1217: Tourist Sauce Season 10 - Scotland: Islands & Highlands Preview

[MUSIC] >> Be the right club today. [MUSIC] >> That's better than most. >> How about him? That is better than most. >> Better than most. [MUSIC] >> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. It is about that time. Season 10 of "Torosos" is a pointless. It will be premiering Wednesday, October 7th, on the No-Lang Up YouTube channel. We will see you there. This episode is typically what we do with our "Torosos" seasons. If you're unfamiliar with what "Torosos" is, it's our big travel series that we try to do annually. Sometimes twice a year, sometimes zero times a year. But about an annual cadence now, this most recent trip was to Scotland. We went to the islands, the western islands, as well as we finished in the highlands. So we're calling this Scotland Islands to Highlands. This episode is complimentary to the video series. It is not spoil any of the results. It is not spoil really any of the video. This is our opportunity to dump all of our thoughts from the golf courses, from the trip, and kind of flesh things out in a free-flowing conversation. It doesn't quite fit into the video. So again, you can listen to this before. You can listen to this after watching the series. But we do hope you watch and support the content like you guys always have and it's greatly appreciated. But this is recorded a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago. And we're very, very much looking forward to the world, getting to see what we're able to put together this year. Very proud of what the video team has been growing and very, very hard on. So make sure you're subscribed to the No-Langup YouTube channel there, as well as "Torosos" brought to you, of course, by our friends at "Titalist". Look, when we did what did the England series, I did not have my GTS driver yet. So when we went to live them, I was driving it all over the yard. I'm not going to lie. I feel like I would have won that series. I would have won the "Lakesmaster" trophy if I had the GTS driver in play. I did have it in play for "Torosos". I think I just looked back at the camera several times, just in disbelief of how good I was having this driver. I've been talking about it. I know for months, but you're going to get to see exactly how good I was driving it. In Scotland with the new GTS 3 driver, the importance there is getting fit. You can go to Titles.com and find a fitter near you. Start to get my speed back a little bit. Got into the shaft. I needed to be for the speed profile that I was currently in. And the driver's just magical, man. It's magical. And I am on the D4 setting. I probably wouldn't have gotten there on my own. That's the important part of getting fit is someone's going to walk you through. And the weights that go into it, you're not going to make that decision properly on your own. Go to Titles.com, find a fitter near you. And I promise you're going to be grin and ear to ear like I have been with a new GTS driver. On a different note, so we recorded this as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, almost a month and a half ago now. I think at this point, prior to this season coming out, people may have seen the tragic news we mentioned on Sunday's episode and what we've been sharing as well on social media about our good friend, Jim Hartzel, who recently lost his son, Jake. He is a big part of the upcoming season, in terms of the inspiration he gave us to go to a lot of places. The death of his other son, Jordan, is documented in our trip to Dinaverty as well. The entire, not only up family, since there are deepest, deepest thoughts to Jim, just know that as we, as you hear this episode, this tragic accident had not occurred yet. So we will be talking about him a lot in there, but of course, prior to the accident. One call to action we do have for those interested in supporting Jim and the causes he believes strongly in. This is linked in our show notes here. It's pinned to the top of a repost page on our ex account. He set up a GoFundMe to support junior golf at Schisken and Dinaverty in Scotland. These were places that his son, Jake, was happiest and he loved the island of Aaron and the mull of contire. And yeah, our deepest condolences and thoughts and support go to the Hartzel family and what has to be just an incredibly, incredibly difficult time. So thank you very much for tuning in. Here is our recap of our trip to Scotland. All right. Here we go. Five wide. Hello, Mr. Neil Schuster. How are you? Greetings. Oh, good to be with you, Sally. Pymann is here. Badelings. Just a tough, tough sequence of events on the home front, but he's with us. Hello, Deach. Yeah, we don't, you know, some AC. We got some dry new house stuff, man. Grandmolins are popping up, but we're battling, and we're whack em all in one, one thing at a time. Big Randy is here. Hello, Mr. Big. Hi, guys. Good to be with you. The planner of it all, the travel connoisseur of no laying up, Mr. TC. Hello. How are you? Hello. I'm good. I'm, I'm excited to mentally go back to Scotland, recount this trip. We are recording this episode about a month and a half after the end of Taurus sauce season 10 and a couple months ahead of airing it. This podcast is coming out right in front of the season debut of Taurus sauce will be next week. If you're listening to this right, as it's published, where are we headed on this trip to see and why and have we been there before having already done this? We're really reheating and we're doing the same thing all over again. Yeah, we we're cooked. So we decided to just go somewhere we're comfortable with and just mail it in completely. So we chose Scotland. No, we we chose Scotland, but a totally different part of Scotland. This is the tenth one of these that we've done and we wanted to put a different spin on it. It's a you know, harkening back to a couple of places we've been before, mostly new places and but try to make it feel like, hey, you're along for the ride and you're you're there, like just shooting it a little bit different way and marrying up everybody's favorite parts of the various seasons. This one's very road trippy, very plain strains, automobiles, fairies, and so I think from a Scotland perspective, we've done a lot of stuff like the first Taurus sauce season we did in Scotland season two was extremely I don't think I could ever like I don't think I could physically do that trip again. And Randy, I know you couldn't physically do that trip again. I don't think you did do it the first time. Yeah, you slept in, you missed, you know, we almost missed our old course opportunity there. It all worked out. That's right. And since then, and since then, we won't go into solace over sleeping in Sweden. That's true, but that was that was more jet lag, though. Yours was just straight up. Yeah, I just not wake it up at three. I think Scotland season two, we didn't know what we didn't know. It was very much by the seat of our pants. You know, hey, this place looks cool. Oh shit, it's a three hour drive between those two places and then we're not going to get to our hotel till 1 a.m. and we have a seven a.m. tea time, like just stuff like that. So I think we had a little bit more time to explore this time and we've taken a lot of trips to Scotland in the, you know, intervening years there. I'm about we. It's like you have. I think DJ has, I think, I think, Neil, yeah, that was an eye opening thing. Neil was like, you're getting there. And we're like, well, yeah, obviously all of us have been here a bunch of times. Neil's like, no, this is like the second time for me, actually, which was fun. And Neil wasn't on the first trip, either. That was not Tora sauce season two. So that was part of it. I think we're looking at it just like Australia. We wanted to do it with proper cameras and good, just put it best foot forward too. And then yeah, I think it's, it's the accumulation of a lot of different people we've met along the way. And you'll see that from the start on Aaron to Kintire to, you know, the finale up in the Highlands. And I think everything in between there's some, there's some new places along the way. There's some new places with old friends. And then there's, there's some old places with old friends and new friends. So I think it's, it's great. We got a lot of variety. It's not just top 100 open road up bangers either. It's, it's very much a, hey, here's, here's a really good representation of just interesting golf in Scotland, you know, 4800 yard golf courses and nine holders and 12 holders and, you know, sheep grazing. And then, yeah, and then Rural Dornock too and MacriHannish. So there's, and kind of, you know, everything in between as well. So we've done a lot on that East Coast with, you know, whether it's the old course reversed or, or, you know, various videos in, in and around St Andrews or film rooms or whatever, we haven't done a whole lot on the West Coast. We didn't really do anything on the airship coast in this one, but, uh, we got weird with it, you know, west of west of the West Coast. Islands and Highlands, baby. Yeah, the islands and Highlands motif was like kind of too good to pass up. Sometimes you just got a reverse engineer from the title, you know, that's, that's so good. We got to do that. But it's, I would add to what you're saying, TC, that sometimes when we're putting these together, at least how I feel, there's almost this implicit kind of self-imposed pressure to be like, well, we're getting the big cameras out and we're, we're putting all of our production weight behind it. So of course, we got to go to the biggest name courses we can and the places people have heard of and yada yada yada. And I think we always leave those trips being like, ah, there's just another layer that would be so cool to go, I'd be so fun to go check this place out or check this place out. And I feel like we just kind of took that restrictor plate off a little bit on this one. We're like, well, no, what if we just did that trip. What if we went to Corey and and Shiskin and Barra and all these kind of weird, far-flung places. And it just turned into this great combo that I'm so happy we did. And yeah, it wouldn't have changed the thing. - Which is a call back to the first, or to the second season of Torres Sausage as well, where we're like, we went to Muscleboro with links. Colin and Brewera in those places. So, Randy, I hear nine whole, I hear 12 whole. I hear, you know, 4,000-yard courses. I hear a lot of things that maybe aren't right up your alley. What were your expectations going into this? And what is it like looking back on it? - Yeah, having been to Scott, let me just back up a second. I have been to Scotland now. I think this was my sixth trip, but I had never been anywhere on the West Coast. And so, I was very excited to get really anywhere on the West Coast, 'cause it was all going to be new experiences for me. And truthfully, like going out in the States and being like, "Hey, we're only gonna play nine holes," versus "Win Scotland" and playing this little nine hole course. Those are just two different things. So, I wasn't fretting. And you guys told me, you know, at Chiskin, for example, which we'll get to, you can post your score there. You know, as long as I can post some scores, I am good. - Randy, can I ask why you do feel that's different? What, can you drill down into that a little bit? - Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like in the States, it's such an effort. Maybe for me, it usually feels like such an effort to get out and go play golf, where it's like, "Hey, if we're gonna take up two and a half hours "to play nine holes, let's just play 18." You know, I've already driven somewhere, I've already cleared the calendar, et cetera, et cetera. When you're in Scotland and you're there traveling and kind of the only jobs are to play golf and to find what tickles your fancy, it's a lot more, I don't know, I guess I just feel a lot more at ease being like, yeah, let's roll up, play this little nine hole course and we'll see what it's all about. - It feels like they're gonna have a better explanation than that. - It makes sense though. - It feels like the courses are kind of, they're a little more fit for purpose as far as, yeah, there's room for nine holes, or we only had space for 12 holes. Whereas in the States, it does feel like it's, no, it's part of a real estate development. There's 18 holes in the house that are on these holes. And so I think it feels weird to break up, let's only play half the holes that they built for no reason other than it would be a little quicker. Whereas, yeah, you go to Schiskin and it's like, no, they got 12, 'cause of World War One. Yeah, I don't know, that's what we got. And it just feels like very right sized because of that. - Yeah, I'll say the other thing that had been both excited and more at ease in the spirit of what we're talking about from our first tourist sauce. You know, Colin, being a revelation, right? And certainly not the longest course in the world, no granite, they had 18 holes. But just the idea of length isn't necessarily a marker for how fun or how proper or how real the golf is. I knew we were gonna encounter more of that type of golf on this trip. And quite frankly, I think because of the Colin experience, I was excited. So I came in and a good friend of mine. I wasn't gonna be grouchy or grumpy about only playing nine or 12 holes. - Randy was excited until we made him share some plates at dinner one night. - When we did start sharing plates. That was tough. - And Randy, you would have been pissed getting out to, you know, taking the five and a half hour ferry out to the outer hebrides and then only playing nine holes that night. - It was a lot of work. That was a lot of work. We're gonna get there. There's something to what you're saying, the Randy of like, there's golf core. I said this about when we played Brown Deer DJs. Like there's golf, there's places you go to play golf, which like I would say, Brown Deer Park is an all, like I'm craving to play some golf today. Like I'm home, I want to go play golf. That is a great place to go play golf. And there's golf experiences you go have. And like Brown Deer Park is not like a golf experience that is like a bucket list thing. It's just a great place to go play the game. Like if you're at home, Randy, there's not, if I'm gonna get out and play golf, I don't necessarily want to go play nine holes. To your point, it's, I don't want to make the effort. But if it's like, hey, you want to go play this course on the side of a mountain. Yeah, they only got nine holes. One guy cuts everything on the course a few times a week at membership costs like 200 bucks a year. Like do you want to go experience that? It's like hell, yeah. And I think it is, you do come home. The whole time you're there, you do, I think TC said this when we were like at Whiting Bay, which we'll get to, was just like laughing at how unimaginative America, our interpretation of golf is in the States after seeing it there. 'Cause like, if you, again, if you say, you're gonna go play a par 63 golf course on the side of a mountain with tiny ass greens, like Palatka and really, really hard holes and just a bunch of like drivable floors and long par threes. Like on its surface, you could be like, yeah, it kind of doesn't sound like my cup of tea. But like as soon as you're out there, you're like, oh, this is golf. Like this is just a little, a little different way, but I completely start to block out what the par of the courses, what the yardage of the course is. Like just revisiting Denaviri, which we're gonna talk about. I was like, what was the yardage? Was that about 6,000 yards? Like 4,800 yards it was? Like that was so much fun. That wasn't mini golf. Why, how does that happen? And, you know, there's so many layers to Scottish golf and getting to show off kind of this whole level of it. And to like the planning part of this two TC is like, a lot has changed in Scotland since we were there eight years ago in terms of what travel is like there and what booking windows are like there. And if I wanted to go to Scotland next spring or early summer with some family members, like it would be tough to plan the A-list courses and the bucket list places to get in. But that doesn't mean it's not worth going and there's such a second level of place. Like, Denaviri is not gonna be at the top of many lists of places to go, but I played that course and I was like, oh my God, when I come here with my dad, he would love this place. And that's what I'm most excited about for people to see in the context of all of us being there and experiencing it is, you know, the not just the specific courses we played, but the types of courses that exist all over the country that are just incredible experiences. And maybe outside the line of thinking of like where you wanna go play, but like give me those experiences over Dun Barney, over Kings Barnes, over Dun Dunald, over like some of these new modern American style links courses in Scotland. Give me this weird stuff like nine out of 10 times, probably honestly. And I think that's probably a consensus opinion that we share, which is hard to get until you've done it. I think honestly. - Yeah, I think everybody thinks that they have one crack at it. Again, very human nature that, you know, I've got one crack at this trip to Scotland. I gotta go get, I gotta go see Royal Dornock. I gotta go see the old course. I gotta, otherwise it's a failure. And you should. And I totally understand that philosophy. I think there's two things that are really interesting about what you said. So I won the, I think the Brown Deer Park example, which I totally agree with and relate to, is like it just shows how, it feels like golf is just very results based in the US. Randy, I feel very similarly. I'm like, if you can't, you're kind of there to post a score. And if you can't post a score, it doesn't, if for whatever reason there's a mental block where it just feels like it doesn't count, which is, then you go play all these places where they invented golf and you're like, oh, well, maybe it's, we might have screwed that one up, but that's either here, here nor there. And then the other thing that I think is even funnier about it is, solid, you're talking about Whiting Bay. I'm like, yeah, it's a 4,000-yard golf course, 4,200 yard, 4,800 yards, whatever it is. I hit every club in my bag there. Whereas you go play a quote-unquote real golf course and more often than not. It's like, you don't really hit anything between eight iron and five iron. 'Cause it's a lot of driver, nine iron, driver wedge, driver wedge, driver nine iron. And it's just a very, again, a funny, like, in a lot of ways, the shorter the course, the more a quote-unquote real golf you're gonna end up actually playing, which is just a very funny, you know, kind of counterintuitive aspect of this trip, too. - Yeah, it's very, I would say, I would say you're missing out more, not throwing some weird stuff in. Or, like, if you're watching this, there's 200 other golf courses that are just like these, that we chose to go play. Like, I played a few of them on the front end and it's like, played four, nine whole courses in one day. And I'm like, oh, there's, like, like, people reached out. They said, oh, there's 10 more right down the road here. Like, just extend your trip next time. And so I think it's one of those things where, I get the whole, like, we are super lucky that we get to go take these trips pretty regularly to Scotland. But you're gonna appreciate Dornick, or the old course, or, you know, turnberry that much more if you go play this stuff around it that, like, like, you realize what sets that place apart. But then also, like, I always equated to having a, and Nick and Hayley are used to as well. Like, having, I don't wanna have steak, or like a seven-course meal for dinner every night. I just wanna go have a damn good burger sometimes, or some fish and chips, or good soup. And I think you can do all of the above. You can do the full range. And I think that was, that was the big thing on this trip, was A to go reconnect with people that have been great to us along the way. And then B to, you know, go celebrate these places, and, you know, kind of the hidden Scotland that, you know, Jim Hartzel, so lovingly glosses it as. - The last thing I would say to you, I know we're doing a lot of throat clearing before we get into the actual courses here, but. The other thing people might not understand, or if you haven't taken this trip, you might not understand is these are not all links golf courses. In fact, very few of them actually are. So I feel like if you told somebody like, hey, we took this off the beaten path Scottish golf trip, they might picture that as just a ton of links golf. And realistically, it's not. There's only a small handful of these that actually were on the coast or actually played like links golf courses. A lot of them, like you're saying, are these kind of weird inland hidden, you know, not exactly the first thing that you picture when you picture Scottish golf, which is just another kind of level set thing as we get into anything. Taurus sauce season 10 islands and highlands is sponsored by our friends at rowback. Rowback is all about bringing people together, they crave activity just like us. That's we were so excited to have them on board this season as the presenting sponsor. Be on the lookout. Next Wednesday, when the Taurus sauce rowback collection drops in the NLU pro shop, it coincides with the premiere of episode one on October 7th, that's rowback best fit, best feel. It is Taurus sauce season. We are so excited to have their support for this season and very thankful that you guys continue to support rowback as well. Shout out to our friends at rowback presenting sponsor of season 10 of Taurus sauce back to the pod. Why don't we get there? What's our route? Where are we starting? What does this look like? You know, pretty easy and convenient place to start at, easy to get to, you know, especially for D.J. and T.C. We're going to take us, take us through our itinerary and we'll circle back on our, on the individual courses T.C. Yeah. Well, itinerary wise, I said everybody Jim Hartzels book, a round of Scottish courses that it's, there's 18 of them in there. It's got a great little table of contents that that's kind of, you know, wandering along there. And one of this trip to feel a little bit like wandering, you know, it may be a little nonsensical in spots or a little out of the way in spots, but we took advantage of, it's the first year that the, that there's a domestic U.S. airline with a direct flight into Glasgow in a long time. So United Airlines, thank you for that, T.C., for getting that across a lot. Not thank you, man. I know you've been backchannelin hard for that one. Yeah. You know, the network planning folks, they're in Chicago, they're, you know, we've been talking about this one. It's funny because everybody views Edinburgh as like the, the center of it all, Glasgow is a much bigger city. It's kind of, it just kind of gets looked over a little bit. So everybody flew in there, it's a 737, not a glamorous overseas flight experience. And T.C. We'll be working on that for next year. I will. It can always get better. Yeah. Maybe we'll get a ship box 757 in there instead. It's very easy to fly into Glasgow. We picked up our cars and we drove southward to, to the coast, down towards Trune, Ardrossen, and we hopped on a ferry to Brottac on the Isle of Aaron. And that was where we, we, for all intents and purposes, started our journey there, they were doing a helicopter training mission that hang on, on the ferry ride over. And guys, I just want to get out ahead of this. We had like, we had some of the best weather you could ever dream of in Scotland. People were like, oh, yeah, like this is, this heat wave, like this is, this is mad. This is absolutely wicked. I mean, every day was days a year like that. They said that when we were on Aaron, yeah. Every day was about 71 degrees and sunny with like, blowing 10. And if Aaron looked like Hawaii, yeah, it was crazy. It was just gorgeous. So we got to Aaron. We went to the, we checked in there, B&B, the shore house down, down in the landlash bay. Aaron's not very big. You can get around it in a few hours. It's, it's like Maui, right? It's, it's, there's two, there's, you know, a few big mountains right in the middle. There's a big ring road. There's one saddle back road there. But we, we checked into the, to the house, and then we booked it up to, to Corey, which Corey is a little minors, kind of hobby golf course. They built it back. There was a, there was a mining camp up there. It's in Glen, Sanix, Glen's, I think we'll talk about that. It's Glen's or sick, I think, as far as the, uh, just where two ridge lines meet. We spent a good amount of time trying to define a Glen, but then once we did, really had no Glen's, our, Glen's or sick, who that's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Glen Sanix. Between, between these two big peaks and there's a, uh, natural waterfall next to it that you hear and, and I think there was a guy bathing, um, bathing nude in the waterfall. I didn't want to disturb him. But, but yeah, like your, I mean, I'm more curious to get y'all's impressions of, of Corey because like, it doesn't look like a whole lot. You know, standing in the parking lot, we're playing with you and who's the, uh, the head of the Aaron mountain rescue. So he goes up and rescue's dipshit tourists like us. If we, if we twist our ankle or, you know, have some sort of health issue, uh, he's also the greenskeeper at Corey. He's also probably the best call for on the island as well or not probably is such a great title. By the way, that's, man, yeah. Look around this island. He's, he's the best call for here. It's just that the man in these streets, it's a great title. So a gentleman of the game, T.C., I mean, just like it's get a guy as you're going to, you're going to be as humble and hospitable as, as anybody will meet. And so you get to Aaron or to, uh, Corey, it's on the north, it's on like the east northeast side of the island and he passed the Corey hotel, which is Jim's favorite place in the world. And, and you're like, man, this is, this is wild. And then you pull into this little tiny car park and you play, you hit your first t-shot into this little par three. And then I think the crew did a really good job of capturing this moment when you look left and like you get past the trees and you look left and you're like, holy shit, that's wild, man. Like, look at that. It looks like the land before time. It's, I think it's the best like reveal I've ever seen in golf of like, oh, when you come around a corner, it's just a Jurassic Park comes to mind. It's this mountain is on the walls and it's in the afternoon. So the sun is just backlighting everything. It's not like there's not glare because it's such a big mountain, but it's just like lighting up this mountain. Again, the weather helps a ton with this, but it's, I can see that even in bad weather being so spooky, like just knowing that every time you show up at that course, depending on the weather that day, it's going to look different and it's going to look sick. And then you're going to basically play from number two on, you're just playing up into that mountain and then along the top and then back down the glen, it's just really, really fun. Yeah. The second hole you play over this ridge that's, you know, it's kind of the perfect, like, yeah, welcome to Scotland, man, like glass of DLTC to a blind, you know, blind part three, that's like six iron five, like it's 200 yards and there's a tree that you got to navigate as well, which is, it's sick and then yeah, there's all these crisscrossing holes at this point, like you're kind of crossing over the eighth hole at that point and yeah, you just start this climb, climb, climb and guys knew how much you play the fifth hole, which is kind of the mountains moving left to right entirely. And there's at the sixth hole, sorry, the fifth hole plays across the mountain. Yeah. Yeah. Now the fifth hole goes up. Sixth hole is the one that plays across the side and seven. You tee off down the hill across three different holes, really. Well, that would add, it, it's a thrill ride, man, it's, it was so much fun. It was really cool to see it through you and size of like, I kept hitting these shots. I thought we're good. And then like he, he was just closer every time, like every single time, he just outwitted me every single time. But it didn't, didn't look different from the tee, why did we hit it? But he was just hitting the right shots that I was hitting the wrong ones. But, well, great, great features too. Knowing that it's kind of a, you know, not a big crew, like these greens are benched into hills with like squared off greens and you're like, man, he's, we're playing with the guy that's doing this by hand pretty much. And it's like you're, you know, we've always loved like Ben, some guys backyard, Mr. Hoot hailing spot. It feels like the, you know, an original version of something like that of like, hey, community course and in the, the town's backyard is how I was feeling. You know what's funny? I never thought about it until you said it that way, Neil, but obviously like it always, everybody always comes back to like, oh, this course is so natural, it just sits on the land. I mean, there's almost something better when you get that intersection of, it is completely natural. But I do see what somebody in 1890 dive corner had to do right there. Yeah, there is, there is like something that is a right angle on that grid that is benched in there and they leveled that by hand and I'm like, that's God, I need to do that in my yard. I can do that. You see exactly how they did it. Like, you, you know, you just, you cut down on the higher side of the mountain and then you put it on the lower side and you just made a flat right. It's a good job keeping that grass growing in that corner. I'm kind of fertilized or he's using for that. That's great stuff. Randy, what do you think? It was great. I loved playing that golf course off the flight and on the first day because it was enough of a walk. Certainly, you know, you're going uphill side hill to be like, you're getting a little exercise. You're the blood's flowing. But again, the golf is more, I mean, it just felt more like warm-upby. Like, hey, knock the rust off, hit some shots. That's all I need day, a rival day, day one. What I really love too was, and it's really, I think, across all these courses we'll talk about. But there is serious golf played at this golf course, just because we weren't necessarily playing like the most serious match. anything, you know, that the fantastic little clubhouse locker room where it's a room, but they have competitions, they they have stuff going all throughout the year. And I I think more than anything, I just love the spirit of people playing real golf in Scotland. Great way to start the trip, TC. I was a little bit worried. I was going to lose you guys of like, oh, fuck, we got to walk this place and then we're going to miss dinner and all that. So it was big. And yeah, Greg and you and did a good job of we got out there straight away. And then we went back to the Corey Hotel afterwards to eat dinner and pre-order our meal and they do such a great job there. But we should shout out Greg just overall as we're talking about Aaron, Aaron's A-R-R-A and the the island just off the west coast of Scotland. Greg McCrae, one of the one of the massive ambassadors, TC. Obviously you've known him for a little while, met him on your your trip over there with with Hartzel. But I mean, just just to help it with everything on this trip all the way down to, you know, getting to Corey early and planting some beers up at the top of the hill. You know, where it's just like, I want you guys to go look behind that tree. Might be cooler. Might be cooler beers back there. I mean, it's like that kind of guy, right? Just the the best guy you could possibly go to these places with. And so we'll talk. I'm sure he'll come up a couple times. So that's an intro to Greg. Yeah. And then yeah, then we turned in early that night and went to went to bed. The, you know, the sun goes down. Aaron wouldn't Aaron would be overrun if not for the midges. The midges can get tough when the sun goes down. So that, that, you know, puts a little damp on some of the outdoor time. But they hate rain and they hate these TC. So what the one good thing is if it's bad weather, it keeps the midges away. And if it's really good weather, that will help you too. And we're staying. We got a little bugs by the way. You don't know what it is. The midges. They're, uh, and we're staying at this little place, overlooking the holy aisle. Uh, see, you see wake up and it's, it's, that's just, you know, there in the sunrise, basically on this little cove. So, um, but we woke up the second, or, you know, first, first full day, second day. Just super quick. Last thing on Corey was just like, maybe keep a counter on these of top 100 courses we played versus courses that have honesty boxes. And this was the first honesty box, meaning like you, if you show up and there's no one there, like take your green fee, which I imagine is most of the time. Like, there's an honesty box or like ways to pay online, uh, at a lot of these golf courses. Again, it's a, such a cool concept that we got kind of numb to by the end of this trip, but not something you will ever see, uh, or many places that said, you know, there's a, there's a golf pass for the island too. You know, so that the island really felt like a awesome community. I mean, Greg knew everybody, obviously down to like the boat captains and, you know, he's the ice cream king of Aaron. Uh, so, you know, obviously that's, he's going to know everybody, but it just feels like, um, they're, I think there were five course, we played three of the courses on the island. I think there's five. And it seemed like they all try to work together to make sure, yeah, like they, to make sure it's like, yeah, you want to play golf. There's ways to make sure like, yeah, we got to pay into this. So these courses are, you know, stick around for a long time. If you think that golf is expensive, this day at age, yeah, go get the Aaron golf pass. It's 20 pounds to play nine holes at Corey. It's 30 pounds to play as many holes as you want in the day. And it's 180 pounds to play as many holes as you want in a full year. So, and it's 50 pounds if you're a junior, 17 or under, uh, and you can pay at the tea room, you can pay online, you can slip it in the box at the clubhouse, which I, I think that speaks to maybe a conversation about Aaron in general, where it, it's far flung, but it's not, it's not impossible to get to, right? I mean, you get to Glasgow. If you can get to the west coast of Scotland, you can, you can get there on a 40 minute ferry or whatever it is across. And it just is a, it would be a great time for a buddy's trip, but it's not like a go into Pinehurst or something like that. It just seems like an all time family trip sort of place. There's beaches, there's restaurants, there's hotels, there's cool shops, there's different parts of the island to explore, there's hiking, there's all kinds of different things. And then, you know, if you want to be the guy who, who ducks out and plays golf in the morning or in the evening or whatever, there's just like no shortage of places to go out and play nine holes, 12 holes, seven holes, whatever you want to, you want to do of, of just really soulful tank filling, uh, so, you know, type of golf. So, yeah, just that's what I walked away from that is just like what a, what a great family trip this, this would be. The planning wise, the limiting factor is ferries, uh, just getting a ticket on the ferry, especially for a vehicle. But if you're going to Macrihanish and an Aberdeen, you know, Campbelltown, can tire area or anywhere out west, like hit Aaron first stop and then take the wee ferry from there onward up to Oven or wherever. So, but yeah, we went to sleep that night, everybody rested up and, and we went to Whiting Bay the next morning, which buckle up, boys. Randy, take us to Whiting Bay. Yeah. So Whiting Bay sits on kind of the southeast, uh, side of the Isle of Aaron. It's right across the Firth of Clyde, really from like Prestwick area, uh, to, to give anybody a sense of direction. If you look do west from Prestwick or even Trune, you're kind of looking, one of the areas would be Whiting Bay. The golf course is, I mean, it's a strapped type golf course and I don't say that with any like negativity at all, uh, but just to kind of, you know, reset the conversation a little bit. From the tips, it's an 18 hole course, from the tips, it's 4,451 yards and a Paris 63. You can play the yellows or the reds, you know, you can knock off about 400, 500 yards from that total distance, if you'd like. And as you said, I think it was mentioned earlier, you know, you pull up into this car park and all you can really see is just this hill, like you're just at this base of this hill. Just to get to the car park, just to get to the car park, you're going up, uh, you're probably doing three or four hundred vertical feet. Where are we going here? It's a one-leaf road. And I think that's, that's exactly the thought I had. It's just like, okay, where are we going? Where's this golf course going to go? And come to find out first couple holes, you make your way up that hill. So strap in. You know, it's not like making your way up sideways. The first hole is straight, literally straight up the hill. Yeah. Until you reach a certain 15 to 20 degree angle, it's, it's, yeah, Neil, it feels like one of those, it would be the most sacrilegious thing possible. One of those little golf motorcycles, I think it might be the perfect, I mean, the most perfect place ever invented for one of those things. That's just ridiculous. I don't know, dude, you have to get a massive insurance policy, because you can see someone coming down. Yeah, down 18, like going right into the clubhouse. Evil can evil that shit. So yeah, so you just start working uphill. You're just, you're just gaining elevation and you're, you play a small little powerful. I think, Tron, I apologize who said it. I'm sure I'll be on the video, but Whiting Bay is, it's a golf course of half-pars. You and Son, he said it's basically like 16 half-porks. And that's what it is. Yeah, there's no par-fives. And so pretty much not every par-three, but the majority of par-threes are almost par-three and a half. You know, I'm thinking of number five, it's 209 yards on the card. Number 11 is 201 yards. Number 13 is 249 yards. The hardest hole I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that was so far. And then the mature part of the par-fours are really par-three and a halfs as well. You know, playing anywhere from like 225 yards, 265 yards. And so it's, it's just this weird, it's almost tough to wrap your mind around where the par-three is, you almost have to let go of par. Like I laid up off the tee of number 13, like the hardest par-three, it's this 200. And what I say was 249 yard par-three, that kind of goes, it demands like a high cut back up the hill. And if you miss left, it's just going down the ridge into gunge. And so- And there's Heather Wright, if you missed right. It's like I want to know part of that. So I just hit a little six iron layup- And it's as big as your desk as well. It's so hard. You just hit a little six iron layup off the tee. And it's like, well, maybe I'll get up and down for par. And if not like fours, not a terrible number. And so you just had that kind of gulf going on repeat until really the very end where you kind of come down the hill, 15, 16, 17, send you back up the hill on a, on a par-three. And then 18 other finishes is a big downhill. It's listed over four yards. It doesn't play near that because it's all dead downhill. But it ends this, this little green pocket sits right by the clubhouse. It's guarded by a couple tall trees. And I guess I just fell in love with the place. Like it's so charming and unique and original from anything I see or get to play. I really, really enjoyed Whiting Bay. And I was carrying a half set. You hit every club. You hit every type of shot. I felt like it just is a place that that can really test your golf game, even though it's barely over 4,000 yards. - And a good short course, like a really good physical outing, like quality. - You're gonna get exercise. - Yeah, it's just, it's exercise. And I, that's, you know, again, one of my, I love courses like that, where you feel like you're hiking and the views are great up at the top. So you get the reward, you kind of play up on top for, I don't know, it feels like three, four, five holes just kind of sit up on that. That's the one thing, and then you start going back down. - Yeah, yeah. - Like you knock off these big climbs, and then you get to play across these, these plateaus for four, five, six holes at a time. And it's like, it's one of the most artful, balsy roundings, I think I've ever seen of, of, just like, wait, how did you figure out how to route this? 'Cause it's really thick, jungle forest, all around it too. It would be, it would be a chore to clear that today, much less a hundred years ago. - And it's worth mentioning too. Like, some of the smallest greens I've ever played, and just some holes and just like, yeah, this is a 200 yard par three with a tiny ass green. Like I can't even describe how small this green is. And there's a, there's a charm with a lot of these courses, too, of like, what were the greens, Stimpen, six, seven? Like it's, it's not, it didn't mean to go for that, but it's not, it's not God for that, because. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, 10-11. It's like, I still be out there trying to make, make it in the hole. - These small, like, extremely small community golf courses, like their path to sustainability is through things like smaller greens and smaller and slower greens. So like, getting to kind of just see how, you know, how old is this golf course? Like, over 100 years old, I think. I forget what the actual year, 1895 is when this course opened, like the fact that they, they're, you know, have it set up in such a sustainable way is what makes the experience so cool, right? And that's where it's like, you can get turned off really quickly with slower greens and you can get frustrated with it if you want, or you can, you know, see, see the way that, you know, people on the other side. - Well, they're not pouring greens, though. So, I think when you get frustrated with slow greens, when they're all just, like, circles and maybe there's like, one big, like, mound in the middle of it. But these, again, like, similar to Cory, like, they're benched into hills. They're in interesting spots. So, there's a payoff to hitting those greens. And then, yeah, once you're playing a course with slow greens, like, there's a skill to putting on slow greens, you know, you got to, you got to punch the keys for god's sake, you know? Like, you got to, you got to strike the putts. And that's, that's, it makes the short putts fun when you're playing a little money match or something. 'Cause nothing's really a gimmie, which is great. - Which is what I was gonna say is I feel like you lean into the format at a golf course like that, right? Or it's like, you're not going out, it's par, whatever. You're not trying to shoot three over par. You're just trying to play a stable for game. Or take advantage, or a match, or take advantage of those, those half-par holes. It's par is, should be irrelevant usually, right? It's like, did I make a four or a five? It's fun to make par relevant and make them all half-par so that you have a birdie putt all the time, or how the hell am I ever going to make par. It is such a unique place from that perspective. - I would say-- - I would say-- - It's a nice par tilt game. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, Randy, you were, you were on tilt going, I think, did you birdie nine at Corey? Or DJ, yeah, and we're talking about it in-- - Birdie seven, eight, and nine at Corey. - Oh yeah, I could easily, you could easily go nuts on one at Whiting Bay, and then there's no way in hell you're making a birdie onto it, right? But I mean, I would say if we were to do a dream 18 of the holes we played on this trip, I think Whiting Bay would punch above its weight as far as just, there would be at least three holes from Whiting Bay on that 18-hole course. - Eighth hole was a huge highlight. Just like, it's 60, you know, mid-iron, the layup, and then hit over a gunch with a big, kind of using the slope from right to left as well. It was fun, man, it was very, very fun. Last round we played on Aaron is over at Shiskin, probably the most, easily the most recognizable course for Aaron, the one that gets people over there in terms of golf, tourism. DJ, why don't you take us there? - Yeah, Shiskin, come on, you say proper name. - Just like, it was phasor the way Whiting Bay did. - Yes, Shiskin, golf, and tennis club, don't sleep on the tennis if you're gonna be at Shiskin. - It is, yeah, like you said, it's all right. The thing that people know, Aaron Golf, I think it's been a course that Instagram has been very good to Shiskin. It's visually unbelievably striking. The third hole is a hole that people will probably know. You've got the kind of the path cut into the hill and it almost looks like you're in Lord of the Rings, carrying your bag up to this hill to this uphill part three. Really big rock outcroppings. It's just a visually stunning, striking golf course, but also outside of those two or three holes that kind of play around the big rocks, just some of the most awesome strategic, thoughtful golf holes playing away from that section of the property as well. But it goes way back 1883. I think it was when the kind of current ish routing was laid out, it was nine holes. Originally, I think the Great Man Willie Park extended it to 18 and then a couple of World Wars may have led to the decline of those other six holes. So it plays as a 12 hole links. Now, if you're looking at Aaron is kind of like the face of a clock, Wedding Bay where Randy's talking about is that probably five o'clock and Shiskin's kind of around the bottom up at about eight o'clock. And so you can kind of get there a couple of different ways. You can take that saddleback road, John was talking about, which is just like you look at the map and like the juxtaposition between looking at the map at this kind of like, oh, it's a small island off the west coast with looking at those hills and just like, am I in Montana type of feeling is just one of the very cool things about about being an Aaron. But Tron's been there before. We've done videos at this place. This is one that people kind of know a little bit about, but it's all I throw to you. How did the reality kind of match your preconceived notions about it? Whether it's certainly helped, you do get there though. And there is a little buzz around it, right? We ran into someone at a coffee place along the way that was like, yeah, I'm on my way. I've got like a 340 tee time there. And you know, there was a steady stream of people teeing off. Like there was a lot of, it wasn't like overcrowded, but it was just like, a lot of people walking out there, a lot of people really enjoying, you know, the one of 15 Aaron days you get like that. And it, you know, it starts to, you know, this word, like, I don't want to use this phrase, but like you, I get there like, oh, this is a little bit more like real golf or traditional golf that were, you know, even though if it is 12 holes, it's like, now we're on full, more full length holes. And it's kind of, it looks like a links golf course. It's a links golf course. Like this is bigger crew. I mean, of course conditioning is the greens are faster. And it's just, it's well maintained in that, like a, yeah, like you said, like a, you know, big boy course. But it still has, and it has a ton of like the quirk that I, you know, you travel for. I remember watching the TC's video. It's just kind of, I was like, I can, I want to go play the third hole so badly, so badly. Like this part three completely blind part, like it's known for the fourth hole, which is the, you know, the part three from the top of the hill, like around to the back corner of it with the, with the great view is like, I'll play three, the completely blind part three up over this, you know, up on top of the, you know, it plays completely uphill. And then also over like a berm down to a green, you can't see even a little bit of. And then you go into a long part three, then a drivable four, the sixth hole, which is just awesome. And another blind part three after that. And it's a, it's like crune bay, shrunk down into 12 holes on the complete opposite side of Scotland. And it's a, it's awesome. It's a throw ride and it does, it does make you want to go play. Like a 24-hole day at Shishkin might be one of the great, great days of golf. Like 36 hours of golf at my age is, it's starting to feel like a lot. And 24, like 18 sometimes does not feel like enough. 24 would be awesome. - Yeah. I feel like, I feel like I'm stealing this take from you, but you kind of said it earlier too, Neil, that Bluebird Day at Shishkin is awesome. But man, you truly give me any weather out there. And it's just the kind of landscape that's like, be moody. - Yeah, if it's moody and smooth above you. It'd be cool if it's raining. That's cool in its own way, if it's windy, if it's calm, if it's just impossible to knock it out. - 'Cause we got a little bit of it. We got a decent wind in the afternoon. It felt like it was picking up throughout the round. And there's just, there's a lot of hero shots to hit. It's, what I loved about that course was it was goading me into it's stupid stuff, man. It's just giving you a little peek. I made, you know, I don't know. Maybe I should say a lot of cars there too. - Yeah, which was a lot of fun. Five, six, eight, nine was like Greg. Greg was winding solid up on nine. I was like, yeah, I think he went in the burn, man. It's like, I thought that was like four, 15 off the teeth. I was like, yeah, man, it's really firm. And you're downwinding. - I think that was nine. I think I had, I think I hit it 70, 76 yards over the green on one of those last couple holes. - That was 10, I think. Which is what I was going to say as it's. Maybe the foremost course in the world where you want to be the first group that can wait on the green and look back and watch the people behind you play the next hole. I had as much fun waiting and watching you guys hit your shots into those holes as I did hitting the shots myself. I mean, it's just it's great. How about 11? I don't even know how to describe it or what to call it. It's this punch bully green that you got to clear the thing. There's a gully in front of it. You got to kind of get it up there. But then you got it. Yeah, try to stop it with the punch bull. It was very tough with the win. I found that one difficult. Maybe the most three-dimensional hole I've ever seen in my life. There's just a lot to navigate in order to get shot there. It's cool. Like I said, it feels away from a lot of the kind of, there's towns throughout Aaron, but the biggest stuff is kind of on the other side of the island. It's a bit of a journey to get there, which is again, one of the features, right? You're either driving through these small towns kind of along the coast, which to your point, Neil, feels like you're driving through Hawaii or or you're driving through just big country back roads. It's it's lives up to the to the ex, you know, your preconceived notions of it. Easily, easily the best par 42 course I've ever played. Top five. Yeah, definitely top five. Yeah, 2700 yard golf course from the tips, 28, almost 2800 yard golf course. Again, one of those things you would not ever think twice. I've once you're out there playing the actual golfful stuff. But at this point, I was like, all right, these guys are either going to like, I've either lost them. They're big, big swing early in this trip. And if the weather would have been different, it could have gone differently, I think. But yeah, like, you know, big, that was a big, what, 30 whole day. But also just, you know, hey, if Barry bag tag comes out and is like, come on, man, like, when are we going to get an 18 whole 7,000 yard championship golf course here? Like you're holding out on us on this trip on this itinerary, you know, I feel like I feel like everybody's everybody's light went on though. Like, oh, shit. Okay, yeah, this is what we're doing this trip. This is great. A big thanks to our friends at Getty, whether you're looking for hard coolers, soft coolers, cups, mugs or more, Yetty has it. And the entire crew uses Yetty's awesome bags. We travel with the Ranchero backpack and Crossroads luggage. The Ranchero backpack is structured. It's ultra durable. It's got easy access, no matter how full it is. It comes with a great laptop sleeve compression straps. It is built for daily use and comfort in the Crossroads. It comes in two sizes built with rugged wheels, great internal organization and water and abrasion resistant tough skin nylon. It can take a beating. It's been all over the world with all of us. And there's barely a scratch on it. I take it absolutely everywhere. It's sitting just here to my left. Check out their complete offerings at Yetty.com. We greatly appreciate all the Yetty's support over the years back to the pod. I feel like we need to shout out Stewart, the Greenskeeper, you know, the great man Stewart doesn't even play golf and it just takes care of like the coolest golf course in the world. It's just a complete complete legend. He's we talked about a lot while we're out there, but you could very easily fall into the trap of making these places museums, you know, where it's like everything needs to be preserved and just so the way it was in 1896. And instead they've almost taken the opposite tack where they're they're looking to constantly improve. He's these adding t-boxes. He's looking for, you know, can we bring back some of these old holes? What can we do that's just a project we can work on this year, which is, which is really cool. It's not precious. Yeah. Like it's it's it's never precious. And doggy in the shop is a great job. Yeah. Did I hear him tease that they were potentially going to be adding six more holes? I think they're looking at I think they try to do. Yeah, I might be speaking out of turn, but I think they try to do either just like put some flags six in or something and do the old Willie Park routing the 18 hole routing. But I don't know if they would ever bring back those holes like in full, but they were there at one time. And so yeah, it's it's you can kind of see it. If you're there, if you're kind of standing on the third tee, the stuff that kind of winds around the other side of the big the big rock face. I think there's more land over there, but it might be grazing land or I don't know how it's how it's shaken out. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a kids course down on the beach or down near the beach too. Yeah, great beach. When it's sunny, which I assume it always is. Yeah, if you go and go there and have a different experience that we have that you'll see in the video, that is that is not on us or not not swearing by the weather on this one. So at this point of the trip, we diverged, our paths diverged and not yet, we all caught the ferry together. And I want more shout out to Greg because a bit of our crew forgot a very important piece of equipment back at the Airbnb. And you know, you got to make these boats, these ferries wait for no man, except for Greg McRae because we get to the north, the north harbor of Lecranza for the for the ferry over to the Ken Tire Peninsula. And it's like, well, we can't go back for this equipment. So, you know, but Greg meets us over there. He's like, oh, I tell the boat captain to hold the boat. Yeah, no, no, no, straight. I called him. Everybody knew the deal for the dumb tourist got the we got y'all set up. So we got off the island with no problems. Great. We had great breakfast sandows. Oh, it's an awesome place. Great breakfast rolls and then we had a great dinner the night before too. The Mara fish house that's just the Mara fish bar right next to the Cori Hotel there. Eat outside of picnic tables and it's just like the freshest seafood you can ever have. So I would also shout out the wee book shop as well. Put that on your list if you're if you're in air and you got it got to go to the wee book shop. So yeah, we were on the ferry together and then we diverged off the car ferry. We diverged myself and the strap boys made our way down the Ken Tire Peninsula for a little bit of golf while TC and DJ were off to another ferry out to the out to the outer Hebrides. We'll get to that in a second. We're going to go next to Macrihanish was the first golf course that me, Neil and Randy hit on the Ken Tire Peninsula and Neil won't you take us there. Yeah, so a little bit of history because this is this was you said, like, Hey, when are we going to play the bag tag berry stuff? Well, we're going to play it right now. This is a big boy golf course. This is it's founded March 11th 1876. Locals met in Campbell town, which is on the east side of the Ken Tire Peninsula, but probably 15, 20 minutes on the west side is Macrihanish. So not too far from the kind of the main population center down there. So the locals met in 1876 and adopted the press week rules. The original layout was just 10 holes and then it was expanded to 12. The course got its big makeover in 1879. New land became available and old Tom came in Randy. Old Tom Morris came in and laid out 18 holes. And that's when it's known for that opening that first hole, which we'll we'll talk about here in detail. It's been changed a little bit over time. World War Two, they had to take away I think holes eight through 10 and they kind of rerouted those because there's like two mile long airstrip and airport. I think Navy seals were based there at one point. Like it's it's a big big big ass runway out, you know, it's a classic links course out straight out down the coast and then not so much straight those holes eight to 10 kind of got rerouted, but then back back to town back to the clubhouse the other way. The clubhouse was destroyed in a fire. It looks like in December of 2018, but they were able to save a ton of memorabilia, ton of records and they've rebuilt a new clubhouse. So in that new clubhouse, they were they were able to save a lot of stuff. Yeah, it seems like they were able to save most of the stuff. So spacious clubhouse brand new and up on the second floor, there's a fantastic restaurant, beautiful, big ass bay window looking out over the street and on the other side, you've got the putting green, the pro shop, the first T and then and then the C. Above that window, our friend, there's a quote from our friend Michael Bamberger and his books to the links land quote, if I were allowed to play one course for the rest of my life, macro-hanish would be the place. And so that was kind of my first, you know, walked in there's like, oh, Bamber, whoa, hey, that's, I mean, big ass quote right up there on the on the on the beams. That's pretty that's pretty bottom line. I love, I mean, to the links land, to the links land, if you've never read it, probably my favorite golf book ever, but the the line that always sticks out to me, just as we're shouting out the geography stuff is when he talks about the the kind tire peninsula hanging off the mainland of Scotland, like a dislocated finger. And if you just look at the map, you're like, that's that's some of the best writing I've ever seen right there. I mean, that's that's it. That's what it does look like. It's it's great. So I mean, my thoughts to set it up would be macro-hanish. It was not my favorite course that we played, but I think it is like the truest, like links course, maybe that I've ever seen. Like if you, if someone told me to close my eyes and picture a links golf course, I think I would picture macro-hanish as like that template. And it's because it's out and back. I placed through the dunes, it snakes through the dunes, the rumply, you know, rumply fairways, a lot of like kind of paranoia about like, I don't know what's over that ridge. You get a ton of blind shots and like, damn, man, this is a tough place to play the first time. The wind is is a factor all day long. And then I think the main thing is just the like the colors of the course. It has that brownish green fairways. And then you got the darker green rough. But then you have the golden brown Heather everywhere that when the wind blows, it almost looks white. And so [BLANK_AUDIO] just seeing like white kind of shades of white throughout the day as the wind picks up and then dies down. And just the way it looks is like the definition of links golf to me. I want to shout out a few specific holes. I think the first hole is the famous one, the obvious one. It is called battery. It's a 423 yard par four kind of elevated tea right hugging the dunes, hugging the beach on the left side. The beach runs all down the left. And the beach is in play as Randy learned, which was awesome. I think Jack called it the best opening hole in the world, which I honestly think I agree with. I mean, it's just a good awesome golf hole. But my favorite feature of that hole, the beach, the view, everything, it's a great opening. It's not a handshake. It's a brute of a hole. Is there are three trap door bunkers up the right side. And they're not pop bunkers. They are built in, they are submerged. They are underground. You can't see them until you're within five yards of them. And they are perfectly placed. I hit in one of them. And they kind of go, if you bail right, you're likely to end up in one of these trap, fandom of the opera trap doors. And it is a tough way to start your day. So that hole was sweet. The par three fourth hole was a standout, just like an elegant links par three that sits tucked in and nestled into these dunes. And there's some really tough, or maybe one really tough pop, you know, sod bunker in the front, death bunker. That's just like a handsome golf hole. And then the fifth hole, very difficult par four, dog legs hard left. It might be the meanest punch ball I've ever seen. Like when I hear punch ball, I usually think like, okay, it's blind, but like maybe a bird. If I get it anywhere within 10 yards left or right of that aiming stick behind the green on most punch balls, it's like, I can't wait to see where that is. I might have a birdie putt. This is like a broken bowl. Like the front right, there's no, there's no bowl. Like it's just like a horrible runoff down to the right. So it's like a half punch bowl. That hole was so hard. That was sick. And then the seventh hole, another blind shot here, a blind approach. There's a, it reminds me of the Klondike at Lahinch where massive dune guards the right side of the fairway for a blind approach over. It's how I got bodied on this hole, which was always so unfair. Just sick. So I call that one out. And then I'd say best view on the course, behind the eighth, or I guess behind the ninth tee, behind the eighth green, you can get up on these dunes and look back. And I always love it when you see how far away on a links course and out and back routing. Like, man, we're so far away. It feels like you've kind of earned it. And then you start the turn there at the ninth hole. And then the tenth and the twelfth of the two par-fives. Both of them very interesting. They pinch you. The tenth pinch is you on the drive. And it kind of shokes between these two dunes. So there's a lot of thought that goes into that tee shot. If you hit a good one, you get rewarded with a look at the green. And then the twelfth, I think the challenge is on that approach with the big dune on the right guarding that green. It's like both of them get you jacked up like a chance to score here, but you can wreck your rig too. Because if you miss the fairway at MacriHandish, it's a lost ball. Like that Heather is thick. It is a championship golf course. A couple more 16, 17, 18 if there was a criticism of the course. You kind of play out of the dunes. They get you back, you know, back to home. You could say that's boring land. I'd agree with 16, 17. I thought 18 was awesome. Reminded me of the 18th at St. Andrews, you know, kind of a short par four with just really, really cool mounding and trenches around that 18th green with OB left. And just an awesome scene of the town, you know, the clubhouse behind the green. So I really like the finishing hole. But I understand that like the fire works on that golf course are on the way out just, you know, with how it's routed along the water. But I will say, maybe a hot take here. I would love to see the open go to MacriHandish. I think they have the space for the hospitality. The big issue is lodging. They don't have, you know, you have to do short too. I think you could, I think you could, they have room TC where they could stretch out some teas. I really think they could make that an open course. And I feel like it is a true exam. It was an evaluation of golf. I thought that was a really hard golf course. And I think they can have an open there. So that is my hot take in the day. I think that that might be the remote nuclear. You're going to have US open it. I love it, Neil. It would be awesome. Get people, like that's another, I don't know, corner of Scottish golf that I took it to Port Rush. Like that, that I'm challenging the RNA. Go, go check it out. Smarter man than me. Go find 40 hotels up. No, well, there's, there's, there's, where there's mac and there's a resort up there on the other side. And it sounds like they're thinking about building a hotel up there. And so obviously the lodging and, and that, but how do you get the private jets into that airport? They got the airport, you know, they got the, the room for all the C.C. Oh, I stand with you, Neil. I've never been there, but I like that shit, right? You were doing so well, let me just clarify. There will not be an open macro. There should be, there could be a women's open there, Neil. I think that would be, I think it's high level golf. I think, I think you could test the best golfers in the world on that golf course. And, and Smarter Man than me could, could mess with where to put T's and what, what to do. But I think that with, and with the modern stuff that goes along, I think there's enough room there for all the hospitality stuff. And they can figure out the house, they'll build a hotel, whatever. I'm done. Go ahead. Take it away, Solid. I give you the last word. I think, like, I got to respond to that part more than a golf course. Macrihanish, it is, I, it's very different than what I guess I, I thought it was. I played there before, maybe nine years ago. And I think it kind of had a reputation as like a fun, quirky crew and bay like golf course, you know, it's kind of off the beaten path. And it's like, to Neil's point, it is like a, it's a tough golf course. Like it is like a stellar links championship style course. Like it's not championship links, but it's like, you know, proper, proper golf and a hard golf course. I made, yeah, made like five birdies or so, but shot in the high 70s, like, because there's just punishment out there to be had. Like you can, you can be a hero at times, but there's going to be times that just absolutely smacks you in the face as well. And it's charming, but I guess the, the difficulty of it takes away a tiny bit of the fun factor. It's kind of what I'm getting out of like a, with the right, for compared to Bamberger's quote of like a course I can play forever. I'd be like, oh, I mean, it's pretty, it's not like a joy ride out there. Some of them, the courses I would like to play every day for the rest of my life are probably more simple than Macrihanish. But man, it is a, that and the course will get to next is such a worthy compliment of each other and worthwhile trip down there when you even get to Macrihanish dunes on this trip with, you know, kind of a newer course. David McLeod kid, just up the, just across really the same stretch of land there just to the north across the, behind nine green. It's like that, it's, it's right there and I think they do an event every year where you play both courses or you, you just like play all the way out and you keep going down, down the back nine at Macrihanish dunes. I think the one thing you guys haven't mentioned yet is just the views out towards Ila and Jura, those mountains out there and those islands. It's, it truly feels like you're, you're peering off into, I don't just like into another sphere and do another universe. It's, it's really idyllic out there beyond the dunes in Ireland. Like on that west coast of that, that kind of the color of the water there and the surrounds of, of everything you're looking at. And yeah, we had some fresh, fresh wind. Yeah, you felt pretty, pretty exposed out there. It was, it was some real, real golf, man, and it's, it's so natural. Like, you know, it's, it's, it is quirky in some of the, you know, like the blind shot you hit into the, into the second hole and just the natural terrain rolls in the fairways are just very much like all that's how that was found. That was not, you know, bulldozers that made, made those mountains and, and kind of the weird quirks and humps and bumps in the fairway and things like that. It's what those bulldozers and architects are trying to imitate. Yes. It's, hey, that's like I'm trying to bring macro handage onto this flat side or on to something else. Like it's, it's the original. Yeah, Randy, do you have anything to add on that? Yeah, just the, I think what the, the long lasting image for me are those hums and bumps. Like the, the, the 14th hole, some of those just cavernous. I don't know, just natural like gullies almost. We're just so interesting. And then just the rolling gold of, of the Heather and, and just the, the land itself is, is so cool. I definitely agree with Neil, the, the star, you're just like on cloud nine. This is awesome. And then, yeah, it, it loses, it just doesn't keep that level as, as you make the turn and, and start to come in. So that's, that's the one. And the problem with that, the, Randy, is it doesn't keep the magic in the late in the bag and I put it, it keeps the challenge. So you just got to ask it. Like that part three 16th was one of the gnarlier pins with the wind we had. Yes. It just, just a really proper test. And, and honestly, I'm a little surprised to having now seen it. Obviously had read to the Lynx land had this idea of just like, sorry, I agree. agreeing with you like man if this is Bamberger's favorite not favorite but if he could play one course I'm thinking a bit more as like man, it's just a nice stroll. We're gonna we're gonna hit some shots We're gonna have a good time and it's it's it's a test. It's it's much more you got to be on top of your game You really have to think through things which is cool. I will just add we we had a post-rown drink and bite eat in the old pub like clubhouse remnant from what was destroyed tons of Old memorabilia Just a great proper place to have a pine so I would definitely encourage anybody if you are at macro-handish The new clubhouse is spectacular, but go over to the old and and have a have a drink at least and look around So this was you know obviously long days in the summer in Scotland We know we had that had that lunch had a drink We actually is checked into our hotel down there in Campbelltown and then at TC's behest He's and of course reading and seeing everything we've seen of denaverty from from Jim Hartzell's book and our film when revelation comes and Everything that that place means to him there's another one of those things from watching that those about Schisk and think about that third hole It was like oh, I got to get the denaverty. I got to see that 17th hole I got to see that 10th hole. I got to see that 11th hole and we went out there 6.30 or so in the evening after having already eaten and Said all right, we're gonna get a few holes in I'm not sure how long we're gonna gonna last out here I don't know if we got 36 holes in our body and kind of is I don't we didn't really say this to each other like we didn't do like after we teed off though I think we all just like kind of quietly agreed like I think we're playing all of these golf holes because it was One of the most special and just awesome evenings. I've had playing golf in Scotland in terms of the light the weather the company Golf course to ourselves the views the terrain that we're looking out out of the water and Again, we're describing a par 66 golf course that is 4,800 yards long only has one par five on it a lot of par threes You start on the in the early part of this golf course and you play holes one through four are on shared grazing farmland You know with you know electrical you know fences around The greens on this part, you know one and two are kind of short fours and then three is this just awesome Par three that you're awesome view that plays right along to an average bay there There's people down there grilling out on the beach down there There's a little house you could stay out out there on the point the fourth is just this punt this blind punchball Par three we had some great guides out there with us, you know Tell us take it in through the left instead of going right at it and just watch the ball funnel down in there And then it's just a you cross over this bridge from there and it's the bridge that separates the cattle You know in the grazing land, you know, it's it's like that one of those bridges that has the the animals can't walk through basically Because of all the cutouts in it and you place awesome driveable for you know up on top of this little hill Then you probably got hardest part three you've ever played in your life I just like keeps going nine is this Driveable par four over this hill down to this green that you can't see at all and then you play ten Up this hill is a short par three and this cool little shelf green and then You get to 11 T and it's just like one of the coolest spots in golf. I mean you just are looking back now at down the property It's like one of the shortest par fours. I think I've ever played. I think I think we could hit six and seven irons over the green being downwind and firm and and as much of a thrill ride as is that t-shot is and if for those that are familiar with Jim's story He lost his son back in 2021 And there's a bench at the top of that hill that commemorates Jordan and has a sign there from Jim And it is just like I can't think of a better spot You know to honor your honor a loved one there and to sit and just taking that evening was one of the most vivid memories I think I will ever have on a golf course and It was just a really really really really special night and I'm glad we captured it I'm glad we went and I'm glad we went to distance on that one such nice people we were joined by the club capped in the Was it the superintendent? I'm still unsure. Neil. I was having trouble Caretaker. Yeah, for sure. The caretaker couldn't have been nicer We're showing us around helping us with different lines different different ways to play it It's tough solly in this audio. I mean, we'll roll some some stuff into the video of this podcast But this is the one like please watch the episode where Denavity is here because it I just can't Capture in words how good the light was and how nice the weather was and and it was truly one of those nights where like we were in the most beautiful place on earth and and we were playing this this fun Inviting golf course and it just yeah It just was really magical and I like that feeling is just what I still remember and take from that and a good Chess and shout out are kind of Sherpa for the day. It was Robbie who was God. He's the man So he's guiding us around Macrihanish Which is a place where you need somebody helping you pick lines and give you a sense of where to go and then Robbie and Jim are really close and he's you know, we had a great match going. He's playing with Sally big guy and I are trying to You know trying to chop the the Kings head off, but it was good stuff man It was a really really fun night and then there's that hotel way off in the distance. There's this abandoned hotel Like a couple miles down the beach that you can see it's like a pen story like a beautiful Roodle list almost yeah, hard deco building. I don't even know what what theme of architecture and it's abandoned You know air travel just like rip the soul out of the the steamer culture And I was like man, I would love to buy that pull that place is sweet man So it's just a really fun part of the world a really interesting place and just like the you know The people that came out and join us weren't even playing but the joy they had of sharing that evening with us and like You know, there's a version of that which is not that welcome of kind of like coming out and and over explaining things or like trying to be too much of a tour guide and there's a version of that that's like Just the best company to have and like the joy on their faces in Our enjoyment of the golf course of just like they they knew they had something really special there and getting to show it off and experience it with us and The excitement they showed out of you know kind of just seeing our reactions some of those I can't something about that 12th hole After you play 11 and you climb this hill it's like a 270 par four that You know my ego I thought I could drive, but it's like a full two shot hole completely up this hill up on top these plate toes It's it is very real golf. I mean, it's about 17. Oh God 17 Uh over the burn there's one in the burn. Yeah, he's a burn There's some highlights for yeah, we won't spoil from from Racing through talent But gosh, it's just a I would again like three holes into it. I'm like, oh man I I love to come down to rip my dad. I think you would absolutely love this And it's worth repeating. It's the perfect complement to macrohanish. Yeah, the fact that like you should play both the same day And one is I really I think you said it when we were in the pub It's like one feels like an exam like all right. I'm gonna test my game Get ready get yourself right in the morning stretch it out. We're playing real golf and then that's the Just fun party after you took the exam whether you whether you do well in the exam or not. We need to blow off some steam And it's it's a great uh a great compliment and it's not a four hour golf course Like you it would not take you in any circumstances four hours to play that golf course So it's the kind of course you could play you could play 54 holes in a day and like it would Like it wouldn't feel crazy. It's it's just yeah, everything's in proportion. David Mcbrain is such a wonderful warm Great man and then and then yeah, and then Robbie is like Robbie's just the national treasure in Scotland like I think that Links Robbie on Instagram. I'll shout him out give him a follow. Yeah, he's he's just a gentleman and like one of the better Like one of the most consistent ballstrike or you'll ever be like he just doesn't miss It's just I mean fairway she missed today Robbie to yeah a little tight draw and and just very very sure handed This yeah, this one's like arms waving if you're making it down the Kintire Peninsula Carved timeout for denaverty and again, you don't need all the time in the world for it. It's just the You walk into that little clubhouse and you get like I don't know if you don't love that We we will not be friends if you don't love that stuff. That's just that simple like I don't know What to tell you? It's just so freaking cool and I'm so glad that we were able to able to carve it out and make it happen We stayed at the Royal Hotel in Campbelltown, which I would recommend that was a lovely stay and the Tandori place Extremely not expecting to find somewhere still open almost till 11 p.m. Uh in Campbelltown, Scotland and the Kintire Peninsula But they do close. I believe in 11 some nights check it out. We crushed them with a very late order I think we tipped really well. I hope we did we did that was extreme that place Colossed as we were walking up the door like like I think they got out of the building earlier than we did But we got food in extremely late. I wanted to shout that out But that's it for Kintire. Stay tuned. Yeah, that's a good transition probably You know you guys turned left. We broke after our ferry. You guys turned left. We turned right me and T.C. up through What kill peed up to Oben home with a great man Bob McIntyre We had a great day at T.C. I mean this was I don't think Bob's great. I don't think he's a great man. I just the man Bob McIntyre lost the great it's not up to me to take that label away from them. So out of the sake of consistency, the eloted area, noted lack of rage rooms in Obed. I didn't see too many of those. But Obed was, Obed was awesome just on the front end. That was kind of among, you know, there's a bunch of these on this trip, but one of the places where I was like, man, I could, I could drop anchor there for a couple of days and just sit and look at the water and eat great seafood and kind of mill about, which we did for a couple hours. Before we hopped on the megafairy from open out to Castle Bay, I believe, on the island of Bera, which is out in the outer Hebrides. If you're picturing mainland Scotland, you can picture kind of up at that, you know, again, clock face, kind of nine o'clock, kind of due west out there, kind of from like nine o'clock to midnight, there's a stretch of islands that runs out there, the outer Hebrides, which is where you will find Bera, which was our first stop. Nine whole golf course, we were really joking about the number of hours on the ferry per whole of golf. We were going out to play was quite a ratio. I think it was, well, TZ about a five hour ferry to get out there. It's a four and a half five hour ferry. Yeah, it was just over five, which was great. I mean, you know, well, I'm sure a lot of talk about the Kalmak fairies in our, in our videos, but they did right by us on that, on that trip. We had a great cruise, like absolutely breathtaking. But again, on a sunny day, I mean, it was just, it was like taking a cruise. You're just looking out at birds and shoreline and, you know, there's a- - On a brandy ferry. - Yeah, on the ferry that the MV Glen Sanix, which will be deployed on the Aaron to Trun and Ardrossen route, but they're plugging holes in the network. - Yeah, it was awesome. - It was a great place to, you know, you can go find a spot to take a nap. You can find a good food on board, coffee shop, and it was awesome. So yeah, got to enjoy that ride. We showed up on Berra kind of later in the evenings. - Six o'clock or so. - Yeah. We stayed at the Heathbank Hotel, which was great. Now, a ton of options on Berra, but that was an awesome one. We were, we were not there long. Certainly probably less than 12 hours, but it was a recently redone, great little family, bed and breakfast there. And we went and set out to play Berra golf club, which I think this is always kind of a point of pride and always a good marker of success. We've had this on strap a couple times, where it's like when you're running into locals at the convenience store at the gas station, whatever, you're like, oh, you guys are clearly not from here. Like, what do you do? And it's like, oh, we're here to- we traveled from the states to go play golf. And they're like, well, where do you play? Like here, Berra golf club, like, what do you mean? Like, what? Why would you come here to play this golf course? Like, what are you talking about? You can't, there's like a five hour fit. You came to play this golf course. And we got one hole in DC. We're like, yeah, what had traveled twice the distance? I mean, it was just breathtaking, breathtaking views, stunning piece of land, golf or no golf. I mean, just an unbelievable place to just walk around for a couple of hours. DJ was pretty pissed about the routing, though. Yeah. It was a hike, man. It was a lot of like, man, we're going up that hill to get to the next tea. Like, it was a big, big hunk of rock that we're navigating around. Nine-hole golf course, 2,300 yards played, like, I don't know, 6,000 yards. It played long, I would say. TC beat the shit out of me. You can save that for the video. But it was, it was, it was unlike any, I can say confidently, unlike anywhere I've ever been, TC. What was your takeaway? I just know we had to, well, speaking of takeaway, to be the only one restaurant on the whole island. It's this Punjavi place that they serve goat and sheep meat from the island. We put in a to-go order. They were like, oh, yeah, you're going to have to come back in two hours and get this. So we put it in. We played five holes, drove back down 15, 20 minutes each way. I popped into the co-op to grab a couple beers for us, brought it back. And we, I mean, we went nuts on that stuff and some non. And it was like fantastic food. So shout out to that restaurant. We can look at it. It's in the-- it'll be in the episode. But yeah, and then played the last-- we were finishing at what, 11 o'clock, 11.30, then driving back. And yeah, and then we had a-- I mean, it was-- the greens were rolling at three, but they were really true. Yeah, they were. It was a-- truly, it was a-- I mean, Randy, you would have fucking hated it. OK, let's just be honest here. You were like, this is stupid. This doesn't reach the bar of golf. And it's not like it's some old course. It was built in like the '90s, the '92s. There's big, big fences around the grids, like heavy-duty electric fences around the grids to keep the animals off. Because there's cheap and cows just milling about. There were cows very much in play on that third hole. So you had to kind of like really decide if you're going to try to play for the line of charm and bring these cows into play. And yeah, so you're out there. And you're seeing all this like incredibly rustic vibe of this place. You're like, oh, this must have been-- they must have been playing golf here since 1785. And you're like, no, it's 1992. There was just some people that got together to carve out the land. Which was crazy because right down the road was-- we're like, no, guys, that's where you should have put the golf course. That's golf land over there. This is just like mountain bog. But it was so like you would-- I don't know. I lost probably-- I didn't even hit it bad by any means. And I probably lost a quarter of the balls I hit. Just like we just never found them. They just went subterranean. Like they hit the ground. It just went-- There's muddy in spots. Yeah. T.C. of course kept fighting every fucking volleyball. You made a weird birdie on one of the holes, rolled it like a 30 footer. It was like, it was a very T.C. rat-like performance. But it was great, man. It was so worth it. And honesty box plays, I think it's 10 pounds to play. I was looking on their website. I think it's 90 pounds to become a lifetime member, which is great. It's just very cool. Totally one of a kind. So glad we made the trip. I've played Iona before, and a few other homemade golf courses almost. But I think Iona, they've-- it's that macar. It's a macar or whatever they call it. It's a very sandy, loamy soil. And this was not really that. This was more dirt and mud. So I was a little bit like, oh, this is different from what I've played at Iona. Because Iona, like, the ball doesn't dig. Or the ball doesn't. It just sits up on top of that stuff. And that's-- I was kind of expecting it to be more like what we got the next day. So the next day, we went to bed late. We hopped on the ferry early that morning from Areskay over to South-Uest, the Lock Boysdale, which we would take a ferry out of later on. But we played Ascranish. I'd heard a lot about Ascranish. DJ had been there very briefly. I think you flew on that. Yeah. Yes. We flew into Ben Bacula, I think, when we were there. And so it kind of came in from the other route. But I was there for adventures in golf when I worked for Scratch. But it didn't get to play. I was just kind of there as a producer. And so this was-- talk about a place I just did not think I was going to ever be again. And sure enough, I mean, it's just lovely when that stuff happens. And you get there earlier, yeah. Maintenance porn. Still the same spot. Look at that. Everything's still as it was. You would have loved it. Well, first of all, we had some time to kill. So we went and there's an airport on the beach. They've scheduled air service lands on the beach. Only spot in the world that has scheduled air service on the beach. And then you drive over. And it's just this-- it's much flatter than it was on Barra. Much more-- it felt like Lehench and Spots. A little bit like MacroHannish and Spots, where you just got these big ass dunes over there, but very flat farmland. And you know, just grazing land otherwise. And yeah, we went to the gentleman who's a member. Showed us around, drove down. And he showed us into the maintenance shed. And I mean, I think it gets pretty bleak out there in the winter. And by pretty bleak, I mean, like really, really, really bleak. And there's nothing to do. And so they've got a sim in there. They've got nets they can hit into. They've got a fake projector that they can watch sports on. And you told her that I was like, honestly, there would have been bottom 1% off golf courses in the world that I'd have been like, oh, I bet there's a simulator there at Asgardish, like this lost golf course, like-- Well, that was kind of the theme of the day. Like I was expecting Asgardish to just be a lot more-- oh, yeah, this old Tom laid this place out 150 years ago. And you can kind of squint and see it. And I mean, honestly, I think it might have been like the best golf course we've played. As far as a routing perspective, like the best golf course we've played in the whole trip, it's kind of an interesting, like, it's a fine start. The first four, five holes are good, like them, I think. And then after that, it just gets-- like you get out to the dunes and you're-- You're like, oh my, like five or six through 12 is just, oh my gosh, this is, these are some of the best holes I've ever played before. 100%. And it's like, you kind of referenced it, Sally, but the lost course aspect of it is really cool and that it was an old Tom Morris course from the 1890s, something like that and kind of fell old. Damn. Some lady called it. Yeah. Brought them over to lay it out and he did and it kind of fell into disrepair again around world wars and had a little bit of a renaissance through the 70s, but eventually kind of just trailed off and fell into disrepair until it was brought back by this guy Gordon Irvine was there on holiday or something and started talking to people and they're like, oh, there's an old Tom Gorse and he started digging into it and then I think a lot of people don't need it. Donated time to come bring it back. I know Tom Doke was heavily involved. I think my Kaiser was involved in some way to come in and really like, according to them, like it just became very clear like this was the routing. These were the teas, these were the greens, this fits perfectly with everything. Old Tom did and to your point, Tron is like, there's no way they got that wrong because it rules and it is some of the, yes, the greatest. It's one of, I don't know how you can have a much truer links golf experience than that. I was thinking about it this morning and it's like, you can go to a place like the Muscleboro Old Links inside the racetrack and it's very, very cool to look back on, but it kind of feels like you're going to a museum or like you're going to Colonial Williamsburg or something like that. Whereas this just feels like as authentic as I think you could make it. They maintain it, not all that differently. I think there's a couple of fairway moors out there, but not much, man. It's pretty much like if you want to see what links golf was like in the thirties and forties, kind of a vibe, that's pretty much what it's like and it is awesome and so singular to be able to experience that and so worth the trip to go do it once in your life. And so you get like, like the sixth hole was this par five, the par five were like proper par five. The six reminded me of a hole you would see at Berkdale or something just the way that the, just like the second shot goes in and then like seven, eight, nine, 10 were just, and then you get to 11s this par three that like the wind is howling DJ is down on the beach. It was, it was, it was like a very singular experience and then, and then you get out to 12, 13, 14, and there's the rabbit scrapes that they're struggling with that are, they're you know, these hairs that are, they're just fucking digging up the fairways all, you know, it's a real problem, you know, yeah, that's, that's, yeah. But you said it while we're out there, Tron, and it's like there, there are so many holes 11 was up there. What was the one that we were looking at were like, wait, what direction do you play to that green? Yeah. Oh, yeah. 16, 16, but there's, there's so many holes that you, you look at and having been to, you know, played far more Tom doke or kind of resort style golf than this style of golf. You just start to see like the original, the source material, you know, we're like, oh, man, that's where that idea came from is, is from a place like this because they, they're able to read, you know, recreate it at a place like band in or Terry Edie or wherever. But it's just very cool to be like, no, I think a lot of those ideas are coming. Coming from places like this is just a cool phenomenon. Yeah. Seven, like, like, what was the short, short part, short part four, eight, eight. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, oh, my gosh. Okay. Yeah. Like, this is, this is doke's ideal short part four, like these, this is the shit that he did at stream song or Pacific dunes or whatever. Like, this is, this is, this is it right here. And then seven feels like you're a ballet bunion and like, it's, you know, four, 40 on the card. It feels like it's seven hundred yards. This is not an easy golf course for ever played. Yeah. Not an easy golf course. The wind was pumping. I think we kind of just put it in a low gear and we didn't really talk a lot for about six or seven holes. We were kind of just head down, just, just going to battle, but it was, it was awesome. Great finishing hole. Like, Randy, I think you would have loved it. I think you legitimately, like, yeah, like, ultimately to, to bear up. I think you would have, this would have floated your boat. It would have been like, man, like, that was, that was some real stuff out there. Yeah. Nothing gimmicky. Like, truly real, real golf and, and real like source material golf is kind of how I would, I would sum it up and, and just, I, sorry, I cannot wait to see the video footage. I know. The recording I have not, I, I, I just have no visual as of this moment in my life. And I can't wait for that to change. And I'm sure when I do see it, yeah, between the journey and the satisfaction of like, just getting to that remote of a place and then getting to play it, it, it sounds freaking awesome. And like, it's in really good shape for like what they have to work with. It was so much better defined than I anticipated it being. I thought you were going to have to really squint and I was like, no, like, you're, oh, clearly, like, here's, here's the hole, you know? This is a great time to remind you about the Nest, our membership program here at Dole Lang Up. If you've enjoyed this podcast or if you're fired up for Taurus sauce, if you generally, like what we're doing here, joining the Nest is the best way to support it. You get access to exclusive content, discounts, events and some other stuff we reserve specifically for Nest members. One thing I want to call it right now is the Nest pod. Next week, we're dropping a Taurus sauce retrospective episode where we're going back through all nine previous seasons. Our favorite moment, stories, stuff we remember, stuff we forgot, all of it. It should be a pretty heavy, heavy dose of nostalgia heading into season 10. If you need something to bridge you from, from week to week between the episodes. We've had a few really good Nest pods over the last few months, myself, DJ and Randy. We did a deep dive on Chicago. Before that, Neil came to talk on, uh, came on, on to talk about how he's doing 2027 planning here at Dole Lang Up, a little bit of behind the scene stuff there. So that's what the Nest pods for is for going a level deeper into kind of what we're working on, how we think about things. What's really happening behind the scenes here? So if that sounds interesting to you and if you were interested in a whole lot of other perks that come with the membership, you can go to knowlingup.com/join. Learn a lot more, great discounts in the, in the pro shop. Uh, we met some great, great, great deals with some of our sponsors in there for Nest members as well. So as always, thanks for supporting what we do, knowlingup.com/join back to the pod. I, I, I, I started to describe how little, uh, of the planning and preparation I did for this trip. It was like negative. Zero would be like more, uh, you know, that would be assuming I, like I didn't know the planning in any of it. So I, I, I, I, I, I was made and it was like breaking up the, like, you guys are going to go to retirement. So we're going to go to the hour. Have these house. The apartment is like, oh, man, I would love to see ask, Chris. I would, I would love to do this, but my goodness, I had done none of this and I'm sure this all fits into a puzzle. And then also I heard of like what the route actually is to get out there. I was like, I'm good. I'll just do the, I'll do the guitar for that. And, and we were on the ferry on the way out there and they're, they're like, yeah, the bale thrusters, uh, not working just now on your fair, on your return ferry. So you're going to, you're going to go in instead of going to the Malay. You're going to go into where we, I'll sky, weak, yeah, on, on, on, on, on, on the all sky, where there's not really, there's like two golf courses, we're like, all right, we'll figure it out. Well, boys, instead of meeting at trial, we are going to meet you up at Dornick. We'll see. Yeah, we had to, we had to skip around. We were going to play around it, try T-R-A-I-G-H and end up having to skip that. And then we all kind of made the drive up to the Highlands all in one day. There's some different routes you guys went through sky. Sounds like that was a worthy change to the schedule. Yeah, I would shout that out on, you know, Pacific coast highway, the, you know, South Oregon, big sir, like those are all great. I would put driving through the house guy right up there on that list of greatest drives I've, I've ever seen. Wow. I mean, it was just completely stunning and very, like very varied, you know, you're popping in and out of forests, you're on cliff sides, you're, you're seeing long views. I mean, it was, it was stunning. We got to taste that too, driving what was going for the Loch Ness and looking for the monster. You find it. Yeah, I think we saw, I thought we saw, yeah, maybe just a little head. Yeah. You guys missed it. Yeah. Sorry. So yeah, we, we kind of came through open, had some lunch there on, from the peninsula, made the drive about six hours, stopped a couple of different places, shot some stuff, but end up making our way to the Highlands, we're in up stands some stuff being, you like film some stuff. Right. We did not shoot any. No hunting. No hunting. No hunting. Made our way to the Dornex station, the hotel we stayed at for four or five nights. I think we, we made it up there just overlooking the first fairway there at Royal Dornex. We would not be playing Royal Dornex until the very end. We had to wake up and look at that golf course every morning, torturously wait for that to be the finale. Of course, no spoilers than this episode. But our first round that we played, we again, we had to adjust our schedule a little bit. We end up looking up a little nine holer that was recommended to TC by the name of Boner Bridge. Yeah. It is. Shout out to Neil, Neil, the GM at, uh, at, uh, at, uh, Royal Dornex, Malcolm Murray who's GM at Tain, both of them to a man were like, I thought some other ones were like, no, you need to go play Boner Bridge, this place is awesome, it'll, it'll tie you up in knots. It is spelled B-O-N-A-R and we tried many different ways to, you know, it's bone R, right? Like it can't be boner. There's no way it's boner bridge. It's boner bridge. So. And there is a boner bridge. Like there's a, yes, there's a bridge in boner. It's a pretty impressive bridge. Uh, so a little nine hole course, right? Do you want to take us there? I would. God, what a fun little spot. You know, Neil wouldn't stop making jokes. So there is that. It was so inappropriate. I apologize for our Neil. You'll get a lot of that. Uh, it's a boy's trip. Come on. It's a little nine hole golf course. 25. What is it? Part 34, 25, 181 yards. They don't know about the length out there. Big, you know, not about the length. No. Thank you, DJ. They have a nice little clubhouse. It's a grower, not a show. Exactly. Yeah. It's, uh, it's got an interesting history of fun history. It was opened in 1904. So well over a hundred years, the carnagies of, uh, of ski bow were the family behind. It's opening. It sits in a, uh, a really lush kind of plot of land, a lot of pine trees. Um, it's not links golf. There's, there's nothing linksy about Bonabridge. What it is is just tricky, peculiar, like truly, the sixth hole, the par three, the smallest green I've ever seen in my life that also was like sloping away off the left side and back to front. We played our tilt game out there. We were playing real golf. I just found it required you to hit some shots that were very, very challenging. If I could call out the stretch of really four, five and six, four is this tight par four along this corridor with, with a little burn, uh, and, and just trouble left and also some like fescue trouble right. It, it's forcing you to fit this drive, uh, whether you wanted to hit seven iron and kind of lay short of the burn, whether I, I tried to thread a little driver up there. It just was a very uncomfortable, difficult little par four. I thought that was a great hole. You go to number five, which is a real meaty three shot par five in the wind that we played it. I mean, five hundred yards kind of uphill into the wind. It just felt like it kept going forever. How was that whole five hundred yards? I know it's just a pulp all the way. You had to draw it off the tee. We're playing a max max double quota game. I don't think I got within 250 yards of the green. I know. I think real at least three of the five us went our pocket before like we got within 200 yards of the green. So hard. And then number six truly this little par three. Well, that's a little like a mid iron. I, it's 174 on the scorecard. It wasn't playing our, the T's we were playing. It was more like a seven iron, I think, uh, for me at least less for you guys. But a green that just felt impossible to hit. I mean, the, the quote, what was the Nicholas coat about Pinehurst, like trying to land it on the hood of a Volkswagen? It felt like that except for this was a mini Cooper or one of these kids cars. Like they just didn't feel like a place you could land this golf ball. The bailout was like left. And even then your whole high and you have a very difficult chip to even find the green on your second shot with a game of till and a par three like that. It just was a chaotic golf hole. And then I thought, you know, there wasn't, I really didn't think there was a bad hole out there. It was a walk through the woods. It presented challenge. And yeah, I'm just really glad we went and played that golf course. It was a fun change of pace. A welcome to the highlands. We'd, we'd have real golf, quote unquote, real golf full days ahead of us. But man, bone or bridge, just you go there. I try to try to make par, you know, try to go around there and par. It's a difficult little nine hole golf course. Good, good place to identify the best, just the best golfer in the world. You know, it's like just really, really hard, but I think I can have an open there. I'll, I'll, I'll dump a little my take, Randy. So, so cool. Just a great, great one to round out, you know, fill in the gaps on the trip. I mean, I don't know, T.C. I don't know how many people are doing the ask or niche to bone or bridge double, but that's one that I'm immensely proud of. That's very, I think we, uh, right there. We had to kind of get everybody back together playing golf. Like we, we had gone our separate ways and it was like, all right, we need, we need a round to just level set. Everybody can, can stress test one of those games. We keep forgetting about it's bone or bridge art gay golf club. The two-town share. That's true. Golf Course. Uh, even a great, I mean, there was packed the clubhouse there when we got there, but a bunch of people just haven't beers and, um, I think I was pretty shattered after that round. And I was like, man, I'm, I'm not a very good golfer. I stink. Yeah, it's just exposed to whatever cracks you got. Like here, like a lot of chipping downstairs. Yeah. I think I, but it was a kind of place. Yeah, you look a, you look around and you're, you want it like, you want to get mad at the golf course. If, when it wasn't going well, then you're just like, fuck, it's me, man. No, that was it. Like I, like, I just made triple on that 328 yard par four. And like, yeah, I didn't even come close to hitting a good shot. It, uh, I said this. I think you guys agree with me when I said it. It's, it's, um, it's an interesting course is to in terms of like, if you're in the high, I would, I would describe it as this. If you're in the highlands and you have played 18 and you're looking to play more golf quickly in a day and you want to go play and have some fun for nine holes. This is a great place to go do it. I, I, it is not, I, well, I don't think I'd quite like send it up to the top of like you've got to check out Bona Bridge. If you're in the area, like there's a ton of great offerings, a lot of 18 hole offerings, but it does have that, that offering of, yeah, if you're looking for play 27 in a day, those days are really long and like sometimes it can feel light to have 18 holes in a day. And you're, if you're, if you're Jones in for some more golf, you're going to have a good time at Bona Bridge. But again, it's not a place I would be like, you have to fit this into your itinerary. Is that a fair kind of recommendation? I think that's totally, I mean, I, if you like, if you like weird nine, maybe it's an absolute emergency. You don't have to call your doctor because it only lasts. I mean, if you guys are like, you guys want to go play nine at Bona Bridge, be like, oh, yeah, let's go. I want to see that place again. You could, you know, if you're just like solo, you could get around there in an hour. If the course is open, you know, and it feels like with the weather we had that day, it was a little overcast, a little moody, like it felt like fall in the Pacific Northwest or the upper Midwest. I've really dug the walk. And so I agree, Solid, like you don't have to like plan a flag there. But man, if you're in the area and you just want nine holes and to see somewhere that you might never otherwise see, check it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed at all. Solid, your point too. I think that I don't know. People slag off a lot of the non-Linksland, like just a lot of the inland courses in Scotland. I haven't played too many of them, but like the ones that I have played, I've walked away being like, man, that was awesome. It's different from links, but it's nice to get away from links stuff and take a walk on some hill. Like I've played Boat of Garten. I played, what was that? Haberfoil, you play. Oh my God, I played aberfoil on this day. It was like just, and then, you know, Boat of Region, I'm like, man, like this is, this is this is worthwhile stuff to go play as well. Because it's still firm, too. Like it says a lot of the fun stuff with links golf. And I'll say this too, like a lot of these courses have fun, scoreable par, short par fours. Like not all drivel, but just a ton of short golf holes that are not a chore to play. And you're navigating the, there's always some kind of land element that you're, you're navigating. They're not boring holes at all. And it's just not like a dull 420 yard dog leg right par four with a bunker on the left and a bunker on the right. Like that's just not how the game sets up over there. And it's just, you don't get tired of playing those holes and just feels like there's an exploratory nature of it versus just feeling like you're going through them. You're never going through the motions on any of these. I think is what makes it so engaging. You know, that Boat of Bridge, what you're talking about, Radio, the fourth hole. I hit seven iron off that tee, I think, to try to lay up short of the burn. And it was so firm that it somehow bounced over. I got what I had to hit wedge. I think to execute what I wanted to hit all that par four, I think I would add to it. Sometimes where I was like, what is Sally doing? He's going to hit it right in there. Like, what did he? Also hitting him, hitting like hitting driver or hitting three iron there would have been absolutely the wrong. Like it's, I don't know what you hit. I think, honestly, I think it's like the first hole in North America. I think I would have hit wedge if I was to play that hole all over again. But it's fun. I loved it. I loved it. Next up on the trip was Tane, T-A-I-N, a place I had never been. None of us had ever been before. We played this course with Malcolm. new GM there used to be the GM or used to be the head pro, excuse me, at Aurora. And which we'll get there towards the end of this trip. But total blind spot for me again, kind of more in the, quote unquote, proper golf category. I mean, 6400 yard golf course from the back T par 70. And man, we kind of hit it at a really, really, really good time. It was firm. It was very, very firm out there. And when I describe it this way, like there's just that there's a different, a major difference in the manicured level of a place like World Dornick and Tane. And that can sound like a, you know, it's not in great shape. But I almost never feel that way about a links golf course if you get the Greens right rolling true and in good health. And they 100% had that. Like that's, if you got that, there's, the floor is so high, especially if you've got a firm golf course like this, and I say that to say, like it's a, it's a, it's, it's not a, it's not a simple golf course, but it's a simple club. It's a small clubhouse. It's not fancy. It's not built for a massive amount of tourists to get through. You get the World Dornick. They have a brand new clubhouse there that is just straight up, like meant to, like get people through the factory. Like it is a very complete, different experience than where we kind of crescendo up to. But this is the golf course I find myself like think it of maybe the most walking off from this trip, helped that I did have a nice round on this trip and kind of got to experience the shots and the feels like, you know, that how it was designed. But is brown? It just watching balls trampoline in the fairway, the immediate instinct that gives you to be like, I'm hitting five iron off this tea because two irons definitely too much. And I'm worried about the run out with four iron. Where am I leaning this nine iron into this par three? Can I land it all the way up in the green and hold it? Where are these pop bunkers? Just the kind of golf course that puts your mind in overdrive. If I'm hitting driver here, it better be cutting or else it's going to run through on the left because there's just nothing stopping it. And some really, really cool par threes. I loved Tain. I absolutely loved Tain. It was, it shoots to the top of list of, you know, it gets into the category of me like, you're going to Dornick. I think you're missing out if you don't make it down to Tain. And it's, it's, to me, you know, I gosh, Tain vs. Borough, I haven't even thought about that yet. And we can, we can maybe put those head to head after we talk Borough, but it's at least in the conversation for me because I freaking love that place. It's not as romantic. No, it's cool. Like it's cool. It's tucked back behind the town there and in the scotch distilleries, you know, down the coastline. And you kind of look at it from, from Dornick. It's just across the furth there, old Tom. And it's, it's, um, there's just so much more than meets the eye. And it's, it's a really, it's, it's fun and funky without being gimmicky. I love the wood sculptures that, that signs as you're coming in. And then I think that like the, I think they're really quirky stuff that you're most looking forward to playing. It's good. Like, it's good. Like they've got some, what was the whole that's, that's the, the, the really, you know, the, the blind shot into the 11, 11, yeah, 11. Yeah, 11. Yeah, 11 is cool. But for me, it was the other stuff in that stretch that really stood out or like the back, I don't know, 16 and 17 are back to back par threes coming in that are radically different from one another, but you got to, you got to think your way around. There's some great dog legs. Um, it was, yeah, it was, to your point, Sally, the firmness was great. I felt like I really had, like it, I was really engaged the whole round of having to think my way around it. Instead of like, it's not just bang driver and figure it out. I think from a tourism standpoint or from like a, at least like Americans going on golf trips, standpoint, a lot of these courses, they end up getting distilled down into whatever their, their caricature kind of is, right? It's like, Oh, they're crude and based the one with the, that's the one with all the blind shots. And North barrack. That's the one with the wall. And you know, it doesn't really have, Tane doesn't have that. It doesn't have a, it doesn't have a, a cliche or a crazy, it doesn't have electric fences. It doesn't have, but it does have quirk and weirdness. It's got old, it's an old top more golf course. It has 11 like T.C. was saying, but then it does have like layers of substance over and over and I'm with you. So I'm like, I find myself thinking about like seven or eight of those holes and just really want to go play them again. And I think it kind of, I don't know if you go down the, the logic of golf is getting more popular. Scottish golf is getting more popular. It's getting harder to book these trips. Therefore, people are probably going to look for more off the beaten path destinations. Therefore, the Highlands is probably going to get more popular. I'm like, man, I think I would, I'm buying Tane as like one of these places that I think is just going to, who stock is just going to rise significantly over the next 15 years, right? Especially with Malcolm is such a pro and a guy who really knows what he's doing, coming over from Brewera and who's about all the right stuff. I just, it seems like they're in such a great position to, to have just a great decade. You know, it's, it's a, it's a really cool, cool place. It's without changing, yeah, without changing the soul and the DNA of the place either, drawing that out even more. Because I think the other thing too is, I didn't quite know what to expect. And I think it's almost tough to summarize because you can't put it in a box. Yeah. It's a really, it's kind of a crazy routing. Like you're, like you're, you're winding all over the place in a, in a cool way. And then like there's this burn out towards kind of the two 16, 17 and, and then you get back to 6, 7, 8, 9 and you're, you're on this different part of the property. And then you get back out to the coast. And both the part 5s are awesome. 4 and 13 I think. The part 3s are a blast. Like, and then I, I didn't love 9. Maybe that's because I made a double on it. But that's just, I thought that one was kind of like there's, I think there's some low hanging fruit for them to, to, to do, to take this place to the next level. And without losing any of the, the soul or the character. And very easy to get to from Dornick as well. Like just, it's, it's right down the road. It's, let's right across the Firth, like you said. And it's just a, could not slot into one of these trips any better. You know, and it's great clubhouse. A million people in there after, after a, you know, club comms or whatever they were doing. It was just, that was the, that was the people from the Hebrides. That's right. Eris K golf club was playing the Shetlands. That's right. Yeah. Or no, sorry. You know, the, the, the, the Orkneys, it was the Orkneys versus versus Eris K golf club. And they play here, like Eris K uses this as their home club sometimes. Yeah. It's crazy. Those clothes are having a, they were going to have a nice evening. Yeah. They got cold tenants. They got good food. They got a great golf course. It's hard to beat. Those ladies were doing some job in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, so yeah, Tain is like, I don't, I wouldn't quite say like, Hey, you're missing out. If you go to the Highlands and don't play Tain, it's like right at the bottom of that and versus like, Oh, you should definitely go play Tain. You know, like I, I probably, I probably saved to most tourists. Brora is probably going to be a more memorable experience or has the more, has the bigger catch. Well, let me ask you this, because I wasn't on the first trip. But like you hear a lot about Castle Stewart, which is a little farther down the coast south. Like that's, to me, that's kind of the competition here. And I can't comment because I've never been to Castle Stewart. But that one seems to be like the brand name or is going to get the, the, the tour bus coming through. Where would it stack up in comparison to Castle Stewart? And I think there's a new course at Castle Stewart now too. Yeah. There's two there old petty. I haven't played old petty. I really like Castle Stewart. It's great. I would say it's more a matter of do you have three days or do you have six days? Yeah. You know, like do you have three days or five days? Because I think if you have three days, you're probably playing Brora, Dornick, you know, or, and then throw in like a goal speed and air and Castle Stewart in there versus if you, if you're playing five days, you're trying to play a Dornick twice probably and then your goal speed, Tane, Brora, you know, Fort Rose and Rosemarkey or, and a full day at Castle Stewart kind of. So it's, it's more a matter of how much time do you have versus which one gets cut? I think, I think it's Castle Stewart nails your question. It's great question. And it, like the views are sick. The golf course is very, it is a modern golf course, but it's a really good execution of it. And it's more memorable, like it is. Like I'm a links nerd and nut and like Tane has just really good nuts and bolts. Links, you know, it's basic in a lot of ways, which I love. And like Castle Stewart stands out. Like there's just a lot of features there that like, well, wow, you are a lot more, I think that's my favorite of the modern courses in Scotland. Agreed. I think what I would say to it, as it's a really good question, Neil. And I kind of feel like if you're, if you're going to take one trip, I saw that T.C. I agree with you. But I almost think this second layer that we, we saw this time makes it, it makes a really strong case to go back, you know, and it makes a really strong case to not make this a, I can only do this once in my life. This is a bucket list golf trip. I'm going to blow it out and I'm going to just play the top of the pops. It's like it, this second layer is like, man, no, you could do it. And it's not going to be as expensive. It's a little more homemade. There's a little more like home club type of feel, which I think is a, you could argue that's a better wrinkle on some days as well, you know, and it's just a, kind of a richer experience to go back or a reason to pull you back and come back for a return trip. That's the thing too, I think the Highlands especially, this is so hard to figure out which course is to play. Like, I really wanted to get us up to Dernasse or go up to Rey or Wick or, you know, hell to um, Gariloc or somewhere like that, but everything looks close and then you're kind of single track roads and, you know, a two hour drive on a single track road gets pretty, like you guys would have killed me, it's straight up. So, there's still like, I mean, Port Mahomix right there 10 minutes down the road from Tain, right? And it's a cool nine hole or that I still haven't seen yet, I mean, I can bear this because I haven't seen it, but that's just how deep, how much density of great courses there are in, in the Highlands and then when Dornak does their, you know, when they, when they do the Strui and they add the new course, it's like, it's going to be even better. Like, it's, I mean, if they ever build cool links, it's crazy. Like, I would just, I would bet on the Highlands in, like, if I was buying stock in a region of Scotland, I would, I would buy stock in the Highlands. I love that range of anything to add on Tain. I think I would send people to Borora going back to the question from just a little bit ago. I think you should go see Borora first, but I found the golf pure and simple, the golf as firm and fast as Tain was, like, I think I'd rather, it's like, hey, you can play one more round at each. Yeah. I think I would go to Tain. So I, I just enjoyed that aspect, you know, nice walk and, and you're just being tested with like some real links features, it's a ton of fun for what it is. Yeah. So you want to take us to Goalsby, and these two courses are, are commonly linked together, kind of roll off a tongue together, you know, you should check out these two and I'd never been to either one of them before this trip, before this trip. No, I'd, I'd been to Goalsby, I'd never played it. So I'd kind of, I walked a few holes and I'm like, oh, that looks cool. It's so much more than meets the eye. It's, I was pretty charmed by Goalsby. I'm not going to lie, and I think even coming back, what, what, what is this two months later, one than a half later, I think I'm giving Goalsby the edge over Borough, just from where I'd want to play tomorrow. I think Borough is like one of my favorite courses anywhere. I just, I was so charmed by Goalsby, you play out to, you know, the first two holes are kind of like, it was really foggy, the har had rolled in that morning. You're kind of playing from the edge of town along this road and then, and then you're right out to the ocean there. So you're right out to the first, it's, it's, you know, three through six or 70, you're right along the ocean. And I don't know, the second hole is a great little part three and then you get fives a par five, Sahara, and then you get this sixth hole that's like this drivable four with rocks on the left side of the hole. It's, it's thrilling and then, or sorry, that, that's five. And then six is a little par three. And then seven's like this crazy short four, similar to what you were talking about at Dunnaverty, Sally, like this crazy short four that you're like, wait, where, where am I hitting it? And then you get up there and it's this really cool green. And then you turn away from the ocean and you, you're playing into this Heathland gorse that I thought it was going to lose all of its charm and its momentum. And if anything, I liked those holes as much if not more. I thought nine was just such like eight and nine were so charming. I think the knock on goal speed is like, it might get a little one note if you played it every day. It's maybe a little bit easier, a little bit simple, especially, you know, like the 14th hole is that that par five, right? You could blow it pretty far, right? And have a better, you know, better look at that green, the farther right you go. But then you get, I don't know, you get like 16, 17, another one that you've got back to back par threes to, you know, just like Tane, you got back to back par threes on 16, 17 in a critical juncture in the round to a completely opposite holes from a design perspective. I don't know. It's just really, really thought provoking golf in in a really spiritual environment. The views were, were, were fantastic. It was, it was some of the best elements of Brawra in a little bit more well defined package, like the, the corridors and the holes themselves were less, less sprawling or more, like you just saw your lines a little bit better. We heard the Michael Bamberger quote about Macker-Hannish, but if there was a course on this trip that I would have applied that quote to knowing Michael a little bit, it would have been goals B. I, I just think the walk is fantastic. It's, it, it feels intimate. You have varying, you know, seaside holes and, and then, you know, kind of playing through the forest. And I'm like UTC. I was, I was really, really, really taken by goals B. I, I had that same feeling of just, man, I could spend a lot of time here that I get at a place like Ealy, for instance. It just certifiably kind of my jam. I feel like coming off of, off goals B. Yeah, James Bragg, man, James Bragg, I'm talking about a great man, a tie another great man, Jimmy, our host, Jimmy Yule, the actor, Scottish, Scottish actor who's been in a, in and around a lot of stuff. Just an awesome guy, great storyteller, just a complete and utter character. I mean, we had, we had such a good time, hang with him and talk with him all day. But yeah, going back to that, that kind of like second trip, second tier level of golf courses, I just think you could go to a lot of these places with no expectations. You know, you can, you can set yourself up on some of these trips. If you're going to Dornick and, and, you know, like it, just the, again, like that castle Stewart in the top of the pops like stuff, you can go in with just 100. Yeah. And it's like, it's high ticket. You know, it's expensive. It's, it's a, it's the tour buses, like you said, Randy, like you can go in with like really high expectations. I just don't think you'd have any expectations going into goal speed. And you'd walk off and be like, man, this, this ruled like that. So I don't know how it gets better than key to life. Totally, man. Yeah. Totally. Oh, expectations. Yeah. So it's like, I know you kind of can't have that perspective without doing the first trip first. You know what I mean? But like in a way, I kind of enjoyed the second trip and, and these courses even more. I always like when the course has different sections. So that's why goal speed stands out to me. It compared to tains of perfect comparison. Didn't really have sections. You know, it's a lot of, it's a, like, it's consistent throughout. There's different personalities. Yeah. And goal speed when you get back into those holes in the trees, I like that change up. I think there's, there's some really good pops and real highlights to goal speed. There's some weak holes too would be my, you know, criticism of a few, a few filler holes. And that's, you know, that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the course, but it's not like a complete course as we discuss some of these other ones. It's a better walk than it is examination. I would say it's a, maybe a better designed course than, than tain, but it is, it's pretty, it was pretty lush. Like it was green and it was not nearly the same firmness. And that, that's like, it was put the two right up against each other. If you put tain conditions on goal speed and goal speed conditions on tain, I would like goal speed more. But right, I think it mattered that much, having that difference in, uh, and how the fairways remain tain from, from a firmness standpoint in terms of just, I just love that solid golf. Green was so good. I think those very pure, I think the, we got lucky to like, between the foggy morning, like it had the, like ethereal quality to it. And then the yellow course popping too was pretty. And then having Jimmy walking around with us. I wish, I wish we didn't have the harb when we played five, the drive before right on the, like, we couldn't see that green. It was 280 yards. We couldn't see the green. And I think that would have had a massive wow factor of actually being able to see that one. Yeah, a lot of the spectacular stuff you get is in that first, yeah, five or six holes. So I think that's, that's maybe a knock. Um, but yeah, I, uh, I think overall, like you play a place like goal speed, brora, tain, all these places, I think you're going to appreciate Dornick that much more. It's, it's, like, Dornick is just all of these plays the best of all of these places, folded into one golf course. It's, it's uncanny. So, Neil, you want to, we have two courses remaining here. If you've stuck with us for this long, if brora and Dornick, you want to take us up north, Neil. Yes, brora, uh, a little history founded in 1891, original course, uh, had just nine holes laid out by John Sutherland. I believe he was the longtime secretary at nearby Royal Dornick ever heard of it. Uh, he, the, and then I, I think he or the club kind of expanded it into 18 J H Taylor made some early tweaks, but the course, uh, everybody knows today, the great man James Brad T C's boy came in, uh, the club committee invited them to the Highlands in 1923. And he laid out new greens, new teas from my research for all for the fee of 25 pounds. So the current layout hasn't changed much since, since Mr. Braden laid it out. It says, aside from a minor extension to the eleventh hole, which is a par five, and they kind of pushed the course to its current part of 70. Obviously, the most distinctive thing about Braura is the sheep in the cows, the relationship of the local crafters. So they have historic grazing rights over the course. Again, for my research, that those rights are split 48 ways with each share entitling the holder to grace five sheep in one cow. I felt like there were a lot more than five sheep times 48, but maybe I was seeing the same sheep over and over again. I don't know. I felt like they were all kind of in the back corner of the property when we were there, like that 14, 15, 16 area. I was a little underwhelmed at the beginning of the round. I was like, where the fuck are the sheep? Man, I think all this way to see some animals. I want to see some livestock and it was a good crescendo on the round to get them all at the end. You know, they're spray painted with their numbers and I was always, I was loving it because I was like, I was looking for 38, my college football number, you know, I'm like, where's my guy? I couldn't, I couldn't find him. You could call it a gimmick, but again, it goes in this category with LeFoten, with Karn, with Sylvie's Valley, for me, of like golf becomes more of an experience and activity. It feels like backpacking. I mean, the views cannot be understated. Just breathtaking scenery that far, it's the farthest north that we went and it feels like you're on the edge of the world. This as far as the setting and the sense of place you get, you feel like you're way out there. And I love that feeling and I love that golf, I don't know, creates that feeling with, you know, I think a king island when we went down in, you know, south of Australia, that's like, it makes these like big-ass trips worth it. And I think it came at the perfect time in the trip kind of towards the end where I'm like, man, I feel like I'm far away and I love that feeling. The golf is really good, classic links kind of straight out, straight back, TCU mentioned a little earlier, like some of the holes aren't really well defined, it's sometimes feels like, especially on that front line, feels like you're hitting out into a field. And there are some places where you can get into trouble, but not as much as I felt like you could get in trouble on pain, for instance, a lot more gorse at pain if you miss your line. If I had to call out some standout holes, I would say the par three ninth hole, I believe it's called the sea hole, just like beautiful setting at the far end of the property framed on the backside and the right side by the North Sea, which is always just cool to be on the North Sea, just a really, really like awesome looking golf hole. The 11th, I love that par five, there's a burn going through that isn't really in play, maybe for TC, but just a fun, fun hole there. And then the TC on your dream routing, what is that? The 13th snake, yeah, like maybe one of the best looking par threes in all of golf. The bunkers, there's like, I think five or six bunkers that are almost like a clock framing the, this green, you have the group of how do you just tee it off across the par three. So the T box on the left for the for the 14th is solid, so it's a, yeah, it's a good, it's a really cool corner or inner, I'll call it an intersection because there's a burn there. You're crossing a bridge and it just feels like a painting. You're playing again back the the T box face in the green. You're looking east at that point. So it's a little crisscross section of the course. And then of course, 14 has our name, no laying up on it, Sally allegedly made an ace there. Just when we were playing in, I didn't see that, I just didn't see that, to that pin that we played. But apparently that happened. Yeah, they hid the pin from me, unfortunately, but just clarify, you're talking about a par three, TC, but the ace just for the listener sake, happened on a par four. The next on the four teeth, yes, just, just again, just clarifying. And then another hole I'd call out that I thought was really cool was the 15th, Sahara with the out of bounds down the right side. I don't know, it's just, it's a blind drive and it opens up into this big expanse. And I think because there were all sheep and cattle there, it just felt like a really fun setting towards the end of the round. It's more of an inland hole that I was kind of surprised how much that hole grabbed me. The challenging golf course, good, you know, more condition or faster greens, I felt like than some of the other courses we played on the trip and just worth, worth the trip. Maybe not Mike, the best golf, but just you got it like Randy, you said earlier, you just got to see it. You got to go, you got to go check out Barara. It was really cool. I think this is my third time playing Barara and I think it's been, every time I've done it has been the second round of a 36 whole day. Do I remember that right? This was the second round of a 36 whole day. It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. And I think I need to, I've been so tired by the end of this round every time like it's kind of big walk. Big walk. I know. Yeah. And I need to play it the next time as the only round of the day or the first round of the day because I think I, I tend to not appreciate the fact that I'm in the morning. I played it in the morning on Taurus sauce, but you might have just been so worn out on that. I think you're right. Yeah, that was, yeah, back to back to back to back 36ers, but I've, I've ended a lot of those days just feeling very, very, very, very fatigued. So it is like, yeah, don't, it's not a short little golf course that you can just go, you know, like not like D'naverty being the compliments of macro handers, like it's, that's a tough one to pair up with another day. Yeah. I thought it was big holes, especially the front nine, a lot of like long par fours and a tough golf course, but, but, but I think that what helps with that is that you can, you can spray the ball a little bit more there, and, and you can get away with it. You're going to find it. It's, um, uh, so, so there's some, some room, some width to that course. Ready. What do you think playing in a second time? I liked it a lot more the second time. I think I was, uh, just so exhausted from the trip, the, the first time that it honestly felt a little like a blur, and I feel like this time around, I, I really got to appreciate a lot more about it. Uh, I think I enjoy, I mean, you kind of go, you make your way out away from the clubhouse on the front nine, and, and once you turn, I feel like, um, just thinking back, maybe more of my favorite shots or holes are on that second nine coming back in. Except for 18, I still don't like 18, uh, just don't like like a tough uphill finisher. The course ending like 17, 18, you're just like walking uphill. I think that's what leads to it being, uh, a tough walk, I mean, six, that greens way up there. 16. Uh, yeah. It's a, it's a weird disconnect because you get, the place is so charming in so many ways until you get to those holes that just punch you in the face, you know, it's like you, you almost expect it to be a little more just, uh, cheery and cheeky and let's just kind of, let's all hold hands as we skip across the finish line and it's that it's just like, I go double, double the, it's like, it's hard to explain a good round going and I just pointed it away. The, uh, the feeling, like, goal speed feels intimate and it has the, the views, bruh doesn't feel intimate, it feels like expansive and far away and, and the, the, the vistas. It's like, oh my god, is this like a real place? You know, you just, you feel like you're in a pick, like a landscape painting or a screen saver. Um, so you, it, it feels surreal in that way, uh, which is, you know, both, I think in some ways, negative, but positive too, like it's just like, you got to, you just got to go experience it. Yeah, I was really curious to see how I would feel about brora coming back. Like I, I went twice that, that, that same year and then I hadn't been back since and it was really interesting, like when we were there, there was several other groups that were like, oh my god, we're here because we watched your tour of songs, you know, like we're filming another one, you know, that was, it was a cool full, full circle moment. But I think for me, it's like, I think brora and goal speed are, they're interchangeable in both of them or not to be missed in my opinion. Like, I think they're both on that level for me of, and I think it's like, I know Simon Pope is the new kind of caretaker of goal speed, GM, and he's, he's coming up from cleave hill, you know, and I think he's got just a really great vision for the place and, and how to, how to make it the best version of itself. I think so stoked to see between him and, and Malcolm and, you know, obviously, these other places continue to raise their game too, but you know, taining goals, but I think I'm really curious to see what the next five or 10 years holds for them. Yeah, special place, gotta see it, gotta see it sometime in your life, and they had a great, great buzz on the ground there. I see a lot of visitors there, and it, it's, it's very cool. So the homeward stretch, the final one, the place we discovered ourselves, Royal Dornick, DJ, take us there. Yeah. DJ, what did you, what did you think of the godfather? Did you like it? Yeah, man, I don't know. I feel so sheepish even describing the golf course. It's the golf digest has is the fourth ranked course in the world. I feel like that's low probably after going around there again. It's TC. You mentioned it. I think it's it's take everything that you you like about golf put it into the same package and that's a pretty good illustration of what you're going to get at Royal Dornick. It is the the granddaddy of them all Herbert Warren win called it the most natural golf course in the world. Love that old Tom Morris, John Sutherland. I mean, best greens in the world maybe. I best part three's in the world. It's just it's it's like you you get through these trips and you're you know kind of like we're doing we're like oh it's first tier their second tier is there that much difference what is it you know does it really matter and then you go you go play Royal Dornick and you're like yeah it does it's a cut above in every way it's it's the perfect pinnacle to to any trip it feels like it is a factory of tourists and that's because it's just not to be missed man I mean it's it's it's it just it it earns it earns everything it gets in in my opinion you know and I felt that way going back around it this time I felt so dogged and just wiped out by the time we got there last time where I felt like we were just running on pure adrenaline and in that vein it very much like filled up the cup but in this time where it was like man we're staying across the street we're staying in town we're looking at it every like you said solid we're looking at it every day when we wake up I can't wait to go get out there and at a time where like I just felt like I had a little more brain power than last time we were there it's just you'd realize how lucky you are anytime you ever get to play it I don't really know how to say it other than that it's it's pretty fucking close to perfect I don't know what I don't know what you could change it's it's as some of the time that I've seen it with you know the four of you already being there the thing so one thing one note on the hotel you know and looking at it's like you don't really see it though from the hotel you see the first hole and and so if I still for over five days had no concept of like what's the what's the big deal and I asked you guys the one of the first nights we were staying there I was like somebody like give me a comparison describe it for me all four of you I think came to the table at different times and all four of you're like I don't have one which is such a sign of like it no it's just like the original and my my feel another I said about Corey but that walk from I think it's down to three t and the main the course that's where the course kind of unveils itself and it was like all right I get it with band-in I you know I've heard Mike Kaiser be like oh yeah Dornex the inspiration of this was like clicked immediately I was like oh I see it this is look at this big amphitheater of golf and gorse just unveils itself and the way it plays on the front nine on like the top shelf is so the routing so cool because you get that pulls a big top shelf guy yeah you get the upper deck and then you get to drop down to the lower deck and it doesn't you're still along the the coastline and the the gorse is a big feature and there's just these crescendo throughout the round and you almost felt like towards the end coming up 16 like oh I guess that's it we're going to go back in you know in by the the hotel in the clubhouse it's like nope uh 17 is going to be just as sick right here we're going to stay right in this little pocket for a little longer and yeah it lived up to the hype in a big way it doesn't have like you know a lot of links golf course is sit as close to the water as as Dornex does so it's not like it has one of one views uh and it's not like one of one views like cypress point is right like cypress is so easy to understand why like it it's a cut above almost everything else in the world and Dornex is it's beautiful it's beautiful it's one of those beautiful golf courses but it's not the most you know what I mean it's not defined by its scenic nature that's not the first thing you talk about like you got to see these views more like brora has better views like yeah what full stop um but but but they they all go into the stew that makes it super special it's yeah that's yeah greens or like every single element is amazing yeah and like it the literally the only thing to not like about it can be the the the the idea like that you know there's more Americans there probably than scots that you'll see like it's just a it is a factory of of tourism and and it's very busy place and you know you can look at that one way or you can look at it the other way of like kind of my view on that maybe has changed a little bit of like you need a place the highlands needs a hub needs a place that is going to like be take on a lot of the responsibility of almost hosting and being the top shelf place that's gonna draw everyone in and be able to get everyone there comfortably and feed everyone because there's so many this clubhouse is massive it's not very Scottish it is it's beautiful it's really really really well designed they spent like 15 million pounds on or something like that there were so many people working there there are so many places like tables and like that's a big part of these trips can be like the food isn't always welcoming it's not very easy to find it takes a while and not a lot of these places are set up great for tourism and Dorneck is like so that's like again we're ignoring how amazing this golf course is just to say like the strides the club has made to put the infrastructure up to be able to like support people going to Tain and Ghostby and making this a longer trip like all starts with Dorneck like it is the granddaddy of the highlands not only just as the golf course but as the tourism leader for the entire region so yeah I think the clubhouse like I was really I like the clubhouse I think they've done a really nice job with it that big room it's big but it feels great like there's a sense of yeah like it's a great room right a great view yeah they've got a cool little library there the food's good um services great it's like it's one of those things where it's like like we didn't play till you know late in the day 4 4 30 I had a blast just hang out the clubhouse it's so much better than the old clubhouse like it'd be one thing if they tore down some historic monument like they feel like how stunk like hey and I think that they do I think one of the other things too is like it feels like a factory because we've been there on very tourist heavy days too I think if you went on a very you know during a more member centric period it would probably feel like a very different club right in a good way right and I think it can it can flex both ways but I just love it too where like one in 18 or there but otherwise like once you get past to you make that turn down that little walkway it's like just this this whole other world opens up to you and you know the little ridge lines down and to me it like the only bad thing about Dornick is that the round just goes really quick because you're so engaged and you're just enjoying every single shot so much and by the time you by the time you realize it you're down on nine playing you know playing on the lower section and then by the time you realize it you're you're you know climbing on 15 a little bit you're like holy shit this like time is just melting away from me and I wish to go down stop it right here truly it feel it that's so well said man it feels like it's just slipping through your fingers the whole time you're there like you're just trying to slow it down and it just it goes really fast and a lot of that is just how it doesn't it's hard but it doesn't beat you up in the way that bad golf courses beat you up you know it's like you might play ping pong on some of the some of the par threes but all that's kind of of your own doing you know it's and that's part of the experience it's just yeah I don't know how to describe that that turn I wish I had better a better way to describe it just feels like you're you're entering like a stadium almost you know it looks like a just humongous golf stadium and not in a TPC sawgrass way it's just more like a a huge amphitheater of just welcome to the course this is what golf is about and it's just it's so unlike anything else and I it's I'd forgotten I definitely forgotten how good it was you know and I think that's the other the other aspect that's been so cool to do so many of these trips is we talked about it with Australia the first time you go to Royal Melbourne you're like oh like rad super cool yeah man I mean I've played 11 golf courses now and this is definitely one of the best you know and like it's like then you go play another 150 golf courses around the world and you come back you're like oh okay I think I have a better sense of maybe why that place was so good and obviously Royal Dornick's the same the same thing it's the more you see the better the more you realize how good it is I was just a specific moment around just floored by the 14th green oh I mean it's just like whoa that massive green there's just the way it sits like eight feet above the fairway and it's it's clean lines you know it's not a bunch of it's just like a shelf green I don't know how I just it just hit me so hard like seeing that hole from the left side of that green and be like this is this is crazy yeah it's really good overwhelming fuck yeah it's really good then 15 to 6 16 to 6 10 oh dude it's it's just it's awesome it's yeah I don't know it's second best course in Scotland maybe the best course in Scotland I'm still I'm an old course sim catch me on the right way in your field I know it's it's hard to sort out it's kind of pointless simple but strategic it's so much more beautiful than the old course it's this is the first time we've seen the new seventh hole so they the seventh hole is one of the a long par four number on handicap hole the place up on top of the ridge that they move they picked that hole up and moved it basically laser it copied it over closer to the ridge given you of views and changing the t-shirt on eight kind of going down the hill some of that and I have to I mean it's the same golf hole just a little bit more with to it now added and a better view on it. I thought it was great, awesome. Easy upgrade is a little bit of controversial upgrade, but it doesn't feel quite as intimate or like as I could see the argument of if you've got gorse coming in on both sides and you know you can't miss your drive. Like it kind of works at different muscle. Whereas now it's a little bit more open and a little bit wider. Whereas like I think before, especially if it was really firm, you could spray your drive a little bit and all right, cool, you're hitting three off the tee there. I think it kind of put the fear of God in better players, which is tough when you have a full tee sheet to have people retie and whatnot out there. And then I thought eight was a better hold now because like you were able to, like you had to earn your way down the hill. Randy, I was gonna ask no spoilers of famously, famously last time we were in there, you got a little case of the S's on number 10. We don't have to say what happened on that shot. What were you feeling stepping into that shot? That's what I want to know. I was nervous. I think these guys can attest. I was legitimately had butterflies. It was returning to the scene of a very horrific experience for me and I didn't know how I would react and I, yeah, we won't spoil anything. I, that hole is so much maybe just different than the whole, the 10th hole, than what I was picturing in my mind. I thought it was this like super long part three and I was trying to hit five iron off the tee. And it was like, what I, it was like, it would have been a nine iron, 145 like, whoa, it would have lost a lot of money betting on that. But then getting through 10 and really I felt like being able to experience like. Not hitting high rid the rest of this way, huh? Yeah, 11 inward for the first time for all intents and purposes was, it was a lot of fun. Like 14, okay, I get it. Yeah, no, I see it. My mind was not there in 2018. 16, like jumped out to me as one of just the coolest holes going uphill with that little mound that kind of frames it up there. And then you get up there and you turn around and like, that's the best view that you get at Dornock. It just was really special. I mean, the evening, the weather, the gorse blooming, the way we caught Royal Dornock, I'd probably play that over just about anywhere else in the world. Like you said, DJ, just like, no, no, it's been pretty spectacular. Randy, looking back at 2018 tour sauce, did we laugh too hard at the shanks? Like, was it? No, it was very deserved. Okay, it was a bad fight. I didn't know if it was like. No, no, no, no, no, no, it was not bad for. Okay, good. No, it was just, it was just like coming back and like, you have to hit this shot. And the last time the only previous time you've ever tried this shot, it went spectacularly. And like 200,000 people saw that. Yeah, like I said, I thought it was a long iron and I get to 10 tea and I'm like, wait, what? I got to tell you, Randy, I was nervous stepping into that one. So like, you know, you, you got a propensity for shaking these things. Like, what if you're the one that was laughing? You take the door and shake it. We're not doing a season three. We're not doing a third season. It ends at Dornock. So this is kind of it. But Randy, were you reading the Book of Yardage? We were, we were dabbling in it. Yeah, we were changing like quite the whole bit again. But I was, I was trying to point some, I thought some important stuff out to Neil from time to time. Yeah, I think the wind we had too. Like we had that wind out of the, I don't know, it was kind of like 16 was a little bit in. And I was like, oh, this is, or, sorry, a little bit down. I was like, oh, this is, this is fascinating wind. Like I, because I think normally it comes out of, more out of the Southwest than it was kind of coming out of the East Southeast. Really easy to get to that stuff on the left quick with that wind. Yeah. Awesome place. Awesome trip. And I'm guessing if you're making it to the end of this episode, you will be tuning in to watch the premiere of Taurus Saus next week. Be a four episode season, of course, brought to you by our friends at Roeback. It's going to be a very, very, very different than the first Scotland season that we've shot. I promise it will be an experience. I promise you'll enjoy watching it. These guys have worked really, really, really hard on the edit. And we had a lot of fun filming it as well. So with that, we're going to bid you a do. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. Reach out to any of us. If you've got questions on planning a Scottish golf trip of some kind, TC's got a vast knowledge. And he's a ton of experience planning these things. And he's always a helpful resource as well. But thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here next week, cheers. Cherry, crackle on.