Country Club Watches

Good morning and welcome back,

Let me start this by saying I don’t know a ton about watches, but I do know what is proper attire at a club. I’ve had a lot of inbound requests regarding watch etiquette, so here it goes.

I’m not a huge fan of Apple/Garmin watches at clubs, for what it’s worth. Use a laser or take a caddy if you need the distance, don’t be the guy looking at your watch. I don’t want to see any huge “G Shock” watches or bulky GPS ones out there. Stick to sleek, timeless pieces with either a leather or metal strap. Brand doesn’t really matter. If you want to, and can spend $10k on a watch, go for it. If not? You can find plenty of good options that look similar for a few hundred bucks.

I would also recommend taking off the watches when you play, especially if its a high end mechanical watch, as to not screw with the delicate movement mechanics.

If you’re worried about cost or just want to find a bargain, you can find some great watches on eBay if you know what to look for. Sound familiar?

As you read this, I’m likely on the golf course caddying for a friend at the Met Open on Long Island. With a prize pool of $200k and a winners share of nearly $40k, the field boasts many of the top amateurs and pros in the greater metropolitan region. A personal goal of mine is to get back to playing competitive amateur and mid-am golf, but carrying the bag will do for now. Caddying for great players helps me become slightly more analytical and hyper-focused on the shot at hand. It’s a good mental exercise in staying absolutely present in the current moment to help your guy (or girl) execute the shot.

It’s funny how giving advice on wind/yardage/putts is 10x more stressful when you aren’t hitting the ball. Course management skills immediately sharpen. It’s awesome practice.

Outside of actually playing, observing high-caliber players preparing for a tournament is as good as it gets for picking up tips on course management and practice drills. I’ll make sure to document the ones I like and share them via twitter and on here.

On May 5, 1956, Walla Walla Country Club in Washington found itself with a scheduling dilemma. A big tournament was on the books, the tee sheet was overflowing, and daylight was running short. Head professional Jim Russell decided to try something new. Instead of sending groups off the first tee in order, he stationed them on every hole around the course. At exactly 1:00 p.m., he raised a 12-gauge and fired a single shot into the air. The sound rolled across the fairways, bouncing off the clubhouse and drifting into the pines.

The idea worked, obviously. Every group finished at roughly the same time (can’t be said in modern-day golf), the pace was steady, and the post-round crowd reached the bar together. Word of the format spread quickly, and before long the “shotgun start” became a fixture in charity events and even pro golf. Starter’s horns have replaced the firearm, yet the name and the tradition remain.

The “through line” of a putt is important to keep in mind when standing on the green. If you’re just picking up the game, know that you shouldn’t stand directly behind someone putting, but you also shouldn’t stand directly behind the hole, in the line extending a few feet past the hole if the ball were to just miss.

To simplify this tip, a player should only see the hole and its natural background when striking a putt, not other players jockeying for a read.

When C. B. Macdonald opened The Lido Golf Club on Long Island in 1917, he created something rare in American golf. Built on reclaimed marshland, the course was a feat of engineering as much as design. Among its most admired holes was the 12th, known as the Punch Bowl (a now famous template).

The Lido quickly earned a reputation alongside Pine Valley and National Golf Links as one of the finest courses in the world. Walter Hagen ranked it among his “Big Three.” Yet its life was short. The Depression strained finances, and in 1942 the United States Navy took over the property. The course was bulldozed and the Punch Bowl lost to history.

Today the site holds homes and streets with names that recall what once stood there. But the memory of the Punch Bowl did not fade completely. In 2023, the Keiser family revived The Lido at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, using the research of historian Peter Flory and the skill of architect Tom Doak to recreate the original design. The new Punch Bowl once again asks the same questions of golfers that Macdonald intended more than a century ago.

(Fried Egg wrote a great piece on the new Lido)

Any sort of black clothing (excluding rain gear) at a nice club is a no-go. It’s a surefire way to out yourself as someone who has never been to a club before and doesn’t have any idea how to properly dress in that environment.

If you’re looking to wear dark colors? Stick to navy blue.

Email me: [email protected]

Talk soon,

BTG

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