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Ira Fishman

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Links Golf Club
« on: May 25, 2023, 11:10:33 AM »
Is anyone familiar with the Links Golf Club? Not the course, but the affiliate of the group that bought Spey Bay. It looks like a competitor to 10000 Greens.


Thanks.

David_Tepper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2023, 11:19:23 AM »
Ira -

The LinksDAO does a weekly "virtual" community meeting every Thursday that you can replay on youtube. Here is the archive of their meetings.

https://www.youtube.com/@linksgolfofficial/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0

There were several meetings discussing their purchase of the Spey Bay course a couple of months ago.

DT
« Last Edit: May 25, 2023, 11:22:21 AM by David_Tepper »

David_Tepper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2023, 11:23:18 AM »
Their website:

https://linksdao.io/

Steve Lapper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #3 on: May 25, 2023, 11:54:11 AM »
They announced today the hiring of Clayton, DeVries and Pont as their renovation architects for Spey Bay.


It's not at all like 1000 Greens. It is a Web3- NFT/Crypto financed club that believes it will be buying/building multiple courses throughout the world over the future. They are wildly ambitious, but have learned plenty since their inception 18mos ago.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2023, 06:11:09 AM by Steve Lapper »
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."--John Kenneth Galbraith

Matt Schoolfield

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #4 on: May 25, 2023, 11:59:31 AM »
I think one of the guys at my club in SF is directly involved I think. I’m generally familiar with what they do. Crypto as a form of financing. And think it’s an interesting idea, but am not sure how it would work in practice if it became mainstream.
Building an encyclopedia of golf courses that anyone can edit: Golf Course Wiki
Some strong opinions on golf: Wigs on the Green
I really think golf culture should be more like beer culture than wine culture

Ira Fishman

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #5 on: May 25, 2023, 12:52:13 PM »
They announced today the hiring of Clayton, DeVries and Post as their renovation architects for Spey Bay.


It's not at all like 1000 Greens. It is a Web3- NFT/Crypto financed club that believes it will be buying/building multiple courses throughout the world over the future. They are wildly ambitious, but have learned plenty since their inception 18mos ago.


The DAO has a sister affiliate that describes itself as a network of golfers with local chapters. They claim 30,000 members. The membership fee appears to be payable in dollars. They have some decent discounts (20% off Ship Sticks caught my eye).


Thanks.

David_Tepper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #6 on: May 25, 2023, 02:03:19 PM »
Marty Bonnar posted this link on the thread about Spey Bay:

https://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/content/links-golf-club-selects-clayton-devries-pont-to-renovate-spey-bay

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,71670.0.html 

I am hoping to drive over to Spey Bay in the next week or two to take a look around.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2023, 02:05:17 PM by David_Tepper »

Niall C

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2023, 08:07:01 AM »
David


I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. While there you might want to take the opportunity to walk across the old railway bridge across the Spey and also have a look at the Garmouth & Kingston course (or is it Kingston & Garmouth ?).


Niall

Adam Besvinick

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2023, 09:54:31 AM »
Hi everyone - chiming in here as one of Links' co-founders who helped lead the course sourcing effort and architect selection process. We have been very fortunate to speak directly with lots of incredibly helpful people in the GCA world over the last 18 months. We started with lots of cold emails and were lucky that many of those received responses, which turned into phone calls and meetings, which turned into introductions to others in the field, and many of those people have become consistent resources to us. We're grate that so many busy and sought after people generously spent time with us and opened their rolodexes. Happy to answer any questions y'all have and thanks to Ran for hooking me up with an account.

Ben Stephens

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2023, 02:44:42 AM »

Hi everyone - chiming in here as one of Links' co-founders who helped lead the course sourcing effort and architect selection process. We have been very fortunate to speak directly with lots of incredibly helpful people in the GCA world over the last 18 months. We started with lots of cold emails and were lucky that many of those received responses, which turned into phone calls and meetings, which turned into introductions to others in the field, and many of those people have become consistent resources to us. We're grate that so many busy and sought after people generously spent time with us and opened their rolodexes. Happy to answer any questions y'all have and thanks to Ran for hooking me up with an account.


Hi Adam, welcome to the Discussion Group and we all look forward to seeing how Spey Bay develops and new ideas come into place

Niall C

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2023, 08:12:11 AM »
Adam,
 
I’m very much interested in your project at Spey Bay having spent a few years up in Moray and having been a member at Moray Golf Club. In my time up there I played all the local courses a number of times with the exception of the relatively new Malverston (?) course so have a pretty good idea of the golfing scene in Moray.
 
The first questions relate to the course itself. As has been discussed on other threads the course sits adjacent to a pebble beach that in recent memory has seen quite a bit of erosion such that the course had to be redesigned/rerouted. What concerns have you that there will be further erosion and what steps are you planning to take to try and mitigate the issue ?
 
I think I’m also right in saying the pebbles aren’t just on the beach in that they pretty much underlay the course and are pretty close to the surface. How big an issue is that going to be for you in terms of moving material about and how do you plan to cope with it ?
 
Secondly, that area of Scotland is a relatively sparsely populated. Most if not all the clubs/courses in Moray, which are run along the traditional club model, have relatively low income (modest annual subs) and therefore relatively low budgets. For instance, Moray Golf Club, which I think is the biggest club in Moray and the only one with two 18 hole courses, only had 5 or 6 greenkeeping staff when I was there and from memory the annual subs were in the range of £400 to £500 (c. 10-12 years ago). Many clubs only had one greenkeeper and indeed Spey Bay (prior to the previous owners taking over) had a greenkeeper who only worked part-time in the evenings. During the day the club was largely unmanned and greenfees were paid into an honesty box.
 
In contrast, and from recent podcasts I think I’ve heard you or your colleagues refer to possibly having a Director of Golf, head professional, clubhouse manager, head greenkeeper and so on. Clearly you are not thinking along the lines of the traditional (Scottish) club model. I Spey Bay going to be run more along the lines of a Castle Stuart or is it going to be more a private members club with some outside play ?
 
Niall

David_Tepper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2023, 12:48:21 PM »
Niall -

Unfortunately, I was not able to get to Spey Bay to have a look around when I was in the Highlands a month ago.

There was a Links Community discussion with Frank Pont several weeks ago regarding ideas for a redesign of the course. You can listen to it on youtube.

32-minute discussion on youtube of Links Golf Club's hiring of CDP to work on Spey Bay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgXFzdMDLE

The discussion takes 3-4 minutes to get rolling. Frank Pont starts speaking about 13 minutes in. The design plans will feature multiple ways to play the property. 



DT

Niall C

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #12 on: July 05, 2023, 04:20:09 AM »
Thanks David, I've heard most if not all the podcasts but don't think they totally addressed what I asked. Hopefully Adam can comment.


Niall

Adam Besvinick

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #13 on: July 05, 2023, 01:49:08 PM »
Niall - thanks for the questions. Will do my best to address below...


1. Re: erosion - we are doing everything we can within environment restrictions to mitigate future erosion and potentially move some holes / greens to mitigate against it. It's something we'll naturally have to contend with but it's not catastrophic.
[/size][/color]
[/size]2. Being built on pebbles / shingle isn't as ideal as being built on sand but it's not a major inhibitor. We will be able to do what we want to renovation-wise, and we'll be top-dressing consistently and annually to mitigate the effects of pebbles coming to the surface in certain spots which could compromise turf conditioning. We are working closely with Chris Haspell on this front.[/color]


3. We intend to have a modest greenkeeping staff of a few people. At the time of acquisition, there was a full-time greenskeeper and one assistant with whom we are currently working. There is a decently sized local membership which we expect to grow as the course improves. We've also brought on over 100 overseas members in the last few weeks, and we expect this number to grow too. We also will be open to non-member / daily fee play, just like virtually every other Scottish club. Tee times are available to be booked through http://links.golf or http://speybay.co, and it doesn't function through an honesty box. We have already begun to professionalize the operation of the club dramatically with the help of IMG. We recently hired a top general manager from another club, who will be starting towards the end of August / early September. We aren't hiring a director of golf or head pro. It's also important to understand that owning and managing the golf course is a very small piece of our business, so we are generating revenue in other ways. Ultimately, we believe we can run and manage the course in a very cost-efficient way while simultaneously making some changes that dramatically improve conditioning, playability, and design that attracts members and non-members to the course.

Niall C

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #14 on: July 10, 2023, 08:08:53 AM »
Adam,


In terms of the creation of new holes and features, presumably you will be bringing material from off-site, or are you intending to use sand/soil deposits on-site ?


Niall

Thomas Dai

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #15 on: September 09, 2023, 05:23:01 AM »
I was fortunate, and fortunate is the right word coz its already a cracking wee gem of a course in a gorgeous setting, to play Spey Bay recently.
Here are a few photos of it as it is now so I'll be very intrigued to see how the course develops with CDP's involvement especially the reversible routing, which given the two pronounced pebble ridges running through the property and parallel to the beach, would seem interestingly appropriate.
atb





David_Tepper

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Re: Links Golf Club
« Reply #16 on: September 19, 2023, 10:36:27 AM »
Recent video on the Links/Spey Bay project, including comments from Mike DeVries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gj3WtWX1Fg

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