WEBVTT - Yolk with Doak 16: St. Patrick’s and Building from Scratch vs. Renovating 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.440 Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:08.039 and another episode of the Yoke with Dok. Today's episode 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:12.120 is powered by Tdameritrade. Every stroke counts on the scorecard 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.200 and every penny counts in the market. That's why tedamor 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.599 Trade is committed to straightforward pricing with no surprises, so 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.720 you're free to swing with confidence. Visit tedamritrade dot com 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:28.800 slash Frida Egg member SIPC. In this episode with Tom Dok, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.800 we talked with Tom about how difficult it is renovating 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.199 a course compared to restoring one and his new project 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.960 in Ireland at the Rossapana Resort, Saint Patrick's. As a reminder, 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.680 check out our pro shop. We have some new towels 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.400 up in the shop as well as hats, t shirts, polos, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.080 great gear for summertime. Visit the pro shop at thefridagg 0:00:52.120 --> 0:01:03.320 dot com. And without further ado, here's Tom dough is 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:05.559 back and as usual he's not holding back. 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.200 But don't toss the yolk and the famously candid Oak 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.080 doesn't pull any punches. How do I make natural looking? Contour? 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.080 Hire the biggest pool in the village and told them 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:26.480 to make it flat first. Overrated, underrated, rough terribly overrated 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:27.600 over the years. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:40.840 So here's a question from Ethan Zimmont. Do you anticipate 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:46.400 we're quickly approaching a time where new, fresh, untouched sites 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.120 are going to be extinct and we'll have to focus 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.520 on blowing up existing courses to make new courses. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.240 Oh well, a lot of people told me that was 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.920 that was going to be my fate thirty years ago 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.680 when I got into the business, that all the all 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:15.760 the great news sites are gone. Not so much that earth, Yeah, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.160 not so much that you're gonna have to just rebuild 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.880 old golf courses. But you know, I mean a conventional 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.200 wisdom when I worked for Pete Dye is you know, 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.919 get him a swamp or a piece of desert or 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.360 a garbage dump or whatever, and it'll turn it into 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.240 something really cool, like the TPC at Sawgrass. So you 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.760 don't need to spend money on finding a good piece 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.920 of land. And you know that's why nobody was doing 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.800 that thirty years ago. Is it's like, oh, this would 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.160 be easier. We wouldn't we wouldn't have to try so 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.680 hard to we wouldn't have to spend so much on 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.920 the land. We wouldn't have to wait so long on 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.400 the permits to make it happen. And so to Ethan's question, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.400 I think for sure, you know, if you're a golf 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.919 developer that's getting in the business to try to really 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:15.240 make money at it, buying an old course and tearing 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.400 it down and starting over is a way better business 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.520 model because you don't, because it's already permitted as a 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.520 golf course, you don't really need anything. You can start. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.120 You can buy it one day and start construction almost 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.600 the next day. In a lot of places, you know, 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:33.959 that speeds up the you know, that speeds up the 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.720 timeframe by a couple of years. Whereas when you're a 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.320 when you're Mike Kaiser and you're you know, you're trying 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.520 to get permission to build on a new piece of 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:47.360 land down the road from Dornick. He's what two or 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.680 three years into that now, and he still doesn't know 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.800 if He's spent a lot of money on environmental consultants 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.160 and everybody else, and he's paid Bill Corp. To do 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.080 routings and he's still not sure he's going to be 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.720 able to do anything. You know, from a business standpoint, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.400 that's really hard to swallow as a business model. It's like, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.200 not many people want to do that. The only kind 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.040 of people that want to do that, or somebody like 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.880 Mike or Rick Kine or you know, a lot of 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.159 my clients they want to do something really special. And 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.120 if they want to do something really special, they want 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.520 to start from scratch. They don't want to start from 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:25.359 some failed golf course. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.400 Do you think you could do something special from a 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.719 failed golf course? And if so, what would what would 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:33.360 you look for? 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.960 Well, the hard part about redesigning is whatever is there. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.719 Everything that's happened there since the golf course got built 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:48.720 reinforces what's there. They planted trees. Now the trees are 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:54.360 getting mature, but the trees also form corridors on that 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.960 bad routing, So it's really hard. You know, if you 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.559 looked at the topo map without any of the trees 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.760 and said, you know, this would really be better if 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.080 all the holes ran north and south instead of east 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.640 and west. But they planted trees around all the holes 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.000 running east and west, it's like impossible to convert that 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.679 because there's just too many things built in your way 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:23.480 for that to really make any sense. So, like it's 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.880 not a failed golf course. This we just this last 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.840 project we built before Houston was rebuilding a course at 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.080 the National in Australia. And it's actually a project that 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.760 I looked at like twenty years before and tried to 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.560 do a routing for. But they hired Greg Norman to 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.520 do one of the courses, in Peter Thompson to do 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.680 the other one. And you know, the club's been very successful, 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.080 but the Thompson course, the Ocean course, was always like 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.080 the third best course. They have an older course that 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.839 Trent Jones Junior did. Norman's course is really well regarded. 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:02.640 Thompson's course was never you know, it was nobody's favorite. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.960 It didn't do nearly as much visitor play. So after, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.520 you know, two or three years ago, they they asked 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.120 me if I would take a look at it and 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.760 see if I could suggest them things to make it better. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.200 And I think they were they were really only thinking, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.960 you know, I would change a few holes. But I 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.560 went out and you know, I was already familiar with 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.520 the land from twenty years ago, but I couldn't go 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:30.480 back to I looked at the routing we did twenty 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.680 years ago, and the routing I did would have been 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.560 too tangled up with the course that Norman built, so 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:43.839 I couldn't do what I'd planned, so I had to, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.960 but you know, I just it's an The key to 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.240 it was it was an open site and nobody planted 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.760 any trees or done anything to change it. So on 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.400 the second hole, you know, they they built a par four, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.479 and they were because the third tier was going to 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.760 be up and up the hill in the corner. They 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.360 tried to build themselves a green two thirds of the 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.120 way up this pretty steep slope and shape the hell 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:08.520 out of it to try to get it so it 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.800 wasn't so severe. And you know, if you were short, 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:12.800 the ball would roll back down the fairway, but it 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:17.000 still did, so they had to reshape it again, you know, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.880 just smacking straight into the contours kind of the wrong 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.160 way in order to make the next hole work out. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.600 And right away I looked at that hole, I go, 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:30.840 this is you know, the first hole's fine, but this 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.720 hole I gotta you can't have the green there. There's 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.920 this little pocket down to the left where just past 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:40.880 the landing here, and I thought, you know, that'd be 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:42.640 a really cool short part four with just the green 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:47.680 right in there, and then okay, but if I did that, 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.080 then I can't make everybody walk way up the hill 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.160 to that old third tee. And honestly didn't like the 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.280 old third hole very much anyway. So I started looking 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.600 around and I'm like, well, you could just put the 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.480 TB behind the green on two and play back toward 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.840 what's now seventeen green. That's a pretty good look in 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.160 a hole. And before I knew it, I'd rerouted like 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.920 half the golf course, you know, like found new green 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.400 sites for I think nine of the eighteen something like 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.480 nine of the eighteen holes. You know, the green is 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:25.320 forty yards away or more from where it was last time, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.520 and change, you know, just the way I just described 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.480 two and three. So you know, I cut into the 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.360 back nine on the third hole, so I changed the 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.240 sequence completely, just trying to get myself out of that 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:44.280 corner where the new second hole was. So it's a 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.600 very different golf course. I'm looking forward to going back 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.720 and playing it. They've you know, it's winter there now. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.520 They started member play late in the fall, like two 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.960 months ago, but they really haven't had a ton of 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.160 visitor to play at all. They just had they just 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.120 let the members out on it a little bit before 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:09.000 it got nasty. So this, you know, coming up here 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.920 October and November, they'll really be back on the golf 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:14.960 course full time. And I'll probably I'll probably go in 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.360 November and play it for some member event thing. But 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.959 I think it turned out to be a pretty dramatic 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.480 golf course. You know. It's kind of like it's it's 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.480 more dramatic than I thought it was going to be 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:34.000 when we started. It's certainly way bigger change than they 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.680 ever visualized in the first place. And you know, to 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.000 their credit, when I came back to them with that plan, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.320 they were like, oh, well that's that's a lot more 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.600 than we were thinking. But how much would this cost? 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:52.560 And and you know, can you can you help write 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.480 this up so we can so the members will get 0:09:55.480 --> 0:10:02.160 excited about it. You know. The other thing that made 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.480 it happen was they've got fifty four holes. They actually 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.280 have seventy two holes. They merged with another club that's 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.960 up closer to Melbourne, so they have a course up 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.240 closer to the city too, So it's it's no big 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.200 yang for them to close a golf course for six 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:17.800 months and take it out of play. They've still got 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.600 plenty of other places to play. You know, that's the 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.800 thing that holds you back on most existing courses. To 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.640 really make changes, you got to close and most, you know, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.560 most existing clubs do not want to close the golf course. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.200 So that means if you won't close the golf course 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.240 when you're remodeling, that means you're not going to do 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.520 the two most important things. You're not going to change 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.360 the routing and you're not going to change the greens, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.000 and then all you're doing is playing around with the bunkers. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.160 You're kind of you know, it's kind of like rearranging 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.520 the furniture. You're not really changing things that much. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.040 It's a good way to look at with it taking 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:59.680 an old course, how is the work different from say 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.400 a new build or also conversely a restoration. 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.600 Well, the interesting thing to me the nashvill wound up 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.960 getting a great bargain out of us for how much 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.400 we charged them to rebuild everything. Because I just looked 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.960 at what it was going to take to build these 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.440 new greens and the places that I wanted to put them, 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.200 and they were all great natural green sites that you know, 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.319 it took Brian Schneider a day or two to build 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:27.199 most of those greens. 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.960 I think he was posting about how quickly the greens 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.040 were getting done, as I remember. 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:36.320 But tearing up the old ones. You know, they'd done 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.839 a lot more work to build the old ones, and 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.440 we basically had to undo everything that they'd done to 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.160 make it go away visually. So the destruction part of 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:52.000 it was way way more work than I visualized that 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:58.760 it was. And you know, I mean realistically, if I 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.480 was a contractor, I would or more quite a bit 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.680 more for that than just building a new course, because 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.400 you got to you got to do everything you're gonna 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.520 do to shape a new course, but then you've also 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.160 got to go fix a bunch of things from the 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.000 old course that are just you know, that old green 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:17.839 is kind of in the middle of a fairway now, 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:22.520 so you can't ignore it. You've gotta you gotta knock 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.280 down the edges and make it look like it wasn't there. 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.960 So it's interesting because that, you know, in a lot 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.960 of cases that people like Ethan wondering this, So they're 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.280 thinking about all these golf courses that were built from 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.600 you know, in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and those courses 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.000 were also expensive to build because of all the earthwork 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:43.360 they did. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.640 They didn't go find the natural green sites, right, Yeah, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.480 I mean, honestly, for Ethan's question, you know, you'd be 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.000 better finding an old golf course to renovate because there's 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.040 at least not so much of that. You know, whatever 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:01.240 they built, they didn't spend so much time or money 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.680 building it, so it'll be easier to make that part 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:05.120 go away. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.679 So we've talked a little bit about the new project 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.960 at in New Zealand. Is there anything else you guys 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.439 are working on in the horizon. 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.760 There's a lot on the horizon. The one that we're 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.280 going to get to the start on the summer is 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:27.359 the Saint Patrick's project in Ireland, which I've been reluctant 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.760 to talk about because I didn't want to jinx the 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.120 thing from happening. We've looked at projects in Ireland a 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.520 couple times before and they always fell through in some 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.960 odd circumstances, and and you know, it's been I mean, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.040 you know, that's always been on my bucket list of 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.280 things to do, is build a golf course in Ireland, 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.080 a links course in Ireland. And I thought I was 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.480 going to do it twice before and they didn't happen. 0:13:54.320 --> 0:14:00.160 And this one. You know, I've known the Casey family 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.880 that owns ross Apana Resort in the Northwest for like, oh, 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.440 probably eleven or twelve years now. Larry Lambrick, the photographer, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:15.760 introduced me to them. Originally they were they were redoing. 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.640 They originally had thirty six holes at ross Apana, and 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.080 one of the nine, one of the older nines, used 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:28.600 to like cross roads. It used to cross two roads 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.800 going out and to the same two roads coming back 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.360 in the course of nine holes to loop in with 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.680 the what they call the old Tom Morris nine that 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.120 runs along the beach. And you know, the place is 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.600 getting busier and people were building the holiday homes and 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.600 those roads were getting really busy, and that those that 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:48.800 nine was just too dangerous. I mean, you're just hitting 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.920 across traffic in awkward you know, one hundred and fifty 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.880 yards off the de in really awkward places where you're 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.360 likely to hit a car. So it just it was 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.240 dangerous and it didn't work. And they they had just 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.680 enough land on the sea side of the road to 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:10.200 squeeze in nine holes there so they didn't have to 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:15.280 cross the road anymore. And Pat Reddy actually built the 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.320 nine holes, but they were still growing it in and 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.080 they didn't you know, he had kind of like not 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.560 built any bunkers. He was going to leave that till later. 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:25.760 You know. They'd done it on a shoe string, really, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.800 and you know they were They asked us if we'd 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.000 look at it and see if we had some suggestions 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.320 to make it a little more dramatic, and you know, 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.160 I gave him a couple of ideas, and Eric Iverson 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.960 basically spent a couple of months over there at one 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.200 point just redoing green complexes on three or four of 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.760 those holes, adding some bunkers and making it a little better. 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.160 But from the well at the beginning, I think Larry thought, 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.800 you know, maybe I would help them do some work 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.320 to their second course. There are Sandy Hills, which is 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:10.960 a really dramatic, really pretty, really hard modern golf course. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:14.880 You see it when you see pictures of Rossa Penna, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.360 it's usually of Sandy Hills. It's up in some really 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.640 big dunes and the fairways are mostly elevated well above 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.480 the old Tom Morris nine, so you've got great views 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.400 of the bay and the mountains around the bay. I 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.800 mean it's a spectacular looking place, but it is a 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:32.680 heck of a hard golf course to play in the wind, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.000 and of course in Northwest Ireland is windy all the time, 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.480 so you know, so the feedback on the Sandy Hills 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.360 course is always you know, some people love it because 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.520 it's spectacular and pretty, but a lot of people lose 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:47.840 a lot of balls and get really frustrated with it too, 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.120 And there's sort of handcuffed done how much they could 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.080 do about that because they're right in the edge of 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.480 land with a bunch of environmental restrictions, so it was like, 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.560 you know, you're not allowed to go out and cut 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.160 the rough all down way out in there and soften 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.480 the shapes. Just can't do it. So it was limited 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.639 on whether they could really do much to change the 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.840 golf course. They've started mowing it more, they've taken out 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:17.600 a couple of the bunkers in front of the greens. 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.760 Over the years, it was still a hard golf course. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.320 But anyway, you know, right when I first met them, 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.840 there was this the property next door to them is 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.800 this place called Saint Patrick's and back in the nineties 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.000 when the EU was forming and Ireland was going to 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:39.040 be part of the EU. A couple of the architects 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.240 in Ireland, Eddie Hackett and Pat Ruddy and a couple 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.040 other guys, went around to all the little clubs and said, 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.600 you know, any of you that own any more of 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.280 this duneesland, you should go build something on it right now, 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:59.120 because once we're part of Europe they're going to draw 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.600 a circle around it say you can't touch that anymore. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.639 And they were dead right. I mean, the you know, 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.399 European designation is a special area of conservation and they 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.639 pretty much just drew a red line around every piece 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.439 of untouched dunesland in Ireland and said, no, can't do 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:23.320 anything there, you know, like can't even just mow it out. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.520 One of those projects I looked at in Ireland years 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.440 ago is not much more than mowing out something like that. 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.159 And it was still a no or it was still 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:36.760 so so long of a permit question. You know, in 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.679 theory you could get special permission to do something, but 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:40.639 nobody ever has. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.359 And it's kind of what you just touched on earlier 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:45.600 that Mike Kaiser's been dealing with in Scotland. 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:50.600 At Yes, Britain is a little Britain's a little different. 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.159 You know, they insisted even before the whole Brexit thing 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.119 when they joined Europe, one of the things they insisted on, 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.600 in addition to their own currency, was their own environment rules. 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:02.959 We're not going to let everybody in Brussels tell us 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:07.840 what we can and can't do here. So the designation's different. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.280 And that's you know, like if Trump, if if Trump's 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:14.879 Aberdeen project was in Ireland, he couldn't have done it. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:17.720 They never would have got permission, It wouldn't have been 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.000 up to a government vote. It would have been a 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:26.239 bunch of bureaucrats just saying no and no recourse. So 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:32.040 this so somebody built, actually Eddie Hackett and oh young 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.040 woman that worked for him built thirty six holes on 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.880 this Saint Patrick's site twenty twenty five years ago now 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.840 for a hotel owner in the next town over from 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.720 ross Apenna put up the money to do it. And 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.800 it was a beautiful piece of land. It was kind 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.320 of trying to get thirty six holes on the land. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.520 It was really crammed in. There were a bunch of 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.159 there's a big hill in the middle of it that 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.480 a bunch of the holes were just fairways running up 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.760 and down the hill. It looks crazy from it when 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.040 you look at it from a distance, it's like really 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.560 just up down, up, down, and are pretty good. You know, 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.480 Cole's going up and down sixty feet from tee to green. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.960 But you know, when Ireland became part of Europe and 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.560 they drew the red lines, there was a golf course there, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.800 so they just drew the red bubble to away from it, 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.919 and it's the land is still fair game, so you 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.200 can change Saint Patrick's. So for years this golf course 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.200 is done like almost no play. And ten years ago 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:44.000 when I met the cases and things in Ireland were 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.639 really booming. Some Irish developer had hired Jack Nicholas to 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.719 he was going to do thirty six holes there and 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.919 he actually started. They spent about two weeks in construction 0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:00.320 in the fall of two thousand and seven or an eight, 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:04.879 I can't remember which, and then the financial crisis in 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:11.359 the financial crisis hit Ireland and basically the contractor, did 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.439 you know, the developer pulled out, the contractor didn't get paid, 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.160 construction stopped completely and the thing is just sat there 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.560 ever since, and kind of they had torn up three 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.600 or four holes. They're just kind of been blown around 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.040 in the wind for several years, but nobody, nobody doing 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.040 anything about it. And of course the only the only 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:36.640 potential buyer for it was the cases because they're because 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.720 they're because they're they're right next to it, so they 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:41.960 but they they weren't in any hurry because they knew 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.400 nobody was nobody else was going to bid against them. 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.840 So I don't know how long they you know, they 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.080 waited three or four years until the price came down 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.920 to something that was reasonable for them and probably not 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.719 a whole lot of money, and bought the property. And 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:03.040 then you know, they they've still been you know, they've 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.800 been looking at it for years, and I've been looking 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:07.679 at it for years with him, of you know, what 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:12.879 could we do on this site? But you know, the 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.240 golf economy in Ireland has bounced back slowly but surely 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.520 since the recession, but for a while there it wasn't 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.920 very good. So it's taken a long time to get 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.800 to the point where they're like, okay, you know, now 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.680 seems to be the time where this will work. And 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:38.000 and partly it's that the Frank Senior, his sons John 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:42.120 and Frank Junior are both in their early mid thirties, 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.120 and of course they're just gung ho to build this thing. 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.880 They're like, they're so excited, but you know that they're 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.800 there's there be They've been being groomed for a long 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.040 time to take over the place for the next generation. 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.600 And they're they're still not quite running the whole show yet, 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.160 although they kind of do. John runs the hotel, Bank 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.399 runs the golf operation. They've been doing that for a 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:08.280 few years, you know, and so it's all been convincing 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.919 their dad, you know, let's really do this now, and 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:17.600 we're finally ready to go. And the one thing I 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.439 said to mister Casey in the beginning, you know, I mean, 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.840 we had way more than enough land for eighteen holes easily, 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:27.320 you know, it was it was always tight for the 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:29.960 thirty six one of the one of the one of 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.680 the two golf courses was fifty five hundred yards or something. 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:34.639 And of course there are a lot of parallel fairways 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.040 up and down that hill that weren't really that attractive. 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.040 And you know, they looked at well, maybe just do 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:44.359 twenty seven holes, you know, and like like tack nine 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.840 holes onto the old Tom Morris nine and then do 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.800