WEBVTT - School of Golf Architecture: Tie-Ins with Riley Johns 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:04.040 Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg podcast 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.680 and to Part three of the School of Golf Architecture. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.080 Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:18.520 b Dradty. Bdratty dot com has a fantastic range of handsome, comfortable, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.880 incredibly well made clothing. I'd particularly recommend the long sleeve 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:28.560 Willie Crewe neeck Tee, which is ideal for lounging around 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.240 the house as well as taking a brisk morning walk 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.559 as well as going for a grocery run, basically all 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.040 the things we're doing today. It's just really really comfortable 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.959 and it looks sharp, so it can adapt to all 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.960 sorts of different situations. So go to bdradty dot com 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.800 and use our exclusive promo code TFE twenty five that's 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:53.320 TFE two five and get twenty five percent off your purchase. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.520 You can use the same promo code at the Zero 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.040 Restriction website. If you enjoy what we're doing here at 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.840 the Frida Egg, this is a great way to support us. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.839 All Right. School of Architecture Part three. My tutor today 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.800 is Riley John's and our topic is tie ins, or 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.920 the craft of melding a golf course with its surroundings. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.560 It was really fun talking to Riley, who's one of 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.000 the brightest minds in golf architecture today. So let's just 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:21.720 get to it. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.400 Frida Egg requires a different technique. What you need to 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.680 do is actually square the face so it'll dig down 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.280 underneath that bad line and propel that ball right out 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:32.839 onto the green. 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:34.320 Here's the thing. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.920 Playing out of a buried lion of bunker is completely 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.440 different than playing out of a night clean lion of 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:40.400 greenside bunker. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.560 You need to be aggressive on any show, whether it's 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.480 sitting cleanly for its Friday Egg. Well, we've all faithd it, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:48.760 the dreaded Frida Egg. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:50.400 It's not to be feared. 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.480 Though it's actually a pretty easy shot to hit. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:03.040 It takes a lot of effort to appear effortless. How 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.440 that old chestnut applies to golf course design is our 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.040 subject in this edition of the School of Golf Architecture. 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.200 When I started building this series, I didn't exactly have 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.680 a plan. It's like I'm playing with a set of 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.160 old school legos, just connecting one piece at a time 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.240 and hoping that I'll end up with something cool. But 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.600 looking back, I realized that the first three installments actually 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.520 concentrate on the same theme, the relationship between a golf 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.560 course and its setting. First, I talked to Blake Conan 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.400 about Place. Next, I spoke with George Waters about Linksland 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.840 and today Riley Johns and I zero in on the 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:47.360 spot where a golf course and its environment meet. Architects 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.480 and shapers do a lot of work there. The goal 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.400 is usually to create tie ins or features that mediate 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.080 between new man made forms and pre existing ones on 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.440 a completely natural golf course. If such a thing exists, 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.880 tians would not be necessary. The holes would already be 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.880 tied in. They would be no different from the land itself. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.359 But the more that golf course builders alter the terrain, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:18.040 the tougher it is to reunite the holes with their surroundings. Today, 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:23.400 tians have become especially important in golf course construction. Modern architects, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.040 even ones known to revere the lay of the land, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.280 move a great deal of earth. At the same time, 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.400 more and more clients are asking for courses that appear 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.160 at home in their environments. Give me another sand hills, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.800 another Pacific dunes. So if you spend any time around 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.000 today's golf course builders, you will hear them talk about 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.720 tians frequently to outsiders, though it's a somewhat mysterious topic. 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.440 What exactly do tians look like? How do you make them? 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.840 What are they supposed to do? To learn more, I 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:00.120 reached out to Riley John's. Riley has helped build well 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.680 some of the twenty first century's most harmonious golfing grounds 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.200 with Bill Kore and Bank Crenshaw, Tom Doak, Jim Orbina, 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:12.000 and Rod Whitman. In twenty thirteen he founded Integrative Golf Design, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.800 and in twenty sixteen he and Keith reb renovated the 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.680 municipal Winter Park nine in Florida. That course now meshes 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.120 with its community in a mutually beneficial, mutually beautifying way. 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.880 More recently, Riley and Keith designed a ten hole short 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.200 course at Forest Dunes and began a restoration of William 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.400 Flynn's Rolling Green. Earlier this week, Riley snuck out to 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.040 his office in downtown Canmore, Canada to let me in 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:47.440 on the secrets of the tie in. Just in the 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.400 simplest terms, what is a tie in? How would you 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:50.880 define it? 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.279 I would define a tie in as it's where the 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.880 manufactured meets the natural or meets its surrounds its immediate 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.960 surrounds its, you know, the that's a time the act 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.039 of tying in is more of the intentional blending or 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.800 adaptation of one's work with the immediate surrounds. So there's kind 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.080 of a an interplay on the two. You know, golf 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.000 we would we would simply just say fitting the hole 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:18.719 into place. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.440 And are there different types of tie ins? Are there? 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:23.400 Like categories? 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.559 The one that jumps to mine right out of the gate, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.120 which which would be the obvious one would be a 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.040 physical tie and that would be you know, connecting top 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:42.800 graphical elevations or grades, landforms, mimicking landforms, grassing lines. You 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.920 can tie those two together. But yeah, I would say 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.720 there's different kinds of tians. I would say you could have, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.960 you know, you have their physical, environmental and visual tie ins. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.800 Visual times is a big one for golf course design. 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.000 But you could have a cultural tie in, a historical 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.600 tie in, a spiritual tie And I listened to the 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.440 podcast you did with Blake and you guys were talking 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.400 about space and place. You know, there's a similarity there. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.680 You could you could almost say that that discussion you 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:17.760 were talking about cultural and historical times. You know, you 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.800 could say, like a historical tie in would be the 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.000 old course at Saint Andrew's and the built environment the town, 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.880 the structures, the steeples of the buildings and the streets 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.960 and that and that part of the property, and tying 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.360 that not just visually in but from a from a 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.720 historical point of view. You know that as you approached 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.960 the town on your bat and the way back in, uh, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.920 you know you're walking in the same footsteps that historically 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.880 every great golfer that's ever walked the earth has done. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.600 I'm curious about all those categories that you just went over, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.799 but maybe we can start with the physical or the visual. 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.839 It sounds like you would draw a distinction between physical 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.280 and visual. What what would that distinction be between the 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.039 physical and a visual tie in? 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:08.640 Well, a visual would be background, right, the backdrop of 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:13.880 a golf hole. Horizon lines are critical. We work really 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.440 hard on making sure our horizon lines don't clash with 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:23.400 the inherent horizon lines of the backdrop. Either. You want 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.960 to accent views, focus views, or even obscure views, but 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.560 it's all about framing the picture. An environmental tie in, 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.840 which would be a bit more of like vegetation, we 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.920 would work really hard on making sure that the color 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:44.240 and the texture and the composition of how the native 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:48.080 landscapes and textures and colors integrate with the turf and 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.360 the golf components. But typically the three go hand in 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:57.560 hand in unison, and they're not mutually exclusive either. So physical, environmental, 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.840 and visual. You're kind of tying those three things together 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.880 all the time when you're creating a golf hole. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.320 So what is the importance of that kind of work? 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:13.640 What is the importance of making that interface particularly hidden 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:19.280 or graceful in some way, or artful to the golfer's experience. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.800 Well, I think, first of all, humans inherently find landscapes 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.160 that are easy on the eyes, look effortless. We find 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.800 those pleasing. It's a human nature. I don't know, you'd 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.440 have to talk to a psychologist about why, but I 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.679 think I think the importance of times is both visual 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.800 and from an aesthetic perspective, but also functional. You know, visually, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.720 Italians helped kind of conceal the work that has taken 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.920 place and properly tied in. Landscapes are easy on the eyes. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.440 They should appear effortless and seamless if done properly. No 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.040 one will ever comment on how good your tians are 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.040 because they won't know they don't exist, right, they should 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.920 just they should just be non existent, is the idea 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.439 behind them. But if poorly done, you know that disconnection 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.320 will be forever. It'll be baked into design forever. You know, 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.040 A good a good tie in makes your work difficult 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.440 to distinguish where you started and where you ended with 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.880 the project. You know, it kind of completes the entire 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.520 landscape picture, and it makes it look more plausible as 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.560 if nature herself created it, you know, or you found 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.520 it yourself. Right, You're kind of always trying to emulate 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.440 and mimic nature, and the tie ins is a very 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:45.400 critical part in doing that. You know, functionally, tying is 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.839 very important because you know, a thoughtful kient allows the 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.120 landscape to function as it did prior to your alterations. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.520 George C. Thomas had a great quote where he said 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.079 in golf Course, construction, art and utility meet both are 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.160 absolutely one is absolutely ruined without the other. And I 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.880 think he's kind of talking to the idea of the 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.960 functional component of times with your work. For instance, if 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.720 you have a natural swale that intersects a proposed golf 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.319 hole that you're going to build. It's an inherent feature 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.680 of the landscape, and your job is to riff off 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.920 of it, to play off of it, to utilize it, 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.920 and to be inspired by it. And by mimicking that 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.000 swale in the golf hole, you're maintaining its relationship with 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.640 the golf hole. If you filled in the swale or 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.920 if you blocked or damned that swale prior to it's 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.720 a coming into the golf hole and exiting the golf hole. 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:42.960 You know, that would be considered a poor tying because 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.320 it's all of a sudden contrived, it's unnatural. And not 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.520 only that, you're blocking the functionality of it, which is 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.280 a conduit for water potentially and creating an issue, and 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.080 so all of a sudden things become unbalanced, right, And 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.040 so's that's where I think the importance of a tie is. 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.000 It's both in a visual anesthetic but also a functionality 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:02.079 component to it. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.920 Can you remember a hole that you worked on, or 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.760 even an entire course that you worked on where the 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.560 high ends were particularly challenging. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:20.120 Any course that where the natural lay of the land 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:26.960 is so stunning and so distinct and so beautiful. It's 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:31.720 hard to recreate that just do the nature of the 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.679 construction process, you end up destroying a lot of it. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.440 You try not to, but you know, sometimes you need 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.400 a whole road to access an area for materials, or 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.040 you know, whatever the situation may be. Sometimes you have 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.800 to massage shapes into the land scape to fit a 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.600 green or tea or bunker, what have you. And so 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:56.080 the idea is, after this destruction of the natural landscape, 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.440 how do we reconstruct it? How do we put humpty 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.040 dumpty back together again? So that's that's the hardest part. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:06.760 When you have and already inherently complex rich textures, colors, 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.200 you know, a landscape that's evolved in that particular spot 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.840 to its microclimate over one hundred years. You can't necessarily 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.760 create that in a month. But you know, an example 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.680 that jumps out to me is when we were working 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.200 at Cabot Cliffs and a whole two there was a 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:30.240 big hillside that was covered in trees, and the process 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:35.200 of removing and grubbing those trees essentially denude and just 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.240 destroyed that hillside. And so we had to figure out 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.400 how to shape some tea's in there, but then tie 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.920 it back into the natural looking dune scape. And so 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:47.280 what we did was we took sand, the native sand, 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.960 some merrim grass, some logs, some wood, some brushes, some brush, 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:56.480 some different native vegetation. We call it chunking, where you 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.560 take scoops of native material from elsewhere on site and 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.920 you replace it places that you've worked, or you plug 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.440 it into places where you've worked, give it the most 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.560 visual impact. It'll eventually grow in and spread and propagate itself. 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.680 So what we had to do is essentially create a 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:20.240 massive faux dune to conceal the work we had to 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.959 do in order to build two teas at Caba Cliffs, 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.599 and so it took a lot of We had two excavators. 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.559 We had to flip sand up to the other. Exec 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:30.559 that's how high of a hill this was, right, there 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.839 was no sand on it, and we had to create 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.559 what we then called frankin dune. It we were waiting 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.439 for a lightning strike and it was going to come alive. 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.200 We choke them the idea and then we let the 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.280 wind hit it. We let the natural element start to 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.839 kind of do their thing, and we created a fake 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.679 giant dune to hide the work that had to go 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.200 on in order to build the teas at Cabacliffs. That's 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.920 that's an example, an extreme example of us playing off 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.200 the natural surrounds and trying to bridge and connect the 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.720 gap between what we had to create and what was existing. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.400 And we had to choose what element that was going 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.600 to be because we could have done you could do 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.079 anything right. You could you could replant trees, you could 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.320 just hide your seatd with some fescu grass. You could 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.840 just let it be and see what native plants re emerge. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.400 And so you have to make those decisions on what's 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.560 your theme, what's your inspiration, and then go for it 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.640 and create it. I mean, you know we're faking nature. 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.600 Yeah, the nature fakers. Yeah, that's such a great story. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.000 And part of what strikes me about it is that 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.480 you built this landform, this dune, and it's very hard 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.960 to build dunes that look valid, right, right, We've all 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.920 seen courses where there are these kind of faux dunes 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.160 that just look like normal containment mounds and they don't 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.480 look very cool, and they disrupt the tie in of 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.360 the course throughout. So you built this dune, But towards 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.640 the end of the process, it seems like this was 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:12.000 a key part of the process, you allowed nature to 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.920 go to work on the feature. You didn't fix it 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:19.440 in place. You allowed wind and the elements to shape 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:24.120 the form that you made, so that presumably it started 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.720 to look a little bit more like what was around it. 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:27.600 Do I have that right? 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.960 That's exactly it. You have to let nature have her 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.040 hand in it, because she's the one, She's the ultimate 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:34.720 artist at the end of the day, right, So we 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.480 just try to get the elements in place, the materials 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:42.120 in place, set it up. That works for our purpose, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:43.960 which is golf. But at the end of the day, 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:46.480 mother Nature is going to take over anyway and do 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:52.440 her thing. And you know, nature is destruction. It is random, 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.160 it is chaotic. So if we're in there trying to 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.320 beautifully place what in our human mind we think is 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.320 the ideal bunker, while we're missing the whole purpose of it. 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:11.880 Sometimes creative chaos is your best approach to mimicking nature. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:20.560 So Cabot Cliffs is obviously this spectacular, huge scale landscape 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.520 with all sorts of natural gifts as well as natural 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.520 challenges to the construction of a golf course. But it's 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.600 big and it's spectacular. Maybe we could talk about your 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.600 approach to tie ins at a very different property in 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:38.560 winter Park, where you had a city course that kind 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.880 of winds through a neighborhood is more or less flat. 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:48.400 So when you were rebuilding features there, rebuilding the greens, 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.880 building new bunkers, rebuilding bunkers, how did you think about 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.480 tying in the course to its surroundings Because they weren't 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.160 all natural surrounding, right they were. There's a lot of 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.240 neighborhood there. Did you think about tying the course into that? 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.480 Well, that's that's all we had, right, There was no nature, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:18.680 natural environmental bounty of colors and textures and landscape. It was. 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:23.119 It was human built form. We had to tie in 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.240 with city infrastructure, you know, physically, we had to tie 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:31.000 in the city infrastructure, whether that be an electrical transformer box, 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.920 the sidewalk, the street curb, the drip line of existing 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.040 trees that were to remain historic trees, you know. So 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.639 that was the physical tie in, which certainly was a 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.240 lot different. Typically, you would love to be able to 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.520 draw out or string out your tie in. The tighter 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.560 of a box that you're placed in, the more difficult 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.879 it is to tie in, whereas if you're on an 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.280 eighteen hole golf course, like Capaclish is something you can 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.920 literally tie in something, you know, for thirty yards if 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.000 you need to winter Park. We did not have that 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.280 luxury because we were bound by the street corners and 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.960 the curbs and the shape of the of the blocks 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.960 of the street. So there was certainly a different tie 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.159 in in our constraints were given to us. We weren't 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.360 able to knock down a curb or move a sidewalk 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.840 or change things significantly. So our only tie ins that 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.480 we could could do other than tying in physically to 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:31.639 the streetscape was visual corridors. Was experiential tie ins was 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.160 community and culture, and those things we kind of discussed before. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:41.000 We wanted to open up different views to structures, whether 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:44.600 that the church or the grave, you know, the cemetery, 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.399 the main street, to people walking on the street, on 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.280 the on the sidewalk, to also open up the viewing 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:56.760 corridors in the opposite direction, because we're always thinking about, oh, 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.520 it's the golfer's perspective, the golfer's perspective. But in winter 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.520 Park it was a weird animal because we were also 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.200 cognizant of the other people's perspective, the people commuting driving by, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:09.720 the people walking their dog down the street, the people 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.840 biking by. We wanted to give them the experience of 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.840 the golf course without having to play it. So another 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.080 example at Winter Park would have been before we'd got there, 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:27.119 there was an entire cluster of trees hiding the train tracks. 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.040 And so we felt like, rather than denying the train tracks, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.280 rather than camouflaging, hiding and concealing them, let's embrace it 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:39.760 and bring it into the golf course physically and visually. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.600 So what we did was we cleared all those trees 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.520 and we tied the golf course into the train tracks 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.040 rather than try and hide them. And if you stand 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.360 on six Keys today and you see a train going by, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.200 it'll appear as if the train is driving on top 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.560 of the golf holes. We visually tried to connect the 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.080 grade and the train tracks in a way that your 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.520 perspective gave the illusion that the train was floating on 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.520 top of the grass, right. And so those are just 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.760 those are just the little nuances of tying in. We 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:15.760 wanted to tie in the fact that historically and culturally, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.840 this train track, this train system was instrumental in the 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.480 creation and development and success of winter part as a community. 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.159 And so there's the historical tie in, right, and so 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:32.040 now people can they have a connection with the train tracks, 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.360 with the golf course, the community and visually they all 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:37.960 kind of get bridged together. And you know, audibly you 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.119 can hear the train whistle, right, You can hear the 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.359 train whistle from different parts of the golf course. So 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.000 all these kind of things do tie in to create 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.919 a sense of place like you and Blake were talking about, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.520 but also gives the site and the golf course a 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.720 bit more of a distinct DNA to it. It's a 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:57.440 more distinct product. At the end of the day, it's 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.680 more memorable, there's more intrigue, there's more interest, there's more 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.840 layers of flavor to the golf experience, and that, at 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.520 the end of the day, is really the objective of 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:07.879 all of this. 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.760 Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful idea where you 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.440 have brought the course closer to the community and made 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.240 it feel more a part of the community. And that's 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:21.560 something I think that a lot of us want out 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.960 of our neighborhood courses where it doesn't seem like something 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.119 apart but rather just as much a component of the 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:34.239 community as a town square or a restaurant or a 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.560 movie theater. There's the golf course as well, and it's 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.200 part of the town. It's not a separate section. Now, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.960 I think that's a wonderful idea, but does it sometimes 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.399 come into conflict with questions of safety because obviously, one 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.359 of the big ways that you can accomplish visual tie 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:56.000 ins between a neighborhood golf course and the surrounding neighborhood 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.560 is by removing trees. When you remove trees, there's a 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.600 sense that, you know, perhaps not an accurate sense, but 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.960 at least some people would suspect that golf balls would 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.119 more easily travel from the golf course to places that 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.200 you don't want them to go off the golf course. 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:16.879 So was there ever some tension in your renovation of 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.560 Winter Park between tie ins and safety. 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:23.720 Yes, I mean that was that was something that we 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.040 brought up right away, and we just made it clear 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:31.680 that inherently this golf course is dangerous. Basically, look, we're 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:36.160 inheriting a golf course next to streets, and we can't 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.760 move the streets housing the people walking there. That I 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:42.280 can't control how people hit their golf bawl what they 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.520 you know, there's too many factors. So we just made 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.000 sure that we covered our bots and just said, look, 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.000 this is an inherently dangerous golf course. We're going to 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.400 do our best to help prevent and mitigate any sort 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.040 of conflicts. Safety is something that we're definitely going to 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.560 try to design into it when we're designed and in 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.360 the field, we made sure that we angled tea boxes 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.880 in a way that hopefully directs to play a little 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:09.760 bit away from the streets. You know, we were very 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.160 aware that we didn't want to put bunkers necessarily where 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.400 if you sculled your shot, you would shoot directly into 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.200 the street or across a sidewalk. So, yes, we we 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.960 were very aware of the safety component and our design 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:29.320 we felt reflected those concerns as best as we possibly 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.560 could without sacrificing, you know, without putting up a fence 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.720 and nets and you know, doing all these alternative means 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.359 of protecting people's safety through those kind of measures. So 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:43.159 it was it's tricky, but yeah, no, that's a it's 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:45.760 a concern, But what can you do. 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:49.120 Right, Well, you're going to have a golf course there, 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.520 then sometimes sometimes there are going to be some wayward shots. 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:55.800 So we've talked about a couple of courses that you've 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:58.720 worked on. Maybe we could talk about some courses that 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:01.959 you've seen, some that you admire. Can you think of 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.760 any courses that people might know about that you think 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:11.440 have particularly exceptional tie ins, whether they're recently built courses 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:15.720 or ones from one hundred years ago. Which courses come 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.440 to mind when you think of excellent tie ins. 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.159