee and you're sad that you're running out of holes, you're someplace great. And I knew exactly what he was talking about when he said it. My five, and when I ran into you as we were leaving St. Andrews, I said, James, where's home for you? He'd go, you're in North Berwick, right? Yeah. I said, well, yeah, North Berwick, how special is that? So that was, I pulled up my phone and said, look at my list, that's right there in my top five. So my list, you know, is probably not going to change much, but it's always been Somerset Hills where I grew up caddying and learning how to play the game. Tim Burnsville, New Jersey, Chicago Golf, Marion, National Golf Links, and then North Berwick. The variation of those five just from an architectural standpoint, but just the sentimentality, I would never get bored. You could just choose any one of those five and I'd continue to play it on replay. I would be fine, but I think, you know, recently I found myself on the 14th tee at Shore Acres, feeling that same feeling that the Dave McLean kid talked about, Shore Acres is fantastic. But the Rainer McDonald style, you know, just, I love it. And you get to play the ground game especially, but I think, like I just played in Ireland a few years ago at Port Rush, world kind of down. But I think when you ask that question, people don't list anything in the UK, it just means they haven't been there yet. Because I think the UK is where golf is the greatest. Like the spirit of it, the soul of it, the people, the ground, the wind, the elements, like it's where the game was born. And I think it's the greatest stuff. So, I found myself looking forward more to when I get to go overseas than things here in the States for sure. The interesting thing that you showed me is you actually, not many people do this, but you have a list of pretty much a lot of golf courses on your phone. So, how many is on the list and is it all the golf course you played or is it? Yeah, it's my top 75 that I've played. Yeah, so I love, you know, well, that one's gonna knock that one down a little bit. That one's gonna jump up to, you know, close to top 10. And it's a great conversation piece. I think, you know, just like these pieces with the logos or I have a top 100 pegboard over here in the corner of my office. Again, like anything that kind of, people have logo ball collections, you know, where have you been? That's the great, I think logos have so much power that, you know, if I saw you walking around the Walker Cup with a Nord Barrett logo, I'd be like, yeah, kind of a knowing nod. James gets it. He's been somewhere great. That's one of the cool things at the Walker Cup is you're standing in a sea of people that's a logo fest, but then you're standing next to someone who could be, might have a winged foot top on. You go, oh, do you know blah, blah, blah. So everyone in the crowd is talking to each other. That's it. I think that's what I've tried to create for people for their walls with these pieces with the major championships is, if you were looking right behind me at the Ryder Cup or the US Open, where have you been? Where have you not been? And you may say, well, I've never been to Chicago golf. And I may say, well, if you're ever over there, I want to introduce you to this person. And that's how our game works. I mean, you immediately said, look, if you're ever back in North Berwick, I'd love to have you for a game. Like, I love that reciprocity. I have a book sitting right here in my office. It's a book called A Tribute to George Walker. Sorry, here, I'm holding it up. Yeah, yeah. Ran it to a man named Chip from St. Louis, who is the historian at St. Louis Country Club. And he started telling me about this book that he created with his dad. And all of a sudden, it shows up in my office two weeks after the writer got, or started the Walker company. I'll be sending him back a piece of artwork in return, but there's this great reciprocity. And I think Logos is just that we're all trying to find our tribe and the people that see life the way that we see it and who we're gonna run with. And Logos have this unlocking power of just connecting people in a way that maybe, if you didn't have anything on your shirt or your sweater, you walk by them on the street, you wouldn't know.

James Henderson
 1:04:01
 Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of Logos don't even have writing on them anymore. They're just kind of a foot with a wing on it, you know. Best ones to know, if you know, you know, right? Yeah. The Sleepy Hollow, that's a great logo as well.

Chandler Withington
 1:04:16
 Top 5 golf holes. Oh, you got a Sleepy Hole in, my God. I'm checking all the boxes this morning, aren't I, right? Yeah, very much so. Some of the top golf holes, again, like when you kind of find people who see the world the way that you see it, you kind of go, oh, that person's like me. I was listening to Andy Johnson, was on with Gary Williams on Five Clubs recently, and Gary asked him the same question. He's like, what's your favorite green in golf? And in my head I'm going, oh, it's 16th and North Berwick. And he goes, I love the 16th and North Baric I'm like see that's it that's a kindred spirit and the 16th and North Baric you know what they now kind of use for the B Reds but it's to an extreme is so fun I think I missed it the first time I played there and I was chipping with a five iron up the slope to try and hold that clean but I love... You know something that people don't

James Henderson
 1:05:11
 know about that hole is the ladies play the same par as the men but the ladies tees are actually behind the men's. Ah see yeah. How about that? Must be one of the wild but there you go.

Chandler Withington
 1:05:22
 Yeah find another one. I think like if I were to just kind of lump in like get really specific on something I was able to do it this summer for the first time in a long time but playing the back nine at Somerset Hills after 5pm when the sun is setting is some of the best golf for me. You know, something that would never get old. So I'm more of a time of day kind of player. I would much rather play when the sun is going down than when the sun is getting up. You know, give me the end of the day, twilight. That's more than like golf holes. But I love things like holes 16 through 18 at the creek on Long Island. I see more stretches of holes that I love, more than just specific holes. That's just been my model.

James Henderson
 1:06:11
 Well, thank you very much. I think, is there anything you'd like to tell anyone about your career in golf that maybe something that you've stood by or mantra that you tell your young assistants when you're the head pro?

Chandler Withington
 1:06:29
 Is there anything that you... a word of knowledge? Well, I think just to golfers listening, you know, I've tried to be real bullish on... As players, we get so caught up in our score and our identity and how we're going to fit in with the crowd and, you know, my handicap. That stuff really doesn't matter. You know, when you get to the end of this rope here, when your time is done playing this game, when you look back, you know, you'll remember some moments. You know, maybe you had a hole in one or you won a tournament, you had a couple moments that you really played well, but I don't think that's what you're gonna remember. You're gonna remember the places this game took you and you're gonna remember the people that it introduced you to and the friends that you made because of it. So don't lose sight of that. I think nowadays when I play golf with people, I'm so more focused on getting to know the people than how I'm playing. I wanna enjoy my time out there, but I more look forward to like, who's gonna walk into my story tomorrow because of this game? People like you. Oh, well. Been behind the 10th or the 9th there at San Andreas and all of a sudden, some introduced us and here we are a couple weeks later still talking. But don't miss the connecting power of this game to connect with other people. Try to play your best but don't miss where you are. Take a look around, enjoy it, don't let a bad shot or a bad round throw off the real magic that this sport gives you. I think that's what I've been trying to tell people over and over again is play as well as you can but really enjoy the people that you're with.

James Henderson
 1:07:59
 Really preaching to the choir at Top 100 because our mantras are, we're a traveling community of golfers playing great golf courses. Yeah. And I play fast, lunch slow as well.

Chandler Withington
 1:08:12
 Yeah, I think it was either you or Hobby that had that on their shirt. And I said, I love that. Like, I still haven't done the day at near field where you play the alternate shot and then you go have a three hour lunch and then you play another three hour alternate shot. Like, that is a great day to me, you know. I'm sure to many other people, but I think that's a great mantra is, you know, let's get around it fast, but then let's get back in the clubhouse and really enjoy our company there as well.

James Henderson
 1:08:39
 I won't say where or, but I played a four-sims match. We played 36 holes with lunch in between, and we spent five hours on lunch and it was 3 hours 59 over the golf course in 36 holes. We were less than four hours.

Chandler Withington
 1:08:55
 It's a great day.

James Henderson
 1:08:57
 It was freezing outside though, so you can understand why we were quick. But it was a fantastic day. Thank you very much for coming on. It'd be great to have you over and play a bit more golf and if I ever come over, I'll come and say hi.

4
 1:09:11
 You're always welcome.

James Henderson
 1:09:13
 Thank you very much. Thank you so much Chandler, it was an absolute blast, really interesting hearing your insight. So if you want to get in contact, my email is james at top100golfcourses.com or just get me on Instagram. And remember, play fast, lunge slow. And remember, play fast, lunge slow.

3
 1:09:35
 Bye.

 
 
 Transcribed with Cockatoo