Speaker 1: When Mike Kaiser opened Abandoned Dunes in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: his son Michael was eighteen years old. Michael went on
Speaker 1: to play a key role in the expansion of the
Speaker 1: Kaiser family's dream golf empire. He and his brother Chris
Speaker 1: oversaw the development of Sand Valley in Wisconsin, which turned
Speaker 1: into one of the most architecturally experimental golf resorts in
Speaker 1: the country. Now, Michael is creating three new resorts of
Speaker 1: his own, all opening within the next year and a
Speaker 1: half or so. There's Wildspring Dunes in East Texas, There's
Speaker 1: Rodeo Dunes in Colorado, and Old Shores in the Florida Panhandle. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Michael is supporting a few municipal golf projects in his
Speaker 1: home state of Wisconsin, so he's got a lot going on.
Speaker 1: These are big, legacy defining moves, and I'm curious to
Speaker 1: find out how he views this new phase of his
Speaker 1: development career, what he's borrowing from the past, and how
Speaker 1: he's trying to innovate. But most of all, I want
Speaker 1: to know more about what these new places are going
Speaker 1: to look like. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf.
Speaker 2: Michael.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the pod. Thanks for being here, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me Garrett. So you've been very busy, or at
Speaker 1: least it looks that way to me. You've got a
Speaker 1: number of projects underway, including a few that are finishing
Speaker 1: up and even opening soon. So I thought it would
Speaker 1: be a great time to bring you back on the
Speaker 1: pod and talk about everything that's going on in your world.
Speaker 1: Why don't we start by talking about wild Spring Dunes
Speaker 1: in East Texas, which has its grand opening as I
Speaker 1: understand it, on Friday, September eighth. So could you tell
Speaker 1: me about this, uh, this property in general? What what
Speaker 1: what makes this play special?
Speaker 3: It's interesting because it's it's the one that sort of
Speaker 3: I've gotten involved in most recently, and it's the furthest
Speaker 3: along right now. So it's it's it's so it's strange
Speaker 3: to me that Rodeo Dunes has been eight years in
Speaker 3: the making, in old Chore six years and uh, you
Speaker 3: know Texas, things really move quickly. So it was one
Speaker 3: when I first heard about it, I was reluctant to
Speaker 3: take on because I quite quite a bit on my
Speaker 3: plate and wasn't looking for another project. And you know,
Speaker 3: when Brett, who found the site originally reached out. I
Speaker 3: just said I didn't even want to see it. His
Speaker 3: partner flew up to Madison and convinced me to at
Speaker 3: least come down and see the property. And I did,
Speaker 3: and I fell in love with it, and UH couldn't
Speaker 3: couldn't say no to it, even though it was probably
Speaker 3: the prudent UH decision. It's such a unique property. It
Speaker 3: certainly different than any site that I have worked on,
Speaker 3: but I think it's really distinct, you know, in golf,
Speaker 3: and it has qualities from a lot of different places
Speaker 3: that I love and they all sort of come together
Speaker 3: in one routing. So when I first got down to
Speaker 3: the property and Brett showed me around, we walked through
Speaker 3: some of those different environmental elements. And at the time,
Speaker 3: there were three golf courses routed on the property, and
Speaker 3: they each used one or two of these areas, which
Speaker 3: I'll describe in a minute. But what I said was,
Speaker 3: if I'm going to get involved, we have to create
Speaker 3: that super course, right, use all of these environments and
Speaker 3: go in and out of them and explore them. And
Speaker 3: at the time, that meant there's only gonna be one
Speaker 3: golf course. So we went from three golf courses to
Speaker 3: one super golf course. We're now back to three and
Speaker 3: I'll get to that. But you know, this land has
Speaker 3: some very sort of gentle open sandy ground in the
Speaker 3: center of it that is a little bit like Pinehurst.
Speaker 3: It has these really sharp, deep ravines that cut in
Speaker 3: and out of the property that remind me so much
Speaker 3: of shore Acres where I've played a lot of golf. Uh,
Speaker 3: and I've learned a lot about architecture through the agronomy
Speaker 3: changes that happened under Brian Palmer. Uh. You know, the
Speaker 3: depth and size of those are so familiar to me
Speaker 3: through through I might have such chicagoff shore acres.
Speaker 1: Just to clarify, Yeah, you did say Short Acres, which
Speaker 1: by the way, is in the suburbs of Chicago. Seth
Speaker 1: Rayner course. Yeah, Mike Michigan.
Speaker 3: Fantastic, fantastic content on those ravines. It has some bigger
Speaker 3: some some bigger bold landforms that reminded me a lot
Speaker 3: of Pine Pine Valley. And it even has a hole
Speaker 3: that is inspired, you know, by the Second Hole fame.
Speaker 3: You know, I guess they're all famous at Pine Valley,
Speaker 3: but the Second Pine Valley. It had some ridges that
Speaker 3: remind me a lot of sand Valley right, these big
Speaker 3: sort of dune ridges that and then it has this
Speaker 3: massive dune in the center where Tom's course starts and ends.
Speaker 3: So tying those all together, Tom developed a new routing
Speaker 3: that does such a you know, it goes from that
Speaker 3: dune to the meadow, to the pine valley to the meadow,
Speaker 3: there's a couple of these ravines introduced along the way,
Speaker 3: then goes into you know ravine, Pine valley, little meadow
Speaker 3: finished with ravine. So it's just this great way of
Speaker 3: going in and out of these ecosystems and coming back
Speaker 3: at them from a new perspective that I think is
Speaker 3: required for a really outstanding routing. And I think Tom's
Speaker 3: routing is outstanding.
Speaker 1: And for those who don't know your Tom refers to
Speaker 1: Tom Doak, who's doing the first course at at well
Speaker 1: it's being nuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for clarifying. So that's the first course we
Speaker 3: did end up finding. It was right under our nose,
Speaker 3: but adjacent property that is totally different from the first
Speaker 3: really leans into into these big, bold, even boulder ravines.
Speaker 3: It's in a really exciting way. Bill Cors and Ben
Speaker 3: Crunshaw are working on that project. And then some fairways
Speaker 3: that have some neat you know, tilt and then crowns
Speaker 3: to them. And then this wonderful, delightful surprise we discovered
Speaker 3: as we've been opening up the routing is some smaller
Speaker 3: micro contours in the fairway that are really interesting, so
Speaker 3: it's completely different than than Tom's. And then through some acquisition,
Speaker 3: thinking about a third course which we've been talking informally
Speaker 3: with Jim Craig about that has a lot of those
Speaker 3: ravines and and some neat hills, but will really be
Speaker 3: a more intimate, compact routing. The first two are similar
Speaker 3: to a lot of things we've done where they're sprawling.
Speaker 3: You know, I talked about Tom's gobbling up three courses
Speaker 3: with of land bills. Is not all that different. That
Speaker 3: third course is tight, and it's intimate, and it's over
Speaker 3: similarly exciting terrain, but it's pretty wide open and you're
Speaker 3: gonna see a lot of golf and golfers around you
Speaker 3: while you're playing. Let me just cruise through these courses
Speaker 3: and then I'm sure you have questions, but you know,
Speaker 3: after that, we're planning a twelve our course, you know,
Speaker 3: similar in par and length and whole number to the
Speaker 3: commons that's something I really want to incorporate at each
Speaker 3: of these sites I'm working on. Uh. And then Clyde
Speaker 3: Johnson has developed this really school putting course. You know,
Speaker 3: these putting courses you know, sprouted up during the Victorian era,
Speaker 3: which was quite a long wayne and it you know
Speaker 3: in these you know Victorian bath you know, on beach places.
Speaker 3: And we think of putting courses like the Himalayas or
Speaker 3: the punch Ball or the Rockies we're doing out it Dunes.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot more variety in those early ones. Uh.
Speaker 3: There I see this great really old black and white photo.
Speaker 3: There was one on the roof of a building. You know.
Speaker 3: They were There's a lot more variety and and and
Speaker 3: some of them played through these formal gardens where there
Speaker 3: was you know, a garden on either side of the hole.
Speaker 3: So we have this beautiful meadow at wild Spring Dunes
Speaker 3: and Clyde has routed a thirty six hole course that
Speaker 3: plays through this meadow where each putting hole is contained.
Speaker 3: It looks like a miniature golf hole, and I think
Speaker 3: that's where this term miniature golf you know, came from.
Speaker 3: So something that's really different, really fun, you know, it's
Speaker 3: right in the heart of the village. We've designed so
Speaker 3: golfers could just go out in the afternoon and put
Speaker 3: and have fun. So that's that's sort of the golf
Speaker 3: of Wild Spring Dunes.
Speaker 1: You've worked with Tom Doak and Corn Crunshaw now on
Speaker 1: a number of different projects each. I wonder at this
Speaker 1: point if you have some ideas about what differentiates the
Speaker 1: two of them, you know, the differences that you see
Speaker 1: in their working methods and their design styles both at
Speaker 1: Wild Spring Dunes and and elsewhere that you've worked with them.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean that's remind me of the two,
Speaker 3: but it's methods and styles that the methods are, you know,
Speaker 3: completely different, and obviously they're both. They both deliver at
Speaker 3: such high levels that there's not a better or worse method.
Speaker 3: But you know, Bill's a grinder, so he just grinds
Speaker 3: through routings, you know, over years, and trip after trip
Speaker 3: after trip after trip that continues on while he's building
Speaker 3: the course in you know, layer cakes, you know, layer
Speaker 3: at a time, just little moves that are constant and relentless.
Speaker 3: So that's like a broad way of describing, you know,
Speaker 3: his methodology. And I'll come back to elaborate on that.
Speaker 3: You know, Tom you know, generally gets his routing pretty
Speaker 3: far along, you know, on paper on topo certainly confirms
Speaker 3: that in the field, and then like at All Shores,
Speaker 3: there's been some routing changes as we've you know, begun
Speaker 3: begun the project. But his shaping methodology is compact and intense,
Speaker 3: and I call I describe it, and I'd say this
Speaker 3: to him as a feeding frenzy. So they bring in
Speaker 3: the whole renaissance team. You know, the last time Tom
Speaker 3: and I were on site of Old Shores, Eric Iverson
Speaker 3: was there, Brian Slonik was there, Clyde Johnson was there,
Speaker 3: and Angela was there, and for seven or eight days
Speaker 3: they just all shaped like crazy and Tom's jumping around editing.
Speaker 3: Oh I should add that Tom's now started shaping. His
Speaker 3: first green in a long time was the fifteenth at
Speaker 3: Sedge Valley and then he worked with Brian at High
Speaker 3: Point a lot and now a hole that seems to
Speaker 3: be everybody's favorite hole at Old Shores is one that
Speaker 3: Tom shaped. So those are five people going around the
Speaker 3: clock for seven or eight days, very different than you know,
Speaker 3: a green is shaped in eight days where you know,
Speaker 3: we worked on the ninth Green at Royo Dunes for
Speaker 3: well over a year. And you know, probably right, there's
Speaker 3: just little you know, taking away little pieces, adding little
Speaker 3: pieces really slow and steady, that Bill's sort of grinding method.
Speaker 3: So their methods are wildly different. What was the second
Speaker 3: part of it?
Speaker 1: You said, design styles is what I was also interested in.
Speaker 1: But really you can take this those are kind of
Speaker 1: my two suggestions. But you already have such interesting thoughts
Speaker 1: about the differences between these two architecture firms that yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd just be interested in general.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think, you know, on design style, I
Speaker 3: think they would say, like, we don't have a design style,
Speaker 3: right right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Bill Krr especially always sort of resists that yeah kind
Speaker 1: of question. He always says, you know, I'm land first.
Speaker 1: The style is whatever, but the land is the thing.
Speaker 3: With that said, there are some themes, you know, that
Speaker 3: we could talk about. And you know, I start with
Speaker 3: fairways and I saw this, you know, caddying at pac
Speaker 3: Dunes and you know, spend a year at Barn Google
Speaker 3: and I mean Tom does very little with this wild ground,
Speaker 3: like he just sort of he really leaves it alone.
Speaker 3: I mean, far more than Bill and Ben so sort
Speaker 3: of up into the green. Tom does very little. Bill.
Speaker 3: You know they're minimalists, but you know they say in
Speaker 3: their company sometimes you have to move a lot of
Speaker 3: sand to make it look like you moved a little bit.
Speaker 3: He's much more inclined to you know, the tenth hole
Speaker 3: at Sand Valley, that left side came up eight feet,
Speaker 3: you know, cut four feet off. So it's all based
Speaker 3: off of the ground that's there, and it's not a
Speaker 3: massive construction project. But Sand Valley we have one or
Speaker 3: two dump trucks work in every day, you know, in fairways,
Speaker 3: whereas Tom might dump a little sand for the greens,
Speaker 3: but you're not seeing dump trucks, you know, doing big
Speaker 3: cuts and fills in the fairways. So stylistically what that
Speaker 3: means in Tom's architecture, I see a lot more, you know, quirky,
Speaker 3: rough wild shapes that are what's the I'm trying to
Speaker 3: think of the the word in music, but where it's
Speaker 3: sort of left hanging right. And Bill, I think Radio
Speaker 3: Dunes is a big exception. And I want to share
Speaker 3: a conversation Bill and I had when I was seeing
Speaker 3: for the first time the second Hole in Scotland at
Speaker 3: cool Links and I sat there and it was so
Speaker 3: odd and off balance and outstanding, and I said, you know, Bill,
Speaker 3: I think this is one of the best holes in Scotland,
Speaker 3: certainly one of the most original holes I've seen a
Speaker 3: long time. And I don't want you to take this
Speaker 3: the wrong way, but when I think of your architecture,
Speaker 3: I think of perfect balance and harmony, and I think
Speaker 3: of one of those Calder sculptures, you know, those aerials,
Speaker 3: and if you've seen them, the color of a painter
Speaker 3: and a sculpture, and they hang from the ceiling and
Speaker 3: they don't go like this, They balance, And I just
Speaker 3: feel like if you took his bunkering and shapes and
Speaker 3: connected them through rods and held them on a string,
Speaker 3: they would just balance. The scales would balance evenly, whereas
Speaker 3: toms might tip over a little bit. So I said that,
Speaker 3: you know to Bill, and you just sort of nodded.
Speaker 3: And the next time I saw him at Rodeo Dunes,
Speaker 3: the you know, the routing, he blew it up and
Speaker 3: sort of, you know, nine of the holes were new,
Speaker 3: and this is after he'd been working on it for
Speaker 3: several years and made a lot of changes. And one
Speaker 3: of the things I asked, you know, Bill and John
Speaker 3: Hawker to do it Rodeo was to leave some of
Speaker 3: those awkward shapes alone. So I actually think a lot
Speaker 3: of his fairways remind me a lot at Rodeo Dunes
Speaker 3: feel like Tom Doak fairways. Stylistically, you know, just a big,
Speaker 3: huge mound in the set of the fairway. We didn't
Speaker 3: have to cut it down and raise the hole. It's
Speaker 3: just you know, it's it's it's it's dramatic or if
Speaker 3: there's if there's a shape. You know, in the first hole,
Speaker 3: there's a big mound that's too steep to mow in
Speaker 3: front of the first green, So instead of smoothing it
Speaker 3: out and making it fairy, just left it alone as
Speaker 3: this native area that sticks into the hole. So stylistically,
Speaker 3: I think every one of the courses are so different.
Speaker 3: But I think those are maybe because Tom moves less
Speaker 3: in the fairway and Bill and Ben tend to move
Speaker 3: a little more. You see some differences in the fairways,
Speaker 3: you know, getting you know, Rucker style is different for
Speaker 3: every project. For both of them green shapes, I h
Speaker 3: I don't want to speak. I don't think I could
Speaker 3: speak eloquently, and you know, really comparing and contrasting they're greens.
Speaker 3: But I would say that Bill finishes every green himself.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things he does, maybe
Speaker 3: better than anybody on the planet is like when you
Speaker 3: have a twelve foot putt, you're never confident with the line.
Speaker 3: Is I mean, it's just like it's always like is
Speaker 3: it breaking a cup or might have just straightened out
Speaker 3: at the end. Like that's where Bill comes in and
Speaker 3: as those shapes that are so beguiling, right, And some
Speaker 3: people might not like that. I love it because it's
Speaker 3: not just like up there's a line, it's a cup
Speaker 3: and a half to left. If I hit it, I
Speaker 3: know what's going in. You're always left wondering until that
Speaker 3: ball drops in the cup, right, And I think that's
Speaker 3: a maybe that I know about Bill's green's you know,
Speaker 3: speaking as a collection, I don't if I haven't processed
Speaker 3: that information yet.
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Speaker 1: A a dot org. So, I think I just remembered
Speaker 1: the musical term you were searching for, Michael. It might
Speaker 1: be dissonance to describe Tom Dooke's willingness to let things
Speaker 1: kind of clash or or you know, let there be
Speaker 1: some awkwardness or some loose ends, or or you know,
Speaker 1: little just little jagged corners of things. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: what what makes Bill Correr's work, finish work so remarkable
Speaker 1: is how harmonious it is, right, how balanced everything is,
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful. But it's it's really interesting that that
Speaker 1: you've kind of pushed him recently to to consider leaving
Speaker 1: some things maybe a little bit more unfinished, just to
Speaker 1: just to try to find something new in there. I
Speaker 1: think that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: And it's it's unresolved, right. Sometimes this is just unresolved
Speaker 3: in music. Yeah, and it doesn't take a lot of encouragement.
Speaker 3: I mean, Bill is so fun to work with because
Speaker 3: he he just loves anything to riff off of, give
Speaker 3: me anything. There's a pile of garbage, Okay, I'll make that.
Speaker 3: He he's he's he's like Miles Davis, you know, and
Speaker 3: so he's great, Yeah, let's go with that. And he's
Speaker 3: gonna make that brilliant, which makes you know, somebody throwing
Speaker 3: something out feel great. There's that. This this story about
Speaker 3: Herbie Hancock was playing with Miles Davis and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: they were they were jamming and Herbie just hit a
Speaker 3: note that was like way off right and mouth Davis
Speaker 3: was a strict task master, so he thought for sure,
Speaker 3: like this isn't gonna go well, I'm gonna get fired.
Speaker 3: I mean, just bullivant, just like whoops. And he said that.
Speaker 3: Miles Davis started put his trumpet down a little bit
Speaker 3: and was just thinking, and then when he started up again,
Speaker 3: he made Herbie's note right. You know, he made it
Speaker 3: work right. And that's like Bill, like, give him anything.
Speaker 3: I could say, Oh, I don't want to touch these mountains,
Speaker 3: and you know, he might be thinking, well, that's garbage,
Speaker 3: but he's but then he's like, I'm gonna make that right, right,
Speaker 3: And that's what he does. And that's why he's so
Speaker 3: so fun to work with, because there's almost nothing you
Speaker 3: can't throw out at him that he could make right
Speaker 3: and make it, you know, right.
Speaker 1: He's always working with what. What he's given in a
Speaker 1: very interesting way, is what he bases everything on. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Well, we've already sort of talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about it. But the next project of yours that
Speaker 1: I love to talk about is Rodeo Dunes in Colorado.
Speaker 1: The first course, as you mentioned, was designed by Corn Crenshaw.
Speaker 1: It's on schedule for an opening next year. I believe
Speaker 1: the preview play has been has been happening for a while.
Speaker 1: You you told me about the land at wild Spring Dunes.
Speaker 1: What kind of land are you working with at Rodeo Dunes.
Speaker 1: What's special about it?
Speaker 3: We're in some choppy sand dunes, right, which is sort
Speaker 3: of ideal ground to build a golf course upon. It,
Speaker 3: particularly where Bill's course heads and Jimmy's. It struck, you know,
Speaker 3: my first impression was. It reminded me of Western Ireland, right,
Speaker 3: just big, huge, bold movements that I hadn't seen you
Speaker 3: know here, you know before. One of the things that
Speaker 3: some he pointed out to me, and he was right,
Speaker 3: is that when we do have those valleys, they tend
Speaker 3: to be wider. You get into some valleys, what's the
Speaker 3: course not well, Carn's a good example of it. But
Speaker 3: also and it's grown. Well, you're playing with the in
Speaker 3: these amazing dunes, but you know, they come down in
Speaker 3: the fairway and some of them get a little tight,
Speaker 3: and then it's very steep and sharp. So we have
Speaker 3: these big movements, but then space within them, and within
Speaker 3: that space you're allowed to make more interesting angles. So
Speaker 3: I just played Bill and Dunn's course for the first
Speaker 3: time a couple of weeks ago, and I knew I
Speaker 3: loved it. There's such enormous variety, like no two holes
Speaker 3: are alike, right, and the angles of the routing are
Speaker 3: so amazing, And so I knew all the things I
Speaker 3: loved about it without playing it. What blew me away
Speaker 3: was how amazingly important those angles are. And even though
Speaker 3: it's a wildly different golf course, I had the same
Speaker 3: joy from it that I get playing the lido where
Speaker 3: it's so wide. I mean, Bill build a resort course
Speaker 3: in the wind, so it has a lot of width,
Speaker 3: but the angles aret but are so important and I
Speaker 3: just loved that that. You know, the people I were
Speaker 3: playing against the there's a fifth hole and the pin
Speaker 3: was on the left side, and their layup it's part five,
Speaker 3: was a little a little sloppy, and they're left with
Speaker 3: a shot where the ball, you know, they have a
Speaker 3: wedge in the ball's now running away from them, so
Speaker 3: they want to land short of the pin, but they
Speaker 3: could clip a dune that's in the way really hard
Speaker 3: up and down. If you come in from the right,
Speaker 3: it sort of goes on. You get a little back
Speaker 3: forward like you're attacking it. So that's just one example
Speaker 3: of an angle where it's like, okay, you got to
Speaker 3: lay up off of an awkward lie so it's not
Speaker 3: just an easy five iron layup. And depending on where
Speaker 3: the pit, when the pin's right there, you want to
Speaker 3: come in from way left. So I guess going back
Speaker 3: to the site, you know, Ireland and big and bold,
Speaker 3: but with with there's also huge variety out there. There's
Speaker 3: a site I really like to build on that a
Speaker 3: lot more Scottish, right, just like smaller you know, Microw
Speaker 3: really perfect for golf. So it's not all just huge
Speaker 3: and big and bold. There's an area to the north
Speaker 3: that is little more hilly, a little more at sand
Speaker 3: hillsy you know, but with some chop mixed in it.
Speaker 3: So I think you'll find a lot of variety from
Speaker 3: one course to the next. Gym's routing plays on top
Speaker 3: of these plateaus a little more than Bill's. The greens
Speaker 3: are more short grass around them, where Bill's greens, you know,
Speaker 3: sit in you know, pockets a little more so amazing chop,
Speaker 3: but extraordinary variety within that chop.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned the second course at Rodeo Dunes, which is
Speaker 1: being designed by Jim Craig, longtime associate of Corn Crenshaw,
Speaker 1: somebody that you've worked with quite a bit at this point.
Speaker 1: Jim Craig was one of the driving forces behind the
Speaker 1: Sandbox at sand Valley, shaping a lot of those greens,
Speaker 1: and they are truly a fantastic set of greens. He
Speaker 1: was also behind the recent recently opened twelve hole golf
Speaker 1: course the Commons at sand Valley. Now you're working with
Speaker 1: him at Rodeo Dunes.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: What excites you about about Jim Craig's approach to golf architecture.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of I mean, he was metored by
Speaker 3: Bill and Ben, so there's so much of that, you know,
Speaker 3: improv in him. And what they do so well is
Speaker 3: they don't hold onto ideas, right like, they let ideas
Speaker 3: evolve and flow. And that's just fun creatively to to
Speaker 3: for ideas to evolve. And similar to Bill, like he
Speaker 3: could make any idea great. So it's really fun for me.
Speaker 3: I feel very involved collaborative in it. But he's the
Speaker 3: one who really makes these ideas out outstanding. So I
Speaker 3: and and he and I just I like, I like
Speaker 3: his company, right, We have a great ban tour and
Speaker 3: we tease each other and it's just it's really fun.
Speaker 3: You know, Cummins was almost completely manufactured, which is extraordinary.
Speaker 3: You know. Now he's given a perfect site, right and
Speaker 3: we're given a perfect site and room to go wherever
Speaker 3: he wants. And uh, I'm excited for people to see
Speaker 3: what he could do with that when he when he
Speaker 3: when you know his restraint, you know what what it's
Speaker 3: sort of the opposite of the comments, like you know,
Speaker 3: it's the route and then restraining some of some of
Speaker 3: the movement. So I'm excited. Uh, I'm forgetting the question
Speaker 3: a little bit, but I'm his routing is so good.
Speaker 3: It's so different from bills. It's really playful and whimsical,
Speaker 3: you know. I think there's six part threes. We had
Speaker 3: no idea when when it was being routed, but somebody
Speaker 3: just added it up. You know. It's like sixty six
Speaker 3: hundred from the tips. We talked a lot about North
Speaker 3: Barrick when we were building, you know, building it and
Speaker 3: just creating fun holes, you know, I mean that that
Speaker 3: whole perfection, which we have a hole inspired by that.
Speaker 3: I think it's the fourteenth at North Barrick. You just
Speaker 3: hit that wedge over the hill and it runs down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the blind the blind approach shot. Yeah, I kind
Speaker 2: of is that an amazing golf al I don't know,
Speaker 2: but it sure is a lot of fun, you know.
Speaker 2: Like so we're just going out there trying to find
Speaker 2: really fun, unusual holes with shots that just in different
Speaker 2: ways are just fun.
Speaker 3: Right he is the seventh. The eighth hole is you know,
Speaker 3: really inspired by the ninth at Cypress Point, right in
Speaker 3: this huge dune like Cypress and then a huge drop off,
Speaker 3: you know behind it. Cypress drops off behind it, but
Speaker 3: that's not really in play. This one, you know's a
Speaker 3: little more in play. So just a lot of really
Speaker 3: fun shots was the goal.
Speaker 1: What are some of the future plans that you have
Speaker 1: at Rodeo Dunes that that you can tell me about
Speaker 1: at this point?
Speaker 3: Sure? Well, to start, we just grasped our putting course,
Speaker 3: which we're gonna call the Rockies right where you see
Speaker 3: the Rockies from the Himalaya's best putting course, uh, you
Speaker 3: know at St. Andrew's there. So I'm excited for people
Speaker 3: to play that. It's sort of a perfect putting course site.
Speaker 3: It's the seven acres contained bowl in the dunes with
Speaker 3: the backdrop of the Rockies. We could have just seated
Speaker 3: it without doing any work and it would have been great.
Speaker 3: We asked Clyde to sharpen some of those movements a
Speaker 3: little bit. We're gonna run it a little slower on
Speaker 3: the stemp, you know, the him Malayas probably ruins it
Speaker 3: like a six or seven, you know, and because of that,
Speaker 3: you could have far more severe contours that are just
Speaker 3: to me more fun that some of our modern putting
Speaker 3: courses over here, which run at a ten, eleven or
Speaker 3: twelve a just less less fun than these, these just
Speaker 3: sharp shapes. It that the MLA is. So I'm excited
Speaker 3: about that. We have a twelve hole routing. I don't
Speaker 3: want to announce the architect, but a twelve all routing
Speaker 3: playing out of you know this this first core gym
Speaker 3: and Go and Ben share a tea going in opposite directions.
Speaker 3: The putting courses right below it in the twelfth hole
Speaker 3: tease off eighty yards away. So that's what we have
Speaker 3: in the works. After that, you know where, we were
Speaker 3: going into these huge hills and dunes, and they recently
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about going sort of in the other direction,
Speaker 3: more towards these more subtle gentle call them Scottish dunes,
Speaker 3: because because the first two play through such big stuff,
Speaker 3: I think it might be nice to go in the
Speaker 3: other direction after that. A lot of ideas, but nothing
Speaker 3: I'm actively working on. But we have a lot of land.
Speaker 3: It's all great, and there seems to be tremendous demand
Speaker 3: for rodeo, so I think I hope we're gonna be
Speaker 3: able to keep going at a pretty good clip.
Speaker 1: All right. The final project resort project that is that
Speaker 1: that I want to talk with you about is old
Speaker 1: Chores in the Florida Panhandle. What made you want to
Speaker 1: build golf on on this piece of land? You know,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, just look looking at it and maybe
Speaker 1: you can tell me that that that I'm wrong about this.
Speaker 1: It seems like an unusual piece of land for you
Speaker 1: to build golf on it. You know, Wild Spring Dunes
Speaker 1: maybe reminds me in some ways of a heathland site
Speaker 1: or you know, kind of sandy inland site, Pinehursty, Pine Valley.
Speaker 1: Those are the kind of references you mentioned there. And
Speaker 1: then Rodeo Dunes is classic, classic Duneland golf. Old Shore
Speaker 1: seems to be a little bit different. So so tell
Speaker 1: me about that site and what interests you about it.
Speaker 3: It is so different and it's it's so hard to
Speaker 3: compare it, and that's part of what I like about it.
Speaker 3: It's as distinctive site as I've ever seen, forget put
Speaker 3: aside the golf, just visually when you're there, you've never
Speaker 3: seen any place like it, with these sink with these
Speaker 3: massive you know sinkholes and lakes that you know, rise
Speaker 3: and fall over the years. And you know, river goes
Speaker 3: through the routing and these massive prairies. It's so unusual,
Speaker 3: and so many people ask like where am I. You know,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to place because it's so unusual. And
Speaker 3: the question we've been asking a lot is it's more
Speaker 3: like when am I? It feels like it doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like it's of this time even, you know, like maybe
Speaker 3: we go back, you know, five million years, and this
Speaker 3: is what a landscape might look like on this, you know,
Speaker 3: the shores of you know, that continent. So it's just
Speaker 3: so distinct, and it's also so beautiful, this white sand
Speaker 3: with all these sharp, crispy, you know, varieties of green
Speaker 3: punctuated by the colors in our prairies which were restoring,
Speaker 3: and then the live oaks and the long leaf pines
Speaker 3: and the water. It's just so beautiful and it's a
Speaker 3: place I just keep wanting to go back to, just
Speaker 3: to spend time in the landscape. When Tom finished his
Speaker 3: routing and I walked it, I was like, con that's
Speaker 3: you know, and I think this speaks to the site
Speaker 3: and his routing. I was like, if we don't build
Speaker 3: a golf course here, I would love to just start
Speaker 3: every day off with that walk. It's so delightful the
Speaker 3: way you navigate this distinct piece of ground. So it
Speaker 3: always started with the beauty and how unique it was.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of it when we first got involved,
Speaker 3: were covered in pine, and then it went to that
Speaker 3: prairie that we've restored, and then it went to mow
Speaker 3: down fair ways. Ooh, were starting to see it, and
Speaker 3: then to the sand. And as we got closer and
Speaker 3: closer to the ground, it was clear to me that
Speaker 3: the ground was getting better and better in terms of
Speaker 3: the quality of the golf. So the way I perceive
Speaker 3: the ground for golf now I think it's incredible. When
Speaker 3: I started, I'm like this is really cool and it's different,
Speaker 3: and now I'm like, this is amazing. You know, it
Speaker 3: has You're not going to believe how much contour, how
Speaker 3: much movement there is that it's in Florida, has these
Speaker 3: wonderful crowns down into these sinkholes, wonderful tilts. It's just
Speaker 3: it's really neat. It's dramatic. You know, there's a wedge
Speaker 3: over you know, like this island lake. There's a whole
Speaker 3: like Cyper sixteen where you hitting a three wood, you know,
Speaker 3: over the water to you know, peninsula. It's very dramatic
Speaker 3: the second course. So that that's that's Tom's just a
Speaker 3: quick preview of the second course. Uh. You know, Brian
Speaker 3: Schneider used to mow greens at Augusta National. And Josh
Speaker 3: Pettitt has that great book on alistair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Mackenzie Reader is the compendium of Alistair McKenzie writings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and about the time he's publishing that, I think
Speaker 3: there are a lot of conversations about, you know, the
Speaker 3: evolution of Augusta and you and Andy I think it
Speaker 3: a great podcast on it. And so when we were
Speaker 3: talking about that second site just has enormous movement. Right
Speaker 3: the tenth that Augusta drops one hundred and ten feet
Speaker 3: right before it comes up to the green. We have
Speaker 3: movement like that in the fairways. Right. So what I
Speaker 3: asked Brian is what if we built a golf course
Speaker 3: that was like post Perry Maxwell Augusta ninth, Augusta nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty eight. Right, that's what we're shooting for on this site.
Speaker 3: And that's what he's been asked to deliver. And he
Speaker 3: has a really cool routing and it's it's gonna be
Speaker 3: wide there's gonna be fewer bunkers than you'd see in
Speaker 3: today's Augusta. It's gonna have you know, some some wild greens,
Speaker 3: but there's gonna be you know, just like Augusta, not
Speaker 3: every hole drops eighty feet or climbs up, you know,
Speaker 3: like the eighth or the ninth. You know there holes
Speaker 3: like five that you know, play along, you know the
Speaker 3: plateau there. But but it's gonna be big and bold,
Speaker 3: and but we're gonna keep it rough, you know, like
Speaker 3: like maybe the very original Augustca where they're like twenty
Speaker 3: bunkers and they're just scraggly and rough. And so that's
Speaker 3: our inspiration for the second course. We've designed this village
Speaker 3: that you've talked about, which I'd love to go into
Speaker 3: more detail, but in this walking village, you will be
Speaker 3: able to walk very short distances to the first tee
Speaker 3: of those two golf courses. We're about to start in
Speaker 3: the center of the village. We're about to start sodding
Speaker 3: our children's course, which is a nine hole golf course
Speaker 3: in the center of town. Right that's gonna have a
Speaker 3: children's membership that's gonna be incredibly affordable, but it's also
Speaker 3: gonna be fun. If me and Andy went out without without kids,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have a blast playing it. It will feel
Speaker 3: a lot more like a par three, right, but there
Speaker 3: are neat holes like the second where it's one eighty five.
Speaker 3: But the kid who takes this driver way out to
Speaker 3: the left and pitches in might win with his four,
Speaker 3: whereas unless we hit a great five iron, we could
Speaker 3: get into a lot of trouble. So if you play
Speaker 3: it as a par four, you're going to win a
Speaker 3: lot of the you know, and it's a stroke call,
Speaker 3: you're going to win a lot of the holes. So
Speaker 3: that's also in the center of town, also walkable. We're
Speaker 3: gonna have a twelve o golf course and a par three.
Speaker 3: So in this village inspired by some of my favorite
Speaker 3: places in Scotland, you'll be able to walk to all
Speaker 3: those golf courses, in your restaurants and your room. Uh.
Speaker 3: And it's going to be really different and I'm just
Speaker 3: excited about that overall experience. You're also going to be
Speaker 3: able to jump on a horse or go fat tire
Speaker 3: biking or hiking on this sixty five thousand acre you know,
Speaker 3: primordial uh property.
Speaker 1: This land plan idea that you have for old Chores
Speaker 1: is really interesting to me because it's not just about
Speaker 1: the architecture of the golf courses now right. You're you're
Speaker 1: really thinking through the landscape design, I guess, or even
Speaker 1: the the urban design, so to speak of of this
Speaker 1: central village where you, I guess you've basically created a
Speaker 1: kind of walkable or are creating a walkable city where
Speaker 1: where people don't have to use cars to get from
Speaker 1: place to place. And it all feels very very centered
Speaker 1: and intimate.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that the the inspiration here might be some
Speaker 1: uh some some Scottish towns or uh, you know, things
Speaker 1: that you've seen overseas. Uh what what specifically made you
Speaker 1: want to focus on on this aspect of of old chores.
Speaker 3: So it started with old chores where I was forced
Speaker 3: into that. I have a partner at Old Chores who
Speaker 3: prefers to remain unnamed for now, and he's he's a
Speaker 3: he's an urbanist and when we met, he wasn't a golfer,
Speaker 3: didn't even like the idea of golf. But he's acquiring
Speaker 3: these large tracks where he plans to build walk up.
Speaker 3: He hates sprawl and he wants to build these walkable
Speaker 3: cities ultimately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when you described old shores, it it's
Speaker 1: funny that he's an urbanist because it really does incorporate
Speaker 1: ideas of urbanist writing that that that I've read this
Speaker 1: is this is straight out of that playbook.
Speaker 3: It's it's been really fun for me because I through
Speaker 3: through him and his team, I've learned about this. They
Speaker 3: give me great books and we have these great charettes.
Speaker 3: It's an incredible team. So just forced into it very
Speaker 3: happily because I mean, as soon as we connect to
Speaker 3: the dots that we realized he wanted to build a
Speaker 3: North Barrack or Dornick ultimately a Saint Andrew's, So it
Speaker 3: didn't take much convincing. I was really inspired by him
Speaker 3: and his team, and it's so it's like in hindsight,
Speaker 3: it's it's sort of like obvious, but you know, we
Speaker 3: brought sort of golf over here, but we forgot the urbanism.
Speaker 3: And when I think about my favorite places in the world,
Speaker 3: as much as I love some of these extraordinary golf resorts,
Speaker 3: my top ten favorite places to go are all in
Speaker 3: towns or villages or cities. Yeah. Right, if I had
Speaker 3: to go, you know, if I think, Okay, where's the
Speaker 3: number one place I want to go? What's the number two?
Speaker 3: They're all in talent in villages. Because I love that
Speaker 3: whole experience of incredible golf coupled with being part of
Speaker 3: a real, you know, community whose members all love golf.
Speaker 3: I mean that it is nice that it's gotland, Like
Speaker 3: a lot of people play golf, but they have other
Speaker 3: interests and other lives, and you know, I love that.
Speaker 3: You know, I was the last time I was playing
Speaker 3: in North Beric. I was playing the seventh I think
Speaker 3: it's the seventh hole with the burn right in front
Speaker 3: of it, and you know, two guys just walked across
Speaker 3: the fairway with their surfboards. So from their homes, they
Speaker 3: just crossed the fairway and they're going surfing. You know.
Speaker 3: On that same course, I bumped into my friend's mom
Speaker 3: who's making her way back the basketful of vegetables from
Speaker 3: the farmer's market. You know, it's like that, that friction
Speaker 3: and connection is so enjoyable that I think it beats
Speaker 3: these resorts. So that's what started for me. We've we've
Speaker 3: now moved that urbanism to wild spring dunes and Rodeo dunes,
Speaker 3: so our master plans there have. These are urban. They
Speaker 3: have some some you know larger, a few number of
Speaker 3: like satellite you know, homes and hotel rooms, but it's
Speaker 3: mostly walkable. So wild Spring Dunes right now from your room,
Speaker 3: you're less than a four minute you will be less
Speaker 3: than a four minute walk from Tom's course, Bill's course,
Speaker 3: Gym's course, two restaurants, a wellness center, your room, and
Speaker 3: the driving range right and and we're not going to
Speaker 3: have shuttles, and you know, at all shores, we're not
Speaker 3: gonna lock cars. We get you out of your car
Speaker 3: and you walk everywhere. You know. The team's like, well,
Speaker 3: what happens if it rains. It's like maybe use an umbrella,
Speaker 3: you know, like what.
Speaker 1: Happened, same thing that happens in North Perock. I guess, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: We don't have to pamper our guests and like you know,
Speaker 3: like shield them from any discomfort. And walking in the
Speaker 3: rain is not uncomfortable, and it's actually if you have
Speaker 3: the proper gear an umbrella, it's delightful. The sounds, the
Speaker 3: colors sharpen, you know. So so that urbanism is like
Speaker 3: Rodeo Dunes. It's really fun because it's urban but it's Western,
Speaker 3: like Cowboy, Western influenced. You know, are most Western towns
Speaker 3: of you know, the early nineteenth century, they were made
Speaker 3: so quickly that they don't exist anymore. They've all turned
Speaker 3: to dust. So are unders standing of Cowboy Urbanism is
Speaker 3: framed entirely through film, right. So I got this great
Speaker 3: land Planning book which studies the Master Urban land Plan
Speaker 3: of the Alamo and all these amazing Western you know
Speaker 3: towns and sort of like Disneyland. You know, these the
Speaker 3: street widths were designed to be seen on film, not
Speaker 3: necessarily reflecting what they what they were historically. You know,
Speaker 3: it just fits the frame so well, and we're going
Speaker 3: to lean into that, and you know, and it brings
Speaker 3: up nostalgia from our guest, youth watching, you know, whatever
Speaker 3: it is. So they are all gonna be different, but
Speaker 3: they're all gonna be urban. Rodeo dunes are gonna be walked,
Speaker 3: walked to. These four eighteen hole courses will be all
Speaker 3: all walk Wow.
Speaker 1: That's it's interesting that you've that you've dug into of
Speaker 1: what an urban setting might look like in the West,
Speaker 1: because yes, I think all of us who have seen
Speaker 1: Western films can immediately imagine what one of those sets
Speaker 1: looks like. You think of Tombstone or My Darling, Clementine,
Speaker 1: some of the older Western like john Ford. Western's what
Speaker 1: those towns look like. They're kind of they're attractive, right,
Speaker 1: There's these films about the wild West and violence and
Speaker 1: and you know they unsettled communities. But you look at
Speaker 1: those towns and you think, well, I kind of want
Speaker 1: to live there. I'd be kind of cool to go
Speaker 1: to that barber shop and then go to that saloon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just walk it across and then on the outside,
Speaker 3: you know, on the outside it's you know, the wilderness.
Speaker 3: So the inside is urban. Some of our team was
Speaker 3: calling it London in the front, you know, La in
Speaker 3: the back. That we try to make our plan so
Speaker 3: that when you're walking up to your room, you're in
Speaker 3: a very urban environment. But you know, because our scale
Speaker 3: is not five thousand units, every everybody looks out at
Speaker 3: wilderness or golf or park, right. So in the wild
Speaker 3: West it's where urban. They probably didn't have back views.
Speaker 3: That's probably where they serviced the buildings, but if you did,
Speaker 3: you'd look out towards the mountains, right, or the Tetons
Speaker 3: or wherever. The film was at. So we're excited to
Speaker 3: just play with urbanism in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: Nice. So, you know, looking at these these three new
Speaker 1: resort developments, wild Spring Dunes, Rodeo Dunes, and old shores,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard not to from my perspective, to
Speaker 1: just to see them as kind of a new phase
Speaker 1: in what you're doing in golf course development. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting to me. For the past decade or so, I
Speaker 1: guess you have you have you and your brother have
Speaker 1: developed Sand Valley, and you've tried a lot of fresh
Speaker 1: things there, you know, both architecturally and in terms of
Speaker 1: the model of the resort and the general recreational offering there.
Speaker 1: So you know, I wonder as you move into this
Speaker 1: phase where where you have these three developments kind of
Speaker 1: you know coming up, what have you taken from your
Speaker 1: experiences at Sand Valley and the experiments that you that
Speaker 1: you tried there. What did you learn? What are the
Speaker 1: big takeaways from from trying new things at Sand Valley
Speaker 1: that you're now applying to to these new places.
Speaker 3: We learned a lot. And I love you describing them
Speaker 3: as experiments. And I've heard you at a different time
Speaker 3: described Sand Valley's like a laboratory of ideas, which was
Speaker 3: I was flattering but also inspiring. It made me lean
Speaker 3: into that more like, yeah, okay, we got to keep
Speaker 3: pushing and testing. So we're gonna We're going to continue
Speaker 3: to try to innovate and test new ideas, but we
Speaker 3: we are gonna take some of those winning ideas from
Speaker 3: Sand Valley and transfer a transfer them all over. I
Speaker 3: mean some of it is that I think a lot
Speaker 3: of resorts, you know, first course, we want this to be.
Speaker 3: You know, bandon Dunes is so so many people of
Speaker 3: different abilities can enjoy a bandoned Dudes or old Mac right,
Speaker 3: which is extraordinary. You know, a great golfer like you
Speaker 3: can enjoy it, hack like me can enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not a great golfer, and he's a great golfer.
Speaker 3: We know that's right. You can sink Yeah, you lousy,
Speaker 3: like why am so? We So that's really an incredible model.
Speaker 3: And then you have five courses that do that. At
Speaker 3: Sand Valley, we want as many people as possible to
Speaker 3: be able to enjoy enjoy a golf course. But we
Speaker 3: could we could pull you know, we could have golf
Speaker 3: courses that cater to a smaller group within that resort guests.
Speaker 3: So Alito is a great example. It's probably the most
Speaker 3: dislike course we've ever built, but forty percent of our
Speaker 3: guests think it's the greatest golf course ever built. And
Speaker 3: therefore it could be full if we want it to
Speaker 3: be like that's okay. Everybody doesn't have to love it
Speaker 3: for us to be successful. Right. At the same time,
Speaker 3: you could have you know, mammoth uns right, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, on sort of the opposite extreme of Liedo,
Speaker 3: you know, and so just trying to instead of having
Speaker 3: circles that overlap in terms of the program elements of
Speaker 3: a golf course, to separate them out. We could have
Speaker 3: a six thousand yard course. I want to build a
Speaker 3: forty six hundred yard course. We could have a twelve
Speaker 3: hole course, we could have a par three, you could
Speaker 3: have a championship course. You could have a North Barrack
Speaker 3: whimsical fund course. So is much variety, not just within
Speaker 3: a course, but you know, throughout the resort. And when
Speaker 3: you think about it, when we hit a certain you know,
Speaker 3: six eighteen old courses and six alternative courses. Everybody doesn't
Speaker 3: have to love every one, you know, because they don't
Speaker 3: come for two weeks, but if they have their two
Speaker 3: or three or four that they think are the greatest
Speaker 3: in the world. And there's some overlap, but a different
Speaker 3: group that likes these courses over here, like that model
Speaker 3: really works and it's really different. It's really distinct. You
Speaker 3: guys have talked about the two courses that were all
Speaker 3: counting down. They couldn't be more different, right, whereas I
Speaker 3: think the resort model they would have, you know, we're
Speaker 3: all counting down a brutal test, extraordinary, but for the
Speaker 3: greatest golfers, amateur golfers. What's the name of the other course,
Speaker 3: that's fortunate, you know, in that fun anybody could play it.
Speaker 3: A resort would do two that are sort of more
Speaker 3: in the middle. They pulled that apart. In Scotland. My
Speaker 3: experience is they pull everything apart. You know, there's the
Speaker 3: kids course, the ladies course, the King's Course, the Championship course,
Speaker 3: the putting course. So just like everything we do, we're
Speaker 3: just trying to rab Scotland blindly of all its great
Speaker 3: ideas well, that's one of the things that will make
Speaker 3: it different, you know, I think pushing the greens, you know,
Speaker 3: and as much variety as possible within within the greens.
Speaker 3: I think there's more contour at the Sandbox and commons
Speaker 3: and sedge than you might you know, have at let's say,
Speaker 3: you know, Vandon Dunes, so you know, creating more variety
Speaker 3: within you know, the putting, the putting surfaces. This urbanism
Speaker 3: is an idea that didn't come from Sand Valley, but
Speaker 3: that's going to connect them. I mean, one thing that's
Speaker 3: great at Sand Valley it has become a real community
Speaker 3: where people who want resort guests spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time at the resort. Employees on their off days come
Speaker 3: and enjoy the resort. I'd like to just get better
Speaker 3: and better at that because to me, it's a more
Speaker 3: interesting place if you have a broader group of people
Speaker 3: coming together to share the experience. So we'll see that
Speaker 3: from the hospitality side, you know, I've brought in team
Speaker 3: members who are extraordinary entrepreneurs in the restaurant, you know,
Speaker 3: creative restaurant space. I want to continue to elevate our
Speaker 3: dining experience and some of our hospitality experiences. The idea
Speaker 3: of renting a home is unique at least sand all
Speaker 3: other places. More and more places are doing it, but
Speaker 3: that's been a huge winner. Guests love staying in renting
Speaker 3: a home. You know, thirty percent of our covers are
Speaker 3: now done in the home, so people could shower, have
Speaker 3: a meal served to them, go straight out to the
Speaker 3: screen porch or the fire pit, you know, in their
Speaker 3: foot flops or barefoot. So I think a lot of
Speaker 3: that covers, you know, we are going to bring wellness,
Speaker 3: you know, into the play. Sand Valley has non golf activities,
Speaker 3: you know, Sam Valley. It's great for the golfer, but
Speaker 3: it's also great for the golfers family and friends. You know.
Speaker 3: I just had my high school or my college buddies
Speaker 3: and their spouses and their children out to Sand Valley.
Speaker 3: There's not there's a fair amount of golf play, but
Speaker 3: not a ton and everybody had a ball. So we
Speaker 3: want to create places where everybody feels welcome. They're not
Speaker 3: walking on eggshells. They're curious and want to explore golf
Speaker 3: and there's a place for them. But they also feel
Speaker 3: that they could be a part of the community without
Speaker 3: being in a you know, hardcore golfer. That's how we
Speaker 3: move people into the game of golf, make them feel welcome.
Speaker 3: So that's a theme that you know, we talk about
Speaker 3: a lot. It's just making people feel welcome and not
Speaker 3: scaring them away from this game.
Speaker 1: In terms of the golf itself. As you move into
Speaker 1: these kind of three new resorts, have you found your
Speaker 1: influences kind of changing over time? In other words, are
Speaker 1: there reference points or courses or architects that you now
Speaker 1: go back to more often that you didn't have on
Speaker 1: your mind as much at the beginning of Sand Valley?
Speaker 1: In other words, how have your influences evolved over time
Speaker 1: and which ones are kind of primary for you right now?
Speaker 3: It's continually evolving, and a lot of that again, I
Speaker 3: just rob other places blind, So a lot of it's
Speaker 3: just based on where I've been able to make a
Speaker 3: trip that year. And I just even if something is
Speaker 3: a really good idea, I don't necessarily want to do
Speaker 3: it all over again, right, just to keep you know,
Speaker 3: life interesting. But just as an example of that, you know,
Speaker 3: when we spent a couple you know, summers in Scotland
Speaker 3: and I was lucky to have a couple of friends
Speaker 3: in Mierfield and got to enjoy that experience a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, So playing playing foursomes ultimate shot, learning about
Speaker 3: what made you know, that golf course so interesting for foursomes,
Speaker 3: and that made me want to come over here and
Speaker 3: design the first course in America designed specifically for forsomes, right,
Speaker 3: So that's That's one example. When I saw the shapes
Speaker 3: of Presstwick on you know those original twelve holes in particular,
Speaker 3: you know fairways like you know thirteen or fifteen and
Speaker 3: sixteen or approach on four mind bending to me, or
Speaker 3: the second fairway in the seventeenth at North north Barrick, like, oh,
Speaker 3: you could make greens this nuts, or the fairway's this nuts.
Speaker 3: Direct inspiration went straight into commons. You know, the what's
Speaker 3: after the re dawm the sixteenth at North Barrick, Oh,
Speaker 3: you could make a green this insane? You know. It's
Speaker 3: so I'm constantly inspired by different and new things. I
Speaker 3: haven't been able to play much golf this year, either
Speaker 3: at home or are away, but that's one of the
Speaker 3: fun things about travel. And again, it's not just golf.
Speaker 3: It's experience you had in a in a pub, or
Speaker 3: at a restaurant or in a community. So it's constantly evolving, uh,
Speaker 3: And it's just pulling great ideas from other great places.
Speaker 1: And as you think about, you know, trying to make
Speaker 1: things new or push into new areas. How do you
Speaker 1: think about the architects that you work with. Recently, you've
Speaker 1: you've started to work bring some you know, newer names
Speaker 1: into the mix. And I say newer because they aren't
Speaker 1: new names to people who follow golf architecture, but they
Speaker 1: perhaps haven't gotten that big solo commission opportunity yet. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like Jim Craig and Brian Schneider at
Speaker 1: Old Shores. You're working with Clyde Johnson on on that
Speaker 1: really interesting sounding putting course at I think it was
Speaker 1: wild Spring Dunes where where he's doing that, but also
Speaker 1: the Rockies at at Rodeo Dunes. You are bringing some
Speaker 1: of these these fresh voices into the mix. How do
Speaker 1: you think about kind of balancing working with architects that
Speaker 1: you know can deliver a great product and are at
Speaker 1: the top of the game versus working with architects who
Speaker 1: might inject something new into into the bloodstream.
Speaker 3: You know, it's such a risky business that I spend
Speaker 3: a lot of my time mitigating risk in all.
Speaker 1: Ways, right, and it's a bit it's a big investment.
Speaker 3: And who's never built a golf course like your dad.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, because you know, like I could hire
Speaker 3: a mild court. So but it's not even like the
Speaker 3: business side of it. I do think, you know Bill
Speaker 3: in if a young person is as talented as Bill, right, Uh,
Speaker 3: they don't have forty years of experience, they don't have
Speaker 3: a team around them. You know Tom's team. They're all
Speaker 3: amazing architects that you could hire tomorrow to build an amazing
Speaker 3: golf course. So experience matters, team teams matter. So I'm
Speaker 3: just sort of like, how could you if you're lucky
Speaker 3: enough to hire one of these you know, known names,
Speaker 3: how could you not. At the same time, we want
Speaker 3: to bring in you know, fresh ideas. So one thing
Speaker 3: you'll see is that I'm not just working with people
Speaker 3: that I haven't worked with. You know, I worked with
Speaker 3: Jimmy on sand Valley and the Sandbox and then right comments,
Speaker 3: Clyde is building this putting course because I consider him,
Speaker 3: you know, the world's expert, you know, but that will
Speaker 3: give it, that gave him an opportunity to showcase his
Speaker 3: talents to me, and now, you know, maybe there's another
Speaker 3: project for him. The twelve all archite checked, you know,
Speaker 3: I'd worked with, So I don't know if that's answering
Speaker 3: the question. I don't think I'm just going to hire
Speaker 3: some I'm not going to hire somebody with no experience ever,
Speaker 3: and to hire somebody who I've never worked with, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have to see a body of work that is
Speaker 3: like really exciting and inspiring those people. Also, there's people
Speaker 3: do exist out there that we have a limited number
Speaker 3: of projects. So if I had more projects, there's so
Speaker 3: many people I haven't worked with who are so talented
Speaker 3: that I'd love to work with. But you know, finite
Speaker 3: number of resources and sites. We have to make choice choices.
Speaker 3: So I think I think you'll see me working with
Speaker 3: some people over and over again. I mean, Jimmy Craig,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to, you know, sign like a
Speaker 3: fifteen year contract now or you can't work for anybody else,
Speaker 3: And I just I'm a hold of him, you know.
Speaker 3: I think you'll see some you know, some you know
Speaker 3: studio musicians, and then you'll see some new people coming in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it makes sense. It's a it's a relationship business,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, and you have relationships with
Speaker 1: these quote unquote new or architects are coming in. It's
Speaker 1: not as though you're unfamiliar with what Brian Schneider might
Speaker 1: do on a golf course site. You've seen him work before.
Speaker 1: You know what you're going. What level of architecture are
Speaker 1: you going to give them?
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. There's a lot of value in
Speaker 3: building that professional relationship knowing each other, you know, like
Speaker 3: Tom and I now, I think it's like we understand
Speaker 3: each other right. We've invested the time to build that
Speaker 3: professional relationship. On top of that with Tom and Bill
Speaker 3: and Jim develop personal relationships and those matter right. And
Speaker 3: you know Bill's globe trotting all over the world. I
Speaker 3: probably won't hang out with him casually as as a
Speaker 3: friend unless i'd bump into him at an opening or
Speaker 3: a vad And I just love spending time with him,
Speaker 3: and building a golf course is a great way for
Speaker 3: us to spend time to get so that's you might
Speaker 3: say that's not a great business decision or creative decision,
Speaker 3: but when it's coupled with incredible talent, it makes it
Speaker 3: an easy choice to hire him to do the second course.
Speaker 3: It wells from you.
Speaker 1: I want to carve out a little bit of time
Speaker 1: here at the very end, just to talk briefly about
Speaker 1: some things that you're doing for public courses in your
Speaker 1: home state of Wisconsin. A couple of years ago, you
Speaker 1: spearheaded a renovation at what's now known as the Glen,
Speaker 1: which I visited and very much enjoyed, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think is a great model for how you can
Speaker 1: kind of revive a neighborhood course like that one in Madison.
Speaker 3: Now I've seen some.
Speaker 1: Reporting that you're involved in another renovation at another Madison
Speaker 1: municipal course, this one called I believe it's O'donna Hills.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how it's pronounced. What's the plan there?
Speaker 3: Well, just so backing up, I mean, building great accessible
Speaker 3: golf is really important to me. Let's say San Valley
Speaker 3: or these new projects are abandoned, but in order for
Speaker 3: this game to flourish, we also have to create affordable golf,
Speaker 3: right that any that you know that a twelve year
Speaker 3: old could play three times a week in the summer,
Speaker 3: right every every day to get hooked on this game.
Speaker 3: So that's really important to me. It's just as important
Speaker 3: to my wife, and we've been given so much by
Speaker 3: the game that we're going to continue to grow the
Speaker 3: way that we affect affordable golf, starting in Wisconsin, but
Speaker 3: I'll get to some projects outside of Wisconsin. So Odana
Speaker 3: is a wonderful site. It's a very popular course. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, Glenn has grown fifty percent since we did
Speaker 3: the renovation. Odana is already pretty pretty full. But I
Speaker 3: you know, I hear from a lot of people who said,
Speaker 3: I grew up playing that course, and we want to
Speaker 3: introduce architecture that will inspire the next generation to grow
Speaker 3: up playing that course. And it's a nice piece of land,
Speaker 3: and it's again it's talk about urbanism. It's right in
Speaker 3: the center of Madison, just like the Glen. I have
Speaker 3: a friend who lives halfway between both of them, and
Speaker 3: like he and his son are gonna be able to
Speaker 3: walk to Bolt and I'm so envious of him. But
Speaker 3: these are urban, you know, golf courses. So really excited
Speaker 3: about Odana to be able to do it with eighteen holes.
Speaker 3: Add add add more bunkering part of the program at
Speaker 3: the lenn As. We wanted fewer bunkers because the biggest
Speaker 3: cohorts of golfers are senior women follow by senior men.
Speaker 3: So we use green surround short grass contour over bunkering,
Speaker 3: and we're going to be able to We're going to
Speaker 3: add a little more bunkering at Odana, which I think
Speaker 3: can help strategically, you know a little bit more. So
Speaker 3: that's really exciting. Shoot Park, which Craig Golftam has spearheaded
Speaker 3: but I've been involved in and we'll work with him on,
Speaker 3: is an existing nine hole course that on Lake Michigan,
Speaker 3: but with bushes growing along the whole so you can't
Speaker 3: see it ten feet from Lake Michigan.
Speaker 1: It is literally yeah, it's right on the shoreline. It
Speaker 1: is a pretty extraordinary location for.
Speaker 3: A golf course. So Craig Leopold, who's a part of
Speaker 3: the Johnson family, has made an incredibly generous donation to
Speaker 3: that project to build basically whatever we can imagine on
Speaker 3: that site, and it has the potential to be very
Speaker 3: very good halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago in ray scene
Speaker 3: on the lake with this gorgeous white, tall whitehouse. That's
Speaker 3: really exciting. So those are the two projects we'll be
Speaker 3: building next summer. But we're always looking at new opportunities
Speaker 3: in a nearby Ish state. I'm working on the potential
Speaker 3: municipal project, So just really excited to over time do
Speaker 3: more and more to support local golf in Wisconsin in America.
Speaker 1: A nearbias state. So this is an as yet unnamed project,
Speaker 1: but you've got something cooking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The clock is ticking. So by the
Speaker 3: end of the year, we either will have a project
Speaker 3: that you and I could talk about or not. But
Speaker 3: it's not going to drag on. So we're you know,
Speaker 3: we're the finish line. We could see the finish line,
Speaker 3: and I hope we get it done. It's a really
Speaker 3: exciting project.
Speaker 1: How do you think about the difference between working at
Speaker 1: one of these destination resort courses and working at a
Speaker 1: municipal course. Is the architectural approach generally different in some ways?
Speaker 3: Yeah. At a resort, we say, whatever it takes to build,
Speaker 3: try to build a greatest golf course in the world.
Speaker 3: We will do, right. I always tease these architects. We
Speaker 3: give them these huge sites and they ask for more,
Speaker 3: you know, like, well he needs is seventy thousand ye
Speaker 3: you know, eight acres.
Speaker 1: Tom Doak is kind of famous for this. It's like,
Speaker 1: only you could just buy that little five act plot
Speaker 1: over there.
Speaker 3: Bill's done it to us David And how do you
Speaker 3: say no, Jimmy Craig, I tease him and he's gonna
Speaker 3: hate hearing this, but I hope he laughs a little bit.
Speaker 3: His second green, like literally the back ten feet of
Speaker 3: the green is requiring me to exercise an option an
Speaker 3: additional six hundred and forty acres of land for keen
Speaker 3: Vita Green. So we do whatever it takes to build,
Speaker 3: you know, the greatest golf course in municipal settings. We've
Speaker 3: limited resources and a different audience. Right, So my wife
Speaker 3: and I have made a sizable donation to Odana. But
Speaker 3: the mission isn't let's build the greatest golf course in America.
Speaker 3: It's with these resources, how can we make it as
Speaker 3: spectacular as possible? So, you know, and how do we
Speaker 3: serve the local community? We're not the audience is local.
Speaker 3: It's not you know, how do we get you you
Speaker 3: know to come. So it's so it's very different. It's
Speaker 3: it's not quite as am ambitious architecturally, but it's maybe
Speaker 3: more ambitious and trying to make something that is really
Speaker 3: inspiring for much more affordable budget that people can love
Speaker 3: playing every day of the week for the rest of
Speaker 3: their lives.
Speaker 1: You know all right, Michael Kaiser, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the podcast. Looking forward to seeing all
Speaker 1: these all these new projects come online.
Speaker 3: Garrett, thanks for having me on. I always enjoy our
Speaker 3: conversations and I hope I can meet you in person
Speaker 3: on some of these sites. We gotta we gotta play
Speaker 3: golf together. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: This episode of Design Golf was produced by Will Balsom.
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you enjoy architecture discourse, then you
Speaker 1: have to join Frida Egg Golf Club. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion of golf courses going on in the membership.
Speaker 1: We have a new app which is which is fantastic
Speaker 1: for communication among members. Of course, you know, golf architecture
Speaker 1: is not the only topic we discussed in there. We
Speaker 1: also talk about professional golf and just golf in general.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon
Speaker 1: with another episode.