The framework
The Sick Score™
Every trip we feature gets evaluated across four dimensions. It's designed to capture why a trip was sick — not just whether the courses were famous. A $1,400 buddies trip to Myrtle can outrank a $7,000 bucket-list weekend on this framework, and that's the point.
1. Guest Sick Score
/50The guest scores their own trip relative to other trips they have taken. Five categories, ten points each. It's subjective — that's the feature, not the bug.
Courses
/10
Crew
/10
Format
/10
Logistics
/10
Off-Course Vibes
/10
2. Sick Pod FOMO
/10The hosts answer one question: "How badly do we now want to book this trip?" Inspiration factor, story energy, replicability, listener excitement. Some trips score huge here even if the courses were modest — and some trips with stacked tee sheets score low, because nothing about them sticks.
3. Value Score
/10How sick was this relative to the money and effort required? This is the whole reason this framework exists. It stops expensive trips from automatically ranking highest and rewards the crews who got the same payoff at a third of the cost.
4. Run-It-Back MOD
VIBEThe MOD describes the nature of the trip — its replayability, its sustainability, its emotional shape. It is not a ranking. It's a label.
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Annual Lock
On the calendar every year. Same week, often the same crew. The trip the group structures the rest of their year around.
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Rotational Classic
Recurring, but with intentional variation — courses or destination swap on a rotation while the format and group stay sacred.
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One-and-Done (Worth It)
A pilgrimage. You go once, you cross it off, the next big trip is somewhere else. No regrets, no repeat.
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Rebuild & Run
Worth doing again, but only after fixing the part that broke — wrong house, wrong format, wrong time of year.
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Lightning in a Bottle
Magical, unrepeatable. The conditions that made it sick (the crew, the weather, the moment) won't reassemble.
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