The Hole Story - Golf Podcast

The Stories Behind the Shots with Michael Altobello

• BestBall • Season 4 • Episode 45

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0:00 | 42:00

In this episode, we sit down with Michael Altobello, a fashion and advertising photographer whose love of golf has taken him from Bethpage to Shinnecock, St. Andrews, and even Mongolia. Mike shares how he got into golf as a child, how photography opened doors in the golf world, and why the best part of the game is the people you meet along the way.

https://www.michaelaltobello.com/

**Cover photo by Michael Altobello for Links Magazine

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*Music by AlexGrohl via Pixabay

SPEAKER_00

New York has some of the Long Island certainly has some of the best golf ever developed in the in the world. I mean, A, there was all the money in the world was in New York and it still is. And B, Long Island itself is a glacial moraine, so it's just this big giant pot of sand.

SPEAKER_04

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Whole Story Podcast. Jonathan, we just met a new friend who is in and around the game of golf. Mike Altobello, uh, photographer, has written stuff in golf. Uh, most of his photography is actually outside of the world of golf and fashion and other stuff that I don't pay as much attention to. Maybe I'll look at it now, just now that we know somebody, but man, he's got some great golf stores. Uh a mutual friend Dan Ballister, who's here in Columbia uh with the general's hot sauce. If anybody wants any hot sauce, go check them out. But uh yeah, had met uh Mike, I think on, you know, on a T-Box or a driving range somewhere and became friends and said, Hey Robbie, you guys, y'all should talk to Mike, and I am so glad we did. This was fun.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'll tell you, I mean, we we get to interview all sorts of folks that are deeply ingrained into the golf world, but sometimes it's just a guy that's loves the game, wants to chat about it, and has the stories to match. So, I mean, yeah, we spent most of it just laughing about, just like if we had just finished up a round. Again, we talk about it on the 19th hole hanging out, and we're fortunate enough to do this on a regular basis and obviously get to share that with you all. So we hope you enjoyed as much as you don't, if you as we do. And if you don't, that's okay, because we're still having a blast with it.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, you're having a blast indeed. So, and again, like he he made the comment at the end, like most of our guests do, and we we try to preach the message as well. It really doesn't matter what you shoot, where you play, those are all great. But meeting people like Mike and then getting a hangout at some point uh with those people uh on and around a golf course is what it's all about. So this is a great episode. You guys will like it. Thanks as always to our friend friends at Summit Golf Brands. Speaking of New York, uh they do incredible stuff, Bee Dratty, Zero Restriction, Fairway and Green. And they are kind enough to offer you our listeners and audience 20% off if you use Best Ball 20 at any of their websites. So without any further ado, let's get to our conversation with some hilarious stories uh in and around golf from Mike Altabello. Y'all enjoy joining us today on the whole story, referenced or recommended by a mutual friend, Mr. Dan Ballister, is Mike Altabello. Mike, how are we doing today? I'm hanging in there. How are you guys? Doing well, man. So Dan sends me this email and he says, You need to talk to Mike. He is uh in and around golf and has some incredible stories. And a couple things he mentioned, I'll just throw this out there. He said, uh, part-time golf writer and photographer, Nassau Players Club, and then being a short-term one-day member of the St. Andrews Grounds crew. So maybe we can touch on a little bit of that. But before we uh before we jump into it, like we just we want to hear your story, like when you got involved with golf. Did you play as a kid or did you pick it up later in life?

SPEAKER_00

I've got pictures of me at maybe two or three years old with a bowl cut, cross-handed with Mickey Mouse plastic clubs in the backyard, you know, hitting a weird little white wiffle ball. Um, so I grew I grew up with it in in Connecticut. My brother and I both play started playing when we were really young.

SPEAKER_04

Very nice. And that carried on. Did you play like golf in high school? Did you get on the team thing, or were you playing everything else and golf was just fun?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I no, I I played a bunch of stuff, but yeah, we certainly played through high school. My brother played uh collegiately. Um, I did not, and um continued to play, you know, once I got out of college, just picked it back up again and started playing um, you know, for the rest of my life, I hope.

SPEAKER_03

How do you switch from playing as a two-year-old to writing articles for some pretty heavy hitters? Like, where does that leap into the rest of the golf world take place?

SPEAKER_00

You know, part of it is the I think part of it has to do with, you know, having a camera in my hand, and that really takes you to some places uh that you wouldn't normally get access to. And that has led to just meeting a bunch of people and you know, being in the right place at the right time, and then um, you know, sort of sort of going from there. So I mean I'm not quite media, but I'm tangentially media, and so um sort of unlocks some some doors that wouldn't wouldn't normally get unlocked.

SPEAKER_04

Well, let's let's talk about that for a second. You said camera in hand, not technically golf media. Tell us all what what you'd do, I guess, for uh for the day job if it's not playing professional golf.

SPEAKER_00

Well, certainly not playing professional golf, because I'd be poor. Um probably all of us would be poor. All of us, yes, for sure. Yeah, yeah. No, I am a fashion and advertising photographer. I shoot products still life, I shoot uh on on figure fashion stuff. I've done it for maybe 25 years. Started out as an assistant in New York City and just kind of worked my way up and um fortunate enough to uh be able to do something I love for for work. So um freelance basis my whole life. So I've had a whole bunch of clients, uh Puma, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, um Duny and Burke, which is one of my main clients right now, handbag company in in Connecticut. Um and I think there's been a couple of golf things that have just sort of been like word of mouth, like Mike's a photographer, he knows a ton about golf. Let's have him shoot something. And a lot of it's just been like sort of people that I knew that along the way and have sort of been like, let's have let's have Mike do it. I'm currently working on a project right now, a year-long project at a club that I have an affiliation with, um, or that I had friendly relationships with. And my my coach is there actually. And now I'm kind of like at their full-time on-staff photographer because they're doing a major renovation. So it's been been really fun sort of documenting that whole process. And that's more just like a right place at the right time kind of thing. You know, I mean, obviously I have some talent, but you gotta kind of there's this saying in photography that I love that you guys might not be familiar, but are you familiar with F-stops and shutter speeds? Like those are like two of the main components. They're like the the two very basic things in a camera. F-stop is like how big the lens opening is, how much light comes in the lens. Um, and then the shutter speed is like the speed that the shutter is open, you know, can be open for a whole second, you know, it never is in daylight. F eight is one of the numbers, and there's a saying photography, and it's f FA and B there. Like that's the important thing. Just be there. You just gotta be there. So um F8 and B there.

SPEAKER_03

I love that. Does that make it uh are you one of those golfers who and photographers that just feels like you always have to have your camera on you whenever you're playing, or are you able to set that down because your day job isn't necessarily directly related to how well you're shooting hole number three?

SPEAKER_00

Well, in 2026, we all have a camera on our s at all times in our in our pockets. So um it it is on me at all times. When when I'm playing, um I am usually the first one to pull it out. Like if you guys, if I'm playing with you and you're standing on the edge of a cliff, like I'm gonna get that thing recording just in case something happens. Or uh, you know, if we're talking about a hole in one, there's a good chance that I'm gonna pull it out quick just on the odd chance that somebody actually knocks one in. Um, so it's it's it's close at hand. The phone's always close at hand, and I'll start, I'll start shooting something if I need to. But um real camera, no, there's not a real camera in my golf bag anymore. There was for a period of time, but the phone really has um taken the place of the point and shoot camera that used to fit in the golf bag. The phone's just amazing. I mean, so what you can do with it.

SPEAKER_04

So Jonathan and I keep saying like we need to record every one of our uh shots on a par three just so that in case we get a hole in one. Yeah. But but we don't do it. And I think subconsciously it's because we know that that's probably a very, very long shot. So if we do ever actually get the hole in one, like we'll just we'll have to catch the celebration, maybe.

SPEAKER_03

If you ever go back and look at our shots on par three, there's a reason why we're like maybe we don't need to do this anymore.

SPEAKER_04

We need we need to put together a reel of everyone we thought we might have all that would be great. That would be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03

It'd be my commentary going, little right, Robbie, little right.

SPEAKER_00

That would be great. That'd be a good reel. Um I've only had one and I can't imagine putting having the film going for every time I've I've missed it, because that's pretty much every time.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Well then combined we all have one or we have one together.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like they come when you talk about them. So like one of us is gonna have one this weekend or next, whenever you guys play next. Like one of us is gonna get one soon. Yeah, you're gonna get your stuff.

SPEAKER_03

I tried to speak it to a long time.

SPEAKER_04

I tried to speak it to Inzyssix last week because I was playing in an event where all the drinks were covered, and I was like, if I'm gonna get one, let's go ahead and do it here, and I'll I'll buy all the free drinks that we're already gonna get. So yeah. That uh side note, that is one of the silliest traditions in golf. Like if you make a hole in one, somebody should buy you a drink. That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Anyway, yeah, it's on your percent. We actually have a nice bonus at one of my clubs um and it's a $1,500 allotment to buy drinks, and then you get to actually keep whatever's left over. So if it's a cold day in November, you're gonna walk away with $1,450. And if it's if it's the member guest, you're gonna you're gonna be out of money, you know, which is but not as much as you would be without the $1,500.

SPEAKER_04

So that's a pretty good little policy there. Well, it is. Let's talk about some of the some of the things that um that Dan referenced. He mentioned you you do some photography, and I know you know you shared some articles about things at like Beth Page and the Nassau Players Club. So for those that are not familiar, tell us about that if you're allowed to talk about it, uh, and then how that relates to Beth Page and kind of what uh what that place is like. Because obviously we all see it from uh whenever it's it's hosting a major or you know, showing off a great golf tournament. But tell us a little bit about your experience with that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Beth Page is a place that attracts um a whole bunch of players that can't afford to be members of other clubs around uh New York City, and New York City is incredibly expensive, so the the private market is just uh astronomical. So there's a whole bunch of good players that end up at Beth Page, and Beth Page is very similar to the UK model, where um the UK model clubs are or courses are owned by the Lynx Trust, and clubs play and have access to the courses. So Beth Page is similar. There's multiple clubs that play out of Beth Page, one of which is named the Nassau Players Club, and I was affiliated with those guys for a long time, and it was a great home for me um because a whole bunch of really good players would beat you up at any any given Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or any day of the week you can get a game and you could get you could get crushed. So you're gonna get a lot better playing against uh against some better players. So um Beth Page is kind of a unique place in this country, at least, in that sense. Multiple courses, multiple clubs.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I I really think and you mentioned the UK model, I really wish more and more places were like that. That that offered up the ability for access, one, uh, to to really good clubs. So yeah, I read the art read the article um, I think in the golfers journal where you said at one point you were like a 1-7 and you weren't even the top 25 of your club. Like that's not even closed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we had um I for years we were sort of not battling, but we were like one of the lowest handicap indexes in the country versus uh Whisper Rock. But it was partly because there was a cap on the number of players that we took, and we sort of obviously only took like specific quality. I mean, I I was never really part of who got in or who got out, but uh um yeah, you kind of had to be essentially it was designed to be like a place for tournament players, like there's a bunch of tournaments in Long Island and Met section, um, where we needed we needed club affiliation in order to play, get a handicap. You know, certainly 25, 35 years ago, maybe when the club was founded. How the heck old was this club? Yeah, 30 years ago when the club was founded, you needed to have club affiliation to play, you need to have a handicap to play in some of these events. And so that was how the club was founded initially. So it was a bunch of tournament players that got together that founded this thing.

SPEAKER_03

Talk a little bit more about New York golf, though, because for those of us I've been to New York for tourism stuff down, you know, at Times Square and things like that. And if you're not if you if you're not local to the area, the first thing you think of is concrete and skyscrapers. And yet there's a whole one, a whole bunch of part of the state that's not that. And that but even surrounding the city, there appears to be a lot of good golf available.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, New York has some of the best Long Island certainly has some of the best golf ever developed in the in the world. I mean, A, there was all the money in the world was in New York and it still is, and B, Long Island itself is a glacial moraine, so it's just this big giant pot of sand. And as I think all of us that are listening to this understand, that sandy soil is essential. So um you got the money, and then you got the you got the turf for it. So the sand is is key. So they were able to move Earth uh pretty easily and have great agronomy, and it attracted the best architects in the world. The money and the the turf attracted the best architects in the world to build some of the to this day, some of the best, the best stuff out there. Um playing golf in New York in 2026 is a pain in the ass. I mean, it's it just sucks. It just absolutely sucks. I was 21 when I first got to New York City, and I was a golf nut, so I kept a car and like lived really far away from the city with really cheap rent in order to be able to like go do things like play out on Long Island and caddy out on Long Island. Um thankfully I had a freelance job, so I was able to do it. But like if you really have to try really hard, it's probably one of the one of the worst cities in the country to be a golfer in.

SPEAKER_04

I get that. Did you have some uh some favorite spots that you like to play? Let's say, let's say money wasn't an object or or or wasn't a thing in like, you know, private, public, whatever. Like, where would you choose to play? Like, do you have some favorites?

SPEAKER_00

When I first started caddying, I ended up at the end of that year working out at Shinnocock, and that was just a pretty special place to work. There were um were and are all these tiny little little caddy paths. I mean, one of the most beautiful places in the country, I think. And um that place is and was special to me. Now that being said, it's brutally hard. And the place next door called National is just kind of a more day-to-day like like you'd almost want to play there day to day versus Shinnikok day to day. But um, both those places are are pretty, pretty awesome. And if I didn't, if I could go out there and play, I would go out there and play. Um, there's a US Open, right? Did you not did you not qualify? There was there was a time, there was a time where I tried to qualify for the US Open. This is a long time ago, many times, but uh that not even on my radar anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Did you make it past the first round in the elimination?

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no. I never made it past uh never qualified. I've played some decent rounds. My brother was an alternate once uh to sectionals, so that was kind of fun. We sat on the first tee hoping to get out. I was gonna get it for him, but we never even got out.

SPEAKER_04

Um Will you at least get out and watch some of it this year?

SPEAKER_00

I won't get I won't get out and watch any of it this year. Um the pro game and going to an event like that doesn't interest me anymore, but I'll go watch the Carter Cup or you know the the New York State Junior Am if it's around the corner and there's no ropes and I can walk around and drink a beer and wear flip-flops or boat chews and like just be on top of the golf. Um I don't have a ton of interest in like trudging around Shenny, um maybe on a practice round day because I have a relationship to the place, but like it's not there there are other events that are much more interesting for me to go watch with just easier access.

SPEAKER_03

You talk about untapped access. That those junior tournaments I've been to a couple and incredible. I I mean, I was over at we at the junior national or something like that hosted over here at Sage, Junior Invitational. And whenever we were Sage Invitational, yeah. Yeah, like you're you're literally walking down the fairway with the players. You're just you know, you're 20, 30 yards back, but uh never been to a golf tournament that lets you do that.

SPEAKER_00

It's amazing, yeah. I started going to Walker Cups in 2013 when I was at national, and those have now even become almost like there were no ropes. There there were no now, it's like gotten a lot more play, even just in the last 10 years. Um, and that I'm not saying that's too big for me, but like I don't know, maybe I'll check out a Curtis Cup instead, you know, at this point. But um they're still pretty cool. I mean, just to be able to walk and have access and sit on top of I mean at Sage you're gonna get you're gonna get future champions.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. So that's you know, pretty pretty no-brainer to go to the street.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's it's it's a loaded field for a bunch of uh junior golfers. Well, tell us about Yeah, you sent uh you sent a little article uh talking about a trip you took with Oliver Horowitz back in 2018, and you said this might be a fun one for a podcast. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this is a fun trip. Oliver, I met Oliver, so 2018 is a long time ago, uh even though it's not that long ago. You know, it it's funny because like there weren't really golf influencers. There really weren't. There was like some blogs, you're talking like the Tumblr world. Um, so I met Oliver through another blogist at the time who was writing about golf named Stephanie Wee. She had a blog called uh Way Under Par. Uh We Under Par, Way Under Par. And um Ollie came over to a photo shoot that Steph and I were doing one day, and I met I met Ali and we became friends there, and then um he had written a couple books, and then he was sort of trying to like navigate his way around writing articles and being a golf influencer without even really that did that didn't exist. Like if he came 10 years later, he would, he would have had a whole different trajectory. But he was really one of the early ones. So I don't remember how or why it got in his head, but he went over to play the Mongolian National Open and wanted me to come along to like documentary. And I had two jobs um bookcasing this trip to Mongolia, and I thought it would be a really good idea to try to go to Mongolia for three days. So I flew there and we're just gonna have three nights on the ground in Mongolia between jobs on the east coast of of of uh of the United States. Anyway, I get delayed on the way out, of course, and I missed the entire first round of golf, which sucked because I only really had like two and a half rounds that I was gonna be able to sort of witness. And so I meet him in the middle of the city um UB, Ulimbatter, um, and I'm exhausted. Obviously, I've been traveling, you know, with a backpack. Um, there's a drone in my backpack. This is 2018 drone too. There's like uh a camera drone, some underwear, like I don't know, barely had anything. And I meet him, and I'm I I hadn't hadn't heard anything from him. So I get I get to him and um he's like, I shot 106. And I thought he was totally I thought he was totally joking. And I did not believe him for a second, but he's like, No, I was like, what are you talking about? How did you possibly so I'm like I've already hit the record button, so I'm recording him and he's telling me this story. I'm like, this is a guy that can play golf. I mean, he shot even parr on the old course before, which is not All that hard necessarily. Um, but still, I mean, this is the guy that can play off. So he's he he he basically got there and you know he couldn't play. And and it turned out to be a really, really hard golf course in the sense that if you were off, um you were so um she had to watch him absolutely make a mess of the Mongolian National Open for the the following day. And at one point I sort of ditched him and I went and interviewed the head professional of the golf club and we had lunch together. And about an hour later, I was like puking and sh my brains out. And about an hour and a half later, I ended up in the Mongolian hospital. Somebody had somebody had taken me to the hospital, thank God, because I couldn't function. Oliver had finished his his his round, and um we got somebody to take us there, and we ended up in the private side of the hospital, which you would think would be really nice. And thank God that we were in the private side because I can't imagine what the public side was like. So we're in the hospital, we're checking in, and we we had a translator who had taken us there, thankfully. It was like some kid from the golf course. I don't even know who he was at this point. Um, and it turned out that we needed to show up with our own IV and our own saline solution. So yeah, no, I didn't know that, of course. And I'm like in no shape to to you know understand any of this. So Ollie has to run to like the pharmacy and comes back with like needles and saline, and I had eco-like e. poisoning. And so I'm just in the hospital. So this was like I'm delayed, I miss a whole day, see one day of golf, then the next morning I'm in the hospital. Like, it was just just a just a comedy, a comedy, just a total comedy of error. So then I'm like that night, I'm supposed to fly back to New York City to get back to this job. So I go to the airport, I'm still absolutely, totally in a bad, bad, bad shape. And of course, I'm delayed on the way out and end up missing the job. And as a freelancer, you know, you don't really want to miss jobs, you don't want to be Wally Pep. So um miss this job. Thankfully, I was able to find somebody to cover for me, which is not easy. Like, I mean, there are other photographers, but like it's not the easiest thing to do from Mongolia. And so um, man, that was that was a trip. Ali and I had since this is right before that was 2018, right before COVID, Ali and I were supposed to go to Bolivia because he wanted to play what was one of the t the highest golf courses in the world in La Paz. We were gonna go up to Bolivia, do the story there. A week before we're supposed to go, there's political unrest. The mayor is dragged through the streets, bloodied. And so Ali and I go like, yeah, we're not gonna go to Bolivia. And then COVID hit, and then yeah, it all sort of went to shift after that.

SPEAKER_03

I'm not sure if I should never go on a golf trip with you or if it's Ollie, because it sounds like my only other thought is, and now we host a uh March Mongolian rally where we go play golf every year and we try not to die from dysentery. Yeah, yeah, but we do bring our own IVs with us now. Like you turn it up.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_04

Who knew? Oh man, who I did not know that's where that story was gonna go. I was thinking like I didn't play the incredible golf, and yeah, you didn't know it was going there either.

SPEAKER_03

Did he at least break a hundred the next day?

SPEAKER_00

So he broke a hundred, so he broke so he went 106, 994 to to be at even 200. Then he shot at 100, so he's he's at 300. Um I I've I gotta be honest with you, I forget what the last round was, but I know that he was at 200, then he was at 300. Um, at that point he had made peace with the whole thing. He was hitting like six iron off the T, but he was still hitting it out of bounds because he just couldn't, he just had like the T yet. He just could not, he could not get off the T. But um I forget what the total score was at this point.

SPEAKER_04

That's funny. All right. Well, tell us then about your your one day or whatever your your experience on the St. Andrews Grounds crew.

SPEAKER_00

I was not on the grounds crew. My brother, my my brother uh is a professional golfer. He's also he yeah, he actually was one of the few people in the country besides Arnold Palmer's dad. At one point, he was the head professional and the head superintendent of a golf course. So he has both both sides. Right now he's he's just a head professional. Um and uh so he's pretty tapped in with a bunch of um superintendents. And at one point we went over, actually, I think it was his his first trip to St. Andrews, and he had reached out to the head super of the old course. So we got a tour of the of the old course in the morning, which was pretty awesome. We were just part of the setup crew. I was just there to be there for sunrise and photograph. But we met at like four in the morning um with Gordon, and we were there for like the lineup where everyone's getting their assignments, and our assignment ended up just be um setting up teas and um cleaning up the tea boxes and setting up teas. So we were just out there um ahead of the greens crew, and it was it's pretty cool. Have you guys been out there yet? You've been out there yet. So you kind of know that the teas and the greens are really close to each other, and then the greens obviously know the greens are enormous and massive. So watching those guys cut greens is just cool because like some of them take 40 minutes or more. I'm not even sure how long some of them take. I mean, yeah, it just take forever. Um, but that is a very special place, I think, in the world. I I I I think just I could do laps around that place forever, um, and would like to continue to do that. Every every chance I get, um, I go east instead of west. I've never been to Bandon. I don't know that I'll ever go to Bandon because it's so easy to get on a plane Thursday night red eye, and you're you're literally playing golf on the Jubilee or any of these courses in the afternoon the next day, whereas Bandon looks awesome. By all accounts, it's a great trip. By all accounts, it's just dialed in for like a buddy's trip. But um, just something about taking a red eye to Scotland is so amazing to me. And there's just any number of weird, quirky golf courses that you can find yourself on and be like, this is unreal. I can't believe this exists. This nine-hole thing on the edge of the universe. Like, what is this thing? Um so uh yeah, I keep going east.

SPEAKER_03

Well, and flying out of New York, a couple hundred bucks sometimes. Like you can pick a flight that's not full and they've got a last-minute deal. And like you said, it's a it's the same four-hour flight, it just depends on what kind of golf you want to play.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I think it's less than I mean, I don't know what the flight I don't know how to get to Bandon. It just sounds like there's a lot of driving involved afterwards.

SPEAKER_03

They they don't have honor boxes. How about that?

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's fair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Jonathan had some uh some encounters with the ground screw there at St. Andrews as well. Remember that, Jonathan? Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_03

Whenever I was trying to bribe them, yeah. Yeah, so we I got picked for the uh old course reverse lottery.

SPEAKER_02

Oh sweet.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and so that was our first time playing international golf. Uh I broke 90 for the first time on the old course in my life. But dude, this is incredible. But I uh there were none the memorabilia like they gave us I think we got a head cover. Yeah, we've we got a head cover. But I was like, where's the flag? Where's the special shop just for the old course reverse? And I'm not a thief and I've I've never really stolen anything in my life, but I was after I realized I couldn't bribe anybody because I was like, I asked the guy, I'm like, what are you gonna do with these flags? And they're like, we're gonna pull them back in. I'm like, I've got cash on me, how much? Just tell me. I'll give you whatever the cash is, I'll give you all the cash I have in my pocket to take that home with me. And they're like, we can't do it. And we walked past 17, heading to the jigger in, and I'm looking at this, you know, you're you've been there, so you I mean, you're like three feet away and a rock wall. It's not like there's a gate or a fence, you know. And I'm like, I I it crossed my mind, I had to tell myself, don't do it. Because I was like, I don't even care if I get kicked off. Like, as long as they don't find out, or I yeah. Do I do not have a flag of the old Porsche reverse?

SPEAKER_00

Ballister would kill me if I didn't follow your comment up with what I'm about to tell you, which I've really never told anyone, and I can't even really tell the whole thing. But I have some Walker Cup memorabilia from multiple venues that you cannot buy at all.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm gonna leave, I'm just gonna leave it at that. And I'm also not a thief. But may but may but maybe I am. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04

Oh man. Yeah, it was close.

SPEAKER_03

It was, I mean, they were like angels. Robbie, I was pretty close.

SPEAKER_04

Like I was the I might have been the angel for you then.

SPEAKER_03

You would not, yeah, you'd have been so embarrassed you'd disown me.

SPEAKER_04

We did though. We did walk by the maintenance uh shed, and they were there, and Jonathan, like that was a great conversation, and they were like, that's awesome. We just can't do it. We were hoping we'd find one person that would be like, Yeah, I got you. Hold on.

SPEAKER_03

I thought about hanging out until like the 16-year-old kid showed up to pull the flag and be like, Listen, I got like five, six hundred bucks in my pocket right now. I will absolutely give this to you if you just lose this flag. Just lose one. Just lose one. Just lose one.

SPEAKER_01

Just lose one. I assume you've since played it forward.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so we played the so the routing was we played the castle course, then we played it reverse, and then we played it forward the next day. So three good days in a row. Yeah. That's great. It was fun.

SPEAKER_04

I uh and we we keep talking to different people and just about so many other things, and through what we do with best ball, we've met some incredible people, and yeah, we're dying to go back east, like you said, yeah, and go play it again. So, how uh how often are you getting to play some golf now?

SPEAKER_00

Um, a weekend warrior now, but I'm playing definitely every weekend if I can. Yeah. Um, a couple times a weekend. I'll play um up to the are you in New York?

SPEAKER_04

Is that where home is?

SPEAKER_00

Like home is in yeah, I've got a couple of homes, but home is in New York, uh, generally speaking. But I I spend some time up in the Hudson Valley, which is north of New York City, and the golf club that I play, most of the golf I play is actually in um just over the border from my house in Massachusetts in the Berkshires. Um it's just like this kind of part of Western Mass, this little mountainous part of Western Mass. Um, so there's a couple of clubs I play out there. I'm playing at um Saturday, I'm playing at a place called Taconic Golf Club, which is usually ranked one of the top collegiate courses in the country every year. Um so it's a it'll be a pretty night get there maybe once a year. So there'll be a nice, a nice, uh, a nice walk around that place. That that was one of Gil Hans's early sort of redesigns, kind of before taking all the trees out was in vogue. He took a ton of trees out there and it turned a bunch of heads in in that neck of the woods. And he's still taking trees out there, and he could still take more out. But um it's a pretty it's a it'll be a pretty fun walk on Saturday. So most of my golf is played out in the Berkshires these days. Uh I don't get out to Long Island much anymore. I haven't been to Beth Page in a couple of years, didn't go to the Ryder Cup. Um, so yeah. Just uh it's just a lot easier to play a three and a half hour run of golf than it is to be in New York City and play.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean it's really an all it's a really an all-day affair no matter where you play in New York City, whether it be one of the city courses or if you drive out to Beth Page or you know, so do you play with your brother much anymore? Yeah, yeah. We'll get out um we'll get out once a month, or right now we're actually planning a trip to Scotland um for November, December. Like we'll go in the winter too, because like you'll you could get some bad weather for sure, but like you could pay twenty dollars to play Carnoostie and like who cares? Like that's awesome. Yeah. So and Airbnbs are cheap and flight, yes.

SPEAKER_04

Are you hit so you're hitting off mats in November? Or no?

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, November you'll start with uh depending on the club. Um November 1st this year is when the old course is going to use winter mats. Um I sent a text earlier today to one of my buddies, and I was like, I've played off winter mats before, and it's never the part of the trip that you remember. Like it doesn't ruin the trip. It's just like, okay, so you got this mat, but who cares? You're still there. I mean, a lot of people I think think of Scotland and St. Andrews and all of these places as like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Um, I like to do it on a different budget and make it a multiple lifetime experience and not, you know, not hit all of the 400-pound golf courses that you can in a row and not, you know, I mean, we're staying in cheap places and like not trying to spend a bunch of money, you know. So um, I'm fortunate enough to be able to go multiple times, but like it doesn't have to be once in a lifetime. So to play off of mats, who cares? I mean, I don't at least.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, no, that's awesome. Well, let me ask you this as we start to uh to move towards the end. We we ask all our guests, we want to know the story of your most memorable golf shot. Oh god.

SPEAKER_03

It's always harder for the better golfers. I've had two.

SPEAKER_04

It doesn't have to be a good shot, it's just most memorable. Mine is when we stopped. I got one the old course, and it was the first t-shot of the old course, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_00

I got one. Um this is you once you when you said it didn't have to be a good one. I'm gonna give you this one, and my mom's gonna love that I gave it to you. Um this is at Beth Page. My aunt and my mom were playing with my brother and I on the black course, and it's a really hard golf course. Um, my aunt was a stick and probably still has a stick, but she's 80 now. But she held course records throughout Connecticut growing up, and she was kind of potentially gonna be a professional golfer, but there was no professional golf, really very little for women back then. Anyway, so we took her out. This is probably 20 years ago now. We took her out to Beth Page, and um they could both still play. Uh there's a there's a there's not like front tees, but there's a couple of tees that are really spaced out far apart. And 13 is one of them, where my brother and I were on the back tee and they were on the front tee, and I hit this wicked, wicked, wicked duck hook. And swear to God, it must have come feet away from taking either my mom or my aunt or their caddy out. Um, it was it was that's a memorable, bad shot. I don't know why that shot just came to mind, but when you said it didn't have to be a good one, that seems like a appropriate one to talk about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Might be the one they remember too. Yeah, my mom likes to bring that one up all the time.

SPEAKER_03

That's fantastic. All right, another thing we like to do as we wrap up is a thing we call the quick nine, just a little back and forth uh and some some quick answers here. Uh first one is what is your favorite course that you've ever played?

SPEAKER_04

Um, what course is at the top of the bucket list?

SPEAKER_01

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00

Honestly, Oakmont.

SPEAKER_03

Another easy course out here. Right. What's your favorite course that no one knows about?

SPEAKER_00

Um God, what is my favorite course that no one knows about? I don't know. Can we come back to that? Let's just pause and we'll come back to that. Absolutely. All right, dream foresome. Oh, my brother, my dad just died. I actually got to play the last round with dad a couple years ago, which was awesome. And my grandfather, who's also passed. Uh, my mom's gonna kill me if she listens to this because she's out of that. But uh maybe she would understand. She's not dead yet, so yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Well, yeah, we it's a dream, so let's go with a uh two foursomes and y'all can play as an A some. Your mom and for sure.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, good, love that. Yep. You you've played in a lot of interesting places that have good food. So uh what has been your favorite snack at the turn?

SPEAKER_00

Oh man. Um Piping Rock, which is this place that I caddy at on Long Island, used to have this like cheesy sort of dish of cheese that you would dip sort of ritz crackers in, and as a caddy, you would just crush like as many, like once the members sort of slid out the door, you would just crush as much of this cheesy ritzy thing as you could. That's that was a good moment.

SPEAKER_04

Nice. All right, favorite golf course logo.

SPEAKER_00

Oh man, I don't know. I don't even know. Maybe Stanwich. Everyone loves Stanwich. I mean, it's close. I'm sitting pretty close to Stanwich right now, so that's why it comes to mind.

SPEAKER_03

Nice. Yeah, nice. All right. What has been your favorite Pro Shop purchase?

SPEAKER_00

Uh my Wilson 8802 putter from from the Pro Shop where I grew up. I played years of golf with that thing, and uh that's a f that's a little blade putter that Crenshaw used to win the I mean bunch of bunch of players. This tiny little blade, this famous blade, Crenshaw won um Augusta with it. Um used to putt with it all the time. I played so much golf with that thing. I loved it. It's now still in the bag? Not still in the bag. It is occasionally in the bag. Like if we go if we do go to Scotland in December, there's a good chance that we'll bring um pen clubs for Simmons and Blades, and it'll be in the bag then. Um because we won't bring like the moderns, we'll just bring a tiny little whole thing. I love it.

SPEAKER_04

I love it. All right, what is one thing golfers should do?

SPEAKER_00

And then walk.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. Great answer. All right. Last question. Finish this sentence.

SPEAKER_00

The best part of golf is uh the people that we get to meet. Like I just got to meet you guys. Like, how awesome is this? Like, that's the best part of golf. There are other awesome parts, but it's really the people for me.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Whether it's on a course and you get to hang out with somebody for three or four hours, hopefully not too much longer. Um, if people are playing fast like they should be. Uh or stuff like this, right? Like uh introductions through people because of the commentary that's just of golf. So, Mike, thank you for doing this. Thanks for taking the time to tell some fun stories, man. This has been great. It was great to meet you guys. Thanks a bunch. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, for Mike and Jonathan, this is Robbie. It's been another episode of the Whole Story Podcast.

Head Shot

Jonathan Hill

Co-host
Head Shot

Robby Woodard

Co-host