Speaker 1: Here's the thought experiment. You're a golf nerd and it's
Speaker 1: twenty fifty five. When you look back on the years
Speaker 1: between twenty ten and twenty twenty five, what are the
Speaker 1: ten golf courses that define that period for you? What
Speaker 1: are the really great ones, or the influential ones, or
Speaker 1: just the ones that represent the era in some way.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're trying to figure out what those
Speaker 1: courses will be the ten defining golf courses of the
Speaker 1: past fifteen years. I'm Garrett Morrison and this is designing golf,
Speaker 1: all right. So I'm here with my colleagues Andy Johnson
Speaker 1: and Matt Ruschius, Andy, founder of Frida Egg Golf. How
Speaker 1: you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Excited to do this. This is I
Speaker 2: have to say, I'm a little jealous that I didn't
Speaker 2: think of this topic for the Fried Egg Pod. So
Speaker 2: this is a fun thought experiment.
Speaker 1: And Matt you're here as well. How are you doing
Speaker 1: doing well?
Speaker 3: Excited to hear what you guys have to say, because
Speaker 3: I feel like you can kind of take the word
Speaker 3: defining in very many different directions. So I'm curious to
Speaker 3: see you guys's point of view and see how it
Speaker 3: differs from mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, first of all, before we get into the
Speaker 1: discussion of what constitutes defining, I should address the timeframe
Speaker 1: that we've chosen here, twenty ten to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: First of all, I need to acknowledge that that is
Speaker 1: in fact sixteen years. The time from the beginning of
Speaker 1: twenty ten to the end of twenty twenty five is
Speaker 1: in fact sixteen years, But I'm calling it the past
Speaker 1: fifteen years because I just really don't feel like calling
Speaker 1: it the past sixteen years. In any case. The idea
Speaker 1: behind this timeframe is that what we're dealing with here
Speaker 1: is the post recession era, and the recession was a
Speaker 1: major shock to golf course development and golf course architecture.
Speaker 1: It changed the way that things had to be done.
Speaker 1: And so what we're talking about is this is this
Speaker 1: odd little time period from about twenty ten to to
Speaker 1: the current day where the golf course industry had to
Speaker 1: reinvent itself in some ways. And then there was another
Speaker 1: shock in the middle of it in COVID. And of
Speaker 1: course things have changed big time once again during the
Speaker 1: twenty twenties. So I thought it was a good moment
Speaker 1: here at the end of twenty twenty five to kind
Speaker 1: of reflect on what this period has meant in the
Speaker 1: golf course industry and talk about some of the courses
Speaker 1: that have stood out in some way. But yeah, I've
Speaker 1: chosen this adjective defining for the episode. There are a
Speaker 1: number of other you know, there are various various adjectives
Speaker 1: I could have gone with here. I did not go
Speaker 1: with best for a reason. You know, this is not
Speaker 1: a list of the best courses that we're going to
Speaker 1: do because I was a little bit less interested in
Speaker 1: speaking in those terms. Yeah, when you guys think of
Speaker 1: what constitutes a defining course, what do you think of, Andy,
Speaker 1: what comes to mind when you think of a defining
Speaker 1: golf course?
Speaker 2: I think one of the keys here is you're prompt
Speaker 2: of is twenty fifty five, and you're thinking back to
Speaker 2: this period of time, and it would be the courses
Speaker 2: that jumped your mind, and I kind of think of
Speaker 2: defining into different superlative buckets. This is not the best
Speaker 2: they are to me, golf courses that that they could
Speaker 2: be the best, Like you're going to have like what
Speaker 2: you think is the best of that period, but also
Speaker 2: there are other bins that you could put it in
Speaker 2: as most influential things that changed the way people thought
Speaker 2: of certain types of golf. And I think that's the
Speaker 2: premise here which makes this a really fun discussion, because
Speaker 2: it isn't necessarily the.
Speaker 4: Best golf courses.
Speaker 2: It is the ones that kind of changed the way
Speaker 2: that the general public thought about a certain type of golf.
Speaker 2: Is my kind of way I'm I'm approaching this or
Speaker 2: the way that maybe it possibly influenced and changed the
Speaker 2: way golf courses were built, or how it changed the
Speaker 2: trends in golf course architecture. Like that's the way I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about it a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, and these can be changes for better for worse. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I think most of the courses that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about we would probably argue for better. We're not
Speaker 1: going to talk about many, if any straight up bad courses.
Speaker 1: But these are not necessarily, as you say, the best courses.
Speaker 1: They are there, they just loom large in the historical period.
Speaker 1: They are historically important in some way, Matt, anything to
Speaker 1: add to that with this you task of trying to
Speaker 1: define what defining means?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Andy summed up kind of what I immediately
Speaker 3: thought to of when you kind of gave this prompt
Speaker 3: to us. One thing that I kind of like keyed
Speaker 3: in on was trying to identify golf courses from this
Speaker 3: era that like set a precedent and then kind of
Speaker 3: like were these trailblazers for a new model of golf
Speaker 3: or like a kind of radical way of thinking, So
Speaker 3: trying to pinpoint like that origin golf course that kind
Speaker 3: of like paved this way for other courses to come
Speaker 3: from behind it. So that was one thing that I
Speaker 3: kind of used to try and target, like one that's
Speaker 3: more defining than another, because a lot of them can
Speaker 3: fall in the same buckets when you go through the list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which course first of all came first and which
Speaker 1: course actually brought about the change, you know, because sometimes
Speaker 1: some courses come first, but they don't have quite the
Speaker 1: effect that the second effort has. I think we'll talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of those examples in this episode. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting how history works sometimes where something might be first,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily change everything right away. It is
Speaker 1: the second thing in that genre or in that vein
Speaker 1: that really pushes it. But being first is important, and
Speaker 1: the things that are that come the earliest will we'll
Speaker 1: definitely get some priority here. So yeah, I mean when
Speaker 1: I think of defining, I break it down into a
Speaker 1: few different buckets. A course can be defining in like
Speaker 1: a number of different ways, and it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to be any one of these things. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be all of these things. So a course can
Speaker 1: be defining just by being really great. So that's one thing,
Speaker 1: right when we think of the defining courses of the
Speaker 1: of the nineteen teams in the US, those are National
Speaker 1: Golf Links and Pine Valley, maybe a couple others, but
Speaker 1: they're the really great courses. And so that's one thing
Speaker 1: that you certainly need to consider. But you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: need greatness to be defining. You can also have influence.
Speaker 1: It can be an influential course, which is a lot
Speaker 1: of what you guys are speaking to. A course that
Speaker 1: changes something, changes the way that people view architecture or development.
Speaker 1: You can have a course that's sort of representative of
Speaker 1: a larger trend. That's another way a course can be defining.
Speaker 1: A course that kind of embodies a broader historical dynamic
Speaker 1: that is going on in the period in which the
Speaker 1: course was built. And then finally there's there's you know
Speaker 1: another category that I want to consider here, and that
Speaker 1: is uniqueness. And so this is almost sort of opposed
Speaker 1: to being representative of a larger historical trend, right because
Speaker 1: if you're representative, you're by definition not not unique. But
Speaker 1: I think courses can be defining by by having some
Speaker 1: thing about them that is just different, and they can
Speaker 1: stand out for that reason. So I think really any
Speaker 1: of those factors can be can be at play here.
Speaker 1: So all right, so's those are our general criteria. I
Speaker 1: want to dive now into actually picking some courses, and
Speaker 1: as we as we pick courses, we can kind of
Speaker 1: talk about some of the broader macro trends of golf
Speaker 1: architecture and development over the past fifteen years, which I
Speaker 1: think are very interesting. But the way we're going to
Speaker 1: do this is kind of draft style. But it's not
Speaker 1: a competitive draft necessarily. We're not selecting courses so that
Speaker 1: we have the best three courses or whatever. We're trying
Speaker 1: to sort of collaborate here to come up with the
Speaker 1: best list of ten courses, and we'll alternate choosing one
Speaker 1: course at a time until we get to nine, and
Speaker 1: then at the end we'll, you know, together, we'll kind
Speaker 1: of choose a tenth course that we really think should
Speaker 1: be on the list. So that's kind of the method
Speaker 1: that we'll use here, and I will, you know, make
Speaker 1: a note before we start picking courses that, you know,
Speaker 1: for our international listeners, we are three Americans here. We
Speaker 1: all live in the US. We are most familiar with
Speaker 1: US courses. Now, we we aren't necessarily going to be
Speaker 1: choosing all courses that we have seen. We can select
Speaker 1: courses that we haven't been to but we know to
Speaker 1: be defining in some way. But just the fact that
Speaker 1: we live in the US and have been involved in
Speaker 1: a golf World discussion that that kind of revolves around us,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to other Americans and seeing American courses,
Speaker 1: that's going to put an idea in our minds that
Speaker 1: American courses kind of are are maybe a bigger deal
Speaker 1: than they would be to somebody who lives in South
Speaker 1: Africa or somebody who lives in New Zealand. So we'll
Speaker 1: try to be we'll try to make some gestures toward
Speaker 1: international news, but this is our list. We are three Americans,
Speaker 1: and just take it. Take it in that spirit. We're
Speaker 1: not trying to be We're not trying to be defining
Speaker 1: with our defining list. All right, why don't we start
Speaker 1: with Andy's pick? Andy, I'm gonna give you the first pick.
Speaker 2: And you're being so deferential giving me the first pick here.
Speaker 1: It's it's very kind of me. I know that we
Speaker 1: all really wanted to have the first pick. Andy. What
Speaker 1: do you? What do you? What are you gonna? Where
Speaker 1: are you gonna go with for our first defining golf
Speaker 1: course of this period?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I this is this is hard to pick first.
Speaker 1: I know. I looked at it myself and I tried
Speaker 1: to figure out which course I would pick first, and
Speaker 1: I could not figure it out.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with Terry d number one.
Speaker 1: Going international right off the bat. That's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I just am picking this because it this
Speaker 2: golf course and the the success of it, leading to
Speaker 2: the tri I golf courses being built, has thrust the
Speaker 2: North Island of New Zealand into like dream trip for
Speaker 2: ardent golf fans, golf travelers. It has made New Zealand
Speaker 2: a you know, extremely you know, desired golf destination. And
Speaker 2: there were great golf courses on New Zealand, you know,
Speaker 2: in New Zealand before Terry Dy there were but Terry
Speaker 2: Edy and the level of that it's reached on I
Speaker 2: think on one of the world lists it's in.
Speaker 4: The top ten.
Speaker 2: The impact that it then that then followed with the
Speaker 2: building of a world class resort that's open to the public.
Speaker 2: I think this you're talking about lifting an entire country's
Speaker 2: you know, tourism economy and making it a world class
Speaker 2: golf destination.
Speaker 4: To me, if i'm you know.
Speaker 2: Comes down to it, I think it completely changed the
Speaker 2: golf landscape in New Zealand and will continue to change
Speaker 2: the golf landscape in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: We're seeing more.
Speaker 2: And more development there and I think we will continue
Speaker 2: to see more and more development there and New Zealand.
Speaker 2: You know, if it's the year twenty fifty, I think
Speaker 2: New Zealand will be among you know, the most sought
Speaker 2: after golf vacations as people have more time and travel
Speaker 2: becomes easier.
Speaker 1: Matt Any thoughts about this course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one thing that kind of jumped to my mind,
Speaker 3: and this is sort of a recency bias take here,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of people talking about Children's Hall
Speaker 3: course getting into golf dot COM's top one hundred world
Speaker 3: rankings at seventy third, and I looked back and when
Speaker 3: Tera Edy debuted in their same rankings, it was twenty ninth. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so nearly like forty places higher than all this like
Speaker 3: talk came about out with Children's Hall joining in at
Speaker 3: like seventy fourth or whatever it was. So it had
Speaker 3: this like enormous splash in kind of the modern golf
Speaker 3: ecosystem when it was debuted, and it continues to climb
Speaker 3: in like every publishing ranking. I know when I was
Speaker 3: like younger, and I was like I created a list
Speaker 3: of like courses I wanted to visit at some point
Speaker 3: in my life when I was probably like fifteen or
Speaker 3: sixteen years old, when I was starting to get into
Speaker 3: golf architecture, and Tara Edie was like one of the
Speaker 3: first that I wrote down on my list. So like,
Speaker 3: I feel like that kind of puts it in perspective
Speaker 3: someone who doesn't really know that much and is getting
Speaker 3: into it as already like pinpointing this golf course is
Speaker 3: something notable, and it seems to be like kind of
Speaker 3: a consensus that it's it's the best modern golf course
Speaker 3: since since essentially like Sandhills that fits in this time
Speaker 3: zone that we're talking about Matt.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that you were fifteen or sixteen and
Speaker 1: tara Edy existed is kind of blowing my mind right
Speaker 1: now because this course opened in twenty fifteen. So that's yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll just leave that behind. But yes, it is.
Speaker 1: It has to be said that tara Ed is the
Speaker 1: highest ranked golf course in this period that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: and it's not really that close. I don't think when
Speaker 1: you look at the world top one hundred rankings, and
Speaker 1: of course you know, put whatever stock you want to
Speaker 1: in these rankings, I don't personally put a ton, but
Speaker 1: it is representative of influence and definingness. Right ta Ed
Speaker 1: is blowing away the twenty ten to twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: competition right now, and I think that's probably because one,
Speaker 1: the golf course is really really excellent, wonderfully designed in
Speaker 1: an incredible location. And also I think a factor here
Speaker 1: is the model of Tara Edy. This is a destination
Speaker 1: private club that is connected now to a destination resort.
Speaker 1: And if we're talking about what the broader historical trend
Speaker 1: is that Tera Edy represents between twenty ten and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five the rise of the destination private club and
Speaker 1: the continuing predominance of the destination resort is a big,
Speaker 1: big story. I think tera Edy fits right into the
Speaker 1: middle of that. It is relatively remote, not easy for
Speaker 1: many people across the world to get to, but it
Speaker 1: is attracting people because of how spectacular it is and
Speaker 1: because of what people are saying about the course after
Speaker 1: they play it.
Speaker 2: I you know, I would agree with all of that.
Speaker 2: But I think when you're looking at this, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty five years from now, you're talking about the creation
Speaker 2: of a royal county down a La hinch A, you know,
Speaker 2: Sunningdale in a country, a royal Melbourne of New Zealand.
Speaker 2: And to me, that's the thing, is like, there are
Speaker 2: a lot of courses, great courses in New Zealand that
Speaker 2: I want to go see, but nothing of the world
Speaker 2: class caliber. And I think to be a great golf destination,
Speaker 2: you know, to be one where you know, loads of
Speaker 2: tourists are coming to and flocking to, you have to
Speaker 2: have the top of the top, the top shelf, and
Speaker 2: at that, no matter what else do you want to say,
Speaker 2: it could have any model in the world, it could
Speaker 2: be daily fee, it would still be at this point,
Speaker 2: you know, A good question would be is it Would
Speaker 2: it be as highly rated if it was a daily fee.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I sort of sort of doubt it
Speaker 1: because the experience would be different, but you know it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be I don't think it would drop out of
Speaker 1: the top one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is a golf course that literally will
Speaker 2: define New Zealand golf for the next one hundred years.
Speaker 2: And that's why, like I when you know, you put
Speaker 2: the gun to my head, number one pick, this is it, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think anything else can touch it, because no
Speaker 2: other golf course that has been built in the last
Speaker 2: fifteen years will have a cultural impact on an entire
Speaker 2: country the way that Terry is having on New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Okay, very persuasive, Matt. I'm going to give you the
Speaker 1: second pick. What are you going with?
Speaker 3: I thought this one was going to maybe be the
Speaker 3: first pick, so shocked to that it's still here. But
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with the Lido at Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: This was, in my purview, was probably.
Speaker 1: Toward the top of all of our lists. Second Tom
Speaker 1: Doak course in a row, though this one was a
Speaker 1: collaboration between Tom Doak, Brian Schneider and C. B McDonald.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, I guess you can put it that way.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a very hard one to pinpoint
Speaker 3: who's is the true true the.
Speaker 1: Robots built it, maybe, yeah, maybe Peter Floory built it.
Speaker 4: Brian Zeger would be.
Speaker 1: Brian Zager is very important, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Peter Floory, Yeah, They're all important in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But this is a golf course that was built at
Speaker 3: one period of time and essentially lost from its original location.
Speaker 3: With tons of historical research, data collection, creativity, and some
Speaker 3: brilliant golf architects and golf mines came together and essentially
Speaker 3: recreated a golf course that is nearly over one hundred
Speaker 3: years old and lost and created it in what seems
Speaker 3: like near like as close as you possibly could with
Speaker 3: the information that was present and the style that they
Speaker 3: did it using GPS bulldozers where you're essentially plugging in
Speaker 3: data and essentially elevations on the ground and these bulldozers
Speaker 3: are just spitting out what that data is telling it to.
Speaker 3: It was sort of a revolutionary way to build a
Speaker 3: golf course and certainly a trail blazing style of golf
Speaker 3: course construction. And we've already now seen more golf courses
Speaker 3: using the same technology, even just this year building a
Speaker 3: new golf course in Florida. So I think you have
Speaker 3: to include this golf course of this era for defining.
Speaker 1: This any thoughts about the Lido and its position in history, Andy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Matt hit on it at the end.
Speaker 2: This is a golf course that's going to revolutionize the
Speaker 2: way golf courses are built. That's going to be it's
Speaker 2: a lasting impact. It's a great it's super fun golf
Speaker 2: course to play, It's a great golf course. It it
Speaker 2: has a super interesting model which I think will be
Speaker 2: a similar model to you know how some more courses,
Speaker 2: like we saw Forest Dunes is something doing something very similar,
Speaker 2: uh in terms of model with Skyfall. But to me,
Speaker 2: we're going to see so many golf courses built in
Speaker 2: similar fashion with GPS, do dozers and the idea of mimicking.
Speaker 4: You know, some.
Speaker 2: Features of famous golf courses, and I think we've already
Speaker 2: seen it. Sand Glass is a new course that's would
Speaker 2: be on this list that use that technology and a
Speaker 2: you know, and it's a much different version of this.
Speaker 2: The twenty one Club is another course that is opening.
Speaker 2: I think next year you know they're doing some some
Speaker 2: preview play now, but you know they'd be a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six course that uses this type of technology. And
Speaker 2: I think, like what it's long term effect will be,
Speaker 2: you know, as we go forward, is it's going to
Speaker 2: change the definition of what a great site is because
Speaker 2: of how wonderful this technology is is that you don't
Speaker 2: necessarily have to have a site with like the most
Speaker 2: sensational natural gifts where you have that like rolling dramatic
Speaker 2: sand dunes. I think what the bigger you know, kind
Speaker 2: of pull out here will be if you have deep sand,
Speaker 2: it can be flat and you can build a great
Speaker 2: golf course. Because you see with the Lido, it is
Speaker 2: not a naturally blessed site, but there is a great
Speaker 2: golf course on it. Sand glass from what I have
Speaker 2: not been on site, from what I've been told, you know,
Speaker 2: not a naturally gifted site, but very deep sand which
Speaker 2: allowed them to create elevation by going both down and
Speaker 2: putting that stuff up. So I think the big thing
Speaker 2: here is those GPS, GPS dozers and the you know,
Speaker 2: the ability to punch in that is going to really
Speaker 2: change the golf construction world. And that's going to be
Speaker 2: something you know, twenty years from now, where that is
Speaker 2: going to probably be pretty normal in golf course construction.
Speaker 1: There could be a historical shift in a couple of
Speaker 1: ways with the LIDO. I think this point that you
Speaker 1: make andy about it potentially redefining what makes a good
Speaker 1: site for golf is an important one because a major
Speaker 1: overall narrative of the twenty ten to twenty twenty five period,
Speaker 1: and you could extend this period before that, is the
Speaker 1: search for great sandy rolling sites, the search for great
Speaker 1: golf land that isn't enormously expensive, and so that has
Speaker 1: really driven a lot of development and a lot of
Speaker 1: the best architecture of the past fifteen years. Maybe that
Speaker 1: might be starting to change. We can start to look
Speaker 1: at sites that are a little bit closer to population
Speaker 1: centers potentially and do something interesting with them. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting that this will be cheap or that this
Speaker 1: will be an accessible way to do architecture for every
Speaker 1: kind of client an architect and client base, but it
Speaker 1: certainly would be a very interesting shift. The other thing
Speaker 1: about the LEADO that's kind of representative of the period
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. You know, we've talked about the
Speaker 1: ways in which the Lido is changing how things will
Speaker 1: be done. But it also represents kind of the culmination
Speaker 1: of this love for Golden Age architecture, and more specifically
Speaker 1: the love for the architecture of CB McDonald and Seth Rayner.
Speaker 1: As of thirty years ago, or even twenty five years ago,
Speaker 1: CB McDonald and Seth Rayner were not the most highly
Speaker 1: respected Golden Age architects. Their profile was starting to increase
Speaker 1: a little bit among golf course architecture officionados, but in
Speaker 1: the general golfing public, I don't think that they were
Speaker 1: nearly as well regarded as your Alistair McKenzie's or your
Speaker 1: Harry Colt's or your William Flynn's. Right, they were considered
Speaker 1: sort of a relics of a previous era to an
Speaker 1: extent that has changed a lot in the past twenty
Speaker 1: years or so, and the Lido really shows how far
Speaker 1: advanced that that trend is now, where we're literally we're
Speaker 1: trying to recreate with as much accuracy as possible. The
Speaker 1: work of these architects, who, you know, thirty to forty
Speaker 1: years ago were not probably considered worth this effort, and
Speaker 1: so that's that's one way in which the Leedo kind
Speaker 1: of is a sign of the times that we live.
Speaker 2: In when you when you look ahead. Also, there's going
Speaker 2: to be bad actors. Well I'll call them bad actors,
Speaker 2: but you could say they aren't bad actors. With this technology,
Speaker 2: are we going to see let's just say, a Augusta
Speaker 2: National remake it built in Saudi Arabia or Vietnam. I
Speaker 2: don't think that's a crazy thought that that might happen,
Speaker 2: or you know, maybe not Augustin National, but other famous courses.
Speaker 2: Does someone have to find a really sandy site and
Speaker 2: build a t a pine valley remake to as much
Speaker 2: just back as possible in a far flung country. The
Speaker 2: number you know, the why you know a lot of
Speaker 2: regarded as the greatest golf course in the world. That
Speaker 2: could happen with this and that it will be fascinating
Speaker 2: if that happens. To see how it is received. I
Speaker 2: think there will be a lot of people that'll be
Speaker 2: like this sucks. I think there will also be a
Speaker 2: lot of people that are very happy, especially if it's
Speaker 2: accessible to the public.
Speaker 1: Could be a Pandora's Box moment for sure. Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: so we have got Terry Edy and the Leado I'm
Speaker 1: going to give my third pick here. I'm just going
Speaker 1: right across the street in Nikusa, Wisconsin. I'm choosing Mammoth Dunes.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I was I was gonna I My pick
Speaker 2: was San Valley from from there, but now I'm going
Speaker 2: to scratch that from my.
Speaker 1: So there were a couple of options that I was
Speaker 1: considering here, aside from just totally different golf courses which
Speaker 1: are also in contention. I think for me Gamble Sands.
Speaker 1: I could have gone with Gamble Sands here, and I'd
Speaker 1: like to discuss that I'd be willing to be swayed
Speaker 1: off of Mammoth Dunes and toward Gamble Sands. I do
Speaker 1: like Gamble Sands better as a golf course. Gamble Sands
Speaker 1: was a David McLay kid course that was built a
Speaker 1: couple of years before Mammoth Dunes and really represented the
Speaker 1: shift in kids' philosophy toward maximal playability. And Mammoth Dunes
Speaker 1: I think confirmed that philosophy and pushed it even further.
Speaker 1: But the reason Mammoth Dunes might be to pick here
Speaker 1: is that I think it probably is going to be
Speaker 1: more influential ultimately than Gamble Sands more people have seen
Speaker 1: this golf course. It's in a location that is easier
Speaker 1: to get to for most people, and it's at a
Speaker 1: resort that does a lot, a lot, a lot of business.
Speaker 1: Gamble Sands is relatively remote. It does a good business
Speaker 1: as well, but it's got two courses and a short course.
Speaker 1: At this point, Sand Valley is a mecca and Mammoth
Speaker 1: Dunes is an example of David Kidd's refreshed philosophy of
Speaker 1: golf architecture. In the middle of his career, Kid went
Speaker 1: more towards difficulty and kind of extreme features. With Gamble Sands,
Speaker 1: he returned to what he characterized as his kind of
Speaker 1: original principles of playability and fun. He also is trying
Speaker 1: to rethink this idea of visual intimidation visual deception. Since
Speaker 1: the Golden Age, golf architects have generally believed that visual
Speaker 1: deception is a good thing, that you should fool golfers
Speaker 1: into thinking that a shot is more difficult than it
Speaker 1: actually is through visual trickery. David Kidd is saying no, no, no.
Speaker 1: What we should be doing is giving golfers confidence when
Speaker 1: they stand on the tee. They should pull out a
Speaker 1: driver and feel confident that they can whale away at
Speaker 1: the ball. We want to encourage golfers to play well,
Speaker 1: to have fun, to rip driver, and to shoot their
Speaker 1: lowest scores. Ever, we want them to hit approaches that
Speaker 1: end up closer to the whole than they thought they would,
Speaker 1: not farther away than they thought they would. And you
Speaker 1: can argue against this philosophy, and I definitely would, but
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that it is a highly original way
Speaker 1: to approach golf architecture. And the reason why it's important
Speaker 1: is that architects and developers now have to react to it,
Speaker 1: whether they disagree with it or agree with it, because
Speaker 1: of what Kid did at Gamble Sands and then at
Speaker 1: a higher profile at Mammoth dunees because of what he
Speaker 1: did at those courses, now everybody else has to react.
Speaker 1: And it should be said that Mammoth Dunes is an
Speaker 1: extremely popular and beloved course by the average golfer, and
Speaker 1: certainly as the years unfold and golfers continue to react
Speaker 1: that way, probably to Mammoth Dunes and to Gamble Sands,
Speaker 1: developers and architects are going to think, well, maybe this
Speaker 1: is a good idea. And I suspect that we'll see
Speaker 1: more courses along these lines.
Speaker 2: I think an interesting component to this one is that
Speaker 2: this was the pushing of the width trend, which really
Speaker 2: started in I would say the early two thousands, you know,
Speaker 2: really started in the late nineties with with like sand Hills,
Speaker 2: the idea of giving space, and you know, Tom Doak
Speaker 2: and Bill cor and we're really you know, fundamental to
Speaker 2: this idea. And I think what happened this was like
Speaker 2: the Big Mac era of golf courses, where David Kidd
Speaker 2: builds Gamble Sands, builds Mammoth Dunes, Gil Hants builds a
Speaker 2: stream Song Black, which is also very much in this
Speaker 2: one of the things that and this is just an anecdote.
Speaker 4: I've never I never hear someone say that.
Speaker 2: Mammoth Dunes is like Goofy Golf for tricked up or
Speaker 2: you know, I hear people love stream Song Black. I
Speaker 2: hear people say that, but I also hear people come
Speaker 2: off frustrated by stream Song Black. She tells me that
Speaker 2: Gil Hans executed the really big wide golf better than
Speaker 2: David Kid. The job of in my opinion, and this is,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole debate about Mammoth Uns is the
Speaker 2: job of the golf course to be a defender, an
Speaker 2: active and willing defender to the golf golfer.
Speaker 4: You know, that is to me.
Speaker 2: The underlying tension and golf and what we love about
Speaker 2: golf and what makes it different than bowling in darts
Speaker 2: and and this is what makes general sports really fun,
Speaker 2: whether it's tennis or or you know, playing basketball, is
Speaker 2: you have an opponent that you're playing against in golf.
Speaker 2: You know from your youngest ages, if you're playing competitive golf,
Speaker 2: you're not playing the other golfers. You're playing the golf course.
Speaker 2: And and this type of golf that David Kidd had
Speaker 2: introduced with the gamble sands kind of took the defender
Speaker 2: out of play and it's more of a shoot around
Speaker 2: the course is a helper, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The golf courses your is your fluffer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like playing baseball with a t so, you
Speaker 2: know ball. And I think that there's been a reaction
Speaker 2: in the golf industry that is pushed back on this,
Speaker 2: and we're seeing more narrow golf courses since this. I
Speaker 2: think there was a general reaction after Mammoth Dunes that
Speaker 2: said we've gone too far on this.
Speaker 1: I found it interesting that as soon as Mammoth Dunes opened,
Speaker 1: you saw Tom Doaks start talking about how maybe width
Speaker 1: had gone too far, yes, and start talking about his
Speaker 1: interest in building some narrower golf courses. And so certainly
Speaker 1: it's something that's on the minds of architects, and that
Speaker 1: is that is basically my argument for why this course
Speaker 1: is going to end up being defining.
Speaker 2: What I find fascinating is the difference between Mammoth and
Speaker 2: stream Song Black.
Speaker 4: For example.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stream Song Black has very severe greens. You know,
Speaker 2: they're big, they're huge, but they have these different pockets.
Speaker 2: So where Mammoth Dunes, most of the greens I think
Speaker 2: twelve of the eighteen greens have are basically punch bowls,
Speaker 2: which you know, they corral of the ball in. So
Speaker 2: you have these big helping fairways that a lot of
Speaker 2: them are also punchable fairways where you have like helping
Speaker 2: slopes that corral balls in, and then you also have corralling.
Speaker 4: Greens.
Speaker 2: There is no real defense at stream Song I think
Speaker 2: is an interesting blend where they might be as severe
Speaker 2: of greens as gill Is built, but he's giving you
Speaker 2: all the room in the world off off the tee
Speaker 2: and what you can do with those severe greens is
Speaker 2: work yourself into positions.
Speaker 4: And this is the one.
Speaker 2: Of the things that I've thought about, and I'd be
Speaker 2: curious your guys thoughts.
Speaker 4: You know, I'll finish this thought real quick.
Speaker 2: But you can work yourself into positions that create those
Speaker 2: bulls that Mammoth has, but they aren't all easily discernible
Speaker 2: on first play or just like completely laid out for you.
Speaker 4: This is just a big bull.
Speaker 2: A question I have is should architects is the best
Speaker 2: architecture at resources where the vast majority of people only
Speaker 2: play at once or maybe once every three years. Should
Speaker 2: it be really fascinatingly intricate? And this is the thing.
Speaker 2: Mammoth Uns is the most popular golf course at at
Speaker 2: Sand Valley, and I would say, of all, almost every
Speaker 2: golf course that I've played on this list the least intricate.
Speaker 3: That's a really interesting question because something I thought about.
Speaker 3: I had Mammoth Dunes as the number two course on
Speaker 3: my list, and the reason I got there is because
Speaker 3: for so long golf has been about difficulty in trying
Speaker 3: to challenge the golfer and creating difficult golf courses. And
Speaker 3: then you have like the USGA rating system of slope
Speaker 3: and rating, and it seems like it seemed like there
Speaker 3: was a period of time where people were seeing how
Speaker 3: hard of golf courses we could build, and then David
Speaker 3: McLay kid comes along and essentially flips that question on
Speaker 3: top of itself and says, how easy of a golf
Speaker 3: course can I build? And in turn, the way I
Speaker 3: see this is if golf courses are puzzles. We're building
Speaker 3: these very complex, intricate puzzles that were very difficult and
Speaker 3: you had to think in many different ways to solve them,
Speaker 3: and then this is a much more straightforward puzzle, Like
Speaker 3: you could say that this is like the two x
Speaker 3: two Rubiks cube compared to the three y three Rubik's cube.
Speaker 3: It's like there's this exponential difficulty in solving from one
Speaker 3: to the other. And I just think it's fascinating that
Speaker 3: it took so long in golf history to like kind
Speaker 3: of come to this moment where we're actively trying to
Speaker 3: make a golf course fun and easier for the average
Speaker 3: golfer to play. Because everyone always talks about golf is like,
Speaker 3: oh I suck at golf, No one's good at golf.
Speaker 3: Everyone's always degrading their own game. And maybe that's because
Speaker 3: we've just been building difficult golf courses for the past
Speaker 3: one hundred years, and now finally we have a golf
Speaker 3: course that seems to be one of the first. At least,
Speaker 3: if I had to pick one out, this has to
Speaker 3: be the first golf course that was built with the
Speaker 3: sole purpose of being fun, which in turn makes it
Speaker 3: easier for most people to play.
Speaker 1: Kid was turning a lot of long held assumptions among
Speaker 1: golf architects, specifically, not among players necessarily, but among golf architects.
Speaker 1: He was turning a lot of those assumptions on their head.
Speaker 1: The idea, since again the Golden Age, has been that
Speaker 1: intricate golf architecture is better. Golf architecture should be intellectually
Speaker 1: engaging for the educated gentlemen and gentlewomen. Golf courses should
Speaker 1: engage their minds at a high level. And Kidd came
Speaker 1: in and said, well, actually, I think the most important
Speaker 1: thing is that people have fun and that they come
Speaker 1: away from their round with confidence and a sense of elation.
Speaker 1: Now Andy kind of gestured at the potential problem with
Speaker 1: this approach to golf courses is that it wears thin
Speaker 1: after a few Once you figure out that the golf
Speaker 1: course is helping you, you don't really have a motivation
Speaker 1: to play it again and again and again. So I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the architectural philosophy established by the
Speaker 1: Golden Age was based on the idea that we were
Speaker 1: building member courses. We were building courses that people would
Speaker 1: play over and over again, and we had to build
Speaker 1: sufficiently interesting and intricate courses for members to like them
Speaker 1: for a long time to come. But Sand Valley Golf
Speaker 1: Resort is a different context. This is dream golf. This
Speaker 1: is a couple of times in your lifetime usually golf,
Speaker 1: and perhaps that requires a different approach. Now, again, I
Speaker 1: have my issues with this philosophy of golf course design,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to say that it's dumb. It's not dumb.
Speaker 1: Actually a really smart shift of priorities. And so I
Speaker 1: think that's what's interesting about Mammoth dudes.
Speaker 2: You know, like, at the end of the day, and Matt,
Speaker 2: you're an architecture major, Garrett, you're a You're an English major,
Speaker 2: so you're much more men of the arts than me
Speaker 2: an environmental science major.
Speaker 4: You know, very much more men of the arts.
Speaker 2: But I mean at a certain level, golf architecture as
Speaker 2: an art form is it's an art form. What you're
Speaker 2: trying to do with art is evoke reactions. And I
Speaker 2: think one of the greatest achievements of Mammoth Dunes is
Speaker 2: it evokes a very wide range of reactions. And I
Speaker 2: think that has a lot of merit and and I
Speaker 2: you know, there are a lot of courses on this
Speaker 2: list that we have that don't do that and when
Speaker 2: and I think this one might evoke, you know, like
Speaker 2: you either love it or hate it. And I appreciate
Speaker 2: that now. It's what's interesting. And you know, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to pick this one as my next one. Is
Speaker 2: I had Sand Valley, you'd be at three golf courses
Speaker 2: at the Sand Valley Golf Resort if you pick Sand Valley.
Speaker 2: And my point with San Valley would be it's the kaiser,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of.
Speaker 4: Expansion beyond me.
Speaker 1: It's like we can do it outside abandon And.
Speaker 2: We're seeing now with with wild Spring Dunes, Rodeo Dunes,
Speaker 2: their project in Florida, that this is that Sand Valley
Speaker 2: was the start of something else. And I think, but
Speaker 2: that being said, maybe Sand Valley is just the epicenter
Speaker 2: of this era in terms of of development, and what
Speaker 2: I find fascinating is at its core. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't think I don't think that anybody would take Sand
Speaker 2: Valley and Mammoth Dunes are not the greatest golf course
Speaker 2: is of this era, but they might end up being
Speaker 2: some of the most influential, and I think that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I guess this takes it to my next pick and
Speaker 2: I I'm gonna go here with Sweeten's Cove.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was high on my list as well.
Speaker 2: This is this is the first internet golf course. This
Speaker 2: is the golf course that proved that a if you
Speaker 2: build something interesting and people like it, that that will
Speaker 2: break the mold and can be the model, the standalone model.
Speaker 2: It is a field of you know, people say Bandon
Speaker 2: Dunes is a field of dreams type situation. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: it's sand On on an ocean. It is not South Pittsburgh, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Nine holes, which you know a long standing like you
Speaker 2: can't there can't be a nine hole destination golf course.
Speaker 2: The people didn't believe you could have an eighteen hole
Speaker 2: destination golf course. But this golf course was really pre
Speaker 2: golf Internet. And what I mean by Internet is I
Speaker 2: mean social media, you know, pre social media, and you
Speaker 2: could say social media, maybe it's better as a social
Speaker 2: media course pre social media and golf and like really golf,
Speaker 2: Instagram and Twitter explosion. This golf course was basically going
Speaker 2: to close. It was not going to exist. They were
Speaker 2: on the brink it. I remember having so many conversations
Speaker 2: with Rob Collins as I started my business and he
Speaker 2: was in the Sweetens Cove business about like how we
Speaker 2: didn't know how long either of us were going to
Speaker 2: make it, and the and the golf business. But this
Speaker 2: is where, you know, the the world of the internet world,
Speaker 2: the social media world took a golf course and completely
Speaker 2: changed its business trajectory and business model. And I think
Speaker 2: it shows that if you build something interesting for public golf,
Speaker 2: there is a great market there. And what happens is
Speaker 2: that all the people, the influencers in the social media
Speaker 2: accounts go and their followers go, and Sweeten's Cove became
Speaker 2: this pilgrimage and really changed the way people thought about
Speaker 2: the business of golf at a public level.
Speaker 1: Matt thoughts about Sweeten's Cove.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have a ton to add to that
Speaker 3: I think Andy summed it up pretty well. But the
Speaker 3: one thing I think about, uh with Sweeten's Cove is
Speaker 3: how like everything is going against it. Essentially, it's in
Speaker 3: a floodplane, it's not the best soils, it's in a
Speaker 3: very odd location, and above all else, it somehow made
Speaker 3: it through through all of these difficulties. And the reason
Speaker 3: because of that is social media and people posting pictures
Speaker 3: of it and people saying how amazing it was to
Speaker 3: go there with their buddies and loop around this nine
Speaker 3: hole course four or five six times in a day.
Speaker 3: And that's all it was. There's nothing else to it.
Speaker 3: It's just go play golf and there's a shed up
Speaker 3: at the top with a porta potty behind it if
Speaker 3: you need to use the bathroom. So that's like my
Speaker 3: biggest takeaway is how it's literally just a golf course
Speaker 3: in a floodplain in this valley, and social media is
Speaker 3: able to prop it up on this pedestal because it
Speaker 3: is an interesting golf course and it got people to
Speaker 3: go there and travel and be a successful business.
Speaker 2: I've said this before on the Friday Egg Pod, but
Speaker 2: you know, and there were a handful of people that
Speaker 2: went probably before I went, but I went. I think
Speaker 2: they had three hundred Instagram followers at the time. And
Speaker 2: I went on a Saturday morning in late May and
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful day, beautiful like seventy five and sunny.
Speaker 2: And I got there, I wanted to say, at eight
Speaker 2: am I was the only car. Maybe seven thirty, I
Speaker 2: can't remember with the time change, I was the only
Speaker 2: person there. I teed off before anybody was there, played alone.
Speaker 2: I got back. Patrick Boyd was sitting there. There's one
Speaker 2: other group on the golf course. Nobody was there. This was,
Speaker 2: you know, pre it really hitting the thing. It was
Speaker 2: a failing business. Nobody played it. And I think if
Speaker 2: you talk to the original people, they had a small
Speaker 2: contingent of people that knew this golf course was provocative
Speaker 2: and had substance that no other course in the area
Speaker 2: really possessed of, Like it had a lot of this
Speaker 2: modern this with these greens that required you to be
Speaker 2: in certain places. And they had this legion of believers
Speaker 2: that were very powerful, and they added to the experience
Speaker 2: of people like me and others that showed up that
Speaker 2: there was the Sweetens Cove mafia. Really is the way
Speaker 2: I would describe it that that helped push this golf
Speaker 2: course into it because it is a thing of cultural relevance.
Speaker 2: I think it's less so today than maybe, you know,
Speaker 2: eight year or seven years ago. Seven years ago, it
Speaker 2: was like have you been to Sweeten's Cove? People talked
Speaker 2: about the pilgrimage to go to Sweeten's Cove, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, from that standpoint, it will change the way
Speaker 2: it has already and you know it is it incredible
Speaker 2: story in terms of a golf course making it.
Speaker 1: But Sweeten's Cove also proved that that is a hard
Speaker 1: way to do things, because eventually what they needed to
Speaker 1: do was bring in some money and recently bring in
Speaker 1: private equity to turn the property into something that feels
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more like a conventional destination golf resort,
Speaker 1: though still hanging on to a lot of the quirks
Speaker 1: that it had originally. I think the spirit of the
Speaker 1: place is probably still intact, but there's no doubt that,
Speaker 1: you know, the days of the of the shed and
Speaker 1: the sense that you were out in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere at this random, miraculous golf course. I think those
Speaker 1: days have passed. And the reason they've passed is that
Speaker 1: it's a tough it's a tough business model, right, The
Speaker 1: Little Course that Could is a tough business model.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot of different playbooks that
Speaker 2: could have gone down at different paths. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think like one of the challenges was, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the owners is one of the hottest architects
Speaker 2: in the world at this point, Rob.
Speaker 1: Collins, he can't be there everything, can't be.
Speaker 4: An operator anymore.
Speaker 2: And I think there, you know, there's there's pathways to
Speaker 2: where if somebody wanted to make that business work as
Speaker 2: a single owner, totally feasible. And yeah, you might not
Speaker 2: get to the fullest returns that private equities. You know
Speaker 2: that that's what private equity is looking to do. How
Speaker 2: do we maximize the returns? You know, And you could
Speaker 2: have gone a lot of different directions, but at the
Speaker 2: time I think they it went the right direction. And
Speaker 2: I think people can criticize or anything, but it went
Speaker 2: the right direction for the course at the moment in
Speaker 2: time that the person that ran the course and needed
Speaker 2: it to go.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I'm very very happy for the
Speaker 1: fact that the that paid off. Rob Collins put everything
Speaker 1: on the line and it worked. And that's massive credit
Speaker 1: to him. I also wanted one last thing I want
Speaker 1: to mention about Sweeten's Cove is I think it's probably
Speaker 1: architecturally influential as well. Right, what we saw with Sweeten's
Speaker 1: Cove was King Colin's absorbing influences not just from the
Speaker 1: usual suspects, but also from Fazio and Gary Mark Strants
Speaker 1: and Gary Player, right whom Rob Collins worked for earlier
Speaker 1: in his career. You know, King and Collins were very
Speaker 1: familiar with the trendy influences. They love Donald Ross, they
Speaker 1: love Golden Age architecture, loves loves Pinehurst number two. They
Speaker 1: think that Corn Crenshaw are the best in the world.
Speaker 1: So they have They had all of the usual influences,
Speaker 1: but they mixed them with something a little bit less fashionable,
Speaker 1: the kind of Fazio Play or Strants end to things,
Speaker 1: and produced something really interesting out of that, strategically interesting
Speaker 1: golf with features that just looked a little bit different.
Speaker 1: And I think that you see in a lot of
Speaker 1: new courses, especially courses that are trying to capture some
Speaker 1: attention visually, the influence of Sweeten's Cove. I think you
Speaker 1: see a lot of architects trying to to kind of
Speaker 1: do what King and Collins did at Sweeten's Cove, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be that's going to be a trend
Speaker 1: that I would expect to continue because part of what
Speaker 1: made Sweeten's Cove pop is that the features were so bold.
Speaker 1: You saw a picture on Instagram and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I got to go there, right, that looks that looks incredible.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to note that we do have
Speaker 1: to keep moving through the courses here. Why don't we
Speaker 1: Why don't we have the discussions? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2: The other thing is the idea of like pre selling
Speaker 2: and selling out your tea times right like they're all day.
Speaker 2: They did some like very revolutionary I you know, concepts
Speaker 2: with the experience, the lo Fi shed experience that became like,
Speaker 2: you know, a cultural thing like they did some stuff
Speaker 2: of like if we strip away everything and make it
Speaker 2: just about the.
Speaker 4: Golf, this can succeed.
Speaker 2: Now private equity gets involved, be'st no more you know
Speaker 2: in the long range plans. But the idea of some
Speaker 2: of the business ideas of them actually being a real scrappy,
Speaker 2: lean startup in golf leads to innovation and then you
Speaker 2: see that with Landman later with this pre sale time
Speaker 2: and they've had massive success selling out their t sheet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good note. All right, Matt, what
Speaker 1: is your next pick? I'm gonna go.
Speaker 3: So this is more so of a holistic kind of
Speaker 3: golf course. But the one that I'll pin point that
Speaker 3: I think is kind of the genesis of this is
Speaker 3: the Cradle at Pinehurst. I think the Cradle was one
Speaker 3: of the first most popular short courses or alternate styled
Speaker 3: golf courses that aren't you know, two par three's, two
Speaker 3: par fives and the rest par fours eighteen hole golf courses,
Speaker 3: and a few predecessors to this would be banned preserve.
Speaker 3: And then also even before that is the horse Course
Speaker 3: at the Prairie Club in Nebraska, which was actually even
Speaker 3: more revolutionary I think than some of these short courses
Speaker 3: that have followed. But I mean, you look in the
Speaker 3: last ten years and the amount of short courses that
Speaker 3: are getting built at resorts and private golf clubs and
Speaker 3: even just like there's short courses being built standalone, and
Speaker 3: I think that's primarily because of the popularity of the Cradle,
Speaker 3: and I did so I did mentioned Bandon Preserve and
Speaker 3: the horse Course, which were before the Cradle. But I
Speaker 3: think because Pinehurst is such a more accessible resort than
Speaker 3: Bandon Dune's and the Prairie Club is the reason that
Speaker 3: it had more of an impact. They built it, what
Speaker 3: right after the US Open was held there, and it
Speaker 3: just became this central hub of activity at the Pinehurst
Speaker 3: resort and it kind of yalvinized the idea that short
Speaker 3: courses are great for resort business models and getting more
Speaker 3: rounds in a day that don't take four hours long,
Speaker 3: and then also just unconventional styles of golf. And I
Speaker 3: think it's absolutely exploded since the popularity of the Cradle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that we didn't touch on at
Speaker 1: length in that Sweeten's Cove discussion. Part of why Sweeten's
Speaker 1: Cove is important is that it's a nine hole golf
Speaker 1: course and it's really an experimentation with models other than
Speaker 1: the regulation eighteen hole golf course. And I think this
Speaker 1: is something that you really saw pop up in that
Speaker 1: post recession era. What are the different forms of golf
Speaker 1: that we can have other than this kind of old
Speaker 1: model of this somewhat expensive to build and maintain regulation
Speaker 1: eighteen hole golf course. Now, the promise of the short
Speaker 1: course maybe hasn't really come to fruition in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenties because we've seen them primarily pop up at resorts
Speaker 1: as kind of an additional amenity. That's sort of how
Speaker 1: these a lot of these courses function. They are the
Speaker 1: place that you go in the afternoon after playing one
Speaker 1: of the big courses earlier in the day. But certainly
Speaker 1: it's been a very very important trend, especially in the
Speaker 1: destination sector. It's almost like a requirement at this point
Speaker 1: that you have one of these par three courses or unconventional,
Speaker 1: non standard short courses at your facility as as something
Speaker 1: for people to do when it's four o'clock in the
Speaker 1: evening and you want to get in a quick fun round,
Speaker 1: drink a couple of beers, and hit some golf shots.
Speaker 1: So's it's definitely been a key shift in these past
Speaker 1: fifteen years. I'm glad you shouted out the horse Course
Speaker 1: because they really were first, and then Band and Preserve
Speaker 1: kind of confirmed the trend, and the Cradle is probably
Speaker 1: the most broadly recognized example of it. It's the one
Speaker 1: that most probably the most people have experienced.
Speaker 2: The last piece of the cradle that I don't think
Speaker 2: should go untalked about is that it it was the
Speaker 2: signal the risk. It was a big risk from the
Speaker 2: resort to do something different. And they had done the
Speaker 2: Pinehers number two restoration, but that was just you know,
Speaker 2: brushing up their you know, existing course. The cradle was
Speaker 2: the signal and the start of the effective redesign of
Speaker 2: Pinehurst as a golf facility, which I would say, along
Speaker 2: with Bandon and sand Valley now entering the ring, these
Speaker 2: are the pillars of accessible high end golf in America,
Speaker 2: and and the cradle would be the If the cradle failed,
Speaker 2: I don't think we would have Pinehurst ten and now
Speaker 2: Pinehurst eleven under construction. I don't know if Pinehurst four
Speaker 2: gets redone. So you're also talking about a huge moment
Speaker 2: in the redefining of a you know, of America's I
Speaker 2: would probably say, the most recognized resort in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, all right, Now, before I move on to
Speaker 1: my pick, I want to give a shout out to
Speaker 1: Friday Egg Golf Club. Friday Golf Club is the sponsor
Speaker 1: for this episode of Designing Golf, and of course it's
Speaker 1: a project and a community that's close to all of
Speaker 1: our hearts here.
Speaker 4: You could shout out the book too. It just got mine.
Speaker 1: Andy's if you're watching us on video, Andy's holding up
Speaker 1: our new book, which Frida Egg Golf New Friday Golf
Speaker 1: Club members got a good deal on. That book contains
Speaker 1: course profiles that we've been writing for the past few years.
Speaker 1: A lot of courses that have been important to our
Speaker 1: lives in golf are featured in that book, so that
Speaker 1: that has been an amenity that some members have really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: And also, if you've been a member of Friday Golf
Speaker 1: Club since the beginning, then you've already seen a lot
Speaker 1: of these course profiles show up in digital form as
Speaker 1: part of your membership. So Friday Golf Club, go to
Speaker 1: the fridagg dot com slash membership and see what it's
Speaker 1: all about. We have a new disc Russian forum in
Speaker 1: Friday Golf Club that's been a lot of fun. Is
Speaker 1: kind of bringing our community closer and closer together, So
Speaker 1: come join us. It's really great. It's been a very
Speaker 1: fun feature of our lives for the past few years here,
Speaker 1: and now that the holiday season is approaching, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a good time to join yourself or to give the
Speaker 1: gift of membership. All right, So my next pick is
Speaker 1: going to be Old Barnwell, a recent pick designed by
Speaker 1: Brian Schneider and Blake Conan in Aiken, South Carolina. A
Speaker 1: lot of action in Aiken. Old Barnwell's not the only
Speaker 1: achin course that has been significant. But the reason I'm
Speaker 1: picking Old Barnwell here is that I think it is
Speaker 1: part of an answer, maybe maybe a full fledged answer
Speaker 1: to a big question that a lot of architects and
Speaker 1: golfers have been asking for the past fifteen years. And
Speaker 1: that question is is there a world beyond Corn Crenshaw,
Speaker 1: Tom Doak, Gill Hans. Is there a place to go
Speaker 1: beyond neo classical quote unquote minimalist. I'm putting minimalist in
Speaker 1: very heavy scare quotes, but is there a place to
Speaker 1: go beyond this kind of naturalist, neoclassical minimalist architecture that
Speaker 1: has held sway at the top of the profession for
Speaker 1: the past thirty years, basically since sand Hills. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: there has been a lot more going on in the
Speaker 1: golf course development industry than just the work done by
Speaker 1: the likes of Bill Krer, Tom Doak and Gil Hans.
Speaker 1: But if we're talking about what's really representative of the
Speaker 1: cutting edge of golf architecture, that's really what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: If we're talking about the kind of architect that most
Speaker 1: young architects aspire to be, we are talking about those firms.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of people have been wondering for
Speaker 1: at least a decade maybe more, is it time to
Speaker 1: move beyond that? Are we out of innovations? Is it
Speaker 1: necessary to find a new style, a new way of
Speaker 1: doing things? Is it part of the responsibility of the
Speaker 1: golf architect to to continually push into new territory. And
Speaker 1: I think that Old Barnwell is a really interesting answer
Speaker 1: to that, because to me, the design represents a lot
Speaker 1: of what's great about the previous couple of decades of
Speaker 1: high end golf architecture from the likes of Bill Core
Speaker 1: and Tom Duck. But it also shows some new way
Speaker 1: forwards with this incorporation of Golden Age influences, but different
Speaker 1: Golden Age influences, These features that are just built stylized
Speaker 1: in a different way, new ideas being incorporated into the
Speaker 1: golf course. And so I think that's that's what Old
Speaker 1: Barnwell is doing. That's why it's one of the defining courses,
Speaker 1: and I think it's also just probably one of the
Speaker 1: best courses that has been built in recent years, and
Speaker 1: that's one reason why it'll, you know, endure as a
Speaker 1: significant course. What are our thoughts on Old Barnwell, you.
Speaker 3: Hit on a lot of what I was thinking about.
Speaker 3: It is this like conjunction of minimalists and built and
Speaker 3: not trying to blend it into to nature so much.
Speaker 3: One thing that I really appreciate about it is some
Speaker 3: of like the ditches they built on hillsides to catch
Speaker 3: water and to keep valleys dry, like overtly building things
Speaker 3: that are unnatural and more so utilitarian and just going
Speaker 3: with all of the same I guess trends that golf
Speaker 3: architecture was going for in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: So those are just a.
Speaker 3: Few things that I admire most about that design.
Speaker 1: And any additional thoughts there.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I I added this to the sheet right
Speaker 2: when we started recording. Do Brian Schneider and Blake Konick
Speaker 2: get hired without Lanark?
Speaker 4: Maybe not?
Speaker 2: That would be one that I would I would say,
Speaker 2: is the real introduction of this style, which is a
Speaker 2: fascinating course that flies under everybody's radar.
Speaker 4: It's outside Philly, and this is.
Speaker 2: Like the the birth of the Brian Schneider, you know,
Speaker 2: Blake style that that you're talking about at Old Barnwell.
Speaker 2: I would have had Tree Farm in this location, and
Speaker 2: it would have been around the idea of the ache
Speaker 2: and golf explosion and this previously rather sleepy, cool golf
Speaker 2: town with Palmetto and Aichn and Sage valleys there near
Speaker 2: augusta kind of a if you know, no place to
Speaker 2: on the map golf golf locale for the ardent golf traveler.
Speaker 2: And I think like Tree Farm in Old Barnwell is
Speaker 2: its own fascinating. We never get this type of situation.
Speaker 2: They're friends, I know, they just had their holiday matches
Speaker 2: where they play each other. They're friends, friendly with each other,
Speaker 2: but inherent rivals in the sense that they had, you know,
Speaker 2: two golf courses being built in the same small town
Speaker 2: at the same relatively the same time. I think Tree
Speaker 2: Farm beat them to the punch on terms of like
Speaker 2: we're doing this project in Aiken, but they were so
Speaker 2: closely mirrored. I don't I think you could go either way,
Speaker 2: but just you know, I had it here as a
Speaker 2: you know, I had those two courses here less So
Speaker 2: for the architectural style, I think there's merit to.
Speaker 4: The the Brian Schneider, Blake Conant.
Speaker 1: Hey.
Speaker 2: This might be what you know, the next architecture wave
Speaker 2: looks like, or one facet of the next architecture wave
Speaker 2: looks like. But this is an area that's been put
Speaker 2: on the map as a great golf area that otherwise
Speaker 2: was a very you know, small group of people knowing
Speaker 2: you have you know yet to come online. Twenty one Club,
Speaker 2: New Holland Golf Club, the Jeff Warren project. So and
Speaker 2: that's gonna be done by Brian Schneider and Blake, I
Speaker 2: think as well. So I think it's I think I
Speaker 2: don't have a problem with with going old Barnwell here
Speaker 2: over tree Farm. But it's that's the other aspect to this,
Speaker 2: beyond what you said, is that the idea of this
Speaker 2: small town in South Carolina that has become a must
Speaker 2: visit area for golf golf golf nerds.
Speaker 1: All right, Andy, what's your next pick back to you?
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm surprised it's still here. I'm taking a
Speaker 2: hoopy match club. I think that a lot of these
Speaker 2: courses on this list probably don't happen if it wasn't
Speaker 2: for a Hoopye match club.
Speaker 4: Is Hoopie the greatest golf course built on this list?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Is it the golf course that has become kind of
Speaker 2: the gold standard in terms of models.
Speaker 4: Atmosphere?
Speaker 2: It introduced a whole new way to experience a destination
Speaker 2: golf club with their all inclusive day rate. Most importantly,
Speaker 2: Michael Walrath what he developed this golf course was young,
Speaker 2: a young person who had had a lot of success
Speaker 2: in life, and I think he brought a level we
Speaker 2: talk about like how golf has become so cool in
Speaker 2: pop culture. I think he brought a level of it's
Speaker 2: really cool if you've got hundreds of, if not billions
Speaker 2: of dollars to own a golf course. And people saw
Speaker 2: how how Michael Wallrath has has become, you know, within
Speaker 2: golf circles. Most people probably don't know Michael Wallrath, but
Speaker 2: within golf circles, Michael ware Wrath is you know, golf
Speaker 2: Royalty because he built this really cool place.
Speaker 4: And I think.
Speaker 2: That's led to a lot of more golf courses being
Speaker 2: built by wealthy people that look at this as hey,
Speaker 2: you know, I have a friend Colin Shean. He talks
Speaker 2: about he's behind a lot, He's developed a lot of
Speaker 2: these great golf courses. He talks about how you could
Speaker 2: spend hundreds of millions of dollars and be a minority
Speaker 2: sports sports owner, sports franchise owner, and if the team sucks,
Speaker 2: people hate you, or be the majority owner and people
Speaker 2: hate you. Or you can spend you know, one hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars and build one of the greatest golf courses
Speaker 2: in the world and everybody will love you. And I
Speaker 2: think that a Hoopie has had just a massive cultural
Speaker 2: impact on Destination Private golf club, which has been the
Speaker 2: defining trend of this era. It is it is a
Speaker 2: place that a lot of people talk about, if we
Speaker 2: could build this could be like a hoopie when you're
Speaker 2: talking about building a new place. So I think a
Speaker 2: Hoopie has to be on this list for many, many reasons.
Speaker 2: And I know people built destination Private golf before a hoopie,
Speaker 2: but a Hoopie had a special sauce that made this
Speaker 2: appear appear very, very, very appealing to a lot of
Speaker 2: wealthy people who have since built Destination private golf.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting with the history of the destination private
Speaker 1: golf club that really the the you know, originating modern
Speaker 1: example is sand Hills Golf Club, right, and sand Hills
Speaker 1: Golf Club is the is the origin point for so
Speaker 1: many different trends in modern golf architecture. But that too,
Speaker 1: that the idea is that it's a destination private club,
Speaker 1: and yet a hoopie is the one that everybody talks
Speaker 1: about now when they're building a new destination private club.
Speaker 1: After a hoopie, we saw a wave of these start
Speaker 1: being built and and so I think there's there are
Speaker 1: a number of reasons for that. There are some economic
Speaker 1: trends that underlie this incoming inequality is probably probably a
Speaker 1: big deal here. The fact that there there are people
Speaker 1: who can build these courses and buy these memberships and
Speaker 1: are looking for these kinds of experiences and have the
Speaker 1: money to do it. That's that's a huge factor here.
Speaker 1: But also it's just it's one of the surest ways
Speaker 1: to make a golf course successful these days. If you're
Speaker 1: committed to creating a golf course that is going to
Speaker 1: survive and be successful, then a hoopye is sort of
Speaker 1: the example to follow, and that that's a major major
Speaker 1: change of these past fifteen years that we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: Mad any additional thoughts There.
Speaker 3: Something I just thought of when Andy was kind of
Speaker 3: talking about this special sauce at a hoopie. This is
Speaker 3: probably pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but
Speaker 3: I think their logo also has had an influence on
Speaker 3: a lot of golf courses that followed, as it's kind
Speaker 3: of mysterious, it has no relationship to golf whatsoever. It's
Speaker 3: an onion if you've never seen it. Their logo is
Speaker 3: like a little yellow onion, and I think I think
Speaker 3: there's been an influence in logo design of trying to
Speaker 3: create really unique, eye catching logos that make people question, hey,
Speaker 3: what is that on your shirt?
Speaker 1: There? What's that on your hat?
Speaker 3: And it's sort of driven this kind of I guess
Speaker 3: notion that having a great logo attached to your golf
Speaker 3: course is not necessarily essential, but it's a great way
Speaker 3: to drive a lot more revenue in merchandise sales and whatnot.
Speaker 3: So that's just a little note that I think is
Speaker 3: pretty funny and potentially, Like I mean, there's probably other
Speaker 3: examples of really unique, cool logos like this, But when
Speaker 3: I think back of courses in this era, it feels
Speaker 3: like a Whoopie is kind of one that that stands
Speaker 3: out for sure.
Speaker 1: Maybe MacArthur is kind of a significant one there too. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean there's recognition clouds and it has become kind
Speaker 1: of an essential for a lot of these clubs. They
Speaker 1: put a lot of effort into this now that may
Speaker 1: not have been put into the same thing before. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go to Matt. What's your next pick here?
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with another Tom dop design in
Speaker 3: the Loop at Forest Dunes. I guess my main reason
Speaker 3: for picking this is number one. I think it's a
Speaker 3: brilliant design if you're unfamiliar with it. It is a
Speaker 3: fully reversible golf course. So there's eighteen greens and you
Speaker 3: can play into these greens from two different directions, So
Speaker 3: essentially you have thirty six different unique golf holes across
Speaker 3: the footprint of one eighteen whole golf course. And I
Speaker 3: think I know that the course at Sylvie's Valley Ranch,
Speaker 3: I believe kind of claims being one of the first
Speaker 3: reversible golf courses. Obviously, the old course at Saint Andrew's
Speaker 3: is famous for having this same style but I feel
Speaker 3: like the loop is the first fully realized example of
Speaker 3: a reversible golf course. It's truly eighteen holes, eighteen greens
Speaker 3: that are reversible and you can play from two different ways,
Speaker 3: and I just think that it opens up this kind
Speaker 3: of can of worms for different concepts, like picking a
Speaker 3: concept for a golf course and going all in one
Speaker 3: percent and kind of exploring all different ways of doing that.
Speaker 3: And I'm just going to be curious to see how
Speaker 3: other concepts like this formulate afterwards. Is there other styles
Speaker 3: of reversibility or multiple greens, multiple roots, similar to like
Speaker 3: the horse course at Prairie Club where it's to choose
Speaker 3: your own adventure. It's essentially a field with golf holes
Speaker 3: and you can pick where you want to go. So
Speaker 3: I think it's really influential in that point of view.
Speaker 3: And then also it helps out a lot specifically at
Speaker 3: that resort, the goal was to get people to stay
Speaker 3: on their property in their beds for more than just
Speaker 3: one or two nights. They wanted people to stay for
Speaker 3: longer than that, and this was sort of Tom Dokes's
Speaker 3: answer to that question is, Oh, if you can only
Speaker 3: play the reversible golf course one direction each day.
Speaker 1: It forces people to.
Speaker 3: Come here and stay and experience the design in both directions.
Speaker 3: So I think it was revolutionary in that sense of
Speaker 3: driving more revenue to the resort as well.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see the loop become more influential than
Speaker 1: I think it has been strangely for the past several years. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've seen people attempt various different iterations of a reversible
Speaker 1: golf course, but it's still kind of relatively rare. And
Speaker 1: one reason I like it so much is that there
Speaker 1: is such an efficiency of maintenance and footprint with a
Speaker 1: reversible course. You really get two courses in one. And
Speaker 1: so I think, as we're thinking about in this new,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe slightly scary era of the world's environment
Speaker 1: that we're entering into, if you can have a course
Speaker 1: that is efficient like that, then that's got to be
Speaker 1: appealing and it would be great to see more innovation
Speaker 1: on this front. But definitely the loop is the result
Speaker 1: of Tom Doak thinking through this question that I was
Speaker 1: talking about when we were discussing Old barnwell, where can
Speaker 1: golf architecture go next? But at the same time basing
Speaker 1: that on the oldest source possible, which is the old
Speaker 1: course at Saint Andrew's right. We've seen Tom Doak really
Speaker 1: build three different courses in this twenty ten to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five period that are simultaneously something that something very
Speaker 1: new and based on the old course in Old MacDonald,
Speaker 1: The Loop and the Lido. These three courses take such
Speaker 1: inspiration from the old course, oftentimes direct template style inspiration
Speaker 1: from the old course, and yet all of them feel fresh,
Speaker 1: like they're introducing new ideas into the bloodstream of modern
Speaker 1: golf architecture. And so it just shows how kind of
Speaker 1: the oldest influence can still produce something something new.
Speaker 2: I am a huge, huge fan of the Loop.
Speaker 4: It's one of my favorite modern designs.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's had as much influence as it
Speaker 2: should have had to date. I think, like if you
Speaker 2: said purely concept based, this would jump to the top
Speaker 2: of my list, but I think it's hamstrung by its
Speaker 2: location right now and it's type of golf. I think
Speaker 2: if this was a golf course that was close to
Speaker 2: a metro area and open accessible, you know, accessible to
Speaker 2: the public like it is now. If it was close
Speaker 2: to a metro area, people would rave about this course
Speaker 2: being as ingenious as any course in the world. But
Speaker 2: I think it is a you know, it's in an
Speaker 2: area the Midwest with a lot of golf resorts, and
Speaker 2: what happens is people go try different resorts. They go
Speaker 2: to Sand Valley, they go to Forest Dunes, they go
Speaker 2: to Lasnia, they go to Boyne, they go to these
Speaker 2: different they go to Arcadia, and what happens is people
Speaker 2: do not play this with as much regularity to under
Speaker 2: the amount of regularity they need to to understand the sheer.
Speaker 4: Brilliance of it.
Speaker 2: And I think this is my where I didn't have.
Speaker 2: I would say it's on in terms of just pure
Speaker 2: design as influential and it, but in its current application
Speaker 2: it doesn't get there for me because I don't think.
Speaker 4: I think if this had been a.
Speaker 2: Private country club that redesigned this course, this course would
Speaker 2: be lauded as more so, many more courses have gone
Speaker 2: reversible because of this golf course if it was daily fee, similarly,
Speaker 2: but because it's a resort, very remote resort.
Speaker 4: It hasn't.
Speaker 2: It hasn't broken through into cultural society, into the cultural
Speaker 2: golf society as brilliance. When I would say that, if
Speaker 2: you said just sheer design, it might be number one
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 4: In this period of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's give it some time, because.
Speaker 2: Because it's twenty forty the year is twenty forty nine, right.
Speaker 1: These things work in funny ways, you know. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: golf courses, just like any other kind of cultural product,
Speaker 1: have their day, and sometimes that day comes comes a
Speaker 1: little bit later than you expect. But I think you're
Speaker 1: right on that that it's it's almost the opposite of
Speaker 1: Mammoth Dunes, where it's an extremely intricate, worthy golf course
Speaker 1: that is just kind of in the wrong place and
Speaker 1: the wrong kind of resort right now for as many
Speaker 1: people to appreciate it as possible, and that that is
Speaker 1: a shame because it is clearly brilliant. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to kind of it's my pick. Now, we've picked eight courses,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna sort of send me punt a
Speaker 1: little bit, or at least ask for some assistance because
Speaker 1: we've got two more spaces on this list. And I
Speaker 1: think that there are a couple of contingents that at
Speaker 1: this point are going to be mad at us. One
Speaker 1: is anybody who lives outside of the US, So you know,
Speaker 1: your Australians, your Canadians. Yeah, well, we started with We
Speaker 1: started with Terry. Ye'll, maybe that'll please, maybe that'll placate
Speaker 1: some people, but it's been all American courses since then.
Speaker 1: Cabot Links is just kind of sitting there. Obviously an
Speaker 1: important course in the sense that it launched the Cabot
Speaker 1: brand and it and it again. It likes Sand Valley.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a proof of concept, but this
Speaker 1: time beyond the Dream Golf brand, that this kind of
Speaker 1: thing could work, not outside of Dream Golf, because Mike
Speaker 1: Kiser is obviously an important investor in in Cabot Links initially,
Speaker 1: but it proved that that other, you know, outside of
Speaker 1: the Kaiser family, there were developers who could pursue this
Speaker 1: type of model, and since then Cabot has become extremely important.
Speaker 1: Now another contingent who might be rightfully mad at us
Speaker 1: at this point is the muni golf lovers. I don't
Speaker 1: believe we have any municipal golf courses on our list yet.
Speaker 1: And a really important set of trends in the past
Speaker 1: fifteen years has been experimentation and innovation, new kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: surprising amount of development at certain municipal golf courses. So
Speaker 1: the ones that come to mind immediately from the period
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. For me are Winter Park, which
Speaker 1: I would categorize as a redesign, even though they maintained
Speaker 1: the pre existing routing, they turned that into a different
Speaker 1: golf course. Yeah, Keith reb and Riley Johns did. They
Speaker 1: turned it into a new golf course through what they did,
Speaker 1: and it was a very very affordable type of renovation
Speaker 1: that I wish we saw more of. So certainly that
Speaker 1: one is on the list for me and maybe hasn't
Speaker 1: been as influential as it should have been. The other
Speaker 1: municipal candidate I have in mind would be the Park,
Speaker 1: which is a completely different way of approaching a municipal renovation,
Speaker 1: where you is a great deal of money to do
Speaker 1: something very impressive for the community. You charge a healthy
Speaker 1: rate for out of towners, but provide affordable services to
Speaker 1: the people who live around the course, and in the
Speaker 1: bargain you get a terrific gill Hants golf course. So
Speaker 1: those are some candidates there. We have two slots left.
Speaker 1: What do you guys think? Where do you think we
Speaker 1: go with this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I had the Park on my list,
Speaker 3: and I also was like really considering Winter Park because
Speaker 3: I think Winter Park was sort of a genesis for
Speaker 3: taking a golf course that is close to a population
Speaker 3: center that is vastly underutilized and I guess not interesting
Speaker 3: in very many ways. And we're starting to see it
Speaker 3: more like the park was a golf course that was
Speaker 3: just sitting there. It was abandoned. It wasn't necessarily a
Speaker 3: great golf golf course in the town. But I think
Speaker 3: Winner Park set this precedent of, oh, if you have
Speaker 3: a golf course, you can do a relatively affordable renovation,
Speaker 3: have really smart golf course architecture, and make it a
Speaker 3: really interesting, engaging golf course that becomes this almost invaluable
Speaker 3: community asset. Another course that has recently, like literally just
Speaker 3: opened that did this exact same thing as Miami Lakes
Speaker 3: in Florida. It was a golf course that was essentially
Speaker 3: sitting in a swamp, had little to no interest. And
Speaker 3: now Bruce Heppner comes in, builds some interesting greens, some
Speaker 3: smart bunkering. And now I haven't been back yet, but
Speaker 3: I was there during construction and by all means what
Speaker 3: I saw it seems like it's going to be a
Speaker 3: very very interesting golf course. So that's what I think.
Speaker 3: Winter Park did so well is sort of show all
Speaker 3: these courses that have followed that you can take these
Speaker 3: underutilized golf sites and turn them into something that's really
Speaker 3: interesting and then begins to start to attract people from
Speaker 3: outside of that community or outside of that city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd throw Golden Gate Park into the mix as
Speaker 2: something that's followed this.
Speaker 4: I think the.
Speaker 2: Story of Winter Park and what followed, even though some
Speaker 2: end up being really high priced projects, but the idea
Speaker 2: that golf architecture good golf architecture doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: more expensive and doesn't have to be inaccessible to the public,
Speaker 2: that I think is a very important aspect of this.
Speaker 2: And I think I think Winter Park probably deserves to
Speaker 2: be there because it was the trailblazer.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's our number nine. Winter Park. I think
Speaker 1: it richly deserves and that story really blew up too.
Speaker 1: That story had an effect on people, and the Miami
Speaker 1: Lakes project actually was very much inspired by Winter Park.
Speaker 1: The owners there looked at Winter Park and said, hey,
Speaker 1: why can't we do this.
Speaker 2: I think the Golf Channel coverage of it was huge
Speaker 2: in Winter Park success.
Speaker 4: They were regularly there.
Speaker 2: I know some of the producers at Golf Channel or
Speaker 2: former producers.
Speaker 4: Live on the golf course.
Speaker 2: Matchinello was there regularly, and I think that it led to,
Speaker 2: you know, they and the PGA Show. Honestly, the PGA
Speaker 2: Show being there every year. The Winter Park was the
Speaker 2: hub starting in like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen of the
Speaker 2: PGA shows where everybody played golf around there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's so it's an influential project and
Speaker 1: at the same time something that hasn't been fully replicated yet,
Speaker 1: and that's there are a lot of reasons for that.
Speaker 1: But I guess Park Golden Gate Park is a good example. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think Golden Gate Park maybe gets pretty it gets
Speaker 1: pretty close, and and Miami Lakes has has a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of those those features as well in it.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean, I guess I was you know,
Speaker 1: I was hoping for an explosion of these kinds of
Speaker 1: projects in the wake of Winter Park. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: an explosion. We've seen we've seen a trickle rather than
Speaker 1: a flood. But uh but that's that's slotting in at
Speaker 1: number nine. Now for number ten, I'm going to open
Speaker 1: this up to discussion. I've already mentioned Cabot links as
Speaker 1: a possibility. What are the others that are in the
Speaker 1: mix for you guys and the ones that don't get
Speaker 1: that number ten spot we can consider honorable mentions. So Andy,
Speaker 1: why don't you go ahead and give us what the
Speaker 1: rest of what is? Uh? What is rattling around in
Speaker 1: your head?
Speaker 2: For these I already put sand Valley for more reasons.
Speaker 2: I also have Rodeo Dunes. I think the the closeness
Speaker 2: of that site to to Denver and the Denver Airport
Speaker 2: is going to really I that thing is going to
Speaker 2: be a popular or popular.
Speaker 1: Place U The twenty golf course though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, it is, That's true. I just I
Speaker 2: put it down technically they.
Speaker 1: Are preview loop open in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: But for other ones that I have on my list,
Speaker 2: I think I think Brambles is a going to be
Speaker 2: a massively influential golf design for any golf course in
Speaker 2: the western half of the United States in terms of
Speaker 2: its use of Zosia grass that even though the joyste
Speaker 2: of grass wasn't really recommended to use, and they dealt
Speaker 2: with the the the challenge of growing it in, but
Speaker 2: they've created something that provides a supreme playing service without
Speaker 2: a lot of water, which is going to be you know,
Speaker 2: kind of the name of the game in water restricted
Speaker 2: and what in places with water issues, So brambles would
Speaker 2: be in my consideration.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: I would say that the golf course I think is
Speaker 2: the best American golf course that I have seen in
Speaker 2: the last fifteen years is probably Childress Hall. So I
Speaker 2: would put this in the discussion if we're talking about
Speaker 2: twenty forty nine. I think I said this on fried
Speaker 2: Egg with all the ranking outrage, that's the lowest it's
Speaker 2: going to be. So I think that deserves some sort of.
Speaker 4: Know highlight.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen every golf course built in the last
Speaker 2: fifteen sixteen years, but I've seen most, so that would
Speaker 2: be my my kind of ones that are in the running.
Speaker 2: I also think like Medina three has a chance in
Speaker 2: terms of the renovation. I like it more than some
Speaker 2: of the other kind of modern renovations. And here you know,
Speaker 2: and I think that one has a chance of like
Speaker 2: this is what we do with all these big, outdated
Speaker 2: championship golf courses.
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, any any others to throw in the mix?
Speaker 3: Interesting? Early enough, I had all three of those kind
Speaker 3: of on on my list left Media number three Rambles
Speaker 3: and then also Childress Hall. I wanted to hit on because,
Speaker 3: like Andy said, I think Childress Hall is probably the
Speaker 3: best golf course that I've seen built in the last
Speaker 3: fIF teen years, and it feels like by a wide margin.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I was really I really like the idea of Madna
Speaker 3: number three because it feels like it's almost the first
Speaker 3: course to take a very historically significant golf course in
Speaker 3: the grand scheme of things. And it's not a holistic,
Speaker 3: like complete redesign, but they took away like some of
Speaker 3: the most famous holes to seventeenth kind of became this
Speaker 3: Darling part three over the water and they completely eliminated it.
Speaker 3: They changed the routing and it's essentially a new golf
Speaker 3: course from what was there. So it'll be really really
Speaker 3: interesting to see if other big name clubs go this direction,
Speaker 3: and it almost feels like Medna number three could be
Speaker 3: could be the trailblazer for that type of change in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 1: And it's an OCM golf course. I think OCM are
Speaker 1: going to be one of the most prominent firms of
Speaker 1: the next twenty years, very likely, and.
Speaker 2: So they have a lot of projects right now.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and they're they're they're going to continue to
Speaker 1: get projects because they're very good at what they do,
Speaker 1: and they also have Jeff Ogilvie on their side, and
Speaker 1: and Jeff is is just going to be one of
Speaker 1: those one of those people who's able to get jobs
Speaker 1: because he's so thoughtful and of course he has he
Speaker 1: has his profile as as a professional golfer. A couple
Speaker 1: I'd like to uh to shout out would be I
Speaker 1: think Seven Mile Beach has a chance of being a
Speaker 1: very significant golf course from this era, but it's very
Speaker 1: very new, so it's so it's hard to say exactly
Speaker 1: what its profile is going to be. It's basically just
Speaker 1: kind of tentatively opening up right now out in Tasmania,
Speaker 1: but it's right next to the Hobart International Airport on
Speaker 1: an amazing piece of land Mike Clayton and Mike Devreeese
Speaker 1: design that looks like it's going to really impress people.
Speaker 1: Ocum's project at Peninsula Kingswood was a very big deal
Speaker 1: in transfer forming that golf course, adding something to one
Speaker 1: of the world's great golf regions in the Melbourne sand Belt,
Speaker 1: and also setting Ocum on the path that they're on now.
Speaker 4: One other thing with that.
Speaker 2: Fascinating case study of sell your really valuable land by
Speaker 2: new land that might be better for golf, and the
Speaker 2: idea of cash like you you don't you're not just
Speaker 2: selling off like the Frail family.
Speaker 4: And taking away. You're selling off.
Speaker 2: And maybe upgrading the entire club like which is I thought,
Speaker 2: I think that is a pretty interesting proposition for some
Speaker 2: of these some of these clubs that sit on really
Speaker 2: valuable land. We've seen it before. This happened the Hermitage
Speaker 2: Club in Richmond. The original the you know course was
Speaker 2: the Belmont was Belmont, which got redesigned by or renovated
Speaker 2: by Davis Love's group, the you know, tilling Hass course
Speaker 2: in Henrico County. But they the story of that course
Speaker 2: was they effectively sold their original course and bought land
Speaker 2: further outside because they wanted thirty six holes like expansion.
Speaker 2: So it used to be something that happened, you know.
Speaker 2: San Francisco had this happen with so many courses at
Speaker 2: Old CITYO was basically four different clubs or really yeah,
Speaker 2: so I think this is this is something that's happened
Speaker 2: over time. We haven't really seen it happen in America.
Speaker 2: But it's an interesting kind of proposition where you could
Speaker 2: you know, and I don't know if the economic how
Speaker 2: the economics would work on some of these, but you know,
Speaker 2: you talk about like you know, the ultimate one would
Speaker 2: be you know, and they would never do it because
Speaker 2: it's on such a divine golf land, but like you know,
Speaker 2: the the appraisal value of LACC if they sold and
Speaker 2: what they could build, you know, turn it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: anywhere near where it is now and they would never
Speaker 2: do it. But like that type of idea of like
Speaker 2: you always hear how valuable that real estate is, well,
Speaker 2: can we take it build something you know, a little
Speaker 2: bit further away, but have it be maybe better because
Speaker 2: we you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's an interesting model.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. So Peninsula Kings would
Speaker 1: definitely in the mix for me. The Rio Olympic golf course,
Speaker 1: uh is one that was this really interesting and definitely
Speaker 1: significant to Gil Hanson's career.
Speaker 2: I think that one too, if they if it, if
Speaker 2: it hadn't been, if it doesn't have just just like
Speaker 2: this dark cloud of like what's really happening there hanging
Speaker 2: over it. I think this one, like if they had
Speaker 2: if they had created tournaments that continued to go back. Yes,
Speaker 2: but it's just this though it had this thing and
Speaker 2: we don't really hear about it ever because it had
Speaker 2: such a great debut in that in that Olympics, but
Speaker 2: there's no This is where golf in a way as
Speaker 2: a professional sport has failed the global game, is that
Speaker 2: its use has not you know, met up with you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's purpose.
Speaker 1: It's it's it would be such a wonderful regular tournament course,
Speaker 1: but it just hasn't become that. So very unfortunate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A couple others to mention would be Scottsdale National, a
Speaker 1: pretty stunning effort by Jackson con Design that takes desert
Speaker 1: golf architecture in what feels like a new direction. And
Speaker 1: then I've heard great things about Saint Patrick's Lynx, another
Speaker 1: Tom Doak course, but that's one that's extremely highly rated
Speaker 1: and will probably be regarded as, if not one of
Speaker 1: the defining courses of the era, definitely one of the
Speaker 1: best courses of the era. And then I should mention
Speaker 1: Cape Wickham as well along those those lines. That's also
Speaker 1: an extremely highly rated but fairly remote golf course. All right,
Speaker 1: So those are the honorable mentions. What do you guys
Speaker 1: think goes in number ten? I'm Cabot Links is a possibility.
Speaker 1: You guys both mentioned Brambles and Childress Hall and Madna
Speaker 1: number three. How does it feel at this point?
Speaker 4: I'll let Matt vote first. I had to pick first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of like my Dina number three because
Speaker 3: it feels like an outlier from all the other ones
Speaker 3: we picked. I could very easily just go with Childres
Speaker 3: because of how incredible the golf course is. But I
Speaker 3: think we already kind of selected one in that vein
Speaker 3: with Terry Dy. So my vote would be MDNA number three,
Speaker 3: and it's kind of redesigning a historically significant golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't have We don't really have one of
Speaker 1: those kind of complete overhauls of a historically significant golf
Speaker 1: course on our list. I mean Winter Park was a renovation, obviously,
Speaker 1: but Medina was on a completely different scale. How does
Speaker 1: how does that strike you? Andy?
Speaker 4: That works for me?
Speaker 2: Sorry, Canada, I think you know I I yeah, I
Speaker 2: do think Tree Farm deserves deserves thought because I think
Speaker 2: it's one of the more unique how I built this
Speaker 2: golf course thing in the sense of we picked a
Speaker 2: lot of courses that were built by very wealthy people.
Speaker 2: Or you know Zach Blair. Yeah he plays on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, but he the way in which he built
Speaker 2: the golf course completely revolutionary.
Speaker 1: M okay and yeah, so we think maybe maybe the
Speaker 1: Tree Farm should replace Old Barnwell or else all I
Speaker 1: mean you put a mention of it in there.
Speaker 2: I just think the Tree Farm being grossly overlooked because
Speaker 2: it was the first and Aiken and the manner in
Speaker 2: which it was built is unlike any other golf course
Speaker 2: in that we have talked about today and the way
Speaker 2: the course was financed, the way you know it. It
Speaker 2: was the public version of it, and I know that
Speaker 2: like drawed, iire of people. You know, it bothers people
Speaker 2: the way that it went down. But guess what he
Speaker 2: made everything like transparent from this get go. And ideas change.
Speaker 2: They have to change, they have to evolve to get
Speaker 2: things done. You know, my original idea for Friday Golf
Speaker 2: is not what it is today. Wasn't It didn't follow
Speaker 2: the exact path that I thought it would follow. But
Speaker 2: I think that that project, like and I've been on
Speaker 2: the record, I like Old barn Wall as a course
Speaker 2: more but I think that project is like so so
Speaker 2: unique in the way it was built, and I think
Speaker 2: it's been overlooked, honestly.
Speaker 1: Probably because of its location and because Old Barnwell has,
Speaker 1: for whatever combination of reasons, kind of caught the hype train.
Speaker 1: I think for good reasons. I'm not saying the hype
Speaker 1: is unjustified. I think it's an absolutely terrific and kind
Speaker 1: of pathbreaking work of golf course architecture, but it's it
Speaker 1: has loomed a bit large in the discourse about Achen,
Speaker 1: and maybe the tree Farm will will eventually have its
Speaker 1: day here, all right. So that is basically the list
Speaker 1: we have Terry Edie, the Lido, Mammoth Dunes, Sweeten's Cove,
Speaker 1: the Cradle at Pinehurst, Old Barnwell Slashed, the Tree Farm,
Speaker 1: the Hoopy Match Club, the Loop Winter Park, and Medina
Speaker 1: number three. I think that's a really good list. I
Speaker 1: think that's a that's a pretty strong ten defining courses
Speaker 1: of the past fifteen years. Thank you guys for joining
Speaker 1: me for this exercise. This was really fun and appreciate
Speaker 1: your time and your thought that you put into this.
Speaker 4: Thanks Garrett.
Speaker 1: Thanks This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you've been enjoying Designing Golf, then
Speaker 1: go leave us a review in iTunes or wherever it
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Speaker 1: Have a wonderful holiday. We'll be back on I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be January eighth, but we're taking this
Speaker 1: holiday season off, so a couple of blank weeks here
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna start up with a Vengeance in
Speaker 1: the new year. So again, thanks for listening. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next year. Twenty twenty six