WEBVTT - Yolk with Doak 4: Streamsong 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.040 Welcome back to another edition of The Yoke with Doak. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.640 In this episode, we discussed Tom's design of stream Song 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.960 Blue and the unique nature of the project. I was 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.360 able to record this podcast at stream Song and capture 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.640 some great footage while at the resort. I would recommend 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.480 checking out the podcast on the website for an enhanced 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.759 listening and viewing experience. Thanks for all the support and 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.680 listening to the podcast. Here's episode four of The Yoke 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:28.200 with Doak. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.080 Tom Dolk is back and as usual, he's not holding back. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.360 But don't toss the Yolk and. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.640 The famously candid Oak doesn't pull any punches. How do 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.640 I make natural looking contour hire the biggest fool in 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:57.120 the village? I told them to get flat first. Overrated, underrated, rough, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.080 terribly overrated over the years. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.360 Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of The 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.720 Yoke with Doak. Today we are gonna discuss one of 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:21.320 Tom's solo designs, stream Song Blue. Tom, welcome back. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.880 Thanks and nice to actually be here at stream Song 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:25.680 to talk about it. 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.199 Yeah, we got a good listener question to kick things off. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.160 It's from Will Bardwell, he'd like to know when someone 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.880 is playing the course for the first time. What do 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.800 they need to know slash understand in order to enjoy 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:43.919 the round the most? 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.280 Well, probably the first thing for a lot of my 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:53.400 courses stream Song is certainly not the only one, is 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.240 that there's a lot of short grass around the greens 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.080 and you can get away with missing greens and they 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.280 have a chance to get up and down. But usually, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.040 you know, a lot of the conturs are built with 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.919 the idea that you're playing low shots back up under 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.639 the green. You're not taking a wedge and flopping. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:14.800 It up there. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.359 It's the turf here is a little different than banded 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:25.600 dunes are Barnboogle that you almost can't hit the flop 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:27.760 wedge up in the air. The turf there on those 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.600 courses is so tight and the ground is so hard 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.440 that that only a player with great hands can do it. 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.880 Here the turf is a little more forgiving. It's all 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.560 Bermuda grass, but but it's still you know, those contracts 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.000 were planned with in anticipation that it would be pretty 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.440 tight and fast and that was the way to play 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.320 the shots, and you know, so you have to get 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.480 you have to get comfortable with that and bandon the 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.640 caddies will just you know, if you keep trying to 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.519 hit a wedge, the caddies will eventually take your wedge 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.880 and jam it and the deepest recess of the bag 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:06.160 where you can't get at it anymore. And the caddies 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:11.200 here are pretty good at trying to steer you around 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.120 shots that are a mistake here. But I think that's 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.480 the biggest thing that And you know, there's a lot 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.040 of contra and the approaches and the greens, and there's 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.800 a lot of places for a ball they hit a 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.200 conter and kind of veer off line from where you 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.840 think it was going, and you know you have to 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.160 be prepared for that and not get too flustered by it. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.799 I've seen some really good players get very upset here 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:40.400 or a bad bounce or two, and you know, not 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:46.080 not give credit for the fact the previous all they 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.440 got a good bounce. Yeah they you know, they never 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.119 complain when they get the good bounce or I've known 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.720 people to complain about a good bounce, But you really 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:55.800 wonder about those people. 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.600 I think my dad's one of those people. Actually, it's 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.000 I find that too. Everybody always tells you about like, well, 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.040 my round could have been this had this happened, but 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.800 nobody ever says, well, my round would have been this 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.360 had I not like got this great break. 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:16.599 That's absolutely true. 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.039 It's gotta be frustrating as an architect sometimes because like 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.640 they only remember the times that they get the bad breaks. 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:29.000 Well, you know, a lot of architects avoid having little 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.440 crown contras in the golf course and especially around the 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.240 greens because they know that and they know that they're 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:40.160 gonna get criticism for it. And I mean it's almost 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.960 literally true that for every bad bounce, another guy will 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.560 get a good bounce off the same thing. And yet 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.200 you know, because nobody talks about him, you only hear 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.000 the criticism. So if you're trying to avoid criticism as 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.720 a designer, you stop putting those features in. And to me, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.560 I mean, this is a beautiful sight for golf, and 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:07.560 there were some really dramatic features to it, but you know, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.120 like those contracts are a big part of the defense 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.719 of this golf course. I mean, it's not it's a 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.000 very wide open golf course and that's the balance against that. 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.640 You know, you can get around it and not lose 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.000 a ball, but it's hard to score because there's a 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:30.200 lot of those little you know, they seem fairly random 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.880 at times, like there's just a little landmine there waiting 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.479 to go off if you hit the ball on the 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.680 wrong spot of the green and if you you know, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:41.080 if you've never played here before, it's hard to accept 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.040 that the first time, but you know, those are the 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.000 kind of features. The more you come back here and 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.200 get to know the place, that's what really makes it 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.760 interesting to come back and keep trying to figure out 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:52.320 a little more. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.839 That's why I found I appreciated I played the Loop 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.480 one of your courses last summer. 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:00.800 I played it again this summer. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.400 In the second time around, you learned, You learned so 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.479 much and you appreciate things so much more when you 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.919 get around it again. And it's got to be a 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:16.120 tough thing with the golf profession. Brendan Wurinsky won to 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.560 take us back to your first impressions of the site 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:21.919 when you visited the first time. 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.760 I think it's a good place to jump into how 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:25.839 this all came about. 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.159 Okay, so I can't remember the years exactly. It was 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:36.120 either two thousand, I think it was two thousand and 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:38.400 nine that I came down here for the first time 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:45.360 and I met one of the clients in Tampa, and 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.239 then we took a helicopter over here to have a look. 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:53.719 And there were like three or four different pieces of 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.240 ground that they wanted me to look at as potential 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.560 sites for a golf course. And the original idea was 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.040 that they were going to build too golf courses right away, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.240 but on two different sites, that the character of them 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:11.160 would be really different, so you know, and we kind 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.040 of hot from place to place by helicopter. They were 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.200 they were two and three miles apart, say, and you know, 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.640 this was a mining operation, and you know, one of 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.040 them was a site that had been very recently mined, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.120 and you know, sometimes the access to places wasn't so 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.560 easy here. So the helicopter helped from that standpoint and 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.000 from for seeing a bunch of things in a hurry. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.440 So they took me to an area that was very 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.120 gentle and almost flat. That was an area that had 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.040 all been already been reclaimed from the mining, you know, 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.120 and it looked like you could build like a traditional 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.120 parkland course, but a fairly flat one. They took me 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.840 to this raw open site that they had just torn up, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:01.360 and it was really really I mean, you would have 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.520 to put it all back together and fill some things 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.840 back in, because they'd mind stuff down pretty close to 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.600 water table. The last site that we looked at after 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.960 the one where the golf course is now, was kind 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.080 of more of a nature preserve out It was a 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.120 little south of here, I think, and you know, more 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.560 wetlands and stuff. But they were skeptical about that. They 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.840 thought it would take the permitting would be hard for that. 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:33.240 And then this big, this really big site that looked 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:38.920 like my first impression was to look like the sand 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:44.680 Hills of Nebraska. In the center of the site, we 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:51.520 landed about where the somewhere between like the first fairway 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:57.000 and sixth fairway of the Blue Course, and so that 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:01.480 big dune that was behind the scene green is immediately 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.640 right in your face. Like that's what reminded me of 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.720 sand Hills. It was like, God, that's a that's a 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.720 fifty forty fifty foot high sand dune sitting out here 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.839 with native grasses on it, like it had been there 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.840 for a long time, or like it had always been there. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.640 You know, it was a remnant of the mining operation 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.480 that had been sitting there for so long that it 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.120 had been revegetated, you know, first, the wind blew it 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.120 around and shaped it. I mean it was it was 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.600 just a big pile of sand stacked up by a 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.400 big piece of equipment to start with. But the wind 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.760 was on it long enough that it formed into like 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:38.640 a you know, it had the shape of a real 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.080 sand dune, and then grass sort of took it over 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.640 and held that shape. So we kind of drove up 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.640 onto that. And then you know, right when we got 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.280 up there to where my seventh tea is now, all 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.840 of a sudden there's a reveal that on the backside 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.240 of this sand dune, the ground drops off eighty feet 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.480 into a thirty acre lake with one hundred foot sand 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:02.960 dune on the far side of it. I was like, 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.640 holy crap, I've never seen anything like that in my life. 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.400 And you know, I said to rich Mac the client, 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.920 you know, if you'd a blindfolded me and kidnapped me 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.040 and brought me down here and taking the blindfold off, 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.240 you know, Florida would be like the forty seventh guess 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:23.240 of what state are we in? 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:24.600 That's what I was going to say. 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.640 The original call, like they said, hey, we think we 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.200 have this great site for golf. 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.479 What was it like? Did you have like a predisposition 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:33.520 heading into. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.920 Well, they said it was a mining site, so I 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:37.880 assumed that it was going to be there was going 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.320 to be some elevation. I mean, you know, I sort 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.040 of assumed more like a rock corps. I didn't understand 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.760 anything about phosphate mining and the scale of what they 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.440 did out here, but you know, I assumed it wasn't 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.199 going to be flat from the little bit that they 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.120 told me. But I didn't imagine that it was going 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.640 to be anything as dramatic as it was. Of course, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:11:00.800 that call came like right after the financial crisis, when 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:05.640 nobody was thinking about starting any projects. So so for 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.199 for us and for Bill cor this project was a godsend. 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.040 I mean, right when nothing else was going on, this 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.280 big company with a lot of dollars in its pocket 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.839 that wasn't too concern it. You know, their balance sheet 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.560 is so big, this is just a rounding her. It's like, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.280 oh God, they're you know, they've got the money. They 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.360 don't have to worry about spending the money for it, 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.040 and they think that now is the right time to 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:36.400 build when prices are low, and so you know, it 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.920 was obviously a tremendous opportunity. They talked right away about 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:49.080 building two golf courses at once, and they interviewed three 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:55.400 or four architects, including Bill Core and me, and you know, 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.720 I think we all really wanted the job. And you know, 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.280 it was funny, you know, they kept going back to 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.160 that idea of using two different sites. And this site 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.240 that we built the two golf courses on was so 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.560 much more dramatic than the other ones. And you know, 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.960 even though they moved dirt all around in the mining 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:23.240 process to create the site, kind of by accident, you know, 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.959 we treated it like a finish, like like it was 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.800 a piece of land in the sand hills and here's 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.480 the contras you've got. And you know, we we approached 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:34.920 it like we don't have to move a lot of 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.680 dirt around. Somebody already did a lot way back when. 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.480 But we can you know, there's good shapes for golf 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.400 out here, so we don't have to change too much. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.040 Whereas all the other sites we looked at, no, you'd 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.920 you know, you'd have had to move quite a bit 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.199 of dirt and it still wouldn't have wound up anywhere 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.800 as dramatic as this. There just wasn't the same amount 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:57.119 of elevation change, and you know, it seemed pretty intuitive 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:04.200 to both of us that that, you know, the contrast 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.240 between that kind of site and how everybody feels about 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.000 what Florida golf is like in general, was going to 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.680 be the big hook for this place that you know, yeah, 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:16.960 it's in the middle of Florida, and yeah, it's nothing 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.120 at all like anything else in Florida. So even though 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:26.320 it seems crazy, you know, think Florida. You know, Florida 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:30.439 needs another golf course. Now, Florida has way too many 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.480 average golf courses, but this was not an average site 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.880 for a golf course, and it was pretty obvious that 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:38.520 you could do something special with it. 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.439 How much different was it working for a corporation than 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.839 your traditional resort developer? 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:53.400 Very different. You know, I don't A lot of my 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:58.520 clients have been entrepreneurial guys, I guess that's the best 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:03.280 way to say it. And you know, not necessarily all 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:09.160 super wealthy, you know, everything from hotel owners to farmers 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:16.600 to hedge fund tycoons, but mostly guys that started their 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.440 businesses from scratch. And I think I maybe I appealed 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.240 to them a little bit because you know, I'm not 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.920 an ex player, and they respect that more than some 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.880 other people would because they built their businesses from they 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.480 didn't have a they didn't have an easy way into 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:40.800 what they did either. But you know, a corporate client, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.480 you know, usually I'm I've gotten used to only answering 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.880 to one person, and as long as I maintained that 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.280 relationship pretty good and make sure that nobody gets in 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.200 the middle of it, you know, and the communication is 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.680 clear that we always wind up with a good product 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.160 and everybody's happy, you know. With the corporate client, the 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.440 fear was, you know, what's the chain of command going 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.240 to be? And you know how many people are passing 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:14.040 on everything. But the main guy at Mosaic who was 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.440 pushing for this golf project, the CEO who's retired now, 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.800 was definitely behind it. He was a golfer. But their 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.520 chief legal counsel and one of the vice presidents is 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.640 a guy named rich Mack, who showed me around here 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:32.000 the first time, good golfer, and he was clearly going 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.720 to be very involved with the project. And ultimately he's 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.000 who Bill and I and Gill now have all answered to. 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.680 And even though there is that corporate structure at Mosaic 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.240 behind the scenes, you know, on the face of it, 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.440 he's been our client, just like Mike Kaiser or Rick 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:52.800 Kane or anybody else. And we spent a lot of 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.160 time with him during the process. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:01.640 So working with Corn creunscha On and this is from Pete. Oh, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.360 how much collaboration or joint planning was involved with Core 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.880 and Crenshaw, with them doing the red course and you 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:10.920 doing the Blue course at the same time. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.640 A lot. This was really a unique project. And so 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.200 going back to my story about these four different sites, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.400 you know, Bill and I both wanted to work on 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.520 the site that we built on, and Mosaic's original assumption 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.560 was that there wasn't enough land there for thirty six holes, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.560 and one of us had to want to work on 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.280 one of the other sites instead. And I've known Bill 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.760 for a long long time, and we both have similar tastes, 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.840 and we both had our eye on the one particular site. 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:48.720 And as much as we like each other, neither one 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.840 of us really wanted to, you know, take the bullet 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.840 for somebody out for the other guy and say, okay, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.560 I'll do the other site, you know, and rich Mack 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.800 would ask us questions like so if he asked, I 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:07.399 remember Rich asking me specifically, So, if I gave you 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.080 one of the other sites, do you think you could 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:17.960 build as good a course as on this site? You know? 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.040 And it was like it's like one of those interview 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.040 questions from hell. They you know, they just they're trying 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.480 to force you into saying what they want to hear, 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:31.160 and you know, and I just I said, well, I'm 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.280 pretty good. But if if I took any of those 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:41.720 other sites and made it as good as this site here, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.960 then you must have hired the wrong guy for this 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:50.160 site here, because this should turn out way better than 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.639 the other ones. And finally, you know, Bill and I 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.080 were Bill and I were both here at the same time, 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.439 and we kind of knew each other well enough to 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.200 say to each other, you know, let's try to figure 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.720 out if we can get all thirty six holes on 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.239 this site so we don't have to like compete for 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.040 it or arm wrestle or whatever the hell we're going 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.040 to have to do. So I went back and tried 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.520 to lay out thirty six holes on the site Bill had. 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.960 Bill had already laid out a couple of eighteen hole 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.560 routings that he really liked and I went back and 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.280 just said, okay, I have to put that aside and 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.959 see if I can make thirty six holes fit. And 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.719 I did, and we came down and looked at it 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:35.560 and compared it to his eighteen hole routing, and there 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.679 were clearly some things that he could do, you know, 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.920 go in different directions that we really liked, that you 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.000 couldn't do if you tried to get all thirty six 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:47.920 holes and you just had to have more parallel holes 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.960 to make them all fit. You know. The clearest example 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.119 was what's now the fourth Hall on the Blue Course 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:02.200 was on one of Bill's routings, and you know, taking 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.719 that dramatic step up, you know, it plays uphill and 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.080 you have to hit up over up onto a bluff 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.439 for the second shot, which is you know, really unique 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:17.000 for Florida. And you know, we couldn't. You couldn't build 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.320 that hole and fit in as many holes working around 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.200 the edge of that crater. You know, I had a hole, 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.159 I had like two parallel holes underneath that big slope. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:32.080 So so what we started doing was working on a 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:37.960 thirty six hole plan together without you know, we both 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.119 agreed that there were some pretty dramatic features and if 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.199 you just drew a line through the middle of the 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:45.960 site and said you stay on that side, Now stay 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.960 on this side. That neither course would get the variety 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.159 that you really wanted. One would get that that bowl 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.200 with a really sharp bluff, and then it wouldn't get 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.119 the big lakes over on the far side. Yeah, you know, 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.199 And so we tried to figure out what was the 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:12.600 best thirty six hole plan without deciding who was doing 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.040 which course. So there was a lot of back and forth. 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:21.160 We were here together a couple of times. You know, 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.240 Bill would come down for a couple of days and 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.560 send me a sketch with a few new holes. You know. 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.480 When we agreed that the thirty six holes wouldn't quite 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:35.000 fit the way we did, Bill went out and walked 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:41.240 a part of the ground that what's now the first 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:47.000 six holes of the Red course. Except for the first 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.600 hole of the Red the rest of that was a 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.160 pretty flat piece of ground that hadn't been mined yet, 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.439 and so we never really you know, that wasn't the 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.679 first the obvious place to look. And they told us that, well, 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.480 we're going to mine our way out of there when 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.440 we do this project. So Bill looked over there and 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.040 found a couple holes that he liked, and that got us. 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.080 You know, we wound up with about thirty holes on 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.880 the on the piece that we thought was the best 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.920 part of the golf course, and those few holes gave 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.160 it thirty gave us a way to fit thirty six 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.960 holes in so that it all fit. We even looked 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.160 at going a little farther into where the black course 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.240 is now, but we didn't really like that ground as much. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.760 It was just, you know, it didn't feel like that 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.520 ground would fit as well with all the other stuff 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:44.639 that we were working with. So so after a couple 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.800 more back and forth, we had at one point we 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.879 had the routings where the thirteenth hole the thirteenth green 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.360 on each course were right together, so you could actually 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.280 like take the thirteen holes off one course and then 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.560 you had a choice so the last five holes could 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.440 fit with the other thirteen either way they are right. Really, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.400 they're pretty close together. They're not you know, Bill tweaked 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:18.280 the routing that routing, so so where they come together 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.600 is twelve on one course and thirteen on the other course. Now, 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:24.280 so we didn't have that choice of how, you know, 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.879 we had to fit them together a certain way. So 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:32.840 one the red and blue thing comes from Bill was 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.200 like drawing his holes with a with a red marker 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:38.520 over the map that it was like a map with 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.280 an aerial photo on it, so you had to do 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.000 it in color to see very well. And Bill had 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.000 always been doing his things in red. So when I 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.520 drew a map, you know, with these overlapping holes so 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.359 you could tell which way it went, you know, I 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.000 drew blue for the other one, and you know that 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:56.719 wound up being the names for the two courses. But 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:02.000 we really worked on it together without deciding which was which, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.199 and then neither one of us wanted to decide be 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:09.040 the one who decided, Okay, I'm going to take these halls. 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.240 And you know, rich Mack eventually forced Bill to choose 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:15.919 which course he would take because we kept we all 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:20.159 kept Duck in the question. So that's so it's you know, 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:24.080 as far as I know, that's a unique collaboration. 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:24.800 Yeah. 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:25.040 Uh. 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.040 You know. Bill even said to rich Mack pretty early on, 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.240 he's like, and all the credit in the world to Bill, 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:38.560 you know, he said, if I was if it was 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.800 another designer that you were, you wanted me to do 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:46.480 this with. He said, I'd be more possessive and you know, 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.480 want to keep all the good stuff to myself. But 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:52.080 Ben and I have known Tom for a long time, 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.320 and you know, we'd like to see the best solution 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:59.120 for the whole project, so you know, we don't really 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:03.040