Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into the Frida Egg Podcast. This is
Speaker 1: Part two of the Kyle Franz Pod. If you miss
Speaker 1: Part one, check it out on our website or in
Speaker 1: the iTunes or stitch your feet. And part two we
Speaker 1: discuss golf in the British Islands, the ground game and
Speaker 1: professional golf, desert golf, and we do our segment of
Speaker 1: overrated and Underrated. Thanks again for listening and be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our newsletter. The easiest way to keep
Speaker 1: up with golf sign up on our website, the Frida
Speaker 1: Egg dot com. And enough of me. Here's Part two
Speaker 1: of the Kyle Franz Pod.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bumper, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my.
Speaker 4: Ball in a Frida Egg, Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday,
Speaker 4: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie.
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 4: So you've you've spent an extensive amount of time in
Speaker 4: the in the British Isles.
Speaker 3: Where would if.
Speaker 4: You were going to do one trip you know to
Speaker 4: We'll say a certain area to see golf, uh and
Speaker 4: architecture which which like small area would you focus on.
Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty hard to argue with Thelovians uh
Speaker 2: around around Edinburgh, you know, you get such a unique,
Speaker 2: such a unique uh string of golf courses. You can
Speaker 2: see that Mirrorfield is obviously such a great classic course
Speaker 2: and really just like sturdy architecture that most everybody will like,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, it kind of lacks to a degree
Speaker 2: some of the kind of quirky stuff that a lot
Speaker 2: of us appreciate and in golf in the UK, but
Speaker 2: it's just a great sturdy course. You just really can't
Speaker 2: argue with it as being one of the best courses
Speaker 2: in the world. And then to the complete opposite end
Speaker 2: of the spectrum you've got, you know, North Berrick is
Speaker 2: just down the road, which you know, I I would
Speaker 2: say most of my architectural friends, you know, people that
Speaker 2: I work with, people like Gil and Tom and uh Bill,
Speaker 2: you know, they all my friends, I think to a man,
Speaker 2: would would rank North Berrick among their favorite courses because
Speaker 2: you get just so much weird, fun, crazy British architecture.
Speaker 2: You know, it's great coastline, it's a beautiful place. But
Speaker 2: where else do you get to play, you know, a
Speaker 2: whole like like the same as pit where you know
Speaker 2: you're batting your ball out in the fairway and tend
Speaker 2: to stop it on a green right behind a rock wall.
Speaker 2: You know, you get to you get all the quirk
Speaker 2: value that uh that you can get a great links
Speaker 2: golf course architecture over there and in in one one
Speaker 2: setting there and then there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: like great secondary courses there. You know, obviously Golan's a
Speaker 2: great old classic. A couple of courses there, you know, luffness, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, great great architecture. Dunbar just down the road
Speaker 2: is a really good course that kind of flies under
Speaker 2: the radar you when to talk about you know, under
Speaker 2: the radar stuff. That's a pretty cool place. And you
Speaker 2: know I've always that's that would be the one market
Speaker 2: that I would love to personally, you know, jump into
Speaker 2: as as a restoration architect. Uh is stuff over there.
Speaker 2: You know, I spent my year overseas studying golf courses
Speaker 2: over there, and uh, that was the thing that I
Speaker 2: always kind of thought about it, So go to places.
Speaker 2: How much fun it would be the consult at a
Speaker 2: at a place like that Dunbar or phraser Bor what
Speaker 2: have you that uh, you know, with just a little
Speaker 2: help on waterhole here, one hole there, one hole there,
Speaker 2: you could do so you can turn one of those
Speaker 2: call courses into something really, really amazing. They already are
Speaker 2: really really good golf courses. But you know, it would
Speaker 2: come as no surprise having worked on you know, uh,
Speaker 2: the likes of Pacific Dunes and Barnbougle uh as I
Speaker 2: started my career, and then having spent all the time
Speaker 2: overseas in the UK, I'm a huge fan of links architecture,
Speaker 2: so it would be fun to work on some of
Speaker 2: those kinds of places over there, you know. And obviously
Speaker 2: the financials of clubs are so different from the United
Speaker 2: States that you know, uh, it requires somebody being really
Speaker 2: patient and working with a club over a span of
Speaker 2: probably two decades actually get it where they wanted to go.
Speaker 2: But it's not like, you know, they have the financials
Speaker 2: to do a massive you know, restoration or what have you,
Speaker 2: you know, summertime like we do here. So that's where
Speaker 2: you know, you know, mid Pins we did. You know,
Speaker 2: we did the project essentially in house, with a bunch
Speaker 2: of shapers and finishing guys that I brought in. No contractors,
Speaker 2: et cetera. You know, so I've always kind of been
Speaker 2: having worked on this projects for Tom and Bill and Ben,
Speaker 2: you know, Pacific Dunes, there was no contract or whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I've always kind of trying and build my business model
Speaker 2: that I could potentially do, you know, projects kind of
Speaker 2: kind of like that someday. But that's really my favorite
Speaker 2: favorite region of the country is is there. It's all good.
Speaker 2: I mean I have a hard time saying that over
Speaker 2: some of the places we mentioned earlier with Dornick and
Speaker 2: Brora and and Taine and Gulspy up north.
Speaker 5: But when you in.
Speaker 2: Terms of world class architects, it's pretty hard to beat.
Speaker 2: The Lothians pretty good.
Speaker 4: With regards to restoring courses in like Scotland versus.
Speaker 3: Like so in America we see like a.
Speaker 4: Lot of the same problems with like overgrowth of trees,
Speaker 4: shrinkage or greens.
Speaker 3: You know, narrow or far aways.
Speaker 4: What are some of the issues that you see in
Speaker 4: Scotland and Ireland and the UK at courses?
Speaker 3: Are they different or pretty much the same?
Speaker 2: It's all the same game. It's it's it's about the
Speaker 2: particulars that you're working on, you know, I think The
Speaker 2: thing that I saw probably the most is it was
Speaker 2: always clear to me that there were there was a
Speaker 2: lot of golf courses that I went to. There was
Speaker 2: like maybe one or two greens where it was obviously
Speaker 2: it was probably like the coolest and craziest green in
Speaker 2: the golf course. They didn't be kind of flattened out
Speaker 2: and changed over the decades. Where it had just been
Speaker 2: kind of flattened out. It was something very bland and
Speaker 2: it was not really indicative of of what it was
Speaker 2: laid out to be. You know a lot of those
Speaker 2: craziest greens over in the UK where it's just something
Speaker 2: where it was on the ground that's what worked. And
Speaker 2: they started bowing it there, you know, uh and uh.
Speaker 2: And it had been kind of changed over time. You
Speaker 2: know a lot of you know, bunker missing here, bunker
Speaker 2: missing there, or you know a lot of the times
Speaker 2: you know, it's just as simple of moving a fairway
Speaker 2: around a little bit, you know, just mowing another ten
Speaker 2: yards to the right, moving in you know, ten yards
Speaker 2: from the left where it is being mown a fair way,
Speaker 2: or expanding them back out and narrowing them down in
Speaker 2: the right place. It's just you know, simple sort of
Speaker 2: simple sort of stuff, but in the end it ends
Speaker 2: up making all the difference kind of in the world
Speaker 2: a lot of the time. So and also, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of bunker style, you know, there's a place
Speaker 2: in southern England. I was just looking out on the
Speaker 2: internet a couple of months ago there was an old
Speaker 2: back to the previous architect that we talked about, Colt.
Speaker 2: It was a course that he had done on the
Speaker 2: coast that was on more uplan dy sort of ground.
Speaker 2: It wasn't sand dunes and a Lynks golf course, but
Speaker 2: more of like uplan dy sort of terrain with big
Speaker 2: sort of like pebble beachy sort of cliffs, and you know,
Speaker 2: the bunkers had all been kind of turned into uh
Speaker 2: more like simplified renditions of of what there was originally
Speaker 2: supposed to look like. You know, obviously for anybody that
Speaker 2: kind of knows Cold's history built some really impressive bunkers,
Speaker 2: really flashy and uh visually attractive stuff, and that stuff
Speaker 2: had just been kind of white out on the golf
Speaker 2: course over the span of you know, one hundred years.
Speaker 2: So that's probably the main thing is, you know, restoring
Speaker 2: bunker style, which is something that just doesn't really happen
Speaker 2: over there, and I mean something has happened in the
Speaker 2: last ten years or so. But I think if if
Speaker 2: somebody had a really great restoration like stay in London,
Speaker 2: one of those great old you know, coult courses, I
Speaker 2: think it would probably break down the door to doing
Speaker 2: a lot more all over the city in the region.
Speaker 2: And that's the same. The same holds true for the
Speaker 2: for the coastline in Britain.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, if if you'd hed a couple
Speaker 2: of projects here, a couple of projects there, I think
Speaker 2: it'd probably open the doors doing a lot of great
Speaker 2: restoration working like that, and it's really kind of do
Speaker 2: for it, you know. I think that's one thing that
Speaker 2: hasn't been Again. There's been a few projects the last
Speaker 2: few years that have kind of touched on that the UK,
Speaker 2: but it's still restoration is still kind of a new
Speaker 2: and blossoming conversation over there where. It's something we've obviously
Speaker 2: been working very hard on in the States for the
Speaker 2: last you know, ten and fifteen years years almost thirty
Speaker 2: in some cases.
Speaker 4: So we got a ton of questions from listeners. I
Speaker 4: wanted to get to a few of them before we
Speaker 4: get you out of here. So car for the course
Speaker 4: had a good one here. Very few, if any, desert
Speaker 4: courses are allotted as being architectural gems. How would you
Speaker 4: approach a project in Palm Springs or like Scottsdale ever area.
Speaker 2: It's a very good question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, hmm.
Speaker 2: You know, I think the I think the thing that
Speaker 2: I have not seen yet on a golf course out
Speaker 2: of the desert, which I think would be very very
Speaker 2: cool to see, would be something with a little bit more,
Speaker 2: a little bit more like Pineer's Number two or Saint
Speaker 2: Andrew's influence, where the golf course relies less on bunkering
Speaker 2: and more on really really fun shots on and around
Speaker 2: the greens. You know, I think I worked on Stone
Speaker 2: Eagle for for Calm yuh ten or fifteen years ago?
Speaker 2: Ten years ago, I guess. And then you know, I've
Speaker 2: been to I've been to a couple of Bill and
Speaker 2: Ben's projects in the desert, and uh, I think that
Speaker 2: I think those projects were all great. We've got some
Speaker 2: really cool stuff at Stone Eagle, and I know that
Speaker 2: Yllan Ben built some great stuff there. But I think
Speaker 2: that's probably the one little missing link is that I
Speaker 2: would love to see more palms or sorry, Pineer's number two,
Speaker 2: Saint Andrewsy's sort of contouring, uh and even to agree,
Speaker 2: like like prairie dunes where you get some really really good,
Speaker 2: interesting kind of shot making and recovery shots aground with
Speaker 2: the greens, you know, tipmo and a lot of interesting
Speaker 2: fun kind of shots and uh stuff that almost like
Speaker 2: kind of forces you to play ground shots. You know.
Speaker 2: Hard thing with uh with building cool architecture in the
Speaker 2: desert is a requires quite a bit of water obviously,
Speaker 2: and be the turf types that you're gonna have are
Speaker 2: always going to be not particularly prone to good ground
Speaker 2: game architecture, which, of course is you know, when we're
Speaker 2: talking about Bill and Ben and and and and uh
Speaker 2: Tom and Gil, that's the one thing that I probably
Speaker 2: should have started worth instead of uh ending with is
Speaker 2: they're all committed to building great, classical cool ground game architecture.
Speaker 2: And that's something that I'm always trying to push and uh,
Speaker 2: but it's hard to do with warm season grasses because
Speaker 2: it's so bushy and uh you know, so green and
Speaker 2: uh and lush. You know, uh, so I think you'd
Speaker 2: almost want to like over designed features, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: on projects there and you know more Falloway greens, just
Speaker 2: lots of cool st to really get it to where
Speaker 2: uh you know, people want to try some really fun
Speaker 2: interesting you know ground shots and and recovery shots. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's harder harder to uh harder to do than
Speaker 2: to just say it, you know. I think one of
Speaker 2: the things in the real Olympics golf course that certainly
Speaker 2: was the biggest challenge was trying to get players to
Speaker 2: play ground shots and warm season grasses because the balls
Speaker 2: of them or like the bounce that much. In some
Speaker 2: places we were successful with it. In other ways, uh,
Speaker 2: probably not as much as I would have liked to
Speaker 2: have seen it, But uh, you know, I think I
Speaker 2: think it's the key is is just how severe your
Speaker 2: building features and how really how really dedicated are to
Speaker 2: really really building stuff that really forces people to hit
Speaker 2: hit some cool crazy shots like uh like you do
Speaker 2: in different settings.
Speaker 3: So forcing like guys that hit the ground shots.
Speaker 4: I feel like the pros just don't hit them because
Speaker 4: they don't have to hit them regularly, so they don't
Speaker 4: have to practice them exactly.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh, if if I ever am lucky enough
Speaker 2: to uh you know, doing you know, design work on
Speaker 2: courses from scratches on my own. I think that's probably
Speaker 2: the area that'd probably be exploring to a degree. Is
Speaker 2: is uh, you know, with the chain and technology in
Speaker 2: the last twenty twenty five years, it's almost it was
Speaker 2: almost like some of the cool stuff that we were
Speaker 2: building was kind of dated the second that it opened
Speaker 2: for that caliber player, where it still works very well
Speaker 2: for average players. You know, there's a very few kinds
Speaker 2: of holes in the world these days that'll make professional
Speaker 2: level players thinking about, you know, hitting balls on the
Speaker 2: on the ground and bouncing around some you know, obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, the road hole in Saint Andrews is still
Speaker 2: the timeless example of that. But even see a degree
Speaker 2: in a hole like you know number five at Augusta.
Speaker 2: You know, if the players hit into the rough on
Speaker 2: the right hand side of that hole, they'll start thinking
Speaker 2: about trying to hit the little skipper shot up onto
Speaker 2: that little Saint Andrew's inspired ridgeline green because the you know,
Speaker 2: the hazards off the backside of the green are so severe,
Speaker 2: and they'll try and they'll try and bounce it up.
Speaker 2: You know. I think oakmant is great for that and
Speaker 2: the fact that you have so many fall away greens,
Speaker 2: and in some cases of the greens are so severely
Speaker 2: falling away from the players, you know, front to back
Speaker 2: sloped greens that the players will are almost inevitably have
Speaker 2: to give it a go like a whole, Like you know,
Speaker 2: twelve at Oakmont, players have no choice if you're going
Speaker 2: for that green, and so you have to think about
Speaker 2: how it's going to bounce onto that green and even
Speaker 2: the third shot, so you have to at least be
Speaker 2: cognitive of the fact that the ball, even with a
Speaker 2: wedge in your hand, isn't gonna spin like it normally would,
Speaker 2: you know. So I think there's there's some interesting ways
Speaker 2: to go about skinning that cat. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: all about how you approach the overall theoretics of what
Speaker 2: you're shaping, what you're designing, and uh, you know again
Speaker 2: the paradox of scale that that we work what to
Speaker 2: try and make architecture work wherever we are. So, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that would be a fun golf course to
Speaker 2: play at a desert. I would I would I would
Speaker 2: like to play that course of bit. That would be fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Pablo Toledo has a question here thoughs on
Speaker 4: doing a strict restoration versus a renovation that modernizes and
Speaker 4: attempts to reac create the original design philosophy and intent.
Speaker 2: So I repeat that one for me, that one.
Speaker 4: So like a true pure restoration, we're putting everything back
Speaker 4: into place where we saw it on this aerial photo,
Speaker 4: versus a renovation that you know, tries to take what
Speaker 4: the intent was and modernize it for today's game.
Speaker 3: So you know, you might move bunkers. So ye, you know,
Speaker 3: thoughts on.
Speaker 2: Each and you know, well, I think that line is
Speaker 2: always getting blurred, and I really don't know of I
Speaker 2: don't think you can be successful in either format without
Speaker 2: blurring them together. You know, I think that I think
Speaker 2: that to do great restoration work, you really have to
Speaker 2: put yourself in the mind of the original architect. And
Speaker 2: you know, certainly a lot of that is painting my numbers,
Speaker 2: looking at an aerial and uh and seeing what what
Speaker 2: the was on the golf course originally and precisely where
Speaker 2: everything's sat. And but you also have to take that
Speaker 2: step back and ask the question, well why, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I think that if you know, if you went back
Speaker 2: and and and attempted to do restoration by just simply
Speaker 2: copying pasting, you know, uh, painting by painting by number,
Speaker 2: you kind of miss uh that original intent. You know,
Speaker 2: the game has evolved and changed so much that bunkers
Speaker 2: will never only wind up in the wrong spot, or
Speaker 2: if if you're not seeing the whole big picture very clearly,
Speaker 2: you'll kind of miss the uh, the the end all
Speaker 2: of what the original hole is trying to do. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously we're talking about mid pints. Earlier, we were talking
Speaker 2: about you know, Ross's intent with the styling of the holes,
Speaker 2: and I think the thing that uh, you know, as
Speaker 2: I alluded to, he try to make each of his
Speaker 2: golf courses here a little bit different, uh. And the
Speaker 2: best way I can describe the importance of of of
Speaker 2: really really studying the original design is the differences and
Speaker 2: courses you know here here in Pinehurst. You know, Piner's
Speaker 2: number two was supposed to have big wide fairways, fifty
Speaker 2: yard wide fairways, and then on the outside of the
Speaker 2: holes you had an extra buffer of another twenty to
Speaker 2: twenty five yards before you got to the edge of
Speaker 2: the clearing line into the trees. So it was big,
Speaker 2: big wide corridors and big wide fairways, and then he
Speaker 2: had these big long runs of seeing in the famous
Speaker 2: sandy hardpan areas on the eats on each side of
Speaker 2: the hole and midpines. His design philosophy was completely different.
Speaker 2: The fairways were big and wide like Piner's Number two,
Speaker 2: but he for the most part kind of excluded a
Speaker 2: lot of those sandy hardpan areas on the edges of
Speaker 2: each hole. Instead of of having that buffer, it just
Speaker 2: went right into the woods. In the trees, you'd have
Speaker 2: a little bit of sandy hardpan of wiregrass, but mostly
Speaker 2: the holes just kind of went right into the woods.
Speaker 2: And in between the holes it was very dense, thick,
Speaker 2: bushy terrain. It would be wiregrass and wisteria and all
Speaker 2: kinds of who knows what else was you know, growing
Speaker 2: out in the southern jungles of North Carolina. So the
Speaker 2: the idea was that, you know, Piner Number two was
Speaker 2: meant to be a little bit more of a resort
Speaker 2: friendly golf course where it was a bigger wire the
Speaker 2: players could find their ball and playing on where Midponds
Speaker 2: was meant to be kind of this very very intimate setting,
Speaker 2: you know, hard golf course with the with the tighter
Speaker 2: clearing lines and uh, the design evolved further from number
Speaker 2: two in that in that category, you know, it has
Speaker 2: more Midpinds has more bunkers front right and front left
Speaker 2: of the green compared to number two, where most of
Speaker 2: the holes have quite a bit of bunkering. But there
Speaker 2: are actually some holes where there's a whole bail side.
Speaker 2: You know, the first two holes at Pine Re Simber
Speaker 2: two you can bail completely away into short type areas,
Speaker 2: away from all the bunkering around the greens, whereas Mid
Speaker 2: there wasn't two holes like that in the entire golf course.
Speaker 2: So the idea was that, you know, players could hit
Speaker 2: t shots into the right sections of fairways and give
Speaker 2: themselves good angles past all these front bunkers. You know,
Speaker 2: if the pin was front lest, they could play into
Speaker 2: the far right hand side of the fairway for a
Speaker 2: decent angle. Vice versa, the pin was front right, they
Speaker 2: could play to the other side. But to hit it
Speaker 2: to the good angles the honey spots on each hole
Speaker 2: for a good angle win you had to take on,
Speaker 2: you know, all that brush and all the nasty stuff
Speaker 2: that was lapping right at the edge of the fairways
Speaker 2: as I was alluding to before. So there was you know,
Speaker 2: to get to the good angles and strategize for a
Speaker 2: good player on the t shots. They had to they
Speaker 2: had to take on some some nasty stuff. They were
Speaker 2: kind of taking their life in their own hands. Again,
Speaker 2: just differences in philosophy. So when I was working on
Speaker 2: Midpinds this restoration, all that junglely stuff around the edge
Speaker 2: of the holes had been removed over the decades to
Speaker 2: make it more resort from all the trees were still there,
Speaker 2: so the general philosophy of the course still still kind
Speaker 2: of held through to the original design. So a lot
Speaker 2: of what I had to do was, you know, just
Speaker 2: kind of stand on the teas and visualize, well, all
Speaker 2: that stuff has gone now, but the trees are still there.
Speaker 2: But again it feels a lot is a lot less
Speaker 2: in the way of blood pumping through or die field
Speaker 2: of the t shots that originally was intended. So what
Speaker 2: do we need to add to the equation, How do
Speaker 2: we need to approach adding bunker here or maybe bring
Speaker 2: the sandy hardpain areas into the holes a little bit
Speaker 2: more there. You know, it's again just trying to add
Speaker 2: or approach you know, the restoration of the strategic hazards
Speaker 2: around the holes in a manner that they would balance
Speaker 2: out the fact that these other elements had been eliminated
Speaker 2: over the span of of decades, and well it was
Speaker 2: going to take to get the kind of blood pumping
Speaker 2: shots back into the equation that that Ross had originally intended.
Speaker 2: And if I was just looking down at an aerial
Speaker 2: the golf course, you'd never figure out any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: You can't just paint by numbers and be like, well,
Speaker 2: that's what was there. So that's what we need to do.
Speaker 2: You know, you need to kind of put yourself on
Speaker 2: the head of what Ross would have been standing there
Speaker 2: looking at in nineteen thirty five and the decisions that
Speaker 2: you would have been making to to you know, lay
Speaker 2: out the holes exactly to get the blood pumping kind
Speaker 2: of shots that he wanted. And so that's how I really,
Speaker 2: you know, approach restoration is is that you know, you
Speaker 2: got to get out on the field and you got
Speaker 2: to stand there and kind of visualize what it would
Speaker 2: have been like to have a hickory and one hundred
Speaker 2: years ago, and what do we need to do to
Speaker 2: make that all connect today? You know, So sometimes you
Speaker 2: wind up in a scenario where you know you can
Speaker 2: just simply paint by numbers, where it's purely restoration. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, getting it to fit into work and to
Speaker 2: be appropriate for modern play requires you know, making making
Speaker 2: it just and that too is restoration. So at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it's all the same game. Uh,
Speaker 2: you're all just you're just trying to get to where
Speaker 2: the the architecture matches up and plays as well as
Speaker 2: it did today, as it did originally, or even better.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a good, good answer to that question.
Speaker 4: I think that's that's the way you gotta do it.
Speaker 4: It's because it's so much has changed, so absolutely.
Speaker 2: A long, a long explanation, but it really does arrive
Speaker 2: at the at the point you know, you gotta you
Speaker 2: gotta get in the heads of the original architects and
Speaker 2: uh and figure out the details.
Speaker 4: So if you could restore, we'll just say one, you know,
Speaker 4: municipal or like a public access of course that you
Speaker 4: don't know of having a consulting architect, so you know,
Speaker 4: we avoid any you know, beef.
Speaker 3: What what what course would it be? And from Andrew Bailey, Hmmm.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I probably I probably mentioned a lot
Speaker 2: of them in my uh uh, you know, just discussing.
Speaker 3: Uh the courses.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you know British British golf courses.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In terms of the of the United States, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, Uh, one that always just pops to mind,
Speaker 2: uh is uh Brain Melton. I can't remember the name
Speaker 2: of it right off the top of my head. Uh.
Speaker 2: There's a place in Portland, southeast Poortland. Uh that's uh.
Speaker 2: Uh it's an old h chances the League and golf course.
Speaker 2: Uh that that I always was a big fan of
Speaker 2: growing up, you know. Uh. But there's there's many, many
Speaker 2: prime examples of of great courses in that category. You know,
Speaker 2: if I if I had timis to kind of think
Speaker 2: of it, I'm sure I could think of some even
Speaker 2: right here in uh in North Carolina. I wish I
Speaker 2: could remember the name of that golf course. It'll come
Speaker 2: to me here in a secuh in Portland. Uh. But
Speaker 2: you know a lot of places you know need old
Speaker 2: places that are you know again great classic architects that
Speaker 2: really have a lot of potential. Of the land is
Speaker 2: still very good and nobody's really kind of broken broken
Speaker 2: anything it would be fun to work at, and you know,
Speaker 2: I mean especially I think you probably would uh understand
Speaker 2: immediately just from the conversation of the day that, you know,
Speaker 2: the fact that I grew up on a public golf course,
Speaker 2: it's always made me really intrigued with with doing great
Speaker 2: public golf course restoration, you know, or just great public
Speaker 2: golf in general. I mean that's what really, you know,
Speaker 2: intrigued me the most about working on the the Olympics
Speaker 2: course in Rio for Gill was the fact that, of
Speaker 2: course it was cool to be involved in a project
Speaker 2: where I was going to hold the Olympics and the
Speaker 2: first Olympics and over one hundred years, but it was also,
Speaker 2: I think equally is important to me that it was
Speaker 2: going to be the first public golf course in Brazil
Speaker 2: and one of the first, like great examples in South America,
Speaker 2: a big tournament value that people could go and play. So,
Speaker 2: you know, having grown up on a public golf course,
Speaker 2: public golf is really important to me. So really, any place,
Speaker 2: uh you know that that you know has just great
Speaker 2: old bones, great architecture, would be would be fun to
Speaker 2: work on, work on, uh for a for a public benefit.
Speaker 2: Eastmoreland is the golf course I was thinking in Portland.
Speaker 2: I knew that was going to come.
Speaker 4: To me eventually, so putting me on the spot. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's that's a cool part of the Olympic courses. And
Speaker 4: and it looked like, you know, they just had the
Speaker 4: Latin American Tour was down there and it looked like
Speaker 4: is in good shape.
Speaker 3: So that's that's really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going fine. You know, I mean I I grew
Speaker 2: up on golf courses in the Northwest, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of like that. Beyond the one that I even you know,
Speaker 2: where I played every day. You know, there was a
Speaker 2: you know, one golf course that that I really liked
Speaker 2: playing as a kid was this little Lynx golf course
Speaker 2: on the Oregon coast called Gearhart that it was a
Speaker 2: Chandler Reagan effort. It was originally laid out by an
Speaker 2: old scotsman out of the dunes, but he'd done work
Speaker 2: on the golf course. And also, you know it's a club.
Speaker 2: But Astorias right up the road from there's a neat
Speaker 2: old dunes golf course. So you know, there's a little
Speaker 2: cool places all over the place that that it would
Speaker 2: be great to do, you know, restoration work over a
Speaker 2: span of time that would be practical for them. It's
Speaker 2: you're not gonna put him out of business. Uh, but
Speaker 2: really could you know, take him to an extra level
Speaker 2: and and expand their you know, potential potential. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, you've got that's what they need to
Speaker 3: invest in. It's their asset.
Speaker 4: You can't just let it go to you know ship
Speaker 4: over the course of time as that you get it, invest.
Speaker 2: In and make it better exactly. And there's been some
Speaker 2: great examples of that that that have gone on around
Speaker 2: the country. You know, I haven't been to it yet myself,
Speaker 2: but I'd like to go see it. A place called
Speaker 2: Georgie Wright in Boston, uh, which which looks fantastic, you know,
Speaker 2: and they've been doing just that, You've been working to
Speaker 2: try and prove the last the last decade or so.
Speaker 2: And it's a great old classic, you know, ross course
Speaker 2: you want to talk about, you know, one of that
Speaker 2: flies under the radar. It looks fantastic. I really need
Speaker 2: to get over and check it out sometime. And that's
Speaker 2: that's the prime example, you know. Uh, there's there's some
Speaker 2: courses around the country that were you know, again laid
Speaker 2: out by by great architects that uh that you know,
Speaker 2: the good practical plan, you know, especially that's where the
Speaker 2: design builds philosophy comes together to to make project practical forms,
Speaker 2: you know, by removing the you know, exorbit and outside
Speaker 2: contracted costs and doing you know, projects in a practical manner.
Speaker 2: It's it's much it's more stressful on the architects to
Speaker 2: that that way, but that's what we're here for, you know,
Speaker 2: is to get the right product for the right price.
Speaker 2: And so I really look at the next twenty years
Speaker 2: in the United States as being a you know, a
Speaker 2: kind of watershed moment for that. You know, restoration has
Speaker 2: certainly been a great, a great development in the club
Speaker 2: club seen the last twenty and thirty years, and it's
Speaker 2: great to see that it's started to shift through to
Speaker 2: public golf in places and hopefully that that trend continues.
Speaker 2: It's some that of you know, again, having been involved
Speaker 2: or been a public golf person, my whole life would
Speaker 2: be no almostly rewarding to be evolve us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that I kind of think needs to happen too.
Speaker 4: It's it's some you know, it's a every you know,
Speaker 4: so many people have on the podcast grew up playing
Speaker 4: public golf. I grew up playing public golf. And it's
Speaker 4: like that is so important is to have, you know,
Speaker 4: the better the golf courses are to play, like, the
Speaker 4: more people you're going to get to play.
Speaker 3: And it's so we.
Speaker 4: Do this overrated underrated segment, so you know, I give
Speaker 4: you something and you got to say if if you
Speaker 4: think it's overrated or underrated, there's no properly rated Okay.
Speaker 4: So so we'll start with nineteen twenties Donald Ross.
Speaker 2: Okay, And am I supposed to name a course or.
Speaker 3: Just in general?
Speaker 4: Was you know he has he has kind of three different,
Speaker 4: you know, distinct time periods of his design from the
Speaker 4: ten in the twenties and thirties. Was nineteen twenties down
Speaker 4: Ross overrated or underrated?
Speaker 2: I would say absolutely underrated?
Speaker 4: All right, what do you think about the other one?
Speaker 4: Is there one that was overrated?
Speaker 2: You know? I think that I think that golf course
Speaker 2: architects are interesting. You know some of them, some of
Speaker 2: them arrive on the scene and they have all their
Speaker 2: best ideas and they throw them out there. And that's
Speaker 2: just simply kind of the the the career path that
Speaker 2: they take, you know, is their early work is their best.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of good prime examples of that,
Speaker 2: and then other architects have a tendency to just get
Speaker 2: better and better and better and better over the span
Speaker 2: of their careers, and I think Ross was definitely in
Speaker 2: the latter category. You know, his work was always good.
Speaker 2: But you know, when I look back at the the
Speaker 2: history of Piner's Number two, there's there's two things that
Speaker 2: come to mind. How great it is today and how
Speaker 2: great it's always been, but also how much it evolved.
Speaker 2: You know, I have never seen an aerial or a
Speaker 2: ground photo of the golf course between nineteen thirty five
Speaker 2: and nineteen oh seven where it was exactly the same.
Speaker 2: He was constantly, constantly teekering with it, and the style
Speaker 2: was completely different on all of them, you know, like
Speaker 2: the original Piner's Number two was really severe. There was
Speaker 2: like you know, I'm sure for a lot of your
Speaker 2: lists or they'd be familiar with, you know, Hell's half
Speaker 2: Acre at Pine Valley, this big famous hole in the
Speaker 2: world that you have to cross in your second shot
Speaker 2: of the seventh hole. Well, that's kind of what Pinehurst
Speaker 2: Number two was like originally. Instead of having these big,
Speaker 2: you know, clearly defined sweeping fairways that begin at the
Speaker 2: start of the hole and go all the way the play.
Speaker 2: The last looks that we were talking about earlier. You know,
Speaker 2: he had like these big stoppages in the fairways where
Speaker 2: it would just go into like sandy hardpan and native
Speaker 2: areas for for a stretch and then it would pick
Speaker 2: back up the fairway would start again on the other side.
Speaker 2: So a lot of hills, half acrey, sorts of sort
Speaker 2: of stuff out there. It was really hard. You know,
Speaker 2: it's easy to see why his original design numbers. It
Speaker 2: was pretty pretty controversial. And you know, I've been helping
Speaker 2: a bit on the Pinter's Number three course the last year.
Speaker 2: You know, they changed a couple of holes to kind
Speaker 2: of make way for gills par three course, and that
Speaker 2: kind of sort of evolved into you know, doing some
Speaker 2: other work around the golf course. You know, myself and
Speaker 2: Kay Goldby and Blake Conant, all three of us kind
Speaker 2: of did a little bit of different periods of stuff
Speaker 2: on the golf course the last year, and which obviously
Speaker 2: you know, was put in my hands a lot of
Speaker 2: the time. You know, the original area for thelf aerial
Speaker 2: for his original design, and it's really very severe. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of pine alleys kind of stuff in places
Speaker 2: out there. Now, whether that's that's good or bad or underrated, overrated,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it was a lot different, you know.
Speaker 2: But I think that I think his career did it
Speaker 2: take a nice, a nice turn what he decided to
Speaker 2: start doing more playable stuff that would be more attractive
Speaker 2: to to more normal people. So I think that he
Speaker 2: had really fallen in with a really nice, really nice
Speaker 2: groove with the stuff that he was designing by the
Speaker 2: twenties and and especially the you know, as you got
Speaker 2: towards the end of his career. I think the Pineers
Speaker 2: number two is ranked his best course for a reason.
Speaker 2: You know. It's it's it's all the different little elements
Speaker 2: that he threw in his designer style throughout his career
Speaker 2: combined with the more playable elements that he kind of
Speaker 2: evolved to to arrive at his best course. But that's
Speaker 2: not to say that the the nineteen ten stuff or
Speaker 2: the earlier stuff is better or worse. Is just a
Speaker 2: little bit it's a little bit different.
Speaker 4: He's like a fine wine he got, you know, as
Speaker 4: he as he aged, he got more sophisticated and uh.
Speaker 2: Fuller, Absolutely absolutely, But that's enough to say that the
Speaker 2: early worlds are good too. Yeah, uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: think that that's the thing that I personally hope that uh, that.
Speaker 5: Will kind of show its way through and some of the.
Speaker 2: Other things going on here.
Speaker 5: You know, Uh, I would love to see Gil kind
Speaker 5: of throw some of that into uh, you know, his
Speaker 5: work on course forward, just as a as a complete
Speaker 5: curveball and departure to uh, you know, the.
Speaker 2: Work that we did on number two, the work that
Speaker 2: uh that I've done on on mid pines and pine needles.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh, I've definitely adhered more to the later
Speaker 2: period of Ross's work because I've always genuinely felt like
Speaker 2: that was the best period of his work here. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that you can do some really interesting
Speaker 2: things with with his more uh you know, uh controversy
Speaker 2: full and zany style stuff that he did during the
Speaker 2: early portion of the of the century would be pretty
Speaker 2: cool to see. So who knows what gildos.
Speaker 3: All right, We'll get to the next one here.
Speaker 4: Volcano par three's from Tom Smith Overrated.
Speaker 3: Underrated mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I suppose it depends on the format. But I am,
Speaker 2: I for one, am a big fan, you know, I
Speaker 2: would be I would be hard pressed to say that
Speaker 2: there's there's not a better hole on any of the
Speaker 2: golf courses that I'm considered currently consulting at than the
Speaker 2: the eleventh hole at the Country Clube Charleston, which for
Speaker 2: anybody who has played in the Azalea, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a well known amateur event down in the southeast,
Speaker 2: which is at Country Clube Charleston. Every year the holes
Speaker 2: were Dan or reverse for Dan, you know, it's uh
Speaker 2: so all the kind of classic elements of you know,
Speaker 2: diagonal green with severe back left bunkers or right and
Speaker 2: depending off it's a reverse for an or not. But
Speaker 2: in the case of Countries to Charleston, it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of a forty five degree angle green from front left
Speaker 2: to back right with these incredibly deep bunkers front right
Speaker 2: and incredibly deep back left. It's basically it reminds me
Speaker 2: more of like a Charles Banks design hole where it's
Speaker 2: you know, one of the classic Rainer McDonald template Verdeans,
Speaker 2: but it's it's just absolutely jacked up to the maximum
Speaker 2: in terms of difficulty, and it's been a famous hole
Speaker 2: for that reason for a long time. There's been many
Speaker 2: a player in the Asia that has actually been trying
Speaker 2: to hold a lead that just laid up on it
Speaker 2: and put it up onto the green. So that severe
Speaker 2: of a of a hole, you know. So I love
Speaker 2: any kind of any kind of green and green site
Speaker 2: where you get on a par three where you're kind
Speaker 2: of jacking it up into the air and really leaving
Speaker 2: the players with some really severe question marks if they
Speaker 2: if they miss the green, and especially the strategy involved
Speaker 2: with the whole, like uh, like what I was just describing,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, the history of the whole is actually
Speaker 2: kind of uh, kind of interesting. It. Uh. There's evidence
Speaker 2: that the uh that the big mounds you know, Charles's Flat,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no features naturally there, and uh, the
Speaker 2: big mounds and features on the property are rumored to
Speaker 2: go all the way back to the Revolutionary War. The
Speaker 2: British at uh when they besieged uh Charleston built like
Speaker 2: all these big things that they would you know, fortifications,
Speaker 2: redoubts is what they were called. That it appears that
Speaker 2: that's probably what the Greenside originally was, so uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of some interesting history to uh to wind
Speaker 2: up at a very severe golf hole, you know, one
Speaker 2: hole that uh that I always kind of come back
Speaker 2: to is having been uh you know, influential in Ross's
Speaker 2: careers is the second at Dornic, which EVE heard varying
Speaker 2: degrees of the uh you know, you want to talk
Speaker 2: about like a volcano. It falls away completely on on
Speaker 2: three sides and with a false front on the front
Speaker 2: portion of it. And you know, I've I've heard vary
Speaker 2: degrees that Ross was involved in the construction of it,
Speaker 2: you know, other under John sutherlanda Dornic, and originally he
Speaker 2: wasn't all that excited about the idea of what the
Speaker 2: hole was going to be. Like don't quote me on
Speaker 2: that because I've just heard it in varying degrees, but
Speaker 2: that when they finished the hole, he thought it was
Speaker 2: so cool that it was like the light bulb went
Speaker 2: off for him. And I think that one thing you
Speaker 2: see in Ross's work everywhere is is the willingness to
Speaker 2: build a green site with a really severe fall off
Speaker 2: off the back, and even going as far as to
Speaker 2: place a green site on a downslope and just pushing
Speaker 2: dirt out and out and out building bunkers and pushing
Speaker 2: it out until you finally wound up with a really
Speaker 2: severe fall off off the rear side of it. And
Speaker 2: I think that was probably very influential in his career,
Speaker 2: that that singular green site as you see that all
Speaker 2: over the place. I Pinter's number two, whether it's you
Speaker 2: know the famous eighth Green where you know John Daly
Speaker 2: had his mill down where he hit it over the
Speaker 2: green and swattered his ball because he couldn't quite get
Speaker 2: it back up onto the green. Rusted that all the time,
Speaker 2: and I think it comes back to you know, those
Speaker 2: kind of those kind of philosophics, you know, and what
Speaker 2: you get out of it is, you know, when you
Speaker 2: have holes of such severe fall off on the backside
Speaker 2: like that, it really does get you kind of thinking
Speaker 2: back to basics. You know, maybe I should wind up
Speaker 2: short of this green and take that that mistake out
Speaker 2: of play, or maybe even just try and bounce it
Speaker 2: up on the green where I just barely barely run
Speaker 2: my way up onto the green, taking the aerial shot
Speaker 2: that might land on the green and go running off
Speaker 2: the backside or fly over out of play. You know.
Speaker 2: So I'm a big fan of of you know, green
Speaker 2: sites that are you know, kind of jacked up like that,
Speaker 2: and you know, having done the Rainer McDonald restoration that
Speaker 2: that I have done. You know, I'm always going to
Speaker 2: be a sucker for the for the famous short holes.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the best ones, UH are always
Speaker 2: going to be kind of like that, you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's uh you know, like Camargo is like a great example,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, that's about it. That's about it
Speaker 2: jacked up and the volcano issues you're ever gonna get
Speaker 2: right there with with a severity around all all four.
Speaker 3: Are so example.
Speaker 4: It's amazing how easy it is to make a bogie
Speaker 4: on one of those holes.
Speaker 3: Just by hitting a hitting a good but not great shot.
Speaker 4: I mean, you just get these putts that are just brutal,
Speaker 4: and I think that's so cool because it's it's just
Speaker 4: like it's a test of your wedge game. Like if
Speaker 4: you hit it in the right spot, it's the easy birdie.
Speaker 4: But if you just missed barely your play safe, it's
Speaker 4: gonna be.
Speaker 2: Really hard to make par absolutely absolutely, you know. One
Speaker 2: of the features funnest features that I restored is is
Speaker 2: UH eight at mid pins, which is a green exactly
Speaker 2: like that, you know, I think it is just right
Speaker 2: out of the two at Dornica influence. UH that Ross
Speaker 2: that ross got from that hole, you know, the greenest
Speaker 2: just it's on a downslope and he just took a
Speaker 2: bunch of dirt. You know, it's obvious that they went
Speaker 2: twenty thirty yards up the ferry just started shoving dirt
Speaker 2: until they wound up with this tiny little press of
Speaker 2: a you know, volcano green on the downslope and if
Speaker 2: you go over, it runs down into this sandy bunkery
Speaker 2: native area patch behind the green. That's needless to say,
Speaker 2: no fun at all to try and get up and
Speaker 2: down from there. You know, I've had a standing offer
Speaker 2: for anybody that I've been playing with for three years now,
Speaker 2: I guess since the restoration that anybody that gets over
Speaker 2: that green into that hazard and can get up and
Speaker 2: down free beer on Kyle. And it happened. Yet the
Speaker 2: closest was you know Pat McGowan, who is part of
Speaker 2: the family that owns the resorts here and handles a
Speaker 2: lot of the teaching and whatnot. And he was you know,
Speaker 2: seventy seven I believe PGA to our Rookie of the
Speaker 2: year and he was as close as anybody has gotten
Speaker 2: with out. It's those kind of holes are really fun,
Speaker 2: you know when you finally make a birdie on a
Speaker 2: whole like that. Uh, that's something you talk about. Uh,
Speaker 2: that's that's the kind of stuff that you remember at
Speaker 2: the end of the year, uh uh, no matter what,
Speaker 2: and the kind of shot that you remind yourself or
Speaker 2: or bring up, you know, chatting with friends for years
Speaker 2: after that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's memorability is important with golf. Elser phelt
Speaker 4: has overrated underrated split fairways.
Speaker 2: I think that, uh that's almost a that's almost a
Speaker 2: trick question, you know. I think that I think that
Speaker 2: split fairways are an absolute fantastic design feature, But it's
Speaker 2: all about the implement implementation and about uh doing the uh,
Speaker 2: doing the design of the whole properly. You know. I
Speaker 2: would love to, you know, if I remember doing you know,
Speaker 2: design on my on my own, uh, from scratch. I
Speaker 2: would love to try stuff like that, you know, especially
Speaker 2: you know, kind of breaking holes up a little bit
Speaker 2: more that way. You know, you don't really see a
Speaker 2: lot of that. You don't really see a lot of
Speaker 2: people trying it and actually really really working out, well,
Speaker 2: where do you want to you want to play to
Speaker 2: each side? A lot of time it just sort of
Speaker 2: winds up they're like, well, I'm going down that side,
Speaker 2: and that's where I'm going forever. Maybe if I have
Speaker 2: some reason to play the opposite fairway, I might try
Speaker 2: her once in a while. But the keys just good
Speaker 2: getting it all the work. But there's also been some
Speaker 2: pretty poor examples of that over the last twenty and
Speaker 2: twenty and thirty years, you know, to where it was
Speaker 2: they tried to do multiple fairways and it was just
Speaker 2: added expense that you know, again for the reasons we're
Speaker 2: kind of talking about, it just didn't quite work out.
Speaker 2: There was no reason to play to that side, or
Speaker 2: it wasn't the risk actually wasn't worth it was reward,
Speaker 2: or or it was just impractical. And it becomes when
Speaker 2: you get into that category, it becomes very expensive maintenance.
Speaker 2: You know, it's maximum expenditure for almost no game. So, uh,
Speaker 2: I'd suppose the answer to the question is if it's
Speaker 2: a really good architect that knows what they are doing,
Speaker 2: absolutely I think it's something that we should be exploring
Speaker 2: even a little bit more. Uh. Whereas if it's if
Speaker 2: it's in the hands of somebody that doesn't quite know
Speaker 2: quite how to implemat that, it's probably money that's better
Speaker 2: left unspent.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, I mean it forces people to make.
Speaker 4: A decision too, which is always good. You know, doubt
Speaker 4: it might go in the right way. There's a great
Speaker 4: one at Holston Hills, a ross course, that eighth hole
Speaker 4: I think, or no seventh hole a part five where
Speaker 4: you know, if you if you want to play aggressive,
Speaker 4: you go up to the left, but you got to
Speaker 4: hit a really good t shot to get it up there.
Speaker 4: And uh, you know the safe play is right, but
Speaker 4: you're blind and it's longer, but you know, it's.
Speaker 2: A lot easier to hit absolutely absolutely, And you know again,
Speaker 2: I think it's something that that I think we should
Speaker 2: you know, if it's done right, we should be trying
Speaker 2: to explore it. I think it's a really really cool idea.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't remember what it was for, but
Speaker 2: it was a couple of years ago. Dope. You know,
Speaker 2: he did basically like a raffle. You know, he he
Speaker 2: sent out to a bunch of the guys who were
Speaker 2: either working for him or have work for him. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, he was just asking what would uh what
Speaker 2: would be some cool different ideas to try on a
Speaker 2: project on a on a flat piece of land and uh,
Speaker 2: and that's what I came back with was uh you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I spent you know, maybe an hour or so sort
Speaker 2: of like sketching around and trying to think of, well,
Speaker 2: what would be some good ways to uh do some
Speaker 2: multiple fairway sort of stuff on a flat piece of
Speaker 2: ground to uh to add some uh some serious variety
Speaker 2: into the equation and uh and the more I kind
Speaker 2: of sketched around on it was like the you know,
Speaker 2: it's not something that was the first time I had
Speaker 2: done that before, uh, but it reminded me, uh that, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, that would be a pretty pretty nice way
Speaker 2: to attack certain kinds of pieces of land where you
Speaker 2: don't really have a lot of topography.
Speaker 3: You worked on Stonewall North, YEP. So I played the
Speaker 3: midam out.
Speaker 7: There, and it reminds me like the split fairway is
Speaker 7: almost you almost got it. Guys almost did that on
Speaker 7: like the fifteenth there where you have the center the
Speaker 7: center line bunker kind.
Speaker 2: Of acted that.
Speaker 4: And for those that haven't seen it at that course,
Speaker 4: it's this fairway is ninety yards wide and they.
Speaker 6: Have like a fairway bunker right in the middle that's
Speaker 6: probably two yards wide, and you know it's tiny, but
Speaker 6: we're playing the practice around.
Speaker 3: I'm playing with two of my buddies.
Speaker 4: And we all look at it and like, what the
Speaker 4: hell are we supposed to do here? If you play
Speaker 4: left of it, there's some woods on the left, so
Speaker 4: you know, but that's a much better angle. You play
Speaker 4: right of it, it's much longer hole, and you have
Speaker 4: a really bad angle into a wild green. And you know,
Speaker 4: we all looked at each other and said, let's just
Speaker 4: I think we just hit it right at it. And
Speaker 4: sure enough, playing in the tournament and I hit like
Speaker 4: one of my best friends of the day and it
Speaker 4: just lands right in the middle of.
Speaker 3: It, because I know, and it's just like that. But
Speaker 3: you know, we did. You know, I didn't make a decision,
Speaker 3: so I got penalized for it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, And you know, I like three at Pacific, Dudes,
Speaker 2: is always a hole that I come back to in
Speaker 2: that category. You know, Well, two and three obviously have
Speaker 2: the center line has or something golf, of course, but
Speaker 2: three is really more of a you know, more of
Speaker 2: a full split fairway sort of arrangement with the bunkers
Speaker 2: that kind of stretched all through the middle. And what
Speaker 2: I mean that was that was something that always you know,
Speaker 2: like really I marveled that. And the design is is
Speaker 2: there were some really cool fresh ideas that that Tom
Speaker 2: threw to the equation out there while it was still
Speaker 2: all practical for the average player. But what a what
Speaker 2: a fun hole and what a uh what a great
Speaker 2: part five to really like put it on you right
Speaker 2: from the t shot that you've got to you've got
Speaker 2: to have it together my mother mother going down the
Speaker 2: left hand lane, I'm really gonna have a legit shot
Speaker 2: of getting uh uh to the green into or I'm
Speaker 2: playing right and I'm playing safety uh the whole way,
Speaker 2: you know, uh. And you know that was what I
Speaker 2: thought was really cool and and and really really fresh
Speaker 2: about it, was the fact that there was a solid
Speaker 2: effort right from from the tee to make you force
Speaker 2: force you in a clear decision whether you're gonna simply
Speaker 2: be playing playing concernably the whole way down the whole
Speaker 2: very very cool way to uh to approach it. And
Speaker 2: that's where, you know, when I was referring to multiple
Speaker 2: fairwies or whatnot, I was thinking more in terms of
Speaker 2: having fairy is completely disconnected from each other, whether it's
Speaker 2: a you know, uh, you know, some sort of creek
Speaker 2: or or ditch or you know, running rapping sort of
Speaker 2: bunker thing like Riviera exactly exactly, yeah, you know, uh
Speaker 2: that's I was more kind of referring to something like that.
Speaker 2: But you know, again, it all goes back to the
Speaker 2: same point, you know, center line hazards and forcing people
Speaker 2: to make decisions, very very quick decisions and execute is
Speaker 2: is really it's so much fun, you know. Uh, it's
Speaker 2: just great architecture, and uh, whether it's in a h
Speaker 2: a more uh you know, uh subtle format like a
Speaker 2: whole like three or two at Pacific Dunes or uh
Speaker 2: or you know the other holes that we were describing,
Speaker 2: you know, so I think it would be fun to
Speaker 2: explore more the uh the the former you know, where
Speaker 2: you're you're really separating sections of holes and and maybe
Speaker 2: people trying to uh you know, really uh really figure
Speaker 2: things out and make some really good concrete decisions. I
Speaker 2: think there's I think it's something that uh that definitely
Speaker 2: can can go uh even a little bit more aggressive
Speaker 2: format in that category. But again, it all has to
Speaker 2: come back to whether it's actually practical and you can
Speaker 2: actually make the strategy of the holes work and not
Speaker 2: to be kind of a three dollar bill.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so much of golf architecture, so much of the
Speaker 4: strategies driven from.
Speaker 3: The green back, you know, and well being able.
Speaker 4: To force strategy off the T shot and off of
Speaker 4: a specific T shot.
Speaker 3: Is it's cool because it's it's different.
Speaker 4: And like with everything golf architecture, variety is so.
Speaker 2: Important exactly, you know, And as we were discussing, you know,
Speaker 2: right from the very opening of the podcast, I think
Speaker 2: that you know, we always kind of wonder is how
Speaker 2: much to normal players really understand, like the little clues
Speaker 2: we try to give them and the strategy we try
Speaker 2: to create. You know, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: great architecture just about being able to do that. And
Speaker 2: I'll make it too for confusing for people to figure out.
Speaker 2: You remember Calm having said everyone something to the effect
Speaker 2: that it takes more than two sentences to explain it,
Speaker 2: that it's probably too complex. Uh. But you know, I
Speaker 2: think I think when you I think when you start
Speaker 2: talking about multiple pharawers and multi different routes and all
Speaker 2: those kinds of things, I don't think there's a person
Speaker 2: under the sun that doesn't figure that out immediately. You know,
Speaker 2: They're like, well, these are clear options. To me, these
Speaker 2: are clear strategy decisions that I have to make. You know,
Speaker 2: I think it makes ah, there's there's a discussion be
Speaker 2: made there that it makes a little bit more accessible.
Speaker 2: Arctsh are a little bit more accessible to uh people
Speaker 2: that aren't accustomed to, uh to learning the complexities of Well,
Speaker 2: i've got a bunker front right of the green. Here,
Speaker 2: there's a bunker on the less hands side of the faraway.
Speaker 2: You know, uh, most people don't get the simple stuff,
Speaker 2: but it's when you start to get into the more
Speaker 2: complex stuff that that people tend to notice maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit less and uh you know again multiple fareaways.
Speaker 2: Stuff is uh as obvious and interesting as it gets.
Speaker 2: So certainly something to be said for the accessibility of
Speaker 2: going that route design wise, mm hmm definitely.
Speaker 3: So hey, hey, I think we've taken up enough of
Speaker 3: your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being so gener us with it,
Speaker 4: and you know, we uh, we appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I feel like we just scratched the surface. We could
Speaker 3: have talked for five.
Speaker 4: More hours, but we don't want, we don't want to
Speaker 4: take up your whole afternoon.
Speaker 3: So thanks so much.
Speaker 4: For coming on and uh, well look forward to hopefully
Speaker 4: having you on again in in the in the future.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you very much. An. It's a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: glad to come on, and I've been a big fan
Speaker 2: of your podcast for for a while, so uh uh,
Speaker 2: fun fun to come on to contribute.
Speaker 3: Thank you, definitely, Thanks Kyle,