As 2023 comes to a close, it’s important to take a moment to reflect on the important stuff, none more important than: How did each member of No Laying Up feel about the state of our golf game during the last 12 months?
You don’t have to indulge us in this blatant navel-gazing, but if you’re interested, we asked the gang to look back on the year of Prime and share what they did (or didn’t) learn about the game in 2023.
What was the golf moment you’ll cherish the most in 2023:
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Soly: The look on my dad’s face as we hugged it out on the 18th green at Pebble Beach at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. We had just spent four days walking around some of the coolest courses in the world alongside Bill Murray (?), and a month after he had lost his father, we kind of just laughed about how cool the entire week was. He was the one who introduced me to golf and we shared a truly once-in-a-lifetime golf experience that neither of us could have ever imagined. One of the biggest takeaways I had from my grandfather’s funeral was that I needed to do more stuff with my dad. This was such a great way to kick off that initiative. And this is reminding me that I need to schedule the next thing, whatever it is.
Neil: Playing alt shot with Jordan Spieth is tough to beat. I know that’s an easy answer, but it checked all the boxes: great course, great company (my wife was helping Mrs. Piehowski work the second camera), and great partner. I’m a little bummed that my favorite golf memory of 2023 was on January 1st of 2023. I hope 2024 “builds” a little more!
D.J.: This summer, I got invited to play Wisconsin’s top 10 public golf courses in the span of two days. The final stop was Erin Hills, one of my favorite places on the planet. Somehow shaking in a birdie on the final hole of the trip with my buddy Dom Cotroneo on the bag and with friends, family and a bunch of NLU friendlies circling the final green at sunset is going to be hard to beat.
Tron: I was fortunate to take some wonderful trips this year to the far ends of the earth in search of great golf courses, but I think my favorite golf memory didn’t involve me actually playing. The moment that I jokingly asked my wife, Alex, “what if I flew over to Hoylake to watch Tommy Fleetwood seal the deal?” and instead of being scoffed at and told I was a moron, she said, “You should do it, precisely because you are a moron!” And so I did! I looked at flights, found a laughably inexpensive business class award flight on Lufthansa and I was on my way, through Dulles, overnight to Frankfurt, and finally Manchester, where a podcast listener offered to take me the final hour over to Hoylake. That Tommy began fading out of contention while I was boarding the first flight made it more fun, in a way. I’d never been to the British Open before and I met some great people on-site, drank a bunch of beers with Refuge folks who were there, had dinner in player dining with Tommy, his lovely wife Clare, and his caddie, Ian Finnis, who is one of my favorite people in golf, and then got drinks with KVV, Jamie Weir and Ru Macdonald that evening, crashed on a couch, and then flew out of London the next morning to meet D.J. and Cody in Denver. I am a moron. And the ability to be a moron and do spontaneous stuff and indulge the dumbest “What if?” ideas a few times a year make me feel really grateful. My first trip to the Open Championship was one that will last a lifetime.
Randy: What a tough question. Truly. I was fortunate, as we all were, to play a lot of golf on some exceptional courses, with very special people. After considerable thought, the golf moment I’ll cherish the most from 2023 was the opportunity to play Pine Valley for the very first time. On top of that, I got to do it with one of my favorite people, Michael Bamberger. The day was everything I could have hoped it would be too–I played pretty well, the weather and conditions were first-class, and the company was as good as it gets. We capped the day with a meal in the clubhouse and looking back, the whole experience is what I’ll hold dear for a long time.
Cody: Since joining NLU, I wanted to play a part in promoting the game and competitions of those that I have the most in common with. Most of the time, this revolves around veterans getting out and playing golf. This year, the fine folks at MR. MA took this a step further and held a tournament featuring adaptive and disabled golfers from all over the globe. Men, women, veterans and some not all teed it up this spring at Spanish Oaks outside of Austin to compete for the largest cash prize ever awarded to an adaptive and disabled field. It was amazing to see the MR. MA founders use their network to raise the money they dished out. The players lives changed. Everyone walked away with something, to include the winner with over 25K cash.
Ben: It has to be the Kansas Mid-Am with my Dad on the bag. We have made a tradition of my pops caddying for me during my biggest week of the year in golf. This year was extra special as we had some family in town that came out to watch. The first day was just okay from a golf perspective but the second day was memorable. We started out pretty average on the front nine but caught a heater on the back making four birdies in five holes to post one of the best rounds of the day and shoot up the leaderboard. It was great to get in the zone with my Dad and go on a run with my family watching. Tied for the top spot is winning the Couples Club Championship with my wife Kelley. She played so dang good during the matches and I couldn’t possibly be more proud of her.
Casey: Finally getting to play Sweetens, and during the Roost Club Championship at that, surrounded by 43 other like-minded golf sickos from Roosts around the world (shout out RACDG Europe and Canada’s Mayhem Roosts). Couldn’t have asked for a better group, better weather, or better vibes.
KVV: Every year, I go on a golf trip with some friends I know from my time in newspapers. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year. I wrote a little about it in this essay, Driving and Crying. We play in a Ryder Cup format, and we’ve kept the same teams for almost 15 years, which means there is history and rivalries and memories I cherish. Despite the fact that none of us are particularly good at golf, we always seem to be separated by the slimmest of margins. But inexplicably, my team had not won the cup we play for since 2018. That finally changed this year when my squad — Team Jesper, named after the iconoclastic, loveable weirdo Jesper Parnevik — won convincingly at Forest Dunes. The mixture of pride, euphoria and relief I felt was unmatched. It also reminded me of something Neil says often: There is something incredible and addicting about meaningless but serious adult competitions. It’s an essential part of living right.
What’s your favorite shot that you hit in 2023?
Soly: The 3-wood I hit into the 18th green at Pebble on Sunday morning of the Pro-Am. We got delayed with two holes to play on Saturday, and the rest of the day was eventually washed out. We showed up to play 17 and 18 at Pebble, got absolutely dumped on, and eventually got hailed on as we waited on the 18th tee. After an hour wait, I hit a really good drive into the wind, and had 242 in. It was so cold that I had four layers on, it was back into that biting wind, and I was dripping wet. I swung as hard as I could at a three-wood, and have never hit a ball so solid. I hit a massive hook that landed in the very narrow front gap of the green and crept onto the front. I’ll never forget that shot.
Neil: It’s not one shot but a series of shots. I played in a Metropolitan Golf Association public links qualifier and I one-putted 4 of the last 5 holes to save a round that was heading in the wrong direction. These were gutsy 10-20 footers, and it was fun to grind out a 4th place finish in a competitive event.
D.J.: The shot that led to the birdie, a nippy gap wedge from 117 yards out of a bunker later immortalized with a fake plaque by my friend Steve Pease, was as good as I’ve got in me. Ask Dom
Source: https://nolayingup.com/blog/whats-burning-at-the-killhouse-2023-nlu-golf-games