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The Firm & Fast Golf Podcast · Shane Derby

Mike Clayton Returns to F&F

·1 hr 36 min·5 clips
Sandbelt golf works because short par fours, firm greens, and strategy matter more than length.
Shane Derby welcomes Mike Clayton back to the Firm and Fast Golf Podcast. They begin with the weather talk that feels inevitable, with an Australian summer ahead and a colder winter in Europe. Clayton then catches up on what he has been doing lately from a golf course design and caddying angle. From there the conversation moves into the coming Australian golf summer and an update on the grow-in and likely opening date at Matt Goggin's Seven Mile Beach project in Hobart. The pair also make the case that golf in England is not appreciated as much as it should be. The discussion then turns to Tom Simpson's course design work in France and Ireland. That opens into a wider look at classic holes and how design ideas travel, with St Andrews, Augusta's 13th, and the Old Course's 17th used as reference points. They also touch on Alister MacKenzie and how ideas he understood at St Andrews were carried into Australia and Royal Melbourne. When the talk returns to courses on relatively flat sites, the focus stays on design and presentation rather than treating the land as a limitation. Good routing, the episode argues, gives a flat course its rhythm, variety, and enjoyment for golfers of every level.

As heard by us

Measured golf talk about the Australian summer, course grow-in, and the craft of routing on a flat site.

This episode stays close to the practical side of golf. Shane Derby and Mike Clayton talk through the coming Australian summer, the grow-in, the likely opening date at the Seven Mile Beach course in Hobart, and the challenge of making a relatively flat site feel alive.

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Why you'd press play

You want Clayton's read on summer, routing, and a flat site, without any fluff or rush.

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