Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of the podcast with Jim Urbina.
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Speaker 1: and here's part two of the podcast with Jim Urbina.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Friday Friday.
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the
Speaker 1: golf course. In terms of you obviously have a passion
Speaker 1: for Golden Age golf and golf in general. Like when
Speaker 1: did you know you wanted to be a golf course architect?
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I had no idea. I never played golf.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand golf. I was like Seth Rayner, you
Speaker 3: know the famous pull to McDonald talked about Seth Rayner.
Speaker 3: He didn't know a tennis ball from a golf ball.
Speaker 3: That was me, and I'm very thankful to Pete due
Speaker 3: who I got my career started with. He embraced the
Speaker 3: work that I was doing for him, the creativity that
Speaker 3: he allowed me to do as a shaper. I started
Speaker 3: as a shaper. I knew how to draw because I
Speaker 3: was a high school drafting trade teacher by trade. But
Speaker 3: I started as a shaper, and I didn't think I
Speaker 3: wanted to be in this golf business. But the more
Speaker 3: and more Pete Dye sent me around looking at his
Speaker 3: golf courses, Old Marsh and PGA West, all these golf
Speaker 3: courses he had done, the golf club on and on
Speaker 3: and on, the more I started to understanding the beauty
Speaker 3: of it. And his son Perry died sending me around
Speaker 3: to other golf courses, allowing me to go to Cyprus,
Speaker 3: point the Dye sending me to Saint Andrews in Scotland.
Speaker 3: They hooked me, man, They hooked me big time. And
Speaker 3: they hooked me because they showed me a different way
Speaker 3: to build a golf course, not that I knew any
Speaker 3: other way than just hands on. I realized that the
Speaker 3: only way to do it right, as Pete Dye told me,
Speaker 3: was to do it yourself. And because they taught me
Speaker 3: from the ground up, I understood and I appreciated how
Speaker 3: these things were built. And to go on to work
Speaker 3: at Pasa Temple and learn from McKenzie and Rainer courses
Speaker 3: uh Yeamans Hall. I did work at Mid Ocean UH,
Speaker 3: San Francisco Golf Club, Garden City, UH, the Bobbling Club,
Speaker 3: on and on on. Recently sank in the head uh
Speaker 3: in Nantucket, Emerson Armstrong one off design. I started to
Speaker 3: realize all of these guys had the same passion. And
Speaker 3: it's addictive, and it's it's all encompassing, and it's funny
Speaker 3: when I send times, I send emails or text out
Speaker 3: at two in the morning because I'm thinking about golf.
Speaker 3: I'm all wrapped up in it. And you want you say, well,
Speaker 3: why are you wrapped up in it? You didn't grow
Speaker 3: up in the game. Well, because the way Pete and
Speaker 3: his son Perry shared their experiences with me, they allowed
Speaker 3: me to travel. They allowed me to see new and
Speaker 3: and and and beautiful places. Cypress Point when I was
Speaker 3: a punk, the National Golf Links before I was uh,
Speaker 3: before I was thirty, before it was fashionable to travel
Speaker 3: and look at architecture and it just became all encompassing.
Speaker 3: And because I like working with my hands, I like
Speaker 3: building things, it was a perfect scenario for me and
Speaker 3: for them to allow me to draw, do grading maps,
Speaker 3: work in the office, do drainage plans. It was all
Speaker 3: just a big foundation that I had no idea what
Speaker 3: I was doing, but I was doing the best I
Speaker 3: could do because that's what my mom and dad taught
Speaker 3: me in the little town. I grew up in whatever
Speaker 3: you do, do it well, work hard at it, and
Speaker 3: the benefits will reap and they have, and I've had
Speaker 3: the chance to meet some wonderful people, and all because
Speaker 3: Pete allowed me to seek out and look at different
Speaker 3: golf courses and he embraced me, he trusted me, and
Speaker 3: he let me build and be creative. And who doesn't
Speaker 3: want to be creative And who doesn't want to build
Speaker 3: something cool that they could stand and say I built that?
Speaker 3: And who doesn't want to be out in the open
Speaker 3: air and the open space and to travel and to
Speaker 3: see beautiful places. I mean, who doesn't want to do that? Well?
Speaker 3: I didn't think I did. And thirty seven, thirty eight
Speaker 3: years later, I'm still doing it and I still have
Speaker 3: that passion, and the day that it burns out is
Speaker 3: the day I'm done. But whether it's an interview a
Speaker 3: couple of days ago, or i'm working I'm working with
Speaker 3: Mike Kaiser on some projects, working with new designs, working
Speaker 3: with restorations, it's the passion. And when that passion's gone,
Speaker 3: you know I'll probably be done. But maybe sometimes it's
Speaker 3: too much passion. I can't sleep at all. That's how
Speaker 3: I got started.
Speaker 1: I end up doing the same thing. I am like,
Speaker 1: you get crazed, but you get crazed the A lot
Speaker 1: of people say that we're in this second Golden Age,
Speaker 1: and something that seems to be to me A common
Speaker 1: theme is Pete Die with Yeah, I mean, and I
Speaker 1: feel like he doesn't get enough credit for what he did.
Speaker 3: Well. I think Pete Dye was People always ask me
Speaker 3: about the Mount Rushmore of golf course architects, and Pete
Speaker 3: Dye should be up there, and you know you're going
Speaker 3: to say, wow, that's just because you work for him. Well,
Speaker 3: Pete Dye taught me about detail and taught me about
Speaker 3: being hands on. And look at how many people he
Speaker 3: spun off. Look how many people work for him. Lee Schmidt,
Speaker 3: Brian Curly, Bill Cooor, the list goes on and on
Speaker 3: and on. And I think about all of the people
Speaker 3: who got that chance to work for Pete, and I think, Wow,
Speaker 3: we all had that same attachment. Pete putting his hand
Speaker 3: on your shoulder saying, you know this is what we're
Speaker 3: gonna do here and trust you. Tom Doak working for
Speaker 3: Pete dye pretty cool play, Pretty cool that we all
Speaker 3: had a chance to work for the man.
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about McDonald and Rayner and
Speaker 1: National and I'm a huge Rainer nut and McDonald nut.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I've heard people that like
Speaker 1: to diminish Rainer and McDonald are they say that their
Speaker 1: use of templates were unimaginative.
Speaker 2: What would you say to that?
Speaker 3: I would laugh, I would laugh. And the reason I
Speaker 3: would laugh is because people who say they're unmattered, unimaginative
Speaker 3: don't understand why they came about where they came from.
Speaker 3: And yes, it's easy to say, oh, just another of
Speaker 3: a dan or it's easy to say just another alpshole
Speaker 3: or a hog's back, or a plateau or a short
Speaker 3: or eden. I could go on and on and on,
Speaker 3: but the intent of the strategy. I was just talking
Speaker 3: to somebody about an article that Charles Blair MacDonald wrote
Speaker 3: and Golf Illustrated February issue nineteen oh seven, and he
Speaker 3: described in detail each hole and how he would create
Speaker 3: these wonderful holes that he brought from the UK. He
Speaker 3: selected the best holes of the UK and brought it
Speaker 3: with him, leading many leading authors of that time, Harry Varden,
Speaker 3: James Braid, Horace Hutchinson and John Lowe to discuss what
Speaker 3: the best holes were. And all McDonald was trying to
Speaker 3: do was spice up the architecture in America because he
Speaker 3: thought it was very bland and he wanted to bring
Speaker 3: these golf of course is to America to showcase paraphrasing,
Speaker 3: these wonderful holes in all of their glory, these ideal
Speaker 3: holes of the UK in Scotland. And so when people
Speaker 3: talk about unimaginative, how many different times did Rayner use
Speaker 3: the short in different topographies? Short Acres? I mean the
Speaker 3: short at Short Acres versus the short at the National
Speaker 3: versus the short at Yamen's Hall that I just recently
Speaker 3: redid this past spring and summer. They're all different. Yeah,
Speaker 3: somebody would say, yeah, they all play one, but the
Speaker 3: style of the green, its location, the micro climate, the wind,
Speaker 3: the trees, the open space. Unimaginative. Yeah, you could say
Speaker 3: they're all short and you could say they're all the dans,
Speaker 3: and you could say they're all edens. But their location,
Speaker 3: the intent, the location in the round of the routing,
Speaker 3: the topography that was used, the width of the fairways,
Speaker 3: the type of ground it's played on rock versus sand,
Speaker 3: I mean unimaginative. What I think is unimaginative is bunkers
Speaker 3: that are put out at three hundred and ten yards
Speaker 3: left and right in the fairway on every hole. That's unimaginative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing with Rayner, like you know,
Speaker 1: having played short acres so many times, is like you know,
Speaker 1: you think about some of the greatest holes of short acres,
Speaker 1: like the jump to mine are like eleven and fifteen,
Speaker 1: and those are holes that are just you know, cut
Speaker 1: into the natural landscape and aren't templates.
Speaker 2: You won't see those holes anywhere else.
Speaker 3: No, No, And yes you're gonna see the radan, but
Speaker 3: it's in a different presentation, and you are going to
Speaker 3: see the eden different presentation the road hole, but it's
Speaker 3: in a different presentation, each one of them capturing the
Speaker 3: essence of the idea but slightly differing in the way
Speaker 3: they're presented. And to me, that's the imaginative way that
Speaker 3: they were applied to the landform which seth Rayner, Charles Banks,
Speaker 3: Joe Barton all were involved with as well as McDonald.
Speaker 3: They were taking the intent of those holes, spicing up
Speaker 3: golf in America and trying to recapture what was good
Speaker 3: for strategy, and they just took it across the country,
Speaker 3: applied it in different locations in different ways, and we
Speaker 3: all I enjoy them. Maybe not everybody enjoys them, but
Speaker 3: I enjoy them for their intent and their opposite of unimaginative,
Speaker 3: imaginative ways they were applied to the tobography. I mean,
Speaker 3: what Brian Palmer has done at Shore Acres, the superintendent
Speaker 3: to present that golf course is off the charts. And
Speaker 3: you know that's the key to these golf courses. It's
Speaker 3: the superintendent's involved with places like short Akers, Scott Pavalco
Speaker 3: at the Baba Link and Brian Moore at Glenn Vy
Speaker 3: the clubs I'm familiar with Chicago Golf Club. All of
Speaker 3: those guys bring out the character of those quoted unimagined
Speaker 3: the holes like every time I hear that word, now,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna think of this discussion.
Speaker 1: It's so do you think that the perception of templates
Speaker 1: would be better if they were labeled as inspirations instead?
Speaker 3: You know, that's a good That's I've always thought about
Speaker 3: what templates mean to people, what the ideal holes mean
Speaker 3: to people. I think template holes are so vague in
Speaker 3: their and what they mean. I mean when you think
Speaker 3: about what McDonald and Rayner are brought to America in
Speaker 3: the early nineteen hundreds, I'm sorry McDonald. Rayner just helped
Speaker 3: McDonald create these ideal holes. It was a time in
Speaker 3: America when architecture was so simple simple in this presentation,
Speaker 3: McDonald and Rayner brought these holes to life at the
Speaker 3: National Golfings of America, the Leito Golf Club, the Yale
Speaker 3: Golf Club, and people started to appreciate maybe what architecture
Speaker 3: and golf could could evolve to. And it's no different
Speaker 3: than what the seventies and eighties, or even post war
Speaker 3: fifties and sixties brought to America and golf. The seventies
Speaker 3: and eighties, with major amounts of dirt moved. And even
Speaker 3: when you talk about the nineties, the late nineties when
Speaker 3: the Sandhills was built and the new minimalist style of
Speaker 3: golf architecture, it's no different. McDonald and Rayner were bringing
Speaker 3: those inspiration holes, as you say, different than the fifties
Speaker 3: and sixties what golf provided America the seventies and eighties
Speaker 3: with TPC sawgrass and these clubs that were being built
Speaker 3: with massive mounts of dirt move. And now the nineties
Speaker 3: what Corn Crenshaw did at the sand Hills and minimalism
Speaker 3: and what they ushered in. So it was all different
Speaker 3: styles and just a different part of the history of
Speaker 3: what golf was evolving in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had Mike Clayton on about a year ago
Speaker 1: and he said, when you think about it, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the strategy of great golf holes is really simple, and
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible for a whole not to be inspired
Speaker 1: by another great hole. Like it's almost impossible to come
Speaker 1: up with like a truly unique, original idea.
Speaker 3: And I think that the only way that you could
Speaker 3: is if you brought in somebody who had never played golf,
Speaker 3: which is what Pete Dye used to always appreciate about
Speaker 3: me that I didn't play golf. If you brought somebody
Speaker 3: in that had not seen a five hundred or a
Speaker 3: thousand golf courses, if you brought somebody into the business
Speaker 3: that didn't understand that good golfers were different than bogie golfers,
Speaker 3: that is the only way that you would bring in
Speaker 3: a new perspective in golf design. Somebody that was completely
Speaker 3: oblivious to all the patterns, all the strategies, all the
Speaker 3: different things that had occurred from the early nineteen hundreds. Today,
Speaker 3: you'd have to be a complete newbie, as some people
Speaker 3: would call him, and then maybe you would find something
Speaker 3: completely different.
Speaker 1: It's funny the a lot of like disruption that happens
Speaker 1: with tech companies. Like the founder of Uber was never
Speaker 1: a cab driver, and.
Speaker 3: So that tells you that they saw something different and
Speaker 3: not the same old thing. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I made a comment about this young man, Zach Blair.
Speaker 3: He's going to create a golf course in Utah, I believe,
Speaker 3: and to me, he has probably one of the better
Speaker 3: chances of eating something different because he won't have these
Speaker 3: preconceived notions that golf course architects, golf course designers golf
Speaker 3: course builders have. I'll be curious to see what he
Speaker 3: turns out.
Speaker 2: Zach is a pod regular.
Speaker 1: I was out at his site a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago walking around looking at how holes could fit in.
Speaker 2: So you had a couple of movies.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious to see what it turns out to me.
Speaker 3: If I'm in the Salt Lake, Sydney area, I'm going
Speaker 3: to snake my way up there and take a look.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he'd have you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine you can't really if you don't have
Speaker 1: the superintendent on board and involved, you can't really have
Speaker 1: a successful restoration or build man as well, pack.
Speaker 3: Up and go home, Andy, because they are the key
Speaker 3: to the unlocking the playability of these wonderful ideas. I'll
Speaker 3: never forget walking around with. I had this discussion with
Speaker 3: a friend of mind, David Wilber. I never have I
Speaker 3: remember having a discussion about Ken Nice at the Pacific
Speaker 3: Dunes and Old Mac and for all the golf courses
Speaker 3: at Bands Restore. He was the lead growing architect along
Speaker 3: with Troy Russell Abandon Dunees. He bought into the notion
Speaker 3: of what made these golf courses good and what would
Speaker 3: make the architecture good. And that was Fescue and that
Speaker 3: same goes for Shore Acres and Brian Palmer and Scopavolo
Speaker 3: to Bobbi. They bought in to the architecture that was
Speaker 3: being presented and the way they were going to play
Speaker 3: the golf course, the bounce and roll that had to
Speaker 3: happen in order for them to be to realize their
Speaker 3: full potential. And when we redid the greens and fairways
Speaker 3: and historical bunkers at games Hall this past spring and summer,
Speaker 3: it was Brooks Riddle and his staff, wonderful staff that
Speaker 3: embraced everything that we were doing and we were going
Speaker 3: to do the best to make the morning lines the
Speaker 3: right way, the green's the right way, the historical bunkers
Speaker 3: the right way. And if they don't buy in, Andy,
Speaker 3: as I said, back up and go home, because it
Speaker 3: has to be a team effort as well as the committee.
Speaker 3: Everybody has to buy into what you're doing. If there's detractors,
Speaker 3: it's not as good. If there's naysayers, it's not as good.
Speaker 3: But if the team is all one, shapers, construction team, assistance, superintendents,
Speaker 3: the team, Andy, I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 3: I want to talk about the team. Take the eye
Speaker 3: out of it and put we we the team. We
Speaker 3: at Short Acres, we at all of these places I've
Speaker 3: had a chance to work at. They are the key
Speaker 3: to make an architecture happen, and I just don't think
Speaker 3: enough of them get credit. Yeah, you should talk to
Speaker 3: more superintendents.
Speaker 2: I know it's something.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: What I need is I need more hours in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: find me, find me thirty hour days. But I definitely
Speaker 1: planned to do more in twenty eighteen. I interviewed Kyle Hegland,
Speaker 1: the sand Hills superintendent, a couple months ago, and he
Speaker 1: said something along the lines I don't want to misquote him, that,
Speaker 1: you know, almost every super should be an architecture nut,
Speaker 1: and if they aren't, they aren't necessarily doing their job
Speaker 1: to their best of their abilities. I you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to misquote it. It was there was a
Speaker 1: lot of context around that. So, but do you believe
Speaker 1: in that?
Speaker 3: You know, I believe the superintendent has to have the
Speaker 3: working knowledge of his or hers the design. The Golden
Speaker 3: Age design CJ. Penrose and Justin Manden. CJ. Penn was
Speaker 3: a sanctity and Justin Maddenen at Pasa Temple are both
Speaker 3: recapturing the essence of a Golden age design. If CJ
Speaker 3: doesn't understand that that Emerson Armstrong this was his only
Speaker 3: golf course he ever designed, and he and he didn't
Speaker 3: understand that Emerson was trying to bring Links golf to
Speaker 3: America and he had this wonderful sight that he could
Speaker 3: do it on. If CJ didn't understand that, and c G. CJ.
Speaker 3: Penrose only knew that you know, uh, you you water
Speaker 3: and you fertilizer and you mow, and you don't understand
Speaker 3: what Link's golf is, then I don't know if that
Speaker 3: he could recapture the essence of Sancity Head. And the
Speaker 3: same for Justin at Posa Temple. If Justin didn't understand
Speaker 3: who Alistair mackenzie was, uh, then he probably wouldn't be
Speaker 3: so uh tolerant of the amount of work that he
Speaker 3: has to put in to keep the look of the
Speaker 3: bunkering and the greens at Posit Temple so well uh
Speaker 3: uh appealing as far as the look of him. And
Speaker 3: when he painstakingly took Positive Temple through the drought years
Speaker 3: and create did this firm and fast playing conditions with
Speaker 3: Brown outside of the playing surfaces. If he didn't understand
Speaker 3: where Alistair McKenzie came from and what Posita Temple should
Speaker 3: stand for, then he may may not have been so successful.
Speaker 3: So I believe the statement that superintendent should have at
Speaker 3: least some understanding of Golden Age design so that he
Speaker 3: understands the strategy and layout and how they were maintained
Speaker 3: in that era. So I agree with him totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of Justin, I got to see the new
Speaker 1: water facility and meet him when I was out there
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and that that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So he's not just a super noow, he's like a
Speaker 1: water treatment specialist.
Speaker 3: You know. The funny thing is all superintendents are water
Speaker 3: management people, and I think Justin took it to the
Speaker 3: next level.
Speaker 1: So with Old Mac, building Old Mac, you got to
Speaker 1: build a modern day rainer McDonald, you know, representation. How
Speaker 1: much different was it from restoring a rainer? And then conversely,
Speaker 1: what what have you learned from building that you now
Speaker 1: take to your restorations.
Speaker 3: One of the there was two pivotal points in the
Speaker 3: in the design and construction of Old McDonald that were
Speaker 3: for me. For me, personally turning points. The first was
Speaker 3: we had a group of consultants that were helping with
Speaker 3: us with the project, the late George Botta, who who
Speaker 3: what a wonderful man, Carl Olsen and Brad Klein, and
Speaker 3: we were standing on just in front of this fire
Speaker 3: road or access road that would be the future of
Speaker 3: a dan at Old McDonald and I had the group
Speaker 3: together and I asked the question to all of them.
Speaker 3: It was a sunny day, mid afternoon. I'll never forget this, Andy,
Speaker 3: I said, how much does this golf course have to
Speaker 3: look like the ideal holes that McDonald and rayn are
Speaker 3: built at the National And almost to a man, Tom
Speaker 3: was standing there as well, Almost to a man, they
Speaker 3: all said, it doesn't. And that was a philosophy that
Speaker 3: was that now shaped the way we were going to
Speaker 3: build the golf course. I spent, you know, one hundred
Speaker 3: ninety days there, over one hundred and eighty five ninety
Speaker 3: days there. I was going to now take that ideal about.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to, but it does have to have
Speaker 3: the inspiration behind the hole. You know, what did the
Speaker 3: short hole stand for? Well, you can't build a short
Speaker 3: hole and make it two hundred and ten yards long, right, Well.
Speaker 1: Some people, some people in the seventies thought that was
Speaker 1: the right thing for short holds.
Speaker 3: That's one of the funniest things when i'm these during
Speaker 3: rainer courses, when some people they say they want to
Speaker 3: make it longer, and I said, well, then we'd have
Speaker 3: to change the name. We would have to change it
Speaker 3: the longer, not shorter, and so that usually shuts everybody up,
Speaker 3: not in a domeaning way. So that was the first
Speaker 3: That was kind of the first principle. It doesn't have
Speaker 3: to look like but it has to play like the
Speaker 3: intent of the strategy. So that was like, it was like,
Speaker 3: oh great, now the Redan doesn't have to be exactly
Speaker 3: like the Redan, and the Eden doesn't have to be
Speaker 3: exactly like the Eaton. It should have the straft bunker,
Speaker 3: it should have that. That's important in the Eden. And
Speaker 3: the double plateau should have double plateau green. But how
Speaker 3: it's configured, you know, that's not that important. And the
Speaker 3: second important day for me was the day that ten
Speaker 3: nights myself and Mike Kaiser walked the first three shaped
Speaker 3: holes at Old McDonald I'm sorry, the four holes. So
Speaker 3: we looked at the we looked at Sahara's third green,
Speaker 3: Bruce Hepner had shaped that in their wonderful job. We
Speaker 3: walked the hog's back the fourth hole and the green
Speaker 3: had been shaped on. I can't remember who did that one.
Speaker 3: We got to the fifth hole and Tony Russell was
Speaker 3: just finishing shaping up. Tony Russell is a famous shaper
Speaker 3: of Core Crenshaw fame and Bannon Dune's fame. He had
Speaker 3: just finished all the little contours that I had asked
Speaker 3: him to put in on short and then we walked
Speaker 3: to the sixth hole. And when Mike Kaiser walked those
Speaker 3: four holes, my heart was like coming out of my
Speaker 3: chest because I knew that he was going to respond
Speaker 3: either one way or the other. One way he was
Speaker 3: going to say this looks great, or too he would say,
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe this maybe we should think about
Speaker 3: something here or there. And I Mike Kaiser has all
Speaker 3: my due respect. He's the great enabler. He allows you
Speaker 3: to be creative. After we walked those fourth holes, he
Speaker 3: looked at those green sides, he looked at what was there,
Speaker 3: and he said, is this what McDonald and Rayner would
Speaker 3: have done? And I said to Ken Nice and him
Speaker 3: I said, yes, I believe. So they didn't exactly look
Speaker 3: like the ideal holes, but they were representative of that.
Speaker 3: And he said, I like him, Jim. And from that
Speaker 3: day forward it was like, we are going to build
Speaker 3: something really cool here, and with the help of talented chapers,
Speaker 3: our in house construction crew, a talented group of people
Speaker 3: assisting us with the ideas. It was Mike Tiser's willing
Speaker 3: us to be creative and to allow creativity with the
Speaker 3: interpretation of those holes, the ideal holes, the heat and
Speaker 3: the short, the long hogs back and we put our
Speaker 3: own we put our own spin on them. And that
Speaker 3: was the key. Does that answer your question?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know, it's it's not a replica course,
Speaker 1: but a representation of representation.
Speaker 3: Just those two conversations set forth the gears and the
Speaker 3: rotation and and the movement to create all the donald Yep.
Speaker 2: It's uh.
Speaker 1: I love the the idea of and it seems like
Speaker 1: it's the I haven't been there yet, but the right
Speaker 1: land and the right setting for you know, a really
Speaker 1: good course that represents the ideal holes of the British Isles.
Speaker 3: And with the window in your face playing the long
Speaker 3: with the with the breeze in your face, it feels long.
Speaker 3: But the way the units were put in one of
Speaker 3: the things I was adamant about. The unit's I call him.
Speaker 3: Other people don't like that term, but one tee where
Speaker 3: everything's motive one hYP I started doing that at Pacific Dunes,
Speaker 3: just one teeing ground and then they would move the
Speaker 3: blocks around. There weren't separate team blocks. I love that
Speaker 3: presentation that looked. And we took that to the next
Speaker 3: level at Old McDonald back in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: and Mike embraced it. Everybody embraced it. The one t
Speaker 3: doesn't make you feel like you're playing way back, and
Speaker 3: that you could move up farther and farther and you
Speaker 3: don't feel like you're moving up a tea. You're just
Speaker 3: playing on the ground. And that was what allowed this
Speaker 3: golf course to play the way it did. And that's
Speaker 3: the imaginative part that Mike TiSER allowed us to have.
Speaker 3: And he is as much to credit as anybody the
Speaker 3: enabler allowing a creative freedom.
Speaker 2: So let's get some over rated underrated? Are you ready?
Speaker 3: All right? All right?
Speaker 1: You just gotta pick overrated or underrated, okay, front to
Speaker 1: back sloping greens, underrated, Donald Ross underrated, underrated William Flynn,
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 3: I would say underrated. Yeah, And I say underrated because
Speaker 3: I think some of his golf courses away from Philadelphia
Speaker 3: are overrated, but overall, I think he's underrated.
Speaker 1: So you know you you went underrated on everything. Tell
Speaker 1: us one thing that's overrated.
Speaker 3: The way golf courses are maintained. They are so over
Speaker 3: maintained that I think sometimes we lose a grass, but
Speaker 3: what golf is supposed to be about. Does that fit
Speaker 3: in the overrated?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think that. I agree. You know, we
Speaker 2: agree with that to my stuff.
Speaker 3: Overrated golf courses because they're over maintained. Do you really
Speaker 3: have to clip every little tree with with pruning shears?
Speaker 3: Do you really have to edge your your bunkers every week? Well? Yes,
Speaker 3: I know. The expectations of golf courses are that if
Speaker 3: they are kept, they are well uh maintained, and superintendents
Speaker 3: unduly have to do these things because people are mistakenly
Speaker 3: driven by the look of the golf course. If it's pretty,
Speaker 3: if it's kept, it must be in good condition, it
Speaker 3: must be healthy. But sometimes I think that's overrated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and I think like, especially when you
Speaker 1: get to like a municipal level, the strive for great
Speaker 1: green conditions, it hinders. What happens is that that goal
Speaker 1: then loses, especially with Golden Age design, like they lose
Speaker 1: the fairway lines or the green sizes because they're trying
Speaker 1: to get fast greens with limited resources.
Speaker 3: Limited resources making the over maintain golf courses so overrated.
Speaker 1: We aren't going to have much debate because we think
Speaker 1: about things the same way. But no, Jim, thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on and we'll have to do pleasure do another
Speaker 1: one at some point and in the future, and really
Speaker 1: really excited to see more of your work and congress
Speaker 1: to on all the success.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate you having me on and allow
Speaker 3: me to ramble on sometimes of us.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do
Speaker 2: the digging for you.