0:10 Welcome to Must Play 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. 0:26 And today we're heading to a golf course so old it was around before the Red Sox won their first World Series. And no, we're staying domestic. We're not talking about Scotland. We're talking about the second oldest public golf course in the US where the tea boxes were originally tomato cans. Yep, we're in Boston at Franklin Park, home of the William J Divine Golf Course with Noah Kortkamp of the Golfers Anonymous podcast, the app Eden Golf, and you can probably find him at Golf Culture One on Instagram. 0:53 Noah, welcome to Level Select. All right, thank you guys that that intro on Franklin Park got got me fired up to to talk about it. So really excited to be here. Big big fan of you guys, big fan of the show. Really excited to hopefully shed some light on the little brother or older brother but lesser known of of George Wright which which often gets associated with Boston golf. 1:16 Yeah, no, it's I, I love doing ones like this. Like, sure, it's fun to come out and talk about all the big ones and the the Cabots and the Bandins and the the Whistling Straits and all the big courses. But I think really we love pulling away at the weeds at people's like favorite local golf course that's within, you know, 15 miles of them that only the the true locals know about, right? 1:38 Yeah, 100%. And that's, that's what I think is really cool about golf and what you guys are doing. Like I feel like there's, there's a difference between like what's the best golf course you've ever played and what's like your favorite course, you know? And I feel like you really, you know, it's a great way to like see how, you know, someone's brain works when they start, you know, picking those two apart and what do they like about it, All those different types of things. 1:59 Hey, shout out to. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, that's the whole point of our test, obviously, but there's so much more to golf than just the course and doesn't have to be the best course you've ever played to be one of the best experiences you can have, right? Yeah, 100%. And like even even when you guys sent me over the the questions and getting ready for the show, I was like, Dang, we could we could talk about all ten of these. 2:20 I don't know how I'm just going to pick pick three to go through. I mean, that's the the ultimate goal with why we built this podcast was so that we could get a sense of these courses, see if they're a place that we want to go to. And then fingers crossed, ultimately, someday Sean and I get to do an East Coast road trip and go and play this course with you. 2:40 And then have you come back on to must play proper and go through all 10 and give it a bona fide ranking because we want to keep those first hand. And then, you know, we get to go up and play great. Should be with Aaron from rustic golf provisions and then have him come back on. We want to build little itineraries for us as opposed to being like, what's our golf trip this year? 3:00 And then it's just like, are we going to Bandit? Are we going to Whistling Straits? Are we going to Pebble? No, we're not probably going to any of those 'cause we have kids and families and we're broke. But these ones, these ones feel a lot more reasonable. 3:15 In this economy. In this economy. So I'm actually playing great Shabique tomorrow, believe it or not. Are you really? Yeah. So, so very excited to to get up there for that little, little fairy action. Really excited for that one. Are you staying on the island or are you just playing it in the day? 3:33 No, so we're it's like a little 7 club tournament that one of my buddies put together. So we're shooting up. I mean it's like a, you know, you're talking about like AI got probably got to be out of my house by like 4:45 tomorrow morning. So it's like 2 hours up to I think it's like South Portland, ME and then a quick ferry ride over. 3:54 I think we're playing at like 8:00 AM something like that. We'll do the tournament, maybe stick around for a bit and then head back. But I'm I'm really excited. That's been one that's on on my list for a while now. Have you ever been on a ferry with your golf clubs? I have. It's actually one of my favorite experiences as a golfer. 4:11 Yeah, it's it's it's honestly way, it's like the best. Where'd you where'd you play with the when you took the ferry? So I don't know how familiar you guys are with like the Seattle golf scene, but we played, Long story short, I was out there for like a work trip at my old company, extended the trip so we could play chambers. 4:29 And then we were looking for another course and we played Gold Mountain, which is on Bremerton, which is one of those like islands off the coast of Seattle. So we jumped on a ferry. It was like an hour long, beautiful ferry ride. And then, yeah, so did that. And then there's somewhere else I've been with my golf clubs, but I'm forgetting for now. 4:48 But Gold Mountain sticks out most of my. Mind, do you have to take a ferry to go to fishers? You do, but I don't know if I'm getting that invite anytime soon, no. Okay, okay. I wasn't sure if I was it. I was like, I was like, I don't think you would forget if you went to Fishers, but you never know, it could just be in the moment. 5:05 But something about having your clubs on the ferry feels so foreign and so alien. But then when you get there, you have a great day and then you get back and it's like it's, I don't know how to explain it. Like I abandoned. You're on a little bus going to each course and you're on that bus with your clubs. And that's a really cool thing. 5:21 But when you're on a ferry, it's just like there's nothing else you have planned that day. You're on a ferry to a golf course, like you're not in a rush. A. 100% I just remembered the other one I've been to is Maya Comet, which is on Nantucket, one of the islands South of Massachusetts. That was a That was a really fun one. 5:37 Very cool. OK, so like I'd said when I introduced Noah, he hosts the Golfers Anonymous podcast where he aims to interview golfers who are deeply addicted to the game. Some might even call them golf sickos. Noah, I'm going to quickly put you on the spot here. What are probably the two most common traits you see in someone who is deemed a golf sicko? 5:59 Oh my God, you know, this is, it's funny you ask this because I've been meaning to like take every single transcript I have and like dump it into like AI and have it come out with like the 10 most common reasons for or symptoms of a of a golf addict. 6:16 And OK, I think the first one is probably like golf occupies at least 20% of your waking thoughts. Someone said that on the show. Yeah, yeah, someone said that on the show very early on. 6:33 And that is stuck with me. Like, I think it's pretty accurate. Like, I, I think about golf a lot. I don't, I don't know about you guys. Whether it's like courses, clothing, PJ Tour, LPJ Tour, whatever it is. There's just so many things going on in the golf world, like, you know, the thoughts fly. 6:50 And then the second one, I don't know, I think it's just like you genuinely like just want to always be playing more golf. I, I think one of the most common things people say on the show when I, because the last question I always ask is like, why do you love golf? 7:08 And you get a lot of different answers about, you know, competitiveness and, you know, being outside different things like that. But it always ends in some kind of some version of I just want to go play again, or I finish and I just want to keep going or I finish at the range, just want to hit more balls, whatever it is. There's something about golf and like truly being a, a golf sicko where just like you just want to keep going and like you just like physically cannot stop thinking about it, wanting to play and and then all those things. 7:36 I have one that I know is a Sean Massey trait here that definitely qualifies him As for sure our resident golf stick on the podcast. Sean, if you're OK with it, I'm going to put you on the spot here a little bit, put you on blast. Please go for it. I don't. Know what you mean before Before he plays any new Golf course they go into Google Maps and or Google Earth and do a full personal fly over and essentially play the round on the map in their head with their shot shape before they go and play the round of golf. 8:10 That's how excited they are for their round. That's spectacular. I, I definitely know a lot of people that do that one. I mean, I, I've done that one myself as well. My go to is like I'll, I won't do Google Maps. I'll fire up like 18 birdies or whatever app you use. I'll just do like the course preview, move it around, stuff like that. 8:28 I, I like when people also they'll, I know some guys that'll look at the like the, the, the menu of like whatever, like the turn Shack is or the like the restaurant on the course and they'll like have their order in mind before we even get there, whether it's like after 9 or after the course. 8:44 I think that's always a funny one too. But yeah, true golf stick was they they come prepared. How about another sign? Is your YouTube algorithm only suggests golf content to you? Yep. Is it is yours only golf content? You have nothing else in there, no food, no nothing. It's 90% golf content. 9:02 Wow, I have this thing where I sign in at well, I don't even sign in. I'm a guest on my TV on YouTube and it always recommends whatever I've been recently doing and it's just GGGGG every version of golf thing you can think of, because T JS right, I do that sometimes. 9:20 I don't do it every time, but what I do every time is I love to go look at a course on YouTube. I just want to get see like a drone shot or a fly over or something and there's a couple channels in particular where I just go watch that and you're like, OK, I know exactly what to expect. It's fun. 9:37 Yeah, we couldn't agree more. I had to start. It's funny with the like your point about YouTube, that's like me, like I I had to stop looking at golf content on like my personal Instagram, like I just automatically swipe past it. If it's golf content, like keep that on the on the other one. 9:53 Gotta gotta be able to like see, you know, human things at at some point. Yeah, yes, yes. I've done that. I've done the same thing with ours. I do have a question here before we jump fully into talking about the golf course. It feels like there's a bit of a conflict with the naming convention of the golf course. 10:13 So when you when I googled this to do my pre show notes, it comes up as William J Devine Golf Course at Franklin Park. But when you had told me that this was the course that you wanted to cover, you would just plainly refer to it as Franklin Park. 10:30 What is the what makes me sound like I'm a Bostonian here? What should I call it moving forward to sound like I'm in the know? Right. So is this a good question? And it's a it's an important one. So I think moving forward, you know, Franklin Park, everyone I know who plays it regularly always refers to it as Franklin Park. 10:49 But there are technically 2 courses at Franklin Park. You have William J Devine and then you have George Wright. Like they're both technically under the umbrella of city of Boston golf. They're both at Franklin Park on 2 opposite sides, massive park in Boston. 11:05 And essentially everyone that I know that's like from Boston or grew up in Massachusetts will refer to divine as I guess sometimes they call it divine, but mostly just Franklin Park. And then if I have buddies that have moved here, you know, they'll refer to it as William J Divine at 1st and then adopt Franklin Park over time. 11:23 But we can just, we can stick with Franklin Park for the purposes of the. OK, cool, cool, cool, now I don't have to change anything in my show notes. That'll be good. OK, so before we jump into talking more about what makes Franklin Park so special with Noah, I want to take a second to thank today's episode sponsor, Bird Darts. 11:39 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. 11:58 You can also use bird darts without worrying about harming 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 Noah, we obviously have people come on and talk about golf courses that are extremely near and dear to their heart. 12:18 Why did you want to come on today and talk about Franklin Park? Yeah. So I think the main reason I wanted to talk about Franklin Park is obviously George Wright gets all the national attention here in Boston as like Boston and Massachusetts, like signature Muni for and for good reason. 12:38 It's a spectacular golf course. Again, back to what we talked about earlier about like what's the better golf course? It's George Wright. Like it's Donald Ross in every sense of the word. Like lots of history there. And it's, you know, more challenging than than Franklin Park. I think it's now officially like top 100 public golf courses on Golf Digest or golf.com, one of those sites. 12:57 So that gets all the attention, but I think a lot of people that live here, like they spend more time at Franklin Park, they enjoy their round more at Franklin Park. And it's honestly like it's the place I learned to golf. I grew up in Brookline, one town outside of Boston. And like they had a great junior rate at Franklin Park when I was a kid. 13:13 So our parents would just drop us off, play all day as long as we could, and then just like, you know, figure out the way home at some point. So I'm very, you know, sentimental about it for that reason. But I also think it's just like what a municipal golf course should be like. 13:29 It's incredibly welcoming to the public, incredibly diverse. You've got so many different people there from different walks of life. You've got this property in one of the busiest parts of Austin that feels somehow secluded. It feels like it has its own weather, climate at times, for whatever reason. 13:48 Might be a hot take, but when the fescues up at Franklin Park, I like to say looks a lot like Shinnecock. I've had some other people agree with me on that. So maybe you just have to be there to see it, but I don't know. I think I think George Wright, like I said, is gets a ton of praise for for all the all the reasons I mentioned before. 14:04 But I think it's it wouldn't be a proper discussion about Massachusetts golf and Boston golf without talking about Franklin Park, the history that that place has and how it's still like a proper, proper golf course and, you know, deserves to be talked about as A1A1B with with George Wright for sure. 14:22 Yeah. OK. OK. So, Sean, I would assume you're probably very well aware of George Wright as our resident golf sicko, correct? East Coast so I'm less familiar with, but yes, I'm familiar with that course. OK, any, any prior knowledge about Franklin Park coming into today's podcast or are we flying blind here? 14:43 Just a little bit about, you know, Donald Ross and even before Ross when it was a nine hole, I know a little bit about that. I do want to talk about, and maybe I'm I'm going to pose this more as a question, but a lot of cities in the US love to make these crazy claims about oldest golf course. 15:01 And the city of Boston is the one that calls this the second oldest public golf course in the US. I think there's some debate there. I don't know if we want to pull on that thread right now or not. You know, and as I, as I was prepping for this, I've also been wondering that myself because I've, I've been believing that my whole life. 15:21 And then I'll go to some of these random golf courses and it'll say a year. That was before Franklin Park. And I'd be like, hmm, I thought the only one older was Van Cortland in New York. It it's so like I First off, we have to acknowledge that people who work at the city are humans just like us and they're researching. 15:40 They're usually the same way we are too, right? And the other thing too is a lot of cities are, you know, geared towards trying to get people to come to the city. Now, this is not necessarily a tourism board. This is the city of Boston. But like when I was doing my research in San Diego, for example, there was all kinds of different claims about the oldest courses, and it turns out none of them were right. 16:03 This one I do think has a decent claim at it, but there's a key difference in what makes the oldest course, and it's basically was it public when it opened and how many holes, or was the layout close to the original of what it is today? Interesting. Those are the key distinctions, usually. 16:19 Yeah, 'cause there's like, like we've talked about it on some other podcasts, but like Gearhart, which is like, I think Gearhart predates this, but like Gearhart was only three holes when it opened. So it's like this wild thing where everybody feels like they have some sort of claim, but it wasn't like a we were the second oldest golf course because we were an incorporated business or because we were, we actually had a sign out front with our name on it and a pro shop or like everybody's got an asterisk on this for sure. 16:54 Yeah, so I don't want to steal. I don't know if you're covering history or not on this one DJ, but. Yeah, so looking at the fun facts, literally the first one that I have here was opened on October 26th, 1896. The city's website references Franklin Park as America's second oldest public golf course like we had just talked about. 17:14 But it's definitely asterisk on how you wanted to find it. And it opened as nine holes, I believe. Correct, correct, correct. Donald Ross redesigned and expanded the course into its 18 hole layout in 1922. 17:32 So also if you wanna, you know, if you wanna add another asterisk to that, that changes when it was the golf course that you know what it is today. And a more thing about when a cool thing about when it was originally that 9 hole golf course. I believe I'm not I'm always, always mess up these history things. 17:49 So, you know, nobody hold me to it. But Willie Campbell designed the first nine holes and Willie Campbell was also the pro at the Country Club in Brookline. Obviously, you know, founding member of the USGA and I love the I don't know, I love that like someone who had such an early hand in one of the most prestigious private clubs in the country and, and the world can also have, you know, a hand in, you know, starting, you know, this, this, this really awesome public course. 18:16 So yeah, few, few notes here about Willie Campbell as well, notably the first winner of America's first Professional Golf match, and he was the first head pro there. And then his wife Georgina, became the first female golf professional at Franklin Park as well. 18:38 So full family shebang over there. Full, full everything. So obviously we know that the former baseball player, former Red George Wright, was the one who opened the course. That's what also why the other course is named after him. 18:54 Like I touched upon at the beginning of the show, Bobby Jones was found here practicing early on in his youth, obviously honing his skills for later success in life. If we flash forward into the 2000s, Golf Digest ranked Franklin Park among the best places to play in 2007, 2008, and 2009. 19:16 So probably a pretty good foundation for whether or not this course is a must play. And then a notable little piece of of trivia talked about a lot of notable patrons and a lot of historical figures that are tied to Franklin Park. 19:31 Another one was George F Grant, who created an extremely common golf good. Any any answers to what George F Grant created or invented I guess? Is this a question to both of us? 19:47 Anyone can answer if you guys want to buzz in with your name or we can let the guests go 1st and be polite. Sean. Go ahead, guess. I I have no idea. We'll go with a ball marker. That is incorrect, Sean. 20:07 Give me wooden tea please. Someone did their pre show research and lied about it. It is wooden teas. Wow, who knew? Yeah, so the so the guy who created wooden golf Tees started here at started here at Franklin Park. OK, so Noah, let's talk about your first time at Franklin Park, if you can, if you can remember back that long ago or if you can remember your first time playing it, even even recent years. 20:38 Because sometimes, you know, as as many do, they play golf in their younger years. They leave it in favor of of basketball, baseball and football in their teenage years, and then they come back to golf once their athletic days are over. So tell us about your first time that you you remember kind of playing at Franklin Park and what it was like. 20:54 Yeah, sure. So I picked up golf. Like I didn't play golf when I was like a little kid or anything like that. Like I probably started getting acquainted with golf maybe like 8th grade, freshman year of high school, Like, like I ran track so very far from golf, but played, you know, baseball, all the sports as a kid. 21:14 And my friend, my friend's dad took us to the driving range one time. Like I could get the ball in the air and I was like, OK, like this seems like a dope game. So automatically we were like looking for places where we could go play. And you know, Franklin Park was close enough, like I said, or they had a great junior raid. 21:31 Our parents could just drop us off there. And the 1st hole at Franklin Park when you're like just learning how to play golf and you have this like crazy banana slice is terrifying. So basically the 1st hole at Franklin Park is in theory wide open. 21:47 You could hit it absolutely anywhere. There's the entire courses left, but on the right you just have like this very, it's like a main Rd. essentially. And it's, you know, there's trees between the, the hole and the, and the, and the, I mean the fairway and the, and the street. 22:04 But like, as someone who was new to golf, like that was the entire thing going through my mind. Like I don't even know what happens if I hit a car with my golf ball. Am I going to get in trouble for that? And of course, like me and my 3 buddies, we all just hit it all the way into the street and like you're watching it slowly come down like you're hoping a car doesn't go right under it. 22:26 So my first memory of Franken Park is definitely like banana slicing it into the road. And that probably happened like another 10 rounds after that. But I mainly just like remember Franken Park being like a place that was just really like not intimidating, I guess. 22:43 I guess that's like the opposite of what I just said about the first tee shot. But like going into the pro shop, you're not nervous to do that. As someone who doesn't really know golf etiquette and things like that. It's really like welcoming place to go out and play and practice and everything like that. So those are my earliest memories of, of Franklin Park. 23:02 And then like, like you said, like didn't really play Franklin Park a ton. Once we like aged out of the junior rate, which must have been like 16, maybe 17. And then it wasn't until like maybe three years ago where I really started playing Franklin Park a ton and spending, you know, 3-4 nights a week there sometimes. 23:22 Wow. OK, so, yeah, so a lot of you know, it's really funny because I I haven't yet, but I don't think there's ever a time where I'm standing on a tee box with my driver in my hand. And if there is something that is not just the the the hole in front of me that I am not worried about hitting it into that thing, whether it is a wedding reception, a road, a rogue flock of ducks. 23:51 Like if ducks are on a hole, I am, I'm like, today's the day I kill a duck like it's going to be today. And I know that this is a whole nother, a podcast that we can probably have with a mental coach, Sean, to try and solve what the hell is going on in my brain. 24:06 But yeah, it's really hard to take those those out of the brain standing on AT box. I think on the previous pod you said it best when you're like someone says, oh, you can't slice it over there and you're like, watch me, watch me. You know when you're especially when you're in 8th grader freshman year and you know you don't have a lot of control over your body yet, you know, you're just kind of swinging out of your shoes. 24:30 Sometimes that banana ball just comes and just goes and you're like, Oh no, and you're hoping there's no homes or cars or something that you're going to break. Yeah, the the the note about not knowing what to do if you hit a car. I mean, shit, I'm. I'm I still don't know what. 24:45 I was gonna do. That whose fault is that? I have no idea. I don't even know what happens if I like hit a house and break a window. I I literally have no idea. Oh yeah. You know, and if I think I think it's one of those things that probably varies based upon the course to where some courses assume the responsibility or the home owner waves the responsibility knowing that they live on a golf course. 25:07 But yeah, I think, I think it probably does vary from course to course and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But yeah, who knows, who knows. You know I'd rather I'd rather ask for forgiveness than for permission, right? Like I would rather know if it happens not before it happens. 25:26 Have you ever hit a ball? Sorry, have you ever hit a ball so far right or left that it goes over the first row of homes and the second row of homes? That is like probably across the street. Didn't didn't I do it at Quarry Pines? Did I keep clear? 25:42 I just pictured someone in the 2nd row homes being like what the hell. Nothing. Even possible to see the ball come in the middle of the street. Goal. Just right. Just. Being like that guys really bad at golf, that guy really shouldn't be on the golf course. All right, so obviously Noah has a very good perspective, a very positive perspective of Franklin Park, but we also like to pull in some outsiders perspectives on the courses that we talked about. 26:10 We usually go out, we grab a good review and then we grab a few bad reviews. I think today I grabbed A2 star and a one star. There was a one star that I had to include just because things that were going on that I needed some extra validation on whether or not Franklin. Park has some haters. 26:26 It really does it. It has some haters. I know that to be true. So there was, there was definitely some some hate around some some pro shop staff, but I tried to I think we talked about that in one of these. But I want to start off with the good review first and you can let me know. 26:42 Generally, I feel like every time we read one of these five stars, it like drills home everything that the guest has already said to that point. So we'll just see if this sounds like it's nose review or not, or if they uncovered something that he was not planning on talking about. Honestly, this place is a hidden gem. 26:58 Not only are the guys that work here old school legends, but they're also super welcoming. Great track, easy to walk if you don't want to pay for a car, challenging but super enjoyable if you only did 9 and come to the turn. Most of the time they say you keep playing as long as you return the cart, but they do have to be in by a certain time but no extra charge. 27:17 Chill vibes, fun layout. Definitely worth playing at Noah. What do we think? Yeah, that all checks out to me. I think especially the point about the course being super walkable. Like I think like me, I love to walk. Like I try to walk whenever I can. 27:34 Like the course, I think a lot of Donald Ross's course in general tend to be a lot of like the green is right near the next tee box and Franklin Park definitely, definitely checks that for sure. And I like the note about the old school guys in the clubhouse, can definitely verify that as well. 27:49 OK, Is the old school for better or worse or both? I think, I think for, for better, you know, if you, if you stay on their good side, they'll, they'll have a lovely conversation with you. But if you're, if you're running to the tee, you're a little late, you know, they, they might hustle you up a little bit. 28:06 Yeah, yeah, most definitely. I was going to ask you, you said walkable. Is this course like other Boston courses where it's kind of hilly? It is quite hilly. I think it's honestly, it's a little unique in that sense where most courses in, in New England, I'm not going to speak for all of them, but mostly if it's going to be wide open in New England, it's probably going to be pretty flat in like kind of this like marshy land, to be honest. 28:33 But Franklin Park is somehow really wide open and has a ton of elevation change. So I do think it's it's pretty unique in in that situation in that sense as well. Cool. OK, good to know for anyone who's planning to hop out there, if they haven't been out, you know, bring bring a good pair of walking shoes. 28:51 Not your your your chunk list. But you never feel like, you're like, you never feel like you're hiking out there, you know, like it's, it's reasonable elevation change, not like Alton golf or anything like that. No, there's, there's, there's some munis like in San Francisco like Presidio where you go out there and from the 1st hole doesn't look that crazy and then you're like this will be a nightmare to walk. 29:13 Like even though the holes are like close to each other. It is just hill hill hill and crazy amounts of steep inclines and stuff. There's there's a bunch out here in San Diego too, like like could you imagine walking the the crossings or like Encinitas ranch? No, no, I don't even know if they'll let you walk the crossings because of like that 10 minute drive to the one hole from one another. 29:33 Yeah, it's crazy. All right, let's jump into. So 1st I'm going to lead off with the two star review here. This said, solid affordable place to play tends to be a bit overcrowded. I normally have a great experience here, but one of the shop employees has been repeatedly rude and has little to no customer service skills. 29:53 That's, I think that's what I was potentially trying to touch upon with the with the old school guys is that sometimes old school guys are very straightforward by the book and they're just trying to run the show, right. So they're not necessarily trying to be over the top friendly. 30:12 But Noah, your rebuttal? Yeah. Out of curiosity, is there, is there a date on on that review? Do we know how long ago that was? I think I, I, when I try and pull these, I also try and pull ones within the year 'cause sometimes obviously golf courses usually have been around for plenty of years and have Google reviews or other website reviews dating back 10 plus years at this point, right? 30:36 So it's not really fair for me to be like, hey, this guy who worked here eight years ago gave a bad experience to someone that's no. So I think both of these are within the year. OK, gotcha. I mean the the pace of play one totally fair. If I think as with any city golf course, if you're out there on a weekend, you know it, it definitely could be dragging a bit. 30:57 You know, I don't think, I think you're rarely going to go over like like you're not talking like 6 hour rounds or over 5. But you know, I think if you're playing on the weekend, I would expect to play in probably at least four and a half, 4:45 at at Franklin Park. I try to get out there like weekday mornings personally, that that's my go to. 31:16 It's also just way easier to get a tee time on those days. But yeah, the pace of play comment totally fair. I don't know if I would say 2 star review because of the pace of play, but I think, I think, I think pace of play is fair. And then the comment about the, the pro shop, I don't know, like $50 tee time. 31:34 I think, you know, I'm not really expecting a glowing customer service in, in the pro shop and you know those and I've, I've never had a bad experience in there personally. Fair. Fair, No. When did golf become not OK with being played in 4 1/2 hours? 31:50 Like does anyone? Does anyone? Was that was that COVID that caused that? And then now all of a sudden that that's like a humongous problem? You know what I think it is? I think I think it's a great excuse people like to have for like not enjoying themselves on the course for whatever reason. 32:09 Like I, I don't know, I think it's like, since it's like an easy one, right? Like, oh, there's so many new people to golf. Like, what are we doing? Courses are so backed up. It's taken forever. I think, you know, golf's always been kind of slow. Like I never really expect to play in four hours. You know, I feel like if you're playing in four hours, that's kind of kind of pretty quick to be honest. 32:28 Only only if I'm out before like 8:00 AM will I expect a four hour or shorter round at this point. Right. I also, I also think it's how you perceive the same amount of time. You could have two rounds that both take the exact amount of time, right? 32:45 But one round you were like always up on someone and the other round they were far enough ahead where you could hit, but it was just spaced out properly and one feels way slower than the other. But to your point about COVID, after COVID, a bunch of people who probably didn't know anything about golf started coming on the course. 33:02 And if you all of a sudden are like behind a group that looks like, you know, assholes that don't know what they're doing, then you're like, come on. You start getting all upset, even though the round might take the same amount of time because you're just watching the buffoonery in front of you. And you're like, man, shrink the game. 33:18 I wish I knew who wrote this the other day. I literally saw it and I was like, that's exactly what it is said golfers don't hate slow pace of play. They hate bad golfers with slow pace of play. Whereas like, like you said, if someone, if someone is taking, you know, the same amount of time, but you look up in front of them and they're hitting fairways or you drive up on a tee box and they just, they just put one right down the middle of the fairway. 33:45 You're like, oh, this guy's, this guy's. There's no way that this guy's the root of the issue, right? That it must be groups in front of him, but if the slow group is right in front of you, then they're definitely the root of the issue on that course in your brain. Exactly, exactly. Case in point to like, imagine the group in front of you. 34:03 A guy hits OB and immediately after he hits, he go and finds his ball outside, you know, wherever he hits. Then from OB he hits 1 short of the green and then he hits onto the green. Let's say that whole sequence took 10 minutes versus the guy in the middle of the fairway and the Green's open and he's just isn't hitting. 34:19 He's just telling a story to his buddy. He's smoking a cigar, he's standing over the ball and he gets a different club from his back and then he hits it onto the green. But that whole thing took 10 minutes too. Same amount of time. But one of them's an asshole. One of them, one of them plays the way he was supposed to and one you're like, what are you doing? Yeah, you're like, you're thinking like he's probably up there. 34:36 He's probably thinking about the grain, the wind, What's the dew percentage at? It's that whole Phil Mickelson skit where he's talking about all the things that changed the shot of a ball. That's why that guy threw a dart. He took. Yeah, he took everything into account. That's why he threw a dart. All right, so jumping into this last one star, there's two points in here that I wanna hear you talk about. 34:57 Noah, this course is a dog track and the staff was worse. We've heard that already, right? We've heard people talk about that there was basically a cookout with Dorchester locals going on in the parking lot. Not to mention constant people walking across the course mid round. 35:16 Avoid this place like the plague. OK, so this is where I get I start to get pretty passionate about Franklin Park when I when I hear things like this, please. So those the cookout point. 35:32 That's part of the reason I love Franklin Park. Like I think this is how city municipal golf courses should be like. It's in the middle of this massive, beautiful park. There's other things going on. You know, obviously there's going to be people hanging out, people playing music. 35:49 Like the one of my favorite things about Franklin Park is I'm on almost every hole. There's like 20 feet away. There's like a area where people could, you know, grill, have a little party, have a block party like Franklin Park, if you want to play quiet golf, Frank, Franklin Park is not the the place for that. 36:05 And I think like people just need to embrace that, you know what I mean? Like, I think, I don't know, I think a lot of people get fed up with Franklin Park because, you know, you're driving through a quote UN quote bad part of town and people can get a little intimidated by some of the things that, you know, may or may not go on around the course. 36:23 But like, I don't know, I think I think people just need to be able to look past that and, and take the golf course for what it is and almost embrace like the true city feel of, of of the course, me personally. But that is that is a common complaint. Like, oh, it's loud. 36:39 There's all this other stuff going on. But like across the street, there's literally a zoo and like there's all this like other things, you know, that that are going on. I think it's just like part of what you sign up for. It's part of why I like it. Yeah, I I think there's always a there's always a fun spot in it. 36:55 I I think it Harkins back also to the people just want to find an excuse as to why they're not enjoying golf or why they had a bad round. So if you're like, every time I was thinking about a shot, I could see somebody walking off in the distance or, you know, walking behind us on the whole hand up. 37:13 I've definitely done this at Balboa here in San Diego where you're like, oh, there's people running around with their dogs on the whole. And you're like, relax, TJ. There's there's other reasons why you're playing. I mean. People, people are allowed to do that at Saint Andrews. St. Andrews is a public park. You know, you could go out, walk across the bridge at any time. 37:29 And I think even like, I think a lot of people would stop having this complaint to like I said before, if they just embraced it. Like there's been times where, I mean, pretty much every day there's something going on in the parking lot. People are just hanging out there having beers, having food. Like I've, I've had beers with the guys in the parking lot before. Like, you know, you just like, you gotta gotta embrace it, gotta gotta sign up for it. 37:47 And just like, you know, see what it's all about. Yeah, I think I think people have also kind of lost the way of what municipal golf actually looks like because golf has been so privatized is the wrong word, I guess. 38:04 Capitalized. Like if I'm just thinking about, for lack of a better term of like, oh, no, golf courses are just about like making money and running themselves as a business. And they should have this standard of what the pro shop employees should be in terms of customer service and how good the food should be and, and how how how elite the experience feels. 38:23 And it's like, well, there's still the other like end of it. And like we talked about with Saint Andrews, like the quote UN quote home of golf, like if this is how golf was founded, like let's still strip it down to the original way that it was intended to be played. And it's just it's there. It's it's in a public space. It's a park. 38:39 Plus if a municipal course, your tax dollars are going to the course, which means that you are allowed to go enjoy this course for a relatively low fee and probably walk all over the course if you want to on a muni course within reason, obviously not going on to the holes and things like that, right? 38:57 And I don't know, in my experience, nobody's ever. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead, I. Was just going to say, in my experience, nobody's ever walking like through fairways and things like that. You know, there's, there's like walking trails in and through Franklin Park as a whole. You know, people are always on those and people are fishing, things like that. 39:16 And the part about the dog track, it's definitely not a dog track. I'll die on that hill. It's been in fantastic condition for at least the past three years. They're putting a lot of money into it. They brought in Mark Munjum to do some work on some of the bunkers, like they're putting a lot of work into getting it in better shape and they're hosting. 39:32 In 2028, they're hosting the men's Mass am at George Wright and they're hosting the women's at Franklin Park. So like, it's, it's definitely not a dog track. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. One thing too about people real quick, TJ, So obviously there's a handicap system, but I think one way to measure how good you your golf game is is whether or not you care if people are watching you golf. 39:56 Like there's a bunch of people on a whole watching. Do you feel good about them watching or do you feel a little nervous about them watching? That mean the line. What's what's, what's even funnier literally about this is when we're recording this on August 13th. 40:12 I literally put out a teaser from our podcast last week that came out today where we talked about Camelback and you talked about how nerve racking it is to hit in front of a group when you're passing through. But you are a good golfer by all, by all, all measures of it, you're a good golfer. 40:31 So is that a direct correlation or what is it? I think it's almost like a very similar, you know, correlation or just a parallel. Like imagine your tent T OK, Noah and there's a group, let's say the tent T is right by the clubhouse and there's a group hanging out on the patio and they're all watching and you're about to drive. 40:52 If you feel good about them watching you like you're you're, you can't wait to hit off in front of them. You're probably happy with your game. But if you're like, can they please look the other way? Go get a beer or something or just don't distract them or oh God, this is going to suck. Then you're probably not happy with your game, right? You know, I don't, I would love to get to that point. 41:11 I don't know if I'll ever get get comfortable in that situation, but I but I get what you're saying. You know, I, I would absolutely love to go up to a tee and just absolutely feel confident that I was going to, you know, stripe one in front of these guys. Yeah. I mean, I will say, I think what Sean was potentially even trying to get at was it it's more so if the the level of confidence that you probably have about your game that day, especially on like a tenth tee where if you're feeling it through the front 9 and you step up to 10, grabbed a beer, grabbed a hot dog and you're like sick. 41:41 I am not worried about hitting a ball in front of these in front of this group of guys today because I've been playing well off the tee. Whereas if you shoot, you know, A50 plus on the front 9 or whatever and you're like, crap, now I got to go hit a ball in front of a group of people who I definitely know are other golfers. 41:59 Yeah. Well, I I heard something that was like, every golfer thinks that for every golfer always overthinks how much other golfers care about their game, when in reality everyone's just so focused on themselves, on themselves. 42:17 Yep, same with dressing up. It's like no one cares what you wear, they're caring about themselves. Yeah, no, that's, yeah. It's, it's 100% like you. It's play your game, right? Don't, don't be worried about what everybody else has got going on or it's, it's the same thing that applies to working out or like Sean said, dressing up like no one, no, everyone is there in their own little world. 42:39 And realistically, it's a really weird way of thinking about it, but everyone really only cares about themselves. Most of the time and. The sooner you can remember that, the easier it is. Let's jump into not the full must play test, but we obviously asked Noah to come to the table with a few of the must play test questions that he thinks that Franklin Park would pass with flying colors. 43:03 Noah, what's going to be the first Test that we look at today? So I've got the Iverson test, so does this course have good practice facilities? Would you spend time warming up or just head out head for the bar before the round? Practice facilities is honestly a massive reason why I love Franklin Park and because, you know, Boston isn't quite New York in terms of like difficulty to practice, but it's really, really hard to practice your short game living in and around Boston. 43:37 Like, you know, we've got a handful of driving ranges, we've got the whole simulator scene. Like if you want to work on your swing, that's fine. But if I want to go and just like grind on my chipping and my putting for like 2 hours, that's really hard to do. And Franklin Park always the it's honestly a funny thing about Franklin Park because the chipping green is in like direct firing range from the 18th hole. 44:00 So you got to like get a little situated there. They'll they might be, there might be balls coming in at any given time, but I haven't gotten hit yet. And honestly, I like there's so many nights where like I'll finish up work and I'll just head over to to Franklin Park. I'll hang out at the Chipping Green for like an hour or whatever it is. 44:19 And then I'll just go play like a three hole loop that'll just take me right back to my car. And I think like I every time I tell people about this, they somehow like, don't know that you can go and like just practice at Franklin Park. But it's a great chipping green, great putting green. 44:34 It's always rolling well. And if you can look past, you know, being in the firing range from people having a blind shot on 18, it's, it's it's a great place to get better at golf. You know, not usually do we hear of municipal golf courses having great practice. Facilities. 44:50 They're usually anything that's usually city run is usually somewhat of an afterthought because all of the money goes into usually keeping the course maintained. So you know, they, they've usually got a pro shop that's been built since the 60s. And then every other dollar goes into like can we keep the golf course running? 45:10 And do we have the latest tee time booking system so people can actually book that? So that's. Sorry, I keep interrupting. You're good. No, you're fine. My favorite thing about the Franklin Park practice facility is like whenever you're there, there's like a very big like practice culture. 45:31 They're like, there's so many people out there late at night, people grinding on their putting, grinding on, chipping. I there's this one guy who's like always there with his dog. The dog just sits there and like, to your point, like there's no driving range. Like they just put, they just have this, this really awesome chipping and putting green and there's like always clinics going on. 45:49 I think like Tuesdays is ladies night Wednesday, they've got the kids out there. And then there's like always some kind of instruction going on. So it's like a really just great environment. You know, go out there, practice and like even like it's a great way to meet people if you're just like practicing out there. Hey, like you wanna go play sometime? 46:05 Whatever. Yeah, it's, it's really it, it's First off, I love that. That's very reminiscent of like Goat Hill here in San Diego. I think they do a women, a dedicated women's night, a dedicated junior's night. And then they also do a ton of instruction at Goat Hill. But also it feels like, you know, we talked about, you know, there's there's driving ranges, there's there's simulators, there's a ton of places to work on full swings. 46:29 But as soon as you scratch the surface of golf, every instructor and every good golfer will tell you that if you want to get better at scoring, go work on your short game and go work on your putting. But it feels like there is a consistent lack of potentially dedicated chipping greens at golf courses and practice facilities. 46:52 Sometimes it's a shared space where you can chip on the putting green and then every person who's trying to putt is pissed because you're effectively taking up more space because you're further away and you're rolling a ball to a hole or there's no chipping green whatsoever. 47:08 Like it's So it's it's kind of nice to actually hear that they're that they're giving you a space to do that where you can probably practice things that are 40 yards and in where a lot of golfers end up struggle from that, from that distance and in. It's because of the range costs a bucket and the chipping is free, you just drop. 47:27 That's exactly. That's a very good note. All right, so a pass on the Iverson test. What's going to be the second test we look at here, Noah? I've got the high handicapper test. OK. So I chose this one honestly for similar reasons to the Iverson test, like ties into Franklin Park just being like a really good place to get better at golf because so Franklin Park, it's like it's a par 70, It's barely 6000 yards. 47:59 Like it's by no means long. And I think that ties into a bit of its reputation of like not being hard or like it's a little, it's not like a proper golf course or whatever. And with that, like, you know, I think a lot of people tend to go over to George Wright where it's like gonna kick your teeth in like proper, proper test of golf. 48:20 But Franklin Park, like it's so unique because it's really wide off the tee. So, you know, except for the, the, the road I was talking about on #1 except for one. But you can essentially hit it anywhere. And they typically keep the fescue down. 48:36 Like you're gonna find your ball. So that's obviously really good for like a high handicapper who's learning the game. There's only maybe one forced carry on the entire golf course, maybe 2 that I can think of. But like, you know, if you're not getting up in the air, you can run it up. It tends to play pretty firm out there, to be honest. 48:52 So like the ball will run, but then like once you do get better at golf, once you get your bearings, it's still challenging. Like there's a lot of elevation change. You can hit it anywhere, but the greens are small. There's not gonna be a flat putt out there once you get past the 1st hole. So like you can like it's a great place to start golf and then you're never gonna age out of it. 49:13 If that makes sense. Like it, it'll it'll present a different challenge for you, like at every stage of your game if if that makes sense. That makes sense. Some of the best like games, and I don't even mean sports, like video games even, right, are the ones that are like simple enough to understand, simple enough to approach, but keep you coming back because you think you can do better. 49:35 And that that sounds like this course where it's like it's approachable. Everyone has a good shot. It's a fair chance. But you know, after you finish, you probably left something out there and you're like, yeah, we shouldn't have approached it this way on the green, right? I think that's a a good mark of a perfect balance on a course. 49:51 Yeah, or like after you play it a few times and you scratch the surface, you recognize that there's a whole nother level to it below that. That's I mean, that's that I guess that's that's necessarily golf in a nutshell. But a good golf course also makes you start to question that. 50:06 We talk all the time about thought provoking layouts where, you know, the golf course is not just a bomb driver gouge a wedge to putt for, you know, all that. So it's it's it's the same thing. Some some resort courses, for example, fail at this because there's only one shot to play because they a lot of like Kierlin comes to mind. 50:28 It's a course out here in the valley where a lot of the holes have banks on them. And so your balls going to funnel no matter what. An open course like Franklin, you're going to have the opportunity to be like, should I leave it out on the left? Maybe that's a better angle. Maybe I just go straight up the right and cut off a little bit. 50:43 You know, like that leaves more options to go back. Yeah, 100% And that's the thing too. It's like as me and my friends have gotten like better at golf over the years. Like it, it unlocks different challenges kind of what you were saying, you know, like, you know, there might be 1 hole where we, you know, always hit driver and then, you know, you start hitting driver longer. 51:03 All of a sudden it becomes like an an iron and then a wedge or something like that. You know, it just presents different challenges or like unlocks, just like different shots that you can now play or, or whatever it might be. Yeah. Yeah, heaven forbid, Heaven forbid you you start to realize that as you play more golf, you get a really comfortable, like wedge number in like all of a sudden you feel really good at 100. 51:25 So then you're just always trying to leave yourself 100 in on every hole that you play. Like that's all you start thinking about in your head is how do I leave myself with my favorite club in my hand on every hole? So good. That's I, I love to hear that too, 'cause that's as, as our high handicapper on the on the podcast. 51:41 That's, that's what I love to hear. I love to hear also very few forced carries spoiled quite a few rounds. Noah, what's the, what's the third and last Test that you want to pass here for Franklin Park? Yeah, so I've got, I've got the vibes test, you know. 51:58 Is this course worth staying at post round? Do they have a good restaurant or patio scene? Yes, passes with flying colors. And again, like, I feel like all three of these, like maybe they just stuck out to me because they all kind of tie in together, but I don't know, like it's there's so much like you finish your round and like honestly, like there's not like like people aren't getting hammered at Franklin Park. 52:23 Like like, you know what I mean? Like I think people are just hanging like there's a patio right by the 18th hole. People just hang out there. There's a pretty good grill inside, but also like you want to stay there because it's like this welcoming place and because while you were going past the 9th hole, you saw the the block party going on in the park along that hole or whatever. 52:46 Like there's just a certain vibe about the course that isn't necessarily the clubhouse, but it's just like the the vibe of like what people do around there that makes you just want to hang out and stay there just a little bit longer. Yeah, I was going to say when you were talking about it earlier, you had me at beers in the parking lot. 53:04 That's generally a a good sign of a, of a, of a good golf course that's going to have good vibes where if people feel comfortable enough to do that, then it's definitely a good enough social gathering spot that will force, not force, I guess encourage people to hang out afterwards, right? 53:23 Whether it's dude sitting on the back of a tailgate with A6 pack that they left in the cooler in the back of the car, or, you know, it's the guys who are just grabbing the beer before they head home on the patio. Like it it all the good courses that pass the vibes test. There's usually one of those two aspects that that may. 53:39 Pass How's the beer selection here? Not, not the strongest, you know, there's, there's definitely nothing on tap. You know, it's going to be all cans and things like that. But they got all the staples and it's like always the same guy working the grill, you know, he can whip you up pretty much anything you want. 53:59 But yeah, you know, it's just it's, it's pretty much all you would need from a from a municipal golf course. Like the food and beer selection is not going to blow you away, but you're just going to be, you know, happy to sit there and and hang out with you guys. Most most munis are, I think, made better by canned beer versus a trap. 54:15 Like, I mean, I love draft beer, but like, cracking open a can on the patio right past 18, hearing that sound like that's a fun vibe right there, you know, especially if you're going to just roam around. Yeah, 100%. And I think too like about like people hanging out like I don't like, there's no, I don't know, there's good. 54:33 There's not a lot of like snobby people coming to Franklin Park. Like if you're a member at a Country Club in Boston and you want to play not at your Country Club, you're probably going to go to George Wright again because it's like the better golf course. It's got this beautiful clubhouse. 54:49 It's more of like a Country Club feel. So you get like, you know, you get like a really cool mix of people just just hanging out at at Franklin Park for the most part. Nice, very cool like that. All right, so Noah, that about covers it for what we wanted to talk about Franklin Park. 55:05 Obviously a a very glowing review sounds like a municipal course that would live deeply in anyone's hearts that they're going to they're going to yearn to go back to all the time. It, it sounds like one of those ones that you also go to as a, as a Taurus and you're like, I wish we had, you know, a municipal course like this or it reminds me of my municipal course back home, which I think we all kind of love to enjoy and seek out. 55:30 But I want to take a moment to put the spotlight on you. Let's chat about what you've got going on. You've got golfers anonymous. I think you recently just launched Eden Golf. Dive in. Tell us what you've got going on. Yeah, totally. So basically Golfers Anonymous, the podcast I host, I basically bring on a different guest every single week who's, you know, just a golf sicko for for lack of better word. 55:56 I think golf is this like really interesting way to get to know people in a way. Like you can skip a lot of the normal small talk, like even when you're just out and you get paired with a random person. Like I feel like after spending two to four hours with that person, you're like, alright, you want to exchange numbers, you want to play again. 56:14 Like you know so much about that person just because golf is such a social game. And if you're just if you meet someone at a bar or a party and you see that they have a logo that you recognize automatically, you have a friend for the night, you're talking about courses you've played, memories, all this stuff, you can skip what they do for work. 56:30 I don't even know what you guys do do for work. We've been talking for for an hour here, you know what I mean? So there's just so many different things you can kind of go down and I'm just like really obsessed with like why people love it and why they're so addicted to this game. So that's the pod that's golfers Anonymous every week on Wednesdays week. 56:49 Lately we've been every other week because I've been very busy, but usually it's weekly. So that's golfers Anonymous on all platforms. And then Eden, I started, gosh, I started working on it maybe about four or five months ago. 57:04 And basically my, my thinking there is like, I don't know, I don't know about you guys, but like, unless you follow like the right accounts on Instagram or you're in the right Reddit forums, like it's really hard to find reliable golf course reviews that have like good detail, have good pictures and like are actually like useful for finding out what's the, what the course is actually gonna be like, 'cause you know, like all these websites look the same, you know, like you were talking about doing flyovers. 57:32 I think that's great. But if you actually go to the website, it's gonna be the same stock photo of their water feature or whatever it is. So it's, it was at least hard in like the Boston area to find out like what these courses were actually gonna be like. So I basically built this app, it's called Eden if we're on iOS only right now, unfortunately, I know you guys are both Android guys, but if you search Eden Golf Course Review on the App Store, you should be able to find it, hopefully Android soon. 57:59 But essentially you open it up, we ask you to just like put the course into one of three tiers. Like I liked it, it was OK, didn't like it. There's like all this data that humans are really bad at rating things out of 10 and out of five. So I tried to make it a little simpler, just like bucket it into those 3 categories. 58:14 We ask you to put in some tags like where they're fast greens, well maintained fairways. What's the restaurant like? You know, what's the staff like? Anything under the sun related to the course you can put in as tags. You can put in your favorite holes, add photos, and then like there's a space data description. 58:30 And then once you hit submit, we basically ask you to compare it against other courses in that tier. So if I have, you know, Bethpage, Aaron Hills and Torrey Pines in my liked it tier and I just put in a new course, it's going to ask me like do a this or that comparison versus each of those. 58:47 And then we do some math in the background and we assign this a comparative rating out of 10 so that you have this master list of all your courses. They're all in order based on how you ranked them during the process. So, yeah, you know, we're, we're new, new kid on the block. We're it's still definitely a little slow. 59:04 It's a little buggy. It's not perfect. We're still adding courses throughout the country. But really just, you know, looking for feedback. I want this to be really useful for golfers. And if you guys try it out, just, you know, come find me and we can, you know, I'd love to, to chat with anyone who's passionate about reviewing courses. Yeah, we'll have all the information to find Noah in the episode description as well, whether you want to go hit him up on Instagram and slide in his DMS and tell him how much you hate his app or how much you love his app, and then also go list all those other stuff. 59:32 Question about the reviewing. You said it takes all that into consideration and gives it a rating. Is that rating specifically for you or is that rating consistent across the board for everybody? Or does it take into account like, hey, this person also loves Torrey Pines more than Aaron Hills. 59:52 So then therefore they're going to like and then they liked Bethpage more like will it tell them, hey, this like other people who are like you also really like Bethpage more than they like Torrey? So that's an interesting feature. I'm gonna steal that. But right now it's only like your own personalized rating system. 1:00:10 So it's like, what does Noah think about the 60 plus courses I've played? And basically it'll go through and assign all those scores, all those courses, a score out of 10. And it's like, you know, just because Aaron Hill, I think the top rated course in mine is Bethpage. 1:00:27 So it had and the top course will always be 10 out of 10 or 10 point O. And that doesn't mean that I rated it a 10 out of 10. That just means like relative to all the courses that rate. That's the problem that gets a 10 similar to like a like belly for restaurants, if anyone's heard of that or letterbox movies, that kind of thing. 1:00:43 Yeah, OK. No, I, I like that a lot. Yeah, the normalization definitely helps. I think also it kind of living as a diary of golf courses that you've played, where as the app hopefully continues to go on and, and and and evolve. 1:01:04 You can look back and be like, oh, did I love this course when I played it before? Or if somebody asks you like, hey, you've played Bethpage before, what were your thoughts? And then you can go back and be like, or you don't remember off like the top of your head, right? So you could be like, oh, let me go back and look to see like what it was like when I played it that day. 1:01:24 And I think the thing that, like, really excites me about it is like, I'm sure you guys know people like this who just like, have a running list in their notes app of all the courses they've played, or they have some sophisticated spreadsheet with like a ranking system. Like I think that's really useful for like that person. 1:01:41 But like, nobody's ever gonna see that list, you know what I mean? And I think it's really cool if you could like, get everybody's personalized lists and like, actually make it like useful for other people, you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree with that. I I always, I work with a lot of product teams and sometimes you find people are sitting on data like that that's just untapped and you're like, oh, you could really actually do something cool with this data. 1:02:04 Like, everyone's got this sitting around, you know, but that's really smart. I like how you did it with the app. By the way, thanks for doxing us on Android. Now we're going to get hate mail from all the Apple people. That was me. I revealed that information privately and you disclosed it publicly. 1:02:23 Were the green bubbles in the group chat the green? Were the green bubbles in your group? Chat now, although apparently they're getting rid of that. I heard they're going to make everybody blue. They say they're going to do it and then it doesn't happen and Apple knows what they're doing. I won't. I won't go off on. I won't go off on that. That tirade at all, but yeah, I think it's I mean, it's the same way, right? 1:02:42 Like you that's I love the the comment there about trying to have like a a list of all the things that you've ever you've ever done. I think that's, I think that's partially why Sean and I also started the podcast was so that we could always go back and look at like, hey, what did we think about that golf course or why? 1:02:57 You know what, what did we, you know, if things change like when we just talked about Chambers and we talked about how much we didn't like the turnstand to chambers, but now they're redoing it. So will that would that rating change in the future? Like, are we going to have to go back someday and reevaluate Chambers again when when the golf course goes through a renovation? 1:03:16 I mean, twist my arm, I'll go back to Chambers. Yeah, I really want it to be like your very own, like golf passport for for lack of better word, you know, like like where have you? Like I feel like everybody asks like, oh, what, what's your favorite course or what courses have you played? And if you could just be like, hey, here's this link with all these courses I've played, my reviews, all that stuff. 1:03:35 I feel like that'd be a a cool thing to be able to to share around. So why the name? Why the name Eden? Eden is my favorite template hole of. Oh yeah. Whatever, CB McDonald, he created all the template holes, right? So yeah, the Eden hole, I think it's like 160, a 180 yard par three with three bunkers around. 1:03:59 So yeah. And you know, I, you know, Eden has the paradise connotations, right? So I figured it was a good, a good double. So yeah, that's that's why it's called Eden. You are golf sticker with a template hole. That's my things. 1:04:15 My people here. I mean, if golf course has golf, if a golf course has template holes like that automatically and I I wanna go play it, you know? Have you been out to Bandon yet? No, at this point I'm probably never gonna get out there because of the, you know, lottery system they got going on. 1:04:31 But at some point I I I would probably love because what's the the old Mac right all template. Holes. Yeah, that's it's all. It's named after CB McDonald. So when you go out there, the holes have names that are just the template names. Like there's the Eden hole and there's the blank hole, stuff like that. 1:04:47 So you get to go play your favorite templates, which is cool. I gotta get out there at some point. You guys have both been out there. Yeah, together. Yeah, my God. Jealous. That one's coming. We're still trying to figure out what to do about Abandoned Podcast. If for anyone out there, we want to put them to the must play test. 1:05:06 The the problem is is that there are a handful of questions on the must play test that would automatically pass for all of the courses, right? Everybody knows that all the merch is great. Everybody knows that, you know, the everybody knows that it's tough to get the tee times out there, tough to actually like do the whole trip. 1:05:26 So there's a lot of stuff that feels like it's blanket covered across the five courses. So we're trying to figure out like, do we just set like a base on like, hey, this course is going to start at a three out of five, knowing it's going to pass these three and fail these two or whatever it is. 1:05:41 And then we just do the pod on the regular golf course or do we do like a a megapod, right? And do all of the golf courses in one podcast and talk about things. So if anyone's got any crazy ideas, I think Sean and I argue about this like passive aggressively probably once a month on when are we going to do banded? 1:06:00 How are we going to do banded? Let us know. Drop it in the comments or reach out to us. It's a tough one, but it's it's definitely if we if we'll do it as a must play. But if you need an answer, yes, it's a must play all the courses. Are I say go for the megapod, do do it all, put it out, give it give us a 5 hour abandoned breakdown. 1:06:21 I think, I think that's what what I would. Personally, he's overthinking it. Dude. He's overthinking it. Just fucking megapod it. Maybe. Maybe it's. Just maybe it's just the matter of blocking out five hours for me. Five hours is a little egregious. I don't know. We need to go into five hours. 1:06:37 I don't think anyone wants to talk for five hours, but. It it, it depends on it. It's, it's the classic meeting invite, right? If you put it, if you put it on the calendar for five hours or we'll figure out a way to take five hours. Yeah, that's so true. So either way, Noah, thank you so much for hopping on. 1:06:54 We had a great time chatting Franklin Park with you today and also everything else that you've got going on. Obviously go listen to Golfers Anonymous if you're on Apple, go download Eden Golf, get your own little golf passport going on. And obviously, ultimately, someday we're going to make this Easter, they're going to make this East Coast road trip happen. 1:07:14 We're going to go, we're going to do Franklin Park. We're going to go do great Shibig and hopefully, fingers crossed we'll have somebody else on the pod from the East Coast and we'll make it a we'll make it a three peat and put this to the full must play test. So stay tuned. Obviously, subscribe to the pod wherever you get your podcasts, whether you're watching us on YouTube, you know, like comment, subscribe, if you're on Apple or Spotify, subscribe give us a five star rating. 1:07:38 We'd love that. And you know we'll see you next time when we unlock a new level. We'll see you guys. Awesome. Thank you guys. © 2025 Spotify AB Legal Privacy Cookies