The Waggle Golf Journal Pod

Ron Montesano is a Buffalo-based golf writer and longtime director of BuffaloGolfer.com, which he started in 1999 as a local course newsletter called Buff Golf and moved online a year later. He is a featured writer for GolfWRX, where his regular Tour Tech Rundown columns cover the professional game, and he has also written for TravelGolf, Buffalo Spree, and Destination Golf. His beat spans equipment and apparel, travel, and course architecture. He photographs golf courses as well; his images have appeared in volumes 2 and 3 of Tom Doak’s Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, and he has held press credentials for the USGA, PGA Tour, LPGA, and PGA of America. He writes and posts as BuffaloGolfer. Ron also plays a prominent role with Walter J. Travis Society, which preserves the legacy of the early American amateur champion and course architect and awards annual scholarships to students pursuing golf-related careers. We had a very fun conversation about where we learned to play golf and where we fell in love with the game. Thanks to Ron and I hope that he will come on the pod again. Go Bills. His work can be found here:

Buffalo Golfer

Walter Travis Society

On a slightly different note, and as I mentioned in the introduction to the podcast, author Jim Hartsell’s family has suffered another unimaginable loss when his son Jake passed away last weekend. The golf community worldwide has started raising money in his memory and honor to support junior golf in places he loved. Please contribute if you can:

Hartsell GoFundMe

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Just a quick addendum to the pod with a quick video clip that goes up on social media. Enjoy!

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Ari Techner joins the pod today to discuss being a lifelong golf obsessive who turned his passion into a career, building some of the finest handmade clubs in the game. At just 23, he co-founded Scratch Golf in a one-car garage in Oregon and grew it into a respected custom club company over 13 years. After Scratch closed, he reunited with longtime collaborators to launch National Custom Works, a boutique operation that still forges fully custom irons and putters one set at a time. Beyond equipment, Ari is a co-founder of the Sweetens Cove Golf Club and has worked with the King-Collins design firm, while playing most of America’s Top 100 courses and many of the classic links overseas. Currently based in Campbeltown, Scotland, Ari is an all- around golf guy and fun dude; I think you will enjoy this conversation.

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Joining us today is Jim Hartsell—Alabama architect, lifelong student of Scottish links, and a prominent author in the world of golf . Jim fell in love with the old courses of Scotland as a boy watching the 1977 Open at Turnberry. That early fascination has taken him back again and again, exploring the lesser-known 9- and 18-hole gems that most travelers never reach.

He’s the author of The Secret Home of Golf, the authorized history of Sweetens Cove; When Revelation Comes, his deeply personal journey through the links of western Scotland after the loss of his son; and his newest book, A Round of Scottish Courses, a celebration of the hidden outposts that still feel like golf the way it was meant to be. We share a love of many of the places in Scotland that we have discussed before on this pod- Machrihanish, Kintyre, Dunaverty, Arran, etc.

Jim also co-hosts The Duffer’s Literary Companion with Stephen Proctor, contributes regularly to The Links Diary and The Golfer’s Journal, and has been the subject of a No Laying Up film based on his book, When Revelation Comes. I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation. Many thanks to Jim for coming on the pod.

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We are back from our summer hiatus. Having just wrapped up a very enjoyable Open Championship at a very crisp Royal Birkdale and we have links golf on the brain (for a variety of reasons). So straight out of the gate, we have an evergreen episode we recorded a couple of months ago that speaks to the many layers and styles of English and links golf that are available to discover. Trips to England remain a slightly under-the-radar option for golfers from North America, and the conversation that follows helps to shed some light on regions of the United Kingdom that are very interesting and rewarding experiences for the adventurous links player looking to find unspoiled tracks to play.

With that, we welcome our guests today. Ben Mallach and Joey Peterson took an outrageous trip to southwestern England and explored Cornwall and the Welsh border with convincing depth. Ben and Joey have been friends for several years, having first met during the construction of Cabot properties in Nova Scotia. Ben Mallach is a Canadian golf course architect and the driving force behind Eclectic Golf Design. A true all-rounder in the industry, Ben combines hands-on shaping experience with a deep knowledge of golf architecture history and agronomy. He has worked under respected architects, including Rod Whitman, Andy Staples, Mike Young, and Jay Blasi, and has studied and worked at some of the game’s most storied courses, including St. Andrews. He is the keeper of the ‘hot takes’ and noted commentator on all matters golf and golf course architecture. Joey Peterson is a rising name in golf agronomy, and when he’s not traveling, he is the new superintendent at The Peninsula Golf and Country Club-a highly regarded Donald Ross course- in San Mateo, CA. Joey has worked across the golf world and has seen and worked at a variety of locales, including Cabot Nova Scotia and clubs around Chicago. Huge thanks to both for coming on and having a chat.

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Please welcome architect Brian Ross to the podcast today. After working as a design associate for firms in Austin, Texas, and Pinehurst, North Carolina, he established his own full-service firm, Ross Golf Design, LLC, in 2019, with offices in Austin and Roanoke. Ross is known for his hands-on, detail-oriented approach and has completed several notable projects recently. This list includes his highly regarded work at Park Mammoth, Kentucky- considered to be one of the best courses in that state, and the very impressive restoration and expansion of the Great Dunes Course at Jekyll Island, Georgia. (with Jeff Stein). It was great to have Brian on, and I think you will enjoy this conversation.

Jon Cone, of the Northpoint Golf Club, also joins us to share his thoughts on his recent trip to Park Mammoth, fielding an ambush question on the National Links Trust, and about his own wanderings and recent content. Jon is a return guest to The Waggle Pod and a friend of the program. His very good review of Park Mammoth and all his other content can be found on his website here. Thanks to Jon for making the time to come on.

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Happy Master’s Week, everyone. We are very pleased to welcome author Stephen Proctor to the podcast today. You will know Stephen from his days at The Baltimore Sun and San Francisco Chronicle, and as the author of his popular books, Monarch of the Green (his biography of ‘Young’ Tom Morris Jr.) and A Long, Golden Afternoon (the rise of golf from 1900-1920). His new book, Matchless- Joyce Weathered, Glenna Collett, and the Rise of Women’s Golf, focuses on the pioneering achievements of these two women during the Golden Age of golf in the early part of the last century. Stephen recently won the USGA’s 2026 Herbert Warren Wind Award Book of the Year award for Matchless, and it was a little bit surreal to be able to chat with him about his writing, hickory golf, and, of course, Scotland. With the Augusta National Women's Amateur this past weekend, I thought it all tied together nicely. Hope you enjoy.

If you were interested in purchasing these books, consider ordering from The Auld Grey Toun Bookshop in St. Andrews and support good local bookshops whenever you can!

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It is a huge honor to welcome today’s guest, writer Mike Croley, to the podcast. Mike is a creative writing professor at Dennison University in Ohio and has been widely published across the world of golf. You will have read his award-winning work in Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Golf Digest, The New York Times, and Golf Magazine, among other outlets. He is the author of a very good collection of short stories, called Any Other Place (2019), and has an essay in the current issue of The Golfers Journal. Mike has also started a film/ media production company called O.A. Creative and runs a Substack account called “Life on Par” . He has appeared on a variety of golf podcasts and first popped onto my radar with his spectacular profile on Tom Doak in the Virginia Quarterly Review. In short, Mike is a hustler. We had a fun conversation about writing, golf, and the reasons we do both. When I started The Waggle, people like Mike Croley were the ones I wanted to talk to, and it is very cool to watch some of this come full circle for me. Please enjoy and give him follows across all fronts. I would like to thank him for his generosity with his time and for his willingness to help me and this project out a little bit. I feel so lucky to have met the people I have on this journey, and conversations like this sustain and inspire me. Please enjoy.

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It is a huge honor to welcome Don Placek to the podcast this week. Those familiar with the golf architecture world will know Don as a lead associate for Tom Doak and as one of the four principals at Renaissance Golf Design. He has been responsible, in part, for creating many of the most influential courses in golf over the last twenty-five years, and the list continues to grow. Don is also a noted artist and mapmaker, and his inspired renderings of these places have become symbolic of the creativity and ingenuity for which Renaissance is known. This was my Chris Farley/ Paul McCartney (“Remember when you were with the Beatles; that was awesome”) moment on this podcast, and I really just wanted him to tell me stories about each and every course that Renaissance and Tom Doak built over the years. We touched on all of those things, but I was mostly interested in talking to Don about acts of creativity, inspiration, and his thoughts on the evolution of our understanding of the game. I was incredibly humbled and honored that he was willing to come on the podcast and have an in-depth conversation about these ideas. I can’t thank him enough.

Don Placek. Wow.

He was also kind enough to send me a couple of renderings of his famous drawings/maps to post with this pod. Below are two special places that I have been in golf, and it was surreal to get these in an email.

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Sean Melia of Bay State Golf joins the podcast today to talk about his life in golf, writing about the game, and his quest to play every golf course in the state of Massachusetts. Sean is one of the leading voices in the New England golf scene, and it was great to sit down and have a fun conversation about some of his adventures. You can find his work and links for all of his many projects here: Bay State Golf .

I wrote a new piece for The Waggle Golf Journal this week. I can’t believe how many people have checked it out already. If you missed it, it’s called “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once,” and you can find it at the link below. Do me a favor and smash that subscribe button, then send the link to one of your buddies who might enjoy it. Thanks to everyone for the support and for reading!

The travel bags are getting pulled out as we speak, and we will be on the road next week (hopefully). Quick little mission. Talk to you all then!

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