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.
Speaker 2: In a Friday Egg, Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg.
Speaker 1: Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hump course.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 2: and today we're doing a golf architecture mail bag. You
Speaker 2: asked some questions on social media and we're going to
Speaker 2: answer them. I'm going to bring in Andy Johnson to
Speaker 2: help me do that. Should be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: But first, let's talk about USGA memberships. For more than
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five years, the USGA has been
Speaker 2: working to ensure that golf has a strong future, and
Speaker 2: for almost fifty years, USGA members have given back to
Speaker 2: the game they love by supporting programs and initiatives that
Speaker 2: affect every aspect of the game, including junior golf, environmental sustainability,
Speaker 2: the history of the game, and some of the biggest
Speaker 2: championships in the sport. On top of making a difference
Speaker 2: to the future of golf, USGA members also get back
Speaker 2: great benefits like the US Open or US Women's Open
Speaker 2: member hat, a personalized member bag tag, a subscription to
Speaker 2: the USGA's Golf Journal, which is really excellent, and more.
Speaker 2: You two can give back to golf and get back
Speaker 2: great benefits by visiting USGA dot org slash fried Egg
Speaker 2: and becoming a USGA member Today. All right, let's get
Speaker 2: into our golf architecture mail bag.
Speaker 1: Garrett I saw I saw the USGA's testing facility today.
Speaker 2: From them, did you really you're you're You're out there
Speaker 2: in the real what I like to refer to as
Speaker 2: the real swamp, not not Jupiter, Florida, but rather North Carolina.
Speaker 1: The sand Hills, the one of the least swampy terrains
Speaker 1: in America.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a metaphorical swamp.
Speaker 1: I was. I saw the testing facility from afar. I asked,
Speaker 1: what is that house and the caddy and the group said,
Speaker 1: that's the USGA's testing facility.
Speaker 2: So did you do some investigations of what's going on there?
Speaker 1: Apparently they just got a machine that's hitting golf balls
Speaker 1: all the time, testing.
Speaker 2: And determining the future of the sport right there.
Speaker 1: That's why you need to be a USGA member. They do.
Speaker 1: You know, they can have testing facilities.
Speaker 2: That's right, they can have testing facilities. They can they
Speaker 2: can actually bring some data to back up the upcoming rollback.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think they've done a lot of that.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 2: They have I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good recovering from
Speaker 2: a bit of an illness. Though I know that people
Speaker 2: are aware one that we had an off site meeting
Speaker 2: last week in Austin where we all got together as
Speaker 2: a company, had a great time together, and also that
Speaker 2: Brendan was sick during your recording of the Shotguns Start podcast.
Speaker 2: And I'd just like to say for the record that
Speaker 2: we have different illnesses.
Speaker 1: I've got a cold, like I had a cold there,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I was. Yeah. I think PJ is
Speaker 1: doing okay, though.
Speaker 2: You're doing all right. Well, Pj's young. It's the youthfulness
Speaker 2: that allows him to get through. Yeah. Well, anyway, so
Speaker 2: I'm doing all right, but but but a little worse
Speaker 2: for the wear, I guess you could say. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: excited to dig into some golf architecture topics you want
Speaker 2: to you want to dive in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we released our vet schedule. Yeah, I think a
Speaker 1: good first question. So we do these events all over
Speaker 1: the country, all over the world. This year we've got
Speaker 1: a couple international trips. But I think one of the
Speaker 1: neat things is seeing people, a big group of people
Speaker 1: that have a genuine, genuine love of golf together experience
Speaker 1: cool places, and we do these events all over the world,
Speaker 1: and it's cool. It's always fun to see the reactions.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you, you know you you you're
Speaker 1: not like super involved with events. I think you give
Speaker 1: input about what could be a cool event, what could
Speaker 1: be a course? What you know? What are some event
Speaker 1: course ideas?
Speaker 2: Now that I'm kept away from the planning of them
Speaker 2: pretty pretty far, I think people know that I don't
Speaker 2: have much to contribute on that end.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm starting to be kept away from the planning too,
Speaker 1: So that makes two of.
Speaker 2: Us there are very organized, you know, dot the i's
Speaker 2: across the t's people in our company who can deal
Speaker 2: with this stuff better than you and I.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I went from being heavily evolved to less involved.
Speaker 1: But what's your favorite of the what's the event course
Speaker 1: that that you most would want to go see in
Speaker 1: the event? In an event on the schedule, on the.
Speaker 2: I'd love to see on the schedule. I'd love to
Speaker 2: see Colorado Golf Club. That one jumps out at me immediately.
Speaker 2: I haven't been out to Colorado Golf Club before.
Speaker 1: I've played some golf in Dnshaw, a core Crunshaw enthusiast.
Speaker 2: This is true, this is true. I'm in the tank
Speaker 2: for Coren Crenshaw. I have to I have to acknowledge that.
Speaker 2: Let's disclose, I'm a Corn Crenshaw fanboy. In addition to that,
Speaker 2: we've never had an event at Moraine before. Really cool
Speaker 2: looking golf course in Ohio and has has been nicely restored,
Speaker 2: and so I've seen a good amount of content about it,
Speaker 2: but we I don't believe we've had an event there before.
Speaker 1: So that one golf course. I played a USAM qualifier
Speaker 1: there in probably about twenty sixteen. That's how I first
Speaker 1: interacted with the golf course. I had seen a little
Speaker 1: bit of a little photos and I saw the USAM
Speaker 1: site come out, and I had I got a bunch
Speaker 1: of my buddies to sign up, and there are two
Speaker 1: of my buddies to sign up, and we road tripped
Speaker 1: it from Chicago and playing It's It's really cool it's
Speaker 1: it's got like a really great back part of the
Speaker 1: lot for golf, but you have to navigate this huge
Speaker 1: hill to get there. So it's interesting how both sides
Speaker 1: of the course because you kind of play back down
Speaker 1: it and playing down it's way easier than playing over it.
Speaker 1: But is is phenomenal. I there are some holes that
Speaker 1: I think about a lot out there. The seventh is
Speaker 1: this great little short part four. The sixteenth is like
Speaker 1: a very very dramatic part four that both those played
Speaker 1: down the hill, and then there's some just really phenomenal
Speaker 1: holes intermixed in it is my impression of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a good piece of land and
Speaker 2: yet at the same time maybe a kind of quirky property.
Speaker 1: It's a very weird property. So like ten, ten, eleven, twelve,
Speaker 1: there are like really flat It's interesting because it has
Speaker 1: some like it has a mix of like super dramatic
Speaker 1: elevation changes. It has a mix of really good like
Speaker 1: perfectly scaled golf ground, and then it's got like a
Speaker 1: flat section and the flat section has some like pretty
Speaker 1: interesting greens. Like the tenth holes really neat. It kind
Speaker 1: of like bends right and has this green that like
Speaker 1: just sits up. It's like a little tabletop. Green falls
Speaker 1: off everywhere. So it's a really diverse set of of holes,
Speaker 1: like there's different portions of the property. And Alex Nipper
Speaker 1: Campbell Alex. I think it's Alex. It might be Alex
Speaker 1: or Alex Knipper.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's Alex, Alex, Alex Nipper Campbell. Yeah,
Speaker 2: his name Nipper is in quotes. Yeah, that's his nickname.
Speaker 2: That's how he was known as Nipper Campbell Nipper.
Speaker 1: He designed a ton of courses in the Dayton area.
Speaker 1: But that's it. And he was in the country club, Yes,
Speaker 1: he was involved. He was a hoppro yeh believe if
Speaker 1: my memory serves me correct.
Speaker 2: He's one of those early kind of I believe Scottish.
Speaker 2: He's one of those early kind of spreaders of the
Speaker 2: game in the US. And he just showed up kind
Speaker 2: of some places and did pretty cool architectural work.
Speaker 1: It is. It's really cool. It gets totally overshadowed by
Speaker 1: Inverness and Camargo. But I would say that I, you know,
Speaker 1: at least one of those two courses, I would play
Speaker 1: in Marine way more out of ten than I really
Speaker 1: like Marine. I've been dying to go back. Honestly, since
Speaker 1: I played that tournament, I haven't been back. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always been on my mind of somewhere that I've
Speaker 1: wanted to go back and shoot. But I'm thrilled to
Speaker 1: be there. They hosted the Western m last year. That
Speaker 1: would have been a fun tournament to go watch. But
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really cool place. So Marine is
Speaker 1: your Coloradria would be.
Speaker 2: Golf Club looks sensational. Both of those courses you've been
Speaker 2: to and written about. Are there any courses on here?
Speaker 2: I mean mid Ocean obviously, it's like.
Speaker 1: Mid Ocean. You know, a couple of course beyond displayed
Speaker 1: mid Ocean, a couple of days of breviewed us. So
Speaker 1: it's pretty nice, you know. I would say the the
Speaker 1: other one that I am particularly keen on, And this
Speaker 1: is an easy answer for me, because I love it
Speaker 1: in the in the area, Belvedere, Kingsley Club, a night
Speaker 1: in between. Northern Michigan's about as good as it gets.
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved both of those golf courses. I love
Speaker 1: the area. It's the perfect time of year to be there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's anytime you could say it's the perfect
Speaker 1: time of year to be in Traverse City anytime from
Speaker 1: about July first to the beginning of October. But it's
Speaker 1: a great time to play golf. So Belvedere and Kingsley Club,
Speaker 1: that one, to me for two day is pretty awesome,
Speaker 1: two really different golf courses, two really different properties, And
Speaker 1: like you know, it's it's if you did that. The
Speaker 1: right way for me to do that is you go in,
Speaker 1: you go in Friday, spend the weekend in Traverse City,
Speaker 1: and then it's a Sunday Monday event and then you're
Speaker 1: in and then you fly out. Actually, like sneaky, Traverse
Speaker 1: City is getting pretty easy to get to, is the
Speaker 1: other thing. You can fly direct from a lot more
Speaker 1: places than than before. So that would be that'd be
Speaker 1: the event that I'm I kind of got my eye on.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of good ones. I
Speaker 1: love Skokie. That's of course that I always like love
Speaker 1: going to play from when I was a kid, the
Speaker 1: occasional times that I would get to go in high school,
Speaker 1: I could I could rattle off all of these.
Speaker 2: Sky is another first time host of an event. Pretty
Speaker 2: cool to see that one on there that there's there's
Speaker 2: been some good work there recently to kind of recover
Speaker 2: the courses architectural lineage, and and it's uh yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a great place and high high density population area. Right,
Speaker 2: it's basically I mean just north of Chicago. It's it's
Speaker 2: right in there.
Speaker 1: It's our first Chicago event. We've never had an event
Speaker 1: in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right. Yeah, and finspecting Chicago, well I've moved out,
Speaker 2: I could.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the adage, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: you don't take poops where you live, right, whatever, What's
Speaker 1: what's the adage?
Speaker 2: What's the well, uh, you know, well I think it's
Speaker 2: more profane than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's but but yeah, so now that I
Speaker 1: don't live there, isn't that an.
Speaker 2: Adage about not not having affairs with people? Yeah, work with?
Speaker 2: Isn't that what it's about?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It's also good advice, all right, Anyway, I.
Speaker 1: Messed that up. But anyways, that's the events. You can see.
Speaker 1: It's all over socials, it's in club tf if you remember,
Speaker 1: just all over our social medias.
Speaker 2: Lots of lots of club TFE specific events this year.
Speaker 2: So if you're interested in those, then joining Club TFE
Speaker 2: would be a great step toward participating in them. And
Speaker 2: uh yeah, wonderful lists that our that our team put together.
Speaker 2: There a lot of there have been some questions about
Speaker 2: the geographic coverage of the events. You know, West Coast
Speaker 2: is not super well represented yet. But just keep in
Speaker 2: mind that this list is uh, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: going to change a lot, but there might be some
Speaker 2: things added, some things, you know, So so just stay tuned.
Speaker 2: We're not disrespecting your part of the country. And we'll
Speaker 2: also you know, year on year we we we get
Speaker 2: to places eventually. So yeah, Andy and I would not
Speaker 2: disrespect the West Coast. We both live here. In fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's probably why we're not hosting anything in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest is because of what I just said.
Speaker 1: You don't want to you know, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to expecis with pleasure, right there.
Speaker 2: You go, exactly. Yeah, I can't come to Portland, all right, Andy,
Speaker 2: next topic I wanted to talk with you about before
Speaker 2: we get to the mail bag questions. The big discussion
Speaker 2: point in the golf architecture realm of golf discourse lately
Speaker 2: has been the release of the golf dot Com Top
Speaker 2: one hundred list. This is America's top one hundred courses
Speaker 2: according to golf dot COM's panel. Some of the headlines here.
Speaker 2: The Lido enters at number thirty in the US.
Speaker 1: I bet I guarantee you have some thoughts about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Old Barnwell enters at fifty one. Interlock In, recently
Speaker 2: renovated by Andrew Green re enters re enters the list
Speaker 2: at seventy three. It had dropped out before. Medna number three,
Speaker 2: redesigned by Ogil V. Cocking and mead OCM, a great
Speaker 2: architecture firm from Australia, re enters at seventy four. Ladera
Speaker 2: gil Hans's new course in the California Desert enters the
Speaker 2: list at eighty seven. Pinehurst number ten, which you have
Speaker 2: played quite recently, in fact, maybe a couple of couple
Speaker 2: of hours ago in the eighty eight, so you're I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe you have some thoughts. Sancity head old
Speaker 2: course but has recently come back into fashion. I suppose
Speaker 2: enters the list at ninety two for the first time.
Speaker 2: Old Elm comes in at ninety four.
Speaker 1: Oh my, I didn't even realize Old Elm.
Speaker 2: Old Elm, So hey, you thing Sins are changing, Trinity
Speaker 2: Forrest comes in at ninety six, Philly Cricket re enters
Speaker 2: at ninety eight. Those are all the new courses on
Speaker 2: the list.
Speaker 1: Some of this stuff like with Sancity and Old Elm,
Speaker 1: I think they finally reached a raider a mass and
Speaker 1: and Old ELM's done like some amazing work over the
Speaker 1: years to get there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean Old Elm has been bubbling under
Speaker 2: the surface for a while where people have been talking
Speaker 2: about how good it is, and then now finally enough
Speaker 2: people perhaps from the panel, have gotten there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's awesome. I mean, it's one of one
Speaker 1: of my favorite courses in the world.
Speaker 2: So any any thoughts about some of that stuff that
Speaker 2: I've Yeah, it is pretty low on the list, probably
Speaker 2: should be higher. Any thoughts about what I just went
Speaker 2: over there, some of the new courses on the list,
Speaker 2: any an he takes there.
Speaker 1: I think I really, I really like the golf dot
Speaker 1: Com list in terms of, like I think the list
Speaker 1: that I most resonate with of the of the major
Speaker 1: lists that you see out there. I think it it
Speaker 1: kind of so just in general, I think like I
Speaker 1: don't have anything that like I really see the world
Speaker 1: differently then I do think like just over arching, like
Speaker 1: you start to see who's tumbling down, and for the
Speaker 1: most part, like big tumblers down are our new golf
Speaker 1: courses that the newness of them is where it's square enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like golf courses that may be opened or
Speaker 2: got renovated in the mid twenty tens or somewhere around there.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about some of the biggest tumblers. NPCC Dunes,
Speaker 2: Gamble Sands took a bit of a tumble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So like to be like what kind of happens
Speaker 1: is that courses do renovation work and then they and
Speaker 1: they get that new bump and it's like good work.
Speaker 1: But it's like, I mean, I think one of the
Speaker 1: things just overarching with the golf architecture world that I
Speaker 1: don't like that's going on is like the keeping up
Speaker 1: with the Joneses that's happening, and it's totally happening. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is based around these rankings, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we fell ten spots, we need to
Speaker 1: we because we fell ten spots, we need to you know,
Speaker 1: this is oversimplifying everything. I want to be clear here.
Speaker 1: This is me just oversimplifying, irresponsible rhetoric, but like the
Speaker 1: general is like we're falling. We fall in twenty five
Speaker 1: spots over the last five years. We better go spend
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars to go back up, right, And that's
Speaker 1: what the cycle is. That's like kind of how it works.
Speaker 1: And new courses come in and new courses are the
Speaker 1: most everybody wants to go see. Everybody wants to know
Speaker 1: how new courses are, you know, the first couple of
Speaker 1: years they jump onto the list and then they can
Speaker 1: fall out, right, Yeah, And I think, you know, overarching
Speaker 1: like about those Like that's just kind of my general
Speaker 1: idea and trends of what this is like when I
Speaker 1: look at it from a big picture, is like it's
Speaker 1: courses that got renovated and new courses of the early
Speaker 1: twenty tens are falling down and new courses and courses
Speaker 1: that were freshly renovated or going up.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, Yeah, I mean, and that's not to
Speaker 2: say that they didn't do good work at interlock In
Speaker 2: and Medina number three, which are the two kind of
Speaker 2: big ticket re entries onto the list important courses that
Speaker 2: were worked on recently. Again, Andrew Green did the work
Speaker 2: at Interlocking in OCM at Medina. I think that work
Speaker 2: has been really good. You've seen you've seen both both
Speaker 2: courses post work, I think, and your impressions have been
Speaker 2: very positive. But guess who the smartest looking courses right
Speaker 2: now on this list are overall, and that's the Fisher's Island,
Speaker 2: the National Golf Links, the courses that have preserved as
Speaker 2: opposed to getting caught up in these trends.
Speaker 1: That's not that's not fair. That's are working, they're working
Speaker 1: with a different set of cards. That's like saying that
Speaker 1: you know you drew a full house, you know.
Speaker 2: Had just never changed in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. True, But like I think, like I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that that's not the way. History doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way with everywhere, you know, heads never changed.
Speaker 2: Now all of a sudden it's a top one hunter
Speaker 2: golf course.
Speaker 1: I just think. I mean, Old ELM's gone through a
Speaker 1: dramatic transformation. I played Old Elm in high school golf
Speaker 1: matches and it is un recognizable. It was it was
Speaker 1: like the like sure what it was like the of
Speaker 1: you know, you just go get lost in all the
Speaker 1: trees out there. It was like a tunnel every hole.
Speaker 1: So I just think, like I think, like Madonna and
Speaker 1: interlock In, Interlockin's Land is like truly extra ordinary. It
Speaker 1: is like mesmerizing golf land, and it's really cool. I
Speaker 1: think Medina is like a completely different story because they
Speaker 1: completely blew up, They put their foot in the ground
Speaker 1: and they just said, we're going to a completely different direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but my course has been has been really really
Speaker 2: kind of like the way the way the course looked
Speaker 2: ten years ago was so much different than what it
Speaker 2: was originally. There's no there's nothing to go back to
Speaker 2: at Medyna number three. Basically, it's just gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd like I think like one of the things
Speaker 1: I appreciate about Medina number three is I think they
Speaker 1: understood that they the golf course. Honestly, the golf course
Speaker 1: no better they were. I think there were top ten
Speaker 1: in the rankings at one point, but that golf course
Speaker 1: probably never was a great golf course ever in its history.
Speaker 1: And I think like some places need to realize this
Speaker 1: is like we were never an extraordinary, extraordinary golf course.
Speaker 1: And at what point do we give up saying like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're at ninety percent of what we can be. Are
Speaker 1: we really going to spend fifteen million dollars to get
Speaker 1: to ninety six percent of what we can be because
Speaker 1: that's like I was having a conversation with Tom Doak
Speaker 1: honestly today about this, and he brought up how he
Speaker 1: wrote this in his Anatomy of a Golf Course, literally
Speaker 1: like thirty years ago, about how much clubs spend to
Speaker 1: get to eighty percent. I think is what it was.
Speaker 1: I think the numbers eighty percent, and how you basically
Speaker 1: have to spend double to add ten percent after that
Speaker 1: on your maintenance budget or your architecture. And to me,
Speaker 1: like my question, and I didn't mean this to be this,
Speaker 1: but my question is is it worth the money? Is
Speaker 1: it worth the extra million dollars you spend every year
Speaker 1: and maintenance to go from ninety percent of what your
Speaker 1: course could look like to you know what we get?
Speaker 1: Like our playing conditions are ten percent better thirty days
Speaker 1: a year, and we spent a million dollars to do that.
Speaker 1: Like is anybody gonna notice that? And with golf courses,
Speaker 1: I love, like I am absolutely in the business of
Speaker 1: when golf courses renovate, it's good for me. I have
Speaker 1: new stuff to talk to talk about we have new
Speaker 1: stuff to kick around. But like a lot of golf courses,
Speaker 1: I wonder, Okay, so, like you're gonna renovate your golf course,
Speaker 1: you're gonna spend fifteen million dollars, and maybe you're a
Speaker 1: dope five and you're gonna spend fifteen million dollars and
Speaker 1: you're gonna go to doke six, Like what are we doing?
Speaker 1: Like in a Dinah's case, I think if they had
Speaker 1: done a renovation without significant changes, they would have gone
Speaker 1: from what I believed was like a five to maybe
Speaker 1: a six. And I think, like, from my perspective, the
Speaker 1: thing I appreciate about what they did was they said,
Speaker 1: we are going to try and do something way different,
Speaker 1: and we think we're going to be better because of it.
Speaker 1: And they are way better because they did something wildly
Speaker 1: different out of the box. And I think, like a
Speaker 1: lot of courses restore something that should never have been restored.
Speaker 1: At this point, I've swung the pendulum on how I
Speaker 1: feel about this, but there are so many restorations being
Speaker 1: done of golf courses that frankly shouldn't be restored. You
Speaker 1: could find a better solution if you went with a renovation.
Speaker 1: It just takes a lot, and you're gonna spend the
Speaker 1: same amount of money.
Speaker 2: Well, and it takes really good taste too. You have
Speaker 2: to have a good architect Yeah, because it's way hard,
Speaker 2: it's way riskier because once you commit to big changes,
Speaker 2: then you're in danger of it being fifty years from
Speaker 2: now and you're in the same position that Oakland Hills
Speaker 2: was when it looked at it's Robert Trent jonesified South
Speaker 2: Course and was like, this was the wrong decision. You know,
Speaker 2: we went in the wrong direction and now we've got
Speaker 2: a completely reversed course. It's just it's tough.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the beautiful thing about golf architecture is
Speaker 1: that it's like clothing. I mean, yeah, I literally went
Speaker 1: home this summer to my house. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've told this story on Era. I went home to
Speaker 1: my house and I was looking in my old closet
Speaker 1: and I found I saw that there's some shoes still
Speaker 1: in it, and there's a pair of burket stocks that
Speaker 1: I wore in high school. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: burger Stocks are back. And I put them on and
Speaker 1: they still fit, and I brought them, brought them back
Speaker 1: to my house and I wear them, And I think, like,
Speaker 1: the thing that's amazing about a golf architecture is twenty
Speaker 1: years from now, they're going to think somebody is going
Speaker 1: to think that everything we were doing right now in
Speaker 1: time was stupid, yeah, and that they should be doing
Speaker 1: things this way. And who knows what it's going to be.
Speaker 1: It could be a run back to like long rough.
Speaker 1: I hope not. I hope it's not. It would be
Speaker 1: great for my golf game, you know, yeah, but it would.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it could be that or like I
Speaker 1: think that's like the fascinating thing is like we're absolutely
Speaker 1: in a trend time capsule, and I think people sometimes
Speaker 1: forget to think about that.
Speaker 2: Well, this is why I think that courses that decide
Speaker 2: who they are from their inception and just stick with
Speaker 2: it through thick and thin can end up seeming pretty smart.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: This calculus is different for courses that host championships, because
Speaker 2: those courses want to host the championship now, They want
Speaker 2: to be relevant now, and so I understand why they
Speaker 2: make the decisions that they make. But those courses that
Speaker 2: just decide from from the very beginning, for better or worse,
Speaker 2: this is what this golf course is and we're just
Speaker 2: gonna stick with it. Those courses end up, you know,
Speaker 2: the fashions come back around, and we end up valuing
Speaker 2: those courses that express something of a particular time period authentically.
Speaker 1: I think though, like one of the things what you
Speaker 1: said about like National and Fisher's Island and Crystal Downs,
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a time period none of those
Speaker 1: were in the top ten.
Speaker 2: That's that's what I'm referring to. Yeah, if you look
Speaker 2: at a Golf Digest list from the nineteen seventies, those
Speaker 2: courses were shit.
Speaker 1: So I will say this is like all all of
Speaker 1: those had like absolute extraordinary properties. Yeah, And I think,
Speaker 1: like it's hard, it's hard to compare, Like I always think,
Speaker 1: you get like to me, to me, like the top
Speaker 1: ten are all on, Like, there isn't one course in
Speaker 1: the top ten of this list, and the top ten
Speaker 1: is Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Shinnecock, National Golf Links of America, Oakmont,
Speaker 1: I guess, the National, Sandhills, Marion, Pebble Beach in Lacc.
Speaker 2: North, exactly the same ones that everybody else has.
Speaker 1: So if you get to eleven Fishers, like at that point,
Speaker 1: there is not one ordinary piece of golf ground there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, at twelve, we have our first piece of
Speaker 1: truly extraordinary golf architecture that elevates a rather like it's
Speaker 1: a good piece of land, but are rather ordinary Chicago golf.
Speaker 1: And like I think Piner's number two is in a
Speaker 1: similar boat.
Speaker 2: I think both of those should be higher.
Speaker 1: But but you're kicking down. Yeah, I know you're kicking down.
Speaker 2: You know who I'm kicking You know exactly who I'm
Speaker 2: kicking down. I've made my opinions perfectly clear on the
Speaker 2: subject of Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1: It went up to spots, did it? What? What about?
Speaker 1: Their work got better over the last year. They brought
Speaker 1: boat fairway lights in so that there's not fairway running
Speaker 1: up to the cliffs of the Pacific Coast.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's just like we
Speaker 2: have to remind ourselves from time to time that these
Speaker 2: lists are fundamentally ridiculous. Well they're just there's no justifying them,
Speaker 2: aside from just saying they're kind of fun to talk
Speaker 2: about and debate. And here we are talking about them,
Speaker 2: so we're doing golf dot COM's work for them. But
Speaker 2: this is a ridiculous exercise. And I really wish people
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. But you know, I recognize why the
Speaker 2: magazines and golf media companies feel it necessary to continue
Speaker 2: to rate courses in this matter, but it's just a
Speaker 2: it's just an absurd thing.
Speaker 1: That we do. I think the other the list has
Speaker 1: to change because it can't not change.
Speaker 2: Right exactly. You're like, they can't change it too much.
Speaker 2: Nothing changed, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Here's the new list, the same because we went through
Speaker 1: a period of time where like nothing really was happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, not a lot of new courses were being built.
Speaker 1: It would be amazing if it'd be amazing to see
Speaker 1: a list that never changed.
Speaker 2: What if they just canceled it one year and said
Speaker 2: nothing changed.
Speaker 1: Sorry. I mean it's a huge website traffic boom, but
Speaker 1: well and yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's always been that way, not for the website,
Speaker 2: but as a mag zine seller. Nothing is better for
Speaker 2: golf magazines than this top one hundred list. It's a
Speaker 2: sensation and that's the reason it exists and and why
Speaker 2: it keeps coming back around, and you know, and so
Speaker 2: we're just kind of caught in this caught in this
Speaker 2: vicious circle with it, and sometimes I just want to
Speaker 2: get out of it.
Speaker 1: I mean honestly though, Like if you look through this list,
Speaker 1: I know you have your grievances with Pebble Beach. I
Speaker 1: have like no in like I think I've talked about
Speaker 1: this on this podcast before. But like you know, if
Speaker 1: you asked me, do you want to play Pacific Dunes
Speaker 1: or or let's just go with one that's or we'll
Speaker 1: go Pacific Dunes or Augustin Nashvill, I've played both of them.
Speaker 1: Not a humble brag. This is not a humble brag,
Speaker 1: but honestly, some days and people would say this is crazy.
Speaker 1: I think I probably play as many rounds of Pacific
Speaker 1: Dunes is Augustin National. Like to me, they aren't very different.
Speaker 2: M Well, that that's because you're asking the question which
Speaker 2: one would I rather play, which is a question that
Speaker 2: asks for a subjective response and therefore an honest response,
Speaker 2: which I find to be interesting, right because we could
Speaker 2: then have a discussion about that why you why you
Speaker 2: would prefer to play you know, Pacific Dunes over Augusta National.
Speaker 2: If you're given ten rounds, But when you ask the
Speaker 2: question what is the greatest course, then that presumes that
Speaker 2: we're about to have a discussion of objective quality, which
Speaker 2: is where I think the ridiculousness. It's a subjective thing.
Speaker 2: That's that's why. Yes, that's the Yeah. I think that's
Speaker 2: what I'm saying when I say that this is an
Speaker 2: absurd exercise because it's it's presenting itself as something authoritative,
Speaker 2: but it just can't ever be that, because that that
Speaker 2: doesn't exist when it comes to evaluating golf courses. But
Speaker 2: one thing I do find interesting about the golf dot
Speaker 2: Com list, and maybe this should be the last thing
Speaker 2: we say about it before we.
Speaker 1: Move on, But maybe we just won't get a question.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll just it'll just be the rest of the podcast.
Speaker 2: We'll still call it a golf Architecture mailbag podcast. I'll
Speaker 2: still be the title. But one thing I do find
Speaker 2: interesting about this list is as a kind of survey
Speaker 2: of the opinions of the golf intelligentsia at a particular moment,
Speaker 2: because I think that's what golf dot COM's panel is,
Speaker 2: in contrast to the Golf Digest panel, which is huge
Speaker 2: and kind of a big tent and composed of I
Speaker 2: think a different kind of golfer for the most part,
Speaker 2: and the Golf Week list, which is in some ways similar.
Speaker 2: The golf dot Com list is like a sort of
Speaker 2: hand selected list of insiders, of people who are very
Speaker 2: well informed generally about golf courses and golf course architecture,
Speaker 2: who are well traveled, who have read all the books
Speaker 2: and had all the conversation with all the people, and
Speaker 2: these are This is a view into what they think,
Speaker 2: what they think is hot at a particular moment. And
Speaker 2: what's interesting is right now in that group, in that
Speaker 2: segment of the golf obsessed population, Old Barnwell is hot,
Speaker 2: the Lido is hot, Walter Travis is hot. Courses like
Speaker 2: Sancity Head are hot. You know what I would bet.
Speaker 2: I would place a bet right now that at some
Speaker 2: point we're going to see wild Horse in Nebraska enter
Speaker 2: this list within the next few years. If the composition
Speaker 2: of the panel stays.
Speaker 1: The same, if enough people get out there, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's a big and that's a big if. If the
Speaker 1: composition of the panel remains the same is a bit
Speaker 1: is a big if.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, not necessarily something, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: The panel that exists right now in some ways reflects
Speaker 2: the personality of the architecture editor at golf dot com
Speaker 2: who has been for the past few years, Rand Morrisset.
Speaker 2: And that's why this list is maybe the most appealing
Speaker 2: of the lists to you and me, Andy, because Rand Morrisset,
Speaker 2: the founder of golf club at lists, is a big
Speaker 2: influence on the way you and I think about golf courses,
Speaker 2: and that website, golf club at list is a big
Speaker 2: influence on your and my education in this subject. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, that list is going to turn out to
Speaker 2: be a little more congenial to us than some others,
Speaker 2: and so I find it interesting for that reason. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a temperature check on where we are in
Speaker 2: what we consider to be quality golf course architecture, as
Speaker 2: opposed to a representation of what are actually the best
Speaker 2: golf courses, which is always an impossible thing to do.
Speaker 1: Can I ask one final question here? Sure, say, what's
Speaker 1: the one course that when you see it on one
Speaker 1: of these lists you get irrationally upset that it's I'll
Speaker 1: give you by.
Speaker 2: Too, Okay, I mean I'm not looking at the list
Speaker 2: right now. Why don't you give me yours and I'll
Speaker 2: bring the list up. And I have a couple of ideas,
Speaker 2: but I want to make sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna say the one that is
Speaker 1: like the first one that I'm just like irrationally upset about,
Speaker 1: is Bandon Dunes being number forty nine.
Speaker 2: I andy just steering into trash.
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't do it. I can't. I think,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say it. Why would I? I just am at the
Speaker 1: point I never want to play the golf course again
Speaker 1: if I'm at the resort, I'd rather spend my time
Speaker 1: other places. And I just don't think that means that
Speaker 1: it's the top fifty golf course in the country, so
Speaker 1: that that's like, I the only reason I'll go play
Speaker 1: Bandon dune'es if I'm at Bandon Dune's golf resort, as
Speaker 1: if somebody in my group really really wants to play it.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'll spend my time at any of the other
Speaker 1: golf courses.
Speaker 2: I think you might be able to guess mine, But
Speaker 2: I always see it on these lists way way too high,
Speaker 2: just like irrationally high, and I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: And that's the East course at o'kille Country Club. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I don't get it. I don't. It's like fine, it's
Speaker 2: a fine, fine golf course. It's like a second tier
Speaker 2: Donald Ross design on an okay piece of land, Like
Speaker 2: what are we doing here? Why is this a top thirty,
Speaker 2: top forty golf course? What is it about it? I
Speaker 2: just don't. I don't see it. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I think your Golf Digest it was rated ahead of
Speaker 1: lacc which I thought was like insane, it's so hard.
Speaker 2: It might be above Pinehurst number two on that Golf
Speaker 2: Digest list. I'm sorry. If that's not the case, I apologize,
Speaker 2: but like, I feel like Pinehurst number two is one
Speaker 2: of America's great works of golf architecture. I mean talk
Speaker 2: about like perfect, you know, this place is amazing.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that needs to be said
Speaker 1: about Pinehurst number two versus the courses that are around it,
Speaker 1: is what goes into presenting a golf course when you
Speaker 1: literally have like I don't know exactly the rounds that
Speaker 1: are played at Pinehurst number two, but it's probably fifty
Speaker 1: thousand rounds a year, or roughly forty. Maybe it's forty.
Speaker 1: I mean right now, while I'm at this resort, I
Speaker 1: think they're doing double t starts starting at like seven
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning on Pineer's number two, So they
Speaker 1: tee off one to ten in the morning and afternoon
Speaker 1: so they can get the maximum number of people out
Speaker 1: on the golf course. So you just think about, like
Speaker 1: what goes into presenting that golf course versus you know,
Speaker 1: Chicago golf that maybe gets eight thousand rounds a year.
Speaker 1: It's not the same. It's like and I always think
Speaker 1: about like, and I'm not saying that I want this
Speaker 1: to happen. I don't want this to happen Pineherst number
Speaker 1: two being available and open to the public. But I
Speaker 1: also think, like, what would Pineher's number two look like
Speaker 1: if it had eight thousand rounds played instead of forty
Speaker 1: eight thousand rounds played a year. It would be dramatically
Speaker 1: differently presented.
Speaker 2: It would be differently received too, by top one hundred panels.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't think even in our even in
Speaker 2: our era, even after all the work that everybody has
Speaker 2: done to to highlight the virtues of public courses, that
Speaker 2: there is still a public course penalty in these in
Speaker 2: these rankings.
Speaker 1: This big of me to go after one of the
Speaker 1: few public courses on the corn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should. We should start insulting Beth Page Black too,
Speaker 2: all right now before.
Speaker 1: That could be one of the biggest sleepers.
Speaker 2: It's probably it's probably a little too high on this list,
Speaker 2: but there are a lot of public courses that just
Speaker 2: don't make this list at all that that probably deserve
Speaker 2: to be on there. In any case, let's talk about
Speaker 2: red rooster golf clubs before we get to our golf
Speaker 2: architecture male bag questions. Listen, I don't have the smooth
Speaker 2: segues like Brendan has I. You know, I'm I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not professional.
Speaker 1: Here's how you here's how you could have done it.
Speaker 1: You could have said. Okay, now that we've gotten a
Speaker 1: grip on the golf dot Com rankings, let's talk about
Speaker 1: what you're using for your grips.
Speaker 2: And speaking of speaking of aggressive advertising, that's just really
Speaker 2: in your face. Let's let's move from the golf dot
Speaker 2: Com discussion to red rooster golf clubs. PJ is sitting
Speaker 2: in his booth right now, just waving and thumbs downing
Speaker 2: all of these things that we're saying right now. So
Speaker 2: let's just let's just get to the eye copy. So
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Speaker 2: All right, want to get to some golf architecture mail
Speaker 2: bag questions?
Speaker 1: Andy, Oh yeah, can't wait.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me start you.
Speaker 1: With this one.
Speaker 2: This is from Matt mcgloff, Matt Matt McLoughlin on Blue Sky.
Speaker 2: This is this is a question from Blue Sky. Who
Speaker 2: is the Matt Iberflus golf course architecture?
Speaker 1: I think I think like Matt Eberfluss runs a pretty
Speaker 1: good defense, so he's like got half. He's somebody that
Speaker 1: gets like halfway there, but it has like pure incompetence
Speaker 1: in the other half has no game management skills, so
Speaker 1: you know, overall management not good. Maybe has like a
Speaker 1: few good good characteristics. I would maybe go generally aloof
Speaker 1: I would maybe go with maybe Dick Wilson. Now that's
Speaker 1: that's too too being to Dick Wilson. Honestly, I think.
Speaker 2: Dick Wilson built some good golf courses, but he did
Speaker 2: have his limitations, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's the thing. Like it's kind of like
Speaker 1: Maddy Verfluse runs like his cover two. Dick Wilson's like
Speaker 1: very much like a lot of bunkers, Like it was
Speaker 1: just kind of throw bunkers at it. I think Dick
Speaker 1: Wilson is pretty decent. Maybe Joe Lee, Maybe I go
Speaker 1: with Dick Wilson's un rolling Joe Lee, who he destroyed
Speaker 1: a lot of good golf courses in Chicago too, So
Speaker 1: that fits. Matdiflus has destroyed bear fans hearts for now
Speaker 1: three years running. So yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: How about Tom tom Weiscoff. Tom Weiscoff is my thought
Speaker 2: r I P. By the way, you know, we're very
Speaker 2: sorry about his his passing. But Tom Weiscoff, I feel
Speaker 2: is a very good architect in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But his courses just did have some kind of key
Speaker 2: limitations when it came to some cookie cutter shaping and
Speaker 2: things like that. So that's what comes to mind from
Speaker 2: your description of Matt Eberflus, though I think Tom Weiskoff
Speaker 2: may have been a better golf architect than Matt. Eberflus
Speaker 2: is a football coach.
Speaker 1: All right, putterfly asks you what design issues do PAR
Speaker 1: three courses have over traditional courses?
Speaker 2: So is this question more like, what what design problems
Speaker 2: do PAR three courses have as opposed to traditional courses?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is I think you should just the
Speaker 1: state of PAR three courses?
Speaker 2: PAR three courses. Sure, par three courses. I guess they're
Speaker 2: kind of having a moment in terms of, not necessarily
Speaker 2: in terms of a lot of them getting built, but
Speaker 2: in terms of how much people say they want them.
Speaker 2: But I would say that the issue with building a
Speaker 2: PAR three course, the thing that's challenging about building a
Speaker 2: short course is finding true variety. You have just one
Speaker 2: part three after another. You need to work really hard
Speaker 2: to find that hole to whole variety and to make
Speaker 2: sure that each hole is memorable after the round. That's
Speaker 2: a really tall task when you're only working with one
Speaker 2: kind of hole well, and I think the courses, well,
Speaker 2: the short courses that do it well are amazing.
Speaker 1: The other aspect of it is that you're dealing with
Speaker 1: small pieces of land that don't have diversity in landscapes. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like one of the things is like a big eighteen
Speaker 1: hole golf course navigates, you know, just to say two
Speaker 1: hundred acres, especially new bills two hundred acres plus of property.
Speaker 1: So you you go into like all these different places
Speaker 1: and there's space to have big landforms like PAR three
Speaker 1: courses situate you know, sub forty acres, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times they're kind of like built off to the
Speaker 1: side on like, hey, this land we can't use for
Speaker 1: anything else, go build. It's kind of like I think
Speaker 1: there's like a great design renaissance with PAR three courses,
Speaker 1: but I do think it still is. I remember Bill
Speaker 1: Corr talking about how like PAR three courses and when
Speaker 1: he was growing up were known as executive courses, and
Speaker 1: they were they're not like you know, they weren't thought
Speaker 1: of a real golf courses. I still think that we're
Speaker 1: at the stage where developers do not consider PAR three
Speaker 1: courses a great use of great land. They're just like, okay,
Speaker 1: prioritize it. Yeah, we can't put a built a full
Speaker 1: course here, So here you go. You could use this
Speaker 1: as your PAR three course. And I think that puts
Speaker 1: a huge emphasis on just green design. If you don't
Speaker 1: have diverse land features, I think like.
Speaker 2: And skill in green design, like sure skill, because like
Speaker 2: any architect can make nine green, say if it's a
Speaker 2: nine hole par three course, can make nine grains really
Speaker 2: different from each other, but some of them are going
Speaker 2: to be ridiculous looking or just kind of stupid. To
Speaker 2: build a bunch of part three grains that really work
Speaker 2: and are also really different from each other takes a
Speaker 2: lot of skill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think like one of the things that
Speaker 1: I don't think par three courses in general, I'd rather
Speaker 1: see less holes and more variety in yardage then the
Speaker 1: current I feel like the current thing is just like, hey,
Speaker 1: just build a bunch of one hundred and twenty sub
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty yard holes, and I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of boring. It's just like, oh, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go hit a little wedge over and over and over
Speaker 1: and over again for however many holes you've created. And
Speaker 1: now the new things don't make it nine or eighteen,
Speaker 1: so you know, whatever number between nine and why don't
Speaker 1: we just why don't Like A question I always have
Speaker 1: is like why don't we have like a four hole course,
Speaker 1: a short four whole short course that's like one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty yard hole one hundred and seventy yard hole
Speaker 1: one two twenty. I'd play that. I'd love to play it.
Speaker 1: And you know, does the business models just not work?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Maybe maybe if the resorts that have a lot
Speaker 2: of these courses are charging what they charge for around it,
Speaker 2: like Bandon Shorties or Bandon preserve that if it's a
Speaker 2: five hole course, then they just can't make that be efficient.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. It just seems like a lot
Speaker 2: of the destination resorts that are building the most exciting
Speaker 2: par three courses are building them as amenities, not as
Speaker 2: cornerstones of profitability, right, And so if you're building it,
Speaker 2: hold on presumably.
Speaker 1: I think it's a cornerstone of their profitability because they've
Speaker 1: realized it's like the perfect afternoon place that people that
Speaker 1: can't they get. They get a charge of greens, fee
Speaker 1: of sixty or whatever, and then they know people are
Speaker 1: going there and it's like half golf, half bar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, they can I think a drinks.
Speaker 1: I think it's a profit center. And it's on a
Speaker 1: piece of land that is like otherwise unused. I'm more
Speaker 1: talking about like why is it? Why is it anybody
Speaker 1: ever built like a four hole course on a tiny
Speaker 1: piece of land.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be like a an independent course.
Speaker 1: Is it like completely It could be that I haven't
Speaker 1: ever thought about like trying to make the business work.
Speaker 1: But is that like completely unfeasible to have a golf
Speaker 1: course that you could play in thirty minutes?
Speaker 2: Like? Why?
Speaker 1: I think, why is there not a storm of golf
Speaker 1: that you could play in thirty minutes?
Speaker 2: Believe me, Andy, I wish there were. I just think
Speaker 2: it's it's yeah, I think it's the business part of it.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's in general an issue with
Speaker 2: short courses that are independent of resorts, you know, where
Speaker 2: you just have a PAR three course that is on
Speaker 2: its own and has to generate its popularity in and
Speaker 2: of itself. Right, That's kind of what I meant when
Speaker 2: I said that these par three courses are amenities at
Speaker 2: these resorts. If these resorts didn't have their eighteen whole
Speaker 2: regulation courses, then the PAR three courses wouldn't be nearly
Speaker 2: as successful or nearly as easy to make work. But
Speaker 2: if you have just a short course on its own,
Speaker 2: it's just a little bit harder to make the business
Speaker 2: work because people have proven over and over that they're
Speaker 2: just more likely to go pay for a full round
Speaker 2: at a par seventy two eighteen whole course.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I do think a neighborhood four whole course course
Speaker 1: could work.
Speaker 2: It would be amazing. I mean I'd love it. I'd
Speaker 2: love it. There are like no golf courses and in
Speaker 2: my town essentially, but there are little pieces of land
Speaker 2: with space for four golf holes. So trust me, would
Speaker 2: love this to be the case. Related question here from Stephen.
Speaker 1: Proctor, because you could just mow the greens out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree, I agree. Can I give you
Speaker 2: this question from Stephen Proctor because I think it relates
Speaker 2: to what we're talking about? He asks, what prospect do
Speaker 2: you see of more short sporty courses of the par
Speaker 2: sixty eight variety being built in the years ahead? So
Speaker 2: I wanted to throw that into the mix too, because
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about these like second courses that
Speaker 2: clubs in Ireland and Great Britain have, you know, like
Speaker 2: at Royal County Down and Royal Port Rush kind of
Speaker 2: the second rush at the club. Yeah, and it might
Speaker 2: have been considered in an earlier age, the young people's
Speaker 2: course or the ladies course. In fact, there are a
Speaker 2: couple of you know, like formby Ladies Course in England.
Speaker 2: I feel like these are such fascinating courses and so cool.
Speaker 2: Such Valley is maybe a little bit in that mold
Speaker 2: or kind of pushing toward that end of the spectrum
Speaker 2: that the shorter, sportier course that can have a par
Speaker 2: under seventy. Do you I mean, do you feel like
Speaker 2: there's a possibility that these could become more popular and
Speaker 2: more viable as as golf courses.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that they should be just in general,
Speaker 1: because the idea of par fives really existing is like
Speaker 1: a farce in general, you know, like due part du
Speaker 1: par fives actually exist at like higher levels of the game.
Speaker 1: Sure they exist for the average player, but they always
Speaker 1: long part that was a long part four back like
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundred, it's a long part four.
Speaker 1: Like almost every par five is reachable in two by
Speaker 1: a scratch a better than scratch player. So like at
Speaker 1: that point, I'm asking, like what is a par five?
Speaker 1: Is it actually a part? Like the long part four
Speaker 1: used to be a three shot hole for your fifteen handicap.
Speaker 1: They just raise the par to five to make you
Speaker 1: feel better, you know, and.
Speaker 2: Can we keep working these holes into routings when they
Speaker 2: have to be like seven hundred yards long from the
Speaker 2: back seas in order to be legitimate par fives. You know,
Speaker 2: can we keep finding space for these holes, it just
Speaker 2: becomes harder and harder.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. So, like to me, if you just take
Speaker 1: out the fact that, like par fives don't really exist,
Speaker 1: they're just they're just birdie holes for really good players,
Speaker 1: and they're still hard for the average player. If you
Speaker 1: take away that, like par fives for for a percentage
Speaker 1: of golfers do not exist, then like what if, like
Speaker 1: that makes the golf holes harder for good players. A
Speaker 1: par sixty eight like is really hard because you're birdie opportunities.
Speaker 1: You have to hit really good shots to make birdies.
Speaker 1: Like it's really hard to make birdies when you even
Speaker 1: when you have a dyard wedgend, it's not that hard
Speaker 1: to make birdies when you hit driver threewood around the
Speaker 1: green or driver long iron around the green and you
Speaker 1: get up and down. You know. So when you think
Speaker 1: about it, pars more courses should be have a lower
Speaker 1: part at the highest level of the game. I think
Speaker 1: what's interesting about parse sixty eight and sixty nine courses is.
Speaker 1: I think it brings skill together in the way that
Speaker 1: sedg Valley did. Like it's like a golf course that
Speaker 1: makes good players think they have to hit really good shots.
Speaker 1: But like when you make the hole shorter, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, more people when the golf course is shorter,
Speaker 1: more types of players have the ability to hang around
Speaker 1: like power players. It brings like an element of skill.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. I played a match once at Prairie
Speaker 1: Dunes and the match was set up where if whichever
Speaker 1: team won the last hole got to pick the t
Speaker 1: and I was playing a younger guy and an older guy,
Speaker 1: and the older guy was like a four handicap that clearly,
Speaker 1: earlier in his life was like a plus two. And
Speaker 1: when we won a hole, we moved all the way back,
Speaker 1: and when they won a hole, they moved all the
Speaker 1: way up. And it was terrifying because like, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this guy, who like clearly was a great
Speaker 1: wedge player and still was a great wedge player, was
Speaker 1: playing all the way up and he was getting wedges
Speaker 1: in his hand and like, sure, I could drive it
Speaker 1: up by the green, but this guy was hitting like
Speaker 1: eighty yr wedges and he was like a great wedge player.
Speaker 1: So like to me, when you make the golf course shorter,
Speaker 1: it all of a sudden introduces more varieties of skill
Speaker 1: that can succeed. So, yes, there should be more sporty
Speaker 1: golf courses, but I doubt that it's going to go
Speaker 1: that direction.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael Kaiser is one of the most influential developers
Speaker 2: in golf right now, Michael Kaiser being Mike Kaiser's son, right,
Speaker 2: and Michael and his brother Chris are behind a lot
Speaker 2: of the kind of new dream golf developments. I know
Speaker 2: Michael Kaiser to be obsessed with the idea of the short,
Speaker 2: sporty golf course, and so if anybody can have an
Speaker 2: influence on the general trends of the golf industry, it
Speaker 2: would have to be him, right, And so I hope
Speaker 2: that there is some kind of I don't know, trickle
Speaker 2: down or trickle Sideway's effect from Sedge Valley and some
Speaker 2: of these other par sixty something courses that I think
Speaker 2: Michael Kaiser wants to build.
Speaker 1: I think that their next course, the Commons up there,
Speaker 1: is going to be pushing in that direction. Yeah, A
Speaker 1: lot of people probably who visited saw the grassing of
Speaker 1: it happening and coming to life this summer. But I think,
Speaker 1: like I do. Like one of the things that excites
Speaker 1: me about Michael is he he wants to build different stuff.
Speaker 1: Like they're building a lot of new courses and it's
Speaker 1: not just a we're just gonna roll out the ball
Speaker 1: and do the same thing, Like he wants to have
Speaker 1: ideas around how each course differentiates itself. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sand Valley's kind of a laboratory right now. It's such
Speaker 2: an interesting site of golf course design at the moment.
Speaker 2: You know, the Leado and such Valley coming out recently,
Speaker 2: and this Commons course is coming soon. So yeah, if
Speaker 2: you want to get some sense of where things could
Speaker 2: go next, it wouldn't be a bad idea to look
Speaker 2: at some of the things that they're doing at Sand
Speaker 2: Valley because it's pretty smart. All right, do you have
Speaker 2: another question for me or do you want me to
Speaker 2: toss one at you?
Speaker 1: I got one for you. Let's ask this is from
Speaker 1: Stroke and Distance. What in progress or up and coming
Speaker 1: projects do you feel will become game changers for the
Speaker 1: for the industry.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I saw this question and I was like,
Speaker 2: this is going to be really hard answer because I
Speaker 2: don't really know. You know some projects that are really
Speaker 2: different that are coming down the pipeline right now that
Speaker 2: maybe could end up being influential. I would look out
Speaker 2: for what Tom Doak and his team are doing at
Speaker 2: Sandglass now. As for the project being influential, that might
Speaker 2: be hard because the course is not going to be
Speaker 2: that available to that many people. It's going to be
Speaker 2: a very private golf course. But the method that Tom
Speaker 2: Doak's team is using there kind of marshaling light our
Speaker 2: data to a different end than it was used in
Speaker 2: the Lido project. Kind of using templates from other courses,
Speaker 2: like scans from other courses is a starting point and
Speaker 2: then massaging them into something slightly different is a really
Speaker 2: interesting method and might end up being influential. Who knows.
Speaker 2: As this kind of technology starts to enter golf design more,
Speaker 2: maybe that will end up being influential. There are some
Speaker 2: projects that I would hope would be influential. We're we're
Speaker 2: seeing some public courses, some municipal courses get get some
Speaker 2: needed work, like at Miami Lake's in Florida. We recently
Speaker 2: had a feature on this and in Design Notebook that's
Speaker 2: getting a renovation. Hooper Golf course, public golf course got
Speaker 2: a got a nice restoration. This is a new Hampshire.
Speaker 2: Wayne Styles course would be a cool one. So maybe
Speaker 2: these will be influential, But I don't know. They're just
Speaker 2: different at this moment.
Speaker 1: I'm also Jay Blossie's redesigning Poppy Rip in liver in Livermore,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of He's invited me out a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: I feel bad. You know, when you when you can't
Speaker 1: do something so many times that they stop inviting you.
Speaker 1: I think I've reached that point with them.
Speaker 2: I've like, yeah, yeah, when they when you when you
Speaker 2: don't respond to enough emails, they start thinking maybe this
Speaker 2: guy doesn't like me.
Speaker 1: Or it's just like when you're when your friends ask
Speaker 1: you to do something and you just get caught in
Speaker 1: too many, too many situations where you just like you're
Speaker 1: doing something else, they just stop inviting you. Is you
Speaker 1: never want to fall in for that. I think Jay
Speaker 1: has put me in that bucket. I'm no longer getting invited.
Speaker 2: Official apology to Jay Blasi. He is doing exciting workout
Speaker 2: there at Poppy Ridge. I'm looking forward to seeing it
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that's like the exciting thing
Speaker 1: I if and I and and who knows what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with the economy. It seems like people are
Speaker 1: pretty bullish on it. If if, if the economy continues
Speaker 1: to be good, like it's it's amazing, is that golf
Speaker 1: will be in an amazing place if the you know,
Speaker 1: I think people have had this like doomsday feeling about
Speaker 1: the industry and are we going to go into bubble?
Speaker 1: But if it, you know, if the economy is strong,
Speaker 1: I mean, golf is going to continue to flourish. Like
Speaker 1: I think, like I've had this realization over the last
Speaker 1: like year or two, is just like how much great
Speaker 1: work is being done. And I think like a lot
Speaker 1: of this goes with like the Interlock and and Medina stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's amazing, how much good And then
Speaker 1: I mean you the new courses that are being built,
Speaker 1: Like Broomsedge is a super super cool golf course, the
Speaker 1: new Broomsedge old Barnwell Tree Farm, Like I mean, like
Speaker 1: those three golf courses all in like a pretty small
Speaker 1: vicinity are awesome golf courses. Like if you had you know,
Speaker 1: we're leaving a time where if like one of those
Speaker 1: got built in ten years you'd be happy. And it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's like three awesome golf courses in in the you know,
Speaker 1: uh in kind of the sandhills of South Carolina that
Speaker 1: get built in a matter of three years.
Speaker 2: You know, Well, let me let me raise a countervailing
Speaker 2: opinion that I've seen out there in response to all
Speaker 2: this work that we've seen recently. It seems like a
Speaker 2: lot of the questions that we got to this call
Speaker 2: for questions and past recent ones have had as a
Speaker 2: premise that a lot of the golf architecture we've seen
Speaker 2: recently has been similar, right, has had similarities to each other.
Speaker 2: That we're seeing too much of the same kind of work,
Speaker 2: too much of the Corn Crunshaw, Tom Doak Gilhant's style,
Speaker 2: and people are just repeating the same things over and
Speaker 2: over again, and when are we going to get something different?
Speaker 2: A lot of the questions are like, what's going to
Speaker 2: be different, what's going to be the new thing that
Speaker 2: just you know, kind of defies all of the current trends,
Speaker 2: And what would be your response to that?
Speaker 1: General feeling people are looking way too much at the
Speaker 1: bunkers and not enough at the property because like what
Speaker 1: this Eraro design is doing is it's valuing the the
Speaker 1: individual nature of a piece of property and the reality
Speaker 1: that if you rout holes along a property, they're going
Speaker 1: to be unique because it's going to be its own property.
Speaker 1: Like a great example is the ninth hole at Broomsedge.
Speaker 1: Is this par five and it's a short par five,
Speaker 1: pretty big fair away, and I played. I played it
Speaker 1: one time and I hit an iron and I thought
Speaker 1: I hit it to like two feet and it just
Speaker 1: rocketed off the back. And I got up there and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, this green runs away
Speaker 1: like crazy, and it's like the whole fall the property
Speaker 1: goes that way. And it's like, sure, maybe the bunker
Speaker 1: style might look similar to another course and the green
Speaker 1: the way the greens are shaped, but literally, you know,
Speaker 1: the the way that the ball just runs away. I like,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about that shot since I hit it,
Speaker 1: and it's like I can't wait to play it again
Speaker 1: because I'm going to have to I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to land this shot. Like do I land it ten
Speaker 1: yards short? I landed this one five yards short? Do
Speaker 1: I land at ten yard short? Do I land at fifteen?
Speaker 1: Do I land at twenty? Like And it is just
Speaker 1: all with the fall of the property. So I think,
Speaker 1: like people need to look at the property because that's
Speaker 1: what's going to Like a lot of these golf courses,
Speaker 1: if you just had the greens, no bunkers, and the property,
Speaker 1: it'd be fascinating golf to play, and then people would
Speaker 1: be like, Wow, that was a lot different than this,
Speaker 1: Like a broom, sedges and old barnwell and tree farms
Speaker 1: properties are wildly different. If you took away all the bunkers,
Speaker 1: people would think they were way different golf courses. But
Speaker 1: they latch onto like the bunkers kind of look the same,
Speaker 1: so it all looks the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, And I think that the rise of
Speaker 2: golf photography and its wide distribution has definitely had an
Speaker 2: influence on this, because what do you key in on
Speaker 2: when you're looking at a golf photograph. What a photographer's key.
Speaker 1: In on for that matter, bunkers.
Speaker 2: It's the bunkers. Yeah, that's the thing that shows up
Speaker 2: the best, that color contrast between the white or tan
Speaker 2: sand and the green turf around it. That's always going
Speaker 2: to be the thing that the photography focuses on, and
Speaker 2: our photography focuses on, Like everybody does this, But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's useful to keep in mind that the experience of
Speaker 2: these courses on the ground is always very different. This
Speaker 2: is always my response to people who ask whether, say
Speaker 2: Corey Crenshaw are doing the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2: It's like, do they have a style, Yes, they have
Speaker 2: a style, but that style is to honor the particular
Speaker 2: piece of land. And so if you go to these
Speaker 2: particular pieces of land and experience them, then the courses
Speaker 2: become really distinct in your mind. If you look at photographs,
Speaker 2: then they become hard to differentiate from each other. At
Speaker 2: the same time, I will say that that story about
Speaker 2: Pete Die building Harbor Town, going across the island and
Speaker 2: seeing what Robert Trent Jones was doing and just saying
Speaker 2: to himself, I'm going to do the opposite of that.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to do something that is in every
Speaker 2: way different from what Jones is doing on the other
Speaker 2: side of this island. That's an interesting impulse that contrarianism.
Speaker 2: And Tom Doak has some of this about him too.
Speaker 2: He wants to he wants to keep pushing, he wants
Speaker 2: to do things that are different from what other people
Speaker 2: are doing. But maybe some of that would be useful
Speaker 2: to current golf architecture where maybe there's just somebody out
Speaker 2: there who's a really strong, smart architect just says I'm
Speaker 2: just going to try to do everything the opposite to
Speaker 2: what I'm seeing, you know, that would be that would
Speaker 2: be interesting to see, and we we might be missing
Speaker 2: that a little bit right now with this this newer
Speaker 2: generation of architects who are pushing in different directions. I
Speaker 2: think Kyle Franz and Schneider and Conan are all doing
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: Interesting Tyler ray or different or what draft different, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think it will be exciting.
Speaker 2: We need to appreciate. Yeah, but but there's but there's
Speaker 2: not really anybody who's really putting themselves down as the
Speaker 2: opposite of everything, and maybe that's just maybe that's the thing,
Speaker 2: right exactly.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also people should keep in mind Nicholas Designs
Speaker 2: still building a lot of golf courses, Greg Norman still
Speaker 2: building a lot of golf courses. Fasio is still Discovery
Speaker 2: Land's guy. I mean, all of these architects haven't disappeared, right,
Speaker 2: They're just not not dominant anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 2: Okay, do we want to do any other questions is there.
Speaker 1: I say we break, we do part two and we
Speaker 1: will do police Part two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that sounds like a good plan. Does that
Speaker 2: sound like a good plan, PJ give me a thumbs up.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks for coming on the pod, Andy, I'll
Speaker 2: talk to you later. This episode of the Friday Golf
Speaker 2: Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. All Right,
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