Why Australian Golf Hits Different

A country that loves a drink almost never drinks on the golf course. That's not temperance — that's the whole story.

In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co‑host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. “The Professor”) sit down with Scott Warren (New South Wales Golf Club member and co-host of the Australian Golf Passport podcast) to explore what Americans get right and badly wrong about Australian golf — and why the difference comes down to a single word: competition.

The conversation dives into:

• Golf as a sport, not a pastime: comps 5-6 days a week, markers, no gimmes, and why nobody's drinking on the course
• Mixed-gender golf that works at the club level — and Scott's critique of the co-ed Australian Open
• Stableford done properly, technology, and the case for a rollback so a ball bounces again
• What Australian golf actually costs, from Barnbougle to top-tier club fees, vs. the US
• The fight to save civic golf in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (North Adelaide, Moore Park)
• Under-credited architects Alex Russell and Mike Clayton, and Greg Norman's cultural weight
• Junior golf, the eroded pathway to the pro ranks, and the next five years of the Australian Open and LIV Adelaide
• A Bluey tangent worth staying for: Bandit, and the Custard connection

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🇦🇺 Australian Golf Passport podcast — https://australiangolfpassport.com/
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Chapters

00:00 Introduction: coffee, eating on golf trips, and why men host podcasts

08:22 Partner break: Titleist, New Club fittings, and finally putting the seven wood in the bag

10:02 Scott Warren joins: what Americans actually get right about Australian golf

11:48 The depth question: the 35-40 courses we romanticize vs. the ~450 that exist

13:41 Golf is a sport, not a pastime: why Australians don't drink on the course

16:43 A day at the club: comps 5-6 days a week, markers, no gimmes

19:59 Mixed-gender golf: why it works at the club and why the co-ed Australian Open didn't

28:28 Scale, technology and the case for a rollback; a persimmon what-if

29:38 Stableford done right — and Scott's issue with the American version

34:20 Playing from the wrong fairway: Tiger at Firestone, Greg Norman over the oak

38:20 Norman's cultural weight; Aaron Baddeley and the ones who nearly made it

44:15 Junior golf, pennant, and the pathway to the pro ranks that's eroded

53:36 The next five years of Australian pro golf: LIV Adelaide, the Open, the money

1:01:28 Civic golf under fire: North Adelaide, Moore Park, and who these fights really hit

1:07:31 What an Australian club membership actually costs vs. the US

1:15:39 Bluey, Bandit, and the Custard connection

1:19:09 Getting in: waitlists, proposers, and the quiet power of a members' list

1:23:24 The origin of the Australian Golf Passport, and golf media that won't just say everything's great

1:33:17 Under-credited architects: Alex Russell and Mike Clayton vs. the McKenzie romance

1:39:25 Barnbougle, King Island and Seven Mile: destination golf that's still affordable

1:43:01 Spiders, snakes, and selling the family on Australia

What is The Bag Drop?

The Bag Drop features weekly stories from the culture, community and characters shaping golf today. Produced by NewClub Golf Society, each episode blends authenticity and expert insights for passionate golfers at all levels. Special guests from clubs, courses and every corner of the changing landscape join us for thoughtful, in‑depth discussions on all things golf.

What is NewClub?

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the premier private golf society in the United States. It blends the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, as well as signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is revolutionizing golf membership, making the game more meaningful for those who love it.

Creators and Guests

Host

Matt Considine

Founder of NewClub and our resident feel player. Matt’s junior golf career led him to the University of Akron where he met our co-host. During his junior year, Matt Studied abroad in Ireland and discovered golf societies. Subsequent trips to Scotland fed his passion for the history, ideals, and culture of accessible, affordable, and sustainable golf, a concept he would later bring to the U.S. with NewClub. Known for his interviewing style, quick wit, and compelling storytelling, Matt brings thoughtful, reflective conversations to The Bag Drop. His professional journey before NewClub included multiple leadership positions in growth-stage startups, where he managed teams responsible for more than $250 million in revenue. Matt actively gives back to the game as a Board Member of the First Tee of Akron and past chair of the Evans Scholar Foundation. Proudly based in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, Matt finds inspiration in family life with his wife, their three children, and their golf dog, Gypsy.

Host

The Professor

NewClub's Chief Ambassador and every golf sicko's favorite educator. Kevin is a thoughtful and deeply curious host. His studied, constructivist approach adds intellectual enrichment and balance to the show. As a professor of Math Education at the University of Georgia, Kevin's background in applied mathematics and cognitive psychology uniquely informs his insights on golf strategy and performance. Originally from Ohio, Kevin was a Division I collegiate golfer at the University of Akron, where his passion for understanding mathematical thinking began. After earning his doctorate from Arizona State University, he combined his analytical expertise with his love for golf by co-founding Golf Blueprint, an organization aimed at helping golfers optimize their games through data-driven strategies. Kevin enjoys balancing deep philosophical discussions with simple pleasures, such as indulging his sweet tooth, cheering on college football, and spending relaxed evenings with his friends, his wife, and their beloved dog, Nole.

What is The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf?

Weekly stories from the communities and characters shaping the game. The Bag Drop blends thoughtful, honest perspectives of Matt Considine (Founder of NewClub) and Dr. Kevin Moore ("The Professor") with expert insights for passionate golfers at every level. Produced by NewClub and supported by our members, each episode welcomes guests from clubs, courses, and the lesser-known corners of the golf world for thoughtful discussions on all things golf and life.

Founded in 2017, NewClub is the first of its kind golf society in the United States; blending the community and access of a private club with the variety and affordability more typical of public golf. Members enjoy thousands of reserved tee times, competitions, and events at exceptional partner courses across our local chapters, along with signature trips and exclusive perks. NewClub is on a mission to revolutionize golf membership, making the game more meaningful for everyone who loves it.

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Matt Considine (00:04.846)
Welcome to the Bag Drop Untold Stories in Golf. I'm your host, Matt Considine here with our co-host, the Professor. Professor, good morning to you, sir. How are you?

The Professor (00:14.158)
I'm little tired. This is a little bit earlier than we normally record and you know, the fact of who our guest is, all I'm longing for is excellent, wonderful coffee. And while we do have some good coffee in the United States, we have nothing like what they have in his home country.

Matt Considine (00:30.928)
Well, he'll he'll need it because I whatever ungodly hour we're asking him to jump on a podcast with us is kind. we're talking Australia again. For for some reason the twenty twenty six season of the backdrop has has expanded our our listener base. We have friends in Australia who I don't know if they're listening. I think they're more critiquing, they're more criticizing what what these two idiot Americans know about Australian golf, but excited, very excited for our guest today. Scott Warren coming on.

great booking, Professor. Great booking. This is gonna be fun.

The Professor (01:03.554)
Yeah, I met Scott. I think it's been, gosh, maybe three years at this point. my wife Claire and I happened to go to Australia and New Zealand for about a month and got to spend some time in in lovely Sydney. Scott was, of course, a consummate golf host, but also I gotta give him a shout out, a lovely restaurant recomm recommendation that he gave. He gave us several spots that we hit up the whole trip. He has an impeccable golf taste, but his restaurant taste might actually outkick his golf taste.

Matt Considine (01:33.177)
That's actually a great golf friend hack. Like I I get requests all the time. and it's very rare that I surprise someone with like a get a golf recommendation. You know, you can give them some insights, but nobody, you know, when you're going on a golf trip, nobody talk you gotta eat, right? You gotta you gotta eat. So so that's that's that's a sneaky one. I just pulled that off for a friend of mine in Chicago, where they were coming to Ohio and I gave three restaurants three nights in a row. That that's

This is a smart man that's coming on the show, very smart man that's coming on the show.

The Professor (02:05.847)
How do you how do you like to eat when you're on a golf trip? You know, are you, you know, going all out, just scarfing food? Are you quick? What what's your preferred style?

Matt Considine (02:15.851)
Really good question. I my most nights, I mean, it's gonna be about the golf, right? So you you're you're gonna I'm I'm still in the phase where quantity is good. You know, thirty-six whole days are fine. I probably will will slow that down. Their off days are are nice as well, but when it comes to food, it it's mostly about sustenance and just getting, you know, good, I don't want to say healthy, but I love an atmosphere, but it doesn't need to be fancy, right? I like one kind of top notch meal.

out of let's say every three, four days. If it's a a a ten day or a week long one, maybe that's two, two really kind of five star meals or four star meals. And then the rest I would just like a good vibe, a nice beer and and some heartiness because you're you're obviously burning the calories. What about you? You you you you probably go more, don't you? You you like

The Professor (03:07.041)
I mean I y I I mean I used to be such a terrible eater. but as I get older, I gotta say the body does not respond to food like it used to. So I'm definitely become and I've learned this on the trips to Scotland, particularly where you're playing thirty six holes a day, kind of staying lean and clean as much as possible. So certainly making sure you're getting calories, getting your proper protein, that stuff. But I can't do the, you know, burgers and fries and desserts and all that like I love to do, and then wake up the next morning and go for thirty six holes feeling good. I can't

I can't do that anymore. So I like to stay clean now. But I think to your point, I love, you know, say it's a five to seven day golf trip. You gotta have one meal in there that's elevated, right? Where everybody's just sitting together at a really good restaurant because food, food is binding. Food brings you together. And that experience having that one elevated meal, I think is a great way, you know, not necessarily the last night of the trip, but maybe second to the

Matt Considine (03:59.37)
Breaking bread.

The Professor (04:01.941)
Last night of the trip, right? Were you just reminiscing, telling stories, kidding each other about who's won the matches. Yeah, that's that's the way to do it.

Matt Considine (04:07.593)
and a friend of ours, listener to this show, Bill Considine I would say, you know, there's gonna be slippage. You're you're gonna have slippage. Don't don't look at the bill too too too much. You're gonna have slippage. And I when I think about that, actually, restaurants and the courses themselves, I that's actually the preference for my golf trips, is that I kinda want that maybe that one elevated, that two elevated, real I'll I'll splurge, I'll I'll throw out

The Professor (04:18.049)
This guy.

Matt Considine (04:36.188)
you know, a large ticket item for those, but really I just want the heart of local the best golf in the in that region, that area. And the cool part about Scott, because I've listened to him a few times on his show, the Australian Golf Passport with his host, it's Matthew Mollica, the great dudes. They they know their stuff is they they spread that around, you know, you're not just hearing about the top twenty five or top fifty golf courses in an area, you're hearing about the

the the local good stuff too, stuff not to miss. I kind of feel the same way about pubs or restaurants as well. You know, it's it's variety is a spice of life

The Professor (05:14.445)
That's right.

Matt Considine (05:15.849)
what pref do you get any teacher teachings for us today, Professor, before we dive in?

The Professor (05:21.333)
I got one I've been listening to listening to reading some stuff on social or just attraction and what drives and I think on a previous podcast I shared, you know, pheromones being a huge thing and that your nose picks up the pheromones of, you know, people around you and that that drives attraction. But I got a little different lane on this one. Would you say you have a strong social circle? you know, friend circle, maybe couple circle with y you and Becca or you yourself?

Matt Considine (05:47.708)
Prohibitively so. My my wife tells me I need less friends. I I I I s I surround myself with t many insecurities have led up to me having have to have constant, constant human connection with as many people as possible.

The Professor (05:50.881)
He did last.

The Professor (06:01.337)
well having a strong social circle is actually an indicator to having a healthy relationship, especially one that lasts the the length of time. And there's two pri there's two reasons. There's several reasons for that. I'll share two of them. the quick reason is just double dating and going on couples dates is actually really healthy for your relationship with your partner.

Scott Warren (06:12.272)
you

The Professor (06:24.705)
the reason for that is, you know, the people are always like, well, you need your social circle so you can vent about your your significant other net. And actually that stuff's not that important and often it can can degrade your relationship. What's key about double dating or going on couples dates, you know, however many couples that are there, that's a signaling that they support your relationship. If people are willing to show up, you know, another couple to have dinner with you and spend three hours, that's just a signal in and of itself that, hey, you two are good together and we like being around you. So going

More couple states, if you are with a partner, and that's a a way to just yeah, you make sure you have strength in your relationship. The other aspect research has shown is actually this is with respect to heterosexual relationships, and this is well documented, you know, men have difficulty having intimate relationships with other men. And so what they end up doing is they end up relying, they end up hosting podcasts so they can talk. That's right.

Matt Considine (07:02.854)
Nice.

Matt Considine (07:20.346)
Hosting podcasts with their friends. Yeah. So they have an excuse to talk. I I know. I know this.

The Professor (07:24.205)
so they end up relying too much on their partner for s for emotional and intimacy needs. and this is actually why by by the numbers, and this goes against, you know, most movies you'll ever watch, men are more eager. They're more eager to get into a relationship, more likely to say, I love you first, more likely to take want to take things to the next level. And then women are more likely to break off a relationship and men being hung up on the X.

So this goes back having a strong so social circle, especially with men, is critical because that helps offload some of your emotional intimacy needs to your fellow friends. Again, those friends could be male or female. and then that takes a little bit of that burden off to your partner, which is in essence very healthy for the long term relationship that's there because you don't want your partner to be the only person you're going through for your emotional and intimacy needs. So yeah, develop a strong social circle.

Matt Considine (08:22.905)
off your your wife. Go make some friends, right? Pl play play some play some golf. Host a podcast. That's so true, man. It's like why do you my wife said this? She's like, golf is just dudes looking for an excuse to go take a walk together and and talk. And it's it's gosh, it's so freaking true for me at least. all right, let's get to it. I want to get to our guests before we do. Thanks to our friends at Titleist for supporting our podcast.

The Professor (08:25.921)
That's right. That's right. Hold host the podcast.

Matt Considine (08:52.964)
many years of their support for this podcast. Also with New Club Golf Society. If you're a member of New Club, we got some brand new fittings on the books for Chicago, Atlanta, and all new Northeast Ohio. we're gonna have a fitting this fall. you can go out and check in with their certified fitters in the GTS Metalwoods. Professor, the Seven Wood is coming out. I got my Monday night league tonight.

I have yet to put, I don't know if it was maybe this is those those masculine things, but I I was raised to think like men hit two irons. We don't carry seven woods. We don't carry nine woods, but the the seven wood fitting was very eye-opening. I I loved what I saw, but something about it I wasn't putting in the bag. It's time. It's going in the bag today. So I can't wait to get my GTS metal woods dialed in.

The Professor (09:32.438)
It's

The Professor (09:39.725)
It's about time.

Matt Considine (09:45.705)
for the rest of the season here. You can too by going over to Titleist.com and and going to their fitting, get a f certified fitter near you. Professor, let's get on the show.

Matt Considine (10:02.434)
Scotty Warren, welcome to The Bag Drop

Scott Warren (10:06.096)
Thanks for having me, great to be here.

Matt Considine (10:08.692)
It's good to to see you. I've heard your voice a number of times. We share a few different friends. I know you've hosted this gentleman, the professor, on your side of the pond. Tron Carter, friend and supporter of this show, also a friend of yours. But we we've talked about Australia probably too many times on this podcast, without really knowing, you know, what's up. And so I feel like you're the guy that we bring on the show to tell us what's up. so thanks for being here.

Scott Warren (10:37.36)
No pressure. I'll do my best.

Matt Considine (10:40.705)
w one of those episodes was early this year we had a friend of the program, another professor, intelligent dude, Josh Ralston's that that was over your way and and just talked about his trip. He lives in Edinburgh, he's a member of North Berwick, he grew up in California. So he he knows golf well and knows Mackenzie decently well. And obviously there's all those romantic tales. But but I feel like there's this there's this sense, especially for so many of us that

you intend to travel, but maybe we're in the point in life where we're not getting to the places to actually boots on the ground, see it, feel it. So we kind of like fall in love with the romantic version. So I'm just I'm just curious when when you hear Americans like us talk about Australian golf, talk about your golf culture, what do we actually get right? Because I know we think we're right all the time and I know we're not, but what do we actually get right?

And and then we'll get to what do we miss and what's kinda the the fake exotic version of of our conversation.

Scott Warren (11:48.376)
I think Americans get a lot right about what they come and see and I think that they are very good at seeing the good in Australian golf because I think there's this sort of innocence, we might be losing that a little bit, but there's some innocence in Australian golf, there's some bare bones basic sportiness to Australian golf. I don't think it's encumbered by a lot of the things that weigh down golf in other parts of the world. I think that that's kind of starting to change a little bit. Maybe we'll get there in this

discussion, I do think Americans probably give Australia more credit that it deserves for depth. I think when Americans wax poetic about Australian golf, they're describing maybe 35 to 40 courses in our country. Now granted we only probably have about 450, but yeah Australian golf, I I grew up out you know an hour and a half outside of Sydney playing at a country course, you know.

Rural, regional Australian golf is probably pretty similar to rural, regional American or British golf. The roots of the game are pretty, group of locals stake out some corridors, build some greens, form a club. It's pretty true here. But I mean, our top end might not be as deep as the top ends elsewhere, but our top end, we're pretty proud that it punches pretty world-class, our top five or 10 courses.

Matt Considine (13:14.854)
I'm huge on soaking up culture. So I'm gonna ask you this one as a follow up. Is there one golf habit? Cause you've traveled yourself a good bit, Scott, and and is is there something that you do or your friends do or it th something you grew up with that's just like a golf habit that you you thought everywhere did and then you go travel and you go, Wow, that's that's uniquely us. Is there something that comes to mind?

Scott Warren (13:41.998)
Yeah, you know what? And this is ironic because Australians love a drink. Like, love a drink. We do not drink on the golf course.

Golf is a sport in Australia. It is a competitive exercise. You're playing in a competition at your club or you're playing a match against your mates. Sometimes both. You'll be in the daily comp for your club and then your group will play a NASA hour or whatever. It's highly competitive and it's a sport. And so, I probably spent most of my 20s and half my 30s with a significant drinking problem. I probably drank on the golf course twice in that time. It's just not...

The Professor (13:52.013)
Hm.

The Professor (14:20.983)
Well.

Scott Warren (14:21.702)
done. And yeah, until I went overseas in my mid-20s, I lived in London for a bit, I travelled in the US and played golf and I realised that that's not normal. And even just recently we had a guest on our pod from New Zealand and he was saying that New Zealand is much more of the golf is a pastime, kind of American way of doing it. But yeah, it does shock Australians I think when they go overseas and you know I went to London and guys are having

having a vodka and tonic with their bacon roll before an 8 o'clock tea time. It's different.

Matt Considine (14:58.829)
It's so funny because I I I see that correlation if there's a chart, like the more competitive things get, the less alcohol is consumed. I'm actually reading about some old, old, old clubs that that was the case. As soon as guys got pretty proficient at it, they started to pay attention to the match a little bit more and they started to kind of say, maybe maybe those, you know, couple nips before I teed off aren't helping me here with my balance. that's

That's interesting, interesting dynamic.

The Professor (15:29.951)
Yeah, Scott, do you know the history of that? Well you know, why drinking maybe isn't an integral part of this golf experience? Is it is be is it because of the competitive background and wanting to be, you know, able to perform or is there something else there relative just to Australian culture more in general?

Scott Warren (15:45.422)
No, I think it is just down to the sportiness. I think Australians are sort of legendarily competitive and we take things seriously when we're competing in sport. We tend to punch above our weight in Olympics and things like that. Just made the top 32 of the football World Cup even though football is probably the fourth most popular sporting code in Australia.

The Professor (15:51.947)
Yeah, very much.

Scott Warren (16:11.586)
Yeah, I think it just probably boils down to, you know, if we're playing sport, we're competing, we want to win.

Matt Considine (16:17.828)
Yeah, apologies about that group D defeat for you guys this year. we weren't expecting to be that good. A little two nil victory against you, but I'm sure it went over smoothly throughout the land.

Scott Warren (16:28.986)
But mean, you guys needed something to be stoked about. 250th birthday present from us to you.

Matt Considine (16:35.865)
Cheers. It w it's not a statue of liberty, but we'll take we'll take the group the progress.

The Professor (16:36.589)
Thanks to thank you.

The Professor (16:43.969)
So, Scott, I want to drive dive a little bit deeper into the competitive aspect of Australian golf. You know, I'm I'm definitely o overly familiar with the American game. I'm slightly familiar with the UK Scotland game. I'm rather ignorant to the Australian game beyond a couple of conversations we've had. But take us through the typical daily play. If you're going out to New South Wales, right? You talked you brought up daily competitions. Are you always playing a match, even if there's not a daily comp and go competition going on?

Scott Warren (16:48.464)
Mm-hmm.

The Professor (17:11.245)
You know, paint us a picture of just general play and the way sportiness shows up in the different ways you play golf.

Scott Warren (17:17.55)
Yeah, so Australia, it's pretty typical from club to club. The one thing I learnt when I lived in the UK was that a lot of clubs were more competitive and then the higher end clubs tended to be a bit more social and you just played matches and it was a bit of a laugh. Australia is very kind of blanket. Clubs will have five or six days a week where there's a competition on. We're open now in terms of Saturdays.

men and women together, Wednesdays men and women together. know, Wednesday and Saturday were always traditionally the men's days at the club. And I think one of the great things is kind of we have this egalitarian way in Australia and really with a couple of holdouts it's now you're playing any day of the week, men and women, juniors, everyone's out in the competitions together. Tees are all rated for either gender so you play whichever tees you want.

And there'll be a competition as I say 5 or 6 days a week tends to be a stable for competition There'll be a medal event or a stroke event sort of on a Saturday once a month And so if you're going out and playing you've got the option to put a card in We're a bit different to the US in that you don't put social cards in in Australia You gotta be playing in a competition with a marker Playing all the rules, hitting it out of divots, know, no breakfast balls, no mulligans, no gimmies, all that kind of stuff So it is, you know, it's

it kind of makes me laugh when I often see on Reddit Americans talking about the way they play golf because it's sort of it's a sport that looks a lot like golf but for us it's like the rules are the rules and we play by them and you sort of you're paying like a depending on the club between five and ten dollar competition fee and you might win 50 bucks in Pro Shop credit or you might win you know might win a golf ball

kind of thing if you finish top 20. so yeah, is, know, club by club, can vary then what the side bed is. At my club at New South Wales, it's very, very common that, you know, you'll throw the balls up on the first tee and you'll play.

Scott Warren (19:19.984)
We'll tend to play what we call for the centre. We've got a compulsory stop at half way. So you'll have something to win at half way, you'll have drinks, you'll finish the round and have some more drinks and whatever the food and beverage charge is, you'll play for that. Each club has its own way of doing it, but it's definitely founded on competing and wanting to win. And it's like that, they talk about that.

PGA Tour of Flour would rather miss a putt for a hundred grand prize money than miss a putt and have to give his buddy a hundred. That's the worst thing in the world is having to put your hand in your pocket.

The Professor (19:54.913)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (19:59.548)
I I wanna I wanna come back to the you talked about mixed gender, golf, men and women playing together, competing together. I this is something I've paid attention to when I've traveled and and frankly I think US is just abysmal at it. And and it's interesting getting to that from the the the point of competition. Like a a lot of our, you know, pastime type attitude towards it, I think leads to this this like

Like because the competition doesn't always feel central, I I it might be harder to bridge that gap. And then it becomes like social and drinking, and then people kind of feel like, men and women I I don't I I don't know what that says about us, but what I want to come back to with you and I'll put you I'll get there, put you on the hot seat. I remember listening to your take on the mixed gender Australian Open that they had for what, three, four or five years, and you you were very critical of it.

Scott Warren (20:51.184)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (20:56.071)
So I w I'm gonna ask like why critical of of that on the professional level, but then tell me how it's different at at the club level and why sounds like it works really well at the club level. give give me give me a sense there what the difference is.

Scott Warren (21:11.182)
Yeah, so I think that at the professional level with the co-ed Australian Open, my issue was twofold. And so I'd say predominantly in the four or five years before COVID when there were separate Australian Opens for men and for women, the women had the premier event. That was the better Australian Open. And they were sort of relegated to...

playing second fiddle to the men. The final group of women finished before the final group of men. And it was baked in and sort of diminished, I think, in that way. The other issue, I think, is in terms of it coincided with the moving the event back to the sand belt in Melbourne. And...

The Professor (21:41.889)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (21:55.876)
The Elite, I always struggle with this because I think some women sometimes take offence when you say that the women's game is more relatable and when I say that it's a deep compliment because it's relatable in sense that they drive it, like I'm off, you know, 304 they drive it as far as I drive it, they apex it as high as I apex it, they spin it the same spin rates and what not they just hit great golf shots all the time and I don't. So I'm not saying that the quality is relatable but

The Professor (22:22.238)
Over and over and over.

Scott Warren (22:25.866)
the scale of their game is relatable. But then when you put them and elite male professionals on the same golf course on the same day...

I actually just think it shines a light into how much technology has got out of hand and allowed the great male players to absolutely manipulate great golf courses and so when you look at it, okay we need to get a field of women professionals around the same golf course

because their ball's coming in shallow with less spin on it into a hard sand belt green, okay, we can't tuck those pins in all these great positions on these greens. We can't set the golf course up in a way that brings a Royal Melbourne or a Kingston Heath to life because it needs to remain playable for this other half of the field. And I actually think if they had, you know, we saw it at Coyonga in Melbourne, in Adelaide, sorry, this year, that the women's only...

Australian Open was a great event because they were able to tailor an event to the style of golf that the field played. I think when it's men and women, it just ends up between release patterns. you saw when that event was being held at Kingston Heath, Hannah Green and Cameron Smith were both walking into the press room absolutely filthy. Like nobody was happy about it. And so I think that that was the issue with the Australian Open being played that way. I think in terms of

of clubland, you know, I actually just think we're all golfers. you know, I don't really, and again, Australia's kind of got this reputation of, you know, it's a bit of a throwback society or a kind of, you know, unpolished gem of a culture and that we're a bit rough around the edges and whatnot. I actually think in my travels, I think Australian men

Scott Warren (24:14.148)
you know, with some exceptions that you encounter from time to time. Just like, hell yeah, let's throw the balls up, let's play golf, like, and you know, it's not that thing of, I can't tell the jokes I want to tell because there's women around. Like that's, that's not, I guess, the way our culture has evolved. And I love that.

It also, you know, I've got a mate Lee Hunt who's a club professional in Sydney, plays off plus four or plus five and rolled up to New South Wales, he's a member out there, rolled up to New South Wales last year and he was in a group with three women and so he said, alright, I'll play the front teams with you guys.

He went out and shot 60 and he had the time of his life. Played different set of Ts. I think it allows you to just be flexible about your golf. It doesn't have to be, I'm playing off the tips and I'm a man so I'm back here. I think when you let go of a lot of the things that hold you back, golf can be a lot of different things that you maybe haven't experienced before. I think that's one of great things about our game over here is that we just lean into whoever's there, that's our group, let's go have fun.

Matt Considine (25:20.555)
I'm I'm so fascinated with it because I I again I just feel it's something that we've struggled with, Professor, for a long time in the US of of you just don't see that in if four balls going out, men and women. Now th there's a little bit more what should I say? Like I guess couples golf that's kinda caught on, but like it I I I I think what I'm hearing is is because of the such a sporting culture, right? That it is the sport. It doesn't mean you have to be

good at the sport, but when you treat it like the sport, it r it truly, truly doesn't matter. Like w w what what tee you're playing, what what what what what what match is on, what stable foot is on, what game is on, and you just go go have it. And I just don't think we we always treat every group it's almost like we we try to hide from the sport sometimes to be more under the guise of inclusivity, if you know what I'm I mean. Of like, we're not gonna focus on the score today because

we we want everyone to have fun. Who said you can't have fun without knowing what what stable foot score you shot or what match, you know, how the match ended? Like it th th I I wish more of our culture would not shy away from that because I I think it would lead and I've had, you know, female members of our Golf Society New Club tell me this directly of just like, I I don't think people want to play me in match. Like I I just want to play a match. I think my handicap's legit. Like

K w w I know we're on different tees. C can we please just play a match? And I and and I think a a lot of women might be quietly thinking that out there that are golfers that want to play golf just like the rest of

The Professor (26:57.483)
Yeah, Scott, I think you said that perfectly. We're all just golfers. at the end of the day, for me, that's all that matters. You know, well, how do how does someone carry themselves on the golf course, you know, and play their game is I think all that matters. And I wanted to echo your point too about the the scale of the game. at the pro level, that was a great point you made relative to Australian Open and the different course setups, because I got I was fortunate enough to attend the ANWA at Augusta National. And it was just striking how

Scott Warren (27:21.689)
Mm-hmm.

The Professor (27:26.387)
enjoyable of a watch it was watching Augusta National being played at a proper scale, a form of the game in terms of the peak, you know, the trajectories, the distance coming in that actually matched with the architecture that was there. And it enabled you as a viewer to respect their game even that much more because of the shots they had to execute. Whereas the program, I think thirteen's a perfect example, reaching that hole in two, now they've moved back to T's and if it's colder weather, yes. But

Overall, especially until before they moved back to the most recent T one, reaching in two was not a feat. It was not a sense of accomplishment as a fan watching a player reach two. It's like, if they didn't reach it in two, they were giving up a half shot to a shot to the field. But then in the ANWA watching that whole play, like every time someone reached into you, like, wow, what a just what proper golf that was played to be able to do that. so yeah, more more just we're all just golfers and then

Yeah, that's bro that's roll back to technology so that that shines a little bit more.

Matt Considine (28:28.775)
Amen. I mean to challenge that take real quick. If we were all playing what year do we want to go with it's a persimmon and baladas? C can you see a the the mixed gender concept of the Australian open work and well, Scott?

Scott Warren (28:35.408)
for.

Scott Warren (28:42.736)
I mean I only played about a year of persimmon golf. I'm an 83 baby. I played a year or two of persimmon golf as a 12 year old before I got a big bertha driver. So I wouldn't profess to know those eras well enough. But I mean I know that it would separate the greats. And I think anytime you can separate great players more, think that's where the magic happens. I think the irony is

with Persimmon and Vallada maybe Tiger Woods wins 25 majors. I think it would be interesting to watch, because obviously the women's game in the Persimmon era as well, it hadn't evolved to the point that it was a developed professional sport the way that women's professional golf is now. I mean, magic to watch Jessica Corder, rip driver with Persimmon. think that would be incredible.

The Professor (29:38.749)
yeah. We c one can dream, I guess. Scott, you brought up Stableford. Has Stableford always been the primary form of competitive golf in your knowledge within Australia? And where does that history come from?

Scott Warren (29:55.086)
Yeah it has and I think it probably comes down to busy fields, like full fields. One of the things I didn't really get to before, I was talking about five days a week of competition. It's probably pretty common in a lot of clubs that at least three or four days a week you're to have fields of 200 plus.

You know, it's not uncommon for an Australian golf club to do mid-40,000 rounds a year. Up in Queensland where they have some warm-up year round, like 70,000-80,000 rounds a year. busy fields. I guess you want to eliminate someone tapping in for a crowd-pleasing 12. So, Stableford really became... And this is like pure Stableford, right? Because it frustrates me that Americans play this...

weird version of golf that they call stable foot and they confuse people where like you make eagle you get nine points and you make double and you get minus four and it's all very like stable foot is essentially just a way of saying if you make a net double bogey or worse you get no points you know net bogey is a point net pars two points net birdie is three points net eagle is four points like it's very linear it's very linear and it actually matches up to a stroke score pretty well

Matt Considine (31:02.895)
To you don't you

The Professor (31:07.565)
That's

Matt Considine (31:08.569)
Are are you not in favor of any negative, like something that takes points away?

Scott Warren (31:13.584)
Well, if you play, like, let's play Wolf. Wolf's one of my favourite things to do. Let's get funky with different matches amongst your group, but I mean, I guess when you're trying to score 200 amateurs, it's essentially, because stable foot is basically what, you know, when you submit a score over there and it does the equitable stroke control, stable foot is basically just a in the moment, equitable stroke control.

The Professor (31:36.61)
Yes. You're you scott you just you're speaking my language. I've I need to move to Australia. I've been so frustrated for a number of years where people are like, okay, play Stableford. It's different. Like, I'm like, no, it's just maxing your score, is all it's doing. It actually ends up the exact same outcome as regular stroke play if you just said max double bogey net, right? Like I'm like, it's a c like you said, it's a linear model. Now that there is a stableford if we want to benefit birdies and eagles and we want to add some weight to them. That is where you get the like, okay, maybe a parse too.

Scott Warren (31:56.815)
Yeah.

The Professor (32:06.241)
Birdies four, Eagles whatever you want, but yeah, you're you're sp you're speaking my math language.

Matt Considine (32:09.483)
And and and I'm I'm gonna make sure but but Scott, you're are you anti that? Do you think that's a bastardization of the of the true stableford format to like say, Yeah, 'cause I played in one that like if you got a hole in one, it was just a hole in one, it was fifty points.

Scott Warren (32:26.478)
Yeah, I'm here for it. Just don't call it stablefit because it's not. Do you know what mean? Is that how like two nations divided by a common language kind of thing? Just don't call it stablefit.

Matt Considine (32:29.923)
I'm for that. I like that.

The Professor (32:36.973)
Ha ha.

Matt Considine (32:37.315)
Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's like it's like as as soon as you gave us the green light to we can change us the scoring system. Well, man, that's that's reward the the Eagles. That's reward the and and it got a little out of hand now now that I think about the stuff, even that I've put together, we kinda 'cause if if you do that you think it's gonna incent aggressive play, but that's given the field too much credit, a bunch of

You know, if your average handicapped eighteen in the field or something, I don't think aggressive or non-aggressive plays is really gonna be skewed by the amount of points you're given for for an Eagle. But but the max score really is the principle I'm hearing that that's true stableford, if you will.

Scott Warren (33:24.098)
I mean, think the PGA Tour should go further than they have, in fact, because I'm... I would love... there's no bigger Jordan Spieth fan than me. I would love to see the second coming of Spieth. I think the only way we're going to achieve that is maybe tournaments whereby par from the wrong fairway is worth eight points. Like, zero pars. Chip-in pars, 12 points. Like, let's make Jordan Spieth great again.

Matt Considine (33:42.187)
Matt Considine (33:47.499)
T t technology's no hurdle anymore. We got shot link, we know where you're at, you know. If you're in a different zip code, you you just upped your your score potential.

Scott Warren (33:51.524)
That's it. That's it.

The Professor (33:57.006)
Imagine the strategy that would play out here, right? You're you're gate you're scheming your round, you're like, Wow, on the third hole, I could play down the fifth fairway and I could get some extra points. I I think I can execute that shot. That's let's try it. And the penalty would be severe, right? If you don't hit in that other fairway and you're just in the rough, well, no bonus points for you. Good luck. It's like NBA Jam style, but we're switching the we're turning it to golf.

Scott Warren (34:10.5)
Yeah.

Scott Warren (34:19.322)
Yeah.

Matt Considine (34:20.362)
You know, it playing from other fairways. There's two people that that come to mind. Scott, the professor and I are both from Northeast Ohio, and I grew up going to the old World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club on the south course. And it's a real up and back type of layout. the land gets doesn't get enough credit because everyone sees that aerial of, you know, bowling lanes and think it's pretty straightforward. But there's a lot of land movement. There's two people from my childhood that come to mind as the ultimate.

Scott Warren (34:36.538)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (34:50.441)
From another fairway player, you know, over a hundred and twenty-year oak tree. And and one of them is Tiger Woods. You know, even the years that he he won eight times there, so he'd be splitting those bowling alleys some years and just hitting every fairway and making a bunch of putts. but then there's years he won where he hit it everywhere. And I'd be the little kid fighting crowds to watch him. But there's another guy in Australian, Greg Norman, was extraordinarily good at, and those are some of my earliest memories of watching Greg Norman. I go,

The Professor (35:08.384)
Everywhere.

Matt Considine (35:19.887)
I I remember turning to my dad and saying, Dad, how did he even get it here? Like what what what are we he's screwed, right? And my dad's like, I he's pretty good, Matt. Wait. Multiple shots over trees, walking away with Birdie. I'm like, wow, that dude could get a ball. And and that's, you know, with the spinny wound ball and and he would hit it straight up. So I I know he's not a favorite of everyone in our country or yours sometimes, but that dude could ball.

Scott Warren (35:45.328)
Oh, and that's, yeah, I'm obscenely talented and exactly the kind of guy that in the current era would just be, I think, drowned out by the, you know, the guys hitting it off the toe with a 120 mile an hour swing speed and the separation isn't there. You know, the fact that the equipment allowed Norman to drive it the way Norman drove it.

The Professor (36:04.194)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (36:07.984)
The equipment also allowed him to block four irons on 70 second holes with majors and you know that was the beauty of the game at that time but it was magical right and you talk about it's the thing that that I hate is that you ask any golf fan any professional golf fan or even amateur golf fan ask any amateur golfer about the best shots they've ever hit. People talk about recovery shots you know from out of position they talk about incredible escapes around the green they don't talk about oh there was this time that you know I hit a drive down

fairway it went really far. think professionally and in the amateur game we've lost a bit of you know, the magic of what the ball used to do, particularly in the professional game. a shame. But no, Norman wasn't absolute. Norman put Australian golf really on the map, know. Peter Thompson was probably our greatest player in the male game.

The Professor (36:53.229)
Yeah, not

Scott Warren (37:01.7)
People always forget about Curry Webb and just say, our greatest player. But Norman was culturally enormous. And I mean, you could go write down a cultural rabbit hole that, you know, Australia in the 1980s.

sort of coming of age as a nation, we were getting a bit of confidence on the world stage, we won the America's Cup, we were starting to really do well in Olympic games. And I think that it was people like Rick Norman that gave Australians this confidence that we could. And that bore out into sport and it bore out into business and culturally in our cities and as a country we were coming of age and I don't think that people like Rick Norman were not significant to that. I think

Yeah, there's complicated feelings about Norman these days, but I think you can't eliminate the past and his contribution to Australian culture, to Australian golf. You look at the Jeff Ogilvie's, the Adam Scotts, like everybody who has come since.

you know, Greg Norman kind of led the way and showed them that they could. You know, it's that saying that gets used a lot in women's sport, you can't be what you can't see. And, you for a lot of Australian golfers in the 80s and 90s, it was Norman that sort of said to them that it was okay to dream and maybe they could.

Matt Considine (38:20.718)
Yeah, that's that's well really well said. because he he's a compli complicated ki character in the history of golf, but also in sport. And and hearing from you what he did f for your country in terms of that perspective is is really interesting. Now who who was your favorite? Or or who who did who did you you're a speet fan, which says a ton about your character, Scott, just in

It it says probably that you're a dopamine addict that drinks too much caffeine and needs to settle down. Y you're just chasing a a high. But like who did you give give us a name that maybe some of us may not know, but but an Australian golfer that really inspired you and you loved to watch and root for?

Scott Warren (38:50.82)
hahahaha

The Professor (38:51.736)
Ha ha.

Scott Warren (39:06.435)
Hmm Aaron Baddeley was exciting and he sort of there was a little bit of failure to launch with bats But he won back-to-back Aussie opens in the late 90s at least one of them He was an amateur. I he might have turned pro before the second one, but I think he won the first one who was 18 I want to say he took down Lee Westwood down the stretch like late 90s Lee Westwood that might have been at Metro and he was just this like

As a young guy, like 98, I was 15, he was kind of 18. It was sort of shocking to, you could almost like, I would play in, now I wouldn't compete in them, but I would just make up the numbers in like junior, big junior events down here. And like Adam Scott and Aaron Baddeley were the guys who were winning those.

And then you're kind of going, oh I've played in an event with this guy who's just won the Australian Open, like it was thrilling as a teenager. And again, like Bads, in a sense it's funny, I'm probably being unfair saying a failure to launch, what he's played on the PGA Tour for 20 something years. He's had a great career. He probably didn't do what we maybe dreamt he might do. But yeah, mean Bads was thrilling. There was, you know, and Nick Flanagan won an Australian, won an US Amateur.

The Professor (40:10.168)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (40:24.408)
And again, was like so close. I think one of the things that we overlook and I think that American golf fans overlook a little bit is the challenge of the distance and of even the cultural barrier of having to move to the other side of the world away from your family and friends and being just that slight unfamiliarity. I remember when I moved to London in my twenties, I was...

really shocked and really thrown and it was a challenge that everything was so similar but it was also so different and I think Americans sometimes kind of chuckle at foreigners who raise this but like it's hard to go to a foreign place and be learning a whole different way of living and a whole different geography and culture and try to compete at the highest level. I think when you've grown up

The Professor (41:08.524)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (41:19.552)
You've grown up in Ohio and you've gone to University of Arizona and everything's sort of laid out for you to succeed. And I don't say that to diminish the fact that America is the great golf country in the world other than at Ryder Cups. You are. But I do think that sometimes people overlook, particularly from Australia, it's a long way.

to the other side of the world. And it's probably telling that our guys who make it, Cameron Smith married to an American and lives in America. Mark Leishman married to an American and lives in America. Jason Day, know, Scotty mixes up and married a Swede and lives in Monaco. But like...

You can't really be Australian and do that job. You sort of have to just abandon where you're from and you know, there are mixed records coming back Cameron Smith comes back and plays in Australia basically every summer, just to be commended. Others, others don't and that's their decision. But I think yeah, you do underestimate.

I think that's why we've got so many Baddelys and Nick Flanagan's and James Nitties and you know and it's why you've got to respect like Adam Scott playing 100 Conticative majors and having the career that he's had. Like it's it's staggering.

The Professor (42:34.347)
it's amazing.

Matt Considine (42:39.113)
Yeah, quick aside on bads, I that twenty I I loved Aaron Badley. I and I don't know if it was the hair or or what, but my the end of my college golf career, I I got a little better when I came back to it. and the the old stack and tilt. Like wasn't he I mean, he was the one doing it really well. Like maybe one of the few doing it well with a driver, you know, and and that probably says more about his back.

mobility than it does about cause I know a lot of guys ruined some joints back there trying to do that. But I I had a nice little stint try trying to be bad with the I I really w should have just focused on his putting 'cause the dude is I'm told, I think professors some of our mutual friends have said Aaron Badley's one of the greatest natural putters they've ever played with and and seen. But yeah, good could of our generation, man.

The Professor (43:24.461)
He

The Professor (43:30.178)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (43:35.411)
Maybe a what if scenario, it sounds like, in in some ways, you know, 'cause he was so close to breaking through. I mean, fo as you said, four PGA Tour wins, like that's no joke. but but he could have really been next tier kind of guy, it felt like.

Scott Warren (43:38.256)
Mmm.

Scott Warren (43:51.759)
Yeah.

The Professor (43:52.919)
Yeah, Scott, now that we're on the con you know, the topic of junior golfers and growing into, you know, potentially impressive pro pro golfers or maybe not reaching their full potential, what does the junior golf scene look like within the Australian golf clubs? Is there major support for junior golfers for helping them develop into players and move on through college? any mechanisms in place for that?

Scott Warren (44:15.48)
Yeah, there is. the junior golf support network in Australia is incredibly strong. I think that there's a bit of a broken link between being a really good 17 year old and being a touring professional. I think that pathway has been eroded by a few bits and pieces. And I think that's part of the challenge now. know, start from the start of it, guess, Australian clubs have often dozens and dozens of junior members,

12 to 17, 18 years old and they can play in any competition. There'll be a junior club championship. They're cheap memberships. Where I grew up, we took in the 1990s outside of Sydney, but full membership at the club I was at for an adult was $500. Junior was like $120 a year. And so my parents used it as think cheap babysitting on weekends. My dad was a car dealer. He'd go to work on Saturdays.

He dropped me the club at 7am, he picked me up at 7pm and I spent the whole day there. And you're always made to feel super welcome by all the members. So yeah, clubs then at the top end of Australian golf, particularly on the sand belt in Melbourne and the top clubs in Sydney, they'll recruit really good 14 year olds, 15 year olds to come and play what we call pennant golf, which is inter-club competition golf. Generally, you'll have team of seven playing individual matches.

you win your match, team A or beat team B, four to three or five to two or whatnot. And Pennant is really where competitive golf is really engendered and they'll bring, yeah, as say, good players into the best clubs and try to develop their skills. There's also really great state associations. So in New South Wales where I live, where I grew up, it's the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation. So Jack Newton, after the pomp of his career, set up this foundation to make sure there'd be great tournaments.

for kids to play in. so all my summers were playing in these one day events here and there. The cherry on top, the cherry kind of on the cake was in January, early January, they had what was called the Shell Week of Golf sponsored by the petrol company. And you'd get to play like five really good courses that you could never dream of going to. And it was like $100 for the week's golf. And so that really built up, that really built up. Your competitive golf.

Scott Warren (46:41.624)
It gave you exposure, it the good players on people's radars. As I say, those events I was playing in and I was coming last, but you had your James Nitties and your Brad McIntosh and Adam Scott and Aaron Baddeley and it was like the best players were all playing together against each other. The thing that we also had at that point though was a really healthy Australian tour that had a really solid pathway into the European tour. And so if you're a good young Australian pro in that era, you could go to Europe.

and you could get into tournaments and you could start to build a career and progress from there. What's really fallen by the wayside in the last probably 10, 15 years especially is that pathway being diminished. It's harder to go and do that now. If you go on to a challenge tour in Europe, you better have some deep pockets or some benefactors because it's just hard to sustain. And...

The Australian tour has kind of fallen by the wayside because the USPGA tour went to this wraparound and tried to take over the whole year. So there wasn't really a window for Australian golf. At the same time, the purses got so good in America, there was no reason for the best players to come down and play in Australia anymore. There wasn't a need to supplement your touring come in the off season. We used to see a lot more in the 60s and 70s.

The Professor (47:44.386)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (48:04.944)
know, the Australian Open, people say it used to be the fifth major. You know, in part because Nicholas Palmer, Player, those guys, they had, so they had their equipment deal in the US. They would also have an equipment deal in Australia. So they were sponsored by, you know, Slazinger or PGF or whoever the Australian manufacturer was. So they'd come down for, you know, weeks and maybe a couple of months and play, playing exhibition matches out in the country, getting paid to turn up and play again.

basically because they were getting paid to promote this equipment. And so we had all these guys coming down and playing and that kind of built this tour and the Australian Open as a kind of notable event. There's just no, Rory's only coming down here because they give him seven figures. Yeah, Jordan Spieth, you know, we were kind of lucky that we identified him early. He came and played, I think 2013 and 14 Australian Opens when he was just happening.

The Professor (48:51.991)
Right.

Scott Warren (49:03.544)
won the 14-1. So, yeah, there's a lot of different little things have conspired against Australian professional golf. And then COVID was sort of just the kill shot. so, Golf Australia tries to have this elite program that develops players into... But I've said any of the... New South Wales has got a fairly solid stable of young players. There's actually a name I'll mention.

A because I think he's a freak of a player and also just the loveliest young bloke you'll ever meet. Young Australian golfer named Kayun Muda Dhanah and he's had some good success over in Britain in some amateur events last two summers and I think he's genuinely got a skill set. But if they can go to college, they should go to college because every single thing in professional golf now is configured around getting the best college players onto professional tours.

I also think like a college environment is probably the most nurturing place to land as an Australian on the other side of the world to arrive and sort of have a network around you. You're not just on your own in a hotel room on a Wednesday night trying to prepare for a tournament. think it's be great to see more Australian kids getting, and yeah, some universities have kind of had those. think Iowa, Iowa State had a bit of an Australian pipeline. I know a club mate of mine.

was a player there and has become a coach there. I think he might be at Illinois now. So there's something, there's pathways there. I just think it's been a tough 10, 15 years for Australia to really activate them. But there's no shortage of great young players. There never has been.

Matt Considine (50:50.238)
Yeah, seems like proportionally you get more great players from from just population base, you know, junior golf out of Australia to the professional ranks in many places. I do think it's interesting the national programs. Like we're ironic the the US is late to that game. And and and now there's through the US GA they have their development, the official, you know, national youth junior competitive golf development programs.

And I I've I've just paid attention to this from like our generation mostly, but a little bit after, you know, some of the guys that end up making it are the ones who get slighted from those teams. there's a there's a Scotsman, I I I'm trying I think it was Andrew Coulthart early on or somebody that that did just was on the periphery and he's like, I'll show you. But that there's two I I believe Jason Day was one for Australia, or maybe he just had issues with the team.

And then another I've actually played some golf with Lucas Herbert. And and you know, Lucas Herbert, who's out on Live making some noise, that dude has a lot of game. And I knew just from playing with him, he had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder to go, you know, show some people what he's made of. So I I just think it's funny. It's like golf, golf is one of those games too, where yeah, there's prodigies and the the the Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods and the world, but I I think

What's really cool is you got the Chris Godderups and you got the Zach Johnsons and these guys that they have chips on their shoulder. They are all are overlooked. And it's one of the few professional sports you can, you know, in our world go to like D three school and then end up at the very top as one of the the the best. And I just think that's that's a very cool thing. So you can't write off everybody 'cause it's a long you got a long window of time to make it happen.

Scott Warren (52:40.208)
Yeah. And a lot of golfers play their best golf when they're 17. That's the pinnacle of... And you play your best golf at the right time. I love to go and look at old Walker Cup teams. And you're like, oh, there's Ricky, there's Dustin Johnson, there's Rory. There's a lot of dudes you've never heard of as well. And they were all the best player that was going to do all these things. And they all can't blossom.

The Professor (52:45.494)
Mm-hmm.

The Professor (52:52.94)
Yeah.

Matt Considine (53:10.107)
Yeah. Go ahead.

The Professor (53:10.168)
Yeah, I mean you think James O was unbeatable when, you know, I was coming up. Like he was like, How many majors is this James O kid gonna win? I played a practice round with him in the US junior am. And I think he chipped off three greens just 'cause he was that good. Like, you know, they're like fifty foot putts or whatever, and rather than putting, he decided to chip it off the green surface to, you know, tap in every time. And yeah, I don't I don't know if he actually ended up playing professionally at all. but so many of those names.

Matt Considine (53:36.335)
We we ended up on on ProGolf here. I wanna s it's stay with it for a second because with all the there's a lot of conversation about Australian professional golf with the Australian Open, getting some energy, looking forward, some big names coming up and you know, at the best courses too, Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath and the others. also Live Adelaide. I I gotta kinda give Liv some flowers like i people talk about that here.

Because it looked like a party. And you know, Adelaide isn't a place that probably people know of in the golf world. And now more people do. So there's a there's just a lot of of noise around it. I'm curious, Scott, what you think these these upcoming years should be for Australian professional golf? Is it, you know, prestige, is it entertainment, is it the focus on the greatest courses?

Scott Warren (54:14.703)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (54:33.744)
wha what what would you like to see as kind of the next wave, these next five years for Australian professional?

Scott Warren (54:34.672)
you

Scott Warren (54:39.344)
you

think we've got an opportunity to earn a place in whatever the next phase of global men's professional golf is going to look like. There's clearly going to be some shifts in terms of structure of tours. There's at least going to be a three year period that's been announced where the Australian Open is co-sanctioned with DP and PGA Tour.

Part of me as an Australian has learned to be cynical about the PGA Tour and I think that essentially the South Australian government was putting significant money into Lib Adelaide and everybody who looks at Lib understands that Adelaide is really the jewel in the crown and the flagship event and it may be flailing but if you kill Adelaide you go a long way to killing Lib.

by doing the deal with the South Australian government to take a whole bunch of tournaments over the next eight years, men's and women's Australian Open to Adelaide, to this new golf course that the South Australian government's redeveloping in the city centre. They essentially tie that money up from, yeah, South Australian government's not gonna also spend the money on Liv. So they're basically killing Liv Adelaide.

The Professor (55:52.718)
Mm.

Scott Warren (55:58.69)
Now there might still be an Australian event, I don't think it's probably going to be what Live Adelaide has been the last three or four years. My cynicism is once those three years are over and the PGA Tour has succeeded in its mission to kill Live Adelaide and in doing so greatly weaken or kill the Live Tour, are we still part of their plans? And so I think

The challenge for Australian Golf in the next three years, while we've got that deal signed up, is for the Australian Open to perform so well that whether it's the fan base, whether it's the players, whether it's the game at large, just demands that this remains.

as an event on this tour. Because we don't have, like, the winner of the Australian Open last year got $340,000 Australian dollars. It's about 200,000 US, pay your taxes and go home. it's, it's zero. Like the New Zealand Open, New Zealand is a country that has a smaller population than Sydney and their national open pays out more than the Australian tournament. So we're fixing some structural problems.

The Professor (56:57.568)
Not much, yeah.

The Professor (57:09.144)
Wow.

Scott Warren (57:12.75)
We've got great courses.

We've got a date on the calendar in December that like year-end top 50 still means something. You know that gets you into the Masters. So, you know again, it's almost like the pathway question about getting our players out to the world is getting the world here to play is playing at Royal Melbourne isn't enough. It's a component but it's not enough. We get the money up a bit so that you know it's a bit more of a draw card. Maybe the guys who are in that 50 to 70 in the world who aren't making Scheffler money.

Let's get the money up a little bit. Let's get points. Okay, if I'm gonna fly down there I'm not gonna get paid but maybe it's gonna get me enough points that by the start of the next season I'm at a higher tier on the tour. Like I think we just need to really pull on a few different levers so that it becomes a compelling tournament. But I think you know Rory ripping around Royal Melbourne last year, know a showdown down the stretch, Cam Smith

really helpfully kind of pulled off out of a year-long slump to almost win that. Rasmus Nygard Peterson is probably a good example of the quality of player we're going to draw. Like he's not a nobody, but he's also not Victor Hovland. So yeah, it's a delicate spot for the... But I think for the first time in a long time, we've got some adults steering the ship.

which is great at Golf Australia. And I think we've got some momentum off the back of, know, the Rory on the sand belt is a bandaid. It's not going to get us to the end game, but I think it's bought Golf Australia enough time that they've been able to make some changes and they've taken a punt on Adelaide. Like it's a bit of a risk, but I think it's a risk they needed to take.

The Professor (59:03.712)
It seems like Scott, in the global landscape with the tour's new announcement of their schedule too, they're leaving that big gap, which will be American winner. It seems like that's a really good opportunity for some of these global opens to, you know, find ways to be more prominent and say, Okay, yeah, the tour's no longer gonna do this essentially, you know, twelve month schedule. Hey, we can find these little gaps when they're taking their break and get some guys to play here and be, you know, be that coffee golf that so many people around the world love wa love to watch.

Scott Warren (59:34.672)
Yeah, I mean, we hope. We hope and there are some signs that it could be it, but as I say, we've got three years, I think, to really nail the execution. And still, think Australian golf will be worried that once the PGA Tour has achieved its kind of macro goal, Australia might just get flicked to the sidelines again, but we'll see. I also think the PGA Tour now under Brian Rollap is very different to the PGA Tour.

The Professor (59:43.8)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (01:00:04.218)
know, of the noughties that chewed us up and spat us out.

The Professor (01:00:07.968)
Yeah, I mean, certainly his, you know, history and looking at NFL and the direction they went, they saw the value in the global game and NFL's continuing to move in that direction. They're only gonna continue to do that. I wouldn't be shocked if he brings that same perspective to the P GA tour and looks for you know, right now his mission was let's shore up the P GA tour schedule and this two different tiers and make that transparent. I would not be shocked if phase two is now we gotta go grow globally, right? We got what we have here on our home soil, now that's that's built that out.

and I would be I I'm a I hope that happens. you know, I'm optimistic that happens. I really hope 'cause I think showcasing, you know, especially the national opens and on their, you know, greatest grounds that they have in their country, I think is a huge co is a huge contributor to the health of Gulf.

Scott Warren (01:00:52.624)
Mm.

Matt Considine (01:00:58.587)
And then you just got golf nerds like us that wanna see more shots at Royal Melbourne, pretty much for me. Like honestly, it's it's like great. I hope that does a wonderful thing for Australia and your people, Scott. But I just want to see, you know, a ball bounce again. And I wanna see a little bit of you know, penalty for something that comes in at the wrong trajectory and we just don't have enough a g we don't have enough places to play golf that way. And and you guys have have a r a remarkable place to do that. I th th that I we'll come back to courses 'cause I do wanna get

The Professor (01:01:02.306)
Ha ha ha.

Scott Warren (01:01:12.334)
Hahaha!

Scott Warren (01:01:20.144)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (01:01:28.424)
talk about your podcast a little bit and and you know some of the t topical nature.

The Professor (01:01:31.81)
We w we didn't we didn't know this was gonna be a professional golf podcast when we signed up for this, did we?

Matt Considine (01:01:36.856)
Yeah, no, it's okay though. It's it's it's I I think well honestly what it stems from is like on this show we we do try to care more about the the grassroots game and and just those of us that are loving it and want to see better versions of it in our in our homes where we live and where but but it just shows like the influence professional golf has over all golf. It it can't be understated and we have to that's why I'm pro many of this dance as I am, is because

You you you can't separate the two. I'm sorry. It it is, yes, it's a different game, but it's not. And I think a lot of what Scott is saying is is so true of of that. but but I what I want to take is cause you mentioned it a few times and I'm sure people are not aware of kind of the the public golf access, civic golf that's happening in in Australia. It seems like I I've read some things, Scott, that you you talked about the Adelaide example. could you describe what's what's happening there?

And and what that project might look like. And is there a model across the country or around it? Or it is is how how necessary is public golf in your country? Because it feels like for l outside looking in, club golf is is far more accessible than it is here for us in the US. Therefore, we end up needing, you know, big municipal projects. The professor here was at West Palm just a few weeks ago and

He was talking my ear off about how incredible this is and we need more like it. All if if every however you phrase it, Professor, if every US City had at least two of these, w golf would just be in the best place ever. But but tell us about that in in Australia. is there a need? Let's start there. Is there a need for more accessible public golf?

Scott Warren (01:03:23.276)
Absolutely, there is golfs having a participation boom here, as it has pretty much everywhere in the last five, six years. What we're also encountering is golf is under fire in East Coast cities. know, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, there are local councils and state governments who are looking at golf properties in urban areas and saying, we can repurpose that. That should be houses or that should be parkland for...

people in apartments or in the case of one course out in Western Sydney, the cemetery next door is full and we need somewhere to bury people. Even dead people have more rights than golfers in Australia. And by and large, these are reasonable cost public access facilities, which, I belong to New South Wales Golf Club now, very fortunate to do that. I and most of my club mates there started our golfing journeys at public fee,

places and we fell so in love with golf that we've ended up obsessed and we are where we are, but there is a pathway that's necessary and even ignoring the pathway, there are people for whom that is their lifelong association with golf is at a facility like that. And I think that one of the great things about Australian golf has always been that it's so accessible, not just, know, Pinehurst is public access, right, but it's 400 US dollars to play around it on number two course, so.

there's that question of accessibility and real accessibility. Australia is a cheap place to play golf, aside from maybe 20 of the best courses. And so, the notable thing about the South Australian momentum, and the state government there spending a lot of money to turn this, there's a kind of basic public course right almost in the middle of Adelaide, next to a famous cricket and Aussie rules ground called the Adelaide Oval, called North Adelaide Public Golf Course.

And so, because this was part of a live deal initially, Greg Norman is doing the complete redesign.

Scott Warren (01:05:24.516)
But this thing's been completely redesigned and rebuilt as a tournament host. So, you know, a lot of the things that make tournament golf expensive, know, wiring and all the cables during the build so that camera crews can just turn it, turn up and plug in. A lot of that stuff's been done there. And in the context of what we're seeing in Melbourne and in Sydney and in Brisbane, it's notable that a state government is putting a hand in their pocket and saying golf is important and this is a $50 public course. Gonna make sure it stays affordable for locals once it's built.

is a bit of a statement by the SA government. More Park is a course that people have probably heard of a little bit around the world. It's essentially, if I was to use a Manhattan, it's probably not quite Central Park, but it's adjacent to the city centre. Again, it's $50, $60 to play 18 holes and...

despite the fact that there's hundreds of hectares of parkland around it that are constantly empty, you know, it's fallen victim to a bit of a political, you know, culture war and it's funny because it's always...

These culture wars always end up targeting $50 public courses that are full of the every man that these politicians claim to be fighting for. So, yeah, I think that that's where the Adelaide experience is really notable. And Australia remains a really affordable place to play golf. Like, Barbogle Dunes and Lost Farm, know, arguably two of the, well, at least one of the top 50, arguably two of the top 100 courses in the world. And it's $180 Australian dollars for 18 holes.

280 for a day ticket you can rent a quad share room on site and you're paying 83 Australian dollars per person a night in high season like even our great golf is is highly affordable and Yeah, I mean Australia's in a little bit of a our clubs are in a little bit of a Transitional zone between it's always been the British model has always really prevailed here

Scott Warren (01:07:31.224)
And I think that we are getting more and more of our club leaders are going on golf trips to the US and maybe playing in member guests and having experiences and enjoying some of the frills that come with that. And they're coming back with sort of wide eyes and you know, they want the nicer clubhouse and they want, you know, the big tournament that you pay $2,000 to play your own golf course. And those things are not inherently good or bad, but they are different.

But then I kind of get a reality check when, you know, in preparation for this conversation, I thought this might come up. And on one of the US-based forums that I frequent, I ask the question, it's sort of generalizing, I don't want to identify any particular clubs, but if you look at...

the top Melbourne clubs or the top Sydney clubs now, you're essentially looking at $30,000 to $50,000 Australian to join, and you're looking at maybe $6,500 to $8,000 a year in fees. So I put the question out, I said to this broad cross section of American golfers, you know, all right, you've got $30,000 to $50,000 joining fee in your pocket, and you can afford $6,500 to $8,000, and let's just call it American money, we're not gonna try and convert it.

What can you afford? Yeah.

Matt Considine (01:08:47.888)
Professor could do it, he does it all the time. He's doing it right now. He you can't stop him. His math brain is just doing it.

Scott Warren (01:08:53.092)
But was like, what does that buy you where you're from? And it essentially wound out as, if you're in a third tier city, it gets you a second tier club. If you're in a second tier city, it gets you a third tier club. And if you're in a first tier city, it gets you a sixth tier club. Like, it multiplies out to six regardless. Like,

It's still, even though those of us who've grown up through the last 30 years of Australian golf look at what it's now costing and we've sort of got a bit of sticker shock, when you compare it to the rest of the world, it is still, particularly to the US, it is still a remarkably affordable game to play.

Matt Considine (01:09:35.792)
Good data there. because that that w as you were phrasing the question, I was thinking through it. I like, this is really gonna depend on what city you're in, but it it doesn't change the answer any any more favorably for us in in that, you know, the best golf is typically behind closed gates. That that's the the ante to play right there, at a at a minimum for us right now. It's it's really at an all time high as we all know, but

Scott Warren (01:10:00.602)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (01:10:05.752)
But yeah, I I it it but also, well, those are your top tier clubs at at that level, right? Thirty to fifty thousand and and under ten K a year.

Scott Warren (01:10:13.796)
Yeah, we're talking about maybe, we're talking about maybe...

10 clubs in the country, 10-15 clubs in the country.

Matt Considine (01:10:22.475)
Yeah. Yeah. Now let me ask you this, 'cause on the public side, I'm I'm really, really passionate and interested in this. So sorry for spending a little more time, but I you know, when you're in say Chicago here and and you say, you know, the Muni or there's a there's Chicago's a big place, you got a lot of suburbs, so a lot of park district courses are are called munis, but they're owned by a

The Professor (01:10:22.945)
Yeah. Amazing.

Matt Considine (01:10:48.205)
Park District or Forest Preserve. But when you say those, you know, I'll pick one, Mount Prospect, the the Munion Mount Prospect, people know what you're you're talking about, that it belongs to that neighborhood and you know, there's some outside play, but it's just a busy, busy place where tax dollars are supporting it and there's gonna be it might be slow and long because it's so many eight minute intervals and and what have you.

But but we but but at least we know what what that is, what that standard is, you know, what is in in Australi is there in Australian version of that of of the muni, or is it you know, are you still fighting that you said the the more British ideal of mo mostly private club territory, although more accessible than our private club territory? Do you guys have my definition of of a muni?

Scott Warren (01:11:46.146)
Yeah, I mean I would say that even probably 90 % of Australian clubs, if you have a handicap, you could ring up and say, I want to come and play pretty much any day of the week and you'll get off. You want to play on a Saturday out Windsor or Springwood or Penrith out in Western Sydney where I kind of cut my teeth as a golfer.

Yeah, we'll get you in the field. Like it's a private place, it's a club. I would never use the word private. It's a club and our clubs tend to have 800, 900 members. Like they're big, busy places. But you can go and play really anywhere.

that you want. And I think it's that thing I was kind of at the start of saying Americans come here and they play at the same 15 or 20 courses and they think that that is representative of Australian golf. There really is kind of two lanes of Australian golf and most of it is much more muni experience than club experience even if a club does exist there.

The Professor (01:12:51.951)
Scott, a follow-up on that. I wanna is, you know, I'm thinking in in Scotland, there's this huge relationship between the public and the community in the golf courses, right? That that's very synergistic. You get people just walking the golf courses, that the golf is of almost a fabric of the community, even for those that don't play golf, they're familiar with it. In the United States, I'd argue they're far separate. Often the public is very much at tension with golf, especially country clubs behind gates. it sounds like there's a little bit of that.

Matt Considine (01:12:52.224)
Yeah.

Scott Warren (01:13:17.37)
Mm-hmm.

The Professor (01:13:21.847)
in Australia, at least with the political level, people are pull you know, some politicians are trying to create divide there. But removing the politicians, i is there's a is there a public relationship with golf for those that even aren't playing it, just the courses, these munis that you're talking about, are they sort of a fabric of the community?

Scott Warren (01:13:43.168)
Not to a great extent. I think in country areas you'll find that the golf club is sort of one of the most popular local restaurants. If people go to the golf club for a steak and a beer and...

that's probably where they are part of the fabric of the community, more so the clubhouse, the facility, the food and beverage than the course. I think one of the things that we have traditionally enjoyed, and maybe it's where the tension point is coming with some of this urban golf in big cities now, like Australia is the size of the continental US and we've got 28 million people. So one thing that we do have a lot of is space, by and large.

And so outside of urban areas, there really is typically room for, you know, the footy club has enough grounds and the cricket club has enough space and the netball club has 30 courts and the golf club has its 100 acres. And there's not really a tension for land use so much. And I don't think we see, we don't see the battles outside of.

the places that I'm describing, it's inner Sydney, it's the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, it's downtown Brisbane. So yeah, think by and large there's space for everybody to just kind have their thing, do what they do. But no, we're not, some people are here because they romanticise the British game. Look, it's great going to the Heathlands in Surrey and people are walking their dogs and...

People yearn for that here sometimes. One thing I learnt living in the UK for a couple of years in my twenties is that the dogs over there are far more well trained and well behaved. And the owners, I might argue, are far more well trained and well behaved than the Australian ones. If they had dogs on golf courses here, like golf would be a combat sport. Because dogs here are not, are not what I would want to be dealing with.

The Professor (01:15:29.24)
Matt Considine (01:15:39.536)
Wait, hold on. Scott, I I I I gotta ask for my five year old and three year old who are Bluey obsessed. It seems like your dogs are exceptionally well trained, that they speak to each other, they live in homes, they drive cars. I I I have to contest this point. Don't don't don't break my children's dreams of one day visiting Australia to meet Bluey.

The Professor (01:15:50.361)
Yeah.

Scott Warren (01:16:02.0)
Bluey is perhaps our greatest export since Greg Norman. So my kids, it's funny, my kids are 12 and almost 10. And so they're sort of notionally outgrown Bluey, but they had some friends over the other day and they were like, oh, what should we watch?

Matt Considine (01:16:05.956)
Wild.

Scott Warren (01:16:20.016)
you know on TV. was my 12 year old's 12th birthday. had friends over to watch pizza and hang out and whatever. They said what should we watch? And I jokingly said oh should watch Bluey. Like thinking these 12 year old girls were all going oh no we're going to watch Bluey. They're like oh yeah. And they sat and watched Bluey for like an hour and a half. And I've often, like the girls have gone to bed and I've watched Bluey for another half an hour or so after just sitting on my own, occasionally sobbing gently. It's such a brilliant show.

The Professor (01:16:45.463)
It's it's amazingly done.

Matt Considine (01:16:45.815)
It's so good. Yeah, pr Professor, you you've you've dabbled? That's that's wild to me. Someone without children. but it he's he's so spot on. Now I did hear a rumor, and you're the first Australian I've been able to ask about this. funded and brought to life by the Australian government. Was it because of deadbeat dads in Australia? Were you guys just off like you know running around the pubs doing your thing and that they had to create a character like Bandit, which, by the way, is a standard

The Professor (01:16:49.131)
I've I've watched it. I've watched it. Bluey's it's a phenomenal show. Yeah.

Matt Considine (01:17:14.072)
That I do not meet most days and and I wish I did 'cause Bandit is like the coolest dad ever. Is there truth to that? Do you feel that that's that's real?

Scott Warren (01:17:23.784)
was created by the ABC, so the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster. I don't think that it was done to help deadbeat dads be better dads. That's probably not where I would see it coming. I think Aussie men are actually in the modern, in the era, it's a generational thing. I think bandit is pretty representative of the Australian dad of this era.

Interesting interesting one for you though because you're interested in Bluey So the actor who voices Bluey is a guy called Dave McCormick who's not an actor But he was the front man of a deeply underrated 90s Australian indie band called Custard So I'll recommend if you are if you're a man of our era and you are into into Bluey

Matt Considine (01:18:04.12)
Love that band name.

Scott Warren (01:18:11.76)
give Custer the listen on Spotify because it's weird hearing this 90s indie band being sung by Bandit Healer.

Matt Considine (01:18:20.116)
I I won I think I won an argument with my wife recently about that and I'm guess what's up on Spotify next is custard because that that that's awesome. But I think I won the argument. She she probably would disagree that I I never win arguments, but I said, okay, that's just chili versus bandit. That's just like lay out your day and what you'd have to do based on you know, the next episode what chili does, and the next episode what Bandit does. You know, who's who's putting in more?

And and she kinda looked at me, she's Okay, maybe it was the the nature of the episode we watched, but she's like, Yeah, that's that's a lot on Bayonett's plate. I was like, I know, thank you. So Bayonett's a better dad than Chili, we're just saying we're we're we're we're trying to call spades here. All right, that's our b our our our bluey minute is is has expired. Professor, take us back, please.

The Professor (01:19:05.384)
Ha ha

Scott Warren (01:19:06.045)
hahahahah

The Professor (01:19:09.927)
Scott, you brought up with Australian clubs relatively affordable, especially when considering the American game. Now, is there a nuance there in terms of difficulty in getting into these clubs? Is there huge demand, wait list, you know, protocol? You know, I think of the RNA and they've got the black book, I think, and your name has to show up twenty times by being proposed, and then maybe you get talked to and

you know, all the rig and roll you have to go through some American clubs to just get on a waiting list. Does that exist within the Aussie club culture as well? and has that been a recent development with the COVID boom?

Scott Warren (01:19:47.728)
Yeah, so it was funny, kind of 2010s, a lot of clubs were proudly saying they had a 12 year waiting list. And one of the things though that they don't do typically is charge you to go on the list. And so when these clubs audited their lists, a couple of clubs that I'm pretty familiar with in, know, top hundred in the world kind of courses, when they audited their lists pre-COVID,

discovered that their lists were more of 12 to 18 months in terms of this guy's died, this guy's joined a different club, this guy's moved into state. Like people went on lists 10 years ago and then whenever heard from again because there was no need to check in. We've definitely got post COVID we're back to five, six, seven year waits to join the best clubs but it's really it's not you know it's not

five proposers, 20 seconders and a blood sample to get on the list. It's like, I'm gonna propose my mate, so he might come and play at my club and I'll get two of my buddies to come out who are members and they'll enjoy his company and they'll second his nomination. On he goes. So.

limitations around, know, can only propose, it's typical in Australian clubs, you can only propose one new member every five years or whatnot, so you can't kind of just stack the place with your mates. But it is, look, it's pretty relaxed in terms of some of the stories you hear from Britain. But it is, it's very much a community, right? And you know, like, I want to bring someone into our community. Names do go up on a list in the clubhouse and get emailed out.

So there is the, there is at least theoretically the opportunity to blackball, you know, if someone's ripped you off in business or you've had a bad experience with someone, you do have the opportunity to kind of put your hand up and say to the club, maybe not. But I don't think in practice that happens terribly often.

The Professor (01:21:30.862)
Mm.

The Professor (01:21:44.388)
I like that. I wish more clubs followed the model of at least, you know, sending out the entire list to the entire membership so people can give feedback and and building 'cause it's I'm a huge believer. Clubs are made by people and so the people you bring into your club o ultimately dictate what the club is and what its ethos is. So being more attentive to that I think is one of the most important things a club can do versus the typical American model, which is just, Well, can they actually write the check? they can write the check. All right, they're they're in.

Scott Warren (01:22:13.188)
Yeah.

Matt Considine (01:22:13.265)
mun money as a proxy for character doesn't usually work out well in history. And and that's I feel like what we've many clubs have fallen victim to. It's yeah, you need better ways, just assess someone's character. Are they gonna re represent your club well? Are they gonna play well with others, you know? that that's a better way of doing it, it sounds like. I know we'll be you know, winding down time here. I was gonna shift this into your podcast, because

Frankly, Scotty, I told you this before we got going here, and that was I felt some kinship with you before even knowing you. I know the professor knew you and you guys got to hang out a bit, but I had listened to your podcast. I kind of seek out podcasts like yours, being a fellow golf nerd podcaster, I guess you'd call us, that are kind of in the niches and the fringes. I'm curious, you know, what the show give us a little bit of the origin of the show. I think you've been doing it since twenty twenty two with your buddy Matt.

W th give w give us the why and then then also what it gives you now. You know, you keep going with the what what does it provide you that you in you you need it or or you still enjoy?

Scott Warren (01:23:24.752)
So we started the podcast intending to do 20, 25 episodes about our best golf courses and then park it and leave it. And it was just gonna be this time capsule of this evergreen thing. If you're gonna come to Australia and do a golf trip, you can hear about Royal Melbourne and hear about New South Wales and hear about Kingston Heath. And so all the intention was to do those 20, 25 episodes at stop. And what we found was

We expected our audience would probably be mostly American and British. And what we found was there was this, I won't say huge, because it's not a huge audience, but there was a strong, significant audience in Australia that wanted to talk about golf courses and hear about golf courses. And there really wasn't another podcast that was doing what we were doing in a way that we were doing it. The thing that motivated me was, my background is I left high school, I became a cadet journalist.

I was a journo for 12 years, eventually sort of wanted to own a home in Sydney and raise a family in Sydney and that sort of necessitated leaving journalism. And I miss it. I missed having a creative outlet, you know, and I went into government media advisor consultant, like it's not creative work. And so I'd always kind of had this this itch that I wanted to scratch. At the same time, it really bothers me that golf media

is absolutely dominated by people just saying everything's great and everyone's good and there's not a lot of critical lens on anything because well that person then they might not advertise. And so Matt's a podiatrist, he's got a really popular podiatry practice in Melbourne. As I say, I'm a consultant now in the infrastructure industry. Neither of us has any intention of this being our job. And so for me, I just wanted to turn the mics on and have an opinion and fearlessly be able to say what I thought.

The Professor (01:25:02.602)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (01:25:20.304)
and be responsible about it and be careful about it and not just like you know not just burn things down for sport but I just think our game is so important and it would be great to actually just take a lens to okay why is this place different to this place? Why has this club and I won't name names because it kind of becomes targeted why is this club kind of

stumbled over the last 15 years. What decisions have they made that have sort of held them back? know, try and help people? I mean, I found when I learned about architecture, my enjoyment of any golf course, it's not just about the beard pulley stuff at the top end. My enjoyment of any golf course is greatly enhanced by that. So let's talk about, you know, why is firm, turf great to play golf on? Why is this type of design style good? Why is width helpful for

you know, making golf a more democratic, egalitarian thing that, yeah, we just wanted to have a real conversation about golf. And so along the way, this audience, I guess, is what encourages us to just keep going. And we have, you know, we've gone from a very strong focus on the top 25 courses in Australia to talking about places like, you know, the Gold Coast in Queensland, which is sort of like going to Myrtle Beach, I guess, you know, and talking about

great affordable public courses. It's just trying to bring that focus on what's great about golf and bring it out to a broader cross-section of courses, interviewing more people. But yeah, as I say, we're just going, I guess, because this community's grown up around our pod and it would feel, I'm not saying we're an obligation to the audience because that sounds wanky, but like...

It's actually the energy that the audience and their interest and all the DMs we get and all the enthusiasm they have. You know, that's what motivates us, I guess, to keep this thing rolling and keep trying to contribute something that people seem to be enjoying.

Matt Considine (01:27:25.59)
The the in in doing my prep for having you on this morning, I I knew the episodes that I had listened to because of, you know, my interest in this stuff and you I think it was NLU, a broader recognition from them that probably brought me and many others to you guys. But there was an episode I saw on the sandbelt vegetation you guys d did. Well, that's cued up in my feed because that's the type of stuff where I'm like, yeah, th th this is the the level of of

Scott Warren (01:27:37.648)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (01:27:55.616)
care and and in interest that is deeper into a a a niche for so many of our listeners. I know they're listening right now are thinking the same thing. It's like, yeah, there's a few people that are gonna listen to the vegetation of a certain area and how that applies to the game of golf and, you know, ma maintenance budgets and stuff. But yeah, I get a sense of two things. It's like stewardship is the word we throw around a lot. It feels heavy, but it's true, where, you know, you really just care and that's why you want a mic to talk about it and and hopefully

Scott Warren (01:28:20.228)
Yep.

Matt Considine (01:28:24.22)
you know, get some feedback from others that care about it too. and and then also just like authentic conversation, which is is lacking. It's it's really tricky, I feel like, in podcasts. You know, of our generation, podcasts really started as this clear, authentic thing of people just having conversations with mics in front of them. But now it's such a big business and there's so many things out there. And it's like I I find myself, what can I trust and what can I what can I not? And and I I actually

l find the size of an audience to be more reassuring when it's smaller. Because I'm like, well, these guys aren't really they're probably still saying what they truly and and I'm not calling anybody out here. I'm just saying from what I've heard from you guys, it's very clear that this is the the deeper passion that you're gonna talk about regardless of of any economic situation or whatever else. And and that's nice because the game of golf at its heart is that, right? It is the the the recreation and this thing that we're gonna take so much value of

Scott Warren (01:29:17.582)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (01:29:21.551)
out of for for our lives and so we just want to make sure that other people are getting it as well and so yeah, keep rolling, man. I'll I'll I'll be tuned in on, you know, more vegetation episodes if you got some lined up coming.

Scott Warren (01:29:32.078)
There you go. Yeah, I think your stewardship comment is really, like that's central to how I feel about the game of golf. feel like custodianship as well is like we didn't inherit the game from our forebears. Like we are taking care of it for our kids and our grandkids. And I think...

a lot of the things we've talked about in this conversation, the game of golf is at a crossroads in a lot of ways. And I think that's one of the things that is really important to me is, you our audience is on the smaller side, but it's presidents and captains and superintendents and GMs and people who are making really important decisions that are going to decide what does golf look like in Australia in 10 years time. And if we can...

try to highlight the things that are important that we think are important to the game and that might help those people make decisions about the game that send the sport in a direction that we want it to go. It's a small drop of water on a rock but sometimes you've just got to do what... I love golf that much. You've got to do what you can kind of do to try and to keep it the way that it's special.

The Professor (01:30:50.003)
you're singing in my heart, Scott. I'm a big fan of discernment. That's a word I use frequently. And I think a lot like it's critical to have discernment in all of your decision making, your tastes. Cause if not, and I I think this is I think golf falls American golf falls very susceptible to this. It just moves with trends then which are just so wrapped into our vices and just it can just divolve into just being pure or purely composed of our vices.

Rather than stick into the ethos that our f you know, forefathers have set up with the game and what you know, golf was built on.

Matt Considine (01:31:27.919)
Well well well said. last kind of piece I wanted to ask you, Scott, and then we'll let you go to bed if you can after what what was the coffee lineup tonight? You wanna give a shout out to someone for your I know the professor gave you a plug in the beginning.

Scott Warren (01:31:42.126)
Yeah well, mean we get our beans from single origin so if you're in Australia in Sydney, single o, make great beans, shout out Breville for the home machine. The best thing I ever did was buy a good double boiler machine for the house. I've got the Oracle.

The Professor (01:31:53.748)
Which revel do you have? Yeah, yeah.

Scott Warren (01:31:58.372)
got the Oracle with the double boiler which is great so you can do an extraction and steam your milk at the same time. Yeah, best thing we ever did was get the machine. So I was able to gas myself up at 5 to 10 before I jumped on with you guys.

Matt Considine (01:32:12.284)
Nice. Professor, are you shipping your beans from over there yet? What have you decided? I feel like you're

The Professor (01:32:17.345)
I would be getting my beans from Australia. I'm gonna ask you you know, we're in we're in World Cup knockout stage right now. Scott, quick question. Knockout stage, are you getting rid of Australia golf or Australia coffee?

Gotta you gotta get rid of one of You gotta get rid of one of Yeah, we gotta get rid of you can no longer have Australia coffee or you can no longer have Australia golf.

Scott Warren (01:32:30.212)
Am I getting rid of?

Matt Considine (01:32:31.597)
Whoa. That you mean like that they're playing against each other and one one gets

Scott Warren (01:32:40.504)
coffee. I would learn to live without coffee. I don't think I can learn to live without golf.

The Professor (01:32:45.283)
Yeah.

Matt Considine (01:32:47.931)
Th th there's both addictive in their own ways, so but it sounds like maybe not a fair fight. That's all right, my question. We i this is back to American r romanticism. We got millions of people now traveling for their golf. a lot of it I think has to do with our own landscape of of what it looks like here. And so if we're gonna spend thousands of dollars, why not get on a a birding and go places. So we there's also this pickup in golf architecture and

Scott Warren (01:32:51.554)
huh.

Matt Considine (01:33:17.3)
And and we do tend to romanticize, and the the show's probably a victim of it in in our past, romanticize these these far-front places. I think the king architect of that romanticism is Alistair McKenzie. So obviously we we will read about his whatever that time frame was in Australia and the imprint he left on the sand belt, blah, blah, blah. Get give us an architect that d doesn't get that romantic praise all the time, but you see as

Every bit as influential or or almost as much?

Scott Warren (01:33:53.568)
I would have to... Okay, so Alex Russell, I'll give you two. Golden Age, Alex Russell was, know, McKenzie had this great skill wherever he went of generating these great assistants that he could disappear and move on with his travels. you know, he had his Perry Maxwells, his Robert Hunters, and in Melbourne it was Alex Russell, who he essentially taught in very quick order

what a golf course was and how to build and construction. Mick Morkham was likewise there at Royal Melbourne. And so the only hole that Mackenzie saw built in Australia was the fifth west at Royal Melbourne, which is the famous Long Par 3 that's part of the composite course. The whole number differs and varies. So Mackenzie essentially built that hole with them and said, all right, I'll leave you to it. And he took off with his travels. So Russell and Morkham, you know,

a lot of credit for Royal Melbourne becoming what it did. Russell designed the East course at Royal Melbourne. He designed Lake Karanup, which is the best course in Perth. He designed Paraparaumu Beach in New Zealand, which for a long time was one of the two best, along with Titurangi, which was Mackenzie as well. So I Alex Russell was then, he was the one who then taught all of the other.

people in Melbourne and who'd spread out across Australia, your dance suitors and people like that who were prolific dance suitors designed by Kingston Heath. And yeah, some of these people were predated McKenzie, but they were all operating in that time and I think benefited from that. I would say in the modern time, one of the really crucial people

as a connector and an enabler is Mike Clayton. So, Clayton was a touring pro in the 80s, he became a golf journalist in the 90s as well as still touring as a player, started his design firm and Clayton was doing renovations in the 90s working at places like Victoria Golf Club in the early 2000s, Royal Queensland and the Lakes, kind of dragging up that second and third tier of Australian golf.

Scott Warren (01:36:13.344)
and bringing these, you know, the Sandhills of vacation and this modern golden age that was starting to come out of the US. Clayton was sort of the touchstone of that in Australia. You he famously worked with Tom Doak at Barnbuckle Dunes and at St. Andrew's Beach. He was, you know, he was the guy who gave the first jobs in golf architecture to Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead, who've now obviously become an absolute powerhouse, you know, and they're brilliant.

The Professor (01:36:40.516)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Warren (01:36:42.724)
They're brilliant minds and brilliant designers and exceptionally hard workers. I was at Bonnie Doon Golf Club when they redid that from completely blew it up and rebuilt it. Incredible guys. think again, Claytes was the guy who had an ecosystem for them to come and work in and to perfect their craft. So yeah, think Mike is really a crucial person in the modern lens of Australian golf. But Russell, yeah, Russell and Claytes I'll say, as Aussie architects.

Matt Considine (01:37:12.102)
You know, he Claytes came to mind for me when you were talking about the depth, which is one of my big takeaways from t talking to you is like, Yeah, I I I have no concept of the depth of golf in in Australia. But but what the reason Claytes came to mind, I was like, I feel like i Michael Clayton could be

A real driver in that mid-tiers because and I remember, Professor, you might remember last year when we were or two years ago, we were doing the deep dive on all the global golf projects and it w the the costs were a bit staggering, Scott. Like somebody made this huge list. And when you got pretty far down the list, there's a name that that appeared. He was at the top too with some huge projects like Medina and in Chicago and some others going $35 million renovations, but there was a couple that

The Professor (01:37:44.024)
Hmm.

Matt Considine (01:38:01.732)
bottomed out, let's say, at least in in that list, at like two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand, and two or three of were Michael Clayton. And he it wasn't with OCM and I think his name was on, you know, because I I'm sure I I got to spot speak to him one time and and I know how he feels about the l legacy and leaving golf in a good place for, you know, the broadest set of people. that's cool. so hopefully he gets a shot at more of those mid-tier clubs, those those

publicly accessible places 'cause I I think sounds like with a death problem th there's a guy that could probably help solve it and not break the bank, not create a cost crisis for for cities and clubs.

Scott Warren (01:38:43.492)
Yeah, I mean you look at people who just made a contribution and left the place better than they found it. That's clients.

The Professor (01:38:49.262)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Considine (01:38:51.925)
t two last ones for me. Barn Bugle. We got it on our list for to get to Tasmania to check out, you know, Seven Mile as well. And and these these places that now for for for locals, for Australians, are they regular visits? Are they still destination based? Is this the equivalent for us of like Dream Golf has expanded from Bandon Dunes to Sand Valley to

Wild Dunes to to these these more dri I call drive markets, right? They're three, four hours from population centers. People are gonna go a little bit more often, maybe once a year. how are these destinations playing out in their early wave for you guys?

Scott Warren (01:39:25.657)
Yeah.

Scott Warren (01:39:36.688)
Barnbougle is really like Barnbougle is a place that there's guys who live in Sydney or Melbourne who rather than joining a club they'll go to Barnbougle four times a year for a long weekend because it is it's affordable to do that like that's as I said to you before $180 for 18 holes it's $280 for a day ticket you can get a comfy bed a good shower for $80 a night you can fly there from Sydney or Melbourne for 300 bucks you know split a car with three others and it's $100 each it's like

It's a very cheap, in winter they do a winter deal where you can get like three days of golf and two nights and some breakfasts, it's like 570 bucks. So that is like incredibly achievable and affordable. I think what the benefit that it has is that it was developed in, know, June was 2004, Lost Farm was 2010 that opened.

The economics of developing golf then I think were a bit different to 2025. So we're seeing like Seven Mile Beach for instance is on the same island. It's in Tasmania granted seven miles just outside of Hobart, which is the capital city, but still pretty small city. You know, it's 295 around. So it's got some different, some different economics at play. You go to King Island, which is another flight on a smaller plane to a kind of barrier island, I guess of Tasmania, you know, and you're paying

I think we paid $3.30 for a day ticket at Cape Wickham. So in the grand scheme of global golf, right, still very, very affordable golf. But I think that's the touch point where Barnboogle is the kind of place that people might go multiple times a year. Seven Mile and King Island are probably more of a special trip.

But still, mean, the closest comparison we have is Te Arai in New Zealand, which is just 90 minutes out of Auckland. Like Barnbougle it's a Doak course and a Bill Coore course. And there you're looking at $400 for around and $800 a night for accommodation. So very different type of the same, ostensibly the same product. 36 holes of golf.

Scott Warren (01:41:52.762)
steaks and burgers and beers and a comfortable place to sleep but they're doing it at the higher end. So I think we are blessed that we have Barnbougle in the way that it is but then my mates from America come down and they go to Barnbougle and a good handful of them have seen...

probably more than half of the World Top 100, will say if those two courses were abandoned, they would be the two best courses abandoned. So it's not cheaper because it's lesser, it's just that we're blessed for it to be there. And Richard Sattler and his family who developed that place and still own it today, again, they've, I think, chosen to make a contribution to Australian golf and we should all be really appreciative that they did that.

The Professor (01:42:16.397)
Hm. Well.

Matt Considine (01:42:35.125)
Well, as as the professor knows, we're we're gonna be moving towards our NewClub golf trip here in in coming years. your way, Scott. So I got a new resource. Thank you. be prepared for my questions coming your way, my friend. but then I do I do wanna get my wife and family to Australia. But I have one last question for you that is a bit of a hurdle for me. So depending on your answer.

Scott Warren (01:42:48.912)
There you go.

Matt Considine (01:43:01.651)
I I may clip this if my wife ever listens to our podcast. my wife has a crippling fear of of spiders and and she was sending me photos after I suggested, you know, like looking at a trip with the family at some point. she sent me back these terrifying images that I could only imagine were produced by AI because I've never seen spiders so large. also the webs that kind of look like snow.

covering like landscapes. tell me the story here, man. Are these real? Are these exaggerated? What's what's the deal on spiders in Australia?

Scott Warren (01:43:42.67)
So I'll just read the notes you sent me before about how it's completely out of line and she'll be fine. that... yeah, I'll just... Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, attention, Matt's wife. No, honestly... honestly... they're out there, but they're out there, they're not in here. But you have to go out of your way, I think, really, to try and find big snakes and big spiders if you're on a holiday in Australia.

The Professor (01:43:47.908)
Ha ha.

Matt Considine (01:43:48.255)
Do you do you have it up? I just wanted to make you got it ready?

Scott Warren (01:44:11.152)
traveling in Melbourne and Sydney and yeah sure if you're at Cape Wickham on King Island and you walk off into the native in the middle of summer then yeah you might meet a snake but I mean I've been a member at New South Wales Golf Club for coming on 10 years now I've probably played 20 to 30 times a year I reckon I spend a lot of time in the bush looking for my golf ball I might have seen five snakes, six snakes

So most snakes are more scared of you than you are of them. And spiders, yeah, like you're staying in a nice hotel in a city, your chances of seeing a redback are pretty minimal.

Matt Considine (01:44:41.481)
She's good. She

Matt Considine (01:44:55.751)
Yeah, she she's weirdly good on spider or snakes. I I'm the the the wuss when it comes to the snakes. So I'm now I'm now I'm concerned. Now my travel plans have changed, Scott. but for her, man, these fires th those webs, is there a time of year that that happens? Like the webs that get sprawn across like countryside?

Scott Warren (01:45:15.952)
No, like, pretty much a year round, I guess.

Matt Considine (01:45:18.992)
Okay. All right. We're screwed. This is never happening. All right. All right. Thanks.

Scott Warren (01:45:22.032)
But as I say, there are so many of us who reach adult age and don't die to a spider bite. So it is doable.

The Professor (01:45:22.351)
Yeah, I spent

Matt Considine (01:45:30.202)
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Okay.

The Professor (01:45:32.601)
could say I spent a month there, I have arachnophobia, did not see a single spider and that included, you know, seven days up in Cairns, you know, not highly populated. We got up hiking up through the rainforest a ton, all that, and never came across a single one.

Scott Warren (01:45:41.648)
Mmm.

Matt Considine (01:45:48.966)
Well what what she fears in spiders, I hope the club culture of men and women playing together, 'cause that's a that's another one of the things she can't stand. And and she is getting back into golf after having young kids and and that's something we talk about a lot. So I I still have selling points here from from this conversation. So Scott, we we know it's late, man. I I don't wanna take any more of your time asking spider and bluey questions. th Professor, thanks for

Scott Warren (01:46:08.079)
we go.

Scott Warren (01:46:15.032)
You

Matt Considine (01:46:17.924)
introducing us to Scott. This was really fun, man.

any last questions for him, Professor? Do you have anything you need to squeeze in?

The Professor (01:46:25.495)
No, that's the that's Scott, get to bed.

Matt Considine (01:46:28.015)
Let's do it. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening to the show. if you're enjoying it, please like give us a subscribe. If we picked up some new friends in Australia, big give us a subscribe, listen in. we're gonna include Scott and and his co-host Matt and their podcast, the Australian Golf Passport, here in the show notes so you can check them out and give them a listen. I have myself, I recommend you do too. so thanks just for listening to the show. Thanks as well to our partners at Titleist.

For supporting this show, for being partners with with New Club Golf Society. If you're a member of New Club, those fittings are now in the mobile app. You'll be able to see Check out. Go get fit for the new all new GTS family of Metalwoods. And we'll check you guys all on the next one.