Speaker 1: Little history on this place. William Durant, the founder General Motors.
Speaker 1: This was his ranch. They called it the South Prince
Speaker 1: Ranch Okay. And then in the early thirties gm got
Speaker 1: in financial trouble and he sold his ranch to the
Speaker 1: Purple Game mob de trump Mom Sometime in the late
Speaker 1: thirties and forties where the lodge is, they had a
Speaker 1: big stable, big barn with indoor arenas, had swimming pools,
Speaker 1: and they guarded this with machine guns. This is where
Speaker 1: the mobsters brought all their family to vacation, ride their
Speaker 1: horses and and hang out. We have pictures at the
Speaker 1: clubhouse where the FBI come in and dug around and
Speaker 1: looking for half of put another log. Nobody here is
Speaker 1: in time. Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Jonella.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the fire Pit. Today is special because
Speaker 1: it's the first time we're recording the fire Pit podcast
Speaker 1: sitting around an actual fire pit, which is at four St.
Speaker 1: Dunes in ross Common, Michigan. That first voice you heard,
Speaker 1: given a brief history of the land is Lou Thompson,
Speaker 1: the current owner of for Students, which is of course
Speaker 1: about three hours north of Detroit and a little over
Speaker 1: an hour east of Traverse City. The story we tell
Speaker 1: today is how and why Lou Thompson bought Forest Students,
Speaker 1: and then how he has made this remote location a
Speaker 1: legitimate destination. Heck, even his wife has been known to
Speaker 1: ask him, what does a trucker from Arkansas know about
Speaker 1: managing golf? Well, he knows enough to have a record
Speaker 1: breaking three thirty seven golfers. On the day we taped
Speaker 1: this podcast, we sat around the pit with Thompson, who's
Speaker 1: sixty two, Josh Tom and Blue Sun and business partner,
Speaker 1: and there was an extended group of family and friends
Speaker 1: who listened in it. We start in shortly after parting
Speaker 1: ways with Jay Morrish, Tom Weiscoff built the original nineteen
Speaker 1: holes at four Students, which sits in the northern middle
Speaker 1: of the Michigan Mitten and neighbors the her On National Forest.
Speaker 1: I spoke to Weiscoff to get his reflections on this project.
Speaker 1: It was initially a private, exclusive experience and maybe that's
Speaker 1: what the downfall was. You know, there wasn't enough transition
Speaker 1: into that area from the standpoint of need to play golf. Um,
Speaker 1: but it had a tremendous piece of property. Man, You're
Speaker 1: I've said this forever. You're only as good as your
Speaker 1: piece of property, and the ownership commitment behind that. Shortly
Speaker 1: after the course was completed, the original owners defaulted on
Speaker 1: the loans and the course was dormant. Now long after that.
Speaker 1: Then Detroit Carpenter's pension fund took ownership of the course
Speaker 1: and they reopened it in two thousand two. They added
Speaker 1: a clubhouse in two thousand four, but there was no lodging.
Speaker 1: Some came to play, no one ever stayed. The maintenance
Speaker 1: crew told me that back in the mid two thousand's,
Speaker 1: on a busy day, they had twenty on the t sheet.
Speaker 1: I found the course in while writing a story for
Speaker 1: Golf Digest on the Best of Michigan Golf, Forest Dunes
Speaker 1: was impossible to find. I ended up on dirt roads,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure I took a wrong turn, But
Speaker 1: by the time we reached the fourteenth green, my friends
Speaker 1: and I had our phones out and we were trying
Speaker 1: to see if we could play it again. Forest Dunes
Speaker 1: defined hidden gem. Here's more from Weisskoff. They had all
Speaker 1: the things that I wanted to absolutely have done if
Speaker 1: I could do it and was allowed to do it,
Speaker 1: And consequently, you know, people, UH really enjoy it. I
Speaker 1: get a lot of common comments uh and compliments from
Speaker 1: that particular golf course. So that makes me happy. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm looking for. I had enough controversy as a player, Matt,
Speaker 1: so I don't need any more. So just to recap,
Speaker 1: Forest Tunes is one thousand acres neighboring her On National Forest,
Speaker 1: only minutes from what they call the Holy Waters of
Speaker 1: the Ossable River, which offers world class fishing. And as
Speaker 1: for the golf, Wi Scoff told me it's one of
Speaker 1: the best public courses in his seventy three course portfolio.
Speaker 1: And yet as it related to the original business model,
Speaker 1: its struggled. I guess I wouldn't be doing this podcast
Speaker 1: if it was still struggling. But before we get to
Speaker 1: the success that's having now, you need to hear about
Speaker 1: the beginning of Lou Thompson and Sun Trucking from Lou Thompson,
Speaker 1: who in three started hauling turkeys for butter Ball out
Speaker 1: of an office in Huntsville, Arkansas that Thompson described as
Speaker 1: a phone booth years ago, about one truck who had
Speaker 1: a small turkey company in Huntsville, Arkansas, and what to
Speaker 1: hauland U product form. They kind of tucked me under
Speaker 1: their wing, like me, and it just kind of grew
Speaker 1: from there. And now, how many trucks do you have?
Speaker 1: But we've got a little two hundred. We run oh
Speaker 1: fourteen million miles and that's fourteen million miles on two
Speaker 1: lane roads. Because we all water short stuff. We move
Speaker 1: somewhere between two thousand and twenty loads of week. Thompson
Speaker 1: will tell you he worked seven days a week, almost
Speaker 1: every day of the year. He's a smoker, and a
Speaker 1: life on the road means you're ordering from the menus
Speaker 1: with a lot of pages and even more calories. When
Speaker 1: obviously my mid forties, had a real bad heart attack
Speaker 1: and the doctor told me I was going to quite
Speaker 1: working as much as I was, and I needed to
Speaker 1: start exercising and doing other things, um, besides working, and
Speaker 1: go on a whole lot of options where I lived
Speaker 1: and I never played, Like I said, I never even
Speaker 1: had a golf club. And every time I turned around,
Speaker 1: I was a little embarrassed because some people I did
Speaker 1: business with what always calling to, how would you go
Speaker 1: on a golf trip with this? How about let's go
Speaker 1: play golf? Well I can't, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how for one, I've never played, so um, after I
Speaker 1: had the heart attack, I thought, well, this is the
Speaker 1: time for me to take up golf. And so I'm
Speaker 1: like everyone else, I got the golf bug. So uh
Speaker 1: every evening after work. Um, after about a month, we
Speaker 1: didn't have to over the yard because there was no grass,
Speaker 1: you know, how to wore all the graps up in
Speaker 1: the yard chipping. In two thousand ten, Thompson was offered
Speaker 1: an opportunity to buy into the Bridges struggling golf development
Speaker 1: in Montrose, Colorado. You know, I really thought it was
Speaker 1: a great deal at them because you bought it for
Speaker 1: ten cents on the dollar. H it was a good deal.
Speaker 1: But it was a great deal. It's really tough to
Speaker 1: make a golf course work, especially a standalone golf course. Uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that when I bought it. Ah. But
Speaker 1: the good thing about it had a lot of real
Speaker 1: estate with it, a lot of lots, and that's a
Speaker 1: good play. The golf wasn't, but the real estate was.
Speaker 1: The phone year, Thompson gets another opportunity to buy more golf.
Speaker 1: How I got to find out about this place. The
Speaker 1: guy that was running Bridges was a guy they named
Speaker 1: of Rocky Papa Check. And when I bought it, he
Speaker 1: left and he worked for Trim Golf and they transferred
Speaker 1: him here to Force Tins and he became the gym
Speaker 1: and Force Tins and uh then Inleven he calls me
Speaker 1: one day and asked me how things are going to
Speaker 1: callad and said, you know, and said, would you be
Speaker 1: interested in another golf course? And uh, soil, how good
Speaker 1: is it? Is? It? Really good? And he's soil in
Speaker 1: my opinion, you know, trend managers too. In your golf course,
Speaker 1: it's probably you know, if it's not the best, it's
Speaker 1: in the top five if anything that trends. God wis
Speaker 1: Cuff again on the canvas he had to work with.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an exceptional piece of property. It's a
Speaker 1: combination of Rowley Sandy Dunes, which is entirely mostly on
Speaker 1: the back nine itself, and then the front nine has
Speaker 1: some water, natural water ponds, wetlands and reenters through the
Speaker 1: pines and the deciduous maples, oaks, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So it's a striking contrast, especially in the fall back
Speaker 1: to Thompson's call with Papa Check, he said, I think
Speaker 1: it's something if you're interested, you need to kind of
Speaker 1: look at it. Uh, and that's well what I want
Speaker 1: for It's why I don't know. But Uh, there's federal
Speaker 1: agents here. You know, they're claiming out foul cabinets. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of problems here. And uh, its own
Speaker 1: pension fund. Uh, they're not happy with it. They went out.
Speaker 1: Uh it says it's not doing any good at all.
Speaker 1: It's you know, just no play. Ah. He didn't tell
Speaker 1: me how much he was lazing. He just said it
Speaker 1: was good good. As of late last year, the Detroit
Speaker 1: Carpenter's pension fund has been investigated for what the Detroit
Speaker 1: Free Press referred to as a hundred million dollars of
Speaker 1: quote risky investments and real estate deals across Michigan and
Speaker 1: as far away as Hawaii. Now back to lou Thompson
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, was still on the phone with
Speaker 1: Papa check. He said, that's that manager told me the
Speaker 1: sweet they're going to sell it sweet. And so he said,
Speaker 1: you knew, really, if you've got any interest, you need
Speaker 1: to come now, because he said, I think they're serious
Speaker 1: about selling it. Thompson was interested, but definitely skeptical. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of four students. I've never been in Michigan.
Speaker 1: I tried to find some stuff on it. You couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything on it. Um, I was kind of bored
Speaker 1: regular of the house. I thought, well, this catch me
Speaker 1: a fly and go look at it. Forest Dunes is
Speaker 1: on the scale of sand Hills, Nebraska in terms of remote.
Speaker 1: Probably best to arrive and depart by day. Stop three
Speaker 1: times between Traverse City and four St. Dunes and called
Speaker 1: in and said, you know, Rocky, yeah, I'm lost or something,
Speaker 1: because you know, you're telling me this is some high
Speaker 1: party the lake golf course. You know, I said, I
Speaker 1: ain't seen ship out here that I called about a
Speaker 1: mall before I got to the draw and said, you
Speaker 1: know I'm not in the rob Oh yeah, you keep coming,
Speaker 1: keep coming, you'll see a sign that says turned left.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, when I pulled through the guard check,
Speaker 1: you know, the guard chack kind of impressed me. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, this pretty nice entrance here,
Speaker 1: so maybe there's something in here. Then I drove around
Speaker 1: and got to the clubhouse. You understand, this is in
Speaker 1: eleven and everything is pretty much new. And I mean
Speaker 1: that was about probably twenty cars in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Nineteen I was employees cars, you know, because there was
Speaker 1: two people here that day playing golf. This was shortly
Speaker 1: after I'd been on property. The course had a reputation
Speaker 1: for being an immaculate condition, which isn't hard to do
Speaker 1: when there's no play. Parked and walked in and Rocky
Speaker 1: met me, and you know, and I was kind of
Speaker 1: overwhelmed at the clubhouse, and especially when I come to
Speaker 1: the back windows and looked out and seeing the sand.
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting. That was the biggest surprise to me,
Speaker 1: to see all the natural sand. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know Michigan had sing you know in natural sand
Speaker 1: at that uh. And I told Rocky, you know, taking
Speaker 1: me a cheer of the golf course. He's, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cheer you the whole thing. That's why I made
Speaker 1: the whole thing. He said, well, we got three D
Speaker 1: and fifty lots here. There's five houses, there's they're not
Speaker 1: whoa whoa, you know, Rocky, I've actually just had a
Speaker 1: golf course up here. Oh no, they want to sell everything.
Speaker 1: Thompson knew right away he didn't truck enough turkeys to
Speaker 1: buy four students didn't play golf. This road around. It's
Speaker 1: been about three hours, had lunch, took a few pictures,
Speaker 1: drawback Traverse City. We caught a plane home and you know,
Speaker 1: I knew when I got here, and he want to
Speaker 1: tell me whether they want to sell all the five houses.
Speaker 1: I want to sell everything. Uh that I didn't have
Speaker 1: enough you know, powder for this deal. So you know,
Speaker 1: I just kind of walked the White Bank and it's old.
Speaker 1: The company is lou Thompson and Son Trucking. Son is
Speaker 1: Josh Thompson. Next morning, Uh, I went to work. I know,
Speaker 1: I went in my son's office and he said, how
Speaker 1: did the deal going? I said, well, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: fascinating place, but that's you know, I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to get something like I got at the Bridges.
Speaker 1: You know what, you're three million dollar deal and I
Speaker 1: want to tell you there's five homes up here, there's
Speaker 1: three hundred fifty lots, there's you know, world class golf
Speaker 1: course and this phenomenal clubhouse and start I said, this
Speaker 1: is out of my powder range. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much older. Josh Thompson, who is now the president,
Speaker 1: started with the company in his early twenties starts telling me,
Speaker 1: you know that there's there's five homes and three hundred
Speaker 1: lots and acres. And I said, you know, there's just
Speaker 1: no way you can. I mean, you're not even gonna
Speaker 1: come close. You're wasting your time, you know. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: you never know what what's under rock and you turned
Speaker 1: over about ten thirty year eleven. That morning, Uh, that
Speaker 1: I got home, I got a call from an asset
Speaker 1: manager for the pension fund and uh, he told me
Speaker 1: who he was and said, Hi, I just got off
Speaker 1: the phone with Rocky. Rocky told me, you know you
Speaker 1: who he was there. Come looked at it yesterday and
Speaker 1: he was very impressed with the place. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not in the golf course business, and
Speaker 1: we've tried to run it for a few years. We
Speaker 1: don't know what we're doing. It's not working for us.
Speaker 1: We want out. And uh, you know, he said, I
Speaker 1: do you really like the property? And so yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's awesome. But as I can tell you right now,
Speaker 1: I had no idea what it was when I went
Speaker 1: up there, or I wouldn't went up there because it's
Speaker 1: not something that I'm gonna be able to buy and
Speaker 1: he said, here's what I'd like to know. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what's that? And he said, what would
Speaker 1: you pay me today for their property and take over
Speaker 1: to more? And I said, pay you today and take
Speaker 1: over to more. He said yeah, and that's well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'd have to give that some thought and uh.
Speaker 1: He said, well think about that and I'll call you back.
Speaker 1: And so I hung up, and that's when I walked
Speaker 1: back into Josh said, hey, you're gonna blae this, but
Speaker 1: that pension fund manager called and you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make you me damn offer, you know. But before he
Speaker 1: could make that offer, we went looking for a little backup.
Speaker 1: And I had a friend who's in the banking business,
Speaker 1: and I had at the time a couple of million
Speaker 1: dollars and so I called Sam and asked him and
Speaker 1: I said, hey, I went looking a piece of property.
Speaker 1: You know, no way're not gonna get it bought. But
Speaker 1: I was going to throw with them lowball offer and
Speaker 1: see he said, is it goodness? Oh yeah, I said,
Speaker 1: you gotta couple extra me and he said yeah, And
Speaker 1: just to make him an offer. About twelve thirty, Anthony
Speaker 1: calls me back and says, how Mr Thompson, He said,
Speaker 1: you know, have you thought about it? You know? I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, I'll give you four million dollars cash today
Speaker 1: and take ordmor boy pisted him off, you know, and
Speaker 1: I mean he started kind of chining my ass out,
Speaker 1: you know, link fucking taking you know, four million dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, we got fifty five million dollars invested. You know.
Speaker 1: Did you not look me? Yeah? I mean hey, I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you know, don't be checking my ass out.
Speaker 1: You know. You called me and asked me what i'd
Speaker 1: give you for the property, and I told you then
Speaker 1: I didn't have the powder. And I said, I got
Speaker 1: four million dollars today. That's all I got. If that
Speaker 1: ain't good enough, you don't forget it. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I go back in Josh's office. I said, well, i'll
Speaker 1: it's had a boy off, you know. But in Josh
Speaker 1: that's funny, said, but Dad, I keep telling you you're
Speaker 1: wasting your time, you know, going thinking you're going to
Speaker 1: steal this stuff for nothing. You know, if it's from
Speaker 1: the pictures, I know you wouldn't gonna buy it anyway,
Speaker 1: So you know, go back to work and leave it alone.
Speaker 1: Let's get back now. Well, we know it can make
Speaker 1: some money. About thirty mat Slider, he calls me back
Speaker 1: from the pitching front and he said, you know, miss Thompson,
Speaker 1: He said, you know, we really need to sell that property,
Speaker 1: and you like the property and you're a candidate to
Speaker 1: buy the property. And he said, you know, we would
Speaker 1: like to have a conference call with some of the
Speaker 1: asset managers and other people and see if there's some
Speaker 1: way we can work something out. And he said, you know,
Speaker 1: would you be open to a conference call with some
Speaker 1: different people? You know? It's okay? So I give me emailing.
Speaker 1: About thirty minutes later, he sends me this link, you know,
Speaker 1: along with what were the nine or ten other names
Speaker 1: on it than the name on there I could pronounce
Speaker 1: her say you know, so no, no, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know we're a little country. And so then
Speaker 1: I go back in Josh's office. I, hey, son, guess
Speaker 1: what on a conference call in thirty minutes to an hour?
Speaker 1: You know, you know you gotta come in my office.
Speaker 1: It at two thirty I got this call, you know
Speaker 1: with the with the masset managers and he's back to
Speaker 1: do it. Ain't I ain't got time, you know, I'm working,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. And then about five minutes for the call,
Speaker 1: Josh comes in my office. She knows we've got to
Speaker 1: speak her phone on and we doll in, you know,
Speaker 1: of course, ding. We introduced ourselves. And then there's all
Speaker 1: this dinging, you know, everyone's introducing theirselfs just ding ding
Speaker 1: ding ding, you know. And we're sitting there and and
Speaker 1: this Anthony keeps asking, hey, Tony's at you. And finally
Speaker 1: after this is so and so, and after about the
Speaker 1: seventh or eighth guy comes on the phone. He said,
Speaker 1: Tony's at you. And he said no, no, he said,
Speaker 1: Tony said to start without him. He'll he'll join you
Speaker 1: here in a few minutes. Anyway, everyone's on the call.
Speaker 1: We're sitting there, and the asset manager he's telling everyone
Speaker 1: how Mr Thompson has been to the property, he's looked
Speaker 1: at it. He really likes it, you know. Uh, we
Speaker 1: want to sell it. We went out of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's there some low ass offer at us at four
Speaker 1: million dollars that we can't consider. But since he locks it,
Speaker 1: I felt, we felt I'll get together. We might come
Speaker 1: up with some way we could work out something and
Speaker 1: he said, you know how you what about would you
Speaker 1: give us four million dollars for half interstanding and we'd
Speaker 1: be silent partners and uh, you just go run and
Speaker 1: take care of it and we'd be you know, silent
Speaker 1: partners and give us four million dollars. That's well, they
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work. Uh, you know, first of all, I
Speaker 1: don't want to pay me into our fourth second, already
Speaker 1: got one partner to buy it anyway, and don't want
Speaker 1: you know, another bunch of partners. So that's not gonna happen,
Speaker 1: you know. And he said, well, what about you know,
Speaker 1: you give us eight million dollars and place four million
Speaker 1: down and we'll find it stuff for me work at
Speaker 1: any kind of times you want. You know, now that's
Speaker 1: not gonna work either, because you know it. You know,
Speaker 1: that's just not gonna work. And about that time, Dean,
Speaker 1: you know, the phone goes ding again. He said, tis
Speaker 1: like yeah, he said, where the hell you have that
Speaker 1: golf course? You know? And he swelled, you know, Mr Thompson,
Speaker 1: you know he's tell just Tony, Well, Mr Thompson come
Speaker 1: in yesterday, looked at it, loved it, you know. But
Speaker 1: he threw something a little four million dollar offer on us.
Speaker 1: You know that we can't even look at you know,
Speaker 1: and uh and he said, hey, Anthon, what the fox today?
Speaker 1: He saw? What's thursdy? Do you remember what I told
Speaker 1: you Monday. I don't give a funk who you sell
Speaker 1: it to or what you sell it for. I want
Speaker 1: to subits fucking sold by Friday. And click in my
Speaker 1: mouth at the floor. I'm just sitting there, going I
Speaker 1: didn't just has them. I mean it's quiet. I mean,
Speaker 1: no one's saying a word, you know, you know, we're
Speaker 1: just sitting there. I'm kind of stunned. And then Anthony said,
Speaker 1: you know, Lou, would you consider seven million today? I said,
Speaker 1: I think I'm good where I'm at that And he said, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think we can work out anything, but um,
Speaker 1: we'll get off here and we'll talk and we'll get
Speaker 1: back ways. You lighter today. You called me back at
Speaker 1: four o'clock and tell me to wire the money in
Speaker 1: the morning at nine o'clock and put it in an
Speaker 1: escrow and takes over the next tag. And that's what
Speaker 1: we did. Just how good was this deal? He said?
Speaker 1: They had fifty five million dollars in the project. You know,
Speaker 1: getty or do you not? I don't know, don't care.
Speaker 1: What exactly did Thompson get for his four million dollars? Well,
Speaker 1: I got dart acres at that was the five homes
Speaker 1: that they built out here. I got the homes, I
Speaker 1: got the clubhouse, I got the moments, I got old equipment,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, you know, and really, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew it was a goodbye on the property. What
Speaker 1: I did know that I had to come back and
Speaker 1: tell my wife a couple of days later, is just
Speaker 1: how's it doing? As well? You know, it's uh October
Speaker 1: and it's lost one point two million dollars this year.
Speaker 1: That was a little tough for her, you know. And
Speaker 1: you know one of the things you told me as well,
Speaker 1: I know the lands of worth that. But you know
Speaker 1: what makes you think you're a trucker? You go to
Speaker 1: Michigan who've never been and take over a golf operation
Speaker 1: and make it work when you've got professionals up there
Speaker 1: that's losing one point two million dollars running it, and
Speaker 1: I sway, yeah, but they don't realize what they got,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to run it as a private club.
Speaker 1: And I think if it's opened up to the public
Speaker 1: and I offer more things. You know that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get more than twenty rounds a day because people does
Speaker 1: not realize it's a hidden gym. How good it is.
Speaker 1: Under new ownership, lou Thompson dove in and started trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to fix the issues. People started
Speaker 1: coming to four Stints to play golf. Everybody loved the golf,
Speaker 1: but they'd pull up in the parking lot, get their
Speaker 1: clubs through it on a cart, go play around to golf,
Speaker 1: and then they'd grabbed their bag and they'd run to
Speaker 1: their car. Uh. Never come into the pro shop, never
Speaker 1: come into the lodge, you know. So you know I'm
Speaker 1: going and ask him what's going on here? You know.
Speaker 1: So I'm asked himbody, well, we're going on to Treetops
Speaker 1: or we're going on to Bourne, you know. Uh, we're
Speaker 1: playing you on her way up, you know, and we're
Speaker 1: getting out of here before it gets dark. So the
Speaker 1: first thing he did was build some lodging. That was
Speaker 1: my first big mistake because I built a twenty two
Speaker 1: room lodge and uh, we got it all architect and
Speaker 1: got it built to open the following year. But whenever
Speaker 1: we open he's booked up. You know, we come up
Speaker 1: here a waff, not come up here. One time we
Speaker 1: had to go start tree tops and no place to side,
Speaker 1: which starts a run of adding lodging. Each year he
Speaker 1: had more villas, and each year he did more rounds
Speaker 1: and more business in both the restaurant and the pro shop,
Speaker 1: which brings us to two fifteen. That's when I went
Speaker 1: and decided, well, made bill another golf course and called
Speaker 1: around several architects, and ah, Tom Doe, because he lived
Speaker 1: at Traverse City, he was my first candidate for the job.
Speaker 1: And in fifteen nobody was doing nothing, you know, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't like, you know, well, i'll come see in
Speaker 1: six months and you know we can start one in
Speaker 1: three years. You know, you call them, you know, forty
Speaker 1: five minutes later they're setting in your parking lot, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to give you a quote. Tom Doe gave Lou
Speaker 1: Thompson a lot more than a quote. He gave him
Speaker 1: a concept he had been thinking about for twenty years,
Speaker 1: a reversible routing eighteen greens that could be played in
Speaker 1: multiple directions. He needed the right land, the right owner,
Speaker 1: and the right timing. At four students. He had all
Speaker 1: of the above, and they called it the loop. So
Speaker 1: you know, once he presented that deal to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I instead of getting to stay one night,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking three nights. Now you know that I've got
Speaker 1: three golf courses and I'm getting two for the prices
Speaker 1: of one. And maybe that's an extraor not here and
Speaker 1: uh and and that's what it ended up being. And
Speaker 1: uh so we started building in fifteen and finished it
Speaker 1: into sixteen. Uh opened it in seventeen and that was good. Um,
Speaker 1: people started coming stay in to him three days. But
Speaker 1: then I realized, you got to have them just a
Speaker 1: little more for people. And uh in eighteen I built
Speaker 1: the putting course. I went to Pinhurst and I'd been
Speaker 1: to ben and Dunes and I loved their Part three.
Speaker 1: But when I went to Pinhurst and played their Part three,
Speaker 1: I realized with my grandkids, h and how many older
Speaker 1: people is playing it and how they enjoyed it. You know,
Speaker 1: I got to have a short course in addition to
Speaker 1: playing the Preserve and Cradle. Lou Thompson has been following
Speaker 1: the success of Winter Park nine in Florida, a renovation
Speaker 1: project that launched the budding partnership of Keith Reb and
Speaker 1: Riley Johns. Rebb spent most of his time working for
Speaker 1: Bill Core and Ben Crenshaw. Johns has worked for Corn Crenshaw,
Speaker 1: Jim Robina, Rod Whitman, and Tom Doak, which included scouting
Speaker 1: the land that eventually became the Loop. Now we're going
Speaker 1: back to late April of two thousand nineteen, meet Riley Johns.
Speaker 1: It was a cold call out of the blue. Basically,
Speaker 1: Keith and I just happened to be together. We were
Speaker 1: looking at a project in San Francisco and we're on
Speaker 1: the road ten fifteen minutes away from the airport and
Speaker 1: we get this call from from Lou out of the
Speaker 1: balloon and he says, boys, I want to build a
Speaker 1: short course, and I think you're the ones to do it.
Speaker 1: And we both look at each other like, is this
Speaker 1: for real? I asked Keith Rad. If Lou provided some direction,
Speaker 1: his first thing on his list was I want to
Speaker 1: place that I can play with my grandkids. And we're
Speaker 1: just like, well, that's all you that's all you needed
Speaker 1: to say. You know, well, a lot of people, it's
Speaker 1: not fortunate enough that spent a lot of times with
Speaker 1: their grandkids, and uh, I get spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with mine and I'm fortunate enough that they tuck
Speaker 1: up golf, but we get spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: together just because they're getting do what they want to do.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna do what I want to do, spend
Speaker 1: time with them, and it's something I enjoy h So
Speaker 1: you know it's a big deal for me. I mean
Speaker 1: it might I know, jayces start team now. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that this will last another tree or four years,
Speaker 1: but once the girls come in play, you know, Papa
Speaker 1: probably gonna be history. Rebend. John's knew this course needed
Speaker 1: to be special, and it was pretty clear from the
Speaker 1: start as to why we both got out on site.
Speaker 1: I forget exactly when. It was sometime in May and
Speaker 1: we're having to sit down with Lou and he and
Speaker 1: he looks at both of us and he goes, here's
Speaker 1: how this deal is gonna work. If it's good, I'm
Speaker 1: got to call the damn credit. If it's bad, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell your ass under the bus. He says, deal
Speaker 1: or like a deal. Rev was well aware of the
Speaker 1: situation they were getting themselves into. You got Tom's Tom
Speaker 1: wise cops of course, got Tom Dope Sports and then
Speaker 1: you got our little course stuck in the middle of that.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean there's there's there's there's pressure
Speaker 1: to to do something something great there because there's been
Speaker 1: great courses built right there and you can't can't mess up,
Speaker 1: and you know, so yeah, he did put pressure on us,
Speaker 1: you know, but but he gave us everything that we
Speaker 1: needed and and and let us do our thing, and
Speaker 1: and it was it was a fun and refreshing project
Speaker 1: to be on and be part of. On June, there
Speaker 1: was a soft opening for Reben John's ten whole Part
Speaker 1: three course, none longer than a hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 1: takes less than an hour to play, starts and finishes
Speaker 1: in front of the pavilion, the best hang zone on property.
Speaker 1: This was a one day sneak peek for members, staff
Speaker 1: and some media. I played a match against Thompson's two grandsons,
Speaker 1: Jason's thirteen and Jagger, who's nine. How about fifty bucks?
Speaker 1: A hold? Are you nervous? How a little bit? I
Speaker 1: am too? A little bit? I better get another drink.
Speaker 1: We can have everyone's attention, please, We're about to get
Speaker 1: started on behalf of Forest Dunes. We'd like to welcome
Speaker 1: you all here to our sneak peak opening of the
Speaker 1: to be named short course here at Forest Dunes. H
Speaker 1: Keith reb and Riley John's were the architects and visionaries
Speaker 1: behind this project. We are going to kick it off
Speaker 1: with a match featuring the grandsons of Lou Thompson, our owner,
Speaker 1: Jason and Jagger Thompson versus Matt Janella. The top boy
Speaker 1: will be scrambling what's this? What's what's some of that? Mat?
Speaker 1: I was nervous for them. I mean they both get
Speaker 1: on a t box in front of a big crowd
Speaker 1: with cameras and both them stiff the green You know,
Speaker 1: how good was that of it? I couldn't feel better
Speaker 1: as a papa. This is the first taping of the
Speaker 1: fire Pit at an actual fire pit. At the end
Speaker 1: of every podcast we ask every guest to tell what
Speaker 1: is their favorite fire pit and why, Josh, do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite fire pit? I love this one. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you just gotta sayah, Lou, well, you know I was
Speaker 1: up here, you know, sitting around here with the family,
Speaker 1: and you know, around the fire pit. I mean people
Speaker 1: back home in July and August when I'm up here
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting around a fire pit, and they feel
Speaker 1: like they're biking in an oven. I think I've lost
Speaker 1: my mind, you know, But I don't know as he
Speaker 1: had last year or the year before. We up here
Speaker 1: on the fourth of g Law weekend and got up
Speaker 1: and it was starting four or five degrees in the morning. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: there's just nothing more special. I mean to being in
Speaker 1: northern Michigan in the summertime. I mean, we're all enjoined
Speaker 1: the far. You know, it feels good, and uh you
Speaker 1: know we're in the June. Uh, It's just it's pretty special.
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Speaker 1: As a listener to this podcast, my friends John Ashworth
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Speaker 1: offering you a discount on all future orders of what
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the fire Pit. Let's produce
Speaker 1: by Alex Upeggy. It's edited by Rex Lint. The theme
Speaker 1: song is by Joe Horowitz. Please rate and review this
Speaker 1: podcast on Apple Podcasts, and we might track you down
Speaker 1: and send you one of our new Imperial Road Pads.
Speaker 1: Got a question, comment, or a story for us to
Speaker 1: track down. You can find me on Twitter at Matt
Speaker 1: Janella or on Instagram at Matt Underscore Janella. And if
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