we have a golf podcast
Post submitted by Glen
Hey gang!
Yes, that title is accurate. Welcome to the first installment of the Golf Loons podcast – blog edition. These days, most people like to listen or watch. But I have to believe there’s still a few old souls out there who like to read, so that’s where this blog comes in. And hopefully a few people do read because it means my years of writing in the past haven’t gone to waste. But I’ll admit…I’m rusty.
This “blog” (how are we still using that term after all these years? It is the worst…) is intended to be a supplement to our podcasts and videos to provide a little more detail into the course we played. Or, to put it another way, to hopefully add the things that I forgot to say in the episode. I am elite at thinking of the right thing to say about 30 minutes after actually saying it would have been a mic drop moment.
But I’m posting this “blog” on the same day that we launched our very first episode, which we’ve creatively titled the “Intro Episode.”
Unlike the soon-to-come course review episodes, our first episode doesn’t talk about a specific course. It just talks about who we are and why we are doing this.
I’d love for you to listen to that episode, but just in case you refuse because you’re the kind of golfer that would dock a two stroke penalty if I cleaned my ball by marking it with the tip of my putter rather than a ball mark, I’ll fill you in.
Mike “Twig” Terwilliger and I both have a passion for this god forbidden sport that:
Causes me inordinate amounts stress
Cuts into valuable family time and
Is the reason I walk dogs and pick up their poop as a side hustle to help pay for it (that’s not made up, that’s true).
That said, golf is ah-mahzing! Being out on the course is so wonderful. Hitting a great shot is even better. And having that competitive outlet when every other sport I love to play causes so much body pain, keeps me alive.
And if there’s one quality I have, it’s competitiveness. I would love for it to be kindness, or being very spiritual or being the smartest guy in the room. Unfortunately, those words won’t be used at my Celebration of Life (or funeral depending on what my kids think of me). But I do love to compete. Against others and against myself.
And, I never would have said this 15 years ago. But these days, I love golf courses, and I love golf holes. Really, I love them all because every one - no matter the course - has its own personality and uniqueness. And every one of them provides a potential memory or story. Of course, that’s also partially up to the golfer. How old do I sound now?
But I mentioned 15 years ago…
In 2011, a high school friend in Duluth emailed me and 10 other buddies about an idea for a golf event at Northland Country Club during the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. It was a one-day Ryder Cup style event (we called it the Kenny Reiter Cup after the UMD Bulldog starting goaltender who won my fair city’s first ever men’s National Championship a month prior). We all had young families so wives and kids were invited to a Friday night BBQ and then the next day belonged to the guys for 36 holes. A nine hole match of alternate shot, a nine hole match of two man scramble, a nine hole best ball with a partner and then a nine hole individual match.
At this time I played golf three times a year, but that event was so fun and so tightly contested, I got hooked. Not to say that I started playing a lot because I didn’t. But the seed was planted and I wanted to win more matches. So I started playing more.
Fast forward about five years, when I met Twig, who I hired when I worked at Minnesota Hockey. We became fast friends and loved golfing together. Twig is amazing to golf with because he’s easy going, doesn’t make you feel bad for sucking and is very generous with his gimmees (more on that later but you golf purists can refrain from your holier-than-thou bottom of the cup nonsense).
About 10 years later, and after having launched a tennis lesson business together, we went on to our next thing. We got together for beers at Scoreboard in Eden Prairie and hatched an idea. Twig has played so many golf courses. He’s got a ridiculous memory of all of them. And he knows how to play them. He also has an insane memory in which he can not only remember every hole and every shot that he took, but also every shot that you took. And it could have been a shot I hit 10 years ago. It’s mostly awesome, but also a little unsettling and makes you think that behind his extreme kindness, Twig might be a serial killer that goes after people that slighted him 30 years ago.
Regardless, we thought, “let’s play courses in Minnesota and Wisconsin, talk about the course and the experience and bring in special guests.” We liked that format, and we justified doing this by saying, “even if nobody listens, we love talking about the golf courses we just played. We love finding hidden gems. So if we are doing this anyway, let’s record it and start having grand delusions about becoming D-level local celebrities.”
Did we think about the financial burden or the time we would have to invest this? That’s a hard no.
So the hope is we intend for this to be entertaining AND educational to sound like your 10th grade biology teacher five minutes before you lay your head down and fall asleep on your desk.
Here’s the format:
We’ll exchange a few pleasantries while trying to avoid the annoying repartee that people don’t care about. Then, it’s onto our three segments.
Twig’s Gimmees – Twig is going to give you some bite sized nuggets of wisdom for each hole on the course. He’s done this for me, and it actually worked. You’re welcome.
The Range – This is where we cover anything and everything about the course that day. What did it feel like for five hours? What are the best holes? Really, anything we feel you need to know. It’ll be a range of topics if you will.
Emergency 9 – This is our guest segment where we bring in people we know or respect. Not necessarily both. But we feel they have interesting stories and have seen success in their lives. Forgive us if there’s a hockey slant to a lot of them, but that’s a lot of who we know at this point. We will try to branch out, but in the words of Garth Algar, “we fear change.”
I have to say, I’m enthused about this. But I’ll also be honest because launching a podcast is not as easy as people make it sound. And I’m guessing a lot of that is due to our own technological ineptitude. But we are trusting the process. And at the end of the day, we are having fun.
Oh, and I’m also trying to get into the habit of always shouting out our sponsors. It’s what you do when you start your own thing and people are generous enough to give you money to be a part of it. So Yellowbird Coffee (in Minneapolis AND St. Paul) and Reviews Recon, THANK YOU for your support before we even launched an episode. I hope the fact that you’re at the bottom of this blog doesn’t make you think we don’t love you more than words can say. We do!
Can’t wait to get this going y’all. We hope you enjoy the cart ride with us. There’s room for everybody!