Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried.
Speaker 2: Egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, frid
Speaker 2: egg egg, Frida egg brid egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 2: to run off of the hump. Welcome back to the
Speaker 2: Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and
Speaker 2: I am fresh off a wonderful week at weekend at
Speaker 2: Cyprus Point. Doesn't get much better than the Walker Cup there.
Speaker 2: Uh this year, it was just really cool to see,
Speaker 2: uh the event happen. I guess has uh you know,
Speaker 2: I think he'll probably be the only, uh'd be the
Speaker 2: only live golf.
Speaker 1: Event that I attend at Cyper's Point in my life.
Speaker 2: So it was really cool to see uh it there
Speaker 2: meet a ton of people. You know, it's just a
Speaker 2: lot different than your normal golf event in the sense
Speaker 2: of how the crowd interaction with with you know, media obviously,
Speaker 2: but the players and you know, no ropes.
Speaker 1: It was super fun. It was a great week.
Speaker 2: We'll get into that more on this podcast. I'm bringing
Speaker 2: in Garrett Morrison, who is the head of our golf
Speaker 2: architecture content here at at Friday Golf, and we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about the Walker Cup is Cyperus Point as
Speaker 2: well as the Ryder Coup venue Beth Page at the
Speaker 2: back end of this. So super exciting to chat about
Speaker 2: this with Garrett, who I'm sure has some thoughts from
Speaker 2: watching on TV this weekend. But it was a wonderful
Speaker 2: time out there and very very thankful that the the
Speaker 2: USGA and Csiper Point had this event, the Walker Cup.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it's funny, it's like a weird
Speaker 2: spot and we'll get more into this, but a weird
Speaker 2: spot in the sense it's like not one of their
Speaker 2: marquee events in terms of like how they've commercialized the
Speaker 2: Men's and Women's US Open, but in terms of quality
Speaker 2: of venue and players an event in format, it's about
Speaker 2: as good as it gets in all of golf. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious. I'm you know, I'm just very interested to
Speaker 2: see where the Walker Cup goes the next two decades.
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Speaker 2: in their partnership here this year. Let's get to Garrett
Speaker 2: Morrison now and let's talk Cyper's Point and Bethpage. Garrett,
Speaker 2: welcome out. How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing great? How are you doing? Andy?
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm kind of like coming down from a very
Speaker 2: packed weekend. It was I think you would you would
Speaker 2: have loved it. I don't want to rub it in
Speaker 2: here that you weren't there.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was just like how did that happen?
Speaker 2: The audience and the crowds there, It was just like
Speaker 2: a felt like almost like a festival of people that
Speaker 2: love golf.
Speaker 1: So in a way for sure, Yeah, in a.
Speaker 2: Way, I'm like just like extremely like burnt out, and
Speaker 2: I feel like toast from conversating with with so many
Speaker 2: people about golf from like sun up to sundown, uh
Speaker 2: and late end of the night, all weekend long, but
Speaker 2: also on a high of really, I you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of cool golf events that I will attend in
Speaker 2: my life, that is that is up there, and obviously
Speaker 2: this year's Masters is up there, but that event just
Speaker 2: from the hole where it was being played, they got
Speaker 2: absolutely stunning weather and in Cypress Point. Just spending three
Speaker 2: three straight days on Cypress Point was just such a
Speaker 2: pleasure and treat How did you? How were you? How
Speaker 2: did you feel about it? With the with television and
Speaker 2: watching from home?
Speaker 3: I thought it went well. I thought the course showed
Speaker 3: well on TV. I wasn't exactly sure whether it would
Speaker 3: really come through on TV as well as it did,
Speaker 3: but they did a pretty good job of portraying what
Speaker 3: the course looks like. And I think also that if
Speaker 3: you compare the way the course popped on TV for
Speaker 3: this Walker Cup to how it looked at the old
Speaker 3: Crosby's and at the nineteen eighty one Walker Cup, I
Speaker 3: think you gain an appreciation for how well the work
Speaker 3: that Corn Crenshaw have done in the past several years
Speaker 3: at Cyprus Point has gone. The course looks a lot
Speaker 3: better now. The work that they've done in the dunes,
Speaker 3: kind of stripping away some of that vegetation and exposing
Speaker 3: the white sand, has just been huge for the esthetics
Speaker 3: of the golf course. And so I think that's one
Speaker 3: thing that came through really clearly on TV. The bunker
Speaker 3: work looks great, the dunes look great, The course pops
Speaker 3: on TV, and so I was really glad to see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially with the weather that they got. I will say,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people that I talked to
Speaker 2: that hadn't been out there in a while mentioned how
Speaker 2: good the dunes look compared to the last time they
Speaker 2: were out there, and massive difference an area that they've
Speaker 2: really focused on in recent years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a big difference from what I saw
Speaker 3: when I lived in the area. I lived basically right
Speaker 3: right there for a while and used to walk by
Speaker 3: the golf course look at the golf course all the time,
Speaker 3: and the way the dunes look now is way different
Speaker 3: from how they looked ten years ago. So big kudos
Speaker 3: to the club, Big kudos to the ground staff that
Speaker 3: has kind of taken care of that. I think they've
Speaker 3: they've been working with Earth Sculpture as the contractor. They've
Speaker 3: done excellent, excellent work there kind of maintaining that native environment.
Speaker 3: It just looks great.
Speaker 2: On Saturday night, you know, I was out there all
Speaker 2: day Saturday. What I did was follow two matches and
Speaker 2: like one in the morning, one through eighteen, one in
Speaker 2: the afternoon one through eighteen, and you know, then kind
Speaker 2: of sat around and hung out with some people all
Speaker 2: night on Saturday, and then all of a sudden the
Speaker 2: replay came on. And what was amazing to me is
Speaker 2: like the group there was a fairly large group of
Speaker 2: us just then became entranced by the replay. There's all
Speaker 2: people that had been there that day, and then watching
Speaker 2: it on TV was truly stunning. I thought the thing
Speaker 2: that worked really well. And I think I can just
Speaker 2: imagine just some passer by on Golf Channel that maybe
Speaker 2: maybe didn't know this event was happening, maybe didn't know
Speaker 2: a ton about Cyprus Point the drone shots of the
Speaker 2: Peninsula of six seventeen were unbelievable, and I was, you know,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: Out there by Golf Channel. I mean they did their
Speaker 3: thing there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did.
Speaker 2: It was they had They had one of the new
Speaker 2: new drones too. You know obviously somebody I fly drone occasionally,
Speaker 2: and you know it was I was. I was looking
Speaker 2: at it. I had, I was close enough to see it.
Speaker 2: I was like I was a brand new drone and
Speaker 2: it showed like the the it was so crisp, and
Speaker 2: I just like I found myself when I was out there,
Speaker 2: but more so almost on TV with those drone shots.
Speaker 2: You know, this is a golf course. I've looked at
Speaker 2: a million times in my life. When I'm watching this
Speaker 2: television product, even you know myself, I'm just I just
Speaker 2: couldn't believe.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that.
Speaker 2: The course exists like that, that the golf course is
Speaker 2: on that land, and how it's just like this coastline
Speaker 2: just seemingly when you see it from up high, appears
Speaker 2: just perfect for golf.
Speaker 3: That's the thing about Cypress Point is that it does
Speaker 3: seem to occupy this realm of fantasy, almost like if
Speaker 3: you were to invent a piece of land for a
Speaker 3: spectacular golf course. This would almost be what you'd invent.
Speaker 3: You'd have some forest holes, you'd have some dunes holes,
Speaker 3: and you'd have spectacular cliffs, and you'd say, it's unrealistic
Speaker 3: that you could find a piece of land that has
Speaker 3: all those features, and you know, puts the designer in
Speaker 3: a situation where he or she can use all of
Speaker 3: those features. But that's exactly what happened with Cypress Point
Speaker 3: and Alistair Mackenzie, and it's part of what makes it
Speaker 3: such a remarkable golf course. Yeah. I mean, the drone
Speaker 3: shots were awesome in and of them. They were beautiful
Speaker 3: to look at, but there was also a really good
Speaker 3: directing and production choice that Golf Channel made, which was
Speaker 3: when the matches got to the fourteenth green and were
Speaker 3: transitioning away from the fourteenth green, Golf Channel made a
Speaker 3: choice to basically stop the flow of their coverage and
Speaker 3: have that drone follow the group from the fourteenth green
Speaker 3: to the fifteenth tee. The announcers went silent and just
Speaker 3: allowed the imagery to do the work. And it was
Speaker 3: one of the few moments, aside from maybe when somebody
Speaker 3: wins the Masters, like Tiger Rory wins the Masters, and
Speaker 3: they have that wonderful walk that everybody loves from the
Speaker 3: eighteenth green to the scoring area. One of the few
Speaker 3: moments in a golf telecast that I can remember when
Speaker 3: everything was silent for a minute and you were just
Speaker 3: being asked to look at the golf course and to
Speaker 3: observe how incredible that walk from the fourteenth green to
Speaker 3: the fifteenth tea is. And obviously there is something special
Speaker 3: about that green to tea transition, something unique about it
Speaker 3: that can't be replicated by telecasts of other tournaments. But
Speaker 3: it made me think about how this could be a
Speaker 3: way that a tournament broadcast could show a golf course
Speaker 3: to an audience. Just take a break every once in
Speaker 3: a while and have a drone kind of follow the
Speaker 3: route of the golf course and show some of the features,
Speaker 3: because it really gives you a vivid sense of what
Speaker 3: the course is like. And it's something that they can
Speaker 3: do now because they can incorporate these these drones into
Speaker 3: their array of cameras. So I just wish that we
Speaker 3: saw this more, We had more of these kind of
Speaker 3: moments of reflection when we aren't seeing golf shots, we
Speaker 3: aren't going from putt to putt to put to putt,
Speaker 3: we just stop for a moment and familiarize ourselves with
Speaker 3: with some golf hols. I think that would be something
Speaker 3: really cool that I don't think they're gonna do because
Speaker 3: I mean Cyper's point is is a very particular course
Speaker 3: and maybe they won't be inspired to do this at
Speaker 3: other courses. I just liked it and I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: I wish I saw more of this.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously this would work some places, maybe not others.
Speaker 2: I don't think, you know, TPC Craig Ranch is going
Speaker 2: to be able to do that kind of move.
Speaker 3: Who knows after the after the renovation by by House.
Speaker 1: Sutton, you know, Lanny Lanny, Lanny.
Speaker 3: Watkins us right, it's not how Sutton. Sorry, don't mean
Speaker 3: to defame hol Sutton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, after after the
Speaker 3: Lanny renovation, might be might be worthy of it.
Speaker 2: But I do think there are places that this could
Speaker 2: work really well, at say the Masters, where it could
Speaker 2: be neat, especially depending on the circumstance.
Speaker 3: I mean Nick has done something like you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: But this could work really well.
Speaker 2: And I think it where it would work really well
Speaker 2: is where you have a situation where a team has
Speaker 2: kind of or a couple players have have got Walker
Speaker 2: Cup Brain team, a couple players have separated themselves when
Speaker 2: we get these great kind of showdowns, and it's not
Speaker 2: like we need to see the guy that's in fifth
Speaker 2: place make a birdie to pull himself within six with
Speaker 2: four to go, you know, but where you can show
Speaker 2: a really nice transition of maybe twelve to thirteen, or
Speaker 2: probably the best one out there would be even thirteen
Speaker 2: to fourteen or eleven to twelve. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: holding on those shots allowing the audience to get a
Speaker 2: feel of the tournament. And what it does is it
Speaker 2: kind of simulates how you feel at the event when
Speaker 2: you're watching, and that that kind of tension that exists
Speaker 2: when you're in person watching these shots unfold, right, There's
Speaker 2: like a silent tension that comes in as players go
Speaker 2: through their routines and get ready to hit the shot.
Speaker 2: You feel that anxiety of the moment. And I think
Speaker 2: that's something with with golf telecasts. And this is something
Speaker 2: you just hit on that I had never really thought of,
Speaker 2: But that's something in golf telecasts because of and listen,
Speaker 2: I get like, show more shots, show more shots, show
Speaker 2: more shots, but there is something to allowing somebody to
Speaker 2: sit in the tension that has been missed a lot
Speaker 2: of times in particularly big moments are over big shots.
Speaker 3: It's just proper storytelling. Yes, it does convey the feeling
Speaker 3: of being at a tournament. When you're at a tournament,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of silent moments. When you're playing golf,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of silent moments, and so it
Speaker 3: would give the feeling of an actual golf round or
Speaker 3: watching an actual golf round. But more than that, proper
Speaker 3: storytelling involves an ebb and flow of tension. Sometimes there
Speaker 3: is slackening tension. Sometimes there needs to be a moment
Speaker 3: of silence or kind of low activity. And Cyprus Point
Speaker 3: embodies this principle of storytelling itself because within that golf
Speaker 3: course you have moments of low tension and moments of
Speaker 3: high tension and high excitement. So mackenzie was aware of
Speaker 3: this storytelling principle and incorporated it into his ideas for
Speaker 3: Cyprus Point. And I wish, yeah, I wish tournament telecasts
Speaker 3: would kind of go to school on those longstanding principles
Speaker 3: of storytelling and say, yeah, we don't need to be
Speaker 3: jumping from to golf shot. I think when golf fans
Speaker 3: say that they want to see a lot of golf shots,
Speaker 3: that they're not actually saying we want as many golf
Speaker 3: shots as possible to be packed into as little time
Speaker 3: as possible. I think they're saying, we want fewer commercials,
Speaker 3: and we want fewer CEO interviews. We want less irrelevant stuff,
Speaker 3: we want less non golf stuff. We want the golf
Speaker 3: to be the star. But to make the golf the star,
Speaker 3: it's not just about showing a lot of golf shots.
Speaker 3: It's also about having these moments of reflection where you
Speaker 3: can familiarize yourself with the venue, the golf course, the design,
Speaker 3: and the atmosphere of a golf tournament. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: crave that kind of stuff. I would I would definitely
Speaker 3: like fewer golf shots in most tournament telecasts and more more,
Speaker 3: you know, focus on telling the story of a golf tournament.
Speaker 3: Be selective, be smart about what you're showing. I don't.
Speaker 3: It's it's asking for a lot because I know they
Speaker 3: need to include the commercials that they include, they'd have
Speaker 3: these sponsor obligations, et cetera. But this is just what
Speaker 3: I would want as a viewer and watching this Walker
Speaker 3: Cup reminded me of that, because I didn't feel like
Speaker 3: I was being beaten down by a commercial load or
Speaker 3: that there were all these kind of you know, corporate
Speaker 3: entities that needed to be serviced during the telecast. It
Speaker 3: was much more about the golf and I really appreciated that.
Speaker 3: And of course when you're at a place like Cyprus Point,
Speaker 3: it becomes a kind of religious experience to watch golf
Speaker 3: in this way.
Speaker 2: I yeah. To me, like an area that they never show,
Speaker 2: right is like you see players hit fundamentally tournament changing
Speaker 2: shot on Sunday, and when that happens, they have a
Speaker 2: walk up to the green from usually an approach shot,
Speaker 2: and we always cut away there and that walk, I
Speaker 2: think is a fascinating one. This kind of lies with
Speaker 2: what you're saying, especially especially in the case of if
Speaker 2: it's two players in the same group duking it out,
Speaker 2: as you often get, but you get a player walking
Speaker 2: up to the green and that whole moment of will
Speaker 2: will they cash this? In that tension of it them
Speaker 2: acknowledging and dealing with a crowd that's going to be
Speaker 2: very supportive in that situation. These are all like things
Speaker 2: that I when I go to tournaments, you like kind
Speaker 2: of watch and feel I think like for me, one
Speaker 2: of the things I took away from this week is
Speaker 2: like just you know, match play obviously is a phenomenal
Speaker 2: thing to watch, but just to watch the ebb and
Speaker 2: flow and the the in between shots mannerisms of players,
Speaker 2: particularly young players, that some of them show their emotions
Speaker 2: a little bit more than you get on PGA Tour
Speaker 2: because they're younger, and you know, they're feeling more things
Speaker 2: and they haven't.
Speaker 1: Things as much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it was standardized, it's less standardized golf.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was fascinating to watch how like these you could
Speaker 2: see players tempos and pre shot routines, like kind of
Speaker 2: differing from shot to shot based off of circumstances. And
Speaker 2: and I think that's something with the with the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: you start to like.
Speaker 1: You you get blind or are.
Speaker 2: Almost oblivious to because these guys get just so good
Speaker 2: at refining their process and can you know, like you
Speaker 2: you talk to these sports psychologists and and and tour
Speaker 2: or that and coaches, and they talk about how you know,
Speaker 2: you just try these guys practice routines now where they
Speaker 2: practice how they get into a ball and you're watching
Speaker 2: these matches and depending on the moments, like you see
Speaker 2: guys just going faster or slower, and it's a it's
Speaker 2: one of those, you know. And I know we're talking
Speaker 2: really nitty gritty here about golf, but I think it's
Speaker 2: one of the things that makes the game really beautiful.
Speaker 2: And it's so hard to convey through a TV. But
Speaker 2: I think one of the I guess things that I
Speaker 2: took away and I think you hit on this a
Speaker 2: little bit, is just how pure of a golf event
Speaker 2: this is. This is this is golf, you know, the
Speaker 2: walker cups like you know, golf four oh one, and
Speaker 2: the wonderful nature. And I don't you know, some of
Speaker 2: the broadcasts did not live up to this. I think
Speaker 2: the the some of the broadcast crew, you know, just
Speaker 2: frankly didn't do their homework or But anyways, this, this
Speaker 2: high level of golf is what we should be conveying
Speaker 2: more often because it is.
Speaker 1: Not dumbing down.
Speaker 2: Golf provide such a sophisticated and wonderful product that people
Speaker 2: are just going to love. And when people love stuff,
Speaker 2: other people become interested in it.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, people, people are attracted to passion. They want
Speaker 3: to find out more about it, and yeah, it's it's
Speaker 3: a kind of an indication of where we are that
Speaker 3: that feels so rare in professional golf these days, that
Speaker 3: the focus so rarely seems to be on a passion
Speaker 3: for golf. But there's really no you know, no, there's
Speaker 3: no financial reason for the Walker Cup. Who exists exist?
Speaker 3: I think I think it exists for for the love
Speaker 3: of the game primarily, you know, yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 3: not it's not completely altruistic or anything. It's certainly people
Speaker 3: paid to be on site, and you know, it's a
Speaker 3: good it's probably a good branding exercise for the USGA,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. But at the core of it,
Speaker 3: the main reason that it exists is the love of
Speaker 3: the game. And that's that's always something that's fun to
Speaker 3: be part of and inspirational to be part of. So
Speaker 3: you were Andy, you were actually on site here. We've
Speaker 3: we've talked a bit about the about the broadcast experience,
Speaker 3: the at home experience. I'm really curious about some of
Speaker 3: your some of your on site observations. Was there anything
Speaker 3: new that you found out about the golf course seeing
Speaker 3: these guys, these guys play it. Yeah, I thought it.
Speaker 3: I thought it held up well. I mean I expected
Speaker 3: I expected these guys to overwhelm certain holes like thirteen
Speaker 3: for instance. You know, like thirteen is somewhat defenseless to
Speaker 3: a degree. But I was actually pretty pleased to see
Speaker 3: that the golf course was pushing back a bit on
Speaker 3: certain holes.
Speaker 2: I kind of walked away with I think that this
Speaker 2: event more pushed like the anybody that watched this event.
Speaker 2: We need a ball roll back, We need just a
Speaker 2: general equipment roll back would be.
Speaker 1: By general thought.
Speaker 2: Many of the hazards of Cyprus point we're just being
Speaker 2: bypassed by just hitting it over them. I was watching
Speaker 2: the Nile Shields done again Jacob Midlesky match on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Midleski he really moves the ball, and you know on twelve,
Speaker 2: you know part four and anybody that's played there like
Speaker 2: that right side is just sneaky. It just eats golf balls.
Speaker 2: It's a really it's kind of a tricky t shot.
Speaker 2: You just feel like you can hit it right and
Speaker 2: cover this like sandy area. But it just seemingly like
Speaker 2: if you are if you don't play pretty conservative about
Speaker 2: that tea, that right side will just swallow off balls.
Speaker 2: And on Saturday, Midleski just gets up. You could tell
Speaker 2: he's gonna put a little extra into this one, and
Speaker 2: he just hits it over everything and he's left with
Speaker 2: like fifty sixty yards into that green and it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I guess it's pretty simple when you can do that,
Speaker 2: And I think like that would be the thing to
Speaker 2: be that uh, you know, as great as as it
Speaker 2: was to watch the golf out there, there wasn't much wind,
Speaker 2: and I don't think the golf course has a lot
Speaker 2: of strategy at sixty six hundred yards with how far.
Speaker 1: These guys hit the ball.
Speaker 2: There were not decisions being made on any part five,
Speaker 2: whether they were long part fours or part fives, because
Speaker 2: they converted them must.
Speaker 3: Unless it was should I pull my fifty six or
Speaker 3: my sixty?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you watch these, you watch like a great
Speaker 2: hole like like five where you know it, And I think, like,
Speaker 2: this is the point of the rollback is, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm necessarily a short hitter. I'm I'm
Speaker 2: I would be short by PGA Tour standards, but I
Speaker 2: think about the way I play five and I have
Speaker 2: to kind of like bend it around a cross bunker
Speaker 2: that cuts in and I have to hit I have
Speaker 2: to get on that tee and I got to hit
Speaker 2: a draw on on that hole. And if I could
Speaker 2: hit a draw, it's such a fun t shot because
Speaker 2: it kind of banks around this bunker that cuts in
Speaker 2: from the left on a diagonal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're.
Speaker 2: Watching these kids just all just hit it right over
Speaker 2: the bunker and they end up down in the valley.
Speaker 2: And then they had got you know, a relatively short
Speaker 2: iron like eight irons and such into the into the green.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. It's up on a ridge. But when
Speaker 2: you're hitting an eight iron in it's just it's just
Speaker 2: mutes so much of the you know, interest of that.
Speaker 2: And and there was no thoughts of any sorts of
Speaker 2: layup on that hole. You know, I didn't want is.
Speaker 3: So interesting there too. Yeah, that's the problem. It's such
Speaker 3: a nuanced layup on that par five because you can
Speaker 3: kind of be close to the cross bunkers, you know,
Speaker 3: get just over the cross bunkers and be up high,
Speaker 3: or if you go farther past the cross bunkers, you'll
Speaker 3: be closer to the green, but you'll be down in
Speaker 3: this gully, and so there are a number of different
Speaker 3: options on how to play that layup. There's also kind
Speaker 3: of right and left options as well, and just for
Speaker 3: that to be bypassed entirely and to have the whole
Speaker 3: play as a part four is a bummer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's like even more so like a whole like two,
Speaker 2: which is a longer par five. It was just everybody's
Speaker 2: going for the green, even whether you were in position
Speaker 2: or out of position. And then that layup there's some
Speaker 2: interesting bunkers in the layup area, but it didn't matter
Speaker 2: because they're just hitting it past it. So I think
Speaker 2: like one of the things for me was was just
Speaker 2: and I think there was it was very intentional with
Speaker 2: Cyprus Point. They want to say, we did not build
Speaker 2: any bactees for this event. You're coming and you're playing
Speaker 2: the golf course as is. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that happened because they did that was it illuminated the
Speaker 2: massive distance issue in the sport of golf, where you know,
Speaker 2: there that stretch of holes really like eleven Cyper's Point,
Speaker 2: you know it punched back into places, but holes eleven, twelve,
Speaker 2: thirteen are very challenging, is a very challenge of really
Speaker 2: eleven through fourteen, it's a very challenging stretch of holes
Speaker 2: out there. But you know, eleven, they're hitting short irons
Speaker 2: into it's a you know, maybe even wedges into it's
Speaker 2: a four hundred and seventy yard part four they you know, twelve,
Speaker 2: they're hitting little flip ledges into thirteen's flip ledge. And
Speaker 2: then fourteen because of the trees, forced them to hit,
Speaker 2: you know, a shot of consequence in terms of like
Speaker 2: an eight iron into a green that pels in all ways.
Speaker 2: But you know, those that stretch of golf. You know,
Speaker 2: outside of sixteen, there was no spot on the golf
Speaker 2: course that had these like huge moments of consequence, and
Speaker 2: that's because they were hitting such short clubs into them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I had low expectations for how Cypress
Speaker 3: Point would hold up in this tournament because I'm aware
Speaker 3: of how far these guys hit the ball, and I'm
Speaker 3: also aware of the dimensions of cypress Point, which are
Speaker 3: more suited to a player like me than they are
Speaker 3: to Jackson coyven. So I was at least pleased to see,
Speaker 3: at least from home, that there were challenging shots out
Speaker 3: there that the greens were giving these guys fits in
Speaker 3: some places, and if they missed in the wrong place,
Speaker 3: they ended up in these native areas that had a
Speaker 3: lot of unpredictability. The dunesy areas at Cypress we talked
Speaker 3: about earlier how they've been cleared out recently, and I
Speaker 3: think that that has enhanced the chanciness of them. There's
Speaker 3: a little bit of Pinehurst there where sometimes you can
Speaker 3: end up in a patch of ice plant, or you
Speaker 3: can end up in some weird native grasses, or you
Speaker 3: can just get a weird beachy lye in the sand,
Speaker 3: and you're in a lot of trouble. You can't you
Speaker 3: can't properly get the club on the ball. Then the
Speaker 3: cypress trees themselves if you if you miss on fourteen
Speaker 3: or on eighteen. Cypress trees are not a fun type
Speaker 3: of tree to hit a golf ball out of.
Speaker 1: You know, they're worry about you got worry about them
Speaker 1: getting stuck.
Speaker 3: You got yeah, well you got to worry about injury. Probably.
Speaker 3: There are all these like low branches and just you know,
Speaker 3: gnarrowly twisted sort of forms that again provide unpredictability. And
Speaker 3: so I liked seeing some of that. I liked that
Speaker 3: the course was seeming to provide at least some interesting
Speaker 3: scenarios for these guys. But if you look at the
Speaker 3: design intent of especially the bunkering at Cyprus Point, which
Speaker 3: bunkers Mackenzie really meant to factor into t shots, then
Speaker 3: you can see that those have have clearly become irrelevant
Speaker 3: for players of this kind. And really the bunkers that
Speaker 3: are affecting their decision making off the tee are often
Speaker 3: bunkers that were meant to guard against second shots, and
Speaker 3: so you know, things have just gotten ridiculous and out
Speaker 3: of control.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the uh I will say, like one of the
Speaker 2: things that I didn't you know, I think gets lost
Speaker 2: because of the land and the setting of Cyber's Point
Speaker 2: that showed out great was just how good the greens
Speaker 2: are and how interesting the greens at Cyper's Point are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they get.
Speaker 2: Total overshadowed by everything else it has. You rarely hear
Speaker 2: people say, you know, Cyper's Point, that's a great set
Speaker 2: of greens, but they they really are a spectacular set
Speaker 2: of greens that have a lot of variety. You know,
Speaker 2: they have some some wild greens. One that kind of
Speaker 2: just kept catching my eye when I walked by it
Speaker 2: that you know, I never had given too much thought
Speaker 2: to was like the tenth green, a hole in the
Speaker 2: middle of the routing that you know, doesn't get talked
Speaker 2: about it a lot, But then you look at that green.
Speaker 1: You could just sit there and stare at it, you know.
Speaker 2: And and and then they have just some greens that
Speaker 2: rely on tilt that are really really fantastic greens, and
Speaker 2: especially coupled with the firmness that they were able to
Speaker 2: get because obviously, you know, we got rain today, which
Speaker 2: was very shocking in September, but there hasn't been rain
Speaker 2: since since April, so it just provided an unbelievable opportunity
Speaker 2: to present a really firm surface that really rewarded great
Speaker 2: strikes in great shots.
Speaker 3: It's good that it was firm. It's not always a
Speaker 3: guarantee on the Monterey Peninsula.
Speaker 2: Oh and in summer, I think it's got It had
Speaker 2: very little chance of not being firm.
Speaker 3: End of summer is yeah, definitely the best time. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I always kind of wonder what it would be like
Speaker 3: to have a big tournament at Pebble Beach in August
Speaker 3: or September. I think that would be a very different
Speaker 3: kind of golf course than the one that we see
Speaker 3: in that we see in February or even June for
Speaker 3: the US Open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was condition from the Pebble Beach company about how
Speaker 2: they just need to convince the usj to move the
Speaker 2: US Open to September.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's kind of what we're relying on with,
Speaker 3: you know, a US Open at Pebble Beach every five
Speaker 3: years for the next fifty years. But in any case,
Speaker 3: back to SIPs Uh, the the greens are are incredible,
Speaker 3: partly because they are original. I mean, those greens have
Speaker 3: not been rebuilt. They don't have the you know, the
Speaker 3: precision are underneath them. These are original push up alistair
Speaker 3: Mackenzie greens. And part of what that means is that
Speaker 3: a lot of them are a lot more tilted than
Speaker 3: any modern architect would build the fourth Green for instance.
Speaker 3: You know, you just wouldn't make a to the speeds exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it is pushing it. You know,
Speaker 3: those greens were obviously built to stimp at far far
Speaker 3: slower rates than are expected now out of an elite
Speaker 3: golf course. But the result is when when you bring
Speaker 3: in some of the most talented golfers in the world.
Speaker 3: You can turn up the speeds a little bit on
Speaker 3: these greens and and they they push back quite a bit.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was always good to see. One small
Speaker 3: thing that I was curious about, Andy, because we didn't
Speaker 3: see this much on the telecast. But it's just like
Speaker 3: a really particular curiosity I have about one hole at Cyprus,
Speaker 3: and that's the eighth hole. Part of what makes the
Speaker 3: design of the eighth hole really interesting is that it's
Speaker 3: a split level fairway. So the fairway kind of sits
Speaker 3: on a diagonal in relation to the tea, and a
Speaker 3: dune ridge runs diagonally across the tee shot, and the
Speaker 3: part of the fairway that is closest to the tee
Speaker 3: is high up, and then the rest of the fairway
Speaker 3: is low and you're hitting an approach into a tremendously
Speaker 3: elevated and very severely contoured green, and so being up
Speaker 3: on that higher portion of the fairway is a big advantage.
Speaker 3: But in order to get there, you really have to
Speaker 3: challenge that dune ridge and trust your shot because it
Speaker 3: is completely blind to that portion of the fairway hitting
Speaker 3: over the dunes. It's also like a pretty narrow section
Speaker 3: of the fairway, so it's hard to even hold. But
Speaker 3: I was wondering if you saw any any shots that
Speaker 3: ended up on that higher portion of the fairway. Is
Speaker 3: that even Oh is that something that they were looking
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: I think they were trying to And then you saw
Speaker 2: like the the part of that, you know, is you
Speaker 2: want to get up on that ridge and the worst place,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe the worst miss outside of the ocean at
Speaker 2: Cyprus Point is missing right on eight is off the tee.
Speaker 1: Is it is effectively you are.
Speaker 2: Not kicked out, Yeah, and you're just hoping you can
Speaker 2: get the ball to the fairway from where you from
Speaker 2: that spot.
Speaker 1: So I saw some.
Speaker 2: Players do that, and then I saw a good number
Speaker 2: of players miss right into that.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of players were.
Speaker 2: Content to be very very conservative on that whole, and
Speaker 2: they just were going to take the air one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yard shot uphill into the green and just
Speaker 2: not mess around with that and not do something silly, knowing, hey,
Speaker 2: I can hit one of these shots in there close.
Speaker 2: I think what would have been really interesting is, you know,
Speaker 2: and enhance the tournament.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the big things that it was missing was
Speaker 2: just breeze if we could have gotten a good breeze
Speaker 2: and eight was all sudden playing into the wind, that shot,
Speaker 2: that very conservative t shot is a lot less appetizing
Speaker 2: when you're hitting one hundred and fifty yards into into
Speaker 2: like a twenty mile an hour wind. Up fifty you
Speaker 2: know what plays up like ten to fifteen yards. You know,
Speaker 2: when if you got these guys all a sudden having
Speaker 2: to hit seven's and six irons into that green instead
Speaker 2: of nines or pitching wedges, they I think that they
Speaker 2: would have wanted to challenge it even more. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that you know, the wind was the one thing
Speaker 2: that just didn't show up, and I think like that's
Speaker 2: the one thing that I wish we would have seen,
Speaker 2: because particularly, you know, your young players, you tend to
Speaker 2: see them struggle a little bit more in the wind,
Speaker 2: and then the course would have presented probably a lot
Speaker 2: more teeth. But you know, one of my one of
Speaker 2: my other big takeaways was just I don't think the
Speaker 2: recipe for golf is that hard.
Speaker 1: To me.
Speaker 2: Team match play at great golf courses is a pretty
Speaker 2: unbeatable recipe. And you know, at this point, the only real,
Speaker 2: you know, consistent version of of this is at the
Speaker 2: Walker Cup or the Curtis Cup.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, because the writers kind of television goes to
Speaker 3: bad golf courses for the most part.
Speaker 2: But but this is this was a thing is like
Speaker 2: and and these events and and I know like if
Speaker 2: you tried to if you tried to scale this out,
Speaker 2: you'd lose some of the luster of it. But these
Speaker 2: events being able to be played at the world's best
Speaker 2: golf courses are and the ease of understanding for a
Speaker 2: common fan of what the event is. It's the US
Speaker 2: versus the GB and I or in the Ryder Cups case,
Speaker 2: US versus Europe the fandoms.
Speaker 1: This is a good event.
Speaker 2: This is a good style of event for golf because
Speaker 2: it's easy to understand, it has fan interests because of
Speaker 2: the nationality, rooting interests, and.
Speaker 1: Then the great golf courses.
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody that was, you know, that just
Speaker 2: passed by wouldn't have been, you know, awestruck by the
Speaker 2: visuals of Cyprus.
Speaker 1: Point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it is pretty simple and yet pretty rare
Speaker 3: for a lot of reasons, right. And I feel like
Speaker 3: I've had this explain to me condescendingly so many times
Speaker 3: over the years that I've just really gotten sick of it. No,
Speaker 3: of course, we can't go to great golf courses because
Speaker 3: the great golf courses don't want big tournaments. Say you know, no,
Speaker 3: the Irish Open can't be at links courses. Of course
Speaker 3: not we can't do that. We have to go to
Speaker 3: the k Club and Mount Juliet because you know that
Speaker 3: the links courses just just don't don't want the events.
Speaker 3: That's unrealistic and it just kind of drives me crazy
Speaker 3: because I think that golf fans have been browbeaten into
Speaker 3: accepting mediocrity. But the Walker Cup exists. We have the
Speaker 3: Walker Cup, so we know how good it can be.
Speaker 3: And yet we've just convinced ourselves that this is not
Speaker 3: a realistic model for golf. And I'm not sure how
Speaker 3: to get out of that mindset. I am grateful for
Speaker 3: the Walker Cup, but it is I mean, it's a
Speaker 3: drop in the bucket in the the total landscape of
Speaker 3: high profile, elite golf. They only had a total of
Speaker 3: what six hours of TV coverage of this event. You
Speaker 3: had to kind of seek it out and unless you
Speaker 3: have peak.
Speaker 1: That was one of my other other takeaways.
Speaker 3: It is such a small event and I'm sure that
Speaker 3: that there would be some resistance from the USGA and
Speaker 3: the RNA to really commercializing this event. You wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 3: have to commercialize it, maybe just cover more of it.
Speaker 3: I wish that felt more possible. But it seems like
Speaker 3: a precondition of the Walker Cup being as good as
Speaker 3: it is going to the courses that it goes to
Speaker 3: and just feeling as good and as pure as it does.
Speaker 3: It seems like a precondition of that is that it
Speaker 3: that it has to be somewhat obscure, and that's that's
Speaker 3: kind of a shame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I I think about you know, obviously TGL is aimed
Speaker 2: at being something completely different than this, but some sort
Speaker 2: of I'd.
Speaker 3: Like to see how you're going to bring these threads
Speaker 3: together here, TJ.
Speaker 2: But some sort of of league of teams that played small,
Speaker 2: intimate matches at the world's best golf courses. You know,
Speaker 2: I know that it could be difficult to do this,
Speaker 2: To try and do this, I can't imagine that the
Speaker 2: TV product would staining.
Speaker 3: Well, what we're missing. Part of what we're missing here
Speaker 3: is Shelle's wonderful world of golf that doesn't really have
Speaker 3: the I guess the team component that you're looking for,
Speaker 3: but you you could have some sort of nationality angle
Speaker 3: come into play with with some matches, maybe you have
Speaker 3: a foursome's match or something like that. But that was
Speaker 3: Shelle's Wonderful World of Golf was a great combination of
Speaker 3: these kind of small intimate matches driven by personality made
Speaker 3: into a workable TV product. But nobody's been able to
Speaker 3: recapture the magic of that program. Obviously it went away
Speaker 3: in the nineties, so I mean it just hasn't survived
Speaker 3: or resurfaced any any time in recent history. But something
Speaker 3: like that would be a wonderful addition to the competitive
Speaker 3: golf landscape.
Speaker 2: I think the hard thing with this, and I want to,
Speaker 2: you know, provide the counterpoint to what I just laid out,
Speaker 2: is that golf, the commercial side of golf, has almost
Speaker 2: become too big for a great golf product. And when
Speaker 2: you think about Shell's Wonderful World of Golf, I would
Speaker 2: love to see it come back.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: My biggest fear of it coming back would be then
Speaker 2: the and I think probably the reality is that the
Speaker 2: course selection would be dictated by who pays to be
Speaker 2: a golf course.
Speaker 3: Well just turn into the match, right, isn't The match
Speaker 3: is like our current version of that, but of course
Speaker 3: it's nowhere nowhere.
Speaker 2: Close and it becomes in the match is just this
Speaker 2: huge cash. It's just this huge commercial operation, which then
Speaker 2: basically makes it so hard to have a great golf
Speaker 2: product when you have a huge commercialization. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to be naive and acts like it takes no
Speaker 2: money to put these things on, but I just think
Speaker 2: I would just love for somebody to take a long
Speaker 2: range view of this and say, if I make a
Speaker 2: great golf product, the payoff might not be day one
Speaker 2: and it might not be year one, but if I
Speaker 2: make a great golf product, eventually there will be a
Speaker 2: bigger payoff than just making these golf products that seemingly
Speaker 2: nobody asks for. And the walker cups this version of golf,
Speaker 2: especially with modern television, modern capabilities, and we saw Golf
Speaker 2: Channel put out there I think probably about a c effort,
Speaker 2: but just because of the product that they were televising,
Speaker 2: and when I say the product they were televising, the
Speaker 2: golf course, the players, and the format this event, like
Speaker 2: you're watching it and you're mesmerized like almost any unlike
Speaker 2: almost any other event on the calendar all year, and
Speaker 2: I just like, I guess that's my biggest gripe with
Speaker 2: Shell's Wonderful World. If it comes back, it will be
Speaker 2: killed by commercialization before it ever starts. And that's maybe
Speaker 2: a very negative viewpoint on the subject, but it feels
Speaker 2: to me like executives in golf cannot get out of
Speaker 2: their own way with ruining something, and like the Walker
Speaker 2: Cup in a way, the USGA, I think they don't.
Speaker 2: They're like kind of they're confused about what they should
Speaker 2: do with it because of the lack of commercial success
Speaker 2: that it has in an organization that's become much more
Speaker 2: focused on commercialization on top of many other things that
Speaker 2: they do. I think it's confusing for them as to
Speaker 2: what it should do. But it also might be the
Speaker 2: best golf products that they own.
Speaker 3: It's tremendous for their brand as an organization and the
Speaker 3: RNA's brand as an organization to have this event in
Speaker 3: their roster, and I think they should just see it
Speaker 3: as this tournament represents us well and makes our rhetoric
Speaker 3: that we are about preserving and defending and enriching the
Speaker 3: game of golf. Seem legitimate, because if all you have
Speaker 3: as you're you know, you know, your big products in
Speaker 3: the world of golf are the us OPENS, then that
Speaker 3: rhetoric is going to seem false. It's going to seem
Speaker 3: like you are primarily a commercial organization rather than one
Speaker 3: that is genuinely interested in the future of golf. But
Speaker 3: if you're the organization or one of the organizations behind
Speaker 3: the Walker Cup, then then then people might actually believe
Speaker 3: you when you say you care about golf. And I
Speaker 3: do believe that the USGA cares about golf. I really
Speaker 3: do think that the people in charge love this event
Speaker 3: and are devoted to the form of golf that it represents.
Speaker 3: And it's because of their efforts that this tournament has
Speaker 3: gone to such a great array of courses over the
Speaker 3: past century. And so all credit to them for propping
Speaker 3: this event up and keeping it going, but it should
Speaker 3: be I hope there's not any doubt in the organization
Speaker 3: that this is an important thing to keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I would echo your thoughts on the
Speaker 2: us AA, LOV and golf. I think that that's very
Speaker 2: evident with some of the decisions they've made. And I
Speaker 2: think just in terms of you know, you spend time
Speaker 2: with them at an event like this, it's it's clear.
Speaker 1: You can see it on their faces how excited they
Speaker 1: are about about the event. And I think that was.
Speaker 2: It was a great week there. I want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about about Beth Page too. Do you
Speaker 2: have any parting thoughts on Cyprus that you want to
Speaker 2: get out?
Speaker 3: It was a wonderful weekend. Yeah, I hope everybody enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: It was. It was really a time to kind of
Speaker 3: sit and soak it in and enjoy a great golf course,
Speaker 3: a super rare opportunity. If you think that, think about
Speaker 3: how the last Walker Cup there was forty four years ago.
Speaker 3: That is a long long time ago, and it might.
Speaker 1: Be last Crosby was thirty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it might be a long time before before we
Speaker 3: see it again. So so I hope everybody took a
Speaker 3: chance to to just enjoy it, because I mean, what
Speaker 3: a golf course. It's it's just incredible. So glad glad
Speaker 3: that this happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would.
Speaker 2: The last thing I have is spectacular alternate shots, just spectacular.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so good. They should they should have more
Speaker 3: of it in the in the Walker Cup.
Speaker 2: I feel I think that they got to figure something
Speaker 2: out with the with the format because of the eighteenth
Speaker 2: sickle smatches just singles.
Speaker 3: There's is rough for GB and I yeah, just the
Speaker 3: talent disparity. Really, it's it's hard to overcome that and
Speaker 3: when you have those those two rounds of singles.
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Speaker 1: Let's get to bed Page.
Speaker 2: You you made your first trip out to this, uh,
Speaker 2: I mean landmark American Landmark of golf beth Page State Park.
Speaker 2: We're a couple of weeks away from the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2: I want to do kind of a short segment here.
Speaker 2: I know we're going to be, you know, everybody in
Speaker 2: the golf world is going to be just beating people
Speaker 2: over the head with Ryder Cup stuff. But it is
Speaker 2: a spectacle, and this year it's going to one of
Speaker 2: you know, American golf's landmark locations, beth Page and particularly
Speaker 2: the bath of the Black Course.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've already been getting getting beat over
Speaker 3: the head by Ryder Cup content, and.
Speaker 2: Not just like if there wasn't a Walker Cup, I
Speaker 2: know exactly, we have nothing else, it would have been awful.
Speaker 3: It was very fortunate. You're right, You're absolutely right, because
Speaker 3: right that the entire month of September would just be
Speaker 3: a blitz. I mean it's been. I feel like Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup content is an every year, year round kind of
Speaker 3: kind of deal right now. But I haven't actually seen
Speaker 3: that much discussion of the golf course. And that's why
Speaker 3: part of why I was so interested in going to
Speaker 3: see it. I mean, I was going to go see
Speaker 3: it no matter what, but I was particularly excited about
Speaker 3: this trip to go see the Black Course at beth
Speaker 3: Page just because I feel like I haven't seen much
Speaker 3: good content on this course. I haven't had anybody explain
Speaker 3: to me what's unique or remarkable about this course beyond
Speaker 3: the fact that it is very, very difficult. It has
Speaker 3: that sign out front that just portrays it as kind
Speaker 3: of the black Diamond Ski run of beth Page State Park.
Speaker 3: We know that about it, we know that it's hard,
Speaker 3: but beyond that, I didn't have a clear idea of
Speaker 3: what to expect from this course. So I was very
Speaker 3: very keen to get my eyes on this course, walk
Speaker 3: it and check it out, and maybe find out some
Speaker 3: things that I didn't know about it before.
Speaker 1: What were you What was the big takeaway?
Speaker 2: What was the thing that kind of to that most
Speaker 2: resonated with you with the With the Black Course.
Speaker 3: Two takeaways kind of related to each other. One is
Speaker 3: a plus land, two is a plus routing. I think
Speaker 3: those are the biggest strength strengths of the Black Course.
Speaker 3: It's not that the course is hard. That's not the
Speaker 3: leading characteristic of the black Horse or the thing that
Speaker 3: makes it a high quality course. It's not just that
Speaker 3: it's hard, though it is definitely very very difficult. I
Speaker 3: think the fact that it sits on extremely good land.
Speaker 3: They they obviously kind of selected the best land that
Speaker 3: they had at their disposal in this area and put
Speaker 3: the Black Course on it. Kind of prioritized the Black
Speaker 3: Course in that way, and then the routing works with
Speaker 3: the land so well. So, first of all, the land
Speaker 3: I think is really great for golf because it's dramatic
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of elevation change, a lot of
Speaker 3: topographical interest, but it's never too severe. So you know,
Speaker 3: Bethpage kind of sits on this land that is more
Speaker 3: or less. You know, there's not like an overall tilt
Speaker 3: to the land. It's not on a hillside or anything.
Speaker 3: It doesn't you know that the farthest point of the
Speaker 3: course is at about the same elevation as the first
Speaker 3: t But what you have in between are all of
Speaker 3: these kind of up and down ridges and valleys, and
Speaker 3: they're very interesting and all of them are kind of
Speaker 3: sized to accommodate golf holes, so you know, you know,
Speaker 3: you never spend like multiple holes trying to get across
Speaker 3: one landform at beth Page. You're always kind of tackling
Speaker 3: a new landform and kind of getting done with it
Speaker 3: by the end of the hole. And so it's just
Speaker 3: very well proportioned land for a golf course. It's constantly
Speaker 3: interesting and beautiful. You're always kind of discovering new features,
Speaker 3: new little nooks and crannies of the property as you're
Speaker 3: going through the golf course. So that's something that I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed about it. And then the routing of the
Speaker 3: course is just brilliant. It is an out and back routing. Basically,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have returning nines, so I believe it is
Speaker 3: the ninth tee that is the at the farthest point
Speaker 3: from the clubhouse, or at least that's that's the way
Speaker 3: it feels when when you're on the course, you play
Speaker 3: the eighth hole, which is a par three, then you
Speaker 3: climb up to the ninth tee and at that point
Speaker 3: you're kind of making your way back to the clubhouse.
Speaker 3: And so it is very much an out and back concept.
Speaker 3: And part of what this does is that it makes
Speaker 3: you feel like you're taking a journey into the wilderness
Speaker 3: and you're being tested by this golf course, and then
Speaker 3: you come back out presumably in an altered state, right
Speaker 3: changed by the experience, and that to me is the
Speaker 3: true theme of the golf course. This golf course is
Speaker 3: a test of golfing skill. It's a test of courage
Speaker 3: and metal. It's a test of what you've got internally right,
Speaker 3: and in order to get tested, you plunge into the
Speaker 3: wilderness and then you come back out. And when you
Speaker 3: come back out, basically the course kind of crosses a
Speaker 3: road to get into it, the course section of it.
Speaker 3: So you play the first hole, then you cross a
Speaker 3: road and you play holes too through fourteen. You cross
Speaker 3: back over the road and play fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and
Speaker 3: eighteen in an area that is closer to the clubhouse.
Speaker 3: When you come back into this area near the clubhouse
Speaker 3: and you play those last four holes, you feel like
Speaker 3: you're in an arena. You've taken this journey into the
Speaker 3: wilderness and you've come back out into this arena where
Speaker 3: you're administered the final test. You feel like you're like
Speaker 3: a gladiator and you're in this coliseum of golf, and
Speaker 3: that's what then brings you to the conclusion of the course.
Speaker 3: So I think what the routing does, aside from using
Speaker 3: the land really well and finding interesting ways to use
Speaker 3: the land, you know, applying the golf holes to the
Speaker 3: land in ways that are constantly changing and very cool,
Speaker 3: the routing has this kind of coherence as a story
Speaker 3: about what the golf course is. And that is something
Speaker 3: that I did not understand from any previous coverage of
Speaker 3: the golf course or seeing past tournaments at the course.
Speaker 3: That's something you can only really feel when you when
Speaker 3: you walk this course. So I think those are the
Speaker 3: things that make Beth Page grade. It's it's the A
Speaker 3: plus land, A plus routing. Those are those are super
Speaker 3: strong when it comes to this course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say that in terms that you know
Speaker 2: I I have. I don't love a lot like the
Speaker 2: grass decisions, the grassing decisions, they.
Speaker 3: Are and are way too narrow.
Speaker 1: What I mean, it is like.
Speaker 2: The fairway lines that you know they could be wider,
Speaker 2: but in terms of of a golf course from t
Speaker 2: to green, and it is about as impressive as it
Speaker 2: gets in terms of the golf holes. And and I
Speaker 2: haven't been out there since the PGA, but I vividly,
Speaker 2: I have like vivid recall of really like the stretch
Speaker 2: of two through nine to me is just such a
Speaker 2: fantastic stretch of golf holes. In particular when you get
Speaker 2: like four, five, six, seven, eight, it just you the
Speaker 2: these holes they're like a roller coasters, soing through there
Speaker 2: and They've got these beautiful twists and turns and in
Speaker 2: these these landforms, as you said that you have to
Speaker 2: kind of play over, down, around, and it is a
Speaker 2: it is a sensational piece of land that this golf
Speaker 2: course is on. And I think, you know, is it
Speaker 2: my favorite golf course in the world. No, do. I
Speaker 2: think it's like maybe the best, Uh, it might be
Speaker 2: the best Ryder Cup venue.
Speaker 1: We've had in some time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like Whistling Straits would be in the
Speaker 2: in the conversation, but this should it, you know, And
Speaker 2: I think it'll be.
Speaker 1: The setup of it for the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2: I think they you know, they're they're obviously going to
Speaker 2: promote scoring and I think like with the rough down,
Speaker 2: if it's down, there will be a pretty good variance
Speaker 2: in scoring on these holes. I think it could be
Speaker 2: pretty fascinating. The thing that I'm most worried about is
Speaker 2: just is it too easy to get up and down
Speaker 2: from around the greens on that golf course at this
Speaker 2: point with where the modern game is because like the
Speaker 2: identity of that golf course, what made it so tough
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two was getting to the green,
Speaker 2: and I think the difficulty of getting to the green
Speaker 2: at beth Page has never been lower, and if you
Speaker 2: cut the rough down it'll be very low. Where it's
Speaker 2: not difficult is around the greens and miss greens are
Speaker 2: are if you're close to the green, are are pretty basic,
Speaker 2: simple up and downs, And that would be one of
Speaker 2: my big questions about this golf course. And in terms
Speaker 2: of doling out bogies, which what you want? I think,
Speaker 2: like I've thought about this a lot and I'd.
Speaker 1: Be curious your take on it.
Speaker 2: What makes a good match play course is like the
Speaker 2: question and where my thoughts have been around it is
Speaker 2: I think a golf course that promotes a lot of
Speaker 2: variance and scoring, so holes where a wide spectrum of
Speaker 2: scores are feasible, And that would be my concern with
Speaker 2: Bethpage is that I think we'll just see a smattering
Speaker 2: of birdies, a lot of pars, and a handful of bogies.
Speaker 3: It's because not much can go wrong on or around
Speaker 3: the greens. You can get in some bunkers that are
Speaker 3: pretty nasty and if you're short sighted then you're going
Speaker 3: to struggle to get it close. But that's only because
Speaker 3: of the depth of the bunker and the fact that
Speaker 3: you're short sighted. It's not because of any contouring on
Speaker 3: the greens that you'll be screwed in those positions. And
Speaker 3: that's the big flaw of Bethpage Black. The greens simply
Speaker 3: are not very interesting. And it's the part of the
Speaker 3: course that makes you feel like or that makes you
Speaker 3: wonder how much aw tilling Hast really had to do
Speaker 3: with this course while it was being constructed, because if
Speaker 3: you look at Wingfoot West, or if you look at
Speaker 3: the lower course at Baltus Rawl or Somerset Hills, then
Speaker 3: you know that tilling Hast has a taste for wild greens,
Speaker 3: or at least for interesting contour on greens, and you
Speaker 3: just don't really get any of that at beth Page.
Speaker 3: You mentioned the second hole earlier, I think as the
Speaker 3: start of this great stretch, and it's such a great hole,
Speaker 3: kind of works its way around this ridge and then
Speaker 3: it jumps up to the top of another ridge where
Speaker 3: the green sits, and so it's this wonderful, really charismatic
Speaker 3: looking golf hole that introduces you to the best part
Speaker 3: of the property. But then you get up and look
Speaker 3: at that green and it is a dead flat oval.
Speaker 3: There's nothing going on there. And you know, other greens
Speaker 3: at Bethpage have more to them, but that kind of
Speaker 3: gives you an indication of what you're in for really
Speaker 3: interesting golf holes tee to green and some greens that
Speaker 3: are just a little bit disappointing. And yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that is something that makes beth Page Black not hold
Speaker 3: up quite as well for modern tournament golf in general,
Speaker 3: not just match play golf, I don't think, but in
Speaker 3: general modern tournament golf is maybe less compelling at beth
Speaker 3: Page because tee to green play has become less of
Speaker 3: a factor with technology that more and more people have
Speaker 3: been able to master the tea to green game. And
Speaker 3: so if you're going to get interest from a golf
Speaker 3: course in a high level tournament, it's usually going to
Speaker 3: come on and around the greens. Augusta National is the
Speaker 3: perfect proof and example of this, and the Black course
Speaker 3: just doesn't offer that right now. And so I think
Speaker 3: that it's not just match play where that's going to
Speaker 3: be a limiting factor for the interest that beth Page
Speaker 3: Black can produce. I think it's pretty much any modern
Speaker 3: tournament at beth Page is going to have this this
Speaker 3: governor on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the golf world and you might have
Speaker 2: a completely different opinion has become way too infatuated with restoration.
Speaker 2: I think restoration is important for the very very best.
Speaker 2: Like to me, we should restore courses that are truly extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Golf courses should.
Speaker 3: Restore Cyper's point, which they have yeah recently.
Speaker 1: So exactly.
Speaker 2: I think like there are or historic courses, like if
Speaker 2: there's and I think like Beth Page is an interesting one.
Speaker 2: Like I think if you just left it the way
Speaker 2: it is and just said to an architect, can you
Speaker 2: just spruce up the greens a little right, it would
Speaker 2: all of a sudden vault up. And I think it's
Speaker 2: obviously rated in some publications very highly. I don't think
Speaker 2: that highly of the golf course as a whole, Like
Speaker 2: it's very good.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best public golf courses you could play.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying any of that, but you know, it
Speaker 2: is not for me in the upper upper echelon of
Speaker 2: golf courses in the world. And what holds it back
Speaker 2: to the greens is like a very simple green renovation
Speaker 2: would take this golf course to a whole different level,
Speaker 2: and I think it would become one of the best
Speaker 2: major championship golf courses in the world with a simple
Speaker 2: greens renovation.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the most interesting renovation projects that's
Speaker 3: happened in recent years was a Desert Forest golf club
Speaker 3: in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. And this is pretty obscure.
Speaker 3: If you haven't heard of this, that's not your fault.
Speaker 3: It's a fairly low profile club, an extremely wonderful golf course.
Speaker 3: Like I think, this is a terrific, terrific golf course
Speaker 3: on a great piece of land, especially if you think
Speaker 3: of most of the land that was used for golf
Speaker 3: in Scottsdale. Desert Forest sits on this kind of rolling,
Speaker 3: rolling plot of land that you just don't expect out
Speaker 3: of that area. So Tee to Green Desert Forest has
Speaker 3: always been a great golf course. It was designed in
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties by a guy named Red Lawrence, and
Speaker 3: he did a great job of routing the course and
Speaker 3: using the topography. But then he got to the greens
Speaker 3: and they were basically the same green one through eighteen,
Speaker 3: over and over and over. And so what the club did,
Speaker 3: and this was really smart, is that they brought in
Speaker 3: an architect named Dave Zincand, who has worked for Corn
Speaker 3: Crenshaw and was around that time opening his own design business,
Speaker 3: and said basically, give us more interesting greens. And so
Speaker 3: zinc And went in there and did exactly that shape
Speaker 3: these beautiful greens that kind of tie into the strategy
Speaker 3: of the holes that was always suggested by the by
Speaker 3: the you know, topography and the and the shape of
Speaker 3: the holes in the landscape, but wasn't really followed through
Speaker 3: on because the greens didn't really do anything, didn't really
Speaker 3: demand different shots from from different angles. Well, what zinc
Speaker 3: And did is that he took that inspiration from the
Speaker 3: holes as they sat in the terrain and designed some
Speaker 3: greens that just had more variety and more strategic sophistication.
Speaker 3: And I think that kind of move at Bethpage Black
Speaker 3: would be very very intelligent as an approach to renovation,
Speaker 3: But it would be hard to do because it's such
Speaker 3: a high profile golf course. There are so many people
Speaker 3: who play and love that course as it is. It
Speaker 3: would just be a tough sell. But I agree with
Speaker 3: you that the potential is there. You could just look
Speaker 3: at some of tilling Hast's other sets of greens and
Speaker 3: you'd have a great template for what you could do
Speaker 3: with some of those green complexes at the Black Course.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree that that's what is holding to
Speaker 3: me when I look at Bethpage Black, when I walk
Speaker 3: that course from Tee to Green, look at the land,
Speaker 3: look at the routing. It is a top fifty golf
Speaker 3: course in the US. I think that's what it feels
Speaker 3: like to me Tee to Green. But the greens and
Speaker 3: the mowing lines are the thing that make it not
Speaker 3: that right now, And maybe some of the bunker work
Speaker 3: that has been done by Rhys Jones over the past
Speaker 3: couple of decades it has been best.
Speaker 2: I mean the restoration when he did it was transformational.
Speaker 3: It was not a yeah, it's it's It wasn't a
Speaker 3: restoration is yeah, it's a restart.
Speaker 2: But at the the you know where the where the
Speaker 2: renovation restoration world has gotten to since the since basically
Speaker 2: two thousand is remarkably higher bar than than where it
Speaker 2: was when that work was done. Yes, real quick, what's
Speaker 2: one hole that you're particularly keen to watching the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 3: Well, it's got to be in that stretch that you
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier. Basically from three I love two as well,
Speaker 3: but from three to six. That for me, is where
Speaker 3: the golf course really becomes great. Everybody knows four. It's
Speaker 3: the great hazard hole. When you see it on TV.
Speaker 3: Just imagine it looking about ten times bigger in person.
Speaker 3: The elevation drop from the tee to the fairway and
Speaker 3: then the climb from the fairway up to the green
Speaker 3: is just much much bigger than you can imagine just
Speaker 3: looking at it on TV. But I think this single
Speaker 3: hole that I'll be most curious about is going to
Speaker 3: actually be six. It's a very interesting and I think
Speaker 3: fairly short for these guys par four and the fairway
Speaker 3: kind of has a little bit of a jog in
Speaker 3: the landing zone where it wraps around some bunkers and
Speaker 3: then dips down before climbing back up to the green.
Speaker 3: And I just want to see where players position themselves
Speaker 3: on that fairway. Are they going to hit a conservative
Speaker 3: shot kind of between the bunkers on the higher ground,
Speaker 3: or are they going to try to take it over
Speaker 3: that left bunker and get down into the goalie in
Speaker 3: front of the green. What's going to be their strategy
Speaker 3: on that hole? They're probably youre going to head it
Speaker 3: into the goalie. I mean you know that's probably what
Speaker 3: they're going to do. But but I think it's a
Speaker 3: it's a cool golfer and and I'm looking forward to
Speaker 3: to seeing some of the strategic dynamics there.
Speaker 2: I just got a message from producer PJ. Yes justice
Speaker 2: for six six rules, So.
Speaker 3: So that has a stamp of approval from from the
Speaker 3: Long Long Island.
Speaker 2: Guy, Happy Happy Long Island public golfer PJ for the
Speaker 2: for the vote on six the You know, I'm actually
Speaker 2: kind of interested. I don't I don't know if you
Speaker 2: saw this when you're out there, what the what the
Speaker 2: grand stands. I I think just like a cool part
Speaker 2: of the courses ten and eleven, the back to back
Speaker 2: part four us that.
Speaker 3: Share that that's that's sort of like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just I love that, like kind of
Speaker 2: like center of energy. I remember fondly watching a lot
Speaker 2: of golf back there during the PGA, and to me,
Speaker 2: that's that's one area that I.
Speaker 1: Would I would.
Speaker 2: I I'm keen to watch. And I think like if
Speaker 2: you get a couple of groups on that hole, those
Speaker 2: holes at the same time with all the fans, it's
Speaker 2: going to be just like a very cool atmosphere, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think those holes are are somewhat interesting from
Speaker 2: t degree. They're obviously fairly penal with the amount of
Speaker 2: bunkers that are on them, and you know it could
Speaker 2: dule out some penalty if you get in the wrong
Speaker 2: spot on them in the match play. But obviously then
Speaker 2: the close will be will be electric when you get
Speaker 2: back over the road in the in the closing couple holes,
Speaker 2: there are such.
Speaker 3: A great setting for yeah, close of a tournament. I
Speaker 3: think it's going to be so intense and cool in
Speaker 3: the Ryder Cup. Just that whole natural amphitheater around the fifteenth, sixteenth,
Speaker 3: and seventeenth holes, and then you kind of climb up
Speaker 3: onto a ridge and go back down into another natural
Speaker 3: amphitheater for the eighteenth hole. It's going to be great.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you shout it out the tenth and eleventh holes, specifically,
Speaker 3: sitting in the grand stand behind the eleventh green would
Speaker 3: be a great spot because you can see the t
Speaker 3: shots on the tenth hole, you can see play on
Speaker 3: the eleventh hole, and you can also see play on
Speaker 3: the ninth hole because that green sits right in that
Speaker 3: kind of collection area and the ninth hole is a
Speaker 3: very cool dog leg left par four with some great
Speaker 3: wavy topography in the landing zone for drives, or you
Speaker 3: can cut the corner and get up to higher ground.
Speaker 3: I think that's a very fun golf hole. But one
Speaker 3: thing is specifically I wanted to mention about ten and
Speaker 3: eleven is that those two fairways have actually been widened.
Speaker 3: We're getting righter fairways there. Yeah, awesome. Previously, those bunkers
Speaker 3: that you're talking about between the holes, kind of the
Speaker 3: penal bunkers that flank those holes up and down. Previously
Speaker 3: those were very much marooned in the rough. Recently they
Speaker 3: have expanded the fairways out to the bunkers because they
Speaker 3: discovered that, of course we want balls actually going in
Speaker 3: the bunkers and not just getting not getting held up
Speaker 3: by the rough. So I think those holes will be
Speaker 3: will be much improved because of that work.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, look forward to chatting more about Beth Page in
Speaker 2: the in the lead up to the Ryder Cup. But Garrett,
Speaker 2: thank you for joining me. People can find your golf
Speaker 2: course thoughts in greater detail on your podcast Designing Golf.
Speaker 2: It's been fun to watch that podcast grow over the
Speaker 2: course of the year. You're getting close to a year
Speaker 2: into it. So congratulations on that, and we will talk
Speaker 2: to you soon. But big thanks to you guys for listening,
Speaker 2: and big thanks to p J Clark for editing and
Speaker 2: producing this podcast. We'll be back next week. I don't
Speaker 2: know what we're gonna do next week yet. I kind
Speaker 2: of wanted to zig probably from Ryder Cup, but we may.
Speaker 2: We may zag right back into that Ryder Cup traffic
Speaker 2: and then we'll be back, of course the following week
Speaker 2: with our Ryder Cup preview and on the grounds there.
Speaker 1: But we'll be back.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and I hope you guys enjoyed the
Speaker 2: weekend of golf at the Walker Cup