The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf

What does it take to build a golf course people will still be discussing and debating thirty years from now?

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co-host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. "The Professor") sit down with Kyle Franz (founder of Kyle Franz Golf Design), the architect behind the restorations at Mid Pines, Pine Needles and Southern Pines, Karoo at Cabot Citrus Farms, and Broomsedge with Mike Koprowski. Kyle walked onto Pacific Dunes as a 19-year-old intern for Tom Doak and has been pushing the edges of classical architecture ever since. This time he brings the story of Whispering Pines, an Ellis Maples course near his home rebuilt with a small crew, a tight plan and a price point meant for everyday golfers.

The conversation dives into:

• Pacific Dunes from the inside: a $35 twilight round at Bandon, a dozer spotted on No. 5, and the Tom Doak email Kyle still carries in his bag
• Why Donald Ross is golf's Rolling Stones, and why Frank and Ellis Maples deserve more of the Pinehurst credit
• Edgy on purpose: Citizen Kane, the Velvet Underground, and why Kyle is fine if not everyone loves what he builds
• Whispering Pines' Moneyball approach: eight people through the winter, sand played as waste areas, and a green fee built for high school teams and Friday flights out of New York
• Why a golf course is a band, not a solo act, from Joey Hancock on Broomsedge to a street artist shaping bunkers in Texas

Connect with our guest

🏗️ Kyle Franz — https://www.kylefranzgolf.com — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/KyleFranzGolf

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

👕 Holderness & Bourne: https://www.hbgolf.com

⛳ Country Club of Whispering Pines: https://countryclubofwhisperingpines.com

The Bag Drop

📺 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebagdrop

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Website: https://thebagdrop.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️ Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: Kyle Franz on the five who set golf's course in America

00:45 Welcome, and the Mid Pines walk that got the Professor back into golf

02:12 Story time: the drivers-only league night

08:47 The Professor's teaching: two years of every decade on your phone

11:34 Introducing Kyle Franz and Whispering Pines

13:29 Holderness & Bourne: the polo that started at Winged Foot

15:22 Kyle Franz joins: can an architect have a favorite?

17:49 Pacific Dunes at 19: was the public ready for it?

24:28 Doak's reversible course and the case for edgy design

27:54 Confidence in the dirt: Tom Doak's email to a 19-year-old

29:43 $35 twilight at Bandon and a dozer on No. 5

34:50 History as a tool: what the old links really looked like

39:29 Citizen Kane, the Velvet Underground and patience with edgy work

41:33 Donald Ross, the Rolling Stones of golf

45:23 Frank and Ellis Maples, and Robert Hunter's verdict

48:17 Raleigh Country Club: Ross, McGovern and Maples in one course

52:52 Hidden gems: Fraserburgh and a green in Rio

59:37 Karoo and the category-five hurricane brief

1:02:45 Whispering Pines: waste areas and only a few rakes

1:08:27 Putting a number on affordable

1:13:11 Moneyball shaping: a small crew and a Bear Bryant speech

1:16:45 Long-term planning: Minikahda and the pond on six

1:21:55 Delegation: Hanse in the dozer, Coore on the Sand Pro, Doak on foot

1:29:13 Casting the crew: Luling's barrancas and a street artist's bunkers

1:35:39 Broomsedge, Mike Koprowski and those flagsticks

1:43:14 It takes a band: why great courses are collaborative

1:50:06 Tour pros as architects: Crenshaw, the Prairie Club and Tom Lehman at Cal Club

2:05:06 What's next for Kyle, and thanks

2:06:35 Holderness & Bourne: Andrew Bailey, from the merch tent to Pebble Beach

What is NewClub?

A golf club without the real estate. One membership, a rotation of great courses, tee times, competitions, trips already on the calendar, and people who love the game the way you do. We play as visitors of the clubs and courses that host us, and those relationships are the heart of what we do.

What is The Bag Drop?

Deeply researched audio documentaries telling the stories behind golf's greatest clubs, plus weekly conversations with the characters and communities shaping golf today. Hosted by NewClub founder Matt Considine and The Professor, Dr. Kevin Moore.

Karen Peek's first golf memory isn't a great shot. It's her mom and aunt on the lesson tee at Rackham, laughing to tears and hitting it terribly.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co-host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. "The Professor") sit down with

Karen Peek (Director of Golf Operations for Golf Detroit and an LPGA teaching professional) to talk about growing up on Detroit's municipal courses, chasing the LPGA Tour through four Q-Schools, and why being genuinely glad to see people is the best business decision a golf course can make.

The conversation dives into:

• Learning the game from Ben Davis at Rackham and Chris Williams at Palmer Park, the only two Black members of the Michigan PGA section at the time
• Four tries at the LPGA Tour, never once feeling comfortable at Q-School, and a putting saga that runs from hypnosis to a new Scotty Cameron ordered two weeks ago
• Why teaching is a skill, not telling people how you do it, and why the boyfriend lesson ends the golf before it ends the relationship
• The 150-yard markers at Chandler Park and why she isn't getting drunk on golf's boom
• "Hey dude, what's up?", the private-club pro shop that never said hello, and why she can charge more because her courses are nicer
• Ben Davis's legacy: humble, fierce, and always moving golfers off the range and onto the course

Connect with our guest

🏌️‍♀️ Karen Peek — Golf Detroit: https://golfdetroit.org — 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GolfDetroit/ — 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-peek-6a649712/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

⛳ Erin Hills: https://www.erinhills.com

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

The Bag Drop

📺 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebagdrop

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Website: https://thebagdrop.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: when your boyfriend is your golf teacher

00:45 Welcome, and a bruised fall for Guardians and Bulldogs fans

03:12 Best fall format: East Lothian rules vs. Steel vs. Rubber

05:05 The team-event climax, plus First Tee Cleveland and Akron

06:20 Meet Karen Peek of Golf Detroit

07:56 The Professor's teaching: 20 minutes outside, less cortisol

09:58 Erin Hills: the glaciers did the heavy lifting

12:10 Karen joins: baseball first, and nothing for State

15:18 A Cleveland-fan dad and a Tigers-fan daughter

19:35 Mom's lessons with Ben Davis: so happy, so awful

22:12 Free Press summer golf school: 400 kids, no golf balls

23:39 Biking to Palmer Park and learning from Chris Williams

25:07 Losing her dad at 14, and the comfort of the individual game

27:51 Par was the standard, practice was the answer

31:37 Four tries at the LPGA Tour, and advice from people who haven't been there

36:43 Q-School: prepared until she got there

38:45 Hypnosis, acupuncture, and a putter over the knee

42:53 Lemons into lemonade: joining the LPGA to teach

44:50 Teaching is a skill, not telling people how you do it

48:16 Six-foot-four students and "please don't apologize"

52:41 What Carol Mann taught her: people need to know you care

56:28 Horrific lessons and the boyfriend at the range

59:35 Delivery over knowledge: listen first

1:03:13 Get them on the course, the sooner the better

1:04:14 Nobody knows what 300 yards looks like (hit one more club)

1:08:49 The 150-yard markers at Chandler Park

1:11:23 Don't get drunk on the boom

1:13:19 Building comfort: staff who look like your golfers

1:15:26 "Hey dude, what's up?"

1:17:36 The private-club pro shop that said nothing

1:19:23 "I can charge more because I'm nicer"

1:22:55 Ben Davis: humble, fierce, always smiling

1:26:26 Thanks, and the outro with Erin Hills

What is NewClub?

A golf club without the real estate. One membership, a rotation of great courses, tee times, competitions, trips already on the calendar, and people who love the game the way you do. We play as visitors of the clubs and courses that host us, and those relationships are the heart of what we do.

What is The Bag Drop?

Deeply researched audio documentaries telling the stories behind golf's greatest clubs, plus weekly conversations with the characters and communities shaping golf today. Hosted by NewClub founder Matt Considine and The Professor, Dr. Kevin Moore.

Many private club models seem to rely on keeping somebody out. Jeff Warne would rather keep out those who want just that.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Jeff Warne (longtime Director of Golf at The Bridge and founder of New Holland Golf Club in Aiken, South Carolina). Jeff has been sketching his ideal club since 2001; now he's building it as a members' club with UK-style visitor access, in a market where most new builds lock the gate. He makes the case that good golf should be shared, explains the one-page doctrine that filters his membership better than any pitch deck, and gets into firm-but-slow greens, golf's distance problem, and 60 trips' worth of Scotland.

The conversation dives into:

• Why good golf should be shared, not gatekept, and how visitor tee times in the gaps are meant to keep members' dues down
• The one-page doctrine that doubles as a filter: hand it to a consultant or an AI and it comes back exclusive, luxury, manicured — the words that undo the whole idea
• Firm but slow: why Brian Schneider's greens carry more slope, and why "we need more pin placements" usually means "slow the greens down"
• Sixty trips to Scotland, an unplanned run through Arran and Kintyre, and why to skip the famous-eight van tour
• The distance debate, bifurcation, and why Al Geiberger's 59 still towers over today's 59 watch

Connect with our guests

⛳ Jeff Warne — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/jeffwarnegolf | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-warne-37335811/ | 📧 Email: jeffwarne85@gmail.com

🌲 New Holland Golf Club — 🌐 https://www.newhollandgolfclub.com/ | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newhollandgolfclub

Interested in New Holland? Jeff asks for an email, not a text, and he'd like you to read the doctrine first.

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Website: https://thebagdrop.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: modern golf is being run backwards

00:31 Welcome, and the Professor's two-week research retreat in Scotland

01:43 When to play links golf: September, or the late-April sweet spot

02:54 Today's guest, and why New Holland stands out in Aiken's private boom

05:40 The Professor's teaching: Brad's Drink, BackRub and other names that didn't stick

09:13 Titleist: SM11 wedges, and getting fit before the clubs go away

10:35 Jeff Warne joins (with notes on everything we just said)

12:03 Sixty trips in: stop playing the famous eight

14:27 A missed qualifier, the Arran ferry, and Shiskine and Corrie to themselves

17:51 Walk-up tee times at Machrihanish and a lunch standoff at Dunaverty

20:58 The first trip: book a few big guns, then play Prestwick St Nicholas

22:44 The scale problem: courses built for Watson and Nicklaus

24:32 Bifurcation was the answer, and Geiberger's 59 still stands alone

27:41 Accessible golf at home: Myrtle Beach (really) and Maine nine-holers

30:24 New Holland's access model: members first, visitors in the gaps

33:19 Shared, not gatekept: members and visitors, not public and private

35:03 The doctrine: 25 years of notes, typed in 40 minutes

36:37 Exclusive, luxury, manicured: when the polished rewrite becomes the filter

44:05 Native vegetation, construction traffic and the jungle coming back

46:51 100% invested in less, and moving a third of the dirt

50:40 Any pressure to bend the UK model?

53:50 Want exclusive? Join somewhere else

54:49 Why established clubs can't open up: the bag room doubled

57:01 The hundredth property, and the Tree Farm that got away

1:01:50 Firm but slow, at 102 degrees and three-quarters of an inch

1:04:23 "We need more pin placements" means slow the greens down

1:06:46 Long Cove, grainy Bermuda and why fast greens are easy

1:10:38 The scene in 20 years, and why culture is the hard part

1:14:02 Handing The Bridge to Mike Sweeney

1:16:43 Public golf, Gold Hill and making the group big

1:18:31 Thanks and sign-off

What is NewClub?

A golf club without the real estate. One membership, a rotation of great courses, tee times, competitions, trips already on the calendar, and people who love the game the way you do. We play as visitors of the clubs and courses that host us, and those relationships are the heart of what we do.

What is The Bag Drop?

Deeply researched audio documentaries telling the stories behind golf's greatest clubs, plus weekly conversations with the characters and communities shaping golf today. Hosted by NewClub founder Matt Considine and The Professor, Dr. Kevin Moore.

A tragic argument in golf right now is whether the game needs to get smaller. Designer Sam Beckman has a different answer: educate.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co-host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. "The Professor") sit down with Samuel Beckman (owner and designer behind Emergency 9 Golf) to talk about building golf courses that clubs can actually afford to keep — and about the high school coaching job that turned out to fill the void he missed from leading large teams in corporate America.

The conversation dives into:

• Why Sam came in at roughly half the master planning fee at Ridgeway, on purpose, and what "any budget" really costs the person who says it
• North Hills, where the greens had shrunk from six thousand square feet to three thousand, and every one of them is being rebuilt — from a single pin position to as many as sixteen
• The tee boxes at Port Huron that Matt couldn't stop noticing, and why Scotland taught Sam that you play through a golf course rather than over it
• Glen Flora's restoration: two bunkers a year, built in-house with a Kubota front loader straight through COVID, and a membership that went from 160 to 275
• Why the superintendent is a co-author on every project, and the day one of them answered a steep bunker face with "we're gonna buy robots"
• Twenty-nine girls on the Lake Forest team, a Coaches Cup played for an old brass flower vase, and the freshman's video that got Sam through a bad day

Connect with our guests

⛳ Samuel Beckman — https://www.emergency9golf.com — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/emergency9golf | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emergency9golf/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-beckman-emergency9golf/

Links & Partners

💼 Inglewood: https://www.ingw.com/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Online: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Educate the game, don't shrink it

00:20 Welcome to The Bag Drop

00:32 Post-trip depression and the two Kevins

02:23 Today's guest: Sam Beckman, a.k.a. The Mule

04:39 The Port Huron tee boxes Matt couldn't stop noticing

05:37 A shout-out to Andrew Bailey's Mid-Am win

06:33 The Professor's teaching: who actually makes America's beef

08:37 Ad read: Inglewood Associates

10:29 Twenty-nine girls, and a 59 at sectionals

14:43 How an architect ended up coaching high school golf

16:16 Coaching like a caddie, not an architect

18:17 "I hate your bunkers": hosting conference at Glen Flora

19:36 Ireland and Scotland, with Dad along for the ride

22:31 Lahinch in the snow, and going back anyway

25:57 Carnoustie isn't pretty, and that's the point

28:23 You don't play over a golf course, you play through it

30:41 Twenty feet up to every tee, and what it costs your legs

32:35 Port Huron's master plan is written into the bylaws

35:16 North Hills: the greens that lost half their size

38:27 From one pin position to sixteen

40:39 The superintendent is a co-author

44:18 No offense, Bob, but you're a dentist

45:58 Stress-testing "any budget"

47:27 Glen Flora: a Kubota, a pandemic, and two bunkers a year

51:05 Ridgeway: half the fee, and crews brought in as needed

53:20 Golf needs to be affordable — pick the model that fits

55:02 Waste not, want not: what David Savic taught him

56:46 Nationwide wasn't a bad fit

59:54 What he actually missed: building people

1:02:48 The pub outside London that restarted everything

1:05:04 Why Surrey should be your first trip, not your third

1:07:11 Huntercombe and Ridgeway: weird in the coolest way

1:09:44 Does Wisconsin need to chill out? "Double down."

1:12:39 The Coaches Cup and a brass flower vase

1:16:46 Nineteen seniors at a school of twelve hundred

1:19:32 Golf's quiet shortage: coaches

1:20:52 Smile when they walk in the door

1:22:36 Thanks, Sam — and Inglewood

Ryan Gerard hates losing more than he likes winning — and he'll tell you that's a feature, not a bug. Or, as he said to his caddy, JP, recently: “Just, Let Me Be Mad.”

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Ryan Gerard (PGA Tour professional) to trace how a public course in Raleigh with no standing tee times built one of the tour's most interesting, unfiltered, and fierce competitors. Off a PGA Tour season with back-to-back runner-up finishes and a third at East Lake, Gerard is candid about what actually drives him, what he'd change about American golf, and how he keeps his head on straight when it isn't going his way.

The conversation dives into:

• Why beating a friend seven straight times in a putting contest still wasn't enough — and how being the youngest, smallest kid at Wildwood Green built a competitor who "hates losing more than he likes winning"
• The pitch for a lighted, low-cost par-3 "kids course" in every major North American city, sparked by a course he stumbled onto in Gullane, Scotland
• Ted Scott's line about the best golf happening when expectations and reality line up — and how that explains the jump from irrational confidence to unconditional and real contention
• Why his coach will always protect his self-described “graffiti on a rail car” swing instead of popular wholesale changes or overly smoothing things out
• “Let me be mad”: the 20-second anger reset strategy we caught from Chasing Sunday, and why he thinks frustration is not a negative but one of his superpowers

Connect with our guest

⛳ Ryan Gerard — https://www.pgatour.com/player/59018/ryan-gerard — 🐦 X/Twitter: [https://x.com/golfgerard | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/golfgerard/

Community & Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Web: https://thebagdrop.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

0:00:00 The cold open: hating losing more than loving winning

0:00:55 Welcome to the Bag Drop

0:01:10 Did the Professor win his match at St. Andrews?

0:02:26 How St. Andrews club hosting actually works

0:07:40 Matt's marathon relay confession (and getting kicked off a muni)

0:11:03 Booking Ryan Gerard: the anti-homogenized golfer

0:11:47 Professor's Teaching: North Berwick, the oldest surviving course

0:13:46 Ad Read: Titleist Vokey SM11 wedges

0:15:30 Ryan Gerard joins the show

0:15:52 The Atlanta airport run-in with the Professor

0:17:42 The Scottish Open walk-and-talk that started it all

0:18:58 The Gullane kids course and golf's barrier to entry

0:22:23 Bringing Park Grind's lighted par-3 model stateside

0:23:21 Growing up at Wildwood: free reign of a public course

0:28:35 No standing tee times, unlimited junior golf

0:32:00 The pitch: a lighted par-3 course in every metro city

0:34:43 Violin, chess, and badminton club president

0:39:30 Where the competitive gene actually comes from

0:40:27 "I hate losing more than I like winning"

0:44:23 Ted Scott's rule: expectations meeting reality

0:48:15 Small gains, not a swing overhaul

0:54:05 The Mona Lisa and the graffiti on a rail car

0:55:31 Stealing Matt Wolff's bunker shot

1:08:19 "Let me be mad": the mental reset from Chasing Sunday

1:14:22 The Presidents Cup snub and process vs. outcome goals

1:20:34 Is competitive golf actually fun?

1:24:28 Takeaways and the upcoming deep dive series

What is NewClub?

The premier private golf society in the United States. NewClub blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions, and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, plus signature trips and exclusive perks.

What is The Bag Drop?

Deeply researched audio documentaries that tell the definitive stories behind golf's greatest clubs + weekly conversations with the characters and communities shaping golf today.

Fittingly, we recorded our shortest episode ever to explain why the next ones will be much longer!

Eight years in, The Bag Drop is biting off something new: fewer releases, deeper research, and three- to five-hour episodes on a single golf club’s history, strategy, and story. Matt and the Professor explain why the most fascinating untold stories in golf live at the club level, the question they brought home from Northern Ireland together at twenty and haven't shaken since, and the five rules they have set to do it faithfully. (PS. The weekly interviews and conversations are not going anywhere!)

The conversation dives into:

• Why the untold stories in golf live at the club level, and why studying a golf club is really a way of studying people
• A trip around Northern Ireland at twenty, the question "why is this the way it is here?", and the Professor on why one round as a guest never tells you how a club actually works
• The Professor's numbers on the quiet comeback of long-form, and what hours of conversation can do that a two-minute clip can't
• Admiration for Acquired, and a five-hour episode that finally made the model make sense, and permission to go that deep
• Five rules for the new series!

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH
🎧 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/633c8703-5880-4522-bd6d-5967b45fc777/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Welcome: one of us is practicing, one of us refuses

01:29 Beating balls, and taking the doubt out with Golf Blueprint

02:45 The four-ball partnership is off

03:41 Matt's real golf strength: recruiting

05:00 Professor's facts: long form is quietly coming back

08:01 A return to conversation after a decade of the algorithm

09:05 Ad read: Titleist GTS, unboxed at night and gamed by morning

10:40 The Professor is a seven-wood guy now

11:21 Fixing the top of the bag with a four wood and seven wood combo

12:41 A short episode about going long

14:07 Eight years of The Bag Drop, starting at the Merit Club

16:33 Three years of the Professor, and curiosity on steroids

18:32 The decision: fewer shows, deeper research, three to five hours

20:23 Why clubs: study a club, study the history of people

22:56 Northern Ireland, and why one round as a guest explains nothing

25:01 Not the historians, and why that is the advantage

27:26 Acquired, Costco, and learning through a narrative

28:18 Smart Brevity, and what short form can't do

30:16 A decade of hearing "there's a past here you don't know"

32:40 The rules: no AI list of facts, no embellishment, the pursuit of truth

34:24 Time to get to work

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community, and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

Nineteen million Americans have tried golf since 2020. About one in four of them stayed.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Matthew Reagan, PGA (co-founder and general manager of Operation 36) to talk about why golf keeps losing the beginners it works so hard to attract — and what changed the day he stopped teaching the swing first and started people 25 yards from the hole.

The conversation dives into:

• The year-four gut punch: a junior program running at 95% retention that still lost forty golfers, and the single thing the kids who stayed all had in common
• A year of three-hour nine-hole rounds, a drive to Pinehurst, and the flip that turned into Operation 36 — start at 25 yards, shoot 36, back up
• Why the environment around a beginner matters more than the technical ability of the coach, and what that says about how golf picks its heroes
• The women who told him they had always wanted to play but had never been given permission to start that close to the green
• Opening the app to everyone in 2027 — couch to course, course to coach — and what an app should refuse to pretend it can replace

Connect with our guests

⛳ Matthew Reagan, PGA — co-founder and general manager, Operation 36 — 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-reagan-op36/

📱 Operation 36 — https://operation36.golf — how it works: https://operation36.golf/how-it-works/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/op36golf — 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/operation_36/ — 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/operation-36-golf — 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/op36golf/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH
🎧 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/633c8703-5880-4522-bd6d-5967b45fc777/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf

🎧 Web: https://thebagdrop.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: the moment Operation 36 got its name

00:52 Welcome, and a fall morning in Athens

01:20 Ten kids under eight: not rested, but refreshed

03:35 Unplugging, the Slack away message, and the phone-off experiment

06:45 New York, Mumford and Sons, and whether you could live there

08:37 Today's guest: Matthew Reagan and Operation 36

10:10 What Op36 did to Athens Country Club

11:19 Scotland as the barometer: beginners go straight to the course

12:00 Professor's teaching: sampling versus early specialization

15:13 Ad read: Titleist AIM Enhanced and seeing the ball go in

17:18 Matthew joins The Bag Drop

18:16 Sixteen, upstate New York, and a course you could play for free

20:25 Campbell, Ryan Dailey, and deciding to coach

21:46 What actually turned him into a golfer, and it was not technique

25:28 Gamification, variability, and why golf hooks you

28:58 Three juniors at Keith Hills, and a program that grew to eighty

30:01 Ten levels, bag tags, and making a three-footer fun for an hour

32:19 Year four: forty golfers do not come back

33:59 North Carolina Long Term Athlete Development LLC

34:43 The one thing the kids who stayed had in common

36:09 A year of three-hour nine-hole rounds

38:08 The drive to Pinehurst, and the flip that became Operation 36

40:08 Teaching calculus to a seventh grader

42:01 Narrative, and the data nobody else in golf has

44:16 One in four: this is not a junior golf story anymore

45:42 Bootstrapping, licensing, and taking the junior out of the brand

49:15 Shrinking the variables until clarity becomes motivation

51:06 Competence, relatedness, autonomy

52:40 The women who never had permission to start close

55:33 The cultural headwind: America starts on the range

57:05 Aligning a club top to bottom, and Op36 at St Andrews

1:02:41 The ego of the young coach, and a $400-a-month membership

1:05:25 A gymnastics gym on every corner, and not a golf program

1:08:55 What a club needs before this works

1:12:23 If a recession comes, which programs survive

1:15:46 Opening the app in 2027: couch to course, course to coach

1:18:22 Golf Genius, and learning to run an engineering team

1:24:56 One thing you can do to make somebody's first nine better

1:31:07 Close: reviews, Titleist AIM Enhanced, and thanks

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop<...

Jim Hartsell will tell you the best golf course in the world is 4,800 yards and a par 66. He is not being cute about it. He would like you to come after him.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Jim Hartsell — architect, three-time Bag Drop guest, and author of A Round of Scottish Courses — for a conversation about what thirty years of returning to the same small Scottish clubs teaches you about why golf places matter, and what a golfer owes a place once he starts telling everyone about it.

The conversation dives into:

• Why Dunaverty — 4,800 yards, par 66 — is his answer to "best course in the world," and why he thinks the question is usually asked wrong
• What choosing eighteen favorites instead of eighteen best freed him to write — and how a chapter actually gets built, including the sheepdog trials that unlocked a lost course on Arran
• The night the Old Course put a flag on the 18th green made from a drawing his nine-year-old son had left on his laptop
• The green-fee trap: why North Berwick and Brora keep going up, and why tour operators refuse to take a £30 course seriously
• Whether writing about Dunaverty, Askernish and Isle of Harris is quietly changing them — and what the members themselves say about that
• Three rules for being a good guest at a Scottish club, including the one about tipping too much

Connect with our guests

📚 Jim Hartsell — https://jhartsellgolf.com — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/JimHHartsell](https://x.com/JimHHartsell) | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimhartsell/

📕 A Round of Scottish Courses (Back Nine Press) — https://back9press.com/products/a-round-of-scottish-courses

🎧 The Duffer's Literary Companion (Jim & Stephen Proctor) — https://tdlcpodcast.podbean.com

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH
🎧 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/633c8703-5880-4522-bd6d-5967b45fc777/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: the anticipation is half the fun

00:41 Welcome, and the Professor's new office

02:16 A love letter to the game: who your club introduces you to

03:01 Caddie School for Soldiers and thirty days at the Home of Golf

04:31 Jim Hartsell, third appearance, third book

06:34 Professor's teaching: quiet eye and gaze duration

11:29 Ad read: Titleist T-Series and the three Ds

13:52 Three books, one thread

15:09 The course gets you in the room; a person carries the story

16:32 The high school English teacher who started all this

19:31 Calling Rob Collins with a crazy idea

23:29 Fifty interviews, an outline, and meeting Jim Sitar

26:40 The books that made him: Wind, Bamberger, Morton, MacVicar

31:18 When Revelation Comes, and the notebook that read like a book

35:25 Patric Dickinson's eighteen best, and Jim's eighteen favorite

38:53 Dunaverty is the best course in the world: 4,800 yards, par 66

42:07 Soup, clubhouses, and the whole lived experience

45:40 Sheepdog trials, and when history earns its place in a chapter

49:56 What do you have against the Scottish east coast?

51:44 Frankfurt, a lost day, and a morning inside the R&A

54:33 Dark hours on the Old with a persimmon driver

56:52 The flag on the eighteenth green

1:00:35 Why the most famous place in golf did not have to do that

1:02:21 Does writing about these places change them?

1:06:40 North Berwick, Brora, and being too cheap to be taken seriously

1:07:46 Would the veneer wear off if you moved there?

1:12:14 Three rules for being a good guest (and don't over-tip)

1:14:41 Calendars, course guides, and Jordan's junior program

1:19:27 Close: subscribe, review, and the Titleist T-Series

What happens when a guy with a Wall Street background decides he’d rather make putters than climb the corporate ladder? For Al Vikmanis, the answer has been a winding path through Arccos, data analytics, custom putter design, metal 3D printing, ferrules, and whatever comes next. The common thread is a willingness to follow the rabbit hole wherever it leads, and a belief that the journey itself is the point.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Al Vikmanis, Founder of 3DP Design to talk about the science and craft behind modern golf equipment, from why MOI matters in a putter to how sound actually becomes feel, why 3D printing opens up design possibilities traditional manufacturing can't, and why a ferrule can become a surprisingly personal piece of golf gear. Along the way, he gets candid about leaving Wall Street, embracing work that feels meaningful, learning from spectacular failures, and building a career around curiosity rather than a five-year plan.

The conversation dives into:

• Al's early days at Arccos, helping turn enormous amounts of shot data into something golfers could actually use
• MOI explained without the engineering degree, including why more forgiveness isn't automatically better for every golfer
• How sound becomes feel in a putter, and why putting with headphones on might be costing you more than you realize
• The unlikely path from smuggling putters into a Wall Street office to teaching himself CAD and eventually 3D printing golf clubs
• Why custom ferrules have become a form of personal expression, more like putting stickers on a skateboard than simply changing the cosmetics of a golf club
• The failures behind Al's work, including a collection of enormous 3D-printed mallets that looked like the Starship Enterprise and sounded like tuning forks

Connect with our guests

Al Vikmanis — 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/al-vikmanis-3755671/
🌍 Website: https://3dp-design.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3dp_design/

👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083121141361#

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:40 - Welcome to The Bag Drop
11:08 - Al Vikmanis joins the show
12:12 - From Arccos data to custom putter design
18:51 - What Al learned from working at an early-stage startup
21:03 - Leaving Wall Street and finding meaningful work
24:21 - MOI explained
30:33 - Why sound is feel
34:11 - How Al got into making putters
37:44 - Why custom 3D-printed equipment doesn't scale
41:20 - How metal 3D printing actually works
43:32 - Where 3D printing fits into the future of golf equipment
47:20 - The early failures of 3D-printed putters
51:08 - Learning from bad ideas
54:09 - How Al and Patrick Boyd started working together
56:52 - Why golfers love custom ferrules
59:24 - Ball markers, divot tools, and personal expression
1:02:21 - The creative side of Al Vikmanis
1:10:53 - What's in Al's golf bag
1:18:12 - What comes next for golf equipment
1:20:12 - “The journey is the point”

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What does a piece of land owe the people around it once the golf stops paying for itself?

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Blake Conant (golf course architect; co-designer of Old Barnwell and the Gilroy) to talk about the second course he is building in the dirt right now — and the master's thesis he wrote a decade earlier arguing that some golf courses should stop being golf courses.

The conversation dives into:

• Why a painting degree and three months running equipment with Tom Doak at Dismal River turned out to be the right education for golf architecture
• Building the Gilroy next door to a course everybody already loves, and the Snoop Dogg rule Blake uses to keep from chasing it
• The 90-acre parcel Nick Schreiber bought so the routing would work, and why Blake says architects are simply greedy
• A kids course with a tunnel and a ramp, built on Brian Schneider's premise that kids do not actually want to putt
• The 2013 thesis on bankrupt courses: what Blake got right about supply, what he missed about demand, and why the courses that closed were the wrong ones
• The arithmetic that decides whether affordable public golf gets built at all — roughly ten dollars of green fee for every million spent

Connect with our guest

🎨 Blake Conant — https://www.dundeegolf.com/ 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/Dundee_Golf — | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dundeegolf/ | 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/blake-conant-90566a37/

⛳️ Old Barnwell — https://oldbarnwell.com

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Links & Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/633c8703-5880-4522-bd6d-5967b45fc777/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

🗣️Contribute to the show! — 📧 email: thebagdrop@newclub.golf

Chapters

00:00 "Make sure your first one is your worst one"

00:49 Welcome, and kudos to the R&A for actually enforcing the rules

04:19 Who Blake Conant is, and how the Professor found him

07:45 Teaching of the week: "Build a Course Today" and the overbuild

09:30 Titleist Vokey SM11

11:11 Conant, Conant, or Conan the Barbarian

12:18 House paint, big canvases, and actually selling art

14:44 Art school to landscape architecture to Dismal River

17:42 The doubts he probably should have had

19:20 Following Old Barnwell: the Snoop Dogg rule

20:53 Was a second course always the plan?

23:12 Nick Schreiber, and hiring people you then leave alone

27:19 The kids course: they don't actually want to putt

29:56 Tunnels, ramps, and a train that isn't there yet

30:37 Who the Gilroy is for, and greens that sit on the ground

33:11 Still testing the good player, just differently

34:41 Buying the purple parcel

37:09 Buy the land before anybody knows you're building

38:59 The 2013 thesis on bankrupt golf courses

41:58 What are we measuring: social, environmental, economic

47:39 The wrong courses closed

48:58 Repurposing, HOAs, and grand ideas that don't pencil

51:05 Should a new project pass the test before opening day?

52:49 Golf as a Trojan horse: programming, foundation, community

55:45 Aiken's building boom and a healthy kind of competition

59:38 The public course he'd like to build without donors

1:03:49 Wrap and thanks

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

Can a golf facility be fun, affordable, and welcoming for the local community while maintaining an elite course and golf experience that attracts committed golfers from around the globe?

Brian Conley knows it can; he sees it every day, and he believes it starts long before any of them hit their first tee shot.

As the General Manager of The Park in West Palm Beach, Brian has helped build one of the most celebrated public golf experiences in the country. But this conversation goes well beyond architecture or rankings. It's about creating a place where people feel welcome, where every decision serves a mission, and where golf becomes a vehicle for community rather than exclusivity.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Brian Conley (GM at The Park) to discuss why "fun" became the north star for The Park, what public golf can learn from private clubs (and vice versa), how to think about pricing without compromising accessibility, why walking matters, and whether this model can realistically spread to more cities.

If you've ever wondered why certain golf courses become gathering places while others remain just another tee sheet, this one's for you.

The conversation dives into:

• Why every successful golf project needs a clear "why"
• The philosophy behind The Park's "Open Golf" approach
• Stripping away unnecessary traditions without losing what makes golf special
• The balance between accessibility, sustainability, and premium public golf
• Building community through programming, leagues, events, and local ownership
• Why walking-first golf creates a better experience for players and operators
• Lessons learned from Bobby Jones Golf Course and bringing those ideas to West Palm Beach
• Whether The Park is a one-of-one or a blueprint for the future of public golf

The Park
https://theparkwestpalm.com

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 The why comes first
01:07 Back in love with golf: swing video, flow state
09:00 Professor's time fact: plants can tell time
11:25 Partner break — Titleist AIM golf balls
13:13 Brian Conley joins the show
15:11 The only non-negotiable: fun
16:31 Stripping out the norms — what "open golf" actually means
19:19 Coming up in golf, and learning to be different
22:42 Why golf is so afraid to test and fail
24:26 Pricing without apology: the Mercedes problem
27:50 Protecting the locals in a transient, premium market
34:42 The recruitment: a 20-minute tour, a January phone call
39:20 Does the model travel? Scale vs. replicability
46:16 Sustainability, philanthropy, and funding The Path
50:41 A 50-year city lease — and a new event teaser
52:17 Mission over profit, and living outside the box
56:20 Walking-first in the heat: caddies, loops, and the data
1:03:35 The Professor's cart confession
1:06:16 Serving every kind of golfer at once: culture and people
1:07:03 The kid in the tank top and the Augusta member
1:13:16 The fake version: how to spot an imposter
1:17:59 What keeps him up: culture and getting the word out on The Path
1:20:49 The parrot: the story behind the logo

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions, and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is in the business of belonging, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

A country that loves a drink almost never drinks on the golf course. That's not temperance — that's the whole story.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Scott Warren (New South Wales Golf Club member and co-host of the Australian Golf Passport podcast) to explore what Americans get right and badly wrong about Australian golf — and why the difference comes down to a single word: competition.

The conversation dives into:

• Golf as a sport, not a pastime: comps 5-6 days a week, markers, no gimmes, and why nobody's drinking on the course
• Mixed-gender golf that works at the club level — and Scott's critique of the co-ed Australian Open
• Stableford done properly, technology, and the case for a rollback so a ball bounces again
• What Australian golf actually costs, from Barnbougle to top-tier club fees, vs. the US
• The fight to save civic golf in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (North Adelaide, Moore Park)
• Under-credited architects Alex Russell and Mike Clayton, and Greg Norman's cultural weight
• Junior golf, the eroded pathway to the pro ranks, and the next five years of the Australian Open and LIV Adelaide
• A Bluey tangent worth staying for: Bandit, and the Custard connection

Connect with our guests

🇦🇺 Australian Golf Passport podcast — https://australiangolfpassport.com/
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/ausgolfpassport
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/australiangolfpassport/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: coffee, eating on golf trips, and why men host podcasts

08:22 Partner break: Titleist, New Club fittings, and finally putting the seven wood in the bag

10:02 Scott Warren joins: what Americans actually get right about Australian golf

11:48 The depth question: the 35-40 courses we romanticize vs. the ~450 that exist

13:41 Golf is a sport, not a pastime: why Australians don't drink on the course

16:43 A day at the club: comps 5-6 days a week, markers, no gimmes

19:59 Mixed-gender golf: why it works at the club and why the co-ed Australian Open didn't

28:28 Scale, technology and the case for a rollback; a persimmon what-if

29:38 Stableford done right — and Scott's issue with the American version

34:20 Playing from the wrong fairway: Tiger at Firestone, Greg Norman over the oak

38:20 Norman's cultural weight; Aaron Baddeley and the ones who nearly made it

44:15 Junior golf, pennant, and the pathway to the pro ranks that's eroded

53:36 The next five years of Australian pro golf: LIV Adelaide, the Open, the money

1:01:28 Civic golf under fire: North Adelaide, Moore Park, and who these fights really hit

1:07:31 What an Australian club membership actually costs vs. the US

1:15:39 Bluey, Bandit, and the Custard connection

1:19:09 Getting in: waitlists, proposers, and the quiet power of a members' list

1:23:24 The origin of the Australian Golf Passport, and golf media that won't just say everything's great

1:33:17 Under-credited architects: Alex Russell and Mike Clayton vs. the McKenzie romance

1:39:25 Barnbougle, King Island and Seven Mile: destination golf that's still affordable

1:43:01 Spiders, snakes, and selling the family on Australia

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

For fifteen years, Dave Zinkand's name never made it onto the scorecard. He was the guy in the field for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw — Bandon Trails, Bandon Preserve, WeKoPa— learning to be an editor of his own work. Now the decisions land on his desk, and his name is the one members attach to the outcome. In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, Dave Zinkand of Zinkand Golf Design joins host Matt Considine and co-host Dr. Kevin Moore (aka "The Professor") to talk about what actually changes when you step to the front of the room — and why the entire craft might come down to a single word a stranger handed him at Port Marnock: angles.

The conversation dives into:

• Restoration vs. renovation, and the "sympathetic renovation" middle ground — including Old Elm, where Harry Colt designed a course he never saw, Donald Ross took liberties in his absence, and Dave's team finally built Colt's torn-edge bunkers for the first time, a century later.
• Reversible golf at Medinah Country Club: a nine-hole, par-31 course routed through a floodplain with two double greens — and the rare owner (Bill Cosgrove) who greenlit the fun idea first, before the "serious" work.
• Saddle & Cycle Club: three acres of golf inside a Chicago social club, and the case for sub-three-hour experiences as the missing rung on the ladder that brings people into the game.
• Naturalized bunkering, native areas, and the honest maintenance math behind the rugged look — plus why a great superintendent's buy-in matters as much as the drawing.

Connect with our guest

Dave Zinkand — Zinkand Golf Design: https://zinkandgolfdesign.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zinkandgolfdesign/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-zinkand-a689a64/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

02:14 Introducing Dave Zinkand
04:38 The Professor's fact of the day: the octopus
07:35 Partner break — Titleist GTS drivers and MOI
09:02 From the field for Coore & Crenshaw to your own name on the door
13:40 Editing your own work, and being open to your team's ideas
15:11 Strategy and playability: the one word is "angles"
18:59 The Dreer Award — Hoylake, Rye, and learning the links
22:41 Firm vs. soft: designing angles for wet Ohio Junes
27:03 The superintendent relationship and earning buy-in
30:13 Rugged, naturalized bunkering and the maintenance trade-offs
35:37 Restoration vs. renovation, and "sympathetic renovation"
40:20 Old Elm: Harry Colt's intent, Ross's liberties, and bunkers built at last
44:17 Saddle & Cycle: three acres of golf in the city
49:50 Short courses, the "ladder of learning," and sub-three-hour golf
54:37 Reversible golf and the Medina par-31
1:05:02 What's different when you route a course to play both ways
1:08:28 The best reversible not named the Old Course: Doak's Loop
1:12:36 One habit that travels everywhere — and the Irishman's word: balance

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

Everyone tells you golf is an individual game. Zach Healy and Jack Larkin Jr. are quietly proving how much better it gets when it isn't.

The two former University of Georgia golfers — roommates for all five years, four-ball partners ever since — join Matt and The Professor to talk about the format that's given them a second golf life: USGA Four-Ball. They've made a habit of tearing up the amateur scene, and this year they finished T2 in stroke play and came a single shot shy of the championship's single-round record with a 63.

What the conversation dives into:

• Why the best four-ball teams aren't the perfect ones — and how one early bogey stopped mattering
• The 63 in the Arizona desert: six birdies in the first eight holes, cocktails in hand, trading who could one-up the other
• The unglamorous re-navigation back into competitive golf after college, and why you have to be willing to shoot 80 in a qualifier to get sharp again
• Getting smarter as you get older: swapping a 15-year putter for a "spaceship," and checking the ego at the door
• Gamesmanship inside the ropes — walking fast, talking a lot, and where the line actually is
• Jack Larkin Sr., the family blueprint for playing high-level golf at 65, and who wins when three Larkins tee it up

Connect with our guests

Zach Healy — 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z_jhealy | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-healy/

Jack Larkin — 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlarkin_uga | 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-larkin-b738a4126/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters:
00:00 One season, one complaint — doormen, summer, and the Midwest golf report
05:30 Meet Zach & Jack: how the Professor first crossed paths with the Georgia team
06:08 The Professor's teach: which clubs have hosted the U.S. Amateur most
09:16 Partner spotlight: Titleist, the GTS, and matching your ball
10:41 How do you actually qualify for the USGA Four-Ball?
12:35 Why the best teams aren't perfect
13:31 Steady Eddie vs. the EKG machine: how partners complement each other
17:00 The 63: six birdies in eight holes and a run at the record
19:45 Birdie juice — transfusions, screwdrivers, and desert superstitions
22:49 How they met, and five years as roommates
25:19 Walking into UGA and realizing you're not the best guy anymore
30:32 What makes a great teammate
34:29 Zach's shot at pro golf, and the pay-phone moment he hung it up
39:44 Jack the working man, and the hard road back to competitive golf
45:00 Getting smarter with age: efficiency, ego, and the spaceship putter
52:24 Jack Larkin Sr. and the family blueprint for golf longevity
56:08 Course selection, home-site traps, and football-weekend regrets
1:01:00 Match play, momentum, and a two-down-with-two-to-go comeback
1:04:30 Gamesmanship: walk fast, talk a lot, never cross the line
1:09:00 Why team golf makes the whole thing more fun

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What does it actually take to write someone else's story in their own voice?

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with New Club Chicago's 2026 captain (and reigning club champ) Zander Nethercutt to trace an unlikely path: a 2017 essay about the Apple Store, a Facebook message six years later, and three years of near-daily phone calls that turned into Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius — the book he ghostwrote with Apple Store founder Ron Johnson. It's a conversation about writing as thinking, the discipline of changing your mind, and why the best clubs (and the best stores) are built around people, not product.

The conversation dives into:

• What a rainy monthly medal at Oak Brook tells you everything about a club: consistency, ritual, and showing up for guys you actually care about
• How Zander beat Ron Johnson in their first round together — and why that round became a book
• The decision to stop writing about Ron and start writing as Ron, and the dinner-party question that flipped the whole project
• Ron's first memory — and the unconditional love that shaped a career
• The green-vs-blue text myth, and why Zander now thinks his viral take got Apple exactly wrong
• Launch, deepen, restore: how the Apple Store was designed from the customer backward, and what golf retail could steal from it

Connect with our guest

Zander Nethercutt
📖 Amazon Book Pre-order: https://bit.ly/4esvV8Q

💼 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zander-nethercutt-0583b683/
📝 Substack: https://substack.com/@zander/notes
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zandercutt/|

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Additional Links:
✍️ Zander's 2017 Essay "The Luxury Network": https://zandercutt.com/2017/11/15/the-luxury-network/
📖 Preorder "Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius": https://bit.ly/4esvV8Q

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

03:11 The Role of Competition in Golf

05:50 Understanding the Role of a Club Captain

08:32 Xander's Journey to Becoming a Writer

11:18 The Impact of Writing on Personal Growth

14:05 The Story Behind 'Shop Different' Book

17:08 Lessons Learned from Ron Johnson

19:47 The Personal Journey of Xander Nethercutt

34:45 The Call to Retail: A Personal Journey

38:48 The Shift: From Writer to Ghostwriter

42:55 Revisiting Perspectives: Apple as a Luxury Brand

47:26 The Evolution of Apple: From Humble Beginnings to Iconic Stores

51:09 The Pressure of Leadership: Balancing Speed and Strategy

56:43 The Role of Action: How Doing Shapes Thinking

01:01:27 The Power of Kindness in Leadership

01:04:59 Cutting Stories: The Art of Editing and Its Impact

01:09:37 Lessons from High Performers

01:16:08 Self-Actualization through Golf

01:21:17 Redefining the Golf Experience

01:27:29 Finding Passion in Golf

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

Every golfer has stood over a putt and guessed. Erik Belgum learned to ask one question instead: where does the water go?

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Erik Belgum — a design associate with Billy Fuller and Tom Kite, and right now he's elbow-deep in the dirt at Otter Creek in Columbus, Indiana — a Robert Trent Jones original being reimagined into cradle-to-grave golf. He walks Matt and the Professor through the parts of course design nobody romanticizes: the AutoCAD, the budgets, the order of operations, and the moment a green gets approved before it's actually ready.

The conversation dives into:

• How a kid pulling a cobwebbed pull cart in Iowa City ended up self-taught at Atlanta's Bobby Jones muni — on a $300 junior pass, with a five-questions-a-day limit from the pro shop
• The church pew that changed his life: ending up in a congregation with two working golf architects, Bob Cupp and Billy Fuller
• The real story of the Billy Bunker — how a highway shoulder, a McDonald's playground, and Dow Chemical turned into the industry standard
• The Cayman ball: the McGregor experiment Jack Nicklaus commissioned to make 5,000 yards play like 7,000, and the 13 dozen Erik inherited from his mentor
• Why constraint breeds creativity — bunkerless greens at Setting Down Creek, and slope as strategy at Otter Creek

Connect with our guest

💼 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-belgum-2a587874/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billyfullergolfdesign/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: back to loving chipping

00:35 Bermuda vs. bent — reading lies and no margin for error

05:48 Setting up the episode: who Erik is and why now

06:14 Fact of the week: reading before bed and the science of winding down

11:05 Partner: Titleist GTS — what the Professor got fit into

12:24 Erik joins; Otter Creek, Columbus, and the J. Irwin Miller / Cummins story

16:08 Cradle-to-grave golf: the Romp, the Pup, and the championship Otter

19:26 The unromantic side of design: AutoCAD, budgets, order of operations

21:37 Origin story: his dad, Iowa City, and a cobwebbed pull cart

24:24 A $300 junior pass and learning the game at Bobby Jones

25:50 Cart kid, the starter's nightmare tee, and "five questions a day"

26:50 The church mentors: Bob Cupp and Billy Fuller

30:34 Choosing landscape architecture; UGA, fall of 2007

33:00 His own game today: letting go of score, old equipment

35:14 What is a Cayman ball?

43:00 Inheriting 13 dozen Cayman balls from Bob Cupp

40:30 Billy Fuller's agronomy pedigree and his years at Augusta National

46:45 How the Billy Bunker was actually invented

51:38 Lessons learned: the green he approved too soon

56:42 Where does the water go — infrastructure as strategy

59:31 Setting Down Creek and how constraint breeds creativity

01:02:24 Favorite courses: Cuscawilla, Old Barnwell, North Berwick, Sunningdale

01:07:57 What success at Otter Creek looks like in a year

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What should never change about golf? And what should have been changed years ago?

With the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills around the corner, Matt and the Professor crack open the Rules of Golf and start drafting their own version of the game. From lost-ball penalties and green-reading books to arm-lock putters, divots, and pace of play, they each pick the rule changes they love, the ones they question, the ones they'd like to see, and the ones they hope survive forever.

What starts as a conversation about golf's rulebook quickly becomes something bigger: a debate about fairness, skill, technology, tradition, and what the game is actually trying to reward.

What the conversation dives into:

• Why the 2019 Rules modernization may have been one of the most important pace-of-play initiatives in modern golf
• The forgotten experiments with out-of-bounds penalties, including eras when stroke-and-distance didn't exist
• Whether arm-lock putters, oversized grips, and modern equipment have drifted too far from the spirit of the game
• The case for enforcing pace of play as a competitive skill, not just a courtesy
• Why "play it as it lies" remains one of golf's most important ideas, even when your ball is sitting in a divot
• The original 1744 Rules of Golf, "watery filth," and the strange rulebook debates that shaped the game we play today

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

0:00 - Intro
09:54 - Rule Changes We Love
12:34 - The 14-club limit and respecting the caddie
14:34 - Pace of play, red penalty areas, and 2019's biggest wins
17:21 - Flagsticks, green-reading books, and modern putting
20:28 - Rule Changes We Hate
21:32 - Touching the line of play on the green
22:48 - The case against stroke-and-distance penalties
27:59 - Would "distance only" make golf more fun?
28:20 - Rule Changes We'd Like to See
29:24 - Arm-lock putters, equipment limits, and putting skill
33:29 - Driver heads, shaft length, and equipment regulation
34:33 - Bringing back old rules and enforcing pace of play
40:33 - Rules We'd Never Change
41:15 - Why players should keep each other's score
42:08 - Play it as it lies and the divot debate
45:34 - The original Rules of Golf and playing your own ball
49:08 - Double hits, dropping from the knee, and modern quirks

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

What happens when the thing you’ve built your entire identity around suddenly stops being your job?

This week, Matt and The Professor sit down with a friend and former PGA Tour player and Korn Ferry Tour winner, Chris Wilson, for one of the most honest conversations we’ve had about professional golf, pressure, performance, and life after competition. What starts as a conversation about Q-School, Northwestern, and surviving on Tour slowly becomes something much deeper: how the elite performers learn to let go, reinvent themselves, and figure out who they are when the score no longer defines them.

Along the way, Chris explains why bad weather can free your golf swing, why “be aggressive” is terrible putting advice, how Tour players spiral after missed cuts, and why the best skill he carried from golf into finance had nothing to do with golf at all.

What the conversation dives into:

• Why miserable weather sometimes produces the best golf
• The hidden psychological pressure of Tour reshuffles and missed cuts
• What winning on the Korn Ferry Tour actually changes - and what it doesn’t
• The difference between linear and nonlinear putters
• Why Chris says he “never thought about pace” while putting
• The challenge of separating your identity from your golf game
• What elite golf teaches you about business, communication, and relationships
• How learning to “care less” can actually improve performance

Connect with our guest

💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wilson-98b112127/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 - Intro
07:57 - Chris Wilson joins the show
13:08 - Northwestern vs Ohio State
17:06 - The jump from college golf to professional golf
21:51 - PGA Tour reshuffles and surviving missed cuts
31:21 - Winning on the Korn Ferry Tour
35:29 - Leaving professional golf behind
42:53 - The philosophy of putting
49:18 - Why Chris “never thought about pace”

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community, and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in-depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

How do you become one of the oldest and now largest predominantly black golf clubs in the world without owning a golf course? By building around people and purpose.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and cohost Dr. Kevin Moore sit down with Ralph N. Paulk, president of Tire Town Golf Club in Akron, Ohio, to talk about one of the most meaningful golf stories hiding in plain sight.

Founded in 1950, Tire Town began at a time when few local clubs allowed Black golfers to play. Today, it is known as the largest predominantly Black golf club in America — but Ralph is quick to make clear that size is not the point. The real story is what the club has become: a community built through golf, service, youth development, scholarships, volunteerism, and a stubborn belief that the game can open doors when people are willing to do the work.

The conversation dives into:

• Tire Town’s origins at Good Park and Ridge Top, and why those courses matter in Akron golf history
• What it means to be a club without a course — and why that idea resonates so deeply with NewClub
• Ralph’s life in the Marine Corps, sports journalism, boxing, and covering legends like Arnold Palmer
• How Tire Town grew from a golf group into a broader civic force with junior programs, scholarships, and community partnerships
• Why representation at places like Firestone Country Club matters, and how Tire Town members are changing who feels present in golf
• The intentional growth of women’s leadership, junior involvement, volunteerism, and racial diversity inside the club
• Golf as a foundation — not the whole house — for helping young people build confidence, discipline, opportunity, and a larger sense of what is possible

Connect with our guest

🏌️ Ralph N. Paulk — Tire Town Golf Club: https://tiretowngolfclub.net/ — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/ralphpaulk_trib | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralph-n-paulk-0834817/

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Chapters

00:00 Introduction, spring golf energy, and Sweetens Cove

03:11 Introducing Ralph N. Paulk and Tire Town Golf Club

10:41 Ralph joins the show

12:12 Ralph’s first introduction to Tire Town

14:40 Growing Tire Town beyond golf

17:31 Women’s leadership, diversity, and intentional growth

20:23 Ralph’s path from the Marine Corps to sports journalism

24:54 Arnold Palmer, Akron golf, and stories beyond the scoreboard

29:23 Tire Town’s 1950 origins and golf access in Akron

36:58 Tire Town colors, Goodyear roots, and the Akron identity

40:20 From golf club to community service engine

42:19 Firestone, volunteering, and changing who feels present

46:14 Why golf works as a foundation for young people

50:06 Opening the doors without losing the legacy

57:19 Service, family, and the Marine Corps

01:00:04 Ralph’s writing, Charles Follis, and untold sports history

01:03:31 What Tire Town hopes to be in 2036

01:09:01 Closing thoughts

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community, and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in-depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

Joe Hancock may be the most-mentioned, least-seen name in modern golf course architecture.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and cohost Dr. Kevin Moore sit down with Joe (@joeytheknows on Twitter), golf course shaper, designer, superintendent, operator, and longtime DeVries Design collaborator.

Joe has one of those golf lives that seem to run beneath the surface of the game and the grounds we play on. He grew up around golf in Michigan, worked as a superintendent, owned and operated a family golf course, helped build The Mines with Mike DeVries, and has since shaped and collaborated on projects with some of the most respected architects in the modern game.

The conversation dives into:

• Joe’s friendship and working relationship with Mike DeVries, from childhood summers on Crystal Lake to shaping The Mines in Grand Rapids
• Why being a former superintendent and golf course operator changed the way Joe thinks about clients, budgets, maintenance, and the people who actually play the course
• The quiet art of shaping, including how a shaper learns when to execute, when to suggest, and when to let the land do most of the work
• Broomsedge, Candy Root, and the design decisions that create charm, confusion, restraint, half-par holes, and shots that stay with you after the round
• The case for more accessible, affordable, interesting public golf — and why the future of the game needs more than expensive destination architecture

Connect with our guest

🚜 Joe Hancock — https://devriesdesigns.com/joe-hancock — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/JoeytheKnows

Follow The Bag Drop

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebagdrop
🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/thebagdropgolf
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBagDropGolf

Listen to The Bag Drop

🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bag-drop-untold-stories-in-golf/id1430328006

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xRWtUBJH8RazdLw14oaGH

🎧 Transistor: https://thebagdrop.transistor.fm/

Join the NewClub community

🌍 Website: https://www.newclub.golf

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newclubgolf/

🐦 X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/newclubgolf

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newclubgolf

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/newclub

Support our Partners

🐝 NewClub: https://www.newclub.golf

🏌️ Titleist: https://www.titleist.com

🌐 Golf Blueprint: https://www.golfblueprint.com

Connect with Matt & The Professor

🎙️ Matt Considine — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/consequential85 | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consequence18/ | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-considine-103bb21/

📚 Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") — 🐦 X/Twitter: https://x.com/kevcmoore | 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevcmoore | 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-moore-177b30b3/

Chapters

00:00 Allergies, handkerchiefs, putting woes, and intentional practice

10:02 Titleist fitting, descent angle, and getting on to the show

12:08 Joe Hancock joins The Bag Drop

14:16 Growing up with Mike DeVries and finding golf course work

22:17 Building The Mines and discovering a life in shaping

26:45 What owning and operating a golf course taught Joe about service

32:13 Collaboration, humility, and getting inside an architect’s head

42:15 What the best architects have in common

44:25 Broom Sedge, challenge, charm, and half-par golf

47:39 How Joe ended up at Broom Sedge

56:04 The mystery and strategy of Broom Sedge’s 18th hole

01:06:38 Firm golf, color, turf, restraint, and maintenance expectations

01:13:06 Candy Root and doing less to the land

01:20:29 Public versus private golf and the future of access

01:31:26 What’s next for Joe Hancock

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community, and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in-depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.