Top 100 Clubhouse - Golf Podcast · Top 100 Golf Courses

Episode 93: Building Broomsedge

October 20, 2025·1 hr 8 min·4 clips

James Henderson opens by reminding listeners that amateur golf is the base of the sport. He and Mike Kapowski then move into the story of Broom's Edge, which Kapowski frames as a side project that got a little dangerous once it became a real golf course build. The pitch is not polished. It is a group of golf nuts trying to make something genuinely cool. Kapowski talks about learning under Kyle Franz and developing a sharper sense of what raw land can and cannot become. He also brings up work on Southern Pines and Eastward Ho, along with time at Raleigh Country Club and Cabot, as part of the path that shaped his eye. From there, the conversation settles into the realities of golf course construction. Preview play, he says, is where the ground starts telling the truth. Drainage issues appear in pockets, and sometimes a spot that looked like a problem turns out not to need much at all. That is part of the cost of paying attention to the budget. He describes the process as building the course as you go. The changes do not stop once the first version is out in the world. They just get smaller. Kapowski says great golf courses are never truly done. He comes back to Pinehurst No. 2 as a reference point for endless tweaking, especially around the greens near his house. The whole discussion becomes as much about temperament as technique. He knows the work takes time, but he also admits he is impatient and wants things now. That tension sits at the center of the episode. He can see, on paper, that good architecture cannot be rushed. He also knows his own instincts pull the other way. The result is a conversation that keeps coming back to patience, iteration, and the stubbornness it takes to make a golf course better. The ending lands on respect for the work itself and on the pretty special fact that someone can build a course and keep caring enough to keep changing it.

As heard by us

A grounded look at building a course that keeps changing.

The piece keeps its focus on the practical work behind a golf course that feels good to walk. Mike Kapowski comes across as someone who learned the job on the ground, with Broom's Edge shaped by a crew of golf nuts and by his time under Kyle Franz.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want golf-architecture talk with dirt under its fingernails, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Top 100 Clubhouse - Golf Podcast