Speaker 1: I miss the green.
Speaker 2: For example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball
Speaker 2: in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday Frida Egg Bride
Speaker 1: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run.
Speaker 3: Off of the course.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 2: Friday Egg Podcast. Today I'm joined by Mike Cocking, a
Speaker 2: golf course architect based in Australia and part of the Ogilvie, Clayton,
Speaker 2: Cocking and Mead Design firm. Mike, Welcome on.
Speaker 1: Thanks Andy, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excited to talk golf course architecture, some sand belt
Speaker 2: Australia and little learn a little bit more about your
Speaker 2: firm and what you guys are doing down under.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yep, look forward to it.
Speaker 2: So I'd love to hear. I think, knowing you a
Speaker 2: little bit, I think you've got a really interesting background.
Speaker 2: How you got into golf course architecture. Why don't you
Speaker 2: tell us how you got into golf and architecture.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, I guess I got into golf. My first
Speaker 1: sort of experience with golf was my parents decided to
Speaker 1: take the game up when I was about I don't know,
Speaker 1: seven or eight, and they dragged my sister and I
Speaker 1: out to the golf course and you know, I wander
Speaker 1: around with.
Speaker 3: Him and we hated it.
Speaker 1: It was it was not interesting at all. I probably
Speaker 1: maybe I would have been hooked if I had been
Speaker 1: allowed to swing a club or try and have a hit,
Speaker 1: but they were just new to the game and probably
Speaker 1: nervous that I'd hit a shank and smash a car
Speaker 1: or something. So that was sort of my first taste
Speaker 1: of it. And then years later, well, I used to
Speaker 1: My parents were teachers, and they started They would start
Speaker 1: school at bit earlier than I would, so that they
Speaker 1: would drop me at my grandparents' house and I'd just
Speaker 1: watched TV for an hour before they would take me
Speaker 1: to school. And one morning the golf was on and
Speaker 1: it was I reckon. It was the eighty eight US Open,
Speaker 1: so it was Curtis Strange and Faldo, and I was
Speaker 1: kind of I found it quite captivating, really because it
Speaker 1: was a tight finish. I thought Valdo was cool because
Speaker 1: he looked like Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones was speaking
Speaker 1: at the time, so I kind of I was rooting
Speaker 1: for him, and I went to school and Lullberhold. They
Speaker 1: tired and so it was a playoff. So the next
Speaker 1: day I got to see it again and that probably
Speaker 1: was what really grabbed me. And then I kind of
Speaker 1: found my parents' clubs in the cupboard at home and
Speaker 1: started kind of chipping around the backyard, and so my
Speaker 1: dad decided to take me to a driving range, and
Speaker 1: it kind of went from there really and he was
Speaker 1: keen to take up the game with me, so we
Speaker 1: sort of started together, and I was probably eleven, then
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve, and I went from the driving range
Speaker 1: to a local kind of communi or public golf course,
Speaker 1: and then I sort of joined a proper golf course
Speaker 1: if you like, when I was perhaps fourteen thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: Then I joined Peninsula where we're working now, when I
Speaker 1: was seventeen. I was there for about twenty years, and
Speaker 1: then six six years ago I joined Kingston Heath because
Speaker 1: I lived literally next door to Kingston Age, which is
Speaker 1: kind of nice.
Speaker 2: That's yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was sort of my introduction to golf. To
Speaker 1: golf course design was a little bit a little bit later.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, like most kids are kind of
Speaker 1: Drew Gold once I was kind of once I was
Speaker 1: into golf, I was really into golf. You know, I
Speaker 1: would read all the magazines and you know, see photos
Speaker 1: of Cyprus Point and Augusta, and you know, that was
Speaker 1: just like Disneyland to me. And I guess the thought
Speaker 1: of ever seeing those was certainly, you know, really held
Speaker 1: my attention. And then I I was my boss at
Speaker 1: the time, I was working in a golf shop when
Speaker 1: I was about fifteen or sixteen, and my boss got
Speaker 1: a copy of one of the limited edition copies of
Speaker 1: Tom Doak's Confidential Guide, and I borrowed that and sort
Speaker 1: of reading through that started to understand that there was
Speaker 1: this whole other element to golf courses that I'd never
Speaker 1: really thought about. You know, I guess, like most kids,
Speaker 1: just sort of the condition of the course is probably
Speaker 1: what how you measure whether it's good or bad. And
Speaker 1: suddenly he was talking about routings and talking about all
Speaker 1: these things that I didn't really know what they were.
Speaker 1: And then as my golf improved, I was in what's
Speaker 1: known as the Victorian Institute of Sport, which was it
Speaker 1: was kind of Australia's answer to the college program in America.
Speaker 1: So it was started in the nineties. Robert Allen, b
Speaker 1: Stuart appleby Jeff Ogilvie, Aaron Badley, they all came through
Speaker 1: that program, and through that I got to travel. I
Speaker 1: was a good amateur, so I played seat of internationally
Speaker 1: a fair bit, and I used Tom's book really to
Speaker 1: find all the courses near where I was playing that
Speaker 1: are worth seeing, so that it kind of extended from there.
Speaker 1: And then I was never really comfortable with the idea
Speaker 1: of playing professionally. I did briefly, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe having options isn't a good thing if you're trying
Speaker 1: to be a professional golfer. But I'd finished a degree
Speaker 1: in engineering and I didn't want to be a struggling
Speaker 1: pro by any stretch. And I was always I was
Speaker 1: interested in golf course design obviously, but figured it would
Speaker 1: be really hard to get into. But then Mike Clayton
Speaker 1: then a couple of other guys who had started a
Speaker 1: company together, got the job at Peninsula to do some work,
Speaker 1: which was where I was playing. And I knew Mike
Speaker 1: through golf and sort of approached them whether they needed
Speaker 1: sort of some help or part time work, or whether
Speaker 1: you know, whether I could how I could kind of
Speaker 1: get involved in golf course design, and that was in
Speaker 1: two thousand and Ashley met actually joined that firm at
Speaker 1: the same time to help out with construction. So Mike,
Speaker 1: Ashley and I have worked together for eighteen years and
Speaker 1: it kind of went from there really and then over
Speaker 1: time I got more interested in golf course design, less
Speaker 1: interested in playing, and it just of, you know, I
Speaker 1: played less golf and worked more in design. So it
Speaker 1: kind of was a pretty that's how it progressed.
Speaker 2: I guess have you found that since you stopped caring
Speaker 2: as much about golf that your your golf has gotten
Speaker 2: better the more you think about design.
Speaker 1: When you play, I enjoy it more, certainly I having
Speaker 1: a bad round and not worrying about not having to
Speaker 1: stress over all these parts you've missed or this shot
Speaker 1: you've missed and having to go to the range work
Speaker 1: on it. You know, I do like I enjoy my
Speaker 1: golf again where you just you know, you just have
Speaker 1: around and once you part out in eighteen that's the
Speaker 1: end of it. I always find it hard to look
Speaker 1: at kind of look at the architecture and play it
Speaker 1: at the same time, because you get you do get
Speaker 1: involved with your game, and I find I see a
Speaker 1: lot more just walking a golf course rather than playing it.
Speaker 1: So I'm never that fast. If I go overseas somewhere
Speaker 1: and see a golf course that I've always wanted to see,
Speaker 1: I'm not that far if I don't play it. You know,
Speaker 1: in an ideal world you perhaps walk it in the
Speaker 1: morning and then play it in the afternoon, But really
Speaker 1: do you have that amount of time free? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see a lot more kind of walking the golf course.
Speaker 2: I find, Yeah, I would agree. You can just it
Speaker 2: removes one like personal element from it and like you're
Speaker 2: not looking for balls, and especially if you're walking it alone,
Speaker 2: you can just walk and observe it. You know, you're
Speaker 2: not talking to somebody. But it's rare that you get
Speaker 2: to do both.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you probably don't concentrate on the you
Speaker 1: don't notice the peripheral things, you know, because you do
Speaker 1: kind of just focus on the playing area.
Speaker 3: Isn't down the middle and wherever you hit your ball too?
Speaker 2: What would you say is one thing that like the
Speaker 2: average golfer beginning to get into architecture do to understand
Speaker 2: more about architecture while they're playing.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. It. I guess, like on the
Speaker 1: sand belt here, the strategies are fairly straightforward and quite
Speaker 1: it's almost strategic design one O one. You know, the
Speaker 1: greens are very clearly angled one way or the other.
Speaker 1: So if you work, if you study the green complex
Speaker 1: and work your way back the strategy, the whole makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I think once they understand, like we talk about
Speaker 1: it a lot when we have like a committee meeting
Speaker 1: or something, it's amazing how few people understand the very
Speaker 1: basics of strategy, you know, and once and it's not
Speaker 1: really a complicated topic. But I think once they understand that, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the greens designed to favor play from a
Speaker 1: particular part of the fair way, and usually around that
Speaker 1: spot there's a hazard, you know, so if you play
Speaker 1: close to the hazard, you get a better angle. If
Speaker 1: you play further away from it, it's a worse angle.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, there's shades of gray, it's not
Speaker 1: black or white. You can aim a meter a little
Speaker 1: bit to the ride or forty meters to the right,
Speaker 1: and the shot just incrementally gets harder. And I think
Speaker 1: once they you can see the light bulb go off
Speaker 1: when you do explain that, and then suddenly they start
Speaker 1: thinking about all the holes on the golf course and
Speaker 1: how they're range. So I think it's in terms of
Speaker 1: playing it. I think they need to understand that basic
Speaker 1: logic and then they can kind of apply it to
Speaker 1: their own game and their own golf course. I tell
Speaker 1: you one thing that I find. I've got a set
Speaker 1: of hickory clubs, which I've got a couple of sets,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of fun using hickories and on
Speaker 1: an interesting on a strategic golf course because you really
Speaker 1: understand the strategy of the holes. They make more sense
Speaker 1: because you can't hit you know, with the hickories. Everything
Speaker 1: comes out a bit lower and it runs. You can't
Speaker 1: hit that high spinning nine nine that stops on the
Speaker 1: green if you're out of position. So the strategy of
Speaker 1: the golf course really shines through with hickorys. If that
Speaker 1: makes sense, you have to be It's such a reward
Speaker 1: for being in the right position and such a penalty
Speaker 1: for being out of position with hickorys, just because you
Speaker 1: can't hit that recovery shot. So I think people would
Speaker 1: understand strategy very quickly, perhaps if they had around with hickrees.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what people need to start learning golf on hecrees.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I don't think that happened a nineteen year
Speaker 1: old to put away M two and pick up a
Speaker 1: wooden shafted club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might actually slow down the growth of the game.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So in terms of you guys, have you got to
Speaker 2: have one of the best player firms in the country
Speaker 2: between but working with Mike Clayton, Jeff Ogilvie and Ashley Mead,
Speaker 2: how do you guys work and split up work?
Speaker 1: Yes, so where there's a couple of other staff members
Speaker 1: as well that have worked with us for a long time.
Speaker 1: So we we like that kind of turnkey approach, I guess,
Speaker 1: or I guess I've always liked the idea that we
Speaker 1: can do everything from the first kind of little concept
Speaker 1: sketch basically right through. So like a lot of the
Speaker 1: modern firms like Bill and Ben and Tom and have you,
Speaker 1: we build. We build our own work. We don't really
Speaker 1: like to give it to a contractor. So I guess
Speaker 1: in the early phases of a new project or a design,
Speaker 1: we all kind of get involved with that and sort
Speaker 1: of chat through some of the big picture ideas. Jeff's
Speaker 1: still playing of course in America, so he's probably not
Speaker 1: as involved as you know as long term he hopes
Speaker 1: to be. And then you know, I guess as it
Speaker 1: moves into more of a construction probably actually and I
Speaker 1: have more of a lead role in terms of being
Speaker 1: on site and working with the guys out in the field.
Speaker 1: And you know that can limit how many projects you
Speaker 1: take on. Usually two sort of big projects in construction
Speaker 1: is about as much as we want to do because
Speaker 1: invariably you've got You've also then got jobs that you're
Speaker 1: pitching on, or there might be two or throw out
Speaker 1: the jobs that are in design, and you know it's
Speaker 1: obviously more than just those two that are in construction.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's typically how it works in terms.
Speaker 2: Of got the collaborative approach, and obviously with Jeff and
Speaker 2: make you've got a couple of big names from in
Speaker 2: Australia and obviously Jeff across the world. What are the
Speaker 2: benefits of working in that and versus say being out
Speaker 2: on your own.
Speaker 1: I think I think collaborative approaches that I do find
Speaker 1: it minimizes your missus. You know, sometimes if you're on
Speaker 1: your own, you go down a certain path and perhaps
Speaker 1: you're you're pushing hard to build a green or build
Speaker 1: a hole on the edge. It's helpful to have someone
Speaker 1: with fresh eyes come out and say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there might be a bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit too hard or a bit too slopy,
Speaker 1: or you know, because you do get you get so
Speaker 1: engrossed in that project that sometimes you forget to step
Speaker 1: back and look a look at the big picture. So
Speaker 1: that's where it's very helpful having any of the guys
Speaker 1: come in and really with fresh eyes have a look
Speaker 1: at it. I mean, Jeff and Mike certainly from a
Speaker 1: playing point of view, is really helpful as well. I
Speaker 1: know there's been a I mean, you don't build too
Speaker 1: many tournament golf courses. There's on many tournaments in Australia,
Speaker 1: but we do consult to a lot of courses that
Speaker 1: host tournaments, and it is sometimes interesting you sort of
Speaker 1: forget how good those guys are, how far they hit it,
Speaker 1: what they see as being a reasonable shot to take
Speaker 1: on under certain conditions. So it sometimes just kind of
Speaker 1: puts a different perspective on a whole So that's always
Speaker 1: interesting versus on your own I mean, perhaps maybe the
Speaker 1: negative of a collaborative approach is that you may not
Speaker 1: get those way out ideas because they might always be
Speaker 1: tempered by in a collaboration. But I think if you
Speaker 1: come up with an idea and put a case forward
Speaker 1: to why it's a good idea, typically we'll go ahead
Speaker 1: and build it and then you just see how it evolves.
Speaker 1: You can always I mean by building your own work.
Speaker 1: It's the advantage. You can build something. If it doesn't
Speaker 1: look great, you can just change it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I think. Sometimes I would benefit from somebody
Speaker 2: reading over some stuff that I write, because sometimes I
Speaker 2: might go a little far, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's like it's like the email. You know,
Speaker 1: you never I never send an email at night, you know,
Speaker 1: because you yeah, you can get Yeah, it's amazing in
Speaker 1: the morning when you wake up and have a read
Speaker 1: of that same email, you're like, oh, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I can say that.
Speaker 2: I send all my emails out late at night, so
Speaker 2: that one of my problems.
Speaker 1: Wait for the morning.
Speaker 2: So you're finishing up a project Landhai International in China,
Speaker 2: I'm curious how golf design and the golf culture is
Speaker 2: different there compared to Australia or the States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's someone once described it to me is that,
Speaker 1: you know, golfing in China and perhaps some other not
Speaker 1: just China, but in the countries where golf is new,
Speaker 1: that it's sort of an unsophisticated market. And that's not
Speaker 1: a criticism. It's just that because golf is so new,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily know what's good and bad. You know
Speaker 1: what's good design, what's bad design. You know, in America
Speaker 1: you've had one hundred years for it to evolve and
Speaker 1: to educate people, and likewise well longer in the UK,
Speaker 1: about one hundred years in Australia. So it is tricky
Speaker 1: trying to you know, so things like I guess most
Speaker 1: clients in China would expect a past seventy two, for instance,
Speaker 1: because that's kind of what they understand as being the norm,
Speaker 1: and you know, four past threes and four par fives
Speaker 1: and sort of all those things just when you're getting
Speaker 1: just when you're new to golf design, that the thing
Speaker 1: is that you kind of understand as being the norm,
Speaker 1: that that's sort of I guess where a lot of
Speaker 1: the golf is at. So that can be a challenge
Speaker 1: for sure, I know when Bill and Ben were building
Speaker 1: Shanquin Bay, supposedly that it was so different. I think
Speaker 1: people were wondering just how the Chinese would react to it,
Speaker 1: because it was a course that you would expect to see,
Speaker 1: you know, in America, but perhaps not in a country
Speaker 1: where most of the golf courses were your typical resort
Speaker 1: style golf, you know, lots of water, sort of resort
Speaker 1: style bunkers.
Speaker 3: And yeah, they were wondering.
Speaker 1: How they would react to it. But I believe the
Speaker 1: client there was very worldly. It traveled extensively around the world,
Speaker 1: so he kind of was confident that that was the
Speaker 1: right approach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in China they unlike it. Like the UK, they
Speaker 2: started with Saint Andrews. America we had like Chicago Golf
Speaker 2: and Newport Country Club. Australia you had Alistair mackenzie pay
Speaker 2: an early visit and kind of sat Melbourne on the path.
Speaker 2: But in China they got like Jack Nicholas and Arnold
Speaker 2: Palmer designing courses and like the era of signature design
Speaker 2: gave birth the golf there.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, that's right, and now it's an interesting because
Speaker 1: of the moratorium on new golf courses that there's I
Speaker 1: believe there's four hundred and ninety six legal golf courses
Speaker 1: now in China, you know, because they've closed so many
Speaker 1: that were built illegally and that hasn't really been opened
Speaker 1: up yet. So depending on how long that that goes.
Speaker 1: Because the course we're working on there wasn't existing golf
Speaker 1: course and we're just it's a redesign. So it may
Speaker 1: be that the next wave in China is more redesign.
Speaker 1: It could be that where a lot of those golf
Speaker 1: courses they're legal, but perhaps they're not as good as
Speaker 1: they could be, or they were part of, like you said,
Speaker 1: that sort of wave of signature designs that it might
Speaker 1: spread it now the idea of redesign work might kind
Speaker 1: of start spreading into China.
Speaker 2: So high profile club that you guys consult at as
Speaker 2: Kingston Heath, which is one of the best golf courses
Speaker 2: in the world regularly kind of comparison as the Australian Marion,
Speaker 2: and then you also consult at Shady Oaks, a high
Speaker 2: profile course in Dallas. What are the similarities and differences
Speaker 2: between clubs in Australia and the America.
Speaker 1: So I guess Shady Oak. So it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really pretty parkland style golf course. Robert Trent Jones Senior
Speaker 1: built it for Marvin Leonard in the fifties on the
Speaker 1: back of Colonial, So they built Colonial and they wanted
Speaker 1: a smaller private member's course, went to Shady Oaks, and
Speaker 1: of course Ben Hogan came across as part of that
Speaker 1: as well, so that became his home. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I always find fascinating and hopefully to answers
Speaker 1: your question in a roundabout way, whenever we've looked at
Speaker 1: courses in America, it's not all courses, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the classic American parkland style course. We're always intrigued
Speaker 1: by the the way they're set up with typically you know,
Speaker 1: lots of rough around the greens, quite often rough between
Speaker 1: the fairway bunkers and the fairways, which we find curious
Speaker 1: because in Australia that the norm is to cut fairways
Speaker 1: right to the edge of hazards and we typically have
Speaker 1: a lot of short grass around greens and so it's
Speaker 1: more of a I think it's more of a British
Speaker 1: maintenance style in Australia, so we're really wedged firmly between,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit from Britain and a little
Speaker 1: bit from America. I think with our golf they certainly
Speaker 1: play firm and fast like they do in Britain, but
Speaker 1: there's other elements that are kind of similar to America.
Speaker 1: And what I guess is always interesting and part of
Speaker 1: the pitch to Shady Oaks or one of the things
Speaker 1: we sort of talked about was that it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that Augusta, you know, has been, has been. If
Speaker 1: you ask most tool players what their favorite course is
Speaker 1: of the year, most of them would probably say Augusta.
Speaker 1: Most golfers in America, if you ask it, you know,
Speaker 1: their dream around or where would they love to go,
Speaker 1: they probably say Augusta and Augusta it's essentially maintained like
Speaker 1: a Samdbell golf course. You know, it's short, heaps of
Speaker 1: short grass, heaps of short grass around the green, short
Speaker 1: grass to the edge of the bunkers. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like Royal Melbourne. Really, it's very similar. And yet
Speaker 1: golf courses went in a totally different direction. They went
Speaker 1: in another direction, and yet every year everyone goes back
Speaker 1: to Augusta and loves it, and for whatever reason, it
Speaker 1: kind of down this other part. So you know one
Speaker 1: of the things that not that we're trying to turn
Speaker 1: Shady Oaks into a SAMD Belt golf course, but certainly
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about that, trying to create more
Speaker 1: short grass and perhaps a line a little closer to
Speaker 1: the way we like golf to be played. And they've
Speaker 1: really embraced that. I mean in the first brand and
Speaker 1: I flagged some new fairly lines there and I think
Speaker 1: they added ten acres in a month of short grass,
Speaker 1: and the members have really liked it. So that is
Speaker 1: always a curiosity to me though, that just the position
Speaker 1: that Augusta holds in American golf, and yet people struggle
Speaker 1: to join the dots. You know, they look at their
Speaker 1: golf course and see the rough and you talk about
Speaker 1: short grass and they look at you perhaps like you're
Speaker 1: mad or what are you talking about? And yet you know,
Speaker 1: come April every year it's there for everyone to see.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that is a curiosity.
Speaker 2: Most people seem to focus on, like the flowers and
Speaker 2: the green nature of Augustine. Take the two worse things
Speaker 2: to their golf course and make it soft and slow
Speaker 2: and plant some flowers, but curious with extending fairway lanes.
Speaker 2: It seems that one of the common you know, pushbacks
Speaker 2: from a club would be you're making this golf course easier.
Speaker 2: What is your response to that?
Speaker 1: Well, and that's true. I mean you need to look
Speaker 1: at the whole package. And because if the green complexes
Speaker 1: and the bunkering isn't great, then yeah, widening of course
Speaker 1: will make it easier. So they kind of fit together.
Speaker 1: I mean ideally there's lots of space for people to
Speaker 1: hit to, but in actual fact that the desired area
Speaker 1: of the fairway is quite small, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think part of that which is often forgotten about is
Speaker 1: the is the maintenance. I mean when people talk about
Speaker 1: tool courses and the like, I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that many of the sand Belt courses are still
Speaker 1: so relevant from a tournament perspective is how firm and
Speaker 1: fast the greens are, you know, because you can't I mean,
Speaker 1: Kingston Head's not particularly long in sort of US tour standards.
Speaker 1: It's probably seven thousand one hundred yards, maybe seven thousand
Speaker 1: two hundred yards, but you know, it's not just a
Speaker 1: driver of every tee because the greens are so well
Speaker 1: designed and firm that if you are out of position,
Speaker 1: you can't easily hit. Sometimes you can't even hit the
Speaker 1: green if you're in the wrong spot, So suddenly you're
Speaker 1: prepared to sacrifice some distance to hit a three iron
Speaker 1: or hit a two iron into the right position of
Speaker 1: the fairway. So but if the greens were if the
Speaker 1: greens were really soft, then suddenly it wouldn't be quite
Speaker 1: as strategic, because you could you could play to the
Speaker 1: greens from anywhere. And if and if you waded it
Speaker 1: down even further and just built some fairly flat greens
Speaker 1: and bought the bunkers further away from the putting surface,
Speaker 1: then it would be even less strategic. Again, so it's
Speaker 1: not just that you can't just look at the widening
Speaker 1: of the fairways. It has to be looked at with
Speaker 1: the position of the bunkers and the green design too sore.
Speaker 1: At Shady there were some spots where you could easily
Speaker 1: add short grass, particularly around the greens, because there was
Speaker 1: a lot of greens that were perched up and there
Speaker 1: were some nice sort of hollows and slopes away from
Speaker 1: them where you could add short grass and not make
Speaker 1: it easier in some ways. You know, short grass around
Speaker 1: the greens. If there's a slope, adding short grass actually
Speaker 1: makes it harder because a missshot just the ball just
Speaker 1: finishes further away from the putting surface instead of getting
Speaker 1: caught up in that little bit rough, you know, between
Speaker 1: the green and the bunker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think when the
Speaker 2: ball rolls it's very scary for good players especially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it puts it puts doubt in a good
Speaker 1: player's mind because you don't know what to hit. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's done well, suddenly you've got five clubs in
Speaker 1: your head thinking, well, do you know do I hit
Speaker 1: the kind of that three would bump and run that
Speaker 1: you know, the Tiger kind of did a fair bit
Speaker 1: of Or do you try and hit a lobodge or
Speaker 1: do you bounce it into the slope with like are
Speaker 1: a wedge? Or do you a part of it? But
Speaker 1: the great thing is for a hacker, for a bad player,
Speaker 1: they can just pull apart up and they can at
Speaker 1: least kind of knock it up there and knock it
Speaker 1: on the green. They probably won't get up and down,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a really that's where it's a
Speaker 1: clever hazard because it's hard for the good player and
Speaker 1: or confusing for the good player and kind of easy
Speaker 1: for the average player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in agreement there. A big, high profile project
Speaker 2: you're working is Peninsula, which is, of course you grew
Speaker 2: up playing in Melbourne. Yea, you know, is there some
Speaker 2: pressure with all the great courses around Melbourne designing a
Speaker 2: new course with all the historic courses.
Speaker 1: There is? I mean it was. It's a great bit
Speaker 1: of land, the equal almost the equal to real Melbourne really,
Speaker 1: but it was a course that it never quite had
Speaker 1: reached its potential. So they've been redesigned work done there previously,
Speaker 1: and we've done quite a lot of that, but it
Speaker 1: was usually it was done on a shoe string and
Speaker 1: it was never a.
Speaker 3: Comprehensive sort of redevelopment.
Speaker 1: And I guess that they merged with a golf club
Speaker 1: called Kingswood, so now it's sort of Peninsula. Kingswood is
Speaker 1: the new club and that allowed them financially the opportunity
Speaker 1: to look at a much bigger redevelopment, which is what
Speaker 1: sort of web two thirds of the way through. And
Speaker 1: the challenge for them absolutely is so when people come
Speaker 1: to Melbourne and want a taste of samd Belt golf,
Speaker 1: they typically go to Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heave if
Speaker 1: they have time, they might go to Metropolitan Victoria and
Speaker 1: usually that's it. Then they go they might go down
Speaker 1: to Tasmayania to play Bamboo Junes or king Owen and
Speaker 1: then they're gone. And as a result of that or
Speaker 1: this has actually influenced that that mindset that there is
Speaker 1: a big gap between those four elite sand Belt clubs
Speaker 1: and kind of everyone else on the sand Belt. So
Speaker 1: their challenge and our challenge is to kind of turn
Speaker 1: four into five. You know, when people come to Melbourne,
Speaker 1: they want to go to Poeninsula Kingswood, so that, yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of pressure attached to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've assembled a really good team down there, and so
Speaker 1: far the results are showing that, you know, it's looking
Speaker 1: really promising. But it's a hard nut to crack that
Speaker 1: elite sam Belt club, if you like, because they've had
Speaker 1: you know, they had one hundred years and copious tournaments
Speaker 1: that have kind of created their reputation. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to We're trying to do fifty years work in three,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's so it's even if we get
Speaker 1: the product there, it's still going to take a little
Speaker 1: time for I think for that to influence rankings and
Speaker 1: how people view the golf course both here and overseas. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at the American top ten
Speaker 2: golf courses, there's only one modern golf course in there,
Speaker 2: sand Hills, and you know at this point it's it's
Speaker 2: now twenty five years old almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: So it's it's tricky because the history and the tradition
Speaker 2: always get lumped into judging the golf course. Are you
Speaker 2: guys pulling a lot of influence from those area courses
Speaker 2: and or are you trying to build something new and unique.
Speaker 1: No, we're one thing. It's a bit of a cross
Speaker 1: between or a bit of a hybrid of some of
Speaker 1: the other Sandbelt courses. There's two courses there, so there's
Speaker 1: a north course in a south course, and we built
Speaker 1: many years ago a creek on the south course through
Speaker 1: sort of some a low section of the course. And
Speaker 1: looking at old photos of the site, there were actually
Speaker 1: quite a lot of creeks that ran through the property,
Speaker 1: so there was quite a few wet areas, and so
Speaker 1: we had an idea to maybe make a better looking creek.
Speaker 1: We used some we used the local stonemason to kind
Speaker 1: of create the impression that was like an old ruin,
Speaker 1: I guess, so sort of it was interesting because he
Speaker 1: was clients typically judged how well he did a job
Speaker 1: by how perfect the rock work was the draysten wall,
Speaker 1: and we were like, no, no, no, we don't want
Speaker 1: it perfectly, want it rugged and old and sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, almost falling apart. So he really enjoyed it
Speaker 1: because it was totally different from what he was used
Speaker 1: and so we did that on one hole and it
Speaker 1: worked out so well. We ended up creating that crete
Speaker 1: network through a number of holes. So in a way
Speaker 1: that became a bit of a signature of the of
Speaker 1: the South course, whereas the North is a bit more elevated,
Speaker 1: it's a bit more undulating, sandier, and so it's probably
Speaker 1: more and the vegetation is better, a lot more heath
Speaker 1: than kind of almost a monas stand of the Manicum,
Speaker 1: which is the kind of the the tree which most
Speaker 1: would identify with a lot of the sand belt courses.
Speaker 1: So it's probably more of a typical sand belt experience.
Speaker 1: And whilst the South is a sand belt course, it's
Speaker 1: just that the creek kind of creates a little bit
Speaker 1: of a point of difference between the North in terms
Speaker 1: of the greens and the bunkers though they probably they
Speaker 1: probably weren't. One of the big drivers of the project
Speaker 1: was conditioning. They've never really had firm fast greens, which
Speaker 1: are kind of you know, synonymous, I guess with SAMD
Speaker 1: belt golf, so a lot of work. We basically created
Speaker 1: a new sort of a different style of construction with
Speaker 1: the green. So a lot of there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of USGA greens on the sand belt built over the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, but people have struggled, They really struggled
Speaker 1: to get in the firm So we went with a
Speaker 1: different construction technique, a different grass, and one of the
Speaker 1: things we've noticed on the old greens was that the
Speaker 1: bunkers weren't They were very much out of scale with
Speaker 1: the greens. If you look at sand belt holes from
Speaker 1: the air, the bunkering around the green is bigger than
Speaker 1: the green. So really that's what helps create the scale
Speaker 1: of the green sites on the sand belt. People look
Speaker 1: at Royal Melbourne's greens and think they're enormous, and they
Speaker 1: are big, but they're not that big. The reason they
Speaker 1: feel big is because it's so expansive around the green.
Speaker 1: The bunkering is really expansive and a lot of short grass.
Speaker 1: So they're these big, they feel like, these huge, elegant
Speaker 1: green sites. So we very much borrowed from that concept
Speaker 1: with the green sites of Peninsula. We cleared out a
Speaker 1: lot of space around them, and the bunkering now is
Speaker 1: much bigger, much more, more of the sort of capes
Speaker 1: and bays that people you know, people talk about Mackenzie bunkering,
Speaker 1: but it's probably a different topic. But yeah, so more
Speaker 1: of that kind of classic bunkering style that you would
Speaker 1: see at rom Melbourne and Kingston. A more short grass. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've cleared out a fair bit of vegetation to
Speaker 1: try and return it to what we hope is what
Speaker 1: the property would have looked like, you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: years ago before there was a golf course there.
Speaker 2: That's that's cool, natural, much more natural.
Speaker 1: And yeah, then you.
Speaker 2: Got the other side that's got the rustic creek.
Speaker 1: So absolutely, and it's sort of I mean, they've given us,
Speaker 1: they've afforded us a lot of license, which has been
Speaker 1: I mean, they've been just a fantastic club to work
Speaker 1: with and so much you just wouldn't get that license
Speaker 1: at many of the the sand Belt clubs you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be afforded that amount of license. But as a result,
Speaker 1: what will happen is that, you know, the North is
Speaker 1: the Sandburg golf course that so many of the other
Speaker 1: Sandburg clubs want to be, you know, so they really
Speaker 1: do have the potential to leap frog a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of clubs, and you put themselves as a thirty six
Speaker 1: hole venue. You know, they should be. It should be
Speaker 1: the place to join in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you get variety between the two courses. So
Speaker 2: it's so with you be down in Australia. I'm curious.
Speaker 2: I asked this question every once in a while. Who's
Speaker 2: on your Mount Rushmore? So for architects, that's a Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know is a famous.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, I don't know. Well, it's hard.
Speaker 1: We're so heavily influenced by Alistair McKenzie here, rightly or wrongly,
Speaker 1: you know, but I think probably rightly. But you know,
Speaker 1: he only spent ten weeks here McKenzie. You know, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting story and so as you know, he came here,
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne engaged him to come out, I guess through
Speaker 1: the RNA connection to come out and design their course.
Speaker 1: I think he got paid two hundred pounds and to
Speaker 1: help pay for that fee, they sort of farmed him
Speaker 1: out to a lot of other golf courses and they
Speaker 1: did a deal with him to split the fee so
Speaker 1: for any other work that they could find for him,
Speaker 1: he would go halves on his consulting fee. And he
Speaker 1: was seriously active. I mean he came here to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: He did the design for Roal Melbourne. He consulted to
Speaker 1: Kingston Heath and the Explorer and did a bunker plan.
Speaker 1: So you know, at that time it was quite common
Speaker 1: for courses to get built and then they would do
Speaker 1: the bunkering scheme after they opened, so they would kind
Speaker 1: of see how people played the gold of course and
Speaker 1: then figure out for where to put the bunkers. So
Speaker 1: that wasn't uncommon at the time. So he did an
Speaker 1: scheme for Kingston Heath, He did a plan for Metropolitan,
Speaker 1: He did a bunkering plan for Victoria. He went to
Speaker 1: Adelaide and did a plan for a design plan for
Speaker 1: Royal Adelaide. He went to new stath Whale and went
Speaker 1: to New Sos Golf Club. Royal Adelaide. He consulted by Doon.
Speaker 1: He consulted at two or three others. He went to
Speaker 1: Queensland and consulted I think Brisbane Golf Club in Dropilli
Speaker 1: Golf Club, all in ten weeks and he saw really
Speaker 1: nothing built. He saw the fifth Wester at Royal Melbourne
Speaker 1: either built or partly built, which is that kind of
Speaker 1: famous iconic path three from the elevated tea elevated green
Speaker 1: and hit across the valley. And he supposedly saw a
Speaker 1: little bit of fifteen at the uphill path three which
Speaker 1: was previously what could only have been an odd hole.
Speaker 1: It was a blind path four over the hill. So
Speaker 1: he brought the green back to the top of the hill.
Speaker 1: And I think he saw some bunkers built on the
Speaker 1: thirteenth ro Royal Adelaide and then he was gone. So
Speaker 1: but he influenced. He struck up a relationship with Alex Russell,
Speaker 1: who became a designer in his own right and designed
Speaker 1: a pretty cool set of four golf courses. He did
Speaker 1: the Royal Melbourne East, he did Lake carrn Up in Perth,
Speaker 1: he did Yariara and he did Parapari in New Zealand
Speaker 1: which is a great links course. And he also taught
Speaker 1: a father and son team of construction guy. So Mick
Speaker 1: Morecambe who was the Royal Melbourne superintendent, he built all
Speaker 1: his work there and then he built the work where
Speaker 1: they did a couple of greens at Metropolitan and did
Speaker 1: work at Victoria and basically what you know is the
Speaker 1: sand belt look with bunkers is very heavily influenced by
Speaker 1: Mick Morcomb or his son Vern, and Vern became the
Speaker 1: superintendent at king Sneve where he was for forty six years,
Speaker 1: and he changed that golf course a lot, he changed
Speaker 1: the bunkering a lot. He readed greens, he readed teas.
Speaker 1: So it's always interesting with Mackenzie just how much people
Speaker 1: talk about the credit, the big unknown factor, like the primary.
Speaker 1: His primary influence was ten weeks long, maybe not that much.
Speaker 1: Did a couple of plans but never saw them built.
Speaker 1: So he never really wrote about in his books how
Speaker 1: great the work was in Australia because he never saw it.
Speaker 1: But his secondary influence I think was huge. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: You know. He was clever that he found guys that
Speaker 1: were talented I guess, educated them and then they then
Speaker 1: went on and that then influenced the next generation and
Speaker 1: the next generation. So it was a it was a
Speaker 1: defining moment. Those ten weeks really changed the course of
Speaker 1: golf course design in Australia. So as an Australian, to
Speaker 1: get back to your question, he's clearly front and center
Speaker 1: in the Mount rush more of golf.
Speaker 2: I think it will be crazy if somebody did a
Speaker 2: golf course the way they used to bunker it. If
Speaker 2: they waited till some people play it and then bunkerd it,
Speaker 2: how much more effective and how fewer bunkers a golf
Speaker 2: course would have.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The only tricky thing with it, I guess would
Speaker 1: be the green complexes, because it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: build bunkers and grains independently from one another. You know,
Speaker 1: they really they need to be built as one kind
Speaker 1: of shape when you know you're sculpting the land and
Speaker 1: you're building the green at the same time as you're
Speaker 1: building the shapes around the bunkers.
Speaker 2: Maybe a little bit more costly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but fairly bunkers. Yeah, you know, I guess it's
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, you would like to think now
Speaker 1: that I think you should know good enough to think
Speaker 1: through it.
Speaker 2: So you got Alistair McKenzie and your ones.
Speaker 1: Well he's in there. I mean, I don't know. I've
Speaker 1: traveled quite a bit. I really like cold In obviously
Speaker 1: in the UK and the influence he had over there.
Speaker 1: I really like gold courses. I've got a bit of
Speaker 1: a sucker for I haven't played a lot of his courses,
Speaker 1: but I'm always fascinated by Rainer and McDonald and I
Speaker 1: would love to see surely the time's right. Actually, in fact,
Speaker 1: I saw a photo of someone who was doing a
Speaker 1: bit of a too. You kind of wonder with golf
Speaker 1: course design, whether the just have whether like art movements,
Speaker 1: whether we'll go through a different you know. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of the new courses built now I sort
Speaker 1: of look and feel similar. It'd be kind of nice,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be cool to for someone to
Speaker 1: build a super geometric Rainer style, still strategic, but just
Speaker 1: visually quite different golf course. I would love to see that.
Speaker 2: I think they're doing it at Arcadia Bluffs is one
Speaker 2: that looks similar. You know, it's got the squared off
Speaker 2: greens and oh okay in the trench. It would be
Speaker 2: cool to see. Yeah, it'd be cool to see one
Speaker 2: of those in Australia.
Speaker 1: I would I mean unfortunately. I think because he's so
Speaker 1: unknown here that if you started down that track, they
Speaker 1: would put the client probably wouldn't let you unless they
Speaker 1: were really well traveled. They would look at it and go,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you what are you doing? That
Speaker 1: would be the challenge, with the challenge to convince them
Speaker 1: that yeah it's a worthy cause. So yeah, probably I
Speaker 1: would probably have mackenzie cult.
Speaker 2: We'll put amal mcarainer, you know, will make.
Speaker 1: Him one yeah, yeah, yeah, and maybe just hanging off
Speaker 1: the edge. I think the Malcombs I always feel good
Speaker 1: sorry for. I don't think they get the credit that
Speaker 1: is here in Australia anyway. Everyone talks, you know, talks
Speaker 1: about McKenzie. But yeah, when you look at Kingston Heath,
Speaker 1: it's a result of four or five different people over
Speaker 1: one hundred years. It's not you know, to call it
Speaker 1: a McKenzie course is way overstating it.
Speaker 2: How do you mean As an architect and knowing that
Speaker 2: a lot of work in this era will be redesigned
Speaker 2: and usually there's only one architect on the scorecard, what's
Speaker 2: your thoughts on approaching you know, should every architect be
Speaker 2: listed on a scorecard?
Speaker 1: Well? I I they very rarely the magazines, and they
Speaker 1: very rarely get it right. They either don't research it
Speaker 1: properly or they credit the kind of the known person.
Speaker 1: I don't really see why. I would prefer that they
Speaker 1: didn't credit any architect, to be honest. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the champions the golf course and not the architects, you know,
Speaker 1: or trying to label one particular architects so difficult. I
Speaker 1: mean Kingston Heath, for instance, is you know it was
Speaker 1: a Dan Suitor course. Mackenzie did this plan, Vern Morecombe was,
Speaker 1: Mick morcamb built some work there. Vern Morcambe was a superintendent.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're the consulting accent now, but it would
Speaker 1: be totally wrong to credit us to it. And then
Speaker 1: you've had all different captains and presidents over the years
Speaker 1: that have influenced it. Yeah, the golf course today is
Speaker 1: the best it's ever been in a hundred years, and
Speaker 1: to try if you tried to restore it to any
Speaker 1: particular era, even the so called Mackenzie era, it would
Speaker 1: be a worse golf course. No way would it be
Speaker 1: as good as it is now. So it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I mean, magazines are just obsessed
Speaker 1: by labeling each course with an archeced I would rather
Speaker 1: they didn't just call it, you know, Kingston Heath.
Speaker 2: My uncle gave me this old Jeff Cornish Ron Wittens book.
Speaker 2: It's called The Golf Course or he found it in
Speaker 2: his basement and gave it to me. And it's so funny.
Speaker 2: It's got like all the golf course in America and
Speaker 2: the architect and like there are still many that are off.
Speaker 2: Like they've got Short Acres in Chicago, which is a
Speaker 2: seth Rayner listed as an Alison. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: how do they How does somebody think that Rainer's work
Speaker 2: was Allison's? They're like completely different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at least and unfortunately, I mean in reality,
Speaker 1: some court not all courses. I mean some new courses
Speaker 1: you could you could pretty confidently say who did it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, some courses kind of read like the credits
Speaker 1: to a film, you know, I mean, you don't list
Speaker 1: twenty people and which clearly no one's going to do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know. I kind of get a
Speaker 1: bit over the whole trying to label every every course
Speaker 1: to a particular person or people. I just I wouldn't
Speaker 1: bother myself believe it.
Speaker 2: So a lot of my listeners are in America. And
Speaker 2: if if you were going down, if you're an American
Speaker 2: going to Australia and you got seven days and it's
Speaker 2: ye probably the only day, the only time in your
Speaker 2: life you're going to go. What what golf courses are
Speaker 2: you playing?
Speaker 1: Well, it's you really have to come to Melbourne and
Speaker 1: I would those four that I mentioned before, you would
Speaker 1: play the two courses at real Melbourne. Absolutely it's like
Speaker 1: Kingston eight and.
Speaker 2: We'll say a couple of thirty six holidays, not all
Speaker 2: thirty six holidays, okay.
Speaker 1: So well we're all Melbourne. You can do in a day.
Speaker 1: Let's call that a sety six whole day. So it's
Speaker 1: one day Victoria and another Metropolitan, another Kingston Heath another, so
Speaker 1: that's four days. I would then fly to Bamboo Dunes.
Speaker 1: You've got to play barmber woodeons and Lost Farm down there.
Speaker 1: Then on the day or two left, you could go
Speaker 1: to king Ireland. Selfishly, I would say you've got to
Speaker 1: come and play penincially Kingswood because it'll be finished by then.
Speaker 1: But it's always a tricky one because people ask us
Speaker 1: that question, would you go? But it's so it's such
Speaker 1: a big country and not that i'm you know, there's
Speaker 1: not the depth of golf in the other major cities
Speaker 1: as there is in Melbourne. I mean you could extend
Speaker 1: that if you wanted and play ten courses on the
Speaker 1: sand belt, whereas if you went to New So if
Speaker 1: you went to Sydney, you know you might play New
Speaker 1: South Wales and perhaps the Lakes. That's two. You know,
Speaker 1: if you went to Queensland, you're probably playing Royal Queensland
Speaker 1: maybe maybe one other. And Perth there's really like Karen
Speaker 1: up Adelaide, there's Royal Adelaide and maybe one or two other.
Speaker 1: So there's just not the depth. So to really get
Speaker 1: bang for your back, I think you're better off staying
Speaker 1: in one place and doing it properly rather than trying
Speaker 1: to fly all around the country. So I think it's
Speaker 1: been knowing up guys pretty much. Did that trip. I
Speaker 1: think it was Melbourne, predominantly Melbourne and then go down
Speaker 1: to Tasmania.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looked like an awesome trip.
Speaker 1: We're constantly here, you know, it's on my bucket least.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure whether I'll ever get You've just got
Speaker 1: to suck it. Up and get on a plane. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not that far. A couple of movies, a bit
Speaker 1: of a sleep in your hear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my buddies is trying to get me
Speaker 2: to go next year or like this next holidays, so
Speaker 2: maybe we'll see. I got a lot of places to
Speaker 2: go every podcast, so add another place to where I
Speaker 2: want to go. But what's like the is there any
Speaker 2: like hidden gems that are worth seeing that nobody ever
Speaker 2: goes and sees.
Speaker 1: There's a couple in New Zealand. Definitely, not many people
Speaker 1: see Paraparau. It's a really good links course. It's a
Speaker 1: fantastic golf course. And there's another course way on the
Speaker 1: southern tip of New Zealand, which is a Lynx course.
Speaker 1: It's probably me think, I mean, there are some courses
Speaker 1: around it, certainly to an American they would never have
Speaker 1: heard of that are worth seeing, but you just probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't do them in your seven days because there's too
Speaker 1: much other good golf.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, it's is Tigarragi any good? The Mackenzie down there
Speaker 2: in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Tittering, Yeah, yeah, apparently so they restored they did a
Speaker 1: lot of work there ten years ago. Apparently I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it since, but apparently very good. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and then of course you've got the new courses there
Speaker 1: as well, which are you know, really good. So you
Speaker 1: could easily do a trip, a separate trip to New
Speaker 1: Zealand in seven days.
Speaker 2: It's not that far, too, right.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's a it's like flying to Perth from here.
Speaker 1: It's like a three hour flight from the New Zealand.
Speaker 3: It's not at all.
Speaker 2: You just need a month, really, you need a month.
Speaker 1: You need it would be better. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: long way to come for seven days, I will say that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're just getting over jet lag and then
Speaker 1: you're going home again. If you could stretch it to
Speaker 1: two or three weeks, that would be better.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we'd be we'd be messing out if we
Speaker 2: didn't talk about your sketches. And I mean, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you're one of the the world's four front golf sketchers.
Speaker 2: How did were you just always good at at drawing?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I was always interested in it. My dad was
Speaker 1: an artist, so he taught art at school, so he
Speaker 1: was teacher. So when I was young, I mean I
Speaker 1: had a teacher right there at home. So, and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed sketching, so he would sort of show me basics
Speaker 1: perspective and if I got you know, if I was
Speaker 1: drawing something for a school project, he would sort of
Speaker 1: show me perhaps a better way of doing it. So
Speaker 1: I kind of picked it up and put it down
Speaker 1: over the years, but never really seriously did it. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, it was only when I got into
Speaker 1: golf course design there was a reason suddenly to draw,
Speaker 1: because it was very helpful I think when I first
Speaker 1: started working in it, because no one else really could draw.
Speaker 1: It was an advantage to if I had an idea
Speaker 1: for a whole to be able to get a bit
Speaker 1: of paper and draw it on it in the field
Speaker 1: and say what do you think of this? Suddenly it
Speaker 1: was something that everyone could see and everyone could understand,
Speaker 1: and it was a really good way of getting your
Speaker 1: point across, whereas otherwise, you know, everyone's just pointing. It
Speaker 1: put me at various things and as it was confusing,
Speaker 1: so there was a reason to draw. And then you know,
Speaker 1: if you're in a committee room or sometimes I would
Speaker 1: draw for a plan, you know, to like do a
Speaker 1: worked up sort of drawing to do as part of
Speaker 1: a presentation, so I think that certainly got me interested
Speaker 1: in it again. And then it's then when Barbougle Dunes
Speaker 1: was built, Richard, the owner wanted a course guide. He
Speaker 1: wanted a yardage book. And I'd done ones before when
Speaker 1: I was playing just sort of all little ones and this,
Speaker 1: but suddenly this needed to be like a commercially produced one.
Speaker 1: I was pretty comfortable I could do it, and that
Speaker 1: was really the first one I did. And then out
Speaker 1: of that just not really I didn't really ever advertise,
Speaker 1: but just word of mouth, people asked me to do
Speaker 1: other course guides, and then I was quite keen to
Speaker 1: get to improve my proper painting, so not just horse
Speaker 1: guide drawings, but actual landscapes and things, and so I
Speaker 1: just over particularly the last ten years, I've probably spent
Speaker 1: a bit more time doing it. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't have as much time to do it as
Speaker 1: I would like. I tend it's only when people ask
Speaker 1: me to do a painting or commission me to do something,
Speaker 1: it tends to sort of maybe a panic and think, okay,
Speaker 1: now now I've really got a knuckle down. So that
Speaker 1: kind of forces me to really spend my spare time
Speaker 1: painting for a month until I can produce something that's
Speaker 1: really good and then yeah, but then it's not like
Speaker 1: I'm sitting at home each night just yeah with the
Speaker 1: paints out, sketching and the like. But yeah, well to
Speaker 1: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got to have a life too. You can't get.
Speaker 1: And because we've been so busy, it's just yeah, I
Speaker 1: probably haven't spent as much time doing it. But just
Speaker 1: recently I did a friend wanted some gifts for he
Speaker 1: took a group over to America, and so I did.
Speaker 1: I did six kind of proper watercolors for him and
Speaker 1: they turned out really well. So that was good because
Speaker 1: I basically painted for two months doing those. It must
Speaker 1: spare time, and it kind of I definitely got improved
Speaker 1: at the end of it. I felt pretty good.
Speaker 2: So I'm a I'm a horrendous draw sketcher, painter. What
Speaker 2: would be the most basic, easy piece of advice for
Speaker 2: somebody to get a little bit better?
Speaker 1: Uh, I think you've got to understand perspective, I think really,
Speaker 1: So you mean, like to draw a picture of a
Speaker 1: hole as it looks like if you're standing out on
Speaker 1: the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like if I wanted a draw hole. I'm horrible.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm a thirty handicap asking for a
Speaker 2: tip on the range before a round right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's really getting a photo if
Speaker 1: you just got a photo of a golf hole of
Speaker 1: the green and the bunkers and just kind of just
Speaker 1: forget all the detail, but just look at very simply
Speaker 1: where the flag sits the green, and just the rough
Speaker 1: shape of the bunker and how the how perspective works.
Speaker 1: You know, it's things that are closer or bigger, and
Speaker 1: you know further away are smaller. Just having an understanding
Speaker 1: of that would be very helpful.
Speaker 2: That actually makes sense because if I drew on I
Speaker 2: would make them all the same size.
Speaker 1: You know, and that sort of Yeah, you see people
Speaker 1: and they don't kind of fill the page like you
Speaker 1: see guys do a little sketch and it's this kind
Speaker 1: of little bird scrawl in the middle or whatever over
Speaker 1: on the edge. It's like, no, no, no, let's fill the page.
Speaker 1: Let's see, you know, make the green. Just sort of
Speaker 1: understanding the size of things, you know, how big a
Speaker 1: flag is, how big a green is, how big a
Speaker 1: person would be if it's standing on the green. Just
Speaker 1: kind of understanding the sizes and the sky and just
Speaker 1: how perspective works. That would you would go a long
Speaker 1: way to improving your drawing. You don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about I mean, even if you can't. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be able to draw a lifelike people or life
Speaker 1: like trees, but just a simple line drawing just to
Speaker 1: kind of green and bunkers. It's so helpful. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's where it's helpful I think in design is just
Speaker 1: you don't have to be brilliant at it, but it's
Speaker 1: very helpful to Like, if you're with someone on a
Speaker 1: machine and you want them to build something that no
Speaker 1: one looks in plan view, no one sort of really
Speaker 1: understands if you draw something as though. It's because most
Speaker 1: plans are all from the air, it's very hard for
Speaker 1: people to understand how that translates to what's on the ground.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you can just do a really simple drawing
Speaker 1: in either in the dirt or on a bit of paper,
Speaker 1: suddenly it all makes sense. You know, how high a
Speaker 1: bunker lip's going to be, or the fact that, okay,
Speaker 1: you can see the left half of the green but
Speaker 1: not the right half of the ring because it's covered
Speaker 1: by a bunker, or the bunker comes a third of
Speaker 1: the way across the green, or you know those things
Speaker 1: in a very simple sketch. Suddenly it's you can give
Speaker 1: someone enough detail to spend the day building something that
Speaker 1: means you can go off and do something else. That's
Speaker 1: where it's really helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. It's uh, if you're just telling somebody,
Speaker 2: they're gonna take your words and interpret them and their
Speaker 2: head how they think that you want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, we like to give
Speaker 1: the guys a little license to be creative. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if there's something that you really want, you know, we
Speaker 1: want to make sure it's this or that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll do a little sketch and just sort of talk
Speaker 1: through it and leave it with them.
Speaker 2: So you ready for underrated? Overrated?
Speaker 1: Sure, yep, go for it.
Speaker 2: What everybody is waiting for, all right? Sand belt bunkering.
Speaker 1: I would say it's underrated in the world of golf,
Speaker 1: it's underrated, all right. I think that's I mean, here,
Speaker 1: we see it all the time, but the shaping and
Speaker 1: the way that the short grass works into the mets. Still,
Speaker 1: I think there's still so many clubs could learn from
Speaker 1: sand belt bunkering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just the mowing lines. Like even if you had
Speaker 2: a little bit closer to that, it would.
Speaker 1: Be yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to copy the
Speaker 1: sand belt bunkers, but understand why they work. Well, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally underrated.
Speaker 2: Kangaroos as an animal.
Speaker 1: You underrated or overrated? Oh well, I don't know. Again, well,
Speaker 1: probably overrated for us we see them, well they're not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we seem all the time, I guess. But think I
Speaker 1: think the rest of the world probably wants to see
Speaker 1: more kangaroos.
Speaker 2: That is the easiest thing to spot, like a tourist,
Speaker 2: seeing the way they react when they see a kangaroo right,
Speaker 2: because they are point.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you think about it, they're a
Speaker 1: really odd creature, like very strange, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's not really anything like them anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 1: That guess.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: What I mean, they can be Yeah, they be too,
Speaker 1: some of them. So there's a there's a there's a
Speaker 1: gray kangaroo and a red kangaroo. The red kangaroos. You
Speaker 1: see the grays down here in Sydney and Melbourne. The
Speaker 1: red ones are in the outback and they are really
Speaker 1: when they stand up on their back feet, they are tall,
Speaker 1: and their their tail is so strong. You know, they
Speaker 1: can kill like a dog, like whipping the dog and
Speaker 1: then they'll claw at them, so they can be mean.
Speaker 1: They're quite intimidating when you see when standing up on
Speaker 1: it behind lakes. I've played golf tournaments before where you know,
Speaker 1: you hit your ball need the kangaroos and you kind
Speaker 1: of you don't really want to go in there and
Speaker 1: get it. So they're pretty intimidating.
Speaker 2: They're kind of like the Australian swan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess yes, one's a pretty Uh they
Speaker 1: can be I.
Speaker 2: Think they can break your arm with their neck. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh really yeah, if they snapped their neck, they can
Speaker 2: break a human arm. Wow. Yeah, of course. I grew
Speaker 2: up Caddy and at had like the meanest swan in
Speaker 2: the world in one of their pints, and like the
Speaker 2: thing like you'd be walking like twenty yards away from
Speaker 2: the water edge and the thing would be hissing at you.
Speaker 2: It was you know, and then one kid broke his
Speaker 2: arm from the swan and that swan was gone. So
Speaker 2: let's get back on here. Overrated Underrated golf in Japan.
Speaker 1: I've never played there. I would say overrated. I reckon
Speaker 1: it's that Let me think about that, because there's a
Speaker 1: couple of great courses there I've always wanted to see,
Speaker 1: but that I think they're a long way from where
Speaker 1: they were from by all accounts, I'm going to say overrated.
Speaker 2: Maybe a place that's right for restoration of the another
Speaker 2: like Alison.
Speaker 1: Did it good. So it's like, yeah, there's there's certainly
Speaker 1: three or four that you know, by all accounts, worth seeing,
Speaker 1: but they're just you can a bit like you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps like La Country Club was before the restoration. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can kind of tell the bones of a great
Speaker 1: course are there, but it's just needs a bit of
Speaker 1: work to get back.
Speaker 2: Is there anywhere like in Asia, like or Southeast Asia
Speaker 2: that's like got sandy soil that the world hasn't found
Speaker 2: yet for golf.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about Southeast I mean, well, actually East
Speaker 1: the world's founded, but the east coast of Vietnam where
Speaker 1: there's quite a few courses being built. There's some really
Speaker 1: good sand dunes there all the way out. Greg Norman's
Speaker 1: group did a course there, unbelievable sand dunes, huge ho tram.
Speaker 1: It's called home trend links, unbelievable site, beautiful site. So
Speaker 1: there are pockets. I mean we used to think twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years ago, you know, you didn't necessarily think
Speaker 1: of Asia as having all these great sites, but they do.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some really good land through through Vietnam, China,
Speaker 1: there's some really good sites. So they're around absolutely, and
Speaker 1: there's some really good sites in Australia. It's just that
Speaker 1: we don't have the population too, you know, the build
Speaker 1: it and they will come kind of concept. Is it's
Speaker 1: hard here, you know, we just don't have the population
Speaker 1: base of America really to make it work. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: there's some Perths very This is some brilliant land in
Speaker 1: perse up and down the coast where you can drive
Speaker 1: an hour up north of Perth and it is incredible
Speaker 1: land on the water, sandy ground, undulating, beautiful vegetation. But
Speaker 1: they built a number of years ago, they built a
Speaker 1: really good golf course over there, only forty minutes from person.
Speaker 1: No one goes there to play, so you can't convince
Speaker 1: them to go. Great so you could, you could build
Speaker 1: a sand valley, but just trying to get the people
Speaker 1: there to be the challenge.
Speaker 2: As a Chicago. I live in the City of Chicago.
Speaker 2: It's like a minimum of forty minutes for me to
Speaker 2: golf anywhere. And if I could put golf on as
Speaker 2: a coast on Sandy on Sandy Ground, I'd be like
Speaker 2: forty minutes done.
Speaker 1: So well. Yeah, and that's that's the challenge for those
Speaker 1: courses on King Island, you know, the two that were built.
Speaker 1: They're spectacular, but you've either got to get on a
Speaker 1: little plane to get there, which is not everyone's kind
Speaker 1: of cup of tea. But yeah, and they time, the
Speaker 1: island's got fifteen hundred people on it, so there's not
Speaker 1: enough people on the island to play there to just
Speaker 1: keep it, you know, ticking along. So it's just hard,
Speaker 1: you know, really hard for those isolated courses to get
Speaker 1: the traffic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's almost everywhere. But you know,
Speaker 2: they also don't have like the big American budgets that
Speaker 2: tell everybody that this is the greatest course ever before
Speaker 2: it's open.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: It's but Mike, thanks for coming on, and we'll look
Speaker 2: forward to seeing more of your work in the future.
Speaker 2: You're on Twitter and what is it at, Mike Cocking.
Speaker 1: Oh my Twitter, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then you're are you on INSTAGRAMM golf one as well, Yeah,
Speaker 2: o CCM Golf at OCCM golf, and then they're on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Lots of great pictures of golf courses that make you
Speaker 2: kind of drool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 2: Look forward to seeing some of your work in the
Speaker 2: near future.
Speaker 1: Terrific. Thanks so much, Andy, Thanks Mike.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do
Speaker 2: the digging for you.