WEBVTT - Bandon Deep Dives: Pacific Dunes 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:00.720 I miss a green. 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:02.520 For example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.920 And when I find my ball in a bright egg 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.280 Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.239 Bride egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off of 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:13.640 the hump. 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.160 Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:42.159 is Garrett Morrison. I'm here today with Andy Johnson. Andy, 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.920 at the moment, what is your favorite fruit? 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.840 Oh? Wow, heard hitting question? 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.800 Because it changes for you, it changes. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.160 Interra season's over. I'm a big mango. I really like 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.560 mangoes too. I think bananas are probably my you know, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.680 most consumed fruit and year, but I do really like 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.760 a good mango, So I'll go with mango. Now, thats 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:06.280 sumo citrus season's over. 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:08.639 Mango is kind of a fancy man fruit. 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.399 It is. It's a pain and asked to cut too. 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.319 That's the thing. It's not, you know, I don't think 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.840 it's like, what's expensive is buying the cut up mango? 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:19.440 Yeah? 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:24.080 What isn't you know? It's not that prohibitive to buy mango, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:28.000 but it is prohibitive to cut it because it takes 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.920 you know, what you lose in in cost when you 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.280 go to the cut mango, you save in your personal time. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.959 Right exactly. It takes some skill to cut a mango properly. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.280 You can't just sort of like randomly go after it, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:45.800 which I've definitely done before, because I get all excited 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:47.720 there's a mango in front of me, I like this 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.720 looks delicious, and I just start sort of willing nilly 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.680 digging into it, and it just ruins the whole thing. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.440 So you really need to be thoughtful about your approach 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:58.960 to the mango, much as you need to be thoughtful 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.960 about your approach to Civic Dunes, which is the course 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.440 that we're talking about today. Was that the most professional 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:06.800 segue you've ever heard? 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.640 Maybe I don't know, I've heard some more professional ones. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.519 You know, the radio pros are really the ones that 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:16.280 you know are so smooth. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.920 Okay, so we are talking about Pacific Dunes. This is 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.799 the next long awaited entry in our Bandon Deep Dive series. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.120 We haven't done one of these in a while. I 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.160 think the last one was in February. Things have intervened, 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.160 you know, We've we've had a major championship and various 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.920 other things to cover. So we're getting back to the 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.240 series now, and this is our second to last episode 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.880 of this series, because we've been going backwards through time 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.839 through the courses, backwards chronologically, and so we are at 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.440 the second course that was built at the Bandon Dunes 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.760 golf resort, designed by of course, Tom Doak, opened in 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.960 two thousand and one, and it opened to rave reviews. 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.960 You know, this was a pretty immediate success for Bandon 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:08.760 Dunes almost right away. It outranked Bandon Dunes on the 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.119 magazine rankings, which you know, take that with a grain 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.040 of salt, obviously, but I think it's significant that in 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:21.519 most you know, sort of general rankings of courses in America, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.880 Pacific Dunes is usually second to just Sand Hills basically 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.399 among modern courses. And so this is perhaps the most 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:35.080 highly regarded course at Bandon Dunes, but it's also one 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.800 of the more controversial. You know, we talked about Old McDonald. 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.960 Old McDonald two has had its detractors, but I feel 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.200 like there's the biggest split when it comes to Pacific 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.240 Dunes between people who love the course and people who 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.160 really don't like the course. Would you agree with that? 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.400 Yes? And no? I think I think it's the best 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.960 course out there. I don't think it's really close from 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.000 a standpoint of of golf to I think where there's 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.800 a split is that Pacific Dunes unlike the other course, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.560 Unlike some of the other courses. You know, it's not 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.960 necessarily like a pushover. If you're hitting good shots, there 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.840 is some bite. And if you look historically through the 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.799 great golf courses, you know, you think about National Golf Links, 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.679 you think about Shinnakok Hills, you think about Pine Valley, 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.040 you think about you know, the great American golf courses. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:37.360 When they were designed, they had bite. They were controversial, 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:44.160 they were pushing boundaries of what was considered fair. I 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.120 think Pacific Dunes is the one course Abandon that has 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.400 real bite. And you know, my first encounter with Pacific 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.040 Dunes was broadcasting. I played it, but I brought I 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.440 spent a week broadcasting a college event. 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.760 This was right before the pandemic hit. You were out 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.000 there with a microphone doing like Ken Brown style, you know, 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.520 rolling the golf ball, showing the contours, all that kind 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:08.359 of stuff. It was cool. 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.839 But then we did on course and I followed groups, 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.720 and you know, I spent a couple of days watching 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.680 guys play Pacific Dunes and you know these there's like 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.320 three teams in the top twenty five, but a number 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.120 of guys that are turning professional. And you know you 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.640 might see him on the PGA Tour. You had Devin Bling, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.440 who won the event, was the you know at the 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.240 time runner up at the US AM. You you know, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.760 you have real quality golfers and you see them go 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.400 around this golf course on three idyllic days, you know, 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.719 wonderful weather and it's sixty six hundred yards and you know, 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.200 the scorers were not great. They were right around par 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.680 for winning. They were not they not lighted up despite 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.440 really good weather conditions. And I think it's a testament 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.200 to the golf design in the sense of without a 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:05.120 beefy yard, this golf course is really challenging and for 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.599 the best of players. But I think like regular people 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.880 can navigate their space, and especially if you understand the 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.039 design and where you need to get to. It's a 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.800 golf course that if you're out of position, you need 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.480 to get back into position. It's not a golf course 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.640 where you can hit it anywhere and be fine. Like 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.240 that's not the type of golf course it is. It's 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.960 a golf course, and that's what makes it great. That's 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.160 the enduring thing. The routing's phenomenal. We talked about it 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.120 at length in our video that we did, the roundtable 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.440 video that we did on it that I highly recommend 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.039 checking out on YouTube. We also have it on the website. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.760 We talk about the routing, the routing's phenomenal, but really 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.440 at the core of this golf course is such a 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:59.720 wonderful strategy. From hole to hole. Each hole has its 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:04.279 own story, and there are repercussions when you play certain ways, 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.880 often away from trouble, and when you play away from trouble, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.720 you find yourself in positions where you can't attack. You 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.520 need to be defensive, you need to get yourself back 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.440 in position and to make pars. And where you can 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.240 get in a lot of trouble is when you're out 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.800 of position and try and bite off too much that 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.200 you can chew. And when you think about the great 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:29.440 golf courses, the greatest golf courses in the world, this 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.920 is the thing behind them, is that the strategy is 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.320 what drives them. It's the timeless, iconic stuff that lasts forever. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.560 It's why the road hole at Saint Andrew's is one 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.240 of the greatest holes ever. Is not because of the 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.400 hotel that you hit over. It's because of the what 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.400 happens if you hit it over the hotel versus bailing 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.080 to the left, and what the repercussions are and what 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.960 you have to do after that. So with Pacific Dunes, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.400 what I love about it really deep down is that 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.600 you're playing chess. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.920 And if you get in trouble or if you get 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.280 out of position, you can't keep digging. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.080 Well you can. You're afforded the opportunity to hit a 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:14.800 great shot. 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.000 Well you're tempted to. You probably shouldn't though. 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.560 Yeah, exactly, you're you're afforded, but you know, putting that, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:26.080 that's the mental stimulation, you know, is the idea of 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.560 do I take this on? I could conceivably hit the shot, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.079 but should I try to hit the shot? And that's 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:38.520 what it does. And there's no better examples. I think 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.640 the fourth and I kind of we did our dream 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:46.680 eighteen pod and I actually like am Really the one 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.320 regret I have about it is not even bringing up 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.640 the fourth At Pacific Dunes, it's over the least interesting 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.520 land outside. You have the ocean on your right side, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.040 so you're playing along the cliffs. And this is a 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.960 perfect example. And most people would say, oh, if you 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.520 take the ocean away, that holds a nothing burger. But 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.880 if you put an out of bound stake and you 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.800 had a train line right there, this is one of 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.680 the great strategic holes in all of golf. It asks 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.360 you to hit the ball as close to the hazard 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.040 as you can if you can hug it up the 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:26.320 right side along the cliffs there, every contour around the 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.560 green helps you. You're hitting a mid to long iron 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.000 depending on the wind, maybe a short iron depending on 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.920 the wind. If your downwind versus indo. You know, you 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.839 can have a range of things. But this whole strategy 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.800 works regardless. So you have the cliff running along the right, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.480 the ocean on your right, which is a very daunting 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.200 thing to take. On to the left, you have tons 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.560 of space, heaps of space, a couple fairway bunkers that 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.680 are very much in play, and if you find those 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.640 that are deep, you're gonna have a tough time getting 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.600 even to the green. But you have all the room 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.720 in the world left and it's flat and the green 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.320 is guarded. What it has is a dune on the 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.880 left side of the green short left that kind of 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.080 runs along the left side in there is set some 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.440 bunkers and the green kind of sits in this pocket 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.800 a dune, a pocket, and then the cliff and all 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.319 the slopes go at the green, go left to right 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.199 off the dune towards the cliff. If you play up 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.280 the right, you all of a sudden have a sideboard. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.160 You play close to the water. You've taken on the 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.880 challenge and your reward is that you don't have to 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.280 take on the water again. You have a helping slope 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.000 and you can play to the left part of the 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.280 green and it's going to funnel you back to the 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.920 middle part of the green. You can also get at 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.200 left PINNs from there, which you know if you play away, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.360 which is really easy to do, and I think that's 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.120 where most people do it. It's just so hard to 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.480 get yourself to hit it up the right. And this 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.200 is this, this is brilliant strategy. So you decided, I'm 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.520 not taking on the water. I'm going to pass. I'm 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.720 going to pass the buck onto the next shot. So 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:11.520 I hit it over to the left, say I'm in 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.920 the fairway on the left half of the faaway, or 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.560 say I'm in the fairway on the left side and 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.520 I'm trying to attack that green. All of a sudden, 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.880 every single slope that was helping me from the right 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.800 side hurts me from this side. It is going to 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.439 shoot the ball. It's not going to kind of funnel 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.400 it back because I'm not landing into the upslope of 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.679 the slope. I'm landing on the down slope. And what 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.040 happens is that ball can shoot off the green into 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.600 the water if you're not careful. So what you're kind 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.080 of presented with its decision, especially if you have a 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.080 long iron in like, what do I do? Now? You 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.520 have a couple options. You can try and hit that shot. 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.080 It's really hard. You probably need to draw it, you know, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.320 and you need to draw it against it and try 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.480 and get something working against the slope to do it. 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.240 You can hit it, dump it into the bunker, but 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:05.240 then you've just passed along that problem again. Or you 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.920 can play it short of the green and get yourself 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.600 back into a position where you have a reasonable up 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.839 and down attempt. And that third decision is probably what 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.400 you should do, and if you did it ten times, over, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.120 you'd probably walk away with the best scoring average. But 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.920 that's the hardest thing to get any golfer to do 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.920 because it makes them say to themselves, I can't hit 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.560 the shot, and it forces you to play against your 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.400 own ego, which is what Pacific Dunes does over and 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.680 over and over again, is that it foils you against 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.600 your ego. And I think that's where a lot of 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.440 animosity comes, is that people realize they can't hit these shots, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.720 but they don't realize that they put themselves in the 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.040 position to where they shouldn't be able to hit the 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.320 shot because they didn't take on the first shot and 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.640 they didn't confront the problem off the bat. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:02.079 Two things about four one is that that second shot 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.080 lay up. If you hit your drive away from the 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.000 cliff out to the left and you decide to lay 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.079 up on that second shot, that is probably the percentage 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.720 play there, because if you go for the green, there's 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:16.240 a pretty good chance that your ball is going to 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.079 run through the green. But the layup isn't easy either 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.719 because guess where you're playing. You're playing right to the 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.080 edge of the cliff, and your tendency is going to 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.679 be to pull that left and you might end up 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:30.680 in those dunes on the left, or in that bunker 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.400 that's cut into the dunes. I was there last time. 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.640 I can tell you that's not the place to be 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.880 because you're not hitting the green with your recovery from there. 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.640 You are doing the same thing that an approach would do. 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.240 You're running through the green. Second thing is that the 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:50.560 prevailing wind enhances everything that you're talking about. Four In 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.760 the prevailing summer wind plays down wind, and so that 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.440 means that your approach is going to have less spin. 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.200 It's going to roll out more, and you really need 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.640 if you want to hold the green to be on 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:06.960 the right. There you have that little slot up. You 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:08.600 can land it way short of the green, and your 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.160 approach is going to run up. It's not a hard 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.280 shot from there, but it's an incredibly hard shot from 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.960 the left down wind because everything that the design is 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.120 doing is enhanced by that wind. Your ball is running 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.680 out there's just really nowhere to stop it. So those 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.520 are the two things i'd add to four. I agree 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.680 it's a brilliant hole. There are other brilliant fourth holes 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.400 at the Bandon Dunes Resort, and that's what we got 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.920 talking about during the Dream eighteen exercise. But for sure 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.480 the angles on that hole are exemplary and they represent 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.760 a lot of what Pacific Dunes is doing throughout the course. 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.960 Yeah, I think the thing is you have to confront 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:50.400 the water at some point. You can keep procrastinating and 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.760 keep putting it off, but every time you're getting to 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.560 more and more difficult place. 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.600 All right, let's take a couple of steps back here 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.640 and talk about some of the story behind Pacific Dunes. Now, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.920 we have covered this in past podcasts a little bit, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.440 so we're not going to go super in depth on it. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.640 But the story of the routing of this course is 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.040 a very interesting one. Tom Doak wrote a book called 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.560 The Making of Pacific Dunes that he has talked about 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.840 on the Yoke with Doke podcast with you, and it's 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.240 a great story, you know, it's a really fun story 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.640 about the various kind of compromises and experiments that you 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.840 go through when you're building a course of this importance 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.320 and on this kind of piece of land. But the 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.560 main thing that happened early in the process of the 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.520 routing of Pacific Dunes was that Doake realized that a 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.720 couple of the holes that he had routed in his 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:52.160 initial plan wouldn't work because David Kidd had put his 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.200 seventh and eighth holes at Bandon Dune's over the land 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.720 that Doake was planning to use for those holes. So 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:03.200 Doake basically needed to not completely scrap his initial plan 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.000 because he was able to save some of the holes 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.720 from there, but really reconceptualize the routing of the course. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.640 He had to find some new holes somewhere and a 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.760 new way to make the course work overall. So it's 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.320 a great story, and we have some tape of Doak 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.640 describing this in one of those old episodes of Yolk 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.560 with Doake. It's about ten minutes long. So why don't 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.440 we cut to that tape and just let Tom tell 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:28.880 the story. 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.920 I'd love to hear a little bit more about the 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.040 story of when you guys stumbled upon the thirteenth. 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.320 So the book has three routings for Pacific Dunes, and 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.520 the first one is something that I never even showed 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.480 mister Kaiser. I'd had a topo map of it for 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.840 six months or a year before i went out to 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.240 look at it, to look at the ground, because well, 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.760 i'd actually i'd i'd met mister Kaiser in like nineteen 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.320 ninety five, so way before the first golf course existed. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.879 David Kidd was already working on his plan for the 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.080 first golf course at that time, and instead of trying 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.240 to like elbow him out of the way, I just figured, well, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.199 you know, Mike's talking about doing two golf courses. Hopefully 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.119 I'll get a chance to do the second one. So 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.600 so I just, you know, I just spent some time 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.680 with Mike. We played golf a couple of times when 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.040 I actually went on a golf trip to Ireland together, 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.200 got to know him a bit. He saw a couple 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.480 of my other golf courses, and as Bandon Dunes was 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.840 being built, he acquired the land for Pacific Dunes, and 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.800 so Mike sent me topo of that land. But we 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:52.920 both agreed that it probably wasn't right to go out 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.800 there and start working on the planning while David was 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.560 still working on his golf course, and you know, and 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.240 you know, having another archae ticked around while David was 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:06.720 still you know, making decisions and changing stuff just wasn't kosher. 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.399 So so I didn't. So I had the map for 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.199 quite a while to just play around and try to 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.720 find golf holes. But I didn't go to look at 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.919 the site until David's course was all done and a 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:18.280 month or two away from opening. 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:19.760 And Mike had. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.720 Told me that when he got the land for David, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.080 when he got the land for Pacific Dunes, he let 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.119 David build a couple of holes into the corner of 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.760 it along the coast. So I routed holes pretty close 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.679 to there. And as it turned out, this map that 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.960 I took with me to Abandon Dunes, the first time 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.760 I had golf holes all over where David's seventh and 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.840 eighth holes were. I didn't know they were there. So 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.080 my routing just flat did not work. From the moment 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.960 I set foot on the site that the circulation of 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.080 it didn't work at all, And I was like, so 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:53.960 I never showed. 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:54.200 It to Mike. 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.840 I was just like, crap, now I'm back to square one. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.359 There were a lot lot of things that we saw 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.879 walk in the ground that we were like, boy, that's cool, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.280 and I, you know, and I hadn't picked up on 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:13.199 the Seventh Green site all the little jiggly contours that 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.639 are the seventh Green on the topa map when I 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.720 looked at the topa map as soon as we walked 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.240 by it, I was like, let's build a green there. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.080 It's amazing green site. Amazing fairway too, Like that's just 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:28.200 such a beautiful hole. 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.159 And one of the nice things about the book is, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.120 you know you asked about the thirteenth all, which I'll 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.080 get to in a minute. You know, I have the 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:38.280 one of the pictures in the book is me standing 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.159 on the thirteenth ee and Jim or benis stand in 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.159 the landing area for the fairway the first time we 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.520 saw it. So anyway, I'm trying to figure out how 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:51.359 to rework my routing minus the land for six, seven 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.400 and eight abandoned dunes. And you know, we were spend 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.600 a lot of time walking the site, the parts that 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:58.160 we could walk because a lot of it was still 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.439 covered with gorse, and then coming back and working on 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:06.280 the maps, and so you know, we found like the 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.400 sites for the first hole and the second hole, and 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.600 the and the seventh green, and the eighth and part 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.760 of the eighteenth because those weren't under gorse and you 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.320 could walk them pretty easily. But the north side of 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.800 it was almost you know, once you dropped off three 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:25.000 t onto that flatterplane, that was all eight foot high gorse. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.080 You really couldn't walk through it at all. So we 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.000 just you could see the dunes on the far side, 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:32.560 and we had a topo map and it's like, okay, 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.320 it's five hundred yards to there, so we could play 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.000 a hole here. But it was still hard to get 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.919 a feel for and Mike was feeling nervous about it. 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.439 But you know, I said to him, after like three days, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.600 you know, I really like this, but you know that 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.000 that little corner there that we gave up, you know 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.760 that means I'm gonna wind up with three or four 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:59.080 holes inland away from the water that I just I 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:00.640 don't think they're going to be good. 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.280 That's like the best thing you can say to Mike Kaiser, right, 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.520 if you want to get more of waterfront land. 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:07.560 Yeah, threatening. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.600 Same process as Terry ed actually, you know, so I 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.119 said to Mike, you know, I'm just not sure what 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.000 I'm gonna do with the with hales like inland on 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:20.680 that flatter bit of terrain. 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.440 I think I'm gonna have to like build. 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.480 Some dunes and create something there because it's just not 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.720 as dramatic as everything else. And Mike said, well, actually, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.719 we own the property north of this too, so you know, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:35.280 why don't you go look over there? 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:36.840 And I was like okay. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.320 So, like I said, you know that that big plane 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.439 from the third te at Pacific Dunes and kind of 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.679 the twelfth to pretty close to his fence line was 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.280 just all gorse and you couldn't walk through it. So 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:58.560 Jim and I drove around to the beach actually where 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.480 you drive into the sheep where you can drive into 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.840 the Sheep ranch and hike back up along the dunes 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.240 to get in, because there was you know, a sandy 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:10.040