Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: In this episode, I am joined by up and coming
Speaker 1: golf course architect Andrew Green. In part one of our
Speaker 1: two part podcasts, we discuss how Andrew got into golf,
Speaker 1: his pet Peeves, his recent trip to Scotland, and much more.
Speaker 1: Look for Part two to drop after the fourth of July.
Speaker 1: I hope everyone has a great and safe holiday, and
Speaker 1: without further ado, here's Andrew Green.
Speaker 2: The fried egg requires a different technique. What you need
Speaker 2: to do is actually square the face, so they'll dig
Speaker 2: down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right
Speaker 2: out onto the green.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried lion of
Speaker 1: bunker is completely different than playing out of a night
Speaker 1: clean lion of green side bunker. You need to be
Speaker 1: aggressive on any shop weather it's sitting cleanly for its
Speaker 1: Friday Egg. Well, we've all faced it to the dreaded
Speaker 1: Frida Egg. It's not to be feared though. It's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty be shot to hit. What do you do
Speaker 1: in your free time?
Speaker 2: So, and it's sometimes it's books about golf. A lot
Speaker 2: of times it's historical stuff, biographies, reading a great book
Speaker 2: about the Navy, seals.
Speaker 1: Right now, you and Tiger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his training is a little more intense than mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not doing the two to days.
Speaker 2: No, no, not much time for that. Probably benefit from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I would too. With travel, you know,
Speaker 1: how many how many flights did you do you last year?
Speaker 2: One hundred and thirty three. It's a lot of legs.
Speaker 2: When you start recognizing flight attendance, you know you're probably
Speaker 2: traveling a little too much.
Speaker 1: What h what's the uh? What's your pro tip for traveling?
Speaker 1: You know, do you have any tricks of the trade?
Speaker 2: Uh? TSA pre check and if you know you have
Speaker 2: anything pseudo on the edge, get it out of your bag,
Speaker 2: you know, don't get caught.
Speaker 1: Yeah. TSA pre check is like a complete game changer.
Speaker 1: I think when I travel with my drone and my
Speaker 1: mixing board and mics, people think I have like a bomb.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm doing a project in Jamaica. Sometimes I'd
Speaker 2: have to carry like machine parts or something to help expedite.
Speaker 2: And I know one time it was just a simple
Speaker 2: like a hydraulic arm, and they thought, based on the
Speaker 2: X ray, it looked like a some kind of weapon
Speaker 2: and it was like the culture security, the minute it
Speaker 2: went through the X ray machine. That wasn't fun.
Speaker 1: So where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2: So I grew up kind of a little north of Roanock, Virginia,
Speaker 2: kind of in the mountains, you know, a little bit
Speaker 2: out in the sticks, not in a city by any means,
Speaker 2: and actually learned the game from my next door neighbor.
Speaker 2: For the most part, my parents had golf clubs. They
Speaker 2: didn't really play. My brother played a little bit, but
Speaker 2: my next door neighbor, who was a dentist, played all
Speaker 2: the time, and he would hit like one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five one hundred and thirty yard shots in our backyards.
Speaker 2: So in the evening I go out with him and
Speaker 2: hit shots, and then he took me to play my
Speaker 2: first full round of golf. I played with him. It
Speaker 2: was pretty cool, me and me, semi private club, real simple.
Speaker 2: You know, One thing about I was thinking about it that,
Speaker 2: you know, if I grew up at a real high
Speaker 2: level club, let's say, a top one hundred, and I
Speaker 2: went to a place like where I grew up playing,
Speaker 2: I don't think my appreciation for that kind of golf
Speaker 2: would be there. But starting like at that lower level
Speaker 2: and then seeing the best it's like you still have
Speaker 2: an appreciation for the game I fell in love with.
Speaker 2: Was very simple. You know, the greens are pretty rounded,
Speaker 2: kind of pushed up, you know, architecturally, not lighting the
Speaker 2: world on fire. But I just loved playing there, and
Speaker 2: you know, I'd have a lot of wedges probably in
Speaker 2: my hand, but it was just so much fun.
Speaker 1: And what was the first golf course that you played
Speaker 1: that you realized like there was like a different type
Speaker 1: of golf, Like there was like a you know that
Speaker 1: there's more to golf than what the golf course he
Speaker 1: grew up on.
Speaker 2: So probably either between the Cascades, which was about forty
Speaker 2: minutes north of where I grew up at the Homestead,
Speaker 2: really cool mountain golf course Flynn, and then Harbortown played that.
Speaker 2: We used to go to hilton Head before it was
Speaker 2: hilton Head way back when, and playing Harbortown is like
Speaker 2: playing in a bowling alley, you know, but you could
Speaker 2: see there was more to it, right than just you know,
Speaker 2: a target, a couple bunkers. You know, there was thought
Speaker 2: put into it.
Speaker 1: Harbortown, Tom Doak says, is one of his most influential courses.
Speaker 1: Bill cor says the same, and it's fascinating. A lot
Speaker 1: of people think it's kind of overrated.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, you know, it definitely puts a premium on
Speaker 2: shots right. And I haven't been back since some of
Speaker 2: the latest work. I played it in the mid nineties.
Speaker 2: I guess trees grow. Yeah, little trees become big trees.
Speaker 2: That's my deal. You know, if you don't manage them,
Speaker 2: they get out of hand.
Speaker 1: The course I grew up a meuni. I grew up
Speaker 1: playing at it, like all these trees were tiny when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, And now when I go back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, whoa, I can't just like blast it over
Speaker 1: these trees anymore.
Speaker 2: So that was the course I grew up playing. I
Speaker 2: went back. I did an interview for Buffalo Golfer that
Speaker 2: written thing, and they saw it and they'd gotten a
Speaker 2: new owner, and they said, you know, would you come
Speaker 2: take a look, And I was like, absolutely, I'd love
Speaker 2: to go see it. I was like, my only thing
Speaker 2: I want to do is play it. Like I don't
Speaker 2: need a fee to come, I just I just want
Speaker 2: to go play. So I went out and played. And
Speaker 2: you know, there are all these white pines that in
Speaker 2: the you know, late eighties nineties were obtrusive, but now
Speaker 2: they were just like massive. It was mind boggling. And
Speaker 2: that was like my number one thing to them was, listen,
Speaker 2: we got to work on some of these trees because
Speaker 2: there's just so many of them and they're just snuffing
Speaker 2: the views of the mountains, the lines of play. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's uh are they taking them out? I haven't, I
Speaker 2: haven't been back. I don't know how much. I know
Speaker 2: it's on the list. I told them they could probably
Speaker 2: get a pretty good deal on lumber.
Speaker 1: I feel like in in more rural areas tree removal,
Speaker 1: you could almost just take them down and put them outside,
Speaker 1: Like I know, in cities that it's so expensive to
Speaker 1: get them out, you know, right and like you know,
Speaker 1: don't necessarily like some places you can sell the lumber
Speaker 1: or some places, but some places you could just put
Speaker 1: it out on the corner of the property.
Speaker 2: And getting picked up right for sure. Well then you
Speaker 2: get you know, between all different ordinances and depending where
Speaker 2: the clubs is, it makes a big difference in what
Speaker 2: you can do. But some clubs have made pretty good
Speaker 2: money taking trees out and selling them.
Speaker 1: That be nice if they all clubs could make money
Speaker 1: taking them out. I think more people.
Speaker 2: It would help balance things, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you get into you know, like, how
Speaker 1: when'd you decide that you wanted to do golf architecture
Speaker 1: and golf construction for a living.
Speaker 2: I was probably a junior in high school and I
Speaker 2: was thinking about political science, chemical engineering, and you know,
Speaker 2: I was like a lot of kids sitting in high
Speaker 2: school class drawing golf courses, you know, on the corners
Speaker 2: of your paper, and not the best golfer in the world,
Speaker 2: but just a real appreciation for the challenge of it
Speaker 2: and the problems that golf present. And I went to
Speaker 2: talk to some folks at Virginia Tech, and I knew
Speaker 2: the turf grass agronomy professor pretty well. I talked to him.
Speaker 2: I went to talk to the landscape architecture department, and they,
Speaker 2: probably to their credit, looking back on it, we're very
Speaker 2: concerned about a narrow focus. You know, here's a junior,
Speaker 2: senior in high school. He wants to come study golf architecture.
Speaker 2: When you look across the spectrum, you know how many
Speaker 2: people make a living doing that, right, So you know,
Speaker 2: how are you going to allow a kid to put
Speaker 2: all his eggs in one basket and say, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a golf architect and here I go.
Speaker 2: So they actually probably discouraged me a little bit. But
Speaker 2: I'm the kind of person that, you know, somebody tells
Speaker 2: me no, it only makes me try harder. So, you know,
Speaker 2: that's what I decided I wanted to do, and I
Speaker 2: went to Virginia Tech. Landscape Architecture was a five year program,
Speaker 2: and I decided in five years I was going to
Speaker 2: get two degrees. And it was a little crazy, you know,
Speaker 2: eighteen hours or more a semester for five years. Last
Speaker 2: two years, I did, you know, over twenty credits a
Speaker 2: semester to get done, and really fortunate. My last summer
Speaker 2: before I graduated, i'd met Chip McDonald in ninety seven
Speaker 2: at the US Open at Congressional. He'd done the renovation
Speaker 2: work and he hired me the summer before I graduated
Speaker 2: and worked for him, and then before I was done
Speaker 2: that summer, he pretty much offered me a position full time.
Speaker 2: So I worked my last year on breaks and stuff
Speaker 2: for him, and then once I graduated, I started. Within
Speaker 2: a week. I was in the dirt, you know, building,
Speaker 2: designing stuff. It just almost seems like it was destined
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, two degrees in five years. I struggle to
Speaker 1: get one done. I wasn't the best student.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know it's I I like to win. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not an uber competitive athletic person, but I still
Speaker 2: like to win.
Speaker 1: You know. I think like when you look at like
Speaker 1: becoming a professional golfer, like a PGA tour player, like
Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of spots, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people trying to do it. And with golf course
Speaker 1: architecture especially now, there's even less spots. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people trying to do it. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: to be competitive. Like, there's no way for you not
Speaker 1: to be competitive, and.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a drive, you're not making it.
Speaker 2: I think it's really with a lot of things in life.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's many professions where if you want
Speaker 1: to be really good and yeah, especially architecture, really, I
Speaker 1: don't think you can be mediocre and really be really good,
Speaker 1: you know, and get the kind of where you want
Speaker 1: to be without being super competitive. So you work for
Speaker 1: McDonald and sons for a number of years, and you
Speaker 1: started got out on your own and started your own firm.
Speaker 1: You know, unlike it's kind of a non traditional path.
Speaker 1: Do you think it helped.
Speaker 2: You, Oh, definitely. I just there's no more stress in
Speaker 2: life than designing something and having to build it yourself
Speaker 2: and having no finger to point right. So you can't
Speaker 2: blame the contractor, you can't blame the architect, you can't
Speaker 2: blame anybody but yourself. So it's got to be right.
Speaker 2: And I think Chip, to his credit, he you know,
Speaker 2: had a background in maintenance and as a longtime superintendent,
Speaker 2: he put a lot of pressure on me to excel
Speaker 2: and make sure things worked and make sure every line
Speaker 2: that I drew had purpose. And I think that it
Speaker 2: was really important that there wasn't someone to fall back
Speaker 2: on or someone looking over my shoulder constantly. I feel
Speaker 2: like I make better decisions, I see things, I can
Speaker 2: react to things better because of that pressure and understanding
Speaker 2: that as I went and then you can't be any
Speaker 2: more invested than as you work in that fashion. And
Speaker 2: I really liked the idea that I I didn't learn
Speaker 2: a system. You know, there wasn't a recipe. It was
Speaker 2: you know, get on the golf course, find out what
Speaker 2: the golf course needs, listen to the client, and respond
Speaker 2: and then I really liked the idea that every course
Speaker 2: is different and they all shouldn't look the same. And
Speaker 2: because you know, I wasn't working under an umbrella of
Speaker 2: a bigger name, I had that freedom.
Speaker 1: I imagine you get to work with a ton of
Speaker 1: different architects too, and you got to pick up things
Speaker 1: that you liked and also things you didn't like. Is
Speaker 1: there anything you know that you learn from you know,
Speaker 1: specific you know situations, like specific architects that you like
Speaker 1: really picked up and embrace, Like is there something that
Speaker 1: some an architect that you work for that you've picked
Speaker 1: up and are like, this guy does this really well?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. I think watching the hardest thing
Speaker 2: to do in golf, period, whether you're a superintendent, a
Speaker 2: golf professional, general manager, wherever you are in the game
Speaker 2: and in the industry, learning the political spectrum and learning
Speaker 2: the dynamics and how each club is different, and even
Speaker 2: even from a daily fee perspective, and so watching other
Speaker 2: architects interact with committees and some we're a lot better
Speaker 2: at bending minds. I guess to see it their way.
Speaker 2: Some people it was my way or the highway, and
Speaker 2: if you don't like it, go some guys were more thoughtful,
Speaker 2: and seeing that spectrum kind of helped allow me to
Speaker 2: kind of figure out the way I wanted to proceed.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a balance. And look, I think
Speaker 2: one of the cool things about what I do is
Speaker 2: that I'm constantly learning, you know, whether it's history stuff
Speaker 2: even in the dirt, but the political thing. You know,
Speaker 2: you're you're always learning. Okay, who do I need to
Speaker 2: convince to see it my way? How do I teach
Speaker 2: people what's good architecture and what isn't? You know? We
Speaker 2: talked about that a little bit yesterday, and so I
Speaker 2: think that was probably the biggest thing I picked up.
Speaker 2: I was very cautious when I worked with other architects,
Speaker 2: and I didn't work with a ton of them. I
Speaker 2: saw a lot of projects being done, but as far
Speaker 2: as hand in hand working with other guys, I didn't
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time in the field with them.
Speaker 2: But you know, you see, you see rhythms, you see
Speaker 2: tendencies of those things with guys. But it you know,
Speaker 2: some of the big work we did with McDonald, some
Speaker 2: of the you know, the Bethpage Black even Congressional Oakmont
Speaker 2: Marian the first time you just it's complicated, very complicated.
Speaker 2: People want, you know, want it to be simple, but
Speaker 2: living this life, it's there's so many different things that
Speaker 2: are happening, and I guess maybe learning from some of
Speaker 2: those other guys, maybe the best way is just to
Speaker 2: plow through and and be, you know, the the dominant
Speaker 2: personality and just kind of shove it down the road.
Speaker 2: But sometimes that's not a great way to live either.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a balance.
Speaker 1: I imagine working with committees, it's it's got to be so
Speaker 1: tough because everybody is, like everybody processes information differently. Like
Speaker 1: some people are like visual learners. Some people are like
Speaker 1: you know, they need everything explained to them verbally. Some
Speaker 1: people like reading and like some people like you can't
Speaker 1: explain something until you get out in the field.
Speaker 2: So do you when.
Speaker 1: You're you know, kind of pushing new ideas? How how
Speaker 1: do you present all all of it? Do you try
Speaker 1: and do a combination of all.
Speaker 2: The It's it's a struggle, I really. What I learned,
Speaker 2: I guess at some point was that you can stand
Speaker 2: up and tell anybody you have a great idea, but
Speaker 2: if they fire question back at you, and your only
Speaker 2: response is you know what do you do for a living,
Speaker 2: or you know you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: That's not a great way to try to get your
Speaker 2: point across. You're much better served to say, well, this
Speaker 2: is what I was thinking, this is why I think
Speaker 2: it's important, you know, talk get through, don't talk down
Speaker 2: tons of mileage out of that. And then you know,
Speaker 2: if you want to see if you want to see
Speaker 2: something amazing, go to a club and talk about a
Speaker 2: subject to each administrator, so general manager, golf pro, superintendent,
Speaker 2: I mean even assistant superintendent, assistant golf pro, you know,
Speaker 2: clubhouse manager, and then go talk to the club president,
Speaker 2: you know, members of the board, golfers you want to
Speaker 2: find out. I mean, I've worked with clubs before and
Speaker 2: I've heard, you know, twelve different perspectives on something very simple,
Speaker 2: just from all those different people, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: mind blowing. It's like, you know, you're all on the
Speaker 2: same team, but the perspectives are also different. And so
Speaker 2: you know, that's where I really find that if you
Speaker 2: have good ideas, you explain them, well, you're going to
Speaker 2: get ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you can when you're just talking to
Speaker 1: those different individuals, if you can curtail.
Speaker 2: Your messaging just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that because you can understand what they want
Speaker 1: specifically and kind of tweak it so that they understand exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy how many people you have to
Speaker 1: get on board exactly because the vocal minority in clubs
Speaker 1: is just toxic.
Speaker 2: So I used to say I like to have the
Speaker 2: squeaky wheel on a committee because I always like to
Speaker 2: know where that person stood. And I still like that
Speaker 2: to a certain extent. But I also have found certainly
Speaker 2: that there's some people no matter what you say, what
Speaker 2: you do, what you tell them, you know you're not
Speaker 2: going to convince them. But I tell you one of
Speaker 2: the things that's most satisfying is working or hearing from
Speaker 2: those kinds of people and then doing the project and
Speaker 2: then coming back and say, listen, I was wrong or wow,
Speaker 2: or you know, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: So you're you're forty, and when you look at the
Speaker 1: landscape of golf architects, people like think Gil Hans is
Speaker 1: like a young guy. He's in his fifties. It's why
Speaker 1: is the takes so long in architecture to get established,
Speaker 1: and because I feel like you're you're just becoming like
Speaker 1: established house the whole name, right, and you know it
Speaker 1: just well.
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole reason I went out on my
Speaker 2: own really was that after two thousand and eight, most
Speaker 2: guys in their thirties were kind of washed out or
Speaker 2: you know, there wasn't a ton of work, and some
Speaker 2: of those guys were making a good amount of money
Speaker 2: with bigger names, and they you couldn't sustain it. And
Speaker 2: it's so hard to break out of the shadow, you
Speaker 2: know sometimes when you're working with a big, big name guy.
Speaker 2: And I just saw that there was this great opportunity
Speaker 2: that there was a wake behind the really big name
Speaker 2: guys from the you know, the boom of the nineties
Speaker 2: and two thousands, and you had this really cool group
Speaker 2: of people that are doing amazing work now, like Gil
Speaker 2: and Doak and those guys. But that all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's kind of a gap. So I needed to get
Speaker 2: off my butt and try to fill that gap or
Speaker 2: get in line. I think the reason it takes so
Speaker 2: long is no matter how much you learn in a classroom,
Speaker 2: no matter how many golf courses you see, no matter
Speaker 2: even how many projects you oversee, Like I said, you're
Speaker 2: constantly learning, and it takes a long time to get
Speaker 2: enough experience to handle the dynamics right, because it's more
Speaker 2: than just drawing a pretty picture or having a great idea.
Speaker 2: It's selling yourself. It's creating a plan that responds to
Speaker 2: what people are looking for, you know, something people want,
Speaker 2: and then you've got to bid the project, admit, stir it,
Speaker 2: make it happen in the field, you know, and produce,
Speaker 2: manage it. And doing that as a young you know,
Speaker 2: the most frustrating thing for me was right out of school,
Speaker 2: ended up managing a couple million dollars new project, and
Speaker 2: I was assawed off, you know, twenty something year old
Speaker 2: working with guys that are in their fifties and sixties
Speaker 2: that had moved dirt their entire life and trying to
Speaker 2: convince them to do what I wanted them to do
Speaker 2: was hard.
Speaker 1: I bet, yeah, thank you. They were probably like, what's
Speaker 1: this young schmuck you know telling me how to do
Speaker 1: my job I've been doing for thirty years exactly.
Speaker 2: So the easiest way to do that is beat them
Speaker 2: to work, So they get there at five or four
Speaker 2: point thirty and drink coffee in their truck for an
Speaker 2: hour and smoke cigarettes. You know, you better be there
Speaker 2: before them, no matter. You know, you're in instant credibility
Speaker 2: by not you know, not being the quote unquote pretty boy.
Speaker 2: I guess you know, show up, work, work with them,
Speaker 2: so you know it just it takes time. I think
Speaker 2: there are a lot of talented people out there. I
Speaker 2: think perseverance was a huge part of my life and
Speaker 2: help me. You know, that idea of no matter what
Speaker 2: gets thrown at you, you know you're constantly trying to
Speaker 2: do better. Those things really help in life and in architecture.
Speaker 1: What would what would you do differently if you could
Speaker 1: go back and do say you could you could do
Speaker 1: something differently in college or you could you know, right
Speaker 1: out of school, you could do something differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest thing I would do different
Speaker 2: is I would appreciate the journey a little more. You know,
Speaker 2: you always want to get to the end or you
Speaker 2: always want to get you know, like you know, five
Speaker 2: years attack, you know, I wanted to get done. I
Speaker 2: wanted to go make money, I wanted to go build things.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go design and and and you know,
Speaker 2: travel the world and do what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2: Thinking back on it, and just the other day we
Speaker 2: were at a set I think with my wife at
Speaker 2: an alumni thing, and uh, they were talking about medieval
Speaker 2: times and Game of Thrones and stuff, and I was
Speaker 2: so enthralled of man. I wish I would have appreciated
Speaker 2: all the extra things like in school and uh, the
Speaker 2: life experiences other than just what I wanted to do,
Speaker 2: because I think the perspective, all those things teach you
Speaker 2: things about what you want to do and it's really
Speaker 2: exactly yeah. So that's probably, you know, probably the biggest
Speaker 2: thing is just trying to appreciate that more. But I
Speaker 2: used to lose a lot of sleep over like bunker lines,
Speaker 2: like you know, painted a bunker line and then it
Speaker 2: would keep me up at night of you know, is
Speaker 2: that the right bunker line? I mean that's crazy, right,
Speaker 2: I mean they're bunkers, right, They're hazards there, you know.
Speaker 1: But I was hanging on probably evolve over oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean the minute you leave, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: a summer kid you know, hits it with a hand
Speaker 2: pro or something and it's completely changed from what you've
Speaker 2: done or you know, the you know whatever. So I
Speaker 2: think having kids and a wife that that we have
Speaker 2: an awesome team at home gave me great perspective on
Speaker 2: that that, you know, the important things are the important things,
Speaker 2: some of those kind of smaller detail things of stressing
Speaker 2: over it's not worth stressing over. You still want to,
Speaker 2: you know, excel at them, but you know, don't lose
Speaker 2: sleep over it. Like I sleep really well. I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe it's because I work so much and I don't
Speaker 2: sleep much, but I don't stress like it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's okay. So you know, I think that stuff you
Speaker 2: learn over time.
Speaker 1: You're in the design contract school of thought with a
Speaker 1: little bit of build.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So look, I did design build for fourteen years,
Speaker 2: and I think there's a good value in it. What
Speaker 2: I struggled to find was that, you know, I like
Speaker 2: to operate equipment. I'm not the world's greatest shaper. I
Speaker 2: can run equipment good enough to get my idea crossed,
Speaker 2: you know. So if a guy's struggling trying to get
Speaker 2: my vision, I'll ask kindly, you know, let me get
Speaker 2: on there and show you what I'm kind of thinking,
Speaker 2: and then you can clean up my mess kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So I think there's there's an awesome connection and doing that.
Speaker 2: But what I really struggle with is that if you're
Speaker 2: going to be a world class builder, then you need
Speaker 2: to be a world world class builder. And if you're
Speaker 2: going to be a world class architect, then you need
Speaker 2: to be a world class architect. And I wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: my time doing design build for anything, but I think
Speaker 2: the creative freedom and the time that I might dedicate
Speaker 2: to some other piece of the design build I can
Speaker 2: now dedicate to you know, being a better architect is
Speaker 2: kind of where I settled in my head. And maybe
Speaker 2: I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a hard thing. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: what we just talked about, like managing, and like I
Speaker 1: even see it, like I ran this by myself for
Speaker 1: so long, and now I have some people that help
Speaker 1: write stuff. I have some people, I have an intern,
Speaker 1: and like now like all of a sudden, like I
Speaker 1: have to manage also, like and I have to read
Speaker 1: other people's stuff and I have to give feedback and
Speaker 1: I can't. Like it's not just all like what I do.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's takes different skills and it
Speaker 1: requires different skills and you can't be all wrapped up
Speaker 1: in one aspect of it exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, I've really got to be good
Speaker 2: with my time now and I couldn't imagine running that
Speaker 2: extra opponent myself, at least at this point.
Speaker 1: What's your pet peeve when you go to a golf course,
Speaker 1: like like.
Speaker 2: Like in existing or when I'm working myself.
Speaker 1: Say, we just went down the street to golf course, Like,
Speaker 1: what's one thing that that you just immediately catches your eye.
Speaker 2: And oh, you're going to love this, right? The trees,
Speaker 2: you know for sure, I know you're big on that,
Speaker 2: but uh, it's just there's such an emotional attachment two
Speaker 2: trees and they're beautiful, but they got to be in
Speaker 2: the right spot. And I think, uh, you know, golfers,
Speaker 2: especially in the States obviously, right, you know, they they
Speaker 2: feel like it's we talked a little bit about this.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the way it's always been. Well no,
Speaker 2: you know every year the tree is changing. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not the way it's always been. And you see
Speaker 2: the trees from rarely the way so exactly right. So
Speaker 2: you know that's that's kind of a pet peeve. It
Speaker 2: drives me nuts when I see properties or places where
Speaker 2: people want to be like somebody else and golf and
Speaker 2: I guess I've said this a lot. I guess Golf's
Speaker 2: the only game solely, you know, defined by the ground
Speaker 2: that is played on. And for me, what makes it
Speaker 2: so cool is that every golf course is different. There
Speaker 2: are no two golf courses the same, not even close.
Speaker 2: So why why do you want to take all the
Speaker 2: things from your neighbor or the last place you went
Speaker 2: to travel to play and put it on your property.
Speaker 2: Now you might find concepts or themes that it works,
Speaker 2: but why don't Why don't you embrace what makes you special?
Speaker 2: You know? And so sometimes you see people really trying
Speaker 2: to force their golf course to be something that isn't
Speaker 2: and that that's painful.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's especially the case with like following
Speaker 1: the big name club in a city. So if you're
Speaker 1: in Chicago, if the way it used to be, if
Speaker 1: Medina does something.
Speaker 2: You got it right. You got to get in line right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did a talk for superintendents a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: It is like the top ten things you can learn
Speaker 2: from the top ten, And it wasn't about how to
Speaker 2: be like the top ten. It was well, if everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, they watch the Masters and the next week
Speaker 2: they're after you to do X, Y and Z or
Speaker 2: whatever tournament, Well, why don't you turn that around on
Speaker 2: them and say, well, these are the things we can do,
Speaker 2: Like at Augusta, you know what, forty four bunkers or
Speaker 2: something now and twenty two originally, then let's look at
Speaker 2: making our bunkers more efficient. That's a great thing you
Speaker 2: can say from Augusta. You know, clubhouses, some of the clubhouses,
Speaker 2: good clubs are pretty simple. You know, they're not these
Speaker 2: monstrosities that cost a fortune to run and you know,
Speaker 2: have all these moving pieces. They're pretty simple. Use that,
Speaker 2: don't don't you know.
Speaker 1: It's like the clubhouse I saw in Palm Strings. They're
Speaker 1: spending like eighty million dollars on a clubhouse out there.
Speaker 1: It's like, what eighty million dollars on a clubhouse? Like
Speaker 1: do you think people are going? Is it a hotel
Speaker 1: or people living in there?
Speaker 2: So one of the first courses over the first course
Speaker 2: I helped design and build as King Carter in eastern Virginia,
Speaker 2: you know in I'm kind of middle of nowhere, northern Neck,
Speaker 2: really cool spot, like really relaxed. But one of the
Speaker 2: owners was convinced that he could build this little golf
Speaker 2: shop and instead of getting a trailer, he built this
Speaker 2: like golf shop that's about the size of this room,
Speaker 2: you know, like fifteen by twenty or something. And it
Speaker 2: was like incredibly simple, but it was spectacular. It was
Speaker 2: all he needed to operate. You know. He wasn't wasting money.
Speaker 2: People were there for golf, you know, and he had
Speaker 2: a grill that he cooked hot dogs on and you know,
Speaker 2: place to get a beer or whatever, and you know,
Speaker 2: what else do you really need if you're really there
Speaker 2: for golf.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Dunes Club, And uh, it
Speaker 1: was like Mike Kaiser's first thing. It is first it's
Speaker 1: like a private club. It's got probably like one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty members, but the pro shop is a closet
Speaker 1: like literally just like it's like you walk in and
Speaker 1: but then the you know, the clubhouse might be a
Speaker 1: thousand square feet. They have a grill. They grill something
Speaker 1: different every day. Yeah. That that to me is what
Speaker 1: it's about. Like it especially you're you save so much
Speaker 1: money and that and it's like to be honest. In
Speaker 1: today's landscape, like with the way the game is, I
Speaker 1: think parents spend a lot more time with their kids
Speaker 1: than ever before. Like then when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I feel like when I was a kid, I just
Speaker 1: like i'd like go figure out what I was doing
Speaker 1: every day. Now like parents are with him, Like there's
Speaker 1: way more travel sports. It's like people don't hang out
Speaker 1: at the club all day anymore. You know that that
Speaker 1: with the you know, next generation of golfers, like our
Speaker 1: generation is something that doesn't happen as much. Like you know,
Speaker 1: more people are living in urban areas, like we a
Speaker 1: my old apartment or my old apartment, we had a pool,
Speaker 1: Like why would my wife ever drive forty minutes to
Speaker 1: go to a pool when we have a pool on
Speaker 1: our rooftop that like overlooks like Michigan.
Speaker 2: You know, Well, that's why I'm struggling with some of
Speaker 2: these fitness centers that clubs are doing. I mean it's great, right,
Speaker 2: It's it's a member members can see maybe value by
Speaker 2: having that. But you know, are they better serve or
Speaker 2: you know, are you better serve going to Gold's gym
Speaker 2: or you know, to your club. Yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: figure that out.
Speaker 1: The dues end up probably being about the same, Like
Speaker 1: I don't I always think people get in trouble when
Speaker 1: they do something.
Speaker 2: That they aren't, you know, totally agree.
Speaker 1: Like if you you're a golf course architect, you know,
Speaker 1: if all of a sudden you decided, well, I'm as
Speaker 1: start an offshoot business being a turf consultant too, Like
Speaker 1: you're not going to do both of them at a
Speaker 1: world class level.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, And like a country club, like you're a country club,
Speaker 1: you do tennis, like golf, well like not necessarily, you're
Speaker 1: not as good as a gym, absolutely unless like you're
Speaker 1: a living facility like a community, you have a standalone gym, right.
Speaker 2: The one of the cool things. You know, took a
Speaker 2: trip to Scotland a couple of weeks ago. I was
Speaker 2: going to ask you, and those clubhouses are spectacular. Number one,
Speaker 2: those clubs are really good because they're in a community.
Speaker 2: They're like in town, right, so that that really helps.
Speaker 2: But their clubhouses are so they're so versatile, but they're
Speaker 2: so simple. You know. It's like all of them like
Speaker 2: to kind of face the eighteenth green or out onto
Speaker 2: the golf course pretty much. And I don't I don't
Speaker 2: know enough. They might have all been designed by the
Speaker 2: same guys, and you know, I just I don't know
Speaker 2: enough about that part of it, but you know, they
Speaker 2: had a couple rooms. The best ones seem to have
Speaker 2: maybe three rooms with like dividers or doors that they
Speaker 2: could combine to do a big event, and otherwise they
Speaker 2: were three separate spaces but just incredibly efficient. It was
Speaker 2: just it was like, you know, why do we need
Speaker 2: you know, why do we need the space for a
Speaker 2: three hundred people? You know, I know that weddings are huge.
Speaker 2: I mean, some clubs make a ton of money doing
Speaker 2: that stuff and it helps drive the rest of the train.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's also things like use a tent
Speaker 2: to host big events and then take the tent down.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's I think a lot of clubs end up getting
Speaker 1: in trouble now with like the especially when they get old.
Speaker 1: You get big club clubs as they get old.
Speaker 2: You know, probably the number one challenge in golf right
Speaker 2: now is how do clubs sustain themselves knowing that they
Speaker 2: have to reinvest. Yeah, and for single operators, especially once
Speaker 2: you get twenty thirty years old, and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of golf courses that are twenty or thirty years old.
Speaker 2: It's a big number just to get not even to
Speaker 2: make huge improvements, but just to get up to date.
Speaker 2: I worry about all the clubs built in the big boom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the seventies, eighties.
Speaker 2: Now, yes, I mean, what are you going to do
Speaker 2: when it's a million and a half dollars for an
Speaker 2: irrigation system and that's not really something you can live
Speaker 2: without and it's something you bury, you know, you dig
Speaker 2: a hole, put it in the ground, you bury it,
Speaker 2: but you have to have it.
Speaker 1: What would you do with those like your quintessential dark
Speaker 1: ages course? What would you do? Like what I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I know it's like a blanket, but like what kind
Speaker 1: of things can you do with you know, the small corridors,
Speaker 1: lots of water? Yeah, I mean some some imaginative. You know,
Speaker 1: moving dirt is very difficult in those spaces, so you
Speaker 1: got to be very efficient with how you think about that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's totally different than building a landscape and
Speaker 1: putting your golf course onto that. If you're doing that,
Speaker 1: or taking a really good piece of ground and making
Speaker 1: it happen. You know, when you're playing between two sets
Speaker 1: of houses, you know, what can you really do? I
Speaker 1: think it's trying to make those courses as strategic as possible,
Speaker 1: as interesting as possible. Make you think as much as
Speaker 1: you can is great, but at the same time it's
Speaker 1: going to have to fit within pretty much what was there.
Speaker 2: It's a heck of a challenge. It is, there's no doubt.
Speaker 2: But you know, how do you how do you reinvest
Speaker 2: in your self and get better but not completely mess
Speaker 2: yourself up where you know that you're not going to
Speaker 2: be able to sustain yourself then because.
Speaker 1: He can't invest too much and then not be able
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Know, and there are a lot of clubs that are
Speaker 2: in the black barely or just a little in the red.
Speaker 2: Now you put this massive either debt service or whatever,
Speaker 2: now you know you're on an even bigger uphill climb.
Speaker 2: And so we talked a little bit about, you know,
Speaker 2: golfer IQ and having golfers understand more than what they're
Speaker 2: looking at or what they're used to, and then how
Speaker 2: do they how can they learn from some of those
Speaker 2: things that they see outside and then make good decisions
Speaker 2: because you see clubs make a popular decision, but maybe
Speaker 2: not a good decision, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like popular meaning everybody's doing it, but this might not
Speaker 2: be the thing we need to do. But it's like
Speaker 2: the trendy thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's tough, it's too It's like making decisions within the
Speaker 1: context of a bigger plan because like, God, I was
Speaker 1: at this place recently, and I've I've been there a ton,
Speaker 1: like when I was younger, and it's a cool little place,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It will never be a world beater
Speaker 1: golf course. And it's got a single owner now, Like
Speaker 1: it's got a situation where it could be really good.
Speaker 1: The guy is spending money, but he's doing it with
Speaker 1: like no plan, and like you think about, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you just did this big drainage project on the side
Speaker 1: of a green and you know, you install this car path,
Speaker 1: but like did you really think about like how you
Speaker 1: could you know, have done all that and build the
Speaker 1: tea at the same time right there that could make
Speaker 1: the next hole way better and move the path somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So it's not like in the line of sight, like
Speaker 1: and it's like if you just had a little bit
Speaker 1: of foresight, you wouldn't have spent any more money and
Speaker 1: you would have gotten so much more done.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's back to kind of that pet peeve thing.
Speaker 2: A pet peeve of looking at past work is how
Speaker 2: something was done and it just a little different execution
Speaker 2: would have made it so much better without costing another penny. Yea,
Speaker 2: Your car paths are famous for everybody wants new car
Speaker 2: pass because they don't like the bumps or the brakes
Speaker 2: or whatever, and they'll pave over an existing path that's
Speaker 2: in a horrible spot, maybe to save a penny or something.
Speaker 2: They'll build a dam that won't allow something to drain
Speaker 2: because of that, it'll be flashed to the players. So
Speaker 2: you're staring at it. You have golf balls bouncing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: How about the car path where trees have been removed,
Speaker 2: but the car pass still does the s curve where
Speaker 2: the trees. Gosh, that's tough. I hate that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, why can't you make make good quality decisions,
Speaker 2: do all the work in the area, check it off
Speaker 2: the list, and move on to the next thing. You know,
Speaker 2: That's what I really and look phased work is really hard.
Speaker 2: It might be the hardest thing to do because no
Speaker 2: matter what, when you come back even a year later
Speaker 2: and you're trying to replicate what you did the year previous,
Speaker 2: it's like starting all over. But you gotta do what
Speaker 2: you can do, and you can't sit still, it's like
Speaker 2: the white pines. Those are never going to get better.
Speaker 2: You might as well get them down. You know, if
Speaker 2: a tree is failing, it's not going to get better.
Speaker 2: It stinks that. You know, it might be the stately
Speaker 2: tree that you know has been at the club for forever, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the last forty years, yeah, right of two,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred plus year history.
Speaker 2: But if the thing isn't leafing out, and you know,
Speaker 2: you gotta take it down, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: And then there's like a really nice oak tree that
Speaker 1: four of them surround. That's what drives men's It's like
Speaker 1: the best tree on the property is just covered in
Speaker 1: trees around it. It's like, just let that guy do
Speaker 1: all the work that all these other trees are doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let him breathe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so let's talk about good golf. H O.
Speaker 1: You were just over in Scotland. Was that your first time?
Speaker 2: It was? Yeah, I can't believe it took me so long.
Speaker 1: What you know, what were your thoughts? Where'd you go?
Speaker 2: So played more golf than we should have. A couple
Speaker 2: buddies played nine times in six days. It was I'd
Speaker 2: played four times total in twenty sixteen. And seventeen of
Speaker 2: like golf other than you know, playing with my kids
Speaker 2: or something. So my golf game actually is worse after
Speaker 2: playing more because I used to kind of Bruce Letzkit.
Speaker 2: But it was a ton of fun. We started on
Speaker 2: the west coast, went all the way north and then
Speaker 2: came back to kind of the east coast, so it
Speaker 2: was it was a little stupid. Actually. The guy that
Speaker 2: helped me put the trip together is like, you're you're insane,
Speaker 2: and I was like, yeah, but I want to see
Speaker 2: as much. I don't know when I'm going to come back. Well,
Speaker 2: the crazy thing is after I got back, it's like
Speaker 2: I want to go next year. It's like I really
Speaker 2: should have I don't know, I should have thought it
Speaker 2: through it better. But a couple of things that struck
Speaker 2: me the simplicity of the game. I wish more people
Speaker 2: could experience it because I think it would give them
Speaker 2: better perspective on what's important.
Speaker 1: Raise their golf.
Speaker 2: For IQ golfer IQ absolutely, just the brilliance of using
Speaker 2: the ground, the differing problems. The community or golf is
Speaker 2: a community lifestyle over there. It's like everybody's a member
Speaker 2: of the club. It doesn't cost that much money to
Speaker 2: be a member. They love the game, they love their
Speaker 2: course the best, the most fun I had from an
Speaker 2: experience standpoint at Taine, which is just a little south
Speaker 2: of Dornic, and then at North Barrack, the caddies were
Speaker 2: complete like locals, like members. You know, they were like
Speaker 2: called off the bench to come caddy, and their perspective
Speaker 2: on their course, like the pride they had and the
Speaker 2: stories of their club championship, and man, that was so cool.
Speaker 2: It was great. It was more than just you know,
Speaker 2: give me a yardage and telling me you know what line?
Speaker 2: You know was that experience that was great. The level
Speaker 2: of maintenance is different. But I've struggled ever since I
Speaker 2: got back to understand how how can we do better here?
Speaker 2: Part of it is golfer iq that what people see
Speaker 2: on TV is what they think golf should be. So
Speaker 2: everything's lush and green and look, we're doing a better
Speaker 2: job of down and brown and you know, firm and fast.
Speaker 2: We're doing better. But golfers still think the best golf
Speaker 2: courses are green to a certain extent, right.
Speaker 1: I mean at Trinity Forrest, like CBS was saturating the
Speaker 1: golf course right because they you know, that it's crazy
Speaker 1: because like the brown golf courses like are almost proven
Speaker 1: to not show well on TV and people like lose
Speaker 1: interest because they don't have the perspective. But it all,
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing about it is like, it's not
Speaker 1: the course's fault. It's the golfer iq problem.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's not the superintendent's fault by any means.
Speaker 2: And I think golf course superintendents are the most innovative,
Speaker 2: creative guys that I work with.
Speaker 1: Love.
Speaker 2: I love how much you can learn. Go spend a
Speaker 2: day with a superintendent and just at any club, even
Speaker 2: the lowest level, all the way to the top, and
Speaker 2: you'll learn something. The guys are they're awesome, and they
Speaker 2: are doing the best to meet their clients' expectations with
Speaker 2: the resources they're given. And I get really frustrated when
Speaker 2: clubs start to want to compare maintenance budgets. It's not
Speaker 2: about what your maintenance budget is versus the guy next
Speaker 2: to you. It's what you're trying to present as a club. Okay,
Speaker 2: what level you're trying to present, what level of experience
Speaker 2: the clients, either whether it's daily feed or club members,
Speaker 2: what they expect, and then how that relates to the
Speaker 2: quality of golf, and then you're directing the superintendent to say, listen,
Speaker 2: these are kind of the things we're hoping to do.
Speaker 2: Help us do that. Those guys are going to find
Speaker 2: a way to do it okay, and they're going to
Speaker 2: give you the best advice of how to get there.
Speaker 2: But I think from a golfer IQ perspective, clients, you know,
Speaker 2: whether it's daily fee golfers that are demanding things to
Speaker 2: get in the door or club members, they're constantly pushing
Speaker 2: their maintenance staffs to do things that you know, they
Speaker 2: can be tough. Whether it's from a resource standpoint, labor
Speaker 2: is huge. Laboring golf might be the number one issue
Speaker 2: to work on, you know, throughout the United States. But
Speaker 2: everything that a member demands or a daily fee golfer
Speaker 2: expects takes effort time. And then depending on where your
Speaker 2: golf course sits, so where it is in the country,
Speaker 2: what kind of soil it has, what its water quality is,
Speaker 2: how many trees, how much internal drainage, how good the
Speaker 2: golf course was built the first time, all totally relate
Speaker 2: to what it takes to maintain it to the level
Speaker 2: that people expect.
Speaker 1: I told you a little bit about this yesterday. I
Speaker 1: wrote about it in the latest Bang for the Buck
Speaker 1: for your buck by side at Michigan, I played this place,
Speaker 1: Champion Hill, and it was built by the owner, which
Speaker 1: usually you think, oh God, this is going to be
Speaker 1: a disaster, and this guy like it was sandy. It's
Speaker 1: an unbelievable piece of ground and he just he didn't
Speaker 1: do anything really dumb, like nothing was you know. The
Speaker 1: greens are in good just made at work. It could
Speaker 1: be routed better. The bunkers are are like hand like
Speaker 1: they look like they're hand dug, like I've hand dug
Speaker 1: a bunker with Jason Way, friend of the Pod but
Speaker 1: before and like they look like the bunker I dug.
Speaker 1: But they're in good spots. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I thought at walking like it was they had
Speaker 1: gravel paths and single cut everywhere. Love it and like
Speaker 1: that to me is like so smart, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know why more munis don't have single cut.
Speaker 2: Well it's again everybody thinks they want to be what
Speaker 2: they see or what they think they know. Golfer I Q. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know back to the UK stuff Scotland, you
Speaker 2: know down a brown thin lies I mean, it was
Speaker 2: awesome golf experienced. Ball runs are along the ground, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure their maintenance inputs aren't nearly what we do
Speaker 2: even at a maybe even a municipal level, you know
Speaker 2: here in the States. And it's just, you know, we've
Speaker 2: got to work to educate golfers on what is good
Speaker 2: golf right. How do you know golf can be anything.
Speaker 2: I played a sand greens course in Salem, Virginia a
Speaker 2: little bit as a kid. I mean, it's it's golf, right.
Speaker 2: It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but
Speaker 2: it's golf. But it's you know, there's decision decisions that
Speaker 2: are being made in perspectives that we could all do
Speaker 2: a better job on and I think it would help
Speaker 2: the game throughout and the municipal courses. You know, it
Speaker 2: really depends. Let me back up. I think any great
Speaker 2: golf experience, great golf course, even if it's not at
Speaker 2: the highest level, has someone that has a incredible sense
Speaker 2: of ownership. So like here at Inverness s p. Germaine,
Speaker 2: was the driving force of getting this club off the ground.
Speaker 2: Tremendous impact. But you get like in the modern day,
Speaker 2: you get a lot of places where they're either people
Speaker 2: involved that it's a job there's not a sense of ownership,
Speaker 2: or there's a lot of chiefs but not a good voice.
Speaker 2: I think all of these places, especially maybe municipals, would
Speaker 2: benefit from a good voice, you know, somebody that has
Speaker 2: a vision, understands and can help get aligned and it's.
Speaker 1: Empowered and not like I think like is allowed and
Speaker 1: given like that, like yes, you know somebody that might
Speaker 1: keep them in check on like hey, like we can't
Speaker 1: afford this right now. But somebody that when they say, hey,
Speaker 1: we should do this, they don't. The immediate response isn't no.
Speaker 2: And I think if you look at I love looking
Speaker 2: at old aerols and you guys, you guys have done
Speaker 2: a great job with your sliders and things of looking
Speaker 2: back and forth. But you can really see clubs of
Speaker 2: any level that it's like chasing a squirrel. You know,
Speaker 2: they start after a one direction, then the squirrel runs
Speaker 2: over to the next tree, and then they're chasing that,
Speaker 2: and then you know it's not even somewhat linear. I
Speaker 2: use a I've used it before, like a family circus,
Speaker 2: you know, Billy goes on the adventure. I mean some
Speaker 2: clubs are like that, right, they're like all over the
Speaker 2: place where it would be so much better if if
Speaker 2: they just kind of picked a direction and went. Even
Speaker 2: if there's mistakes along the way, you know they're headed
Speaker 2: in a good direction.
Speaker 1: There's very few places that have just like been content
Speaker 1: with doing nothing well, and some of the best spots
Speaker 1: end up being the ones that were broke for a
Speaker 1: really long time because they didn't have any money to
Speaker 1: do anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Film in Philadelphia had struggled for a while trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to keep going, and they're kind
Speaker 2: of still working through some of the management stuff. But
Speaker 2: that golf course, there was some debate whether it was
Speaker 2: Flynn or who designed it the north especially there, and
Speaker 2: we kind of uncovered it was Willie Park Junior. But
Speaker 2: because they didn't do a lot along the way, it's
Speaker 2: so well preserved. You're exactly right. It's it's pretty amazing
Speaker 2: when there broke well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you've been listening to the fried Egg podcast.
Speaker 1: We do the digging for you.