Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast
Speaker 1: and another episode of the Yoke with Dok. Today's episode
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Speaker 1: slash Frida Egg member SIPC. In this episode with Tom Dok,
Speaker 1: we talked with Tom about how difficult it is renovating
Speaker 1: a course compared to restoring one and his new project
Speaker 1: in Ireland at the Rossapana Resort, Saint Patrick's. As a reminder,
Speaker 1: check out our pro shop. We have some new towels
Speaker 1: up in the shop as well as hats, t shirts, polos,
Speaker 1: great gear for summertime. Visit the pro shop at thefridagg
Speaker 1: dot com. And without further ado, here's Tom dough is
Speaker 1: back and as usual he's not holding back.
Speaker 2: But don't toss the yolk and the famously candid Oak
Speaker 2: doesn't pull any punches. How do I make natural looking? Contour?
Speaker 2: Hire the biggest pool in the village and told them
Speaker 2: to make it flat first. Overrated, underrated, rough terribly overrated
Speaker 2: over the years.
Speaker 1: So here's a question from Ethan Zimmont. Do you anticipate
Speaker 1: we're quickly approaching a time where new, fresh, untouched sites
Speaker 1: are going to be extinct and we'll have to focus
Speaker 1: on blowing up existing courses to make new courses.
Speaker 2: Oh well, a lot of people told me that was
Speaker 2: that was going to be my fate thirty years ago
Speaker 2: when I got into the business, that all the all
Speaker 2: the great news sites are gone. Not so much that earth, Yeah,
Speaker 2: not so much that you're gonna have to just rebuild
Speaker 2: old golf courses. But you know, I mean a conventional
Speaker 2: wisdom when I worked for Pete Dye is you know,
Speaker 2: get him a swamp or a piece of desert or
Speaker 2: a garbage dump or whatever, and it'll turn it into
Speaker 2: something really cool, like the TPC at Sawgrass. So you
Speaker 2: don't need to spend money on finding a good piece
Speaker 2: of land. And you know that's why nobody was doing
Speaker 2: that thirty years ago. Is it's like, oh, this would
Speaker 2: be easier. We wouldn't we wouldn't have to try so
Speaker 2: hard to we wouldn't have to spend so much on
Speaker 2: the land. We wouldn't have to wait so long on
Speaker 2: the permits to make it happen. And so to Ethan's question,
Speaker 2: I think for sure, you know, if you're a golf
Speaker 2: developer that's getting in the business to try to really
Speaker 2: make money at it, buying an old course and tearing
Speaker 2: it down and starting over is a way better business
Speaker 2: model because you don't, because it's already permitted as a
Speaker 2: golf course, you don't really need anything. You can start.
Speaker 2: You can buy it one day and start construction almost
Speaker 2: the next day. In a lot of places, you know,
Speaker 2: that speeds up the you know, that speeds up the
Speaker 2: timeframe by a couple of years. Whereas when you're a
Speaker 2: when you're Mike Kaiser and you're you know, you're trying
Speaker 2: to get permission to build on a new piece of
Speaker 2: land down the road from Dornick. He's what two or
Speaker 2: three years into that now, and he still doesn't know
Speaker 2: if He's spent a lot of money on environmental consultants
Speaker 2: and everybody else, and he's paid Bill Corp. To do
Speaker 2: routings and he's still not sure he's going to be
Speaker 2: able to do anything. You know, from a business standpoint,
Speaker 2: that's really hard to swallow as a business model. It's like,
Speaker 2: not many people want to do that. The only kind
Speaker 2: of people that want to do that, or somebody like
Speaker 2: Mike or Rick Kine or you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: my clients they want to do something really special. And
Speaker 2: if they want to do something really special, they want
Speaker 2: to start from scratch. They don't want to start from
Speaker 2: some failed golf course.
Speaker 1: Do you think you could do something special from a
Speaker 1: failed golf course? And if so, what would what would
Speaker 1: you look for?
Speaker 2: Well, the hard part about redesigning is whatever is there.
Speaker 2: Everything that's happened there since the golf course got built
Speaker 2: reinforces what's there. They planted trees. Now the trees are
Speaker 2: getting mature, but the trees also form corridors on that
Speaker 2: bad routing, So it's really hard. You know, if you
Speaker 2: looked at the topo map without any of the trees
Speaker 2: and said, you know, this would really be better if
Speaker 2: all the holes ran north and south instead of east
Speaker 2: and west. But they planted trees around all the holes
Speaker 2: running east and west, it's like impossible to convert that
Speaker 2: because there's just too many things built in your way
Speaker 2: for that to really make any sense. So, like it's
Speaker 2: not a failed golf course. This we just this last
Speaker 2: project we built before Houston was rebuilding a course at
Speaker 2: the National in Australia. And it's actually a project that
Speaker 2: I looked at like twenty years before and tried to
Speaker 2: do a routing for. But they hired Greg Norman to
Speaker 2: do one of the courses, in Peter Thompson to do
Speaker 2: the other one. And you know, the club's been very successful,
Speaker 2: but the Thompson course, the Ocean course, was always like
Speaker 2: the third best course. They have an older course that
Speaker 2: Trent Jones Junior did. Norman's course is really well regarded.
Speaker 2: Thompson's course was never you know, it was nobody's favorite.
Speaker 2: It didn't do nearly as much visitor play. So after,
Speaker 2: you know, two or three years ago, they they asked
Speaker 2: me if I would take a look at it and
Speaker 2: see if I could suggest them things to make it better.
Speaker 2: And I think they were they were really only thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, I would change a few holes. But I
Speaker 2: went out and you know, I was already familiar with
Speaker 2: the land from twenty years ago, but I couldn't go
Speaker 2: back to I looked at the routing we did twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, and the routing I did would have been
Speaker 2: too tangled up with the course that Norman built, so
Speaker 2: I couldn't do what I'd planned, so I had to,
Speaker 2: but you know, I just it's an The key to
Speaker 2: it was it was an open site and nobody planted
Speaker 2: any trees or done anything to change it. So on
Speaker 2: the second hole, you know, they they built a par four,
Speaker 2: and they were because the third tier was going to
Speaker 2: be up and up the hill in the corner. They
Speaker 2: tried to build themselves a green two thirds of the
Speaker 2: way up this pretty steep slope and shape the hell
Speaker 2: out of it to try to get it so it
Speaker 2: wasn't so severe. And you know, if you were short,
Speaker 2: the ball would roll back down the fairway, but it
Speaker 2: still did, so they had to reshape it again, you know,
Speaker 2: just smacking straight into the contours kind of the wrong
Speaker 2: way in order to make the next hole work out.
Speaker 2: And right away I looked at that hole, I go,
Speaker 2: this is you know, the first hole's fine, but this
Speaker 2: hole I gotta you can't have the green there. There's
Speaker 2: this little pocket down to the left where just past
Speaker 2: the landing here, and I thought, you know, that'd be
Speaker 2: a really cool short part four with just the green
Speaker 2: right in there, and then okay, but if I did that,
Speaker 2: then I can't make everybody walk way up the hill
Speaker 2: to that old third tee. And honestly didn't like the
Speaker 2: old third hole very much anyway. So I started looking
Speaker 2: around and I'm like, well, you could just put the
Speaker 2: TB behind the green on two and play back toward
Speaker 2: what's now seventeen green. That's a pretty good look in
Speaker 2: a hole. And before I knew it, I'd rerouted like
Speaker 2: half the golf course, you know, like found new green
Speaker 2: sites for I think nine of the eighteen something like
Speaker 2: nine of the eighteen holes. You know, the green is
Speaker 2: forty yards away or more from where it was last time,
Speaker 2: and change, you know, just the way I just described
Speaker 2: two and three. So you know, I cut into the
Speaker 2: back nine on the third hole, so I changed the
Speaker 2: sequence completely, just trying to get myself out of that
Speaker 2: corner where the new second hole was. So it's a
Speaker 2: very different golf course. I'm looking forward to going back
Speaker 2: and playing it. They've you know, it's winter there now.
Speaker 2: They started member play late in the fall, like two
Speaker 2: months ago, but they really haven't had a ton of
Speaker 2: visitor to play at all. They just had they just
Speaker 2: let the members out on it a little bit before
Speaker 2: it got nasty. So this, you know, coming up here
Speaker 2: October and November, they'll really be back on the golf
Speaker 2: course full time. And I'll probably I'll probably go in
Speaker 2: November and play it for some member event thing. But
Speaker 2: I think it turned out to be a pretty dramatic
Speaker 2: golf course. You know. It's kind of like it's it's
Speaker 2: more dramatic than I thought it was going to be
Speaker 2: when we started. It's certainly way bigger change than they
Speaker 2: ever visualized in the first place. And you know, to
Speaker 2: their credit, when I came back to them with that plan,
Speaker 2: they were like, oh, well that's that's a lot more
Speaker 2: than we were thinking. But how much would this cost?
Speaker 2: And and you know, can you can you help write
Speaker 2: this up so we can so the members will get
Speaker 2: excited about it. You know. The other thing that made
Speaker 2: it happen was they've got fifty four holes. They actually
Speaker 2: have seventy two holes. They merged with another club that's
Speaker 2: up closer to Melbourne, so they have a course up
Speaker 2: closer to the city too, So it's it's no big
Speaker 2: yang for them to close a golf course for six
Speaker 2: months and take it out of play. They've still got
Speaker 2: plenty of other places to play. You know, that's the
Speaker 2: thing that holds you back on most existing courses. To
Speaker 2: really make changes, you got to close and most, you know,
Speaker 2: most existing clubs do not want to close the golf course.
Speaker 2: So that means if you won't close the golf course
Speaker 2: when you're remodeling, that means you're not going to do
Speaker 2: the two most important things. You're not going to change
Speaker 2: the routing and you're not going to change the greens,
Speaker 2: and then all you're doing is playing around with the bunkers.
Speaker 2: You're kind of you know, it's kind of like rearranging
Speaker 2: the furniture. You're not really changing things that much.
Speaker 1: It's a good way to look at with it taking
Speaker 1: an old course, how is the work different from say
Speaker 1: a new build or also conversely a restoration.
Speaker 2: Well, the interesting thing to me the nashvill wound up
Speaker 2: getting a great bargain out of us for how much
Speaker 2: we charged them to rebuild everything. Because I just looked
Speaker 2: at what it was going to take to build these
Speaker 2: new greens and the places that I wanted to put them,
Speaker 2: and they were all great natural green sites that you know,
Speaker 2: it took Brian Schneider a day or two to build
Speaker 2: most of those greens.
Speaker 1: I think he was posting about how quickly the greens
Speaker 1: were getting done, as I remember.
Speaker 2: But tearing up the old ones. You know, they'd done
Speaker 2: a lot more work to build the old ones, and
Speaker 2: we basically had to undo everything that they'd done to
Speaker 2: make it go away visually. So the destruction part of
Speaker 2: it was way way more work than I visualized that
Speaker 2: it was. And you know, I mean realistically, if I
Speaker 2: was a contractor, I would or more quite a bit
Speaker 2: more for that than just building a new course, because
Speaker 2: you got to you got to do everything you're gonna
Speaker 2: do to shape a new course, but then you've also
Speaker 2: got to go fix a bunch of things from the
Speaker 2: old course that are just you know, that old green
Speaker 2: is kind of in the middle of a fairway now,
Speaker 2: so you can't ignore it. You've gotta you gotta knock
Speaker 2: down the edges and make it look like it wasn't there.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because that, you know, in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases that people like Ethan wondering this, So they're
Speaker 1: thinking about all these golf courses that were built from
Speaker 1: you know, in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and those courses
Speaker 1: were also expensive to build because of all the earthwork
Speaker 1: they did.
Speaker 2: They didn't go find the natural green sites, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, for Ethan's question, you know, you'd be
Speaker 2: better finding an old golf course to renovate because there's
Speaker 2: at least not so much of that. You know, whatever
Speaker 2: they built, they didn't spend so much time or money
Speaker 2: building it, so it'll be easier to make that part
Speaker 2: go away.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a little bit about the new project
Speaker 1: at in New Zealand. Is there anything else you guys
Speaker 1: are working on in the horizon.
Speaker 2: There's a lot on the horizon. The one that we're
Speaker 2: going to get to the start on the summer is
Speaker 2: the Saint Patrick's project in Ireland, which I've been reluctant
Speaker 2: to talk about because I didn't want to jinx the
Speaker 2: thing from happening. We've looked at projects in Ireland a
Speaker 2: couple times before and they always fell through in some
Speaker 2: odd circumstances, and and you know, it's been I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, that's always been on my bucket list of
Speaker 2: things to do, is build a golf course in Ireland,
Speaker 2: a links course in Ireland. And I thought I was
Speaker 2: going to do it twice before and they didn't happen.
Speaker 2: And this one. You know, I've known the Casey family
Speaker 2: that owns ross Apana Resort in the Northwest for like, oh,
Speaker 2: probably eleven or twelve years now. Larry Lambrick, the photographer,
Speaker 2: introduced me to them. Originally they were they were redoing.
Speaker 2: They originally had thirty six holes at ross Apana, and
Speaker 2: one of the nine, one of the older nines, used
Speaker 2: to like cross roads. It used to cross two roads
Speaker 2: going out and to the same two roads coming back
Speaker 2: in the course of nine holes to loop in with
Speaker 2: the what they call the old Tom Morris nine that
Speaker 2: runs along the beach. And you know, the place is
Speaker 2: getting busier and people were building the holiday homes and
Speaker 2: those roads were getting really busy, and that those that
Speaker 2: nine was just too dangerous. I mean, you're just hitting
Speaker 2: across traffic in awkward you know, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: yards off the de in really awkward places where you're
Speaker 2: likely to hit a car. So it just it was
Speaker 2: dangerous and it didn't work. And they they had just
Speaker 2: enough land on the sea side of the road to
Speaker 2: squeeze in nine holes there so they didn't have to
Speaker 2: cross the road anymore. And Pat Reddy actually built the
Speaker 2: nine holes, but they were still growing it in and
Speaker 2: they didn't you know, he had kind of like not
Speaker 2: built any bunkers. He was going to leave that till later.
Speaker 2: You know. They'd done it on a shoe string, really,
Speaker 2: and you know they were They asked us if we'd
Speaker 2: look at it and see if we had some suggestions
Speaker 2: to make it a little more dramatic, and you know,
Speaker 2: I gave him a couple of ideas, and Eric Iverson
Speaker 2: basically spent a couple of months over there at one
Speaker 2: point just redoing green complexes on three or four of
Speaker 2: those holes, adding some bunkers and making it a little better.
Speaker 2: But from the well at the beginning, I think Larry thought,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe I would help them do some work
Speaker 2: to their second course. There are Sandy Hills, which is
Speaker 2: a really dramatic, really pretty, really hard modern golf course.
Speaker 2: You see it when you see pictures of Rossa Penna,
Speaker 2: it's usually of Sandy Hills. It's up in some really
Speaker 2: big dunes and the fairways are mostly elevated well above
Speaker 2: the old Tom Morris nine, so you've got great views
Speaker 2: of the bay and the mountains around the bay. I
Speaker 2: mean it's a spectacular looking place, but it is a
Speaker 2: heck of a hard golf course to play in the wind,
Speaker 2: and of course in Northwest Ireland is windy all the time,
Speaker 2: so you know, so the feedback on the Sandy Hills
Speaker 2: course is always you know, some people love it because
Speaker 2: it's spectacular and pretty, but a lot of people lose
Speaker 2: a lot of balls and get really frustrated with it too,
Speaker 2: And there's sort of handcuffed done how much they could
Speaker 2: do about that because they're right in the edge of
Speaker 2: land with a bunch of environmental restrictions, so it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, you're not allowed to go out and cut
Speaker 2: the rough all down way out in there and soften
Speaker 2: the shapes. Just can't do it. So it was limited
Speaker 2: on whether they could really do much to change the
Speaker 2: golf course. They've started mowing it more, they've taken out
Speaker 2: a couple of the bunkers in front of the greens.
Speaker 2: Over the years, it was still a hard golf course.
Speaker 2: But anyway, you know, right when I first met them,
Speaker 2: there was this the property next door to them is
Speaker 2: this place called Saint Patrick's and back in the nineties
Speaker 2: when the EU was forming and Ireland was going to
Speaker 2: be part of the EU. A couple of the architects
Speaker 2: in Ireland, Eddie Hackett and Pat Ruddy and a couple
Speaker 2: other guys, went around to all the little clubs and said,
Speaker 2: you know, any of you that own any more of
Speaker 2: this duneesland, you should go build something on it right now,
Speaker 2: because once we're part of Europe they're going to draw
Speaker 2: a circle around it say you can't touch that anymore.
Speaker 2: And they were dead right. I mean, the you know,
Speaker 2: European designation is a special area of conservation and they
Speaker 2: pretty much just drew a red line around every piece
Speaker 2: of untouched dunesland in Ireland and said, no, can't do
Speaker 2: anything there, you know, like can't even just mow it out.
Speaker 2: One of those projects I looked at in Ireland years
Speaker 2: ago is not much more than mowing out something like that.
Speaker 2: And it was still a no or it was still
Speaker 2: so so long of a permit question. You know, in
Speaker 2: theory you could get special permission to do something, but
Speaker 2: nobody ever has.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of what you just touched on earlier
Speaker 1: that Mike Kaiser's been dealing with in Scotland.
Speaker 2: At Yes, Britain is a little Britain's a little different.
Speaker 2: You know, they insisted even before the whole Brexit thing
Speaker 2: when they joined Europe, one of the things they insisted on,
Speaker 2: in addition to their own currency, was their own environment rules.
Speaker 2: We're not going to let everybody in Brussels tell us
Speaker 2: what we can and can't do here. So the designation's different.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, like if Trump, if if Trump's
Speaker 2: Aberdeen project was in Ireland, he couldn't have done it.
Speaker 2: They never would have got permission, It wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: up to a government vote. It would have been a
Speaker 2: bunch of bureaucrats just saying no and no recourse. So
Speaker 2: this so somebody built, actually Eddie Hackett and oh young
Speaker 2: woman that worked for him built thirty six holes on
Speaker 2: this Saint Patrick's site twenty twenty five years ago now
Speaker 2: for a hotel owner in the next town over from
Speaker 2: ross Apenna put up the money to do it. And
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful piece of land. It was kind
Speaker 2: of trying to get thirty six holes on the land.
Speaker 2: It was really crammed in. There were a bunch of
Speaker 2: there's a big hill in the middle of it that
Speaker 2: a bunch of the holes were just fairways running up
Speaker 2: and down the hill. It looks crazy from it when
Speaker 2: you look at it from a distance, it's like really
Speaker 2: just up down, up, down, and are pretty good. You know,
Speaker 2: Cole's going up and down sixty feet from tee to green.
Speaker 2: But you know, when Ireland became part of Europe and
Speaker 2: they drew the red lines, there was a golf course there,
Speaker 2: so they just drew the red bubble to away from it,
Speaker 2: and it's the land is still fair game, so you
Speaker 2: can change Saint Patrick's. So for years this golf course
Speaker 2: is done like almost no play. And ten years ago
Speaker 2: when I met the cases and things in Ireland were
Speaker 2: really booming. Some Irish developer had hired Jack Nicholas to
Speaker 2: he was going to do thirty six holes there and
Speaker 2: he actually started. They spent about two weeks in construction
Speaker 2: in the fall of two thousand and seven or an eight,
Speaker 2: I can't remember which, and then the financial crisis in
Speaker 2: the financial crisis hit Ireland and basically the contractor, did
Speaker 2: you know, the developer pulled out, the contractor didn't get paid,
Speaker 2: construction stopped completely and the thing is just sat there
Speaker 2: ever since, and kind of they had torn up three
Speaker 2: or four holes. They're just kind of been blown around
Speaker 2: in the wind for several years, but nobody, nobody doing
Speaker 2: anything about it. And of course the only the only
Speaker 2: potential buyer for it was the cases because they're because
Speaker 2: they're because they're they're right next to it, so they
Speaker 2: but they they weren't in any hurry because they knew
Speaker 2: nobody was nobody else was going to bid against them.
Speaker 2: So I don't know how long they you know, they
Speaker 2: waited three or four years until the price came down
Speaker 2: to something that was reasonable for them and probably not
Speaker 2: a whole lot of money, and bought the property. And
Speaker 2: then you know, they they've still been you know, they've
Speaker 2: been looking at it for years, and I've been looking
Speaker 2: at it for years with him, of you know, what
Speaker 2: could we do on this site? But you know, the
Speaker 2: golf economy in Ireland has bounced back slowly but surely
Speaker 2: since the recession, but for a while there it wasn't
Speaker 2: very good. So it's taken a long time to get
Speaker 2: to the point where they're like, okay, you know, now
Speaker 2: seems to be the time where this will work. And
Speaker 2: and partly it's that the Frank Senior, his sons John
Speaker 2: and Frank Junior are both in their early mid thirties,
Speaker 2: and of course they're just gung ho to build this thing.
Speaker 2: They're like, they're so excited, but you know that they're
Speaker 2: there's there be They've been being groomed for a long
Speaker 2: time to take over the place for the next generation.
Speaker 2: And they're they're still not quite running the whole show yet,
Speaker 2: although they kind of do. John runs the hotel, Bank
Speaker 2: runs the golf operation. They've been doing that for a
Speaker 2: few years, you know, and so it's all been convincing
Speaker 2: their dad, you know, let's really do this now, and
Speaker 2: we're finally ready to go. And the one thing I
Speaker 2: said to mister Casey in the beginning, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: we had way more than enough land for eighteen holes easily,
Speaker 2: you know, it was it was always tight for the
Speaker 2: thirty six one of the one of the one of
Speaker 2: the two golf courses was fifty five hundred yards or something.
Speaker 2: And of course there are a lot of parallel fairways
Speaker 2: up and down that hill that weren't really that attractive.
Speaker 2: And you know, they looked at well, maybe just do
Speaker 2: twenty seven holes, you know, and like like tack nine
Speaker 2: holes onto the old Tom Morris nine and then do
Speaker 2: eighteen holes. Inland of that, and I thought about it
Speaker 2: and thought about it. You know, I've been working on
Speaker 2: routings for a long time. But you know, finally I
Speaker 2: said to mister Casey, you know, you've got forty five
Speaker 2: holes now because they still use that. They shortened up that,
Speaker 2: that old nine that went across the roads, but they
Speaker 2: still use it, you know. And yeah, you could have
Speaker 2: a you could have two more eighteen holes, but you know,
Speaker 2: just two more good eighteen hole golf courses really do
Speaker 2: much for you other than increase the overall overall volume.
Speaker 2: And Rossa Penn is not the easiest place to get to,
Speaker 2: so you know, thinking they're going to double the number
Speaker 2: of people that go there now is that's going to
Speaker 2: take a while. The best case, you know, I just said,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things I've learned from Mike
Speaker 2: Kaiser is you never worry about what the next golf
Speaker 2: course is going to be. You just focus on making
Speaker 2: this one as good as you can because that's the
Speaker 2: only way. The only way you're going to do another
Speaker 2: one is if this one is really successful. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's weird in Bandon, Well, they're building their not counting
Speaker 2: the preserve, They're building their fifth eighteen whole course now,
Speaker 2: and they'll have five different clubhouses for those five, which
Speaker 2: is pretty insane. Anybody in planning school will tell you,
Speaker 2: well that that doesn't make any sense at all. You know,
Speaker 2: they should, they should all operate out of two clubhouses.
Speaker 2: But the golf courses are better because they don't because.
Speaker 1: They each are an individual because you know, they were
Speaker 1: thought of as individual projects rather than a cohesive unit.
Speaker 2: R right, Well, because they were because nobody had to
Speaker 2: compromise and make their eighteenth hole get back to that clubhouse,
Speaker 2: even though they didn't really want to hold there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then so what you you Bill and you
Speaker 1: did at stream Song were because it was a collaborative
Speaker 1: process where you had the single clubhouse, But then the
Speaker 1: Black Course has its own clubhouse because it's you know,
Speaker 1: if Gill had to somehow get back to that, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't work.
Speaker 2: Now. We had enough trouble just making you know, neither
Speaker 2: of our courses come back to the clubhouse at the
Speaker 2: ninth Hall. That's why, I mean, one of the one
Speaker 2: of the big reasons they pushed to get the Black
Speaker 2: Course going as soon as they did was, you know,
Speaker 2: in the winter when the when the golf day is
Speaker 2: not too long for thirty six holes. They didn't have
Speaker 2: very many starting points, you know, they couldn't. They didn't
Speaker 2: want to start people on number seven on the Blue
Speaker 2: or the Red course that much. And you know, so
Speaker 2: you got just got two starting points and you can
Speaker 2: only get a certain number of tea times out there
Speaker 2: that they're going to have room to clear and have
Speaker 2: lunch and play eighteen holes in the afternoon. It's not
Speaker 2: you know, Band in summer is the big season. You
Speaker 2: could play fifty four holes a day in the summer,
Speaker 2: but stream Song, the busiest season is like the shortest
Speaker 2: days of the year, and getting people around twice is
Speaker 2: hard to do. So having another golf course that has
Speaker 2: two starting points is a real help for that.
Speaker 1: The uh so, it's interesting, you know, have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to probably build thirty six holes, but talking him into
Speaker 1: eighteen great holes, Yeah, I mean that's a I mean
Speaker 1: from a from a golf course fan, that's a I mean,
Speaker 1: who doesn't want a great I think that's actually smart
Speaker 1: and longer, because it's like people are going to make
Speaker 1: an excursion to play a great golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think for for russ at Penna. I
Speaker 2: think the real the business model is, you know, let's
Speaker 2: let's get different customers to come. You know, if this,
Speaker 2: if this is a really really good golf course, you know,
Speaker 2: more people will come from America than do now. Frankly,
Speaker 2: a lot of their business now is from Europe instead
Speaker 2: of from America. You know, there are people there are
Speaker 2: an Americans that are starting to you know, give up
Speaker 2: on the Southwest of Ireland route because it's so so
Speaker 2: busy in the summer and look for different places in
Speaker 2: Ireland or Scotland that they can go that aren't quite
Speaker 2: you know, where you just see nothing but Americans the
Speaker 2: whole two weeks you're there. That's kind of weird, but
Speaker 2: that does happen, you know in La Hinch and Saint
Speaker 2: Andrew's and a few places around the UK and Ireland
Speaker 2: and the Northwest of Ireland, you don't really see that
Speaker 2: at all. You get Swedes, you get Germans, you get
Speaker 2: English people and Irish people from Dublin. But you know,
Speaker 2: if they can get on Americans radar, you know, there
Speaker 2: are a bunch of pretty good little golf courses up
Speaker 2: there now, not just the ones that Rossapenna, but Port Salon,
Speaker 2: which is not that far away. Sli Goos kind of
Speaker 2: two or three hours to the south. I mean, port
Speaker 2: Rush is actually closer than Sligo is. Port Rush is
Speaker 2: only a couple hours to the east of Rossapana. So
Speaker 2: you know, ideally they would tie into the more people
Speaker 2: that are going to county down in port Rush, but
Speaker 2: also they might be able to tie into the people
Speaker 2: that are looking to get away from the crowds and
Speaker 2: the super expensive places and go somewhere where it's a
Speaker 2: little more affordable and the golf is still really good
Speaker 2: and you feel like you're in the countryside of Ireland
Speaker 2: instead of you know, you don't see tour buses full
Speaker 2: of golfers.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of almost like the New Frontier, Yeah,
Speaker 1: new old Frontier.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in theory, it ought'd be easier to get
Speaker 2: people to get there than Tasmania.
Speaker 1: Definitely, or New Zealand, like we were talking out of
Speaker 1: the beginning of this, right.
Speaker 2: But it's funny, you know, I've realized over the years,
Speaker 2: you know, all these golf courses I build, that they
Speaker 2: kind of compete with each other now for people's attention
Speaker 2: and for you know, I mean that the golf business
Speaker 2: has changed so much. You know, I used to think
Speaker 2: that a place like Bandon Dunes, well that doesn't compete
Speaker 2: with private clubs. Absolutely it does now, you know, Guys
Speaker 2: your age are like, why would I want to pay
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars a year to play this golf course
Speaker 2: over and over again when I don't have time to
Speaker 2: play over and over again when I'm home. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people instead of instead of joining
Speaker 2: a club, let's just take our money and go play,
Speaker 2: Go make two or three really cool golf trips a
Speaker 2: year and call it good. And then you know, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll play with my buddy who is a member there
Speaker 2: once or twice in the summer when I'm home. But
Speaker 2: that's about all the time I've got when i'm home anyway.
Speaker 2: So you know, so all these destination places compete with clubs,
Speaker 2: and all of the destination clubs, the bally Nils and
Speaker 2: the Rock Creeks and the Dismal Rivers, y'all compete with
Speaker 2: each other. You know, even if they're five hundred or
Speaker 2: one thousand miles apart, they're still trying to get the
Speaker 2: guys from San Francisco to come there.
Speaker 1: So same national members.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there's a ton of national member clubs trying
Speaker 2: to woo the same limited number of guys who are
Speaker 2: in the market to join a national club. It's a
Speaker 2: tough market right now. You know, you see a lot
Speaker 2: of consolidation where you know they're joining forces and you know,
Speaker 2: somebody's buying up a few clubs to you know, be
Speaker 2: able to offer a package instead of just one course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So with uh, with this course Saint Patrick's where in
Speaker 1: terms of the landscape you described it a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that we're talking more of the dramatic seaside
Speaker 1: golf that we talked about, you know, where at Terry
Speaker 1: d you have a little bit of the ocean, but
Speaker 1: then you're playing up This is more all up on
Speaker 1: the ocean.
Speaker 2: There, no, no, there's a lot of variety of the property.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's more than you know, we have
Speaker 2: like three hundred and fifty acres we're working with, I
Speaker 2: think three hundred three hundred and fifty. The actual coastline,
Speaker 2: just like the old Tom Morris nine, you know, along
Speaker 2: the coastline is pretty low and then there's a little
Speaker 2: barrier dune before the beach. So if you're playing pretty
Speaker 2: close to the coast, you don't see the water very
Speaker 2: much at all. You see the water more when you're
Speaker 2: back away from it a little bit, you know, either
Speaker 2: playing toward it or just up at more elevation where
Speaker 2: even if you're pretty far away from it, you're looking
Speaker 2: right out at the bay. So some of the most
Speaker 2: dramatic looking holes of the holes back inland, there's there's
Speaker 2: it's funny where they where they didn't draw that red
Speaker 2: circle around the golf course. Right at the fence line
Speaker 2: of the golf course on the first two or three holes,
Speaker 2: there is some beautiful pasture ground, but rolling sandy pasture
Speaker 2: ground with these giant blowouts. Like just there's there's room
Speaker 2: for another golf hole to the right of the fence.
Speaker 2: We can't build it because that they drew the red
Speaker 2: line there, so we can't touch that land. All I
Speaker 2: would have to do is mow that.
Speaker 1: All Eddie had to do was take one of those
Speaker 1: holes playing up the hill and put it over there.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a different farmer, and that farmer wasn't
Speaker 2: interested in selling off where he grazed his sheep and cows,
Speaker 2: so it didn't happen. And because it didn't happen in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, it can't happen now. So but you know,
Speaker 2: when you play the early holes, you're looking at that,
Speaker 2: and when you play some of the finishing holes coming
Speaker 2: down the hill at the end, you're also looking at
Speaker 2: that in the distance. And it's just like a magnet.
Speaker 2: You know, you got the bay on one side and
Speaker 2: you got those dunes on the other, and you're looking
Speaker 2: at the dunes. That's how good they are. But in between,
Speaker 2: instead of going up and down the hill, I kind
Speaker 2: of go around the hill and end up the backside.
Speaker 2: And so the property has a lot of there's like
Speaker 2: you know, like like a lot of good courses. If
Speaker 2: you just went out and wandered around the property. In
Speaker 2: your brain, it kind of divides up into three or
Speaker 2: four different field areas that have a different feel to them.
Speaker 2: And we're gonna get to all those areas in the
Speaker 2: course of eighteen holes.
Speaker 1: That's the cool so it'll be hey, you're accomplishing building
Speaker 1: in Ireland. And we talked a little bit about Renaissance Club.
Speaker 1: How's like the topography different from from Scotland at Renaissance
Speaker 1: Club to to the site of Saint Patrick's in Ireland.
Speaker 2: Uh well, those those the newer holes at the Renaissance
Speaker 2: Club that we got permission to build after the fact.
Speaker 2: And I should go back a second. That started the
Speaker 2: original property for the Renaissance Club when the Cervatis bought it,
Speaker 2: that it was already like there was a planning application
Speaker 2: already in progress to make a golf course out of it.
Speaker 2: I mean they actually they didn't buy the land. They're
Speaker 2: leasing the land from the estate of the Duke of Hamilton.
Speaker 2: The Dukes the state are partners in the in the deal,
Speaker 2: and so they had filed a planning permit to put
Speaker 2: a golf course. And when we when we started doing
Speaker 2: the planning, you know, the Duke owned right up to
Speaker 2: the stone wall along the apholl at Mierfield and and
Speaker 2: the sixth there's one of the sixth also, and Mierfield
Speaker 2: was a little nervous about an American neighbor owning right
Speaker 2: up to the wall, like there's trees on our side
Speaker 2: of the wall. But for all Mierfield knew, we'd knock
Speaker 2: down all the trees and build a hole right there
Speaker 2: and wave at the members of Mierfield. And they really
Speaker 2: didn't want that to happen. And Obviously, my client wasn't
Speaker 2: going to do that. But Mierfield asked, can we trade
Speaker 2: you some property? Can will you just give us that
Speaker 2: strip of trees along our wall so a buffer, And
Speaker 2: actually they put the ninth tee back for the for
Speaker 2: the open back on some of the property they they
Speaker 2: swapped with us. And for that they swapped they traded
Speaker 2: us some land in the dunes on the very point
Speaker 2: of the property. That's some of the prettiest view you've
Speaker 2: ever seen. Mierfield actually owns like another two hundred acres
Speaker 2: of dunes along the water. It's unbelievable piece of land
Speaker 2: for a golf course, but they would probably never get
Speaker 2: planning permission to do it. There's a bunch of the dunes.
Speaker 2: The formation of the dunes themselves is considered important and distinctive,
Speaker 2: so you couldn't you couldn't like bulldoze into a sand dune.
Speaker 2: And then there's also when we tried to get permission
Speaker 2: to build on the land they traded us, there are
Speaker 2: these big patches of like mossy stuff that is important
Speaker 2: for biodiversity, and there's not too many places like it.
Speaker 2: So you know, there were big you know, there were
Speaker 2: just big like quilt patches of places that they didn't
Speaker 2: want us to touch. It was like we were trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what we could do while avoiding all
Speaker 2: these areas. But then I think one of the reasons
Speaker 2: Mierfield was actually interested in the trade was they let
Speaker 2: us figure out if it was possible to get permits
Speaker 2: to do anything out there. But so we made the
Speaker 2: trade right away. But we couldn't ask, you know, we
Speaker 2: couldn't ask to change the plan for the golf course
Speaker 2: that was in the zoning process, because once we changed
Speaker 2: the boundary of the land that we wanted to work on,
Speaker 2: it would be back to square one and start over.
Speaker 2: And they're like, it's taking five years to get to
Speaker 2: this point. We cannot do that, so will you? You know,
Speaker 2: so lay out an eighteen hole golf course on what
Speaker 2: we've got now. But try to think if we got
Speaker 2: permission later on to build a couple of holes, you
Speaker 2: know how you would throw something out of this routing
Speaker 2: to tie those in and still have an eighteen hole
Speaker 2: golf course. So when I routed the Renaissance Club, the
Speaker 2: original first three holes came right back to the ouse,
Speaker 2: the fourth went out, and the fifth came back and
Speaker 2: the six goes out again. So if I came up
Speaker 2: with a two hole solution or a three hole solution,
Speaker 2: I had some I could yank out and make it work.
Speaker 2: And of course it wound up being more complicated than
Speaker 2: that when we did everything, because they you know, we
Speaker 2: only we only we kind of built two new holes.
Speaker 2: But the original first three holes, even though we liked them,
Speaker 2: were kind of they were shorter, two shorter part fours,
Speaker 2: and they were back in the trees more than the
Speaker 2: rest of the golf course. So those are the ones
Speaker 2: that they wanted to lose out of the routing. So
Speaker 2: we had to change around some more in order to
Speaker 2: make it make up for the three holes that we
Speaker 2: took out. They're now practice holes. So very long winded
Speaker 2: way of how we how we did that. But so
Speaker 2: the new court, the new part of the Renaissance Club,
Speaker 2: there's a par three when you know, when you play
Speaker 2: to the g when you walk toward the green, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden you're kind of coming around the corner
Speaker 2: and the Fidra Island and the lighthouse come into view
Speaker 2: and it's like spectacular and if you've never been there
Speaker 2: for the first time, it's like holy cow, I can't
Speaker 2: believe they build a hole there. And then you have
Speaker 2: to walk back in between all the patches of dune
Speaker 2: grass and moss that they didn't want us to touch
Speaker 2: to get to the back tee of the tenth hole,
Speaker 2: which will be the fourth hole for the tournament. But
Speaker 2: it's a cape hole. Playing along a cliff just above
Speaker 2: the beach looking over at the lighthouse is spectacular and
Speaker 2: it's like, I honestly can't believe they let me build
Speaker 2: a golf hole. I mean, we built were right on
Speaker 2: the edge of the cliff looking down at the beach,
Speaker 2: and the only reason we got permission to build is
Speaker 2: because somebody had planted buckthorne along there to stop people
Speaker 2: from wanting to come up from the beach. Basically, don't
Speaker 2: get on our property. And the buck thorn is not
Speaker 2: a native plant, and it gets once it gets big,
Speaker 2: it sort of starts choking itself out and dying back.
Speaker 2: And then you get like wind erosion and problems because
Speaker 2: because it starts going away on its own and nothing
Speaker 2: else comes in to replace it, and it just the
Speaker 2: land gets torn up pretty fast. So the environmental people
Speaker 2: wanted us to take all the buckthorn out and then
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, it'd be pretty hard to revegetate
Speaker 2: that with all native plants, but they let us plant
Speaker 2: grass on it to revegetate it. So we could actually
Speaker 2: play a fairway right along there, which I did not
Speaker 2: see coming. But it was a really happy accident that
Speaker 2: it worked out that way. So, you know, we thought
Speaker 2: we'd be down in the sand dunes more and it
Speaker 2: turned out we were barely down in there at all.
Speaker 2: But we got visually, at least the most dramatic holes
Speaker 2: that we could have got by adding the two that
Speaker 2: we did, so Saint Patrick's Saint Patrick's is different. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, the Renaissance Club. Once you get inland from
Speaker 2: those holes, it's not flat, but it's flatter. You know.
Speaker 2: The undulations are all like the small scale fair way
Speaker 2: kind of undulations you see on links courses. You know,
Speaker 2: in general, Scottish links are generally flatter and not so flashy,
Speaker 2: and Irish links are bigger and more dramatic, at least
Speaker 2: the ones that that are the famous ones that people
Speaker 2: go to. You know, Truon is low grade rolling stuff.
Speaker 2: Bally Bunyan is big crashing undulations and playing between two
Speaker 2: big dunes. And you know that's the difference between Saint
Speaker 2: Patrick's and the Renaissance Club too. Saint Patrick's is much
Speaker 2: more dramatic visually. You're just you're not playing right along
Speaker 2: the water as much as Barnboogle or Pacific Dunes. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, no place does, yeh, but but most links
Speaker 2: courses don't either. I mean, you know, bally Bunion is
Speaker 2: the real exception to the rule there. La Hinch is not.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a great golf course and a beautiful
Speaker 2: site and it's you know, it's pretty, but there's only
Speaker 2: actually the third hole. The third hole is the only
Speaker 2: one that's that's right along the sea and along the beach,
Speaker 2: and then you've got the twelfth hole along the river.
Speaker 2: I guess that new part three they added is kind
Speaker 2: of up in along the along the sea. But there's
Speaker 2: only two or three holes that are really close to
Speaker 2: the sea. And that's what Saint Patrick's will have to
Speaker 2: But there's a bunch of pretty holes, yeah that we
Speaker 2: don't have to we don't have to work hard to
Speaker 2: make them pretty.
Speaker 1: It's there dramatic dunes and uh yeah, that's that's cool
Speaker 1: and it'll be something for all golf fans. And the
Speaker 1: thing about Ireland, for the East Coast is easier to
Speaker 1: get to Ireland than it is to get to West
Speaker 1: Coast in terms of flight and flying time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, certainly if you're from New York, it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's not that hard a trip to get to the
Speaker 2: north of Ireland. It'd be like the first thing you
Speaker 2: could land on if you if you had your own plane.
Speaker 2: It's super simple to get there.
Speaker 1: And they already have a hotel and everything, so that'll
Speaker 1: be that'll be exciting.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean from our perspective, the coolest thing about
Speaker 2: it is, you know, they already run a golf operation.
Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty easy. Other than hiring a superintendent
Speaker 2: for the new project, we don't really have to we
Speaker 2: don't have to make create a bunch more infrastructure. You know,
Speaker 2: we have to have a little shed to store some
Speaker 2: of the equipment over there, but we're sharing equipment with
Speaker 2: the other golf courses and and it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: a pretty simple thing to ramp up to and and
Speaker 2: you know, open a few holes as soon as they're
Speaker 2: ready to open a few holes. Although we'll have a
Speaker 2: separate clubhouse, you know, the clubhouse will be in the
Speaker 2: middle of the site for Saint Patrick's with the golf
Speaker 2: course revolving around it. We couldn't figure out a way
Speaker 2: to you know, it was at the far end of
Speaker 2: the old Tom Morris nine or Sandy Hill, so it
Speaker 2: didn't really make sense to try to shuttle people out there,
Speaker 2: and those weren't the holes we would have wanted to
Speaker 2: start on right when he got to the fence anyway.
Speaker 1: So construction I'll start in a couple next couple of
Speaker 1: weeks for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually built We actually built a couple of
Speaker 2: greens there last summer. We had the time, and it
Speaker 2: was sort of a test case to see how easily
Speaker 2: we could do it and kind of what we wanted
Speaker 2: the greens construction method to be. And one of them,
Speaker 2: it was one of the areas that was like that
Speaker 2: had been torn up a little from that previous attempt
Speaker 2: ten years ago, so we were stabilizing it at the
Speaker 2: same time. But yeah, we're going to start shaping greens
Speaker 2: in earnest this summer, and you know, we're hoping to
Speaker 2: do a lot of the creative work and the greens
Speaker 2: and bunkers and plant all that stuff this fall. But
Speaker 2: then we'll have to come back next year and do
Speaker 2: most of the fairways because you know, we don't we
Speaker 2: don't have the irrigation infrastructure right now to do all
Speaker 2: the fair to do all the fairway work at the
Speaker 2: same time. So it's probably still two years away from opening,
Speaker 2: even though a lot of the cool stuff will get
Speaker 2: shaped this year.
Speaker 1: Since we're on the topic of Ireland and you mentioned
Speaker 1: it earlier, what are your thoughts on Port Rush with
Speaker 1: this year's Open Championship coming up.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm interested to see them play that course. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was it was always one of my favorite courses
Speaker 2: over there, and you know, a lot of the a
Speaker 2: lot of the famous Open Championship courses. Surprisingly, the greens
Speaker 2: designs are pretty dull because either they're very old just
Speaker 2: natural lay the green on the ground type of green sites,
Speaker 2: or you know, they were built before the Golden Age.
Speaker 2: For the most part, I mean, of the of the
Speaker 2: of the courses they play the Open on, you know
Speaker 2: St Andrew's greens are special. Obviously they're just you know,
Speaker 2: but those are pretty natural. But like Troon and Carnoustie
Speaker 2: and Birkdale and Litham, the greens are not There's not
Speaker 2: that much going on on a lot of them. Uh,
Speaker 2: Mirfield's got a great set of greens. I think we're
Speaker 2: all Saint George's has a really cool set of greens.
Speaker 2: It's older, but it was you know, Mackenzie did a
Speaker 2: few of those, and a couple of other architects. It
Speaker 2: did work. After the fact, Port Rush is hs colt
Speaker 2: from start to finish. You know, there was an older
Speaker 2: you know, I think they've got they got thirty six
Speaker 2: or forty five holes there now with some little course
Speaker 2: for women and children. But originally it was an eighteen
Speaker 2: hole place. There was an older golf course, but Cole
Speaker 2: turned it into thirty six holes in nineteen twenty. And
Speaker 2: you know the one thing that kind of bummed me
Speaker 2: out was that the second course there, which wasn't as
Speaker 2: long or strong, I thought was a terrific golf course,
Speaker 2: and they sort of stole some of the best property
Speaker 2: off that to build the two new holes for the Open. So,
Speaker 2: you know, to get the Open, they took the other
Speaker 2: golf course backwards. And I thought that the other golf
Speaker 2: course was really fun too, So I was kind of
Speaker 2: sorry to see that happen, honestly, But what they what
Speaker 2: they wound up with is a you know, true championship
Speaker 2: course with a great set of greens, all built by
Speaker 2: one guy or except for the two new holes, and
Speaker 2: you know, a really consistent design feel to it, like
Speaker 2: most of the great courses in America, instead of what
Speaker 2: you normally see in the UK, where it's kind of
Speaker 2: a mishmash of three or four evolutions from the mid
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds to now.
Speaker 1: With Harry Colt, you know, he's was arguably one of
Speaker 1: the most influential. I mean, he was one of the
Speaker 1: most influential people on golf architecture. Some would argue he
Speaker 1: was the most influential, but in America he's very little
Speaker 1: is known about him because he didn't design that many
Speaker 1: golf courses here for people just kind of what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on Harry Colton? A few you know, design
Speaker 1: qualities that will be able to get from viewing the
Speaker 1: open that are unique to him.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know if I know how a
Speaker 2: type cast his golf courses. You know, the first thing
Speaker 2: I'd say, he's probably he might be the most influential
Speaker 2: of all the Golden Age architects because you know, not
Speaker 2: only because of all the great golf courses he built
Speaker 2: in the UK and in Europe, but he didn't really
Speaker 2: like to travel, so he wound up sending his partners,
Speaker 2: Alison and Mackenzie, to travel and do golf in some
Speaker 2: of the rest of the world. You know, most of
Speaker 2: the cult courses in North America are the ones with
Speaker 2: his name on them are actually Allison's. Alison lived in
Speaker 2: the in the States in the twenties, and you know,
Speaker 2: had an office in Detroit, and you know, did Milwaukee
Speaker 2: Country Club, and redid the Country Club of Detroit, and
Speaker 2: did the courses in Toronto Golf Club, and you know,
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of golf courses, mostly in the Midwest.
Speaker 2: They didn't compete so much in the East Coast, you know,
Speaker 2: Flynn and Ross and everybody were tilling house were so
Speaker 2: busy out there, they didn't try to compete with that.
Speaker 2: Allison came to the Midwest, where there was you know,
Speaker 2: where there weren't as many well known architects to compete with,
Speaker 2: and just soaked up, you know, doing the best course
Speaker 2: in a lot of the big cities in the Midwest.
Speaker 2: In a very short span. Cole only came, I think
Speaker 2: he only came to America once in like nineteen twelve,
Speaker 2: nineteen fourteen, somewhere around there. He did the original course
Speaker 2: for the Country Club of Detroit, of which there was
Speaker 2: only a few holes left. They changed it used to
Speaker 2: kind of go toward the lake, and it doesn't do
Speaker 2: that anymore. And I think he did Toronto Golf Club
Speaker 2: and he he gave his input on Pine Valley to George.
Speaker 2: But then, you know, once the war came, he just
Speaker 2: he didn't want to travel back and forth. He hated traveling.
Speaker 2: He didn't even like making a long train for the
Speaker 2: smart man. Yeah, I can relate. I can relate to
Speaker 2: not wanting to do that. And of course by then
Speaker 2: he was older. I mean he was you know, he
Speaker 2: was older than Mackenzie and Alison and the rest of him.
Speaker 2: You know, he you know, he'd spent years being a
Speaker 2: solicitor in a club secretary before he was a golf
Speaker 2: course architect. So he didn't you know, he liked the work,
Speaker 2: but he had plenty of work close to home. He
Speaker 2: didn't have to go to Japan to do that. He
Speaker 2: didn't have the ego where he really wanted to. So,
Speaker 2: you know, Tokyo Golf Club did contact Cole Originally that's
Speaker 2: who they wanted to come over to design their golf course.
Speaker 2: Colet sent Alison instead, and Alison stayed and did the
Speaker 2: five best courses in Japan while he was there.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, I just thought of this as
Speaker 1: like back then, you've probably he probably could have just said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm coming over and he could have sent Alison.
Speaker 2: It wasn't they wouldn't know. They only would have known,
Speaker 2: because it's funnily enough. I mean I've only I've read
Speaker 2: that story once or twice. But you know, Australia that
Speaker 2: might have worked because there wasn't much crossover between Australia
Speaker 2: and Britain at that point. Although Alex Russell did go
Speaker 2: play like in the amateur in the UK and stuff,
Speaker 2: so he probably would have known that. He might have
Speaker 2: kept quiet. But you know, the clients and the powerful,
Speaker 2: the influential people in Japan actually had a lot of
Speaker 2: them had been educated in the UK. They that's where
Speaker 2: they learned golf. Is they went to school at Oxford
Speaker 2: or Cambridge or somewhere and started playing golf, and then
Speaker 2: they went back to Japan and there was app for
Speaker 2: golf courses in Japan. So they wanted, you know, they
Speaker 2: wanted the best UK architects to come help them.
Speaker 1: Interesting and that's and that's why he didn't have American
Speaker 1: architects were never contacted to design and it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I never had thought about that. That will do it
Speaker 1: for this episode of The Yok with Dok. We will
Speaker 1: be back in a couple of weeks with a new episode.
Speaker 2: Thanks