Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A bride Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Egg, fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 2: to run off of the hump course. Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today my
Speaker 2: co host Andy Johnson and I are doing a Sand
Speaker 2: Valley Dream eighteen. That means we're picking out our favorite
Speaker 2: holes from the Sand Valley Resorts, five courses at each number.
Speaker 2: Those courses now include Corn Crenshaw's Original Sand Valley, David
Speaker 2: McLay Kids, Mammoth Dunes, Corn Crenshaw's Sandbox Short Course, Tom
Speaker 2: New Sedge Valley, and on the private side, the recently
Speaker 2: opened recreation of CB McDonald's Ledo. There has been a
Speaker 2: lot happening at the Sand Valley Resort lately, a ton
Speaker 2: of new projects with a lot of architectural interest, and
Speaker 2: over the past several months, Andy and I have both
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time in Wisconsin keeping track of
Speaker 2: what's going on, so we thought it would be a
Speaker 2: good time to take stock Dream eighteen style and really
Speaker 2: talk about the resort in depth. Now, before we get
Speaker 2: to that, a quick word from our partner for this episode,
Speaker 2: ag One. If you're a longtime listener, you might know
Speaker 2: that I've been drinking ag one for most of this year.
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Speaker 2: for the past month or so, I've been traveling a lot.
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Speaker 2: I don't eat that well, I don't do the things
Speaker 2: that I need to do in order to stay healthy.
Speaker 2: But bringing these ag One travel packs with me has
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Speaker 2: get going with the Sand Valley Dream Made Team.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back. We're doing the first ever podcast
Speaker 1: live podcast with two participants from the shed.
Speaker 2: We're both in the shed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The shed, for those that don't know, is I
Speaker 1: record out of like a simple garden shed. We've made
Speaker 1: some improvements inside the shed, but you know, one of
Speaker 1: the big improvements now we can have two people on here.
Speaker 1: How do you like it, Garrett.
Speaker 2: I'm very impressed by the shed. I see that it
Speaker 2: might be called Sheddy Hacket.
Speaker 1: I think that's my name is as signs on the outside.
Speaker 1: You probably didn't catch it. It says shed quarters.
Speaker 2: It says shed Quarters. Oh sure, well I've seen pictures
Speaker 2: of that before. But yeah, I mean it's it's very
Speaker 2: nice inside, it's well appointed. You have really great art
Speaker 2: on the walls. Right behind your head is a what
Speaker 2: appears to be a signed picture of Lee Westwood next
Speaker 2: to a photo of a relatively obscure bulls center.
Speaker 1: Probably yeah, it's it's I have a collection of very
Speaker 1: mediocre bulls, signed bulls, big men.
Speaker 2: So that's that's Michael.
Speaker 1: That's Michael Sweetney Ford who could forget? Also have Tyrus Thomas,
Speaker 1: the same person that sent Sheeddy Hackett and shed Quarters
Speaker 1: uh sent these all these all.
Speaker 2: This great stuff. Yeah, there's a Sabotini picture, of course,
Speaker 2: and people have probably seen pictures of it of it online,
Speaker 2: but once you're inside, you realize there's a good amount
Speaker 2: of room in here, and it's actually really nicely laid out.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you cleaned up before I came.
Speaker 2: There's even a chair for your daughter right there, and
Speaker 2: so you've you've got it all set up. I'm pretty impressed.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get to what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: But it was, I have a three year old, and
Speaker 1: you know, she's discovered TV and understands what TV is,
Speaker 1: and recently, you know, I had I had to. I was,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of work to do, and I
Speaker 1: had the three year old and I brought her out
Speaker 1: here and I have a TV in here, and I
Speaker 1: put the TV on. I put one of her shows on,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's really into the show Gabby's Dollhouse,
Speaker 1: and and she she like, you know, just in that excited,
Speaker 1: yelling child voice, was like, your TV gets Gabby Stallhouse too.
Speaker 2: The shed, TV, Yeah gets Gabby's Dollhouse. What else can
Speaker 2: you ask for?
Speaker 1: Now? She's always asking to come out to the shed,
Speaker 1: you know. So so anyways, yes, the shed. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a this is a landmark moment in the history
Speaker 1: of Friday golf podcasts. So anyways, we're gonna talk. We're
Speaker 1: not talking about the shed for this podcast.
Speaker 2: No, that's not the topic of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Garrett, you spent you had two big trips to Sand
Speaker 1: Valley this year. It's a place that I've been a
Speaker 1: number of times, just my Midwest roots and you know,
Speaker 1: real quick anecdote story that I always like think about
Speaker 1: is the first Fried Egg golf trip as a business,
Speaker 1: as an entity, the first you know kind of trip
Speaker 1: that I went on. I went with some buddies and
Speaker 1: we played Sand Valley during their first year's preview play
Speaker 1: and they were operating out of a trailer. I think
Speaker 1: there was twelve holes available of the Sand Valley golf
Speaker 1: course and it was just just piles of sand everywhere
Speaker 1: you drove in, you parked by the trailer. It was
Speaker 1: really cool experience. But I think about it all the
Speaker 1: time as like that was where like that version of
Speaker 1: what we're what we do days of the of the
Speaker 1: podcast the company and I wrote it. I wrote an
Speaker 1: article about about the place, and it was just one
Speaker 1: of the first trips. And now every time I go back,
Speaker 1: I see all these new buildings, all these things are
Speaker 1: working on. It's a super super impressive build out and
Speaker 1: resort that's just continuing to get better every year that
Speaker 1: the Kaisers are behind. Michael and Chris the Sun's own
Speaker 1: it and this year they're adding to New Court. They
Speaker 1: added Lido this year that's tangentially connected to the resort
Speaker 1: that offers resort play and Sedge Valley, which I get
Speaker 1: to play all eighteen holes of last month that will
Speaker 1: be opening next year, which will be in a tremendous
Speaker 1: addition to the resort. So with you having visited a
Speaker 1: couple times this year, me having been there again this year,
Speaker 1: we figured we might do a little dream eighteen, similar
Speaker 1: to what we did with Bandon Dunes a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. So with the winter ahead, I figure we
Speaker 1: can do Dream eighteen and some in depth course talks
Speaker 1: about one of the most heavily trafficked US golf resorts.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean too large populations. It's more accessible than
Speaker 2: Bandon Dunes, and if you think about it, like it.
Speaker 2: It might seem premature to do a Dream eteen for
Speaker 2: Sand Valley, but if you think about it, we did
Speaker 2: a dream ateen for Bandon Dunes, drawing from the five
Speaker 2: eighteen whole courses that existed there at the time. And
Speaker 2: now when you look at Sand Valley, we included the
Speaker 2: sandbox in our Dream eighteen and there are five courses
Speaker 2: to draw from. It's kind of unbelievable how quickly this
Speaker 2: resort has expanded. If you look at the Google Earth imagery,
Speaker 2: and anybody can do this, you need to download the
Speaker 2: Google Earth app. But if you look at how things
Speaker 2: have developed since twenty seventeen, basically twenty sixteen when they
Speaker 2: started building Sand Valley to now like it's just exploded.
Speaker 2: There was nothing there before, absolutely nothing but trees, right
Speaker 2: and sandy soil. You could see some blowouts.
Speaker 1: Some ATV tracks too. It was a popular ATV destination.
Speaker 1: Craig Caltam found the land and Craig is a golf
Speaker 1: architect in his own right, really up and coming golf
Speaker 1: architect in his own right, and then he got involved
Speaker 1: with the Kaisers and this thing came to came to life, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he found the land and they've moved really quickly
Speaker 2: in developing the resort and they're even building I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how much we can talk about this, but they're
Speaker 2: building a family course out there too, or what Michael
Speaker 2: Kaiser refers to. It's. Yeah, as the commons, it'll be
Speaker 2: a not quite a par three course, but also not
Speaker 2: quite a regulation course, and it'll be a little more
Speaker 2: subtle and not a lot of bunkers, is how I
Speaker 2: understand it, And so that should be pretty interesting to
Speaker 2: see as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fascinating too because obviously, like
Speaker 1: I think the Sandbox in my opinion, and I think
Speaker 1: you share this opinion from what you've written about it
Speaker 1: in our in club TF and you're right up there,
Speaker 1: but I think this is that the Sandbox is probably
Speaker 1: the greatest part three course that I've ever played.
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I don't think you played bandon Preserve. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were there for a few days and we didn't
Speaker 2: play it, which was a bit of a miss. But
Speaker 2: if you have there, if you had been there with us,
Speaker 2: you would have understood why we missed Band and Preserved.
Speaker 2: We had things to do. But I have played Band
Speaker 2: and Preserve, and a lot of people would refer to
Speaker 2: that as the best Part three course that they've ever played,
Speaker 2: and it's certainly more spectacular. It sits on a piece
Speaker 2: of land that a normal course could not have occupied,
Speaker 2: and it's really beautiful and striking. But in terms of design,
Speaker 2: the Sandbox is I think on another level, and it is, yeah,
Speaker 2: the best Part three course I've played for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's get into it. We will do a selection.
Speaker 1: Garre and I each have different lists. There probably is
Speaker 1: a lot of overlap.
Speaker 2: There's probably a good amount of overlap. We sat here
Speaker 2: in the shed and we came up with them sort
Speaker 2: of on the spot, So I'm not going to make
Speaker 2: any great claims that this is like perfectly refined here.
Speaker 2: And we also talked about a couple of holes, and
Speaker 2: so we may have been influencing each other. So we'll
Speaker 2: be thinking it through as we go along, for sure.
Speaker 1: I always tell people with these types of exercises, it's
Speaker 1: similar to like, what's your favorite golf course? But with
Speaker 1: dream eighteens, I could do one of these tomorrow and
Speaker 1: the results would be different, right, Like you're you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: kind of. It depends on your mood and different things.
Speaker 1: I recently, for the upcoming Dream Golf magazine that they
Speaker 1: send out, I did a Dream eighteen for all resorts,
Speaker 1: so it was kind.
Speaker 2: Of expert Oh yeah, this is just what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all I do. All I do is Dream eighteens.
Speaker 1: But but so, yeah, this was fun. I really enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: Who what's your whole one?
Speaker 2: I went with sand Valley, but I don't feel super
Speaker 2: strongly about it. I feel like I could have picked
Speaker 2: one at Sandbox, which is kind of a fun hole
Speaker 2: in one op crazy yeah, and we One of my
Speaker 2: great memories from our visits there this past summer was
Speaker 2: standing there with Matt Ruschius and Cameron Hurtis, who worked
Speaker 2: for a Friday Golf, and Matt started just throwing golf
Speaker 2: balls from the tee at this first hole and using
Speaker 2: the contours to kind of feed them in. Now, he
Speaker 2: he has more arm speed than I do. Matt. Matt
Speaker 2: is a young buck.
Speaker 1: He can he can up more elasticity, a little more elasticity.
Speaker 1: He's into yoga too, so you know.
Speaker 2: He's Yeah, he's an athletic young man. And he was
Speaker 2: able to get that golf ball kind of sailing down there.
Speaker 2: But it was really cool to watch the ball sort
Speaker 2: of feed in. And the different ways that you could
Speaker 2: approach this hole.
Speaker 1: Well, with that front pin on the sandbox, you can
Speaker 1: use the right side and put it. You can put
Speaker 1: it and funnel it in there.
Speaker 2: You could use the left side even maybe not with
Speaker 2: a putter, but there's.
Speaker 1: Lots of you putt it around the like little burm
Speaker 1: on the right, and the putt will funnel right into
Speaker 1: the hole.
Speaker 2: And here we are talking about a hole that's not
Speaker 2: even on my dream eighteen. But I may have just
Speaker 2: talked myself into it. Sand Valley, the first hole is
Speaker 2: really cool. You've got a big hazard, you know, sandy
Speaker 2: waste area up the left, and you've got a kind
Speaker 2: of platform green with a couple of sections to it,
Speaker 2: and it's a very friendly opening hole. It's fairly short,
Speaker 2: but there is a line of charm along the hazard,
Speaker 2: and if you decide to bite off a little bit
Speaker 2: more of that than you should, then you can get
Speaker 2: in trouble on this first hole.
Speaker 1: I think it's just a great opening tee shot in
Speaker 1: the sense of nobody's ever really comfortable on the first tee.
Speaker 1: I think I feel like, more so than a lot
Speaker 1: of places at this at this golf course, you might
Speaker 1: go to the first tea without hitting golf balls. I
Speaker 1: don't know. The range is kind of hard far away.
Speaker 2: Well, the range is right there now.
Speaker 1: Well they have sometimes that range is open. I don't
Speaker 1: know the exactly that's true.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen many people hitting balls out.
Speaker 1: There, so they have they I don't know if the
Speaker 1: warm up range still exists there. You know it it
Speaker 1: was there, and you know, forgive me, I haven't been
Speaker 1: I haven't played Sand Valley in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: But anyways, what I love about that tea shot is
Speaker 1: that it really tests you right off the bat, right
Speaker 1: You have to be very comfortable and and really make
Speaker 1: a great swing to hit a great tea shot there,
Speaker 1: and it's right off the bat it then if you
Speaker 1: hit a great tea shot presents like a great birdie opportunity.
Speaker 1: If you get into the wrong spot, you could be
Speaker 1: struggling on a short par four to make par right.
Speaker 1: And like I think, one of the things I do
Speaker 1: really love about Sand Valley is the it's just the
Speaker 1: sand itself. The bunker sand is the native sand there.
Speaker 1: It is not the court that like very bright white
Speaker 1: pro angle sand that the ball just like pops out
Speaker 1: of right. You have to hit good bunker shots to
Speaker 1: succeed at Sand Valley. You have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to play a how to play out of the sand
Speaker 1: because it's heavier. One thing that I kind of on
Speaker 1: my last visit figured out was having more bounce on
Speaker 1: my wedge. Going from you know, my sixty degree is
Speaker 1: a very low bounce sixty degree that I usually use
Speaker 1: out of the sand. I went to fifty six with
Speaker 1: more bounce, and that really helped me in the bunkers because.
Speaker 2: The sand is kind of soft, yeah, so often having
Speaker 2: a sharp leading edge might dig in it exactly. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a good point.
Speaker 1: So I switched to that and it really helped me.
Speaker 1: But this is the thing, when you get into these
Speaker 1: into these waste bunkers or just natural bunkers, that sand
Speaker 1: is an adjustment and it's it makes it difficult, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you could make a bogie on
Speaker 1: a short part four that you feel like you should
Speaker 1: make a birdie. I love it. It sets the tone
Speaker 1: also with all these golf courses for anybody, you know,
Speaker 1: I think anybody. One of the things you have to
Speaker 1: get used to really early is the pace at which
Speaker 1: these golf courses play. They are firm and fast and
Speaker 1: noting nothing is dicier than hitting like half ledges into
Speaker 1: an elevated green. To get to get used to that
Speaker 1: it is, I don't I think it's like a warm
Speaker 1: handshake in the sense you can make a birdie. But
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a warm handshake. It does not
Speaker 1: make you feel comfortable when you walk off the first
Speaker 1: hole at Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely some peril on the hole, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it does its job as an opening hole. And
Speaker 2: if you get in trouble on that hole, then you
Speaker 2: have two coming up, which is gonna punch you in
Speaker 2: the mouth pretty much. No matter what. That's a tough
Speaker 2: hole at Sand Valley.
Speaker 1: What's your second hole?
Speaker 2: You kind of gotta you kind of gotta make your
Speaker 2: hay on the first hole. So my second hole is
Speaker 2: at Sedge Valley, So this hole is so clever. The
Speaker 2: first two holes at Sedge occupy kind of a different
Speaker 2: portion of the property than the rest of the course occupies.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The course really gets going on the third hole, where
Speaker 2: you're getting into the main part of the site that
Speaker 2: most of the course is in. And so the first
Speaker 2: couple of holes might kind of seem like a warm up.
Speaker 2: You know, you could play them as a loop because
Speaker 2: they just kind of go out and back, and the
Speaker 2: land that they're on is like not the best land
Speaker 2: at SAJ. I would say, I'm not sure how much
Speaker 2: Doakes Team shaped it, but you know, there's some topographical
Speaker 2: interest out there. It's just not quite as magical as
Speaker 2: the rest of the property.
Speaker 1: You know when you move from two to three that
Speaker 1: you've entered a new space exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're very aware that this is sort of the
Speaker 2: dramatic beginning of the golf course, and the first two
Speaker 2: holes were sort of a you know, like an overture
Speaker 2: at the beginning of a symphony. I'm not even sure
Speaker 2: if that's the right term. So my apologies to the
Speaker 2: music nerds out there. In any case, two is such
Speaker 2: a clever hole, Like it's so well designed and the
Speaker 2: green is so cool. So you know, the thing that
Speaker 2: I really like about this hole is that the fairway
Speaker 2: is super wide. But a really good shot, a really
Speaker 2: good t shot is pretty specific.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it varies based off of how far you
Speaker 1: hit it, because absolutely, because the feature of the fairway
Speaker 1: runs on a diagonal.
Speaker 2: And that feature is a hogsback sort of.
Speaker 1: And the direct a mound in the middle that cuts
Speaker 1: on a diagonal and deflex balls right or left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a like a ridge, and it can deflect
Speaker 2: balls left, but it deflects them most sharply to the right,
Speaker 2: and the b line to the hole. The shortest route
Speaker 2: to the green is along the right side of the fairway,
Speaker 2: sort of right along the edge of the ridge in
Speaker 2: the fairway. And so if you get aggressive, if you
Speaker 2: say I'm going to hit this ball toward the green
Speaker 2: to try to get the shortest approach possible, then you
Speaker 2: could end up way down to the right. You're still
Speaker 2: going to be more or less in the fairway, maybe
Speaker 2: sort of on the edge of some rough grass and
Speaker 2: a little bit of scrub down there, but you're gonna
Speaker 2: be totally blind. You're gonna have no reference points for
Speaker 2: where you're supposed to hit this approach, and the green
Speaker 2: is tricky like there are some runoffs, and there are
Speaker 2: some little areas that you can get in trouble in there.
Speaker 2: There's a really wonderful kind of hidden bunker right in
Speaker 2: the back of the green. The shaping is just beautifully executed,
Speaker 2: which you sort of expect from renaissance golf design anytime
Speaker 2: they do a course, And so I think this hole
Speaker 2: is really clever and makes great use of a piece
Speaker 2: of the property that might not otherwise be that compelling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that hole. It would probably be my
Speaker 1: runner up for the second hole. My picks sand Valley.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking with Sand Valley. That second hole is so disorienting.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably what I love most about it.
Speaker 1: You're hitting, you know, a driver, Some longer hitters are
Speaker 1: going to hit less than a driver to a spot,
Speaker 1: and then you're going to have If you play up
Speaker 1: to the left, you'll have a look at the green,
Speaker 1: but you have a longer approach. If you play down
Speaker 1: to the right, you have a shorter approach and a
Speaker 1: blind shot to probably the least forgiving green on maybe
Speaker 1: outside a liedo on the property where you have sharp
Speaker 1: runoffs around it, and it's a big part four. You
Speaker 1: really have to hit two great shots there. And I
Speaker 1: just I love that the way it kind of moves
Speaker 1: along the land. It kind of plays down into a
Speaker 1: ridge and back up to a ridge. It snakes around it,
Speaker 1: and it's just a really great hole. So let's move
Speaker 1: on to three.
Speaker 2: What's your whole three?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with the sandbox.
Speaker 2: Of course. What's your whole three? And why is it
Speaker 2: the sandbox? That is really the question there? This is
Speaker 2: a this is they call it a double plateau, but
Speaker 2: it's it's really a maiden. There's no reason to be
Speaker 2: pedantic about that. But it's like two big platforms.
Speaker 1: It's a striking green. Such a striking green. It's so fun.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's about seventy yards. You can hit
Speaker 1: so many varieties of shots. You can try and run
Speaker 1: it up. It's a terrifying when the when the green,
Speaker 1: When the pins on one of the two ridges on
Speaker 1: a two high plateaus, back right or back left, it's
Speaker 1: a terrifying shot. It's extremely hard to hit it up there. Again,
Speaker 1: you're hitting like a you know, like a soft wedge
Speaker 1: into a really firm and fast green, and that's like
Speaker 1: one of the it's just you you have to make decisions.
Speaker 1: You want to kind of bounce it up into there?
Speaker 1: Do you want to land it on top? It's just
Speaker 1: a really fun shot. And I think this is like
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this a lot. That's a green
Speaker 1: that's perfectly acceptable on a par three course. It's very similar.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's very similar to some greens that
Speaker 1: Walter Travis built.
Speaker 2: I agree, and that seth Rayner built, but but the
Speaker 2: style and the boldness and the sheer height of the
Speaker 2: platforms in the back kind of remind you of Walter
Speaker 2: Travis or Caparundle or wherever, or.
Speaker 1: Like country Club Troy, and like those greens, I don't
Speaker 1: think if it was a non par three course that
Speaker 1: like corn Krenshawk would build that green. And I just
Speaker 1: like wonder about like the state of golf architecture to
Speaker 1: where like that's unacceptable because it's like it's a perfectly
Speaker 1: legitimate shot and then if you're up there, you have
Speaker 1: like basically a flat putt and a really good look,
Speaker 1: but it rewards a great shot and like Walter Travis
Speaker 1: was putting these greens on long par fours. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: here we are like, it's only acceptable if it's a
Speaker 1: seventy r par three. So I don't think you would
Speaker 1: see that green anywhere on a dream golf resort property
Speaker 1: outside of like the Lido, which is a private club
Speaker 1: loosely associated. That type of green would not exist at
Speaker 1: a dream golf property unless it's par three course, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily great for golf architecture.
Speaker 2: I agree a couple of things about the green. A
Speaker 2: couple of things that Bill Corr has said about the
Speaker 2: green said, I think on this very podcast a few
Speaker 2: years ago when you went out to Sand Valley for
Speaker 2: the opening Sam he called it called them match boxes, Yes,
Speaker 2: which is just a delightful class Bill cor Ism.
Speaker 1: Two match boxes under the green.
Speaker 2: I need, you know, I need Bill Corr to be
Speaker 2: writing my material on these golf courses because he always
Speaker 2: has some analogy like that that he uses to describe
Speaker 2: the features that they're building, and I think that one
Speaker 2: is spot on. And then the other thing that he
Speaker 2: said about it is that you know, he wanted to
Speaker 2: build this kind of green for a long time. He
Speaker 2: and Jim Craig. Jim Craig shaped a lot of the
Speaker 2: greens at the Sandbox and was really one of the
Speaker 2: biggest architectural driving forces behind this course. He and Jim
Speaker 2: Craig had wanted to build a green like this for
Speaker 2: a while but had never really had an opportunity. And
Speaker 2: so to your point, I think the reason that they
Speaker 2: didn't have an opportunity previously to build a green like
Speaker 2: this is that they kind of weren't allowed to on
Speaker 2: a regulation course. But here they had the freedom to
Speaker 2: let their freak flag fly a little bit and you
Speaker 2: look at it and you're like, yeah, this could be
Speaker 2: on a short part four and it would be great, right,
Speaker 2: But somehow or another, we're too serious when it comes
Speaker 2: to regulation courses.
Speaker 1: That's what I don't get, is like just in general, right,
Speaker 1: like you heard like Gil Hands talk about how he
Speaker 1: felt liberated to build more bold greens at a Whoopie
Speaker 1: because it was you know, there wasn't stroke course. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't. And it's like, why why have we
Speaker 1: gotten to this this fair police? And especially if anything,
Speaker 1: I feel like society should be emboldened by the you know,
Speaker 1: golf architecture society and developers should be emboldened by the
Speaker 1: praise of Liedo because that is as severe as it gets.
Speaker 1: And and that kind of plays into my fourth hole.
Speaker 1: I'm going with the channel hole at Liedo. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you picked.
Speaker 2: I wrote down the channel hole. I think there are
Speaker 2: a number of good fourth holes last the resort, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, how can you not pick the channel hole
Speaker 2: here and tell people what the channel hole is? So like,
Speaker 2: this is a famous golf hole in the history of
Speaker 2: golf architecture, and.
Speaker 1: I think, like, honestly, like I was thinking about recently,
Speaker 1: I wrote something on Colorado Golf Club and I was
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about the familiarity of Corn Crunshaw designs.
Speaker 1: They use effectively adapted versions of the channel hole. You know,
Speaker 1: Wikipa has one Colorado Golf Club Colorado with the sixteen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sam Valley has a couple yeah, twelve as sand Valley
Speaker 1: would be a modified version of this channel hole or similar.
Speaker 1: So the whole idea about the channel hole. So it's
Speaker 1: a par five, it's reachable if you go to the right. Really,
Speaker 1: so there's two distinct angles of play a right side
Speaker 1: of the fairway, which is I think about thirty twenty
Speaker 1: five to thirty yards wide. It is the more aggressive play.
Speaker 1: It is surrounded by sand. If you play to the left,
Speaker 1: it's a wider landing area, but a longer shot ind
Speaker 1: so you're you're kind of conceding for most hitters that
Speaker 1: it's going to be a three shot hole. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a.
Speaker 2: Long carry to the right. To the aggressive fair.
Speaker 1: There's a longer carry and it's a more narrow landing area.
Speaker 1: Water runs along the left side and then cuts in front.
Speaker 1: So if you had a bad t shot and you
Speaker 1: find one of the many the copious amounts of waste area,
Speaker 1: then carrying the water on your neck shot becomes a
Speaker 1: very big chore. So the penalty specifically for going to
Speaker 1: the right if you miss the fairway is you're gonna
Speaker 1: probably you'll end up in waste area, and then it's
Speaker 1: a questionable situation as to whether you get over the water,
Speaker 1: which is a huge, huge advantage because that's the difference
Speaker 1: between a long iron into a par five or a
Speaker 1: wedge into a par five.
Speaker 2: And you shouldn't try to get over the water if
Speaker 2: you miss the fairway on this hole. Well, it depends
Speaker 2: on speak from experience that on that one.
Speaker 1: You get a lot of like ROPI lies because it's waste.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like being in beach sand
Speaker 1: and you can end up in a footprint, could be
Speaker 1: being native. So anyways, then you know that, so you're
Speaker 1: severely advantaged. You're greatly advantaged going right, and then it
Speaker 1: becomes like maybe a reachable hole. The hole the green
Speaker 1: is fronted by a very deep bunker. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a great hole.
Speaker 2: It is a great hole. It's a harsh hole, you.
Speaker 1: Know, so welcome Toledo.
Speaker 2: Right in certain wind conditions, it's going to be a
Speaker 2: tough one for a lot of golfers.
Speaker 1: I played it into the wind, and I I hit
Speaker 1: as good of a drive I was playing the white
Speaker 1: teas in tom Doaks. Event I hit as good of
Speaker 1: a drive and as good of a three wood as
Speaker 1: I could get hit, and I got there. But like
Speaker 1: that was like five hundred yards and I mean I
Speaker 1: absolutely hammered both of them and you went you went
Speaker 1: down the right side, down the right side. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, so if you're playing it into the wind,
Speaker 1: it is it is brutal.
Speaker 2: It's a beast and yeah, I mean I've made something
Speaker 2: like a twelve on this hole, but I don't hold
Speaker 2: that against the hole. It was my own fault. But
Speaker 2: there is an aspect to this hole that is really
Speaker 2: kind of penal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The drive is definitely classically strategic, even if you just
Speaker 2: choose to go to the left, or if you can
Speaker 2: only play to the left. The fairway is on a
Speaker 2: diagonal and you can kind of choose how much of
Speaker 2: it to bite off. But then from there it's a
Speaker 2: steeplechase hole. Right, you have to hit over a big
Speaker 2: water hazard and then you have to hit up onto
Speaker 2: a high barricaded green and so there's something that's very
Speaker 2: kind of old fashioned about the hole. You don't see
Speaker 2: holes being built like this in Yeah, you didn't see
Speaker 2: many holes like it in the nineteen twenties being built.
Speaker 2: There are forced carries, and if you get off the
Speaker 2: garden path on this hole, you're in really big trouble
Speaker 2: and probably the best play is usually just to kind
Speaker 2: of chip out and sort of start over. And so
Speaker 2: it's a it's a very harsh hole, but obviously extremely
Speaker 2: impressive and memorable. And you can just imagine that the
Speaker 2: original Lido this being right there on the channel. I mean,
Speaker 2: kind of a spectacular act of golf architecture, very daring.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, whole five. What do you got?
Speaker 2: I chose Sedge Valley.
Speaker 1: I have that too.
Speaker 2: I think this is a it's a ridge to ridge
Speaker 2: par three. It's the beginning of a stretch at Sedge
Speaker 2: Valley of some holes that are in really interesting kind
Speaker 2: of severe land. Maybe not severe, might not be the
Speaker 2: right term for it, but it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: features back there in this portion of the property are
Speaker 2: sort of small. They accommodate small holes, and so you've
Speaker 2: got four small holes in a row a part three,
Speaker 2: a short part four, followed by two more Part.
Speaker 1: Three, and then a short part four right after that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it would be, you know, a kind of almost
Speaker 1: five a stretch of five holes that are sub three twenty.
Speaker 2: And it's a magical piece of property. I really love it. Obviously.
Speaker 2: One of the points of Dok's routing is that it
Speaker 2: gets you to this property and lets you sort of
Speaker 2: explore it, and so these holes are really fun.
Speaker 1: It kicks off this stretch of holes that just flies by,
Speaker 1: and all of them are shorter holes that are so
Speaker 1: different from the other.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you can see that they put a
Speaker 2: lot of work into making these holes distinct from each other,
Speaker 2: because if you have like so many short holes and
Speaker 2: so many par three's all in a row, then one
Speaker 2: of the dangers potentially is that the holes kind of
Speaker 2: blend together. But they definitely don't do that. They're very
Speaker 2: distinct in their concepts and their green contours and everything
Speaker 2: like that. This green, in particular on the fifth hole
Speaker 2: is super memorable. It's kind of a boomerang shape reverse
Speaker 2: boomerang in relation to the tee, and it's got these
Speaker 2: platforms on the left and the right and a lower
Speaker 2: section in the middle, and some really artistically presented bunkers
Speaker 2: around that kind of remind me of like McKenzie bunkers,
Speaker 2: the way that Alistair mackenzie would bunker a green that's
Speaker 2: set into a hillside like this one. It reminded me
Speaker 2: of that. And one thing that I heard about it
Speaker 2: is that Tom Doak himself actually shaped a lot of
Speaker 2: this green complex. That's what I heard from one of
Speaker 2: the employees at the Sand Valley Resort on the agronomy team,
Speaker 2: that he kind of disappeared for a few days and
Speaker 2: just went to work on this green and it's it's
Speaker 2: quite something. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What I love about the green too, just from
Speaker 1: the par three standpoint, it's a short par three that
Speaker 1: can play really easy when the holes in the front
Speaker 1: middle bowl, and then if you put it on either
Speaker 1: the back right wing or the back left wing, it
Speaker 1: becomes very challenging. And I just love the ability to
Speaker 1: kind of have a hole that is really malleable where
Speaker 1: it could play, you know, a short par three that
Speaker 1: could play two point seventy five or three point twenty
Speaker 1: five on a given day, right, like where you have
Speaker 1: that big swing by moving the hole, you know, fifteen
Speaker 1: feet left or right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the way to introduce variety into a into
Speaker 2: a par three strategy, and and some motivation to play
Speaker 2: the course multiple times. All right, whole six, hule six,
Speaker 2: What do you have for whole sex.
Speaker 1: I've got Mammoth. It is the famous boomerang green.
Speaker 2: So another Boomerang green two sort of Yeah, I come
Speaker 2: to think they're flipped. Yeah, so, because yeah, exactly if
Speaker 2: you'd like turned the boomerang almost one hundred and eighty degrees,
Speaker 2: then you have kind of the the green at Mammoth.
Speaker 1: I picked this. It's just a fun hole. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think like you get up to it and no
Speaker 1: matter what, you're like setting sights on the draw on
Speaker 1: the on the green, and you want to get that
Speaker 1: ball rolling into the boomerang. Right. The other thing I
Speaker 1: love is if you don't hit the green, then it's
Speaker 1: like you're you your mind becomes an imagination, become really
Speaker 1: activated about how you can hit it close. And it's
Speaker 1: not necessarcessarily a direct path. Like you start thinking about
Speaker 1: the different ways that you can use this green to
Speaker 1: get different places. And for this golf course, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there are a lot of greens that
Speaker 1: bowl this one, probably.
Speaker 2: One definitely does.
Speaker 1: This one bowls pretty creatively, and I think that's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to get it into my routing. I think
Speaker 1: the sixth hole you could go with so many, there's
Speaker 1: so many great six holes, but I wanted to throw
Speaker 1: this one in there and kind of just highlight the
Speaker 1: creativity of this of this green at Mammoth.
Speaker 2: I chose the same one. You know. I think that
Speaker 2: the sixth hole at Sedge Valley ultimately is probably between
Speaker 2: the two short part fours that land on number six
Speaker 2: at the resort, the one it said is the one
Speaker 2: I prefer, but I also, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: there are a lot of good holes at Mammoth, and
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that it's that it's in
Speaker 2: this routing. It just has some tough competition. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, part of what I like about the sixth
Speaker 2: hole at Mammoth Dunes is that you can if you
Speaker 2: go at the green. If you make the decision to
Speaker 2: try to go at the green, then you can get
Speaker 2: into some trouble along the right side of the wall.
Speaker 2: If you push it a little bit, you can get
Speaker 2: into some really bad spots where you can't see the
Speaker 2: green on your approach, and you could be in some
Speaker 2: pretty nasty hazards. And so that choice has some stakes
Speaker 2: to it. If you choose to play aggressively, then you've
Speaker 2: got to execute. But there's the option to play out
Speaker 2: to the left to a big expanse of fairway. Now
Speaker 2: this fairway isn't necessarily totally visible from the tee, so
Speaker 2: you kind of have to know the course in order
Speaker 2: to do it, and I like that right in order
Speaker 2: to you know, bail out, you have to know the
Speaker 2: course a little bit and trust your line. And so
Speaker 2: I like that this hole the different choices have different
Speaker 2: complexities to them, and so it's a it's a good hole,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: Number seven I got Sand Valley. It's the par five,
Speaker 1: first par five on my routing, and I think it's
Speaker 1: just a it's a spectacular hole you've got. You're kind
Speaker 1: of like playing through two big dunes and you have
Speaker 1: a tremendous center line hazard, and then I just love
Speaker 1: how this big sweeping hole plays down to this little
Speaker 1: green tucked into sand dunes.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful green site.
Speaker 1: It's so good and it's just an amazing hole. You
Speaker 1: kind of don't know where you're going, and then you
Speaker 1: cut crust the hill and obviously you have this spectacular
Speaker 1: center line bunker. You crust the hill and you're kind
Speaker 1: of looking down at this little green and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're trying to go for it into
Speaker 1: You're like, you're looking at it as like I got
Speaker 1: to hit it on this tiny little green. And it
Speaker 1: kind of shares that with the next hole or two
Speaker 1: holes later, the ninth hole, where they have these just
Speaker 1: these beautiful little greens tucked into these tiny pockets and
Speaker 1: everything narrows up as you get near it.
Speaker 2: This is one of my favorite part fives in the world.
Speaker 2: I definitely chose it to I think this is the
Speaker 2: obvious choice here. Seven at Sandbox is one of my
Speaker 2: favorite holes at that course too, but it doesn't really
Speaker 2: compete with seven at sand Valley. This is a great,
Speaker 2: great par five. One feature of it that I love
Speaker 2: is how after a good drive, if you cut off
Speaker 2: some of that big bunker, that big waste area that
Speaker 2: you see off the tee, then you have a couple
Speaker 2: of choices. There's a fairway that kind of sits over
Speaker 2: a hill on the left, but you can't see it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to trust it, and then there's a more
Speaker 2: visible fairway to the right. If you hit out to
Speaker 2: the right, then your angle into the green is substantially worse.
Speaker 2: It's actually really tricky because the green is pushed up
Speaker 2: surrounded by hazards and it's not angled in that direction,
Speaker 2: and so you have to be very precise with your
Speaker 2: approach from there. If you go to the left to
Speaker 2: the blind fairway and you manage to find the fairway
Speaker 2: over there, then you have a much easier approach and
Speaker 2: the potential to kind of kick more towards the green.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I think I think it just works
Speaker 2: really well strategically. So yeah, love seven and that green
Speaker 2: side is just it's it's so beautiful. It's like back
Speaker 2: in its own little valley, and you don't see that
Speaker 2: valley until you kind of walk up on it, and
Speaker 2: so it's like you're discovering something. And I always like
Speaker 2: that with a hole, where you know, where you start
Speaker 2: is nothing like where you end up.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about Sand Valley. As we moved to eight,
Speaker 1: this was always going to be a par three.
Speaker 2: Okay, every day, every hole is a par three.
Speaker 1: Every eighth hole is a par three.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: So which part three did you choose?
Speaker 2: I chose the eighth that Mammoth Dunes. Yeah, the main
Speaker 2: part of the hole that I like, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful, striking hole, Like it's it's one of those
Speaker 2: picture postcard holes at Mammoth Dune's kind of an island
Speaker 2: green surrounded by I really nicely sculpted sand hazards and
Speaker 2: downhill and there's a big view in the back, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's got all the aspects of a
Speaker 2: of a hole that the routing was kind of building towards. Right,
Speaker 2: That's why we're out here on this part of the
Speaker 2: property is to kind of get to this vista and
Speaker 2: then after that you turn in and you go somewhere
Speaker 2: else to kind of find another spectacular portion of.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's like if you're on a hike
Speaker 1: and you get to a spot and then you turn away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the location. Yeah yeah, so uh yeah,
Speaker 2: there's there's that part of it that can't be ignored.
Speaker 2: You've talked about this before. There are two very different
Speaker 2: teas on this hole, right.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's just like basically what I love
Speaker 1: about this hole is the tea box, yeah, which nobody,
Speaker 1: like nobody ever talks about tea.
Speaker 2: The tea boxes. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's just like the tea moves forward into the
Speaker 1: left and it's all fairway pretty much. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: all connected. So what happens is you move forward into
Speaker 1: the left, it's an island green. It's like a very
Speaker 1: pure island green. From the back back tee box, which
Speaker 1: is the furthest right, it's all I think it's about
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety yards. I didn't look up the yardage,
Speaker 1: but you know, if I'm wrong, you can tell me.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred and ninety yards too, so it's a
Speaker 1: it's a challenging shot. The left side will funnel it
Speaker 1: in a little bit, but you have to hit a
Speaker 1: good iron shot. As you move forward and to the left,
Speaker 1: the aspect of island green becomes less and less, and
Speaker 1: really that's for it accommodates lower and lower trajectories, and
Speaker 1: when you get to the very forward tee you can
Speaker 1: run the ball in and the contours allow for a
Speaker 1: run a shot run in through a pretty narrow strip
Speaker 1: of faraway which really rewards a precise running shot, and
Speaker 1: it'll funnel it right into the every whole location. So
Speaker 1: I just love the tea boxes here. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a very creative way. I think like one of
Speaker 1: the things about short par threes in general and par
Speaker 1: three's in general, is that they do really favor high
Speaker 1: ball hitting players, and I think this is a great
Speaker 1: example of a hole that blends playability into it and
Speaker 1: really can appeal to all players if they're playing the
Speaker 1: right t boxes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point because a lot of short
Speaker 2: par threes have these small, little pushed.
Speaker 1: Up greens which you can't get to if you're unless
Speaker 1: you can really hit a ball high with spin.
Speaker 2: And this is something that I like so much about
Speaker 2: the sandbox, by the way, that it's full of really
Speaker 2: short par threes, but you can play all of them
Speaker 2: pretty much along the ground. There's none that are sort
Speaker 2: of discriminatory towards players who hit the ball like eighty
Speaker 2: yards and don't get it much more than a few
Speaker 2: feet off the ground. And so, yeah, I think that's
Speaker 2: a great point. And yeah, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: Part three's, you know, sometimes courses don't have the space
Speaker 2: to do what David Kidd did with this Part three,
Speaker 2: But I wish I saw more par threes with like
Speaker 2: radically different tea boxes. It's just such a great way
Speaker 2: to make something that's genuinely challenging for an expert player
Speaker 2: who might be playing the blue tea's or whatever, and
Speaker 2: accommodating for somebody who's up with the red teas. You
Speaker 2: know that that's I think that's a smart, obvious thing
Speaker 2: to do that you don't see done that often. All right,
Speaker 2: nine nine, I think it went the same direction with
Speaker 2: this short sol on property. Speaking of par three's that
Speaker 2: you can put.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is just a giant, giant green
Speaker 1: with a big it's almost like, yeah, ninth old sandbox,
Speaker 1: huge massive green with just a big kitchen sink effectively
Speaker 1: a drain in the middle. Yeah, that that really bathtub.
Speaker 1: I mean this hole, I've played it like dozens of times.
Speaker 1: I think I made one time on it, Like I
Speaker 1: think I've sayed it.
Speaker 2: You can make five on this, yes, and so easily.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like twenty yards long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so short, and it's amazing. It's just an
Speaker 1: amazing green. I mean, so it's got this like extremely
Speaker 1: deep depression. You could call it a big punch bowl,
Speaker 1: but it's got this like effectively just drain that catches everything.
Speaker 1: If you don't hit a great putt, chip, pitch, flop shot,
Speaker 1: whatever you choose to play, the balls ending up in
Speaker 1: this drain and from there it's like an extremely hard
Speaker 1: two put So it makes this like twenty yard hole,
Speaker 1: Like it's a hard twenty yard hole. It's an amazing green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's incredible. It's a masterpiece of a green.
Speaker 2: You have to see it. You can you can only
Speaker 2: really understand it and conceptualize it if you see it
Speaker 2: and he walked that green and you see everything that's
Speaker 2: going on there. It is truly a lot of fun. Also,
Speaker 2: want to shout out a number of other really good
Speaker 2: ninth moments are good. Yeah, I love the ninth hole
Speaker 2: at Mammoth. I think that's one of the best holes
Speaker 2: on the course. It's a beautiful part four that has
Speaker 2: a really cool strategic design.
Speaker 1: And it's just a great part of the property. Like
Speaker 1: that's so lovely, so quiet. Yes, you have like you
Speaker 1: are so far away and you're over that ridge and
Speaker 1: it's just I've been out there just from shooting. Like
Speaker 1: out there, especially back in the day when drones didn't
Speaker 1: have the range they have now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to you have to walk away run.
Speaker 1: It would be like out there with the sun going down.
Speaker 1: I remember being out there one really late fall day
Speaker 1: and it was super crisp. Nobody was out there was
Speaker 1: probably like thirty eight degrees and it was just an
Speaker 1: epic place to watch the sun go down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very beautiful. And then the ninth hole at Sand Valley,
Speaker 2: the short part four that you mentioned earlier is a
Speaker 2: really excellent hole too.
Speaker 1: But nine Alto is gonna be is a really cool
Speaker 1: short part for it or not nine at Sedge.
Speaker 2: At such absolutely yeaheah, Yeah, I only saw that whole
Speaker 2: kind of shaped in the dirt. So so I'm not
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have all that nine at.
Speaker 1: Sedge is awesome. It just it's a short for it's
Speaker 1: really a The smart play is to hit like a
Speaker 1: a an iron or something short off the tee and
Speaker 1: then the green pitches away super severely. I love wedg
Speaker 1: shots into greens that run away, yeah, because it's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't hit a perfect wedge, you're gonna end
Speaker 1: up thirty feet away. It really like wedge shots into
Speaker 1: greens that run away magnify great shots from good shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's all about spin control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, trajectory spin control every like hitting the right shot,
Speaker 1: Like you know when when a green runs away with
Speaker 1: a wedge, you have to hit the right shot, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is very rare with a wedge in hand.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I like that point because the spin on a
Speaker 2: way varies so much more widely than spin on other
Speaker 2: kinds of shots because of the different types of swings
Speaker 2: that you put on a wedg just not just a
Speaker 2: full swing every time, and so it can range from
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Speaker 2: slash golf. And let's get back to the episode, all right,
Speaker 2: onto the nine. Yeah, what did you choose for ten?
Speaker 1: I'm curious, I would I don't think it's really much
Speaker 1: of a question. In my mind, it's the Alps hole.
Speaker 1: I think this hole, like you think about like the
Speaker 1: greatest Alps hole in the world. And most people would
Speaker 1: go to National Golf Links of America, which is the
Speaker 1: fourth hole at National Golf Links, and I think this
Speaker 1: is the one that rivals it. It is a spectacular shot.
Speaker 1: You can play right off the tee, which you want
Speaker 1: to do, but you have to contend with a series
Speaker 1: of bunkers that you can't really see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't see them, Yeah, actively cannot.
Speaker 1: And if you get it up the right, you have
Speaker 1: a you'll get a view of every I played a far,
Speaker 1: far left pin and I got it up there and
Speaker 1: I had a view of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you hit it long enough, you have to
Speaker 2: you have to get it out there a ways in
Speaker 2: order to see the green around around the big Alps
Speaker 2: feature of the hill.
Speaker 1: If you hit a safe shot, you will not see anything.
Speaker 1: It is a massive, massive hill that will impede your
Speaker 1: view of this green. That's really fun. It's got backstops
Speaker 1: and everything. It is a spectacular golf hole. Spectacular.
Speaker 2: It is probably the best tenth hole at the resort.
Speaker 2: You say, there's no doubt about it, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: but but I was looking for balance in my dream
Speaker 2: eighteenth and I have something coming up.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of lido coming on the back exactly.
Speaker 2: I have some representation coming up from the lido very
Speaker 2: very soon. So I ended up going with the tenth
Speaker 2: hole at Sand Valley Good, which is a par five.
Speaker 2: This is a kind of classic corn Crenshaw par five.
Speaker 2: There is some kind of template or habit here that
Speaker 2: corn Crenshaw use on their par fives. It's got a
Speaker 2: center line bunker. You know, it reminds me a little
Speaker 2: bit of like the third hole at Bandoned Trails or
Speaker 2: something like that, where you've got a mid length par five,
Speaker 2: you know, mid five hundreds or so, maybe up to
Speaker 2: six hundred from the back tee, and you know, maybe
Speaker 2: some longer players can reach the green from the tee,
Speaker 2: but it's really all about like how close can you
Speaker 2: get to the center line of this hole, because they're
Speaker 2: just hazards all the way up the center line of
Speaker 2: the hole. And here, basically you have a choice between
Speaker 2: a low left fairway and a high right fairway and
Speaker 2: then from there you play into this green. And this
Speaker 2: is what really makes the hole for me, how beautifully
Speaker 2: sighted there, Like it's just you walk around there and
Speaker 2: you're like, this is this is the most beautiful part
Speaker 2: of this property. Weirdly enough, even though it's like not
Speaker 2: spectacular or anything, it's just kind of pressed into this
Speaker 2: little knoll where there are a couple of greens and
Speaker 2: a couple of teas clustered, and.
Speaker 1: There's some pretty trees too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some like old dead trees, like sort of craggy
Speaker 2: and gnarly, and it's just there's something about that green
Speaker 2: site that's just so well executed, the shaping that they
Speaker 2: did that.
Speaker 1: Back too from it when you're because it's just comes
Speaker 1: down that hill and it's it's it's a massive hole, right.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to claim that it's like the
Speaker 2: same level of strategic design as Tenant Leedo, Like clearly
Speaker 2: in that sense that hole is is superior. But the
Speaker 2: tenth hole at Sand Valley is just one of those
Speaker 2: holes where you kind of look around for a second
Speaker 2: and you realize this is incredibly spectacular golfing terrain that
Speaker 2: this course occupies, and you almost start underrating that as
Speaker 2: you play the course because you get used to it.
Speaker 2: But it's so beautiful back there and it's sandy and wonderful.
Speaker 1: You're making concessions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got we've got some visitors outside the shed
Speaker 2: right now, this is part of the magic of the shed.
Speaker 2: Cameron Hurd has just poked his head up there. He
Speaker 2: wants to be on the podcast. He wants to be
Speaker 2: an influencer. He can open the door. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 2: just chilling all.
Speaker 1: Right, eleven, I what do you have? Do we have
Speaker 1: the same? Do we have?
Speaker 2: I'm doing?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: This is where this is where I'm going to start
Speaker 2: a mini run of Lido. This green is just like
Speaker 2: a work of genius I have, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: even know how to describe it. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: like maybe we should talk about the rest of the
Speaker 2: whole too, but I just go straight to the green.
Speaker 2: It's got like these speed bumps in it. It's got
Speaker 2: a little speed bump in front of the green, and
Speaker 2: it's got a speed bump kind of midway or towards
Speaker 2: the back.
Speaker 1: The backpin is terrifying, And it's another green where you're
Speaker 1: hitting a wedge in where if you want to get
Speaker 1: to the backpin, you have to hit an absolutely perfect wedge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you're in most people are going to end
Speaker 1: up short with a backpin because there's water and a
Speaker 1: deep bunker behind that you know.
Speaker 2: That run off behind into the water. So if you're
Speaker 2: a little bit long, you're you're running off into the water.
Speaker 1: So you know long's dead. So you end up pulling
Speaker 1: up and you end up five yards short. Well, there's
Speaker 1: like a big ridge that brings your ball back and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you have to deal with
Speaker 1: this delicate up and over putt to the and it
Speaker 1: becomes then, oh, this is a hard two putt for
Speaker 1: me to get out of here with the part, even
Speaker 1: though I hit a really good wed shot into this
Speaker 1: par four. And then the front pin's so fun because
Speaker 1: you got kind of like a backstop and it's just
Speaker 1: like the malleability of the way this hole. And then
Speaker 1: if you move the pin over way over right, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a shallow, wide green, which I think
Speaker 1: works really well for a shortish part. Four.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, everything about this green is so creative and
Speaker 2: cool and it's pretty simple. Right, you've got and when
Speaker 2: I say speed bump, I mean literally imagine a speed
Speaker 2: bump on a road. That's what this green has running
Speaker 2: through kind of its middle back section perpendicular to the
Speaker 2: line of play. Right, and then there's a little role
Speaker 2: in the middle, and so it forms kind of like
Speaker 2: a T, right, a t of raised contours and it
Speaker 2: just defines these different sections of the green. As you say,
Speaker 2: the different portions of this green play really differently and
Speaker 2: kind of like you know, ask interesting questions for each
Speaker 2: you know, area of the green that the pen might be.
Speaker 2: So it's it's just a really cool one, all right
Speaker 2: for eleven No. Twelve twel Yeah, I'm staying at Alito.
Speaker 1: You're going with the punch bowl.
Speaker 2: It's the punch bowl. You don't even know it's a
Speaker 2: punch bowl until you get to the green.
Speaker 1: Then, well, a keen player, and this is why I
Speaker 1: hate big flags. I think that big flags, giant flags
Speaker 1: for punch bowl green should be eradicated from golf. Your
Speaker 1: big flag hitter, I am because keen players, smart players,
Speaker 1: wise golfers, which golf should always be rewarding people who
Speaker 1: are paying attention. After you play, when you play four,
Speaker 1: you could poke your head over there and see where
Speaker 1: the pin is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean something about the routing of the lido
Speaker 2: is that that's the first on each nine.
Speaker 1: You know what they didn't have in nineteen twenty big flags.
Speaker 1: They have big flags for punch ball.
Speaker 2: Did they have poles that mark the that mark where
Speaker 2: the green is.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know they built big things back then too.
Speaker 1: You know this big flags need to go. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: that's my number one complain. Stop with the big flags.
Speaker 1: Everything gets docked, honestly docked presentation because of the big,
Speaker 1: big flag. Any any golf course with big flags unless
Speaker 1: like I kind of get busy public course, I kind
Speaker 1: of get that. But if you're a club, you should
Speaker 1: be rewarding your your members who are paying attention, and
Speaker 1: they should have a huge advantage when they bring guests
Speaker 1: out as to like, oh, like, I'm like A good
Speaker 1: example would be the country club, right they have they
Speaker 1: have big flags in there, and it's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: could I could just poke my head over and look
Speaker 1: and see when I'm playing another hole and see where
Speaker 1: the hole is, and then you know, I know to
Speaker 1: look there. We need to be rewarding people.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, for for course knowledge and for being observant
Speaker 2: while they're playing. And you know, the two things I
Speaker 2: think that listeners know about the eleventh hole or the
Speaker 2: twelfth hole at the leader of this flag is that
Speaker 2: it has a big flag and then it's a punch bowl.
Speaker 2: But maybe I should tell them a couple of more
Speaker 2: things about the hole. One is that the drive is
Speaker 2: pretty spectacular. It's a diagonal drive across a water hazard,
Speaker 2: so bite off is as much as you can chew.
Speaker 1: Can I can? I say? It kind of feels like
Speaker 1: you're playing in Florida when you get on that too.
Speaker 1: So you don't like this hole, I'm fine with it.
Speaker 2: You're a hater.
Speaker 1: I like. I like the fairway feature in it that
Speaker 1: gives it like a kick if you play aggressively. There's
Speaker 1: like a speed slot to your gaining. Yeah, you're gaining
Speaker 1: yardage by playing on the diagonal, and then you're also
Speaker 1: getting a beneficial kick. So you can get down to
Speaker 1: where I had like a wedge into the screen.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, I had like a four iron. But
Speaker 2: this is the difference between my game and yours. But
Speaker 2: even the four iron was all right. It was a
Speaker 2: nerve racking shot. But if you get it up there,
Speaker 2: it will gather in. The Thing about this green that
Speaker 2: I think is cool and we can move on to
Speaker 2: your twelfth hole after this is that it's a combination
Speaker 2: of as the big flag first of all. Second of
Speaker 2: all is that it's a combination volcano punch bowl. Right,
Speaker 2: it's a big built up volcano looking thing, but it's
Speaker 2: actually a punch bowl. And I just like that contrast.
Speaker 2: So what's your twelfth hole? What'd you do?
Speaker 1: I got Sedge Valley. You probably didn't see.
Speaker 2: I didn't play this whole. Yeah, this hole was one
Speaker 2: of the ones that was not grassed when I was
Speaker 2: out there, and maybe not even shaped at that point.
Speaker 1: It's an epic green. So it's two hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five yards. It would be for the most part of
Speaker 1: Part three most places, but it's part four. You know,
Speaker 1: it's friendly. Uh, there's a ton of you don't really
Speaker 1: see fairway left, but there's tons of fairway over to
Speaker 1: the left for people to play over there. From there
Speaker 1: you have a really weird So the shot of the
Speaker 1: green's very long and narrow, and it's got a lot
Speaker 1: of slope and undulation, and there's a built up feature
Speaker 1: on the left that it kind of so if you're
Speaker 1: going at the green from the tee, that that feature
Speaker 1: is going to funnel your ball into the green. If
Speaker 1: you're if you play left off the tee, that feature
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, then you have to really contend
Speaker 1: with because the green's narrow and you're gonna hit a
Speaker 1: shot in there that if you catch the backside of
Speaker 1: that slope, if you catch the slope of it, that's
Speaker 1: that's corralling your ball off the t. If you catch
Speaker 1: that slope on your second second shot from the left,
Speaker 1: it's gonna shoot the ball probably into the bunker over
Speaker 1: the green right. So there's it's just this short par four.
Speaker 1: You know, it's reachable for everybody pretty much if you're
Speaker 1: playing the proper tea box. I imagine that like the
Speaker 1: middle t would be two hundred and thirty yards. So
Speaker 1: if you play left, then you have to deal with
Speaker 1: this slope. That helps you when you go for the
Speaker 1: green off the tee and this narrow, really undulated green.
Speaker 1: It's just a neat hole, and it's just something like
Speaker 1: it's an example of like somebody might say, you know what,
Speaker 1: that green's too much if it's a par three and
Speaker 1: it's two hundred and seventy five yards, but it being
Speaker 1: a par four makes it acceptable.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that sounds cool.
Speaker 1: And also it's just beautiful, like the green's up on
Speaker 1: this ridge. It's just like you get there and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: Like it's a striking hole as well.
Speaker 2: I could have chosen twelve at Sand Valley two. If
Speaker 2: I were to go back and edit my dream eighteen,
Speaker 2: I might have switched that with ten at at Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: I could have gone with either of those holes. And
Speaker 2: you move some things around move Yeah, well, let's dock
Speaker 2: it for the big flag, you know, like, screw the
Speaker 2: big flag. What are we doing here? I still like
Speaker 2: the twelfth hole of Aledo, but I might like the
Speaker 2: god I like the thirteen. There's there's a there's a
Speaker 2: lot of really good holes of Aledo, so you can
Speaker 2: you can't really go wrong with thirteen. I was just
Speaker 2: thinking about this. I chose Mammoth Dunes.
Speaker 1: I did too.
Speaker 2: It's another really pretty par three and it's it's sort
Speaker 2: of a hit it or else over a huge sandy valley,
Speaker 2: and it's just really memorable and nerve racking.
Speaker 1: Maybe the most consequential shot at Mammoth Valley or Mammoth
Speaker 1: Dune or Mammoth Dunes, which is probably why I like
Speaker 1: it. It's yeah, the one I feel like, the one time
Speaker 1: you stand one of the few times you stand on
Speaker 1: the tee and you're like, I really have to hit
Speaker 1: this shit.
Speaker 2: You're nervous because if you miss the screen left or
Speaker 2: short then or long or long, yeah, because it kind
Speaker 2: of wraps around.
Speaker 1: That back area. Terrible spot.
Speaker 2: It's a nerve wracking swing. And you know something that
Speaker 2: David Kidd says a lot that I find interesting and
Speaker 2: that part of me wants to disagree with, but I
Speaker 2: hear where he's coming from, is that in this phase
Speaker 2: of his design career, one of his big goals is
Speaker 2: to give players confidence, to make them feel as though
Speaker 2: they can swing freely. And that's why players feel so
Speaker 2: happy on his courses and feel so great after the
Speaker 2: rounds because they've had this kind of high of being
Speaker 2: able to play golf as they have always imagined they
Speaker 2: could play it or should be able to play it,
Speaker 2: and the design gives them that power, which is sort
Speaker 2: of an impressive thing to be able to do with design,
Speaker 2: or a goal that seems admirable. But this hole sticks
Speaker 2: out at Mammoth Dunes because you're nervous and you know
Speaker 2: that if you make a bad swing that you're going
Speaker 2: to pay for it. And it's also just a pretty hole.
Speaker 2: It's I mean we can just say that like it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He also does the same thing with the t boxes.
Speaker 1: They move to the right, the forward into the right,
Speaker 1: and as they move forward into the right, the green
Speaker 1: gets deeper. So that's another aspect of the friendly nature,
Speaker 1: which is I think a really brilliant thing with this
Speaker 1: short par three that's got to force carry is that
Speaker 1: it gives more space as you move up into the
Speaker 1: right four players that might not be able to spin
Speaker 1: the ball on this firm and fast turf.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to fourteen.
Speaker 1: What do you have fourteen, I've got the sandbox, which
Speaker 1: is the semi blind par three. I just I'm just
Speaker 1: going to say it. I love blind shots. I am.
Speaker 1: If you don't like blind shots me and your golf taste,
Speaker 1: don't go to get take.
Speaker 2: Your big flags and get out of here.
Speaker 1: Yeah there's you know, there's not a big flag.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't have made the list if it had a
Speaker 2: big flag.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have a big flag and it's pretty much blind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so why why don't they put a big flag in
Speaker 1: when it's over on the right side. See, this is
Speaker 1: another example of of curtailing to the to the regulation game,
Speaker 1: like where regulation game. You know, on the on the
Speaker 1: par three course, we're able to do things we're not
Speaker 1: able to do on regulation course.
Speaker 2: If people were entering this round on their on their
Speaker 2: gin apps, then is that how you pronounce it gin
Speaker 2: or gin? You know?
Speaker 1: Friend of the pod and mate told me exactly how
Speaker 1: you pronounce it, and I forgot. He made a point
Speaker 1: to tell me how I forgot it recently?
Speaker 2: Is it complicated?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I now I have the side. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just gonna abstain from saying from now on.
Speaker 2: G hi N. So nobody's recording the score for their handicaps,
Speaker 2: and so they don't care if there's a big flag
Speaker 2: or not. Yeah, I mean, and I think this hole
Speaker 2: can be non blind if they put the flag on
Speaker 2: the left side of the green. I haven't seen the
Speaker 2: flag there.
Speaker 1: I've played it.
Speaker 2: But there's a big kind of knoll that guards the
Speaker 2: front right portion of this green. And it's built right,
Speaker 2: it's constructed. It's basically there was nothing on this land
Speaker 2: and so they had to push around a lot of
Speaker 2: soil to make the features on this course, and it's
Speaker 2: just a beautifully shaped knoll. Like I know, that's a
Speaker 2: weird thing to say. But I just really like how
Speaker 2: it looks. And then you get onto the green and
Speaker 2: you realize that it's pretty big. You basically can't see
Speaker 2: any of it from the tee and you get back
Speaker 2: there and there's like a lot of room and some
Speaker 2: interesting undulation and a pretty sharp runoff in the back.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's severe. Yeah, you don't want to miss,
Speaker 1: and you can't shoot it with your yardage gun. That's
Speaker 1: the other thing, because there's no big flag.
Speaker 2: It's just a cool This is a cool fun hole
Speaker 2: that that is very different from really anything you would
Speaker 2: find on a regulation course.
Speaker 1: All right, let's is that yours?
Speaker 2: That's mine too? Yeah, I mean I think as with
Speaker 2: most of the holes here, Like you know, fourteen is
Speaker 2: a is a pretty strong one at Sand Valley. I
Speaker 2: think that one takes it though, so I.
Speaker 1: Would fourteen at I like fourteen a lot of places.
Speaker 1: I like it Atledo too, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of fourteen. So fifteen is in the same bucket. Fifteen
Speaker 1: at at Liedo could be it, but I went with
Speaker 1: fifteen at Sand Valley. What about you?
Speaker 2: What is fifteen at Ledo? Remind me strategy? Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: that hole is incredible. Yeah, there are so many different
Speaker 2: ways you can go. I wasn't even thinking of that
Speaker 2: hole because I just kind of put fifteen at Sand
Speaker 2: Valley on there because I know that I love that hole.
Speaker 2: It is a great hole. I mean, it's it's got
Speaker 2: kind of this. It runs through a very subtle portion
Speaker 2: of the valley that most of the back nine at
Speaker 2: Sand Valley runs through. It's kind of an out and
Speaker 2: back routing and the back nine at Sand Valley, and
Speaker 2: it's just a really beautiful location. And this is right
Speaker 2: in the middle of it, and the whole kind of
Speaker 2: moves to the left, and if you bail out to
Speaker 2: the right, then you have a longer approach. If you
Speaker 2: challenge the stuff on the left, you have a shorter approach.
Speaker 2: And then there are these lovely little mounds in front
Speaker 2: of the green.
Speaker 1: I think Bill Corer another Bill cour Ism, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I think he referred to that as a hot dog
Speaker 1: bun in front of the green a hot dog bun.
Speaker 1: So you got the two sides of the hot dog
Speaker 1: bun in a valley through the middle that you can
Speaker 1: play through. If you're in the right spot, you could
Speaker 1: play right through the middle of it.
Speaker 2: Along the hot dog. Yeah, Bill cor never change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what he referred to it as
Speaker 1: a hot dog. And I can't remember who's in private
Speaker 1: or on a pod, but he called that a hot
Speaker 1: dog bun in front.
Speaker 2: And they're just they're just super fun. I mean, you
Speaker 2: don't see many greens where what guards the front of
Speaker 2: the green are these vertical features covered by short crass.
Speaker 2: It's just not used enough.
Speaker 1: That's arguably one of the most severe greens on property too.
Speaker 1: Like if you get above the hole there, it like
Speaker 1: it's really like crazy, how sloped the back half of
Speaker 1: that green is. It's got a ton of slope and
Speaker 1: it's easy, easy to three putt. The green's really good.
Speaker 1: It's kind of obscured, I think by the fronting mounds.
Speaker 1: It's in the in the dune, it sits kind of
Speaker 1: in behind it. It gets obscured, like the slope in
Speaker 1: that green gets obscured. One of my other favorite shots
Speaker 1: out there is one time I left it short of
Speaker 1: a front pin and the pin was right over one
Speaker 1: of the mounds and I had this impossible short shot
Speaker 1: from short grass over the over one of the sides
Speaker 1: of the buns to the to the pin, and it
Speaker 1: was like, what do I do? Do I put it?
Speaker 1: Do I bump it into it? Do I flop it
Speaker 1: over it?
Speaker 2: Do?
Speaker 1: I landed on top of it and led it. It
Speaker 1: was just like, those are the moments I find the
Speaker 1: most compelling in golf is when you're standing over shot,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes you find them around the green, just with
Speaker 1: severe features, where you're standing over a shot and you're
Speaker 1: thinking about the six different ways you can play it
Speaker 1: and you're not sure which way to do.
Speaker 2: If you hit the green on this hole, you should
Speaker 2: be sad because you'll have so much fun trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to hit your short game shot from
Speaker 2: the bunkers along the left or short of the mounds
Speaker 2: or wherever you are around this green complex. It's just
Speaker 2: so interesting. And by the way, you mentioned the dune
Speaker 2: that it's set into, it's the same little area that
Speaker 2: the tenth Green is in that I mentioned, and it's
Speaker 2: just this magical little corner of the property that I
Speaker 2: love and think is so beautiful, and you get to
Speaker 2: return to it with this green. And that's one thing
Speaker 2: about the routing that's really well.
Speaker 1: I think the hole is about four twenty from the back,
Speaker 1: but just talking how wonderful would this hole be as
Speaker 1: a as a drivable part.
Speaker 2: Four Yeah, a little bit longer, Yeah, I sort of
Speaker 2: agree with that that or if it were not just
Speaker 2: a driveable just like a long part four a hole
Speaker 2: that's where you're hitting like a wood into the green
Speaker 2: instead of an iron.
Speaker 1: The I like this is where I like kind of
Speaker 1: lament how people just play golf from the same spot
Speaker 1: every round, because this would be a fascinating hole to
Speaker 1: play way up on like a fairly regular basis. I
Speaker 1: would be really curious to see what people would end
Speaker 1: up doing.
Speaker 2: You know that said fifteen at the Lido is definitely
Speaker 2: the best fifteen hoole at sand Valley because that hole
Speaker 2: is incredible.
Speaker 1: I think we'll touch on this. I think we both
Speaker 1: picked eighteen at Liedo, but like fifteen is another example
Speaker 1: of a hole and have I've got I'm lucky I've
Speaker 1: gotten to play now. I think five rounds at Liedo and.
Speaker 2: Fancy Boylayed, I've played one. So Andy's coming at this
Speaker 2: with a lot more knowledge than I am about the Leado.
Speaker 1: The thing about fifteen Aledo and it's exemplified with a
Speaker 1: lot of holes out there. Eighteen will be one. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about this, but fifteen there there are so many
Speaker 1: different routes and where you want to get to is
Speaker 1: so dependent on where the hole is. Like we played
Speaker 1: a front right hole and this fifteenth hole it just
Speaker 1: feels like bombs away. But really the play is like
Speaker 1: playing short and left because if you play short and left,
Speaker 1: it opens the green up and you get the full
Speaker 1: spin of a wedge to play to this front right pin.
Speaker 1: But then if you move the pin over to the left,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, you could play it way over to
Speaker 1: the right and push it up because then you're playing
Speaker 1: up into the slope with a wed right like It's
Speaker 1: just amazing how when you move the pin out there,
Speaker 1: all these bunkers come alive. And playing short left, for example,
Speaker 1: there you have to choose if you're going short left
Speaker 1: or long left because there's a bunker that cuts on
Speaker 1: a diagonal with it right like. So you're just playing
Speaker 1: to these different islands and one you know's we'll talk
Speaker 1: about with seventeen. But one day I hit it on
Speaker 1: seventeen and I hit it like what I thought was
Speaker 1: too far left, but I found this like two yard
Speaker 1: strip of fairway between a bunker and the native that
Speaker 1: was like actually the perfect spot to be and it
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, like I didn't mean to
Speaker 1: hit it here, but this is like this opened up
Speaker 1: the entire approach to the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many possibilities on that hole, and
Speaker 2: you know, without describing it in depth, basically what creates
Speaker 2: the strategy on this hole is two diagonal lines of
Speaker 2: bunkers through the fairway. And the fairway itself is very,
Speaker 2: very wide, and so you can choose between different carries
Speaker 2: basically like what Carrie do you want to take on here?
Speaker 2: That sort of determines your tactics on the hole, and
Speaker 2: a lot of that, as you say, is determined by
Speaker 2: the pin position. And so it's a yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: a very complex and interesting funhole. So sixteen, what did
Speaker 2: you choose?
Speaker 1: I went with sedge valley, So did I center line
Speaker 1: bunker left side gives you a perfect view of the
Speaker 1: green helping contours. It's very narrow. It's like fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: yards wide. If you the first time I played it,
Speaker 1: I'd fit it right up in there, had a really
Speaker 1: easy wed shot. In next time I played, I bailed.
Speaker 1: I went right. It was almost like I knew how
Speaker 1: tough the shot left was, and I just didn't let
Speaker 1: myself hit it over there, hit it right completely blind,
Speaker 1: everything working against you end up in the back bunker
Speaker 1: after I hit what I thought was a great shot,
Speaker 1: just classic hole like you can't. It's amazing how visible
Speaker 1: it is when you go left and how visible it
Speaker 1: is when you go right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the visibility, the sight lines are the heart of
Speaker 2: the strategy of this whole Amazing topography too incredible topography.
Speaker 2: It generally runs uphill and the green kind of kind
Speaker 2: of sits in what looks like a hollow basically, but
Speaker 2: turns out to be a little more complex than that
Speaker 2: once you get up to the green.
Speaker 1: Definitely a hollow if you're on the left side. If
Speaker 1: you're on the right side, there's a run off to
Speaker 1: the left, run off to the left, a slope that's
Speaker 1: gonna propel your ball short, that's gonna like shoot your
Speaker 1: ball into this green, and then there's a bunker on
Speaker 1: the right that like catches balls that are that that
Speaker 1: goat run through. So really bad spot to be right,
Speaker 1: great strategic holl.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's a huge advantage to be able
Speaker 2: to see the pin see the green, and there are
Speaker 2: a million different places to play in this fairway. Right,
Speaker 2: there's you talked about right and left, but there's a
Speaker 2: bunch of different places where you can get like little platforms,
Speaker 2: little corners of the fairway where you can get a
Speaker 2: certain advantage or disadvantage going into this green. All right, seventeen,
Speaker 2: what do you have? I actually chose Sedge here Again,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I like I could go with a
Speaker 2: number of different holes here. You know, it's the long
Speaker 2: hole at the Lido. You have the punch bowl par
Speaker 2: three long punch Bowl par three at sand Valley that's
Speaker 2: really fun. And you have the last hole at the Sandbox,
Speaker 2: which is actually not one of the better holes at
Speaker 2: the Sandbox. So I'm not gonna, you know, say that
Speaker 2: that one is you went liedo. So, first of all,
Speaker 2: my argument for the seventeenth at at at Sedge. You know,
Speaker 2: there's all sorts of trouble up the right side of
Speaker 2: this hole, and it's really intimidatingly presented, Like the visual
Speaker 2: of it from the tee is super obvious. It's saying
Speaker 2: if you play over here, you could be in big danger.
Speaker 2: And the green is angled just so that an approach
Speaker 2: from right near there is obvious a lot better. You know,
Speaker 2: you have so much more in the green that's going
Speaker 2: to help your ball when it lands. If you're over
Speaker 2: on the right, and if you decide to bail out
Speaker 2: to the left, then that approach is brutal from over there,
Speaker 2: depending on the pin position. Things change with different pin
Speaker 2: positions on this screen. But I think it's a good
Speaker 2: representation at Sedge Valley of how exacting the lines of
Speaker 2: charm are out there, right. I mean, it's a simple concept.
Speaker 2: It's as simple as strategy gets, and there are little
Speaker 2: intricacies that make it different than just your normal kind
Speaker 2: of like risk reward hole, which is basically what I described.
Speaker 2: But what makes it work, what makes it a hole
Speaker 2: that you want to play over and over, is that
Speaker 2: in order to get to the line of charm, you
Speaker 2: have to really take on something pretty scary, and I
Speaker 2: think that that characterizes a lot of holes at Sedge Valley.
Speaker 2: But yeah, seventeen at the Lido also an incredibly impressive
Speaker 2: adaptation of the long hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the green is unbelievable. It's so similar
Speaker 1: to the fourteenth that at Saint Andrews. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just an incredible, incredible green that runs away so so severely.
Speaker 1: I had a downwind weg shot on one of the days.
Speaker 1: I played it like full wedge, full boar spin, and
Speaker 1: I was standing over the shot and was thinking, I
Speaker 1: have no chance to hold the green, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I landed very close to the front hole location. It
Speaker 1: just shot over into the back bunker. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you saw it in the Open Championship, right when Rory
Speaker 1: and camp Smith were coming down the stretch in that great,
Speaker 1: great finish. Camp Smith got it past the green and
Speaker 1: had an easy chip back up uphill. Rory left it
Speaker 1: short and had this just impossible up and down and
Speaker 1: that's that Green's just extraordinary. There's this ridge that runs
Speaker 1: up the right that kind of can corral and funnel
Speaker 1: him in. One of the most amazing features is Lido
Speaker 1: was a blank slate, right, you know, everything was created.
Speaker 1: There are amazing ground contours on.
Speaker 2: This hole right in the landing zone for drives too.
Speaker 2: It's like right where your drive lands. That's where MacDonald
Speaker 2: and Rayner built these very Saint Andrew's like undulations into
Speaker 2: the fairway.
Speaker 1: So one of the most amazing features which Tom Doak
Speaker 1: pointed out when he was talking about this at the
Speaker 1: dinner at his event, is there are cross bunkers and
Speaker 1: if you hit a bad drive, you might be laying
Speaker 1: up in front of these cross bunkers. And right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the layup area, right in front of
Speaker 1: the bunkers, there's a created plateau that sits up and
Speaker 1: if you're on the right or left of it, you're blind.
Speaker 1: And if you're on the plateau, if you laid up
Speaker 1: right onto the plateau, you have a clear view of
Speaker 1: the green. Just brilliant.
Speaker 2: It's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just amazing.
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of things like that at the lead
Speaker 2: of it. This is the kind of stuff that makes
Speaker 2: the lido so interesting and why people are blown away
Speaker 2: by it, right because everything was created as it's everything
Speaker 2: that is created, and there is an intention behind every
Speaker 2: single little fairway contour, not just every single little green contour,
Speaker 2: but you walk around those fairways and you find things.
Speaker 2: You know, look at the green from a certain portion
Speaker 2: of the fairway. If you see a feature that kind
Speaker 2: of sticks out, go over to it. There's a purpose
Speaker 2: to it. There's an intention there, and it is that's
Speaker 2: why it's so intricate is that it has these little
Speaker 2: details that have a function.
Speaker 1: All right, eighteenth Hole. I think we both went Lido.
Speaker 2: The eighteenth Hole of the Lido is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest holes in the world. I mean, it's so incredible.
Speaker 2: It's based obviously on Alistair McKenzie's Lido contest entry from
Speaker 2: nineteen fourteen. Mackenzie built this ridiculous hole. Look, drew this
Speaker 2: ridiculous hole. Right, It's like on ocean cliffs and there's
Speaker 2: like this perfect little island out on the beach that
Speaker 2: makes an alternate fair way. You know, it's like this
Speaker 2: fantasy hole. It's obviously really cool, and there's a million
Speaker 2: different routes to succeed on the hole, and it has
Speaker 2: this very complex, you know, multi lobed green But you
Speaker 2: look at it and you say, nobody could possibly build
Speaker 2: that hole. That is stupid. There would be no landforms
Speaker 2: that would allow for this hole to exist unless you
Speaker 2: create it them, unless you just build it off of
Speaker 2: a flat, swampy site as they did on Long Island,
Speaker 2: or off of flat sand like they did in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: You overlay the Mackenzie Hole on an aerial shot of
Speaker 2: the eighteenth Hole at the Sand Valley Lido and it's
Speaker 2: basically the same. All the proportions are perfect and so anyway,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
Speaker 1: So one thing. I guess that's different. Talking to Brian
Speaker 1: Schneider when I was playing, the markings had for a
Speaker 1: fifty foot elevation drop on the left side of the
Speaker 1: fairway and they're like, we'll just go twenty five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so one concession.
Speaker 2: We can't go quite that great. And then we're laughing
Speaker 2: because you go out there and everything's huge, right, and
Speaker 2: it's already huge.
Speaker 1: They didn't have like accurate understanding of what was built
Speaker 1: at the lead o. They just were like, you know what,
Speaker 1: fifty feet might be too much here on the left.
Speaker 2: That'd be crazy. Yeah, I mean you could talk about
Speaker 2: this whole for days. I think that to give people
Speaker 2: a basic idea of the strategy of the whole. You know,
Speaker 2: you have a drive where you have a few different options.
Speaker 2: You can play up this fairway on the left with
Speaker 2: a big hazard that cuts through the middle of the
Speaker 2: fairway on a diagonal and if you go, like.
Speaker 1: A series of bunkers cut through from basically left to right.
Speaker 1: So the further the further you hit it, the more
Speaker 1: decisions you have to make. The further you lay back,
Speaker 1: you have more options in the sense of you have
Speaker 1: right and then you have the short left option right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, so when I played it, I
Speaker 2: had a really good drive, like way left up the
Speaker 2: left part of the fair way that it feels like
Speaker 2: too far left, yeah, because you're aware that the whole
Speaker 2: kind of travels in a different direction. But I had
Speaker 2: a good drive up there, and I get up to
Speaker 2: my ball and I realize I can see the green
Speaker 2: from here.
Speaker 1: And you're in the green's open from there. The only
Speaker 1: way you're going to get to the there's this majestic
Speaker 1: back right plateau. The only way you're getting there is
Speaker 1: the best way to get there really is up the.
Speaker 2: Left, and to run it up to that plateau. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so I realized that I was in a really
Speaker 2: good spot. I thought of it as a conservative play,
Speaker 2: because it feels more conservative to go out there than
Speaker 2: to hit it down the center of this hole, which
Speaker 2: requires a pretty big carry, or even to the right.
Speaker 2: But you know, the whole generally travels over a pretty
Speaker 2: big rise in the land that was obviously manufactured, and
Speaker 2: so finding a way to see around that to the
Speaker 2: green is kind of what you're trying to do on
Speaker 2: your drive, and you can do that if you play
Speaker 2: up the left. Then also there are aggressive options for
Speaker 2: playing down the middle of the corridor.
Speaker 1: You'll play if you play at the house, the left
Speaker 1: side of the house, you can thread it between two bunkers,
Speaker 1: which is like, I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: My caddy told me to hit that shot, and I
Speaker 1: hit it, and I got up there and I was like,
Speaker 1: that was really stupid, Like it was like and it
Speaker 1: worked out. I had like a I had a short wedgon,
Speaker 1: but it was like I threaded it between like a
Speaker 1: ten yard gap between two bunkers, and it's like that,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to do that again.
Speaker 2: By the way, side note, give the caddies some time
Speaker 2: to learn the Lido, because right now not all of
Speaker 2: them might have all the information about how you should
Speaker 2: really play this course. Well, it's hard, it's very difficult.
Speaker 2: I relate with it.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I'm most amazed about with
Speaker 1: the Lido after getting to play it so many times
Speaker 1: is that it was so disorienting the first time around
Speaker 1: and seemingly hard, and my last time around I felt
Speaker 1: like it actually was getting pretty easy because if you
Speaker 1: get into the right positions and you hit the shots.
Speaker 1: And this was a day I played very well, but
Speaker 1: like I got into spots and I all of a
Speaker 1: sudden felt like I was hitting into bowls, but I
Speaker 1: was getting to the right spots off the tee to
Speaker 1: get those opportunities to hit into balls, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: You saw the puzzle, yeah, or parts of the puzzle,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean that's what's so attractive about the
Speaker 2: Lido is that.
Speaker 1: In just a side note, you know this is anecdotal.
Speaker 1: So Tom Doakes event has a champion, it's like a
Speaker 1: matchplay event. Peter Floory won that. Two weeks earlier, the
Speaker 1: Club Championship was held at the Lido and Peter Floory
Speaker 1: won that. The man that like knows every contour out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the one. He's been on the podcast. He's
Speaker 2: the one who basically modeled the course and enabled them
Speaker 2: to build it with such precision. So it makes sense.
Speaker 2: It also happens to be the case that he is
Speaker 2: a stick.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's a great player, but he's play and he's
Speaker 1: played it a ton. But I I we were talking
Speaker 1: about it, and I just like you can just start
Speaker 1: to see, Like I was texting with another guy, I
Speaker 1: know that it's a member out there that's really good
Speaker 1: players like you. Once you start to understand the course,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this isn't that hard. You just have
Speaker 1: to understand. It's hard to understand, but it's once you
Speaker 1: understand it, it becomes very like it's it's like addicting
Speaker 1: because you know where you need to get to for
Speaker 1: different spots, and it changes, and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a It's an amazing strategic golf course.
Speaker 2: I think the Lido deserves its own podcast probably, you know,
Speaker 2: we've touched on a few key aspects of the Lido,
Speaker 2: but it might be the most interesting course to discuss
Speaker 2: that has been built since I've been working in golf,
Speaker 2: maybe in the twentieth twenty first century. You know, like
Speaker 2: it is fascinating to think about, not only because of
Speaker 2: the stuff that you're talking about, the strategic puzzle and
Speaker 2: the opportunity to kind of figure out intricacies that other
Speaker 2: people might not know about. That that possibility is real
Speaker 2: out there because of how complex the course is and
Speaker 2: how much is going on on each hole, And so
Speaker 2: that's one area to talk about the other thing to
Speaker 2: talk about when it comes to the Lido is some
Speaker 2: of the I don't know what you would call them,
Speaker 2: like historical ethical considerations. Yeah, like just taking this course
Speaker 2: that once existed on Long Island and kind of transplanting
Speaker 2: it to Wisconsin. It is strange to be out there.
Speaker 2: It's uncanny. It's almost uncomfortable where you like, should this
Speaker 2: be here? You know, I'm glad it's there, but I
Speaker 2: was unsettled buy it because it's like I was walking
Speaker 2: through I don't let like a mausoleum or something, you know,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I think like I think where I
Speaker 1: would lend, where I would struggle is like I don't
Speaker 1: know how many more Lido projects should exist where we're
Speaker 1: just copying something versus building something new. Like That's like
Speaker 1: my takeaway from Lido is like, how come architects like
Speaker 1: Tom Fazio, who constructed courses like from nothing didn't think
Speaker 1: about things in this detail? Because that's the thing. I
Speaker 1: just felt like, it's a different level of golf architecture
Speaker 1: in terms of like thought process of around strategy right
Speaker 1: and alternate roots. And it kind of is like, well,
Speaker 1: like how was this built in nineteen. What was it
Speaker 1: nineteen ten or twelve something, nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 2: It opened in I might be wrong here, but nineteen
Speaker 2: seventeen at nineteen seventeen, and so obviously National was earlier.
Speaker 1: How How did we have someone that understood strategy and
Speaker 1: golf so well then? And how we've had so many
Speaker 1: golf courses that none of which have reached even close
Speaker 1: to that level of strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and you know, to the point that maybe
Speaker 2: we don't want to see a lot more of these reconstructions.
Speaker 2: I can guarantee that it's all downhill from the lead
Speaker 2: out from this idea.
Speaker 1: Now we're now, we're now, we're getting into the lead
Speaker 1: up podcast, we're ending. Yeah, we gotta find I had
Speaker 1: a nine. I had a parse sixty nine. This was
Speaker 1: fun to do. If you asked me tomorrow, it might
Speaker 1: be different. But this was fun. Uh, lots of uh,
Speaker 1: lots of blindness in mind, lots.
Speaker 2: Of blindness in mind. Mine was a par sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Lots of par three's and par fives.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the par three's were expected because we were
Speaker 2: dealing with a well know, the courses having all par threes.
Speaker 2: But I had quite a few par fives, and I
Speaker 2: think that that's one thing that stands out about the
Speaker 2: resort as a whole, is the quality of the par
Speaker 2: fives and how memorable many of the par fives are.
Speaker 1: All Right, thanks Garrett, and let us know what you
Speaker 1: agree with, what you disagree with. This is a fun
Speaker 1: topic and definitely, by no means do we have the
Speaker 1: right answers.
Speaker 2: That these are not authoritative. These are meant to spark discussion.
Speaker 2: Dream eteens always do so. Thanks Andy. This episode of
Speaker 2: the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by Matt Ruschius. Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 2: If you are enjoying the Friday Golf Podcast, then please
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Speaker 2: thanks for listening and we'll talk again soon.