0:10 Welcome to Level Select, a golf podcast by Fair Wagers where we aim to help you learn more about some of the nation's most talked about golf courses as well as uncover some hidden gems with a little help from our friends and their first hand experiences. I'm TJ Van Guenten, with me, as always, is Sean Massey. And today it's Christmas in July, folks. 0:27 The golf course we're talking about was built on an old Christmas tree farm in Orchard. We're talking wide open fairways, tricky greens, sweeping views of Lake MI and more elevation changes than a Six Flags. Yep, we're talking Champion Hill Golf Course in Beulah, MI with Marco of the Scratch golf show. 0:44 Marco, welcome to level select. Fellas, thank you so much for having me. I know we've been trying to do this for for a couple weeks now. Very excited to get on and talk. Destination hidden gems in Northern Michigan. My home state Champion Hill great golf course holds a very special place in my heart and it's just an awesome golf course. 1:02 Excited to talk about it with your your listeners and fans and hopefully we get some get some people up there in the Michigan area. So but thank you for having me excited to to talk all things golf today. Yeah, I know, I know Sean is no stranger to Michigan golf. You guys were were at were chopping it up. That's what I was looking for before we hopped on here. 1:20 But you know, we're excited to do a do a feature up there and you know, cover a new geographic area for us. I think we're always trying to look and see where haven't we been or where else can we go to to help enlighten people on some hidden gems. So we're excited to do this. But before we dive into Champion Hill, Marco, you host the Scratch Golf Show on YouTube where you cover golf news. 1:40 You've really started to carve out a little bit of a niche and make a make a name for yourself. Even more so, recently interviewing some of the bigger golfers in the YouTube space and covering the news around some of the things that they do. So I have a question for you. What is your dream foursome of guests that you have not had on the podcast yet? 2:02 That's the asterisk I'm going to throw on you there. So I probably. Are you wondering dream of some of a golf course or like like a foursome interview where like I interviewed 3 people like you're talking with? No, let's let's say you've got to do the foursome on the golf course. You're going to go play with these guys, but it's got to be 3 people who you haven't had on the podcast yet. 2:19 We might, we might be using, you can use this as a pitch. You know, if any of these guys happen to listen to us and not you, who knows? Well, let me start by saying I feel like the most obvious, right? Obviously, as you just mentioned, I've had some of the biggest Youtubers on most recently, you know, obviously Wesley Brian, Matt Sharp were some big names, but Grant Horvath, I mean, come on, like that's just a a layup. 2:40 He's actually a Michigan guy, which I don't think a lot of people know. He was born and raised, or I don't say born and raised. I think until he was about 9 was born in Grosse Pointe, which is about 45 minutes where I live, but just north of Detroit. So given that one, he's obviously the biggest and best and and all that that comes with it, but it's the fact that he's a Michigan guy. 2:58 I think would be very cool to have him on working on it. You know, we haven't, we've never talked before, but I think he at least knows who I am. We're working actually on getting Sky on some points. Guy's committed just with how busy he is. For those who don't know, Sky is Grant's editor trying to get him on. And then hopefully once that happens and maybe get Grants on as well. 3:15 But you know, fingers crossed. And then I'm going to say my second one, another G Garrett Clark, GM golf, I think would be great to have on. He is 1 very good golfer and two one of the O GS right, Someone, like you said, I've never had on the podcast. 3:31 I've had eight of the good, good guys on a ton of the like newer guys, but none of the OG Scharf was my first OG and Garrett, I think one he's fun to play with, obviously, and just, you know, be able to pick their brains on YouTube. The last one I think is actually going to be very tough for me. 3:46 I was just leaning Michael Morris, ironically enough, because I saw his Instagram story today. He was up at Arcadia Bluffs, which I know we're just talking about, but I'm going to go with Taco I just because I watched the Taco Wesley Bryan George Luke collab earlier today. 4:02 Yeah, those guys are hilarious. I think that would be a fun force and I played with scratch, obviously, hence the name the scratch golf show. I'm not great but good enough golfer. We got to force some of the golfers. I think we I try to try to. I'm not humble about most things, but YouTube and golf. I try to be humble. 4:17 Keyword there is try my wife. You're like in the 1% of golfers. Yeah, well, when you play with the guys who kick my, you know, my Bunny shot 68 yesterday, beat me by 6. It's like, you know, but I, you know, I think getting the competitiveness, what I love about golf come up, you know, grown up playing a lot of sports like athlete. 4:37 I think the competitiveness and that foursome would be fun too. Everyone, you know, is obviously better than me, but I think we'd have a good sign. So that'd be, that's a good foursome for me, except Taco and for Quan maybe. But I, I like Taco. So we'll roll with those. We'll roll with those three guys. Please forgive me, but it's Taco the New Zealand guy. 4:53 Yeah, so there's the New Zealand boys, there's Taco Quan, Sam Tombs, and then another one, I forget their name, but yeah, they're they're, I start watching their content more lately. They're hilarious, so. And they're good. You know, I love watching guys with good golf swings personally. That's just my guilty pleasure. 5:09 Apparently so. I got to see Garrett at the grass clippings open here in Phoenix. Yeah, his swing, look, obviously I've seen him on YouTube, you know, but seeing wave after wave of guys come in and then him go to like he belonged. 5:24 His swing looked great. It was pure and he was hitting some great shots out there. Yeah, ironically enough, I I didn't go to that one. I went in February to the good, good open out there at grass clip. I was actually going out there in a month to play. I was just emailing the course to get the tea time set up and that's fun. Golf course. Excited to get out there and play that Part 3 course looks. 5:40 You're coming out in a month. Under the lights, yeah. Yeah. Bachelor party in September for Labor Day weekend. Not my choice, but it's going to be hot, yeah. Excited to play some night golf, that's for sure. Sean, you're busy that weekend. I will not be here. I I don't know if you know this, I live in Phoenix, but I won't be here that weekend. 5:56 So. I'm I'm getting married that weekend. Sean's officiating my wedding. So he's, he's already committed. He can't try and sneak in a beer with you or anything like that. So. Congrats on the wedding. I got married last year. It's the best day of your life. I love my wife, she's my biggest supporter. 6:11 So congratulations. I hope you guys have a great weekend. Shout out shout out to the wives and fiance's out there really really playing up with all of our BFS. You dream. Sports them if you love her so much. We, we, we golf enough. We should. We see each other now. All right, so before we jump into talking about champion hill and what makes it so special with Marco, I just want to take a brief second to thank today's episode sponsor, bird darts. 6:36 Today's episode of must play is sponsored by bird darts premium golf Tees. Nothing relaxes me more on the course than tear and open a box and RIP in a few bird darts with the boys. The 100% bamboo golf Tees feature a clean design with marks to help you tee up your shots consistently. So your only swing thought is worrying about the cart girl who's watching you tee off. 6:54 You can also use bird darts without worrying about forming the environment. They're biodegradable and the packaging is made from recycled materials. Head over to their website, birddarts.com and use code fair wagers for 10% off today. Check out their new 4 packs they just dropped for you and all your boys. All right, so thanks again to Bird Darts Marco. 7:11 Obviously we try and have people come on and talk about golf courses that are near and dear to their hearts. Let us know why you wanted to come on and talk about Champion Hill today. Like, why do you love this course so much? Why? Why do you think this course deserves so much more attention? Tell us. Tell us why you joined. 7:26 Yeah, no, like you said one, I think the story of it is super interesting. Like I got put onto this golf course three years ago now. Before that it was like really, really unknown. I think social media, YouTube, whatever you want to call it, podcasting, there's been a lot of like places in Michigan that have really become well known. 7:46 These last 345 years, whatever you call it, since COVID and I got put in this golf course and went up there with one of my best friends. Just ultimate vibes. Like like you said, it's built on a tree farm. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Like you like this. The sign to get in is just like a generic brown sign that says Champion Hill. 8:03 I don't remember if it says Champion Hill GC or Champion Hill golf course. We pulled in. I just fell in love immediately. It it's very close to Crystal Downs, which I'm sure if you guys are golf nuts and if you guys aren't know Crystal Downs, one of the most exclusive golf courses in the world. It's only about 30 minutes from Crystal Downs and you can actually see Crystal Lake from some of the views on the golf course gets dubbed the poor man's crystal downs by a lot of people and just the absolute layout of the golf course. 8:26 And by no means is it equivalent to Crystal downs. It it poor man is isn't equivalent. It's it's a very nice golf course for the price you get to pay. It's it's awesome and it's it's wide open. So for me, someone who has a lot of ball speed and can tend to, you know, get it going both directions off the tee, you can't really lose a golf ball. 8:44 I mean, you can. It's hard because the even the longer grass is the the not as wispy thin stuff. So you see a lot of it and everything's in front of you. It's just a fun confidence builder. I think anyone of any handicap can play it. And I'm Michigan guy. So I played there the morning at my wedding last year. 9:00 They were accommodating to us. Just a very cool golf course. I think it's got a very cool story. And like I said, that whole corner of Michigan is just very near and dear to my heart. And spent a lot of time with my family up there, wife's family these last few years and just grown to fall in love with the area. So hopefully that answers the question. 9:17 One of my favorite things that you touched upon also is the it's wide open. It's very tough to lose a ball out there. I love when people say that because I'm like watch me, like I I feel like I can push that to the absolute limits where I I people joke about the 300 yard drive, 150 yards this way and 150 yards that way. 9:38 I fully have that shot capable in my bag at any moment. So but I do love he's. Capable of both, right? He's capable of the longest drive of the group and straight. Down the middle. And then that usually shows up after he's not on your team for a match or the match is over and then he's just like bombing it down the down the hole. 10:00 Take the off, take the pressure off of me. Cameras are off first. The pressure is like the, you know, hard left ball or one. Feel that I'm, I'm a foul ball hitter. My right ball is high and high and way right. Same. So I have put that to the challenge. 10:15 I have lost balls out there. Don't give me a dog. But it's it's it's cool because it's just like, it's like you said, it's built on an old Christmas tree farm. The owner actually lives on property like on the golf course. And they never wanted to get in the golf game. They just built the golf course. So they had the property. Like I said, they have a sister course that's down the road and the golf course. 10:33 It's like your true like Pat cow pasture, like not like Nope, like not as a bad thing. You can drive the golf course everywhere, basically, not bunkers, trees or tee boxes. And they got wicked like wicked tee box. It's just a really cool setup and I'm excited to get into the the stuff that I have prepared today for, for the selling points of the golf course. 10:50 Hopefully your listeners get to check it out. Yeah, Sean, Sean, do you have any prior knowledge of of Champion Hill coming into today? Obviously, I would assume you, you did a little research as you usually do for must play, but you know, so knowing that you have not, I won't say you have roots in Michigan, but you have some ties. 11:07 Anything, anything, anything that you could care to add to this or anything you have prepared for the group today. Well, I think Michigan is the home of the future boys golf trip. I really want to take you, Jones and Diaz out to Michigan. 11:26 I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I think summer in Michigan is one of the coolest things you can do in the US, and there's so many golf courses, especially Western Michigan, that people just don't know about you. You could stay in Grand Rapids, for example, and go play like 10 different courses all within 30 minutes. 11:47 So I did not know about Champion Hill, to be honest. I know Crystal Down, obviously, and the rest we were talking about Arcadia Bluffs and other ones that make the list. I do want to go out there and go experience all of that. But I think the one thing that makes that part of the world so special besides the people and like just the atmosphere and stuff is that it is so peaceful. 12:08 I don't know how to explain it, but like living in a city, like here in Phoenix, you go out there and it's quiet and you're just playing golf and you can hear the bugs. You can hear like, you know, just like the wind going through the trees and stuff and out in the West, you have to go to the coast or you have to go somewhere out of the way to kind of go experience that stuff. 12:31 And I just feel like peaceful whenever I'm on a course in Michigan. And I just like, I want to be out there. It's the best place to be. And also, too, we talked to Brett in Nebraska. But like, when it's closed in the winter and you have a shorter season to go golf, I feel like people enjoy it more. 12:49 They they take advantage of being there on the course that day. The scarcity the scarcity creates, creates like this kind of excitement about it as say we only get to enjoy this for half of the year or 3/4 of the year, right? Yeah, What would you say the season is up there, Marco? 13:06 Like. Yeah, so ironically enough, where I am, it can be from like March or it could start in like mid-april. You really don't know. I've golfed the week of March Madness. So as you guys know, that's usually what Saint Patty's Day around like mid March. And there's also been times where I haven't golfed until after the Masters. 13:24 It really just depends, especially up north. Like you know, I like I said, I live down here in Detroit, Champ Hills, like up here around 4 hours basically across the state up north. The winters are obviously long longer, we're going more north, right? We're getting obviously up closer to Canada. The the winners up there are are longer. 13:40 So I would say even up, up north like I mean mid-May to I think the chance that the season ends October 31st. Yeah. But as you know, I mean being in Michigan like that could change, you know, October could be hit or miss. So it really depends. The further north you go, the shorter the season gets. 13:56 Obviously there's courses up in the UP, like Gray walls. I don't know if you guys heard of that. That's like they didn't open till June 1st and like that's that's insane. Yeah, that's. An AP by like Marquette, right? Yeah, that's the top of that's like the top of Michigan so. Tougher for those probably uninitiated. I'm gonna take a wild guess here and be the person who doesn't know anything about Michigan geography. 14:14 I'm gonna say UP is probably Upper Peninsula. Upper Upper Peninsula. There it is. Sorry, I got to remember that. OK, I know when the season ends sometimes because that's when the techs start firing off from her family that want to come out to Arizona. 14:31 They're like some Jones into play and it's like Novella like and. Sean's, just like golf, just got great here because of the weather, but it also just doubled in price. Price does what peak season? Yeah, but no, I'm excited to hear more about this course. 14:46 Like I don't know if it's a blind spot for me. So I've got some. I've got some fun facts trivia here for sure. There's a piece of trivia here at the end. Marco, you probably know the answer to this, so I'm going to I'm going to position it to Sean first. Sean being our resident golf course slash geography nerd slash sicko. 15:03 We'll see if he's got it. And then Marco, if you know the answer, feel free to buzz in and give us the correct answer. So the course was initially designed by Lee Stone, whose family owns the land. He was the Co architect on the course who did a lot of the hand shaping on his own family's bulldozer in the mid 1990s. 15:20 He was the one out there with just the family's bulldozer. Like Marco said, a lot of it is just kind of the land that they naturally worked with. A lot of the elevation changes, they just they left it and built the course around it. They just had to shape some some hazards and some some tea boxes and some greens in there. This course features 4 par threes over 170 yards, which just like as a as a 20 plus handicap that hurts like to not have any of those reprieves be like a nice 137 or even like a 1:45 to be like all right, cool. 15:55 Like short iron in my hand. Like Nope, I'm hitting I'm hitting A6 iron on all of these or longer. So probably not. You don't probably hear a ton of people talking about their aces that they got out at a Champion hill a lot. It is built upon the highest elevation point in the county. 16:14 Like Marco I talked about earlier, it has unique viewpoints of multiple lakes throughout the round, including Crystal Lake and Lake MI. And like I talked about the top, this used to be a Christmas tree farm and orchard. So there's they left not a ton, but they did leave some of the trees around the course from that. 16:32 And Sean, there is a lone fruit tree on hole #2. What fruit does that tree bear? It's gotta be apples. That is correct. Emailed first. Guess it's. Gotta be. 16:49 I was like, I was like, is this one of those questions that I asked Sean and he's like, how the F am I supposed to know what fruit this is? Or I knew you would get it right away, so. I'm I'm very famous brand. Yeah. I mean, you got cherries in Traverse City up there, right? 17:05 That's pretty well known for a lot of Michigan ganders. But apples is like, you think of like cider Donuts and fall in Michigan and it's apples like that's what you get. So I was just in the Midwest this past weekend. I was in Minneapolis for work and I was like, what food is Minneapolis known for? 17:24 Obviously the Juicy Lucy comes to mind, but apparently Minneapolis was also known for apples. It was like number like 4 on the list of foods that Minneapolis was known for. And I was like, is this just like a Midwest thing? Is this? And then somebody was like, Oh no, like the Fuji apple was like made here. 17:40 That's where they get most of the Fuji apples from. No, no, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. Sorry for the tangent folks, just wanted to felt it. Felt relevant. Real quick on tangent. How was that ballpark? That was a new ballpark for you. Wasn't it? Oh my gosh, if if you haven't been Target Field, which is really funny because it's right across the street from Target Center. 17:59 I've took a photo. Maybe we'll drop it in here, Sean, where I'm inside of Target Field and there's a sign that says Target Field and then literally right above it is the sign for the Target Center across the street. Like, but I love baseball stadiums that are built in the heart of the city. 18:14 There's nothing like them. Like Sean and I have probably talked about Petco a billion times on the podcast before or in other forms of content. Like I absolutely love Petco in downtown San Diego. I wish that Chase Field had that more of that electric vibe. But Arizona just doesn't have that vibe in summer where the city is abuzz. 18:32 But you can tell that like people who live in Minneapolis, like in the summer when it is nice, they are going to Twins games and then going out in the city. Like it was we went on Saturday night and it was packed. And by no means are the Twins a good team right now, but the stadium was like filled and everybody was around. 18:52 It was and it was like a 90 plus degree day in in Minneapolis, which few and far between. But you can tell the people love that stadium and love the Twins. Yeah, even with it on the list down too, right? Yeah, I, I think that was, I think, I think people were running off 3 M open during the day and then going to a Twins game. 19:08 Like a game. Yeah, I, I saw, I must have seen dozens of waggle hats. I know Waggle was founded up there in, in Minnesota, but I was like, you know, outside of like a handful of people, like most people down here in, in the, in the Southwest and then on like the West Coast that aren't necessarily wearing waggle. 19:27 And I was like, I felt like every like 6th hat I saw at the baseball game was a waggle golf hat. I was like, that's crazy like that. I just, I, I was like, man, they, they definitely have their, their existing market saturated. Yeah. OK, so we're gonna let Marco dive back into Champions Hill. 19:44 Marco, I want you to talk us through the first time that you played here. Like, what can people expect? What what's the experience like pulling off, seeing that you know that that old wooden sign, but coming in and what's pro shop, all that. Yeah. So it it's not a big pro shop. 19:59 I mean, it gets the job done first and foremost. The course is BYOB, which is super rare and I think golf course nowadays, but they are pretty cool about you bringing beer. They don't have our liquor license, so that's something. They like to advertise, which is is pretty cool. I mean, it's your typical pro shop. It's small staff, you know, not a ton of staff up there. 20:17 As you guys know it gets in the summertime, it's great. But most of those people are vacationing up in Northern Michigan in the summertime. So I love the clubhouse. First time I ever played there. I actually shot my best round there. I shot 300. I think I shot 69. So naturally when you play a course like that, like you're when you have a good round like that at the golf course, you kind of fall in love with it. 20:36 I just, it was my first time there and really I think you kind of talked about the views and it's just how peaceful it is out there. It really is like I always try and go in the morning. I always try and get one of the 1st 2 * 1 to get back and go to the lake. But two, it's just quicker as you guys know pace of play and it just you can't beat it. 20:54 You can hear the birds chirping. The the chorus is so hilly. So you just have views of green for miles. I mean trees upon trees. And I have some pictures and drone shots. I can try and share them with you guys so you can overlay them on the video if you'd if you'd like, just to showcase. 21:09 But it's just I mean an unreal experience, you know, to get the speaker going. I don't know how you guys feel about music on the golf course. You get the wing man out there and you really just can whip around in 3 1/2 three hours. You get some unreal views, some sun and you know, like you said it, when I, when you go out there your first round, you shoot 69. 21:26 It's like, man, I love this golf course. I've been back like 7 times. It is, it is tough. You know, the par threes do get you, not going to lie, but there are four par fives that are pretty scoreable, including 17 and 18. So it's just, you know, you get through there and it's like man, I, they have a pretty good replay rate as well. 21:42 Or some people, you know, I think we talked about it, I mentioned it. They do have a sister course that's down the road called Pinecroft. Not my favorite personal course, a little tight for me, but it, you know, most people can whip around. I'd go over there or go to Crystal Lake, just hang out. It's just a really awesome experience for me. 21:57 I'll try and always hit it when I go up there. My wife's like my wife's in lost place about 30 minutes. So I always try and go up there and play. But that first time, you know, like you said, three under, I mean, how can you can, how can you not love a golf course after you shoot 3 under out there on on 18? So. Yeah, yeah, there's the the plight of golfers is yeah, if you shoot a new PB, or if you shoot even a relatively good score, that course usually automatically jumps up into, what probably your top five. 22:21 Like oh easy. Easily. And and then is there anything worse than of course, that you've really been looking forward to playing and heard nothing but good things about and then play absolutely terrible and you're like, I don't see what people see in it. Look, I don't get it. I feel like every golfer has that debate, like everyone. 22:38 Like there are some golf courses that I really like that I have not played well at University of Michigan, which I heard was talking about Arcadia Sal's another one different topic for a different day. But no, I I tend to agree. It's like the greatest debate. It's like, I hate that golf course. What'd you shoot, 96? So that makes sense. So yeah, I get it. Yeah, I I had to go ahead, John. 22:56 I'm going on a tangent, so go ahead. No, you please, please your. Your tangent might still be in the same place as mine, so go ahead. Marco said in his answer. I don't know how you guys feel about a speaker on the course. And then he just rolled through. I want. To just for a second. Just for a second. OK, Marco, tell me yes or no. 23:14 You're playing the speaker in this scenario, OK, You're a twosome and you get paired with another twosome. You don't know. Are you putting on the music? So sorry, the question was you and your buddy get paired with a twosome and you're in your own cart. But the different twosome I'm yeah, I'm playing music. 23:30 I'll ask them if they're. Courteous. I was going to say, are you asking them? I'll ask them, yeah, I'll ask them to be courteous. But are you? Asking what kind of music they listen to? Or are you just going to play what you were going to play? Just going to play what I'm going to play. OK, yeah, yeah. For. Sure. I was having to save my money. Like do you ask or do you like, are you guys cool with Kendrick Lamar or whatever like? 23:52 In my defense, though, I rarely get paired because I rarely play with people I don't know. So to be honest, it's much easier said than done in that specific scenario of like, yeah, I'd do it. And then you get out there with someone you've actually never played with. Like, yeah, I don't know. So in hindsight I probably would, but I don't know because I don't really get paired with people that often. 24:10 So that's a that's a good question, though. I like where you guys said. Well, so, so where where we settled on it was we we said, well, let's see who we get paired with first, because we were judging how old are they? And on are they're like cool. So on the first team, we're like, you know, you get a sense of them and you and you pull off the first team and you're like, yeah, they're cool. 24:28 Fire that thing up, you know, versus like, no, some old guy who's not going to appreciate this. So. That's like the real caveat is to never play music on the first tee, like especially in front of the starter. Like I just just let it let it be fired up in the fairway on one or on 2 right. 24:46 The volumes got to be an appropriate level. I think that's like a hot button debate right now is how what's the volume of your speaker? Like how far away should someone be able to hear your speaker on a golf course? And I think that's also why when I listen to music on a golf course, that's why I lean towards listening to yacht rock a lot of the time because I think that is doesn't offend anyone. 25:07 It doesn't offend anyone. Like if if you're offended by yacht rock, then you're the problem. You're the curmudgeon, right? Like you're not. My go to is always country, like I maybe it's the summertime buy, but like I feel like people always like love country. Maybe it's just my friend group, but like I'll throw on some neutral, but I don't know, maybe that's I also play it only to where my car can hear it too. 25:27 I'm not blasting it, you know, like some yeah, some obnoxious fool. But I agree, the Valium can be a little because like if there's two cards and I can't hear my music, but I can hear your music and it's not coming from my cart, that can be a problem. So. Right. Right, the mix that you get. Yeah. 25:42 Country, Country I'm. I'll listen to Country I I enjoy it, but that is probably the first genre that I would say someone's going to go as long as it's not country. Hand up, hand up. Don't like country music. If chances are if I'm out on a golf course, I I'll live with it because I try and remember that like, the golf course is the best four to five hours of my day and I shouldn't let things like someone's music choices try and ruin my day. 26:09 I'm going to do enough ruining of my own day on my own. Don't let somebody else do it for me. But yeah, yeah, it's just, it's, yeah, I think that's the same one where it's everybody's like, yeah, I'll listen to whatever except country. Yeah. Yeah, I you also reminded me of the two musics blending where I think I played with somebody once and I was the solo who got like paired along with another group and they were trying to sync up their 2 Bluetooth speakers where the system is built to speak to sync up and they couldn't figure it out. 26:38 So the music was playing like 1/2 a second off of each other and it's the most irritated I've ever been on a tee box in my life. I was like, how I was like, I can't even think like at all. I was like, please, God, just like just turn it off in general. Okay, I digress. 26:54 That we did, we did the tangent we did. We thank you for that, Sean. I I like that tangent. So obviously we know that Marco loves champion Hill. That's why we have them on. But I also think it's really important that we bring in some outside perspectives on the courses that we talked about on level select. 27:11 So we always go out, we grab a five star review and we usually grab a bad review. We try and grab a one star. Sometimes I'll, I'll favor A2 star just to, to get some more, some more options out there. Today we're going to go with A2 star. Then we kind of let Marco try and confirm are these accurate? 27:28 Are they inaccurate? Does he agree? Does he not agree? So I'm going to lead off with this five star. You can tell me what you think Marco, and then we'll and then we'll go over to the to the two star as well. So with the good review, fantastic course. Wow, this was the best course we played all weekend. 27:44 Fantastic views, beautiful fairways and great greens. Really fair pricing too. And all caps BYOB would play this course over and over again. Awesome and friendly staff. Can't give this course a better review. A must play. 28:01 Hence why I chose that five star review specifically. Will be and I did not write that today just so we're clear it. It almost always it's really funny. I'll always like pick a five star and then it almost always is like verbatim the same talking points that our guest wants to talk about. I do think there was one thing in here that they touched upon that I don't think you've necessarily touched upon is the pricing like what it, what is it during like during peak season out there to, to, to pay? 28:29 I actually have the bang for your buck test. Oh well then, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. I got a lot of details on that too, so I'll say it. OK, I'm ready for. You just mind to be blown by Michigan? I mean, yeah, right. I can only imagine based upon like even a little bit of the research that I did, you find, you find some stuff for pricing, but then it's like that was 10 years ago or that was five years ago. 28:50 It was before COVID and like anything could have changed in COVID. So I'm really anxious to see now that I know that he's got that on his test, where that's at? OK, we'll go into the bad review then. The bad review course was absolutely gorgeous and had a great time playing for the first time. 29:06 Manager in the pro shop was rude to our group when making the turn. Our foursome kept pace of play and played in under 2 hours on the front. Ended up being about a 345 four hour round which is typical especially with how long the course was and the distance between greens and tea boxes. 29:23 We went to check the dog leg right at 10 to make sure the group in front wasn't in the fairway. She walks out and tells us to hit immediately and when I said I was checking to make sure they were gone, she insisted I hit immediately again while walking back to the tee box. Zero understanding of safety or precautions at this point. 29:40 The course is overbooked and we were getting hit into on every single hole for the front nine. We had to wait for the group in front of us on every green for our approach shots. I believe the course was overbooked due to time of year and aerating the greens at noon for the end of season. No Marshalls on course, no alcohol, no water jugs, no trash cans at the tea boxes. 30:00 Pro shop was lackluster. Would recommend but be prepared to play fast. Marco, your rebuttal? Yeah, I mean, not going to lie, I did read some of the reviews as I was preparing for this podcast. I did see a lot similar reviews to like this complaining about the management and staff. 30:20 I will say on one one thing, there is no Marshalls out there, but there's never a pace of play issue. Rarely are they overbooked because typically you can't make tee times online. You have to call the pro shop, make a tee time. So the overbooking thing I think may not be true. 30:35 I'm not calling this person a liar, but I've never experienced an over bushing there either. The staff is older I will say, but I've had nothing but good experiences with the staff. Like I said, BYOB. There's no Marshalls but pace of play is really never an issue there. There is not a ton of trash cans, not a lot of water jugs. 30:52 I think that's written on the like on the when you tee off though. It's pretty, pretty plastered. You know, at the end of the day, you're never gonna please everybody. I think at the beginning of their view, they said highly recommend the golf course or beautiful golf course, whatever. Everything seemed to complain about everything else. 31:07 So at the end of the day, who knows? You're never gonna please everybody. But I can see some of the stuff. Some of the stuff doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. But you know, I've only played there a few times, so you never know. Everyone can have different experiences. The no water jugs on golf courses thing is crazy to me because I grew up in Arizona where Sean lives now and where Sean also grew up where it is like a legal requirement to have to have water jugs on like what every like 3rd hole Sean? 31:31 Yeah, like every 4th or 5th hole. It's it's, it's crazy like that. Like it is, it is virtually impossible to not have water on a golf course readily available to you in Arizona. So then when I moved out to the Southern California and to San Diego, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't need to fill my water up before we like, tee off. 31:48 I'll be fine. I'll grab water, you know, whenever we get a chance. And that's like, it's not the case at all. Like there's a lot of golf courses who don't have any water at all like this. So it's a it's a foreign, foreign concept to me that a golf course didn't have water jugs. Also in this review did I hear someone say that it was booked up and they still played in three hours and 45? 32:09 Yeah, that's what I'm trying to. Figure. Correct, correct. He said that they were, he said. Ended up being a three hour 45 minute to 4 hour route. Yeah, tiny world's tiniest violin for sure. To say that. Yeah, to say that they were waiting for the group in front of them on every green for their approach shots and they still played a four hour round. 32:32 Sounds great. What was it? Only two of them out there? Was it only like what was? It with with long drives between holes too. You forgot that there's. Long drives which? Is not. Also that's not really true. There's like 1 medium length drive between holes. I don't think that's that's that's. 32:48 True. Yeah, a lot, a lot of the times the the usually the one or two star reviews are people who are just either having a bad day or they have wildly unrealistic expectations from a golf course, as we've as we've seen in the past. 33:05 OK, so we're going to let Marco jump in. He we told him today to come with a few of the questions from the must play test that he thinks that this course is going to pass with flying colors. So Marco, what is the first Test that you want to take a look at today? Yes. So I was looking through the questions you guys had sent me getting prepared last night. 33:25 The three that I, I was going back and forth honestly with a few of them, I think I picked out the best 3, but you just touched on it a couple of them ironically, nothing I picked but the bang for your buck test. I love that question. I think that's a very, very difficult question to judge in 2025 because people, some people have unrealistic expectations. 33:45 Some people maybe don't realize the value. First of all, how much golf has gone up since COVID. Even Champion Hill, for example, has gone up. But regardless, bang for your buck test. I've got like a whole page of notes on this. I apologize. I'm looking over different monitors. You're fine. So the question is, is the golf course worth the rate you play? 34:02 Do you feel like this is good value during peak season? This golf course does things a little differently. So like I mentioned, they do different rates. Their opening rate varies because they don't really know when they're going to open. So typically first two weeks of May you get it for it looks like open to May 16th is 49 for 18, decent value in my opinion, which is crazy. 34:24 Then from May 17th to June 20th, which is basically like the one month of spring is 59 for a carton 18 twilight twilight. This is the best twilight after 3:00 PM from May to June 20th is 49, but you got to keep in mind that after 3:00 PM. 34:44 So you could go out there at 3 like 330 and get a 29, get 27. You get 27 because it does not get dark up there. It does not get dark up there until 10:00 PM in like June, like you know, June, July type stuff. And then June 21st through September 14th they do 69, which is peak season I think is what you play. 35:03 And then same thing twilight. Twilight after 3:00 is always 49. So I think to get the Max value, I think we just kind of talked about I think that may the June window I think is going to be your best bang for your buck just to get that extra 10 bucks off from 69 to 59. 35:20 You can walk the course. I'm fat and out of shape fellows. So keep in mind I'm I'm not the best Walker. I don't like to walk, especially when I'm up north on vacation. But you can save some money walking. I think The Walking is 4349 for 1820 bucks cheaper to walk. 35:36 But I mean, I think in order to get that maximum value, I mean you got like a month to get like you could maybe get 36 if you did twilight. And I don't know if they kick you out. I don't know if they require carts in after a certain time because like it really does like Sean, as you know, like up like Michigan, you know, it's up here, which is like the farthest West of the Eastern Time zone. 35:55 So like literally me and my wife go up there for 4th of July and it's like 1010 o'clock and Houston can still golf. So I think in order to get the Max value you need to get out there for Twilight, 69 is still value in my opinion I put on here. I think 75 I think would be kind of the top end for what I would like to pay now. 36:14 I would pay whatever because I love the golf course. I have a good relationship with some with some of the people over there. But at the end of the day, I mean 69 bucks it was it has gone up. So I think it was 64 last year. It's gone up similar to everything else. But I mean for the value, come on, you just cannot beat that price. 36:31 Like I said, if you want to go to that Max value, BYOB, Twilight, get that speaker out for the boys, get a case of beers, just go out there and have a good dream. So, you know, I mean the go ahead, go ahead. No, I was just you. The, the BYOB and like, that's not a thing that we have baked into this question at all because we want to just judge the, the, the rate of the tea time. 36:53 But we, it's a, it's a common thing where a round of golf doesn't cost you just what the tea time costs you, right? Like you're usually going to probably eat lunch out there or you're usually going to have to buy a few beers or a Gatorade or some trail mix or an uncrustable like the, the, the so. 37:12 So being able to have an affordable tee time and then knowing that you are encouraged to bring your own 12 pack or whatever with the boys and just run your beers that way saves an insane amount of money. And not only that, just like the views like I put on here, like a lot of the stuff that like, I don't think you can put a monetary value on, but like the views, like you mentioned, the elevation change. 37:37 I guess you don't realize how hilly it is until you actually go out there a couple times. But like the views of like, I mean, I got my drone up there last time when I was out there a couple weeks ago. I mean, I got Lake MI, the Platte lakes, Crystal Lake, all in the background. I mean, just the views, the trees, the aesthetic is like, and the pace of play, like I've never played a longer round there than like 3 hours and 45 minutes, you know, shout out to our friend and then. 37:59 Shout out to you. But like, and that was the day of my wedding where we had 16 people, you know, we had four groups back-to-back to back-to-back. And so I think just the the aesthetic, the value of the course, the trees. I mean, like I said, I'll try and share my drone photos with you guys so you can get some visual, but I mean it's just unbelievable the the price point. 38:20 And like I said, they have a sister course. So I don't know if they do it this year, but last year you could do 2 in one day where you just and I think you get some sort of value for playing them both in the same day. So I think Friday I did a piece on it was under 100 to plan both, which is just an absolute steal for a northern Michigan golf course in my opinion with the with the views and aesthetic that it has. 38:38 So I think it does pass the bang for your buck test with flying colors fellows. Just my little biased opinion though. Real quick, take take Me there on the BYOB. I'm your partner. You show up. What do you have in hand? What are you bringing? Oh easy, I've been on a shandy kick. 38:54 Summer Shandy this last. Very Midwest of you. Yeah, hell, always. I'm not. I'm not. I don't love to drink like I like to drink, but I really enjoy it the most when I'm golfing in the summer. Like there's just no better vibe. I don't know, the shandy, like it just goes down better. 39:11 I don't know, maybe that's just me, but big, big shandy guy, if that, if I'm not drinking Shandy's, typically we'll go some sort of IPA or Margarita margaritas, not on the golf course, but that's just more of like a pool gym. But Shandy's my go to on the golf course. For sure, Michigan has one of the sneakiest, best craft beer scenes in the US. 39:30 Grand Rapids is unreal. Grand Rapids, I went to. Kalamazoo, I went to Kalamazoo is amazing. Yeah, yeah, that's where Founders is right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Bell, is Bell out there too? Bell's. In Bell's in Kalamazoo? Yep. Yeah, Every time I've been to a course in Michigan, I mean, I've been to a BYOB one, I've been so impressed with the local craft beer that they offer. 39:52 And I'm like, wow, OK. Like I beers I've been wanting to try, like I have to hunt in Total Wine are just like at the pro shop. Oh yeah, Out here it's all like domestics and then maybe a Four Peaks beer or something like that on the course. 40:08 There's like not that many options. So I was curious what you're bringing because, I mean, I'll drink a Shamy all day long in the summer. That sounds great. Yeah. That's the. Best. That's a, that's a great choice. OK. So all day IPA guy by the way. I love an all day IPA as well so. 40:25 You mentioned you mentioned bells. I love too Hearted Ale like I too. Absolutely. Yeah, but that one will sneak. That'll catch up on. Not on a golf course. Not on a golf course. Oh. OK, no, I just meant like, no, I just meant in general to consume, not that's not my that's not my favorite drinking beer if I'm generally I'm not touching an IPA on a golf course. 40:45 TJTJSA transfusion guy. By the way, Mark, I don't know if you know all day. Yeah, did have my piggybacking off of our our our Shay no Golfs podcast. Did have my first water hazard the other day on my bachelor party. Yeah, Sean, I know you had a sip. 41:03 What were your thoughts? I was impressed. It was pretty good. It's. Pretty it's pretty good on a warm day. I, I was, I was very much like, I don't know if it would replace a transfusion, but I definitely think it holds a, it holds a place out on the golf course. 41:20 Yeah. Yeah, it does. For sure. Okay, so bang for your buck test exceedingly passed Marco, What's next test #2 that you wanna look at? Yes, let me pull it up. It is the buzzworthy test. This one I actually found. 41:36 I wanted to do a couple ones. I want to do the pace play one, but I think we've already talked about pace play is excellent out there. I don't got to spend too much more time on that. I got a third one, but the buzz worthy test, are there holes, multiple holes worth talking about? Does the course have more than one hole that a group would immediately want to go play again? 41:52 And so I think we've read from the couple reviews, you know, come highly recommended. Yes, there are a lot as you can imagine with the elevation changes. There are a few holes that do want to get you coming back. I think there are multiple, personally, the first three are not the they're kind of not the great. 42:12 I don't want to say not They're probably the worst holes in the golf course. Not a shot at the golf course, just how great Once you get to 4, four is the highest point in the golf course. Well, kind of go 123 and then 4T turn around and see all the. Legs on a lot of golf courses, you start, you don't start at the top right, you start at the bottom and then you have to go up the hill to get to the, the, the, the hole that has the highest elevation, right. 42:31 So you've got to kind of, you've got to suffer through to get to the to the better spot. Yeah. And so I put the, I think I had five or six examples and I won't spend too much time hole by hole. But hole four and five, you know, 4 is a great hole is like I said, it's, I don't know if it's the highest or the second highest point on the golf course where like you walk up to the tee box and you just turn around and there's just just trees, lakes. 42:54 I mean, just if you get on a really good Sunday morning, it's an awesome view. It's a longer part, it's a shorter par 4. It's it's not the greatest hole, but just the views, aesthetic, you know, like you said, you can hear everything. It's just such a awesome, peaceful morning, you know, and I love that view leading into hole number 55, I think is a very iconic hole. 43:14 It's a par five kind of wound through the trees. You hit down into like a little valley, not a valley like a, a tree shoot, but you're down hitting downhill and then you're hitting just this backdrop. It's just trees, hills, a lot of peaceful. You can hear the ball if like you get that early enough, you can hear the ball whistle through the trees, which is super cool. 43:34 And then it's a par 5. So typically, you know, if you're playing well, those par fives are going to be birdies or par. So I feel like those two holes are very memorable. Holes seven and eight are also very memorable. 7 second par 5 on the front side actually goes up to I think what is the owner's house across the street towards the green. 43:52 Very cool par 5I just think it's a really cool aesthetic when you just drive up from six and see this hole that's just there very it's a easy hole, but it's it's still just a really cool view. Hole 8IN in my opinion, is the most one of the most. Remember hole 8 and 15 are back-to-back. Like hole eight goes this way, 15 goes this way, just awesome trees. 44:11 It's a downhill par 3 to a smaller green and eight is just it's a it's a it's a postcard. It's a it's a postcard picture 8 and 15 both, then the only other two I have 115. Obviously it's just the same thing, just hitting into trees. Green, you go there in the fall. You can get some really cool colors from those holes. 1718 back-to-back par 517, ironically enough, still has a I don't know if it's part of the tree farm, but it's a par 5. 44:35 That's like a dog leg and you got to hit over the tree farm to hit your second. That's this little part in the in the golf course and the 18 is just a back-to-back 580 par fives to end it. I feel like if you play well, those well, definitely birdie holes will always keep you coming back from a memorable hole perspective. Those are the few that really stick out of Champ hill for me. 44:53 Like I said, the views for me, I just maybe I'm just the older I get, the more I appreciate nature and such, but the views are just unbelievable peaceful man, it's awesome. It's. Really. Birds that are, on the whole. Exactly the birds, exactly the the small stuff, you know, you just don't really appreciate as a kid when you're golfing. 45:09 But yeah, me and my wife will go out there and we'll get a like a just a morning tea time. Just me whip around 2 1/2 hours. She'll ride in the cart and just sip on some coffee. Like, it really is just an ultimate vibe. But those are the most memorable holes in my opinion. Very cool. 45:24 That's no, that's that's a great detailed explanation of what probably makes that golf course, you know, such a good hidden gem and and give paints an actual good picture for everybody at home without actually having to go watch a yeah, 18 hole YouTube breakdown. Yeah, and like you said, the par threes are tough. 11 and 13 are 240 par threes in the back box. 45:47 They're both way down one place. 11 actually plays uphill, but the 13th is downhill. Those are are very memorably tough from that perspective. The par threes are not easy. 240 uphill. 240 uphill typically plays another way. Let's put it this way, for my wedding, the four of us all scratcher plus handicaps. 46:06 I think I was the only one who didn't hit driver who played like 270. Yeah, yeah. So it's a, it's a, it's a it's, it's a tough hole. But just, I mean, the green greens are super receptive. So it's not like super firm, which is my one knock on the course. Because the way it's set up, it sets up firm and fast. 46:22 Like you think when you see it, it should play firm and fast. The greens get a little spongy because the weather and they don't have a full season up there to prep it. And that's about one knock on the course. But other than that, just it's like I said, there's a lot of memorable ones out there. But those par threes are brutally tough. I did not realize none of them were under 200 or whatever you said one. 8170, I think is what they said Yeah, I. 46:41 Had never thought about that, but yeah, it's it's crazy. It just makes it just makes it feel like it's a long day, right? Like every time you pull up, especially if you haven't done any, like, extensive course research before, and every time you pull up and you're like, you're waiting for that one where you're like, all right, man. Like put a wedge in my hand or put a, you know, put a put an 8 on my hand. 46:58 Like you're looking forward to that one all day. And it just never comes. Yeah. OK. So we've got that one. You said you initially wanted to talk about the Marshall test, but I think we're going to pass on that one. You've got, yeah, we're going to pass on that. Yeah, I think the the review said there's no Marshall out there. 47:14 The pace of plays are never an issue. I've played multiple rounds and three under 3 hours and under for 18, which is, as you guys know, is insane with the twosome. So pace of plays great. Yes, the last one and this is the one I went back and forth with because it's it's a weird question. 47:30 And Sean, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well because you're a Michigan guy, but it's question 10. It's the dime a dozen test. Is this course unique to the area or could you get this experience somewhere else on your trip slash visit? Now I didn't really know how to approach this question because it can go both ways, right? 47:51 Yes and no. There are some other courses up in northern Michigan where you can get trees, birds, lakes, So you can get all of that, especially in the Traverse City area where you know, Beulah, Beulah, right? Beulah is about 30 minutes West of Traverse City. 48:07 They're kind of the closest major Michigan City to it. And there are so many golf courses up there and they. So yes, in theory, I think you could get this experience elsewhere being at an up North Michigan golf course. As far as like the views and lakes and stuff, yes. 48:23 But as far as like, is it unique? I would say yes, because rarely do you find a golf course that is very good but not part of a resort up there, right? We've got Arcadia, the Forest Dunes, or I mean, you pick your point. There's so many, even many resorts up there, so I didn't know really how to to talk about this one. 48:41 I think it's unique personally, but given the fact that there are so many golf courses up in that area where you can play, you can get banged for your buck, right? It's not the only one up there that's cheaper that you can find as a hidden gem. But for me, I just didn't know how to go about answering this one. 48:57 So I'd love to hear your guys's thoughts on that, especially you, Sean, if you've been up in that Traverse City areas, you know the golf course is unreal, but this one just holds a special place to my heart. So maybe I am a bit biased there, but that was a tough question for me. I really they know how to go with that one. Yeah. Well, it's you're allowed to be biased, right? 49:14 Like you answer the question when we have guests on, especially the level selects, we want you to kind of sell people on why this should make the list. But I would say this question is hard when you are in an area with a lot of golf, right? So out here in the valley, we try to think of if someone's coming from out of town, right? 49:34 And you're taking them to this part of the world and you're like, kid, we got three courses to play while you're in town. Does this make one of the three that you're going to have them go play? And if so, why? And usually that why is one of the other questions bang for your buck or the views or you just can't get this experience anywhere else. 49:54 So there's something unique to that, right, that makes it that way. So I'm not going to be the judge on this one. I'm not, I'm not an expert, but I'll just tell you that like there is a lot of golf up there and there is a lot of golf that has better views or maybe better amenities, right? 50:13 But to your point, there are a lot of resorts too, I think like ones that come to mind that aren't resorts like Kingsley. I know it's kind of further away, but that one's supposed to be really cool. I've, I've heard good things about Bay Meadows. I've never played that area by Traverse City, but yeah, so I don't know, it's tough because you're you're you're going up against like what, probably 1015. 50:35 Yeah, I mean, Arcadia's 30 minutes from from where Champion Hill is and you know, Crystal Downs. I mean, like you said, Crystal's super private. Kingsley's about an hour. Yeah, Kingsley's also private. Never played, but would love to get out there. That's another one that's. Like, oh, is that private? Really. Yeah, it's it's private, but it's pretty accessible if you know the the I I actually got invited a few times. 50:55 I just I've never been able to go. But yeah, Kingsley is is awesome, awesome. But like you said, you are competing with a lot of courses up there. Even like you said, that Bay Meadows golf course. I've never played there, but it's right by where we stay. That's a fun one. There's like 3 or 4 like up in the Lelanal Peninsula, which are just like 30 minutes N that are just equally probably good as hidden gems as Champion Hill. 51:15 But it's just like, you know, I let me put it this way. I have recommended a lot. I have a good relationship with the golf course and I've done a lot of stuff on Twitter where a lot of people come, you know, they they're planning their Arcadia trip and they're like, you know, what's a golf course so we can go play. I always recommend Champion Hill. 51:31 It's right there. You can't beat the price. And like I said, after playing Arcadia, it'd be nice to play something that maybe gets your confidence up a little bit. So. I I also think, I also think that all golf courses should have like one budget round in them just like across the board. 51:46 Like if you're going to play 3 rounds in a, in a trip, I think one of those if it's, if it's, if it's a place that you will probably frequent again, like throw a budget round in there and let everybody have, you know, a day off where everyone's not trying to be like, oh, let's take every moment in or let's play this course super seriously that day. 52:04 Like Sean and I have talked about this on the podcast before where anytime we do a boys golf trip, we always try and play the back nine of the last round that we play as a four man scramble. And it just really always caps off the trip with everybody feeling like really good about everything. 52:21 No one's it leaves no one upset about gambling debts that they've paid for little bickerings in a two man scramble over what club we should pull here or should we lay up or go for it? Like it's a nice way to cap it off. And I think like this course sounds like it could be like an ideal candidate to cap off a trip like that that is budget friendly, the BYOB, like it's going to be fast. 52:44 So you know that you can still squeeze it in if you're like maybe flying out in an afternoon, you can get out in the morning. Like it's sometimes sometimes that for me, I feel like the dime a dozen test is kind of like the summation of all of the other tests and being like, if it is passed more than enough that it probably is going to get it passed in the dime a dozen. 53:03 But you know. That's a good thing. Like also like travelling if you are flying in for the out of state, it is closer to Traverse City Airport, which there are like 3 major airports you can fly into to get up under Michigan. That's not like private Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Grand Rapids is straight up 131 or 127, you know, two hours and then Traverse City obviously within 30 minutes. 53:22 So from a travel perspective it is close to the major airports if you are flying in from out of state. So just keep that in mind as well. Yes. Speaking of scramble, TJ, your bachelor party, I realized yesterday, counts as one of the three scrambles that I need to play this year. 53:39 So technically it goes, it goes towards that. That round checked off multiple boxes because it was another round that you got to play with me. It was a scramble. Yep, what else? And a new course. And a new course there it is. OK. So Marco, that covers it for about what we're going to talk about with Champions Hill today or sorry, Champion Hill, but I want to chat a little bit about the Scratch Golf Show with you. 54:03 Tell us more. Tell the people what you do, what you've got going on, where they can find you, all the good things. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it, TJ, like you, like you just mentioned, it's at the scratch golf show on all major socials not named Twitter. Twitter, it's just scratch golf show. 54:18 I didn't have all the characters. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. You can follow me, subscribe, please. I I mainly push out my content on YouTube. But yeah, it's just a it's a passion project. You know, I huge YouTube guy, you know, I love pro golf, like a huge into all golf, YouTube golf, pro golf, whatever you want to call it, but just wanted to have my own outlet to talk, You know, for a long time, I think during COVID, I'm 31, little older, but you know, during COVID, you know, I was like my mid 20s was still single. 54:47 Good, good kind of came. 31, a little older. Sorry, hold on. Yeah, sorry. Let me grab, let me hold on. Let me let me move my cane and my Walker from here. If that's older, Sean and I are deceased. Oh, anyways, good good was just coming out right during COVID and like I've always been a a YouTube guy, like Call of Duty video games, whatever, I always watch, I always consume concert through YouTube. 55:13 So when good good came in, it's like, man, this is really cool. Always wanted to do my own thing. And basically, I don't know if you got can we curse on this? Yes. Go for it, Fire. Away. Yeah, OK, so I always, I always, I always tell people this. I've been thinking about doing it for a long time, right. And basically I was talking to my wife, she told me shut the fuck up and do it already. 55:32 So I did last last Masters. My inspiration was from Pat McAfee. Obviously you guys know Pat creating his own thing on YouTube. I started doing live streams, golf talk show. I just wanted to get in front of the camera and just get comfortable slowly have transitioned the content over these last like 16 ish 1415 ish months, whatever it is now starting the pro golf scene with live streams, gambling then into interviews with PGA Tour caddies and the pro golf tried it there. 55:58 It wasn't really successful. And then lo and behold, started interviewing the YouTube world. And then it just kind of came to be. These last five months have really, you know, just maximized the exponential growth on on YouTube. And it's just super satisfying seeing the the, you know, seeing a piece of content that you thought of put out organized. 56:17 Like I do this all myself, all the editing, scheduling, everything. Like I do everything myself. I don't have any help. And just seeing a piece of content that gets thousands, 10s, hundreds, you know, at the Wesley Bryan interview that just dropped last week get views. It's just it's so satisfying. And yeah, so we basically cover all things YouTube, golf and professional is kind of my catch phrase in my intro. 56:36 I don't really have a set schedule. The news thing can obviously drop any day. So I really could drop a video any day, try to post Monday through Friday just for the algorithm purposes. My concert on the weekends has not done this great. But yeah, I mean, I just talk about stuff like I have my own outlet to talk about golf, get paid, do it through YouTube Adsense now. 56:53 And it's just been the coolest thing ever. It's been cool to see it grow. You know, we we do a lot of the interview still stuff, still been working that back into the content these last couple months. As you guys know, scheduling is just brutally hard with guests. So, so getting back on the content grind, you know, we just had Wesley Bryan on, we just had Matt Scharf on, and we've got some cool stuff coming in August. 57:13 From the interview perspective from your favorite YouTuber, you know, if you like YouTube, most likely had them on the channel for an interview at some point. So yeah, just trying to get through summer and then Good goods, putting on a live event in September in Chicago. That's going to be kind of my cap off for the summer. Going to go on site working on getting the media pass through good, good and just do a bunch of on site content, which is not something I've really ever done before. 57:35 Obviously I've, you know, if you, if you do watch this and you do watch my content, you'll see me in this chair, which I make 95% of my content. So getting on site and doing and, and working with good good. You know, I have a relationship with them. I've had a lot of the guys on they know who I am, which is it's just super cool from a YouTube perspective that the, you know, the biggest people in the space. 57:53 No, the scratch golf show, which a year ago was a pipe dream, and now here we are a reality and doing podcasts of people love doing podcasts. Make sure you got drop these guys a sub follow whatever Spotify review sub follow on. YouTube all the good stuff. Because I know how much that counts man. 58:08 So drop these guys all that. They do really good work. And like I said, thank you guys so much for having me and give me the opportunity to talk about the platform because it is really cool. I love talking about it. It's my baby. And so yeah, just follow me on YouTube or Instagram. Those are my main 2 platforms. Subscribe and if you're interested in YouTube golf stuff, check me out. 58:26 I really appreciate the time guys. Thank you so much for the. Opportunity No most definitely a few things one love hearing somebody who just like clearly very still has the passion for it as fellow creator slash podcasters in the space. It's incredible watching people come in and think that it's going to be like this incredible thing and then they put like 6 months into it and then they're like, oh, I wasn't immediately successful. 58:50 And then they're just done with it, right? So you have to have that level of passion. So like hearing you still have like that level of passion also like 16 months in and you're still like, and then and it, and it pays dividends, right? Like you just had your best month ever 16 months in, right? It only like it is, it is literally a labor of love. 59:08 And the more love that you continue to put into it, generally the better results that you end up seeing. No, for sure I agree. You know I I did it for 11 months. I got monetized March 25th was sitting in this chair can tell you exactly what I was doing at that point hit 1000 subscribers and I'm now I'm over 6000 and it's July. 59:26 It's not even been 120 days and it really is, like you said, you really got to put the time in. Those first year is horrible, like it is unsatisfying, a lot of work, but once you get through it and get through the consistency, you see the rewards, the brand deals, the connections, the conversations you have. 59:42 Everyone loves golf, especially now in 2025 with COVID, and you just never know who you're going to meet, right? I mean, I've met so many cool people through golf. The conversations, relationships, you never know down the line when someone can help you. Most of the people I've met doing what I do in relationships have come through golf and it's just my passion. 59:57 My dad got me into it when I was a kid. I love it. If I'm not here working my day job or working on the podcast or with my wife, probably. Golf course, so I'm obsessed with it and you get a lot of fulfillment not doing your own thing. I'm sure you guys can relate to that so. Yeah, I'm also, I'm also very glad that I didn't find out that you were a were a gamer until later in the podcast or else a lot of these questions would have went in a different direction. 1:00:18 I have one question to kind of like cap us off here, Optic or phase? Optic, I think I was a Modern Warfare 2. Guys like Optic Hex, like I'm sure you know Hex like. That was what I got into YouTube. They really have. I have no idea what you guys are talking. 1:00:35 About I literally have a a hex graffiti green wall here. Yeah, Sean, I'll, I'll explain this to you when you're older. When I'm 31. Yeah, Fortnite boom was crazy for me. Like I was a Call of Duty guy and then Fortnite. 1:00:50 Like I've never been a sports gamer, but like Fortnite, just like cap like capsized me like I love I'd still be hop on Fortnite. Any of any of any of us who are around during you know, pre well, it was it was pre COVID Fortnite and then COVID happened in war zone was just crazy, right. Yeah, I had every person who had never even played a video game in their life being like, yo, are we hopping on tonight like where we drop? 1:01:13 So it was crazy cool. Before we go too far into the game stuff, I wanna kind of wrap us up here. Obviously, thanks for hopping on, talking Champion Hill, uncovering another hidden gem in the Midwest for us and also, you know, telling us the whole spiel about the the Scratch golf show. 1:01:29 Obviously it's incredible that you love it and that you're seeing all the success from it. Ultimately, fingers crossed someday either myself, Sean or both of us get to make it out to Michigan and we get to play Champion Hill with you. I think it'd be really cool. And then we get to have you come back on and do the must play test someday. 1:01:45 So fingers crossed on that. And then obviously, like Marco had said, we won't, we won't double down on it. But if you're watching on a platform where you can subscribe or follow us, please do so. It helps a ton. Or if you can provide us with a ranking, it's humongous. Stay tuned for more. Obviously, guys, we'll talk to you next time or we unlock a new level. 1:02:03 Thanks, Marco. Thanks for having us guys. Appreciate it.