0:00 Welcome to Must Play, we have a good one for you guys today. TJ and I have Mike Dresser back on. 1st guest on the pod for episode #40 We're going through Papago Golf Course here in Phoenix. Is it a must play course when visiting? You're going to pass it on your way from the airport, but maybe it's worth a stop. Stay tuned. 0:15 Find out. 0:26 Happy holiday, boys. We're recording this week of Christmas. It's still 80° out here in the valley. Mike. Welcome back, brother. Hey, thanks guys for having me. I love being on this thing. And it is, it's, it's hot out here, but we're managing. Sorry for all those people shoveling snow. Yeah, it could be a lot worse. 0:43 It could be it. Could be much worse. Mike, I don't want to put pressure on you here, OK, but I am going to at the top. Oh boy. You were the guest for our most listened to episode. I don't know if did you know this. I had no idea really. The Scottsdale golf trip has the most listens. 1:00 I know it's the topic itself most likely, but Mike, I have to give you some credit. Here, I mean, maybe it's me, that's why I got the call back. I appreciate it. I'm gonna I might Fact Check you on that one. We might have to drop in. A a Fact Check on that what? What's your? What's your what's your metric there? 1:15 Massey listens? So you're saying are you, are you only referencing Spotify and Apple Music or? Oh, are you checking the sheet that we track? I mean, yeah, I, I can tell you what number. I know what number one is. It's if you include YouTube, it's not that episode. 1:32 Oh. I haven't included YouTube, I'm only looking at Spotify. Let me, let me, let me say this. Whether I'm in the most listens or not, I'm definitely on the most viewed Instagram post we have or TikTok with TJ hitting himself in the head with the ball. 1:48 That's me behind him. Never forget it too. I'll never forget it with. Mike. Yeah, so, so technically, I hate to hate to burst your bubble, Mike, but in terms of overall numbers, if you include YouTube, the the tip of the cap goes to a man who has a test named after himself. 2:12 Our our our good friend Jonesy. Yeah, yeah, it's wild. Still I mean. It's like it's Jonesy's great, come on, you're up there. If I'm going to, if I'm going to be second place or third place to anybody, it's Jonesy. I'm fine with that. Yeah, but either way, I saved. 2:30 I mean, both of us have saved a special course for you here today because I know how near and dear this course is to your heart. We're talking Papago and also, you know, in today's pod, let's feel free to include Lose in that whole Papa Go story because I know Lose is one of the best places that I know Mike and I talk about all the time. 2:50 But I was just curious, Mike, from your perspective, like what's the headline here for Papa Go? Like I get it could be anything because I will. I'll get a little emotional. It's lose. Lose is. Lose is I don't want to be over dramatic here. 3:05 It's one of the best restaurants, one of the best places in town. Is the food the best? I don't. Yeah, maybe. But the vibe is as good as it gets. So if you are a parent listening to this podcast and you like golf and you want to go somewhere like loses the spot, they've got the place for the kids. 3:25 They've got live music that I swear the the the sunset over downtown Phoenix is how they came up with the colors for the Phoenix Suns logo. I just, I know it. It's amazing. I love lose. What about the course? Well. We're going to get into that, right? 3:43 Yeah, I know. I'm just like from your from a top line here story. Like what? Are you? I love, I love pop. Match what lose does for you. Yeah, course is course is great. I don't know that loose, loose tops everything. 4:00 Most restaurants, let alone golf courses. OK. I'm excited to get into this though 'cause I do like map ago I. My, my headline for this golf course was very similar to a compliment sandwich where the front part of your round where you show up, your, your pro shop, your range, it it, it, it, it really sets your expectations high. 4:31 You're going to come down a little bit when it comes to technically the course in in comparison to how you start, but then you're going to finish strong because if you're going to stay around and hang out after, then you're going to be like, oh man, so like. You're you're really. 4:47 Highs on the pre and post round here, but just in comparison to those two highs, I feel like the course is a little bit of a dip in comparison to those. Like if you if you took the the pre and post round here and put in a world class golf course, you'd be in trouble. 5:06 I'm in real trouble. I totally agree with that. I I agree with that, but that said, it's not like the course is. No, it's. Like no. Like I said, in comparison, like it, yeah, if a chick is a if you, if you meet a girl and she's a 10 and and you put an 8 next to her, that girl's A10 and this girl's an 8, right. 5:28 But if you saw the 8 on her own, that's a hot chick. Bro my wife listens to this podcast. This is all hypothetical. I don't look at other women. I only have eyes for my wife, hypothetically speaking. 5:45 We know your wife listens and shout out to some Burroughs and Isabel's. They are excellent establishments, as we talked about on the Scottsdale Tripod. Thank you. Not not brought to by but go visit them for sure. 17 valley wide locations. Yeah, like the other thing I know you love about this course is the putting green. 6:02 This is probably the place we like to go play 7UP. Would you mind explaining the game of Seven up to everyone at home in case they don't? Know, of course, the putting green at Papago is so good for so many reasons. One, it's fast, it's always in great condition, 2, it's gargantuan and three, there's tons of undulation and four, there's tons of holes. 6:25 So it's just a, it's almost like a mini golf course in itself. But the game of 7UP is, I could get into this for a long time, but it's first one to seven without going over. Closest to the pin is one point. If you make it, it's two points. There's some things in there. 6:41 If you top somebody, it takes the points away. Whatever. Anyway, it is a perfect 7UP hole. The first player to get the seven wins and when you're playing the live music is 20 feet away, the bar is 30 feet away. Like you can just go grab a beer. 6:58 And the vibes are so high on that. Putting green. Yeah, they really are. So. I I tried to translate this game over to Rancho Bernardo in with TJ one time and they had the skinniest putting green with like no edges. Yeah, DJ and I didn't even get to three. 7:14 I think we were stuck under 3 for this game. The the. Putting green at RBI you. I don't even think a a man can lay horizontally across it without partially hanging off in the. But that like also like, but then there's too big like like Devil's Punch Bowl. 7:31 You could never play 7UP on that because it's too big, right? Like are you? Talking about punch bowl or what are you talking about? Devil's Punch Bowl Bandit. I've never heard Devil's Punch Bowl I. Think it's just the punch bowl. Maybe I called Devil's Punch Bowl. 7:48 I thought it was Devil's Punch Bowl anyway. Yeah, well that shows you how I how I funded on that. But, well, that's, I mean, that's a putting course. That's not like a putting, that's not like a practical. Yeah. That's a good point, yeah. Like you're, you're playing that for strokes, not for 7UP, yeah. Right. 8:06 But anyway, Papago's the best for that. The best for that? We'll get into it, but TJ, I'm curious, what are your pros and cons or highlights for for Papago? Oh well, let's see here. Like I said, if if we'll if we'll talk about pre round. Let's see pro shop slash logo. 8:24 I've I've mistakenly to no fault of my own, apparently become a logo guy on Instagram and pop Go's got a real good 1A real a real good one. To piggyback off of that, I have now at this point failed, of course, last year for carrying U of A merchandise, which means that pop go gets a gets a plus in my book for carrying ASU merchandise. 8:47 Yeah. Exclusively, I love it. Exclusively the brothers. Yeah, the home of the home of ASU Golf, right? So they, so they get a little extra bonus point there, the range looking out over the Buttes. If you've got an early morning tee time and the sun happens to be coming up over those mountains, you're in for a treat there to warm up before a round. 9:11 You're also blinded. It's Facebook directly into the Sun directly. Into the sun, it has it. It does have east West exposure. So you're you get ready to go. But yeah, if you've got an early tea time, it's. Sunset makes those mountains look the best, but. 9:26 You know, they're so good to see on the. Patio it lose by that point. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, I mean, we can, we'll probably get into it when we get to the vibes test. But post round, I could spend, I could spend hours at lose until the sun goes down. Like, you'd be hard pressed that if you had like a 10 AM tee time and finished at 2:30, it's going to be tough to pull the cord unless you really have somewhere you got to be like, you better have a real good excuse to leave there. 9:54 Yeah. Then yeah. Or you better have a really good excuse for your wife as to why your golf run took 9 hours today. Lucky here. If Danielle knows I'm playing Papago, she knows I'm hanging out at Lou's. She's probably coming over with us. Yeah, yeah, well, I have a con here too, which we'll get into later. 10:13 But that's the besides wanting to hang out, the pace of play here sometimes is abysmal. Oh yeah, this course in peak season, like winter, spring is the spot for bachelor parties for huge groups, I mean. 16 people on the first tee before is that was that was one of my pros was actually his location. 10:32 Yeah, we've talked about we've talked about how there's not a ton of golf courses kind of centrally like located in like the the heart of Scottsdale or proximity to like Old Town or South Scottsdale slash Tempe. There's only a handful of courses out there. So some courses just get a pass by proximity and this one kind of does because it's just very close and it's and it's a full golf course. 10:53 It's not a, it's not a nine hole like. Oh it. Is it's not an executive. It's not an executive like Continental so. No. You've got you've got a full golf course there. For those who don't know, this is really close to grass clippings, like just up the street, right? And we had a night here where we played Phoenician, went to the dinner at Papago at Luz, and then we went over to grass clippings later on. 11:15 It's barely made it. Barely made it. Barely, yeah. But we made it. Yeah, it is. It's close to campus. It's close to grass coping. It's great. And it is not for anybody listening, thinking that it's this. To TJS point, it is a it's more than just a regular golf course. 11:33 It's a beast. It is very long. One of the hardest courses in in the city so. Yeah, I have. That's one of my cons actually, if it's OK with you guys, I want to just couple of these because I think they'll come up in the test, but I just at the top want to highlight this for people. 11:49 Yeah, fire them off. This course is like when people come out here and they want desert golf. They probably think of north Scottsdale. They think of those other courses with views and mountains and desert out on the edge of the fairways. When you go into the middle of the city, you typically don't get that. You're getting a lot of munis, you're getting a lot of like Encantos and those types of courses that are all around homes or in old neighborhoods. 12:10 And Papago might be one of the only courses where there is desert on the edges of the holes. The desert might not look the same as North Scottsdale, but there are plenty of holes here that almost feel unfinished where the fairways end and then it's just rocks and desert. Yeah, there's no homes. 12:26 There's no homes. Of course, I didn't even think about them. That's yeah, there's nothing. Yeah. So if you want like desert golf in the middle of the city, this is probably one of the other forces to go do that. It's in this little preserve area around the Papago Preserve that's got like where the botanical gardens are and everything else. So you've got nothing developed around it, Really. 12:44 Yeah. So pro and con, great. You want desert golf, go here. If you want a course that's easy, this might not be the course for you. Don't go there. Yeah, not go if you want an easy golf. Course, yeah. And then one other thing, and this might just be for me and not a lot of people care about this, but why can't they finish the goddamn cart path at Papago? 13:04 Just pave the whole cart path around this course. It's existed since the 60s, and they haven't finished the cart path. There's a number of holes where you just drive over the most rocky dirt and beers go flying. You got to pick everything up. 13:20 It's so annoying I hate it. Yeah, it's a great call. Yeah. I complained a couple times just old man yells at clouds vibe to the cart staff at the end and they're like I know man it sucks. I don't know why they don't just do it. Like is it, you've said they need to finish it? 13:39 Is it something that they're supposed to be finishing or do or do, or do you want them to finish it? I heard there were plans to do it in the renovation in 28 or 2022 when they closed it for four months and they redid some of the Tees in the holes and then they ran out of budget or whatever the reason was. 13:56 I don't know. I don't want to speculate, but they just didn't do it and I was hoping that was one of the things they did. This is just a personal problem, guys. I'm here on my soapbox. I mean. I mean, there's a valid complaint. Valid complaint because it's it's not just like dirt, it's bumpy. 14:12 It's rocks. It's like legit rocks that you're going over. Yeah. Anyways, we'll get into this all stuff in the test. The only other thing I think at the top here we should talk about is price and we'll get into this as well. 14:27 But man, I think they know what they got and they know the location they're in and these prices. I checked if I wanted to play next weekend or even the weekday, we're looking at like 195 to 210. I was gonna. Say I saw, I think I saw a 210 or like a 220 for like 10:00 next Saturday. 14:45 And I was like, whoa. I was like, what? Yeah. I thought they couldn't. I this is, this is my old golf industry. I I thought they couldn't go past a certain point because they're part of a, it's like a city golf course. Well, it's owned by City, but now it's managed by Troon slash Lobby. 15:02 And so I think, I think there's also, this is also me speculating this is tinfoil hat here, but I think because they have the Citi card that gives people a discounted rate, I think that allows them to then mark up the other rates. 15:18 We're saying by yeah, to get the money out of the tourists, but still to saying, hey, we're still supporting the local golf community and not and not bleeding dry our our our bread and butter. Yeah. Can we go off on a tangent here? Real. Quick fire away. 15:33 Like who's does do the city do golfers get first take there then like do the locals get first tee time preference? No, but they get a, they get the discount for the city card, kind of like Dobson does Mesa Residence and then ranch card and then they do tourists and everything else. 15:51 OK, yeah, that wasn't much of A tangent. I was expecting you to go off here. I will, I, I mean, I, I could, it's just, it's the, you know, they always, they always talk about growing the game, but then they don't want to support the locals, right? 16:08 They push the locals to the edges and they take the money from the outsiders and cash in on that. And that's fine. That's what they want. To do and they're not alone in doing this. There's a million. And that, no, no, this is the Papago thing. But then they'll turn around and say, well, we want to grow the game. 16:24 You know why? You know, no, no one's playing our golf course because it's 200 bucks. We'll get get the local card. Great. We'll see you at 3:00 PM. No one wants to do that. That's anyway. Yeah. Yeah, it's you guys are also in a weird spot because it feels like within Phoenix everything is city based or. 16:44 The lot, yeah. Or or group ownership based where like Troon has the Troon card. What's the other one? Arxis or is that did I? Yeah, Arcus where like you get ones for those courses or whatnot. But yeah, everything else is like Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, like stuff like that where it's all city. 17:06 And like, I know that it's not a ton of courses out here for San Diego. And I know that one of those courses happens to be Tori, but like the net that San Diego gets to cast to give everybody those discounts is really, really big. Yeah, like, yeah, it's huge. Like when I find people who live out here and they can't get the discounted rated Tori cuz they live in like Chula or they live in like Oceanside or like Carlsbad and they're pissed. 17:34 It's like that's very few and far between. It's like, it almost feels like Phoenix needs to like have a county card. And like Maricopa County thing, yeah. Yeah, like, hey, there we go. Pick like 10 courses and be like, all right, we're going to do these 10 courses and give these 10 courses that need the help that we want to preserve as like historic courses of Phoenix golf and give. 17:55 So there's your break right there. Some some courses do Maricopa County rates. I got to give a shout out to a few of those. Right like Dawson again is one of those. They have a Maricopa County rate which is nice. They used to have a thing out here called the Southwest Pass, and it was something very similar where you could play golf courses at a discounted rate. 18:16 But then what would happen is kind of what you were seeing. TJS they would, they'd like Jack the prices up for to cover the discount of the Southwest Pass just to make the price of the average price of the golf course reasonable, right? 18:33 Because if you price everything at say 75 bucks and Southwest Pass gets 50% off, now your average rate is 40 bucks. Like there's a lot of issues with that. Right. And then everyone, yeah, and then everyone books it because it's 40 bucks. And then the $75 one then has to go up because the other ones aren't taking up half the tee time, they're taking up 2/3 or 3/4, correct? 18:52 And then someone lives down the street and they're like, why do I have to pay $125.00 when that guy pays 35? And it's like, well. Yeah, yeah. That's well, we did it. We. We. Economics a man Let's start a side tangent Economics podcast. 19:12 Hey, can I get a refill? Real quick, go for it. I'm actually going to throw this a break. So before Mike gets a refill and we get into the history, let's hear more about a sponsor for today's episode, Devro Golf. Yeah. So I just wanted to take a quick second to thank our new sponsor of the podcast, Devro Golf. They're an Arizona based family owned golf apparel and accessories company that Sean and I have been huge fans of from afar. 19:34 But now we're excited to be officially partnered with. They're going to be sponsoring us. We're going to be wearing them on the podcast. They're going to be giving all of you guys it's a 20% off discount code for the foreseeable future. So you're going to head over to devereuxgolf.com. I'm going to spell it out for you. It's a little tough. It's DEVEREU xgolf.com and use code Fair wagers 20 to get 20% off your order today. 19:55 All right, let's jump into the history. You guys mentioned two things that are going to come up here, the city of Phoenix and Torrey Pines. TJ, can you tell me why Torrey Pines is going to come up on this history? Is it our boy Billy? Bell. It's our boy Billy Bell, junior or senior. I'm going to go damn, Papa goes in like the heart of the city. 20:15 I'm going to go senior. Nah, that's Junior Junior. Billy Bell. Junior was the architect here. We're going to get into him. All right, so I have one other trivia question for you. This one's for you, Mike. 20:31 Why is the restaurant called Loose? For Lou Grubb, he was. It's Lou Grubb. Hold on, I know the story. There's a car dealership. Yeah. I don't know. I don't I, I don't know why it's named Lewis. 20:50 Was he part of the the like the founding membership there? He just made the one of the largest charitable donations to the foundation that. Open. That makes sense. So the over $5,000,000 went over to them, yeah. I love it. It is can we get the money while spent? 21:06 Can we get the grub money? Can we get the Lou Grubb family to also throw some money at ASU football this year too? We would love that $5,000,000 go a long way in the. Portal while we're here, Dillingham calling for 20 mil Yeah, can stroke a check. That's a different pod. Oh, sorry, sorry back. 21:23 To call. Oh good. OK, I'm going to be quoting an article actually from Phoenix Magazine for a majority of this. Our boy Douglas Town wrote a excellent article that came out about 12 years ago, so we're going to jump past his article when we get to around 2013. So for many years, the only holes at Papago Buttes were of the geological variety. 21:43 Designated Papago Saguaro National Monument by Congress in 1914 for its spectacular Saguaro studded outcrops. The parcel intrigued local development interests and the monument status was abolished in 1930. Did you guys know this was once suggested to be a monument the Papago Mountains? 22:00 Uh huh, I did. Not know that. Oh, wait, the the mountains. Yeah, for sure. That's. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo and athletic fields eventually sprang up here in what became known as Papago Park. And in 1959, Phoenix added the Valley's third municipal course, following what 2 courses? 22:19 What 2 municipal courses in Phoenix before Papago? One canto. Yeah, 1 is for sure in Canto. I'm trying. I don't think you got the second one. 22:37 Is it like weirdly like Aguila? Or something. No, it starts with AM if that's a hint for you guys. Maryvale. Maryvale. There you go. Yep. So the city hired our boy Billy Bell Junior to design the new course. His father, William Park Bell, was a famous Southwest golf course architect, and when the elder Bell passed away in 53, Billy completed his father's unfinished plan for Torrey Pines in San Diego. 23:01 And living in Southern California, Bell only occasionally visited Phoenix and hired a local golf course architect to help him here. Arthur Jack Snyder to direct construction, Bell told the city. Anything you don't like, I'll blame on Snyder, Phoenix golf course architect Forest Richardson recounts. 23:18 Snyder responded that anything that came out great, he'd take credit for. So after three years of construction, Papago Municipal Golf Course opened to acclaim on September 7th, 1963. Everyone had an opinion about what made the course special. Pop Go's challenging and beautiful. 23:34 Local golfer Brian Waggle says what a great last name for a golfer. Challenging in that each hole can be a bruiser, especially 16 through 18. It's beautiful in that the course is a blend of traditional and desert golf and has enough elevation change to offer scenic views. The best time to play is in the mid late afternoon. 23:52 Local golfer Drew Hassler says the heat has chased away everyone but the locals and you're alone with the course. You may be playing with some buddies, but in the quiet long shadows of the eucalyptus trees is just you and Papa go out there. The smell of the late afternoon sprinklers and finishing the last three holes at twilight is truly golf heaven. 24:11 What a quote. By the way, that's. That's a. Great quote, just puts me there for a second. Yeah, no, seriously. So the golf course is first head professional in charge of managing the pro shop and golf instruction with Arch Walkins, who held the position until 81. Walkins cultivated a fertile training ground for youngsters, grooming future golf pros Billy Mayfair, Heather Farr and Missy Farr, and even touring pros would visit Walkins for help when they were in town for the Phoenix Open, according to Godfrey's book. 24:38 Pop Go Park, the golf Course in its history. The most legendary round ever played at Papago occurred within a year of its opening. John Ebola, a former touring pro, shot the current course record of. Anyone want to take a guess at the course record? Course record 62. 24:59 I was going to say 61. 61 Thanks to 11/30/60. 10 my Lord. Straw Bola was highly unusual in that he was ambidextrous. He shot that 61 plane right-handed. But former assistant golf professional Frank Corkill said I heard Bola later that year shot at 61 again at Papago, playing left-handed. 25:23 Can you imagine? That's there's. No way. Yeah, there's. No way. Papago became famous nationally when it was selected to host the 1971 US Golf Association Amateur Public Links Championship, A tournament that drew 4000 entries. Qualifying rounds across the country narrowed the field to 150 competitors who played a 72 hole tournament at Papago during July. 25:46 Oh my God, somebody there's a bad no Shake it out. Where can I hold my tournament there? How about July? Yeah, of course, of course. It's wide open in July. No problem. I can get. You guys on? 26:05 That's torture. It was for anyone who's just happened to be listening to the podcast and is unfamiliar with Arizona golf. Like the average high during July is like 112. It was reportedly 114° during the third round and nearly as hot as the other days. 26:22 Sometimes golf was just a matter of survival, the winner told Godfrey in his book. So. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, I was going to get on a tangent. You go ahead. All right, so the course soon went Hollywood. In the 1980 movie Used Car, starring Kurt Russell, the scene in which a car jumps into a lake was actually filmed in front of the 11th green, and a top flight golf ball commercial in the 80s that starred an astronaut featured the very extraterrestrial appearing Papago Butte mountains in the background. 26:51 That makes sense. Yeah. However, the greatest testimony to Papago's undeniable lure was the astonishing lengths golfers would go to to play the course during its heyday. So I didn't know this, but much like Bethpage and the people who literally parked their cars at night the night before to get tickets, this was happening when Pop Go opened. 27:10 And after this tournament happened, die hard fans were seeking basically tickets to get on, just like concert tickets, and determined players camped out in their cars at the entrance the night before, hoping to snag at tee time. A decade later, Papago almost made the leap to golf stardom. 27:25 The Phoenix Thunderbirds were looking for a permanent home for the Phoenix Open. Did you guys know that almost came to Papago? I had heard that before, yeah. So. Yeah, it's a nightmare. I know. Can you imagine this is in the 80s? Oh yeah, actually, grass clippings would have never, they would have never put a course there. 27:44 It would have been a parking lot for the tournament, or it would have been a dirt model every year. Yeah, every a bridge. Oh my God, can you cut that out? Nope, staying in. No Dixie Maxis. By the way, there's no bridge long enough to get them right down. 28:03 Right. Yeah, so Phoenix Open at the time was actually going between Arizona country clubs and alternating between public courses. So they love Papago, but they knew it needed a better clubhouse and the PGA professionals wouldn't be too keen on having to change their shoes in the parking lot, according to someone with a funny laugh named Jerry Lukowitz at the time. 28:23 So the Thunderbirds proposed to the Phoenix City Council that pop go become the tournament course. But the council went ballistic when we wanted to increase the green fees from $8 to $12.00 a day. Absurd. That's a 50% increase that's. 28:39 Fair. Fair, relatively speaking. Oh my God. So they passed on the idea. After Watkins left in 81, Joe Huber became Pop Go's head prep professional. For the next 25 years, he upgraded the pro shop. Golfers responded by averaging 110,000 rounds per year in the late 1980's. 28:56 The lightning speed with which tee times vanished LED some to suspect unscrupulous activities. So this LED in 87 for the Phoenix New Times to do an investigation. They caught wind that there might be some tee time improprieties at Papago and they had one. 110,000 I guess, yeah, there's no, there's no way. 29:18 So they did one of their expose articles to reveal the details and culprits. They showed up before dawn with flashbulbs popping, taking photographs of geezers sleeping in their campers at the gate in anticipation of getting a ticket. The reporter observed the typical process of giving out tee times, however, to people by ticket order, alternating with those calling in, which lasted all of a few minutes. 29:38 And the resulting article was decidedly boring. They didn't find any wrongdoing. Essentially, there was that many people lining up to play. Not possible. So the the mathematically you can't do 110,000. Did the math you could do it was doing the math on my phone for the record. So it is you can't. 29:56 It is 301 tee times a day. But if you divide that by four tee times, that's 76 groups a day. So 76 I guess. Essentially 76 tee times a day. 30:11 Yes, based. On a time when I was in the golf business, 300 rounds was, I mean, I don't know what it is now. That's seven and a half, 8 1/2 minute rounds. That's from morning to afternoon. That is full. Tea time. That's a full tea sheet for almost 13 hours out of a day, right? 30:30 Yeah, all as long a day as you can get. There's no. Way I know, I don't know. No wrongdoing. Anyway, I heard 110 I think, I think the most I've ever heard and we won't get in my back. I, I've worked in a lot of golf and I it is like 65,070 thousand and I'm sure there's, there's courses to do more if you've got 36 holes. 30:55 Yeah, but it just seems unfeasible. Yeah, just from about an. Adequate standpoint. Well, that amount of tee times anyway. We. Digress. It didn't last long, though, because all great love affairs have to eventually go through a rough patch, and by the 1990s, Papago was suffering from deteriorating conditions and increased competition from newer courses that started opening up in north Scottsdale in the 90s. 31:18 Papago was special, yet the City made the mistake of allotting it the same maintenance budget as other municipal courses. So in a controversial decision, the city turned over operation of the course to the Arizona Golf Association, the Aga, around 2008. The Aga spent $5.8 million renovating the course and hosted the 2009 Phoenix LPGA tournament before going bankrupt, leaving many locals upset about the course conditions and the secretive raising of the beautiful designed clubhouse that was laid out like spokes of the sun. 31:49 Under Aga management, the big trees were killed and the grass turned to concrete. Thank golf the Aga managers are gone. Bo Hassler says so. Bo. Hosler. I almost said Bo. It's not Bo. Hosler. Just to be clear, this was a Hassler local golfer from earlier. 32:08 On the record. Dude my brain just went to Bo when I saw Hassler here. Wow. All right. So to wrap this up, the course eventually turned over in 2014 to Arizona State University Go Devils for management, and they got OB Sports and Management involved as well, a company known for helping courses get out of the red and into the black. 32:29 Together they built a whole new practice facility for the Sun Devils, designed in part by lefty Phil Mickelson, a former Sun Devil. They also renovated the clubhouse with an improved patio and restaurant called Lou's in 2018. And wrapping up this history, I'll just mention that in 2022 they did another four month renovation on some holes in the course and it plays great, but they still didn't complete the cart path. 32:51 The end. It says that in the article. Yeah. Definitely, definitely, definitely. I have one side tangent that I want to get the the better golfers on the podcast. I want to get your guys's feedback on. We talked about the guy winning or shooting a 61 from both hands. 33:12 How quickly do you think you could become quote UN quote a decent golfer if you taught yourself to hit from the other hand with no prior knowledge? Over a year at least. 33:28 Oh, to be a decent work. What's a decent? Time. Yeah, I mean, break 100, let's say break 100. How quickly could you, Sean, how quickly could you break 100 playing right-handed if you started playing right-handed today? Oh oh, this sounds like a challenge. Should we? 33:43 Try and do this. This is like. Partially right-handed. Partially he is right-handed too, which is like there's a little bit of an asterisk there for Sean, right? But The thing is that I'm trying to think of is that now at your point in your life, you know what generally the flaws in your golf swing are and you know the right way to swing a club. 34:05 So if you started on the other side, could you mitigate all of those like bad behaviors that you've learned over your 40 years of life or however old you are and like just learn brand new and be and be like almost OK from the other side because you're, you're essentially starting from scratch and you don't have any bad muscle memory from that side. 34:29 I, I think, I think I'm overly confident. If I said I could I I and I'd be proven wrong most likely. I will say I would be confident in both chipping and putting right-handed. For me the scary part would be the power. I don't think off the tee I'd be worth a damn. 34:46 Sweet and right-handed. So you could break 100 like probably pretty easily, because you'd think that you could just keep the ball in front of you. I just did old man golf and maybe break 100 that way, but I couldn't get anywhere close to my current handicap playing right-handed. It'd take a long time. 35:02 Sean and I, for those of you who don't know, live across the street from each other. I'm right now looking at Sean's. You guys waving? Can you guys wave at each other? Yeah. Yeah, we could. Like I can see he's right there. 35:20 We should do a challenge where we go play a golf course. I'll play left. I'll use your clubs, you use my clubs. As long as we're not being held to, breaking a club like I can't be held liable. I mean, I'm not going to break a club. 35:40 I'm not dude. I can just steam. I can steam. Trying to hit a like a wood or a hybrid and just. Maybe we can get the behind the woods. Maybe we we switch. Out. Yeah, just catching 8 inches behind a ball in a fairway. The the one your discussion of that guy shooting 61 from both sides of the ball sparked this. 36:00 And then one of the other guys from pardon my take right now who is I think he's AI think he's an OK golfer. I think he's like a 12 or 14 handicap maybe, but he's trying to do he's all December. He's he's playing lefty, he's doing left December and he's trying to see what he can actually get at just practicing all like. 36:18 I think he's just practicing, yeah, the whole month and then he's going to go out and play because like you don't need to like you can, you can remove the aspect of going out and actually like playing and taking away like that whole thought process of like, what do I do in these situations? 36:35 What's my mental game like versus like, let me just try and get as good as I can with the swing and then can I just translate that to. The course, yeah, I heard it's good for your like talking about Nima, who we had on the pod the other day about mobility. It's actually supposed to be good for your body if you try and do something like that, especially in the offseason, because you're just starting to balance things out with your muscle and you're not just putting all of the core rotation in One Direction, you're actually kind of helping so. 37:05 It can't hurt. There's no. Way I could see that. OK, let's get into the must play test here. I'm gonna transition once again to our sponsor for today's episode, Devro Golf. So yeah, just wanted to give a quick shout out to the crew over at Devro Golf. They just dropped this new high country collection and from what I can tell, Sean and I both have equally been living in this since we got our hands on it. 37:26 Sean, what have you been rocking with lately? I'm wearing the Trouble out West T-shirt and I have the hat that honestly both of them are super comfortable and the designs on this new collection are something that are more up my alley. And it's something that you can wear on the course or even out to dinner. And honestly, my wife's happy I have something else to wear on date night. 37:43 Oh, absolutely. The new polos that they came out with are like a new nice, more like textured fabric and they're not your traditional like four way stretch that's kind of clingy. Like it definitely looks like you might actually be saving these shorts more for date night than you would actually for the golf course. So if you want to get your hands on some, you're going to head over to devrogolf.com. 38:03 I'll spell it out again. It's DEVEREU xgolf.com. We'll have it down in the description for you in case you didn't pick up on that, but just make sure the E use code fair wagers 20 to get 20% off your orders all the time. Let's get in the must play test here. 38:18 TJ and I have devised an objective test here, 10 questions to determine if a golf course is truly a must play. You got to score 6 out of 10 to be up for debate or 7 out of 10 or higher to automatically earn must play status. And question one is the Augusta test. Is this course easy to get a tee time on? 38:33 Does it have a straightforward booking process? And are there times available the week of your intended play? Go ahead, TJ, you want to start? The caveat here is the week of intended play. You can look two weeks out and Saturday is as clear as day two weeks out. 38:51 But if you want to book next Saturday, I think I saw one tee time and then everything else was like a 2. PM Yeah, 220 or later in the afternoon. And. During the not during holidays, it is also very similar to that. 39:06 During any time the weather's nice in the summer, you can get on there. But the hard part here is I mean peak season's in the next question. But I like to think of this, this one question is also like year round and there is a big part of the year that it's pretty tough to get a tee time here. 39:24 You'd have to look pretty far in advance or at least two or three weeks to go get something because it is popular. People love this course. It is a, it is a worthy course of a trip if you're coming out. We talked about this in the Scottsdale Tripod. I'll, I'll take a bit of a different approach here. 39:41 I think it's it I I've never found it overly difficult to find a time. Maybe it's because as a local, we we golf at kind of off times. We're used to that. Yeah. But I've never found it overly difficult to find a time. 39:56 I guess if you were coming in from out of town, though, which is sort of what we're doing here, yeah, You might want to give yourself 30 days at least. I would say. They might not even go out. Well, if you, Mike, if you text me, hey, I got nothing next weekend. It's like 7 days from now. 40:12 You want to play Papago? We couldn't do it. We wouldn't be able to. Get live tests us. Yeah, I I tested it right before. Yeah, you can get on after 2:30, after 220, but you're not going to finish. Well, well, Mike's looking. I can tell you that I'm going to fail. 40:29 Yeah, it's tough. I will say they have daily deals on their on their site and I have once in a while been able to get away with snagging a single tee time at in the morning. But if you are a twosome or more, good luck. 40:44 Like it's it's going to be tough. Yeah. So I'm a fail as well. Don't like the booking experience here? Mike, you can. That sounds like that sounds like a fail to me. Yeah. That was. Supposed to be a straightforward 1 all right. 41:01 O for one here. Question 2. The bang for your buck. Is this golf course worth the rate you pay? Do you feel like this course is a good value during under score here peak season? All right, so you it is less than North Scottsdale courses in peak season. 41:18 They know their plate, even though they are in a good spot, they're not charging Troon rates or they're not charging Greyhawk rates like they're slightly below those guys. They know that. I would, I would say that for yes, I think the rate is fair. 41:37 I don't love paying 180, five, $200 for golf, but given what you get here in Arizona when like to your point to Troon's and and Greyhawks and stuff, it seems very fair. It's a very fair rate. Yeah, it's like. 41:52 On the road. Quick question for the group here. I would assume range balls and cart fee not included in the tee time, Yes. Car fees included, but range balls are not. Yeah. Because I think because then I, I, I start to think about like courses like Greyhawk where like, yeah, it's another like 70 bucks. 42:13 But like the range is good. Or like when you start to take into account the tee time and you're like, well, are a lot of the good things that I love about the course, Like where I talked about my highs. Can I experience a lot of those highs without actually having to play golf that day? Can I just go out and buy balls? Can I go and hang out at Lou's? 42:30 Can I, you know, I could do all those things without paying the $200 tee time? Yeah. Well, Mike, your pass on this one, Yeah, you're giving it a a good a green light here. Yeah, I'll give it a green light. 42:48 OK, he's a pass DJ, I'll. I'm going to fail because it's not I, I don't think it's a 200 plus dollar golf course, OK. I, I think it might be a $200 golf course experience. I don't think golf is $200. Yeah, I can see that. 43:04 I feel that some courses. Like that's all part of it. Yeah, I know. I agree. So some courses when I someone's like perfect example of this Aaron from Rustic Golf Provisions, if he's listening, shout out what's up, man? 43:20 He's coming out here in March and he wants to play a couple courses. And if he was like, I want to play Papago, right? And he knows what he's getting into, He knows the price. I wouldn't be like, oh, your money's better spent somewhere else for that amount of money would be like, yeah, I could see that being a a great course to be in the lineup of courses when you come out here. 43:41 Because I'm thinking of loose, I'm thinking of the course and I'm thinking of the whole experience and I'm thinking of wherever he's staying in Central. And so then I'm like, yeah, 200 bucks is probably well spent here at this course during peak season. You're almost swaying me with this point because if I was thinking objectively as $200 spent, not $200 spent at this golf course versus $200 spent at another golf course. 44:10 And what other courses are charging $200 during this time or what's a $300 golf course during this time versus what's a hundred $150.00 golf course at this time? I can tell you another course right now that charges around the same rates as Papago. 44:26 OK, McCormick Ranch. Which one would you rather hit up? I'm going to go to Papago. Yeah, exactly so. I don't like we lost. We lost Mike. We lost. Got to go throw that chicken, baby. McCormick. 44:42 McCormick is 200 bucks. Either way, I'm a pass, so let's go one for 2. That's fair. I think you started. You started. You started to sway me there. Yeah. Question 3, the Iverson test. Does this course have good practice facilities? 44:58 Would you spend time warming up or just head to the bar before the round? And next go. We talking about practice. We said yeah, we are talking about practice. And as someone that hates like that, hates hitting golf balls, like I grew up on a golf course without a range so I didn't, it wasn't something a big deal for me. 45:24 But putting and chipping and all that stuff. If you're looking for like a full blown practice before you round, this is as good as it gets. Yeah, they got the bunker and the chipping left of the range. They've got bull range. 45:39 They've got giant separate putting green next to the first tee, which TJ and I talk about all the time. Sometimes those practice screens are far away from the first tee. This one's right there, so you can just look up and see when your group's turn is to go. They spent millions of dollars making this the official practice facility of ASU. 45:59 Now, ASU has their own range and their own facility, so let's be clear. It's very nice. And it's, I would love to go over there, but they also, you could tell, put some of that money into the public side of things. And it's just, and where else can you go stare at the Papago Mountains as you're practicing, like right there? 46:17 And. It's great. I'll, I'll go to Papago right now. You want to go. You like? Don't. Don't. I got the itch now I want to go. I love it. The practice is so good. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's so good. Like sorry to for the so the sunsets. 46:37 If you're looking to just have this like magical rain session, the sun would then set behind you the early tee times kind of shitty, right? Because it's got to me cuss on this podcast. Fuck yeah you can. Yeah, fuck yeah, there's lots of fucking sun anyway. 46:55 When in the morning, it's tough, but at night, the sun setting behind you and it's shining up on these where essentially the the Phoenix Botanical Gardens are. It's amazing. It's incredible. Yeah. Great practice facility. Yep. 47:11 Yeah, it's a pass. It it, it Massey covered it. It checks all the boxes that you look for. Grass. Grass range. Also, yeah. So. All right, so 2 for three, yeah. Question for the Jonesy test, could you see yourself spending $100 on merch and they're pro shop. 47:29 Do they have a logo or apparel worth wearing? 100% yes. I love. This question. Dude this pro shop is like I. Would eat pro shop. I've done damage here. If it wasn't for Devro, I would be wearing my Papa Go stuff and their logo is sick. 47:46 I love their logo and there's only one thing about the logo I don't like and this is just my brain. TJ, can you guess why I might not want to wear the logo? Is it cultural appropriation? Ding Ding Ding. I feel a little guilty wearing a headdress on my shirt or something like that but but. 48:08 That's not your fault, that's the logo I know. You're honor, you're honoring the people the they're they're they're you know, we won't you know, we, we've already talked about we could have gone down an economic economics podcast here. We could have also started a college football podcast. 48:24 We will not start a a race religion based podcast here. But a lot of, but a lot of people also think that of our of the mindset of things like this, where the naming of things after Native American cultures is actually honoring. 48:43 Those cultures, yeah, I would say they're not doing it. Historical at all? Yeah, right. Right. They are not doing a disservice. There no when you walk in to lose you go right. But if, if they don't have tables ready, I have no problem walking left. 48:59 I'd be like, you know, I'm going to go check some stuff. Out real quick, yeah. Yeah. Their pro shop is so good. They have so many great like different apparel, but it's I'm an accessory guy. So like the head covers and the the ball markers and stuff. 49:15 That's kind of my gig. That's my thing. And they've got a ton of that stuff. Good, good traditional logo in terms of the the Native American with the headdress, good word mark for the actual like Papago golf course wording the brands in there and what they actually do with that stuff is also great. 49:36 So it checks all the boxes. For me, yeah. OK, so we're all a pass. I think we're all a pass. Yeah. This is a strong start here for Papago. 3 for four. Question 5, the buzzworthy test. Are there multiple holes worth talking about? 49:51 Does this course have more than one hole? A group would immediately want to go play again? Mike, I'd like you to go first here on this one. And I need more than one hole from you that you're like, yes, I want to go play that one again. No, no, I think it is AII Will. 50:09 It's one of the rare courses that is really fun to go play and, and you would go and you'd have a blast. You drink beer, you have great food and you'd go back to your Airbnb and you'd go, do you remember that, that hole And nobody would remember it. 50:26 I I don't think there's any really memorable holes on it. I'm surprised you said that because I thought you were going to have to make a case here and I couldn't wait to argue the opposite. And now I'm just like, wow, damn I. Know. You were trying really hard to lead the witness there. 50:44 So they even have a right? Yeah. Yeah. Nope. Yeah, I'm with you, man, on that. Go ahead, TJ. Yeah, I even like I was in my head and I was like, yeah, I mean, I have not played this course as recently as we do a lot of the times, like a lot of times when we, especially when we do Arizona stuff, it's like, oh, I played that course last month and it's still fresh in my head. 51:08 And I could I could remember every hole, but I could at least tell you the three or four that stand out if it does pass the Buzzworth test. So I went back and watched like YouTube videos of this golf course and I was like, man, a lot of this golf course just seems the same or like nothing. 51:26 Nothing like stands out against other golf courses in Arizona that have similar desert golf style layouts. I was like, nothing here really screams like outside of, you know, planes flying over cuz they're landing at Sky Harbor or if you're playing twilight, you can, you're, you're catching the views of, of downtown Phoenix or you know, you're getting the, the reflection off the mountains as finishing. 51:50 That's not, that's not the golf course. That's the locale. That's more a loose thing. Yeah, that's just a a location. I I would say if there were any holes to remember, it would be and I can't even tell you the hole. There are really long par threes and when the wind is blowing the the wrong way could be like driver off the tee. 52:12 Yeah, the back nine has one that's really long. Crazy. And then maybe 18, yeah. But other than that, like, yeah, nothing really stands out. The there again, I like you. I cannot name what number it is. 52:27 I know it's on the back 9, but it's the short par four that faces South and there's bunkers that come in. And so it's really easy to like get goaded into going for it, but you flirt with the bunkers. I want to say it's like 11 or 12, but either way, again, I can't remember. 52:43 It's like it's tough for me to think of more than that. So were failed sounds like for this one. I remember. I remember. It's like it. Yeah. It's when you get done, you're excited. You liked it. You. You had a good time. Yeah. But you nothing really stands out. 52:59 OK, so 3 for five question 6, the glizzy test, does this course have good food at the turn? Are you eating here or packing your own snacks? OK, so the food here I think is excellent. I think it's the same food you get at the restaurant. The problem is there is no separate halfway house or anything like that. 53:17 You park the cart and you have to go into the bar and you're not ordering food here for the turn most likely. You're probably just getting a beer and then turning around the tent. There's a window off the side, isn't there? Or did they get rid of that that? That's a separate little house that's over. 53:34 Not after between 9:00 and 10:00. You're thinking of the one that's like over by that whole other time about the short par 4 after like 5 or 6. Really. Hold on. So I can't go get what hold on. I can't go get lose if I call in at like. 53:51 You'll eat. No, you can you you'll have to call in and and make sure that it's ready for you when you finish nine right. So you you could do that, but how many times have you remembered to go call in an order? Let's be honest here, Mike. Need 0. 54:09 That's my point. Shout out to the carts that like know that you're finishing seven and say on the screen, hey, call in your order now. Yeah. OK, so then what Massey? What does it, what does it make that does that? Does that make it a fail because it's too tough to actually like get to, or are you rating it objectively on the food a lot? 54:30 I'm, I'm going to have to go. Based on my experiences here and I would say almost 9095% of the time I forget to call ahead and I don't eat anything at the turn here. And so I just grab a beer and they have great beer choices, but I don't buy anything here. 54:47 So I have to go. I think I have to go fail or half point. I don't know which. I'll go half point, half point. This is really tough because I'm going to be honest, sometimes you take in information that's new and that makes total sense because like I want to rate this on the food alone, which is fantastic, but you're right, it's not easy. 55:18 We have a question coming up later that's going to talk about the restaurant so well. You and also true like when you think about this like and also in the frame of the question, if it's not easy to get the food, then you you're more likely to go and pack your own lunch because you're like, she's going to be a pain. 55:36 But it's also plays into. Another I got to fail this. Also plays into another question where a lot of times you're backed up enough that you do have time to go get food. I am I misremembering that there is a window on like the left side outside of the restaurant? 55:52 There is a window there is like when you if you were to walk up around the side, there's a window right next to the doors to get in that's. What I thought there's a window over there. You're. Talking like a quick service window. Yes. 56:08 Yeah, there is a window. Show me a photo of this quick service window. All right, I think for those who stuck around through this whole debate, we we learned there is a quick service window that just my mind skipped over, but it's not separate from the building that houses the restaurant is I think the point that we're making now. 56:28 So it is quite a bit of a walk, but you don't have to go fight the crowds. You can go order at a separate window. TJ and Mike have proven to me looking through some archival footage we found. So with that said, with that said, do I change my answer? 56:45 No, I don't change my answer. I still don't see anyone ever ordering food here to go, so I'm still a fail. All of that. What are you guys saying? Fail a pass. That's failing. You're failing. OK, TJ. It doesn't matter, but I'm going to. 57:01 I'm going to. I'm going to pass it just on principle alone, because it's there. Revisionist history will come. Not great. Change this question someday. Yeah. All right, three for six, it's stalling here a little bit. 57:16 Question 7, The Marshall Test. Does this course have a decent pace of play? Can you rely on a relatively quick round here if you have somewhere to be after? Well, there's, there's two reasons to fail this. There's #1 the actual pace of play on the course can be pretty bad. 57:34 Like we've, I we've, we've touched on it a few times, but I think this is a standard 5 hour round on the weekend golf course. Yeah. Muni. Yeah. Five hours best. Yeah. It's bad, yeah. There's that and then, you know, depending upon your marital status, probably going to spend that time at the golf course hanging out. 57:57 So if you if you have somewhere to be, it's going to be really tough to. You're going to want to have a beer with the boys out on the patio after the round. Spoiler alert for the vibes test. So yeah, it's going to be tough for you to pull yourself away from this golf course to get to that place in a reasonable amount of time. 58:14 So for me it's. A fail. It's a fail for me too. Yeah. All right. Three for seven. So it's got to pass these next three just to be up for debate here. Question 8, The high handicapper test. Would a mid to high handicapper enjoy this course in typical conditions? 58:30 Is it fair to all handicaps and are the greens or pin positions fair? Mike, you want to start? No, Yes, I would like to start. No, it is. Hold on. It's tough. It is a really good golf course. 58:48 I want to, I want to be really careful here. It is a great golf course and it's a lot of fun, but it is not easy. It is so hard and I don't even, I don't even care what tease you're teeing off from. 59:05 It's long, it's hilly, the greens are flat, like flattish, but it is so hard. It's an incredibly hard golf course. This is like I, you know, as AI don't know if we even talked about this on the podcast, but I and we'll talk about it when we get to our goals podcast. 59:25 But I I broke 90 playing from essentially ladies Tees and Tory Potts. So it has somewhat opened my eyes after doing, you know, 18 months worth of podcasting, that sometimes playing from the right yardage can really help your game. For sure. 59:42 For sure. And and I think this, this course is, is pretty long. It's what's like I think I looked it was like 7300 from the backs. Yeah, don't play the tips here do. Not play the tips I mean like. Even if you're a good golfer. There's a reason that the college team practices here, right? 59:59 Like it because they need to. And there's fast teams here too. Yeah, exactly. But I think I, I, I think you can alleviate some of this course's woes by playing. Admittedly so, whatever that proper teas for you are, the the real question is how often do golfers swallow their pride and play the right tea? 1:00:22 Because I I was, I was pretty much forced to play the red teas that day. They only had two different teas open that day at Torrey Pines. And almost all times I'm always at least playing whites. Yeah. If not playing Blues to just say, oh, I'll just play the same tease as everybody else out of ease. 1:00:43 Right. That's that's where you get into trouble here, yeah. So it's it's tough cause also like because it's standard ish desert golf, it's a little. Open, yeah, but pack a desert club here 'cause you're gonna try and go find your ball. 1:01:02 You're gonna try and find your ball for sure, and you're gonna, I don't know. Why? But the desert here on the edges of the holes feels the most rocky of any other course I've played where it feels like they chip this thing through a quarry versus like put it in sand. It's not the it's not, I'm not talking like a little sand rock. 1:01:19 I'm talking like like shit ton of those like good chunk rocks that you're like, Oh my God, I got to like I got to move all these things before I hit my ball. Which makes it this like really great local, as genuine of Phoenix golf as you can get. 1:01:38 It just feels so Phoenix Y and so someone that's lived here for 25 years. Yeah, it's just, it feels so genuine. That's I think that's why I like it and it's so hard. But it's like, yeah, I just love being out there. 1:01:55 I love it. I I'm going to make one case here. I I'm going to say I'm passing this one. OK, little hot take. Here's why. When we talk about other courses where it's I think part of the question is right, Is it fair to all handicaps? 1:02:11 Some courses out here in Scottsdale, I see a different hole than TJ. Sometimes when I go stand on the T box where I'm like, oh, all I have to do is carry 240 and I'm like center of this fairway, whereas T JS like fuck, I'm going to like probably go up this far side on the left and then have a this shot coming in or whatever, right? 1:02:30 The majority of these holes are out in front of you. There's not a ton of big elbows. There's a little bit of cut cutting corners like on the 1st hole, maybe even on the 10th hole. But still the person that might be a little higher handicap has a plenty wide fairway to still land the ball and try and get this ball up there. 1:02:53 And on top of that, the holes that do have water, with the exception of the par three that has water right between the T box and the green, which it's not the longest par 3, but you know, theoretically there is water there. The other holes I feel like the water isn't as much of a factor. 1:03:09 It's more so like just don't do something stupid like don't try and reach into if you think your ball might spray right into the water here as opposed to take your medicine lay up and you'll have a nice little chip up to the green kind of thing. And the greens are all relatively flat. 1:03:28 So I don't know. For that reason, I think it is fair to everyone. It's tough for everyone, but I would say pass. I was going to pass it under the pretense of playing the proper yardage so. OK. I think I think that's like we said, we talked about the the green complex is not being something that makes it all that challenging. 1:03:48 I think where a lot of the distance, where a lot of the issues come with the difficulty of the golf course is how long it can play. So I think if you're we'll assume that you're going to swallow your pride that day and play the proper tee box, I think you can play reasonably OK, because also it's one of those ones where sometimes you play a course and even if you play the right tee box, but the swings not there that day, you're still pummeling some balls OB But with like, you know, houses on this golf course, there's there's some opportunities to go and find those balls or instead of saying up that ball is definitely gone, I'm going to drop one right off the tee and hit three off the tee. 1:04:28 You're going to go out and look for one. Your buddies are going to be generous. They're going to let you drop out in the desert or in, you know, in the rough on the other side of the desert. The round's not going to balloon up to a 130. You know, you'll probably keep it somewhere around like the one twelves 115. Yeah, I'm with you, Sean. 1:04:47 You. You convinced me. I think playing the right tease and there's no real trouble to get into out of here. Like even if you hit it way right or way left, you know, assuming you're not on the edges of the course, you can go find it and hit it. 1:05:05 And like that is, is there tree trouble? Sure. Are there going to be bunkers and rocks? Sure. But you can find it. Yeah, and that's worth something. So yeah, I love it. OK, I will pass it. 1:05:21 All right, so 4 for eight question 9, the vibes test. Is this course worth staying at post Round to have a good restaurant or patio scene? Pass next. It's the it's the if we did, yeah. If we were doing the best, this one's going to be a strong contender. 1:05:37 Spoiler alert, we I don't think Sean and I have talked about it, but we're going to do a year end recap podcast coming before the end of 2025 where we're going to rank each of the individual tests and what golf course is at the top for those individual tests. 1:05:53 And I would say this course is a strong contender to win the Vibes test. It's it's a very strong contender. If I'm if I'm thinking future of who might put up a fight against them, it's probably Goat Hill. 1:06:13 Yeah, the, the initial thought that I had with that was that this is the top of Arizona for Vibes Test and GOAT is the top for California for Vibes Test, where we've, I'm playing courses that we've ranked, I think. I think if we talk about where else we've also ranked courses without going into this whole other podcast, Jesus Christ. 1:06:32 Yeah, Wild was up there too. Yeah, up in the Pacific Northwest. You just you. You, You slept on Wild. OK, let's save it. Let's save it everyone. TuneIn Next week we're up in the little Tea and composite must play test. So I want to say something here as my my wife is not just play golf, she loves sports, but loses a place she wants to go, like for her birthday. 1:07:01 Yeah, not just like to go hang out. It is a place she wants to go to be it's. And so this it is, it is so top notch. And the kids love it too. That's a. Perfect place, the kids love it. People take care. People have like their kids, birthday parties out there on like Saturdays and Sundays. 1:07:20 Yeah, it's such a good testimonial for just the restaurant as as a free standing experience. And then it's attached to the golf course where you get to go spend your post round. There's a gated, there's a gated grass area where the kids can run around and this is kind of makes a fun feature, but like I kind of like it on the first tee when you've got a bit of an audience. 1:07:40 How many courses can you say the audience is kids just watching you and like playing around right there? It's just like they're right next to the first tee. It's so funny. And and like, yeah, it's it is such a cool spot to go hang out in. Yeah, they get the ultimate vibe for me. 1:07:58 Yeah, OK. Highest with highs here, so 5 for 9. So it's got to pass the next one to be up for debate, the dime a dozen test. Is this course unique to the area or could you get this golf experience somewhere else on your trip or visit guys? It's got to be unique. 1:08:14 For me, it's the Popigo Mountains right there. Like where else are you going to stare at those things on your like before you play and then? You mean besides the golf course that's right next to it? No, rolling hills doesn't have the same views as those mountains. Is that what you're talking about? Grass croopings. I I was playing a little bit. 1:08:31 Has the same views. Down past the zoo and you don't get the view of those mountains from. Grassroots. I was playing a little bit of devil's advocate. Here. If cause 'cause here's the thing, pre post round vibes. Grass clippings is kind of there, right? 1:08:48 Grass clippings just built an entire outdoor Mexican restaurant to try and get people to stay and hang out. They've they they have directly seen the success of Luz or they probably saw people leaving Grass Clippings to go hang out at Luz or they were doing it themselves right. 1:09:06 So they saw, hey, we need a hub to have people hang out at pre post pre or post round or a reason to bring people in. That's not just the golf course. Similar ish views you're going to on not not the Papa ghost. But also on the flip side, we're talking sunset, twilight. 1:09:25 You get those nice views of downtown and at grass clippings. You get to keep playing golf. You don't. Your round doesn't have to finish when the sun goes down. Yeah, but you're not using driver at grass steps. So I was can you let me tell a story can. 1:09:43 You let me? No. Yeah, I, with all of that being said, and we talked about this in my pros and cons too for also the location of where it physically is at as well. Not a ton of full, you know, full length championship style golf courses in Old Town that are going to have a great range like this, a great pro shop, a place you definitely want to hang out after the round, and a place where you're definitely going to hit driver on a majority. 1:10:20 Of the holes so so it's a pass. I'm a pass baby, Mike. I want to hear. I want to. I still want to hear Mike's point. It doesn't. Matter. But I want to hear it. I want to hear your opinion, Mike. Katie, ask the question again because I want to be reinvigorated. 1:10:37 Is it unique to the area or could you get this golf experience somewhere else on your trip or visit? The golf course you can get all over Phoenix 100% you can get it the the the golf course itself is findable all over the place. 1:11:01 There are very few places I think the sport teaching risk going. There are very few places where you can get at view of the valley at sunset. I think it's, I think it's got to it's got to be pass because I I think that the rolling or not rolling hills, grass clippings is about the only place you could get it. 1:11:27 But it's so it's at R3 versus Yeah, you know, yeah, I don't. Yeah, I'll pass. I'll pass here. So it's officially a six out of 10, which means it's now up for debate. We've only had a handful of courses here reach 6. 1:11:45 This is where everything we've just said still rings true, right? It's just distill it down into whether or not this makes a must play course in your mind. For someone coming to Phoenix, someone's coming to the Valley, is this on the short list of courses they must go play? 1:12:03 Who wants to go first? I have one thing, and one thing to say only that should overrule any sort of discussion from here on out. Oh, OK. I think we all put Papago on our Scottsdale Trip podcast episode. 1:12:22 We did. I think we did. Oh yeah, good call. Therefore, we openly said this is something you need to go do on your trip. Well, for Mike was the only one that had it being played. I had just lose and I and putter on the putting facility, right? 1:12:43 You did, Mike said. You said special trip over there. Mike said play it. I think I might have said play it too. No, I'm First off, I'm ashamed to admit how many times I've listened to that pod. So it's probably one of the most listened to pods because of me. It's one of my favorite episodes is to listen to the banter, TJ, You had Greyhawk, you had Camelback, you had Mountain shadows and Grasshoppings. 1:13:08 Interesting. So you did not have Papago, so therefore is your point mute or is well? Two out of three ain't bad. Whether that is not whether outside of that point, I guess my answer is yes, I think this is AI think this is a must play golf course. 1:13:27 I think I think the experience of like I talked about how high the highs are pre post round. It's it's also probably going to over shadow the golf, especially if you're a golf trip where not everybody is a die hard. 1:13:43 We got to go play the hardest course or we got to play. We got to play TPC Scottsdale because because waste management's there or, you know, we got to go play this. We got to go play we Copa. We got to go play Quintero. We got to play one of the top ten courses like in the state. This is going to be one that everyone is probably going to remember and talk about because of the pre post round vibes being like, damn, the beers that we had on the patio at that golf course and shooting the shit on the putting green with the boys. 1:14:09 Like how memorable is a trip to Bandon and the time you spend out on the punch bowl with the boys? Yeah, very. That's. One of my favorite parts, yeah. Exactly. So I think this gives you that type of feeling for your trip that not a ton of other golf courses are probably going to give you, and this will be memorable. 1:14:26 So therefore, if you're planning it for your trip, for me it's a must play. Hey, Mike, you want to go last or you want to go next? I want to go next. I I think that what you're making, you're making a great point about the pre and post game ramp. 1:14:43 This is a must play golf course pod and I think hell yeah what you're saying about the pregame, the pre round is great. What you're saying about post round is absolutely valid. But I think when you look at the golf courses around the valley and what's available to you, whether it's, you know, playing in the in the, I don't know the true Norse and the great Hawks and stuff in the mountains. 1:15:13 This is a flat right out in front of you next to an airport golf course. Great. It's a lot of fun. It's got a great place to go before arguably the best post round drinks and food you could find on a golf course available to the public. 1:15:34 Right. I am going to fails. I think that there there are. I don't think that this is a place you have to go play. I think this is a place you have to go visit. Like, hey, when you go play around at at at grass clippings, go here afterwards for drinks and food and then go back to your Airbnb, I don't think it's a place you have to play. 1:16:02 Cause grass clippings? You mean specifically night golf only grass clippings, right? Yeah, I guess I'm just, I'm saying because the proximity really is just, it's, it doesn't mean grass. It could be a, it'd be legacy, it could be a a number of golf courses around that. You go play and then you end up at Papago, but you end up at Luz. 1:16:23 Yeah. Luz is far more memorable to me than the golf course itself. OK, wow. This is, I didn't expect the drama to come down to this. All right, TJ, your point about the trip, right, I think unfortunately works against you because you've misremembered and then learned that you didn't have it in yours. 1:16:48 That's fair. And then I only had the restaurant in mind, not the course. Yeah. And then on top of that, what did we do when you were in town? Did we play Papago? We played Phoenician, and then we ate it loose. And then we played grass clippings. We didn't play Papago. 1:17:04 You can only play grass clippings at night, but. Yes. No. Wow, hold on. You play, you should. You should. You should only play grass clippings at night. You should play That's a fun got to play grass clippings at night. But that's my, that's my point is that we, we there exactly what we've been glowing about on this test so far is what we did when you were here, right? 1:17:28 But we skipped the course. And that's tough. Like the course is fun. It's not a bad course, but it's like if Phoenician's not far away, I would probably send someone to Phoenician before I'd send them to Papago to go play. 1:17:43 Personally for $100 more. Well, so that's the thing. But we passed this price question. So it had its day in court, right? We did it. But now I'm looking at the entire test and there's a big gaping hole in this test where I'm like, it's not necessarily buzz worthy. 1:18:04 It's very slow. And so the golf experience itself is not as good as some of these other courses that I would prefer you to go golf at. And then, hey, by the way, if you have time, absolutely go hit lose here. So I'm failing it, unfortunately. 1:18:24 I'm sorry, Papa. Go. Sorry that that is not to say Papa go, it's not a great course. No, and it. It it is a if you're here for a full week, go play it. If you're here for a couple days, you have to go find a couple courses to play that's not there. 1:18:43 Well, TJ TJI always say, everyone go make your own determination on what you think, right? Use our test as a guide. But it's not the ultimate, you know, this is the letter of the law. And some people are going to play this course and go, this has the bones of a Billy Bell course. Like there's a hole out there that reminds me of Torrey Pines where you tee off and has this big like dip. 1:19:03 And that reminds me of that hole on the South course that has that really big dip. It's 13 or 14, yeah. Yeah. But other than that I'm like I don't know so. Still a should play. You still should get out there. This is just three idiots talking in on the internet's opinion like. 1:19:25 I mean, two, we've talked about Mike, you were our first guest. We talked to Dobson Ranch back then our tests looked a little different. I would love to revisit Dobson because I think it unfairly had one question we didn't pass it on that probably could have got it from A5 to A6, But both Dobson and Papago are two courses that are, like, really fun, local, near and dear to my heart. 1:19:46 Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud to say those two courses are close to me. But also, of course, am I Like, yeah, man, you got to go play Dobson. Yeah, that's a really good. That's a good point because it's like if you want to go play traditional, like if you want to go play this fancy golf in Scottsdale and you get to tell your friends you played all these places. 1:20:08 I'll play your troons and your great hops. If you want to go see what the locals play, go play Papago, play, go play Dobson. That's what the locals play. Yeah, but I. Go there because and that's why we love. Them. Yeah, I go there for the other reasons like Dobson also has great practice facilities, right. 1:20:26 They also have you. Got that little putting green? Putting green, it's the same thing. Yeah, Oh man, I love it. All right, well, officially a six out of 10 should play, but not a must play from us. Sorry, pop Go. But hey, maybe one day we'll revisit this. 1:20:42 Who knows? Figure out a way to shore up the the pace of play and all of a sudden. It could be. That I mean that that's, I think that's the beauty of of like the must play test. And I know we're, we're running a little long here, but I think there's a, there's a lot of questions objectively on the test that like are fixable for a golf course. 1:21:02 I'm not asking you to go out there and reroute an entire golf course or I'm not asking you to, you know, dig up the entire land or level your pro shop and build a brand new one with new brands and whatnot and start charging, you know, $200 for every quarter zip in there. Like there's a lot of stuff that you flip it and all of a sudden it's a must play. 1:21:19 Like it's, it's, it's black and white, right? It is. This is right on the line. It's right on the line. Yeah. All right, Mike, thank you again for coming back on. This is our 40th episode, so I appreciate you. Yeah, it's. Your 40th episode, all right. Yep. 1:21:36 I'm bringing the beer over. I'll see you in 2 minutes. Let's celebrate after this and let's go play again. We keep letting life get in the way here over the next round. So yeah. Love it all. Right, thank you to everyone who stuck around for the entire episode. If you don't already, please make sure to subscribe to Must Play over wherever you get your podcasts and rate US five stars. 1:21:55 You can also watch the video of these over on YouTube. And Mike, once again, thank you for joining us and we'll see you guys next time. Thanks guys. Deuces, Thank you. Bye. 1:22:14 Brother, if you don't have squatty potties in your house, I would highly recommend changing your life. We do and I would just, I would rest my heels on them. I need to. I need to. Use them. You got to work on that mobility so you can get your fucking knees up into your jaw or. Gord just asked me to play pickleball and I'm like, what the fucker? 1:22:32 Is this a nugget I'm putting at the end of the pot? Oh, I put in a few Nuggets. © 2025 Spotify AB Legal Privacy Cookies