Episode 24: 2023 Year End Review - Part I

This week on Top 100 Clubhouse James Henderson, Simon Holt and David Davis get together to carry out a review of the 2023 golfing year! They chat about the amazing courses they have visited in the past 12 months, and discuss the places you should be adding to your golfing itinerary in 2024! 

Part I of III! 

The Top100 Clubhouse is brought to you by Eden Mill. Bringing the art of distilling back to 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.

James Henderson
 0:00:48
We sat down this year to decide how we're going to review 2023 and we thought we'd get Simon Hilton and David Davis into the office just before a Christmas party to add and we sit down with a few beers and have a full debrief and recap of 2023 and look towards 2024. This is the first part of a three-part special that we've done. This one will review all the golf courses that Lockhart and the likes have been at and especially Simon and David who many of you might not know is two of the most travelled golfers I've ever met in my life. It's amazing the kind of stuff they get up to. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Year in Review gentlemen. I'm here with Simon Holt and David Davis who are probably the two big cheeses of Top 100. Would you say you're both the most important people in the company?

Simon Holt
 0:01:40
 Absolutely not. There is no chance. No one listens to me and especially on the travel side is unequivocally Leanne. But I speak for myself but also probably David we're very happy to be here and in our nation's capital. I've said it before here in Edinburgh with a can of beer in our hands at 6 p.m. on a Thursday, Christmas time, with all the lights outside in Edinburgh, and happy to be talking about golf.

4
 0:02:08
 And the top 100 Christmas do's when? Tomorrow.

James Henderson
 0:02:11
 At lunchtime?

Simon Holt
 0:02:12
 Yeah, watch out. So it's a full day. We are hand break off from about 11.45 a.m. You excited, David?

David Davis
 0:02:20
 How would you rate the Tiny Rebel 505, actually? Oh, the niche, wokey beer that we're drinking? Yeah, it's a bit grape fruity, isn't it?

James Henderson
 0:02:29
 Is it too much for you? We've got other beers.

David Davis
 0:02:31
 Too fruity. I don't know if it's too much, but it is a little bit fruity, yeah.

James Henderson
 0:02:36
 What can I say?

4
 0:02:37
 I'm a fruity guy.

Simon Holt
 0:02:38
 Well, we just went to a pub on Rose Street around the corner to just relax after a long day and James and I looked at each other and the barman when David ordered a half pint,

James Henderson
 0:02:48
 so there you go. For everyone else who doesn't understand, you don't order half pints in Scotland.

David Davis
 0:02:55
 Yeah, even though that was a half pint of gin, but that's another story.

James Henderson
 0:03:00
 You can claim whatever it was. So in terms of speaking to two people that have probably two of the most traveled people I've ever met in my life, you've both completed a Top 100 list, and you've spent, every year you go to the most interesting places, whether they're new or unfounded places in golf. So I want you to start off by telling us where have you been this year,

Simon Holt
 0:03:26
 and what makes it interesting?

11
 0:03:28
 Well, I think David, you should lead off.

Simon Holt
 0:03:29
 You've done most of the traveling this year between the two of us. I don't feel sorry for me, I've done a fair bit too, but David's done a fair bit. So, do you want to lead off, David?

10
 0:03:40
 Absolutely, happy to.

David Davis
 0:03:41
 We'll leave you for the icing on the cake at the end with the new places that are very exciting. I've been to the tried and trusted places, let's say. I think it's fair to say, and very fortunate to have been able to do that this year. So, you know, I'll just jump into a little bit of highlights. Japan in the beginning of the year was a massive highlight, Japan and Korea, a place I've been now quite a few times and absolutely loved going back. It was incidentally the first time post-COVID that I had a chance to see Hirono, which was always a phenomenal course. Now it's had perhaps one of the best renovations that we may ever see, really, really great by Martin Ebert. I'm a massive fan of Hirono and have always been and that's just to me a very, very special place. So that one is a huge exclamation point on the start of the year. There are others I'd love to mention, but that one is a big one. Do you think Japan and Korea is one of the most underappreciated areas in golf? I probably wouldn't say most underappreciated but probably least visited because it's just the culture is so different there and people don't, you know, look if we look at where is the majority of golf travelers if they're coming from the UK or the US, I hope that's fair to say. I think that that's an area that people just don't get to. Would you agree with that?

Simon Holt
 0:05:18
 Well, yeah, firstly, I guess, a big flight and you get there and it's the great unknown that probably puts people off and the courses, we're very lucky over the years, just you bump into a lot of people traveling around, you get the nice invites and David's been out there a few times now. Culturally, very, very different, very protective of the golf courses, a la lots of the US, but just a completely different game. So while you're going to play these wonderful golf courses, predominantly Allison courses, the really famous ones that we've both been lucky enough to play, you're really going to immerse yourself in the culture and the completely different way of playing golf. Now, the physical play of golf is of course exactly the same, but just there's a very much a ceremony to the day which is representative of Japanese culture, I would say. I've got two questions around the area. Firstly, tell me a wee bit of history. Allison went over and was he the first guy to really go over and start designing golf courses there?

James Henderson
 0:06:23
 Or was it, or he was the guy who really got it right?

David Davis
 0:06:27
 I mean, to be fair, my limited knowledge is that Allison has laid really his legacy works over there, you know. To me, if you talk about Allison, sure, there are some courses in the UK. I couldn't quickly name them, but I can name the ones abroad, which would be like Royal Hague, which is a big one in the Netherlands, obviously close to my heart where I live. And then if you look at Japan, he really, really put his eternal footprint in Japan. And that's – he definitely has like the legend status of his legacy being there with Hirono and Naruo and Kawana and – sorry, the original one at Tokyo, right? Like the first time he went through Tokyo as well. Yeah, he is the person that laid the footwork, in my mind, for Japanese golf and everything that followed. And again, it's a little bit of a story of, you know, if you look at somebody like Alistair McKenzie who went to places, and he might have showed up for 15 minutes to, you know, take a piss in some place, and then they said, oh, it's an Alistair McKenzie course. He was here, you know. But that means that people took the footprint that they laid out and they ran with it. And that's the case in Japan as well. I mean, you know, Allison might have been to a place for just a little bit of time, but the guys that carried out the work and took his concept and built it out, they don't get any credit. But what they've done with it is incredible.

James Henderson
 0:07:56
 The other question I wanted to ask about Japan was, what's the access like at Japan? Is it all very private, the golf courses?

Simon Holt
 0:08:06
 Yeah, it's very tricky. Very tricky. I think there's multiple tour companies that you can go with and things like that that cater, but the very top courses are, I suppose, not too dissimilar to lots of countries around the world. They're extremely private, very difficult to get access to. You just have to get lucky and meet the right people. But there's a huge portfolio of courses in Japan that are accessible. And we talk a lot about, you know, taking boxes and going to play the best places. I know it's a crass to some people. There's lots of other golf there. So if you wanted to go to Japan on a golf holiday, I think you could reasonably put the thing together as long as you're willing to not really belt and not show the likes of a Hirono. You'd go and have an amazing time and just go and immerse yourself in the culture. Japan is just an amazing place I've been for both golf and for just pure tourism and... Rugby World Cup? Actually it wasn't that bad. Just a wonderful country, the food is insane, the food is so good and you can go and eat some backstreet place, the cheapest food you can imagine or you can go bonkers expensive like we did on betting on golf one time, it ended up badly. We didn't mean to, but we decided it would be good to play for dinner on the first day, not knowing how expensive the restaurant we went to and it sort of set a standard because the people who lost then wanted to recoup and it got a little out of control. But anyway, now Japan to tie upon Japan, I suppose, lots of courses and destinations to talk about. An incredible country, golf course is phenomenal. Probably a few there that I think should maybe sort of be talked about a bit more, David.

James Henderson
 0:09:47
 The one thing I wanted to ask about Japan is Japan has something that is really different to everyone else. A lot of them have double greens, right?

Simon Holt
 0:09:56
 Yeah, absolutely.

James Henderson
 0:09:57
 But it's double greens for a single hole.

Simon Holt
 0:09:59
 It's not, or is it? Well, not just double greens in the sense of a St. Andrew's double green where they're joined, like completely separate greens. So effectively 36 greens on a golf course. And, you know, there's lots of urban myths about why that is sort of different grasses for different seasons and things. But I mean, now, certainly a Tokyo golf club, for example, two greens on every single hole. Like there is many of the courses in Japan and they just change daily. They play one course one day. There are two different courses essentially because the greens are very different and they're at completely different angles. So it really, I mean the tee shots are always the same of course, apart from the par threes, but the second shots are completely different.

James Henderson
 0:10:50
 That's so interesting. So you're able to, from a smaller footing, you're able to get two top class golf courses the same as one golf course's footing. Well probably a wee bit bigger than one golf course's footing.

David Davis
 0:11:03
 Absolutely. And again, that might not be right, but my understanding is also, just like you said, that it used to be winter green, summer green back in the day when they did it. And that just kind of became this trend because they have such, you know, relatively extreme weather conditions between winter and summer. And you know, that was one of their, one of the reasons.

Simon Holt
 0:11:23
 But suppose like travel knowledge time, the best times that David and I have not actually traveled to Asia together, but in the years we've known each other and have been going, it would either be late spring, very, very early summer, and then very late summer through the autumn to early winter is probably the best times to go when the grasses are not quite dormant, but firm and fast. You don't have to have any criticism of Japanese golf. I think a little over watered in places, a bit too soft, but the times of years ago, probably like April, May and obviously famous for the cherry blossom and maybe you have to kind of get lucky. But in the autumn time, I've been lucky enough to go three times now, it's always been in the autumn, around October, and the weather's spectacular. Yeah, that's right. I can imagine playing a pink ball in the cherry blossom must be pretty difficult for you, Simon. Yeah, exactly. Love the pink ball. Okay, so we've gone through, that's us going through Japan and Korea from your trip in

James Henderson
 0:12:23
 January. Yeah. So should we move on to February?

David Davis
 0:12:25
 So, the next one, actually, that was May, and I'm going to backtrack a little bit because, you know, largely that's because the redesign at Girono and something, and that's the first time I saw it, so it had a big impact for me. And for our, it was a Lockhart trip, right? So, for everybody that went, and most people were getting to see it for the first time, so that was really just absolutely spectacular, and we were honored to have the opportunity to go. The next one is, you know, it's one of my favorite places, Brazil, it's not on anybody's target map, basically, for golf. And, you know, I don't try to oversell it, because if I do, you risk people being disappointed. But we took a fantastic group of extremely well-traveled people there this year, including Simon, of course, and everybody was skeptical. And I think everybody came away saying, like, you know what?

9
 0:13:23
 That's an amazing trip.

Simon Holt
 0:13:24
 — I think David has been both subtly and not so subtly sort of promoting golf in Brazil for quite some time, and he's known David for a while. I think it's easy to be dismissive of say, well, what's he talking about this place, Brazil? I went backpacking to Brazil in my quarter life crisis when I was like 27, 28 and staying in hostels and bouncing around the place and all the rest of it, certainly not playing golf. And I was really intrigued. So I'd jump on this plane and go down there with David and there was eight of us. Firstly, we had these amazing matches. So we played on our own. We played the Olympic course, obviously, go hands course down there. Very, very good. I would say, I'm assuming, is a way to describe the entrance. You come in and you do think, where are we going? And it's a bit rough and ready, but the golf course is still in really good condition, very interesting design, very thought-provoking, and we all enjoyed the course. But the next day, we played played at Gavier, which was incredible. Like Jurassic Park has been used many times as an analogy to say we're playing these huge, these stone monoliths raising from the coast, thousands of feet into the air, paragliders jumping off the top, you know, these massive snakes crawling past the tee boxes. You're playing these downhill holes at huge drops. You're hitting balls out against the mountains. So you see your ball in flight. And then you cross this crazy busy road to get to three or four holes on the back nine that are the other side of this main road that comes out of Rio. And you're right on the ocean. And Hans did the work there, David, in terms of the rejig. And originally it was Scott that started the course. Yeah, original Scott.

David Davis
 0:15:11
 Don't ask me the name of the guy. He was a one-hit wonder, but he was also the club pro down there way back when.

Simon Holt
 0:15:16
 I think he's like a Cruden, I'll get this wrong, but I think he's a Cruden Bay native that had gone down there.

8
 0:15:21
 You can look it up if you want.

David Davis
 0:15:22
 It's something like that, yeah, I think you're right.

James Henderson
 0:15:24
 There's no rush, you can look it up if you want to get his name.

David Davis
 0:15:27
 Or Royal Aberdeen or Cruden Bay, it's like up in that area.

Simon Holt
 0:15:29
 Yeah, one of the two. It's one of the two, went down there, we had this thing, we played against these wonderful people. And we've had this eight-on-eight match against the club, and I played against the former president of the central bank of Brazil and the other chap in the group who shot 68, the other guy in the group who's my age, early 40s, shot 68, legit, fantastic golfer and the other chap in the group said to me, do you know his story? I said, well, no, I've only just met him. He said, oh, if we still had a royal family in Brazil, he'd be second in line to the

7
 0:16:03
 third

Simon Holt
 0:16:04
 and he says that's only because his brothers in the group ahead which is amazing

David Davis
 0:16:11
 who's all right like it bomb in a 350 of the key with me will be both with both

Simon Holt
 0:16:15
 brothers are excellent he shot 68

James Henderson
 0:16:16
 the hope I read the other brother who's who's the better golfer

Simon Holt
 0:16:20
 what I know they were both the butcher in the sixties that day there but I think I'll be the very annoying family we had our hands full in that match. We did. We got cuffed. And then, but we had a great day. And then the next morning, so we had some cracking dinners there in Rio. We stayed at a very nice hotel, all safe as houses. And then the next morning we flew down to Sao Paulo, and I'll let David go on to one of his favorite courses in the world in a second, but we went down and played another match against Sao Paulo Country Club. Again, a wonderful golf club. Sorry, golf club. We played against these wonderful gents down there, another match, and there was a rainstorm, so we came off for about four holes, got some beers into us and some food, and then we were desperate to go and finish the match because we were ahead, so we wanted to finish and not let them off the hook, and I think we did step on the throat, which is quite good, finished them off, took them away, James.

David Davis
 0:17:12
 We did, and we needed that because we were literally abused Rio, I mean it was it was ugly. It's a royal family. They were good They were solid now, and then we so that the trip down to Brazil You know look the matches are amazing great camaraderie wonderful people And then we we go over to one of my favorite places in the planet, and I'm not kidding at all, which is called Santa Pazienza. I know there's a lot of people that were skeptical about that as well, but it's really hard. You know, I'd prefer to let – actually, I'd prefer, Simon, that you kind of explain your take on it.

Simon Holt
 0:17:59
 Yeah, I suppose to step back, I mean, there'll be at least a good handful of listeners to the podcast here that have either read David Cominton about Santa Passienza online or followed his Instagram account, he's very, very famous. And seen all his pictures and videos from Santa Passienza over the years and think, well, okay, he's accessing this super exclusive golf course that's owned by this lovely Brazilian family, of course, he's going to like the thing, he likes the invite. So I did go down with in my head, I wonder what this is going to be like. And I was more than pleasantly surprised. Firstly, the way you're treated by the family who will go and name us is just magical. Like you can meet more welcoming people, and people might read into that, I mean generous, like as if they're throwing food and wine and the full red carpet treatment for us to come away and say they like the golf course. They don't care either way. It's their private enclave. But the golf course, and the people who went there, there was three people that have now played the World's 100 in that group. Royal County Dam member, I'm just on the line of fact, it was a well-traveled group, fairly knowledgeable group. We've been around a wee bit and we're not quite immune to the exclusive treatment, but it doesn't affect us that much. And the golf course is fantastic.

James Henderson
 0:19:27
 Well, as a raters, you're both experienced people in terms of being able to switch off the noise around just the golf course. Yeah. So you know how to deal with those things. So it's not just so people understand your experience that being able to turn away from the hospitality, the. Yeah. So, sorry.

Simon Holt
 0:19:47
 No, you're absolutely right. And thank you for bringing that up because I've jumped the shark slightly that some people won't know that this place is extremely private, just owned by a family, handful of people who play the golf course a year. Absolutely immaculate in terms of conditioning. It's a Fazio family design, really, heavily involved. And David will get into that, because he knows all the details. But this course has been there for the best guts of 20 or 30 years, and they've just been constantly tweaking. They call it the farm, but it's in the middle of this rainforest. I won't talk about all the bells and whistles around the course, but the course itself is surprisingly good, I think is an understatement. And the people that went there, I think were like, wow, every hole you just got there, you're almost waiting for the clunker holes. And there wasn't any clunker holes. And not just that, there was a handful of holes that you wouldn't have seen anywhere else in the world. And which to me are the holes that really grab you at any golf course around the world. You say, well, this is a legitimate course that we should all be talking about because it's got something that I haven't seen before.

David Davis
 0:20:52
 That's great. That is such a good point. And I mean, I'd like to address that point because, you know, I look at some of the areas around the world that we travel and some of them are, you walk away thinking like, okay, well, I've seen all that before. So that's really not that interesting. of Gavia, which is very fair to say, and Santa Pazienza, and not to take away from Sao Paulo Golf Club because that's a Stanley Thompson design, you know, so it's a great routing, but it's a city club, you know, and great routing, but, you know, it's uniquely different, and it's not something that you would have seen anywhere, right, and that just doesn't happen very often, and that's something that, you know, if you look at a course and you say, okay, there's X number of all world holes or something like that on this course and they would be great on any course even though they might be obviously, they'd be totally out of whack on a Lynx course or something, right? Because totally different like rain forest combination with maybe the wetlands or whatever is on the lower half of it.

James Henderson
 0:21:54
 It would be quite fun though.

David Davis
 0:21:55
 Yeah. No, no, exactly. It would be quite fun. But, you know, there's a large number of holes on that that would stand out pretty much anywhere, but they're so unique that you can say, hey, that's something that that place has that you won't find anywhere.

James Henderson
 0:22:11
 That's rare in golf to me. I've not done enough research on it to know what Tom Fazio would say about it or how he would word his opinion on the golf course, but he's obviously not in the world of golf course architecture right now, the most loved architect compared to the likes of Doak and the modern architects. But yet, this is a golf course that has taken both your romantics and golf. You love charming, beautiful golf. But you also have to be aware of what's going on in the world of architecture and what's the best because of what your positions are. So as someone who has rated Fazio golf courses, what do you think about this one compared to the rest? Is it a different beast to what you experienced before?

Simon Holt
 0:23:03
 I think for me, it's by far the best Fazio course I've maybe played 15 to 20 FASIA golf courses. And they're, they all blend into one for me. And because a lot of them are housing development courses that I've played in America, like countless people listen to this podcast will have. I've not played Shadow Creek, which lots of people say is just like a marvel and an absolute must-see golf course in terms of the, what's the word, the evolution of golf course design. It's a must-see golf course. But this course took me back, and even things like the bunkers, David, you'll correct me on this, but I think the 12th hole, there was a bunker complex where it was almost like six bunkers gathered into one huge bunker that almost like water flowed into each other. So I'm maybe not describing this well, but different tiers of the bunker, but not just on a slope, like we've seen bunkers on lots of golf courses that are on a gradient or on a hill, and they climb the hill, but this one was almost like six or seven different bowls, all at different heights. I've not seen that before. And it was up by the green as well, not just to the left of the fairway, but to the right-hand side of the green on that hole. It was a 12th hole, wasn't it?

David Davis
 0:24:19
 Yeah, you're right, you're right. It's the new 12th hole, actually. That's a new hole there. And what they've done is, that might exist someplace, but I've never seen it before. So, you know, that's extremely unique and it's a little bit of a test, I suppose, as well. But, you know, they have like, if you can imagine waves or, you know, waves. So if you imagine waves, it's like there's waves in the bunker. So you can be in the bunker with a steep downhill lie or with a steep uphill lie, for example, but not against the, not an uphill lie at the edge of the bunker, but in the middle of the bunker. So yeah, that's pretty edgy for Fazio, right? That's not the kind of thing that he normally does because people know and maybe over the years there's a couple of things. I feel like he's the kind of guy that gets a bad rap because everybody, all the kind of like minimalist architects will use him as kind of like their punching bag, right? He's not going to come back and talk about it anyway, so let's beat up on him so we can promote ourselves. It's all a matter of promoting self-promotion. He was also – he's the poster boy for that era. Exactly. Exactly. So because he could sell houses, he did a lot of template work. You know, people say, listen, we only got a million for this. Okay, well, there's a template. You get a template because it's a housing community and, you know, it doesn't matter what the property is like because we're going to move a trillion tons of dirt and we're going to make it great for your house and for the people that want to buy houses. That's the forte. That's probably also why he's financially by far the most successful golf course architect just in terms of the money he's made by doing it. If you look at some of his top work, like Simon just mentioned, Shadow Creek, extremely unique. I can pull out a couple of other names and those are ones that probably less people have seen that would say, I don't like Fazio, just generally because they've seen a lot of template courses or something like that. But if you look at things like Wade Hampton, right, that's probably one of the best mountain courses in the world. It might be the best mountain course in the world. Spectacular course. You know, if you go to Gaza Ramps, that's one of the Discovery Land properties, well, he's done a ton of stuff for Discovery Land that most of us don't get to see. Like, I've only seen a handful myself, and the ones I've seen are great. Gaza's a fantastic place. And if it's not, you know, it's not just the course that's really good, of course there's all the stuff around it that is part of what makes Discovery Land interesting and stuff like that. And then if I go out to Oregon where I'm from, you know, there's a course called Pronghorn where Fazio did one. And I mean that course has some totally wild stuff and anybody who's been there knows that, you know, you've got like lava funnels and stuff that, you know, he's a master of building around things or creating waterfalls or doing all this other stuff and you know, he's famous for saying things like, if you give me enough money I'll build you the best course in the world, you know, like whatever in quotes but you know, that's the kind of thing we're dealing with. So obviously he's done a lot of stuff, he's done a lot of template type of stuff but he's done a lot of courses.

James Henderson
 0:27:30
 It's harsh for him as well because the people that are dealing with Doak and Gilhansen, Crenshaw got, golf's got more money in it. There's more money now than there was previously to be able to build these golf, not, they may be more expensive to build them, but you can now charge 300 quid for a game of golf, no problem for these golf courses.

Simon Holt
 0:27:53
 Yeah, I think Fazio had decent budgets for the most part. Amazing budgets. No, no, I'm not saying, yeah,

James Henderson
 0:27:59
 but that's a lot of that probably came from the housing that is sold around it.

5
 0:28:06
 Absolutely.

Simon Holt
 0:28:07
 Yeah. I would say that the generation of designers we're talking about now are looking for the best land and that's very much a movement that we all welcome and have enjoyed. We've talked about on a previous podcast when we were lucky enough to have Martin Ebert on that there are certain industry darlings and unfortunately, like Martin maybe doesn't fit into that with the GCA crowd, like whether that's fair or not is a point that anyone else can debate. And Fazio, I think, almost certainly doesn't fit into that darling crowd.

James Henderson
 0:28:38
 Definitely.

David Davis
 0:28:39
 How many great properties has he received to work on?

Simon Holt
 0:28:43
 That's all, but it's more that this golf course specifically about Brazil, we had this incredible trip that I'm delighted that I went on. New country for me. Actually, a new continent for me to play golf on. I visited South America a few times before, but a new continent to play golf on. And what a welcome we had from the people. Incredible food, a few cocktails, and we had a magical time with the members everywhere we went. And the golf was spectacular. And again, I would encourage people to go.

James Henderson
 0:29:14
 Where is next on the list of places you gentlemen have been? I know you've come back from somewhere very interesting recently.

Simon Holt
 0:29:21
 You being me.

6
 0:29:22
 Yeah, you being you.

Simon Holt
 0:29:24
 Yes, so I won't duplicate too much because I did a pod with Jim Rorstaff, please listen if you haven't done, and we talked a lot about TRI and Tareeti, so I won't dive too much into those courses. But New Zealand is somewhere I've visited four times now, I think, four times, five times maybe. And just a wonderful place. The better golf for me is on the North Island, but everyone on the North Island seems to be working for the South Island Tourism Board. So I need to go down there. Jack's point, absolutely spectacular. My favorite course on the South Island though is Zaratown. Like heart, like real country coast. You as well, David, I love our town. Like there's some really cool stuff out there. A real, like say country experience, really cute little clubhouse.

David Davis
 0:30:14
 None of which are bunkers. Exactly.

5
 0:30:15
 Yeah.

Simon Holt
 0:30:16
 And they bunkers. Um, and then on the North Island to the really good golf, like Paraparuna beach, which I've always been a big fan of. And we talked about Mackenzie and his associates, maybe back in the day, not getting credit. Alex Russell, golf course, who was basically his man at Royal Melbourne as well, and gets full credit for the East Coast, right? At Royal Melbourne. And then we moved up, we played Kate Kidnappers. Obviously everyone's heard about Kate Kidnappers. I think it's really come on since the last time I was there in terms of conditioning. I think they've done a lot of work on the fairways and things like that. And so it's a lot better shape for those conditioning snubs out there. Um, then we bypassed sort of kin, um, town fair area, which is Kinloch, which I've played before, which I think is the best Nicholas course I've ever played, uh, Kinloch club. Um, we went to Titorangi, uh, Alastair McKenzie course, which is this wonderful members club and course, um, on the, on the outskirts of Auckland that I just think is fantastic. And they've done a lot of work there. I didn't really ask these questions, so I hope this doesn't come across as unfair. Maybe haven't got the budget to splash on a huge restoration project, but Doug White, he's this fantastic gent. This is the director of golf, cracking golfer. He's really into his golf course architecture. Clyde Johnson's been down there, helped him with some bunkers. And it does have the Cal Club vibes, David, on a few of those back nine holes. You come up and the 14th hole, par three, ridiculous in the best possible way green on this par three that you've ever seen. One of the craziest greens, like most bonkers greens I've ever seen. I've unfortunately missed it on my trip to New Zealand. Oh, why? You relied on this pod? What's going on? You missed it. No, no, no, no, this is, I'm telling the truth, right? Hand the mic. So after Titterangi, we went up and, um, a bit swanky. Um, we, we went up to Carrie Cliffs in and out. Lots of people will like jump on a bandwagon and say, Oh, I do this Carrie Cliffs. It's an awkward writing. There's not that many memorable holes and is it my favorite golf course on either island in New Zealand No, it is not. Is it worth going? Yes It's a beautiful walk, what's not to like? There's a lot of competition down there. It's a lot of competition people don't know about

David Davis
 0:32:40
 Would be the main thing is long all the way to go. To be fair, two courses with probably the, if views are important to you, right? If that's your thing, two courses with probably the, some of the best views

Simon Holt
 0:32:56
 in the world, Cary Cliffs and Jacks Point. Well, yeah, and two very different views as well. So Jacks Point's right in the middle of Queenstown, big, beautiful lakes, the Remarkables, the Mountain Range, which is incredible, straight up Lord of the Rings, literally the Mountain Range from Lord of the Rings. And then you're up at Cowrie Cliffs, which is essentially the tropics. And it's like Pirates of the Caribbean stuff. And the scenery to me is way more interesting than Cape Kidnappers, where you're really just looking out at the ocean and you've just got these skyline greens and a horizon. Whereas at Cowrie, you've got these wee islands popping up here, there, and everywhere.

David Davis
 0:33:33
 You didn't have your drone with you.

Simon Holt
 0:33:34
 No, no, no. Not really, drone guy.

James Henderson
 0:33:37
 So the Cape Kidnappers is great with the drone, whereas from the foot you'd

David Davis
 0:33:42
 rather go to... Everybody knows it with the drone, but it's a great course and a great

Simon Holt
 0:33:47
 route. But anyway, that was New Zealand and we touched on that a lot in a previous pod.

James Henderson
 0:33:55
 As we wrap up this retrospective of the golfing gems of 2023, we hope you've enjoyed this nostalgic journey. Stay tuned for part 2 where we delve even deeper into the hearts of the golfing action. Stay tuned for part 2 where we delve even deeper into the hearts of the golfing action. Until then, play fast, lunch slow.

 
 
 Transcribed with Cockatoo