Speaker 1: Hello, It's Andy Johnson from The Friday Egg. I want
Speaker 1: to thank everybody for tuning into our podcast. Because of
Speaker 1: Tom's gracious amount of time he gave us, We're gonna
Speaker 1: split this podcast into two parts. We will be publishing
Speaker 1: part two on Friday, so please you know, if you
Speaker 1: enjoy our podcast, subscribe to us on iTunes and leave
Speaker 1: us a review. It really helps us out and it's
Speaker 1: it's greatly appreciated. Thanks and enjoy the podcast with Tom.
Speaker 2: I miss a 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 in a brid Egg Friday,
Speaker 2: the dreaded Friday Friday Frida Bride Egg Lie, I'm about
Speaker 2: ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 1: Frida Egg podcast. Today, I'm excited to welcome Tom Doak
Speaker 1: onto the podcast. Tom is one of today's pre eminent
Speaker 1: golf course architects, as well as an esteemed author of
Speaker 1: books such as The Anatomy of a Golf Course, The
Speaker 1: Life and Work of Alistair McKenzie, and of course, his
Speaker 1: ultra popular Confidential Guides to golf courses. Welcome on Tom,
Speaker 1: Thank you Andy.
Speaker 2: Nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited to talk golf course architecture today, and
Speaker 1: I think a great way to start would be to
Speaker 1: give the listeners a little bit about your background and
Speaker 1: how you got into golf course architecture.
Speaker 2: I certainly told this story a lot, so I'm probably
Speaker 2: covering around a lot of your listeners have heard. But basically,
Speaker 2: I you know, I grew up playing a little public
Speaker 2: course a mile from my house in Stanford, Connecticut. But
Speaker 2: as a contrast to that, I saw some of the
Speaker 2: best golf courses in America when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: My dad barely played golf, but he would go once
Speaker 2: or twice a year on some corporate thing where he
Speaker 2: played golf with the people he did business with on
Speaker 2: the phone all year, and they went to the best
Speaker 2: golf resorts in America. So I thought that Harbortown was
Speaker 2: one of the very first courses I ever saw when
Speaker 2: it was brand new and raided and golfed. I just
Speaker 2: popped ten, and then Pinehurst not long after that, and
Speaker 2: then Pebble Beach not long after that, and then unfortunately,
Speaker 2: one of is one of the organizations that was part
Speaker 2: of They did their convention at Pebble Beach and they
Speaker 2: decided they really liked it, so they went back there
Speaker 2: like every year when I was a teenager, so I
Speaker 2: played it. I played a couple of each a bunch.
Speaker 2: You know, long enough ago that the twilight rate was
Speaker 2: forty bucks.
Speaker 1: Things have changed a little bit since that day.
Speaker 2: Huh, yes they have, and I don't you know, and
Speaker 2: I haven't played it very much since they went up
Speaker 2: to their current pride.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's uh So would you say, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people say they have a singular moment
Speaker 1: or a golf course that you know, inspires them to
Speaker 1: get even into, you know, being becoming a fan of
Speaker 1: golf course architecture. Was there a singular moment or was
Speaker 1: it more of a building over over your childhood years.
Speaker 2: I guess it was more of a building. I mean
Speaker 2: the you know, the two different things that I always
Speaker 2: go back to, or when when I was at Harbor
Speaker 2: Town and you know, it was literally the third golf
Speaker 2: course I ever saw. It was the all writer Charles
Speaker 2: Price had a place at Hilton Head and when mister
Speaker 2: Dye was building the golf course, he spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time with it. And then when the golf course opened,
Speaker 2: mister Price did a little booklet on the golf course,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much like a yardage book now, except
Speaker 2: no yardages because nobody played by yardage is making seventies.
Speaker 2: But you know, so there was a there was a
Speaker 2: diagram of the hole and like three sentences on how
Speaker 2: to play, like second hole. You know, there's only one
Speaker 2: fairway bunker on the left, but you really need to
Speaker 2: be close to the fairway bunker on the left if
Speaker 2: you're trying for the green into because there's a tree
Speaker 2: up there on the right you have to get pass.
Speaker 2: You know. It was just a really simple primer on
Speaker 2: golf course architecture, really well explained, simple enough a ten
Speaker 2: year old it could go, oh that's cool. So you know,
Speaker 2: that's the first thing that got me interested in architecture,
Speaker 2: that there was much more to it than just get
Speaker 2: the ball, find it, hit it again. Yeah. And then
Speaker 2: you know, I and pebble Bee in Cyprus Point when
Speaker 2: I was a kid was huge. You know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't feel really lucky to have gotten to go
Speaker 2: to Cypress Point. Really early on. My dad's boss at Unilever,
Speaker 2: when he retired, moved out there and became a member
Speaker 2: of Cyper's Point. So I got to play it two
Speaker 2: or three times when I was a teenager, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very emotional place, and you know, you know,
Speaker 2: that's probably the place where I thought, you know, that
Speaker 2: there that this was a great career and it would
Speaker 2: be a great thing to do if I could figure
Speaker 2: out how to do it. Although you know, when I
Speaker 2: started at college, I didn't really know how to pursue it,
Speaker 2: and I had to, you know, I really had to
Speaker 2: write letters to everybody in the golf business to ask,
Speaker 2: you know, what I should do and how to go
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: So after cal you did you start writing? I know
Speaker 1: you worked under Pete Dye for a number of years.
Speaker 1: Did he give you the kind of first job right
Speaker 1: out of college or was there somebody else in between that?
Speaker 2: Uh No, I didn't work for anybody else. The first
Speaker 2: job I had was working for mister d on a
Speaker 2: construction throughout LONGKO when I was twenty. I've been writing
Speaker 2: in letters for three years at that point, and I started.
Speaker 2: I started on my eighteenth birthday. I was a freshman
Speaker 2: of college, thinking, you know, engineering is not for me.
Speaker 2: I'm spending all my time reading golf books. I really
Speaker 2: should see if I could pursue this. And Tete I
Speaker 2: was one of the first people I wrote to, you know,
Speaker 2: and I you know, I wrote to Petey and Jeff
Speaker 2: Cornish and Being Demon and Ben Crenshaw and a ton
Speaker 2: of people just ask him for help, and you know,
Speaker 2: Pete was Pete got back to me when I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: just a nice little note back, and you know, he
Speaker 2: didn't really offer much advice at that point. I got
Speaker 2: it from other people, but you know, but everybody else
Speaker 2: in the off business said, you know, that's the guy
Speaker 2: you should work for. You know, if you can figure
Speaker 2: out how to get a construction crew working for him,
Speaker 2: that would be great. So I just kept writing the
Speaker 2: letters for three years until finally, when I was a
Speaker 2: junior in college, he called me, like the day I
Speaker 2: was going on summer break and said, yeah, we kind
Speaker 2: of cold losing some guys on our crew down here,
Speaker 2: and you know, we could use a couple more people.
Speaker 2: Could you be here tomorrow. That was literally the first
Speaker 2: time I talked to him, and I was working for
Speaker 2: him the next day.
Speaker 1: What a What a cool story. So with mister Dye,
Speaker 1: who were some other influential people early in your career
Speaker 1: outside of mister Dye that you know you would say
Speaker 1: that really helped shape your kind of philosophies and your
Speaker 1: in your career.
Speaker 2: Oh god, there's a lot, you know. George Pepper, who
Speaker 2: is the editor of Golf Magazine, is going to give
Speaker 2: you a chance to start writing about golf. I wrote
Speaker 2: him a letter to the editor when I was like
Speaker 2: eighteen or nineteen eighteen because because because I remember it
Speaker 2: was you know, it was actually about the top fifty
Speaker 2: golf courses list that they had just published, and it
Speaker 2: been a laundertique of it. And he got back to
Speaker 2: me and said, well, you know, enough an eighteen year
Speaker 2: olds in charge of this, but you can really write,
Speaker 2: and you know, we could use somebody who could write
Speaker 2: some stuff about architecture. So you know, do you want
Speaker 2: to try to write like a little piece of a
Speaker 2: sidebar to the US Open piece next year? So you know,
Speaker 2: I started writing when I was sophomore in college, and
Speaker 2: and by the time when I was a senior, I
Speaker 2: had a writing for magazine's course and just before the
Speaker 2: semester was over, I had an eight page feature article
Speaker 2: in coffee. So I did well in that course, you know,
Speaker 2: but that was a huge help to me because you know,
Speaker 2: I because of that, I didn't just have access to
Speaker 2: people as a young guy who wanted to be a
Speaker 2: golf course architect. You know, I could call up people
Speaker 2: in the golf business as a golf writer and and
Speaker 2: asked them all sorts of questions. So that was great
Speaker 2: for me for access to people. And then you know
Speaker 2: Ben Crenshaws. Then you know, I wrote him a letter
Speaker 2: when I was eighteen and said, if if you know,
Speaker 2: if you or me, what would you do. And because
Speaker 2: he you know, even though he hadn't started an architecture, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was pretty well known that he was interested in
Speaker 2: architecture and tried to see great courses. So you know,
Speaker 2: at first he listed a few courses that he thought
Speaker 2: I should see, and then he said, he basically said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, if you come out to a turn during
Speaker 2: a practice day, just just uh, you know, come up
Speaker 2: and introduce yourself on a practice day and you know
Speaker 2: we can walk around and talk talk about the golf
Speaker 2: course a little bit. So I did that four or
Speaker 2: five times while I was in college, and you know,
Speaker 2: I got to walk inside the Ropes with Crenshaw and
Speaker 2: Sevy Biasteros or David Graham and watch them play golf
Speaker 2: really up close and then talk some about the golf
Speaker 2: course that we were seeing, and you know, wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: those experiences for anything.
Speaker 1: How you know, you've had obviously Stonewall had the US
Speaker 1: Midam and you know Bandon Dune, Pacific Dunes has had
Speaker 1: some amateur events and high level amateur events, and then
Speaker 1: you've you've obviously walked inside the ropes like you just said,
Speaker 1: with Crenshawe and uh Sevy b by Seros. How much
Speaker 1: how how much does it help when you get to
Speaker 1: see that high level golf with architecture and kind of
Speaker 1: you know, understanding principles and how different people play the game.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a good question, and it's kind of there's
Speaker 2: a lot of ways it helps and there's some ways
Speaker 2: it hurts. I think, you know, because I worked for
Speaker 2: mister Dye. I was around the tour a lot when
Speaker 2: I was really young, you know. I worked for him
Speaker 2: just just when the TPC at Sawgraph came out and
Speaker 2: they played. I was there for the first two tournaments.
Speaker 2: They spent a lot of time walking with he die
Speaker 2: those first two years of the tournament, while he would,
Speaker 2: you know, while people were criticizing the golf course, and
Speaker 2: you know, he was just walking around watching play, trying
Speaker 2: to decide for himself if the holes were the way
Speaker 2: he thought they did, and they really did. You know,
Speaker 2: you know, he'd gotten an the skin of the players
Speaker 2: a lot. And you know, the guys, the guys that
Speaker 2: were more interested in architecture and more critical of the
Speaker 2: golfers were so tied up in that that they couldn't
Speaker 2: play the golfers worth a damn. But then there were
Speaker 2: young guys that you know, were just sort of okay,
Speaker 2: you know, I just this is really tough, and I
Speaker 2: got to hit these shots, and there were guys that
Speaker 2: could play the golfers. So you know, that was a
Speaker 2: fascinating time to be around the tour and and and
Speaker 2: talk to some of those guys and see what their
Speaker 2: opinions were. You know, when I got on my own,
Speaker 2: I realized really fast that that you know, when I
Speaker 2: built High Point in Traverse City for a for a
Speaker 2: guy that had owned the land for years, you know,
Speaker 2: the tour was never coming there. You know. I mean
Speaker 2: I was around the tour enough to understand that, you know,
Speaker 2: where they play tournaments at that level is about where
Speaker 2: the sponsors want them to so you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: I never really visualized that my career would be about
Speaker 2: that at all. Certainly at the start it wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be. So you know, I kind of had to
Speaker 2: forget some of what I've learned and not worry about illness.
Speaker 2: Set of tea is at seventy four hundred yards because
Speaker 2: the people that were paying forty five dollars to play
Speaker 2: High Point didn't need those teas. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 2: and because I'd been around the tour a little bit
Speaker 2: when when early clients would bring up something like that,
Speaker 2: I could just laugh at them and correct them really that, like, no,
Speaker 2: don't think about that. You're crazy to think about that
Speaker 2: unless you've got five million dollars burning a hole in
Speaker 2: your pocket, in which case, let's revise my design feel
Speaker 2: a little there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, you were part of, you know,
Speaker 1: part of kind of the the group of architectures that
Speaker 1: ushered in this you know, new style of design that
Speaker 1: was minimalists and really, like you said, focused more on
Speaker 1: the everyday player and you know what they needed rather
Speaker 1: than building long, hard golf courses that kind of fit
Speaker 1: into a square box par seventy to four par five's
Speaker 1: four par threes. What was you know, the toughest part about,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of ushering in this new thought and
Speaker 1: new thinking of design.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't. I mean, when I started at high point,
Speaker 2: you know, I really only had to answer to one client,
Speaker 2: and I sort of started with the idea that it
Speaker 2: was a really good piece of l end and if
Speaker 2: I failed, I wanted to fail on the side of
Speaker 2: you know, moving less dirt instead of moving too much,
Speaker 2: because everything I'd seen for the last ten years with
Speaker 2: people moving too much by my but for my case,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, by then I got around and
Speaker 2: seeing most of the best golf courses in the world,
Speaker 2: and most of the ones I really liked weren't built
Speaker 2: that way, you know. I mean, and I saw how
Speaker 2: Pete Died built what he built, and I'm not demeaning
Speaker 2: it by I mean, he's a genius for coming up
Speaker 2: with some of the things he did on bad pieces
Speaker 2: of ground. But when you got a good piece of ground,
Speaker 2: you don't have to do those things. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was really lucky to stumble into my first job
Speaker 2: with a pretty good piece of ground to work with,
Speaker 2: and I just thought, you know that, I mean, sort
Speaker 2: of the guiding light of it was that three miles
Speaker 2: down the road from High Point was a Jack Nicholas
Speaker 2: course called the Bear at Grand Traverse Resort, and it
Speaker 2: was a completely manufactured golf course. They went out in
Speaker 2: the field and built a bunch of nouns and lakes
Speaker 2: and everything else and called it Scottish style, which just
Speaker 2: you know, horrified me. But you know, I just kept thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to do something that's almost the
Speaker 2: dead opposite of that on this piece of ground and
Speaker 2: just see how it goes. And you know, the superintendent
Speaker 2: that we hired to work on a Tommy who had
Speaker 2: been at Crystal Downs for a while before he worked
Speaker 2: with me. You know, he and I were talking about
Speaker 2: at that point, you know, we were young, and it's
Speaker 2: sort of like, well, if fifty percent of people like
Speaker 2: it and fifty percent of people hate it, then will
Speaker 2: be about the right place. And of course we didn't
Speaker 2: tell our clients that because the client probably would have
Speaker 2: been horrified. You know, most clients like ninety nine point
Speaker 2: nine percent of people to like it. They don't want
Speaker 2: to give up a potential custom, you know, and unfortunately
Speaker 2: that's you know, that's why everything gets so homaged. We'd
Speaker 2: better do four part three because that's what people like.
Speaker 2: And you know, the old golf course architects didn't think
Speaker 2: that way. It hadn't been so standardized yet. And plus
Speaker 2: they you know, it wasn't such a commercial business in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties. I mean, golf clubs in the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenties were actually formed by a group of guys that
Speaker 2: wanted to build a gos club. Now they're formed by
Speaker 2: a developer who wants to sell memberships in it. Even
Speaker 2: if he's not really looking to make money in it,
Speaker 2: he's still concerned about you know, he's taken the financial
Speaker 2: risk and he's got to figure out how to sell
Speaker 2: the memberships in it to get his money back. So
Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't want to rock the boat too much.
Speaker 2: And that's you know a lot of architects are really
Speaker 2: afraid to rock the boat. And I'm just not because
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of things that are really different
Speaker 2: and I know they worked, and and I think, well,
Speaker 2: why can't I make that same idea work, or why
Speaker 2: can't I make a little different idea work.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting you you talk about that, and I'm curious.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously with Cyprus Point, I know Alistair McKenzie
Speaker 1: was worried that he had gone too far and you know,
Speaker 1: done too much and worried that it was going to
Speaker 1: be too tough. But the natural beauty obviously nobody complained
Speaker 1: about it. Do you feel that you your golf course
Speaker 1: when you when you build something and looking at it,
Speaker 1: you know, for the future of golf, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: years said do you need to have do you feel
Speaker 1: like you need to have criticism from some some angle
Speaker 1: if if it's a great project, does it have to
Speaker 1: have some sort of criticism?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. I just you know, it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to. But I'm not afraid of it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's and that's having you know, having been around
Speaker 2: Pete die for that week of stagraph, I'm not afraid
Speaker 2: of that because that it'll never get more intense than that.
Speaker 2: And that was and ultimately that was good for god.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, it's uh, he did it great stuff. I
Speaker 1: think that Uh, Pete Dye often gets a very bad rap,
Speaker 1: you know when people talk about his designs. Being too
Speaker 1: penal and you having a you know, a front row
Speaker 1: seat to that. I imagine a lot of the design philosophy.
Speaker 1: Some of his designs were based off of what the
Speaker 1: developer wants correctly.
Speaker 2: Well, they always thought, yeah, I mean, you're always you've
Speaker 2: always got to answer to your client to some degree.
Speaker 2: And you know a lot of people, you know, when
Speaker 2: people criticize what other architects are doing, you know that
Speaker 2: you have to stop and think, well, what are they
Speaker 2: being hired to do? You know, I mean most of
Speaker 2: the projects that Jack Nicholas gets, you know, the developer
Speaker 2: wants a big, expensive, quote unquote championship golf course because
Speaker 2: he's trying to sell big expensive lots next to it.
Speaker 2: And that's what those people think. They you know, that's
Speaker 2: what they think is prestige and what they want to
Speaker 2: live on. So, you know, if you're not going to
Speaker 2: see Jack Nicholas build a sixty three hundred yard minimalist
Speaker 2: efficient golf course, because that's that's not the kind of
Speaker 2: people that hire him, you know, you know he you
Speaker 2: know a lot of people are very critical of mister due,
Speaker 2: which to me is crazy. I mean, nobody that's ever
Speaker 2: spent any time with the die would criticize the man
Speaker 2: at all. I mean, he's He's given a lot to
Speaker 2: a lot of people. He's always been very open about
Speaker 2: the game and what he thinks is right about it
Speaker 2: and what he thinks is wrong about it. You know,
Speaker 2: he had me ghostwriting articles about how the golf equipment
Speaker 2: was getting out of hand thirty years ago. That more
Speaker 2: than thirty years ago. You know, he's still sort of
Speaker 2: a role model to me, especially in the way he
Speaker 2: went about the work, how involved he was in it personally,
Speaker 2: and and that you know, he made decisions out in
Speaker 2: the field and he changed it. He changed his mind
Speaker 2: on the fly to make something better. He wasn't afraid to,
Speaker 2: you know, do that. And you know, even if even
Speaker 2: if the client was nervous about it, and it's like
Speaker 2: it's gonna be fine. I'm here, I'll get it sorted out.
Speaker 2: And you know, people see our work as being completely
Speaker 2: different because my golf courses don't look like his golf courses,
Speaker 2: but you know, the way that they're built, and you know,
Speaker 2: and even a lot of the philosophy behind them. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm building golf courses that are challenging to people, and
Speaker 2: you know, I just I just put the challenge in
Speaker 2: different places and they don't make it all about length
Speaker 2: because I'm not building golf courses for the tour, yep.
Speaker 1: I think I think that the tour needs more golf
Speaker 1: courses where the challenge isn't you know, off the tee,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got hazards on both sides, and then
Speaker 1: hit it to the green because it produces a certain
Speaker 1: type of player, you know, a golf course does.
Speaker 2: There's there's no doubt that the Tour tour courses and
Speaker 2: the way they set up the courses favor certain kinds
Speaker 2: of players. And you know they're not doing it deliberately,
Speaker 2: but but it's but they do it. But they they
Speaker 2: do make deliberate decisions that have that effect, you know,
Speaker 2: like they'll set up a hole so if you know,
Speaker 2: they'll set up a hole so the long hitters can
Speaker 2: make a carry and the short hitters release mh you know,
Speaker 2: and they think that rewards the guy who can hit
Speaker 2: the ball farther. But then if the if the wins
Speaker 2: in the face of that hole and the long hitters
Speaker 2: can't make the carry, they'll move the teasa so that
Speaker 2: the long hitter can still make the carry and the
Speaker 2: short hitters still can't. So now who are they? You know,
Speaker 2: now it's clear they have a bias.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: You know, any short hitter on tour will tell you that.
Speaker 1: I think a perfect example of that is is you
Speaker 1: look at Riviera and you know, probably the best architecture,
Speaker 1: architecturally sound golf course that they play year and year out.
Speaker 1: And you know, they haven't had a winner at Riviera
Speaker 1: younger than twenty eight years old in the last I
Speaker 1: think twelve years. And it favors somebody that understand. I
Speaker 1: think that course has no force carries. It's more about
Speaker 1: hitting shots to the correct angles than it is hitting
Speaker 1: it far. You know, there is a lot of strategy
Speaker 1: if you go for a carry and you don't, you
Speaker 1: know there there's so much that goes into that golf course.
Speaker 1: And I really think that's a great example. You see
Speaker 1: guys like last year you had kJ Toy, you know,
Speaker 1: in the lead late on Sunday and this is a
Speaker 1: forty five year old who hits it, you know, two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy yards. And this year you have Dustin
Speaker 1: Johnson when it albeit it was soft and you know,
Speaker 1: the rain took a lot of the teeth out of it.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a course where it doesn't really
Speaker 1: favor a specific type of player.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I guess it doesn't favor a specific
Speaker 2: type of player. It does reward a player who knows
Speaker 2: how to work the ball left to right and right
Speaker 2: to left, which you don't. There's not any courses on
Speaker 2: tour that do anymore. It's really hard to build that
Speaker 2: on a new course with no you know, if you
Speaker 2: don't have any trees, you know, and you can, you know,
Speaker 2: and you can carry the ball as far as those
Speaker 2: guys do. You know, even if the fairway is curve
Speaker 2: and left to right or right the left, or the
Speaker 2: bunkers are set up a certain way, you know, they
Speaker 2: can just hit it a mile in the air and
Speaker 2: land it three hundred yards away in a relatively small
Speaker 2: area and it doesn't matter which way it's curving. But
Speaker 2: you know, Riviera takes that away, the results that you
Speaker 2: can't hit that. You know, you you know, if if
Speaker 2: you're on fifteen, which kind of bends left to right
Speaker 2: off the tee, and you're you can't hit that shot,
Speaker 2: you kind of have to back off on the te
Speaker 2: side because if you just you know, because you can't
Speaker 2: take it up over the trees on the right to
Speaker 2: to go down there where you want to. You know,
Speaker 2: there's certain shots that takes away from you uncertain hole,
Speaker 2: and so you have to be able to adapt. You know,
Speaker 2: Dustin Johnson can't adapt. You know, even if he's even
Speaker 2: if he's not going to try to hit the ball
Speaker 2: left to right, he'll he'll back off and he's still
Speaker 2: long enough he can hit the long shot into the
Speaker 2: green for the second shot.
Speaker 1: So I had Michael Clayton on the podcast a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago, and he talked about how he believes
Speaker 1: technology has diminished the skill. And obviously, you know, nobody's
Speaker 1: going to argue it's it's altered the path or the design.
Speaker 1: You know, you designed your first course in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: or nineteen eighty nine. How would you How have your
Speaker 1: philosophy has changed over the years because of technology.
Speaker 2: It My philosophy hasn't changed very much in thirty years.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And some people would say, oh, you shouldn't say something
Speaker 2: stuff like that. That doesn't sound right, But you know again,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not building my courses for the elite players.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think about the elite players. I've been
Speaker 2: around enough of them, you know, Mike Clayton. I've had
Speaker 2: more fun playing golf with Mike Clayton at half a
Speaker 2: dozen times than with almost anybody I've ever played with,
Speaker 2: because he, you know, he does know how to work
Speaker 2: the ball and half shots. You know. He came to
Speaker 2: the state a bunch of years ago when I was
Speaker 2: doing that Park of Palooza thing. We were going out
Speaker 2: to sand Hills. We stopped and played a couple of
Speaker 2: the other courses in the sand Hills on the way out,
Speaker 2: and one of them, that Bayside course that Dan Proctor
Speaker 2: and Dave Exlent built, had some really severe holes. And
Speaker 2: there was a hole that was a little like Sticked
Speaker 2: at Riviera with a bunker in the middle of a green,
Speaker 2: except more slope around it, and the pin was like
Speaker 2: back right, And after we'd all at a shot to
Speaker 2: the green, I was like, I wonder if you could
Speaker 2: hit a shot you know that's that green looks though severe.
Speaker 2: It's like you could land a ball on the upper
Speaker 2: tier behind the pin or behind the bunker and have
Speaker 2: it sucked back down around the bunker to the lower
Speaker 2: tier where the tin is and you know, It took
Speaker 2: Mike two tries to hit that shot. And and you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of guys on tour that could they
Speaker 2: can hit those kind of shot and the shots that
Speaker 2: Sevy used to try to play and the shots that
Speaker 2: Ben Crenshaw used to play all the time. But there's
Speaker 2: no percentage in it anymore. You know, nobody builds the
Speaker 2: golf course where I mean, you know, that wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: that wasn't really the high percentage shot for Mike at
Speaker 2: the time. It was just like, yeah, I could pull
Speaker 2: that off. And it's a shame we don't see courses
Speaker 2: that that get them to try those shots, because they're
Speaker 2: really you know, that's what I learned from Pete die
Speaker 2: and watching the TPC. Those guys are way more talented
Speaker 2: than you get to see week to week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think then, but for my own work.
Speaker 2: You know, my own work will give them fancies to
Speaker 2: hit shots like that. But I'm just not worried about
Speaker 2: whether they're going to shoot sixty four when they come
Speaker 2: because I don't have, you know, because there's not going
Speaker 2: to be a seventy two hole PGA Tour stroke play
Speaker 2: event on this course, and because and you know, and
Speaker 2: I don't have any ego at stake over what they do.
Speaker 2: You know, Gary Woodland went to Dismal River a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago, thinking you should you should play on Sescu.
Speaker 2: The week before he went to Chambers Bay for the
Speaker 2: Open and shot fifty nine one day on my course,
Speaker 2: And you know, that kind of boggles my mind. And
Speaker 2: at the same time, I'm like, yeah, you know, he's
Speaker 2: that good if he gets a going. You know, those
Speaker 2: aren't the most severe greens I ever built. He's reaching
Speaker 2: the par fives into no problem. Yeah, and probably driving
Speaker 2: one of the par fours too. So yes, he could
Speaker 2: shoot a number like that, plays a great round of golf,
Speaker 2: and that does That doesn't really bother me, you know.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, the thing is I think if
Speaker 2: you asked and you'd say, oh, no, that was a
Speaker 2: great round and I had a lot of fun, And
Speaker 2: it's not like I wasn't challenged. Yes, it's just that
Speaker 2: the you know, the number adds up to what it
Speaker 2: adds up.
Speaker 1: But it's well, I think that's a huge problem with golf.
Speaker 1: Is this Why why are we so wrapped up with
Speaker 1: par It's just it's just a number, Like who cares
Speaker 1: if you go out and shoot sixty three or eighty three,
Speaker 1: as long as you had fun, you know, right, and you.
Speaker 2: Know you could go you know, you could go different
Speaker 2: directions with that. Like you know, I went and saw
Speaker 2: David Kid's course at Gamble Sands a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: and I, you know, I had heard about it that
Speaker 2: you know, kind of as a reaction to some of
Speaker 2: the other things that he'd done that that were critiqued
Speaker 2: pretty heavily, including by me, that you know, he'd built
Speaker 2: a golf course that was you know, it was big
Speaker 2: and pretty, but it was pretty easy, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I mean in golf club at last, you know, the
Speaker 2: first testimonial to have like five of the eight guys
Speaker 2: in my group had their career low score. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that sounds crazy. You know, if it's really if it's
Speaker 2: really that easy that that you know, everybody's shooting their
Speaker 2: career low score, then you know, because I still you know,
Speaker 2: I worked for Petei. I still believe that you want
Speaker 2: to challenge the golfer. I don't believe that you want
Speaker 2: to make them shoot one hundred and twelve, but you
Speaker 2: want some shots out there that are challenging to him.
Speaker 2: And if if you're doing that, then they're probably not
Speaker 2: shooting their career low score the first time they see
Speaker 2: the place. Yes, and you know there is a fine
Speaker 2: you know, there's a fine line. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things I've learned about design is,
Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of my best work
Speaker 2: is is the power four, especially the short par fours.
Speaker 2: And the reason the short part four has come out
Speaker 2: so good is because because you can get away with more.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's only three hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 2: so this green can be severe or that's you know,
Speaker 2: I can pinch the landing area really narrow, or I
Speaker 2: can put cross bunkers forty yards in front of the
Speaker 2: greens because you know, because I'm not making you lay
Speaker 2: up off the tee and hit a fourwood in you know,
Speaker 2: you can approach this a whole different a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of different ways. And the other thing that's interesting about
Speaker 2: short part four is is you know, you can give
Speaker 2: people a really wide range of angles into the green.
Speaker 2: You know, a four hundred and seventy yard hole. Most people,
Speaker 2: you know, they just have to hit it on the
Speaker 2: line because they have to hit it as far as
Speaker 2: they can twice just to get there, and they can't
Speaker 2: really worry about what kind of angle they're giving themselves.
Speaker 2: But a three hundred and fifty yard hole, yeah, you
Speaker 2: can drive it way out to the right and still
Speaker 2: be hitting nine er in their witch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: From what I've I've played about seven of your courses,
Speaker 1: and the short part fours are really great, and they
Speaker 1: what I really like about them is if you play
Speaker 1: them correctly, you've got a great shot at you know,
Speaker 1: you've you should make birdie. But if you the second
Speaker 1: you get out of position, you're you're in a very
Speaker 1: very difficult place where all of a sudden you're looking
Speaker 1: at it and like, well, I have to hit a
Speaker 1: really great shot here to make you know, A have
Speaker 1: a chance at three and even make four sometimes depending
Speaker 1: on how how far out of position you get. Now
Speaker 1: to mention you know, you have so many different ways
Speaker 1: you could play it. One that comes to mind is
Speaker 1: stream song. Is it thirteen thirteen at stream song or
Speaker 1: fourteen thirteen? Uh huh? And that one I got into
Speaker 1: the I tried to hit driver and I got into
Speaker 1: the left bunker and oh my god, I was just
Speaker 1: in the worst place in the world, and I think
Speaker 1: I just picked up my ball after after about seven shots.
Speaker 2: Well, you know that hole is that whole is kind
Speaker 2: of loosely based on and that's a loosely based on
Speaker 2: sixth at Pacific Dunes. It's one of those it's the
Speaker 2: only hole extream song that we had to do a
Speaker 2: lot of earthwork on that hole. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: kind of the fairway was a lot higher than it
Speaker 2: is now, and it was you couldn't you couldn't even
Speaker 2: see where the water was coming in on the left
Speaker 2: because the fairway was so high you couldn't see over
Speaker 2: it and see that there was a really steep and
Speaker 2: there there was like a really steep, dangerous edge to
Speaker 2: the left side. So we kind of had to cut
Speaker 2: it down to make it, to make it where you
Speaker 2: could get people around the golf course without somebody driving
Speaker 2: a car over a cliff by accident. And you know,
Speaker 2: and and you know, Bill Gore needed the dirt from
Speaker 2: that fairway for for one of the teas that he
Speaker 2: wanted to build, so we just, you know, we just
Speaker 2: moved all the dirt over to his hole and you know,
Speaker 2: just whittled away at the fairway until we got it down.
Speaker 2: But but I was trying to think of, Okay, how
Speaker 2: do I do a short par four with a fair
Speaker 2: way down in the green up? And you know, I
Speaker 2: think six it. Pacific is one of the best poles
Speaker 2: that I've built. So it's the only it's the only
Speaker 2: hole I've tried to copy that that basic idea from
Speaker 2: for for this hole as well. I mean, the difference
Speaker 2: is the one that streams Song is even a little shorter,
Speaker 2: and you're usually not playing it right into the teeth
Speaker 2: of the wind these you know, Pacific, it's into the
Speaker 2: wind most of the time, So you know, driving the
Speaker 2: green is not really you know, you could drive it
Speaker 2: up and near there somewhere, but if the wind is
Speaker 2: in your face, you're not going to drive the green.
Speaker 2: You're to pro Yeah, to pros are going to do
Speaker 2: it that much stream song. You can really take a
Speaker 2: shot at it if you want. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: a hell of a rip. I've never hit driver in
Speaker 2: that hole myself. I haven't played it a lot of times,
Speaker 2: but you know, I'm not going to take the bait
Speaker 2: on that particular hole because I know, because I know
Speaker 2: how many things can go wrong. And a friend of
Speaker 2: mine as says that on my short part Furs, you
Speaker 2: should just never take the beat, no matter how tempting
Speaker 2: it looks. You know, this would be an easy birdie
Speaker 2: if I just do this that that's usually a bad
Speaker 2: play at least for them percentage wise. And you know,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of what you're trying to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you're at least trying to make it
Speaker 2: where the guy who is, you know, going for something
Speaker 2: has taken a big risk to do it. Well, you know,
Speaker 2: if you could, if you could drive it anywhere and
Speaker 2: still make birdie all the time, then that's not a
Speaker 2: very good hole.
Speaker 1: I agree, And I mean I walked off the hole
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, why the hell did you
Speaker 1: just hit driver when you can just hit a four
Speaker 1: iron right here and you've got a wedgend. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a great way though, That's a great subtle
Speaker 1: way to challenge, you know, the better player is to
Speaker 1: give them something that entices them to hit driver, because
Speaker 1: they every every really good player thinks they can hit
Speaker 1: driver where they want it if they really need to.
Speaker 2: And you know, and they and they think that they
Speaker 2: should be entitled to hit driver on every single longer hole.
Speaker 2: You know, I've heard that cruisism a bunch from from
Speaker 2: good players. Don't take the driver out of my hands,
Speaker 2: and I don't just make it like a stupid play
Speaker 2: sometimes that you can hit it. I'm not making you
Speaker 2: lay up. You better hit a good shot if you
Speaker 2: do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really important
Speaker 2: part of golf. And you know the tough part about
Speaker 2: doing that though, and the reason you don't see every
Speaker 2: other architect doing the same thing is because it's not
Speaker 2: always popular to do that. You know, you walked off
Speaker 2: and think, you know, I've learned something about architecture. But
Speaker 2: a lot of like low handicapped guys are going to
Speaker 2: make you know, they make eight in a short part
Speaker 2: for they hate the whole and they might hate the
Speaker 2: whole golf course as a result of fact, and they're
Speaker 2: not going to go back and play it the second
Speaker 2: time and figure it out. So and then the client
Speaker 2: is nervous about that. So there's a lot of and
Speaker 2: the architect is nervous about that because he wants to
Speaker 2: win some award and he doesn't want good players to
Speaker 2: go around telling him he's building unfair of golf courses.
Speaker 2: It's really bad for business. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: guys that just shy away from building things like that
Speaker 2: that might be controversial. And again, I mean, I've just
Speaker 2: been you know, I've just been trained from day one
Speaker 2: not to be afraid of any of that. You know
Speaker 2: that that's that actually makes the golf course better in
Speaker 2: the long run, provided you have the confidence that people
Speaker 2: are going to come back, you know. And yeah, you
Speaker 2: have to have some confidence. And you know where I
Speaker 2: am now, it's a little easier to have that confidence.
Speaker 2: People will give me the benefit of the doubt and
Speaker 2: you know, but but you know, I only got there
Speaker 2: because I've been doing it from the start. You know,
Speaker 2: even when I was risking my career, I was building
Speaker 2: those kinds of holes.
Speaker 1: So which, uh, which of your projects are you most
Speaker 1: proud of? You know, it doesn't have to necessarily be
Speaker 1: the best one or the highest rated one, but what
Speaker 1: what one are you most proud of? And why?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm gonna I don't give the politically
Speaker 2: correct the answer that they're all my children, but you know,
Speaker 2: I'm proud of a lot of them. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: we've worked on some great projects and you know, and
Speaker 2: you know, not just me, but the guys that work
Speaker 2: for me a ton of time on them, trying to
Speaker 2: get them right, and I think they've come out really good.
Speaker 2: And you know, still picking one between specific dunes and
Speaker 2: barn Google and you know, and then some places like
Speaker 2: Creek that aren't as well known, or Stone Eagle that
Speaker 2: was really hard to build. But you know, if it's
Speaker 2: not everybody's cup of tea, you know, I'm proud of
Speaker 2: all of those, you know, to some extent, I'm just
Speaker 2: as proud of something like Common Ground that we build
Speaker 2: a public course that people can play for forty bucks,
Speaker 2: especially considering some of the programs that they've come up
Speaker 2: with to not just encourage golf, to encourage public golf
Speaker 2: and encourage youth golf there. But you know, we managed
Speaker 2: to build them a little kids course on the side
Speaker 2: for free for you know what we saved up during
Speaker 2: the construction budget by building it as as efficiently as
Speaker 2: we could. And they, you know, they've used it for
Speaker 2: all kinds of school programs. And then then one of
Speaker 2: the one of the people involved with the Evans Scholarships
Speaker 2: in Colorado decided to like start like a a caddy
Speaker 2: camp and leadership academy on it so that they they
Speaker 2: train the kids, the local kids in the neighborhood and
Speaker 2: kids that they bust in to be caddies, and they
Speaker 2: subsidize it so you want, they pay They pay the
Speaker 2: caddy a little bit out of their fund so that
Speaker 2: you only have to pay twenty five dollars to take
Speaker 2: a caddy. It doesn't cost any more in a golf
Speaker 2: cart wood. And then and then by by letting these
Speaker 2: kids caddy, if the caddy more than like twenty rounds
Speaker 2: in the summer, they're eligible to apply for the Evans Scholarship. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that, you know, I'm really proud of that for entirely,
Speaker 2: you know, for reasons they have nothing to do with
Speaker 2: golf course architecture or my egos. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: nice to work for clients that try to do cool
Speaker 2: things for golf links. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that is an emerging trend in the industry.
Speaker 1: What we're starting to see is, you know, with places
Speaker 1: like winter Park golf course and and common Ground where
Speaker 1: there's these new you know, municipality run golf courses that
Speaker 1: are less expensive and you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I think is interesting is that you know everybody and
Speaker 1: likes to go. They don't really know the names of architecture,
Speaker 1: and you you've established a great intern program. I'd be curious,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were running a municipality and you
Speaker 1: could hire you know, if you could put five guys
Speaker 1: on a list of who you'd want to hire to
Speaker 1: do a lower cost renovation of a of a golf course,
Speaker 1: who would they be?
Speaker 2: Are? Now I have to be playing correctice. You're asking
Speaker 2: me to pick between like fifteen guys that that have
Speaker 2: worked for me at various times, and and I've you know,
Speaker 2: and I've helped train that are all really talented, you know,
Speaker 2: including three guys you know, including three or four that
Speaker 2: still work for me on my payroll, where talented as anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the hardest thing about my company
Speaker 2: is that, you know, I always envisioned that the guys would,
Speaker 2: you know, the young people that we brought in, you know,
Speaker 2: would event you would want to move through and then
Speaker 2: try to get out on their own, you know, like
Speaker 2: I did when I worked for you know, I worked
Speaker 2: for Pete Die for like four years, and and there
Speaker 2: wasn't really a way to keep working for Pete Dye
Speaker 2: He didn't really keep a payroll. He just moved from
Speaker 2: one project to the next, and they were all over
Speaker 2: and you know, you just had to pick up and
Speaker 2: move to the next one when you were done with one.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't you know, it was a business model
Speaker 2: where the employees were it was they were intended to
Speaker 2: kind of burn out after a while and then you'd
Speaker 2: find new people to replace them. You know. He gave
Speaker 2: a lot of people a chance that way, and I've
Speaker 2: tried to do the same thing. But you know, when
Speaker 2: the when the recession happened and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: it was really hard to get a job. Then, you know,
Speaker 2: nobody wants to leave and try to go on their own.
Speaker 2: And that was you know, that was a really tough
Speaker 2: thing in my company, having to downsize a little bit
Speaker 2: and try to figure out who's stayed and who laughed,
Speaker 2: you know, And I tried to do it in a way.
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of kicked the senior guys out
Speaker 2: of the nest, which was very controversial, but I knew
Speaker 2: they could make it on their own by then, and
Speaker 2: I knew the other guys couldn't. And you know, and
Speaker 2: by that point, you know, the younger guys were the
Speaker 2: ones that were on the machine shape and the stuff.
Speaker 2: And to me, that's the most important part of the
Speaker 2: whole deal. You know, if you're if you're really good
Speaker 2: at that, you will always have work in this business.
Speaker 2: And you know, and that's one of the great things
Speaker 2: about my internship program, all these young guys that have
Speaker 2: worked for me, If I don't have, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be so busy, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to be gone three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: days a year so that they can all stay busy.
Speaker 2: You know. I just I can only do so many
Speaker 2: projects a year without losing my mind, you know, getting
Speaker 2: too frazzled trying to do too many things. So a
Speaker 2: lot of these guys, you know, especially with you know,
Speaker 2: with Eric Iverson and Brian Swonik and Brian Schneider who
Speaker 2: still work for me, I mean, all the young guys
Speaker 2: that have worked for us, know that it's going to
Speaker 2: be hard to ever, you know, get past them and
Speaker 2: root one of them out. I mean they you know,
Speaker 2: they're like still young and enthusiastic guys with like fifteen
Speaker 2: years experience on the equipment. Who can you know, build
Speaker 2: anything you want at the snap of a finger. So
Speaker 2: you know, so all the young people that come through
Speaker 2: see that, see the writing on the wall that they're
Speaker 2: either going to have to go on their own or
Speaker 2: they're going to have to go work for somebody else eventually,
Speaker 2: you know, when we're not so busy, but they are,
Speaker 2: you know, they're you know. The cool thing is that
Speaker 2: nearly every good project in the last fifteen years, no
Speaker 2: matter who the architect is, there's like one or two
Speaker 2: guys that that worked for me for a while that
Speaker 2: have helped build it, you know, and you know, and
Speaker 2: because we've had success, and because a lot of architects
Speaker 2: are curious about how we do things. You know, having
Speaker 2: worked on barn Google Dunes or Pacific Dunes or Dismal
Speaker 2: River or wherever is a pretty good thing to have
Speaker 2: on your resume. And you know, some other architect will
Speaker 2: want you to work on his project so he can
Speaker 2: try to get a little bit of as knowledge into it.
Speaker 1: M that's uh, it's it's true, and I think you're
Speaker 1: on the right kind of philosophy. The best boss I
Speaker 1: ever had told me that, you know, part of being
Speaker 1: a boss is always trying to make uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you're the people that report to you end up being
Speaker 1: better at your job than you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And it's you know, it's it's a weird
Speaker 2: thing because I you know, I mean, I'm a very
Speaker 2: hands on person, and you know, I'm still kind of
Speaker 2: resistant to the fact that you know, I've graduated to
Speaker 2: the point where I'm not at sean time on my
Speaker 2: own projects. You know. I mean I went out and
Speaker 2: walked with's left of high point with somebody the other
Speaker 2: day and said to them, well, you know, the special
Speaker 2: thing about this is this is the only one of
Speaker 2: these courses that I built all these creams myself, and
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not saying they're better than the
Speaker 2: ones that my guys are doing with me. Now we're
Speaker 2: turning out great work now too. But I you know,
Speaker 2: it was different because it was all me and and
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that part of the business. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not good, you know, I'm bulldozer to justify. I mean,
Speaker 2: I clearly got tons of people around about when I
Speaker 2: did it at a high point place that you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of times I didn't even know exactly where
Speaker 2: I was going when I was when I when I
Speaker 2: would get on and start building green. But you know,
Speaker 2: I knew when to jump off because it'll look good.
Speaker 2: And that's a really different process than what everybody imagines
Speaker 2: we do, is that you know, we have an exact
Speaker 2: idea of what this green is going to look like,
Speaker 2: you know, when we're chomping around in the trees before
Speaker 2: we ever start building a golf course. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't have that all figured out in my mind. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the fun part. That's that's what makes going to
Speaker 2: work every day exciting, is you know, figuring it out
Speaker 2: and making it better as you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've done a ton of restorations, you know,
Speaker 1: of a lot of classic golf courses. What's what would
Speaker 1: you say is the most difficult thing about doing a
Speaker 1: restoration versus designing a course? And you know some of
Speaker 1: the key differences.
Speaker 2: Oh, by far, the most difficult thing is is dealing
Speaker 2: with big committees or you know, hundreds of members as
Speaker 2: your client instead of one guy. You know, because because
Speaker 2: I've never I've never worked for any club where everybody
Speaker 2: was really on the same page. There are all sorts
Speaker 2: of factions and differences of opinion as to you know,
Speaker 2: what direction they should be going and they're looking to
Speaker 2: you for advice, but there's always going to be people
Speaker 2: that disagree with you. And you know, and that's you know,
Speaker 2: I've been really lucky and the golf courses that's done
Speaker 2: by myself. You know, I haven't worked for you know,
Speaker 2: I imagine that dealing with you know, having a municipal project,
Speaker 2: you could run into that same problem. You know, you're
Speaker 2: dealing with a committee. I've only I've built thirty five
Speaker 2: new courses and and only once I dealt with a committee.
Speaker 2: Nearly always I had like one person that I answered to,
Speaker 2: And that's just you know, that's great because if you
Speaker 2: you know, if you you know, as long as they're
Speaker 2: okay with what you're doing, then you don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about what else, what else you're doing when you've
Speaker 2: got you know, when you got a bunch of members
Speaker 2: and they want to know all the details. You know,
Speaker 2: the one person client, he could be comfortable with the
Speaker 2: fact that you don't know everything. Right after that, m
Speaker 2: you know, other than that, I mean, you know, where
Speaker 2: I think where I think a lot of restoration renovation
Speaker 2: work goes wrong is you know, not so much the idea,
Speaker 2: but the execution. I mean, you know, in theory, if
Speaker 2: it's really a restoration project, and no matter what architects hired,
Speaker 2: they should be telling you the same thing. Between fis,
Speaker 2: here's what the golf course was, here's what we should
Speaker 2: be trying to go back. But there, you know, there's
Speaker 2: there's varying interpretations of what restoration means. You know, does
Speaker 2: it mean putting back exactly what was there in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty six, or does it mean well, technology changed and
Speaker 2: we all hit the bone so much farther now that
Speaker 2: you know we're going to we're going to make it
Speaker 2: play the same, but we got to stretch it out
Speaker 2: and move the fairway bunkers to different places and all that.
Speaker 2: You know, that's not the way I advise clubs most
Speaker 2: of the time. But but you know, that's a different interpretation.
Speaker 2: So you do have different ideas on what restoration is.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, when you're rebuilding something, you know, ideally you'd
Speaker 2: just be doing the work that really needs to happen.
Speaker 2: Like you don't have to rebuild a hundred fairway bucks,
Speaker 2: you know, and I have to rebuild every bunker on
Speaker 2: this golf course. You just have to rebuild sun and then,
Speaker 2: you know, but you can only do that if you're
Speaker 2: good enough to make the new and look indistinguishable from
Speaker 2: the stuff that was built fifty years ago. And there's
Speaker 2: not that many people that are good at that, you know,
Speaker 2: when you when you when you do it the normal
Speaker 2: way and get it out to a contractor, they're not
Speaker 2: good at that, and they don't have that much incentive
Speaker 2: at being good at that. They just you know, their
Speaker 2: contractors to build a bunker and get it done as
Speaker 2: fast as they can and not have to tinker around
Speaker 2: with it so much because they make more money that way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, and we just you know, I've got
Speaker 2: the guys who can get on the equipment and shape
Speaker 2: it and make it look like it fits, and you know,
Speaker 2: and our incentive is all about getting it right, however
Speaker 2: long it takes. And you know, that's what our clients want. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so you've got the Loop opening this year, which
Speaker 1: is a reversible course. If anybody hasn't heard of it,
Speaker 1: you can play it's essentially two different golf courses of
Speaker 1: eighteen greens that you can play a different direction each day.
Speaker 2: Right, It's it's an eighteen old golf course that every
Speaker 2: other day you play at the backwards down in eighteen stairways,
Speaker 2: in the seventeen stairway and all the way back around,
Speaker 2: and then the next day you play it forwards and
Speaker 2: then and then you also did the Sheep Ranch out
Speaker 2: in Bandon Dunes, where.
Speaker 1: It's essentially you put the ball on the ground and
Speaker 1: you tee it to different greens. I love this concept.
Speaker 1: What are some other kind of innovative concepts that you've
Speaker 1: you've got that you would love to try out?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't say I've got a bunch, you know,
Speaker 2: not not all of them are like groundbreaking innovation. And
Speaker 2: you know, the reversible golf course wasn't my Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: something I read about in Tom Simpson's book when I
Speaker 2: was like sixteen years old and just thought that's a
Speaker 2: cool idea. I'd love to do something like that today.
Speaker 2: It just took me off a long long time to
Speaker 2: find the right place to do it. So some of
Speaker 2: the things that I'm thinking about, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'll ever get a chance to do it. But there
Speaker 2: are there's a few different kinds of projects that I'd
Speaker 2: like to do. You know. One one that I'll put
Speaker 2: out there that I've tried to sell to one or
Speaker 2: two clients and they've they've shrugged it off, and like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we don't want to do anything like that. I would
Speaker 2: like to build a golf course that's tailored to women.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not just like has a good set
Speaker 2: of women's teeth, but it's you know, it's it's sixty
Speaker 2: three hundred yards max. Because that's the longest the LTGA
Speaker 2: player would want to play it, and it goes down
Speaker 2: from there. You know, that would be an entirely different experience,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, like I've spent a couple of
Speaker 2: days in the practice rounds of the Women's Open at
Speaker 2: Sabonic watching them play my course and like up close.
Speaker 2: I I contacted Stacey Lewis and Paul at Klemer and
Speaker 2: it dances that event, and said, you know, could I
Speaker 2: walk with you for a round and and just you know,
Speaker 2: watch what you're doing, and in return, I'll answer any
Speaker 2: questions you have about how I think you ought to
Speaker 2: play certain holes. And they both yes, we will do that.
Speaker 2: So that was great for me to get back inside
Speaker 2: the ropes and and you know, see where they land
Speaker 2: the ball and see how it reacts and you know,
Speaker 2: they're so precise. I mean, and women's off you know,
Speaker 2: like a savonic that the percentage of Fairway's hit statistic
Speaker 2: was like, you know, the last player in the field
Speaker 2: was at seventy percent. Invest players are like ninety six
Speaker 2: because the airways are wide, and you know, they just
Speaker 2: stripe it like they're used to play in every golf course,
Speaker 2: like it's twenty yards wide. They never they never miss
Speaker 2: wide very much, so you know, so that's the chance
Speaker 2: to you know, and they don't hit the ball quite
Speaker 2: so high as the men do. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 2: designing a course thinking about their skill set would be
Speaker 2: very different. It wouldn't have to be this big wide
Speaker 2: thing that everybody builds now that I sort of help popularize.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I'm thinking, you know, we've
Speaker 2: gone too far in that direction because all you've see
Speaker 2: now is, you know, every course that's won the Best
Speaker 2: New Award for the last twenty years is like the biggest,
Speaker 2: widest golf course that was up for nomination that year.
Speaker 2: It's like bigger is better, and you know, and I
Speaker 2: don't think that's true. And I think the way to
Speaker 2: do it is, you know, like really I just want
Speaker 2: to build a sixty two hundred yard golf course. But
Speaker 2: I think that the way to sell just only building
Speaker 2: a sixty two hundred yard golf course is to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a great course for women, and you guys
Speaker 2: can try your luck on it, but you're going to
Speaker 2: find out you're you know, it's not a pushover.
Speaker 1: It could be women, women and juniors. You need the
Speaker 1: LPGA Tour to create a TPC sawgrass like course for
Speaker 1: one of their championships.
Speaker 2: Well supposedly they did years ago. Whatever the LPGA International
Speaker 2: is that Reece Jones designed, I've never seen it, but
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the course that I'm describing here.
Speaker 1: Probably not.
Speaker 2: I sure, I haven't heard a lot about it.
Speaker 1: So you you touched on Savonic and you've done a
Speaker 1: couple co design projects with other firms. You know, how
Speaker 1: tough is it to kind of share a vision with
Speaker 1: another ego on a project.
Speaker 2: It's it's tough, and it's it's different depending on who
Speaker 2: it is, like, you know, Yeah, I mean the two
Speaker 2: projects that I did in Australia, we worked with Mike Clayton,
Speaker 2: and that was pretty easy because I was friendly with
Speaker 2: Mike going into it. And it's the same by the
Speaker 2: same token, I had more experience than he did at
Speaker 2: that point, so he really deferred to me on a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff. You know, it was more like he
Speaker 2: was a consultant. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons we we entered into that agreement was,
Speaker 2: you know, he had some really strong guys that worked
Speaker 2: for him that would help get the golf course built,
Speaker 2: project manage it. You know, one of them was a
Speaker 2: superintendent for years and had been an assistant of Royal
Speaker 2: Melbourne who I really respected a lot. And it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, so you know, he had some team members
Speaker 2: like I had some team members that really fit well together,
Speaker 2: so that made it easy. But at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, you know, it's like, you know, he'd give
Speaker 2: a lot of input, but also really isn't my decision
Speaker 2: on what would have got you know, Sabonic was completely different.
Speaker 2: You know, we had to agree from the beginning that
Speaker 2: you know, nothing was finished until we both liked it,
Speaker 2: and you know that meant that Jack, you know, there
Speaker 2: were some holes that you know, we tried to do
Speaker 2: some stuff that Jack didn't like, so we'd have to
Speaker 2: keep revising him, which is hard, and there were some
Speaker 2: holes that he wanted to do that you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't like it exactly the way it was, and he's
Speaker 2: not hearing that from somebody else. But you know the
Speaker 2: relationship between me and Jack was still pretty good because
Speaker 2: that's what we agreed to do and we both understood
Speaker 2: going in that that's what we're agreeing to. But the
Speaker 2: hard part was getting our teams seamesh didn't work very well.
Speaker 2: I mean on that project. You know, Jim Orbina who
Speaker 2: ran the job with me, and then Brian Schneider and
Speaker 2: Eric and some of the guys that shaped it, they
Speaker 2: had to take like several steps back from the role
Speaker 2: that they're usually involved and the level they're usually involved,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I mean, the cool thing for Eric
Speaker 2: or Brian working for me is if they build a
Speaker 2: wild green and I like it, it's done, and it's
Speaker 2: the bonics. It wasn't done, you know, I could like it,
Speaker 2: and then Jack didn't like it, and then it had
Speaker 2: to change and that was hard for them. That's you know,
Speaker 2: that's not what they were used to, and that the
Speaker 2: odds that they were going to build a green that
Speaker 2: went that flew through with flame colors and we were
Speaker 2: done were a lot lower, so you know, that part
Speaker 2: of it was really tough, and they were just you know,
Speaker 2: there were more politics to that job than most. Again,
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we signed up for, you know.
Speaker 2: And I always said about that project, well, you know,
Speaker 2: other people are going to have to tell me if
Speaker 2: they think this was a good idea to get us
Speaker 2: together to design it, because you know, both Jack and
Speaker 2: I are always going to look at it like, oh,
Speaker 2: I would have done something different on Maple, you know.
Speaker 2: And yet and yet it's a pretty good golf course
Speaker 2: and it's pasted some big things and gotten a lot
Speaker 2: of acclaim for doing it. So I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: they did it the wrong way, you know, It's just
Speaker 2: it's just it's a different kind of emotional experience to
Speaker 2: doing it. And you know, you know, I don't get
Speaker 2: to go back to some of my own courses and
Speaker 2: enjoy them and play them as often as I'd like.
Speaker 2: But when I do go back to them, I really
Speaker 2: feel good about most of them. You know. It's not
Speaker 2: like I'm kinkering and second guessing myself and you know,
Speaker 2: wanting to go rebuild the Third Green because I just
Speaker 2: don't like the way it turned out, and you know,
Speaker 2: so so in most cases, I can just go back
Speaker 2: and play golf and have fun. And I actually play
Speaker 2: pretty well because I you know, because I'm comfortable with
Speaker 2: all the shots that I got to hit. You know,
Speaker 2: Sabonic is kind of the rare one that when I
Speaker 2: go back, there's still questions about it. And you know,
Speaker 2: even if I'm playing with a friend, they all want
Speaker 2: to know, like, okay, so this is your idea? Is
Speaker 2: this Jack's idea? And it just takes away from the
Speaker 2: fun we normally have building the things. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's uh. I imagine it's just got to be so
Speaker 1: tough when both have to sign off on it, and
Speaker 1: you know that it's kind of differing design philosophies with
Speaker 1: the with the two firms. I want to I want to.
Speaker 2: I mean partly it's you know, I will say too
Speaker 2: partly it's my fault. I mean, if i'd have known
Speaker 2: Jack Nick, look well at the beginning of the thing,
Speaker 2: I should have said to him, you know, look, don't
Speaker 2: worry that we're going to ignore what you have to say.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to babysit us to make
Speaker 2: sure that we're sticking to stick and do things, you know,
Speaker 2: just let us ruffian stuff for you and then come
Speaker 2: out and and you know, tell us all the changes
Speaker 2: you want to make, just like you would to your
Speaker 2: own staff. But you know that course was overstaffed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we didn't need all you know, we didn't need all
Speaker 2: my people and all his people there at the same time.
Speaker 2: That part was the part that didn't work.
Speaker 1: So well, yeah, it's gotta be tough, so