WEBVTT - Golf Architecture 101: Template Holes 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:04.880 What are CB McDonald's template holes, often called ideal holes? 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.000 Where did they come from? And why do they seem 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:12.200 so important to understanding golf architecture. That's what I'm talking 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.360 about today with PJ Clark in this installment of our 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.439 Golf Architecture one oh one series. I'm Garrett Morrison and 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:28.480 this is designing golf. All right, PJ, how's it going. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.240 I'm doing good. I'm excited for this one. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.920 This was this was by my own requests, so I'm 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:34.920 really fired up here. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.840 Yes, we'll talk about why you requested it because I'm curious. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.360 But it's good to have It's good to have class 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.159 back in session. It's been a while since we've done 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:43.640 one of these. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.159 Yeah, I know, I'm excited and this is this is 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.880 uh probably the number one topic I would assume I 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.400 needed to learn based on what we do here and 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:53.360 when we started this. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.000 So I'm happy to be I'm happy to be here. 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.800 That's that's interesting. So hopefully I'll inform you in the 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.240 way that you want to be informed. But I guess 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.600 you've heard plenty of references to C. B. MacDonald and 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.679 SETH Rayner and their and their template holes and our 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.240 goal here is to kind of demystify that. First, though, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.200 I want to quickly clarify something that we covered in 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:21.800 our last Golf Architecture one oh one episode, and that 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.080 was the topic of the episode. Was Alistair Mackenzie's thirteen 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.720 essential Features of an Ideal golf Course or his thirteen principles. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.440 The confusion in that podcast, I think came with principal 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.080 number six, the principle that said there should be a 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:43.279 minimum of blindness for approach shots. Now, what mackenzie means 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.319 here is that there should not be many blind approach shots. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.920 I believe you thought he was saying that approach shots 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.080 should be at the minimum blind. 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:56.920 Yes, that is exactly how I read that. 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.800 I did not pick up on this during the podcast. 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.400 I wasn't I was I was failing in my job 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.840 as a teacher. I wasn't listening properly, and so I 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.399 was just kind of proceeding with my understanding of it 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.720 without really noticing that you have interpreted it different. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.400 Now I'm I'm pro number six instead of very anti 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.079 number six. I want to make that clear for now 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.440 that I've learned the flip side. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.280 That was a whoops. These things happened these things. I mean, jeez, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.000 looking back on my teaching career, the things that I 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.480 would just like give lectures on and then discover afterwards 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.960 that my students had some basic misunderstanding that rendered my 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.480 entire lecture irrelevant. That happened over and over again. And 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.120 this is an example of that very understandable that you 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:46.280 would interpret the text in that way. Really Like, when 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:47.560 I looked at it, I was like, oh, yeah, I 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.280 can totally see how he got there. And I should 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:56.760 have clarified that Mackenzie meant not many blind approach shots. 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:57.680 Pleased he did. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:02.760 Not like the doctor was something about something. I should 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.079 have realized that if I was so confused that it 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.800 was me who was wrong and not the doctor. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.440 Now that makes that's right. Trust the doctor. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:12.280 Yeah, blindly, that makes sense. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.560 It would have if we had read more of Mackenzie's 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.840 writing than just the thirteen Principles, I think it would 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.080 have been clear because elsewhere he kind of elaborates on 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.280 this principle and talks about why he doesn't want many 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.280 blind approach shots and all that kind of stuff. It 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:29.800 was just more common in Mackenzie's day that approach shots 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.000 would be blind because of course earth moving equipment wasn't 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.200 what it is today, and so they kind of dealt 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:36.080 with the lay of the land. 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.800 That makes sense that I could I could see how 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:40.960 you know, if you just dealt the hand on the 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.600 side of a hill, then it's kind of kind of 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:44.880 what you have to work with there. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.760 Now, the funny thing is, blind approach shots have come 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.200 back into fashion. I mean, it's it's some it's a 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.440 feature of ancient architecture that people now find charming because 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.080 it's somewhat rare. Blind approachots really fell out of fashion 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.520 in the middle of the twentieth century, and and so 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.440 because they became rare, I think people have started to 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.480 gain a kind of affection for them. But in any case, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.080 I just wanted to wrap that up, and there we 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.040 got a couple of comments and I was like, yeah, yeah, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.720 I missed this one. Sorry, So let's get to our 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:20.320 topic for the day. Charles Blair McDonald's. Charles Blair McDonald's McDonald's. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.560 That would be another that'd be maybe a more Scottish version. Okay, yeah, 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.560 who knows. Maybe there is a Charles Blair McDonald out there, 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.680 his ideal holes or template holes. And this is I 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:36.720 think actually very related to our discussion of Mackenzie's thirteen Principles, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.680 and that's because McKenzie and McDonald were essentially asking the 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.760 same question, how do you design the ideal golf course. 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.200 McKenzie's answer to that question was this list of principles. 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:56.000 McDonald's answer was his notion of ideal holes. So the 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.200 ideal holes are whole designs or concepts that you see 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.440 used over and over on the courses of C. B. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:08.440 McDonald and his collaborator slash protege Seth Rayner McDonald and 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.440 or Rayner sometimes together, right, they collaborated a lot, but 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.560 sometimes just Rayner As a solo architect. They were responsible 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.440 for many of the best regarded golf courses built during 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.960 the Golden Age of golf architecture in America, which stretched 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:28.200 from approximately nineteen ten to the late nineteen thirties. McDonald's 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.240 best known designs include National Golf Links of America, The Ledo, 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.279 Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, the Creek mid Ocean in Bermuda, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.679 and Saint Louis Country Club. Seth Rayner had a much 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:48.359 bigger portfolio, right, McDonald's body of work is fairly small, 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.680 so some of Rayner's highlights would include Fisher's Island, Chicago 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:57.159 Golf Club, Shore Acres, Camargo, Yamen's Hall, et cetera, et cetera. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.200 And Rayner also served as the associate what we would 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.960 now call the lead associate or construction manager or whatever 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.800 on all of McDonald's major projects. A distinctive feature of 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.920 McDonald and Rayner's courses is the presence of the so 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.520 called template holes. These particular design concepts usually based on 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.920 models from famous British links courses and adapted to whatever 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.159 piece of ground McDonald and Rayner we're working with. Some 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.479 of the better known template holes include the Radan, the 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.160 road hole, the Eden, the Cape, the Beertz, the short, 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.640 the Alps, so on and so forth. I'm sure you've 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.080 heard these referred to casually in podcasts and been like, Okay, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.560 what are we talking about here? 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:43.920 That's exactly how we got here. 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.560 Yeah, okay, so that's our subject for this episode. Now 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.240 we won't cover a lot of particular template holes. That 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.240 may come as a disappointment, but that I mean, we're 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.760 mostly in an audio medium here. We'll also publish this 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.840 on YouTube with some visual and for an audio medium, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.800 I figured that just talking about specific template holes might 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.680 be a little tough because we just have to talk 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.880 their features out. But what I hope we can do 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.920 here is kind of establish a basis for understanding all 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.560 template holes, and then we can dig into whatever particular 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:24.560 ones you're curious about. Now, as you mentioned, PJ, you 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:29.320 actually requested that we talk about this subject. Why were 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:30.160 you interested in it? 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.600 I feel like it comes up a lot just in 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.480 random podcasts here or there, or you know, we did 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.600 the rain or Man merch collection and cameras talking about 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.520 how he had to draw all the template holes, and 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.240 I was like, I know, that's the thing I'm supposed 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:46.920 to know at some point, but I have no idea 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.119 what you're talking about. So I got to a point 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.160 I forget what entirely prompted me. But he got to 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:54.680 a point where I was like, I have no idea 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.880 what we're talking about anymore. So I needed to humbly 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.160 request to get taught what every year about to teach me? 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.120 Right now, let's go back to square one. 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:04.080 It is. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.480 I mean, it's kind of like a code language. And 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.720 this is one thing that can make golf architecture an 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.680 intimidating subject is that you're dropped into it, and people 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:20.200 are speaking a different language that includes words like radan 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:25.120 and Eden and shorthole and alps, and it's if you 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.360 don't understand the language, then it can feel a bit alienating. 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.800 And hopefully that's that's what we're breaking down a bit 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.520 here in the Golf Architecture one oh one series. I 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.440 want to assure you there's nothing complicated about understanding these 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.199 template holes. Most of them are are pretty simple to understand, 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.720 and a lot of people who casually refer to them 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:53.920 in conversation don't don't actually know the design concepts. That 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.679 that's good. That makes me feel bad. 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:56.400 That's great. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:01.040 In order to really have mastery of the subject, and yeah, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.360 you do need to dig a little bit deeper, but 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.640 in order to have just a framework for the conversation, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.880 I think we can do that pretty quickly. So let's 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.920 start with some background, a little bit of history. Who 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.240 McDonald was, how he came up with this idea. This 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.040 is actually I love this story. This is one of 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.920 my one of my favorite stories to tell about golf architecture. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.560 I think it it represents so much of what the 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:32.000 early development of golf course design as a discipline and 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:36.120 a field of study was and so I just I 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:37.679 just really like going through this As part of the 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.040 reason I was excited about this episode. So C B McDonald, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.880 wealthy Chicago kid who ended up attending the University of 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.360 Saint Andrew's in the early eighteen seventies. Saint Andrews, Scotland 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:57.959 was and is the international home of golf. So no surprise, Yeah, 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.839 it's pretty good. I often mention this, I wish I 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.280 went to the University of Saint Andrews. Speaking of being 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.160 a teacher, one of my one of my advises when 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.600 when I was a high school teacher went to the 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.960 University of Saint Andrews and I sat down with him 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.840 before he accepted the offer of admission, and I was like, listen, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.640 do you play golf? And he said no, And I said, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:24.640 you had better learn golf. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:25.760 How do you kill? 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.640 How do you even end up in that situation? Like 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.880 what prompts you to go to the University of St Andrews. 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.480 If you're not, you know, it's a great university, Like, 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.920 first of all, really really wonderful university. If you're if 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.880 you're in Great Britain, it's it's it's like going to 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.800 I guess an Ivy League university. So they have great academics. 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.760 But I think if you go to the University of St. 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.160 Andrews and don't play golf that oh. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.719 Man, Yeah, it's still combination. 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:55.280 Sure. 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.040 Yeah. In any case, McDonald did it right. He he 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.200 really learned a game while he was there. He met 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.480 and played with old Tom Morris and young Tom Morris. 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.560 A good time to be there in the eighteen seventies, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.960 and he became a very capable player, ultimately one of 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.920 the better players in the US when he returned. So 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.960 he got back to the US in the mid eighteen 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.160 seventies and he was disappointed to find that the game 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.120 basically didn't exist in the country at that time. So 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.720 he didn't play much golf for the next fifteen years 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.560 or so, and whatever golf courses appeared during this period were, 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.040 in his mind, a very low quality. They just didn't 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.000 get anywhere close to what he saw in Saint Andrews. 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.079 At the time. Saint Andrews was basically what it is today, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.000 a great, great golf course. You can imagine going from 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.200 there to the kind of rudimentary golf courses that we 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.320 had in America at the time, and it was a 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.600 big difference. So when MacDonald caught the golf bug again 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.760 in the late eighteen eighties, one of his primary goals 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.640 became to create the first truly great American golf course. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.400 During this period, he established Chicago Golf Club, but the 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.079 early versions of that course were not on the level 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.440 of today's Chicago Golf Club, which was primarily designed by 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.000 Seth Rayner in the nineteen twenties. Nonetheless, Chicago Golf Club 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.760 was a major early American club, and McDonald became a 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.160 major figure in the development of American golf. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.240 So is this is this just like you know, everybody 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.080 makes a joke like I'm gonna go write the Great 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.200 American novel like this, this is somebody just decided to 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:29.520 go build a golf course one. 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.840 Day, That's right. So he wanted to write the great 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.640 American novel, that's right. He had that ambition, make make 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.080 the great American movie, make the great American album. That 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.880 I mean, yeah, this ambition is cross disciplinary for sure, 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.839 goes across art forms, and this was McDonald's version of it. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.080 And so yeah, he had this desire. There's a lot 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.559 of biography here that I won't get into, but McDonald 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.040 did become instrumental in the founding of the USGA and 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.360 the origins of the us and so there's interesting stuff 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.400 there too, but I'll skip forward to the golf course 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:11.280 design story. In nineteen oh one, McDonald was reading Golf Illustrated, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.840 probably the most popular golf only publication of the time 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.760 published in the UK, and he came across a debate 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.160 in the pages of Golf Illustrated between some leading golfers 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.280 of the time about what the greatest holes in the 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.280 world were, and by world, I mean great Britain was 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:33.880 essentially their frame of reference and where most of the 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.240 best golf courses were. So to my knowledge, this is 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.840 the first time a discussion of this type happened in print, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.800 which is really saying something because this is a very 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.559 common thing now right people talking about the best courses 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.160 and the best holes. So try to imagine a world 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.280 in which this hadn't happened before. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.680 This is kind of kind of crazy, just trying to, 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.120 you know, starting the take industry, for lack of a 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.800 better term, from nothing. That's really it's an interesting concept 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:08.400 to think about. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.760 God, it's fascinating to read because that's exactly it. The 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.480 first hot takes about golf architecture. It's like nobody had 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.320 ever done it before. And these guys, you know, Harry Varden, 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.880 Jage Taylor, James Braid, Willie Park Junior, John Lowe, Horace Hutchinson, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.400 these were the first, you know, take. 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.400 Masters sitting there like, what have I done? 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.440 Yeah? If they if they now. 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.960 Yeah, it's the end of Oppenheimer just staring blankly into 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.400 the camera. It's a tough scene for those guys. 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.240 So the golfers who participated in this debate were the 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.040 heavies of the game at the time, very impressive names. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.840 The ones that I mentioned these were, you know, Open 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:57.440 championship winners and just significant figures, and so their word 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.920 carried weight and McDonald was fascinated by what they were writing. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.720 And it turned out that a certain number of holes 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:05.840 kind of rose to the top. It got mentioned by 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.560 a lot of different people as being the best of 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.560 their kind. They talked about the best one shotters, two shotters, 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.760 and three shotters. So par three's, par four's, par five's. 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.880 The best one shotters, according to this panel, turned out 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.920 to be the Eden, the eleventh hole at Saint Andrews, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.880 The were Dan, the fifteenth hole at North Barrick, the Alps, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.640 the seventeenth hole at Prestwick, the road hole seventeen at 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.360 Saint Andrews, the long hole fourteen at Saint Andrews. I 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.120 ended up going through the two shotters and three shotters. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.880 They're actually without mentioning it, but the road hole at 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.359 the time now considered a par four, right, it's categorized 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.920 as a par four. At the time it was considered 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.760 more of a par five. They didn't call it a 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.000 par five, but it was it was thought that you 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.800 would spend three shots in getting to that green. And 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.200 so those are the holes that came up, and these 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.760 remain some of the most as holes in the UK. 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.280 Prestwick is on the west coast of Scotland and that 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.240 was that was an early old Tom Morris course. You've 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.520 probably heard Andy mentioned North Barrack, Great Scottish Links Course, 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.920 and then of course the old course at St Andrew's 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.160 still very much on the open rota and at the 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.880 top of everybody's minds. All of these holes, the ones 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.720 that were mentioned in this debate in this magazine in 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:30.400 nineteen oh one, eventually became template holes. There were more 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.320 template holes than those, but this was kind of the 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.840 starting point. This was the first, you know, body of 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.880 whole designs that McDonald started working with. So this whole 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.440 discussion and Golf illustrated it. It kind of prompted a 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:51.000 brain wave for McDonald. He said to himself, surely if 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.200 you build a course with eighteen of these ideal holes, 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:58.880 then you would have an ideal golf course. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:00.720 Yeah, that's a guy with good take or it. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:01.000 There. 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.520 That's that's pretty good. I like that a lot. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.159 Yeah, I like I like how his mind works. He's like, 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:11.320 nobody's ever thought of this. 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.800 And nobody could get mad because everybody agrees to the best. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.120 So that's right, that's it. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.440 Yeah, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna kind of replicate 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.119 these designs and then everybody will have to acknowledge, Oh 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.119 my god, you have a red dan, you have an alps, 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:27.440 you have a road hole. 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.200 That's that great American novel way of thinking. Right there, 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.240 I'm just gonna copy everybody else. Nobody's gonna get mad. 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.439 Right, I'll just borrow a character from Melville and you know, 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.760 a little bit of pros from Fitzgerald, and there you go. 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.440 In any case, he spent the next decade or so 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.880 researching the best holes of Great Britain. So he took 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.120 multiple trips. He sent friends on trips to do research 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.000 for him and to take measurements and to really nail 0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:00.440 these down. And he quickly discovered that replicating the holes 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.840 with any real precision would be impossible because of course 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.760 you would be working with a different piece of land, 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.480 and many of these holes were just lay of the 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.880 land holes. They were not manufactured. They derived their features 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.800 from the topography, and so McDonald said, well, if I 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.000 don't have this topography, then then I guess I can't 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.359 exactly replicate them. So ultimately he decided to go for 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:31.320 looser interpretations, basically extracting the strategic essence of these holes, 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.080 boiling them down to their basic features, rather than copying them. 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:41.040 And I think that it was in this process that 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.399 McDonald came to understand golf course design on as deep 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.280 and sophisticated a level as any architect of the Golden Age. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.800 It was when he started to try to interpret these 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.680 holes and actually find out why they were great instead 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:01.119 of just replicating them, that he became a great golf 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:07.160 architecture mind, because you know, he essentially discovered for himself 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.080 the strategic school of golf architecture, which we talked about 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.119 in the in the first one oh one episode. So 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.360 while he was doing this, he was also searching far 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.640 and wide for a piece of land for his great 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.600 American golf course. He looked at Maine, he looked, he 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.600 was looking up and down the East coast, and he 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.840 eventually settled on a piece of land right next to 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.200 Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Long Island, in Pj's domain. 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:36.920 So eventually found found his found. 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.280 A lot of people find things in Southampton, so it makes. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.879 Sense, Yeah, find their summer house, you know. So uh, 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.920 this would ultimately become, of course, the National Golf Links 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:53.400 of America, which opened in nineteen eleven and received immediate 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.440 rapturous praise. People went and played this course and were 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:58.960 blown away by it. It was it was like nothing 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.200 else that had been created in the States at the time. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.160 It was a next level golf course in every way. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.600 That's a very surface level account of the creation of 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:10.879 National Golf Links that I just gave. I've done a 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:15.480 deeper dive into that history with Chris Millard, who wrote 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.840 the most recent historical book on National Golf Links. This 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.159 is a Friday Podcast episode from about a year and 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.639 a half ago called Great Courses National Golf Links, So 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:27.919 check that out if you want more detail. But it 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.600 wasn't just the ideal holes that made National Golf Links different. 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.200 It was also the construction, the agronomy like in every way, 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.040 and the amount of money that went into it like nothing. 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.200 I don't think anything close to this amount of money 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.960 had ever been spent on constructing a golf course before 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.399 he got all the basically the richest people on the 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.280 East Coast to pitch in for his great American golf course. 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.800 He was a remarkable, remarkable mover and shaker McDonald and 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.000 so National Golf Links turned out really well well, And 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:06.199 of course it did represent the debut of McDonald's ideal holes. 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:10.640 The National had great renditions of the Radan, the Alps, 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.240 the road Hole, the Eden. It was all there. It 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.880 was a fully formed statement of a golf course. And 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.520 McDonald meant NGLA to be his one true master work, right, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.400 his example for all of American golf. He didn't really 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:29.119 intend to build other golf courses. He was kind of like, 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.439 I'm done. 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.760 I mean, if if you build something in it immediately 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.240 gets you know rapturous praise. As you said, I could. 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.040 I could see how you want to just go out 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:39.480 on top. 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:41.320 I get that absolutely. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.080 And you know, he has this in common with a 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.320 lot of great artists too, who want to create their 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.840 one great thing and then it's like, Okay, that's what 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.439 I devoted my life to and I'm done. But it 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.159 didn't really turn out that way, because, of course people 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:59.120 kept asking him to design more golf courses for them. 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.080 All of his rich friend were like, Hey, this looks cool, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.600 I'd like one, and so he did design a few others, 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.240 but for the most part, he passed off his commissions 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.960 or his potential commissions to Seth Rayner, and Rayner was 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.920 really the one who spread the idea of ideal holes broadly. 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:24.119 Rayner became the Johnny Appleseed of this approach to golf 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.359 course design and a big reason why why we know 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:32.919 template holes today. And so that's the background of the 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.600 ideal holes. Before we get into some examples of templates, 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.200 and before we have maybe a little bit of discussion 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:42.919 about the virtues of ideal holes as an approach to 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.680 golf course design, I'd like to talk a bit about 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.919 the USGA Green Section the USGA Green Section is a 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.880 supporter of the Designing Golf podcast in its early days here, 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:57.240 so thank you so much to the Green Section. Understanding 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.280 the performance of your greens has never been easy year 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.439 thanks to the GS three ball from the USGA Green Section. 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.640 The GS three seamlessly connects to the Deacon management system, 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:13.280 instantly telling you how fast, smooth, true, and firm your 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.760 greens are. Now you can make data driven decisions, better 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.760 manage resources, communicate to course personnel, and most importantly, create 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:26.600 a playing experience for your golfers like never before. To 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:31.160 learn more, visit the USGA Green Sections shop at GS 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.560 shop dot USGA dot org. I've actually seen the GS 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:38.960 three ball in action. We've been doing some documentaries lately 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:43.160 about various turf operations throughout the country. I have seen 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:46.200 the GS three ball in use and it is pretty cool. 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.200 So check out that offering from the USGA Green Section. 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:53.920 All right, let's talk about a couple examples of templates. PJ. 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:57.760 I'm gonna have to have you put on your sort 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.119 of visualizing hat now if we can. I know this 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:05.040 can sometimes be tricky. For the YouTube version of this 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.680 episode will maybe incorporate a couple of images of these 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.800 holes to help out people who consume the podcast that way. 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:13.240 But the first one I want to talk about is 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:15.199 the redan. Where else would be. 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:18.000 Like this is the number one, This is the number 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.240 one that I gets mentioned by you guys all the time. 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:26.399 Yeah, because it's a very common type of hole. It is. 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:30.479 It's spread like wildfire. Everybody, everybody has a radan. So 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.520 this is based on the fifteenth hole at North Barrick. 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:38.040 The key elements one. The green is kind of oriented 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.959 on a forty five degree angle on a diagonal in 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.640 relation to the t usually from short right to long 0:24:45.760 --> 0:24:49.359 left right. Okay, so it's set on a diagonal where 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:51.000 if you're a right hander you kind of want to 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:55.960 work a draw into there. The green is tilted from 0:24:56.000 --> 0:25:00.240 front to back okay, so from the front right to 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.760 the back left section it's tilted away from the tee. 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:09.600 A deep, often flashed up bunker guards the front left 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:11.879 side of the green, so kind of in front of 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:14.359 the green, sitting on that same diagonal as the green. 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:19.240 Sometimes there's another bunker, even deeper one perhaps guarding the 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:21.000 back right side of the green, so if you go 0:25:21.160 --> 0:25:25.320 over you'll end up there. Now, the original version at 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:28.080 North Barrick has a pair of bunkers cut into a 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:33.000 rise about fifty yards short of the green. This is 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:36.520 I think actually where the name or Dan came from. 0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.679 Because Dan, and I'm sure people will correct me if 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:42.520 I'm wrong. I didn't actually confirm this before I came 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:45.800 on the podcast. But Dan, I believe, is a term 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:51.240 for a military fortification. And my sense is that this 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:54.600 feature at North Barrick, this like kind of dune like rise, 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:58.199 that these bunkers are cut into fifty yards short of 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.200 the green, kind of blocking the view of the green 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:05.480 to an extent, is where that idea of a fortification 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:08.320 came from, and where the notion of her Dan came from. 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:14.400 But MacDonald and Rayner's dance often did not have this feature. 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:18.560 Sometimes they did, often they didn't didn't because again, it 0:26:18.880 --> 0:26:22.120 would require some topography to do that, you would need 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:28.720 a rise. So the essential elements of a modern radan 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:32.320 tend to be that orientation of the green on a diagonal, 0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:36.239 and the fact that it runs front to back, and 0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:38.520 that often there's like a kicker slope, what's called a 0:26:38.560 --> 0:26:42.679 kicker slope, a little kind of backboard at the front 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:47.080 right portion of the green where you can hit your 0:26:47.080 --> 0:26:50.119 ball into it and it kind of deflects the ball 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:54.399 filters it back to the back left portion of the green, 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.119 so it's like a ramp, right. I think this hole 0:26:58.280 --> 0:27:01.280 is at its most strategically interesting when the pin is 0:27:01.280 --> 0:27:06.320 in the back, and that's because you can choose between 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:09.600 going straight at the pin over that big bunker in 0:27:09.640 --> 0:27:13.160 front of the green, or you can play it along 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:16.720 the ground through the opening to the green on the right, 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:20.479 maybe kind of sling a low draw in there, go 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:23.600 through the opening to the green and let the ball 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:28.560 release along that downslope, the front to back slope back 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:30.840 to the pin. That's the kind of clever way to 0:27:30.840 --> 0:27:32.360 play the hole. You don't have to make the big 0:27:32.400 --> 0:27:35.040 carry and you can kind of work it around. So 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:38.119 you have options here, right, which is the soul of 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:43.439 strategic golf options and the attendant risks and rewards. So 0:27:44.160 --> 0:27:47.159 the reason you've heard this term is that this is 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:50.399 like the most replicated par three design in the history 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:54.680 of golf. It is often done poorly or just partially right. 0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:59.520 The most commonly missing feature is that front to back 0:27:59.560 --> 0:28:03.520 slope because people don't usually like building holes where the 0:28:03.560 --> 0:28:06.800 green runs away from the player. But the problem is 0:28:06.800 --> 0:28:08.760 when you don't have that, you kind of lose the 0:28:08.800 --> 0:28:12.520 ability to work the ball to a back pin through 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:15.600 that kind of clever, low running shot that I talked about. 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:20.120 And so often people will just refer to any hole 0:28:20.160 --> 0:28:24.600 with a diagonally set green as a re dan, But personally, 0:28:24.680 --> 0:28:27.320 I don't think it's a dan at all unless you 0:28:27.480 --> 0:28:30.760 have that element of a kicker slope and a front 0:28:30.760 --> 0:28:34.320 to back slope to get the ball to a backpin 0:28:34.480 --> 0:28:37.280 through other methods than just going straight at it. I 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:39.239 think if you don't have that, you really don't have 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:43.960 her a dan. Reverse or dance became common as well. 0:28:44.120 --> 0:28:47.080 When people say reverse ra dan, they just mean the 0:28:47.200 --> 0:28:49.680 exact same design, but the green is set on a 0:28:49.720 --> 0:28:53.880 diagonal that would seem to accept a fade from a 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:58.600 right handed player. This maybe isn't as common because when 0:28:58.920 --> 0:29:01.040 you know most people are right hand. Not to disrespect 0:29:01.080 --> 0:29:03.239 the lefties out there, sorry that ra dans aren't as 0:29:03.240 --> 0:29:07.160 fun for you, but uh, when you're hitting a fade, 0:29:07.400 --> 0:29:10.360 your ball stops quicker if you're a right hander and 0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:11.880 if you're a left hander, but your fing goes the 0:29:11.880 --> 0:29:15.800 other direction right hand or hitting a draw to a 0:29:15.840 --> 0:29:18.520 traditional radan, the ball is going to have less spin 0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:21.160 and it's going to have that element of being able 0:29:21.160 --> 0:29:24.040 to run along the ground, and that's why right to 0:29:24.160 --> 0:29:27.880 left radans are more common. Does that all make sense? 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:29.880 Were you able to visualize that and stay with me 0:29:29.920 --> 0:29:30.600 any questions? 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:33.920 Yeah? So A, I think it makes sense. 0:29:34.040 --> 0:29:38.040 I'm now trying to like because it's pretty common, think 0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:41.000 of like holes that I might have seen at some 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:46.600 point that would that would fit this. I think, I mean, 0:29:46.640 --> 0:29:49.840 I I it definitely makes sense, and I actually appreciate 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:54.280 the idea of I get why maybe a modern day architect, 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:57.360 if you're building a hole like now with the you know, 0:29:58.120 --> 0:30:01.280 incessant need for a whole in one or give people 0:30:01.280 --> 0:30:03.600 a chance that you want to have people see it 0:30:03.920 --> 0:30:07.640 roll in back towards you versus a feeder pin away. 0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:10.120 But I actually I like the idea of the feeter 0:30:10.120 --> 0:30:13.320 pin away and having it kind of slope downward to 0:30:13.400 --> 0:30:15.400 me as a player, I feel like that would be 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:19.640 more fun than having it run further and kind of 0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:22.480 work the ball versus just you know, hit it straight 0:30:22.520 --> 0:30:24.040 up in the air and have it roll back down 0:30:24.080 --> 0:30:25.000 towards you kind of thing. 0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:27.680 That's where the fun comes from seeing the ball go 0:30:27.800 --> 0:30:30.640 along the ground. It's the most fun thing to do 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:32.720 in golf, and the most fun thing to watch in 0:30:32.760 --> 0:30:35.479 golf is what the ball does after it hits the ground. 0:30:36.000 --> 0:30:37.840 And when you have a green going away from you, 0:30:38.640 --> 0:30:42.600 it behaves a lot like firmness because it accelerates the 0:30:42.640 --> 0:30:45.120 ball as it goes along the ground, and you really 0:30:45.200 --> 0:30:47.160 have to consider what to do. Are you going to 0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:49.280 try to stop it or are you going to just 0:30:49.440 --> 0:30:51.440 accept that the slope is going to do what it 0:30:51.480 --> 0:30:54.440 does to your ball and use that. And that's the 0:30:54.520 --> 0:30:58.560 central question of a proper radan. Now you'll see a 0:30:58.560 --> 0:31:01.560 lot of as I said before, or diagonally set greens 0:31:01.640 --> 0:31:03.880 out there in the world of golf, and somebody might 0:31:03.920 --> 0:31:06.840 refer to them as a radan, but it's it's it's 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:09.600 not really unless unless you can work the ball along 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:12.320 the ground. I recommend that you don't correct people when 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.560 when they not that you would do this. It's not 0:31:15.600 --> 0:31:16.800 really your personality. 0:31:17.200 --> 0:31:19.920 Now I feel like I just not along and yeah, right, 0:31:20.280 --> 0:31:22.120 but in my head, but I get up to that green, 0:31:22.120 --> 0:31:23.680 I'm gonna be like, oh, is there slope here? 0:31:23.960 --> 0:31:27.280 Yeah, it's I can't count. It doesn't doesn't count. 0:31:27.680 --> 0:31:30.480 That doesn't I'm not going to check that off my list. Yeah, so, 0:31:30.600 --> 0:31:33.440 really like true radans are a little more rare than 0:31:33.680 --> 0:31:36.640 than people think. You know, diagonal greens with a bunker 0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:38.440 in front, you know, you'll see that all the time. 0:31:38.560 --> 0:31:41.200 But a real radan with like a kicker slope and 0:31:41.240 --> 0:31:43.600 the ability to to work the ball in that way, 0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:47.440 you know, that's that's it's fairly rare because you know, 0:31:47.600 --> 0:31:52.200 front to back sloping greens are are fairly rare these days. Okay, 0:31:52.480 --> 0:31:56.400 So that's the that's the radan template. That's always very helpful. 0:31:56.520 --> 0:31:58.520 I feel like I needed that one. If I was 0:31:58.640 --> 0:32:02.000 leaving here with something I think I've checked that buy. 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:04.640 That wasn't essential. I'll talk to you about one other, 0:32:05.080 --> 0:32:07.800 and then if there's if there's another one that you 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:09.560 want to talk about, we can we can kind of 0:32:09.600 --> 0:32:13.120 improvise that as well. But the next one I want 0:32:13.160 --> 0:32:16.600 to talk to you about is the Alps. Okay, I 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:20.280 like this name. First of all, this is based on 0:32:20.680 --> 0:32:23.840 the seventeenth hole at Prestwick, So it's not a course 0:32:23.880 --> 0:32:27.360 that people are super familiar with these days unless they've 0:32:27.440 --> 0:32:30.000 actually played it. Because it's not a course that shows 0:32:30.080 --> 0:32:33.280 up on TV. But this was the original Open Championship 0:32:33.320 --> 0:32:37.360 course back when the Open was thirty six holes. Prestwick 0:32:37.400 --> 0:32:43.920 was twelve holes and they would play the course three times. Yeah, yeah, 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:44.880 that was the Open. 0:32:46.640 --> 0:32:46.840 Well. 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:50.320 Eventually Prestwick got expanded to eighteen holes and the Alps 0:32:50.360 --> 0:32:53.680 became the seventeenth hole on that course. But some version 0:32:53.720 --> 0:32:55.880 of the Alps was always was always there on the course. 0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:58.680 The key element of this hole, and I know this 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.040 is going to challenge you because of what we've discussed 0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:05.720 with regard to blind holes. There's a huge dune directly 0:33:05.760 --> 0:33:11.040 in front of the green, and then typically there's a 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.200 bunker between the bottom of the far side of that 0:33:14.280 --> 0:33:17.360 dune and the green. So you not only are hitting 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:20.040 over a dune to get to the green, but there's 0:33:20.040 --> 0:33:22.200 a bunker on the other side of it. Yeah, you 0:33:22.200 --> 0:33:24.360 got to get over. You got to really make the carry. 0:33:24.600 --> 0:33:27.080 This is you know, this is not what i'd call 0:33:27.120 --> 0:33:30.360 the strategic school of golf architecture. This is pretty penal, 0:33:31.080 --> 0:33:34.600 at least in its original essence. You know, just this 0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:37.080 feature of the hole, it's fairly penal because you've got 0:33:37.080 --> 0:33:41.320 to bake a big aerial carry. The fun of it 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:43.440 is hitting your shot and then getting up and seeing 0:33:43.480 --> 0:33:47.560 the result. You know, if you have a fun attitude 0:33:47.560 --> 0:33:50.080 about it, then you're like, all right, my in the bunker, 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:52.680 My in the dune, My on the green. You never 0:33:52.760 --> 0:33:57.320 know until you get there, so completely blind approach, and 0:33:57.360 --> 0:34:00.600 often the green will be sitting in a hollow, a 0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:02.880 kind of punch bowl often what we refer to as 0:34:02.880 --> 0:34:04.400 a punch You may hear that term a lot too, 0:34:04.440 --> 0:34:08.799 a punch bowl green. This is an example of it's 0:34:08.800 --> 0:34:11.440 not always a pure punch bowl green, but it's sitting 0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:14.920 in a hollow there. And so if that means if 0:34:14.960 --> 0:34:17.080 you get over the dune and get over the bunker, 0:34:17.840 --> 0:34:20.200 then the green is kind of friendly to you because 0:34:20.239 --> 0:34:21.680 if you're on the right side of it, well, it's 0:34:21.680 --> 0:34:22.920 going to slope down to the middle. If you're on 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:24.319 the left side, it's going to slip down the middle. 0:34:24.320 --> 0:34:26.080 If you're long, it's going to you just don't want 0:34:26.080 --> 0:34:29.240 to be short, and so if you make the carry, 0:34:29.320 --> 0:34:32.040 then your hole, you your ball is probably going to 0:34:32.120 --> 0:34:35.440 end up close to the hole. The key wrinkle that 0:34:35.560 --> 0:34:39.600 McDonald and Rayner introduced to many of their versions that 0:34:39.719 --> 0:34:44.120 I think is brilliant is that they would have this 0:34:44.320 --> 0:34:47.560 dune or this rise in front of the green, they 0:34:47.600 --> 0:34:50.640 would have the kind of low set green in a hollow, 0:34:51.560 --> 0:34:54.560 But then they would offer you an option from the 0:34:54.600 --> 0:34:58.600 tee to get a view of the green. Potentially, if 0:34:58.640 --> 0:35:03.120 you hit a long, risky drive up a particular side 0:35:03.120 --> 0:35:06.319 of the hole, then from that position you might be 0:35:06.360 --> 0:35:10.960 able to see around the dune to the green. If 0:35:10.960 --> 0:35:14.880 you hit your t shop especially well and positioned it. 0:35:15.360 --> 0:35:17.680 You know, perhaps there are some bunkers guarding this position 0:35:17.719 --> 0:35:19.959 in the fairway. But if you take that. 0:35:19.920 --> 0:35:22.840 Ask, now we're back to angles. Angles is gonna be 0:35:22.880 --> 0:35:25.120 a whole different episode. But now we're back to angles. 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:31.520 Or back to angles. This angle is vision related because 0:35:31.600 --> 0:35:34.160 if you take the risk, then you can see the 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:37.520 green on your approach. And that's nice because the whole 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:40.880 thing about that blind approach is that it's uncomfortable. You 0:35:40.880 --> 0:35:43.440 don't know maybe where to aim, You don't know, you 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:46.040 don't really have a true intuitive sense of how far 0:35:46.120 --> 0:35:49.120 to hit your ball. But McDonald and Rayner, in their 0:35:49.560 --> 0:35:52.920 versions of the Alps often did give you this option 0:35:53.680 --> 0:35:56.640 to see the green if you took a risk. So 0:35:56.760 --> 0:35:58.839 that's the Alps hole reactions to that. 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:01.280 I like the idea of the punch bowl green. 0:36:01.640 --> 0:36:05.320 I think I I was gonna add that that was 0:36:05.360 --> 0:36:08.120 one of my follow up questions, so that a punch 0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:11.759 bowl is not a template or is a template or 0:36:11.800 --> 0:36:15.000 is that just like a design characteristic rather. 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:20.560 It's a good question. I think I would consider it. Yeah, 0:36:20.719 --> 0:36:24.480 it's sort of in between. There are certain templates, so 0:36:24.560 --> 0:36:29.000 called templates, that are just green designs, and those would 0:36:29.000 --> 0:36:33.160 include maybe the double plateau hole. Really, what the double 0:36:33.200 --> 0:36:38.359 plateau is is a green with two plateaus and then 0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:41.960 a channel between them, and then a lower section like 0:36:42.000 --> 0:36:44.960 a three section green, where you have these two high 0:36:45.040 --> 0:36:47.680 sections where you can put pins, and then one low 0:36:47.760 --> 0:36:50.400 section where you can put a pin, and then a 0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:55.120 little trough between the plateaus. That's a double plateau green, 0:36:56.000 --> 0:36:59.960 but it's not really specific as to what the other 0:37:00.160 --> 0:37:02.759 features of a whole of the hole would be. You know, 0:37:02.840 --> 0:37:05.719 often a double plateau green is paired with a principal's 0:37:05.760 --> 0:37:08.760 nose bunker complex, which is based on a bunker complex 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:11.239 on the sixteenth Hole at Saint Andrew's where you have 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:15.200 kind of a couple of bunkers cut into a small 0:37:15.320 --> 0:37:18.720 mound or dune, and if you look at it from above, 0:37:19.320 --> 0:37:22.600 it looks like a nose with two nostrils, right, the 0:37:22.719 --> 0:37:26.200 bunkers the two nostrils. Silly, but you don't really see 0:37:26.200 --> 0:37:27.719 it that way from the from the ground. If you 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:30.160 look at it from the air then in any case, 0:37:32.160 --> 0:37:35.880 so these these some of these motifs, like the double 0:37:35.880 --> 0:37:39.160 plateau green and the Principal's nose bunker complex are kind 0:37:39.160 --> 0:37:42.520 of free floating, so it's not like a whole integrated 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:45.520 hole design. And I guess I would consider the punch 0:37:45.560 --> 0:37:50.560 bowl one of those, but there are holes on courses 0:37:51.120 --> 0:37:53.440 designed by MacDonald and Rayner with the name punch bowl, 0:37:53.520 --> 0:37:56.440 and and so it can get a little bit confusing 0:37:56.520 --> 0:37:59.600 that way. I think the best way to understand templates, though, 0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:03.720 is that they're not always strict. The par three templates, 0:38:03.719 --> 0:38:07.920 the typical par three templates, the radan, the beerz, the 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:11.759 short hole, and the edenhole. You'll see those over and 0:38:11.800 --> 0:38:17.200 over and over in kind of similar configurations. The topography 0:38:17.239 --> 0:38:18.719 will be different and the layer it will be. 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:21.400 On a par three, right, it's kind of it is 0:38:21.440 --> 0:38:22.120 what it is. 0:38:22.040 --> 0:38:27.720 Yeah, exactly, Whereas on the par four's and par fives 0:38:28.160 --> 0:38:33.359 often elements will be remixed, rearranged, different, different things will 0:38:33.400 --> 0:38:36.880 be used in different places, and so I think I 0:38:36.880 --> 0:38:40.239 would consider the term punch bowl to be part of 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:44.279 that network of motifs that are sometimes used in some 0:38:44.400 --> 0:38:47.680 places and sometimes in other places. 0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:50.360 Okay, that makes sense, I mean, I mean back to 0:38:50.560 --> 0:38:54.800 back to the template itself. Then I like the idea 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:58.719 of the reward of carrying this this dune you get 0:38:58.719 --> 0:39:02.200 a feeder green. That that makes sense to me in 0:39:02.280 --> 0:39:05.520 my binary yes or no one ones and zeros. If 0:39:05.520 --> 0:39:08.080 I carry this, I deserve to be rewarded. And I 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:11.840 also I like the I like the idea of taking 0:39:11.880 --> 0:39:16.239 an angle and getting to see past the bunker. So 0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:21.160 I I I think I'm visualizing it correctly, and I 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:23.920 I like the idea of it on paper a lot. 0:39:24.160 --> 0:39:28.680 Okay, that's good, but you're uncomfortable with blind approach shots, yeah, 0:39:28.680 --> 0:39:29.839 which is understandable. 0:39:30.040 --> 0:39:30.239 Yeah. 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:33.120 No, I I think I would be infuriated, like standing 0:39:33.160 --> 0:39:35.120 in the fair way looking at it. But if you 0:39:35.239 --> 0:39:37.120 told me, like, hey, all you have to do is 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:39.399 hit this number and it's going to feed down, I'd 0:39:39.400 --> 0:39:42.440 be like, Okay, at least I'll try that. Like that, 0:39:42.440 --> 0:39:45.360 that makes sense. I deserve to be rewarded in some 0:39:45.360 --> 0:39:46.919 some circumstance there. 0:39:47.200 --> 0:39:51.360 Yeah, yeah, absolutely so you would. You would be frustrated 0:39:51.400 --> 0:39:56.200 by the Maiden hole, which as a whole was a 0:39:56.239 --> 0:40:00.480 hole at Royal Saint George's where you where it was 0:40:00.520 --> 0:40:05.239 a par three but basically an Alps whole because you 0:40:05.280 --> 0:40:07.680 are standing on the tee and just hitting over a 0:40:07.760 --> 0:40:10.960 dune to a semi kind of punch bowl green on 0:40:11.040 --> 0:40:16.160 the other side. That was the Maiden hole. Now, confusingly enough, 0:40:17.120 --> 0:40:20.520 McDonald and Rayner developed on some of their courses a 0:40:20.600 --> 0:40:24.879 maiden template. It didn't really have anything. It was more 0:40:24.920 --> 0:40:28.959 of a green design than a replica of the Saint 0:40:29.000 --> 0:40:35.279 George's Maiden hole. And so that that kind of introduces 0:40:35.280 --> 0:40:43.040 a key idea of Rainer and McDonald's templates that sometimes 0:40:43.680 --> 0:40:46.960 the hole, sometimes the ideal holes are based on models 0:40:47.480 --> 0:40:52.439 that are either unknown or are so different from what 0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.680 McDonald and Rayner ended up creating that it's hard to 0:40:55.680 --> 0:40:59.480 see the connection. I yeah, So when people talk about 0:40:59.520 --> 0:41:03.480 template hole, it's really not a strict one to one 0:41:03.560 --> 0:41:07.759 relationship between the model and what ultimately got built. On 0:41:07.920 --> 0:41:11.640 many of McDonald and Rayner's courses, sometimes there was some 0:41:11.680 --> 0:41:15.640 real interpretation reinterpretation going on, and sometimes there was just 0:41:15.680 --> 0:41:20.000 a complete departure from the original model, and you just like, 0:41:20.480 --> 0:41:22.960 it's a mystery what was going through their minds And 0:41:23.000 --> 0:41:25.399 nobody really knows how they came up with what they 0:41:25.440 --> 0:41:29.120 came up with, and so there was there was, there 0:41:29.160 --> 0:41:32.200 was a lot of creativity in this process of developing 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:37.120 ideal holes, and we're still coming to terms with what 0:41:37.280 --> 0:41:41.759 exactly they did. There are some unknowns here. Basically, are 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:46.200 there any other template holes terms that you would that 0:41:46.280 --> 0:41:47.840 you're curious to have identified? 0:41:48.080 --> 0:41:48.719 Yeah? I have. 0:41:48.880 --> 0:41:50.560 I have two ways I want to take this. So 0:41:50.719 --> 0:41:53.719 on the are there any other holes? How does a 0:41:53.840 --> 0:41:55.680 road hole work when it's. 0:41:55.520 --> 0:41:56.600 Not the road hole? 0:41:56.680 --> 0:41:59.920 Because I understand what it looks like there, but I 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:02.279 how do you take that out of that context and 0:42:02.320 --> 0:42:05.400 there's no hotel and you're not you know, you're removing 0:42:05.800 --> 0:42:10.360 all circumstantial, you know, outside influences. 0:42:10.760 --> 0:42:12.919 Keep in mind, first of all, that when McDonald first 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:18.520 there's no Old Course hotel. Yeah it was, it was 0:42:18.560 --> 0:42:21.919 something different. But but yes, that's a great question because 0:42:21.960 --> 0:42:27.000 the road hole uses certain unique features of the Saint 0:42:27.040 --> 0:42:31.239 Andrew's city scape to create its strategy, one of which 0:42:31.280 --> 0:42:33.920 is that little corner with you know that now the 0:42:33.960 --> 0:42:37.160 Old Course hotel, but there's always been some amount of 0:42:37.239 --> 0:42:39.640 building or human settlement there that players are kind of 0:42:39.680 --> 0:42:42.560 hitting over. And then there's the road, of course, on 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:46.600 that backside of the green. This is an example of 0:42:46.680 --> 0:42:51.120 where McDonald may have looked at the original version of 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:53.840 the hole said, clearly, this needs to be one of 0:42:53.840 --> 0:42:57.640 the ideal holes, because everybody agrees that it's the greatest 0:42:58.120 --> 0:43:00.840 three shot hole or two shot hole or whatever you 0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:03.560 wanted to consider it in the world. We've got to 0:43:03.600 --> 0:43:07.000 have some version of this, but we can't replicate exactly 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:10.440 the features that it has in its landscape. And so 0:43:10.800 --> 0:43:13.440 I think what McDonald and Rayner ended up doing in 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:19.400 their versions was boiling the hole down to its strategic fundamentals, 0:43:19.960 --> 0:43:22.680 its angles. Essentially, if you think about what the road 0:43:22.719 --> 0:43:28.400 Hole really is, beyond just the particularities of the hotel 0:43:28.560 --> 0:43:33.479 and the road, it is a sharply dog legging right 0:43:33.880 --> 0:43:38.839 hole with an intimidating hazard on the inside of the 0:43:38.840 --> 0:43:42.000 dog leg and plenty of room to play on the 0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:46.520 outside of the dog leg. But then a green oriented 0:43:47.040 --> 0:43:52.160 from right to left along that redan diagonal, but designed 0:43:52.160 --> 0:43:57.520 completely differently from a ridan with a super deep, terrifying 0:43:57.600 --> 0:44:04.359 bunker embedded into that green on its left side, and 0:44:04.400 --> 0:44:08.960 then a hazard, a kind of straight line hazard on 0:44:09.040 --> 0:44:12.839 the outside on the other side. And so the conundrum 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:16.280 you find is that if you bail out away from 0:44:16.760 --> 0:44:19.719 the hazard on the inside of the dog leg, then 0:44:19.760 --> 0:44:22.520 you're facing approach and approach where you're hitting over that 0:44:22.719 --> 0:44:26.440 terrifying pop punker and toward the road on the other side. 0:44:27.320 --> 0:44:29.720 You are going to end up either in the pop 0:44:29.719 --> 0:44:32.880 bunker or on the road, neither of which is good. 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:36.239 And maybe you'll maybe you have some space to bail 0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:37.839 out on one side or the other. You could play 0:44:37.880 --> 0:44:41.200 short of the green. Some people even provocatively play long 0:44:41.320 --> 0:44:43.960 of the green on the road hole, but that is 0:44:43.960 --> 0:44:46.799 the strategic essence of the whole. Unless you challenge the 0:44:46.840 --> 0:44:50.000 inside of the dog leg, you're going to face an 0:44:50.160 --> 0:44:55.400 enormously difficult second shot. And that is what McDonald and 0:44:55.480 --> 0:44:59.160 Rayner extracted from the road hole. So ultimately what they 0:44:59.200 --> 0:45:02.200 did was in st out of the road, they often 0:45:02.239 --> 0:45:04.640 just put a bunker on the other side there to 0:45:04.719 --> 0:45:07.800 stand in for the road, kind of a linear bunker, 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:11.600 basically in the same position and in the same orientation 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:14.600 as the road, and then maybe they'd find something else 0:45:14.640 --> 0:45:16.960 for the inside of the dog lake, maybe some trees, 0:45:17.560 --> 0:45:21.280 maybe maybe some water, you know, things varied, or maybe 0:45:21.320 --> 0:45:24.800 just some bunkers to again stand in for that hazard 0:45:24.880 --> 0:45:27.319 that you would want to avoid on the inside of 0:45:27.320 --> 0:45:27.799 the dog lake. 0:45:29.320 --> 0:45:33.319 So that was my follow up question was does it 0:45:33.400 --> 0:45:35.879 need to be like a boundary, like do you have 0:45:36.000 --> 0:45:41.399 to have a like a literal like road or out 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:43.640 of play or whatever, like does this have to be 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:46.040 pushed up against the edge of a property or like 0:45:46.120 --> 0:45:48.600 what are you throwing on that side to that end there? 0:45:49.000 --> 0:45:52.879 You could definitely argue that in order to recreate the 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:56.400 tension of the road hole, you need a boundary because 0:45:56.440 --> 0:46:00.400 you really need those hazards on that outside of the 0:46:00.440 --> 0:46:03.040 green and the inside of the dog leg to be 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:08.360 absolutely just the things that you know you need to 0:46:08.400 --> 0:46:11.919 avoid at all costs. So I think some people would 0:46:12.000 --> 0:46:13.640 argue that, yes, it needs to be an out of 0:46:13.680 --> 0:46:16.600 bounds kind of situation. But the fact is that if 0:46:16.600 --> 0:46:19.919 you look at McDonald and Rainer's versions of the road hole, 0:46:20.400 --> 0:46:23.839 they usually didn't have that because they didn't usually have 0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:28.719 a boundary line with the right dimensions to create that, 0:46:29.080 --> 0:46:32.600 so they needed to create it in another way. But yeah, 0:46:32.680 --> 0:46:37.160 I think that in general, the road Hole, to my mind, 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:40.000 this is just my opinion, is not always the most 0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:44.120 successful McDonald and Rainer template. I think precisely because of 0:46:44.160 --> 0:46:48.680 this reason, because usually it's not a boundary and some 0:46:48.800 --> 0:46:53.160 of the character of the hole is lost as a result. 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:56.239 I don't think I've ever seen a version of the 0:46:56.320 --> 0:46:59.719 road Hole that exceeds the original. 0:47:00.400 --> 0:47:02.319 Yeah, Whereas whereas. 0:47:01.960 --> 0:47:07.880 Some other templates, in many cases the renditions by MacDonald 0:47:07.920 --> 0:47:11.560 and Rayner were better, and I don't think that's the 0:47:11.600 --> 0:47:13.520 case with the road Hole. Is the original so good? 0:47:14.400 --> 0:47:16.120 Yeah, I feel like it would be hard to beat 0:47:16.239 --> 0:47:20.719 that actually having the road and the bunker, you know, 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.560 how you can put you know, a penal bunker in 0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:26.879 that position, but are you getting it to be that 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:30.880 exact bunker? And how bad that is in that slope? 0:47:31.280 --> 0:47:33.920 I you know, I feel like it's hard to replicate anywhere. 0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:39.640 This is always the problem with influences in art, because 0:47:40.040 --> 0:47:42.640 if you're just trying to replicate something that you really love, 0:47:42.920 --> 0:47:45.400 a really great work of art, you're always going to 0:47:45.440 --> 0:47:47.759 fall a little short because it's not the original. And 0:47:47.800 --> 0:47:50.240 even if you try to tweak or improve some elements 0:47:50.280 --> 0:47:53.120 of it, the original is going to have something about 0:47:53.160 --> 0:47:57.440 it that is just better. And so in order to 0:47:57.520 --> 0:48:00.359 exceed your influences or be as great as your influences, 0:48:00.680 --> 0:48:03.240 you need to transform them in the process of making 0:48:03.320 --> 0:48:06.520 new art. And I think that's why the McDonald and 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:10.759 Rainer templates that are really different from their models tend 0:48:10.840 --> 0:48:11.720 to be the better ones. 0:48:12.360 --> 0:48:15.920 So that's that's kind of the second half of my 0:48:16.080 --> 0:48:18.120 two ways that I wanted to take this. I wanted 0:48:18.160 --> 0:48:19.640 to figure out what the road hole was when you 0:48:19.680 --> 0:48:23.080 remove all context of the actual road hole. Now my 0:48:23.239 --> 0:48:28.760 question to you is, do you think, in your opinion, 0:48:29.080 --> 0:48:31.640 however you want to take this, like, are the template 0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:33.000 holes good? 0:48:34.440 --> 0:48:36.759 Like this is a question I had for you as well. 0:48:37.040 --> 0:48:40.080 Yeah, even obviously they are to some extent that they're 0:48:40.120 --> 0:48:44.040 still being used one hundred and twenty years after this 0:48:44.120 --> 0:48:48.920 all started, But like, would you prefer to have these 0:48:49.080 --> 0:48:52.360 continually be used into the future or is it time 0:48:52.440 --> 0:48:54.719 to kind of move on and figure out something new? 0:48:55.160 --> 0:48:58.440 Wonderful question? Let me throw it back at you briefly 0:48:58.640 --> 0:49:01.439 before I give my thoughts on it. Do you think 0:49:01.560 --> 0:49:04.759 the template holes are unoriginal? That's the first question. Do 0:49:04.800 --> 0:49:07.800 you think their lack of originality is a problem? 0:49:08.239 --> 0:49:10.760 I don't think it's a problem because, like you said, 0:49:10.800 --> 0:49:14.080 like you're never getting the same land, and it's not 0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:17.760 going to be kind of cookie cutter, like every single 0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:19.920 time you build it is going to be the exact 0:49:20.000 --> 0:49:25.359 same thing. I like having aspects of recurring motifs, like 0:49:25.400 --> 0:49:30.080 you said, throughout an architect's kind of portfolio. I think 0:49:30.160 --> 0:49:33.200 that makes sense. That's kind of like any kind of art, 0:49:33.480 --> 0:49:35.920 that you're going to have kind of recurring themes or 0:49:36.360 --> 0:49:42.399 identifiable characteristics. But you know, I think, especially when you're 0:49:42.440 --> 0:49:47.120 talking about the you know, amount of land that now 0:49:47.239 --> 0:49:49.880 some of these courses are taking up, like if you 0:49:49.960 --> 0:49:53.960 have the opportunity to get creative, I wouldn't necessarily be 0:49:54.040 --> 0:49:55.800 against that either. 0:49:56.400 --> 0:50:00.160 Yeah. Yeah, no, I think you've thought through that really well. 0:50:01.000 --> 0:50:04.839 For me, what you said at the beginning that the 0:50:04.960 --> 0:50:09.399 land differentiates template holes from each other is the key 0:50:09.400 --> 0:50:14.360 thing to understand about McDonald and Rayner's own courses. I 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:18.000 think when you look at these courses from a Google 0:50:18.000 --> 0:50:21.319 Earth view, you might say they're just doing the same 0:50:21.360 --> 0:50:25.200 holes over and over again. But when you play them, 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:29.799 that kind of flies out of your mind. Because each 0:50:29.920 --> 0:50:34.000 McDonald and Rainer course, especially their best ones, especially National 0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:36.800 Golf Links or the leado As recreated in the Sand Valley, 0:50:36.920 --> 0:50:40.879 or Rainer's best courses like the course at Yale or 0:50:41.120 --> 0:50:46.319 Yamen's Hall or Chicago Golf Club. When you actually play 0:50:46.360 --> 0:50:51.560 these courses, they feel so specific and original to their 0:50:51.640 --> 0:50:56.000 piece of land. I think especially Rainer's genius because he 0:50:56.040 --> 0:50:58.920 designed so many more courses than McDonald, But Rayner's genius 0:50:59.040 --> 0:51:05.160 was finding different ways to adapt these template ideas to 0:51:05.280 --> 0:51:09.080 different pieces of land is really an interesting exercise, and 0:51:09.120 --> 0:51:11.760 he managed to come up with courses that just feel 0:51:11.800 --> 0:51:16.359 totally original time after time, totally unique. And that was 0:51:16.800 --> 0:51:21.440 something that goes beyond just theorizing the ideal holes. It 0:51:21.560 --> 0:51:26.520 drew on the skills of routing and you know, just 0:51:27.080 --> 0:51:33.520 finding opportunities in the land that you know were field skills. 0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:36.960 They were on the ground skills that McDonald and Rayner 0:51:37.040 --> 0:51:41.200 had in doing this. So their genius goes way way 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:44.880 beyond just coming up with the ideal holes. Now, I 0:51:44.920 --> 0:51:51.760 think it's true that occasionally I wish that Rayner would 0:51:51.760 --> 0:51:56.480 have used different Part three ideas. That's really where this 0:51:57.000 --> 0:51:59.920 kind of starts to become a bit repetitive. And whenever 0:52:00.160 --> 0:52:05.359 Rainer incorporates a new kind of par three into his 0:52:05.440 --> 0:52:08.120 set of part three's on a particular course, I get 0:52:08.120 --> 0:52:13.480 really exciting. WHOA, yeah, I haven't seen this before. That's 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:16.440 where it becomes exciting. And also something to bear in 0:52:16.480 --> 0:52:19.879 mind is that on every McDonald and Rainer course there 0:52:19.920 --> 0:52:23.319 are holes that they didn't replicate elsewhere. It's not one 0:52:23.400 --> 0:52:27.400 hundred percent template holes. On any McDonald and Rayner course, 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:30.680 there are always kind of one of one holes, and 0:52:31.400 --> 0:52:34.319 sometimes it's those ones that really jump out at you 0:52:34.760 --> 0:52:38.920 for a variety of reasons. And maybe that does indicate 0:52:39.320 --> 0:52:42.760 a new direction for golf architecture after McDonald and Rayner, 0:52:42.840 --> 0:52:46.280 that that pursuing these original ideas moving beyond the templates 0:52:46.320 --> 0:52:49.279 was the way to go. At the same time, I 0:52:49.360 --> 0:52:53.240 do appreciate the way that the ideal holes were adapted 0:52:53.280 --> 0:52:56.240 to each landscape of each course, and I don't necessarily 0:52:56.280 --> 0:53:00.279 wish that they did that. They did things differently. Now. 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:03.839 I think it's a separate question should modern architects use 0:53:03.880 --> 0:53:06.960 template holes. What's your thought about that. 0:53:08.239 --> 0:53:12.160 I think there's probably a line, a really fickle line, 0:53:12.200 --> 0:53:16.160 between use and overuse. I wouldn't say don't do it, 0:53:16.680 --> 0:53:20.680 but I would caution against overdoing it. I don't know 0:53:20.719 --> 0:53:23.680 exactly where that line is. Like you said, like the 0:53:23.920 --> 0:53:26.120 dan comes up a lot, you want to do one 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:30.520 of those like cool, but maybe don't like put all 0:53:30.560 --> 0:53:31.839 of them out there, you know what I mean? 0:53:32.080 --> 0:53:36.319 Right? And there are some modern courses that use all 0:53:36.360 --> 0:53:40.000 template holes. Old McDonald at Bandon Dune's is an example, 0:53:40.160 --> 0:53:43.239 and Gil Hants recently did one in Florida called Kinsale. 0:53:44.239 --> 0:53:48.960 And these courses are good Old McDonald I love, But 0:53:49.480 --> 0:53:52.640 what old McDonald did is that it took the template 0:53:52.680 --> 0:53:56.280 holes and did something new with them. That course doesn't 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:58.600 look like a McDonald and Rainer course. The aesthetics are 0:53:58.600 --> 0:54:01.000 totally different. The way the bunkers greens are built is 0:54:01.040 --> 0:54:04.759 totally different. It looks much more like Saint Andrew's than 0:54:04.800 --> 0:54:08.640 it does like National Golf Links. And that was the 0:54:08.800 --> 0:54:12.560 new idea that Tom Duck introduced. So in my opinion, 0:54:12.920 --> 0:54:15.960 I'm with you. Don't overdo it, first of all, because 0:54:15.960 --> 0:54:19.280 they've already been done really well. And if you're gonna 0:54:19.320 --> 0:54:21.880 do it, find a new spin, find a new slant. 0:54:22.520 --> 0:54:25.960 Find a new slant. These are perfectly normal collers. Find 0:54:26.400 --> 0:54:27.040 find a new. 0:54:26.920 --> 0:54:31.640 Slat, perfectly normal template holes. Yeah, find find your new 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:34.920 slant and do it in that way. But to an extent, 0:54:36.040 --> 0:54:41.200 the purpose of McDonald and Rayner's template holes has has 0:54:41.239 --> 0:54:47.200 gone because their original purpose was to introduce great design 0:54:47.280 --> 0:54:51.799 ideas to America. They did that. Yeah, And now that 0:54:51.880 --> 0:54:55.359 they've done that, I guess it's time for us all 0:54:55.400 --> 0:54:59.759 to move on. And then, besides that, another question that's 0:54:59.840 --> 0:55:05.600 ra by McDonald and Rayner's project here recreating the ideal holes, 0:55:05.640 --> 0:55:10.319 a bigger question about the entire idea of it is 0:55:10.719 --> 0:55:15.480 whether a course with the eighteen best holes is necessarily 0:55:16.000 --> 0:55:19.600 the best golf course. That was McDonald's theory at the beginning. 0:55:20.640 --> 0:55:23.239 If I create eighteen ideal holes, I will have the 0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:26.759 ideal golf course for a variety of reasons. I don't 0:55:26.760 --> 0:55:27.480 think I agree. 0:55:27.840 --> 0:55:31.560 No, I feel like you need what's making the holes great. 0:55:31.840 --> 0:55:35.240 I've never been to say Andrews, but I think part 0:55:35.280 --> 0:55:39.160 of what makes the road hole great, for example, is 0:55:39.200 --> 0:55:43.480 the context of it and having it be, you know, 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:46.600 late in the round where it's positioned in the routing, 0:55:47.000 --> 0:55:50.759 having the road, having the now hotel like, all of 0:55:50.800 --> 0:55:54.880 that is what makes the whole legendary. And if you 0:55:55.000 --> 0:55:57.920 remove literally all of that, then it's just like a 0:55:58.000 --> 0:55:58.600 nice gulfer. 0:56:00.080 --> 0:56:05.440 Think you're exactly right. The wonder of Saint Andrew's is 0:56:05.880 --> 0:56:10.000 the journey out to the estuary and back to town. 0:56:11.280 --> 0:56:14.000 That's what's so great about I mean, that's one of 0:56:14.040 --> 0:56:16.319 the things that's so great about that golf course that 0:56:16.320 --> 0:56:19.920 that accounts for a lot of its emotional impact on players. 0:56:19.920 --> 0:56:22.319 That you kind of you kind of go on an 0:56:22.360 --> 0:56:25.880 adventure away from town and then for the last several holes, 0:56:25.920 --> 0:56:29.719 the town gets bigger and bigger in your frame of 0:56:29.800 --> 0:56:33.440 view until you're finally right in it. And part of 0:56:33.440 --> 0:56:35.600 the magic of the road hole is that it directly 0:56:35.680 --> 0:56:41.200 engages with the town. The town is like part of that. Yeah, 0:56:41.280 --> 0:56:43.840 that's right, And this is what you've been building towards 0:56:43.840 --> 0:56:46.200 throughout the whole round. You went away from it, now 0:56:46.239 --> 0:56:49.799 you're coming back to it, and so that is that 0:56:49.920 --> 0:56:51.960 is a big part of why the road hole is 0:56:51.960 --> 0:56:54.600 so cool. And and when you take it out of 0:56:54.640 --> 0:56:56.600 context and you and you make it the fourth hole 0:56:56.640 --> 0:56:58.880 on a golf course and you and you don't have 0:56:58.960 --> 0:57:02.200 those elements of the town there, then what you have 0:57:02.360 --> 0:57:06.680 is the strategy, which is really cool, but it is different. 0:57:07.480 --> 0:57:12.520 And that's why that's why responding to the particular piece 0:57:12.520 --> 0:57:14.640 of land that you have in designing a golf course 0:57:15.080 --> 0:57:18.600 is probably always the best method. Now, if you don't 0:57:18.600 --> 0:57:21.120 have anything in that piece of land that's interesting, then 0:57:21.720 --> 0:57:25.240 you can consider what to do from there. But if 0:57:25.240 --> 0:57:27.560 you have a piece of land with great features in it, 0:57:28.160 --> 0:57:31.880 then the first job is to use those features well. 0:57:32.520 --> 0:57:35.320 And that's what the old course does, and by the way, 0:57:35.400 --> 0:57:37.840 that's what so many of McDonald and Rayner's best courses 0:57:37.920 --> 0:57:41.680 do as well. In addition to having these template holes, 0:57:41.880 --> 0:57:45.520 they also use the land extremely well. They don't miss 0:57:45.520 --> 0:57:48.680 any opportunities. Does that make you feel more comfortable with 0:57:48.720 --> 0:57:51.240 the template holes now, PJ? There are many more specific 0:57:51.240 --> 0:57:54.400 instances to talk about, but I hope that that's gotten 0:57:54.440 --> 0:57:57.880 you to a point where at least the discussion as 0:57:57.880 --> 0:57:58.720 a whole makes sense. 0:57:59.320 --> 0:58:02.320 Yeah. Well again, I wanted to leave here with knowing 0:58:02.320 --> 0:58:04.520 whatever Dan was. I think I'm hammered. 0:58:05.360 --> 0:58:09.840 I got that one locked down, so mission accomplished. All 0:58:09.920 --> 0:58:14.600 of this other historical context is great gravy, but I'm 0:58:14.760 --> 0:58:17.240 leaving here with something I love it. 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:21.160 PJ. Always a pleasure to talk to you about golf architecture. 0:58:21.240 --> 0:58:24.040 One oh one. We'll do it again soon, and please 0:58:24.120 --> 0:58:25.840 let me know if there's another topic that you want 0:58:25.880 --> 0:58:26.400 to dig into. 0:58:27.200 --> 0:58:29.960 Yeah, I'll have to think about it, but I don't know. 0:58:30.040 --> 0:58:31.720 Give me a couple of weeks of hearing you guys 0:58:31.760 --> 0:58:33.680 talk about something and something will pop it in my brain. 0:58:33.720 --> 0:58:46.600 I'm sure exactly. This episode of Designing Golf was produced 0:58:47.040 --> 0:58:51.480 by our guest PJ Clark. Thank you PJ for everything 0:58:51.520 --> 0:58:55.960 you do online. Now, if you've been enjoying Designing Golf, 0:58:56.160 --> 0:58:59.000 leave us a rating and review wherever you happen to 0:58:59.040 --> 0:59:01.880 be listening to us. We like to hear feedback, and 0:59:01.960 --> 0:59:06.360 also consider joining Frida Egg Golf Club recently renamed as 0:59:06.400 --> 0:59:09.560 we relaunched our website. We're building a great community in 0:59:09.600 --> 0:59:13.080 there where we talk about things like Dan's and so 0:59:13.160 --> 0:59:15.360 if you like talking about that kind of stuff, then 0:59:15.400 --> 0:59:18.200 come join us in Frida Egg Golf Club. Go to 0:59:18.200 --> 0:59:24.120 the Frida Egg dot com slash membership enjoy our upcoming 0:59:24.200 --> 0:59:27.120 golf here where you know, we just finished the PGA 0:59:27.280 --> 0:59:30.680 Championship and the US Open is quickly approaching. So we're 0:59:30.680 --> 0:59:33.200 going to do some fun things on designing golf that 0:59:33.320 --> 0:59:37.240 are related to the major championship venues, So make sure 0:59:37.240 --> 0:59:39.800 to stick with us for that thank you for listening, 0:59:39.960 --> 0:59:45.280 and we'll be back again soon with another episode.