Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison, and for today's episode, I sat down
Speaker 1: with Andy Johnson to discuss the state of the restoration
Speaker 1: trend in the American golf industry today. But first, this
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Speaker 1: All right. So in this podcast, we are going to
Speaker 1: have a discussion about an article that you wrote, Andy Reese,
Speaker 1: for our website published this week about the great remaining
Speaker 1: restoration opportunities in American golf, so the courses that still
Speaker 1: need to be restored even after we've had a big
Speaker 1: restoration boom in the golf architecture industry. And so it's
Speaker 1: an interesting article. It really has generated a lot of discussion,
Speaker 1: So we thought we'd dig in a little bit further
Speaker 1: in a podcast. So maybe we could start with just
Speaker 1: what prompted you to write this article.
Speaker 3: Definitely, Yeah, this has been something I think over the
Speaker 3: last month or so that's really been on my mind.
Speaker 3: As you look around and you start to see, you know,
Speaker 3: the important thing is is clarifying, like, you know, the
Speaker 3: article was based on courses that you know don't have
Speaker 3: a clear restoration plan in place or a consulting architect
Speaker 3: you know, recently hire to to put together a master plan.
Speaker 3: So you know, the likes of Yale, you know, we
Speaker 3: know that's going to happen next year. You know, the
Speaker 3: shutdowns planned and and then over the next two years,
Speaker 3: Yale's going to be restored. That's not on the list, right,
Speaker 3: It's it's the courses that you know have shown kind
Speaker 3: of zero impetus for you know, restoring their golf course
Speaker 3: in the in the recent years and don't have really
Speaker 3: a planned that that I put put on this list.
Speaker 3: So you know, as you see news different places Kansas
Speaker 3: City Country Club just hired I think Kyle Franz and
Speaker 3: Tyler Ray, you know, and and these different clubs around
Speaker 3: the country. You just started to check off like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's a there's a tilling hash restoration, there's a lookout
Speaker 3: mountain you know is doing work. And then you see
Speaker 3: the work that was done like really you know, pivotal
Speaker 3: work that was done recently, like Oakland Hills is a
Speaker 3: huge restoration just because of what Oakland Hills stood for.
Speaker 3: That was the first course that was renovated and the
Speaker 3: first course that had this open doctor type mentality which
Speaker 3: diverted away from the class of Golden age that being
Speaker 3: restored to Ross.
Speaker 2: That's it. That was like one of the last titans
Speaker 2: to fall.
Speaker 3: Really, when you think about America and you know, what
Speaker 3: we have here is we see this you know, trend
Speaker 3: that's dominated the last ten fifteen years of golf course architecture.
Speaker 3: You know, there hasn't been that many new builds. The
Speaker 3: predominant work in the industry is restoration. You start to
Speaker 3: see read the tea leaves and it's kind of coming
Speaker 3: to an end, and you know, the remaining great restorations
Speaker 3: for the most part fall into two buckets. They're either
Speaker 3: public golf courses or private clubs that host championship golf regularly.
Speaker 3: And that's really the two buckets of golf courses that
Speaker 3: have remaining restoration, and those from those senses, they have
Speaker 3: big barriers that inhibit restoration work. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: what prompt the article, and it's something that I've been
Speaker 3: thinking about a lot lately, is like what, you know,
Speaker 3: what's going to be the next big restoration and that
Speaker 3: was the idea between behind putting together the article is like,
Speaker 3: here are the ones that, like, frankly, are the ones
Speaker 3: that I'm really would be excited about. And you know,
Speaker 3: for you know, most of the ones that aren't on
Speaker 3: the list, I don't necessarily know if those should be restored. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously I miss some, and maybe we'll talk about some
Speaker 3: of the ones I miss, But like, that's the other line,
Speaker 3: is like what should be restored?
Speaker 2: What should be renovated?
Speaker 3: And you know, just because the golf course was built
Speaker 3: from nineteen oh nine to nineteen thirty doesn't mean it
Speaker 3: should be restored.
Speaker 1: Well, so let's put a little finer point on where
Speaker 1: we are in this restoration boom that has been going
Speaker 1: on for the past twenty plus years or so. But really,
Speaker 1: I mean, it has ramped up in the past decade,
Speaker 1: but it's been with us for I'd say at least
Speaker 1: two decades in the golf industry, where courses are intentionally
Speaker 1: restoring original architecture from the nineteen tens, twenties, and thirties,
Speaker 1: the so called golden age of golf architecture. Just look
Speaker 1: down the list of a magazine ranking right now. You
Speaker 1: know that's an imperfect measure of what the great important
Speaker 1: courses actually are, but it kind of gets you started.
Speaker 1: Just look down that list and consider how many courses
Speaker 1: have gotten restoration work done lately. You know, Pine Valley
Speaker 1: maybe that could be one that that could use some
Speaker 1: restoration work. We didn't go there because we haven't been
Speaker 1: to Pine Valley ourselves, and so you know, we're just
Speaker 1: judging from pictures. But that's at the top of most
Speaker 1: of these lists. Relatively well preserved architecture. Overall, Cyprus Point
Speaker 1: has been well preserved that has not really needed a
Speaker 1: massive restoration at that point.
Speaker 3: I think that an important thing to note too is
Speaker 3: like the types of restoration work, like something that's become
Speaker 3: popular i'd say, in the last ten years with you know,
Speaker 3: in gill Hands does a lot of this type of work.
Speaker 3: Is you shut down the course, and Andrew Green's doing
Speaker 3: a lot of this. Now shut down the course, do
Speaker 3: it all in one shebang, you close for a year,
Speaker 3: you open back up. The other school of that is
Speaker 3: what I think Tom dok and Bill Corr did a
Speaker 3: lot of early on, was you know, here's your master plan,
Speaker 3: and we're going to accomplish this over ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tom Doak and Bill Corr and their associates have
Speaker 1: been very involved in gradual projects like that, consulting we
Speaker 1: could come.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think Cyprus has undergone that type of
Speaker 3: work over over the time, and that's the type of
Speaker 3: work that you know Oakmont has done.
Speaker 2: And yeah, Prairie doing Chicago Golf probably.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Chicago Golf actually did a big bunker renovation last year.
Speaker 3: They shut down in August and or end of August
Speaker 3: and we're opened back up at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 2: Was a was a restoration that flew very under the radar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as Gogga Golf likes to do. Yeah so, But
Speaker 1: just to name some courses that have undergone one of
Speaker 1: those sort of all at once restorations, the ones that
Speaker 1: are really visible and noticeable when you look at the
Speaker 1: before and afters. There's Marion is a big recent example
Speaker 1: of a gil Han's restoration, Pinehurst Number two, Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Country Club, North Course, Wingfoot, West, Seminole, Corn Crenshaw. All
Speaker 1: of these courses have recently done restoration work and they've
Speaker 1: kind of been ticked off the list for years. Seminal
Speaker 1: was on this list for sure for years. Wingfoot has
Speaker 1: been on this list of great restoration candidates, for sure,
Speaker 1: and just a ton of them. I think what we
Speaker 1: noticed is that a ton of them have been checked
Speaker 1: off lately and have done the work that they've needed.
Speaker 3: Even a course one that's kind of flying under the
Speaker 3: radar is Sciota.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: You know where you had Jack Nicholas come in and
Speaker 3: do some changes that dramatically altered a Ross Championship golf course,
Speaker 3: and that one will open next year with Andrew Green
Speaker 3: doing it.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, like that's the thing.
Speaker 3: You start to go down the list of there's been
Speaker 3: all these courses that you always said, well, you know,
Speaker 3: there's always like the what if the great what ifs.
Speaker 3: There aren't many great what ifs anymore. And that's that's
Speaker 3: really an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: We're going to enter a new.
Speaker 3: Kind of chapter of golf design in America in the
Speaker 3: next five years, and I think that chapter is going
Speaker 3: to be centered around because of what's happened with the
Speaker 3: economy with you know, the after effects of COVID is
Speaker 3: a lot of the people that have a lot of
Speaker 3: money have a lot more money, and I think you're
Speaker 3: going to see a big golf development boom. I think
Speaker 3: there's going to be more new courses than we've seen
Speaker 3: since the you know, economic crash in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: I don't think, you know, I think we're going to
Speaker 3: see more deve development in the next five years than
Speaker 3: we've seen since then. And then I think the other
Speaker 3: big thing is going to be renovation work. Is you're
Speaker 3: going to see a lot of golf courses that are
Speaker 3: you know, that have great piece of land or are
Speaker 3: fundamentally flawed, that are just blown up and redone. And
Speaker 3: we've seen some of that start to leak out with
Speaker 3: the Pinehurst Number four for example, would be an example
Speaker 3: of that. And that's an interesting it's a different animal
Speaker 3: because those project projects are much more complex than restoration
Speaker 3: for the most part, because what you have to do
Speaker 3: with those projects is you have to undo the bad
Speaker 3: stuff and the majority of the time that goes into
Speaker 3: the project is undoing the bad stuff to build the
Speaker 3: good stuff. So it's almost like double the work. And
Speaker 3: you know, with timelines and different things, people aren't patient
Speaker 3: like those those are almost become more work than new builds.
Speaker 1: Or at least those kinds of projects are a little
Speaker 1: more difficult to sell. You mentioned, and that with renov
Speaker 1: sorry with restoration projects that there are kind of two
Speaker 1: buckets that are remaining. One bucket is the courses for
Speaker 1: the regular golfer. A lot of these are public or
Speaker 1: municipal courses that still need to be restored or still
Speaker 1: could be restored because they're great, but they've just kind
Speaker 1: of lost their way over the years and they haven't
Speaker 1: done the restoration work yet because they just haven't had
Speaker 1: the money in time to do it. And then the
Speaker 1: other bucket is the championship golf bucket, where the barrier
Speaker 1: to doing restoration is often, well, we can't turn back
Speaker 1: the clock to the twenties here because that course would
Speaker 1: be too short and easy for these pros that we
Speaker 1: host tournaments, and so we need to do something something else.
Speaker 1: And so let's talk about that bucket for a minute.
Speaker 1: What are some of the complexities and considerations that we
Speaker 1: have to bring to bear when we're talking about championship
Speaker 1: courses that could be restored.
Speaker 2: Obviously, I think that it starts with defending.
Speaker 3: Par and the the concept of par that has really
Speaker 3: stricken golf for eternity.
Speaker 2: The idea that that.
Speaker 3: Par pars obviously changed, and and you know, there's this
Speaker 3: conception that rough, lots of rough, narrow fairways and long
Speaker 3: golf courses is the best version of championship golf. I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, Joe Lambagna had a really interesting tweet. Who's
Speaker 3: been on this pod a data scientist. I guess you
Speaker 3: could call them a consultant to some PGA Tour players
Speaker 3: on data talked about you know Albany, which isn't a
Speaker 3: great golf course but has wide fairways and a lot
Speaker 3: of you know, interesting shorter par fours where you know,
Speaker 3: what's more, you know, entertaining of a golf product one
Speaker 3: where you know, at Albany, to separate you know, yourself,
Speaker 3: you have to hit it close versus you know, these long, narrow,
Speaker 3: punishing golf courses. If you hit it to thirty feet,
Speaker 3: you're separating yourself from the field.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Think one of the things with these golf courses that
Speaker 3: is a constraint, especially you know, at the top of
Speaker 3: the list, if you haven't read it yet.
Speaker 1: Is let's look at let's look at the article. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Number one is Augusta National, Number two is Riviera, Number
Speaker 1: three is Pebble Beach. Number four is TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 3: So top four are all of these, you know, landmark
Speaker 3: championship courses, and each of them has I think a
Speaker 3: little bit of a different conundrum per se. All Right,
Speaker 3: so if we want to go in order, you've got
Speaker 3: Augusta National. Now, I don't think that a true restoration
Speaker 3: is ever going to be in the cars here, Like,
Speaker 3: let's just put that out there, like you're never going back,
Speaker 3: like and you know, it's important to go there, like
Speaker 3: to understand, like restoration is a loose term that's used
Speaker 3: for a lot of things. I think where I think
Speaker 3: golf fans would be enthused with Augusta Nashvill is if
Speaker 3: the look and the style of play that was you know,
Speaker 3: the look was abandoned in the fifties and sixties or
Speaker 3: probably the sixties, but the style of play was abandoned
Speaker 3: when Tiger Woods came along. And now if we iff,
Speaker 3: I think golf fans and golf architecture fans would be
Speaker 3: really enthused if the style of play and aesthetic of
Speaker 3: the early days were embraced now like the tees, the
Speaker 3: lengthening of the tees, the adding of bunkers, that's fine,
Speaker 3: you know, that's that's what they feel like needs to happen.
Speaker 3: But the rough you know, there shouldn't be rough out there,
Speaker 3: Like the ball should roll and roll into the pine straw.
Speaker 3: You should be in the fairway or the pine straw.
Speaker 3: That's kind of how the golf course was imagined. That's
Speaker 3: what Alisair McKenzie and Perry Maxwell imagined with the golf course. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, and then obviously everybody always points the bunker style,
Speaker 3: you know, the right Now they have these blah white saucers.
Speaker 3: If you could get those mackenzie bunkers back, it would
Speaker 3: be wonderful. Now Tom Fazio is the consulting architect at
Speaker 3: Augusta National. Now Tom Fazio has done you know, obviously
Speaker 3: he's one of the most prolific architects of his era.
Speaker 3: But you know, he's he's kind of getting up there
Speaker 3: in age. So I think one of the things that
Speaker 3: that's an interesting thing to watch over the next ten years.
Speaker 3: They're probably going to have a new consulting architect architect
Speaker 3: in the next five years. That's probably a reality of
Speaker 3: the situation. I think Pine Valley is probably in that
Speaker 3: same bucket because they Tom Fazio is the consulting architect
Speaker 3: is there as well. So that's a really interesting thing
Speaker 3: to watch. And you know, I think the final thing
Speaker 3: I'd say about Augusta National is the is the way
Speaker 3: they mow.
Speaker 2: They mow into you know.
Speaker 3: Everything they do is to prevent distance, right, is to
Speaker 3: make the golf course play longer, so it plays more
Speaker 3: as the golf course was intended to play.
Speaker 2: But what happens is they lose.
Speaker 3: The idea of the ball rolling and off those slopes
Speaker 3: into the out of play areas. You know.
Speaker 1: The architectural history of Augusta National, as everybody knows, is
Speaker 1: super complex. If you haven't read this article, you really should.
Speaker 1: Ron Witten's research project for Golf Digest on the complete
Speaker 1: changes to Augusta National. Go read that article if you
Speaker 1: haven't already. It's an incredible resource for understanding exactly how
Speaker 1: much has changed. It is a kind of compendium of
Speaker 1: the changes that have happened to each hole at Augusta
Speaker 1: and there are there's a dizzying array of changes that
Speaker 1: have happened over the years at different times at the
Speaker 1: hands of different architects.
Speaker 2: Now, I mean there's changes every year.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and some of them maybe were for the better,
Speaker 1: some of them certainly not. So I think what you're
Speaker 1: dealing with at Augusta National is a nineteen thirty three
Speaker 1: design that it wasn't necessarily all the way there. You know,
Speaker 1: it was an Alistair McKenzie Bobby Jones design. It had
Speaker 1: a lot of brilliant ideas, but it wasn't necessarily perfectly
Speaker 1: suited to what the course would become. And that is
Speaker 1: a course that hosts the masters. Also, you know, when
Speaker 1: the course was designed, the economy was really starting to
Speaker 1: go to put Alistair McKenzie was nearing the end of
Speaker 1: his life. The golf industry was just in a really
Speaker 1: weird place. I'm not sure that the course was as
Speaker 1: fully realized when it opened as a course like Cypress
Speaker 1: Point right where that that was really a finished course
Speaker 1: when it opened. And if Cyprus Point had ever strayed
Speaker 1: away from its original design, we could very easily say
Speaker 1: go back to that. We cannot say go back to
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty three Augusta National, not just because it's
Speaker 1: not feasible, which it isn't, but also because maybe the
Speaker 1: course wasn't quite its best self when it initially opened.
Speaker 2: Perfect example would be like the tenth hole.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a shorter par four with a
Speaker 3: punch bowl green and a hollow and people, oh, bring
Speaker 3: this back, But you know, Perry Maxwell was a pretty capable.
Speaker 1: Architect, and that's a great hole too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he moved that that hole up on the
Speaker 3: hill and it's an unbelievable green site that sits there today.
Speaker 3: Where it is today is where Perry Maxwell move that.
Speaker 3: And now, what's a better hole for championship golf? Is
Speaker 3: the shorter part four with the punch bowl and the
Speaker 3: hollow or the tenth hole today? I would probably say
Speaker 3: that the tenth hole of the day where you're testing
Speaker 3: players hitting a mid iron off a downslope, I guess
Speaker 3: it's more of a short iron now off a downslope
Speaker 3: to elevated elevated severe green. That is a shot that
Speaker 3: you don't see very often now, Like I think that's
Speaker 3: a better hole for the modern game, right, And that's
Speaker 3: the complexity of restoration is figuring out what is the
Speaker 3: best version. And I think, you know, if we want
Speaker 3: to move the conversation, this fits perfectly with the discussion
Speaker 3: of Pebble Beach. That's the big question with Pebble Beach
Speaker 3: and why I think restorations hard there is like where
Speaker 3: do you go back to the course is in a
Speaker 3: way an architectural mutt, more so than today than ever before,
Speaker 3: because you've got Nicholas, You've got you know, you've got
Speaker 3: the Morse influence, You've got the Alison Merckenzie Chandler Egan stuff,
Speaker 3: and then you've got just you know what hosting us
Speaker 3: opens does to a golf course, which which just narrows
Speaker 3: the playing field or the playing field that you have
Speaker 3: and just father time with shrunk greens and narrow fairways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've got the Douglas Grant and Jack Neville
Speaker 1: original design, which not many people have actually looked at.
Speaker 1: I don't think many people actually know what Pebble Beach
Speaker 1: looked like when it opened in nineteen nineteen. But it's
Speaker 1: a lot different than it was.
Speaker 2: You lived there.
Speaker 1: I did live there. I didn't live there in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: but I walked around that course quite a bit and
Speaker 1: thought about it quite a bit. And it's a great
Speaker 1: course now, you know, to be clear, like, this is
Speaker 1: a great golf course.
Speaker 2: And that's the same with Augusta National.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Augusta is still great. I mean they still have
Speaker 1: the greens, a lot of the greens at least at
Speaker 1: Augusta National that either Mackenzie built or Maxwell built, and
Speaker 1: they're just great. Now. Okay, so Pebble Beach, the routing
Speaker 1: was there pretty much from the beginning. The greens as
Speaker 1: we understand them now were definitely not there at the beginning.
Speaker 1: I don't think you want to go back to those
Speaker 1: original greens. They were pretty rudimentary. If you look at
Speaker 1: the original Seventh Green, for instance, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people would be shocked at how different that is
Speaker 1: and how kind of bland it is. It was just
Speaker 1: like this big expanse at the bottom of the peninsula
Speaker 1: there now. Chandler Egan when he came in and made
Speaker 1: some changes for the nineteen twenty nine US Amateur Chandler
Speaker 1: Egan had worked for Alice Mackenzie on a few California projects.
Speaker 1: For people who don't know, he turned that into a
Speaker 1: really cool green surrounded by this dunescape. Now there are
Speaker 1: a couple of pictures of this green as Chandler Egan
Speaker 1: renovated it. They always get trotted back out on social
Speaker 1: media at every Pebble Beach pro am or whenever Pebble
Speaker 1: Beach hosts a big tournament, and people obsess over this
Speaker 1: kind of doneesy. Look that Chandler Egan introduced to the
Speaker 1: seventh hole, to the fourth hole, and a couple of
Speaker 1: other holes I believe at Pebble Beach in the late twenties. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think this was ever the right choice for
Speaker 1: Pebble Beach to put fau dunes there. That's just not
Speaker 1: the nature of that landscape. I don't think they would
Speaker 1: have lasted if they even were given an opportunity to last.
Speaker 1: And I just don't think that's what we need to
Speaker 1: go back to. I don't think a restoration to the
Speaker 1: Chandler Egan look at the course is the right path.
Speaker 1: But maybe we can consider what Egan and Mackenzie did
Speaker 1: to some of the greens at Pebble Beach. Really look
Speaker 1: at those, look at the dimensions of the greens, look
Speaker 1: at the contours, and consider that as part of a
Speaker 1: historical renovation plan. Now, there would have to be a
Speaker 1: lot of creativity in any plan to make Pebble Beach
Speaker 1: meet its full potential. Would there would have to be
Speaker 1: some choices than an architect, bold choices that an architect
Speaker 1: would need to make. But I think it's definitely possible
Speaker 1: to improve that course substantially.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And this is the thing, this is the aspect of
Speaker 3: Pebble is like this rudimentary version of itself the routing,
Speaker 3: you know, and obviously it got developed off of this routing.
Speaker 3: This routing delivered eight to ten world class golf holes,
Speaker 3: like holes that you would say are among the very
Speaker 3: best in the world. When you think about Pebble Beach,
Speaker 3: you think three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, then
Speaker 3: you go sixteen is a terrific hole, eighteen.
Speaker 1: Eighteen one of the best finishing holes anywhere.
Speaker 3: You know, they could be it could be all rough
Speaker 3: and they still be great golf holes just because of
Speaker 3: the topographical features. Like you know, you could you could
Speaker 3: just let them go to seed and it would be
Speaker 3: fun to go play those golf holes. Like if you
Speaker 3: didn't mow them for two years, you could play field
Speaker 3: golf on those golf holes and it would be extraordinarily exhilarating.
Speaker 3: So this is the thing with Pebble Beach is that
Speaker 3: it is this you know, the routing. It was done early,
Speaker 3: and it was you know, but it delivered these holes.
Speaker 3: So I don't think you could ever do a renovation.
Speaker 3: There's one one hole that needs to be re routed
Speaker 3: is the part three fifth?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so's to discussion renovated. Jack Nicholas put it
Speaker 1: along the cliffs. It used to go inland, and I
Speaker 1: think everybody regard most people regard that as as a
Speaker 1: positive choice because you've got another hole on the cliffs.
Speaker 1: And if they had been allowed to put a hole
Speaker 1: on the cliffs originally, they probably would have. But the
Speaker 1: charm of the old fifth hole, even if it was
Speaker 1: kind of a nothing hole, is that after you walk
Speaker 1: off that green, you're basically right at the sixth tee
Speaker 1: and you get this great reveal of the sixth hole,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite hole at Pebble Beach, and right
Speaker 1: now you have the fifth hole. You're already on the cliffs.
Speaker 1: You kind of see the sixth hole early, and then
Speaker 1: you have to walk backwards to the sixth tee and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't have quite the same walks. The walk
Speaker 1: is really bad.
Speaker 3: It's like it doesn't walking on it feels like you're
Speaker 3: walking on a public road up a hill.
Speaker 1: Like that was the sacrifice for getting the hole on
Speaker 1: the cliffs is that walk and they and they haven't
Speaker 1: really paid attention to that walk, either landscaped it or anything.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of there. But anyway, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a mine point maybe in the scheme of things. But yeah,
Speaker 1: restoration renovation. I think this is where we call it
Speaker 1: a historic renovation, where we're looking at historic elements of
Speaker 1: the course, but also feeling free not to be completely
Speaker 1: faithful to the Egan Plan or the Grant Level plan
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: And the other complex thing with Pebble Beach is that
Speaker 3: it's the most expensive public golf course to play in America.
Speaker 3: It is a pack T sheet And if you were
Speaker 3: running a business, you would say, I don't know why
Speaker 3: we need to shut down the.
Speaker 2: Course cost ourselves.
Speaker 3: I think I haven't done the math, but I imagine
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tea revenue to
Speaker 3: improve a golf course that has a supply and demand issue,
Speaker 3: if anything, Like people always complain about Pebble Beach. Like,
Speaker 3: if you were running a business, like you'd say, well,
Speaker 3: we should charge more because we have a pack T
Speaker 3: sheet every single day, and we're charging a rate that
Speaker 3: like until we meet a threshold that doesn't lead to
Speaker 3: pack T sheet every day, then we're actually on a bargain.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, they're not going to have a meeting after
Speaker 1: we release this podcast and be like, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: I guess we have to shut down our course and
Speaker 1: do a historic renovation because the guys on the Frida
Speaker 1: Egg podcast said that we should. They have really no reason,
Speaker 1: no impetus to do this kind of work right now
Speaker 1: because that place prints money.
Speaker 3: So you know, if you look at if say there
Speaker 3: became a movement, you know within to do work at
Speaker 3: at Pebble Beach, it would need to be this work
Speaker 3: that's done over a ten year period. It would need
Speaker 3: It's not going to be a full course shutdown. I
Speaker 3: just can imagine the economic loss not only for the
Speaker 3: golf course but also the neighboring community would be massive.
Speaker 3: And I don't I couldn't foresee that type of a renovation.
Speaker 3: So you're going to talk about a golf course that's
Speaker 3: getting worked on over ten to fifteen years, and what's
Speaker 3: the complexity of that. Well, it's a USGA anchor site
Speaker 3: and you've got us OPENS coming back every what is
Speaker 3: it eight years or so to Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1: And they have, to their credit, done some of this
Speaker 1: gradual work on the golf course.
Speaker 2: Seventeenth hole, seventeenth hole.
Speaker 1: They've expanded the green the fourteenth hole, Part five. I
Speaker 1: think they've done a really successful green expansion there. That
Speaker 1: green got way too small for how steep it was,
Speaker 1: and they have expanded it out the back and I
Speaker 1: think that that has very much improved the hole. They've
Speaker 1: recaptured the old tenth t I guess it is, which
Speaker 1: is right next to the ninth green. Just a great
Speaker 1: angle into that hole turns it into more of a
Speaker 1: diagonal hazard drive. And so they're definitely doing some small
Speaker 1: things here and there gradually to recapture some elements of
Speaker 1: the golf course that have been lost over time. I
Speaker 1: wish they would do more, but again, they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have the motivation to do more, understandably, and so we'll see. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've I think we've talked enough about Pebble. That's
Speaker 1: number three on the list. We skipped over number two,
Speaker 1: which is Riviera. Do you want to dig into that
Speaker 1: one because Riviera?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about this now.
Speaker 1: Riviera is the best course on the PGA Tour every year,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's particularly close. It's so fun
Speaker 1: to watch that tournament at Riviera, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of people would say just that, like, hey, Riviera is
Speaker 1: doing fine, what do you think needs to change there?
Speaker 3: I think the discussion here is, you know, we talked
Speaker 3: about this with Jeff Jackelford when we did the George
Speaker 3: Thomas podcast. Now, Riviera is one of the best golf
Speaker 3: courses in America right now. But you know what Riviera
Speaker 3: fully realized, fully restored is is arguably the best course
Speaker 3: on the Way Coast in its own town. You know
Speaker 3: it It's got George Thomas, you know, with lacc North
Speaker 3: has clearly supplanted it as the best course in town. Now,
Speaker 3: whether or not lacc North fully restored and Riviera fully restored,
Speaker 3: what the best course is that that's something that you know,
Speaker 3: we don't know because we haven't seen that for a
Speaker 3: very long time. So I think with with Riviera, you know,
Speaker 3: you you've got this kind of a conundrum and and
Speaker 3: it's this golf course is really really good. Not much
Speaker 3: has changed. That's the thing with Riviera, more so than
Speaker 3: Augusta and Pebble, is that it's all just sitting there.
Speaker 3: It's the simplest project of all the projects on this
Speaker 3: almost probably all the projects on this list, is that
Speaker 3: like it's just sitting there. Nothing has been monkeyed around.
Speaker 3: It's you're talking about tree removal and brank of restoration
Speaker 3: and green expansion and fairway expansion. That's like then you're
Speaker 3: you're done. You know that that Golf Courses is great.
Speaker 3: You know it obviously is hosting the Olympics coming up,
Speaker 3: It hosts the.
Speaker 2: Genesis every year.
Speaker 3: And it's got something else that usually lends itself to
Speaker 3: really great restorations is it's a single owner really great
Speaker 3: golf projects.
Speaker 2: It is a single owner.
Speaker 3: It is uh and they have obviously a very powerful
Speaker 3: GM there and that that lends itself usually to really
Speaker 3: great restoration projects. It could go either way, right, a
Speaker 3: golf star. It could be a good thing or a
Speaker 3: bad thing. And I think right now the club is
Speaker 3: very half happy with what it is. You know, it
Speaker 3: charges exorbitant guest fees. It hosts this event every year,
Speaker 3: and it is the pride of the pride of the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour. That is the star of the PGA Tour. Now,
Speaker 3: you know what it could be is more than that.
Speaker 3: And that's that's the question, is what do they want
Speaker 3: it to be?
Speaker 1: Right, I think that they're fairly happy with it what
Speaker 1: it is. Right now. That's the hard way, which is
Speaker 1: which is hard to argue against because it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you should be happy this is a great golf course.
Speaker 1: But I think we both see the potential in it.
Speaker 1: But the thing that is easier about Riviera than Pebble
Speaker 1: and Augusta National is the original design was fully realized,
Speaker 1: completely brilliant. I think would hold up well today.
Speaker 2: But is held up really well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has held well. I mean some people would
Speaker 1: argue the trees have have made it harder than narrowing
Speaker 1: fairways have made it harder. I don't think any of
Speaker 1: that is really what makes Riviera difficult enough to be
Speaker 1: a feature course on the PGA Tour. I think it's
Speaker 1: the greens. I think that's that's what it is right there.
Speaker 1: And so if you push those fairway lines back out,
Speaker 1: if you took out some of the eucalyptus trees that
Speaker 1: are the grasses, they are in weird places, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it would still be a tough course, a tough
Speaker 1: enough course for for PGA Tour players. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at that original Thomas design is just
Speaker 1: so brilliant, it's so great, and so you have an
Speaker 1: easy reference point where you're like, this is what the
Speaker 1: golf course could be.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was really a course that met its full potential
Speaker 1: early on. How can we bring back as much of
Speaker 1: that as possible?
Speaker 2: I think, you know, and I'm just gonna leave a
Speaker 2: gusta out of this.
Speaker 3: But when you look at Sawgrass, you look at Pebble,
Speaker 3: and you look at Riviera, these are courses that host
Speaker 3: tournaments one time a year, one week a year, fifty
Speaker 3: one week fifty one other weeks, it's just about regular
Speaker 3: play and with with restoration work done, it would be
Speaker 3: a you know, just like such a supremely more fun
Speaker 3: golf course for the every day player to play day in,
Speaker 3: day out with the restoration work. So you know, what
Speaker 3: all these courses have done is that they've prioritized the
Speaker 3: one week and the people that are getting paid to
Speaker 3: show up to play over the fifty one weeks, and
Speaker 3: the members that pay their dues, the guests that come
Speaker 3: stay at their resort and pay exorbitate fees in the
Speaker 3: cases of TPC, Sawgrass and Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break for a word
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Speaker 1: Precision pro Golf. Now, speaking of annual tour hosts that
Speaker 1: have strayed away from some of the original design principles
Speaker 1: that inform the course at the beginning the stadium course
Speaker 1: at TPC Sagrass, A lot of people might be surprised
Speaker 1: to see this on the list because most of the
Speaker 1: courses on the list are from the nineteen twenties and thirties.
Speaker 1: TPC Sawgrass opened in nineteen eighty one. It's a peak
Speaker 1: dye design. What needs to be restored about.
Speaker 2: This course, Well, I mean we see it with the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: When something's different, something's challenging, something's not right in front
Speaker 3: of you, players complain and the golf course suffers for it,
Speaker 3: I think, gets more bland, more basic. And that's really
Speaker 3: kind of the story of TPC Sawgrass over the last
Speaker 3: you know, thirty or forty years.
Speaker 2: Forty years now.
Speaker 3: So you know, with Sawgrass, the golf course has you know,
Speaker 3: gotten more bland. It's gotten more you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of the greens have been softened. The other thing that
Speaker 3: has happened is that the golf course has gotten extremely
Speaker 3: more neat and manicured and about lush conditions in a way.
Speaker 3: You know, you can look at Sawgrass and you can
Speaker 3: really see what the Augusta National effect of green, manicured
Speaker 3: white sand has done. That golf course really mimics Augusta
Speaker 3: rather than having its own identity. It is a golf
Speaker 3: course that is, you know, that is trying to follow
Speaker 3: Augusta National. And what's sad about it is that original
Speaker 3: identity was rough rugged. It was a golf course that
Speaker 3: was built out of a swamp. But today it is
Speaker 3: a it is a pristine, manicured golf course, and it
Speaker 3: has lost that rugged nature that was its defining characteristic
Speaker 3: when it opened.
Speaker 1: And it was also designed almost expressly to piss off
Speaker 1: PGA Tour players. Yes, you know, Pete Dye really wanted
Speaker 1: to get in their heads. And to his credit, Dean Beeman,
Speaker 1: the commissioner of the tour at the time, was on
Speaker 1: board with that. He let Pete Dye pursue these ideas
Speaker 1: that bothered PGA Tour players. But ultimately the complaints of
Speaker 1: the players, and really pretty early on in the course's
Speaker 1: history started, baw Ben Crenshaw was involved. He called he
Speaker 1: called the course, uh like something designed by Darth Vader.
Speaker 1: There was there was a there was a quote kind
Speaker 1: of like that, and you know, I'd be I'd be
Speaker 1: curious to hear Crenshaw's overall thoughts, because I'm sure they
Speaker 1: were more interesting than just, oh, this course is unfair.
Speaker 1: But that kind of chorus of complaints from the pros
Speaker 1: by the mid eighties really caused some changes to be made.
Speaker 3: One of the things with that is that we've seen,
Speaker 3: of course a good example like the ocean course which
Speaker 3: we saw at the PGA, was wildly entertaining to watch.
Speaker 3: And one of the things I think that Pete Dye
Speaker 3: had the benefit of that the architects of the Golden
Speaker 3: Age knew but didn't really know, is that really the
Speaker 3: true trajectory of where equipment was going Now. Pete Dye's
Speaker 3: golf courses were built with that in mind, knowing that
Speaker 3: the game and the equipment was going to continue to
Speaker 3: get better and you know where That's one of the
Speaker 3: things that I always wonder about with sawgrass is like,
Speaker 3: what would that golf course look like today had it
Speaker 3: not been significantly overhauled, and how much how would the
Speaker 3: challenge present itself because one of the things with sawgrass
Speaker 3: is they don't have space to make it longer. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the biggest issues there is like they
Speaker 3: don't have a lot of space, Like it's it is
Speaker 3: what it is, and you know, the evil solution of
Speaker 3: it of softening these features, combined with the distance advances,
Speaker 3: has really taken the teeth out of the golf course
Speaker 3: to where now it's just you know, it's a glorified
Speaker 3: it's a It's still got a lot of the strategy
Speaker 3: and the interesting thing that that de does with angles
Speaker 3: and you know, preferred lines and you know, hitting away,
Speaker 3: like when you play away from water, you get these
Speaker 3: tough shots. But you know, the golf course has been
Speaker 3: has been, you know, watered down so much that really,
Speaker 3: yeah that you know, when you combine it with the
Speaker 3: equipment advances, the athletic advances of players, it's now just
Speaker 3: like a driver way.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a wedge fest. You see on eighteen.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the most daunting t shots is
Speaker 3: now like a two iron or a five wood wedge
Speaker 3: Like it's just wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
Speaker 3: A it's an unfortunate you know, kind of combination of
Speaker 3: that early complaint and then the distance and then the
Speaker 3: equipment advances where where the golf course is no longer
Speaker 3: one that gets inside players heads.
Speaker 2: It's a fairly straightforward course.
Speaker 1: It's sort of if you think about it, it's the
Speaker 1: opposite of what the original vision was for the course.
Speaker 1: I think some of this has been heightened by the
Speaker 1: fact that the Players Championship now takes place in March, right,
Speaker 1: so it plays a little bit softer. But a lot
Speaker 1: of this softening has happened architecturally as well, the maintenance decisions.
Speaker 1: It has gone in a direction that, Yeah, the overseed,
Speaker 1: it's gone in a direction that that Pete Die certainly
Speaker 1: wouldn't have imagined. I can't imagine that he would have
Speaker 1: been a fan of it.
Speaker 2: Well, the Twelfth Hall, then, you know.
Speaker 1: Totally redesigned and has been monkeyed with every year since then,
Speaker 1: indicating that maybe it wasn't all that good of an
Speaker 1: idea to begin with. In general, I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of underrated how much a lot of Pete Die's courses
Speaker 1: have changed since they opened. You know, people think of
Speaker 1: him as a modern designer, and he is, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that his courses haven't strayed pretty far away
Speaker 1: from the original vision.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's one of the things that you think
Speaker 3: about with restoration is you could see, you know, what
Speaker 3: of Pete Dye's portfolio, what of Robert Trent Jones's portfolio?
Speaker 3: You know, and even we're getting on the early Tom
Speaker 3: Fazio portfolio deserves to be renovated. And you know, I
Speaker 3: put Worldwoods on there. I played that golf course almost
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago now, and that golf course was spectacular,
Speaker 3: one of my favorite public golf courses I've ever played.
Speaker 3: And where it is now versus where it was fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago, it is a departure and it used to
Speaker 3: be one of the greatest public golf courses in America.
Speaker 3: It's it sits on wonderful land. It was obviously esthetically
Speaker 3: supposed to match Pine Valley. It does a very good
Speaker 3: job of that, and you know, it's just a shell.
Speaker 2: And I think there's some hope for it.
Speaker 3: I you know, there might be you know, some some
Speaker 3: some you know, positive news coming out of Whirlwoods in
Speaker 3: the near future. But the that that's one that that really,
Speaker 3: you know, you start to think about Die Fazio and
Speaker 3: Robert tred Jones, Yeah, Dick Wilson, as you know, kind
Speaker 3: of the next wave. We're getting through the Golden Age
Speaker 3: courses and it's really you know, this is the time
Speaker 3: where you start to see, you know, a golf course
Speaker 3: can really diminish over forty years.
Speaker 2: So that's where we're kind of at with the restoration.
Speaker 3: When you get past these big championship golf courses and
Speaker 3: Sawgrass would be the kind of the golden goose of
Speaker 3: that of that era.
Speaker 1: The ultimate example, I think, another one that we didn't
Speaker 1: include in the list but maybe could have is spy
Speaker 1: Glass Hill golf Course. You know, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: courses that the Pebble Beach Company could address some things
Speaker 1: at spy Glass Hill is a great example.
Speaker 2: Great example, a great one that I wish was on
Speaker 2: the list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I I should have suggested it, because
Speaker 1: it was in my mind. But you know, the hesitation
Speaker 1: there is that if you put Alistair Mackenzie on that land,
Speaker 1: which is essentially that very similar land to Cyprus Point
Speaker 1: next door. In fact, the holes in the dunes at
Speaker 1: Spyglass Hill are in the same dune system as Cypress Point,
Speaker 1: then I don't really doubt that mackenzie would have created
Speaker 1: a better course. But spy Glass Hill is a really
Speaker 1: good example of its era of architecture, of the kind
Speaker 1: of work that Robert Trent Jones did in the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties. I think the course looked a lot different
Speaker 1: when it opened, played a lot different, and it would
Speaker 1: be worth looking at what it was originally and considering
Speaker 1: how to bring some.
Speaker 3: Of that back yeah, I mean, spyglass is an interesting thing.
Speaker 3: I've always thought if you flip the nine of Spyglass,
Speaker 3: it would get considerably better right off the bat if
Speaker 3: you if you t off ten is one and you
Speaker 3: play through the dunes and then you come out and
Speaker 3: that and that ocean frontage is in the back half
Speaker 3: of your round.
Speaker 2: It would be really an incredible thing.
Speaker 3: And then obviously it's kind of a similar I think,
Speaker 3: like with all the outcry that people have about the
Speaker 3: Pebble and the Faux Dunes period of Egan and Mackenzie.
Speaker 3: Like if you go look at an old photo of Spyglass,
Speaker 3: especially the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth holes, you're
Speaker 3: that that is like mouth watering stuff where you're like, WHOA,
Speaker 3: why did we ever go away from that? And it's
Speaker 3: just this idea I think it like really carries over
Speaker 3: from the Augusta fact of Augusta effect that you know,
Speaker 3: color television and Augusta National had on golf.
Speaker 2: Is like it's very neat now.
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, people I think would actually
Speaker 3: pay this is this is the case for you know,
Speaker 3: Pebble with with spyglasses, Like the trend now is the
Speaker 3: rugged sandscape and you had that. You know, if you
Speaker 3: really roughed up Spyglass and the dunes holes too, it
Speaker 3: would just be an unbelievably striking golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and those are actual dunes, right, to be clear.
Speaker 1: The way that it's different from Pebble Beach is that
Speaker 1: Spyglass Hill in those first few holes sit on actual dunes,
Speaker 1: the same dunes as you see next door at Cyprus Point.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, a ton of a ton of potential
Speaker 1: there for sure, but also raises some of those tricky
Speaker 1: questions about what to do with mid century courses that
Speaker 1: have strayed away from their original form. I think those
Speaker 1: are those are worth looking at, as well as are
Speaker 1: courses from before the Golden Age. You know, maybe there
Speaker 1: are some Victorian courses out there that are that are
Speaker 1: wrevariety looking at. Yeah, you got to have variety among
Speaker 1: golf courses. And yeah, maybe some of those courses are
Speaker 1: are pretty bad, but take a look at the esthetics,
Speaker 1: take a look at what was there before, and maybe
Speaker 1: you can recapture some of the that just for the
Speaker 1: historical interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the golf course that David Normoyle is a member
Speaker 3: at Saratoga Springs is a Victorian course that was restored
Speaker 3: by Ky Golby to Victorian status. It looks very cool,
Speaker 3: It's got a lot of above ground features and it's neat.
Speaker 2: It's it's its identity, right.
Speaker 3: I think like one of the quotes that sticks with
Speaker 3: me is like, you know, golf course is about you know,
Speaker 3: Curtis James talked about this like his job as a superintendent.
Speaker 3: He's a superintendent at Old Elm in Chicago, isn't just
Speaker 3: about maintenance. It's about how do I provide the most
Speaker 3: unique experience holes one through eighteen. And I think that
Speaker 3: is a really good way for golf course operators, heads
Speaker 3: of committees to think about their golf courses.
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to give people an idea
Speaker 1: of what's on the rest of the list, and then
Speaker 1: maybe we could talk about some courses that we wish
Speaker 1: we had included on the list, or that we could
Speaker 1: have that almost made it.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Number five is o High Valley in Ohigh Valleyen is
Speaker 1: a George Thomas golf course. We have a long article
Speaker 1: about it on our site. It has completely lost its way.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that it's going to find its way back,
Speaker 1: but there was something truly special there, and there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of it remaining. There are at least nine
Speaker 1: holes there that you could turn into something sensational.
Speaker 3: Well, and more importantly, the resort charges like it has
Speaker 3: something special, celebrates the history that they have, you know,
Speaker 3: pardon my French, have shpit on for forty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they promote the George Thomas lineage while at the
Speaker 1: same time literally putting buildings on top of George Thomas
Speaker 1: golf holes. So that's what's going on there. University of
Speaker 1: Michigan golf course is number six Alistair McKenzie, built by
Speaker 1: Perry Maxwell. They use it as a parking lot on
Speaker 1: game days famously, but it still looks pretty cool and
Speaker 1: it's a great opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike Derieves has restoration plans. It's extremely a successful
Speaker 3: university alumni base that somebody just needs to write a check.
Speaker 3: And from what I gather, it can't be named after somebody,
Speaker 3: which is the hold up in any Larry David kurbyr
Speaker 3: enthusiasm fans will appreciate. They need a donated by anonymous
Speaker 3: type person to stand up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, as somebody truly virtuous, I guess all right.
Speaker 1: Number seven is George Wright which we have discussed recently
Speaker 1: on the podcast. But you say that it could be
Speaker 1: the best municipal course in the country if fully restored.
Speaker 3: Now they have an interesting battle. It'd be an interesting battle.
Speaker 3: I would love to see fully realized George Wright, fully
Speaker 3: realized Bethpage Black, which is on this list, and a
Speaker 3: fully realized Stanley Thompson's Sleepy Hollow, which is on this list.
Speaker 3: It would be quite a questionist, what is the best
Speaker 3: municipal golf course in America?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a battle of Golden age municipal giants there.
Speaker 1: So number eight is I'm going to mispronounce it Kankakey
Speaker 1: Elks country Key, kanka Key Spot, kankake This is This
Speaker 1: is a course that you.
Speaker 2: Love, you know.
Speaker 3: This is a golf course that can be purchased. This
Speaker 3: is a golf course that is an hour and fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes from one of the busiest airports in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chicago, O'Hare or Midway you're talking about.
Speaker 3: This is a golf course that has a very neat history.
Speaker 3: Joe Lewis used to train in kanka Kee when he
Speaker 3: was the heavyweight champion of the world and played his
Speaker 3: golf when in Kankakee at Kankakee Elks. Wow, it is
Speaker 3: a lank for Moreau golf course. It is a it
Speaker 3: is a golf course that you know, I I I'm
Speaker 3: often dismissive a little bit on here of Chicago is
Speaker 3: a great golf city. Chicago as a golf city would
Speaker 3: would dramatically leap up my city rankings with the restoration
Speaker 3: of Kanka Ky Elks. People look at me like I'm
Speaker 3: nuts when I say that I believe it's the fourth
Speaker 3: best golf course in the state. If it was fully restored,
Speaker 3: it would immediately jump into the conversation with Chicago Golf
Speaker 3: Shore Acres and Old Elm as the best golf course
Speaker 3: in the state. It has green greens that rival Chicago
Speaker 3: golf screens if they were expanded and maintained properly. And
Speaker 3: it is you know what Lawsnia is to Wisconsin, Kanka
Speaker 3: Key Elks is to Illinois.
Speaker 1: Number nine is Timber Point Country Club. This is on
Speaker 1: Long Island. Was a Charles Hugh Allison design. There is
Speaker 1: a picture that often circulates of the so called Gibraltar Hole,
Speaker 1: which you have to kind of see to believe. But
Speaker 1: this is a really intriguing tantalizing golf course. Now not
Speaker 1: all of it still exists. It's now a twenty seven
Speaker 1: whole com complex. Twelve of those holes, I believe you said,
Speaker 1: were part of the original Alison design, so certainly something
Speaker 1: could be done.
Speaker 2: It was expanded to twenty seven holes.
Speaker 3: It was, you know, it was a country club, and
Speaker 3: then the Long Island Parks District or whatever, the governing
Speaker 3: Long Island golf body took over it. And you know
Speaker 3: the thing here I think there's like a successful possibly
Speaker 3: use case is if you look at what happened at
Speaker 3: Saint Patrick's, the tom Doak project in Ireland, where they
Speaker 3: had twenty seven holes, kind of we're ever going to
Speaker 3: have anything great in the twenty seven holes on the
Speaker 3: plot of land for modern golf that they had the
Speaker 3: idea of renovating here, restoring what you can renovating and
Speaker 3: taking the facility from twenty seven holes to eighteen offers
Speaker 3: the opportunity to have one of the crown jewels of
Speaker 3: public golf in America. And obviously Long Island is known,
Speaker 3: you know for its private golf. You know, it's you know,
Speaker 3: Shinnacock National Golf Links, Maidstone, Friar's Head and then you've
Speaker 3: got Bethpage Blacks in the public sphere. It would be
Speaker 3: a really neat thing to have timber Point also on
Speaker 3: the island, and it could become a public golf mecca
Speaker 3: as well. With Beth Page Red, Beth Paie Black and
Speaker 3: timber Point, you'd have three of the best ten public
Speaker 3: golf courses, you know, a municipally owned golf courses in America.
Speaker 1: The tenth ranked restoration opportunity right now in American golf,
Speaker 1: according to our list, is Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, Stanley
Speaker 1: Thompson Municipal Course in the Cleveland area. We mentioned it previously.
Speaker 1: This is one of those kind of big municipal projects
Speaker 1: that could they could really produce something sensational.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I you know something I've been learning over the last
Speaker 3: twenty four hours is I've been lit up with anytime Cleveland,
Speaker 3: Ohio gets gets a bone, you get really excited anything
Speaker 3: anything naturally.
Speaker 1: You know, Cleveland metro Parks got tagged a lot when
Speaker 1: we posted this article.
Speaker 3: You know, as as Djokob Noah famously said, you know,
Speaker 3: whoever says I'm going to Cleveland one of the.
Speaker 2: Great quotes of all time. Uh, sorry to be clear,
Speaker 2: we don't necessarily agree with him.
Speaker 1: We just think.
Speaker 3: That I'm in Chicago, so I gotta, I gotta.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of great golf in the Cleveland area, Yes,
Speaker 1: golfers that this is a prime place to go to.
Speaker 2: Really, that's true, great golf. See.
Speaker 3: And and here's the thing Metro Parks has is like
Speaker 3: a sensational organization and has done a wonderful stuff with
Speaker 3: parks and recreation around the around the city. The thing
Speaker 3: about it, you know, they have these immaculate parks, immaculate
Speaker 3: and they have their sitting on Mannakikidal Ross Course which
Speaker 3: is very very very good and Stanley Thompson Sleepy Hollow,
Speaker 3: which is extraordinary, and they're sitting on these two golf
Speaker 3: courses that could be world class. Municipal golf courses are
Speaker 3: very good as they are today, but you know, the
Speaker 3: standard of which they keep their parks doesn't match the
Speaker 3: standard which they keep their golf courses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. The next course on the list is
Speaker 1: Pine Barons at Worldwood's Golf Club. Tom Fazio, we talked
Speaker 1: about it earlier, so we can kind of skip over
Speaker 1: that one. But you know, certainly, of course that should
Speaker 1: be considered for a restoration, even though it's a fairly
Speaker 1: it was designed in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we can talk about the You know,
Speaker 3: the three of the remaining courses on the list are
Speaker 3: all in California. You got the Harding and Wilson courses
Speaker 3: at Griffith Park, which are George Thomas designs. You have
Speaker 3: Santa Anita, which is a James Harrison Smith design in Arcadia, California.
Speaker 3: And you have Sharp Park which is in Pacific in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, which was an Alistair mackenzie. Now, like one
Speaker 3: thing that you'll notice with this whole list is how
Speaker 3: many courses are in California. I think like California is
Speaker 3: probably arguably the best golf state in the world, in
Speaker 3: the in the country now it could.
Speaker 2: Be even better.
Speaker 3: And the reason is because of the natural features that
Speaker 3: it provides. Where you have mountains, you have sandy soil,
Speaker 3: and you have extraordinary natural features with the canyons, barancas
Speaker 3: and all that. You know, one of the places Santa
Speaker 3: Anita isn't one of those. It's in the mountains. It
Speaker 3: sits right at the foothills of the mountains in Arcadia.
Speaker 3: But it was all constructed. It's one of the most
Speaker 3: amazing construction projects that's ever happened in the given when
Speaker 3: it was built in the thirties, and in what was
Speaker 3: done to the land to make it a golf course,
Speaker 3: you know. And then with the other two, with Sharp
Speaker 3: Park and Wilson, you're talking about restorations, you know, of
Speaker 3: courses that were built by two of the greatest architects
Speaker 3: of all time, arguably probably two of the three to
Speaker 3: five best architects in American golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and with both courses they have gotten really far
Speaker 1: from what they were originally, sometimes for legitimate reasons, other
Speaker 1: times because they were just neglected. But right now, at
Speaker 1: Griffith Park and at Sharp Park, I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: you can say that they properly represent a George Thomas
Speaker 1: design on the one hand, or an Alistair McKenzie design
Speaker 1: on the other hand, they've just gone really, really far
Speaker 1: away from that. That's not to say that a lot
Speaker 1: can't be recovered, because a lot could be recovered at
Speaker 1: both courses, but you would need to take a pretty
Speaker 1: ambitious approach in order to get something that resembles what
Speaker 1: those original architects would have built there. Now at Sharp Park, specifically,
Speaker 1: there used to be holes on the beach, right, There
Speaker 1: used to be holes that had fair ways in the lagoon,
Speaker 1: the seaside lagoon that the course plays around. Those are
Speaker 1: features that you can't get back.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: They have built a sea wall on top of the
Speaker 1: beach because those holes washed away in a storm fairly
Speaker 1: early on in the course's life. The lagoon is now
Speaker 1: an environmentally sensitive area. It's been the subject of lawsuits.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can build holes back into the
Speaker 1: lagoon there. You can't really even build them that well
Speaker 1: around the lagoon. What you can do at Sharp Park
Speaker 1: is bring in a designer who knows what he or
Speaker 1: she is doing and do some sympathetic renovation, recapture some
Speaker 1: Mackenzie flavor on the holes that still exist there, and
Speaker 1: just do your best to help that course serve the
Speaker 1: public as well as possible. Griffith Park is kind of
Speaker 1: the same deal. You know. I don't know the details
Speaker 1: of the history of that course quite as well, but
Speaker 1: I've played those courses.
Speaker 3: Jeff talked about it in the George Thomas podcast a
Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah, Like you know, they got with like
Speaker 3: basically a copy and paste job with greens and surrounds,
Speaker 3: and you know, the these would be massive undertakings. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons they're at the bottom of the sixteen
Speaker 3: courses is because of just how much it has to
Speaker 3: be done and how far they've strayed. You know, there
Speaker 3: these are places that you know whether or not they
Speaker 3: can ever be what they were, they can't. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, Santa Anita is in a different boat.
Speaker 3: Sant Anita can be like wonderful and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people are most shocked when they see this,
Speaker 3: But you could go play Santa Anita right now and
Speaker 3: see what it could be. The other two take some
Speaker 3: creativity and some realization.
Speaker 1: All right. So the ones that we haven't mentioned yet
Speaker 1: that are on the list of sixteen great remaining restoration
Speaker 1: candidates in America are fourteen. The Black Course at Bethpage
Speaker 1: State Park. Good Old Bethpage Black obviously has gotten plenty
Speaker 1: of work done in the past twenty years. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's not a.
Speaker 3: Question of whether what the standard of that work was,
Speaker 3: Yes is the question. I highly recommend anybody that is
Speaker 3: listening to this that hasn't read the piece to go
Speaker 3: read the piece and look at the I think it's
Speaker 3: a nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
Speaker 3: I somebody sent it to me years ago, and I've
Speaker 3: had it on my computer since thirty eight. Aerial of
Speaker 3: Bethpage Black. Look at that and then take a spin
Speaker 3: on Google Maps and look at what's there today, and
Speaker 3: you'll just see how big of a miss it was
Speaker 3: in terms of the fairways. The everyday player is just
Speaker 3: really lost, and just the bunker style, the magnificence of
Speaker 3: the bunkers in when it opened versus what it is today.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things that I've you know,
Speaker 3: I've learned over the years is that Rhys Jones cut
Speaker 3: those bunkers into the green pads. So the greens have
Speaker 3: been the green pads that were undisturbed have been disturbed.
Speaker 3: And that's a shame, because I think the course is
Speaker 3: shortcoming is the greens. You know, the routing, the topography
Speaker 3: and the strategy of the course is impeccable from tee
Speaker 3: to green. Where a little literally kind of stalls out
Speaker 3: a little bit is at the greens, where they're pretty
Speaker 3: pretty flat and and simple. That is a golf course that,
Speaker 3: you know, along with Bethpage Red that really afford the opportunity,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's it's one of those courses where,
Speaker 3: like I think it you need to look at it
Speaker 3: as the bucket of like, you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: these great restorations in recent years. Oakland Hills was something
Speaker 3: that was worked on by Rhys Jones numerous times before
Speaker 3: it was properly restored, you know, And and bethpage Black
Speaker 3: kind of falls into that bucket.
Speaker 1: All right. Final place on the list sixteen is High
Speaker 1: Point Golf Club, Tom doakes first course. He documented the
Speaker 1: construction of this course pretty extensively in his book The
Speaker 1: Anatomy of a Golf Course, Yes, along along with his
Speaker 1: other early courses. So it's now Hops Farm the course
Speaker 1: closed down, but it's still kind of sitting there, and
Speaker 1: we've got a cool picture of Tom Doak out on
Speaker 1: the course kind of pointing at something what is clearly
Speaker 1: a golf hole. So there's a lot of stuff still there.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how reasonable it is to expect that
Speaker 1: something will happen there again.
Speaker 3: Tom Tom says it's an oversaturated golf market, but I
Speaker 3: kind of think that. I think the allure here, which
Speaker 3: we didn't really put in here in the article, is
Speaker 3: that in Tom's mentioned numerous times on the podcast with him,
Speaker 3: is that this is the only golf course that Tom
Speaker 3: Doak built.
Speaker 2: Everything you know this is he was built.
Speaker 3: All eighteen He built all eighteen greens, and I think
Speaker 3: that's the allure here. Like, you know, he just recently
Speaker 3: like a core that was a huge restoration. Like the
Speaker 3: big one of the big what ifs that we haven't
Speaker 3: talked about is Dorna Hills. And the reason that it's
Speaker 3: such an important restoration is because it was Perry Maxwell's
Speaker 3: first and home golf course and Tom dolk lives in
Speaker 3: Traverse City. This is Tom Dolke's first golf course. And
Speaker 3: you know, given his portfolio of designs, he's going to
Speaker 3: go down as one of the greatest architects ever and
Speaker 3: this is his first golf course. That's just kind of
Speaker 3: sitting there and in a wonderful vacation spot for America,
Speaker 3: Like that's that's the thing, and and a place where
Speaker 3: he lives. It's kind of his in a way, Dorna Kills.
Speaker 3: So you know, you can put some other courses of
Speaker 3: Tom's on here Atna Springs, the nine hole are in
Speaker 3: in Napa Valley.
Speaker 2: That's kind of just sitting.
Speaker 1: There Edna Springs is close to my heart. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of the one of the early courses that I
Speaker 1: played in my renewed golf architecture obsession several years ago
Speaker 1: when I was kind of getting back in to it.
Speaker 1: And a nine hole course Northern Napa Valley, absolutely beautiful,
Speaker 1: was suffering by the time I played it and has
Speaker 1: since closed down. You know, that could be one of
Speaker 1: the very best nine hole courses in the country. So
Speaker 1: you know, that's another kind of category of potential restoration candidates,
Speaker 1: just good courses that may have been built pretty recently
Speaker 1: that have been abandoned but maybe could be reclaimed now
Speaker 1: that there is a big uptick in interest in golf.
Speaker 1: All right, So I think we should do this briefly.
Speaker 1: But five other notable restoration candidates that we listed are
Speaker 1: Balboa Park Golf Course in San Diego, William P. Bell
Speaker 1: Billy Bell. Nineteen thirty three is when the course that's
Speaker 1: currently there was really built. East Lake Golf Club, Donald Ross.
Speaker 1: We're not sure exactly how great Eastlake was originally, but
Speaker 1: it's at this point the annual host of the Tour
Speaker 1: Championship has gotten pretty far from anything resembling Ross. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's the there's beth Page Red which we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Kind of the fund the fun course at beth Page
Speaker 1: is still difficult, but uh, but many would argue, as
Speaker 1: you say in the article, that it's the best course
Speaker 1: on the property. There's Reynolds Park in North Carolina, Winston Salem,
Speaker 1: pretty near Old Town Club, which was the recipient of
Speaker 1: one of the best restorations of the modern era by
Speaker 1: Coren Crenshaw Perry Maxwell Course municipal. We've talked about on
Speaker 1: the podcast before.
Speaker 2: That's a sleeping giant.
Speaker 1: Such a cool routing and uh and really could could
Speaker 1: use some help and and there's there's maybe an opportunity.
Speaker 3: It probably deserved to be higher on the list. But
Speaker 3: you know, the thing that doing this exercise bore out
Speaker 3: was just like, how many the best opportunities are municipal courses.
Speaker 1: Yep, and Son Eagles fits that category too. I'm actually
Speaker 1: not sure if it's a municipal course, but it's a
Speaker 1: former private course that has turned public. Tilling has design
Speaker 1: in New Jersey that has some mouthwatering greens.
Speaker 2: Yeah and old photos.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's there's enough there to do to do a restoration.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So with all that said, what are some of the misses.
Speaker 1: What are some of the courses that we wish we
Speaker 1: had included on this list?
Speaker 3: Swill Park, which we talked about on the pod. That
Speaker 3: was just like, honestly a braid fart. That's a tilling
Speaker 3: Hast design that's pretty much just sitting there that it
Speaker 3: would be a really fun, sporty course with a restoration.
Speaker 3: It's not overly long, but big, a severe plot of
Speaker 3: land and really neat routing. So that's one that I
Speaker 3: would put in there. I think, you know, one in
Speaker 3: Texas that we didn't mention, a Cedar Crust, which was
Speaker 3: the nineteen twenty seven PGA host. Another tilling Hast design
Speaker 3: would be one that's a municipal course in Dallas Gulf Town.
Speaker 1: If a Cedarcrust were restored, Dallas would have very little
Speaker 1: competition for being the best public golf city in America.
Speaker 1: All Right, Columbia Country Club is one that maybe should
Speaker 1: have been included.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that's a private that's a Walter Travis.
Speaker 3: That's one of the few that we uh that you know,
Speaker 3: if I thought about it, I thought about putting it,
Speaker 3: but then you know, a friend of the podcast, George Water,
Speaker 3: sent me a bunch of old photos. I had seen
Speaker 3: one or two and then I looked through the whole
Speaker 3: batch and thought to myself, Ah, that was a miss.
Speaker 2: Probably probably should have been on here.
Speaker 3: I do, I do understand that there's some possible easement
Speaker 3: that situation, that could have a road going through the
Speaker 3: center of it, which might dash any hopes of that happening.
Speaker 3: And then and then the Pacific Northwest, which to me
Speaker 3: is kind of the great unknown. It's it's your backyard,
Speaker 3: so I wanted to you.
Speaker 1: I know it. I mean, there are that many opportunities
Speaker 1: here because we did not get this infusion of amazing
Speaker 1: Golden Age architecture. You know, Seattle is kind of av
Speaker 1: McCann's town, but there aren't that many public McCann courses
Speaker 1: that I know of. Chandler Egan did a whole lot
Speaker 1: of work up here. I think it's right to see
Speaker 1: Chandler Egan as a second tier Golden Age architect. He
Speaker 1: was very, very good at what he did, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't anywhere near the level of the Golden Age architects
Speaker 1: that you know the names of.
Speaker 2: And McCann probably is in the same buck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, McCann did some really good work, but nothing
Speaker 1: that jumps out as like, wow, that was brilliant, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's worth restoring these courses that
Speaker 1: they built and looking at the historical record and recapturing
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that they did, but also considering
Speaker 1: how they could have been better in the first place. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing that's great about Chandler Egan is that he
Speaker 1: built a lot of public courses. You know, he he
Speaker 1: lived in the area, and he you know, just gave
Speaker 1: his services to pretty much anybody who asked, seemingly. And
Speaker 1: so East Moreland Golf Course in Portland is really a
Speaker 1: wonderful public golf course, but they've planted way too many
Speaker 1: trees on it. It's been taken over by BlackBerry in
Speaker 1: the past ten or fifteen years in a major way,
Speaker 1: and they just need to clear some things out there,
Speaker 1: open up some sitelines across the property and it's just
Speaker 1: beautiful and there are some really fantastic greens there that
Speaker 1: I'm curious about. West Seattle is another Chandler Egan course
Speaker 1: in Seattle, municipal course on a great piece of land.
Speaker 1: And so these are some These are the ones that
Speaker 1: I think of. Those are the courses I think of
Speaker 1: when I think what the potential for restoration could be
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Northwest. So another couple ones that should
Speaker 1: be mentioned Essex County, Francis a burn in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: Charles Bank's course would be pretty cool with a restoration.
Speaker 1: And then Rock Spring, which I visited and wrote about
Speaker 1: on the website. We didn't include in this list mainly
Speaker 1: because there is a restoration plan on the table there
Speaker 1: that Kyle Franz is probably going to carry out and
Speaker 1: uh and so you know, the future is looking right
Speaker 1: for Rock Spring. But but that's still a course that
Speaker 1: that could use a restoration. It would be pretty special.
Speaker 1: I think that pretty much brings us to the end
Speaker 1: of the list. I'm sure thoughts that we I mean,
Speaker 1: there are more courses that we could mention.
Speaker 3: Next next up is renovation list, you know, cranking on that,
Speaker 3: and you know I have a you know that would
Speaker 3: come with the caveat of like there's a million courses
Speaker 3: that I haven't seen that sit on wonderful ground. Yep,
Speaker 3: Because that's what I think renovations about is is really
Speaker 3: when you look at the great renovation opportunities, is hey,
Speaker 3: is this is this on a great plot of land
Speaker 3: that we can make something spectacular from something that's not.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the next frontier. That is the
Speaker 3: you see some courses that were nothing burgers that are
Speaker 3: turned into two really great golf something. So that's that's
Speaker 3: the kind of the exciting thing I think, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: when I think about restoration work, there's also going to
Speaker 3: be a lot of restoration work. And let me just
Speaker 3: put this out there. I'm not going to damate, but
Speaker 3: there's a lot of restoration work that really is committee
Speaker 3: driven that's not very good. And so there's going to
Speaker 3: be continued restoration work at courses that receive restorations within
Speaker 3: the last five years that just frankly isn't very good work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So here's one last idea that has come to
Speaker 1: me about what the future of restoration might look like.
Speaker 1: You know, restoration so far in the past twenty years
Speaker 1: seems to have mostly meant restore the shaping of the
Speaker 1: golf course, the aesthetics, restore corridor with fairway with sometimes
Speaker 1: restore the strategic positioning of hazards, so the basic strategies
Speaker 1: of the holes, restore green shapes and contours, but pretty
Speaker 1: much moderniz everything else right, put these high tech systems
Speaker 1: under greens. You know, the maintenance practices are really modern
Speaker 1: at a lot of these supposedly restored golf courses, and
Speaker 1: I understand why. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1: The things that they're doing with maintenance right now are
Speaker 1: amazing and understandable for courses that host championships or get
Speaker 1: a lot of play, or just want to have some
Speaker 1: kind of tools at their disposal that allow them to
Speaker 1: present the golf course exactly how they want it to
Speaker 1: be presented. But the result is that the courses don't
Speaker 1: look a huge amount like they looked in the twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties. I mean, you know, in terms of the shaping,
Speaker 1: in terms of the architecture they do, but in terms
Speaker 1: of the maintenance practices, they look really different. And again,
Speaker 1: not necessarily a bad thing. But maybe one of the
Speaker 1: next steps that we'll see in restoration is restoring some
Speaker 1: of the maintenance strategies that were in place at these courses.
Speaker 1: Originally just because you want to do this, but because
Speaker 1: a lot of courses are going to be forced to
Speaker 1: do this to kind of reduce the inputs that they're
Speaker 1: putting into the golf course and to get a little
Speaker 1: more bare bones in their conditioning approach. I think that
Speaker 1: changes in the climate, changes in water supply, a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that are going to happen over the
Speaker 1: next few decades are going to force courses to reconsider
Speaker 1: how they approach maintenance. And so maybe one of the
Speaker 1: things that we'll see in the work that architects are
Speaker 1: doing at older courses is how can we make maintenance
Speaker 1: more efficient, more environmentally friendly and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Does that kind of make sense as a thought?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: I mean maintenance sustainability, that's sustainability is going to be
Speaker 3: a big thing in the next you know.
Speaker 2: It has to be years.
Speaker 1: We can't avoid it. It's inevitable and so and architects
Speaker 1: are going to have to be involved in that process.
Speaker 2: So this will do it. This is probably too long already, but.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sticking with us if you're still here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll be back with uh with Moore next week.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited by Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg.
Speaker 1: If you've been enjoying the Friday podcast lately, maybe consider
Speaker 1: leaving a rating or review in iTunes. Those really do
Speaker 1: help us out. Thanks for listening.