Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett
Speaker 1: Morrison and today I'm joined by Andy Johnson. How's it going, Andy.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's going swell. Just another day in paradise. We
Speaker 2: had great weekend Labor Day, weekend of golf with the
Speaker 2: Solheim Cup and you know, just ready to talk about
Speaker 2: two wonderful hidden gems in Michigan with you.
Speaker 1: Are you still in Michigan? No, No, you've You've finally
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 2: Mentally, I hope to think that I've stayed in northern Michigan,
Speaker 2: but I I'm afraid that all of my hopes and
Speaker 2: dreams of keeping that mental state have come crashing down,
Speaker 2: you know, on this Tuesday, as I've really gotten back
Speaker 2: in the saddle with work and and just you know,
Speaker 2: I took the garbage out last night and I realized that,
Speaker 2: you know, things are different.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, back home all right. So first, our sponsor
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Speaker 2: About ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 1: So Andy, we're going to talk about mainly a couple
Speaker 1: of great affordable public golf courses in Michigan in this episode,
Speaker 1: but we thought we'd first say a few words about
Speaker 1: the Solheim Cup, which we just watched over this past weekend.
Speaker 1: What are some big takeaways you had from the Solheim.
Speaker 2: Cup Women's Golf. I think had a had a bit
Speaker 2: of a moment this weekend. Obviously, they had their premier
Speaker 2: event at a great golf course Inverness and went up
Speaker 2: against obviously the Tour Championship and whether or not the
Speaker 2: numbers will bear it out, you know, the social media
Speaker 2: definitely was an indicator that the Solheim Cup was the
Speaker 2: event to watch this weekend first and foremost. That'll be
Speaker 2: my big takeaway. You know, things such as how do
Speaker 2: you pronounce his name? Nile herand the one direction guy
Speaker 2: with thirty million followers tweeting about it, no idea.
Speaker 1: But I don't know how to pronounce his name. But
Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind that for people under
Speaker 1: thirty under twenty five years old, he is the most
Speaker 1: famous amateur golfer in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like him tweeting about the Solheim Cup, not the
Speaker 2: Tour Championship, you know, not men's golf. Women's golf was
Speaker 2: such a big deal. Like just like things like that
Speaker 2: anecdotally as well as like the dominant social discussion this weekend,
Speaker 2: you know, just like an NFL Sunday where there's a
Speaker 2: dominant social discussion, one storyline. It might be your team,
Speaker 2: it might be a player on your team, you know
Speaker 2: your rivals team. There's always one dominant like the dominant
Speaker 2: story this weekend was the Solheim Cup, and that's just
Speaker 2: tremendous for women's golf, and it shows like when you
Speaker 2: put together a team competition, team competitions are far and
Speaker 2: few between, you know. I think like one of the
Speaker 2: natural reactions is we need more team competitions. Like one
Speaker 2: of the things that makes teams competitions so popular is
Speaker 2: the scarcity of them. So I don't want to flood
Speaker 2: it with but I think there's room for more of them.
Speaker 2: But we have to be very pick and choosy on
Speaker 2: how we cultivate these ideas. And we don't need all
Speaker 2: of a sudden fifty weeks of team competitions right.
Speaker 1: Now, Well it wouldn't be as special anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: part part of what's great about the Solheim Cup the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup is that you know they only come around
Speaker 1: every couple of years and you have time to miss it,
Speaker 1: Unlike what happens with PGA to our golf when you
Speaker 1: don't have any time to miss it and yearn for it.
Speaker 1: I think there are enough team competitions out there right now.
Speaker 1: I mean you've got the President's Cup, the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: the Solheim Cup, the Curtis Cup, the Walker Cup, the
Speaker 1: NC Double as even the PGA Cup or the Eurasia
Speaker 1: Cup if it ever comes back. I'm not sure what's
Speaker 1: going on with that right now. But the problem is
Speaker 1: we don't cover them enough. They aren't really on TV
Speaker 1: except for the ones at the professional level. The Walker
Speaker 1: Cup is barely on TV in the US when it's overseas.
Speaker 1: It got pretty good television coverage this year, as did
Speaker 1: the Curtis Cup, but I'd like to see more of that.
Speaker 1: I'd like to just see more emphasis on the team
Speaker 1: matchplay tournaments that we have because those have tradition, those
Speaker 1: have relevance to the players who participate in them, and
Speaker 1: I think that we need to cultivate those instead of
Speaker 1: thinking about adding more, because you could get to the point,
Speaker 1: as you say, where you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we have too many and that would be too bad
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: You make a great point about history, tradition and that matters,
Speaker 2: and in the Solheim Cup is a younger event. So
Speaker 2: I think that's like this is going to be a
Speaker 2: big jumping off point I think I saw early in
Speaker 2: the week and I apologize to whoever wrote this, but
Speaker 2: they they made a comparison of this Solheim Cup and
Speaker 2: what it could be to the Ryder Cup's Kiowa moment
Speaker 2: when like that war by the shore, and I think
Speaker 2: like to a certain extent, that was a pre tournament prediction.
Speaker 2: It's somewhat came true with this Solheim Cup where it
Speaker 2: really elevated the women's game to a different level than
Speaker 2: we typically see it.
Speaker 1: I agree, But what do you think it was about
Speaker 1: this particular Soulheim Cup that elevated it to that level.
Speaker 2: I think the coverage was great, Like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of its substantial we could watch everything, which is you know,
Speaker 2: being able, Like I would have loved to see it
Speaker 2: on NBC more than it was, but the reality is
Speaker 2: like the NBC is going to show the Tour Championship
Speaker 2: because they have a whatever billion dollar rights deal with them.
Speaker 2: But the I think think the coverage was number one.
Speaker 2: I think the golf course played it and do it
Speaker 2: having it at a golf course that's hosted numerous major
Speaker 2: Championship Men's Major Championships was a big deal. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously the fans being there, but I think that's what
Speaker 2: elevated it. And then there was great play. The final
Speaker 2: important thing was that the players delivered and there was
Speaker 2: exemplary play and people saw just how talented, how good
Speaker 2: so many of these women are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great to see Inverness Club. It was
Speaker 1: great to see approach shots into those greens that weren't
Speaker 1: necessarily falling out of the sky right. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: they weren't running them up like you would on a
Speaker 1: links course necessarily, but you saw a variety of trajectories
Speaker 1: going into these greens, which made it really interesting for
Speaker 1: me as a viewer to watch this tournament. Because you
Speaker 1: know it's team matchplay, you get to see a lot
Speaker 1: of shots. That's one of the wonderful things about the
Speaker 1: match play format. You tend to see more shots covered
Speaker 1: on TV than you do when it's stroke play, and
Speaker 1: that broadcast can kind of get into this pattern of
Speaker 1: just showing putts. So we saw some delightful approaches into
Speaker 1: these greens, kind of bouncing over bunkers, running up, using
Speaker 1: different contours on the green, but just you know, there
Speaker 1: was a feeling that this was a major tournament. You know,
Speaker 1: the fact that it was at Inverness, the fact that
Speaker 1: this club has a storied history, that it's hosted a
Speaker 1: bunch of men's major championships, I thought gave this Solheim
Speaker 1: Cup a real weight. I do think that the venue
Speaker 1: was crucial here and I hope that that's part of
Speaker 1: the lesson that the organizers of the Solheim Cup learned
Speaker 1: from this past weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the venue was great. One of the things
Speaker 2: just real quickly about the venue that I enjoyed. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is a women's game thing
Speaker 2: or if it was Andrew Green's work, because we haven't
Speaker 2: seen like a men's major out there or a men's
Speaker 2: tournament out there, but like the penalty that those bunkers
Speaker 2: inflicted was really delightful. They you get up near and
Speaker 2: I think this is like just anecdotally from me playing it,
Speaker 2: I feel like those bunkers are dead. You know, if
Speaker 2: you hit it into there and it gets anywhere near
Speaker 2: the face you are, you're not probably getting home. And
Speaker 2: we saw that with the women this week, where like
Speaker 2: finding bunkers had a monumental impact, especially the faraway bunkers.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just something that we don't see we
Speaker 2: can week out on the PGA Tour very much right
Speaker 2: where like it was, it inflicted a penalty, and obviously
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the beauties of match play
Speaker 2: is where each hole feels so important, you know, and
Speaker 2: there's like a weight to the hole and losing ground,
Speaker 2: like it feels like it could just slip away. And
Speaker 2: then certain players you just don't want to get down
Speaker 2: to and that you can see them just kind of
Speaker 2: put the put more and more pressure on them, and
Speaker 2: finding a bunker was this catastrophic thing like also, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna make par if I find this bunker
Speaker 2: like we saw it on the and the eighteenth which
Speaker 2: is the ninth hole with those bunkers on the right,
Speaker 2: which I didn't understand how poor the driving was on
Speaker 2: the ninth or the eighteenth hole. It's like a very
Speaker 2: easy driving hole.
Speaker 1: So the eighteenth hole for the Solheim Cup, which is
Speaker 1: the ninth hole for members, Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: find I find that to be a tricky driving hole.
Speaker 1: I guess there's a lot of space out there, but
Speaker 1: you know, when you're standing on that tee. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit hard to tell where you're supposed to hit
Speaker 1: the ball.
Speaker 2: It's maybe true for me at.
Speaker 1: Least, maybe you would expect more from a player who
Speaker 1: has already mapped out the course.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't believe how many people were hitting it right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and like there's nothing good right, but there's all
Speaker 2: the room of the world left and.
Speaker 1: We and we saw those bunkers that you were talking
Speaker 1: about really come into play there where you know they're
Speaker 1: in fairway bunkers, And a lot of times we saw
Speaker 1: the players kind of pitching out, which we just don't
Speaker 1: see that often. We see approach a lot of approach
Speaker 1: shots on the PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour, we
Speaker 1: see players hitting appro shots from bunkers. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe that green did build up those lips of those
Speaker 1: bunkers substantially and gave them that kind of raised up
Speaker 1: angular appearance. And that's not just an aesthetic thing. It's
Speaker 1: also functional in the sense that it exacts a real
Speaker 1: penalty if you end up in the wrong place in
Speaker 1: those bunkers.
Speaker 2: It seemed also like the other thing was when they
Speaker 2: missed green side, I felt like the recovery from those
Speaker 2: was so tough when you were short sided. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of bunker shots you saw. If they didn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of it was like, well like if
Speaker 2: they keep it, you know, fifteen feet, it was a
Speaker 2: great shot. And that probably has something to do with
Speaker 2: the old school sloping greens, like greens with substantial slope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the external contours on those greens, right, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of severe contours on the edges of those greens,
Speaker 1: and often when you're playing out of a bunker, your
Speaker 1: recovery is going to land on a downslope and kind
Speaker 1: of propel away, right, and you're just not going to
Speaker 1: have much of a chance to get it close.
Speaker 2: Did you find yourself watching the golf differently after your
Speaker 2: podcast with Joseph Lamanya last week and analyzing pairings and
Speaker 2: different plays a little bit differently.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we had Joseph Lamania on the pod last week
Speaker 1: talking about the strategy of team match play and how
Speaker 1: captains really should be thinking through how they make their pairings,
Speaker 1: And certainly I was looking at the pairings that were
Speaker 1: made and the decisions that were made by the captains
Speaker 1: with through a slightly more critical lens. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the main takeaways from what Joseph told me
Speaker 1: was that players with similar skill sets really shouldn't be
Speaker 1: paired together. You know, you want people with complementary skill sets,
Speaker 1: especially if you know you're pairing together two relatively short
Speaker 1: players and two relatively long players. What you really want
Speaker 1: to do is spread those players out and make sure
Speaker 1: that you know they don't get caught with a lack
Speaker 1: in a certain with an absence of of a certain
Speaker 1: skill area in a single pairing. And that's especially important
Speaker 1: and alternate shot. To my mind, I didn't see too
Speaker 1: many pairings that were glaring to me where I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem like a good decision. Maybe putting the
Speaker 1: court of sisters together actually wasn't great because both of
Speaker 1: them are among the longest players on the LPGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Maybe they should have been distributed more through the American team.
Speaker 1: But one thing that I did notice when I was
Speaker 1: just considering the relative skills of the players on the
Speaker 1: American team and on the European team, is that Team
Speaker 1: Europe had a lot of long hitters.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, you would have just assume, maybe this is an.
Speaker 2: Assumption men's it's a men's take that exactly, Americans are
Speaker 2: longer because men American men are the longest hitter.
Speaker 1: And there's also a kind of sloppiness like European players
Speaker 1: just to learn the game different and they're more tactical.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It's just nonsense. But the European team
Speaker 1: had a lot of long hitters on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: Lexi Thompson is the longest hitter out there, But there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of Team Europe players who are in
Speaker 1: the kind of teams and twenties of the LPGA distance ranks,
Speaker 1: and they really didn't have many short players and a
Speaker 1: Nordquist was the lowest ranked player on Team Europe in
Speaker 1: terms of distance and so, whereas the American team had
Speaker 1: had a few short players who had great other skills
Speaker 1: as well. But I think that the course prized a
Speaker 1: little bit of length, and I think that Europe had
Speaker 1: an advantage there.
Speaker 2: One perfect example of like a data driven pairing that
Speaker 2: Joseph probably would have been proud of was the Leona
Speaker 2: McGuire mel Red pairing where mel Reid obviously a long player,
Speaker 2: a shaky potter, and you put her with one of
Speaker 2: your shortness hitters Leon McGuire, who's like eightieth and a
Speaker 2: distance off the tee and one of the best, very
Speaker 2: very best putters in the world. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you melded that skill gap. And I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the things like if I see it with our
Speaker 2: our tournaments. You know, we have it all at our events.
Speaker 2: We have alternate shot at every event, and it's like
Speaker 2: what you see is there like compliments from like teams
Speaker 2: that do well, like even if it's a high handicap,
Speaker 2: if they have like a you know, a high handicap
Speaker 2: low handicap pairing, they've got like a really good shot
Speaker 2: at playing pretty well like above expectation. And then you
Speaker 2: sometimes see these two high handicaps work really well together,
Speaker 2: and then you see them maybe they make it into
Speaker 2: our shootout and it's like, oh one of them's really long, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and that that really helps, you know, So
Speaker 2: complimentary skills in an alternate shot is like such an
Speaker 2: important thing, and to understand it beyond data is to
Speaker 2: play it. And when you play, like there are people
Speaker 2: that your game just works really well with in alternate shot,
Speaker 2: and typically those are players that play significantly different than you.
Speaker 2: I think one other thing I think there you know, obviously,
Speaker 2: like this might be simplistic, but the one of the
Speaker 2: lures of the team events is that there is a
Speaker 2: very clear winner and a loser.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's not like, you know, like the professional events,
Speaker 2: there's obviously a winner, but then like if you finish eighth,
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily say good week, like great week, you know,
Speaker 2: good playing. There's a gray area between winner and loser.
Speaker 2: Right with the team events, the finality of it's over
Speaker 2: and one team won, one team lost. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that adds to the viewing because you know that it's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That there are clear stakes in a team match
Speaker 1: play tournament. This is something I thought about throughout the week,
Speaker 1: just the consistency of the stakes. There's there's real substance
Speaker 1: to which team wins, obviously, and every match feels important
Speaker 1: from the first day through the third day. Every match
Speaker 1: feels like it has big consequences. And yet at the
Speaker 1: same time, late on Monday afternoon, even though Europe was
Speaker 1: playing way better in a lot of ways than the
Speaker 1: US team, even though Europe didn't really relinquish its lead
Speaker 1: throughout the entire tournament, it felt like things could turn around.
Speaker 1: It felt like, you know, this could all flip if
Speaker 1: a few matches go the US's way.
Speaker 2: There was like that flickering hope. But it was just
Speaker 2: like it was so it was so absurd to all
Speaker 2: the things that needed to happen. It was enough battle,
Speaker 2: like sure, I like because like I thought it was over,
Speaker 2: and then I was like it's over, and then I
Speaker 2: was like, well, wait a second, and then I thought
Speaker 2: about it. And then by the time like it flipped, it
Speaker 2: was like I realized, like, you know, how ridiculous it
Speaker 2: was to think that the Americans still had a chance.
Speaker 1: It seems like in retrospect, but listen, I mean, if
Speaker 1: a couple of matches flipped, yeah, then then it could
Speaker 1: have been you know, and that would have been one
Speaker 1: of the greatest comebacks that we can remember. And so
Speaker 1: there's always that little potential you never know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the hope that kills you. We should probably move on
Speaker 1: to talking about these uh these Yeah, this was way longer,
Speaker 1: but the courses that we're going to discuss are Champion
Speaker 1: Hill and Pinecroft in Michigan. I think the overall topic
Speaker 1: that we're discussing here right the concept we're talking about
Speaker 1: is how affordable golf can work as a family business,
Speaker 1: and and we're using these courses of as an example
Speaker 1: of how that can function. So Champion Hill and Pinecroft
Speaker 1: are in Northern Michigan or northern Lower Michigan. I guess
Speaker 1: I should say, I don't want to offend the people
Speaker 1: on the Upper Peninsula. Uh, these courses are owned by
Speaker 1: the same family, and they're they're pretty close to Traverse
Speaker 1: City and really close to Crystal Downs, which is the
Speaker 1: famous Alistair McKenzie.
Speaker 2: Course Arcadia too. They're fifteen minutes from Arcadia Bluffs for sure.
Speaker 1: So this is these are definitely courses to go to
Speaker 1: if you're going to take a trip to Arcadia Bluffs.
Speaker 1: They're family owned. As I said, they're affordable, they're well designed.
Speaker 1: They're basically examples of these public golf unicorns that we
Speaker 1: only occasionally run across in America. I think the first
Speaker 1: of them that you saw was Champion Hill.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So I saw Champion Hill a number of
Speaker 2: years ago. It was one of those. I was in
Speaker 2: the area, I had like three hours to kill. I
Speaker 2: went out there and saw and saw it and it
Speaker 2: was it blew my mind. It was the middle of
Speaker 2: the day though I didn't have my camera with me.
Speaker 2: I took some you know, shoddy drone and it was
Speaker 2: just something in my mind. I always was like, well,
Speaker 2: I need to get back there and do a proper,
Speaker 2: proper frieda egg. Look see at it, because it's an
Speaker 2: incredible place. And this was the second golf course that
Speaker 2: they built. You know, we'll get into the story, but
Speaker 2: these are people that weren't serious golfers that built this
Speaker 2: golf course. They were farmer and it's just an amazing
Speaker 2: thing when you stumble across a piece of amateur architecture
Speaker 2: and and it blows your mind at how good it is.
Speaker 2: And I think they're few and far between, like you discussed.
Speaker 2: Like another example would be the Ache and Golf Club
Speaker 2: down in Aken, which we've done pieces on. But these
Speaker 2: guys did everything right. And you know, this time around,
Speaker 2: I got to play Pinecroft too, which was their first
Speaker 2: design and it opened in the early nineties. It's just
Speaker 2: a wonderful example of architecture. I couldn't believe. Like I
Speaker 2: was expecting it to be like a little bit worse
Speaker 2: than Champion Hill, like in terms of like the architectural stuff,
Speaker 2: but like and the end, I actually kind of the
Speaker 2: more I think about it, I think it was more
Speaker 2: it's more sophisticated. Wow, from an architecture standpoint, and what
Speaker 2: they accomplished there than Champion Hill is, even though Champion
Speaker 2: Hill is a better golf course, but what they did
Speaker 2: at Pinecroft is truly unbelievable in terms of how it's routed.
Speaker 2: The layout is like amazing, and then like they built
Speaker 2: a lot of very wide range of greens, you know,
Speaker 2: down to you look back on the round, it's like, God,
Speaker 2: they're par threes. They have a short, long, and two
Speaker 2: medium par threes. They have like great variety. They didn't
Speaker 2: just build two hundred yard par threes on that course.
Speaker 2: And the routing is incredible because it's situated on this
Speaker 2: side hill. This is Pinecroft. They're both situated on hills,
Speaker 2: but it's on this pie on this hill that overlooks Beulah,
Speaker 2: Michigan and Crystal Lake, which is one of the most
Speaker 2: beautiful lakes in the country. And it's a very severe hill.
Speaker 2: But you go down the hill and you play the
Speaker 2: front nine and it kind of winds around and comes
Speaker 2: back up very similar to a Perry Maxwell routing. Ten
Speaker 2: U t off right next to one you go back
Speaker 2: down the hill and then it comes up for the
Speaker 2: final four holes, which have this dramatic views of Crystal
Speaker 2: Lake on the flat ground, and you just realize it's
Speaker 2: like god, like, so many people would have screwed this
Speaker 2: routing up, and they nailed it. Yeah, like they absolutely
Speaker 2: nailed it. And it's like, this is not an easy
Speaker 2: place to lay out a golf course because of the
Speaker 2: severity of the land.
Speaker 1: And this was the first try of an untrained architect.
Speaker 2: M and that's the amazing thing about it. And then
Speaker 2: you go to Champion Hill and the routing, you know,
Speaker 2: they did something. You can tell that they built bigger greens,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, the routing's a little clunkier.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it wasn't an easy place to
Speaker 2: rout a golf course. There's a couple tough walks on
Speaker 2: the front nine, the routings a little clunkier. The land
Speaker 2: is absolutely jaw dropping. Like you know, Arcadia Bluffs has
Speaker 2: better views. The site of being on the lake at
Speaker 2: Arcadia is better, but the land for golf, if you're
Speaker 2: purely looking at it from a golf standpoint, the land
Speaker 2: at Champion Hill just blows it out of the water
Speaker 2: and blows almost anywhere of the water in the country.
Speaker 2: So that golf course and then you see all the
Speaker 2: par threes are like two hundred yards, so you think, oh,
Speaker 2: like this is where somebody said you need longer par threes.
Speaker 2: Like you can start to see maybe we're public public
Speaker 2: feedback crept into their design thoughts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and made it not as good, which is the.
Speaker 2: Well, if you go there, just play different tees for
Speaker 2: the par threes and make them varied, and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden they aren't all two hundred plus yards.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: To be clear, the peak eighteen hole walking rate at
Speaker 1: both of these courses is forty five dollars. Yes, you
Speaker 1: were making a comparison to Arcadia Bluffs and the rates
Speaker 1: at Arcadia Bluffs are quite a bit higher to say
Speaker 1: the least. So these are these are pretty special golf courses.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Champion Hill is a stunning looking golf course. It comes
Speaker 1: across well on social media. You posted some pictures on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram a few days ago that the people
Speaker 1: really enjoyed. Can you paint a picture of this golf
Speaker 1: cour for people? What does it look like?
Speaker 2: Just in general? So you're at the highest point in
Speaker 2: Benzie County, which is the county that is in So
Speaker 2: you're up high on this very dramatic piece of land.
Speaker 2: There are very few trees. It's tumbling terrain, you know.
Speaker 2: You see you kind of drive up this road and
Speaker 2: it's really the only thing around. It's got some really
Speaker 2: fun short par fours. It's one of those golf courses
Speaker 2: like it doesn't really matter what the greens are because
Speaker 2: the land is so good. It's such a you know,
Speaker 2: you have to hit shots in different shots that you're
Speaker 2: not used to so much to get to the greens.
Speaker 2: And then they have some very clever greens. I think
Speaker 2: if you were going to point to where Champion Hill
Speaker 2: falls a little short, it'd be like the greens aren't
Speaker 2: quite as clever as the Pinecroft greens. They're bigger, but
Speaker 2: they have less going on in them. And you know,
Speaker 2: the land's just it's just stunning land. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: you think about a few of the holes out there.
Speaker 2: The second plays up to this wonderful like peninsula like
Speaker 2: green that's on the point of the property, and it's
Speaker 2: just a it's a stunning hole. And then you know
Speaker 2: right after that three and four three is a short
Speaker 2: part four that plays up a hill, this blind over it,
Speaker 2: over a ridge. It's it's a really cool hole. And
Speaker 2: then four you're up on this high point and you're
Speaker 2: looking down and you know, you look down and you're like,
Speaker 2: is this is this really? Do I pay forty five
Speaker 2: dollars to play this place? You're like cackling to yourself, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's just like wow, like that, you know you've
Speaker 2: got this. You're you're playing this downhill par four long
Speaker 2: par four with a ridge that kind of cuts along.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just the only way really to properly
Speaker 2: describe it is to go see it. You're just wowed
Speaker 2: by where the that this land exists, you know for golf.
Speaker 1: So these are pretty unique golf courses, but they do
Speaker 1: represent a certain model of affordable golf that is different
Speaker 1: from the model of affordable golf that we talk about
Speaker 1: the most which is municipal golf government owned properties. This
Speaker 1: is a family business basically, these two courses together and
Speaker 1: the comparisons that listeners to this podcast might be familiar
Speaker 1: with would be Aiken also Eagle Spring, a family business
Speaker 1: Eagle Springs. Right, these are courses that were not necessarily
Speaker 1: designed by a professional architect but they were designed by
Speaker 1: people who knew what they were doing, who had good
Speaker 1: ideas about architecture. And this might be the ideal model
Speaker 1: of affordable golf because you know, we all love municipal golf,
Speaker 1: but municipal ownership comes with a lot of complexities that
Speaker 1: don't necessarily serve the golf course as well. There's always
Speaker 1: a shortage of funds, and the people who run the
Speaker 1: courses are often not free to do what they want
Speaker 1: to do to make the experience as good as possible.
Speaker 2: Well, they aren't necessarily incentivized to make a profit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so there are a lot of problems with
Speaker 1: the municipal model. Obviously, right, it's still great, but there
Speaker 1: are issues with it. This family owned model is so
Speaker 1: much more appealing in so many ways. The problem becomes
Speaker 1: when you know the people who are running the business
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing, but when they do know
Speaker 1: what they're doing, the results can just be wonderful. And
Speaker 1: if they're committed to the mission of affordability, which the
Speaker 1: owners of Pinecroft and Champion Hill are, then what you
Speaker 1: have is a unicorn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there's certain things like when I
Speaker 2: think about Aiken and here. The maintenance strategy is different
Speaker 2: at these places than it is at your municipal golf course.
Speaker 2: Like all these places, you know that we just described
Speaker 2: Eagle Springs too, there's like substantial width on the golf course,
Speaker 2: like whether it's fairway grass or whether it's you know,
Speaker 2: a single mow, there is width and there's limited trees.
Speaker 2: Like they know that they that gets people around more. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you think about the maintenance of them though,
Speaker 2: and it's like they all have this wide corridor and
Speaker 2: it's not perfect. They understand, like if I'm going to
Speaker 2: maintain a golf course with a tiny crew, all of
Speaker 2: them have skeleton crews. This is the type of maintenance
Speaker 2: that is aspirational, tiny budget and tiny budgets, tiny crews,
Speaker 2: and they provide a great product versus like rather than saying, hey,
Speaker 2: you know this superintendent at exclusive country club that's got
Speaker 2: a multimillion dollar budget, they're just in completely different arenas
Speaker 2: and these people like you know, Champion Hill and Pinecroft.
Speaker 2: I got a message or somebody commented on Instagram it's like,
Speaker 2: if they only cut the greens, and I replied, I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, if they cut the greens more, then it
Speaker 2: wouldn't cost forty five dollars, and somebody else like said something,
Speaker 2: I've never I've never heard somebody complain about people cutting
Speaker 2: their greens, And I said, well, I've heard a lot
Speaker 2: of people complain about price. And that's the thing is
Speaker 2: the magic of these places is providing a wonderful product
Speaker 2: at a very affordable price and being able to turn
Speaker 2: a profit, which they clearly do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and keeping the maintenance minimal, and then being able
Speaker 1: to manage golfers expectations around that because that comment you
Speaker 1: got about cutting the greens is a great example of
Speaker 1: something that gets said to golf course owners golf course
Speaker 1: superintendence and puts pressure on them to ramp up the
Speaker 1: maintenance budget and then ramp up the green fees, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you're caught in this cycle
Speaker 1: of expectations and rising costs that we're all familiar with
Speaker 1: in golf courses. Fortunately, it seems like the owners of
Speaker 1: Pinecroft and Champion Hill have a solid enough sense of
Speaker 1: self and security about what they're trying to do so
Speaker 1: that they can, you know, keep doing it, keep it affordable,
Speaker 1: and not get caught up in this rat race.
Speaker 2: That's the thing it is sensible. Like the clubhouses are
Speaker 2: super sensible. Yeah, Like at all of these facilities, like
Speaker 2: they're small, they have a grill, they don't have like
Speaker 2: a massive food you know service. It's like you go
Speaker 2: in there and you pay and that's all you do.
Speaker 2: Like that's all you need.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think about a lot of like the the great
Speaker 2: public golf courses, and it's like the public golf courses
Speaker 2: that have the fifteen million dollar clubhouses are rarely the
Speaker 2: ones that have the great golf course. It's like like
Speaker 2: you think about like Sweeten's Cove is a perfect example.
Speaker 2: It was a trailer. You know, it just still is
Speaker 2: a trailer, right, you know, that's all you need, you
Speaker 2: just need. You know. It's just sensible because all the
Speaker 2: things that are luxurious end up just costing consumers. And
Speaker 2: if you're in Northern Michigan, it's hard to contend with
Speaker 2: Arcadia Bluffs. If your price is one hundred and ten dollars,
Speaker 2: you know, you're in that same stretus and people are
Speaker 2: gonna look at It's like, oh I could go look
Speaker 2: at Lake Michigan. Whether or not your golf course is
Speaker 2: better or not. You know, that's just gonna be the
Speaker 2: consumer reat Well, I stare at Lake Michigan all day,
Speaker 2: but at you know, at forty five dollars, these places
Speaker 2: are just like you're not gonna find many better values
Speaker 2: of the entire country. Like I think that's like where
Speaker 2: I would put these in terms of the value discussion,
Speaker 2: is that you know, probably in the top twenty value
Speaker 2: courses in the entire country. And like, if we're talking
Speaker 2: about like just a value trip in general, like you
Speaker 2: can drive, like we've covered the three Degrees courses in
Speaker 2: Grand Rapids, and those are three terrific golf courses. I
Speaker 2: think the most that you'd pay in any of those
Speaker 2: Grand Rapids is like seventy five bucks. Then you drive
Speaker 2: up the coast a little bit. There's Maynesty Golf Club,
Speaker 2: which is a bendelo that's right on Lake Michigan. It's
Speaker 2: got like four goals right on Lake Michigan. Stunning property.
Speaker 2: You know, it probably shouldn't be an eighteen hole golf
Speaker 2: course at this point. It's kind of constricted because it
Speaker 2: was built in the early nineteen hundreds, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe if it was a twelve gohle course it could
Speaker 2: be really spectacular, But then you got that golf course
Speaker 2: and you know it's worth checking out. And then you
Speaker 2: got if you play Arcadia South at twilight and it
Speaker 2: stays light till ten pm there in the summer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the twilight right, there's like sixty bucks. If
Speaker 2: it's like past four o'clock, you got plenty of time
Speaker 2: for eighteen holes. And then you've got these two courses
Speaker 2: and it's like all together, you're you know, it's a
Speaker 2: couple hundred bucks. You could play like seven rounds of
Speaker 2: great golf. And then you go a little further in
Speaker 2: Belvedere's up there. That's like up to one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty bucks. Now. But if you want like really affordable
Speaker 2: golf trip, and meanwhile, like one of them, drive up
Speaker 2: one of the most beautiful coasts in America, which is
Speaker 2: right along Lake Michigan, this is your trip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we should introduce the guests that we have
Speaker 1: for the rest of the episode. Who are these guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Lee Stone is the owner of these two
Speaker 2: golf courses. He was a fruit farmer turned Christmas tree farmer,
Speaker 2: and then one day he decided to build a golf
Speaker 2: course because he said he was getting old and tired
Speaker 2: of farming Christmas trees, so this was a solution. It
Speaker 2: tells the story of that briefly. And then Jim Cole,
Speaker 2: the guy is superintendent from day one, guy that helped
Speaker 2: them build the golf course, who had been in the
Speaker 2: superintendent industry, had been on some construction crews in northern Michigan,
Speaker 2: but at the time was a home landscaper. He was just,
Speaker 2: you know, doing spraying people's yards. And I mean the
Speaker 2: fact that the guy Jim Cole, was like, well, Crystal
Speaker 2: Downs is a good spot, and he bought He tell
Speaker 2: us the story, but he said Crystal Downs was a
Speaker 2: great golf course. So I bought Mackenzie's book and we
Speaker 2: followed the thirteen principles. It's just as simple as that.
Speaker 1: There's nothing too complicated about it. So here are Jim
Speaker 1: Cole and Lee Stone talking about Champion Hill and Pinecroft
Speaker 1: in Michigan.
Speaker 2: Within before you built Champion Hill and Pinecroft, Pinecroft being
Speaker 2: the first golf course, what were you doing for work?
Speaker 3: My family, we were still farming and the Pinecroft property
Speaker 3: we had converted it from fruit over to Christmas trees.
Speaker 3: We were in the Christmas tree business for a lot
Speaker 3: of years, but we didn't. We decided we didn't want
Speaker 3: to keep doing that, getting too old. So we've got
Speaker 3: this one hundred and sixty acres sitting here and we
Speaker 3: didn't know what to do with it. It's the original farm,
Speaker 3: so when my grandpa started, we didn't want to sell it.
Speaker 3: And we you know, a beautiful development property, and we
Speaker 3: could have. We could have sold it in a minute,
Speaker 3: probably for development property, but we just wanted to keep it.
Speaker 3: But we didn't know what we were going to do
Speaker 3: with it. And I might have told you this before
Speaker 3: my wife and kids back in the I guess it
Speaker 3: would have been the middle eighties, early eighties, late eighties.
Speaker 3: We went down to Panama City Beach over some vacation
Speaker 3: break during school and the kids. We stayed at a
Speaker 3: KOA camp right on the main drag, and the kids
Speaker 3: and wife could walk across the street to the beach
Speaker 3: and I would get up early, still dark, and I
Speaker 3: shoulder my bag. We had a little motor home, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't drive there, so I had to walk there.
Speaker 3: I walked, I don't know, three or four blocks down
Speaker 3: to the Signal Hill golf course. It's still there at
Speaker 3: that time, and I don't know if it's true now
Speaker 3: they didn't take tea times. You get down there and
Speaker 3: you stick your ball and a thing, and when your
Speaker 3: ball falls in the thing, then you go out. And
Speaker 3: so there's a whole bunch of guys standing there in
Speaker 3: the dark. I thought, well, gee, if people will do this,
Speaker 3: maybe that's something we should think about. My dad and
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about golf at all except we played,
Speaker 3: and so I came home and I talked to my
Speaker 3: dad about it, and oh, he said, I don't think so,
Speaker 3: you know. But the more he thought about it, probably
Speaker 3: two or three weeks later, he said, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: we had to look into that. And that's about the
Speaker 3: time I started talking to Jim.
Speaker 2: So, Jim, what's your job here at Champion Hill and Pinecroft?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm the golf course superintendent. I go back and
Speaker 4: forth between the two of them and just basically manage
Speaker 4: the turf grass.
Speaker 2: Did you do anything else for the courses? Were you
Speaker 2: feel like you're selling yourself short here?
Speaker 4: No, that's just about what I do.
Speaker 2: Nothing with construction. You didn't help build them?
Speaker 4: Well yeah, way back when, you know, but as Lee said,
Speaker 4: we had. His name was Craig Carlson, and he was
Speaker 4: our shaper, and I mean Lee and I balked this
Speaker 4: property day after day after day with different routings, and
Speaker 4: I don't know, we probably had ten or fifteen routings
Speaker 4: before we figured on one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did the whole process start? So you came
Speaker 2: out with Lee, he started talking to you. You were
Speaker 2: at Crystal Mountain at the time.
Speaker 4: I had been at Crystal Mountain on their golf courses,
Speaker 4: and but I had gone and to Ala. I started
Speaker 4: my own lawn spray business. I was spraying lawns and
Speaker 4: landscaping at the time, and when Lee hired me, we
Speaker 4: started out kind of slow, and he said, you keep
Speaker 4: doing what you're doing and come and work on the
Speaker 4: golf court, help with this golf course in the evening.
Speaker 4: So we took it a step at a time.
Speaker 2: So what were your first impressions of the property when
Speaker 2: you came out here?
Speaker 4: Well, as I said, I was spraying lawns. I probably
Speaker 4: had three or four hundred lawns.
Speaker 3: That I sprayed.
Speaker 4: He drove me up the hill, which was a two
Speaker 4: track back then, and I made to turn look west
Speaker 4: and I knew that I had to be part of it.
Speaker 2: It just had to be Yeah, yeah, it's obviously a
Speaker 2: stunning property overlooking Crystal Lake. I'm curious how you guys
Speaker 2: went about. Like obviously, I think everybody, when there are
Speaker 2: any golfer, dreams about owning and building their own golf course.
Speaker 2: So oftentimes amateur golf design isn't necessarily something that goes great.
Speaker 2: You guys, on the other hand, have built two really
Speaker 2: phenomenal public golf courses that are affordable and really fun
Speaker 2: and wonderful designs to play. How did the process start,
Speaker 2: as you know, Lee, as you said, I didn't know
Speaker 2: anything about golf except I played. How did you guys
Speaker 2: start the process of building the golf course? What were
Speaker 2: you know? You said you had ten to fifteen routings.
Speaker 2: How did that come about?
Speaker 3: Well, as Jim said, I brought him up to the
Speaker 3: property and and it kind of excited him a little bit,
Speaker 3: and so then I thought, well, maybe there's maybe we
Speaker 3: could do something, But we didn't. I think when I started,
Speaker 3: I didn't have I couldn't see into the future. I
Speaker 3: thought we were just going to make another place for
Speaker 3: people to come up and play golf, maybe for twenty bucks,
Speaker 3: twenty five bucks or something like that. That it turned
Speaker 3: out better than that.
Speaker 2: So how do you just start building? Like you talked
Speaker 2: about the routing, Probably you guys were walking that. You
Speaker 2: guys walked the court and walked the property a lot,
Speaker 2: like how did you start figuring out what hold what?
Speaker 2: How you wanted to build the golf course?
Speaker 3: Well, we bought a laser so we could shoot distances
Speaker 3: and through the through gym and some of the stuff
Speaker 3: that we read.
Speaker 2: What what did you read?
Speaker 4: We read Mackenzie's book and we studied as ten principles.
Speaker 4: I remember when Lee and his dad, Jeane both approached
Speaker 4: me and we agreed to work together. That they both
Speaker 4: they said they wanted to build a course that uh
Speaker 4: was minimal. They wanted to move as little dirt as possible.
Speaker 4: They didn't necessarily want to build a course it was
Speaker 4: high end. They wanted to build a course that would
Speaker 4: require less fertilizer requirements, less pesticide requirements. And we've moved
Speaker 4: along those lines for thirty years now. I think we're
Speaker 4: probably one of the very few golf courses in Michigan
Speaker 4: that are wing their fairways with rotarymovers at one inch
Speaker 4: and the grass loves it. The people that come here
Speaker 4: love it. So we've moved in that direction for thirty years.
Speaker 2: I mean it provides it's a perfect playing service. Like
Speaker 2: I think that's so many courses get caught up in conditioning.
Speaker 2: But like the fairways here, they're fine. They aren't like
Speaker 2: they're not super tight, but like you know, I think
Speaker 2: in a way it helps the average player who sweeps it,
Speaker 2: who his fairway was, like, they like it, and for
Speaker 2: a good player, like, it's actually more challenging because you're
Speaker 2: always worried about whether the ball is going to jump
Speaker 2: or something out of a lie. So it's an interesting
Speaker 2: way to provide. Almost everybody always talks about shortening the
Speaker 2: gap between good players and average players, and that's like
Speaker 2: a perfect way to do it. It's just with you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit a little scruffy or fairway makes it
Speaker 2: a little bit less predictable for the good player and
Speaker 2: a little bit easier for the average player.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know the thing that we did here
Speaker 4: instead of going with bent grass fairways and having that
Speaker 4: tight turf situation where you can spin the ball and
Speaker 4: hit down on the ball and people just seem to
Speaker 4: like a dude, they come here or they like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cool. So talk about the routing, Like, you
Speaker 2: talked about walking the golf course a bunch beforehand and
Speaker 2: you had ten fifteen routings, how did you settle on holes?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What was that like?
Speaker 4: Well, the one thing we did in the league came
Speaker 4: had a topo map made, so we relied on that
Speaker 4: at the beginning, and then it was just just walking
Speaker 4: and it's thinking about you know, where the sun's going
Speaker 4: to be, where the is going to be, what how
Speaker 4: that will affect things, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: We wanted to get from one level to the other level,
Speaker 3: maybe one of the easier ways, and so that was
Speaker 3: part of the design too.
Speaker 2: So for walkers, it's a joy to walk.
Speaker 3: It's a one time up walk, well partially all the
Speaker 3: way up one time, and we get a lot of walkers.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of walkers that play here.
Speaker 2: So you guys built this golf course and it opens
Speaker 2: in ninety two, is it immediately? Would it become pretty
Speaker 2: popular right off the bat or did it grow over time?
Speaker 2: You know what led you to building the second course?
Speaker 3: Well, it was popular. The first year we opened. We
Speaker 3: only had nine holes and we were working on the
Speaker 3: back nine and the first nine. The routing actually changed.
Speaker 2: You had the high holes, I bet in the first
Speaker 2: nine right.
Speaker 3: Well, we had some on the lower part and some
Speaker 3: on the high part, but the routing and changed, and
Speaker 3: then after we had full construction, then we then we
Speaker 3: had our front and back nine. So the second year.
Speaker 3: The first year we were busy, but we were only
Speaker 3: nine holes and we had a good reception. Second year
Speaker 3: with eighteen holes, it was even better. The third year
Speaker 3: we were running out of tea times and we we
Speaker 3: were on what eight minute tea times at that time.
Speaker 3: So in kiddingly, I think I took Jim up to
Speaker 3: Champion Hill.
Speaker 2: Did you own that land?
Speaker 3: Then? Yes?
Speaker 2: It was that another farm, another farm, and what kind
Speaker 2: of farm was this one? That was Christmas trees Champion
Speaker 2: Hill with Christmas trees.
Speaker 3: And were I kiddingly said to Jim, I said, maybe
Speaker 3: we ought to build another course. And we thought about it,
Speaker 3: and we were turning people away here at Pinecroft Course.
Speaker 3: Golf was raided in its heyday, ing us us GA
Speaker 3: or National Golf Foundation. Somebody was saying, oh, we need
Speaker 3: more golf courses. Well they were a little bit wrong
Speaker 3: on that one, but anyway.
Speaker 2: I think they said that they needed that the America
Speaker 2: needed to build a golf course every day or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: So in ninety five, well, we worked on seeing if
Speaker 3: it was going to be possible. We had We ended
Speaker 3: up buying a little bit of property, and then in
Speaker 3: ninety five that's when we bought the dozer.
Speaker 4: We bought a D eight D seven D six doz
Speaker 4: are which Lee and Craig ran most of the time.
Speaker 4: But the day, I don't know if you remember this
Speaker 4: or not, the day we took delivery of it, I
Speaker 4: think the three of us maybe I think Hippie might
Speaker 4: have been there too. And so we had this new
Speaker 4: toy to play on, and of course we were having
Speaker 4: a few beers, and before the night was over, we
Speaker 4: all got to play on it. And we also decided
Speaker 4: that we were going to go UH with our designated driver,
Speaker 4: Hippie UH head for Augusta. We wanted to see Augusta.
Speaker 4: We did not had there, but that was in our minds.
Speaker 2: That's fine. How did you learn how to use the dose?
Speaker 2: Was it just like you get on the doser and
Speaker 2: do you figure out like how it worked? Like how
Speaker 2: is there what was the first green that was built?
Speaker 2: Is there something that you built out here that was
Speaker 2: a mistake? That maybe turned into something really good.
Speaker 3: Well, there's enough mistakes probably that could have been done
Speaker 3: differently if we'd known, you know, as far as slope
Speaker 3: on greens. But and we've made some corrections on them.
Speaker 3: But I think number one was our first hole.
Speaker 2: It's great golf all. I love one.
Speaker 3: I don't know we had we've made it. We've modified
Speaker 3: number nine and number eleven over the years. Other than that,
Speaker 3: I guess it's pretty much the way it wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Little tree removal apparently not enough.
Speaker 2: Just so funny a couple. I'm not trying to take
Speaker 2: all the trees out of here. I just I just
Speaker 2: pointed out like five of them. What with it? Like
Speaker 2: regards like building the features, how how did you start
Speaker 2: to build the greens and stuff? With the doser? You
Speaker 2: get the dose and then yeah.
Speaker 3: The farm we were in the farming business at the time,
Speaker 3: and the farm had a little dozer and then we
Speaker 3: bought another one. It was a little bit bigger and uh,
Speaker 3: and we just started pushing dirt for that green on
Speaker 3: number one. It was just taken forever. And then we
Speaker 3: hired somebody, a real operator, yeah, Craig and uh, and
Speaker 3: things were a lot more efficient at that point. And
Speaker 3: then by the time we got done, we had some
Speaker 3: fairly big equipment here to you know, not any bigger
Speaker 3: than a D six, but we had a couple of scrapers.
Speaker 3: We had to move a little dirt. But you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, we just we would I guess what
Speaker 3: you would say is is we pushed dirt around until
Speaker 3: we thought it would work. And that's about where we stopped. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the way a lot of them do a
Speaker 2: lot of the best guys do it. They say, they
Speaker 2: get into the dirt and then they figure out what
Speaker 2: works and they get off and they say that looks
Speaker 2: pretty good. And that's how they build the greens.
Speaker 3: Right, I don't know. That's how we did it, That's
Speaker 3: what that's how we did it.
Speaker 2: So with Champion Hill, you guys had built here and
Speaker 2: you operated it here, operated here for a while. What
Speaker 2: were things that when you went to build Champion Hill
Speaker 2: that you wanted to do that maybe you had learned
Speaker 2: from the years here. What were some of the different
Speaker 2: things from the construction and just the golf course perspective.
Speaker 3: Well, we wanted to have a golf course that was
Speaker 3: completely different than Pinecraft. We didn't want to have two
Speaker 3: courses the same, and that property being up in the
Speaker 3: highest part of the county afforded some pretty wide open
Speaker 3: You had a feeling of openness up there, whereas Pinecroft
Speaker 3: is tree lined. And we made the greens bigger, and
Speaker 3: we still made a couple of mistakes on our greens there.
Speaker 3: Some people say, and uh.
Speaker 2: You know, if somebody says it's a bad green, that
Speaker 2: means it's probably a good green because you.
Speaker 3: Know, well, as far as cupping, we've got at least
Speaker 3: one green that we're a little limited on where we
Speaker 3: can come. But it's a well wait we call that
Speaker 3: a what a highlands uh links course or it's got
Speaker 3: a lot of heathery stuff around it, and but you
Speaker 3: have a feeling of openness wide fairways and uh there's
Speaker 3: no water except on the last hole, but the heather
Speaker 3: is not a good place to be. They just like
Speaker 3: to hammer that ball out there because they they're not
Speaker 3: what do you, I don't know how you see, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's nothing there that's just wide open. You know.
Speaker 2: The thing that impresses me with both courses is like,
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of times if you if
Speaker 2: you're designing, you know, you're given a land like this
Speaker 2: with hills, A lot of times people like to just
Speaker 2: go up or down. And what I've noticed about the
Speaker 2: two courses is how you guys weren't afraid to go
Speaker 2: along the sides of hills and around hills rather than
Speaker 2: just always straight up or straight down them. Was there
Speaker 2: any thought with the routing process on how you know
Speaker 2: you guys weren't afraid to build a hole on the
Speaker 2: side of a hill and have a ball kick across
Speaker 2: a fairway.
Speaker 4: Well, I think for me, I mentioned before, I was
Speaker 4: in the launch spray business and one of my customers
Speaker 4: was a member of Crystal Downs, and you take me
Speaker 4: there for several years once a year as a guest,
Speaker 4: and that's what you see over there, and then you
Speaker 4: read his book and that's stuff just kind of sticks
Speaker 4: in your head. And then on top of that, you
Speaker 4: had Jeene and Lee telling you that that's what they
Speaker 4: had in their head too, So it just all developed
Speaker 4: from there, I'd say.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the things that it's
Speaker 2: so interesting is obviously, like I think one of the
Speaker 2: hardest skills in golf architecture is restraint. You know, people
Speaker 2: want to move dirt to make stuff flat, make it
Speaker 2: more fair, or you know, want to you know, build
Speaker 2: these like wild dreams, when sometimes some just subtle stuff
Speaker 2: is all that's needed. And this is the two of
Speaker 2: the course. Both the courses a great examples of restraint,
Speaker 2: like you know, the the just the natural land itself
Speaker 2: in them in many places is more than enough for
Speaker 2: the strategy of the golf course.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't just restraint. It was probably lack of.
Speaker 2: Money, if you don't mind me asking, you know, like
Speaker 2: when you guys built the golf court, you obviously already
Speaker 2: owned the land, Like how much did it?
Speaker 3: Do you do?
Speaker 2: You know how much it cost to just build the
Speaker 2: golf course? Obviously you did it all on your own.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you're not comfortable answering that, then I.
Speaker 3: Don't know if I remember, I would say, didn't we
Speaker 3: build Pinecroft for about eight hundred thousand or was it
Speaker 3: less than that? It might I don't remember. It costs
Speaker 3: us more more than that at Champion Hillton because we
Speaker 3: we had a lot more seeding and a lot more irrigation.
Speaker 3: And I don't well, I'll tell you what I can remember.
Speaker 3: When I was in debt over a million dollars, so
Speaker 3: it must have cost something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's uh so well obviously COVID being a
Speaker 2: course owner, COVID was like a you know, at first
Speaker 2: really scary, but then golf had a huge boom and
Speaker 2: it's carried through this year. What's the turnaround been like
Speaker 2: as a you know, independent golf owner, which there aren't
Speaker 2: a lot of family run golf courses like yourselves in America?
Speaker 2: I mean most of them are run by you know,
Speaker 2: management corporations or resorts. Like, what what's the what's the
Speaker 2: uptech been like for you guys? Have you guys seen.
Speaker 3: Well, we're having our best year ever this year. Last
Speaker 3: year was our best year ever. So I guess we've
Speaker 3: seen a lot of a lot of new golfers, a
Speaker 3: lot of ladies playing, and I think we're seeing a
Speaker 3: few more younger people playing.
Speaker 2: Do you what you know? Do you think that it's
Speaker 2: a like is it a different type of golfer that
Speaker 2: you're seeing than usually than you used to do or
Speaker 2: is it you know, you know, outside of the women,
Speaker 2: and you know, have you noticed anything else?
Speaker 3: We're in a tourist area, summer tourist area, and last
Speaker 3: year people were really limited. What they could do, and
Speaker 3: so golf was something that they started doing, and I
Speaker 3: think people got interested in golf again. And we're seeing
Speaker 3: those same people this year, the recreational golf, not competitive golf.
Speaker 3: We're seeing families and small family groups come in and play.
Speaker 3: But when our season is, the warm season is done,
Speaker 3: we're pretty much done. In fact, we closed Pinecroft the
Speaker 3: first of October and that's really probably the prettiest time
Speaker 3: of the year, but it's hard to maintain because of
Speaker 3: the leaves, and so we shut it down a little early.
Speaker 3: Champion Hill we don't have that problem, so we keep
Speaker 3: that open till the bitter end.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, how's has there been anything that's changed, like
Speaker 2: with your guys' philosophy with golf over the you know,
Speaker 2: now thirty years that you've been operating courses.
Speaker 4: I mean we know from our businesses. Something you don't
Speaker 4: see very much of is courses like Champion Hill, links courses,
Speaker 4: wide courses. We have these two and this one is constricted.
Speaker 2: With trees and there's space though.
Speaker 4: There's space though, but there's more rounds and say our membership,
Speaker 4: our membership prefers Champion Hill. They like Champion Hill because
Speaker 4: they can stand up there and hit that driver along
Speaker 4: and not being underneath a tree. And if you think
Speaker 4: about it, at least when I think about northern Michigan,
Speaker 4: you have two courses down here, Arcadia Bluffs. There are
Speaker 4: links courses in this part of Michigan, Champion Hills the
Speaker 4: other one. There's probably others that I'm not familiar with.
Speaker 3: But people like that style. That's what I see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely it's fun because I feel like here too,
Speaker 2: is like it's very beginner friendly. Like there's plenty of space,
Speaker 2: there's no force carries for the most part. Outside you know,
Speaker 2: there's one pond that you barely have to navigate, but
Speaker 2: like you know, there's very little force carries. You know,
Speaker 2: you can run it into most greens here. I don't
Speaker 2: think there's a green. I can't think of a green
Speaker 2: that you can't run it into here. And then you've
Speaker 2: got a great variety. I mean, like you got short
Speaker 2: part threes, you got longer part threes. It's really a
Speaker 2: cool place. You guys did a wonderful job, and I lee,
Speaker 2: I'd love to know if you ever had where you're like,
Speaker 2: why am I building this golf course?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't I would say, eight years after we
Speaker 3: build it. I had that feeling, yeah, two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: But building it, I don't. It seemed like there was
Speaker 3: quite a bit of interest in it in the community,
Speaker 3: and I guess once we got going on it, it was
Speaker 3: go for it or you know, bust.
Speaker 2: Do you miss the Christmas tree business?
Speaker 3: Not at all?
Speaker 2: But hey, I thank you guys for coming on, and
Speaker 2: I urge everybody when you're up in northern Michigan stop
Speaker 2: at one or both. You guys got it? What's the
Speaker 2: double deal?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: What fifty sixty bucks to play both in one day?
Speaker 3: I don't work at the counter, but I think it's
Speaker 3: sixty three for the first round and then the replay,
Speaker 3: which can be done at either course. Yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that's in the thirtiesties.
Speaker 2: Under one hundred bucks, thirty six holes of really good golf.
Speaker 2: So thank you guys and hoping for more great years.
Speaker 2: Hopefully next year is better than this year.
Speaker 3: Well we do too. I would like to say that
Speaker 3: it's we've got a really good crew and uh and
Speaker 3: we're we've got we're family. I think there's nine of
Speaker 3: us that are that work on the golf course that
Speaker 3: are family.
Speaker 2: That's awesome and uh, and.
Speaker 3: We've got the second generation just moving into higher positions
Speaker 3: and we hope it continues. We're we would hate to
Speaker 3: sell this farm or now it's a golf course, but
Speaker 3: we would hate to sell this property.
Speaker 2: So the that I interviewed a guy named Mike Bolan
Speaker 2: who owned a course in Wisconsin and his family had
Speaker 2: owned it for since eighteen ninety three. Pretty neat, you know,
Speaker 2: same family for they just sold. He just sold it
Speaker 2: to a cousin. So still technically family, which is which
Speaker 2: is neat And it's you just in general, support, your support,
Speaker 2: your family owned businesses. Those are the the lifeblood of society.
Speaker 3: I think actually my family is extended because I consider
Speaker 3: my partner here, Jim, is part of the family.
Speaker 2: Thirty years together. Thirty years together makes you family.
Speaker 3: We've each got our own personality and I guess that
Speaker 3: makes us get along all right.
Speaker 4: I'm lucky I have worked for Lee for these thirty
Speaker 4: years because people say that I can be short tempered,
Speaker 4: and he's put up with it.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited by Meg Atkins and by me
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison. I want to give a quick plug for
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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.