Possibility for next time you can take 1 private/expensive course for each point (million people) you spend on the state, and raise the spend total to 100. You still get all the public.
It was an interesting exercise for sure the way it was done as well. Good talking points away from the more populous states.
Or maybe the next one is countries 
Should have cheated and taken Victoria, Australia (population 6.8m). Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, and Victoria and a bunch of cool public options around both sides of the peninsula.
Enjoyed todayās Office Hours. Brought back some fond memories.
I grew up playing two courses when I was a kid that no longer exist. They were shit golf courses but for a poor, rural kid with shit equipment and recycled golf balls, I could play all I wanted for $150 a year. Golf kept me occupied and out of trouble. Without these shit courses, Iām not sure where Iād be right now.
It was fun hearing about one of the muniās I played growing up. Timber Point still has some of the original back 9 holes on the Blue 9. The Red and White 9s are new holes that are boring.
Thereās been buzz of some kind of renovation/restoration but I canāt see the county punting on revenue to temporarily close the course.
Countries coming soon.
California over New York for me because of my affinity for MacKenzie and Thomas
I like Tillinghastās greens but donāt love his routings.
I was going to include US territories - which would have necessitated rounding up rule - but forgot to tell Tron until we were halfway through the taping. Also I thought a couple states were <500k.
Mea Culpa,
@BamaBearcat
I would go with
Scotland
England
Ireland
Iāve heard of them.
First great discussion on Sharp Park. Iāve played it many times (a lot before I knew it was a MacKenzie, just was playing cheap local golf.)
Question - do we need to petition NLU to increase your WiFi? I donāt want to make an Alabama joke about tin cans and rope being your network (oh shoot I just did) but you were fairly blurry in both of these episodes while Tron was just fine. Let us know if we need to petition @randy for some home office expenses
These are going up on the podcast YouTube channel. Is that intentional? The ones from last year are on the main YouTube but the last ones have been on the podcast channel
That Office Hours was awesome. Would like to submit the 9-hole Davis Islands Golf Course on Davis Islands in Tampa. AW Tillinghast design that had houses built over it in the 50s.
Davis Islands is interesting as a study in planning. Itās a sand bar built up via dredging with some of the most expensive real estate in Tampa on the water (Jeter/Tom Bradyās mansion), then a bunch of 50s ranch-style houses on the interior where the golf course used to be. The island suffered catastrophic flooding during Helene due to houses built well below the floodplain.
DP Davis, the original developer, is speculated to have committed suicide by jumping off of a ship bound for Europe when he was on the verge of bankruptcy after the stock market crash. He had a large development planned east of downtown St. Augustine thatās now Anastasia State Park.
If you enjoyed the pod, then you would likely enjoy Bubble In The Sun. Itās a book on the 1920s real estate bubble in Florida, and makes the argument that was a bigger driver on the Great Depression than the stock market crash itself.
Another Doak submission, Black Forest in Gaylord, MI. Some of his early work but this place had some wild bunkering and diabolical greens. I have no idea what the property turned into but it was a two course venue that just slowly withered away unfortunately.
Itās nothing. Sold at an IRS auction maybe 5 years ago but havenāt heard anything in years.
Edit: @theclv24 did some digging with more details in his newsletter from this summer. Loop Links, no. 20 - by Craig LeVasseur - Great Lakes Loops
Canāt stress enough how essential those couple of Daniel Wexler books are that @BamaBearcat held up in the most recent episode. I was fortunate enough to stumble across a copy of Missing Links in a Half Price Books once, and spent countless hours poring over that book. The companion, Lost Links, goes even further in-depth on some obscure but rather interesting lost courses, from a host of different designers.
Michael, Iām curious if you have a copy of Golf Reaches the Seven Hills by Gerry Lanham - Iād be surprised if you didnāt, knowing the extent of your library, but thereās an entire chapter called āThe Ghost Coursesā detailing the lost courses of the Cincinnati area. Another book that Iāve spent ridiculous amounts of time examining.
I read it cover to cover the day it arrived in the mail. Learned quite a bit, but there were also a couple errors that were head scratchers.
Re Daniel Wexler: heās one of the most interesting people in the entire world of golf. Daniel has worked the overnight shifts at Riviera for the past several decades. He does most of the research and writing for his books in the middle of the night inside Rivās huge clubhouse.
Iām curious if you can expound on these. I was reading it the other day, looking for information about Avon Fields, and found some inconsistencies with what I had read from other sources (which isnāt necessarily surprising, but still odd).
Iād love to meet Daniel someday. Lost golf courses are one of my favorite GCA-adjacent subjects; I canāt imagine how fun it would be to chat about them with him.
I donāt want to give the impression that I didnāt enjoy the book. Itās a nice read for anybody interested in the history of Cincinnati golf.
But Iād put it in the category of books that are collections of interesting stories and figures rather than scholarly research.
Iām most familiar with Clovernook, having worked there for a decade. The book gets Clovernooks overall story correct, but some of the details are out of whack - sequence of Simpson Sr & Jr, rebuilding greens, etc. Same with the CincinnatiCC/Camargo saga.
I have a Black Forest Q Zip from a trip I took right after college. I knew nothing about GCA at that time, but even then I knew that place was special. Very sad it no longer exists
Pretty fascinating book I picked up about golf courses that no longer exist across the lot of Scotland. So many! Some virtually in the backyards of friends of mine over there. Worth checking out.
