WEBVTT - School of Golf Architecture: Place with Blake Conant 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg podcast 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.920 and to the first installment of the School of Golf Architecture. 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:10.840 I'll explain what that is in a minute, but first, 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.960 this episode is brought to you by our friends at 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.520 b Dratty. So a big priority for me is having 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.280 golf clothes that I feel good about wearing both on 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.040 and off the golf course. And I found that b 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.720 drattypolos just hit that sweet spot exactly. I have their 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.360 classic original liampolo in a few different colors, and it's 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.240 all about the fabric, the Peruvian Pima cotton. It's super 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.480 soft and comfortable. It feels light and athletic for walking 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.440 the course and playing the game. But it's also cotton right, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.840 it looks classy, It looks great outside of the golf context. 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.320 So the limpolo, among a lot of other good stuff, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.360 is available at bdradty dot com. At checkout use the 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.640 promo code Friday Egg fifteen. You'll get fifteen percent off 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.360 and help support what we're doing here, all right, the 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.160 School of Golf Architecture. I'll introduce the idea for this 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.520 series in full once this episode gets underway, but basically, 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.440 it's an introduction to golf course design, where I'm kind 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.600 of standing in as the student heading out into the 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.640 world and talking to some experts like today's guest Blake Conan, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:25.880 and just trying to learn as much as I can 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.600 from them about this fascinating subject and delivering the results 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.680 to you. Today's episode is about the idea of place 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.119 in golf architecture, and let's just get to it right. 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:39.479 It requires a different technique. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.440 What you need to do is actually square the face 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.400 so it'll dig down underneath that bad lie and propel 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:47.760 that ball right out onto the green. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.840 Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried line of 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.360 bunker is completely different than playing out of a night 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.320 and clean lion of green side buker. 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.480 You need to be aggressive on any show weather it's 0:01:58.520 --> 0:01:59.560 sitting cleanly for it. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.440 Frida Egg, well, we've all faiked it. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.000 Regretted Frida Egg not to be cleared though it's actually 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:14.680 a pretty easy shot to hit. So a little backstory. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.760 Three years ago, Andy wrote a series for the Friday 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.760 Egg website called Golf Course Architecture one oh one. There 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.240 are really fun articles and a lot of people seem 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.600 to enjoy them and find them helpful. So recently we've 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.760 been brainstorming ways to update them or to revisit their 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.160 ideas from a different angle. Right on cue, we received 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.600 a direct message on Twitter from the very smart Jamie Kennedy, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.320 who works for Golf TV. Basically, Jamie said, hey, you 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.800 guys should do short episodes of the podcast explaining the 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.640 basics of golf architecture, and right away we thought, yeah, 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.440 we probably should, so thanks Jamie. From there, we came 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.640 up with what we're going to call The School of 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.760 Golf Architecture. It'll be an occasional series and the installments 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.920 will cover one top for twenty five to forty minutes. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.800 Each episode will include an interview with an expert, along 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.200 with opening and closing thoughts. For me, they'll be more 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.680 produced than the typical Frida Egg interview, but less produced 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.520 than Frida Egg stories, and we're hoping that they'll be 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.079 accessible enough for people who don't know much about golf architecture, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.640 but also offbeat and geeky enough for people who know 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.160 a lot. It's a balancing act, but I think we 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.400 can pull it off. In addition to the audio, we'll 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.600 be posting companion articles on the Friday Egg website. That 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.240 cover the same topics, but with some visual accompaniment, so 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.960 make sure to check those out as well. Usually, if 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.840 you're giving an introduction to golf architecture, you begin with 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:48.160 a discussion of land, soil types, climate, topography, location. These 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.160 are definitely important things to understand, but I'm going to 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.160 start in a slightly different way. In this first episode. 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.440 I'd like to talk about a related but somewhat separate 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.960 concept and golf course design, the concept of place. You 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.200 may think you know what a place is. Everyone knows 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.200 what a place is, But when you really try to 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.640 define it, or to distinguish it from space, that's where 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.040 things get tricky. For now, though, let's keep it simple. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.640 We can define a place as a segment of space 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:21.560 where life occurs. So golf courses, among other things, are places. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.120 They're built and traversed by humans, and as a result, 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.680 they take on a kind of identity or what we 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.040 often call a sense of place. That phrase, a sense 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.960 of place has grown a bit stale in contemporary usage. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.520 You'll see it in ads and travel brochures, but it's 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.719 rooted in a notion that has been with us since 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.559 ancient civilization. I'm talking about genius loci, which in Roman 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.359 mythology referred to the guardian spirit of a place. In 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.040 the modern world, the term genius loci has evolved into 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.840 a general way of describing a location's prevailing atmosphere, its 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.960 unique feel, which is derived no not only from its 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.360 sites and sounds and smells, but also from its community, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.880 its history, and its everyday uses. Okay, so all of 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.720 this might be starting to sound a little bit abstract 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.440 and academic, but it's really just an attempt to put 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:18.600 words to an experience that's instinctive, even visceral, and it's 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.400 one that you're probably familiar with. Think of what it's 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.760 like to go back to your childhood home, or to 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.080 the main street in your college town, or even to 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.200 the golf course where you learn the game. That feeling 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.320 you get can be understood as your attachment to the 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.279 spirit of that place. How does all of this relate 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.640 to golf architecture. Well, my favorite courses tend to be 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.520 the ones that are especially good at cultivating those attachments 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.920 between a golfer and the genius low Side. How they 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.599 do this is far more art than science, but you 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.200 know it when you feel it. Some of the courses 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.120 where you feel it are highly ranked prairie dunes, sand Hills, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.080 Cyprus Point, while others are just local facilities that have 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.040 a true and lived in sense of place. May be 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.040 exactly because they were built in simple ways Pacific Grove 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.600 in California, or Grindstone Neck in Maine, or any number 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.240 of home made links courses in Great Britain and Ireland. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.919 These courses may not excel in all of the criteria 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.400 that we've grown accustomed to using when we assess golf architecture, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.280 but we need a vocabulary to talk about why they're 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.640 so alluring. For me, that's the vocabulary of plays based design. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.680 The term plays based design comes to us from the 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.040 field of landscape architecture, but I found out about it 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.400 from Blake Conan, a Nebraska based golf architect and builder 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.360 who owns the firm Dundee Golf and has worked with 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.440 Tom Doak and Todd Eckenrode. Here's how he puts it 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.960 on his website. Plays Based design explores the connection between 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.520 the natural and built environments and finds ways to integrate 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.200 the two together. It requires immersing oneself into the setting, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:07:00.599 studying its surrounding landforms, soil, existing vegetation, culture, community history 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.480 to reveal the site's maximum potential. So to learn more 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.919 about these ideas and generally about how the concept of 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.280 place figures into golf architecture, I gave Bake a call. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:21.440 Here's that conversation. You know, I'm sure these concepts overlap, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.480 but what for you is the difference between a golf 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.160 course's land and a golf course's place. 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.480 Well, the land just seems to be the physical attributes 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.640 of it, right, like the site structure. So you're talking 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.240 about you know, vegetation, topography, hydrology. You know, once you 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:46.080 start defining it as a place, it's you take into 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:50.520 more considerations of well, what's what's the built environment around there, 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.480 what's you know, what's the culture, what's its history? 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.920 How is it different when you start to consider the 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.520 human element of a piece of land, Because if that's 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.560 the difference between a piece of land and a place, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.240 what are those things that you would look at beyond 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.760 just the physical attributes of the land if you were 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:09.679 assessing a site. 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.080 I think the first thing, even if it's not humans, 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.560 if it's just animals that occupy it, you know, that 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.160 could be a place and one of the cool things 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.360 to start to look at is circulation and just how 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.280 to humans or how to animals, how have they moved 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.160 around on this site before? I know, like Bill cor 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.480 has talked about that a lot where he tries to 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.679 find little rabbit tracks or sheep tracks to inform his routing, like, 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.360 because if they've already figured out the easiest way to 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.120 get around this place, then you know, that should certainly 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.160 inform my decision of how I want the golf course 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.040 to function and circulate. And then you know, the built 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.120 environment's a whole that adds another layer of complexity with 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.840 people then living there and how do they use that 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.640 space in daily life. 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.880 Part of what I'm thinking about right now, based on 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.800 what you're saying, is how certain golf properties are not 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:08.520 just completely natural. Sometimes they have the mark of human 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.520 intervention in them. I'm thinking of sites like Chambers Bay, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.080 which used to be an old mine and elements of 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.959 that are still incorporated into the design that's there, or 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.720 at stream Song, where I believe the story is a 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.200 bunch of people had already moved around the land there. 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:35.200 But instead of trying to deny that those human interventions happened, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.480 the designs of those two courses stream Song and Chambers 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.199 Bay kind of embrace it. Is that something that you 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:43.960 like to see in courses? 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.480 Yeah, absolutely, you know, And I think what that is 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:52.240 is it's starting to embrace the historical, the history and 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.079 the culture of the place, right how it was used, 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.280 how people before you used it. So I think that's 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.000 great to try to melt that with its new use, 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.760 and particularly think of inventive ways to use that, like 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.160 those big cement structures at Chambers Bay, you know, I 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:10.880 think they're off the right of the eighteenth hole or 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.240 seventeenth hole, the railroad track that runs by it. You know, 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.440 all that stuff adds character and then it also doesn't 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.839 wipe out the previous history and culture of the place. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.960 Like an example that I'm sure everybody knows of on 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.680 a golf course is an old quarry. Most golf architects 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.880 throughout time, I think, have tried to utilize a quarry, 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:35.040 and they're routing if one existed previously, whether it's having 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.960 a tee or on it, or routing over it or 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.360 through it or in it. That is very much an 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.960 idea that everybody wants to stick with and try to 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.520 figure out a way to use because it's cool. It 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.480 creates variety on the site, and it's doing exactly what 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.080 we're talking about. You're respecting the previous history of what 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.560 was there, even though it was man made or manipulated, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.640 trying to find a cool, unique use for it. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.880 Let's go back a couple of steps here. Say you 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.680 were looking at a property that had potential for golf. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.240 What would be your process for coming up with a 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.760 set of characteristics of the place to respect as you 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:22.079 were building the golf course. 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.640 I think a lot of that is spending time on 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.520 site and you know, doing your site analysis. If you're 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.400 trying to learn more about the place, it ultimately means 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.040 you've got to spend a little more time not only 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.120 on site trying to find the cool things about it, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.280 the way the way water works, the way it reacts 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.760 during storms, things like that, but then also what's the 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.719 surrounding area, like what are the off site influences, Who 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.560 are the people that have used this space before, what 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.520 are the you know, the towns or the people around it. 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.520 Getting to know those areas. 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.880 Part of the process that you're proposing is not just 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:06.559 being focused completely on the terrain, but also investigating the 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.960 community and the history around the land, and I find 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.760 that really interesting. How would you go about doing that? 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.800 Would you look into archives, would you spend some time 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.840 in the community itself, would you talk to people? Is 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:23.640 that part of the site analysis process for you? 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.680 Yeah, certainly, I mean you would want to You would 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.280 want to find as much history on the place as possible. 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.880 You know, you could find out that two hundred years 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.760 ago it served as something completely different. You know, there 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.320 might have been like, say, a Civil War battle there 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.640 and nobody knew, or it was like indigenous settlements, and 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:46.800 then you can start rooting around in the woods and 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.400 trying to find stuff that may inform your design. And 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.080 I think what that also does is helps you. It 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.600 just helps you get attached to the place in a 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.320 way of finding the more subtle details of it, and 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.400 then you could figure out how to circulate around there 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:04.000 as well. 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.559 Why do you think it's important to do that kind 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.720 of work? How does it manifest itself in the final 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:12.240 product of whatever you design? 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.480 How do you mean like the what's the outcome or 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:17.360 from doing all that? 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.760 Yeah, what's what's the advantage? So you know, there's the 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.000 option of just designing a golf course based on a 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.440 topo map, in an office versus spending a ton of 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.360 time on site doing a kind of ethnography even of 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.160 the surrounding community and history. It just seems like a 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.760 much more in depth process. What are the kind of 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.959 fruits of that labor that you see as the golf 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.520 course gets designed. What's the goal of going to that 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:45.400 extra effort. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.440 Yeah, I think the goal is to get all those 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.120 little details right and at the at the end of 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.079 the day, make it feel as much like the place 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.120 that it is as you can. Once you start studying 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.120 wind patterns, you figure out where areas one of a road, 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.840 like where would a sand pattern actually get exposed on 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.440 that land? Are we actually putting in at a place 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.120 where it's just going to go crazy and sand's gonna 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.319 blow everywhere and this thing's gonna expand five times at 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.040 size in a matter of three seasons, or is mother 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.520 nature going to continually try to grasp that over So 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.040 I think once you get to know more about the 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.200 details of that stuff, how how mother nature wants to 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.240 manipulate that place and how it wants to form that land, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.280 you know that can start to inform design decisions of 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.880 like bunkers facing southwest want to be flashed high and 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.080 bunkers facing northeast need to be you know, tucked down 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.680 low because the wind is going to do this. You 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.960 could start to see weird landforms in areas that you 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.640 weren't using for golf and incorporate them more into the 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.960 site to try to give it that feel of the 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.600 place and accentuate that a little bit. I'm thinking of 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.080 like at Memorial Park down in Houston, there was this 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.080 cool ravine that Tom found and cleared out and routed 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.320 the second hole a par three over, and the landforms 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.080 in there were awesome, just because such steep land, you 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.120 get such fast water moving through there, and then these 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.440 tree routes basically have to grip onto the side of 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:16.920 a steep slope and they create these weird little knobs 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.720 at formations. So I think Don and his crew were 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.520 really informed by that when they were doing a lot 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.520 of the ravine work, and we were informed by that 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.240 when building holes near the ravine. It's like, well, we 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.160 could sort of borrow from these landforms that have been 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.320 covered up for fifty years and try to incorporate them 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.040 into the golf and that helps sell the golf course 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.160 as being a part of this place even. 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.040 More, and in that case, you were restoring the sense 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.160 of place to a golf course that had perhaps over 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.479 the past few decades lost. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.680 It certainly, yeah, at least exposing what was lost exactly. 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.440 So a lot of what we're talking about philosophically is 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.800 rooted in the concept of place based design, which comes 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:08.240 from landscape architecture and has been practiced obviously in fields 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.280 outside of golf architecture. So tell me a little more 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.160 about the concept of place based design, where it comes from, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.600 how you learned about it, what it means to you. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.600 So, place based design is sort of what we've been 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.360 talking about. It's designing with and around characteristics that make 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.400 a place special and unique. You know, not only the 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.800 structure of the site, but the native ecosystem, the culture, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:38.200 just local experiences, and design decisions then reflect that analysis. 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.360 The way I learned about place based design was in 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:47.720 landscape architecture school. You start to study old landscape architects, 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.600 and one that really caught my eye was a Danish 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.880 immigrant named Jens Jensen who was from Chicago. Came to 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.160 Chicago in the early twentieth century, sort of on the 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.280 heels of the First World's that Chicago had the Columbian Exposition. 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.399 You know, classical architecture was all the rage, like the 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.920 Beaux Arts French style of landscape architecture was really popular, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.919 really formalized landscape architecture. And this guy came in and 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.879 was just sort of blown away by the diversity of 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:22.320 the Illinois landscape, and he proposed this idea that design 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.679 should be harmonious with nature and its ecological processes. He 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.200 wanted to sort of incorporate a place based design at 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.760 a time when it was sort of unpopular. You know. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.200 Now he's responsible. He became the parks commissioner for Chicago, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.480 so he's responsible for all those small parks in the 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.720 city that maybe Andy's familiar with. He's also responsible for 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:48.199 identifying all the state parks, including the dunes parks. He 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.560 found some really cool dunes land so he preserved those 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.159 and they've become state parks. So he just had he 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.159 had this process as a landscape architect where he wanted 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:03.159 to I've got his five points of his sort of 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:08.040 five key points. He wanted to understand local culture, use 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:12.359 native plants and local materials, create space and view, mingle 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.600 light and shadow, and he preferred organic forms in large 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.680 scale landscapes. I was like, well, a ton of that 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.200 stuff is useful in golf course architecture as well. 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.320 What did some of this work look like in its 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.320 finished form for the parks and the urban architecture and 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:30.240 whatever he was doing. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.320 I think a big park of his is Columbus Park 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.200 in Chicago. One of the things that he was really 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.919 known for in the way that he tried to create 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.360 more of this play spased design. He would have these 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.679 these circle pits where people could sit around, like communities 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.480 could come together and have a space within the park 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.600 to meet, which only then reinforce and emphasized this idea 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.840 of community. And then they very much. It was like, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.959 you've got lots of green space, You've got these organic 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.360 shapes in the park, a variety of spaces and areas 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.399 to do different activities, and then just being aware to 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.040 always use native plants to reinforce this idea of here 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.760 is what Illinois always has been, even though right now 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.400 you're surrounded by a bunch of buildings and plethora built environment, 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.240 like you can come to this park and all the 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.760 stuff here is native to the place where you are, 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.399 so trying to maybe reconnect you to the land a 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:28.840 little bit. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.000 And so as you were learning about this kind of 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:36.359 work in landscape architecture school, did a bell sort of 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.760 go off for you at some point and you thought, hey, 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.760 this is really what should be done in golf course architecture. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.720 No it wasn't. I mean, it wasn't really a bell. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.040 It was just like, man, this is the term that 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.119 people should be using, Like, minimalism is the term that 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:56.280 was applied to this movement that Tom and Bill sort 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.880 of started, right But to me, it's like, I also 0:19:59.920 --> 0:20:03.040 have an art background, and minimalism is not the best 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.600 term for what that is. Minimalism is is it's like 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.760 a highly purified form of art. It condenses it down 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:15.520 to its essential elements, very little ornamentation, simple design. It's 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.199 often geometric and repetitive. So when I started learning more 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.720 about plays based design, and you know, reading about Jens 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.199 Jensen or Aldo Leopold or Robert Barvin or people like that, 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.960 it's like, man, this is you know, it's not reinventing 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.439 the wheel. It's just a better thing to describe the 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.800 way people have been designing courses since the Golden Age. 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.680 If you think about it, a lot of the work 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.919 that's called minimalism in golf architecture is really anything, but 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.639 not just in the sense of the intervention in the landscape, 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.600 but just in the in the style that you often 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.800 see in these courses that are called minimalists. They're they're 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.159 very kind of complex and filigreed and and have a 0:20:58.320 --> 0:20:59.960 concentration of detail. 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.919 You know, Minimalism may even be just that weird Victorian 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.840 style where it's like there's a bunker one hundred and 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.000 fifty yards, a cross bunker one hundred and fifty yards 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.800 off the tee, three hundred yards off the tea, and 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.960 then one right in front of the green. It's like, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.479 we never change that pattern. Everything's just repetitive and simple 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.159 and very black and white, like if you do not 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.760 do this, then you will be penalized by this. And yeah, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.719 it's like once you started entering that variety and complexity 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.199 and strategy into golf is when it changed. And so 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.920 to me, it's like place based design encapsulates that perfectly. 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:43.720 Right, So, what are some ways in which you can 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.959 make sure that the course you're building is respecting the 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:49.880 spirit of the place that it sits in. 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:52.760 I think it's what a lot of people who are 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.919 good at routing golf courses and designing golf courses. Do 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.159 you know you're trying to provide variety, You're trying to 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:04.080 start to play with how people interact with that space. 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:08.640 You're respecting the natural hydrology, so you're not you know, 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.359 you're not just putting a green anywhere and then building 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.040 a bunch of catch basins around it, because you're just saying, 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.640 screw it to the natural hydrology. It's like you're working 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.439 with the land in a way that it can function 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.480 as it always has, but then still just be used 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.280 for this fun little game we like to play. 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.720 And to come at this from a different direction, What 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.959 are some ways in which golf architecture can violate a 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:36.720 sense of place? 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.800 My main one has always been Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.920 just because it's so not of desert golf. It's basically 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:51.440 like somebody took a helicopter and imported parkland golf of 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.840 like even some weird form of southwestern mountain golf into it, 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.840 you know, And ultimately what that does is it's going 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:03.439 to drive up maintenance costs in the long run, like 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.560 if nothing else, and only thinking of it economically, like 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.600