⛳️ LinksDAO PFP Coming Soon!

Keeping up with LinksDAO 24/7 so you don't have to

Good morning and welcome back to another edition of The Mulligan! 

307 Days Since Mint

Highlights

LinksDAO PFP Coming Soon!

*BOOM*

Did you hear that? It sounds like lightning just hit the clubhouse!

This past Halloween wasn't just your typical spooky celebration... something BIG happened. As the thunderclouds dissipated the following morning and Links members began to trickle into the clubhouse, they noticed something odd: all of the trophies had mysteriously gone missing.

The only logical explanation? The lightning that struck the clubhouse revived spirits of all the past LinksDAO club champions... reanimating the trophies. We still haven't found them, but there's also a lot of clothes missing from the Pro Shop.

Who knows? They may just show up in your PFP soon!

The Genesis NFT holders (Leisure and Global) snapshot is tomorrow, Friday, November 4th at 5:00pm EST. At that time, we'll take a snapshot of all Genesis holders and they'll be guaranteed a spot on the members-only mint day list. Globals will be able to mint more than Leisures, and if you have multiple NFTs, you'll be able to mint multiple PFPs (up to a cap to be announced in the coming week).

Want to learn more about our much-anticipated profile picture project? Check out this blog post on our Medium or jump into the Discord.

Course Acquisition Updates

The core mission hasn't changed... we're going to buy a golf course and completely reimagine the country club. In this past week's Community Tuesday Podium, our Head of Course Strategy Adam Besvinick detailed just how close we are to turning the idea floated out on Twitter by Mike Dudas all the way back in mid-December into a reality. For the full conversation, check out the video linked above!

Noteworthy Information

• Narrowed down our architect pool to 5 highly respected individuals, 3 of which have Top 100 courses in their portfolio. The architect we ultimately decide to partner with will be heavily involved in a redesign/renovation of the course we purchase.

• We're expecting a full report later this week from our acquisition partner KemperSports, the management team behind Bandon Dunes, on the first course that we are seriously considering. This property is located in the Southeastern United States.

• Site visits will be conducted with members, architects and representatives from KemperSports within the next 2 months.

New Team Members

VP of Engineering Hired

We're excited to announce our newest team member and VP of Engineering, Conner McNamara! Conner spent the last eight years at Ripple, where he built multiple products and engineering teams focused on leveraging blockchain technology and digital assets to enable faster, cheaper, and more transparent payments.

A note from Conner: 

I'm incredibly excited to be joining the LinksDAO team as someone who was an early member of the community, is golf obsessed, and passionate about enabling real-world use cases for NFTs and Web3. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and you can often find me playing Presidio GC, TPC Harding Park, or Peacock Gap. I also love experiencing new courses and destinations and most recently had an incredible experience at Bandon Dunes.

Global Golf Association

Our member-to-member reciprocity platform, the Global Golf Association, is up to 32 private courses spread out across the globe, including tracks in Scotland and Canada. The devs have been hard at work on building out the Play section of our clubhouse, so take a couple of minutes to explore it and see if there is a course located near you! The pipeline is robust and growing by the day, so you can expect to see more incredible clubs added to the platform in the coming months.

P.S. Some sizes and colors of apparel and gear in our completely revamped Pro Shop are already selling out. Make sure you get your favorite items before it's too late!

Partnerships

LinksDAO partners with TRUE linkswear

We’re thrilled to let you know that we’ve partnered with TRUE linkswear, makers of the most comfortable, stylish and versatile golf shoes on the market.

"TRUE is committed to crafting high quality shoes so that you can enjoy the walk. We're not a corporation hell-bent on ruling the golf industry, we're a group of friends dedicated to sharing our passion and excitement for footwear, and the game, with you." - Jason and Ryan, TRUE linkswear co-founders.

Members will receive special pricing on both shoes and apparel. Head over to the Benefits page in our clubhouse to learn more.

What's Up in Web3?

Google x Crypto

In mid-October, Google announced a partnership with Coinbase that will enable them to begin receiving crypto payments for their cloud services in early 2023. Google also announced that they will be using Coinbase Prime for custody services in the future.

Adoption Update

Mastercard to Offer Crypto Trading for Banks

• Mastercard has now introduced Crypto Source, which enables financial institutions to bring crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers via a bridge with Paxos. This new offering will complement their Crypto Secure fraud prevention solution, which was announced earlier in October.

Visa Files Crypto Trademarks

• Following Mastercard’s announcement to offer trading capabilities for banks, Visa made news of their own by filing for 2 trademark applications related to launching their own cryptocurrency wallet, creating cryptocurrency auditing software, creating a collectible series of NFTs, and providing virtual environments.

BNY Mellon Offering Crypto Custody Services

• Earlier in October, BNY Mellon announced that they would be offering cryptocurrency custody services. This landmark announcement for the world’s largest custodian bank means that they will now be able to provide fund managers with the necessary key storage to access and move around their Bitcoin and Ether holdings, along with other traditional functions.

News For Thought (NFT)

• Gamestop’s NFT marketplace has officially gone live, offering digital assets for a variety of Web3 games. The marketplace was built using Immutable X, a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution, which enables all transactions to forgo fees along with offering carbon-neutral minting.

• Reddit NFTs surged in late October, with 3 Reddit collections ranking within the top 10 NFT projects on OpenSea. Reddit NFTs, built using Polygon, have seen a significant increase in popularity with users opening 2.5 million wallets within the marketplace since its release in July, along with grossing over $6.5 million in total sales volume to date.

• Budweiser is turning scoreboards into NFTs for the upcoming FIFA World Cup as buyers will be able to mint a scoreboard that will track the progress of their selected country throughout the tournament.

• A three-bedroom house in South Carolina was recently sold for $175,000 via the Roofstock platform in the form of an NFT.

Golf

An Agronomist's Analysis of Congaree Golf Club

Hank's first feature on various types of turfgrass was a hit... so we had to bring him back for an analysis of Congaree Golf Club, where Rory McIlroy won The CJ Cup two weekends ago. If you have any agronomy questions, Hank111#4608 in the Discord is your guy.

Congaree Golf Club is the youngest course to appear on the U.S. Top 100 Golf Course list... and it didn't just squeak on, it arrived with authority, easily passing up some of America's greatest routings. But why?

It's sand. It's impossible to look at Congaree and ignore the sand. It's a crucial design aesthetic on essentially every hole, and I'm not talking about purposefully placed bunkers… I'm talking about the "rough". As an agronomist, I spend day after day working to improve grass, but sometimes the best thing to do is just forgo grass entirely. And that's what Tom Fazio has done here.

Now, I'm sure turf management was not the primary reason Fazio opted for the striking waste areas lining every hole. Fazio likes to build grand golf courses that envelope their surroundings a la Shadow Creek... ever heard of it? Fazio choosing to leave the naturally found sand not just as a crucial design element, but as a formidable hole defense, is a large part of why this course shot up the Top 100 list. Give a great chef the best ingredients and you'll be hard pressed to have a bad dinner.

When rating a course, there are several factors that contribute to whether a club is deemed worthy enough to share the same list as the Pine Valleys and Cypress Points of the world. One of those factors, and one Fazio captures the most often, is simply a memorable golf course. But a pretty property can only get it so far, it also needs to perform at a high level, which is again where the sand comes into play.

By forgoing any sort of rough and instead allowing the natural sand to act as both a framing device and an ever-looming danger, playability becomes much more interesting.

 There is a also much more subtle benefit to the sand. It allows the superintendent to focus more time and effort on keeping the primary playing surfaces in immaculate shape. Conditions and aesthetics are two more major categories that go into the Top 100 list… so removing essentially half of the grass and allowing the superintendent to focus on the greens shows beautifully at Congaree. It's a simple equation: Greens + Sand = Firm, Fast and Exceptional. The USGA doesn't recommend growing greens on sand just because. Now, start growing your fairways on sand and you're going to have happy grass.

If you're looking for fantastic Youtube golf content, check out No Laying Up's "Tourist Sauce" series. Episode one of their newest season, Tourist Sauce Scandinavia, dropped last week.

The Sheep House

Golf clubs often use little things to separate themselves from others. Custom locker rooms, clubhouses, bowling alleys, barber shops, and gondolas are all examples of clubs adding a unique element to their experience - they just add a little something that you can’t find anywhere else.

Merion Golf Club is known for having wicker baskets instead of flagsticks on its historic East Course. Apparently, the course architect Hugh Wilson noted that shepherds kept their lunch in wicker baskets to keep the sheep from stealing it. These baskets that sit on top of every flagstick make it notably difficult to gauge wind speed and direction - so it's a good thing they've made the course harder than it needs to be. Joking aside, Merion's wicker baskets are a tiny detail that play a big role in the club's lore.

Another incredible course with some quirks in the Philadelphia area is Manufacturers Golf and Country Club. Mannies, a William Flynn beauty in Fort Washington, PA, was once a sheep farm. Perhaps the shepherds at Ridgewood Farm, the 200-acre estate that originally sat on top of the land, kept their lunches in wicker baskets. The course officially opened in 1925, with a match between Walter Hagen and Joe Kirkwood against "Ducky" Corkran and Max Marston to kick things off. The course sits beneath a gorgeous clubhouse, where from the back patio, you can see nearly every hole.

Mannies is unquestionably an elite course, but there's more to it than just 18 stunning, difficult holes, a clubhouse with a great patio, and an electric name. Look for the little things.

Their halfway house, dubbed "The Sheep House", takes care of all necessary requirements in a halfway house. Its location is accessible from three holes, incredible hot dogs are for sale inside, there are free pretzels, goldfish, and chips, and they pour stiff drinks. But there's more to it.

Inside The Sheep House the walls are lined with photos from club events, member-guests and member-members, reminding those inside just how great of a club Manufacturers is. Though you may only spend five minutes inside it each time you play, you'll certainly text a friend or two about how awesome The Sheep House was immediately after your round.

As mentioned above, the course sits beneath the clubhouse, with a pretty steep hill separating the two. After a grueling 18-hole walk, the last thing a golfer wants to do is conquer one final hill. Don't worry - Mannies has them covered.

Right next to the 9th and 18th greens, there is an old, mechanical gondola. The tram has designated spots to place bags, so the riders can enjoy a bit of peace on the way up to discuss their rounds at the patio and bar. It's a truly one of a kind experience at a one of a kind course.

There are countless elite golf courses in the world, but there is only one with a gondola. Sometimes it's the quirky things you remember after a round of a golf, especially when that round is filled with forgettable shots.

Contributors

Nick B (barbs#7712) - Creator of The Mulligan & Project Lead

Martin C (martinc#0532) - Golf Writer

Chris K (ckelly627#0963) - Web3 Writer

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