Blind Shots Podcast Blind Shots Podcast – One Bearded Golfer

The Fields Golf Club in LaGrange, Georgia, is one of those special places with which I felt an instant connection, a feeling that grew stronger with each step on my first walk around the course. It’s a special place with a remarkable story derived from some of the ideas and principles that best capture what’s right in public golf.







In this conversation, I sat down with filmmaker Hagen O’Neil of Palmer Pictures (https://www.youtube.com/@PalmerPictures) to discuss the background and process of making his wonderful documentary film about the course, “From Red Clay to Fairways.” Using the color personalities that form The Fields leadership team, Hagen brings the course’s Phoenix-like rise to the screen, while exploring the principles of community and public golf writ large, as the divide between luxury and every day golf experiences continues to widen.







The film is embedded below for your convenience. Watch it. You’ll laugh, you’ll think, and you might even want to visit. Then give my conversation with Hagen a listen.



















My two trips to LaGrange have been marvelous for largely personal reasons. There are likely small cities like it dotted all across the country, which makes me wonder if they all could their own version of The Fields. Golfers of all stripes would be better for it if they could, as “Red Clay to Fairways” makes abundantly clear.







Three words of thanks. First, thank you to Hagen for an incredible afternoon of laughs and conversation, with a little golf worked in. Second, thanks to Ashley Young and Ace at The Fields for their enthusiasm and hospitality. And finally to Thomas Dunne of McKellar Magazine for both supporting Hagen’s vision for the film, and for continuing to connect the McKellar launch party events to such wonderful golf experiences.







If you love great golf storytelling, head over to the McKellar website and check out their boxed set of past issues. Timeless golf stories don’t have an expiration date. You can thank me later.







The Fields Golf Club: http://www.thefieldsgolfclub.com/







From Red Clays to Fairways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOd-WPDD6PY







McKellar Magazine website: https://www.mckellarmagazine.com/

This is the Sheep Ranch episode, the fifth of our Americans in Oregon series highlighting and detailing Matt, Fred, and my trip to Bandon Dunes last summer. The Sheep Ranch, an instant Coore + Crenshaw hit with the golfing public, provides a more relaxed experience than it’s bolder neighbors just down the majestic coast line. The heritage of the site is well respected by the wonderful “core course” feel created by the course’s long sight lines and kinder, gentler dunescape mounding.

The Kentucky State Park System is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2024. This episode is the first of a new series wherein I’ll profile Kentucky’s state park golf courses from time to time. To kick off this new endeavor, I was honored to sit down recently with the Commissioner of the Kentucky State Park System, Mr. Russ Meyer. We talk the breadth, mission, and funding of Kentucky’s state park courses, as well as highlighting some of the much-needed improvements that are on the way.

This is the Pacific Dunes episode, our fourth of this season’s “Americans in Oregon Series.” A golf course of almost unanimous acclaim, it’s the golf course that brought architect Tom Doak into the larger golfing public’s consciousness, that showed people how spectacular coastal golf in America can be, and what natural, minimalist golf architecture can be. For the second time, it was also the setting for watching up close and personal as my friend Matt shoots the round of his life.

Friend of the Show, Chris Boysel, PGA, returns to talk about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we think we’re going in golf in central Kentucky, and to an extent, in golf writ large. Chris oversees Tournament Operations and Player Development for Play Golf Lexington, the omnibus organization responsible for municipal golf in Lexington. We discuss the tournament and programming offerings, the varied ways that women and juniors can get into golf in the modern golf landscape, and how competitive golf doesn’t actually have to be all that competitive. It’s a good conversation, I think you’ll enjoy it.







Play Golf Lex Am Tour: https://playgolflexamtour.golfgenius.com/pages/8094464179999631895







Play Golf Lex Junior Tour: https://playgolflexjrtour.golfgenius.com/pages/9332787473866058407







Lexington Championships and tournaments: https://www.lexingtonky.gov/golf-tournaments

This is the Bandon Dunes episode, the one about the original course at the Bandon Dunes Resort, the one that started it all. This is where it began for Oregon as a golf destination, for the Keiser family golf empire, for golf architect David McKlay Kidd, for fun overtaking difficulty as the chief goal of golf, and for a new type of destination golf, far from the things of man. It’s a truly great course that Matt, Fred, and I have a great time remembering, analyzing, and lusting to return.