Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today we have golf course architect Mike Davrees on the podcast.
Speaker 1: We did an earlier episode a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: with Mike. Since then, I've played all of his North
Speaker 1: American golf courses, so I felt like it was time
Speaker 1: to talk to him since I've seen all his work
Speaker 1: here and hopefully I'll go to see Cape Wickham sometime soon.
Speaker 1: But Mike has designed some really good golf courses across
Speaker 1: in North America. If you're in the Michigan area, there
Speaker 1: is a tremendous Mike Divrees golf trip. He's got three
Speaker 1: courses in the Grand Rapids area, He's got Gray Walls
Speaker 1: and obviously then Kingsley Club up in Traverse City. Gray
Speaker 1: Walls is up in the Upper Peninsula. So we talked
Speaker 1: to Mike about about those projects, what else is going
Speaker 1: on in his life? And uh, without further ado, here
Speaker 1: is Mike Direes.
Speaker 2: I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 1: In ag egg fried egg egg egg bright egg, Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off the Well, I'll ask
Speaker 1: you my favorite, you know, my favorite test question. What's
Speaker 1: what's your favorite fruit?
Speaker 2: Oh, let's see, it's interesting. Uh probably blueberries.
Speaker 1: Blueberries, Yeah, I haven't ever gotten that.
Speaker 2: Respond either, Well, it's either that or maybe black raspberries.
Speaker 1: Black raspberries. I've never even seen a black raspberry.
Speaker 3: It's like a red raspberry with black or really really
Speaker 3: dark purple.
Speaker 1: People probably confuse them for blackberries all the time.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, yeah, so and kind of similar with they
Speaker 2: grow in clusters a lot easier to like pick. So
Speaker 2: when you're a kid and you're forced to go out
Speaker 2: and like pick fruit with your you know, with your
Speaker 2: mom in the summer because she's gonna make jam, which
Speaker 2: is not a bad thing, but you know, as a kid,
Speaker 2: you want to be doing something else. Well, when there's
Speaker 2: black raspberries, you can grab a handful at once. It's
Speaker 2: a lot better eating and a lot better war material
Speaker 2: when you're you know, there with your brother.
Speaker 1: I imagine life is a black raspberry is uh is
Speaker 1: frustrating because they're always confused.
Speaker 3: Probably, yes, very underrated.
Speaker 1: That's that I haven't I haven't even heard of a
Speaker 1: black raspery. I'm gonna have to do some investigator. So
Speaker 1: you you've built I guess everybody likes to talk about
Speaker 1: municipal and public golf and affordable public golf, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a living architect that's built more
Speaker 1: affordable and compelling public golf with your work here in Michigan.
Speaker 1: And I just I'm just curious that you know, you've
Speaker 1: you've built Kingsley Club. Also you've built Cape Wickham and
Speaker 1: you know, world class golf courses and gray walls obviously
Speaker 1: I think falls in the same bucket. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that you go about differently when you're building course like
Speaker 1: say Diamond Springs from Kingsley.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly, I mean you've got to consider getting people
Speaker 2: around and if it's going to be public play and
Speaker 2: there's a certain amount of play going on, you've got
Speaker 2: to be cognizant of, you know, the flow of that
Speaker 2: golf course, making sure that there aren't some you know,
Speaker 2: unusual bottlenecks and things like that. And you can't always
Speaker 2: predict that. You know, everybody has this formula. You know,
Speaker 2: you have to start out and you can't have a
Speaker 2: par three in the first three holes and stuff. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of great golf courses that blow that
Speaker 2: out of the door. So that's maybe not necessarily the
Speaker 2: best golf course, and is you know what's your priority
Speaker 2: and how you're doing that. So I think for me
Speaker 2: it's still everything has to be interesting and compelling.
Speaker 3: That's the first thing. The golf has got to be
Speaker 3: really good.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could, you know, make something super cheap,
Speaker 2: you know, inexpensive to maintain, inexpensive to play, gets people
Speaker 2: around all the time. But if it's not interesting or
Speaker 2: there's no intrigue at all and the golfer's part, not
Speaker 2: many people are going to play it, so then that's
Speaker 2: a failure. So you still have to keep For me,
Speaker 2: you still have to make it interesting. You have to
Speaker 2: do things that are really really good from a golf standpoint,
Speaker 2: and that's that's number one, And then you've got to
Speaker 2: figure out how to fit that other stuff in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was something that I was really We did
Speaker 1: Will Knights, who worked for the Frida Egg and I
Speaker 1: did the the Grand Rapids Trio of your courses in
Speaker 1: that area. I mean we were we were exhausted going
Speaker 1: to Diamond Springs. It was our last stop on the
Speaker 1: way back to Chicago, and I mean we both like
Speaker 1: just were all of a sudden infused with energy by
Speaker 1: the work there. It's one of the courses that's made
Speaker 1: one of the biggest impacts on me since I started this,
Speaker 1: because of not only the way it's the design of it,
Speaker 1: but the way it was presented. But something I was
Speaker 1: enthralled by was the work you did on the flat
Speaker 1: property that you kind of kick the golf course off
Speaker 1: on and you know, you have those beautiful ravines that
Speaker 1: you kind of held from people for the longest time,
Speaker 1: and you get through eight and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's this unbelievable reveal. But those holes won through eight
Speaker 1: on this flat land was almost just as you know, compelling,
Speaker 1: if not more than the holes that play along that ravine,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely stunning and reminded me a ton of
Speaker 1: short acres.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, well, first of all, Chris Schuemaker, he deserves a
Speaker 2: lot of credit because it was his project. And after
Speaker 2: we had worked at Pilgrim's Run together and he was
Speaker 2: the superintendent there and kind of the coordinator for all
Speaker 2: the owners, you know guys that worked for the owner stuff,
Speaker 2: he ended up, you know, finding this other project and
Speaker 2: wanting to do this and he sort of you know,
Speaker 2: evolved into him you know, wanting to co design and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So he deserves a lot of credit
Speaker 2: because he was the guy that built it.
Speaker 3: You know, every day. I wasn't there every day, and.
Speaker 2: So so a lot of the concept, like, for instance,
Speaker 2: because he's a superintendent, he's focused in trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to maintain this golf course and do it
Speaker 2: on a on a you know, a really tight budget,
Speaker 2: and to make it simple to maintain but still make
Speaker 2: it interesting. So the idea of having two cuts of
Speaker 2: grass basically three quarters of an inch bluegrass wall the
Speaker 2: wall and then bent grass greens you know, was his
Speaker 2: and how to carry that kind of stepped out. So
Speaker 2: uh that was something that you know that we worked with.
Speaker 2: And you know, you have to figure out, Okay, here's
Speaker 2: this big, wide playing space and the average golfer you
Speaker 2: hit it anywhere, find his ball really quickly, take it,
Speaker 2: you know, hit it, move it up, advance and whatever.
Speaker 2: The really good player has to figure out exactly where
Speaker 2: he wants to be to try and attack the hole,
Speaker 2: you know, or what's you know what that strategy is.
Speaker 2: So still you know, building in multiple levels of interest
Speaker 2: or playability or decision making I think is you know,
Speaker 2: that's what makes compelling golf, and that's what makes it
Speaker 2: more compelling for more people. So the thing that's really
Speaker 2: cool about Diamond Springs properties, you have all these eskers
Speaker 2: going across the property and basically an east west direction,
Speaker 2: and the clubhouse sits sort of on one of those.
Speaker 2: So you've got one T, the base of two green,
Speaker 2: three T.
Speaker 3: Ten T.
Speaker 2: You know, all these things sort of feature off of
Speaker 2: one of those, and then they play over and around
Speaker 2: another one. So by utilizing those in different ways as
Speaker 2: as T spots, green locations, six greens on one of them,
Speaker 2: as a as a hazard to you know, drive over
Speaker 2: like like on eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So all of that works to be really pretty simple,
Speaker 2: but in the same breath, it is complex because you're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to best utilize that.
Speaker 3: So that's the fun.
Speaker 2: That's a fun part of trying to figure out the
Speaker 2: routing and how things best fit together. But it also
Speaker 2: makes for you know, compelling simple golf. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I I couldn't help when I was when
Speaker 1: we were playing it that I you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: holy cow, Like the whole time I'm walking around the
Speaker 1: golf course, thinking about, man, this this place, if you
Speaker 1: gave it a a country high end country club budget,
Speaker 1: would be absolutely incredible. But then as I thought more
Speaker 1: and more about it, I became, you know, the way
Speaker 1: it's presented and maintained is absolutely perfect for you know,
Speaker 1: providing affordable and great golf. And the more I thought
Speaker 1: about it, I was like, this is actually doing This
Speaker 1: is the best iteration of itself in a way because
Speaker 1: everybody can go experience it for less than fifty bucks,
Speaker 1: which on you know, when you're looking at best values
Speaker 1: in the country, that's one of them. And I think
Speaker 1: obviously Chris, the way he maintains it is incredible, and
Speaker 1: I think some people misunderstand. They go there and they're
Speaker 1: expecting the shortcut, but it plays so perfectly, and you know,
Speaker 1: the single row irrigation, the native there was essentially I'm
Speaker 1: just dropping a fusive praise, but the native there was
Speaker 1: what every country club wishes it had its native played like.
Speaker 1: And I just I think that place is one of
Speaker 1: the you know, the best public golf courses in America
Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons, you know, and it's really
Speaker 1: enthralling golf course. So something there you know, and I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of your golf courses. I really love
Speaker 1: the the greens that you you there are a lot
Speaker 1: of compelling greens in the idea you have a lot
Speaker 1: of golf courses is playing away from the pin to
Speaker 1: hit it close. Talk about that idea and how tough
Speaker 1: it is to get you know, kind of buy in
Speaker 1: on that from like the commercial golfer.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's.
Speaker 2: You know, if that's the buy in from the commercial
Speaker 2: golfer or someone who's going out to play, they may
Speaker 2: be they're maybe just confused when they fire at the
Speaker 2: pen and all of a sudden the ball moves away
Speaker 2: because they didn't you know, they didn't know or they
Speaker 2: you know, hadn't really experienced something like that. But I
Speaker 2: think multiple plays, you know, over and over, they start
Speaker 2: to understand that, Okay, there's a different way to do it.
Speaker 2: There's a different option, or there's a different opportunity on
Speaker 2: how to play golf. So that's how golf is in
Speaker 2: the UK, right. So you know, when you're playing links golf,
Speaker 2: one of those one of the things there is just
Speaker 2: you're trying to figure out how to get as close
Speaker 2: to the hole as possible and that's going to vary
Speaker 2: depending on the speed of the ground, you know, the
Speaker 2: time of year that it is and what's happening. So
Speaker 2: getting the ball there, whenever you watch any old scotsman,
Speaker 2: getting the ball to the hole isn't necessarily, you know,
Speaker 2: a one dimensional shot. It's three dimensional. It's first of all,
Speaker 2: where you hit the ball, how hard the ground is
Speaker 2: when it hits, and then what it does on the
Speaker 2: ground after that. So there's all these different factors that
Speaker 2: are involved in that. And we can still do that
Speaker 2: even with our americanized maintenance, you know, sort of expectation level.
Speaker 2: But I think what we've got to do is, you know,
Speaker 2: people just have to be exposed to that, and they
Speaker 2: have to like, you know, don't think of it as
Speaker 2: tricked up, think of it as Okay, I've got to
Speaker 2: think about what's the best way for me to get
Speaker 2: the ball close to the whole. So when you can
Speaker 2: do that, and when you can emphasize something like that
Speaker 2: or give people ways of doing that, they just have
Speaker 2: to experience it. You know, the experience at one time
Speaker 2: it's like okay, the second time they get a little
Speaker 2: bit more. The third time, you want their sort of
Speaker 2: golf IQ or their experience level to sort of expand
Speaker 2: every time they play.
Speaker 3: That's the success to like, you know, the great courses.
Speaker 2: That's why Marian's fascinating endlessly. You know all the great courses,
Speaker 2: Pine Valley, Crystal Downs where I grew up, you know,
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne, the Old Course or whatever. Every time it's different,
Speaker 2: there's something you learn. That's why it's great golf. How
Speaker 2: can we bring a small part of that just to
Speaker 2: you know, to regular, you know, everyday public public golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the uh, what you were just talking about made
Speaker 1: me think about that passage in the beginning of The
Speaker 1: Links Robert Hunter's book where he talks about playing I
Speaker 1: can't remember the guy's name he played with, the old,
Speaker 1: you know, gritty player that knew all the ways to
Speaker 1: get the ball close to the hole. And you would,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd think you were going to beat him
Speaker 1: in a match, and he'd just hit this ridiculous shot
Speaker 1: that rolls his way in there. I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things with with golf, I feel like
Speaker 1: the world of golf is people are trying to see
Speaker 1: everything and they're not, you know, and especially sometimes the
Speaker 1: way golf courses are are rated in rankings. Is most
Speaker 1: of these people have only played them one time and
Speaker 1: and they're missing out on you know, that learning process.
Speaker 1: Does that, you know, frustrate you at all?
Speaker 2: Ever, well, you want him to play your courses more, obviously,
Speaker 2: that's just the way that that's that's the nature of
Speaker 2: the beast though, I guess because some of these places
Speaker 2: are Cape Wickham's a destination and as remote as it
Speaker 2: is for someone in the US, it's not remote for
Speaker 2: someone in Australia because it's a forty minute flight from Melbourne.
Speaker 3: So you know, if you think.
Speaker 2: About that way, you got four or five six million
Speaker 2: golfers there or you know people and a lot of golfers,
Speaker 2: so they have a golf culture there. Same thing with Sydney,
Speaker 2: you know, which is a little further away, but there's
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, pretty easy access for people
Speaker 2: doing that. So now for the international traveler that goes
Speaker 2: and you know, it's a one off deal, they're going
Speaker 2: to make one trip to Australia to play golf kind
Speaker 2: of in their life. Maybe yeah, maybe they're only going
Speaker 2: to play it at one time. They're going to want
Speaker 2: to play it maybe more, you know, maybe they're going
Speaker 2: to go there. That's why I always try and tell
Speaker 2: people too. It's like, you know, try and spend a
Speaker 2: night there, get you know, because it changes day to
Speaker 2: day too. The weather changes day to day. Going to
Speaker 2: have a blowy day and you can have like a
Speaker 2: mildly blowy day, but if you're there for two days
Speaker 2: or three days, you're going to get all different kinds
Speaker 2: of sort of fields of the golf course just because
Speaker 2: the weather and the weather changed from the morning to
Speaker 2: the afternoon easily just depends on how it is. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of the nature of links golf. You know,
Speaker 2: squalls come through the ocean has its own sort of
Speaker 2: deal and that that helps, and that makes it even
Speaker 2: more variable and more fun.
Speaker 1: Talk about a little bit, you know, designing with it.
Speaker 1: Do you do you when you're laying out a golf
Speaker 1: course or do you keep that weather in mind with
Speaker 1: wind and stuff when you're you know, putting together you
Speaker 1: know you're routing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first of all, you have trent, you have
Speaker 2: you know what's the predominant wind. So okay, it's a
Speaker 2: westerly or southwesterly, and you know it blows hard and
Speaker 2: you know X amount of time or whatever you know,
Speaker 2: some places are different than others, so you're always trying
Speaker 2: to think about that variable. But in reality, weather changes
Speaker 2: so so here in Michigan because primarily because of Lake
Speaker 2: Michigan and the fact, and you know what kind of
Speaker 2: impact that has on our weather because most of the
Speaker 2: stuff comes from the west or the southwest, and in
Speaker 2: the summertime, probably sixty percent of the weather comes from
Speaker 2: the wind comes from the south to the southwest kind
Speaker 2: of pushing that way. But when you get to the
Speaker 2: fall or the springtime, you know, it'll turn around and
Speaker 2: it comes out of the north and northwest and pushes
Speaker 2: hard that way. So that's maybe a third of the time,
Speaker 2: you know, off season. So you have to think about
Speaker 2: those those general sort of guidelines. And that's as relevant
Speaker 2: as something that's right right on the coast, you know,
Speaker 2: like Crystal Downs versus something that's that's inland, maybe only
Speaker 2: twelve fifteen miles at Kingsley, or something that's even more interior,
Speaker 2: like the courses in Grand Rapids, which are you know,
Speaker 2: sixty miles away from the coast.
Speaker 1: The routing process is interesting and what you know, one
Speaker 1: of the courses there in Grand Rapids, the mind obviously
Speaker 1: it was a situation where you had a lot of
Speaker 1: obstacles to deal with road power lines.
Speaker 3: In a way?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like those how do you work around
Speaker 1: big constraints like that? And do you feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: that it yields you know, they're the famous line of
Speaker 1: constraint yels creativity. Do you feel like it something you
Speaker 1: learned something working at at sites that are a little
Speaker 1: bit tougher to route right off the bat?
Speaker 2: Well, well, you're're constantly learning, so yeah, and constraints do
Speaker 2: they come in different in different ways? So big, huge
Speaker 2: power you know lines, I mean the big, the big.
Speaker 3: Things, not just like a regular and you know, at the.
Speaker 2: Minds we're thinking, oh, you know visually that's so you know,
Speaker 2: such as scar on the landscape. But for a while
Speaker 2: you sort of become immune to that. It's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're just there, you know, and you kind of deal
Speaker 2: with it. So is that like looking at the Southern
Speaker 2: Ocean or you know the bass strade It No, it's
Speaker 2: not the same thing, right, but but those you know,
Speaker 2: you just figure out that, Okay, I've got to work
Speaker 2: around those, and that's like a no, you know, no zone.
Speaker 2: I mean, we could have put holes underneath those lines
Speaker 2: and connected the sections of the property a little bit
Speaker 2: better because there's kind of four sections, three for the
Speaker 2: main golf course and then there's another another section down
Speaker 2: near the range for a future part three hopefully. But
Speaker 2: those are things that you know, I talked with the
Speaker 2: owner about, you know, hey, do we want to have that,
Speaker 2: and he's like, no, because we don't. Really that's our land,
Speaker 2: but we don't really totally control it because the right
Speaker 2: of way and they have to have access and stuff,
Speaker 2: so we didn't we didn't utilize that part of the property.
Speaker 2: You know, we just pass under it, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a problem because you sort of go from one
Speaker 2: section and then you you know, have this big long
Speaker 2: walk or cart ride and then you go to another
Speaker 2: section that you got to come back through. So that's
Speaker 2: not perfect, it's not ideal, but you just you try
Speaker 2: and figure out a way to do that and then
Speaker 2: utilize those sorts of things to maybe give you a different,
Speaker 2: different feel or different section. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting start because you're on one side of
Speaker 2: the road going this tunnel over and you play four holes,
Speaker 2: four part fours, you know, back and forth. They're parallel
Speaker 2: but the land is moving and changing and doing all
Speaker 2: this stuff, and then you got across the road again.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of disjointed, but at the same token
Speaker 2: it works. And having four part fours to start works also,
Speaker 2: just from the stan that they're all really different and
Speaker 2: they have different sort of things that you have to
Speaker 2: deal with. So the first holes, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: semi blind t shot, but then you have this kind
Speaker 2: of cool downhill. You know, look at the green that
Speaker 2: sits across this this gully, no no bunkers. Second holes
Speaker 2: like kind of a big up and over Part three,
Speaker 2: the third holes like a really difficult green to hit,
Speaker 2: maybe too hard, and the fourth is like this short
Speaker 2: driveable Part four, you know, with a pretty good sized
Speaker 2: green but like a big valley in front of it,
Speaker 2: so a lot of guys can drive the green. But
Speaker 2: you know, it's a compelling kind of second shot too,
Speaker 2: where you have a half wedge in your hand and
Speaker 2: you're hitting up hill and you.
Speaker 1: Know, semi blind if you're down below.
Speaker 3: It, absolutely it's ale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that opening stretch really makes you go wow,
Speaker 1: And I mean that that's another great affordable golf course.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I had a buddy who really got the
Speaker 1: golf bug this summer. He's not, you know, a beginning,
Speaker 1: beginning golfer, not like a you know somebody that's and
Speaker 1: he was he works in Grand Rapids, you know, he
Speaker 1: had his headquarter there, but he lives in Chicago. So
Speaker 1: he goes up to Grand Rapids a ton and he
Speaker 1: was telling me, oh, I'm playing in this court. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you should go check out the mines. And next time
Speaker 1: I saw him, he's like, that place is unbelievable. And
Speaker 1: he's like, and it's only like ten bucks more than
Speaker 1: the place I was playing, And it was just it
Speaker 1: was just a cool moment to have, you know, where
Speaker 1: he doesn't know why he likes the minds more than
Speaker 1: the other course he was playing, but he knows there's
Speaker 1: something different about it. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the neat things with architecture. Even if people can't articulate it,
Speaker 1: a lot of times they can they can under they
Speaker 1: understand it at a at a you know, a core
Speaker 1: level when they see something different.
Speaker 2: So and he's a real beginning golfer, I mean just
Speaker 2: kind of started playing, you know, picking the game up,
Speaker 2: which is cool, which is neat to hear that. You know, Wow,
Speaker 2: I don't really understand why I like this, but this
Speaker 2: is more compelling, you know. And maybe it's because of
Speaker 2: the lands, because there are some cool landscapes and some
Speaker 2: wild stuff there. But at the same token, you know,
Speaker 2: ten bucks is ten bucks, right, So if he's just
Speaker 2: trying to learn the game, that's cool that he's turned
Speaker 2: on by something like that. I mean, to me, that's
Speaker 2: like a super high compliment. That's that's fun to see
Speaker 2: that happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. He like, you know, I must have
Speaker 1: told him that Midsummer because he was like, I've played
Speaker 1: the mines like fifteen times. When next time I saw him,
Speaker 1: I was like, well you should try. He's like that
Speaker 1: one's a little too far away. But it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the it is an interest from my perspective too, I
Speaker 1: love you know, because you you listen to him talk
Speaker 1: about it, and it's a different perspective than I would have,
Speaker 1: you know, but it is uh, you know, ringing endorsement,
Speaker 1: and that's what you're kind of looking for. So with
Speaker 1: growing up at Crystal Downs and having seen a lot
Speaker 1: of your work and now seeing a lot of Maxwell's work,
Speaker 1: it's it's very evident that you the influence that Perry
Speaker 1: Maxwell had on your on your like just talking about
Speaker 1: the first four holes that at the mines, it reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of some of Maxwell's holes and how
Speaker 1: they kind of drape over the land and the blindness
Speaker 1: of the first shot and the way and then obviously
Speaker 1: when you look at the greens, I'd love you know,
Speaker 1: you consulted for years at Mackenzie's course Metal Club, and
Speaker 1: then you grew up working grounds at Perry Maxwell, at
Speaker 1: Perry Maxwell Mackenzie's Crystal Downs. Can you contrast the difference
Speaker 1: between the mackenzie courses that Maxwell was, you know, essentially
Speaker 1: the construction foreman and those with Hunter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the.
Speaker 2: It's a really well, it's a it's a small subset.
Speaker 2: It's really Crystal Downs and the University of Michigan golf
Speaker 2: course where Maxwell was really more involved. I mean, he
Speaker 2: may have done some other stuff, but that was that
Speaker 2: was sort of the major impact. So the bunkering style
Speaker 2: is a little bit different, the use of like you know,
Speaker 2: donut holes, which you see and it's like some other
Speaker 2: Maxwell stuff, you know, in donut bunkers you see that.
Speaker 2: So that's a little bit different as far as how
Speaker 2: they do that stuff. I think he also, you know,
Speaker 2: he he's known for his severe greens and stuff that
Speaker 2: he did when he did renovation work. You know, he
Speaker 2: built heavily contoured greens. And you know, we weren't talking
Speaker 2: about stimping at X Y or Z and things like that.
Speaker 2: But the things that's interesting about that also is that
Speaker 2: we talk about speed a lot, and we assigned this
Speaker 2: STEMP meter reading to him. We're just capable of of
Speaker 2: manicuring grass to you know, such a fine fine margin
Speaker 2: of error that that's really different than it was eighty
Speaker 2: or one hundred years ago. But downhill down green on
Speaker 2: one of those old greens was super fast. It was
Speaker 2: thirteen or fifteen on the stimpmeter and going uphill was
Speaker 2: like three. So there was there was a lot more variability.
Speaker 2: You had to kind of figure that kind of stuff
Speaker 2: out too. That's local knowledge. That's like knowing where to
Speaker 2: miss on the green because if I'm going downhill, I
Speaker 2: have no chance, right so I think and Metal Club
Speaker 2: being the first thing that they did in America that
Speaker 2: Mackenzie did in America, and that was kind of hitt
Speaker 2: the beginning of his evolution with Robert Hunter. You know,
Speaker 2: I think mackenzie was in you know, he was around more.
Speaker 2: He was more involved with the stuff in California because
Speaker 2: he was nearby than say it, you know, the stuff
Speaker 2: here in Michigan with with Maxwell. So Maxwell, maybe you know,
Speaker 2: he's executing or carrying out certain things with less direction
Speaker 2: or less direct injection maybe from from McKenzie.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 2: Robert Hunter also had you know, less experience, you know,
Speaker 2: he wasn't Maxwell was already doing stuff, so he was
Speaker 2: already involved and he was sort of already dabbling in it,
Speaker 2: and that's how he got it, got involved with with
Speaker 2: with Alister, and the Hunter's deal was, you know, it
Speaker 2: was more of this sideline and stuff like that. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know enough about Robert Hunter
Speaker 2: and how directly you know, he was implementing or or
Speaker 2: you know, personally like executing certain things. So that's a
Speaker 2: little bit different, whereas like Maxwell was the guy on
Speaker 2: the ground every day. He came to Michigan for three summers.
Speaker 2: The first year in twenty nine they built the Front nine.
Speaker 2: Then the crash hit, and then it took a couple
Speaker 2: you know, a couple more summers to build it just
Speaker 2: because of lack of labor funds.
Speaker 3: It sent me.
Speaker 2: It's a miracle that got it done. Now, there's also
Speaker 2: a rumor that, you know, he had a girlfriend up
Speaker 2: here because he was widowed, so so you know, maybe
Speaker 2: that was the incentive to come back for a couple
Speaker 2: more years. It's hard to say.
Speaker 1: And there's a similar story with tilling Hass in Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: Like why tilling Hass got to Minneapolis a few times,
Speaker 1: it is because he had either a mistress or a
Speaker 1: girlfriend there. I don't remember the exact story, but I never.
Speaker 3: I never heard about that about Tilly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, but that's why there's a few courses in Minneapolis
Speaker 1: that are telling Hals or Minnesota in general, because he had,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody that he was going to visit there
Speaker 1: all the time. Talk a little bit about of U
Speaker 1: of MS. Course I got to see that this summer
Speaker 1: and can it what's there now? And in some stuff
Speaker 1: that stands out in terms of of of what it
Speaker 1: could be.
Speaker 2: Uh well, again, it's a phenomenal set of greens, really
Speaker 2: really good greens. They're all a little bit smaller than well,
Speaker 2: with exception of ten, but ten's expanded in an section
Speaker 2: where it wasn't. So they're all a little bit smaller
Speaker 2: than they were originally, and some significantly smaller than they were.
Speaker 2: So they've lost a lot of that green and and
Speaker 2: hopefully we're going to be able to restore that. I
Speaker 2: did the plan in twenty eleven or twelve or something
Speaker 2: like that, and we need a donor, so anybody that's
Speaker 2: a big UFM fan and wants to donate. It seems
Speaker 2: like donors want to put their name on buildings, not necessarily,
Speaker 2: you know, for the golf course, So we need that
Speaker 2: and hopefully that's going to happen and it's going to
Speaker 2: be committed. But the greens are really exceptional. The ground
Speaker 2: is also a really interesting.
Speaker 3: Piece of lants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this high point in the middle of the property,
Speaker 2: sort of low at the clubhouse where it's at, and
Speaker 2: then low at other portions where it goes down and
Speaker 2: then goes back up. So the thing that Mackenzie always
Speaker 2: did was that he worked around those landforms and he
Speaker 2: built things valley clubs like one of the best examples
Speaker 2: of that, one of the greatest routings here. You play
Speaker 2: one and two, you cross the road and then on
Speaker 2: that stretch of three through eleven. You've got two knobs,
Speaker 2: and like each knob effects four or five holes. You know,
Speaker 2: it's an amazing structure with how that works. Three greens
Speaker 2: at the base of a hill, four t's on that hill,
Speaker 2: five passes by that hill, seven green comes back to
Speaker 2: the base of that hill. Eight his tees off from
Speaker 2: one hill to the next hill, and then ten comes
Speaker 2: by and finishes on that afterwards too, So that one
Speaker 2: hill has three greens around and three sets of teas.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's amazing. It's just one little simple knob
Speaker 2: and everything else is kind of flat. So and he
Speaker 2: did a lot of that at the University of Michigan
Speaker 2: two where he came off of this central spine. So
Speaker 2: the tenth hole goes up the greens up there, seventy
Speaker 2: eighteen T, seventeen green, six green. Just on the other
Speaker 2: side eleven greens, So all of these things, those are
Speaker 2: all within one little section, and then off of the
Speaker 2: spine kind of draped down from that, you still have
Speaker 2: four T, three green, eight green at ninety So it's
Speaker 2: pretty impressive how you know you work off of that.
Speaker 2: It's it's a simple basics, I mean, just trying to
Speaker 2: do that and figuring out how to do that. But
Speaker 2: he did that better than most people. And Maxwell did
Speaker 2: a great job of, you know, of executing and doing that.
Speaker 1: What are some examples of your own work where you've
Speaker 1: taken that type of principle of you know, repeatedly using
Speaker 1: a feature that you liked on one of your sites.
Speaker 2: Well, Kingsley's a pretty good example of that, because like
Speaker 2: when you lead out and you go to to get
Speaker 2: to that South forty which is like holes two through
Speaker 2: seven T, that area there, you know, is really strong
Speaker 2: in itself and trying to figure out how that worked best,
Speaker 2: but to get to that that spine that's two green
Speaker 2: or two T six T. But then that goes across
Speaker 2: and goes further further to the east and that's you
Speaker 2: know two green, four green, three and three and five
Speaker 2: combination T and stuff. So how that sort of thing
Speaker 2: fits in and sort of divides the front nine you
Speaker 2: know from the first hole and then the south forty
Speaker 2: and the split coming down. So those types of things
Speaker 2: recurring and going to that that stuff's really important. Same
Speaker 2: thing kind of that that we think about diamond springs,
Speaker 2: where you use these eskers to like feed off of
Speaker 2: and play onto those particular things. So one goes out,
Speaker 2: two comes back greens at the base of that escer
Speaker 2: right near the clubhouse, which is a nice return. You know,
Speaker 2: if you have a private club and you know you
Speaker 2: just got to play a couple more holes or you're
Speaker 2: just going out, you know, it's nice to have little
Speaker 2: return routes that somehow fit back and come back to
Speaker 2: the clubhouse. It's a public golf so not maybe the
Speaker 2: same thing, but then the third t is right on
Speaker 2: that or the tenth d so you could literally play
Speaker 2: one too and then just skip to ten if you
Speaker 2: wanted to, you know, not play three through you know
Speaker 2: eight or whatever, or three through seven, because kind of ten,
Speaker 2: you could play down ten and you could play eight,
Speaker 2: you could go. I mean, there's different ways of doing that.
Speaker 2: So places that have different multiple routings where you can
Speaker 2: do certain things. I think that's you know, that's a
Speaker 2: complexity that you can add in or you can figure
Speaker 2: Out's like we were talking about with Mark the old
Speaker 2: course at Marquette earlier today, in that the original nine
Speaker 2: holes there is intermixed with the with the holes that
Speaker 2: were added in the mid sixties. So but we could
Speaker 2: go back to the original routing of the front nine,
Speaker 2: and we can have the you know, we can have
Speaker 2: the Langford holes for one set and then have the
Speaker 2: old then the newer nine, well fifty years old, so
Speaker 2: we could we could separate those and then keep them,
Speaker 2: or we could keep them intermixed kind of like they are.
Speaker 2: So it's it's interesting to be able to try and
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh when you're when you're routing the course,
Speaker 1: I mean, I assume that and tell me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about like the cadence of a of a routing,
Speaker 1: you know, where where things kind of fall with relation
Speaker 1: to other holes and and such. And I'm say, say
Speaker 1: somebody just rerouted your course where you have multiple ways
Speaker 1: you could route it, would that kind of is there
Speaker 1: a story that kind of changes if somebody said just
Speaker 1: jumbled up your routing and you know, change the order
Speaker 1: of holes in which you play them.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely it does. It affects that a lot.
Speaker 2: So I'm always trying to think about how that cadence
Speaker 2: works from a human's scale, human standpoint and walking the
Speaker 2: golf course. So even if even if most people take
Speaker 2: a golf cart, you've got to think about how that
Speaker 2: flows from you know, someone walking and experiencing the game
Speaker 2: that way. And the interesting thing about that is a
Speaker 2: couple summers ago, I had some guys that came up,
Speaker 2: and these are young fit, you know, thirties. These guys
Speaker 2: go to the gym, they train, they do all this,
Speaker 2: and they take a golf card every time they play golf.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys is really good golfer and
Speaker 2: he's you know, he's gonna walk with me, right, And
Speaker 2: this other guy he's like, oh yeah, it takes it,
Speaker 2: and we're kind of like, you know, his friend started like,
Speaker 2: come on, you walk with us, man, you know, checking out,
Speaker 2: and he's like sort of finally badgered him into walking right.
Speaker 2: And after that day, my friend would tell me he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess what. He walks all the time.
Speaker 3: Though. He's like, you can't believe how good that is.
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, he was he was experiencing
Speaker 2: something in a different way that he just hadn't been
Speaker 2: exposed to. So I think from the standpoint that when
Speaker 2: you're designing or you're figuring out the route, you have
Speaker 2: to figure out how that cadence works, because that's going
Speaker 2: to flow better.
Speaker 3: And I think you know.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of golf courses where you have restrictions,
Speaker 2: whether it's a mountain course and there's so much elevation
Speaker 2: that you're going to take a golf cart. But those
Speaker 2: things tend to get disjoined too because oh I got
Speaker 2: a big cart ride, or I'm going through development. You
Speaker 2: may have really a really good collection of holes, but
Speaker 2: that might might not be a really good golf course.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just sort of these separate individual kinds
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: You could say that about the mines too, where we're
Speaker 2: divided up into these sections where you play a group
Speaker 2: of holes and then you've got to have a big walk,
Speaker 2: you know, because we're restricted by the power line of
Speaker 2: the road or something like that. So you try and
Speaker 2: figure out a way to make those things kind of
Speaker 2: work together or make that return a little more reasonable.
Speaker 2: So there, you play one through four, you go buy
Speaker 2: the clubhouse again, Hey, grab a drink or hot dog
Speaker 2: or something like that, and then you know, you go
Speaker 2: out to the back nine. You get this, you know,
Speaker 2: you play four holes, then you play five holes, you
Speaker 2: finish the US again. Then you go and you play
Speaker 2: the back night and you've got to break there where
Speaker 2: you've got to go through after eleven and after seventeen
Speaker 2: to across the power lines.
Speaker 3: Not ideal, but.
Speaker 2: You know that's we sort of were stuck with that,
Speaker 2: so that's what we got to deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's say, you know, it's an inherited problem with
Speaker 1: just having power lines in that case, as I remember,
Speaker 1: the walk out is a little bit more taxing than
Speaker 1: the walk back. Is that a way that you kind
Speaker 1: of mitigated the two walks from going by the power lines?
Speaker 2: Well, it just happens to be kind of how they fit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you're kind of you're more downhill coming back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And there wasn't it wasn't an easy You had to
Speaker 2: sort of get to that point to sort of start
Speaker 2: the routing of the other holes twelve through seventeen and that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But when you get there, though, even though it's a
Speaker 2: taxing walk, you kind of like, wow, that's a cool
Speaker 2: hole because you're standing on this hill and you're looking
Speaker 2: down at twelve and you know, you sort of got
Speaker 2: a little glimpse of seventeen when you were kind of
Speaker 2: coming up. There's some trees between them there, but you know,
Speaker 2: you get a sense of wow, Okay, this is this
Speaker 2: is worth it, right, this is neat and then you
Speaker 2: get down to the green and it's like, wow, this
Speaker 2: is really cool.
Speaker 1: That's a cool stretch of holes on that back part
Speaker 1: of the property. Yeah, it's funny when you talked about
Speaker 1: golf and walking. And I've got a lot of college
Speaker 1: buddies that got into the game in the last three
Speaker 1: or four years. And you know, it's funny how you
Speaker 1: know they play with me and I walk, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: like they all walk now, because I think it's almost
Speaker 1: like walking comes from like how you get introduced to
Speaker 1: the game in a way and it or like experiences
Speaker 1: where like you alluded to a king where somebody just
Speaker 1: saw his friend walking and you walking, and they they
Speaker 1: also started walking, And I think that's like really the
Speaker 1: you know, when you talk about people walking more, it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of someone in their peer group walking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I grew up taking a golf cart,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean I walked, I mean by myself
Speaker 2: when I was playing like the little nine hole course.
Speaker 2: But when I went with my grandparents, you know, they
Speaker 2: were in a golf cart. So we're playing crystal downs,
Speaker 2: which is not an easy walk. I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of elevation things like that. But we were always
Speaker 2: in a golf cart, and we didn't have caddies. When
Speaker 2: I worked in the pro shop, you know, it was
Speaker 2: basically caddies were gone, carts are in. And there were
Speaker 2: four guys that walked the golf course. They were all
Speaker 2: like eighty years old. It was this one for it
Speaker 2: some and they would come out and they'd pull the
Speaker 2: trolley or I think one of them carried their bag,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they'd walk the front and then ride the
Speaker 2: back or something like that. But they were the only
Speaker 2: guys that walked the golf course. And now we got
Speaker 2: a lot of people that walk the golf course, and
Speaker 2: we have a good caddy program and stuff. And my
Speaker 2: son who's worked in the backroom and caddied and stuff,
Speaker 2: when he goes out and then you know, they can
Speaker 2: grab a cart and you know, speed around and do
Speaker 2: whatever they want. But he walks, and and his buddies
Speaker 2: like walking. You know, they enjoy it. They like the
Speaker 2: camaraderie that you get with that too. When you're in
Speaker 2: a golf cart, you're kind of speeding to the next thing.
Speaker 2: You're only talking to the guy in the cart, and
Speaker 2: then you kind of meet at the greens and the
Speaker 2: t's with the other in your group.
Speaker 3: But if you're walking along.
Speaker 2: You know, and you know, two of you hit to
Speaker 2: the right and to you hit to the left, you know,
Speaker 2: and maybe it's switched different different guys. Doing that, you
Speaker 2: get to like sort of experience and talk about it.
Speaker 2: And golf's a social game, so you know, it makes
Speaker 2: it more enjoyable that way too.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, there's such a greater sense of you know,
Speaker 1: you're playing with your you know, the guys in your
Speaker 1: group when you're when you're walking together, and that that
Speaker 1: you diverge less in that situation than rather you know,
Speaker 1: the just the guy that you're riding with in the cart.
Speaker 2: And it's it's also you know, walking is actually it's
Speaker 2: also really fast because you're going to your ball and
Speaker 2: you're playing your ball and you're moving on, whereas when
Speaker 2: you're in the cart, a lot of times guys are like,
Speaker 2: you know, they drive over the thing, then wait for
Speaker 2: the other guy. They don't like, leave their guy there,
Speaker 2: and then go to their ball and hit and come back.
Speaker 2: So you know, you can play just as fast unless
Speaker 2: you have these super long walks between you know, greens
Speaker 2: and teas. So it's actually very efficient too.
Speaker 1: Something that stands out to me with the court the
Speaker 1: courses that you've built in Michigan is the superintendents that
Speaker 1: work at them, like Craig Moore who is on the podcast,
Speaker 1: I mean total golf, not how how much goes into
Speaker 1: you know, the present. From that sense, have you had
Speaker 1: experiences where you know, a superintendent maybe less golf inclined
Speaker 1: than say Craig gets you know, the playing conditions, like
Speaker 1: the surfaces and the way it's presented is drastically different
Speaker 1: than say Craig at Gray Wall, where you know, you
Speaker 1: can tell he plays a ton of golf because of
Speaker 1: the way it's presented around and on the greens and
Speaker 1: what he thinks about when he talks about the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, there is a difference guys
Speaker 2: that play golf or you know, grew up playing golf
Speaker 2: and love golf. There's a different way that they sort
Speaker 2: of look at it. I guess I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 2: building the golf courses, you know, with these guys and
Speaker 2: hopefully they're on board, like you know, early on. So
Speaker 2: in Craig's instance, when we were building Kingsley. He was
Speaker 2: one of Dan's assistants and he'd worked with Dan before
Speaker 2: and so he was groomed, you know, kind of into
Speaker 2: that and we were building the golf course and stuff,
Speaker 2: so he saw that process. And when we built Gray Walls,
Speaker 2: he was he was there taking care of the old
Speaker 2: course while we were building it because the superintendent was
Speaker 2: kind of the project manager on that one. So and
Speaker 2: then he went back down state and was maintaining a
Speaker 2: golf course there. And a couple of years later, Pete,
Speaker 2: who was the superintendent that built the Gray Walls with us,
Speaker 2: left and they hired Craig, which was perfect for me
Speaker 2: because you know, he knew exactly what was going on
Speaker 2: and he knew how to dial things in. He's a
Speaker 2: great turf manager and stuff like that. So I think
Speaker 2: part of that has to do with the experience that
Speaker 2: they have, maybe if they're involved in the project early on,
Speaker 2: so they're getting they're getting exposure to what we want
Speaker 2: to do, how we want to do it, and why,
Speaker 2: and they have a lot of input into that too.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm always asking a lot of questions to them.
Speaker 2: You know, hey, I want to do this, how are
Speaker 2: you going to maintain that, and they're like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: if a guy just says no, I can't do that,
Speaker 2: he's probably not the right guy for the job. But
Speaker 2: if there's someone who's trying to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to do it and say, yeah, we could do that,
Speaker 2: but we got to do this, then yeah we can
Speaker 2: do that. You know, he's trying to figure out a
Speaker 2: way to do that. Great example of that is when
Speaker 2: we were doing Kingsley, the seventeenth Hole, which has this
Speaker 2: huge drop off from the ridge and in the landing
Speaker 2: area down in this valley. It's about sixty or sixty
Speaker 2: five feet down this hill. Great sledding hill by the way.
Speaker 1: I've been greywalls and probably sliding hill.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So there was an old gas line going.
Speaker 2: It was full mature, old forest hadn't been cut and
Speaker 2: there was a gas line and a trail that went
Speaker 2: through there, and so you could see this hillside and
Speaker 2: I walked through there with Dan and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: can you maintain this? And he says, you mean, like
Speaker 2: for a fairway And I'm like yeah, he goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: a four wheel drive, I can do that. But I'm
Speaker 2: going to have four wheel drive because all the other
Speaker 2: crazy stuff you're building. So that's okay, we can do it.
Speaker 2: So there you go, there's a solution, right, you just
Speaker 2: have to figure out a way to do it.
Speaker 1: Talk about the challenge of routing courses that are like
Speaker 1: heavily wooded where you can't when you walk around, you're
Speaker 1: looking at dense forest rather than you know, an open
Speaker 1: prairie setting.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we have topo maps and things, and
Speaker 2: so I'm really good looking at squiggly lines, so that helps,
Speaker 2: but it's always there's always, no matter how good the
Speaker 2: topo maps are, there's always stuff in the ground that
Speaker 2: so Kingsley was it had been clear cut like fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty years before we were there. So it was a thicket,
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was tighten up brush. I
Speaker 2: mean it was im penetral. You couldn't get through it.
Speaker 2: Versus if you have like a full mature like that
Speaker 2: section on seventeen was an old forest that hadn't been cut,
Speaker 2: you can see, you know, kind of what's going on underneath,
Speaker 2: because you know, at that point, if you have mature trees,
Speaker 2: you have high branches and you don't really have a
Speaker 2: lot of low brush. So it's a difference in trying
Speaker 2: to looking at stuff gray walls fully forested, you know,
Speaker 2: some big you know, a lot of big old trees
Speaker 2: and things like that, and then there's all these rockout
Speaker 2: croppings and crazy stuff. So, you know, there we similar
Speaker 2: sort of thing trying to figure out. You know, we
Speaker 2: got up to kind of where the seventeenth Green was,
Speaker 2: which is this really crazy wild green, and there's this
Speaker 2: there's this valley that's left of the green, and that
Speaker 2: was kind of a bunch of hemlock trees up there,
Speaker 2: which are pretty dense, and they they maintained their lower
Speaker 2: branches a lot of times. And I was getting really
Speaker 2: excited looking at this thing. And Pete, the superintendent, was like,
Speaker 2: what do you what do you I'm like, see that
Speaker 2: that's gonna be really cool next to the green. He's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I any idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: But then when it got built, he goes, oh, now
Speaker 2: I see what you were saying.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Part of that sort of recognizing things finding things in
Speaker 2: the field, so you use the use atopoman. You spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time on the ground and then you
Speaker 2: try and you know, piece all that stuff together and
Speaker 2: figure out the best way for it to.
Speaker 1: Work with you alluded to like sometimes the topo maps
Speaker 1: that doesn't have everything. Is there an instance where you
Speaker 1: say clear cut trees and you found something that just
Speaker 1: made the hole infinitely better that wasn't on a topo map.
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So at Kingsley, the thirteenth Green, which is the big
Speaker 2: crazy you know short part four with this huge green.
Speaker 2: The original concept for that was it was going to
Speaker 2: be in the bowl and behind the bowl that's left
Speaker 2: of the green was going to be on that ridge there,
Speaker 2: and it was going to be and that ridges. You
Speaker 2: know that that came up in the topo. I mean,
Speaker 2: we knew there was a bowl, and we knew there
Speaker 2: was this reach, but it was a thicket. It had
Speaker 2: been clear cut and it was really dense, and so
Speaker 2: I was just clearing where the green is. I was
Speaker 2: just clearing the brush off there, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden there was a lot more micro.
Speaker 3: Stuff in there.
Speaker 2: So you just you're not seen a lot of times,
Speaker 2: depending on how dense the foliage is, and when they
Speaker 2: shoot it, a lot of times they can't. You know,
Speaker 2: there's the general land form, but you can't see the
Speaker 2: micro stuff. And so I'm like, hm, Wow, this is
Speaker 2: really cool. So, you know, I did a little manipulation there,
Speaker 2: but not very much at all. I mean that green,
Speaker 2: you know with the big dip in the middle, the
Speaker 2: dip was there. You know, the backshelf was there, and
Speaker 2: you know, we added little things in to make it,
Speaker 2: you know, to put in these little you know, pin
Speaker 2: locations and things like that.
Speaker 3: But I didn't. I didn't know it was that complex
Speaker 3: or that intricate.
Speaker 2: And basically after clearing it, I was like, Wow, that's
Speaker 2: that's just all green.
Speaker 3: We just got to do that.
Speaker 2: It's totally anti short part four. You know, you're supposed
Speaker 2: to have a small green, little target. It's like we're
Speaker 2: gonna have this huge green, but they're going to be
Speaker 2: small targets within the green. And so that works and
Speaker 2: you know makes it you know, highly variable every day,
Speaker 2: which is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and it was like an improvisation in the field.
Speaker 1: Have you ever run into an instance where you know,
Speaker 1: you I'm assuming kind of this is the plan, and
Speaker 1: you've had pushback from a owner on implementing, you know,
Speaker 1: making a change to the you know, plan that they've
Speaker 1: agreed to because you saw something in the field like
Speaker 1: that sense situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there. I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 2: there's a lot of information that goes back and forth.
Speaker 3: But I.
Speaker 2: You know, owners, you know, it's their baby too, right,
Speaker 2: It's not just my baby. So they certainly have a
Speaker 2: lot of input. And I think that's just a communication thing,
Speaker 2: that's just talking to them about you know, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: seeing this.
Speaker 3: This this doesn't seem to you know, work, and you.
Speaker 2: Know I want to try and you know, massage or
Speaker 2: manipulate this, and you kind of work through that. And
Speaker 2: you know, owners have certain things that they want to
Speaker 2: see and you know it's our it's our job to
Speaker 2: try and you know, achieve that and to give them
Speaker 2: all these things that they want and then also make it,
Speaker 2: you know, do all the stuff that we want to
Speaker 2: do right or something that might you know that we
Speaker 2: feel might make it better or you know, more more interesting,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So yeah, you have you know, there's little
Speaker 2: things here and there. But I got to say, I
Speaker 2: mean the owners I've had have been great. You know,
Speaker 2: they've been super people to work with, and a lot
Speaker 2: of them are you know, very good friends, you know,
Speaker 2: and people that you know that I talked to on
Speaker 2: a regular basis, So you know there's that side of
Speaker 2: it too, you know, and they you know, you build
Speaker 2: trust too, just like anything else. You know, they've probably
Speaker 2: most most owners have not been through the process ever before,
Speaker 2: so you know, they you don't really know what to expect,
Speaker 2: and you know, you when you start like blitzing trees
Speaker 2: left and right, you know, they're kind of like freaked
Speaker 2: out in some ways, and you've got to be like,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, well we've got to open this up.
Speaker 2: We've got to have room to play, we have to
Speaker 2: have sunlight for grat you know, there's all these different
Speaker 2: things that you have to do. In the case of
Speaker 2: number one at Gray Walls, they thought, well, we're going
Speaker 2: to have a tree lined you know, northern Michigan typical
Speaker 2: golf course, right, that's what we want because their other
Speaker 2: golf course is kind of wide open.
Speaker 3: You know, it's pretty gentle.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of movement, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: cool stuff on the old Langford that I think that
Speaker 2: they didn't necessarily appreciate as much as maybe they are
Speaker 2: getting to now. But we're standing up on that big
Speaker 2: hill and I started clearing all the trees to the
Speaker 2: right of the tee because I know Lake Superiors right
Speaker 2: there and it's you know, it's a couple of miles away,
Speaker 2: but the view is fifty five miles all the way
Speaker 2: to Pictured Rocks. And they're like, oh, you got way
Speaker 2: too many. I'm like, we just got started. Come back tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And then they came back like a day or two later,
Speaker 2: and they said, okay, we'll shut up now.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was a couple of guys on the board and
Speaker 2: they're really good guys and stuff, but they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: we we we have no idea what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Just do your job.
Speaker 1: There's a similar story Trey Kemp who redesigned this Stevens
Speaker 1: Park down in Dallas. He cut down a bunch of
Speaker 1: trees and the condo owners behind this tea box were
Speaker 1: like outrage, and he was like, just just hold on,
Speaker 1: and he opened up this view of like the Dallas skyline.
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because he was telling me. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and their property value went up a couple hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and he's like, needless to say, they thank me later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thanks for much. Here's a bonus another forty bucks.
Speaker 4: It's funny how like you know they're there are these
Speaker 4: that was an example of an unintended Consequently, like you know,
Speaker 4: they didn't know what was going to happen, and now
Speaker 4: they're they're sitting on you know, way more valuable property.
Speaker 3: That it talk about.
Speaker 1: You know with Greywalls, that dramatic land, you know versus
Speaker 1: a more subtle property. What what the you know what
Speaker 1: dramatic land allows you to do like the pros and
Speaker 1: cons versus a more subtle property where like you know,
Speaker 1: Diamond Springs with with the with the small kind of
Speaker 1: ridges that you were routed over versus you know, large
Speaker 1: scale movement.
Speaker 3: Well, Gray Walls has a lot of both. But it's.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of restrictions at gray Walls too because
Speaker 2: you know, we got granite rock walls and it's like
Speaker 2: we don't have a blasting budget. You know, they were
Speaker 2: not going to spend millions of dollars like creating holes
Speaker 2: out nothing. So you know those are sort of hard
Speaker 2: edges or restrictions and things like that. Just like at
Speaker 2: Diamond Springs, even though the ground is relatively flat and subtle,
Speaker 2: you know, there's the big gorge where the creek's going
Speaker 2: and the old mill pond area, that ravine. You know,
Speaker 2: that's a hard edge. Can't do anything in there, you know,
Speaker 2: we we can't get down.
Speaker 3: There and adjust it or do anything.
Speaker 2: So how do you work over how do you take
Speaker 2: that and make that an advantage something that you can
Speaker 2: utilize and make interesting and provide impact.
Speaker 3: And it does.
Speaker 2: It provides a lot of you know, at the end
Speaker 2: of the round, you're like, wow, saw that at night,
Speaker 2: and then like you go away from it again. Then
Speaker 2: you come back fourteen through eighteen and it's like, wow,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty cool for thirty dollars off course, right yea,
Speaker 2: So at Gray Walls and you've got, yeah, you've got
Speaker 2: a lot of elevation change two hundred feet elevation change
Speaker 2: on the property, and you've got these super hard ridges,
Speaker 2: vertical type stuff that you have to deal with. So
Speaker 2: that's something that you have to factor in and say, okay,
Speaker 2: here's a hard edge, how does something fit into that?
Speaker 2: And then you have to figure out kind of how
Speaker 2: to how to make that work. And I'd been working
Speaker 2: on the routing and trying to figure things out, and
Speaker 2: there were certain holes that I saw and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and it kind of it basically kind of clicked. Fred Muller,
Speaker 2: who was the old pro at Crystal Downs and stuff,
Speaker 2: and we were up there and we were going we
Speaker 2: were driving back. We'd been up there for a few
Speaker 2: days and we were driving back. Fred was driving and
Speaker 2: I was in the car and I was like doodling
Speaker 2: trying to figure out this section of the property, and
Speaker 2: it kind of clicked. And that was like the majority
Speaker 2: of the routing. It's like made it work. It made
Speaker 2: it fit together. So sometimes, you know, it takes something
Speaker 2: like that where you know, one little piece of the
Speaker 2: puzzle makes the thing work, or you know, if we
Speaker 2: do this, if we impact that, you know, that makes
Speaker 2: the other stuff and trying to figure out those you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's one little piece. You know, where's that piece
Speaker 2: the thousand thousand thousand piece puzzle and like, you know,
Speaker 2: where's that one piece?
Speaker 1: What piece was that?
Speaker 2: I can't remember right now, I know exactly, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean it's probably I'm not saying that it was
Speaker 2: one piece there, but trying to get everything to jive,
Speaker 2: you know, where you're trying to make this corner work.
Speaker 3: So in some like one of the.
Speaker 2: Hard things there is that we're on this big high
Speaker 2: piece and we go down and then we play you know,
Speaker 2: basically one, two, three, four kind of on a level.
Speaker 2: We got to get back to that middle ridge when
Speaker 2: we got to get out, and we got to figure
Speaker 2: out how.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 2: And we got a property boundary edge over where number
Speaker 2: four whole number five is, and there was no property
Speaker 2: boundary line stake in the field or.
Speaker 3: On the map.
Speaker 2: And I was told, oh, no, you got like another
Speaker 2: hundred hundred and fifty feet over there. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't think so, because I was thinking. I was looking
Speaker 2: at the map and and thinking that, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty close to the edge here. And we were trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to get to that corner, and
Speaker 2: four could have been a five, or it could have
Speaker 2: it could have been the four that it is now,
Speaker 2: and so it ended up being a four and having
Speaker 2: sort of this jog back to the tee and then
Speaker 2: this you know, short part four that went up to
Speaker 2: the green with a big rock wall and all that.
Speaker 2: I would have preferred that that tea was over another
Speaker 2: one hundred hundred and fifty feet, but that's not our
Speaker 2: proper property lines pretty much right there. So but we
Speaker 2: still had to figure out how to do that and
Speaker 2: and that kind of you know, it sort of worked.
Speaker 2: It figured out a way for it to work. But
Speaker 2: it's to me, it's it's the most awkward drive there
Speaker 2: because you know, you got to hit it up so
Speaker 2: you know, so high. That's difficult for a lot of golfers.
Speaker 2: But it's still like super exciting and fun and some
Speaker 2: people are like, that's my favorite hole, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's pretty iconic when you got this sixty foot granite
Speaker 2: wall right next to the green and you know there's
Speaker 2: full white pine trees growing on top of that, and
Speaker 2: you know, agonomically figuring out we could actually grow grass
Speaker 2: there was important because there's a lot of airflow and
Speaker 2: it gets morning sun and late sun and the gap
Speaker 2: works to where it you know, functions because you'd think
Speaker 2: this that granite cliff is wall is on the southwest side,
Speaker 2: and you're thinking, how are you going to grow grass
Speaker 2: because it's going to be in shadow.
Speaker 3: But it does work.
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, yeah, that that is a thrilling stretch.
Speaker 1: It's well the uh that place everybody should go see.
Speaker 1: But we uh, we kind of wrap this here and
Speaker 1: we appreciate the time and we'll look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: more of your work here. I gotta get down to
Speaker 1: Australia and then i'll have I'll see all the original stuff.
Speaker 3: And uh gotta get there. I get there. Maybe maybe
Speaker 3: that's a trick, ye maybe from America. But it's worth it.
Speaker 1: I know. I just got to get on a plane.
Speaker 3: It's a month long journey, you know. Do it hit Australia,
Speaker 3: hit you know, hit New Zealand. Just think of all
Speaker 3: the podcasts you can do from down there.
Speaker 1: I know that.
Speaker 3: It was in the cards.
Speaker 1: We'll see if I get down there, all right, Thanks Mike.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.