Speaker 1: I miss the green. For example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg,
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Friday Egg, Friday Frida Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: bride Egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of thelf course.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 2: Friday Egg Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Madina Superintendent, head
Speaker 2: of Head of Grounds.
Speaker 1: Director of golf Course Operations.
Speaker 2: Specific Director of golf Course Operations, Curtis Tyrrelle Curtis, Welcome.
Speaker 1: On, Thank you, Andy, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's a it's a I been meaning to do this.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you've got a very interesting story.
Speaker 2: You've got a first background between you know, multiple renovations
Speaker 2: out here, multiple major events. You know, one of the
Speaker 2: biggest golf you manage, one of the biggest golf facilities
Speaker 2: of you know, that's in the United States. And I
Speaker 2: think a great way to start would be like, how'd
Speaker 2: you get here?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it's been a wild ride.
Speaker 3: I'm originally from Maryland and I graduated from Elon University,
Speaker 3: North Carolina. With a degree in history, and I had
Speaker 3: worked on the golf courses, you know, through high school
Speaker 3: and college a couple of summers. But when I got
Speaker 3: out of college, I went back home and I was
Speaker 3: thinking about going to grad school for history and went
Speaker 3: back to work on the golf course while I was
Speaker 3: figuring that out, and fell in love with it because
Speaker 3: once once we got through the summer and I graduated
Speaker 3: from a weed eat or something a little bit more
Speaker 3: important in real life, you know, really more of the
Speaker 3: inner workings of golf course maintenance in agronomy through just
Speaker 3: a fantastic mentor by the name of Mike Evans back
Speaker 3: in at the country club of Woodmore in Mitchellville, Maryland,
Speaker 3: I fell in love with it.
Speaker 2: Is that the place Obama was that Woodmont?
Speaker 1: That was Woodmont? Yeah, that's Woodmont not too far away.
Speaker 1: But yeah. So a couple of years later, I went back.
Speaker 3: To Penn State and enrolled in their a two year
Speaker 3: turf grass management program, and then you know, the just
Speaker 3: took off. I felt obviously, I said, already I fell
Speaker 3: in love with it. I mean it was just a
Speaker 3: Penn State was a great environment, really competitive. In the
Speaker 3: early nineties when I was there. You know, there was
Speaker 3: twenty four kids in our class, and Michigan State had
Speaker 3: a big class and it was really you know, a
Speaker 3: hot career path and things, so you had to, you know,
Speaker 3: to compete. Plus, you know, being at a place like
Speaker 3: Penn State, you felt like a star basketball recruit in
Speaker 3: high school. I mean you had Augustine National, Cypress Point,
Speaker 3: Cherry Hills, Mary and all these clubs wanted you to
Speaker 3: come work there, and it was like, man, I just
Speaker 3: felt like, you know, this is incredible. It felt like
Speaker 3: a big cheese And I had just a great experience there.
Speaker 3: Did my internship at Cherry Hills in Colorado. And that
Speaker 3: experience of kind of getting off the East coast out west,
Speaker 3: learning a ton about golf out there, a ton about
Speaker 3: golf courses out there. I really solidified my bug to
Speaker 3: kind of travel.
Speaker 1: With the industry.
Speaker 3: And that was something I really liked about it at
Speaker 3: the time. I mean, golf was getting built all over
Speaker 3: the world, and I saw it as a way to
Speaker 3: see the world and do something I love. And so
Speaker 3: when I graduated, I went out to work for my mentor,
Speaker 3: Mike Evans.
Speaker 1: His mentor guy by name of Virgil.
Speaker 3: Robinson at PGA West in Lakana, California, and at the
Speaker 3: time they had just finished the fifth course there, and
Speaker 3: I think there's an eighth there now, which was the
Speaker 3: Wes's Cough Course. So I went out there as an
Speaker 3: assistant superintendent and worked on the Weiss Colf Private, the
Speaker 3: Nicholas Private, the Palmer Private, did a little bit of
Speaker 3: time on the Stadium Resort course, and kind of worked
Speaker 3: around that property for a year. When there was some
Speaker 3: change in ownership and Virgil moved on and I had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to move Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, and now
Speaker 3: I was eager to do that. I knew a little
Speaker 3: bit about that facility from being out west, and I
Speaker 3: knew they had a senior major of the tradition and
Speaker 3: they were building golf courses. And the guy that I
Speaker 3: was going to go work for by the name of
Speaker 3: Seawan Emerson, who is in my role there. He's the
Speaker 3: director of a Grontomi there and he's still there today.
Speaker 3: You know, he was somebody that I really was learning
Speaker 3: a ton from and was eager to learn more from.
Speaker 3: So you know, I jumped over there and spent three
Speaker 3: years and working there and kind of moving up the
Speaker 3: ranks from assistants the course superintendent there and we did
Speaker 3: three three traditions, built the Cherchawa course, rebuilt all the
Speaker 3: greens on the Dronama course, and the Coaches Course while
Speaker 3: I was there, and that's when I got my first
Speaker 3: taste of golf course construction.
Speaker 1: And at the time we were Ford and went and
Speaker 1: went to.
Speaker 3: Five courses, so multiple course facility, golf course construction, tournament experience,
Speaker 3: desert agronomy, you know, cool season grasses, warm season grasses.
Speaker 3: I mean it was it was awesome, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's just a wonderful experience. And after three years, I
Speaker 3: got a job in Vegas and I went up to
Speaker 3: Anthem Country Club.
Speaker 1: All over Yeah, no, it was. It was a wild.
Speaker 2: Desert, yeah, I was, I know.
Speaker 3: I mean when I was out there, I was like,
Speaker 3: I couldn't wait to get out of there because it's
Speaker 3: so hot every summer, and I just kept saying, I'm
Speaker 3: never going to do another summer in the day. They
Speaker 3: just kept coming, you know, I just like I couldn't
Speaker 3: get out of there. But they were all great experiences.
Speaker 3: And Anthem was Keith Foster designed eighteen hole private club
Speaker 3: which was owned by a developer, and when they sold
Speaker 3: out the community, they sold the club to another developer
Speaker 3: who brought in Trutan Golf. And so about halfway through
Speaker 3: my time there, Trutan Golf came in and was overseeing
Speaker 3: the management of it. And at that time they were
Speaker 3: just just growing like crazy and their portfolio, they were
Speaker 3: picking up some really great facilities. And I expressed my
Speaker 3: interest to wanting to get back to the East Coast
Speaker 3: where I'm from. My wife's from New England, had gotten
Speaker 3: married through my time in the Desert, and one day
Speaker 3: they called me up and we had had a lot
Speaker 3: of success in Anthem and had won some awards within
Speaker 3: the organization, and they called me up and said, how
Speaker 3: would you like to go build thirty six holes in
Speaker 3: Connecticut with Reeese Jones?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, of course, like when do we go?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And they're like, well, actually, you know, can you be
Speaker 3: there Friday and meet the owners? And I'm like okay.
Speaker 3: So I flew out to huh Lake of Isles, which
Speaker 3: is a new property was about to be built in
Speaker 3: southeastern Connecticut right next to Long Island Sound, and it
Speaker 3: was associated with the Fox With Casino, and so it
Speaker 3: was owned by the Native American tribe that ran that casino,
Speaker 3: and they're about to build a sturdy six hole facility
Speaker 3: around a ninety acre lake on an old boy scout camp.
Speaker 3: And we were looking at two years of construction and
Speaker 3: working with Reese and.
Speaker 2: So ultimately the owday.
Speaker 1: Oh it was yeah, yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 2: It was he was turning in Vernon.
Speaker 1: He was turning in Vernon, and.
Speaker 3: You know, so I got that job and went over there,
Speaker 3: and I mean I was there when we cut the
Speaker 3: first tree out of there and carved these two golf
Speaker 3: courses over over two years, I mean two years with
Speaker 3: no golfers, building two golf courses. I mean it was
Speaker 3: like Superintendent's dream, you know. I mean we were just
Speaker 3: having a ball and it was a big project. A
Speaker 3: lot of infrastructure, a ton of ledge. We I've never
Speaker 3: been around ever since before then or since then, so
Speaker 3: much dynamite. I mean, we blasted more rock to build
Speaker 3: those golf courses and uh, you know, it was really
Speaker 3: an engineering and and uh golf course construction feet and
Speaker 3: recently because you know, money and uh you know, not
Speaker 3: a single home on it.
Speaker 1: You can't see one hole from.
Speaker 3: The next, you know, this classic uh you know that
Speaker 3: that era's classic. Uh you know, golf course that winds
Speaker 3: through the woods and and you really you're really out
Speaker 3: there on your own. And Reese just did a fantastic
Speaker 3: job two championship designs up there, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: loved it, stayed on, we opened it up, was managed
Speaker 3: it for three years after we finished building it. And
Speaker 3: then one day I got a call from a firm
Speaker 3: that was looking for to play somebody in this position here,
Speaker 3: and uh yeah, that was another call kind of like, hey,
Speaker 3: what do you think about Medinah Country Club? You know,
Speaker 3: they're going to hold the Ryder Cup and they want
Speaker 3: to do some work in their courses.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, let's go.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, I was super excited, and so
Speaker 3: I interviewed for the position and got it, and you know,
Speaker 3: it was a you know, big moment in my life.
Speaker 1: Man. I was super pumped, you know, to come to
Speaker 1: a place like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's a heck of a facility.
Speaker 2: Not many bigger than this one. I mean the rounds
Speaker 2: per year just huge, and I mean it's three drastically
Speaker 2: different golf courses now too, which we'll get to. You
Speaker 2: aut curious with your experience at Lake the Lake the isles,
Speaker 2: how like seeing it grow in for three years? I
Speaker 2: mean you're so you're there five total? Yeah, right, Like
Speaker 2: I've always I'm always wondering about like maturation and like
Speaker 2: you know, like how long you know, should somebody like
Speaker 2: really give a course to really take a hold of
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, true identity is it? Is it
Speaker 2: three years, five years, ten years, one year? Like you
Speaker 2: know or do you not even know?
Speaker 1: You know what? Hell man?
Speaker 3: It's it really depends on on the site and any
Speaker 3: specific conditions that are going on there, and then the
Speaker 3: business model.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if you're gonna if this place is
Speaker 3: going to give played aggressively, it's gonna mature differently.
Speaker 1: Than one that isn't.
Speaker 3: And you know, in some in some cases, it could
Speaker 3: force the maturation to come forward sooner, right because you
Speaker 3: got to you got to make certain adjustments and perform
Speaker 3: certain practices to be able to handle all that traffic.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think in general, you've you know,
Speaker 3: at least people always said it's about three years, and
Speaker 3: I think that that is definitely a good benchmark in time.
Speaker 3: I mean, the day that you open the golf course.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's just say that you were given enough
Speaker 3: time to grow it in. And like here, these projects
Speaker 3: that we did, we used basically a full calendar year
Speaker 3: for the time we planted until the time.
Speaker 1: We opened them.
Speaker 3: Roughly a little less in some holes than others, but
Speaker 3: you're given enough time to grow it in. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's really it's really sharp when you open it up.
Speaker 3: But there's a real specific time frame that is the
Speaker 3: construction maintenance activities to the maintenance activities of operating it
Speaker 3: where you learn a ton. I mean, you see your mowerware,
Speaker 3: you see your cart and player, where you see irrigation
Speaker 3: challenges and adjustments, You see drainage issues which last forever.
Speaker 3: You know, you start to learn more about the impacts
Speaker 3: of shade and other things air movement. So I mean
Speaker 3: there's a period of time that first year to year
Speaker 3: and a half where you're learning a lot, and you
Speaker 3: got to be really attentive and you can't take your
Speaker 3: eye the ball, or all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 3: stuff just thins out on you or you know, next thing,
Speaker 3: you know, you got issues. But if you're looking for
Speaker 3: that and you treat it in a spot specific way
Speaker 3: and you expect to have to find these things you
Speaker 3: can get in front of them. Then you know, year
Speaker 3: year and a half, you've you've found all those, You've
Speaker 3: adjusted your maintenance accordingly, and next thing you know, the
Speaker 3: turf is settled down and you're working more on that
Speaker 3: periphery tie in stuff that really, I think is what
Speaker 3: most people disregard in terms of the maturation.
Speaker 1: I mean, the turf is really.
Speaker 3: High quality all the time, and like I said, you
Speaker 3: got to learn how to maintain it. But it's that
Speaker 3: periphery stuff, the tie in things that need time to
Speaker 3: mature and really bring the whole course together.
Speaker 2: I mean those the small little details are like the
Speaker 2: things that seem I mean, I might look at courses
Speaker 2: a little bit different than your average show, but like
Speaker 2: you know, the walks from teas to greens, the transitions,
Speaker 2: the rough lines and the cut lines, like those little
Speaker 2: small details like the bunker lines, the you know, the
Speaker 2: mow into the bunker lines. Like that's the thing I mean,
Speaker 2: of course, to the newly restored course too, like the
Speaker 2: way you guys have the fairways cut into the bunkers
Speaker 2: and the edges around the greens or I mean, they're incredible,
Speaker 2: so in terms of you know, is it is it
Speaker 2: frustrating because I feel like, you know, everybody wants to push,
Speaker 2: especially with new courses and using Medina as an example,
Speaker 2: I bet members are chomping the bit to get out
Speaker 2: there because they can see it and they're you know, like,
Speaker 2: how hard is it to keep them at bay?
Speaker 1: But oh it's tough.
Speaker 3: It's there's a lot of pressure, and you know, for
Speaker 3: us here at Madina, we we learned the hard way. So,
Speaker 3: you know, the Course three project, while we while I
Speaker 3: was new and I outlined what I felt like we needed,
Speaker 3: you know, there was pressure and we we caved a
Speaker 3: little bit and we got out there too soon, and
Speaker 3: it made the grow in a little longer than it
Speaker 3: needed to be because we were running a ton of
Speaker 3: rounds through it, and uh, it was it was more challenging.
Speaker 3: But learning from that experience, both the members and me
Speaker 3: on how to manage and guide the members on that regard.
Speaker 3: In the second project, we stuck. We stuck firm with
Speaker 3: what we knew we needed and it really came out
Speaker 3: significantly different than the first one. And so by the
Speaker 3: time we got to course to everybody was on board.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no more convincing on the amount of
Speaker 3: time that we needed and the right way to do it,
Speaker 3: and from everything from scope, you know, construction scope and
Speaker 3: growing scope to time required.
Speaker 1: We were all on the same page and it's worked
Speaker 1: out real well.
Speaker 2: So with the you know, three separate projects. As you've
Speaker 2: you know, grown here and you've become more familiar with
Speaker 2: the membership and they've become more familiar with you, how
Speaker 2: much has your role changed? Like when you know, you're
Speaker 2: planning these things out and you know, whether it be
Speaker 2: interviewing architects or you know, looking at the plans and
Speaker 2: figuring out timelines, Like, how much has it changed from
Speaker 2: when you were the new guy to you know, most recently,
Speaker 2: you know too when you see you did three then
Speaker 2: to number two, number one with Tom Doak, and then
Speaker 2: to number two again with Reese and you know, I
Speaker 2: know you were like heavily involved in the Green Schomy
Speaker 2: was heavily involved with that. But you know, like, how
Speaker 2: how's the kind of the role and then changed And
Speaker 2: this is the longest question of all times.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, you.
Speaker 3: Know what's interesting about that question is that my role
Speaker 3: has really been the same from the beginning, but their
Speaker 3: confidence level and me has grown. And you know, so
Speaker 3: when I got here, you know, the leaders of the
Speaker 3: club at that time, you know, we're very specifical and
Speaker 3: wanting to take on these projects and needing an expert
Speaker 3: with the experience to both run a multi course facility
Speaker 3: prep for a big tournament, but also develop and manage
Speaker 3: and execute these projects. And so they empowered me right
Speaker 3: from from the start. Now, obviously what I was bringing
Speaker 3: to the club was was all kinds of new stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, like their idea of what they wanted to do,
Speaker 3: and then me effectively translating that into terms they can
Speaker 3: understand and time frames and dollars and all these things.
Speaker 1: That was the hard part.
Speaker 3: Was was was was explaining to that to them and
Speaker 3: and making that clear and and and uh because it
Speaker 3: wasn't necessarily what they expected. But you know, uh, what's
Speaker 3: been great is they've continued to put their confidence me
Speaker 3: in me and allow me to lead really on those
Speaker 3: projects end and and they've just gotten easier, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, like going back to the you know, Reese
Speaker 3: was already uh, you know here and and and working
Speaker 3: with Madina for a long time. But when I arrived,
Speaker 3: but when we went with with looking for somebody to do.
Speaker 1: Course one, you know, that was that was my role.
Speaker 3: To assemble different people to reach out to the various
Speaker 3: architects out there that they wanted to talk to, set
Speaker 3: up the meetings, bring the engineers in, make sure that
Speaker 3: those two parties could collaborate get the permitting process going.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's it's a unique process. And I've
Speaker 3: been very fortunate to work for for the members of
Speaker 3: Madonna and a very blessed to have their confidence to
Speaker 3: be able to do it.
Speaker 1: It's been a really great experience.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I think anybody that knows a little
Speaker 2: bit about architects would say that recent Tom or on
Speaker 2: a little bit on the other ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 2: So what's it like to you know, work with each
Speaker 2: of them? You know, and what are the you know,
Speaker 2: the differences? And then is there anything that they do similar?
Speaker 2: And you know kind of what have you learned from
Speaker 2: each of them?
Speaker 3: You know, It's funny, Andy is I've been waiting for
Speaker 3: somebody to ask me that question. I've I've had a
Speaker 3: lot of different interviews or you know, conversations, and and
Speaker 3: nobody who's and I've been waiting for that question, and
Speaker 3: trying to prepare for it for many years.
Speaker 1: It's a great question. You know.
Speaker 3: What's what's interesting is that they are they are very
Speaker 3: different people personality wise, but they they are both. When
Speaker 3: when you when you understand that they're both world class,
Speaker 3: top tier golf course architects, you start to understand the similarities.
Speaker 3: And what I mean is the way they approach a
Speaker 3: project like I mean Tom's approach to a project and
Speaker 3: his finished project product is completely different necessarily than than
Speaker 3: than Reese's finished product.
Speaker 1: But you know, they both have to.
Speaker 3: Work through the same pathway of logistics, practicality, engineering, floodplain,
Speaker 3: you know, drainage, all these things they're all in the
Speaker 3: same play for each of these guys, right, so they
Speaker 3: both have to kind of they both have their way
Speaker 3: of working through those to get to the end result.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting to see, you know, how they do it.
Speaker 3: You know Reese, I've known Reese for for many years
Speaker 3: now and I consider him a friend and a mentor.
Speaker 3: And he really took me under his wing at the
Speaker 3: Lake of Isles and taught me, you know, everything that
Speaker 3: I know to get started.
Speaker 1: And then when I met Tom.
Speaker 3: It really just opened my eyes to uh, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, just somebody that was completely different personality wise,
Speaker 3: but and stylistically artistically what he would create, you know,
Speaker 3: and watching what he did it out there, you know,
Speaker 3: really blew my mind and opened it to a whole
Speaker 3: new level of architecture.
Speaker 1: And I think it really helped.
Speaker 3: Uh, those experiences really helped me be play my role
Speaker 3: when it came to the two project. But you know,
Speaker 3: they both really respect each other. Reese coming from a
Speaker 3: completely different era and a different kind of way up
Speaker 3: the line than Tom. But like I said, you know,
Speaker 3: managing them as partners and and as knowing them as people,
Speaker 3: you know, they're they're both world class and and it's
Speaker 3: really been great for Madonna to have both of those
Speaker 3: guys have such great products out here.
Speaker 2: It's i mean, like completely different philosophies of design and
Speaker 2: then also just the way it's implemented. But both of them,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't the client satisfaction and the you know,
Speaker 2: the true professionals of like architecture like you know where
Speaker 2: they you know, Versus if you went with like a
Speaker 2: younger architect like like the logistics stuff, probably not as
Speaker 2: smooth in terms of you know, so Reese's a design
Speaker 2: contract guy in your role, what are kind of the
Speaker 2: benefits of the design contract and and the benefits of
Speaker 2: design build, Like, would you prefer one or the other?
Speaker 2: Did you learn more from one or the other? You know,
Speaker 2: you've been in more design contract situations. But I'm kind
Speaker 2: of curious that, you know, looking at each each philosophy.
Speaker 2: You know, there is kind of a you know, schism
Speaker 2: in architecture with these two philosophies as design builds become
Speaker 2: so much more popular. I'm curious having seen both in action, what.
Speaker 1: The sure sure? You know?
Speaker 3: And I think I think just to go back before
Speaker 3: I dive into that one too. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: think Reece gets enough credit in today's uh critiques of
Speaker 3: architects for his his management.
Speaker 1: And use of the land.
Speaker 3: You know, I think I think he gets classified into
Speaker 3: a group of architects that came up through that ear
Speaker 3: of mass building, you know, when when they were in
Speaker 3: business and they just had so many projects and it
Speaker 3: had to be contract and there was dis engineering and
Speaker 3: land plan or routings and all these things. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, he's kind of put in that bucket. But yet,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean he's looking at it from the
Speaker 3: most practical standpoint and the most minimalistic standpoint that he
Speaker 3: can as well. You know, people just think that they think, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to pull those all this and move
Speaker 3: all this over here. You know, you get that sense
Speaker 3: that people don't appreciate his ability to see it that way.
Speaker 3: Whereas Tom Man, I mean you think about the places
Speaker 3: and what he's done in the sights that he's worked with.
Speaker 3: You know, he's come up and really wrote his own pathway.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's carved his own niche to become who
Speaker 3: he is, which is one of the most regarded and
Speaker 3: so you know, it's two totally different roads to the end.
Speaker 1: But if that makes sense, I don't know if I'm.
Speaker 3: Rambling, But you know, when we did Course one with Tom,
Speaker 3: it was a hybrid of the contract design build, so
Speaker 3: Brian Schneider was on site and Brian shaped all of
Speaker 3: the key features, so the greens bunkers, but we also
Speaker 3: had Wadsworth Golf on site and they did a lot
Speaker 3: of the mass earth moving. And what I mean is
Speaker 3: one third of that project with Storm Draine and floodplay improvements,
Speaker 3: so we had a lot of cuts, we had a
Speaker 3: lot of pipe going in to get water off that place.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a four square mile watershed that
Speaker 3: when it was originally built it was all farms and
Speaker 3: now it's all erbin and so I mean there's just
Speaker 3: a ton of water moving through here, and we're expected
Speaker 3: to hold a certain amount, you know, for the county
Speaker 3: and how everything works, and we needed to accentuate and
Speaker 3: improve that. So we needed somebody to help cut and
Speaker 3: move a lot of dirt. So there was a it
Speaker 3: was a real hybrid of that design build. But I
Speaker 3: tell you what, I really liked that that way of
Speaker 3: doing it. I mean Brian Brian and Eric Iverson who
Speaker 3: was also here for a little bit as well as
Speaker 3: a couple other guys had circle through here for period
Speaker 3: of time, watching their approach to it and watching their
Speaker 3: their abilities. Was that part that really just, you know,
Speaker 3: I think kind of blew the door wide open.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: With Reese, you know at the Lake of Isles, I
Speaker 3: he had these plans, and Steve Wiser and Bryce Swanson
Speaker 3: they would they'd come up and they'd come up as
Speaker 3: often as they could, and considering where they lived and
Speaker 3: close to that project, they were up a lot.
Speaker 1: And so that was great. I got to learn a lot, but.
Speaker 3: They'd leave and they kind of after we got comfortable
Speaker 3: with each other, they'd leave it to me to make
Speaker 3: sure that when they got.
Speaker 1: Back it was done a certain way. So it was
Speaker 1: my job to kind of work with.
Speaker 3: Those shapers and say, closer to the green with this bunker,
Speaker 3: flash this higher, This.
Speaker 1: Needs to roll more, you know.
Speaker 3: So I was over there massaging what they were doing
Speaker 3: based on their direction.
Speaker 1: And you know, that was interesting because we had.
Speaker 3: Freelance contractors working through a major golf course contractor out
Speaker 3: of Montreal, and they all spoke crunch and I mean
Speaker 3: it was just a wild deal. Move it over here
Speaker 3: to Wadsworth. You know, I've gotten to know their their team,
Speaker 3: and they've done all our work here, and they've got
Speaker 3: some fantastic shapers in their own right, and they are, uh,
Speaker 3: they're really flexible and and pretty damn good. I mean,
Speaker 3: it took a little while on two to get them
Speaker 3: to come out of their comfort zone because they're so
Speaker 3: used to kind of mass building according to plans, and
Speaker 3: then I'd have to teach them that, hey, just because
Speaker 3: you know on ten out of eleven projects, you've you've
Speaker 3: done it like this, forget it. I want that whole
Speaker 3: ledge cut down and I want to be able to
Speaker 3: see through it, and it's totally different. But once I
Speaker 3: got them to understand that, boy, they'd shape it out perfectly.
Speaker 1: And they get a lot of reps.
Speaker 3: They get a lot of reps, and so they've got
Speaker 3: they've got a lot in their repertoire. But they need
Speaker 3: if if if somebody's not there to direct them to
Speaker 3: be different, they're going to kind of build that standard template,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what we did, was we.
Speaker 3: Got them to break out of that mold on course
Speaker 3: too and shape completely different than they normally did. And
Speaker 3: so re Reese's involvement and Steve's involvement, you know, was
Speaker 3: was just the same where they we talk about what
Speaker 3: it would look like and then I would make sure that,
Speaker 3: you know, it was getting built that way. Whereas with Tom,
Speaker 3: you know Tom and Brian. Tom would come up, Brian
Speaker 3: would build it, you know, they'd talk about it and
Speaker 3: and Brian would.
Speaker 1: Make all all the subtle things.
Speaker 3: And then as Wadsworth came in to kind of prep
Speaker 3: it for finishing and my crew would come in to
Speaker 3: seed it, you know, Brian would be there looking over
Speaker 3: our shoulder, to make sure we didn't take anything out essentially,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, he had it the way
Speaker 3: he wanted so in the finishing process, don't lose that ridge,
Speaker 3: don't don't don't soften that role, you know. So it
Speaker 3: was it was really cool and definitely different. But I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just a lot of fun to be able to
Speaker 3: build things the way Brian and Eric and Tom's guys
Speaker 3: can build. And if I were ever do something like that,
Speaker 3: I would probably follow that direction and try to do it,
Speaker 3: or or hire some of Wadsworth guys to work with me.
Speaker 1: And help me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, start your own firm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're they're really good.
Speaker 2: It's it's it seems to me when I look at it,
Speaker 2: all parties are more aligned that way because there's no
Speaker 2: competing interest. It also seems like for the club, you've
Speaker 2: got one direct path. There's never has it have you?
Speaker 2: That's you know something I've always wondered, like, have you
Speaker 2: ever had a situation in your experience where like whether
Speaker 2: even be back at Desert Mountain, like where the contractor
Speaker 2: the designer and the club, like you know, there was
Speaker 2: like a struggle with communication. It's pretty usually pretty clear
Speaker 2: right from the from the get go, and like it's
Speaker 2: never been a big problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what it deesner't Moount. It was Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 3: He built all those courses and so he would come
Speaker 3: out and whatever he said went. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: it was never a struggle there and and.
Speaker 1: That was that was you.
Speaker 3: Know, interesting and fun to get in the back of
Speaker 3: a pickup truck with Jack Nicholson ride to site.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't say a word. I just listen,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know what he said went there
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 3: Lake of Isles was was was really from the ground up.
Speaker 3: So you know, Reese had full artistic control. I mean,
Speaker 3: he did have a budget and a project managers and
Speaker 3: things that he was accountable to. And we did run
Speaker 3: into issues, like I said, with rock and dynamite things
Speaker 3: that were big dollar things. But Reese's you know, very
Speaker 3: you know, creative and good at that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and he managed all that here. You know, the membership
Speaker 3: from the very first day that the president of the
Speaker 3: club that that hired me ten years ago was a
Speaker 3: man by the name of John Potts, and he was
Speaker 3: adamant and to this day is the same guy. And
Speaker 3: in that hey, I'm going to hire the best people,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to empower them to do the job,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to get out of the way.
Speaker 1: And he held that line, yeah, exactly, and he held
Speaker 1: that line in it. And I'm happy to say that
Speaker 1: that remained consistent as others followed him through the through
Speaker 1: the board, and through the Green Committee, and and you know,
Speaker 1: we we've had really I mean, both the architects have
Speaker 1: always wanted to hear from the membership, and the membership's
Speaker 1: had their chance to provide their input or give their opinions.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of always been at the beginning, as
Speaker 1: the plans being developed, the concepts are being reviewed, you know,
Speaker 1: they want to hear what the customer wants. And then
Speaker 1: but but when it came down to it, and I
Speaker 1: bet you if you ask Tom, he tell you how surprised.
Speaker 3: He was in the end that they let him do
Speaker 3: whatever he wanted. And I remember when we were trying
Speaker 3: to get the design out of him, you know, the
Speaker 3: final one for review, you know, he was he and
Speaker 3: Reese both were kind of you know, like, are you sure,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, look, if you want to blow it up,
Speaker 3: blow it up.
Speaker 1: They want to.
Speaker 3: See that they want to see what you think, not
Speaker 3: what you think they want. They want to see what
Speaker 3: you think. That's what they're looking to get. And and
Speaker 3: Tom was like, you got to be kidding me, you know,
Speaker 3: in his own way, you know, like you got to
Speaker 3: be kidding me. He took him a while to I think,
Speaker 3: trust me that I was telling the truth as I
Speaker 3: liaison this information and encourage him to do it. But
Speaker 3: he did it and and it and it held true
Speaker 3: all the way through.
Speaker 1: And so that that credit goes to the members of
Speaker 1: a diynat.
Speaker 3: You know, they went out and they found that the
Speaker 3: people they wanted the best people that they could get,
Speaker 3: and they empower them to build it. And now they've
Speaker 3: got they've got those products out there, which you know
Speaker 3: is a testament to them and their commitments.
Speaker 2: So it's it's interesting. I think that's like really good
Speaker 2: advice for any membership or any Greens committee is is
Speaker 2: letting like you know, when when you get to a
Speaker 2: planning stage in an architect putting together plans, like you know,
Speaker 2: let them put everything they want to do out there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because like they might have something that's spectacular that they
Speaker 2: hold back on because they're afraid. But like letting them
Speaker 2: put everything out there, right. You know, you can always
Speaker 2: rain something back in, but like you, you won't see
Speaker 2: the full the full thought because they're you know, they're
Speaker 2: really artists and.
Speaker 3: Sure, and and you have to do that too from
Speaker 3: an infrastructure structural standpoint, because the art won't manifest completely
Speaker 3: if it doesn't function properly. And you know, that's what
Speaker 3: people run into is they have to set budget before
Speaker 3: they even start, right, And we face that at the beginning, like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're only going to spend this much on the project.
Speaker 1: Well okay, but our philosophy was we're going to tell
Speaker 1: the membership what it costs to do it right right.
Speaker 3: And it happened to be more than double on that project,
Speaker 3: and everybody was concerned and we talked about it, but
Speaker 3: we all agreed that hey, let's let's give them the
Speaker 3: full project and let them say no. And we gave
Speaker 3: them the project, we gave them the backup and they said, yes,
Speaker 3: we built it and it worked. So you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: if you're fortunate enough to be able to take the
Speaker 3: time to do it that way, that's that's the way
Speaker 3: to do it. This whole value engineering. Before you even
Speaker 3: go ask for the money is just a road to
Speaker 3: shortcuts and disasters.
Speaker 2: How's maintenance and golf course, like just the overall philosophy
Speaker 2: and trends. Yeah, changed in the last fifteen years for
Speaker 2: the industry.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a good question. They've definitely continue to progress,
Speaker 3: and I would say most of it has been around
Speaker 3: the development a lot of the new grasses that guys
Speaker 3: are using, whether it's warm season or cool season grasses.
Speaker 3: Everybody's using modern you know, varieties and species that happen
Speaker 3: to be high organic matter producers. Right, so we're all
Speaker 3: trying to get the firmest, fastest product that we can get.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, that's a little different, Right, That's that's definitely different.
Speaker 3: And and uh, but we're trying to do that with
Speaker 3: these grasses that are inclined to get there. But what
Speaker 3: people don't see is what what happens under the under
Speaker 3: the canopy, under the surface, and and uh, inadvertently it
Speaker 3: requires a lot of maintenance that people haven't really counted on.
Speaker 3: So that's that's been a change, you know, coming up
Speaker 3: from the desert there seven years. You know, I always
Speaker 3: had a real or I was taught a real irrigation
Speaker 3: was a premium you know, I learned to manage head
Speaker 3: by head. I learned not to waste to drop of water.
Speaker 3: I learned to water very specific and effectively. And I've
Speaker 3: used those principles through my East Coast work, my Midwest work.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a Southern work, so I mean, it's
Speaker 3: all it's all been there with this firm and fast
Speaker 3: approach and water conservation and all the things that come
Speaker 3: into today's golf course maintenance, environment managing irrigation and understanding
Speaker 3: water quality and making it work for you for as
Speaker 3: little as possible ultimately yields that playing service people are
Speaker 3: looking like and addresses the environmental concerns.
Speaker 1: And really what it.
Speaker 3: Comes down to is it's funny, is that it's really
Speaker 3: about the fundamental principles of cultivation and soil modification and
Speaker 3: or drainage. Right, You've got to have a draining profile.
Speaker 3: You can have heavy soils that hold water. You got
Speaker 3: to remove the organic matter. If you do all that,
Speaker 3: you can use the least amount of water. You can
Speaker 3: keep it firm. You can do all these things. And
Speaker 3: you know, as painful as that is to take a
Speaker 3: golf course out of play and execute that, it's critical
Speaker 3: in my opinion.
Speaker 2: With the new courses, you get the new greens and
Speaker 2: they don't have any like Thatch in them. Right, what's like,
Speaker 2: what's the best year to play like, because I know,
Speaker 2: like no Thatch, people will be like it's way too firm, right,
Speaker 2: is it like year or two when they're just perfect?
Speaker 3: You know what with these newer grasses, like we have
Speaker 3: double O seven creeping bancrafts on our greens here Madonna,
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's it's literally end of the second year
Speaker 3: beginning in the third year when we need to.
Speaker 1: Now start removing it.
Speaker 3: So somewhere in that second year start of the third
Speaker 3: you've got the right amount. And if you don't get
Speaker 3: on it, then in terms of the management of that profile,
Speaker 3: it'll get away from you quick. So it comes on
Speaker 3: a lot faster than it may have in the past,
Speaker 3: but you also have to stay from a management perspective
Speaker 3: equally as on.
Speaker 1: Top of it as quick as it comes on you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I played a couple courses last year, the Loop
Speaker 2: and then Sand Valley first year, and you know, the
Speaker 2: heats are really firm, and like, yeah, I love the
Speaker 2: firm I mean I kind of like it. I kind
Speaker 2: of like playing new courses because it brings a whole
Speaker 2: new element to the game. But I played them both
Speaker 2: this year and like I thought they were so they
Speaker 2: were so close to perc where like you really, you know,
Speaker 2: like long iron's really run out and it's it's amazing
Speaker 2: how much of a difference that makes, like the overall
Speaker 2: strategy of a golf course, and it's a you see
Speaker 2: it on the tour. I mean, like if a course
Speaker 2: isn't firm and fast, it doesn't matter what course it is,
Speaker 2: it's going to get lit up by these guys. And
Speaker 2: and then like you know, they you saw, like I
Speaker 2: think TPC Potomac, they they're they're superintendent did a great
Speaker 2: job this year. But it was so firm and fast
Speaker 2: and the scores were right around par, And I mean
Speaker 2: it makes a big difference. And then I think firm
Speaker 2: and fast conditions are are something that almost levels that
Speaker 2: skill difference between the the low handicappers and the high
Speaker 2: handicappers because for seniors they get the ball gets run
Speaker 2: it and the course isn't as long. But then for
Speaker 2: the for the more skilled player, it I mean it
Speaker 2: heightens how precise you have to be. You know, the
Speaker 2: ball just doesn't stick no matter how you hit it.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's cool. How do how do you
Speaker 2: go about managing three courses? You? I mean, not many
Speaker 2: superintendents have as big of an operation as you. You know,
Speaker 2: what's the difference between being you know, superintendent at you know,
Speaker 2: Billy Bob Country Club and uh, you know, having a
Speaker 2: team and having to manage three Like how much time
Speaker 2: do you spend across them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you said it starts with the team.
Speaker 3: Really, you know, you've got to have a team of individuals,
Speaker 3: both both at the top level of your management in
Speaker 3: terms of your course superintendents and your assistance and then
Speaker 3: all the way down to your seasonal guys. But you
Speaker 3: have to build a very well qualified, eager, kind of
Speaker 3: hungry team that likes high energy and a lot of action, right,
Speaker 3: and three courses there's just always something happened, and you're
Speaker 3: always you know, you might be on this course, but
Speaker 3: there might be something happening over there and one of
Speaker 3: the others, and you just have to be you have
Speaker 3: to be ready for a fast paced kind of environment.
Speaker 3: And and then you've got to be communicative.
Speaker 1: I mean, we place a real big premium.
Speaker 3: On communication here and you know, if you look through
Speaker 3: our shop, I have, you know, things all over the
Speaker 3: wall that talk about, like, you know, fundamental communication and
Speaker 3: talking as frequently as possible. And it's a major part
Speaker 3: of our day just just to have that radio blaring
Speaker 3: back and forth, even if you're just sending information back
Speaker 3: and forth, in order for everybody to be engaged. And
Speaker 3: that's what it takes to be successful at running a consistent,
Speaker 3: large scale operation is you know, a really qualified, hungry
Speaker 3: group of people and guys that are willing to communicate.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you come work on our team and
Speaker 3: you sit back and you don't engage, you're going to
Speaker 3: get passed by and you will just be out of
Speaker 3: the game. You know, you've got to be willing to
Speaker 3: ask the dumb question, to make the odd or irrelevant observation,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. It's communication. It engages you into the talk,
Speaker 3: we all get going and that's really the key to it.
Speaker 1: And then you know, obviously, I mean you've got to have.
Speaker 3: The resources and the support of the club, and you've
Speaker 3: got to have real specific goals for what you're trying
Speaker 3: to accomplish, and that has everything to do with the customer, right,
Speaker 3: So I mean, you know, you and I might like
Speaker 3: really firm, fast conditions, but the media members may like
Speaker 3: to them that might be something different, and you've got
Speaker 3: to have a clear picture of that to set those
Speaker 3: goals right. But you know, here at Medina, we are
Speaker 3: fortunate to have I'm fortunate to be the leader of
Speaker 3: just a fantastic group of guys. Jake Mendos, our Course
Speaker 3: three superintendent's been with me for three years or for
Speaker 3: ten years, and he's worked on all three courses. And
Speaker 3: Dane Wilson, the Course to Superintendent. He started as an
Speaker 3: intern here with us some seventy eight years ago and
Speaker 3: has worked his way all the way up to Course superintendent.
Speaker 3: He oversaw the Course to project along with me. He
Speaker 3: also worked billing the Dope project, so he's got a
Speaker 3: ton of experiences. He's a legacy soup. His dad was
Speaker 3: superintendent of Valhalla for twenty three years, so he's got
Speaker 3: his blood. It's in his blood. And Chris Funky, our
Speaker 3: course won superintendent, also interned for me a number of
Speaker 3: years ago, came back after he graduated and worked his
Speaker 3: way up to running one of the golf courses and
Speaker 3: then our assistants in our full time staff, guys that
Speaker 3: have been in Medina for fifteen, eighteen, twenty years. I mean,
Speaker 3: these guys, they know the deal and we count on
Speaker 3: them heavily and they deliver, and you know, it's a
Speaker 3: privilege for me to be a part of that group.
Speaker 3: The internship program I mentioned briefly is a big deal
Speaker 3: to me. We just completed our tenth season and there's
Speaker 3: eight of us that are university trained agronomus that manage
Speaker 3: the property and take.
Speaker 1: Me out of it. Of the seven of the seven,
Speaker 1: five of them.
Speaker 3: Were interns in our program that have come back to
Speaker 3: work their way up. I mean, I'm really proud that
Speaker 3: they get that kind of experience as a student. They
Speaker 3: see a place where they can grow and and and
Speaker 3: learn a lot of stuff and obviously work at a
Speaker 3: great place. They come back, they work hard, and then
Speaker 3: we've had guys graduate on out of our program and
Speaker 3: various parts of the country now at top facilities. So
Speaker 3: I place a real emphasis on developing my team. I
Speaker 3: put I put a lot of work and effort into
Speaker 3: making sure they get what they need and it's customed
Speaker 3: to their goals, and ultimately that pays off benefits for
Speaker 3: our members because everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's cool because they get you give them
Speaker 2: advice to grow and you know eventually you hope they
Speaker 2: grow out. That's right, I mean is what every manager
Speaker 2: should want. And it's kind of you know, DONK has
Speaker 2: a similar internship program with Renaissance, where you know they
Speaker 2: have the internship program. You can look and you see
Speaker 2: all these new young architects are you know, come from
Speaker 2: their corn Crenshaw And it's really it's it's internships. It's
Speaker 2: cool when you can see him. You know, you've got
Speaker 2: like a coaching treat like Coach K.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny you say that because we have a
Speaker 3: lot of Coach K things on the wall. You know,
Speaker 3: my mentor Sean Emerson a Desert Mountain, He's a he's
Speaker 3: a fiery guy and I love working for him because
Speaker 3: of that. But he would call himself the Bobby Knight
Speaker 3: golf of course superintendents, and I always used to tell him,
Speaker 3: one day, I'm going to be the.
Speaker 1: Coach K because Coach.
Speaker 2: K worked for Bobby Knight and both army guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah and and and uh.
Speaker 3: Coach K I think has a few more national championships
Speaker 3: than Bobby Knight, So I like to rub that into Sean,
Speaker 3: but I don't think I have more than him. But
Speaker 3: it was always fun to to just kind of smack
Speaker 3: talk like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, curious, So National Championships, good segue. Yeah, you've hosted
Speaker 2: pg A. You aren't here for that Ryder Cup and
Speaker 2: then you'll have the BMW and two years right, so
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup. I mean that had to be.
Speaker 1: Once in a lifetime experience. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I was out here, yeah, walking in here on on
Speaker 2: the course, Yeah, just parking lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tell you what I mean, from the day
Speaker 3: I was hired until the day after the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 3: how long.
Speaker 2: Before the Ryder Cup?
Speaker 1: For five years?
Speaker 3: Five years, five years, and every day for five years, Andy,
Speaker 3: all I thought about was that week. I mean, there
Speaker 3: wasn't a single day that I didn't come out on
Speaker 3: this property and think about that week, you know. I
Speaker 3: mean it was one hundred. I mean, that was the
Speaker 3: main draw. That's what I wanted to do with a
Speaker 3: goal of mine, to do something like that, and and uh,
Speaker 3: I tell you it was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was quite a humbling.
Speaker 3: Experience driving up the eighteenth Fairway on Sunday when we
Speaker 3: prepped our last hole and then driving the course the
Speaker 3: next morning was.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, I did, you know, it was in
Speaker 1: just a weird place.
Speaker 3: You know that five years of time lived lived to
Speaker 3: try to successfully lead the team through that, and we
Speaker 3: had accomplished it with something else.
Speaker 2: But you were you were one of the few Americans
Speaker 2: that had a good feeling after that Rider Cup.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true.
Speaker 3: And I had so many guys from Europe and other
Speaker 3: volunteers here, you know, wanting to console me that afternoon,
Speaker 3: and I was like trying to act sad, but at
Speaker 3: the same time, I mean, I was just so happy
Speaker 3: that that Madonna was successful.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was that was what my goal was,
Speaker 1: and that was what I was.
Speaker 3: Here to do, was to ensure that that golf course
Speaker 3: in this club showed well and that our members were
Speaker 3: proud and and that was first and foremost, and we
Speaker 3: accomplished that.
Speaker 2: The US opens kind of the only thing that comes
Speaker 2: close to the spectacle of a Ryder Cup in terms
Speaker 2: of like years of preparation was there. There had to be,
Speaker 2: you know, so every Ryder Cup because it was like
Speaker 2: because of the alternating schedule, I mean for four years, right,
Speaker 2: You're essentially like the PGA is sole focused. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's it's a big deal for them. So how often
Speaker 2: would you communicate?
Speaker 3: And you know, you know I started talking with Carrie
Speaker 3: Egg of PGA when the Royder couples at Aalhola and
Speaker 3: did you go down to that?
Speaker 1: I did? I did.
Speaker 3: I went down there, you know a number of times
Speaker 3: to see the buildout and down during the event.
Speaker 1: But Carrie, Carrie and his.
Speaker 3: Team was on site literally the winter after that, walking
Speaker 3: the site, started to lay out the design of of
Speaker 3: the of the of the production, if you will, and
Speaker 3: so you know, there was a lot of talk and
Speaker 3: then and then it really heated up when the captain
Speaker 3: was selected. So that was two years, you know, just
Speaker 3: under two years prior to the event, and that's when
Speaker 3: the talks got a little bit more specific. The plans
Speaker 3: were all laid out in terms of of uh portorate, hospitality.
Speaker 3: He lay out back of the house stage in grand stands.
Speaker 3: You know, we had a plan that we were working
Speaker 3: off of and in terms of inside the ropes. You know,
Speaker 3: then we started having discussions.
Speaker 2: Like what's the goal?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what what was the goal for that ryer?
Speaker 2: Like what was like kind of how do they want
Speaker 2: the course, like what you know, did they talk about
Speaker 2: like what would you know be Bennett?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's so so Pauli's inger at Valhalla.
Speaker 3: He was like the first American in a long time,
Speaker 3: American captain in a long time to.
Speaker 1: Have some influence and do some things.
Speaker 3: So you know, they they mowed some rough short in
Speaker 3: some landing zones and you know, cut down a tree
Speaker 3: limb that was in the way of jab Holmes, and
Speaker 3: you know, they did a few things where he was,
Speaker 3: you know, as as opposed to previous guys that hadn't
Speaker 3: really done anything so show off to play and coach.
Speaker 1: So Davis, you know, kind of coming off that, I mean,
Speaker 1: and he was in tune to hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have some influence.
Speaker 3: So, you know, Carrie and Davis and I sat down
Speaker 3: and they both were in agreement that they wanted short
Speaker 3: rough or they thought they wanted short rouff, and they
Speaker 3: wanted fast green.
Speaker 1: So that's where it all started.
Speaker 3: So that following summer, in the summer of eleven, I
Speaker 3: said okay, and I went out and we developed a plan.
Speaker 3: The team and I and the superintendent of course Stree
Speaker 3: at the time was a guy by the name of
Speaker 3: Ross Lobster who we have a long history and had
Speaker 3: worked together, and I had brought him here to be
Speaker 3: a part of that because you know, we had you know,
Speaker 3: I had a ton of confidence in him, and he
Speaker 3: was on that on that project, and he's now at
Speaker 3: and trot at Snow Canyon in Utah. Anyway, we all
Speaker 3: sat down and came up with this plan about how
Speaker 3: to drape the entire golf course in intermediate hight ruff.
Speaker 3: So we were gonna we were going to mow it down,
Speaker 3: interced it, start using growth regulators to create density and
Speaker 3: try to build fairways essentially at an inch and a
Speaker 3: quarter that went completely over top of and around all
Speaker 3: green complexes, all bunkers, and then effective tied into the
Speaker 3: tee and we were trying to get out to the
Speaker 3: tree line as wide as we could, and people talking
Speaker 3: about it being like an Augusta rough type of thing,
Speaker 3: and so.
Speaker 1: We we did.
Speaker 3: Davis came out that summer and I showed him over
Speaker 3: up to it and he's like, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 3: think this is kind of it's different, but let's go
Speaker 3: with it. And then as we were getting closer to
Speaker 3: twenty twelve. He said, you know, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 3: kind of not sure about it. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: from our perspective, it's better to be short and have
Speaker 3: you say, you know, two three weeks out, let's grow
Speaker 3: it up then the other way around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the club was on board, and so that
Speaker 2: members loved it. Probably the easiest of course three's I
Speaker 2: ever met.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, it was. I mean it was you know,
Speaker 1: you can miss a fair way and you had a
Speaker 1: you know for a higher handicaper. It was a great lie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so we worked hard at that and
Speaker 3: got that all cut in and we started just the
Speaker 3: Greens had just been built in twentyd and nine to ten,
Speaker 3: and so they were maturing, like we were talking about,
Speaker 3: and we were running a lot of playthroughom we had
Speaker 3: a lot of rain and heat and and you know,
Speaker 3: so it was it was struggle. We struggled to get
Speaker 3: them to kind of knit in and solidify. But you know,
Speaker 3: they got better as time went on, and ultimately they
Speaker 3: got there and they're they're structurally, they're they're fantastic, and
Speaker 3: they're they've never blinked. But it was a longer road
Speaker 3: for those Greens to get there. But by the time
Speaker 3: we got to to H twelve, which was there effectively
Speaker 3: their second full year, they were steady and we were
Speaker 3: able to get those green speeds up, so uh, you know,
Speaker 3: as got got you know, within you know, a few
Speaker 3: weeks of the event, Davis and Steve Stricker and I
Speaker 3: went out and we we picked five whole locations on
Speaker 3: all the greens and we didn't say, hey, Friday a m,
Speaker 3: Saturday PM, Sunday on that.
Speaker 1: We just Davis wanted too easy, too hard and you know,
Speaker 1: one in the middle kind of thing. So he had
Speaker 1: like a right and we ended those over to Carrie
Speaker 1: Hag who in the end is you know, the final
Speaker 1: decision maker on all that, and he edited a few
Speaker 1: of them right off the bat, like, you guys are nuts,
Speaker 1: way too hard not doing this, and it was his call,
Speaker 1: and he ultimately.
Speaker 2: So way too hard in the sense of like they
Speaker 2: wanted you know, excitement, Yeah, they.
Speaker 1: Want excitement, and they were a little too close to slopes.
Speaker 3: And you know, just you know, you know, he made
Speaker 3: a comment like you guys are trying to get me fired,
Speaker 3: but these are what you know, and we just laughed.
Speaker 3: But you know, in the end, those decisions were carries,
Speaker 3: and you know, he, like I said, he used the
Speaker 3: ones that he wanted to use. And people talk about
Speaker 3: Sunday seventeen on Sunday, and you know, being on the road,
Speaker 3: it was on the rights right, yeah, back right, and
Speaker 3: and you know, like why Davis put the pin there?
Speaker 1: And first of all, I don't know if Davis and
Speaker 1: Carrie had a conversation said do that or not.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe they did that wasn't you know, I
Speaker 3: was executing the management of the of the grounds by
Speaker 3: that point.
Speaker 1: I wasn't involved in whole location.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how everybody looks at that pin when you
Speaker 2: could there's a bunch of others, Like no one would
Speaker 2: ever pick out the fourth whole pen, like it could
Speaker 2: have been the worst one of all of them for
Speaker 2: like the team. But no one ever would zoom in
Speaker 2: on the fourthol because it's the fourth all. Everybody might
Speaker 2: have lost the fourth all I know. But because they
Speaker 2: have said that end, somebody zooms in on the seventeen.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm with you, you know, I mean, historically the
Speaker 3: United States had been weakest in the first two days
Speaker 3: of the event, the fourth Wall and the foursomes, and
Speaker 3: Davis created a strategy and we had a golf course
Speaker 3: set up that he handed the team a four point
Speaker 3: lead going into their strongest event. Yeah, and then they
Speaker 3: just got beat. So whole locations are not you know,
Speaker 3: they got out played that day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you were just you were about to pop
Speaker 2: up in the champagne. Yeah, I was, yeah, Yeah, what'd
Speaker 2: you do like the night after you're done?
Speaker 3: Tet like, oh oh that, you know what, I'll never
Speaker 3: forget that, because you know what a family goes through,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're married. My young daughters at the time,
Speaker 3: I mean, what they went through to support Meetia. To
Speaker 3: be able to do that was a lot and they
Speaker 3: gave up a ton of time and a lot of
Speaker 3: things in life for me to be so dedicated, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I was fortunate to spend that night with
Speaker 3: them and and uh we you know, after we had
Speaker 3: a little pizza party down here and volunteers and people
Speaker 3: were leaving and all that kind of thing. But you know,
Speaker 3: the four of us just got in the cart and
Speaker 3: we went up to the clubhouse and we walked through,
Speaker 3: We went in the team room, we talked to all
Speaker 3: the players, and went into the press tent and my
Speaker 3: girls got a picture with Rory McElroy and I got
Speaker 3: a picture with Osey Maria holding the Ryder Cup, And
Speaker 3: you know, I talked to Davis too. He was, you know,
Speaker 3: he was he was bummed out. It was obviously a
Speaker 3: totally different.
Speaker 1: Deal over there. But we spent our evening just kind
Speaker 1: of around town.
Speaker 3: I mean, they were they were partied up that you're
Speaker 3: a party up there till one or two in the morning,
Speaker 3: and we were up there just kind.
Speaker 1: Of walking around being a part of it all.
Speaker 3: And the next morning, I mean literally the next morning
Speaker 3: is seven m Ryan Schneider was here, Wadsworth was here,
Speaker 3: We had equipment stage. The next morning we took about
Speaker 3: seventy trees out and Brian and Eric Iverson had bulldozed
Speaker 3: two greens and already rough shaped him out by the
Speaker 3: end of the day on Monday, So I mean we
Speaker 3: really we had no time to.
Speaker 1: Think too much. Yeah, we were onto the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and fortunate to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: Were there any players that were like particularly interested, like
Speaker 2: ask you more questions than other one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jason Dufter, he was, he was, he was great. Well,
Speaker 1: a number of them came out early with Davis and
Speaker 1: played a practice round and that was really cool for me.
Speaker 1: Davis asked me to come along and just ride with them,
Speaker 1: and so I would.
Speaker 3: I would go out into the landing zone and see
Speaker 3: how far they were hitting, you know, just making sure
Speaker 3: everything was good out there, you know, get up to
Speaker 3: the green watch him hit in and I I went
Speaker 3: all eighteen holes with him. We talked green speeds, different things,
Speaker 3: and that was a lot of fun. But Jason Duffner
Speaker 3: wanted to know about heights of cut. And I mean
Speaker 3: he's converting fractions and decimals just off the top of
Speaker 3: his head and being right, you know, which you know,
Speaker 3: I need a calculator for that, you know, So I
Speaker 3: mean he was he.
Speaker 2: Was he really Uh you wouldn't You wouldn't expect Duffner
Speaker 2: to be that calculating and that I feel like it
Speaker 2: would be like a go with the flow guy.
Speaker 1: He had all kinds of questions and it was interesting,
Speaker 1: and uh, I wonder.
Speaker 2: If he asked that for everybody every event.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know he you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't say much. He just asked a question, we told
Speaker 1: the answer, he asked another one.
Speaker 3: But you know, it was uh, yeah, it was it
Speaker 3: was really interesting, and I mean all all the guys
Speaker 3: on both teams were were just fantastic to our team
Speaker 3: and and really gave us, you know, real big nods
Speaker 3: and support and recognition through that event, which you know
Speaker 3: they certainly didn't to do by any means, and we
Speaker 3: feel real fortunate blessed that they did. So, you know,
Speaker 3: it was just kind of a solidification of a job
Speaker 3: well done to have the players say good things.
Speaker 2: What do you what do you think they would want
Speaker 2: to do different with the course set up if they
Speaker 2: could do it all over again.
Speaker 3: Man, it's a good question, you know, I'd have to
Speaker 3: ask them because they.
Speaker 1: Were loving it obviously, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it just like flipped on.
Speaker 2: I think that was just a golf thing you could
Speaker 2: set to stack everything in your favor and the other
Speaker 2: team can win, you know sports.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, they liked the fact that they could
Speaker 3: hit it, They could hit it, use their length and
Speaker 3: hit it a long way and not get themselves in
Speaker 3: too much trouble.
Speaker 2: So, I mean they saw the same thing at Hazel
Speaker 2: team with like you know that that place had like
Speaker 2: no rough middle pins.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 2: When Justin Rose was complaining about right, like too easy, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: but I can understand that. How's so you got PGA
Speaker 2: here like or not pg BMW Yeah yeah, kind of
Speaker 2: got to be starting to get ready for that now.
Speaker 3: We are were you know, it really kicked in when
Speaker 3: we went and spent some time with Connor Healy and
Speaker 3: the team up at.
Speaker 1: Conway Farms and.
Speaker 3: There Connor is a great guy. He ran up fantastic
Speaker 3: got place. It's just immaculate. His tournament uh execution was
Speaker 3: was superb, and so I was really fortunate he's and
Speaker 3: he went out of his way to to He and
Speaker 3: Paul Paul Vermulan from the PGA Tour went out of
Speaker 3: their way to make the place successful to me and
Speaker 3: make you know, give me insight into whatever it is
Speaker 3: that that I needed to see and that I was
Speaker 3: interested in seeing.
Speaker 1: So but but to your point, it just.
Speaker 3: Got got the juices flowing a little bit, you know,
Speaker 3: tournament mode back. And it's nice to really nice to
Speaker 3: be there with the grand stands up and feel that
Speaker 3: atmosphere and I look forward to it. And for the
Speaker 3: guys that are on our team now that weren't here
Speaker 3: to run the Ryder Cup, I really look forward to
Speaker 3: going through an event with them, because that's you know,
Speaker 3: the whole journey, the lead up to it is really
Speaker 3: you know, working together to get there is really what
Speaker 3: it's all about. And then you know those those four
Speaker 3: days of the event are really special too, but.
Speaker 1: They go by like this. Yeah, it's like a wedding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just going to compare that.
Speaker 1: I feel like, so, you know, your your.
Speaker 3: Head spinning, you after, you like, hey I talked that guy,
Speaker 3: did do this? You know, you can't remember, But that's
Speaker 3: that's kind of what it's like. But in the end,
Speaker 3: if you're prepared, it all works out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I don't know if I was prepared for
Speaker 2: my wedding that worked out, right, That's right. That's it's
Speaker 2: it's interesting. It's a it'll be it'll be a little
Speaker 2: bit different of a of a setup. It'll be a
Speaker 2: little a little tougher. But the great thing about number three,
Speaker 2: there's so much space for infrastructure, right that was there's
Speaker 2: no you can put at randstand and it's not a
Speaker 2: bad right And I mean, like eighteen at a count
Speaker 2: kept banked it off the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2: But the one nice thing is it's up how close
Speaker 2: do they do you try and push those grand stands up,
Speaker 2: you know, because you want the fans as close as
Speaker 2: you can, but right, you don't want to affect the
Speaker 2: integrity of the tournament.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know what was interesting is is uh Kerry said
Speaker 3: something to me when we were doing the Ryder couples
Speaker 3: that you know, he wanted wide ropes and wide porters
Speaker 3: because the further he could spread it out, the more
Speaker 3: people could see. Yeah, as opposed to pulling it tight,
Speaker 3: you know with those sized crowds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that and so few golfers.
Speaker 3: So few golfers exactly. And so you know, I have
Speaker 3: yet to see the layout from the Western Golf Association
Speaker 3: and the folks at the PGA Tour with regards to
Speaker 3: what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Looking at what they did at Conway,
Speaker 1: they had it. They had it. Really.
Speaker 3: Our number eighteen doesn't lend itself because of the elevated
Speaker 3: green to get too close like they did there. We
Speaker 3: got we gotta be a little further back. Seventeen has
Speaker 3: a natural amphitheater. Anyway, I think that, you know, for
Speaker 3: the Ryder Cup, we use that.
Speaker 1: Hope, I hope they do that. Again, but you know,
Speaker 1: we'll see what they come up with.
Speaker 3: I know that for the Ryder Cup, we built forty
Speaker 3: three acres of stuff, so back in the house, front
Speaker 3: of the house, forty three acres.
Speaker 1: Was all part of that infrastructure.
Speaker 3: And I think the estimate for the BMW is going
Speaker 3: to be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen. So it's
Speaker 3: about really one third the size of what the Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup was.
Speaker 2: Any like weird little thing go wrong during the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 2: we like, like, did you have any like many disasters
Speaker 2: that no one would know about, you know, like like
Speaker 2: like some machine broker.
Speaker 1: So every superintendent's worst nightmare was about ten days before
Speaker 1: the event, we had a hydraulic league right up the
Speaker 1: center of three fair on a fairway.
Speaker 3: Unit, and we were like, we all just kind of
Speaker 3: standing there, I mean, because we had taken every precaution
Speaker 3: to not have that happen, and it happened, and.
Speaker 1: There was and so I'm thinking, you know, what are
Speaker 1: we going to do about this?
Speaker 3: So we've got you know, basically poe event fairways out there,
Speaker 3: you know, predominantly bent, but there's enough poe in them
Speaker 3: that they're not pure bent. So siding it with bent
Speaker 3: would have been a sore thumb.
Speaker 1: You know, you would have seen it. So we thought
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: And the guy that worked for us, his name sal Garcia,
Speaker 3: and he's just a master craftsman, and we've been working
Speaker 3: together for twenty some years. He's gone with me from
Speaker 3: site to site. But we went to the forward te
Speaker 3: on number four that had a very similar turf stand,
Speaker 3: stripped it completely, patched that hydraulically.
Speaker 1: Right up the gut, and then sided that tea over
Speaker 1: with bent.
Speaker 3: They weren't going to use it for the event, and
Speaker 3: nobody looks at the four D T and so he
Speaker 3: put it in there and he threaded it in there
Speaker 3: like like as good as you could possibly do it. No,
Speaker 3: And I mean, you know, we could see it, but
Speaker 3: I didn't know if anybody else was going to see it.
Speaker 3: And so about four days later, so I'm standing on
Speaker 3: the third green and here comes a golf cart just
Speaker 3: running right down the fairway and he's literally driving driving
Speaker 3: this hydroc league line and it's Paul Aisinger and he's
Speaker 3: scouting the golf course for TV coverage and he pulls
Speaker 3: right up to me and and I had met him
Speaker 3: once before and he says hello, and he's like.
Speaker 1: Man, the golf course is fantastic, It's immaculate. Congratulations blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And I'm thinking they're never going to see it.
Speaker 1: They're never going to know. Nobody's gonna know, and nobody did,
Speaker 1: you know? So that was that was you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was enough last minute to get your heart in
Speaker 1: your throat.
Speaker 2: But my wedding day, I cut my next shaving. You did,
Speaker 2: and uh, just a tiny one. I never cut myself
Speaker 2: shaving ever in my life before that moment, and uh yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't have that whatever that kit thing is because
Speaker 2: I've never cut myself shaving. And I had a white
Speaker 2: shirt and it like some of it got on the
Speaker 2: collar because it like started bleeding again. I mean I
Speaker 2: freaked out, but like I was in there with like
Speaker 2: a toothbrush, like you know, but eventually it came out.
Speaker 2: Nobody noticed. I mean, you can't even see him in
Speaker 2: the photos.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the same kind of same thing, sure,
Speaker 2: just things that go wrong. So if you were going
Speaker 2: to make one changed, I mean, you got two relatively
Speaker 2: new golf courses and three what would you make one
Speaker 2: if you could make one change? Out here. You know,
Speaker 2: you're putting on your You're the bizarre of Medina. All
Speaker 2: the members answer to you. I see, what would you
Speaker 2: do from a golf course perspective?
Speaker 3: You know there there I would, I would make some
Speaker 3: adjustments to some of the bunkering on course three and
Speaker 3: and we're gonna we're gonna replace the sand and we're
Speaker 3: gonna do with some slight regrading just from sand build
Speaker 3: up prior to the BMW. But there were some bunkers
Speaker 3: that that were built when the course was heavily treated.
Speaker 3: And we've taken fourteen hundred trees off that golf course,
Speaker 3: and since we've been here and and now you have
Speaker 3: some bunker complexes that they still work. You know, for
Speaker 3: all intentsive purposes, they're fine. But just because I know
Speaker 3: that there used to be a support wall of trees
Speaker 3: that that defined that shaping uh parameters, I think that
Speaker 3: with with those gone, I would I would soften those
Speaker 3: and shift those a little bit to.
Speaker 1: Be respectful, uh, you know, just to shift them out.
Speaker 3: I I'd blend. I'd blend the tie ins out. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got some real steep toads of toads of slope
Speaker 3: on the backsides. I'd fade those, and I'd push the
Speaker 3: bunkers in play a little bit more, you know, bring
Speaker 3: the fairway a little bit more into them. Just from
Speaker 3: the experience that that I've been fortunate to have watching
Speaker 3: Tom and Brian Eric do that stuff and then and
Speaker 3: then get to really direct a lot of it on
Speaker 3: two and so forth. You know, I have the confidence
Speaker 3: now to think I can improve them. That might be
Speaker 3: might be bad, but those would be That's.
Speaker 1: Probably what I would do.
Speaker 2: Confidence at half the battle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 2: It's just like golf. It's right, you're not confident, you're
Speaker 2: not a good shot.
Speaker 1: True, very true.
Speaker 2: You're not confident you're probably bad bad bunker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of them out there that I would
Speaker 1: love to get the green light on them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it seems like everybody loves the mowing lines
Speaker 2: right into bunkers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is there any thought of ever trying to get some
Speaker 2: of that on three man?
Speaker 1: You know, I would love to see that. I think that, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you if you embarked on that, however, you have
Speaker 1: to change it. You got to do it everywhere. The
Speaker 1: problem is is if you did that.
Speaker 3: And what I mean, I don't mean every single hole,
Speaker 3: but what I mean is every every hole would have
Speaker 3: to be evaluated and every bunker would have to be
Speaker 3: shifted to make it work. Because right now they're they're
Speaker 3: they're they're they're shaped and built into the fairway in
Speaker 3: ways that wouldn't lend itself to make it look natural.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we'd have to shift a big project.
Speaker 1: It'd be a big project.
Speaker 3: It'd be there'd be bulldozers, Mini x's and you know,
Speaker 3: some some grading would definitely need to happen, but it'd
Speaker 3: be good. I think that course would would would tough
Speaker 3: enough that way. You know, it's an interest. It's just
Speaker 3: a it's an interesting golf course. It's so long, it's
Speaker 3: so penal. If you get offline, you.
Speaker 2: Don't drive it well, you toast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like going fifteen rounds with a heavy way,
Speaker 3: you know, for you know, thirteen fourteen handicapper like myself.
Speaker 1: It's like man breaking ninety is like I'm buying the beers,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Because it's just a long day,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 2: Know, I hadn't played it in a while, and I
Speaker 2: played it after my honeymoon so I hadn't touched the club.
Speaker 2: It was the first round out after my honey, I
Speaker 2: think I hadn't touched a club in like sixteen days.
Speaker 2: And like I started out okay, I hit pretty good,
Speaker 2: but that like kind of lost my tempo and like
Speaker 2: it was like for like five holes like I just
Speaker 2: got I got like was getting bludgeoned over the.
Speaker 1: Head, right exactly.
Speaker 2: It's like I mean it it is like you can't
Speaker 2: you can't fake it out there, and that's why it's
Speaker 2: a championship of course. Like nobody can slap it around
Speaker 2: and shoot a good score on that golf course, but
Speaker 2: it could. I mean, the land is unbelievable over there,
Speaker 2: and the oaks are so beautiful because they got so
Speaker 2: many big oaks, right, you can see them more now, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the topography gets really really good
Speaker 1: on holes like twelve. I mean you know what I
Speaker 1: mean is that the power four that goes, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sweeping side fairway.
Speaker 3: I mean you know that's you hear about Augusta people
Speaker 3: have never been, and then you go and you're like, wow,
Speaker 3: they're right. You can't appreciate the topography unless you're there.
Speaker 3: Twelve has that kind of size.
Speaker 2: What was that green before the changes like.
Speaker 1: It was pretty much well, it was about two thirds
Speaker 1: of size. It was pretty much back to front. It
Speaker 1: was a little this way with a.
Speaker 3: Little bit towards towards the lake. But the approach, the
Speaker 3: whole right side of the green was all rough. So
Speaker 3: we and it was and it had a little hump
Speaker 3: in it. So we cut that hump out, smoothed it out,
Speaker 3: brought that fairway around the side, and then put some
Speaker 3: some movement into it.
Speaker 1: And it's got this really right now.
Speaker 3: It's got this really nice sweale that runs off the
Speaker 3: back that visually looks like, you know, disaster, but knowing,
Speaker 3: knowing how it plays the mist, there is actually that
Speaker 3: pins back there.
Speaker 1: It's long because it'll stay up. It will run through
Speaker 1: that and stay.
Speaker 2: Disaster on the front part of the green. That putt
Speaker 2: is brutal going up, Yeah it is. I had it
Speaker 2: the last time I played it. I thought I hit
Speaker 2: a really good shot and it grabbed and came back
Speaker 2: down that ridge and it's not a good spot to
Speaker 2: be yeah at all. That's a it's a beautiful golf
Speaker 2: a yeah.
Speaker 3: And and from there it continues to get interesting with
Speaker 3: fourteen's you know, got this rolling, rolling shoot through those trees,
Speaker 3: and then sixteen, which is such a fantastic golfl.
Speaker 1: Now it's got the length back, it's it's for the
Speaker 1: top level players. It's really fantastic.
Speaker 2: How do you know? I imagine and I saw the
Speaker 2: members just end up in that bottom part so much
Speaker 2: like that's got to be just a huge traffic area
Speaker 2: for you. If it is, how do you and you
Speaker 2: guys get so many rounds to three? I mean it's booked, right,
Speaker 2: How do you manage areas like that? Like? Do you
Speaker 2: have a strategy towards them? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So from a from a purely maintenance standpoint, what we
Speaker 3: do is, rather than painting ground under repair with white paint,
Speaker 3: we tack rope down on the ground and circle it
Speaker 3: as if it were paint in a white rope, put
Speaker 3: a sign on their ground under repair, and we put
Speaker 3: drop areas off of the intermediate cut and we and
Speaker 3: we do that for outings on Mondays, and do it
Speaker 3: for like most heavy active guest play days Monday through Thursday.
Speaker 3: And then when we start to gravitate more to our
Speaker 3: member play on Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday, we pull
Speaker 3: it and that that that way most people that land
Speaker 3: down in there, you know, and a lot of guys
Speaker 3: that are here just playing, unless they're an early great golfer,
Speaker 3: are are going to choose to take it, put it
Speaker 3: on a fluffier.
Speaker 1: Lie to hit that that pitch back up that hill,
Speaker 1: and it saves on dibbots. So that's how we do it.
Speaker 3: From a maintenance standpoint, we've looked and we've tried to
Speaker 3: put a little bit of movement in there to move
Speaker 3: balls away.
Speaker 2: And the water probably sits down there a little bit
Speaker 2: more too, which is when.
Speaker 1: We did the Greens project.
Speaker 3: What we did to firm that bottom up was we
Speaker 3: excavated that that entire bottom area out six inches, capped
Speaker 3: it with sand, and put some surface drainage in it
Speaker 3: so it.
Speaker 1: Stays a little firmer.
Speaker 3: But we looked at closing the fairway off and making
Speaker 3: it rough, and this was all, yeah, these are all
Speaker 3: ideas pitched at Reese, you know, putting a bunker right
Speaker 3: in there, and and Reese just held firm like, hey, Curtis,
Speaker 3: you got to come up with a way to build
Speaker 3: these divots and get them to grow, because I don't
Speaker 3: want to change it. And I'm glad that was his
Speaker 3: position because I think that the holes better that way.
Speaker 2: And watch the balls roll back down to your feet
Speaker 2: that way. That's right, So golf, Yeah, I can't get
Speaker 2: rid of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's all right. We do this overrated underrated segment.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you got pick.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna go from the way MEDYNA members perceive
Speaker 2: the course, okay, and we're going to go through each
Speaker 2: of the courses overrated under eight and you have to pick.
Speaker 2: So course number one the.
Speaker 1: Way from the perspective of the MEDYNA members the greater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the average mind of MEDYNA member underrated. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: heard it. People don't understand those greens.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you hear some of that. These days.
Speaker 3: You know, it's still busy, they're still playing it. We
Speaker 3: got plenty of guest rounds. But you know, there's there's
Speaker 3: a few greens out there that I think we're we're
Speaker 3: I think are personally, I think are great, but they
Speaker 3: challenge people and they're not.
Speaker 1: That design is unique.
Speaker 3: It fits the lay of the land, it fits the sight,
Speaker 3: but it's different, and I think that's what is the
Speaker 3: hardest thing for them to ax up.
Speaker 2: Is that. Yeah, it's amazing how yeah, changes in just
Speaker 2: any sure aspect of society is like frightening for people.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is a tough This is a
Speaker 3: tough segment for me because you know, having built all
Speaker 3: these three, they're like my you know, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like you know, I feel like I a
Speaker 3: part of me is you know, they're like my kids
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, you know. So I mean
Speaker 3: it's picking one kid over the other.
Speaker 2: I had time out. I think he said, you might
Speaker 2: have said overrated to everything I said, just because that's
Speaker 2: his personality.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely think that that.
Speaker 3: In the last twelve months, let's just say, uh, of
Speaker 3: course one has gotten some unaccurate criticism, and I think
Speaker 3: that it's underrated.
Speaker 2: I bet if you explain some of those screens, I
Speaker 2: bet there's some bumps that people could play off of.
Speaker 2: And it's one of the things I think is people
Speaker 2: don't understand strategy when it's a little when it's different,
Speaker 2: when it's not just the center of the faariraway, center
Speaker 2: of the green, like you know, the three is really
Speaker 2: right in front of you, and that one probably has
Speaker 2: a lot more subtlety and a little bit more thought
Speaker 2: and positioning, like if you're over on the right side
Speaker 2: of this fairway and the pins here, like, don't hit
Speaker 2: it at the pen, hit it like twenty feet left
Speaker 2: and I'll probably filter all the way in.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: It's hard for its. Yeah, once you do it once though,
Speaker 2: that you see that happens, Like I think there needs
Speaker 2: to be like a guide or something sometimes, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and we've got there's a lot of short grass,
Speaker 3: so you know, you've got to learn to kind of
Speaker 3: bump and run and play a tight pitch.
Speaker 1: And that's not typical either, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: think that you know, when Tom, when I played with
Speaker 1: Tom on opening day.
Speaker 3: He chipped all over that golf course with the seven
Speaker 3: irons all day long, hits, yeah, and very effectively, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering, is he making a point with this?
Speaker 3: Is that what he's trying to like get this across
Speaker 3: to those of us playing with him, This is how
Speaker 3: you should do it.
Speaker 1: But hey, you know, the more the more I hear
Speaker 1: some of the things people don't like, the more I
Speaker 1: think they all approach that approach it with that strategy
Speaker 1: a little more.
Speaker 2: So I was I played with him, and I was
Speaker 2: hitting a. I had a shot and I was short
Speaker 2: and he and he looked and he goes, you hit
Speaker 2: a loblunch here, and I go yeah, he goes, you
Speaker 2: don't even think. I'm like, yeah, this is this is
Speaker 2: what I would say ninety percent of like good amateur player,
Speaker 2: like tournament amateur players would hit this shot. He goes,
Speaker 2: you would never hit like an eight iron. So like
Speaker 2: I hit that, and I hit an eight iron and
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, that's really easy. And like I've
Speaker 2: started to hit more of those shots since. Like I
Speaker 2: never even like it never even came to my mind
Speaker 2: to use the ground, but he uses it everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he hit shots like you're like, I would never think
Speaker 2: about hitting a seven. Irony hits it and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you see the ground goes this way and comes back,
Speaker 2: so you know it's just gonna go right to it.
Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, No, he's got it down there, that's
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's people just need to experiment more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, So of course too, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: hard one to you know, it might be too soon.
Speaker 1: It might be too soon.
Speaker 2: I think you feel like there's a buzz.
Speaker 3: There's definitely a buzz, you know, the the the t
Speaker 3: sheet is filling up as the summer is going on
Speaker 3: every month to a higher level. We haven't had anybody
Speaker 3: not in saying they don't like.
Speaker 1: Something about it. I played it a couple of times myself.
Speaker 1: I love playing it's.
Speaker 3: I don't know, we'll have to see, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean it's it's It's really been a great compliment to
Speaker 3: the other two and that's what it was intended to be.
Speaker 3: And that's that makes the Dina members portfolio just I
Speaker 3: think stand apart.
Speaker 1: But in terms of a golf course at Court golf Course,
Speaker 1: we need a little more time.
Speaker 2: But what about that, of course, like are you most
Speaker 2: proud of since it's the most recent you know, rebuild, renovate, restoration.
Speaker 1: Really well, you know I I I'm most proud of
Speaker 1: how we were able to.
Speaker 3: To brighten the original shaping that came out in a
Speaker 3: way that looked like looked looked natural, that that we
Speaker 3: were able to to to modernize things we're applicable, brighten
Speaker 3: and restore things we're applicable, and make it look like
Speaker 3: it's been there for a while and not not. It
Speaker 3: doesn't look like we moved dirt to do anything and
Speaker 3: that was the goal. And and you know, I'm really
Speaker 3: proud of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's cool. I love that place than you.
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's like more more, need more of that,
Speaker 2: especially at Like I mean, I feel like more Chicago
Speaker 2: courses should be like that because like I always say
Speaker 2: this to clubs and like you're actually one of the
Speaker 2: clubs that can do the like the hard golf because
Speaker 2: I always say to like, you know people at clubs.
Speaker 2: Is like all right, so like you're in Chicago, Like
Speaker 2: why are you trying to be the hardest golf course
Speaker 2: in Chicago? Like you're never gonna be it when you
Speaker 2: got Madina Butler Madina three Butler in Olympia Fields, Like
Speaker 2: you're never gonna be as hard as those three golf courses.
Speaker 2: So like why are you trying to make your golf
Speaker 2: course hard? Why don't you try and make your golf
Speaker 2: course like the most fun golf course in Chicago? Right,
Speaker 2: And like number two is a perfect example of it
Speaker 2: being like the most fun. Like it was it's you know,
Speaker 2: you got drivable holes, you got short part threes, you
Speaker 2: got longer part threes. You hit, you hit like a
Speaker 2: lot almost all the clubs in your bag, which is awesome,
Speaker 2: and and the bunkering is beautiful. I mean, like the
Speaker 2: way you guys have those mowing lines rolling in. It's definitely. Ah,
Speaker 2: it's a modern it's it's a product of like what
Speaker 2: kind of like the trends of the industry, I imagine,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure that was what we were shooting for.
Speaker 1: That's good to hear you say that. Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2: I recommend anybody that gets the chance to fight too.
Speaker 2: It's it's fun. Yeah, I heard a lot of buzz.
Speaker 2: I was I was really skeptical. I'm not the biggest
Speaker 2: Reese fan, Yeah, and I was. I was skeptical. But
Speaker 2: then I played, I saw it, I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: that was really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Reese.
Speaker 3: What Reese needs to be credited for on that project,
Speaker 3: for sure, among other things, is is is.
Speaker 1: The fact that you know, he he let us, he
Speaker 1: let it happen.
Speaker 3: He you know, he showed up, and and when when
Speaker 3: we started doing stuff and and and working that stuff,
Speaker 3: the more the more different it got, the weirder it got,
Speaker 3: the the further away from what he had done before
Speaker 3: it got, the more excited he got, the more he
Speaker 3: encouraged it to keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean it was fantastic. You know. I
Speaker 1: was I wasn't sure how he was going to embrace this,
Speaker 1: this approach that was going to happen, and when we
Speaker 1: really we had talked about it, but when we started
Speaker 1: doing it, I wasn't sure how much he was going
Speaker 1: to do that. And he absolutely did. I mean he was.
Speaker 3: He got so excited that he kept I mean, we
Speaker 3: had a plan in terms of his number of visits
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and like he blew that budget
Speaker 3: because he just kept wanting to come back, you know,
Speaker 3: and he liked it so much. So I give him
Speaker 3: a ton of credit for his you know, his just his.
Speaker 1: Ability to see to see it differently and to put
Speaker 1: it on the ground.
Speaker 2: That's what people need to do with number one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, embrace the change, embrace the difference.
Speaker 1: That's right. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: All right, last one, number three?
Speaker 3: All right, So we talked about it being long and challenging,
Speaker 3: got to drive the ball straight. So I but I'm
Speaker 3: going to say underrated, and I and I'm gonna say
Speaker 3: it from a perspective of a DYNA member, because it's
Speaker 3: well from a DINA members perspective, it's probably it's it
Speaker 3: might be a bit overrated, just switched. I just my perspective,
Speaker 3: what's one thing I forgot the so so from my perspective,
Speaker 3: it's underrated. I think it has a lot of from
Speaker 3: the right set of tees, it has a lot of
Speaker 3: shot values, It's got some some fantastic uh strategic elements.
Speaker 3: It forces you to think from the right set of
Speaker 3: tees based on your skill level. Okay, so that would
Speaker 3: apply to you from further back than it would for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet a lot of people play the wrong
Speaker 2: tees right.
Speaker 3: And and I and from a DIYNA members perspective, you know,
Speaker 3: they put you know, and it and and and in
Speaker 3: their defense, it's always been the one that that was
Speaker 3: the flagship.
Speaker 1: It's got to be the hard course, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was the flagship for them. It it holds all
Speaker 1: the tournaments to history.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, from there, from their standpoint, you know,
Speaker 3: it's they I think they overrated a bit because that
Speaker 3: was the one that was always the one that was
Speaker 3: kind of carrying the torch pull.
Speaker 1: Pulling the rest of the of the club along. And
Speaker 1: and now the club's much different.
Speaker 3: Than it was ten years ago, and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: that perspective from there will change for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I think it's okay though, Like I
Speaker 2: wrote about Olympia Fields last year and like you know,
Speaker 2: going there and playing like you're playing hard golf course. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the hard is okay. Like if I was a member,
Speaker 2: I play three here probably like two times out of ten,
Speaker 2: maybe once out of ten. I you know, I don't
Speaker 2: need to go get my ass kicked for like five
Speaker 2: hours that often. But it's good to go do it
Speaker 2: every once in a while, right, right, right, But that's
Speaker 2: the beauty of having if you like. That's why I
Speaker 2: really like about about here and Olympia Fields is like
Speaker 2: if you have a really good golf course and you
Speaker 2: have like the South course of Olympia Fields is a
Speaker 2: lot of fun, and these two courses are a lot
Speaker 2: of fun one and two. So it's like why you know,
Speaker 2: you you don't have to play the really hard course
Speaker 2: every time, but like that's a you know, people people
Speaker 2: complain about Madina, you know, oh so long and hard.
Speaker 2: It's like, what did you expect? Major championship golf course? Right,
Speaker 2: there's some other like I you know, some other like
Speaker 2: I think like mod allions could be better. Like but
Speaker 2: like that's like, I mean that's just that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, right.
Speaker 2: But but like the complain of it's long and hard,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, it's a PGA Championship golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like the answer to that is yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right.
Speaker 2: You know what it is supposed to be exactly, it's yeah.
Speaker 2: So but thanks for coming on this fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a blast.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it, and uh, love of work you're
Speaker 3: doing and and really appreciate your you know, bringing the
Speaker 3: different sides of the industry out.
Speaker 1: To the to the to the world of golf and
Speaker 1: and keep it up. Man, really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. I get interested that I want to know
Speaker 2: as much as I know I can know.
Speaker 1: You know, that's awesome, man, I appreciate it. Thank you.