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 brid.
Speaker 2: Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday fridagg bride egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Andy Johnson, and I'm I'm excited
Speaker 1: about this episode. We are back. As a reminder from
Speaker 1: last week, this cadence will be every Wednesday this year,
Speaker 1: so every Wednesday morning you can expect a a new
Speaker 1: episode of this podcast. I'm excited for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: We got TGL debut tonight as of this recording Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: so we will see a new form of golf. We
Speaker 1: did a podcast last week about what we were kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about TGL. I'm really excited to see it
Speaker 1: rolled out. I think it's a really big opportunity for golf.
Speaker 1: I am interested to see how it all works. I
Speaker 1: think they're you know, I think we all should exercise
Speaker 1: a little bit of patience because this is a brand
Speaker 1: new thing. They are going to definitely figure stuff out
Speaker 1: in the first season, and ideally it is successful enough
Speaker 1: to get a five year window to really grow and flourish,
Speaker 1: because primetime exposure for golf on ESPN would be a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing for the greater golf community to have. And
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited to watch that tonight. But this
Speaker 1: podcast is going to focus in on a couple of topics.
Speaker 1: It's going to focus in on Cappalua and the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour's massacre of scoring on Capealua. I bring in Joseph
Speaker 1: Lamanna from Friday Golf to talk about it. He did
Speaker 1: some interesting numbers analysis to kind of showcase really what's
Speaker 1: happened to this venue over the years. And then later
Speaker 1: I am joined to talk golf architecture with a friend
Speaker 1: of the program, golf architect Yeger Kovich. Jeger is the
Speaker 1: owner of Proper Golf, that is his architecture firm. After
Speaker 1: working with Tom Doak and Gil Hants, Jaeger is now
Speaker 1: fully out on his own with his own firm. He
Speaker 1: does a ton of work in the Northeast. He's been
Speaker 1: a former podcast guest, so you could search in Spotify
Speaker 1: or iTunes wherever you could find earlier episodes that discussed
Speaker 1: his story how he got into golf architecture. But this podcast,
Speaker 1: we're just going to talk about some of the hot
Speaker 1: topics in golf. So those are the two interviews and
Speaker 1: we are excited to have this thing rolling. So one
Speaker 1: other bit of housekeeping with the TGL in mind, we
Speaker 1: did a design contest in CLUBTFE our membership. It was
Speaker 1: really fun. We put we did a design contest and
Speaker 1: we went through all of the designed holes. We had
Speaker 1: help from John who built all the holes in PGA
Speaker 1: Tour two K so it was a really fun thing.
Speaker 1: We actually put that video up on our public YouTube page.
Speaker 1: That's an example of one of the hangouts we do
Speaker 1: every month in CLUBTFE. So if you liked that, if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that, then consider joining our membership and you
Speaker 1: can join at the Frida egg dot com slash membership. Again,
Speaker 1: that video is free for everybody on our public YouTube page,
Speaker 1: so go check that out there. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of really fun designs. Without further ado, let's get to
Speaker 1: Joseph Lamanna and let's talk about Cappalua and the state
Speaker 1: of modern professional golf. All right, Joseph, we are through
Speaker 1: the opening drive and we are met right out of
Speaker 1: the gates this year was scoring discussion, a popular topic
Speaker 1: every time it rolls around to Capealua, a par seventy
Speaker 1: three golf course built in nineteen ninety one by Bill
Speaker 1: Kre and Ben Crenshaw that has seen I would say,
Speaker 1: an assault of scoring over over recent years. Two years
Speaker 1: ago the scoring record was set at minus thirty four,
Speaker 1: the all time scoring record on the PGA Tour two par.
Speaker 1: This year it is broken by Hideki Massiyama, who gets
Speaker 1: to thirty five under, and a lot of takes flying
Speaker 1: around about Kapelu. There are strong rumors, if not you know,
Speaker 1: assertations that the par will be changed from seventy three
Speaker 1: to seventy two, which really does nothing. But Kapalua is
Speaker 1: in the crosshairs of the golf community as as not
Speaker 1: you know. I think a lot of people are questioning
Speaker 1: is this a worthy test of the best players in
Speaker 1: the world. And I figured this would be a fun
Speaker 1: little topic to bat around as we welcome in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five on the PGA.
Speaker 2: Tour, Andy, thank you for having me. I'm pumped for
Speaker 2: this conversation. I think it's a great conversation that doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily do well like in a tweet, and there are
Speaker 2: multiple angles to talk about here, so I don't know
Speaker 2: where you want to start. I think there's at least
Speaker 2: like two to three different angles of this that we
Speaker 2: have to talk about, right, Like there's it's a resort course,
Speaker 2: and when the wind doesn't blow on a resort course,
Speaker 2: like this is what you're going to get there. Also
Speaker 2: the equipment, like all of those things are are contributing.
Speaker 2: So I'm eager to dive into this conversation.
Speaker 1: I think maybe the place to start is you did
Speaker 1: you you produced your antual golf course tears on Twitter?
Speaker 1: You had Capelua very high in that. What do you
Speaker 1: think Cappalua does well?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: What are the virtues I enjoy this golf course. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna throw the thing I really like about it.
Speaker 1: You see pros hit a lot of shots that have
Speaker 1: elevation and uneven lies, So two really distinct difficult factors
Speaker 1: for hitting golf shots are uneven lies and elevation change
Speaker 1: uphill downhill. It requires a lot of skill, especially when
Speaker 1: you mix and win. But what in your mind is
Speaker 1: are some of the things that Capelua does well and
Speaker 1: in the modern game of testing, modern players I believe
Speaker 1: it was like the fourth or fifth highest golf course
Speaker 1: in your rankings. This is just PGA Tour courses, not
Speaker 1: major championships, so just PGA Tour annual hosts. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had it on a tier titled something like Great
Speaker 2: Test with Houston Memorial and some of those memorials in
Speaker 2: the Houston golf Course, not Mierfield Village.
Speaker 1: Which I've hire.
Speaker 2: Last podcast, we talked about a couple of criteria of
Speaker 2: good architecture for professional golfers, and two of the three
Speaker 2: criteria I said are that it makes you hit different
Speaker 2: types of shots, and it uses the ground interestingly right,
Speaker 2: like you have to control the golf ball on the ground.
Speaker 2: And I think one thing you've seen with trends in
Speaker 2: professional golf is that as scoring has gone down, you
Speaker 2: can call this the Tiger effect. There's been a narrowing
Speaker 2: of golf courses over the past twenty five years that
Speaker 2: has made the ground less and less of a factor.
Speaker 2: Which I mean, it does raise the scoring average because
Speaker 2: you're covering up fairway with rough like it often will
Speaker 2: raise the scoring average, but it's diminishing shot value. And
Speaker 2: I do think we've completely lost how much ground should
Speaker 2: be a factor at the highest level of professional golf.
Speaker 2: So when there's wind, Kapalua is dynamite and wind does
Speaker 2: function as a natural rollback. Right, you don't hit the
Speaker 2: ball as far. Get one shot into the wind and
Speaker 2: one shot downwind, that's gonna net out to losing distance.
Speaker 2: So when it's windy, this golf course plays very well,
Speaker 2: and I think that's an important part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: You have to hit a lot of different types of
Speaker 2: shots off uneven lies, as you're saying, a lot of
Speaker 2: crossover with players who do well at Augusta and do
Speaker 2: well at Cappealua because you're hitting those demanding iron shots
Speaker 2: off of good.
Speaker 1: Elevation change and uneven lies is a hallmark of Augusta National.
Speaker 2: Can't fake it, yep. You got to be able to
Speaker 2: strike your irons. So we wouldn't even be having this
Speaker 2: conversation if the winds had been up but.
Speaker 1: Or or we wouldn't be having this conversation if this
Speaker 1: golf course was TPC Minneapolis or Blaine. But this is
Speaker 1: one of I think one of the golf courses that
Speaker 1: people look forward to the most on the PGA Tour calendar.
Speaker 1: It's one of the I think most popular golf tournaments
Speaker 1: that the Tour owns and operates.
Speaker 2: Yes, but it is a good golf course to look
Speaker 2: at within the state of professional golf in the golf
Speaker 2: world as a whole, to understand when there's not wind,
Speaker 2: there's zero teeth, and equipment has completely overrun the professional
Speaker 2: game to the point that it's just shoot and score,
Speaker 2: throw darts all day. There's another part of this that
Speaker 2: I know you'll want to dig into, that the greens
Speaker 2: have been softened at Kapalua and that has also contributed
Speaker 2: to lower scoring. There's a lot of things happening in
Speaker 2: one here, but I think it's a really good case
Speaker 2: study for the direction professional golf has gone and some
Speaker 2: of the challenges it faces.
Speaker 1: It also provides really interesting lens because this is a
Speaker 1: modern golf course. This isn't like you know, it was
Speaker 1: built in nineteen ninety one. It gives you a lens
Speaker 1: of like shelf life on Tour, trend on Tour because
Speaker 1: we get to it's really it's hosted high level golf,
Speaker 1: like it hasn't had gyrations of level of players. It's
Speaker 1: always had the best, the best, like elite golfers there
Speaker 1: year and year out over a sample size of massive
Speaker 1: equipment change right the first year. You know, they started
Speaker 1: hosting in the late nineties and it's run till now,
Speaker 1: and it gives you a really interesting lens because the
Speaker 1: golf course hasn't changed much until the green softening, which
Speaker 1: I think we will get to but has led to
Speaker 1: a flurry of low scores. But also in this time
Speaker 1: that's that's been its host there is you've effectively gone
Speaker 1: from wound balls and small heads to solid core golf balls.
Speaker 1: Track man, Uh you know, I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty cc heads and modern strategy, which
Speaker 1: I think is another big part of this is the
Speaker 1: mass adaptation of modern strategy. So if you if you
Speaker 1: couple all those things together, it has led to a
Speaker 1: perfect storm of this golf course. I still, I still
Speaker 1: firmly believe it provides a unique test. But when you
Speaker 1: see the scoring in the scoring average, I think there's
Speaker 1: a max home a tweet. The year is twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five and it sixty sevens are no longer good on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour. And the reality is this golf course,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to put a real par to it
Speaker 1: is a par sixty eight for these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's the reality. But they are not going to
Speaker 1: do that. They aren't going to say that eighteens a
Speaker 1: par par five are par four. When was the last
Speaker 1: time you didn't see a guy go for eighteen? You
Speaker 1: know they have to miss the fair away, right, So
Speaker 1: it's a part four you know in all actuality. But anyways,
Speaker 1: the I think, like, let's talk about what you think.
Speaker 1: You think you think the technology is the real big factor.
Speaker 1: How has that changed? Capaloua.
Speaker 2: I think all of them are significant factors, just to
Speaker 2: be clear, right, like modern course management is a huge,
Speaker 2: huge factor, and that you're trimming out a lot of
Speaker 2: big numbers, like you just not seeing golfers make double
Speaker 2: bogies or worse very often in the modern era. I've
Speaker 2: made this point before, but I think the period of
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen to twenty twenty five is just a rapid,
Speaker 2: rapid evolution of strategy principles taking root in all sports. Right,
Speaker 2: Like the NFL coaches who don't go for it on
Speaker 2: fourth down anymore are dinosaurs and they've been rooted out
Speaker 2: of the league in the same way professional golf. If
Speaker 2: you were if you were refusing a lot of the
Speaker 2: modern course management being too conservative off of t's being
Speaker 2: too aggressive and pin seeking on your approach shots like
Speaker 2: you're just underperforming and you're being washed off of the tour.
Speaker 1: So and the margins are so narrow you can't stay
Speaker 1: on tour.
Speaker 2: No, you'll just be gone. So that is a big
Speaker 2: part of it. But Andy, do you know so just
Speaker 2: as an example, the par five fifth hole, five hundred yard,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: The hole that they believe there that is believed to
Speaker 1: be changing to part four for next year, Like thirty
Speaker 1: one hunder is going to make a difference, thirty five
Speaker 1: to thirty one. What a big change.
Speaker 2: I know people are kind of proponents of changing the parts.
Speaker 2: I actually am not. I think it's obfuscating a real
Speaker 2: issue and that we shouldn't will that. Actually we did.
Speaker 1: We did a podcast years ago that there's a there's
Speaker 1: a a formal study that was done. If you just
Speaker 1: changed part down, the will score better.
Speaker 2: I'm a little skeptical. I actually don't think that would
Speaker 2: be true anymore.
Speaker 1: Version it's all loss of version.
Speaker 2: I don't think that would be true with the modern golfer. Actually,
Speaker 2: I think that they would. They know you're I think
Speaker 2: you're incorrect. I think I would love to see that.
Speaker 2: I'd be willing to bet that it wouldn't that it
Speaker 2: actually wouldn't change.
Speaker 1: Here's here's why. If you ask any of these tour pros,
Speaker 1: I guarantee they make more part putts than they make
Speaker 1: birdie putts from the same range.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm very I'm very skeptical of it. But sometimes
Speaker 2: when you do your own do your own little study, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes find me birdie pus from eight feet versus par
Speaker 2: puss from eight feet. I almost guarantee that tour pros
Speaker 2: make more of them. Some of the problems though that
Speaker 2: some often the difficulties a little harder on some of them.
Speaker 2: But that all aside what I wanted to get to
Speaker 2: the par five to fifth. Do you know what the
Speaker 2: scoring average was for that whole on Saturday? And Saturday's
Speaker 2: round no win five hundred yards. Guess what the scoring
Speaker 2: average was on that hole four point one, three point
Speaker 2: nine eight. I almost went under three point nine eight.
Speaker 2: And of the fifty nine players in the field, I
Speaker 2: think all but seven hit the green in two. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're just talking about a completely different sport than when
Speaker 2: this golf course was designed, and I know I sent
Speaker 2: these numbers over to you, Andy, but just to give
Speaker 2: people a little feel for how much scoring has changed
Speaker 2: in the last twenty five years at Kapa Lua. So
Speaker 2: I have data going back to two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: It's it's important to call out that the winner in
Speaker 2: two thousand and three was thirty one under par Ernie Els,
Speaker 2: so that was already under par.
Speaker 1: That was when he had the provy. That was the
Speaker 1: debut of the prov one acts, which he could just
Speaker 1: rip knucklecuts with this is so that's like the chain,
Speaker 1: that's the start of the big change. Like I played,
Speaker 1: I recently played around golf with original prov one. I
Speaker 1: was shocked at how hard it was. Like so like
Speaker 1: one of the things like people are always like go
Speaker 1: back and play belata. You can't go back and play
Speaker 1: ballata because the liquid and the course have evaporated, so
Speaker 1: the ball doesn't perform. But the prov one being a
Speaker 1: solid corps ball, it played like two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: It was shocking how hard, how much it spun, like
Speaker 1: how much the wind affected it. It was so much
Speaker 1: harder then golf with the current pro V one. But
Speaker 1: this the first I would say, like everybody says the
Speaker 1: prov one was a huge change. It was a huge change.
Speaker 1: The pro V one X was the one that really
Speaker 1: really changed.
Speaker 2: The game, and it's important to be given context of
Speaker 2: what equipment changes happened with it. So I'm glad you
Speaker 2: called that out. In two thousand and three, the winner
Speaker 2: was thirty one under Erniel, so thirty under is not
Speaker 2: unheard of. I think it's important to not go, you know,
Speaker 2: chicken little the sky is falling every time there's low scores.
Speaker 2: It's happened before. But what you're looking for is like trends. Yes,
Speaker 2: so you're looking for like you you know, what people
Speaker 2: like to do is cherry pick like one stat like
Speaker 2: a detractor who who often says that I straw man argument,
Speaker 2: he would probably say, look thirty one under exactly this
Speaker 2: is this happens out here. But what you need to
Speaker 2: do is almost look at like a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of statisticians would say, like a five year regression line, right,
Speaker 2: A rolling regression line is at least way right, at
Speaker 2: least because you're only talking about in most years, like
Speaker 2: thirty players in the field, so it's not a huge
Speaker 2: sample size. But I think there are some important numbers
Speaker 2: in here. So since two thousand and one, there have
Speaker 2: been one hundred and eighty two rounds of sixty five
Speaker 2: or lower at Kapelua, So that's eight under sixty five
Speaker 2: or lower. One hundred and nine of those rounds are
Speaker 2: in the last four years, so sixty percent of the
Speaker 2: sixty fives are lower are in the last four years.
Speaker 2: And those those represent twenty two percent of the total
Speaker 2: rounds played at Cappelua over the last twenty five years.
Speaker 2: So sixty percent of the sixty fives are lower over
Speaker 2: twenty two percent of the rounds. It's a massive, massive number.
Speaker 2: And to the people who say, well, it's all wind,
Speaker 2: wind is a huge part of this, but there have
Speaker 2: been plenty of years in the past where there wasn't
Speaker 2: a ton of wind like this past weekend and you
Speaker 2: didn't there scoring outbursts like that.
Speaker 1: There's there's a handful of tournaments in the last few
Speaker 1: year with a lot.
Speaker 2: Of wind, twenty twenty, twenty twenty especially.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to call out your stat comes at
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. After the twenty nineteen tournament, the tournament organizers
Speaker 1: had Bilcore and Ben Crenshaw come out and soften all
Speaker 1: eighteen greens at Kapalua. That is another undeniable factor, and
Speaker 1: this was PGA tour driven. The reason that they needed
Speaker 1: these greens soften was to accommodate pin positions at a
Speaker 1: at tournament speed. That is, that is the reason for
Speaker 1: this green softening. And since that green softening all that
Speaker 1: your stat coincides with the exact year that the green
Speaker 1: softening debuted.
Speaker 2: Except for twenty twenty, which was a really windy year
Speaker 2: where there were no sixty fives or lower. So it's
Speaker 2: not like a perfect but yes, they don't even run
Speaker 2: the greens that quickly at Kappealua either. So it's just
Speaker 2: mind boggling to me that the direction of professional golf
Speaker 2: includes instructing golf courses that they're one defense, not their
Speaker 2: only defense, because wind is a primary defense Atkapellua. But
Speaker 2: the slope greens need to be softened. I mean, who
Speaker 2: who is that servant?
Speaker 1: Well, it's a crazy thing because you think about like
Speaker 1: the courses that have endured the most, and I know,
Speaker 1: like Augustina National has done lots of tweaks to their greens,
Speaker 1: but what are what are their greens known for from
Speaker 1: the most slope in the world. Think about like other
Speaker 1: enduring test Shittakok terrifying greens, Oakmont terrifying greens, like tons
Speaker 1: of slope in them, wing foot loss of slope in
Speaker 1: the greens, like the greatest, the greatest courses for the
Speaker 1: most part have severe greens. The Tour, I would you know,
Speaker 1: if you were going to build a golf course for
Speaker 1: just express for the PGA Tour. One of their biggest
Speaker 1: things that they would they would push on with you.
Speaker 1: And I've heard this from numerous architects, is is that
Speaker 1: they would be very heavy handed with percentage slope in
Speaker 1: pinnable areas insane. I believe the number is one point
Speaker 1: five percent slope in a pinnable area. One point five
Speaker 1: percent slope is a tiny amount. So I think like
Speaker 1: one of the things if I think about as a
Speaker 1: kid watching Kapalua, I mean, this is a tournament that's
Speaker 1: like basically spanned my life as a golf fan, and
Speaker 1: from watching it early on till now, I think the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. This year was it's just like
Speaker 1: the more you see it, the more alarming it is.
Speaker 1: I Mean, these guys have like twenty five foot putts
Speaker 1: that are just right edge putts. And this was always
Speaker 1: a golf course historically that you saw putts just rip.
Speaker 1: You just saw these putts that broke, and you were
Speaker 1: you were astonished. It was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: six footer that you need to play two feet or
Speaker 1: two cups outside right now, with the way they set
Speaker 1: this golf course up. Maybe I haven't been out there,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how exactly flat the greens are.
Speaker 1: But with where they at least put the flags, you
Speaker 1: rarely see anything any putts outside the hole, which is insane.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a golf course on a mountain.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. I mean, everything seems makeable, right, Like you
Speaker 2: got golfers who aren't great putters, like Kadeki Matsuyama standing
Speaker 2: over fifteen footers that he's expecting to make at Kapalua.
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. The thing that's crazy is those fifteen
Speaker 1: footers don't move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And this is all happening a softening while
Speaker 2: equipment's getting easier to hit right, like while the driver
Speaker 2: head is becoming more forgiving wild course management is evolving,
Speaker 2: like to be steering the other direction. Defies any kind
Speaker 2: of logic that the wind here and it not being windy.
Speaker 2: I just don't like that people can kind of use
Speaker 2: that as an excuse to distract from what is also
Speaker 2: actually happening in the with the rest of professional golf
Speaker 2: and andy. Honestly, the course that I would compare this
Speaker 2: to that should be near and dear to everybody's hearts
Speaker 2: is Saint Andrew's, which has become completely defenseless and honestly
Speaker 2: a bad test of I think, a pretty bad test
Speaker 2: of professional golf.
Speaker 1: Unless the wind blows.
Speaker 2: There's no defense out there anymore, in in calm conditions
Speaker 2: and it's just point and shoot, shoot twenty five thirty under.
Speaker 2: I think if we had a Saint Andrews where there's
Speaker 2: no wind and there wasn't a ton at the last one,
Speaker 2: it would be alarming what golfers could do to it
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and think about what that golf course
Speaker 1: has done to you know, like you the teas are
Speaker 1: on other golf courses, right, like they've done everything. And
Speaker 1: that's an example of a golf course with really interesting
Speaker 1: greens like right, you know, and very penal bunkers.
Speaker 2: But if there's no wind, it won't matter.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I would agree with that. What uh,
Speaker 1: what are so obviously explosion and scoring? Was there?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Was there a lead up to this? Is that, you
Speaker 1: know the obvious explosion was in twenty twenty one is
Speaker 1: when this scoring, you know, has really exploded. But was
Speaker 1: there any signs of this brewing in the numbers of
Speaker 1: under sixty five rounds leading into that?
Speaker 2: I mean, you generally see I just picked a random
Speaker 2: number of sixty five. I could run this for you know,
Speaker 2: sixty eight and you'd see something similar. Generally speaking, you
Speaker 2: don't see a ton of them really until twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: But COVID in twenty twenty, I think, is when a
Speaker 2: lot of these ideas took root across sports and across
Speaker 2: all the courses on the PGA tour. So you're gonna
Speaker 2: see just these massive explosions in scoring everywhere.
Speaker 1: Like I know I've done that.
Speaker 2: I've banged the drum on fifty nine, Like you're gonna
Speaker 2: see a bunch more fifty nines coming up. So you
Speaker 2: can look at Cappelua, you can look at WHYLEI this week.
Speaker 2: If there's not a lot of wind in while I
Speaker 2: like at the Sony, we're gonna get some ridiculously low score.
Speaker 2: So to me, the warnings are all over the place,
Speaker 2: not necessarily with sixty fives or lower and the lead
Speaker 2: up to the green softening at Cappelua, but just in
Speaker 2: general in golf, I think you have to have your
Speaker 2: head stuck in the sand if you can't see that
Speaker 2: there's massive explosions in scoring when the wind doesn't blow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what uh? I mean, what would you do if
Speaker 1: you're a Cappaloua. What what do you think? Where do
Speaker 1: where does the golf of the PGA Tour go? What's
Speaker 1: the logical thing to do here out? You know? I
Speaker 1: think like we could talk about like the you know,
Speaker 1: what's a realistic thing to do with the scoring? And
Speaker 1: then I think like we're probably in the same boat
Speaker 1: that the logical thing to do is like look at this,
Speaker 1: and this is just like marathonors that are running insane
Speaker 1: run times, or swimmers that we're using a swimsuit that
Speaker 1: also broke all the world records and their sport said no, no,
Speaker 1: no more of this, you know. But like golf, a
Speaker 1: tiny rollback that really is going to be inconsequential by
Speaker 1: the time it's done is coming in twenty twenty eight right,
Speaker 1: twenty nine, twenty thirty, twenty twenty eight. So inconsequential rollback
Speaker 1: that'll set them to basically what they are today will
Speaker 1: happen in twenty twenty eight. But like, what are some
Speaker 1: smaller measures that the tour could do to maybe mitigate
Speaker 1: just the I think there's a pr issue with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Kapalua can't do this, but we clearly
Speaker 2: need to shrink the driver heads and every we've heard
Speaker 2: from a million voices that that's what needs to happen.
Speaker 2: Dodo Molinari said it on the pod. Rory said it,
Speaker 2: Tiger said it, like it's just so in your face
Speaker 2: and sensible that we got to do it, and that'll
Speaker 2: introduce some more off center hits at Kapalua. People would
Speaker 2: find more penalty areas, especially when the wind is blowing,
Speaker 2: and you'd see a little bit of an increase in
Speaker 2: score if you couldn't hit it anywhere on the driver face.
Speaker 2: In terms of what you would change about the golf course,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd love to see maybe some of the
Speaker 2: slopes reintroduced, but I wouldn't want to do much. I
Speaker 2: would not start narrowing things. I would not start covering
Speaker 2: up areas of the fairway with rough I think one
Speaker 2: tweak that they should make that I've always maintained is
Speaker 2: that the center line bunker on number five should be
Speaker 2: shifted a little to the right because going right of
Speaker 2: it is very It shortens the whole and you're not
Speaker 2: taking on a lot of risks. So I think that
Speaker 2: center line bunker is not very strategic, so I would
Speaker 2: probably tweak that.
Speaker 1: But outside that, that bunker infamously was deeper in it's
Speaker 1: original iteration, and tour officials got into the bunker and said,
Speaker 1: wait a second, this is uh, you can't get to
Speaker 1: the green from here in this bunker.
Speaker 2: Insane?
Speaker 1: Then and then it was it was it was shallowed
Speaker 1: so that players could hit from the bunker to the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do think that's a better hole if you
Speaker 2: shift that a little to the right, and it encourages
Speaker 2: players to go left of it and leave a long
Speaker 2: approach in or take on a little bit more risk
Speaker 2: and go right of It's like, that's a small alteration
Speaker 2: that I think would be a positive one. Other than that,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to go around changing too much of
Speaker 2: a golf course that was built very intelligently and that
Speaker 2: plays very well in the wind.
Speaker 1: First of you know, arguably the greatest you know, living
Speaker 1: architect's career first at Core Crunchhaw Design. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think Tom Doak and Bill and Benner at the
Speaker 1: top of the mountain and and it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's the tricky thing with this golf course is
Speaker 1: like you ideally want this to just be able to endure,
Speaker 1: but you know, the game's changed so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Only the other part I'll call out that I
Speaker 2: don't know the answer to is are we getting a
Speaker 2: little unlucky with how the absence of wind over the.
Speaker 1: Past four years? Softness too? It was so soft?
Speaker 2: Sure, but is it abnormally soft in a lack of wind?
Speaker 2: Or like, what should you expect on January fifth in
Speaker 2: that specific part of the country. Like, I don't know
Speaker 2: the answer to that. But even if you determined that
Speaker 2: the best date to have this is a month later, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think that works particularly well for the PGA
Speaker 2: tour schedule, So I'm not sure you'd take a lot
Speaker 2: of action there. But I do think in general, the
Speaker 2: lesson should be for professional golf that if you have
Speaker 2: a golf course where the only defense is wind, Like
Speaker 2: you better be prioritizing putting that on the calendar at
Speaker 2: a time of year when there's reliable wind. So don't
Speaker 2: know if if we just got a little unlucky the
Speaker 2: last forty years, but if it's windy in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: legitimate wind, you're not gonna see thirty five under Like
Speaker 2: it'll have some teeth.
Speaker 1: If you removed all the par fives and made them
Speaker 1: part four, as the winning score would have been fifteen under,
Speaker 1: let's not do that.
Speaker 2: That's that's just a band aid.
Speaker 1: I just well, here's I have like a you know,
Speaker 1: I guess like one of my my my questions is
Speaker 1: like do par fives even exist anymore?
Speaker 2: Not really? I mean thirteen Augusta people complained because only
Speaker 2: like fifty percent of the guys could go four and
Speaker 2: two after they lengthened it.
Speaker 1: Mean, there's there's a handful, Like I think, like fourteen
Speaker 1: at Pebble is one. You know, it's a shot of
Speaker 1: that stands out. And the last ten years was Gary
Speaker 1: Woodland getting home in two and during the final round
Speaker 1: of the US Open, because it was such a rare
Speaker 1: feat to get home in two. That's what a par
Speaker 1: five is what.
Speaker 2: Does pebble have? What is what does pebble have? Cold
Speaker 2: air and wind that changes how far the golf ball flies.
Speaker 2: So yes, that's a huge part of it. There aren't
Speaker 2: give me a warm golf course where there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of wind that you you can think of a
Speaker 2: true part five.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think one of the things that's
Speaker 1: happened that's permeated with with the PGA Tour is that
Speaker 1: they they've looked at other sports leagues and they see
Speaker 1: the that scoring is good for business. The NFL, the
Speaker 1: NBA dumb. But what they what they and the way
Speaker 1: they've gone about making scoring good for businesses equipment, So
Speaker 1: giving players better equipment, let's just that, you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's obviously been like receiver gloves in football that people
Speaker 1: will point to that have made catching a football easier,
Speaker 1: you know, but like the general idea of like equipment
Speaker 1: making it easier is is that's not going to happen
Speaker 1: in any other sport. The other way that they've done
Speaker 1: this is with week to week, week in, week out,
Speaker 1: predictable conditions and and and course setup and course golf
Speaker 1: course architecture, like dumbing down stuff and what they're doing. Then, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody would find the NFL product more
Speaker 1: more interesting if they said, hey, guys, we know you
Speaker 1: like scoring. We know you love when your fantasy football
Speaker 1: players go off. So this year, so the tour is
Speaker 1: neutering golf courses in design with their weekend week out
Speaker 1: setups and decisions around venues and what they need to have.
Speaker 1: I think that the best comp would be if the
Speaker 1: NFL said, we want to produce higher scoring games. Defense,
Speaker 1: you have to play a set coverage. You're only allowed
Speaker 1: to play cover two, and we're going to take one
Speaker 1: player off the field, so you get players. The offense
Speaker 1: gets eleven players because the quarterback is man on man.
Speaker 1: You know, the quarterback doesn't count, and they set up
Speaker 1: the game that way. That's what it feels like the
Speaker 1: Tour does from a week in week out. What they
Speaker 1: don't seem to understand is that the interest the friction
Speaker 1: in other sports is the defense. The fact that the
Speaker 1: defense can present unique challenges, the fact that the defense
Speaker 1: can adapt, the fact that the defense can game plan.
Speaker 1: The PGA Tour setup crew should be acting like a
Speaker 1: defensive coordinator in football. They should be looking at the
Speaker 1: players looking at the field, looking at what happened the
Speaker 1: year before, and devising a unique way to set up
Speaker 1: the golf course to produce, to try to thwart the
Speaker 1: way that the golfers have game planned to take down
Speaker 1: a golf course. And to me, this is the issue
Speaker 1: with the tours. They don't understand that the key to
Speaker 1: the sport is the friction, because why everybody loves sports
Speaker 1: is that friction, the dynamics of watching somebody do something
Speaker 1: that you think is impossible. And the issue the thing
Speaker 1: that golf is the hallway that the PGA Tour is
Speaker 1: walking golf down is that this is not hard. These
Speaker 1: guys are so good. This is just you know, a
Speaker 1: shooting gallery. The issue is they are walking themselves into
Speaker 1: bowl closer to bowling and darts and further away from
Speaker 1: sports like football, baseball, basketball, hockey, you know sports where
Speaker 1: there is a real dynamic, a back and forth between
Speaker 1: defense which is the golf course in the setup in golf,
Speaker 1: and offense, which is the players.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you went here, Andy One. I think
Speaker 2: they would argue that they do that, and that's what
Speaker 2: they did at TBC River Highlands, where they looked at
Speaker 2: the data and decided to cover up certain parts of
Speaker 2: the fairway with rough and I would push back very
Speaker 2: hard on that that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of
Speaker 2: what tests professional golfers and that removing options and just
Speaker 2: making them play into one reducing the surface area that's
Speaker 2: playable to short grass, is not actually creating a better test.
Speaker 2: The other point that I feel like I have to
Speaker 2: make is that I want to throw the challenge flag
Speaker 2: on this notion that sports fans like more scoring.
Speaker 1: I think it's a.
Speaker 2: Misguided, stupid idea. And if you were to survey somebody
Speaker 2: and say, hey, would you prefer more scoring or less scoring,
Speaker 2: They're probably going to vote and say more scoring. But
Speaker 2: if the way you got to more scoring was with
Speaker 2: less defense, like you are saying, they wouldn't want that.
Speaker 2: It's just that these reductionist arguments argue that they want
Speaker 2: more scoring, and I think you are seeing now in
Speaker 2: the NBA a sort of backlash and an outcry from
Speaker 2: fans that the homogenized high scoring stop that they're playing
Speaker 2: right now in the NBA is not interesting. And I
Speaker 2: think it's a very good analogy for what's happening in
Speaker 2: professional golf, and a good point that, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: scoring doesn't always result in more fan interest. If everyone's
Speaker 2: playing the same style and everyone's shooting threes and has
Speaker 2: these rangy perimeter defenders and we're all building our personnel
Speaker 2: the same way, and all the teams start to play
Speaker 2: the same style. Just like in golf, how you're seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of stock fades with huge driver heads and
Speaker 2: wedges to twelve feet. People don't really want that.
Speaker 1: People want tension, and that is the key to compelling sports.
Speaker 1: That's the dynamism. Yes, you you know, like that feeling
Speaker 1: that anything can happen. And the more that pro golf
Speaker 1: becomes driver wedge, the less inherent tension there is because
Speaker 1: the outcomes of a wedge from whether it's fairway or rough,
Speaker 1: the number of outcomes that can happen from a wedge
Speaker 1: is so small. It is like twenty five feet or
Speaker 1: two feet, you know, like that's kind of the range.
Speaker 1: It's the ball either, yeah, the ball doesn't roll.
Speaker 2: Soles don't matter nearly as much.
Speaker 1: I mean, I if I was gonna like think about
Speaker 1: and it's hard, it's hard with set up a grand
Speaker 1: stands and everything, But if I was if the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour said, hey, you can. You can have one tournament
Speaker 1: where you set up everything. This is this would never happen,
Speaker 1: right ever, you can set up everything. You can be
Speaker 1: in charge with the venue. I would create like a
Speaker 1: lot of variable grass heights all over the place, like
Speaker 1: really like almost random, but thought out, where like certain
Speaker 1: places roughs are shorter, certain places roughs are longer. There's
Speaker 1: in between roughs like very variable in.
Speaker 2: The pine a little pinehursty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like you know, like on a on a
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty yard part four, the rough from
Speaker 1: fifty yards in might be like a foot long on
Speaker 1: one hole, I'm shot, But then on the next hole
Speaker 1: that's around that same yardage, it might be you know,
Speaker 1: like I want to just get people thinking, I want
Speaker 1: to get them on their heels. The other thing that
Speaker 1: I would do a lot of I would change And
Speaker 1: we saw this at Chambers Bay and they went nuts.
Speaker 1: I would change pars of holes day to day and
Speaker 1: day out, and change tea boxes radically. And this is
Speaker 1: the hard thing with grandstands and stuff. But let's be real,
Speaker 1: like so of these smaller like Century doesn't have grandstand requirements.
Speaker 1: Nobody's there, there are no fans, so like I would have,
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, like one day we might
Speaker 1: play the longest part four from the forward t and
Speaker 1: just create a situation where they like they need to understand,
Speaker 1: like they have all these guys know where the tea
Speaker 1: boxes are going to be. That's like saying, Hey, Tom Brady,
Speaker 1: we're going to run We'll just use a modern Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 1: We're going to run a cover two with a spylinebacker,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to disguise anything all game long.
Speaker 1: Like these guys have all built their strategies, make them
Speaker 1: at least build a strategy on every tea box on
Speaker 1: the golf course. Don't tell them where they're going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, make them understand like how to play from everywhere.
Speaker 1: And this is the way I would start to think
Speaker 1: about like these the setup crew of the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: should not be there to hold the player's hands and
Speaker 1: coddle them and create a Marriott like experience where we
Speaker 1: can wet. It's the same thing, right, Like I know,
Speaker 1: I'm checking into my room and I know what to expect.
Speaker 1: I've got my bottle of water here, I got my
Speaker 1: king bad and I got my desk, you know, what
Speaker 1: I want those guys to do is I want it
Speaker 1: to be you know, the the Bill Belichick scheming all
Speaker 1: week on how he's going to get in Peyton Manning's kitchen,
Speaker 1: and it would be really cool to you know, you
Speaker 1: talked about like value adds of of like how you
Speaker 1: can make fans get more into it. You have these
Speaker 1: setup guys come on in on Sunday and be like,
Speaker 1: here's what we were thinking this week, and this is
Speaker 1: the game plan we just devise to try and thwart
Speaker 1: these guys. This is what you're gonna see today. And
Speaker 1: this was why we moved this here and this here
Speaker 1: was like it brings this bunker into play, this little
Speaker 1: this rough area with this pin. It might you might
Speaker 1: think you want to push it up, but if you
Speaker 1: push it up with this pin, it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: really hard pitch shot. You might want to lay back.
Speaker 1: Like that is what people want out of a sport.
Speaker 1: They want complexity, to dive in and really understand it.
Speaker 1: If if modern media of sports like that is why
Speaker 1: people like podcasts, That's why people listen to these football
Speaker 1: podcasts that get into like the x's and o's and
Speaker 1: you know, like Nate TICE is like a fascinating football podcast.
Speaker 1: He's talking about coverages. I don't know what he's talking about, really,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate the complexity of the sport, and the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour is just dumbing it down every chance they
Speaker 1: can get.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think they would argue they have those people
Speaker 2: and that's what they're doing, and they're sitting there on
Speaker 2: Sunday saying, here's the game plan for the next four
Speaker 2: to eight Thursday, the next tournament. But I don't think
Speaker 2: they have an inherent understanding of what actually tests professional golfers.
Speaker 2: I don't think they have the courage to test golfers provocatively.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 1: They're just trying to not upset anybody every week.
Speaker 2: They want the morning to play like the afternoon on
Speaker 2: Thursday and Friday. Like there's so many of these considerations
Speaker 2: that tame the golf course. And to kind of bring
Speaker 2: this full circle, like I know this isn't a TGL pod,
Speaker 2: but this is kind of the appeal of TGL, Like
Speaker 2: you don't have the constraints, You get to set the
Speaker 2: conditions however you want, and you can have an eight
Speaker 2: hundred yard par four like it doesn't matter because you
Speaker 2: don't actually have to have the land and find a
Speaker 2: venue to host. So I really like this conversation because
Speaker 2: Kapaalua just hits on all of these different things, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna come to a boiling point every year at
Speaker 2: this venue when there's not a lot of wind.
Speaker 1: I think this could be a theme of the year.
Speaker 1: Is this exact conversation a week in week out. They
Speaker 1: might do something like Riviera if it's wet and calm,
Speaker 1: without whether it could be something, you know, some record
Speaker 1: scoring and I think this is just going to be
Speaker 1: a nail. And I think like we're starting to see
Speaker 1: people say, you know what, like for for twenty years,
Speaker 1: it's just been like these guys are better and better,
Speaker 1: They're better and better, and I think we've reached a
Speaker 1: point where where fans are starting to say they aren't better.
Speaker 1: This is you've just devalued the sport. And I think
Speaker 1: that's where we're at. It was an interesting first week.
Speaker 1: I love Kapalua, and I just, you know, I hope
Speaker 1: that there there begins to be an awakening that that
Speaker 1: defense matters in pro golf and it can't that Bertie
Speaker 1: Bonanzas are not the best way forward because what you're
Speaker 1: doing is you're really limiting the number of shots and
Speaker 1: the amazing things that these players can do. And you're
Speaker 1: you're you know, they want to build superstars, and and
Speaker 1: this is the way you build superstars is by having
Speaker 1: more compelling tests.
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, the four tournaments that prioritize
Speaker 2: defense are also the most popular.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the PGA is one of those four,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of got a little a little better.
Speaker 1: But that's yeah, yeah, So all right, Joseph, we get
Speaker 1: see all of your work the wildly popular design Disasters,
Speaker 1: the Fridagg newsletter and on the Fridagg website. Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on, Thanks for having me. All right, big
Speaker 1: thanks to Joseph for hopping on. Let's get over to
Speaker 1: our architecture segment of this podcast and our guest jaeger Kovich.
Speaker 1: But first let's talk about our friend at Club Champion.
Speaker 1: We are thrilled to have them back in twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 1: All Right, Jaeger, Welcome on the pod. Frequent guest. We've
Speaker 1: had a couple episodes with you over the years and
Speaker 1: excited to have you on. At the start of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, I wanted to do a little golf course
Speaker 1: architecture check in from an active, practicing golf course architect
Speaker 1: and really see what ideas topics are rumbling around your
Speaker 1: head for twenty twenty five and beyond. But first I
Speaker 1: got to ask, dude, are there what are like New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions? Like as a golf course architect, are there
Speaker 1: professional resolutions? And what are they? Are they? Mostly? If
Speaker 1: I had to guess, they're mostly centered around getting plans
Speaker 1: turned around, not at the last minute.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't define that as a you know, resolution as
Speaker 3: much as just like everyday anxiety. You know, this year,
Speaker 3: in all honesty, I did not make a resolution. I
Speaker 3: have been years past, you know what have they been?
Speaker 3: Probably less like super work related. You know. One of
Speaker 3: them was trying to shoot in the seventies at least
Speaker 3: five times a year, and I did. I did achieve
Speaker 3: it that year. You know, I kind of started like
Speaker 3: mid year sort of change in my life. I guess,
Speaker 3: doing a lot more working out, trying to I took
Speaker 3: my first lesson golf lesson in twenty years this summer.
Speaker 3: So I feel like I tried this like switch in
Speaker 3: my life, mostly because my three year old can basically
Speaker 3: outrun me and beat me up and trying to keep
Speaker 3: up with him, but also just like you know, the
Speaker 3: daily grind of being in the doser, in the excavator,
Speaker 3: constantly walking. I still drive the mini Clubman you made
Speaker 3: me famous for many many years ago. Folding myself into
Speaker 3: that honestly is now hurting, Yeah exactly, it is now
Speaker 3: quite frankly just like starting to wear on my back
Speaker 3: Between all of these So, you know, I kind of
Speaker 3: got on this routine more in the midsummer. So I'm
Speaker 3: really just trying to keep on the pace I've been
Speaker 3: in and not fall behind. And then I feel like,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, we're like three to five months
Speaker 3: like ahead of the curve here with all these resolution
Speaker 3: people that are just showing up to the gym like
Speaker 3: we're we've already been there, we know the routine. So
Speaker 3: that it's that's kind of that's kind of where my
Speaker 3: head's at right now for a lot of stuff. But
Speaker 3: maybe that maybe the Mini Cooper is not that long
Speaker 3: for the world. I'm it's it's tough.
Speaker 1: The key, the key to the gym stuff, I believe
Speaker 1: is you got to get in early. You've got to
Speaker 1: start your New Year's gym routine in November. You got
Speaker 1: to beat people in there at the minimum and and
Speaker 1: then feel like you're regular by the time January hits.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you got no hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I yeah, totally agree.
Speaker 1: I think we're Is the excavator hard on your body,
Speaker 1: like I imagine, does it like move around a lot
Speaker 1: like jolts and stuff.
Speaker 3: You kind of like watching if you're watching, you can
Speaker 3: see I do a lot of rocking. So the machine
Speaker 3: does a lot of like the buckets going down and
Speaker 3: even if you have like a blade on the front
Speaker 3: where you can stabilize yourself, you end up doing this
Speaker 3: a lot. So it's really hard to like maintain like
Speaker 3: good posture in there. And then the dozer can be
Speaker 3: you know, the smoother you are, the smoother and easier
Speaker 3: ride it's going to be. But you're backing up and
Speaker 3: you pop up, you know, run over a rock like
Speaker 3: you absolutely feel it. So you know this year, we're
Speaker 3: going up to Rocky, Connecticut in the middle.
Speaker 1: Of the year.
Speaker 3: Uh, so we're going to be prepared for uh, we
Speaker 3: want to make sure we can last for not just
Speaker 3: this year, but you know the long term, right, I
Speaker 3: expected be in these machines for you know, a good
Speaker 3: you know, thirty plus years more. I guess you know
Speaker 3: probably uh, you know, everybody's you know to go retire
Speaker 3: these days, right, so you know you never retire, correct?
Speaker 3: You know, Gil still in that machine too. I don't
Speaker 3: know how he's been able to, uh, you know, do that.
Speaker 3: But I'm starting to think a little bit room your
Speaker 3: car might also be. So maybe that that folds into
Speaker 3: your resolution.
Speaker 1: Well, Tom's saying he is going to retire, He's going
Speaker 1: to buck the trend.
Speaker 3: I guess we'll see, we will see, we will.
Speaker 1: See how much different, how much harder do you feel
Speaker 1: it when you're working in rock and Connecticut versus sand
Speaker 1: on Long Island. Is like there is a noticeable different
Speaker 1: day and day out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So last summer we did about a month long
Speaker 3: project at Old Sandwich and just this absolute sugar sand.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even like slightly rocky. It was like pure
Speaker 3: sand because they had dumped feet and feet and feet
Speaker 3: and feet just to fill this area many years ago
Speaker 3: before we even got there. Of like screen sand. Its
Speaker 3: just like so smooth, it's so much quicker. It's you know,
Speaker 3: there's other it washes away, it shifts a little bit more.
Speaker 3: You had to do some other things, but yeah, it
Speaker 3: was it was a big delight versus where where we're
Speaker 3: heading out later this year.
Speaker 1: All right, Jaeger, what let's just do a little quick
Speaker 1: twenty four and twenty five look ahead. What was your
Speaker 1: the golf course that you saw in twenty four that
Speaker 1: you maybe think about the most or had the biggest
Speaker 1: impact on you? And then in twenty five, what's one
Speaker 1: course you really want to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I had a pretty good twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: golfing wise, I finally got to make a bit of
Speaker 3: a trip of a lifetime, a bit of a delayed honeymoon.
Speaker 3: I spent two weeks in Australia and New Zealand in
Speaker 3: March and February. My design associate Nick Mills got married
Speaker 3: at Kingston Heath. We even helped to play on the
Speaker 3: morning of his wedding, which it was pretty cool. I
Speaker 3: don't think even missus proper golf wouldn't have allowed that.
Speaker 3: But so with that trip, there are two golf courses
Speaker 3: that I think about all the time, and that's Royal
Speaker 3: Melbourne West you know when probably the composite when, because
Speaker 3: I was able to play both and just thinking about
Speaker 3: the mashup of the two of them. And then Tara
Speaker 3: d in New Zealand there you know, the two without
Speaker 3: a doubt dope tens that I played this year and
Speaker 3: there I Everybody always asks me what my favorite golf
Speaker 3: course in the world is, and I used to give
Speaker 3: an answer of three. I've had to expand my answer
Speaker 3: beyond three.
Speaker 1: At this point, is it five? Now?
Speaker 3: I kind of I kind of say it's five and
Speaker 3: then I mumble six, What's what is it? Well? Those
Speaker 3: two Pine Valley National Golf Links, uh Bally, New North,
Speaker 3: Barrick West. Those are the six I mentioned.
Speaker 1: That's good. What so if you were going to distill
Speaker 1: down like one thing about Royal Melbourne that you really
Speaker 1: you know that that really stands out one thing about
Speaker 1: Terry e D. What are those things?
Speaker 3: I mean, they're very different. The the entire day at
Speaker 3: Terry e D. It's exceptional. It's a bit of a
Speaker 3: lower key vibe. There's you're probably not going to see
Speaker 3: as many people. It's you know, I think to a degree,
Speaker 3: as natural as Royal Melburn is is on a whole
Speaker 3: other level. With that and the beauty the golf holes
Speaker 3: are exceptional. I think it really starts to you know,
Speaker 3: it builds nicely. The turf is unbelievable. It's basically just
Speaker 3: a beautiful sea of continuous short grass rescues. It's it's
Speaker 3: just it's just a magical day in every way, shape
Speaker 3: or form. You know. Royal Melbourne is bit of a
Speaker 3: different It's obviously a much harder golf course. It's, you know,
Speaker 3: probably the greatest championship golf course in the world. I
Speaker 3: think I have not played Oakmont, I've only walked it.
Speaker 3: But I think given the amount of fine turf uh there,
Speaker 3: the firmness, the more natural beauty and things.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 3: I just there is such an incredible diversity to the holes,
Speaker 3: the strategies. I just I walked it in the morning,
Speaker 3: I kind of charted my way through it, and then
Speaker 3: I went out there in the afternoon and I really
Speaker 3: tried to like execute on my plan and it was
Speaker 3: really unbelievable. You know, it helps when you occasionally as
Speaker 3: are able to do that and execute even at my level.
Speaker 3: And you know, the people in Australia and Melbourne I
Speaker 3: met were beyond friendly. They were super kind. They really
Speaker 3: wanted to share their golf course with you and ask
Speaker 3: you about each and everything after are you playing here?
Speaker 3: Like it's it's again, It's just like remarkable in like
Speaker 3: every single way. You know, there's without you know, I
Speaker 3: just can't wait to plan my next trip down there
Speaker 3: to wealth of these places.
Speaker 1: It's what you said about Royal Melbourne. It was so evident.
Speaker 1: The first hole of the President's Cup of like that
Speaker 1: idea of like charting your way around where the America
Speaker 1: that first hole of the composite course, the Americans were
Speaker 1: trying to hit it up close to the green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the the Internationals were all laying back and it
Speaker 1: was like a bloodbath the first all like the Americans
Speaker 1: were playing American golf, just blasted up by the green
Speaker 1: and the and the Internationals laid back and it was
Speaker 1: like it was the Internationals just smoked them, like they
Speaker 1: understood they respected the golf course.
Speaker 3: So and I watching that and watching where people were
Speaker 3: hitting it, like ow one hundred percent helped me on
Speaker 3: that hole, among others. You know. I walked you know,
Speaker 3: the course in the morning. I saw there was a
Speaker 3: way back left pin onto which is a part five,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh man, I'm going to go this
Speaker 3: far right as right can get on the with the
Speaker 3: mash in a three wood up there that you know
Speaker 3: I can't get there, but just get the angle and
Speaker 3: like if you're able to do that and come it
Speaker 3: just like all of a sudden, I just got zoned
Speaker 3: in and there's that's a place that you know, the
Speaker 3: It has some very heavily contourt greens, but I would
Speaker 3: say it's certainly known for firmness, speed kind of everything.
Speaker 3: But it still is able. The Mackenzie's green complexes still
Speaker 3: are able to have tons of whole locations available for use.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not like you get the speeds going
Speaker 3: and you have one or two hole locations. You still
Speaker 3: have a huge variety with them, like throughout, even if
Speaker 3: it's there's maybe one or two that you know, probably
Speaker 3: a little tighter than the others, but in general, you know,
Speaker 3: it just it works so well at when you dial
Speaker 3: it up, it just is magic. You know. I wish,
Speaker 3: I just hope one day I'm able to play the
Speaker 3: composite and I probably need to be either a member
Speaker 3: or where they get to do it like once or
Speaker 3: twice a year, or I have to somehow qualify for
Speaker 3: a tournament, which is never going to happen.
Speaker 1: So you are maybe a media member before a Peak Cup.
Speaker 1: Maybe well transitioned to media.
Speaker 3: You know. I know architects never retire, but there's like
Speaker 3: a twenty five wait list year waitlist to you know,
Speaker 3: Royal Melbourne. And I was like, you know, I was
Speaker 3: thinking about it really really really hard when I got
Speaker 3: do we just you know, kid'll be in college. Do
Speaker 3: we just try to be like instead of going to
Speaker 3: Florida or something like that, you know, there go there
Speaker 3: in the winner, hanging out with Nick play some you know,
Speaker 3: amazing golf. There is like.
Speaker 1: Still very tempting this you you, those are two of
Speaker 1: the places I most want to get to. And uh
Speaker 1: and I'm I feel like I'm running out of time
Speaker 1: on this year already we get there? What twenty five?
Speaker 1: What's what's the one course you'd love to see a
Speaker 1: twenty five that you haven't seen yet?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Realistic or non realistic?
Speaker 1: Wherever you want to get nonrealistic is better.
Speaker 3: Non realistic at this point, probably for different reasons. I'll
Speaker 3: name too barn Google. You know, I really wish I
Speaker 3: somehow could have found an entire extra week and gone
Speaker 3: and done a trip to Tazzi and seen some more stuff.
Speaker 3: But Barn Google would have been the absolute number one
Speaker 3: of those Australian courses New Zealand Corps. I didn't get
Speaker 3: to see that I'd really like to see. I think
Speaker 3: it's got the you know, it's the Bali Neils down
Speaker 3: on your cousin and I'd really like to check that
Speaker 3: out one day, and I hope it's not too long.
Speaker 3: And then I guess maybe the second one, partially because
Speaker 3: I have walked in haven't played it, because of you know,
Speaker 3: just everything I would I would like to see Oakmont
Speaker 3: and play Oakmont. Probably be a tougher year with the
Speaker 3: open there, it's gonna be probably be a little restricted
Speaker 3: to uh, you know, people like me. But I think
Speaker 3: that you know, that's that's one of the very best
Speaker 3: golf courses that is incredibly unique that I have not
Speaker 3: got to play. I was able to see. I got
Speaker 3: a lot, a lot of boxes checked last year.
Speaker 1: So it might be a down year, that's what you're
Speaker 1: assuming to be hunting at.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, man, I mean, I I still
Speaker 3: am very, very determined to at least see a minimum
Speaker 3: of fifty different golf courses a year. It's going to
Speaker 3: be very difficult with the work schedule, which gets bigger
Speaker 3: by the day, with our projects that you know, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be bigger than ever this year. But I've I've
Speaker 3: seen fifty for the last there's maybe been two years
Speaker 3: in the last decade, or I haven't seen fifty in
Speaker 3: some years it's been more. So I'm gonna push for
Speaker 3: That's just a regular that's not a resolution, that's just
Speaker 3: a normal life.
Speaker 1: That's it. I would love to be at that number two.
Speaker 3: It's I do you count them?
Speaker 1: Do you track your account? Yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I hit fifty last year, I probably was around forty something.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's hard to hit. I always had a
Speaker 1: lot of time on the road, it is.
Speaker 3: But you know I can the area here. It's easier, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a little bit easier in the if
Speaker 3: you want to stick it to the northeast. I could
Speaker 3: probably force my way there if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Let's get to your your things real quick. So what's
Speaker 1: the b the first burning thing on your list?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think you could go any cost
Speaker 3: has to be the first one. And the price of projects,
Speaker 3: the price of materials, the price of golf, and you
Speaker 3: know what the cost of all of these things has
Speaker 3: been doing over the years in relation to projects, in
Speaker 3: relation to clubs and memberships and how things are being funded,
Speaker 3: and you know how busy things are. It's just there's
Speaker 3: so many different ways you can look and dive into
Speaker 3: the cost discussion here, you know, So like even you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's, like I said, you know, you have material costs,
Speaker 3: but like you know, they just keep going up. There's
Speaker 3: lots of trucking costs and things related to this there's sand,
Speaker 3: there's materials, there's all these things, and it keeps you know,
Speaker 3: you haven't seen any real reduced demand. There's definitely been
Speaker 3: more and more I think, tightening to a degree. But yeah,
Speaker 3: at the same time, there's another club seemingly behind next
Speaker 3: in line that almost wants to do more and more,
Speaker 3: even faster than some of you know. So it's crazy
Speaker 3: and it makes you think about how long this will continue.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 3: You know, it definitely is having an effect on the
Speaker 3: memberships and clubs looking to do projects. You know, it's
Speaker 3: like everybody's still in this. You have a wait list,
Speaker 3: you have a busier t sheet than ever so in
Speaker 3: my area right I'm in New jer I work in
Speaker 3: New Jersey, New York, Philly, Massachusetts, like generally throughout the
Speaker 3: region here, and you know, these clubs have witless and
Speaker 3: like there's not like another cheaper, easier place to go
Speaker 3: down the street. It's like another option if you don't
Speaker 3: want to buy into the things, so you see less
Speaker 3: junior memberships. It's just it's wild. You know, we could
Speaker 3: get into you know, break down more of the construction
Speaker 3: costs and you start thinking about different ways to reduce things.
Speaker 3: It's just it's you wonder how long it's all gonna
Speaker 3: last like this, but you know, some people tell you
Speaker 3: the next four years are going to be even better.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And I mean, that's that's the thing, right, It's got
Speaker 1: to be hard to be in your position too. You
Speaker 1: you create these proposals where you're saying, this is what
Speaker 1: it's going to cost, and then for the most part,
Speaker 1: a lot of these projects happen twelve months, eighteen months,
Speaker 1: twenty four months later, and you've been dealing with a extraordinarily,
Speaker 1: you know, rapidly increasing cost basis for everything. So have
Speaker 1: you noticed that, like just figuring out like a way
Speaker 1: to bid a project, like a way to price it.
Speaker 1: Has that been a challenge? I think.
Speaker 3: A handful of years ago, and certainly at the start
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty and probably going and shifting into twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, it was dramatically changing. I think at this point,
Speaker 3: in all honesty, it's much more predictable. I work with
Speaker 3: a handful of golf contractors in the area pretty much,
Speaker 3: so we're pretty we're always doing projects in different places,
Speaker 3: and these are longer term clients. A lot of them
Speaker 3: so you can kind of you know what you did
Speaker 3: last year, we know what we're going to do the
Speaker 3: next year. We know that there's going to be some
Speaker 3: increase of you know, moderate percentage for the most part.
Speaker 3: And but you know, I think a lot of the
Speaker 3: materials are generally starting the level off, but there's certainly nuanced.
Speaker 3: And the thing is like where I am in the
Speaker 3: East Coast, everybody's buying sands from two or three sources.
Speaker 3: Or Pennsylvania, you're always doing this, do you buy the
Speaker 3: Ohio sands? There's two sands from Ohio that like I
Speaker 3: would say fifty percent of my clients are deciding two
Speaker 3: pro angle and what's called or was called the best
Speaker 3: nine hot, yeah, which was the nine hundred or something.
Speaker 3: And then you have another plant in Philadelphia which was
Speaker 3: like the go to sand for everybody for like I
Speaker 3: would say, a good five years leading into COVID, and
Speaker 3: then COVID sort of changed some stuff with that plant
Speaker 3: and now people are a little weary of it.
Speaker 2: Is that so like?
Speaker 3: But it's a little bit cheaper. It just like everybody's
Speaker 3: making some decisions based on risk, on price, on what
Speaker 3: they played at the other place. And then you've got
Speaker 3: obviously the liners. So like for example, right now that
Speaker 3: pro angle sand, why I have to purchase it for
Speaker 3: we have to purchase it for a club this spring
Speaker 3: in March, and you know it's one hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: dollars a ton, but know, yeah, I mean if.
Speaker 1: You fact, like it was like eighty a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 3: Right, so when we did like you know, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: when we did all the ironomy, it might have been
Speaker 3: sixty four, Like you might be going from sixty four
Speaker 3: to that much. And a lot of it is you
Speaker 3: have trucking, you have labor, you have fuel, you have
Speaker 3: like all of these things. And then there's certainly seems
Speaker 3: like there's a golf tax. And then you know, some
Speaker 3: of these things aren't like always the like number one
Speaker 3: priority for some of these plants that like create these
Speaker 3: materials like the liners. Right you know, say capillary concrete,
Speaker 3: for example, is like a liner that everybody's heard of
Speaker 3: on the East Coast for sure, but like you know,
Speaker 3: concrete plants aren't in business to make capillary concrete. Like
Speaker 3: it's a micro percentage and like they've got to change
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff to do it. And when you've
Speaker 3: got building work at all time high and roads and
Speaker 3: everything else at all times. You know, it just goes
Speaker 3: up and up, and it just there's so many different factors,
Speaker 3: like you can get into the nuance like that, but
Speaker 3: I definitely think there's you know, golf tax, there's everything,
Speaker 3: There's inflation, there's just it never seems I would say
Speaker 3: in general, it's somewhat leveling off. You know, I do,
Speaker 3: and I've learned since twenty twenty. And the higher the
Speaker 3: total numbers get, I feel like the much greater detail
Speaker 3: you need to get into in terms of budgeting, in
Speaker 3: terms of how you're measuring things, how you're calculating things,
Speaker 3: how you're tracking things, predicting things like because when the
Speaker 3: numbers are two to three what they were ten years ago,
Speaker 3: and the numbers are so high, people get much more
Speaker 3: nervous and you need to like how did it get
Speaker 3: that high? Like how? And so I need to be
Speaker 3: able to, you know, kind of prove where each little
Speaker 3: piece of the puzzle is going to. And that's how
Speaker 3: we're able to. You know, I have a really good
Speaker 3: track record at being on or a little bit under budget,
Speaker 3: you know, because of that and really trying to work
Speaker 3: with concert and clubs to fine tune it because it's
Speaker 3: it's very difficult, and it's the thing I worry the
Speaker 3: most about building bunkers, shaping bunkers, coming up with those ideas,
Speaker 3: Like I'm not very worried about that anymore. I'm not
Speaker 3: even worried about presenting, which is I hate public but
Speaker 3: you know, don't. That's not my favorite thing either, is
Speaker 3: speaking in front of large audience. But it's the budgeting
Speaker 3: and the fear of having to ask for more is
Speaker 3: the thing that keeps me up at night the most.
Speaker 1: It's you know, sand is like just a fascinating topic
Speaker 1: because the sand that everybody's buying is like the least
Speaker 1: hazardous sand in the world. M it is the bright
Speaker 1: white sand that the ball like everybody loves it. Every
Speaker 1: golfer loves it because they get in to it and
Speaker 1: the ball just magically pops out.
Speaker 3: Like it is the easy you have if you have
Speaker 3: good club head speed and you can you know how
Speaker 3: to hit a bunker shot, You're going to produce more
Speaker 3: spin and control it out of these perfect lies because
Speaker 3: it's not going to plug with the liner and the
Speaker 3: roller faces and the high flash sand Like we can
Speaker 3: make it come to the bottom like every time.
Speaker 1: But now it's what do you think about it?
Speaker 3: Funny because like I heard you talking about the Kapelua
Speaker 3: thing the other day and I was like thinking about
Speaker 3: the reduce, was like, well, what if you just let
Speaker 3: me let me just beach sand and make the hazards matter.
Speaker 1: So the Kapalua this was on the shotgun start, So
Speaker 1: I just want to put this out here on this pod.
Speaker 1: Capala is one of the few PGA Tour venues that
Speaker 1: uses non standardized sand, so they use the same sand
Speaker 1: at basically every tour stop. If you go to a
Speaker 1: TPC course, they have the same sand. There's another The
Speaker 1: goal of PGA tour set up really week in week
Speaker 1: out is they want it to be like a Marriott
Speaker 1: where the players check in and everything's the same. They
Speaker 1: know exactly what to expect, which, like as a golf fan,
Speaker 1: is probably the complete opposite of what you want. So
Speaker 1: you know, this maybe the start of the product problem.
Speaker 1: But Kapalua is historically the hardest place when you're in
Speaker 1: a bunker, and it is one of the few courses
Speaker 1: that doesn't have that standardized sand. The sand you're talking
Speaker 1: about from Ohio or Pennsylvania. Is that type of standardized
Speaker 1: sand that is the sand that PGA tour players love.
Speaker 1: You know, if you remember back.
Speaker 3: Super tested for the ideal firmness, the least amount of washing,
Speaker 3: like this is it. It's a dream. You know, if
Speaker 3: you had the amount of rain you had in in
Speaker 3: our area at points last year and it washed all
Speaker 3: the time, you would quit your job, if you worked
Speaker 3: on the maintenance staff, and you would never want to
Speaker 3: fix bunkers ever again for your life. So it makes
Speaker 3: all the sense in the world for every club to
Speaker 3: be pushing out because it's harder and harder and harder
Speaker 3: to find people that want to do it or the
Speaker 3: clubs that should be paying labor hours to do it.
Speaker 3: And then you have the exact It does the exact opposite.
Speaker 3: You know that it has this playability factor which is different.
Speaker 1: So you know, the sand's very expensive and it erodes
Speaker 1: the actual point of a hazard. It erods the point
Speaker 1: of a bunker. It makes it extraordinarily easy to play
Speaker 1: out of. It makes it reduces the impact that a
Speaker 1: bunker has. I think, like a great example, have you
Speaker 1: been to Sand Valley not yet? Bandon would be a
Speaker 1: great example. Too, when you you know, Bandon just has
Speaker 1: like the native sand. It's just like beach sand. What
Speaker 1: were you just brought up? So it has just beach sand.
Speaker 1: And I think, like something, if I'm playing I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say, if I'm playing wingfoot, yep, if I'm at Bandon,
Speaker 1: I'm exponentially more terrified of bunkers than if I'm at
Speaker 1: wingfoot because of the sand profile. I know, at Wingfoot
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to hit a high lofted
Speaker 1: spinny shot out of a bunker and it's probably not
Speaker 1: going to plug. At Bandon, I am terrified of it
Speaker 1: plugging sometimes, Like I don't have I don't have the
Speaker 1: capability of like having like six sets of wedges like pros,
Speaker 1: but like I have to go down to like I
Speaker 1: need a little more bounce out of the out of
Speaker 1: the bunkers when the sand gets heavier, so I go
Speaker 1: down to fifty six. It reduces the ability for me
Speaker 1: to get up. It makes short sight and misses more penalizing.
Speaker 3: But anyways, like, yeah, I guess I'm a member at
Speaker 3: a club that is exactly bally Isle right correct, totally
Speaker 3: natural sand. It's just what's there, And you know, I
Speaker 3: know that like a lot of my personal preferences of
Speaker 3: what like you know, the places, you know, I call
Speaker 3: it my happy place over there. You know, it's just
Speaker 3: like I love it more than anything.
Speaker 1: But that is not.
Speaker 3: Not what the desires and the intention of almost not all,
Speaker 3: but most of my clients are like we used at
Speaker 3: Old Sandwich this summer as an example. I mean they've
Speaker 3: been mining sand on site there. We didn't buy any materials.
Speaker 3: They screened from a pit themselves. We used it for mix.
Speaker 3: We didn't need to do like you know, and that
Speaker 3: was a place where we could get away with that.
Speaker 1: We do some much roughly roughly what percentage savings does
Speaker 1: a project like that have, Like if you could, like
Speaker 1: so you did it, I'll show you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think better if you have we'll just
Speaker 3: we'll say a ten million dollar renovation generally speaking, you're
Speaker 3: about fifty to fifty materials to labor, okay, or within
Speaker 3: the forty to sixty realm.
Speaker 1: So I think that's that's a very big cost.
Speaker 3: Sure, you know, so is sod and grassing, and there's
Speaker 3: lots of nuances to it. Like we could go forever
Speaker 3: on those things. But we'll say your bog standard Northeast renovation.
Speaker 3: It's in the fifty to fifty materials labor forty sixty
Speaker 3: kind of thing. So the more you know, if you
Speaker 3: don't have to buy greens mix or bunker sand, you know,
Speaker 3: like I just mentioned, for an eighteen hole renovation out
Speaker 3: of time, at the cost of sands. Currently you're probably
Speaker 3: figuring five hundred thousand dollars line item going to sand. Wow,
Speaker 3: that's just to buy it, not to put it in,
Speaker 3: not to reshape it, not to do the drainage, not
Speaker 3: to do the liner, just to buy the sand.
Speaker 1: I think if you think about where one of the
Speaker 1: ways that golf in America, I think like using the
Speaker 1: term where I want to preface this. I don't think
Speaker 1: like lost its way is necessarily the right term, but
Speaker 1: it's certainly a term you think of. Here is the
Speaker 1: idea of what you are entitled to in a bunker
Speaker 1: if we were you know, if there's a rain event
Speaker 1: and bunkers are washed out, but we will get to
Speaker 1: them when we get to them. Like I had this
Speaker 1: takeaway actually from Pine Valley. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever played like a super high end, super well regarded
Speaker 1: course with more inconsistent bunkers than Pine Valley, and you
Speaker 1: know what it was, It's demanding. It is like a
Speaker 1: true test of skill, Like you get in the bunker
Speaker 1: and you have to figure out, like what's this lie
Speaker 1: and what is it going to do? And the better,
Speaker 1: the more knowledgeable, the better player and the better bunker player,
Speaker 1: the more shots you have out of the bunker is
Speaker 1: absolutely rewarded. It is. It is like it's actually like
Speaker 1: something like I you know, everybody talks. Is the biggest
Speaker 1: thing I took away from Pine Valley was like, you know,
Speaker 1: people go to these places and they want to mimic
Speaker 1: the Green Speed, But here's like what a lot of
Speaker 1: people think is the greatest course in the world. Why
Speaker 1: don't people ever mimic the bunkers there? Because I guarantee
Speaker 1: the bunker maintenance expense is pretty low there in you know,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of but like in comparison to
Speaker 1: most clubs and it's arena, I would guess it's in
Speaker 1: the low end of bunker maintenance.
Speaker 3: I'm not certain there's a lot of hand labor that
Speaker 3: has to go into it because the amount of them
Speaker 3: and the plant varieties and things, so there's probably more
Speaker 3: I mean, Hin Valley is not known for a low
Speaker 3: maintenance budget, but you know before but but you know
Speaker 3: who is It has that exact same variability in bunkers
Speaker 3: and it's suggest a general region and it's due to
Speaker 3: probably the greatest material for golf courses on planet Earth.
Speaker 3: And that's the Melbourne sand Bell I took. You know,
Speaker 3: Garrett just came back. I took my first trip there
Speaker 3: in February March, and you know, Nick Mills, who works
Speaker 3: for me, is from there. And you know, you had
Speaker 3: the greatest variety of life. Sometimes it was hard packed
Speaker 3: and it could change in this corner of the bunker
Speaker 3: to that corner of the bunker, this course, that course,
Speaker 3: one side of the green, and the other different parts
Speaker 3: of the property. You know, you will occasionally get a
Speaker 3: plug lie in the face. But there's all sorts of
Speaker 3: different amounts of sand in these things. They're they're extremely variable.
Speaker 3: I found it a much much different shot than I would.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a pretty good bunker player at home.
Speaker 3: That's that's like, you know, that's probably the best part
Speaker 3: of my game. And I really struggled there. And you know,
Speaker 3: Melbourne sand Belt certainly known for the bunker and they're
Speaker 3: really known for that magical you know, black sand kind
Speaker 3: of stuff that just compacts and it's just gold. But
Speaker 3: you know, I think part of you know, what makes
Speaker 3: you know, probably Royal Melbourne one of the great you know,
Speaker 3: probably maybe the greatest championship course some the world, is
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and it makes those courses, you know,
Speaker 3: makes the hazards matter in a in a different way.
Speaker 3: And I think that you know, as we started this
Speaker 3: segment with like the cost thing, like how do we
Speaker 3: how do we figure out how to you know, reduce
Speaker 3: the cost of bunkers is definitely the most expensive part
Speaker 3: of Northeast maintenance. Right.
Speaker 1: It seems like just in general, the every every club
Speaker 1: and every maintenance team and like this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is what the club ass and that's what you know,
Speaker 1: like a superintendent does is like the you know, and
Speaker 1: I think like the practice, like you know, doctors try
Speaker 1: and make surgeries more efficient and more successful, like the
Speaker 1: success right right, Superintendents like are trying to make conditions
Speaker 1: more consistent and more and better yea, you know, more
Speaker 1: optimal year over year. I think like one of the
Speaker 1: things that's that's happened, especially like I noticed it from
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, especially like and you see
Speaker 1: it at like the municipal level, like municipal golf maintenance.
Speaker 1: The level of maintenance at municipal courses today is world's
Speaker 1: better than twenty years ago, like war leaps and bounds,
Speaker 1: Like I don't see the spongy greens that I grew
Speaker 1: up playing where a wedge would bounce like twelve feet
Speaker 1: in there, but the green was super soft because it's
Speaker 1: just all thatch, right, Like those those days are kind
Speaker 1: of like a way like gone. But like one of
Speaker 1: the things that's happened is that this like strive for
Speaker 1: perfection across the property has just created this insane cost
Speaker 1: basis for the sport. And that like that to me
Speaker 1: is like if and I wanted to ask this question,
Speaker 1: if you were going to attempt to do a project
Speaker 1: as cheap as possible and run a affordable, really good,
Speaker 1: let's just call it a doke six golf course, how
Speaker 1: would you what would be the things that you would
Speaker 1: stress and an attempt to do in order to in
Speaker 1: order if you even thought you could the realm of
Speaker 1: possibility of having sub one hundred and fifty a dollar
Speaker 1: golf and a really good golf course in a you
Speaker 1: know at this point in time that had to do
Speaker 1: a big project.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you have to get it to that number,
Speaker 3: I think probably the key is you have to build
Speaker 3: it yourself, right, like you have to take a little
Speaker 3: bit longer, You have to almost field it with your
Speaker 3: maintenance team, and while a lot less on on the
Speaker 3: outside labor and you know, the more and then if
Speaker 3: you have to certainly if you have to purchase materials
Speaker 3: for that project, right, if it's not blessed with sand,
Speaker 3: then you have to reduce the labor portion. And then
Speaker 3: you have to do it kind of yourself. And you
Speaker 3: can do some things to cut out the materials that
Speaker 3: you're unwilling to spend. So do you decide to do
Speaker 3: significantly less spunkers that would probably be truly on the table.
Speaker 3: The more short grass you do, the higher you know
Speaker 3: you're going to have to maintain that at a certain
Speaker 3: standard going forward. You know, I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of options you come to, the size of greens certainly matters,
Speaker 3: especially if you're purchasing mix, but those add more and
Speaker 3: more locations at you know, faster and faster highly desired speeds.
Speaker 3: If you're looking to do a public course or whatever
Speaker 3: and make a bunch of you're gonna need big enough
Speaker 3: greens where you can have you know, forty thousand rounds
Speaker 3: a year or whatever on it and have six different holocags.
Speaker 3: So you need really big greens at the speech that
Speaker 3: you want. And that's something that like you know, probably
Speaker 3: is somewhere else down on my list here of things.
Speaker 3: But like you're gonna have to make some decisions like
Speaker 3: site based. But I guess the thing is you got
Speaker 3: to prioritize which materials matter the most and then which
Speaker 3: for for that given sight. It could be a hilly property,
Speaker 3: it could like, you know, how can you use the
Speaker 3: land to not have to do as many bunkers to
Speaker 3: do things like that to create you know, use natural
Speaker 3: features to create strategy and hazards and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But then I think again, you're gonna have to figure
Speaker 3: out probably how to do as much grasping on your own,
Speaker 3: how to do as much you know, shaping and just
Speaker 3: general construction and drainage on your own, because you know,
Speaker 3: you're always gonna have to like you need shaping equipment,
Speaker 3: you need people, you know, shape architects, you need irrigation
Speaker 3: you know, it's like you get to like greens mix
Speaker 3: and the method of how much drainage you're going to
Speaker 3: put under it, which mix you're going to buy, you know,
Speaker 3: you're probably you know, time is going to relate to
Speaker 3: seating and sodding and how long do you need to
Speaker 3: take to get it to open and standards and varieties
Speaker 3: and things. And then you know if you saw and
Speaker 3: then you got to roll it out and that takes
Speaker 3: people and labor, money and dollars. So you're probably seeding
Speaker 3: and now you're saving a lot, but like it's not
Speaker 3: going to open as fast. You got to do more things.
Speaker 3: So I mean you could go through everything, t specs,
Speaker 3: we use a lot of different things, like you know,
Speaker 3: it just you'd have to you'd have to do a lot.
Speaker 3: You'd have to do figure out how to build a
Speaker 3: team to do it a lot on your own, which
Speaker 3: is pretty rare. I guess uh.
Speaker 1: It's fascic. It seems like seems like Greens is one
Speaker 1: area where you if you keep speeds down, it can
Speaker 1: save you considerable amount of money. But if you keep
Speaker 1: speeds down for the public golfer, they think they suck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like a double edged store, like
Speaker 1: there's a no win situation. Yeah, you know, and then
Speaker 1: your greens have to be bigger because you have less
Speaker 1: pen whole locations available with.
Speaker 3: Slope correct Yeah, and you know, I I there's probably
Speaker 3: some places where you can do this. Obviously, it's something
Speaker 3: that you and many people have talked about for many years.
Speaker 3: But like if I was a superintendent at a highly
Speaker 3: regarded golf club in this area, like and you had
Speaker 3: maybe you were younger, had like you don't want to
Speaker 3: be known as the club with the slow greens, so
Speaker 3: like you're probably not going to get the next job,
Speaker 3: Like that's a little bit. You're going to have a
Speaker 3: quick change. Someone's gonna be like, oh, these greens stink
Speaker 3: because the member maybe not get it. And then and
Speaker 3: then you're going to be packing up and looking for
Speaker 3: the next thing. I think it's very very difficult, and
Speaker 3: it takes certain like a real cultural buy in from
Speaker 3: a certain place to do that, and it's it's rare,
Speaker 3: and it's very difficult, and it's something that comes came
Speaker 3: up really pointedly in one of my master plan projects,
Speaker 3: and it just keeps coming up. But you know, the
Speaker 3: you're going to see more and more and more Golden
Speaker 3: Age greens get rebuilt over the next few years, you know,
Speaker 3: without a doubt, for a variety of reasons, whether it's
Speaker 3: the speeds, whether it's the improved technology with GPS, total
Speaker 3: stations and the scanning and all that sort of stuff
Speaker 3: that we can do, you know. And then I think
Speaker 3: it's just continued pressure from you see this great club,
Speaker 3: that great club. You know, there's how many of you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot you know, everybody's you know, top restoration
Speaker 3: architect Like you see a lot of greens being rebuilt
Speaker 3: at those clubs, like the top end, and it trickles.
Speaker 1: What's fascinating. And this is where I think that the
Speaker 1: powers that run pro golf and golf in general are
Speaker 1: have their head completely in the sand. Is around green
Speaker 1: speeds and the idea that a fast green is more
Speaker 1: challenging than a slow slope green is bananas. So and
Speaker 1: the other part of this podcast, Joseph and I talk
Speaker 1: about the record scoring at Kapalua. Do you know when
Speaker 1: scores under sixty I've exploded at Cappelua. Can you just
Speaker 1: venture to guess the year that these these record scoreres
Speaker 1: just happened? To explode at Cappelua.
Speaker 3: I would imagine it's the pro v one changeover right.
Speaker 1: The year after Core and Crunshaw softened all eighteen greens.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: It turns out when when you don't have to, you know,
Speaker 1: when you take one factor out of putting slope, when
Speaker 1: you take one of the two factors their speed and
Speaker 1: their slope, and when you take one of the two
Speaker 1: factors out, putting gets a whole lot easier and players
Speaker 1: shoot lower scores. Who would have guessed? But I don't
Speaker 1: understand how like the us GA, the PGA Tour, the
Speaker 1: PGA there, the RNA seems to be the only ones
Speaker 1: that understand that slope and interesting whole locations is far
Speaker 1: superior to smooth, fast and flat greens.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I do believe that the bigger stroke putting stroke
Speaker 3: you have to take, that is a greater sign of skill. Right,
Speaker 3: the slower you have to take a bigger stroke versus
Speaker 3: just nudging it on the line. I do think that
Speaker 3: that proves who is a better putter. You know, there's
Speaker 3: more factors in the whole thing, right, the slope, the speed,
Speaker 3: the lines. I totally agree, you know, by the same
Speaker 3: like I do I you know, I have a lot
Speaker 3: of fun playing some greens that are very very fast,
Speaker 3: you know, but I like a little bit of the
Speaker 3: balance between. You know, you're never going to see a
Speaker 3: twelve or thirteen at you know, BALI neil my home course,
Speaker 3: So I'll just continue to reference sentence my home It's
Speaker 3: easy versus you know. So I've played some of the
Speaker 3: courses I work at. One of them had the greens
Speaker 3: rowing like way faster than even the US Open. It
Speaker 3: was the firmst fast I mean, we had look in
Speaker 3: New York this year. In New Jersey we had like
Speaker 3: sixty seventy days where it did not rain, It did
Speaker 3: not rain at all, like zero. It was crazy. And
Speaker 3: we had optimum temperatures once you get to October where
Speaker 3: you're not getting super hot at night, where the greens
Speaker 3: are cooling, and it if you wanted to have the fastest,
Speaker 3: firmest turf in like this was the greatest like combination
Speaker 3: of all factors you could have had this fall. And
Speaker 3: so some places absolutely scent it and it was wild
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, I think when the conditions
Speaker 3: provide for it, I think it was pretty neat and
Speaker 3: you could see wish greens could still you know, uh,
Speaker 3: and courses could still handle it and still be fun
Speaker 3: to play. But man, like I can tell you there's
Speaker 3: plenty of them that you couldn't even get halfway there.
Speaker 3: And then it becomes I have one place and it's
Speaker 3: I've never even changed the cup for a month, like
Speaker 3: if it's going to be like that, so you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's I think it can be seasonal for
Speaker 3: the most part is probably the wise way to think
Speaker 3: about it. I think it's fun on occasion, but you know,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want it have to, you know, manage it
Speaker 3: like every day like that if you were expected to
Speaker 3: produce just world record US Open speeds in sticky areas
Speaker 3: around here in the middle of summer, like you definitely sleep.
Speaker 1: The other aspect of this is like we're chasing it
Speaker 1: seems like the whole industry is chasing homogeneous golf conditions,
Speaker 1: and to me, like the whole reason golf's appealing is
Speaker 1: that you never hit the same shots. You never hit
Speaker 1: one shots, never the same as the other ever in
Speaker 1: your life. Ever, because the winds are slightly different, they
Speaker 1: air slightly different, the turf is slightly different, no matter
Speaker 1: what even a shot off a tee, it will you'll
Speaker 1: never hit the like. That's the beauty of golf. The
Speaker 1: beauty of golf courses is that they're all different and
Speaker 1: they all have unique settings.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I think there should be like if you if
Speaker 1: you wanted to get into like the ideals or how
Speaker 1: I view the game. You people can disagree with me
Speaker 1: about this, but like, every golf course should be its
Speaker 1: unique self. And if if you're a golf course because
Speaker 1: of slope and and you know, y greens, green cans
Speaker 1: struc it can accommodate no faster than ten, ye, then
Speaker 1: that's you're unique. You're of a one of one. But
Speaker 1: as we as we continue to soften greens and spend,
Speaker 1: you know, spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars to
Speaker 1: soften greens just to then turn around and spend hundreds
Speaker 1: of more thousands of dollars to keep the greens faster
Speaker 1: and then rip away the uniqueness of said things like
Speaker 1: this is idiotic in my mind. This is this is
Speaker 1: you're just chasing your tail around and you're just gonna
Speaker 1: continue to soften the greens and flatten the greens until
Speaker 1: we're just like you see this on the tour, the
Speaker 1: tour and professional golf resemble more is more and more
Speaker 1: resembling darts every day, and it would be such a
Speaker 1: shame if the recreational game in the in clubs that
Speaker 1: never are going to host a pro tournament continue to
Speaker 1: try and chase after what is happening at major championship
Speaker 1: venues and professional golf venues.
Speaker 3: I I just have so many different little things here
Speaker 3: there to kind of react to that. You know, when
Speaker 3: you play your modern equipment, right, it's a driver web
Speaker 3: show for you. Yeah, pretty much everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to play, I have to play
Speaker 1: seven seven seventy.
Speaker 3: The trajectory stuff in the way like on top of that,
Speaker 3: Like I don't really have that at my length, but
Speaker 3: you know, Nick co works for me does, like the
Speaker 3: desk guys do. It's interesting, but you know, uh, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of what you're talking about with the
Speaker 3: greens is correct. But I think in general, one thing
Speaker 3: I have really found through my work is and you're
Speaker 3: talking about clubs being true to their unique self. I
Speaker 3: think that's like the most important thing because not all
Speaker 3: of my work also is restorative. Some of it is
Speaker 3: very much a renovation. And you know a lot of
Speaker 3: times you have unless all of a sudden you get
Speaker 3: hired and they want to do a project because something
Speaker 3: happened and the greens got smoked and they're just dead.
Speaker 3: Maybe chemicals spray this and that other thing. But like
Speaker 3: most of the time, you don't have three hundred, four
Speaker 3: hundred whatever it is. Members. They join a place because
Speaker 3: they hate it and want to start over. They join
Speaker 3: a place a club, and every right, everybody loves their
Speaker 3: home club, no matter how good you or I might
Speaker 3: think it is. Everybody loves their home course. And you
Speaker 3: don't want to tell them it's the.
Speaker 1: Why they spend one hundred thousand dollars to join, correct.
Speaker 3: And then you got to spend this and so to
Speaker 3: Now I joined for this, and now I want to
Speaker 3: spend the same amount blowing it to spit like. That's
Speaker 3: very rare. And there's some cases where yes, that might
Speaker 3: that might be the thing. And we've seen, uh, you
Speaker 3: know some of that. And I do to a degree
Speaker 3: renovate with the pretty heavy buildozer Blade too. But you know,
Speaker 3: you have to figure out a way with the architecture,
Speaker 3: with the proposal, with the whole thing is to show
Speaker 3: a lot of times that like, I love you love
Speaker 3: this golf course. I love a lot, a lot a
Speaker 3: lot of things about this golf course. I think we
Speaker 3: both agree. Is the reason why you know you're talking
Speaker 3: today is because we both agree there's things that can
Speaker 3: be better about it. But how do we find the
Speaker 3: way to kind of walk that balance? You know, it's
Speaker 3: an interesting thing at and it's different at every place,
Speaker 3: so you know, it's like most clubs also don't have
Speaker 3: eighteen greens that are as severe as like you described.
Speaker 3: Maybe they have a handful or a couple or you
Speaker 3: want to just so then then you're like, how do
Speaker 3: you how are you matching the profiles of the greens?
Speaker 3: How are you creating consistent you know, you know you
Speaker 3: don't want you could have native stuff, you could have USGA,
Speaker 3: you could have this, that and the other thing, And
Speaker 3: then managing it becomes difficult and there's always a degree
Speaker 3: of hey, you know, I know this. You know the
Speaker 3: boys know, don't don't roll that one. We're better. Just
Speaker 3: don't roll that one. We're gonna get a lot of
Speaker 3: phone calls if we roll that when we're put that
Speaker 3: pin there, when we do roll like if we're going
Speaker 3: to do then you can't do that. So, like there's
Speaker 3: a lot of that when you spend time and like
Speaker 3: we try to tweak it and you try to do
Speaker 3: things to make it play relatively like that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: there's lots of new in doing the specs of it
Speaker 3: and like create like how do you walk the line
Speaker 3: of all this. It's very tricky and it's really unique
Speaker 3: to each each place, and you got to do a
Speaker 3: lot of listening and you got to do a lot
Speaker 3: of washing golf and a lot of spending time with
Speaker 3: the superintendents and the pros and you know, think about
Speaker 3: the cost and the culture and everything and try to
Speaker 3: come up with the best ideas for you know, three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty people for the next thirty years.
Speaker 1: Really, right, what's the next thing? We've talked about costs enough,
Speaker 1: what's the next thing?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, to be honest, we kind of dipped
Speaker 3: a lot of into I kind of had this you know,
Speaker 3: mini topics within the restoration renovation market and trends I
Speaker 3: see here, and I mean we've definitely ticked off a
Speaker 3: lot of these boxes with green speeds, with GPS, total stations,
Speaker 3: with hull locations and moving things, you know, having enough
Speaker 3: you can move it around for the increased play. Every
Speaker 3: club has the detailed planning and stuff that kind of
Speaker 3: you know, you know, and how I guess if you
Speaker 3: want to like really shift, There's a few other things
Speaker 3: into that, but one thing a little bit different, and
Speaker 3: maybe it does factor into the cost and the demand
Speaker 3: and just how my region and stuff works. What I've seen,
Speaker 3: like industry wide, I think a little bit or certainly
Speaker 3: in this country and definitely a bit internationally as well,
Speaker 3: is like the popularity we're gonna a Balie Neil member
Speaker 3: is talking, so take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 3: The popularity of the new like remote destination clubs is
Speaker 3: wild to me. There are new golf clubs in the
Speaker 3: furthest remote places constantly seemingly opening right now. There will
Speaker 3: most of them look incredible. There's you know, the guys
Speaker 3: I used to work for doing most of the work.
Speaker 3: I know they're going to be great. But it's just
Speaker 3: really interesting to me to see how many of these
Speaker 3: there are, how many that are coming online, how many
Speaker 3: of these like how are they going to age over
Speaker 3: ten years, fifteen years, thirty years, you know, even more
Speaker 3: than that, you know, I think it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 3: I just we kind of mentioned, like I think there's
Speaker 3: certainly a market for cheaper urban golf because of how
Speaker 3: expensive the current urban golf isn't my area, you've seen
Speaker 3: some more locations. South Carolina obviously seems to be a
Speaker 3: real hotbed over the last years. Florida, parts of Florida,
Speaker 3: not all of Florida, but parts are wild. But you know,
Speaker 3: there were times and the only reason I was able
Speaker 3: to get into you know, BALI new is because like
Speaker 3: they had, they had tough years for a stretch, they
Speaker 3: went through some really hard times. And then also one
Speaker 3: thing is like someone on the inside, it's really difficult
Speaker 3: to live at these places for long periods of time
Speaker 3: and work. If you're an employee, it takes a special
Speaker 3: person to want to go to the middle of nowhere
Speaker 3: and raise a family ninety minutes from a Walmart, you know,
Speaker 3: at at minimum right, So like not, it's how are
Speaker 3: you going to continue to find that many people? Quality superintendents,
Speaker 3: quality labor assistance, business people, food people like all of
Speaker 3: this for for decades And that's something that like, you know,
Speaker 3: I think about a little bit and I wonder when
Speaker 3: you know, you have not just these private clubs that
Speaker 3: are doing it at you know, like we talked about before,
Speaker 3: probably five x the cost that was, you know, ten
Speaker 3: years ago. But you'll, you know, like you also have
Speaker 3: all the resorts they're doing it at these places, and
Speaker 3: you can just rent a bed and not be stuck
Speaker 3: to that bed for the next twenty years. And you
Speaker 3: could shop around and go to you know, this resort
Speaker 3: in Florida, this one in Wisconsin, this one in all
Speaker 3: over the place and do ten trips a you're to
Speaker 3: different places versus go to the same you know, three
Speaker 3: for the same one at that same initiation. So it's interesting,
Speaker 3: I think, and.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot to unpack here, and I
Speaker 1: think like something that doesn't hasn't really ever been talked
Speaker 1: about his is the history of destination golf in America,
Speaker 1: or just a history of destination golf really as an
Speaker 1: American and destination golf in America really was like you
Speaker 1: go to a resort with your wife and kids and
Speaker 1: you play golf, or you know, you go to a
Speaker 1: resort with your partner and you play golf and there's
Speaker 1: a spa and there's you know, dinner and everything, and
Speaker 1: there's a couple. It's a couple's type thing that I
Speaker 1: almost want to say that like an entire entirely new
Speaker 1: like where you went on the just strictly golf trip
Speaker 1: was the UK. That was like the place where you
Speaker 1: went on the strictly golf trip, but there was still
Speaker 1: in the UK, there's still things for a non golfing
Speaker 1: partner to do. There's towns, there's restaurants, there's shopping. There
Speaker 1: was a whole new version of golf that was created
Speaker 1: with Bandon Dunes, and it was like, I have a
Speaker 1: friend he told me this great story. He went to
Speaker 1: Bandon Dune's like the first year it opened or the
Speaker 1: second year it opened. His wife actually told me this story.
Speaker 1: His wife does not play golf and she was pregnant
Speaker 1: and he's like, it's a resort, there's can be stuff
Speaker 1: for you to do, and she found herself abandoned with
Speaker 1: nothing to do. It was because like that was the
Speaker 1: way destination golf worked. It was like, yeah, there's spa,
Speaker 1: there's all these other activities, there's a pool, there's this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think like what we're seeing with the like
Speaker 1: everybody's like how can this sustain? How can this sustain
Speaker 1: Banded Dunes and then Sand Valley and Cabot and all
Speaker 1: these things they created. Banded Dunes really created a new
Speaker 1: version of golf in America, like the idea that you
Speaker 1: go somewhere just and it's just golf and it's very remote,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe sand Hills had a piece of
Speaker 1: this too, but then this is now like it's the
Speaker 1: same thing with public golf, right, people go to a
Speaker 1: public golf course, and I think what what these destination
Speaker 1: clubs are is the people that have gone to Sand Valley,
Speaker 1: gone to Banded Dunes, and they they walk away and say, like,
Speaker 1: I really like this. I you know, it would be
Speaker 1: cool if there was a more intimate experience and I
Speaker 1: and then I get this home course, right, the ease
Speaker 1: of booking, the all the conveniences. It's the same thing
Speaker 1: as a local country club to the municipal except you know,
Speaker 1: Bandon is still an out of the world and San
Speaker 1: Bailey is still an out of the world experience for anybody.
Speaker 1: But these private clubs are effectively, you know, the private
Speaker 1: version of the golf that Bandon created. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of my theory. As you we're talking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess. I think the other things that we that
Speaker 1: has to be has to be talked about is like
Speaker 1: the economic factors of the last four to five years
Speaker 1: and the economy. The extraordinary wealth that was created by
Speaker 1: the upper class during COVID is another aspect of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think because people it's easier to fund these
Speaker 3: things more than ever. Right. I think what I'm interested
Speaker 3: is is now that they're all funded and they're all
Speaker 3: popping up, and I don't know how successful some of
Speaker 3: the membership sales have been. There's certainly some that are thriving.
Speaker 3: I don't know how all of them. I don't know
Speaker 3: how much it matters to some of the guys that
Speaker 3: are funding it, quite frankly, and that's their thing, Like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm really most interested in twenty years from now, ten, fifteen, thirty,
Speaker 3: Like you know, what's going to happen at that stage,
Speaker 3: because right now there is I don't see any reason
Speaker 3: why it would and continue for at least a little
Speaker 3: while longer, like the vast majority of you know, the
Speaker 3: rest of my stuff seems like you know, and yeah,
Speaker 3: but I guess the two places that occurred to me
Speaker 3: as it were, here's here's the question that don't fall
Speaker 3: that our family ish town ish more to do than
Speaker 3: just golf.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The stuff was the two uh ones that that us
Speaker 3: picked and that's Pinehurst and Pebble have like the most family,
Speaker 3: non super golf specific things along with like those.
Speaker 1: Are but those are that's the old style, But those
Speaker 1: are that's the old style. That's the like, think about
Speaker 1: the disruption that abandon caused to Pinehurst. That's the reason
Speaker 1: Pinehurst did the renovation to Pineherst number two. So the
Speaker 1: reason that they built number ten, the reason gil a
Speaker 1: project that you worked on, renovated number four, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's the reason they have the cradle is all
Speaker 1: because of abandon and the disruption it cause, like everybody's
Speaker 1: like been like, how's this is this going to sustain?
Speaker 1: Is this going to sustain? And like I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer. I don't, but like one question I have,
Speaker 1: are we not even at the point of reaching the
Speaker 1: cap of of what demand is? Like Sand Valley Bandon
Speaker 1: have never had more demand. Ever, they've never had more demand.
Speaker 1: Land Man, a destination eighteen hole golf course, sold out
Speaker 1: tea times in an hour last week. The demand has
Speaker 1: never been higher. So part of me is wondering, like,
Speaker 1: have we not even reached the mass adoption in the
Speaker 1: golf market of the idea of a strictly golf trip.
Speaker 1: Like That's another question I have is like, have we
Speaker 1: not even reached the top of the mountain of of
Speaker 1: people experiencing this golf only trip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think at the moment, maybe not. But
Speaker 3: what I think a lot of it comes back to
Speaker 3: the certainly in my region and we'll call it the
Speaker 3: majority of the East Coast. Even at that rate, WHENU
Speaker 3: factor in the cost of the Florida where it's very
Speaker 3: hard to find a game, the Northeast where it's very
Speaker 3: hard to find a club that you want to play
Speaker 3: every day, I think that's when it's that hard to
Speaker 3: get in somewhere, or a younger to then join, the cost,
Speaker 3: the waitlist, everything like that, it becomes, you know, it
Speaker 3: makes more sense to do this. But if you're able
Speaker 3: to create more of that local game, I think you
Speaker 3: could then start to pull a bit away from that.
Speaker 3: And I think some of it's an age thing for
Speaker 3: the people that are doing a lot of this, I think,
Speaker 3: and how that they can either do those trips versus
Speaker 3: the like you know, it just go play the weekly
Speaker 3: morning Sunday game and not be home with the kids
Speaker 3: for those. But I think it's easier to just like
Speaker 3: get away for a couple of days then do that.
Speaker 3: I think it's easier on the rest of the family
Speaker 3: to a degree. It's forever reason. It's like it's just
Speaker 3: how us, you know, millennial type people are able to
Speaker 3: explain that to our partners. Perhaps I don't know, but.
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think there's also the idea of
Speaker 1: like what you said, there's less junior memberships, Like some
Speaker 1: of this is that you're going to go for a
Speaker 1: forty year old a thirty eight year old. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cost of a local club, especially if you're in New
Speaker 1: York or Chicago or San Francisco or wherever, Austin, Texas, Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: you can't get into club. There's ten your weightless everywhere,
Speaker 1: you know, So like the these are actually clubs you
Speaker 1: could join, Like there there is like a part of
Speaker 1: this demand that is like wait, I could actually join
Speaker 1: a golf course. That could be great. Like you look
Speaker 1: at the people that joined Old Barnwell right or Tree
Speaker 1: Farm and these two these people joined a world class
Speaker 1: two world class golf courses that where like if you
Speaker 1: put Old Barnwell in a metro area, it would be
Speaker 1: a fifteen year wait list, and you know they might
Speaker 1: be you know, but like you know, you have this
Speaker 1: opportunity to get in at the ground floor, which has
Speaker 1: never happened, you know, never, There's never been more opportunities
Speaker 1: to get in to somewhere at the beginning. And there
Speaker 1: is like an aspect of that that I think is
Speaker 1: appealing to people as well.
Speaker 3: I agree, And you know, at the same time, like
Speaker 3: I said, I think that there's one thing that I
Speaker 3: I see a water think about is like, how can
Speaker 3: we how can you know, just make find a way
Speaker 3: to build more relatively you know, it comes back to
Speaker 3: the cost relatively cheaper golf options in these markets that
Speaker 3: are not able to keep up with the demand.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So that's like is it is it less than eighteen holds?
Speaker 3: Is it the one without the bunkers? Is it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: How do we how is it there? You know? I
Speaker 3: think that's what will eventually start drawing people back away
Speaker 3: from from that to a degree. But it again, you
Speaker 3: get to the cost where if you're going to buy
Speaker 3: an existing golf course and redo it from scratch. It's
Speaker 3: a thirty million dollar job. So like now, it's not
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars, it's it's it's three peel. It's the
Speaker 3: same as the rest. So now you know, you might
Speaker 3: get a little bit of slide around, but you know
Speaker 3: it's a bigger, it's a harder to pay off thing.
Speaker 3: So that's why you really needs to be at a
Speaker 3: significantly reduced build cost, and that's much more difficult in
Speaker 3: certain areas right now.
Speaker 1: All right, Jaeger, big thanks for coming on. Was this
Speaker 1: was great. We I feel like we covered a lot
Speaker 1: of ground. We might not cover it all the ground,
Speaker 1: but this was fun to talk about the stuff that
Speaker 1: you've been thinking about, some of the same stuff I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about. But look forward to seeing you this year.
Speaker 3: That would be great. I've been bugging you to come
Speaker 3: see some of our work here in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: They got to get to fifty right, you got a
Speaker 1: part of my.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're we could go on a proper golf
Speaker 3: tour to start in Philly at Cedar Brook work our
Speaker 3: way north. I think that'll be.
Speaker 1: Great, that would be that'd be delightful. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk soon and and thanks for thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: Welcome, looking forward to the next one.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for listening to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Friday Golf Podcast. I'd love feedback. If you like
Speaker 1: the new format of the show, let me know. We
Speaker 1: are going to be, you know, doing this every week
Speaker 1: all year, so if you have if you have other
Speaker 1: things that you'd like us to cover, I think we
Speaker 1: what we are excited about with this new format is
Speaker 1: we have a little bit more flexibility to do smaller
Speaker 1: segments and in different things. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: from us on on topics that you think we haven't
Speaker 1: really broached on this podcast, let me know. Anyways, big
Speaker 1: thanks to PJ PJ Clark for editing, producing this podcast
Speaker 1: and you know, just helping me navigate life at this point.
Speaker 1: So we'll be back next week, and thank you guys.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody enjoys their week and we will be
Speaker 1: back next week.