Episode 16: Patrick Koenig - Breaking World Records With The RGV Golf Tour

This week, legendary golf photographer Patrick Koenig joins us in the Clubhouse. We discuss his current endeavour on the RGV golf tour, where he has broken the world record for most 18 hole rounds of golf played in a year. He also discusses some of his favourite courses and locations from years of travel as a photographer. 

The Top100 Clubhouse Podcast is brought to you by Eden Mill; bringing the art of distilling back to St Andrews. 

Transcript

James Henderson
 0:00:00
 The Top 100 Clubhouse podcast is brought to you by Eden Mill. Bring the tradition of distilling whiskey and gin back to St. Andrews, the home of golf. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Top 100 Clubhouse, the ultimate podcast for golf course enthusiasts worldwide. I'm your host, James Henderson, and we're about to embark on a journey through lush fairways and breathtaking landscapes, as well as delving deep into the minds of fascinating individuals from every corner of the golfing universe. Get ready to explore the world's top golf courses through the eyes of those who know them best. This week I had an amazing conversation with Patrick Koning. Patrick Koning is a golf photographer who has set the challenge of playing the most golf courses in a year. He's already beaten it. He's got 60 more days to go. He's been running around in his RV and it's been fascinating listening to him.

Patrick Koenig
 0:01:12
 So I hope you enjoy. Patrick, welcome. Oh, well, thank you for having me. It's a treat. I love talking about golf and it never gets old. So, you know, I'm excited to be on the show.

James Henderson
 0:01:23
 Well, just for our listeners, can you explain to them what you've done this year that's made it so epic?

Patrick Koenig
 0:01:30
 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've played a ton of golf, which is kind of an understatement. More specifically, I've played a world record amount of golf courses. I set the world record for most 18-hole golf courses played in 365 days. Well, it's only been 305 days or something like that, and we are, as of this evening, as of about an hour ago, we played course number 473, and that was a new world record. We took over the record. I say we because everybody that has joined me along the way is part of this record. I'm the official holder of that record, but everybody's been a part of it. And 449 was the previous mark in one year, and we took that down on October 17th at Omni Interlochen, the final putt dropped on course number 450 and the record went into my hands and the water balloons hit me as the local news rolled footage. I think Denver 7 was there and we had Channel 9 and you know, the game book, golf game book, my sponsors were there. It was my friends and family, Breakfast Balls, who brings me all my polos for the entire journey. It was just a real cumulative and cool moment. And there was some nation of just a massive effort, a massive amount of golf played leading up to that. So it was a really satisfying, enjoyable, special moment, the greatest moment that I've ever experienced in my golf career.

James Henderson
 0:03:10
 Well, interestingly, obviously, there's a huge amount of planning and efforts gone in prior to the first ball being hit. Can you go into how you even came across the concept or built up to what you've done?

Patrick Koenig
 0:03:24
 Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's interesting because one doesn't, at least I didn't just say, oh, I'm going to do this and then I get all these things and plan it. I did things similar, and it all started with the idea, I remember I was playing like the, I was playing Sahali golf club about, I don't know, 10-15 years ago and I was like, hey this would be a great, how am I gonna play all these golf courses? I'm just looking at the top, the list of the top 100, I'm thinking about it, we're talking about it and like wouldn't it, the only way to really get to all these golf courses is to have an RV and go from one to the next. Otherwise, you go over to New York and you play 10 courses and then you gotta go back home to your golf or your job or whatever it is. And I was like, well, what if you didn't have a job and you just had an RV and you could just go? I was like, well, that would be cool. But I was like, well, there's no way I can do that because life gets in the way, finances get in the way. And one by one, I kind of stripped those things away and this was the year where this was my job to do this. I did something similar in 2018, which set the stage for when Golf Gamebook gave me a call and said, you ever think about doing that RV thing again? I was like, well, I do because the first time I did it, I didn't quite set the world record and I didn't quite know about the world record until towards the end when I was just 50 courses short of it. And so I was like, well, if I were to do this again, I would go for that record. And then that was the first conversation we had. And they seen the first one, so they know how much fun it was, or at least it looked like. So I was glad that they were excited to see the first one and wanted to go on 2.0 with me, this second journey. And after that call, it was great because the or they were just generated so quickly. And that was about a little over a year ago that we had that conversation. And now I'm a world record holder for most 18-hole golf courses played in a year. And the cool thing is that the Golf Gamebook app has been, it was much more than just like, here's some money, go do this, which a lot of sponsorships tend to be. Much more of a partnership. Miko and Timu and the whole golf game book team have really been supportive of my efforts and worked with me on a lot of different things from content to planning to some events and have been understanding when things weren't going right. And you know, they're part of the journey as well. And so it's I mean, it's a bunch of people that they kind of have helped me along the way. There's no way I could do it on my own, but I have done most of the heavy lifting. I've done all the golfing and all the driving.

James Henderson
 0:06:07
 I'm sorry, I can't get over the fact that you just said a little over a year ago you had that conversation. So you planned the whole thing in four months or three months?

Patrick Koenig
 0:06:15
 Oh yeah, planned the whole thing in like two months basically and it's not, so I planned the idea of it.

James Henderson
 0:06:24
 Oh, that's just how it's mental.

Patrick Koenig
 0:06:26
 Right, yeah, so the thing is you can't really, you know, you can't book all your tee times. Like, you're not getting September and October tee times down in November the year before, because they'd be like, yeah, just call us a month out. We'll have some times you can do it. But then it becomes a little more tricky, because a month out, you're in it. You're playing 36 a day, and so your time is limited. So what I did was states and dates is what I call it. So basically, the United States has, there's 48 lower states. And so I kind of planned my route out based on weather. I went through in the early spring months, I went down through the southern half of the country. And then when summer happens, it's game on. The days are long, the courses are great, and it's just gung ho. And so that's what I'm really going for. That's what I'm doing 36 a day, 54 in some cases, and just hammering away and having the time of my life, playing some amazing golf courses. I mean, I'm not just going to dumps to just get my numbers up and playing Shinnecock Hills. So I've seen some really cool places, meeting some of America's greatest people, and I just had the time of my life doing it. This is not a stressful or really awful record to chase after, especially the way I had it set up with my sponsors and with the RV and just having the know-how to live in an RV. Some people are like, oh, you don't have electricity like this. It's like, well, you got to have an electricity management plan to like, you know, when you can run the generator and then you got to be mindful of oil changes and then you've got your water, you know, you got to manage your water, stuff like that, and how often are you plugging into a place where you sleep in. So those sort of things can be time consuming if you don't know kind of the way to do it.

James Henderson
 0:08:13
 The club's been quite responsive to an RV turning up because I can imagine there'll be a few that wouldn't like it.

Patrick Koenig
 0:08:21
 That's kind of fun. So some I'm like, I'm just gonna show up in the RV. And sometimes they get a little like, oh, this guy took a wrong turn. But then I tell them I have a tea time with whoever's my host that day. And they, they, they, the tone changes sometimes. Now there's a little bit of discrimination with the RV. And there are some that I just don't bother showing up in an RV because I'm like, oh, that's not going to work. You know, I have a little bit of knowledge of some of these clubs, and they tend to be mostly on the East Coast, where you don't, I didn't pull up to Shinnecock Hills in an RV. I parked it at the, if anybody knows Southampton well, there's a Southampton driving range just down the street. So I called them up, it's like, hey, I'm playing Southampton or Shinnecock Hills tomorrow. Can you explain the whole tour thing? Can we park in your driving range, like the back of your driving range? And they're like, yeah, that's fine. They were super nice, super nice. So I love the South Hampton driving range. And then it just took an Uber in the morning and play. We played Chinnokok Hills, which is one of my favorites. And my my my big bucket lister to play on this golf course, I'd seen a lot or big bucket list golf course to play on this trip. I'd seen a lot of golf courses, you know, over 90 of the top 100 already before I took off on this trip. So there was a couple that I'd earmarked. Shinnecock was at the top of that list, and Sandhills was number two. And I've seen them both. I played them both this year, and they were both just as spectacular as I was hoping that they would be.

3
 0:09:53
 And so-

James Henderson
 0:09:54
 Sorry, go on. No, no, I'm just- that was kind of the end of my thought there. Going back to one point that you said earlier about meeting amazing people, you must have built the most amazing network while going around these golf courses. What are the characters that have really stood out to you and why?

Patrick Koenig
 0:10:11
 I mean, there's a, the only thing that I regret about it is that you meet so many people, but you do get to know them well because you're playing around a golf with them, it's five hours, but I'm doing, I'm playing five hours, then I'm going to meet the next batch of folks or next people. Maybe sometimes I play by myself, maybe I don't, but there's stretches where it was just like, just hordes of really interesting people that I would have loved to like, I don't know, follow up with or play again or like make a deeper connection with other than just those five, those five hours. So it's kind of like, that's kind of the tough part is, is, you know, that you want to make them feel like they matter because they all do, but it's like I'm just going and going. So I think most people understood that. They kind of get the idea of like what I'm doing is little bananas and so they don't always expect to be, you know, they're like, I'll start to bug you and we know you're busy because they kind of just see the pace at which I'm rocking. And it's always kind of like I get a lot of, we know you're busy, but can you do this or can you send those pictures along? And a bunch of characters, a bunch of characters that always stick out. My, my, my buddy Sean Kent always gets the, the first nod when people ask this question because he's such a, um, he's an aggressive and fantastic man, a bold dresser, bold talker, um, probably one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the state of South Carolina. It's stories for days. We played out Coyote club, um, got murder charges dismissed on the third hole, which I was impressed by. Yeah, I mean, I was like, wait, don't you usually have to be like in a courtroom for that to happen?

6
 0:11:47
 He's like, yeah.

Patrick Koenig
 0:11:47
 I was like, but you're on the third hole. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, man, I'm gonna go shoot somebody on the sixth hole and like, and get acquitted on the 12th, you know? I mean, we joke, but John was one of many people that he's just stuck out. He was hard to ignore.

3
 0:12:04
 Yeah.

Patrick Koenig
 0:12:05
 The generosity has been insane. I mean, from people like just the other night, you know, we had a gentleman that I played with before invited me back to for dinner with his wife after we played Entrada at Snow Canyon. That was just, you know, that's just the most recent examples of generosity. I mean, they cooked up a meal. We had just good conversation and just a lot of fun. And that was a special thing, when people invite you into their homes and then generously donated to the First Tee, which we've raised over $32,000.

James Henderson
 0:12:37
 Oh, amazing.

Patrick Koenig
 0:12:38
 I have to probably go back, it's probably $33,000 now, I have to check the tally, but, you know, that's super cool, that's money that kind of helps the next generation maybe do something like this. Maybe I'm paying for the kid that will break this record, which would be cool.

James Henderson
 0:12:53
 Can you expand a wee bit on what the First Tee is for the listeners?

Patrick Koenig
 0:12:56
 Oh yeah. So the First Tee is an organization here in the United States, primarily, I think it's all in the United States. They have chapters all across the country where they have these coaches that teach kids the life lessons of golf. They get them involved in the game, they get them access clubs and balls, and then they have mentors or coaches that teach them things like perseverance and patience and things that the game of golf teaches you if you stick with it, that taught me. So it's like when I think about things, like I mean, anger management, I was horrible. So I was a hothead. But I was like, hey, golf, if you wanna play golf and you wanna not, you continue to play it successfully, you'd have to learn to cut it out. And like, you know, you're allowed to get mad, but don't let it affect other people. Don't let it affect you for more than a few seconds. And that, you know, golf taught me that. And then I was able to transfer that into my life, and it makes my life better. So, and that's just the, you know, one thing. Golf teaches a lot of valuable lessons that you don't really realize until you progress in the game and kind of understand. But the first he pulls those out and it's like, no, this is where the honesty thing comes into play. You can't, can't do that. And so I'm teaching those kids lessons at a young age. Making them think that way should hopefully help. Even they to go on to set world records or play a bunch of golf. It's a positive thing. And we've donated to only the chapters. The HQ tends to have a higher purpose in mind. And I was like, nah, I wanna give to the people that are talking to the kids. So, first T chapters across the country. The Greater Seattle is my default one. And so they get a good chunk of the change as well. But we're cruising around to, and we've done a couple of things for the Southern California Foundation and the SCGA. And we'll probably do some stuff for like some of the youth and core stuff in Southern California coming up here towards the end. But it's been rewarding, it's been something outside of just selfishly wanting to see Shinnecock kills. Like, you know, that's great for me, but that's like the perk of the job, right?

3
 0:15:10
 Yeah.

James Henderson
 0:15:11
 On that point, you say Seattle, is that home for you?

Patrick Koenig
 0:15:17
 Seattle used to be home. Seattle used to be home. So when I did my first tour in 2018, you know, I was living there. Then I moved into the golf hobo role where I just rolled around the country in an RV and had no home. And then I found a home in Laguna Beach when I was done with that, and so I've lived there ever since. And so I kept my place as I did this so I'd have a place to go back to. I have a very loving girlfriend that somehow managed to survive this whole thing with me. She hasn't given up yet. I think we're going to make it to the end, which would be really cool, because it's not easy. You know, somebody that supports you on doing something like this is somebody special, right? So that was cool to see her go all in, it's not easy and there's been certainly plenty of tough times and Defcon 5, you know, girlfriend alarms. That was genuinely one of the questions I have a WhatsApp group on with a bunch of golfers and one of the questions was how

James Henderson
 0:16:16
 does he get away with it if he has a girlfriend or a wife? Yeah, well that's

Patrick Koenig
 0:16:21
 the thing, so Rachel has raised the bar for all the girlfriends in the land. I tell the boys and my guys, I have a girlfriend and I played a year. I got a year pass for golf. Like you can get five days. I got 365. So any of those questions, just I'll direct them to Rachel, right? So there's no excuse anymore, fellas.

James Henderson
 0:16:43
 Yeah, true. Very true. Speaking about, off the topic of characters and experiences, we'll start with Lowe's. Was there any period where you had, I can see you're a very positive person, so it's kind of an awkward question, but is there any period you just had a low point where you're playing a lot of single person rounds or?

Patrick Koenig
 0:17:07
 Yeah. So I like the singles. I like to go by myself. I love being first out, like have nobody around. That's rare, especially now, the courses seem all so crowded. But man, sign me up for that. But I think you're trying to get it like, is the vibe ever like just kind of, you know? And there are times when it's not as fun. You're like, dude, I'm living in, I woke up, I'm Walmart, it's hot, and the AC is broken. That was tough. And it's just so damn sweaty. And you're just like trying to cool off and you take a lot of the things of like steady electricity, running water, cool temperate air that you can, you know, I mean it was unlivable. It was like an oven in here. You get in here and you just like run in to grab something because it's so piping hot without the AC and you know that was, those times were tough. It's usually, and it was in the beginning, the RV was breaking down quite a bit, and so I was, there was one time when the stabilization system locked up and I wasn't able to drive anywhere, that that pissed me off.

James Henderson
 0:18:13
 And that was- Must have been so frustrating.

Patrick Koenig
 0:18:14
 Oh, it is, because it's like, it's a brand new RV, so we bought it with the hopes that like, most things go wrong after a year of owning an RV. This thing was like, after a day, everything was going wrong. So, then when I got, then I got it fixed and I walked back on to I literally got the Stable adjacent fix thing. I walked back on in the stairs just like broke right off I was like this this piece of crap and I was I I said a few choice words in the parking lot there and Then then jumped on the phone got somebody tied those things up back up and made it to a tea time And you know, I then I had a late night with a repair guy and it cost us a ton of money, but the tour went on and I made it to, I think it was like Dallas. Was this in Austin? It was like, yeah, it was in Austin and then I made it over to Dallas or Houston.

James Henderson
 0:19:03
 So speak about that, what was your route?

Patrick Koenig
 0:19:05
 Yeah, the route to get specific, started in Southern California, Monarch Beach, and then you can go onto my website and follow the schedule so you'll have every single course along the way. Every day, one or two courses, every single day from January 3rd onwards. But it goes across the southern half of the country, down through Texas, into Florida, back up to Chicago, back down to South Carolina, back up to New York, and then over to Finland and Sweden to visit the Gamebook folks, and then back to New York, up to Maine, down to Philly, and then through the center, like through Pittsburgh, Ohio, Illinois, up into Michigan, and then through the middle of the country, Nebraska, Denver, Utah, and we just arrived in Nevada.

James Henderson
 0:19:54
 You went to Finland?

Patrick Koenig
 0:19:56
 Yes, yes, of course, Finland. Obviously, the New York to Finland leg of any respectable golf tour. That's where Golf Gamebook is headquartered. So that's the app where I'm keeping all my scores and tracking everything. And they say, well, when you get to New York, it's an easy flight. And it's not difficult to make it over there. And they wanted to introduce me to the team and bring the tour kind of onto their turf. And we played 10 different golf courses in Finland and then Sweden. They're like, oh, you gotta go to Sweden. It's right there, you know, 40 minute flight or something. And 10 courses in about a week. And it was cool to see the people that have helped me with like, you know, putting together the podcast. Or, you know, you know these email names and then you don't know the people. And so then we got to play golf with them. And they were all, they're now, you know, they're part of the record, but now they're officially like part of the record. They played around on the tour. They're in the digital scrolls of golf history, which is where the, what I'm calling the the rounds and from this year that I've recorded in the golf game book app. Wow superb that's I didn't expect you to be going leaving the country and or maybe to Mexico or Canada but not to. No I didn't miss a day I didn't miss a day there so you just play in the morning and then drive over or drive or fly over and then you play well you you you leave in the morning and then play in the afternoon when you're on the way over there. And then in the morning you'll just play and then fly. And then you wake up the next morning and play again. So I was like, oh, I didn't miss a day of golf.

James Henderson
 0:21:21
 Is there any days you missed?

Patrick Koenig
 0:21:23
 There was six days in a row that I took off, which was for the Tiger Woods Invitational. So it was a job. It was a job to do photography for the USI folks and Tiger Woods. So, you know, the big cat calls, right? You take off six days to take some photos. And it's at Pebble Beach. And so it was a fun little break. Obviously, that job is a cool one, and I feel very fortunate to have that. And I said, if I wanna do this every year, I should do it every year. You know, and so I didn't want them to think that it wasn't important to me. And so I kept that on the calendar and I didn't play golf for six days. And then I came back and it felt like I hadn't played golf in a year. It was weird because you know, I played every day for like 287 days in a row. Then those six days off and then you come back. Like before, six days off is nothing for like, you know, like whatever, it's just normal. And then, but that was like, I was just like rusty. I was like, I had no idea where the ball was gonna go. And now we're back into the grind and back to trying to break par. So it was weird, it was a weird feeling to not swing a club for that long and then come back.

James Henderson
 0:22:40
 On that point, from start to finish, how has your golf game changed?

Patrick Koenig
 0:22:44
 Not much, not much. The short game's gotten a lot better. So if I don't get up and down, I'm like, I really try to chip balls in, because I'm like, I get up and down a lot, and I'm like, I need to start chipping these in. I need to start thinking, I got to hole out for the bunker shots. Like, that's what I'm trying to do. And that's a mental thing where you just kind of, the feel gets so familiar. You know, you look in the sand, and you're like, I know exactly what this is gonna do. I know this, how these greens roll, or this bounce, and like, you just, you see it, and you feel it, and you're just better. Whereas if you don't play for a week at a time and then you pick it up, you're just not gonna have that touch and that's the difference. That's a huge difference. So my long game's kind of whatever. I don't hit it as far because I'm not trying to hit bombs. I'm just trying to survive. And the short game kind of saves me. So I'm usually, even when things get squirrely, I can still probably roll into 78 or 77.

James Henderson
 0:23:38
 What's your handicap?

Patrick Koenig
 0:23:39
 I think I'm like a one now. I don't know, I'll have to check it, but it's like I've been in from, I got down to scratch, it's been zero to two. It hasn't fluctuated greatly. It's not like I started as an 11 and then went down to scratch or anything absurd. If I were to actually get much better, if I were to look to get into the pluses, I'd have to start doing something different in terms of like my approach to the game because I'm not going to get much better given what I'm currently doing because I've done it and it just doesn't – I'm not going to go on a PT tour. I mean that's fine. I'm very happy playing at a – this is a great clip. I'm a scratch golfer.

3
 0:24:15
 It's – I'm at 1%.

Patrick Koenig
 0:24:16
 It's the dream.

James Henderson
 0:24:17
 It's an absolute dream. And about that, on that footing, what's your highest score you've scored and what's the lowest you've scored?

Patrick Koenig
 0:24:28
 Oh man, so.

5
 0:24:29
 In the golf course?

Patrick Koenig
 0:24:29
 Yeah, I do, I do, I have a couple. I had a shot of 91 and I blocked out the name of the golf course. I was like north of Atlanta and it was, I had like 13 penalty strokes. Every time I hit the ball, it went into the trees and I just kept dropping. I was like, this sucks. And it was the only time I really lost my composure, my concentration to like finish. It was just frustrating. I learned something that day about myself. You can still, it can still get away from you. Shot a 91. The other day I shot a 50 on the front nine. I'm like, dang, a 50 on the front nine? And I was cool as can be. I was just, it was a new course called Black Desert in St. George and it's beautiful. It's like you're playing through lava fields. That's why they call it Black Desert. But the front nine is like blind shots. And then the lava, if you know anything about lava rock, like you're not getting your ball at a lava rock. You're not hitting it out of there. It's gone. And so I think I had like seven or eight penalty strokes in the front and like just the greens were hard because it's a new course. And I shot a 50. And but then I came back. The back nine's much better and I liked it better. I think I shot 39 to stay below. That's my second highest score. And then on the flip side, 67, I think at least once or twice, 67. 65 is the best score from any player. And that was, he was in Ohio. I'd have to look up the gentleman that did it. He was a stick. I think he had a 65. That's like a bogey in the last hole, like dumb. We were pulling for him to like get real low But it's tough, you know golf's hard and the 67 was pretty smooth I think the Cimarron was one of those rounds putter was going putters got to go putters got to be firing if you're going low and I was hitting shots in there and giving myself chances and then the putter just and I didn't So what normally happens is you do a little bit of that and you you get to two under three under and then you're like, oh hell and then it all then you start Hanging on and before you know it you're you have a string of bogeys and you're back to shooting 39 or 40. Yeah Nope, I'm gonna I'm getting into the 60s. I'm taking it low I was like, I'm gonna be because it's all about me beating my best at that point So I had a 69 already up there something like I'm got I got a beat 69 So I kind of you really compete against yourself in that low but 67 is really good for me it's but you know I had it 165 in you know it feels like a lifetime ago that was freakish freak I'm not a 65 guy I mean it was that day but I know there could be a 66 in me I hopefully got a lot of golf karma built up and just like a just some sort of you know great round I could do it you know you can never say you can't do it, but that would be something to shoot 66. 67 was really fun.

James Henderson
 0:27:22
 I'm sure it'll come, I'm sure it'll come. You've got plenty more golf to play in your life.

Patrick Koenig
 0:27:26
 I do, I do. I mean, the tour is winding down. We've got 60 days left or something like that. So the goals have been readjusted. We've got, once you set the goal, it's like, all right, well, what are we gonna do next? And so 500 was the next goal, and I was like, well, that's easy to do. It's not hard. So I said, what about 555? Because that is an even 10,000 different golf holes in a single year. Which is something. Nobody's ever done that. That's, no. Yeah, different golf holes.

4
 0:27:59
 That's amazing.

James Henderson
 0:28:00
 I think I'll need to be I it's not all 18 whole courses But I'm pretty sure the number of golf course in Scotland's about 555. Oh, is it? Yeah

Patrick Koenig
 0:28:12
 That what is the other figure out the exact number is it be that'd be kind of you know

James Henderson
 0:28:17
 It changes because there'll be a nine-hole course pop-up and a nine-hole course closed down. Yeah Yeah

Patrick Koenig
 0:28:22
 kind of wavers and nobody's ever really sure every time I look and try to do, nobody's counting these things because every year, at least in the United States, a dozen will go out of business. Maybe 20 new ones will get built. And so it's hard to get the exact number, but that would be interesting to know if I could nail that. Right on the head, because if it's around that number, you know, the 10,000 hallmark was, I think, was what caught my attention. I don't know why we like even numbers so much. It's just fun to do something so extreme and have people rally around you to be a part of it.

James Henderson
 0:29:01
 I'll definitely look that out for you. I'll get the actual number.

Patrick Koenig
 0:29:05
 Okay, cool.

James Henderson
 0:29:05
 See if you can beat it. And on the golf course, the front.

3
 0:29:09
 Okay.

James Henderson
 0:29:11
 Most memorable golf course you've played.

Patrick Koenig
 0:29:13
 Memorable, good Lord. There's so many memorable ones it's hard to remember any of them. Yeah I don't know if that makes any sense but I mean I'll look around here for inspiration in the RGV. I've really peppered this place with... Can we tour of your stash? No, no, yeah we can, I mean this works. Not very good for a podcast but

James Henderson
 0:29:38
 it's your favorite stash.

Patrick Koenig
 0:29:39
 I'm trying to guide them around. You can see on the ceilings here, we've got a bunch of different things. So we got we got the Olympic Club. We got four students and each one of these is a story. I mean, even I played some nine holes like Culver's and like a nine hole that nobody even thinks about. That didn't count for the record, but I love playing it. And then so you can see we've got all these ball marks that I do. I put all the ball marks on there as I go to different places. Then there's more on the ceiling. Wachung Valley was a great one with the Golf Digest Invitational. And then we got, my buddy Eric's over there. He's just sleeping. Hey, Eric.

3
 0:30:13
 I don't know how I'm doing that.

Patrick Koenig
 0:30:14
 There he is. There he is, he's waving. So Eric's a co-captain on this little tour for the next couple weeks he's been out here since we set it up.

James Henderson
 0:30:26
 So you've had quite a few people come and help drive and doing different, or just keeping the same.

Patrick Koenig
 0:30:31
 Yeah, I do most of the driving, but I've had maybe, I don't know, seven or eight co-captains over the course of a year, and Eric's a pretty dang good one. He's done a heck of a job so far. What else can I show you? Oh, the play like a champion sign is great. It's kind of hard, it's like backwards on this thing. But for those familiar with Notre Dame football, know the play like a champion today. I hit that everybody, or I hit that every time I go out. Golf like a champion is what it is. But, so there's all these places that. Does that mean you're not a Dame?

James Henderson
 0:31:01
 Did you go to Notre Dame then? Are you a Notre Dame guy? I'm a Notre Dame guy.

Patrick Koenig
 0:31:05
 My dad went there. I went to Indiana University, but I love the course out there. It was part of the first tour, it was part of this tour. It's just a cool place, it's a special place. I had some great hosts there this year. We played South Bend Country Club and the Warren Course at Notre Dame in a spectacular day of 36. That was special because the RV company that built this thing is also headquartered there. So I dropped that thing off, I gave them a list of about 25 things that were broken on this brand new RV And I was like, alright guys fix the AC anything else you can get is is a bonus I'm gonna go play 36 and then pick this thing up. They did a pretty good job. They fixed almost everything Except for it's still whenever it rains a river of water flows through this thing, which that's pretty bad. There's severe water damage in the back and then the toilet doesn't work.

James Henderson
 0:32:07
 No ideal.

Patrick Koenig
 0:32:08
 But compared to what was wrong with this thing, that is pretty good. I mean, the list was substantial. And so we're digging the improved situation. And it hasn't been raining too much lately, which is good because I experienced 22 days of rain in a row, 22 courses. It rained every day.

James Henderson
 0:32:29
 I was going to ask you what was the worst weather.

Patrick Koenig
 0:32:31
 Well, that's that. Well, Royal New Kent. Royal New Kent is a fantastic course. And I think Virginia, I think it's Virginia. And I just showed up because I had a tea time. Did not expect to be able to play, but I'm going to play if they're going to let me. But it was like coming down heavily. They let me play, which I think was more just a mistake than an actual. And so I get out and it's like, the first hole's a river. I mean, it's unplayable. But I'm playing it, I'm like hammering my putts through the water on the greens. And it's like playable, but it's like, you know, you're not, it's goofy golf. So I get to nine and 10, the superintendent tells me that I have to stop playing. At this point I'm completely soaked. I've got nine holes in. I'm like, I gotta play the other nine holes. It won't count if I don't get all 18 in.

James Henderson
 0:33:26
 What's the point if you've already done half of it?

Patrick Koenig
 0:33:28
 Yeah, I'm like, what's the point? I'm just completely soaked. You gotta let me finish. You're gonna play in this weather. He's like, I'm not doing any damage to the course. I'm driving, was I walking? No, I had a cart, which was worthless. But anyways, I'm doing the, on the cart pass the whole time. So we're kind of back and forth, like going at it. And eventually he just let me, he said, fine. And I was like, I just turned around and went and played. And then once I finished up, I went in to thank him for letting me finish up and be a part of the record. And he had checked out the stuff and kind of seen what I was up to. And it wasn't as intense, and we were all very happy. So I'm thrilled to have Royal New Kent be a part of it. It's a fantastic course, and I'd love to go back and see it in better weather, because I would love to experience it, how it's supposed to be played. It's a strance design that gets some, it's bold. It gets some notoriety, it's a little wonky. But that's the stuff that I love. I love the bold chances that architects take, and a lot of people, they get just roasted. If they're like over that line, everybody, oh, it's clown golf, Mickey Mouse, this and that, and it's like, well, this is an architect taking a chance and trying to do something interesting, and like, just take it easy, you know? It's not Marian, you know? It's like, I mean, and a few places are, but there's somebody trying to make a mark. And I'd always rather play an interesting attempt at something fresh and new than just kind of some bold and boring course that I've seen a hundred different types of. Well, that's my next question is, was on that kind of, you've obviously played so many golf courses now. There must be stretches where the golf has just been the same day after day and or just you felt like What's going on here? This course is just the same as I played before and does it come minima some does it do you? The course that come forgetful is a better question The answer is really no and I'll tell you why it's because America's is such a great golf landscape that I mean there's a the interesting courses just don't stop. You know, from the courses to go to like, from Michigan, I mean, I go down that list and I'm like, I can explain why each one is very different from the last one. They all kind of have a similar flavor and flow in an area because of the land that they're on. And then it flows into something different. You know, I go from like Michigan to Indiana, Indiana, then it's like you get this taste of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. You play the brickyard and you play inside of the track and they're hammering speedy cars around that thing. It's insane. So that's it. Then you go over to that and then you get into Chicago and you get a taste of the classic stuff. And so you'll play maybe two Donald Rosses back to back that feel similar. For somebody that really loves golf courses, and I really try to pay attention to my schedule and play the best, most interesting courses that I've wanted to take advantage of the time that I'm there, because I don't get a chance to be in Illinois and have that many days to play golf. So I'm like, I have seven days. I want it, there's so many great golf courses here that I want to see, so it's really much more like a kid in a candy store, and I'm not like these things run together like ever. I mean the only time that that did was early on in Scottsdale. Desert golf can be kind of whatever. And those courses are, when you first play them for the first time, they have, it's kind of a fun thing is perfect, but it's all just turf laid over desert and it's a little targety from time to time. Some, not every course is that way, but desert golf I feel like has its limitations and I was just trying to get my numbers up early on and I was just hammering out 36 a day and some of those courses, I just scraped the bottom of the barrel on some of those places and some of those were less interesting, but I knew immediately I had New Mexico coming up and then I was into Texas where there's great golf and like these golf courses are, I'm hunting down ones that I've wanted to see for some time. And so it's not like, oh, this is some task I'm just running through these things. It's like, no, each one of these is a treat to play. And if you look through those courses on that list and do some research on it, you'll see that this is not an easy lineup to put together in terms of just access, you know, from private to some of the places. And so, you know, a place like Sawgrass or a place like Harbortown where anybody can play, those are special rounds of golf. You know, you'll, I mean, there's, and especially once you get into the architect and the architecture and start to appreciate the different styles, it becomes really fun.

James Henderson
 0:38:15
 There's, you're big, obviously, big into architecture, being a golf photographer, let alone someone who's willing to, wanting to play so many golf courses. On the golf architecture front, is there anything you've, any point or pieces of golf architecture that you've discovered on your trip?

Patrick Koenig
 0:38:32
 Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, there absolutely is. There's tons of pieces. And I got much more familiar with Donald Ross this time. I've started to appreciate old man Ross a lot more. And Donald has given us some of the best golf courses in America, everybody knows Pinehurst and places like that. But then you start digging into, I mean, there's a ton of stuff around Boston that I've played and you start to play a number of row, like you feel like you know these guys because they spent a good amount of time and effort to build these things for you and that's really fun. And the big pieces that I, you know, you pick up are kind of the marquee courses, ones with the big names that are celebrated widely. And you know, one of the six, when you said pieces or features, was a new one. It was the Landman Golf Course in Nebraska by King Collins Golf. And what they've done is kind of a follow-up to Sweetens Cove, which has received a lot of applaud and praise from architecture aficionados here in the United States. A little nine-hole that was built on like a nothing piece of land.

James Henderson
 0:39:41
 My friend, my friend who's a Sweet'N's Cove member, just messaged me because he saw that I was interviewing you and he said you played with one of his mates near Atlanta on your journeys. Hopefully it wasn't that round of 91 that I had. Hopefully not. I won't ask.

Patrick Koenig
 0:40:02
 I played quite a few courses in Atlanta. So it would be hard to narrow it down.

James Henderson
 0:40:07
 No, don't worry. I'm not going to bring it up. No one will know.

Patrick Koenig
 0:40:10
 Okay.

James Henderson
 0:40:11
 Talk about it another time. So it's like Sweet'n's Cove, but it's an 18-hole course in Nebraska.

Patrick Koenig
 0:40:18
 Well, the style is that way. So the land that they were giving for Sweet'n's Cove is like a square plot of land. And what they did with it was special. Like, these guys got some skills and it earned them the right to get a shot at a magnificent course. Their first, kind of the first one out of the gate. And these guys will get a lot more opportunity as this golf course gets viewed by other people looking to build a golf course. I'm sure they've got plans, you know, and courses in the works already. But this one's been around for a full year now, and I got the chance to play it on one of the last few days it was open. And there's one that kind of caught my eye, and I just thought it was the most interesting feature I'd seen on a golf course maybe the entire tour, which is saying something, because I've seen a lot of cool stuff. But it was new, and it was a fresh thing. Like, there's a lot of stuff that you see over and over again. You're like, this is good. It's the same type of version of this, but it was just kind of like a grass swale with some rough in it that ran right down the middle of this. I think it was like the third or fourth hole, the short part of four, but it had this swale and grass, and there was some hazards there. So you had to navigate that to the left or the right. And it was just stunningly beautiful, the way it photographed from the first part. I was a little biased from the photography, but then it also presented the perfect sort of challenge, the perfect hazard, one that you should stay away from, but one that you can recover from as well. And so, and a little bit of luck, I think, is always, like, if you bounce into high grass, it's gonna be bad news for you. But you could also kind of get down into there and just have a different angle, or like a weird lie, or feet above, and it's like, you wanna stay away from it, but it's like, it's not the end of the world. No, there's nothing more than I hate than a course. That's like, all right, if you miss this, right? You write down a six on your scorecard. You're like, well, I'm hitting my second shot. It's like, yeah, that's the end of the hole for you. And like, that is just, that to me is, you can have those a couple of holes, but if that's how it is every hole, like forget it. Like you missed it. You missed the boat on thrilling recovery shots. I mean, you talk to Alistair McKenzie about it, you can't, you got to study the guy's words, but I'm sure you would say, I mean, he said that it's the most thrilling golf shot in golf is the recovery shot. And he set it up so you would just get, you could do hero shots or recovery shots right off the bat. Like there was, it was, it was, his holes were teed up that way. If you look at the eighth and the ninth at Cypress point are perfect examples of that. I mean, you've got, you've got the hero shot, and then if you hit it bad, well, you're not dead, but you're in big trouble. And then, you know, so I remember the first time I played the eighth hole at Cypress Point. I hit it, I went for the hero shot and blew it, blew it bad. So I'm in a horrible lie in these kind of sandy dunes and kind of like a sandy depression, and I hit just this killer 60, 70-yard bunker shot, which anybody that knows, this native sand, so it's not groomed and it just went to like three feet. And that was my shot of the day. I was like, just giddy. And if that would have been a pond, there's no giddiness, there's no recovery. It's like that course would have missed, missed entirely. I just would have been pissed. So what, what are, like, what is the better experience there? Like what are you trying to do? You're trying to, you know, run up the score on this or are you trying to make golfers happy and challenge them with thrilling shots? To me, it's the perfect example of what can be and what often gets missed a lot with these golf courses that just say, here, this is penal, here's a pond. King Collins obviously thinks in that same way because there's very few spots where you're done. There's a lot of spots where you're at a disadvantage. And I think that is great golf course architecture and that's great design. And it's plentiful at Landman and I look for a ton more from those guys.

James Henderson
 0:44:13
 There was someone told me the other day that a lot of McKenzie's work created the deception of extreme difficulty.

Patrick Koenig
 0:44:21
 Yeah, yeah. And some of his tricks don't work as well because we have technology that gets around something that looks like it's right in front of the green, but it's actually not. So it's 50 yards, there's 50 yards closer than you might think. And that's very true. And that gets into the ethos or the mind of the golfer on the tee. If you think this is very difficult, then you might be more prone to hit a poor shot. But once you have that experience and that you know where to hit it, it's very playable still. And so those illusions are very true in a lot of discourses. So I think we've covered most of the stuff I want to talk about.

James Henderson
 0:45:02
 But is there anything that you've learned on your trip that you want to tell all our followers or anyone who's part of the Top 100 group?

Patrick Koenig
 0:45:18
 Play fast golf. Play golf fast.

James Henderson
 0:45:20
 Do you know what our tagline for the podcast is?

Patrick Koenig
 0:45:25
 No.

James Henderson
 0:45:26
 What is it? Play fast, lunch slow.

Patrick Koenig
 0:45:28
 Yeah, that's good. I mean, you've got to play fast. Today we had a five-hour round, and you kind of find ways to like make it okay but you know everybody wants to move and you know four hours is a long time to play golf anyways and so keep it keep it moving along and you know that's the one thing that comes to comes to mind and there's a there's a lot of things that I've learned on on this tour about my about myself in terms of things I might have known I thought oh I got got this all under control but no I can still get angry I can still have I've had punched a cart when I thought sandhills wasn't gonna happen. I got my man a Cart and it was and I like hurt my pinky So I couldn't swing because it was like the interlock grip was putting pressure on it It was it hurt like hell for the back nine And I was like well You maybe you don't know you're not as not as smooth as you think and you know Go any at any point in time you can regress and so I learned that about myself and golf continues to throw lessons at you all the time. Okay, sorry go on. Yeah, I'm just saying and the journey never stops, right? You never stop with self-improvement. We always finish with one thing and it's your top five favorite golf courses, not the best

James Henderson
 0:46:45
 golf courses, your favorite.

Patrick Koenig
 0:46:46
 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can probably do that. Pine Valley is the very best and it's one of my favorites as well. The most scenic, most beautiful place to, I mean, it's laughably good, is Cypress Point. My favorite routing, I loved it for the routing. I get more into like a good routing these days because, you know, you just, the more nerded out you get, you appreciate routing. And I always go back to Marion for routing. One that's usually my favorite, it gets right at the top is National Golf Links because it's so much fun. National Golf Links is just a, I love architecture, so it's fun from a study standpoint and it's just fun to play. And then finally, I'd throw in Oakmont from just like, it's the best challenging, best test of golf, best of challenge, like just the A game players, you just, you kind of step up for Oakmont because if you're out of position, it's game over. And I had a lot of fun playing there and hitting those shots that just seemed like they seem like even you're paying attention from the tee. You're like, all right, I got to be in the left side of the fairway so I can approach this green. Because if I'm coming at it from the right hand side, I might as well write down six already. So it's like you're on the tee, you're thinking about the green. It's just much better and it engages the golf brain. So Oakmont runs out the top five.

James Henderson
 0:48:06
 As a golf course architecture fan, what golf course architecture do you admire the most? Well, apart from just styles of architecture, do you admire the most? I love the old stuff.

Patrick Koenig
 0:48:19
 The old stuff is always cooler. I don't know, it's just because it's old. You can't talk to the guys anymore. It's kind of where our game started. So I love a classically designed golf course. And I think there's something about those designs that, like, they're still playing them today. It's like, this is still great. Whatever Donald Ross built back 100 years ago is still awesome today. And there's something there in that regard.

James Henderson
 0:48:46
 They've got things like National, right, and Chicago. And these courses were designed when golf course architecture didn't exist in America, or it was just, it was the embryo stages, but yet they're the best courses in America. It's a weird thing, it's the one thing that hasn't got better.

Patrick Koenig
 0:49:04
 Yeah, it's interesting, and I think, and I don't know if that's just us thinking that old stuff is better because it's old. I often wonder, it's like, is this stuff really that great, or is it just old, and we have a lot of respect for it? And there's a lot of history that plays into it. I think there's a bit of both going on there But yeah, you're right. I mean that was CB McDonald the father of American golf bringing over the the architecture And I don't know how much you know It's it's interesting to think how much of this was on purpose how much of it was just kind of that's the way that the the cookie crumbled or that land played into favor and we'd have to be fools to think that a lot of this stuff wasn't just kind of just happened to be stumbled upon. And this is how we played this whole, and it just turned into something magical. And people loved it. And so they took it from the courses of the British Isles and brought it over. And so we owe a debt of gratitude to CB and Seth Rayner for bestowing us with those magical designs that we often look at to inspire us for courses of today. And I know, as the aforementioned King Collins, there's an ode to those designs in just about every hole out there. So it's kind of a cool thing to have the new mixed with the old. I think golf's in a really good place right now in terms of golf courses, because the new ones are good. They're not turning out courses that are bad or wasteful. I mean, they're thinking a lot more along the lines of water conservation, natural and celebration of the environment, community. You know, we're really trying to bring people in from all walks of life to enjoy these places, and that's being built with that in mind. Obviously, we're still getting some high-end private courses that are only there to serve very wealthy individuals. Those will always be there in America. It's kind of how our country works. But there's a lot of golf that's being built with those kind of updated values in mind. And that's exciting. Landman is a public golf place. It's kind of like, I don't know. We're using it as kind of an example on this conversation, but it's very true. You know, I mean, they celebrate public golf, and it's popular. Those guys were, I mean, I had to like, I don't know, I got lucky to get in there, snuck in on tee time once I think they were officially closed, and they had a little event that I snuck in to see it. And they are, as soon as they open up tee times in like the spring, sometime in the spring, like they were booked, the entire, every tee time for the entire season was filled, you know, like before they even started playing golf, which I don't know if that's entirely true, but it was, it's not easy. That's crazy to think, because usually it's like, you know, a month out, it's just, it's completely empty. You know, nobody's booking that far in advance, but we're in a different world now, and it's a good one where golf is exciting and important, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

James Henderson
 0:52:05
 Well, that's one thing you could argue about the whole difference is golf's more important. It's more important than the houses now, whereas before, the housing was the valuable bit. Yeah, I love that.

Patrick Koenig
 0:52:17
 I love that you said that, because there's nothing that bums me out more than a great golf course. So I always like, do you think that that homeowner feels bad about what they did to this golf hole in the view? And no, they don't have a, so let's just build golf courses for golf courses and then we can, I don't think we'll ever fully get away from that formula that's, that America is just known for. Right, well, that's, I asked one of my Swedish friends, Finnish friends the other day, with a difference between the two. He's like, America has a lot more houses on their golf courses. And I thought that was sad because it's not the game, I think, that we kind of imagine when we think of golf. We think of kind of an escape away from our homes and out into that kind of that setting, that serene setting of nature. And a lot of people use it as kind of an escape from what the normal life is. And when you start bringing homes in, it just takes that away so quickly. So...

James Henderson
 0:53:22
 There's... Sorry, just on another point you said there, you talked about how golf is becoming more public in America. Yes. And... Lynx is a public land in Scotland. The Lynx land has always been public. The golf courses are, it's only really the new ones that aren't shared, common property by the town, which just goes back to that kind of same concept that it should be public. It's a thing we share together.

Patrick Koenig
 0:53:57
 Yeah, I think it's important that we pay attention to where golf came from. You know, that's what makes it cool. And that's why people wanna go back to Scotland. They wanna go to see the old course. And like, you go there on a Sunday, it's a park and people are having a time. You know, and it's like, this golf is our sport and it belongs to the people, it belongs to the community. I mean, it links the community to the sea. I mean, it's an important part of the fabric in a place like St. Andrews and all those towns over in Scotland. So the more that America can do to take that and that formula and keep it true over here, I think the more people will love the game of golf. And that's evidenced in places like Abandoned Dunes or like Chambers Bay. Pulled that formula. That's a big community spot for that community there in Tacoma. And I mean, those are great golf courses. Despite what you saw or heard or believe from the U.S. Open coverage, go see Chambers Bay because it's a shining example of what golf should be in America. It's a municipal, people use that as a place to walk, as a place to view, it's a point of pride for Tacoma and it's where I hit the first ball for my first tour and this is my last ball on my second tour and I couldn't be more happy to, hopefully it's not snowing, hopefully we just get like a frost delay or maybe we'll get a nice sunny day out there in Seattle on January 2nd and hopefully that'll be 555 or whatever the courses in Scotland are.

James Henderson
 0:55:35
 Well, thank you very much for coming on. That was very interesting and a lot of fun. Hats off to you for doing something truly amazing. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure.

Patrick Koenig
 0:55:45
 It's always talking about this stuff, especially with you. I hope some people enjoy this. If you're ever coming over to play all 550 golf courses in Scotland, give me a text. Okay, well that's no plans for next year yet. So I'll keep that on the to-do list Right. Well, thank you very much

James Henderson
 0:56:04
 Patrick I really hope you do well and continue this amazing run you're on and Take on that 550 mark if you want to get in touch it's James at top 100 golf courses calm or get me on Instagram official top 100 and Always remember play fast lunch slow Always remember play fast lunch slow And always remember, play fast, lunch slow.

 
 
 Transcribed with Cockatoo