WEBVTT - What to Know About Seth Raynor (ft. Anthony Pioppi) 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.199 I Think. Welcome back to another edition of the Fried 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.559 Egg Podcast. Today's episode is powered by TD Ameritrade. Every 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.640 stroke counts on the scorecard and every penny counts in 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.160 the market. That's why tdamerior Trade is committed to straightforward 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.799 pricing with no surprises, so you're free to swing with confidence. 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:25.880 Visit tdomritrade dot com, slash Fria Egg member SIPC. Today 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:31.200 we welcome on golf writer, author and historian, also podcast 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.199 hosts of the Renovation Report for turf Net, and the 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:39.919 executive director of the Seth Rayner Society, Anthony Piapi. Anthony 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.480 joins to talk about the history being made this week 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.240 with the US Women's Open being hosted at the Country 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.360 Club of Charleston. It marks the first time that a 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.159 US Men's or Women's Open has been hosted at a 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.320 Seth Rainer designed golf course. With no rain in the 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.800 forecast and the best women in the world teeing it up. 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.960 The golf should be fantastic this week and highly recommend watching. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.440 It'll be on FS one. I know Fox does a 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.600 ton of coverage. I'm really excited for it. Anthony talks 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:14.400 about Anthony goes in detail about Seth Rayner and where 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.440 the Country Club of Charleston fell in his career template 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.800 holes him much more so. Without further ado, here's Anthony 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:22.160 Piapi on Seth Rayner. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.039 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.160 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.760 And when I find my ball in a brid egg Friday, 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.600 egg Frida egg fridayg fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.320 ready to run off the course. 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.120 It's kind of surprising that this is the first Women's 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:14.000 or US Open at a Rainer course. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.160 I'm stunned by that. I mean, I knew this years ago, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.160 you know, we started looking at it. It's just amazing 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.120 when you think about it. They had to get somewhere right, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:23.560 and the answer is no, they never did. 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.680 Yeah, and it's like you can't even get like so, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.480 you know C. B McDonald gets the design credit typically 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:36.960 from magazines of Chicago Golf, but Rayner did the complete redesign. 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.440 There sure sure letters that say stay out of his way. 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.880 And even then, you know, Chicago Golf didn't host anything 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.840 after he redid it. 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.080 A Walker cup that goes to the Walker Cup in 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:50.720 what two thousand and five or two thousand and six. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.760 But you're right, that's absolutely it. You just thought somewhere 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:55.760 along the line something had to drop onto one of 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.640 his courses, especially the stuff on Long Island, and it didn't. 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.280 I think the thing that I'm most fascinated about it 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.360 for this week is that if you look at you know, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.080 the women and the distance they hit the ball today, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.280 it's about, you know, the same as the distance players 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.840 were hitting it in the late twenties when Rainer was 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:18.400 really in his heyday. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.600 Yeah, this course is going to set up absolutely perfect 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.480 for them. You know, when I talked to Frank Ford 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.680 about it, the longtime member, he was saying that if 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.680 it gets windy, they're going to move teas around, you know, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.519 they have that kind of if it's firm and windy, 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.040 the USGA wants to kind of mess with these holes. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.280 So they're playing different yardages and the fourteenth might be 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.960 was it, the fourteenth might be drivable, you know, all 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.520 that kind of stuff. It's going to be really fun. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.480 It's going to be hot. As you see the temperatures 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.480 for the week, it's all it's nineties. 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.760 Yeah, very very warm. I'm hearing right now that it's 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.760 extremely firm, and fast, so roughly the rain holds off 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.280 and it can stay that way because I think that 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.760 when you get that conditioning, you know, the rainer contours, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:08.280 especially out there is so many elevated greens, really the 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.520 architecture really comes alive. 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.920 Right and and it would be so cool if you know, 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.840 if they start playing the ball on the ground. I mean, 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:18.880 that's going to be the most fun is going to 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.479 be if people start doing that. You know, it's so firm, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.800 it's down wind. I guess the not I guess, but 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.160 the Frank Frank wod told me the prevailing wind is 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.440 into your face on the second hole, so it's kind 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.320 of crossing quartering, crossing against you on the first. If 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.159 they get the prevailing wind, they're going to be able 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.200 to play some down wind shots and some up wind 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.600 shots keeping the ball on the ground. And that's going 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:41.640 to be great to watch. 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.359 Yeah, I think this is I think I think Charleston 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.839 and I'm curious, say, you know, you're the obviously executive 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.040 director of the Rainer Society, and few people have dedicated 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:58.240 as much time and energy into researching you know, a 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.839 man that's got very very few records about him, Seth Rayner, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.560 but you know, where does Country Club of Charleston fall 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.080 in the rainer kind of timeline? What what stage of 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.480 his career is the nineteen twenty five design. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.080 You know, Unfortunately it's at the end. He dies and 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.120 he dies in late nineteen dies in January of nineteen 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.840 twenty six. So this, you know, it's the it's at 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:26.560 the end of his career, which his career was exploding 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:31.000 at that point. I mean, Camargo is under construction, Southampton's 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.279 under construction, Fisher's Island is just about finishing up, and 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.839 the second Course at this point is still going to 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.600 be built. Yale is Yale just opens. So he's at 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.159 the height of his you know, his creativity at this point. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.080 It's all the great courses. Blue Mound is another one. 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.400 You know, he's he'd gone and laid out Wili and 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:57.240 Mid Pacific. He was he had done the work in 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.400 California that never got built, you know, because he died. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.400 He's at the he's all over the country and he 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:03.919 has these amazing designs. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.600 Yeah, it's and so at Country Club of Charleston. He 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.080 that the site in terms of you know what the 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:17.440 topographical interest, I think it would it would lend itself 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.000 on the lower end, but obviously it's very beautiful right 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.719 there on the Wapoo River and the marshland of Charleston, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.640 very close to the city center. How would you compare 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.280 Country Club of Charleston to some of his other designs. 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.680 So this, to me is one of the classic examples 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.039 of you watch what he or another great architect does 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.159 on a flat piece of land. Right at a place 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.520 like Yale and Fisher's Island that has massive amounts of 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.320 movement and even some something like Wantam autonomy, there's not 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.120 a lot of fairway bunkers because he's going to create 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.640 hazards and preferred angles of play using the topography. But 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.480 here on the flat round at Charleston, he's going to 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.240 put his bunkers in places that force you to think, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.919 that create the optimum roots, that that make players seek 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:11.360 out angles to play greens into greens on certain conditions. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.480 He you know this is this is him designing on 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.880 a flat piece of land. Uh. And it shows to 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.720 me his brilliance in that there's some holes where it's 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.720 important to be very precise off the tee, and there's 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.200 other holes where it's very important to be precise, precise 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.800 on the on the approach shot, and so he kind 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.040 of spreads that, spreads that out, you know, and it's 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.640 it's it's a course that it's of course what he created. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.520 That he created the angles and the with with the 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:39.960 use of hazards, and it's fantastic. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.800 Yeah, I think I think that too. I think, like 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.880 you know, I'm a Chicagoan, like there's it reminds me 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.480 a little bit of Chicago golf, where you know, the 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.280 the interest is much more created than you look at 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.440 some of his sites you mentioned Yale and Fisher's Island, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.360 like Short Acres is a perfect example in Chicago where 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.960 he had a ravine scape, this unbelievable natural topography to 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.360 route the course around and right, you know, far fewer 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.360 bunkers and much tame or greens at Shore Acres. Then 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.240 if you go down, you know, across town to Chicago 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.640 GoF you'll see some of the most epic green complexes 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.120 and you know, a lot more bunkers comparatively. 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.480 So it's interesting and another course I think that would 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:27.160 have fit into that, but it's been changed so much 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.960 as Country Club of Fairfield. When you see the original 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.960 drawing and you see the foot of the nineteen thirty 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.280 four aerial. You know there's bunkering all over that because 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.079 again that's for the most part a flat piece of land. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.800 He's right on the water. I don't think he looked 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.400 thinking about it. I don't think he had the acreage 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.520 to do the massive width you know that he might 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:48.680 have wanted to do in some holes. But he creates 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.240 all his strategy with bunkers, and it's fantastic how he 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:53.920 does it. And like you said, it's sue acres. He 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:55.959 uses the ravines, it doesn't need bunkers. 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.520 Yeah, it's it's something I've thought a lot about. And 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:04.400 it's like, you know, these guys, especially the Golden Age architects, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:09.440 they just understood what the right level of interest and 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.960 challenge was. And you see at short acres like the 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.880 very boldest greens or features like the cross bunker on 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.840 one or the burrits on six come on the very 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.280 flattest land right out there. And then you know, you 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.239 look at the same way at at Country Club of Charleston. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.000 You know, the really bold bunkering, you know, like the 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.640 you know, the the leaven hole fourth, the you know, 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.880 the par five fifth come on like the flattest least 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.080 interesting land, right. 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.120 And you know when Ron Forest did a lot of 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.719 work at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island, and we 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.120 were talking about that's a very flat piece of land 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.200 for the most part, there is some elevation change. But 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.720 he talked about how telling has had for what we 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.280 would consider placid greens because old greens on a windy 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.200 site didn't make sense because even in the days day 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.960 when it opened, it would have made things crazy. So 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.559 here are these kind of placid greens again in the 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.800 context of killing ms, not pleasant greens. But then he 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.960 takes in bunkers that property, so that you have to 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.160 the strategies created by him with these bold bunkers. And 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.720 it's like you said, it's the Golden Age. Guys understood 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.040 that they let if the land was there, they let 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.480 the land do the do the talking, you know. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.320 Yeah, exactly. It's so Seth Rayner's career, I think is 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:36.200 from with respect to the other Golden Age architects, most 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.760 of them came from, you know, a great playing lineage, 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.160 and Rayner it was definitely kind of the black sheep 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.840 of them. You know, for our audience that might not 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.400 know that much about Seth Rainer, who was Seth Rayner 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.119 before he met CEB MacDonald. 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.960 He was the city engineer for the town engineer for 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.760 the town of Southampton, New York, and he was brought 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:04.120 in to do to drag the chains and do the 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.320 surveying of the property that that National was built on. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.840 And he had no background whatsoever in golf. He had 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.720 been on the when Shinnacock was expanded at one point 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.920 his dad, who was also a civil engineer, had done 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.080 that work. And Rainer had been on that golf course. 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.720 But that's it. And he didn't play prior to getting 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.760 into the business. And when McDonald hired him, there's no 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.320 indication that he was ever thinking of anything beyond just 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.800 that one job. And Rayner did such fantastic work that 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:33.520 he kept him on. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:40.240 So he gets on with National and then he starts 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:45.040 he's McDonald's guy, and you know the next course, you know, 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:46.520 kind of how did that progress? 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.079 Well, let me back up just a second. I have 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.079 a theory, and there's no way I can prove it, 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.559 or I don't think it can be disproved. McDonald wanted 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.199 to build a golf course, right, he was going to 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:57.920 be the first guy in the United States. Maybe in 0:11:57.960 --> 0:11:59.800 the world to create a golf course. He was going 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:03.720 to make greens to certain sizes, right, he wanted him 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.200 so high, so wide, so long. He needed somebody who said, 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.960 if you build this, you need x amount of soil 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.240 to do that, and then here's where you can take 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.000 them from. If you build these five bunkers, you want 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.520 to build this big, we can take that soil and 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.600 build that green. And so after that, I think that 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.800 this kind of hits McDonald that he needed that person. 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:27.959 And the second place they go to his piping rock, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.360 you know, and that was a million bunkers at that place, 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.160 and there's a lot of elevation change at times. A 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:39.920 lot of elevation changed there. And from then on, however, 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.400 many courses McDonald designed after that. Somewhere around fourteen or fifteen, 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.439 no matter what he was doing, Rayner was the head 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.000 of construction. He was the guy on site. Even later 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.720 in his career when when Rayner had his own design career, 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.880 which started in about nineteen fourteen nineteen fifteen, he would 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.680 go back and lead the projects for McDonald. Yeah. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.560 One of the most interesting things I've found when I 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.960 was doing research for the US Senior Women's at Chicago 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.520 Golf last year was a letter from McDonald to the 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.760 club that it was saying, you know, Rayner had designed 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.960 golf courses from Saint Louis to Maine, which you know 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.520 is like, oh, you know, in essence, McDonald's kind of 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.079 saying Saint Louis is you know those Rainers the design. 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.400 Really, I think he was really good at promoting Rayner. 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.640 When you when you read Scotland's Gift, McDonald's biography and 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.240 you see some of his other quotes, I think he 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.640 was really really good at at promoting Rainer and giving 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.520 Rayner credit. You know, he calls he calls Leedo a 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.760 Reino golf course, right. We know that, we know that 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:51.079 Yale is unequivocally we have the there's board minutes and 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.200 all that stuff. It's a Rainer golf course. But he 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.320 calls Leedo a Rayner golf course. And I think that 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.960 could be disgusted or or argued. And you know, he 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.560 says in the in the book that Rainer designed three 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.440 hundred golf courses, which he didn't do. He never designed 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.560 a golf course in Maine. We know that, you know, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.200 for sure, unless something pops up. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.840 You know, that's right, one of the things I'm gonna go. 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.280 I want to go on a quest to see if 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.040 they're visit every course in Maine. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.160 Well, you know, I've had the discussion with a lot 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.440 of main people about is there any you know, is 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.400 there anything there that would make you think, oh my god, 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.960 this is Rainer. And now with all these newspapers getting digitized, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.280 you know, we can look into small town Maine in 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.800 the nineteen twenties and nobody's come up with any I mean, 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:36.640 it would be fantastic. We still don't know how we 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:38.360 get to the squamakin and did that work there? 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.400 Yeah, tell me a little bit about, you know, your 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.040 research on Rayner, and I think people are you know, 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.760 genuinely interested, like a is a historian and you know 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:53.240 you've written some club histories, You've written your book Finest Nines, 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.680 and you know, tell us a little bit about, you know, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.800 the process of of tracking down Rayner, who was notorious 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.960 for no not having correspondence notes or anything. 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.560 Right, right, And we should really put that in the 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.280 context with that virtually every other Golden Age architect wrote 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.440 at some point right, wrote about architecture, and Rayner never 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.360 did that. And as far as we know, He was 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.360 interviewed once by the Olympic Club for of course he 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.720 designed for them that was never built. We don't have 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.440 all the other quotes we have from him are secondary. 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.640 Rayner said, at you know, this will be the great 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.800 greatest course ever. It's somebody from the club talking. It's 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.800 not Rainer saying to a reporter. So you just kind 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.400 of do this thing where you start looking through club 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:40.720 you know, you try to get you get in touch 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:42.520 with clubs and see what they have, and you talk 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.080 to them, see what they have in their files. You 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.000 try to get the club history books and see that, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.120 and you find mistakes. You know, it's it's interesting. They 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.400 have him in the one of the early histories of 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.200 the history books from Rasquamicket. They have his name spelled 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.160 wrong and they don't even know his first name. And 0:15:57.200 --> 0:15:59.760 that book came out in nineteen ninety six, I think. 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.160 And then you know, so then you just get on 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.520 digitized newspapers and you just start searching out SETH. Rayner 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.880 or SJ. Rayner, which he signed his name a lot 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.080 or Seth J. Rayner. The problem with that is Rainer 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.240 is a very common name on Long Island and now 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.360 into New Jersey and Seth Rayner wasn't an uncommon name, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.640 so you bump into more than one Seth Rainers even 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:21.960 in that time period. And then the other thing, and 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.960 I give a talk to superintendents on how to track 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.920 the how to discover the architectural history of your golf course. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:30.040 One of the things you have to do is learn 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.160 to spell wrong. You have to learn how how would 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.680 rainer be misspelled in a newspaper? And R A Y 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:37.400 N E R is one of those ways. We've actually 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:42.760 found some good stuff spelling it wrong. And the two 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.200 big biggest websites right now that people use our newspapers 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.880 dot Com, which you have to pay for, which is fantastic, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:55.000 and chronic it's called Chroniclingamerica dot gov. It's run by 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.000 the Library of Congress. And because some of these newspapers 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.600 still have copyright, they're only up into the twenties of 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.120 what they're allowed to if they don't get permission from 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.680 the paper to use. So we're not into the late 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.480 twenties yet. We haven't seen like twenty three, twenty four, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.960 twenty five, twenty six, and a lot of newspapers, which 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:13.840 is we know we're going to find some more rainer stuff. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:15.960 But you just kind of start doing something like that, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.720 and it's really kind of strange how you bump into it, 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.320 because you'll find you'll do something like I found that 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.520 it's much better or not much better. But you always 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.520 would search the word links besides golf course. And always 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:29.840 make sure that if if you're searching out, say country 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.560 club at Fairfield, you call it Fairfield Golf Club in 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.800 a search, because somebody's gonna get it wrong along the line. 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.199 And sometimes club change, clubs change names, and you do 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:39.560 that kind of stuff, and you just go down a 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.000 rabbit hole and you look up and you've been spending 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.919 four hours doing that, and you found some cool stuff. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:51.960 What's spend your favorite SETH Rayner Discovery Wow. 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.840 So I did the book for Sure Acres and they 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.720 had had a club house fire in the nineteen eighties. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.000 Then they thought they lost every thing, and I asked 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:02.720 them just to check to see what they could find, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:10.320 and they found an old what am I thinking? In 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.760 a bank a safe deposit bucks that had five or 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.400 six letters in it, and some of the letters are 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.800 directly related to hiring Rayner. And then they hire Rayner 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.719 in nineteen sixteen and nineteen seventeen, they stopped the project 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.280 because of World War One, and then they come back 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.640 and they restart the project in nineteen nineteen, and there's 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.840 some letters between the founders talking about bringing Donald Ross in. 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.600 Maybe they could get Donald Ross to draw a plan 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.720 and then they'll decide which plan they like better. It 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.920 sounded like they didn't want to pay Ross. And one 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.399 of the references in the letter is we could something 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:43.960 along the line, and we could do what they did 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.800 at Old Elm and locked them in the room together. 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.480 And then it was Colton Ross, but locked Rayner and 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.720 Ross in the room together and have them battle it out. 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.360 And it's just stunning that they even thought that. And 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:03.239 there's no history that that Ross was ever involved. I've 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.600 talked to the Tough's Library, the Donald Ross archives down there. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.520 There's no there's no record of him ever being involved 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.920 in Shore Acres. But for a second they were gonna 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.119 they were gonna pause the Rainer Planet bring in Donald Ross. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.520 How about the idea of just putting two professionals in 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.160 a room and letting them duke it out. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.280 Yeah, as if what happened at Old Elm was okay, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:25.680 you know what I mean? Like that like that was 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.960 a good experience for everybody involved. I know it was 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.600 really kind of it's really kind of crazy. I mean, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.560 you bump into some funny things. I found out that 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.560 I found out that Rayner was robbed when he was 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.320 down doing the Gibson Island project. We know that he 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.000 was in a train he was in a train accident 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.879 where the engineer got killed. We know that he lost 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.399 his vest one time in Southampton and some indigent person 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.000 returned it and was given a reward. I can tell 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.040 you what car he drove for a few years. I 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.080 know what his license plate was for a couple of years. Wow. Yeah, 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.920 I mean you can bump into some crazy stuff. And 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.760 and Rainer's grandniece, uh is still alive. So she never 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:09.760 met Seth, but she knew her aunt was Ara Minta 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.760 or they called her aunt Minta, but Seth Rainer's wife. 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.640 And so there's a you know, a direct connection. There's 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:20.240 a direct connection to him through his through this grandie. 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:21.240 And that's great to hear that. 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.080 Now for a quick word from our sponsors. This episode 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.720 is powered by td Ameritrade. Great Players Change the Game 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.800 and Teda Marrior Trades' innovations have always been game changing 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.040 for investors, from being the first brokerage to let you 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.320 trade on your phone to being the first to feature 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.160 voice trading on Amazon Alexa, ted Ameritrade has always led 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.919 the way with breakthrough technology that brings the market to you. 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:48.040 Visit tedomritrade dot com, slash Frida egg to learn more 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:54.440 Member SIPC. Now back to Anthony Piapi. If you could 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.840 ask him one question, what would your question be? 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.960 What they he What did he suddenly realize? You know, 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.160 he was an engineer that didn't understand anything about golf 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.040 when he looked at those template holes and McDonald showed 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.760 him what a good golf hole is like, what did 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.639 he grasp right away even though he wasn't a player? 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.359 Because he has artistry to his work. He doesn't repeat 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:25.400 holes from golf course to golf course, and I'll argue 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.600 that on a lot of his golf courses, the best 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.400 holes out there are the ones that he created. 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:31.040 I completely agree with that. 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.520 My favorite hole at Fisher's Island, and I caddied there 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.680 for three years, is the short par four to seven. 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.560 There is so much chada right and if you understand 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.720 the wind and you understand the contour, and the angle 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:45.960 of the green in relation to the small pond. I 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.359 think it's a genius hole. What is it? Three hundred 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.600