WEBVTT
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Hey, everybody, Happy Friday, It's Josh Kart.
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Next week, my interview with Adam Young drops on Tuesday,
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but for now, listen to this week's Mulligan's episode, The
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Secret of Park City, Utah with Bobby Toronzo. Golf Smarter
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Premium number five hundred and three, published on August twenty five,
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twenty fifteen. The Big Secret of Park City, Utah Summer
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with Bobby Trunzou of Park Meadows Country Club. This is
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Golf Smarter Premium. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to
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the Golf Smarter Podcast. Bobby.
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Hey Fred, how are you.
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I'm fine? How are you?
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I'm doing great. Thanks.
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I know how busy your time is, and I really
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appreciate you making some time to talk to me today.
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No problem.
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I'm having a wonderful time here in Park City. It's
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the first time I've ever been here. I've been here
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almost a week. We leave tomorrow actually, and I am
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just blown away. First of all, the beauty is remarkable,
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and the secret that I found is that it's summertime
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is a great time to be here. This is a
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this is a winter destination.
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Yeah, it's the best that the summer is kind of
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the best kept secret about Park City. That's that's what
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we've found for sure.
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But how long is the golf season here?
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This past year we opened up in the middle of March,
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which is the earliest opening in Park Meadows Country Club history.
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Generally speaking, it's from May to mid October. Like I said,
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this year, we opened up a little bit earlier, and
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we'll play golf until the weather dictates that we close.
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And basically that means it's snowing.
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Correct, Correct.
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There is there a lot of golf opportunities here in
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Park City.
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There are there are a few private clubs here. You know,
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you have Glen Wilde, Victory Ranch, Promontory to Hay, but
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none are quite centralized in town like Park Meadows is.
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And it's got a very active membership, our social membership.
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It's very easy for the members to find a game,
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and it's got a great membership.
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Yeah, give me a little history about Park Meadows Park Medals.
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It opened in nineteen eighty three. When it first opened,
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it was a public golf course used to host the
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Franklin Templeton Shootout, which was a senior PGA event, and
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the likes of Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer Lee Trevino used
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to walk these grounds, which is pretty cool. It became
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private over ten years ago, just over ten years ago,
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and I started here five years ago, so I haven't
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I haven't seen the Senior Tour be around since I've
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been here, but I've heard great things about when it.
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Was here and who is the architect of this course?
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This is a Jack Nicholas design, it is. Yeah, it's
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actually a Jack Nicholas signature design, meaning it's one of
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his first few clubs that he did. So it's very
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traditional layout, park style, very player friendly. There's just over
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one hundred bunkers, so it's not like the new traditional
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Jack Nicholas course that's really it can be a little
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more difficult, tricked out a little bit with you know,
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elevation change and some crazy bunkering. It's it's a very
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playable golf course.
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Was there a major change in I don't know if
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you're a student of Jack Nichol's design, but was there
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a major change in his development of designing golf courses.
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Definitely, like I said, his signature golf courses or which
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you know, the first one hundred to two hundred that
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he did, definitely have more of a traditional layout and
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feel to him as time is dictated as the golf
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you know, as you know golf has become more popular.
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He's you know, I've worked at several Nicholas courses in
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Clinging Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, which has six Jack Nicholas
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golf courses, all of which are very different desert golf courses,
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but much more difficult than you know, Park Meadows is interesting.
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What do you see is a big difference between desert
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versus here up in the highlands. We're up at over
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seven thousand feet right.
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Correct, Yeah, obviously the ball flies farther, which.
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Is I'll get to that, But I meant like, what's
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the difference in his design being down to the desert
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versus his design up here?
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And no, I think he's a great architect. I think
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he takes the lay of the land and doesn't try
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to He lets the lay of the land dictate what
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he designs. Park Metals being the location that it is,
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you know, sent you know, pretty local club in town
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club with the mountains surrounding as views. He just kept
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it fairly simple as far as the design, with the
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thought process of being player friendly and letting the views
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be more of the you know, the highlight versus you know,
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elevation change and bunkering and raised greens and things like that.
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So so when we go if we're traveling around and
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we're going to a course we've not played before, and
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it says that it's a Jack Nicholas design, what are
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the things that we know that we're going to be
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getting involved with as far as playability, bunkering, you know,
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the deception that he creates in in par threes, you know, putting.
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Jack Nicholas's owned for designing golf course Jack Nicoll. Nicholas
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was a left or right player who was a fighter
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of the golf ball. Generally, his designs follow suit. As
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time has come, you know, as we've gotten into the
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this day and age, he's become you know, changing that
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up a little bit. But as you'll see today when
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you play Park Medals, is just pretty straightforward, not too
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tricked out, and very well manicured.
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Is there are a lot of back to Park City golf.
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You talked about the private clubs that are here. Is
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there a lot of public courses to play when you're
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here as well? Because obviously the listeners can't when they
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come to Park City. They can't give you a call
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and say, hey, I heard you on the podcast. Can
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I play golf there? Sorry, no, you can't.
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Right, there is a Park City Municipal course. It's that's
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just what it's called, Park City Municipal recent club that's
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been added to the public courses in Park City is
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the Canyons Golf Course. I haven't a chance to play yet,
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but good things. But in the surrounding area. The public
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golf in Utah is very strong, some really good quality
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courses in the surrounding area, but in Park City proper,
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just the two Park City and the Canyons.
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Have you played the MUNI?
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I have quite a bit. It's fun, you know. It's
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a little more crowded, and obviously being one of the
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only public courses, there's a lot of demand for that
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with the tourism in Park City. But it's a good
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golf course. I like it.
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I played nine holes. Like what I've been doing since
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I've been here. I would get up early in the
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morning and go to the driving range and hit one
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hundred balls or something because I'm working on some new
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swing things, so I wanted to just it was a
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great opportunity to do this daily which I don't get
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to do is go to the driving range daily. And
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I ended up playing nine holes just before the rain
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hit a couple of days ago, and I was kind
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of blown away on two things. First of all, I
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played nine holes, rented a car, hit a bucket of balls,
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and it cost me less than twenty five dollars. That
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was amazing, right, But it really was one of the
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prettier munis I've ever seen.
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Yeah, it's very scenic, and again that's just Park City.
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I mean it's hard to go anywhere in Park City
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and not notice the surroundings, the mountains, how green it is.
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You know, you can you can just get in your
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car and drive anywhere in Park City and you're going
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to see, you know, some great scenery. And you know,
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obviously a golf course is no better place than being
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on a golf course to do that.
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Yeah. Yeah, but but it definitely is the kind of
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course there that you needed some local knowledge. I was
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lucky though. I was playing with these guys that knew
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the course, and a couple of times they forgot to
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tell me there was water there, so I lost my ball. Sure,
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but I mean that was those are my big mistakes
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is like not knowing there was water there and I
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hid it.
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Yeah, it's got it's got some tricky things to it
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if you haven't played it too much. Yeah, whereas you
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know Park Meadows, I mean it's it's right in front
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of you. There's there's really no trickery to it. What
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you see is what you get pretty much.
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And the elevation here, so and you're even higher here
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at Park Meadows. Correct in Park City? How much higher
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are you are?
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We are about a thousand feet higher. We're seven thousand
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feet here, and that does a lot to your golf ball.
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Yeah, let's talk about that, does it really?
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Yeah, it's a good club club and a half different.
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You know, for example, I came from Scottsdale, Arizona, and
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there's a big difference here. You know, it's dry heat sure,
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yeah right, it's still one hundred and ten, but seven
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thousand feet the climate's great. There's generally a cool breeze here.
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You know, it's kind of traditionally a little breezy in
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Park City, I found. But seven thousand feet, you know
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you're pitching wedge. If you hit a pitching wedge, for example,
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at sea level, you know, one hundred and thirty yards
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or one hundred and twenty yards up here, it's you know,
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ten to fifteen yards farther up here, no question about it. Okay,
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So it takes a little adjusting in your golf game,
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you know, if you live here, getting used to hitting
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your club's far other than if you live somewhere else
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in the wintertime, for example. Yeah.
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Yeah, And what about the winds? How much of impact
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do the winds come into play here?
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Yeah, I mean it's generally like as as I said,
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it's generally you know, fairly breezy. Park Meadows is kind
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of an open air meadow golf course. It's there's really
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no nothing surrounding it that can block the wind. So
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the wind, the wind can't pick up. And that's the
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defense of park Park Meadows. It can play as easy
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as you want to, depending on the tea you play,
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but if you get out there, you know, in a
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ten twenty mile an hour wind, it changes the dynamic
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of the golf course completely and just makes it tougher
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like it would anywhere. But it goes from being kind
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of a you know, a fun fair fairly playable and
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you know, not overly challenging tests to very difficult golf
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course in the wind.
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One of the things on the website that kind of
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jumped out at me is talked about it being a
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Scottish Links at seven thousand feet correct.
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Yeah, Like I said, it's it's very It's pretty flat,
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with the exception of the eleventh and twelfth hole. There's
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some elevation there, but it does have a very lynxy feel.
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Most every green out here gives you the option to
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run the ball up onto the green versus fly it
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to the pin. There's some unique bunkering, but every green
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gives you opportunity to run the ball up, which is
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a traditional Link style.
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Yeah, but if you fly it to the green, is
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it going to hit and then just roll off?
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It depends. The greens here this year have been in
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my five years, they're the best they've ever been. They're
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consistently running on the stepman or anywhere from eleven to thirteen,
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which is you know, tour average is twelve twelve point five.
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That's pretty fast, which you know, again, they're fairly flat,
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with the exception of a few greens, so they're very fair.
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But they can be they can be firm, which is
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for this membership, which is a little bit older of
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a membership. They need to be able to run the
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ball in. They're not hitting it as high, which is
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being a links course, it plays, you know, plays right
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into that And.
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Does that also mean by being a links course that
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you've rarely going to have the ball level with your feet.
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You have a lot of you know, uphill and downhill.
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There's very little elevation change here, but it does have
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kind of a rolling feel to it more times than not.
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Though you have a nice, fairly flat lie, very rarely
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will you find yourself on a severe downhill uphill lie
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unless you've hit it off line into the rough, which
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has some some bunkering and some movement to it.
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I come from northern California where we're having a huge
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water issue rure. Now we are still in the Western US.
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What's happening here as far as your water shortage and
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how you're dealing with it.
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We've been We've been fortunate here at the here in
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Park City. You know, obviously we have a perfect climate
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for growing grass. And this past May was the wettest
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you know, we had a lot of rain in May.