Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison, managing editor at the Frida Egg, and
Speaker 1: we have a fun episode for you today. But first,
Speaker 1: today's podcast is brought to you by the Frida Egg
Speaker 1: Pro Shop. You can find it at proshop dot Thefrida
Speaker 1: Egg dot com. And we have a bunch of cool stuff.
Speaker 1: One item I'd like to highlight is our Friday Egg
Speaker 1: Alternate logo T shirt. We do have a logo other
Speaker 1: than the egg and golf ball themed one you're used to.
Speaker 1: I can't really describe it, but it's basically like a
Speaker 1: putting green surrounded by sand and it just looks really cool.
Speaker 1: It looks like it was designed by a good architect.
Speaker 1: So you should check it out and if you like it,
Speaker 1: get one. It's a great way to support us at
Speaker 1: the Frida Egg. So that's proshop dot Thefrida Egg dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, So for today's episode, Frida Egg founder Andy
Speaker 1: Johnson and I sit down for an extended chat about
Speaker 1: a recent trip he took from his home in Chicago
Speaker 1: to his temporary residence in Florida. He spent some time
Speaker 1: in Ashville, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina and basically
Speaker 1: just saw a bunch of interesting courses. So our conversation
Speaker 1: is going to be coming to you in two parts.
Speaker 1: In this first part, we focus on the ocean course
Speaker 1: at Kiowa Island Pete Dye design. He built it for
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup in nineteen ninety one and it's going
Speaker 1: to host the PGA Championship this year. It's a really
Speaker 1: interesting place and we just discuss it from every angle
Speaker 1: we can. Part two of the conversation should be hitting
Speaker 1: your feeds in the next couple of weeks, so keep
Speaker 1: an eye out for that. And with that, let's start
Speaker 1: the theme music.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset when
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Frida,
Speaker 2: egg Frida egg, Brian egg bride egg bride egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off with the hump course game.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, welcome to your podcast, Andy. How's it going?
Speaker 3: Oh as well?
Speaker 2: It's nice to be on the other side of this
Speaker 2: this podcast, you know, not having to do the intro.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Those are the things I loathe.
Speaker 2: Sometimes pods still get posted for a couple of days
Speaker 2: just because I'm putting off doing the intro.
Speaker 1: Just because you procrastinate on it.
Speaker 3: No, just because I don't I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: You know. I think that's what procrastination is, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Ah, you could procrastinate something like I procrastinate things I
Speaker 2: intend to do or want to do all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm also I could put a masterclass on for procrastination.
Speaker 1: So yeah, procrastination is not logical. It just it just
Speaker 1: kind of happens to you. Yeah, all right, So anyway,
Speaker 1: we've got We've got kind of a big podcast to
Speaker 1: do here. You had an interesting golf trip pretty recently
Speaker 1: where you drove it sounds like from Chicago to Florida,
Speaker 1: which is an insane thing to do with a small baby,
Speaker 1: which is what you did. Nonetheless, you made it.
Speaker 2: When we left Chicago and we were like three hours
Speaker 2: into the trip and we were just in northwest Indiana,
Speaker 2: I was like, what have we done?
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm very familiar with that feeling. I have young
Speaker 1: children as well. Those car trips can be absolutely brutal,
Speaker 1: but you managed to see some pretty interesting golf courses
Speaker 1: along the way, mostly concentrated around Charleston, South Carolina and Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and we thought we'd just spend some time
Speaker 1: discussing those courses. This first podcast, we're going to really
Speaker 1: go in depth on Kiowa, on the Ocean course at Kiowa,
Speaker 1: which is going to be the site of the PGA
Speaker 1: Championship this year, so we thought we'd do a nice,
Speaker 1: in depth kind discussion of that. But there are also
Speaker 1: some other places that we thought we'd hit on as well.
Speaker 1: But first we do have some business to get out
Speaker 1: of the way. It's a new year, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a new era even it feels like twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and we're hoping that things are different in a number
Speaker 1: of ways this year, including in terms of our ability
Speaker 1: as a company to hold events. We love holding events,
Speaker 1: and we've got a number scheduled for this year and
Speaker 1: we just wanted to let people know about those. So,
Speaker 1: so what have we got on the docket here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the biggest bubbers about twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of bubbers. I'm not gonna, not
Speaker 3: gonna this was.
Speaker 1: This was a huge one though. Having the cancelors events
Speaker 1: was heart wrenching.
Speaker 2: It but in this spectrum of bubbers, oh yeah, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty very small one.
Speaker 1: But for everything is relative when it.
Speaker 2: Comes to golf, frieda Egg was we didn't host events,
Speaker 2: we obviously postponed them, and it's been a yeah, we're
Speaker 2: excited for toy toy one optimistic. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it seems like we're trending the right direction to be
Speaker 2: able to host these events and feel safe hosting them
Speaker 2: and feel responsible hosting them. But we've got an awesome calendar.
Speaker 2: We're wrapping up a few final pieces of the calendar
Speaker 2: and then we will have this out hopefully hopefully within
Speaker 2: the next week or two. We've got, you know, some
Speaker 2: really good venues, and you know, I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that we get asked so so often is
Speaker 2: where should we play?
Speaker 3: And how can I play these places?
Speaker 1: And all.
Speaker 2: What we're trying to do with these events is provide
Speaker 2: opportunities to play some of these courses that we talk
Speaker 2: about a lot. So we have the steam shovel and
Speaker 2: you know, for everybody that's part of the Yale event.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to make get too narrow here.
Speaker 2: We are working hand in hand with the university to
Speaker 2: get that reschedule.
Speaker 1: We're trying her best.
Speaker 2: As you can imagine, with universities, COVID is a very
Speaker 2: touchy thing, and with the golf course being university property,
Speaker 2: it makes it extra complex for scheduling because, you know,
Speaker 2: just think of it from the university, a bunch of
Speaker 2: outside people come on property and a large group. So
Speaker 2: it sounds like, you know, we should have a date
Speaker 2: in the fall. They are very optimistic about that, and
Speaker 2: we should have a date for the Dog Bowl, which
Speaker 2: I know whoever everybody that's been you know, signed up
Speaker 2: for that. Thank you for your patients. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: But you know, some other venues that we have lined
Speaker 2: up this year. We got Seth Rayner Blue Mound in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: We've got Davenport, a great Allison course in just about
Speaker 2: two hours west of Chicago. Prairie Dunes will be hosting
Speaker 2: an event in October early October that will be awesome.
Speaker 2: Rolling Green in Philadelphia, Lancaster in Philadelphia will be hosting events.
Speaker 2: Those will be in different times of the year, So
Speaker 2: I guess Lancaster is not Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: I don't want to get corrected as Lancaster.
Speaker 2: It's in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, whatever, you know, we got a ton.
Speaker 2: There are many more pine hills up in Sheboygan. We're
Speaker 2: hosting event the day after the Ryder Cup, so that
Speaker 2: will be a lot of fun the Monday after the
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup, and I think we're going to just make
Speaker 2: it a giant Ryder Cup event. So look out for
Speaker 2: the event calendar release that will be sent out via
Speaker 2: the newsletter in social media, and well I'm sure we'll
Speaker 2: talk about it on pod after we release it, you know,
Speaker 2: in an intro that I will put off for a
Speaker 2: couple of days doing so that we're really excited about
Speaker 2: the events. And sorry to any event that I didn't list.
Speaker 2: I don't have it in front of me, which I
Speaker 2: should have had.
Speaker 1: Did you mention meadow Brook?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, meadow Brook and Detroit early early June.
Speaker 1: Awesome looking course.
Speaker 3: And for those of you who club in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Of course, another amazing looking course that I'm really looking
Speaker 1: forward to seeing. But for those of you who have
Speaker 1: heard of like say Prairie Dunes or Blue Mound, but
Speaker 1: haven't heard of places like Davenport, Pine Hills, meadow Brook,
Speaker 1: just maybe just go to the Friday Instagram. I think
Speaker 1: we've we've published pictures of those courses all pretty recently.
Speaker 1: Davenport is just an incredible looking course. The places where
Speaker 1: we're trying to hold events are where we think we'll
Speaker 1: find really interesting architecture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: We want to expose people to awesome architecture. And in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases, some of these these golf courses,
Speaker 2: like Davenport's a perfect example. If Davenport was in Chicago,
Speaker 2: people would talk about it all the time and it's
Speaker 2: so close, Like I had put off going there for
Speaker 2: so many years, and I'm so mad.
Speaker 3: At myself because I literally I woke up. It was
Speaker 3: in the fall. I went and I.
Speaker 2: Wanted to you know, I always shoot photos early in
Speaker 2: the morning usually, and I wanted to get out there.
Speaker 2: I didn't even have to wake up that early to
Speaker 2: get there by sunrise from my house. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was there in two hours, and I was like, what,
Speaker 2: how did I not get here till now? Once I
Speaker 2: went on playing, It's a it's a really it's growing up.
Speaker 2: Caddying On and Allison. They have a few they have
Speaker 2: three I think non original holes. But in terms of
Speaker 2: Allison's work in the US, and I think I've seen
Speaker 2: just about all of his Midwest work. I'm missing one
Speaker 2: or two. It's the best Allison that I have I
Speaker 2: have seen. The topography is just unbelievable. And the greens.
Speaker 2: The greens are where I usually have abode to pick
Speaker 2: with with mister Allison. They get a little repetitive. They're
Speaker 2: kind of just slope one direction on holes and it's
Speaker 2: just big, broad slopes. These greens were had a little
Speaker 2: bit more internal contouring to them that that kind of
Speaker 2: caught my eye. And then the topography is just absolutely stunning.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like, I think from the clubhouse you
Speaker 2: could hit a golf ball into the Mississippi River, so
Speaker 2: you can imagine that rolling topography that you see right
Speaker 2: off that and Pine Hills. The you know urban legend
Speaker 2: with Pine Hills is it's in Sheboygan obviously where Coler
Speaker 2: Whistling Straits and Black Wolf are. But Herb Cohler's longtime
Speaker 2: member there, tried to buy that course rather than build
Speaker 2: one for the resort.
Speaker 3: So you tried to buy that golf.
Speaker 2: Course and it was designed by Harry Smead, who was
Speaker 2: you know, didn't design a lot of courses. He had
Speaker 2: to have been tied to Langford Moreau somehow.
Speaker 1: You just it's totally obvious when you when you look
Speaker 1: at the style of the architecture, for sure.
Speaker 2: And those greens are some of the craziest greens, Like
Speaker 2: they make Lusonia's greens look subdued.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, the.
Speaker 3: Lesser own places are. We wouldn't put an event a
Speaker 3: course on our event calendar if we didn't feel like
Speaker 3: it was really worth your time to see, for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, So that's on the event side of what
Speaker 1: the Frida egg is doing this year. Obviously, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on in content side. We're
Speaker 1: going to be bringing you all the usual stuff and more.
Speaker 1: I'm working on a new set of Frida Eggs stories
Speaker 1: right now. I'm not going to say what the topic is,
Speaker 1: but it is going to be a mini series five
Speaker 1: to six episodes, telling one media story all the way through.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about it. It takes a while to make
Speaker 1: these things, especially when you're doing a big story like this,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not sure when it's going to come out,
Speaker 1: but it'll come out in the first half of this year.
Speaker 2: Hey, how much how much tape versus what we hear.
Speaker 2: Would you say, what's the ratio of tape that you
Speaker 2: go through recorded interviews versus you know, say we have
Speaker 2: a forty minute episode, what's what's the what are you
Speaker 2: that down?
Speaker 1: It's like atrocious, It's like ten percent is what I
Speaker 1: use maybe less honestly, For like one episode of Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Stories, I usually interview four to five people, and
Speaker 1: this is a what thirty to forty minute episode where
Speaker 1: a lot of it is taken up with me narrating it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I mean these take an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of work, and we get help from Jay Virick and
Speaker 1: from j Fischel, who are kind of part of this
Speaker 1: production team for these fridagg Stories. But you know, we
Speaker 1: love doing these documentary episodes. I think it's a really
Speaker 1: compelling format. Obviously, episodes like this where we just record
Speaker 1: a conversation and put it out are a lot easier
Speaker 1: on the production side. Anything else we want to talk
Speaker 1: about on the content side, anything, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're just going to be hopefully with the state of
Speaker 2: the world, we'll be traveling more. I you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of places I'm really excited to see that I
Speaker 2: haven't spent time in that. I am definitely going to
Speaker 2: our Minneapolis and then also Boston.
Speaker 3: Those are two.
Speaker 2: Places I'm really excited to see, So the Northeast and
Speaker 2: Upper Midwest. I did spend time in Minneapolis a long
Speaker 2: time ago.
Speaker 1: And we've got an event in Minneapolis with White bear
Speaker 1: Yucht Club, right, and then you went and saw Rochester,
Speaker 1: which is the second course that's going to be on
Speaker 1: there as well. But that's I don't actually even know
Speaker 1: where that is.
Speaker 2: And it's like two hours or it is an hour
Speaker 2: or two south of it's kind of in its own spot.
Speaker 2: That says, such an interesting town. So Tilling has designed
Speaker 2: this course Rochester and it's where the Mayo Clinic is,
Speaker 2: which in like everything seemingly in that town, there's a
Speaker 2: tie to the Mayo Clinic. So Tilling has daughter, I believe,
Speaker 2: married a doctor at the Mayo Clinic. So he designed
Speaker 2: the golf course for free so that he had a
Speaker 2: place to play when he went and visited his daughter.
Speaker 1: Allegedly, it sounds about right. Tilling hast designed a lot
Speaker 1: of courses for weird reasons. Yeah, so yeah, that's really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Minneapolis is it is a place that I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to seeing as well. I've never been to the city.
Speaker 1: I hear great things, so.
Speaker 2: We don't forget Saint Paul. I always wonder about that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's true. So Alwa's my question is there
Speaker 2: does one of the Twin Cities feel shade like? Does
Speaker 2: Saint Paul feel like it gets discounted because everybody says Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: It's got to be right, right. I think Minneapolis probably
Speaker 1: gets more attention just because it's more fun to.
Speaker 3: Say Saint Paul has a chip on his shoulder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't, I have I have no idea we would.
Speaker 1: We would have to ask somebody. But that's very true.
Speaker 1: It's the Twin Cities, you know, really we should be
Speaker 1: calling it the Twin Cities now. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: a lot of the same stuff this year, just getting
Speaker 1: out and traveling. I didn't do any traveling this past year.
Speaker 1: I did one kind of quick trip out to Sylvie's
Speaker 1: Valley Ranch in eastern Oregon. But yeah, really looking forward
Speaker 1: to getting out to Philadelphia, which is a place I've
Speaker 1: never played golf and has a ton of incredibly interesting
Speaker 1: golf courses. I'm hoping this year we're not having an
Speaker 1: event in Texas. But I'm hoping to get out to
Speaker 1: Dallas and finally do a trip that I've been planning
Speaker 1: for a while. There.
Speaker 3: This was a COVID casualty.
Speaker 1: This was a COVID I was gonna do it in
Speaker 1: May of last year. I think, like April or May
Speaker 1: of last year. I was just like, man, sorry, I
Speaker 1: can't do this now, but would love to go see
Speaker 1: some of the work that Calligan Golf Design UH and
Speaker 1: associate Trey Kemp have been doing it some of the
Speaker 1: public courses in the city at Stevens Park and Texas Course,
Speaker 1: Squad Creek, Texas Rangers new build.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite things about Texas of Dallas is
Speaker 2: the propensity for professional sports teams to own golf courses.
Speaker 1: Texas Rangers, and then and then there's there's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hilarious. That's Jeff Browner course, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then like the don't the Astros basically
Speaker 1: own Memorial Park. Memorial Park, now don't they? Maybe they
Speaker 1: don't own it.
Speaker 2: The event is yeah, I don't know exactly what it.
Speaker 2: They obviously paid for a lot of that renovation. And
Speaker 2: Texas Texas is a sneaky good public golf place like
Speaker 2: Austin is just the worst public golf city maybe in America.
Speaker 1: Though, but they even they have that historic you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the design isn't isn't much anymore, but the historic
Speaker 1: Lions municipal golf course.
Speaker 2: It could be awesome if they ever let Ben Crenshaw
Speaker 2: do his thing, you know, you think you'd have a legend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, hey, I'll do this for free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would, hope. But there's problems with the university, I guess.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and housing housing down there is having having
Speaker 2: Bensave that lived in Austin roughly ten years ago. I
Speaker 2: really wish I had bought property in Austin ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Everybody's moving there right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No. Texas and a lot of the cities in Texas, Dallas, Houston,
Speaker 1: San Antonio there are really cool historic public courses. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cool stuff there, and it's not
Speaker 1: so much on the private club side. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of well regarded private clubs there as well. But I
Speaker 1: think it's fairly unique among states where there's truly interesting
Speaker 1: architectural work going on on the public and municipal side,
Speaker 1: a lot of it done by call again Trey Camp
Speaker 1: and I just like to go see what's going on there.
Speaker 1: So do you want to move on to talking about
Speaker 1: golf courses, talking about your sure, your.
Speaker 2: Trip, let's talk about it. What do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about for Kiwa?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's start with Kiwa before we get your thoughts
Speaker 1: on the golf course. You got to go see the
Speaker 1: golf course and photograph the golf course. Play it. But
Speaker 1: Pete Dye has a great autobiography called Bury Me in
Speaker 1: a Pop Bunker, And whenever I want to find out
Speaker 1: more about a Pete die course, I go read one
Speaker 1: of the chapters in there, the one on Q I
Speaker 1: just read in the past couple of days, and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. There's a lot of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: about it that people either didn't know or may have forgotten.
Speaker 1: Ocean Course at Q initially was not supposed to host
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup in nineteen ninety one. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people will remember the War by the Shore
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one Ryder Cup one of the best Ryder
Speaker 1: Cups of all time, maybe kind of the beginning of
Speaker 1: the modern Ryder Cup era, the modern kind of televised
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup. In many ways, just great rivalries, awesome action.
Speaker 1: Americans won narrowly, but initially the nineteen ninety one Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup was supposed to be held at the Stadium course
Speaker 1: at PGA West, which opened in nineteen eighty six. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's ever been confirmed.
Speaker 3: Why it's got to be the band, right, the player.
Speaker 1: Van, I mean, who knows, Like nobody has gone on
Speaker 1: the record is to why exactly it moved away from
Speaker 1: PGA West or can I get.
Speaker 2: Something off my chest real quick? You just triggered something
Speaker 2: with what Web said the other day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Web Simpson is responding to the USGA's distance statement.
Speaker 2: So he said this stuff about the distance, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we need better architecture. You know, he injected his thoughts
Speaker 2: on what the architecture should be. I was thinking about this,
Speaker 2: and this is the stuff I think about sometimes when
Speaker 2: my shower is you know, this kind of ridiculousness. But
Speaker 2: you know the thing is, every time somebody tries to
Speaker 2: do something interesting or different, it gets like.
Speaker 3: Banned from the tour.
Speaker 2: Is absolutely so the players are saying it's the architect's
Speaker 2: fault and they need to figure it out. But when
Speaker 2: any architect presents something different, than the status quo. It
Speaker 2: gets kicked off the tour or banned or changed. It's
Speaker 2: absolutely ridiculous. And West is a perfect example. Now granted,
Speaker 2: like the Developer, one of the hardest golf course ever
Speaker 2: die built in and the players just bitch about it,
Speaker 2: get it, get it banned from the tour. You know,
Speaker 2: Gil Hans puts the Centrallite bucker at TPC Boston on
Speaker 2: the twelfth hole jt All. The players complain, it gets
Speaker 2: removed the next year.
Speaker 1: They're never gonna be happy.
Speaker 3: Trinity Forrest players complain.
Speaker 2: The thread of them complaining they manipulate the course to
Speaker 2: play completely the wrong way.
Speaker 3: You know, they get raids.
Speaker 2: It never plays the way it's supposed to. You know,
Speaker 2: they have some venue issues, like with just location and stuff.
Speaker 2: So anyways, Trinity Forrest is gone. It's just like it's
Speaker 2: a repetitive thing. Anything that's different. These guys that are
Speaker 2: obviously paid by equipment companies. There's a good reason why
Speaker 2: the Frida Egg has never been sponsored by an equipment
Speaker 2: company m HM.
Speaker 3: Is because they tell you what to say.
Speaker 2: You know, in this situation, this guys giving reasons in
Speaker 2: the history of the reasoning is completely flawed, they complained
Speaker 2: about whenever something's different, it goes even like Harbortown was
Speaker 2: just the players hated it after the first year.
Speaker 1: And these courses then get softened, right, which is clearly
Speaker 1: what's happened at PGA West as well. Right. So too,
Speaker 1: it's not just I mean, obviously the equipment has made
Speaker 1: a difference in how the players play a place like
Speaker 1: PGA West, but also it's not as hard as it
Speaker 1: was when it opened. And so yeah, and Pete Dye
Speaker 1: was trying to do this stuff in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: He was trying to build courses that challenged the best
Speaker 1: golfers in the world, and he figured out a way
Speaker 1: to do that. It's not the only way to do it,
Speaker 1: but he figured out a way to do that where
Speaker 1: there was an extreme emphasis on accuracy into the greens. Right,
Speaker 1: You had to hit these little sections of the greens
Speaker 1: to really have a chance of getting a birdie or
Speaker 1: in some cases.
Speaker 2: A par and there's an angular accuracy component to.
Speaker 1: It, absolutely, so you had to place your drive very
Speaker 1: accurately in order to have a nice clear shot into
Speaker 1: the green. This is what he was doing. He figured
Speaker 1: out a way to not only challenge the physical skills
Speaker 1: of players, but also challenge them mentally to kind of
Speaker 1: get in their heads and force them to be tough
Speaker 1: in order to win a golf tournament at his courses.
Speaker 1: And it pissed them off, and they complained and they rebelled,
Speaker 1: and the courses got softened, every single one of them,
Speaker 1: and so you know, they're just You're never gonna make
Speaker 1: them happy. But we'll see what goes on with Memorial Park.
Speaker 1: For me, Tom Doaks renovation at Memorial Park, the host
Speaker 1: of the Houston Open, is maybe the most interesting course
Speaker 1: venue story right now on the PGA Tour. How are
Speaker 1: players going to respond to that course? It seemed to
Speaker 1: go pretty well the first year.
Speaker 2: They had such perfect weather too. It played firm, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's the always. I think the concern with anything
Speaker 2: in Houston is rain and soft and god, they got
Speaker 2: just beautiful weather in last November.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And I think the important thing too there with like
Speaker 2: Memorial Park, is not judging a golf course anymore based
Speaker 2: off of the scores they shoot. I would prefer and
Speaker 2: I think there's a difference and needs to be a
Speaker 2: clear delineation between what's hard and what's challenging and what
Speaker 2: I think golf courses and setups should strive for is
Speaker 2: challenge rather than hard.
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's perfect.
Speaker 2: Like a hard golf course that punishes you for missing
Speaker 2: off the t five yards right or five yards left
Speaker 2: of your target, that's hard. Is it challenging, It's it's
Speaker 2: more it becomes more luck whether you pull the shot
Speaker 2: off or not, you know, whether you hit it absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2: Like challenging to me would be where it's an extreme
Speaker 2: difficult shot, but if you pull it off and it's
Speaker 2: very attainable to pull off, you reap a large reward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it can be a form of challenge. Can
Speaker 1: be a player expects to make a birdie on a hole,
Speaker 1: but it's really really hard to make a birdie.
Speaker 3: On a hole.
Speaker 1: Yes, And if you try to make a birdie on
Speaker 1: the hole then and you fail, then you might make
Speaker 1: a bogie. Those are the kinds of situations that are
Speaker 1: really hard, of course, where you miss a fairway and
Speaker 1: you're in big long rough and you have to lay
Speaker 1: up in front of the green and try to get
Speaker 1: up and down for par I don't know, like truly
Speaker 1: how challenging that is. To use your nomenclature. If this
Speaker 1: is what challenges if we're really trying to tax the
Speaker 1: mental and strategic abilities of a player, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that scenario where there's a penalty if you miss
Speaker 1: a fairway is particularly challenging for those guys. I don't
Speaker 1: think they worry about that. I think there are other
Speaker 1: things that they worry about on a golf course, and
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily have to do with the score that
Speaker 1: they're shooting, because they know as well everybody else that
Speaker 1: scores a relative You're you're not trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: just shoot a low score. You're trying to beat other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, good good tour venues are the
Speaker 1: ones where it is. It is very taxing in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways to beat the other people, not just
Speaker 1: to shoot a low score.
Speaker 3: Look at that. We're way off, way off subject.
Speaker 1: This is this is your specialty that the shotguns start
Speaker 1: is slipping into the Friday podcast back to Kiwa. So
Speaker 1: it went away from PGA West for reasons that were
Speaker 1: never particularly clarified. In his book, Die says it has
Speaker 1: something to do with the time zones, and that the
Speaker 1: Eastern time zone is better for the Ryder Cup telecasts
Speaker 1: than the Western time zone.
Speaker 3: Whatever that doesn't seem like would be true.
Speaker 1: It seemed the most reasonable explanation would seem to be
Speaker 1: that the players absolutely hated PGA West and complain to
Speaker 1: the PGA of America and it was moved away. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't even moved away to a course that existed.
Speaker 1: It was moved to a course that did not yet exist.
Speaker 1: This decision was made in August nineteen eighty eight for
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety one Ryder Cup. In October nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: Had any of the courses that the resort been built
Speaker 2: that I don't know.
Speaker 1: Was Kiah with it. I think there were golf courses
Speaker 1: on the island before the Ocean course. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they belonged to that resort necessarily, but in any case,
Speaker 1: this was clearly a stunning property. I'll have you to
Speaker 1: describe it in a second if it can, but you know,
Speaker 1: this is how Dye puts it in his book. For
Speaker 1: the first time in history, the heralded event, the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: had been awarded to a course that did not exist,
Speaker 1: and there was less than two years to build one
Speaker 1: worthy of the event. All right. So the site was
Speaker 1: Kiowa Island, a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Having been there recently, Andy, could you just describe the
Speaker 1: piece of land that this course sits on.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's absolutely gorgeous. I being northerns we went down
Speaker 2: there and we found like a rental house for cheap
Speaker 2: on VRBO.
Speaker 3: It's January.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a pretty not peak season for Kioa,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't recommend the time of the year enough.
Speaker 2: I know everybody likes going there when it's warmer, but
Speaker 2: it's it's awesome. This is a side note from you
Speaker 2: know what you asked me. But the dog it's it's
Speaker 2: leash free on the beaches. Our dog loved it and
Speaker 2: the beach is one of the coolest beaches in the
Speaker 2: world because it's hard packed. I was not put up
Speaker 2: by the resort, by the way. This was all, you know,
Speaker 2: funded by yours truly. But you know, so I'm not
Speaker 2: saying this to say this, but God, I just want
Speaker 2: to go on a vacation to Kioa, play a little
Speaker 2: bit of golf, maybe not all on at the resort,
Speaker 2: maybe just maybe one round drive back into Charleston.
Speaker 3: One of the coolest things.
Speaker 2: It's really close to Charleston, but anyways, the island is
Speaker 2: just like the most stunning place. So you have obviously
Speaker 2: the low country, the Charleston tidal marshes, and then you
Speaker 2: have the ocean, and the golf course is this thin
Speaker 2: strip of land that plays basically between these stunning tidal
Speaker 2: marshes that as somebody that doesn't see them every day,
Speaker 2: I'm like mesmerized by them. I think they're so beautiful.
Speaker 2: They get that kind of like reddish brown color. I'm colorblind,
Speaker 2: so if it's a different color, you know.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think that's about what the
Speaker 1: amazing like variety of textures and colors in these marshes.
Speaker 1: They're just beautiful.
Speaker 2: And so the front nine kind of plays mostly through that,
Speaker 2: and then it turns when it turns, and it plays.
Speaker 2: The way the course is routed is more similar to
Speaker 2: a Lynk's course than a lot of things in America,
Speaker 2: where it plays really like out and back on the
Speaker 2: front and then out and back on the back nine.
Speaker 2: And in both cases, the out portion is along the
Speaker 2: marshland and then the back plays along the beach, So
Speaker 2: you know, literally sand dune beach, and I guess one
Speaker 2: of the things in talking to our caddies, had great caddies,
Speaker 2: was they had recently cut down. They've cut down a
Speaker 2: lot in Native so you can see the ocean from
Speaker 2: so many more holes that are previously the marsh had
Speaker 2: grown up a lot and restricted the view. But there
Speaker 2: are some really great golf holes out there. It's really hard.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but it's not. It's
Speaker 2: hard because you're just playing in a really strong wind,
Speaker 2: even if it's calm for four straight hours, and it
Speaker 2: just gets you eventually right. And the greens are pushed up,
Speaker 2: so like you have to hit really good shots to
Speaker 2: these elevated greens or else you're dead, Like you're just
Speaker 2: in bad spots. And so playing the combination of wind
Speaker 2: with pushed up greens is kind of what you talked
Speaker 2: about with Die in general, like it makes you have
Speaker 2: to be so precise with your irons in order to
Speaker 2: play well. And then you know there's a decent amount
Speaker 2: of with but if you're spraying it, you're gonna lose
Speaker 2: some golf balls.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're off of the golf course, then
Speaker 1: there's basically no point.
Speaker 2: There's gaters and snakes, yeah, which I have no interest in.
Speaker 2: So like, if my ball goes all right, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to go in there, all right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, amazing piece of land, but probably a pretty
Speaker 1: difficult piece of land to build on.
Speaker 3: It had to be.
Speaker 1: It's marshy, it's not like immedia. It's not like you
Speaker 1: can just grow grass and have a golf course. You
Speaker 1: had to really do some engineering here. So this is
Speaker 1: how Pete Dye puts it. When PGA officials first visited
Speaker 1: the site for the course, they almost threw up. So
Speaker 1: it was just like not a golf course as of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, you know, and the Ryder Cup was
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one. They began clearing the land in
Speaker 1: July nineteen eighty nine. Then Hurricane Hugo hit in September
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine and completely transformed the landscape, turned it
Speaker 1: into a completely different place. Basically, here's how again Die
Speaker 1: puts it. All our marking stakes were blown away and
Speaker 1: many of the oaks on the property were wind burned
Speaker 1: so badly they never recovered where there had been one
Speaker 1: continuous sand dune along a two mile stretch before Hugo.
Speaker 1: There were now many smaller ones six to eight feet apart.
Speaker 1: Nearly every single person who visited the site told us
Speaker 1: that the course would never be ready for the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: So I can imagine that he just sort of had
Speaker 1: to completely change his design plans mid stream. Now, he
Speaker 1: dies pretty well suited to this, because that's what he does.
Speaker 2: Also, he'd never had design plan never. I've heard numerous
Speaker 2: numerous tales of him, you know, giving just like five
Speaker 2: year old design plans for a design like design design
Speaker 2: plans for somewhere in a completely different city and state
Speaker 2: to satisfy local governments that asked for a design plan,
Speaker 2: just giving completely opposite design plans for somewhere else.
Speaker 1: So he was well suited to this. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: the site got re arranged by Hurricane Hugo, and he
Speaker 1: obviously had to adjust to that. But this is kind
Speaker 1: of what Die did anyway in his builds. So it
Speaker 1: was six weeks before the Ryder Cup. Ryder Cup players
Speaker 1: visited the course, Lanny Watkins says, no way this course
Speaker 1: will be ready for the Ryder Cup, And as Dye
Speaker 1: puts it, Lanny's comments were mild in comparison to those
Speaker 1: of other Ryder Cup hopefuls, including Tom Kite, who abandoned
Speaker 1: his car when it got stuck in the sand near
Speaker 1: the clubhouse site. In any case, it was a hectic
Speaker 1: build obviously, and it had to be done really really quickly.
Speaker 1: But even though they did it in a short amount
Speaker 1: of time, they used some pretty innovative methods of recreating dunes,
Speaker 1: putting vegetation back on the dunes because the hurricane had
Speaker 1: stripped everything, draining the course without contaminating the saltwater marshes.
Speaker 1: You know, this is one of those golf course projects
Speaker 1: in the modern era that had a lot of environmental
Speaker 1: restrictions that's become a lot more common now. But they
Speaker 1: had to come up with a whole drainage method to
Speaker 1: make sure that chemicals from the golf course did not
Speaker 1: reach the marshes. And so basically they built this huge
Speaker 1: system of pipes where the water would go into these
Speaker 1: drainage these catch basins and would go down into these
Speaker 1: pipes and then be recycled for irrigation. And so in
Speaker 1: many ways, this is a very modern project. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of the kind of environmental measures that current
Speaker 1: golf course projects almost always have to take into account.
Speaker 1: Being a factor here as well a couple of other
Speaker 1: details about the design. Alice Dye is the one who
Speaker 1: suggested raising many of the holes so that players could
Speaker 1: have unobstructed views of the ocean. If they had just
Speaker 1: kept it at the level that it was before, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to see over stuff. And even now,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, when the vegetation in the marshes gets
Speaker 1: too high, you can see over them. But they actually
Speaker 1: built a lot of those fairways up so that players
Speaker 1: could see the ocean. But what this ended up doing
Speaker 1: is making the golf course quite a bit more difficult
Speaker 1: because you're more exposed to the wind when you're higher.
Speaker 3: The wind's crazy.
Speaker 1: Wind's crazy, and that's and Die talks about that what
Speaker 1: makes it crazy is not only its strength, but the
Speaker 1: fact that it switches direction. Yes, it goes in opposite
Speaker 1: directions on different days. And he says, by the way,
Speaker 1: that this is what made the nineteen ninety one Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup so difficult. It was because the wind was blowing
Speaker 1: one way during the practice rounds, and then on the
Speaker 1: first day of competition it switched directions, and so players
Speaker 1: plans were completely different. Holes that played into the wind
Speaker 1: were playing downwind, and holes that played downwind were playing
Speaker 1: into the wind. And when the wind is as strong
Speaker 1: as it is on Kiawah Island, it just completely changes
Speaker 1: the golf hole, turns it into something totally different.
Speaker 2: And I think this is you know, I had been
Speaker 2: to Kiwa in so long, and I remember the Rory
Speaker 2: Pga a few years ago, and I remember I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't in golf media. Then I remember
Speaker 2: kind of being in a blah because, you know, Rory
Speaker 2: ran away. And I think that wind does not get
Speaker 2: enough credit because he absolutely dusted a field on a
Speaker 2: golf course that was really hard for everybody, but Rory,
Speaker 2: like there were not many players under par, he ran
Speaker 2: away with it. And I think I was a little blind.
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, I was at high schooler. I
Speaker 2: didn't remember that much. I didn't know what I was
Speaker 2: looking for. But when I went out there, I you know,
Speaker 2: after playing it, I was like, Wow, I'm really excited
Speaker 2: about this. And one of the reasons I'm really excited
Speaker 2: is because of the wind. And I think, just in
Speaker 2: this modern era of golf, conditions have to be so perfect,
Speaker 2: and really, if you don't have wind and you don't
Speaker 2: have firm. It's gonna be the professional golf we watched
Speaker 2: week in week out where wedges just stop and everything
Speaker 2: and you don't see the shot making as much because
Speaker 2: they can play driving range golf. And I think one
Speaker 2: of the things with especially you know versus in August
Speaker 2: PGA in May, you get more variable winds out there,
Speaker 2: and you get stronger winds in May than you get
Speaker 2: in August. And that is what I kind of walked away.
Speaker 2: It's really a compelling design. It's got really some really
Speaker 2: neat holes, some really fun holes, and some holes that
Speaker 2: you know for people that like watching guys kind of scirm,
Speaker 2: Like there are some very very uncomfortable t shots out there,
Speaker 2: and like you can play a perfect round of golf
Speaker 2: and run into an eight pretty much anywhere on that
Speaker 2: golf course. And I think that is something that people
Speaker 2: loved about Shinnakock is the the opportunity for a twenty
Speaker 2: car pile up at any point in the round. And
Speaker 2: we saw the best thing about Shinnacock was we saw
Speaker 2: it right out of the gates on Thursday, people making
Speaker 2: sevens from centers at fairway. At Atkiwa, you could make
Speaker 2: a seven all over the board there and I think
Speaker 2: with the wind being that added spice that we don't
Speaker 2: get a lot at American Majors is something that I'm
Speaker 2: really excited about now, you know, if we wanted to
Speaker 2: get into critiques, I wish that Kiowa would go back
Speaker 2: to a bermuda grass and maybe allow in the winter
Speaker 2: for it to go dormant and play more links like
Speaker 2: let it go dormant, like country Club at Charleston down
Speaker 2: the street goes dormant. I would play there all the
Speaker 2: time in dormancy because it would play so fun and
Speaker 2: fast and different if they allowed it to go dormant.
Speaker 3: Rather they've got past palum.
Speaker 2: So it's really the one thing that kind of stinks
Speaker 2: is it's a slow grass and it gets a lot
Speaker 2: of water.
Speaker 1: So is it slow around the greens too, like on
Speaker 1: the approaches to the greens and stuff like that. Is yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's the one thing though, is the greens are
Speaker 2: all built up, so it's not a place that you're
Speaker 2: going to be running the ball up for the most
Speaker 2: part anyways. So I will say that it's just more
Speaker 2: off the tea. It would play so much different with
Speaker 2: fast of faster grass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean in Pete Dye's career. There's this
Speaker 1: interesting thread where clearly he was inspired by the links
Speaker 1: of Scotland and Ireland, and he wanted to recreate some
Speaker 1: aspects of that style of golf course in the United States,
Speaker 1: and he brought certain elements that he saw over there here.
Speaker 1: And when he was building Kiowa Island, he was quite
Speaker 1: aware of trying to emulate the links. He wanted to
Speaker 1: leave greens open to approaches. He knew there was this wind,
Speaker 1: He had this out and back routing idea, these two
Speaker 1: loops for the nines, and so there are some aspects
Speaker 1: of the course that vaguely recall the links, but in
Speaker 1: some essential ways on this course and on pretty much
Speaker 1: every other Die course, he didn't quite get the links feel,
Speaker 1: mostly because his courses are pretty much aerial, and that's
Speaker 1: maybe the most essential thing about the links, to be fair.
Speaker 2: He lived in the aerial technology though, like you know,
Speaker 2: and as much as we romanticize the links and running
Speaker 2: the ball up, you know, for especially what he was
Speaker 2: oft in tasked, which you know in this case was
Speaker 2: hosting a professional event. It was an aerial game at
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you mentioned some that the t shots and
Speaker 1: probably the approaches to are really visually uncomfortable. Could you
Speaker 1: say more about that? How does he do that?
Speaker 2: It's just angles that he sets you with and decisions right,
Speaker 2: you know. Thirteen is a perfect example. And I think
Speaker 2: I think Jim Furick ruined around here and maybe the
Speaker 2: last PGA, I think he made like an eight or
Speaker 2: something and he played like just a flawless round of golf,
Speaker 2: and then he made a seven or eight here. I
Speaker 2: myself made an eight here and I just was standing
Speaker 2: on the tea box.
Speaker 3: You know. It's a middle ish.
Speaker 2: Length part four and for me, I was playing into
Speaker 2: the wind. And so you want to hit driver, You've
Speaker 2: got bunkers on the left and a diagonal hazard down
Speaker 2: the right, and the diagonal nature of it is just
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing that Die did so well,
Speaker 2: is the use of these angles where it just makes
Speaker 2: you uncomfortable because you know, if you don't hit a
Speaker 2: cut on that t shot, you're going in the bunkers.
Speaker 2: But if you over, if you hit too big of
Speaker 2: a cut, you're going in the water. But then you
Speaker 2: could take them all out of play and hit like
Speaker 2: an iron and a lay back short, but then you're
Speaker 2: left with like a mid iron into a really small
Speaker 2: green that's angled again with water. So it just puts
Speaker 2: you in a position where you don't feel like you
Speaker 2: ever are winning right with a decision. If you make
Speaker 2: one decision, it's going to leave you with a tougher
Speaker 2: question the next time around. You know, if you take
Speaker 2: the safe decision, then you're gonna have a tougher question
Speaker 2: the next time around. If you push it, you bring
Speaker 2: in all kinds of risk. And I think that is
Speaker 2: just a general characteristic that flows throughout the golf course. Obviously,
Speaker 2: pins can change the way you play them in the wind.
Speaker 2: The wind is such a big factor where if a
Speaker 2: t shot doesn't fit your eye and then and then
Speaker 2: it's blowing in a direction that makes it even worse.
Speaker 2: You're just standing on a tea box feeling like I
Speaker 2: have to hit this perfectly or else I'm I'm screwed.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, obviously, professional golfers are way
Speaker 2: better than I am, and they feel differently about this,
Speaker 2: But I think it will put them and we saw
Speaker 2: it like if you watch The War on the Shore,
Speaker 2: which is a great little golf film on the Golf Channel.
Speaker 3: I caught it.
Speaker 2: I caught it a couple of weeks ago, one early
Speaker 2: in the morning, I like turn on the TV in
Speaker 2: my office and it was just randomly on and my
Speaker 2: work day didn't start for an hour later because I
Speaker 2: sat and watched it.
Speaker 3: And you know, these guys, the wind just gave them fits.
Speaker 2: And obviously they were playing a little bit different technology,
Speaker 2: especially the spin near golf ball. And I think that's
Speaker 2: something that gets missed, is like how little wind hits
Speaker 2: these golf balls of these players. And I've noticed it
Speaker 2: just from when I played growing up, how much it's
Speaker 2: changed to now. But that wind, it just makes all
Speaker 2: these shots with trouble places, it makes you bail out.
Speaker 3: And the case of the War.
Speaker 2: On the shore, a lot of guys were talking about
Speaker 2: the seventeenth hole, which is a long part three and
Speaker 2: it was playing into the wind and blowing to the right,
Speaker 2: which water is short right of this long par three,
Speaker 2: and players were just like aiming at sand dunes left
Speaker 2: of the green, like sand dunes with thick rough grass,
Speaker 2: praying to get the ball on the land, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's the things that this golf course can do
Speaker 2: to you, is that you look at shots and are
Speaker 2: just hoping that the ball land on ground.
Speaker 1: And the severity of the hazards plays a role here too, because,
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, if you're in those hazards, it's over.
Speaker 1: There's no recovery, and you're aware of that when you're
Speaker 1: making the shot.
Speaker 2: The other thing, too, with the angular nature of them,
Speaker 2: is a lot of times if you hit them into
Speaker 2: these hazards, it's not like you get to drop up
Speaker 2: by where it crossed because you crossed off the tee
Speaker 2: because they're angled, so your ball may never cross over ground,
Speaker 2: so it's like an out of bounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you mentioned the war on the shore. We
Speaker 1: didn't really even conclude the story about the building of Q. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it opened, it worked. It was they managed to get
Speaker 1: the golf course done and have it host that tournament.
Speaker 1: And it seems to me that even though it was
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily hard course and guys were faced with the
Speaker 1: kinds of shots that you're describing, it seems like they
Speaker 1: liked the course generally.
Speaker 2: I think they liked it. It's fun to watch that event,
Speaker 2: you know, just so much a change with golf. The
Speaker 2: bay the ball hit the ground and moved in that
Speaker 2: event was really cool, and obviously it was Bermuda grass then,
Speaker 2: but you know, I think they for the most part
Speaker 2: liked it. They all thought it was extraordinarily difficult. One
Speaker 2: of the things is like it is a perfect match
Speaker 2: play golf course, and I wish a Ryder Cup would
Speaker 2: ever would go back to it, but I think for
Speaker 2: business reasons it won't. I think infrastructure is an issue obviously,
Speaker 2: with environmental and titled marshes and not enough space for
Speaker 2: grand stands, you know, because the Ryder Cup is way
Speaker 2: bigger than the PGA in terms of a setup, so
Speaker 2: unfortunately like it it would be such an awesome Ryder
Speaker 2: Cup host because of that. The variance on holes can
Speaker 2: be so great. You know where good shots are rewarded
Speaker 2: very heavily there and you know, make you can score
Speaker 2: out there. But scoring for eighteen hole holes is the challenge,
Speaker 2: especially when the wind's up.
Speaker 1: Are there any other holes that stand out to you?
Speaker 1: You talked about the thirteenth, what else.
Speaker 2: The third hole? These are inland holes. The ocean holes
Speaker 2: are spectacular, they're beautiful holes, and they all have strategic interest.
Speaker 2: But the third hole is a really cool short par
Speaker 2: for It's probably about three hundred and fifty yards and
Speaker 2: it's got this nice little ridge that it plays up
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 3: There are two little trees short of the green.
Speaker 2: But I'm really compelled to see what players do because
Speaker 2: if it's playing downwind, it's very drivable for a lot
Speaker 2: of the longer hitters. But the green is extremely small
Speaker 2: and it's raised really high up. It's almost like an hole,
Speaker 2: almost volcano like, and it's green. But it you know
Speaker 2: you can hit three iron, you can hit such a
Speaker 2: wide I think you're gonna see players play such a
Speaker 2: wide variety of shots. The thing is when you have
Speaker 2: a wedge in your hand and if it's blowing, that
Speaker 2: shot is no easy picnic because the targets raised up.
Speaker 2: It repels on all edges and it's a really small target.
Speaker 2: It is a tiny green. So that is will be
Speaker 2: a really interesting hole to see how different players strategize
Speaker 2: and play it, because I think you're going to see
Speaker 2: there's obviously hazards, there's marsh around it, but there's a
Speaker 2: decent amount of space up there. I think you'll see
Speaker 2: some guys try and drive it, hit it as close
Speaker 2: as possible, other guys lay back, and I think it'll
Speaker 2: be dependent on the wind too, But that weg shot
Speaker 2: is not fun if your downwind is almost harder because
Speaker 2: you just don't know how that wedge is going to react,
Speaker 2: and you could get big first hops. So that is
Speaker 2: probably one of the holes that I'm most excited about.
Speaker 2: The par threes are extraordinary out there. They all kind
Speaker 2: of go in a little bit different direction. I think
Speaker 2: they all play in distinctly different directions, which is neat.
Speaker 2: The first one has almost like an hour glass type green.
Speaker 2: It's similar to seventeen at Pebble, except it's got more
Speaker 2: space have as small as a neck, but it's if
Speaker 2: you can envision that one, and so you have a
Speaker 2: lot of variety in terms of length that that can play.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of where the routing turns on the
Speaker 2: front nine. So you're playing out and this one turns
Speaker 2: and it kind of brings you starts the process back,
Speaker 2: but it it plays in a distinctly different angle than
Speaker 2: every other hole on that nine. And that and then
Speaker 2: it got a great little shorter par three with a
Speaker 2: raised green, very very volcano esque par three the eighth hole,
Speaker 2: and it's a really neat hole. It's just like a
Speaker 2: do or die shot, and like everything, I feel very repetitive.
Speaker 2: The wind makes it extraordinarily difficult. If you've got a crosswind,
Speaker 2: it's not a fun shot to hit on the back.
Speaker 2: Nine fourteen is a cool green that's got it's almost
Speaker 2: got a little bit. It's not a radan at all,
Speaker 2: but it's got that kind of slope where it runs
Speaker 2: back from the right, so you can you'll see guys
Speaker 2: hit it away from the flag to get it close
Speaker 2: to the flag there. It's kind of like right in
Speaker 2: the middle of the green. It's got this shelf that
Speaker 2: runs away in back allah radan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well, it's funny you say it's that it's
Speaker 1: like a radan but not a radan, because in his
Speaker 1: book Pete Dye says it's a ra dan, but looking
Speaker 1: at it, you know, not really. What are some of
Speaker 1: the things that for you differentiate it from a true radan.
Speaker 2: I think it's just the front part that the shelf
Speaker 2: kind of comes more in the middle of the green.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, it works well. It works like a radan.
Speaker 1: You can run it back there.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't have the aesthetics that you would be
Speaker 2: used to. It doesn't have like the same angular nature
Speaker 2: as your traditional radan, but it does work well, like
Speaker 2: you have to aim short right to get it close
Speaker 2: to the to the left flags.
Speaker 1: And it's it's the first hole that comes back on
Speaker 1: the back nine along the ocean that comes back toward
Speaker 1: the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: It's really it's really the first right on the ocean
Speaker 2: hole on the golf course, because that front nine is
Speaker 2: detached from the ocean.
Speaker 3: So this starts your stretch of just like basically straight
Speaker 3: holes on the ocean.
Speaker 2: And then the seventeenth turns back in plays the opposite
Speaker 2: direction of the fifth, and that hole is a long
Speaker 2: par three and there's there's no bail out.
Speaker 1: Guys had a hard time with that hole in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, oh a lot of guys. There's a lake
Speaker 1: in front of the green is kind of angled left
Speaker 1: to right, and there's a big lake in front of
Speaker 1: the green that Alice Die is the one who recommended.
Speaker 1: They initially weren't going to have that, but they put
Speaker 1: that there, and it comes right up to the edge
Speaker 1: of the green. Classic Die style. You know, I think
Speaker 1: there's some railroad ties there. Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah nineteen ninety one Ryder Cup ball after ball
Speaker 1: in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know Mark Kalkovecia's famous meltdown happened on
Speaker 2: the seventeenth. Like I think somebody said, is the worst
Speaker 2: shot they've ever seen a professional hit. I mean that
Speaker 2: that that hole, it's scary, like you just stand there's
Speaker 2: nowhere to hit it. You have to just commit to
Speaker 2: hitting a good shot and pray that, like the wind
Speaker 2: is in a good direction for you. So there's really
Speaker 2: good variety and distances, and then the directions are so
Speaker 2: they're they're a great set of par three. I feel
Speaker 2: like Pete Die typically builds really good par threes and
Speaker 2: and this is no different than than that.
Speaker 3: It's just a lot of variety in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're king in on the variety and that and
Speaker 1: that was that's a hallmark for par threes. You would
Speaker 1: never mistake one part three on a course for another.
Speaker 1: When you're playing a Pete Die golf course, they're all
Speaker 1: totally different.
Speaker 3: It's it's just such a neat place.
Speaker 2: And I I wish in a way, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like one of these things with golfer right, it's a resort.
Speaker 2: It can get what it charges. I just I wish
Speaker 2: it was more affordable. But it's a bucketless place. And
Speaker 2: I think people like you know, I think the rest
Speaker 2: of the resort plays a factor. Like I played Turtle
Speaker 2: Point when I was in high school. I ran around it.
Speaker 3: While we were.
Speaker 2: We were there and I reminded it reminded me of
Speaker 2: how much I hated it, And I think, like, you know,
Speaker 2: the rest of the golf courses aren't.
Speaker 3: I think that's where it lacks compared to others. But
Speaker 3: like the.
Speaker 2: Ocean Course, I wouldn't want to play there regularly, but
Speaker 2: every once in a while it is. It is a
Speaker 2: spectacular golf course. It's a really great golf course. It's
Speaker 2: just really hard, and I think that it's okay to
Speaker 2: have a golf course can be great and really hard.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it has these two functions
Speaker 1: that are so different. It's a tournament golf course. It's
Speaker 1: an elite tournament golf course that is meant to be hard,
Speaker 1: and it is hard, has been hard. But for most
Speaker 1: of its existence it has function and does a resort course.
Speaker 1: And so how do you think it fares on those counts?
Speaker 1: Do people Do you think people just expect, like I'm
Speaker 1: going to get murdered by this course or is there
Speaker 1: is there some flexibility built into it.
Speaker 3: It's so funny.
Speaker 2: I you know, the I was talking to our caddies
Speaker 2: and the day before we played, it was just these
Speaker 2: insane winds. And I talked to a guy in the
Speaker 2: pro shop. I was like, yesterday I had to be
Speaker 2: wild out here. He's like, yeah, nobody even canceled. It's
Speaker 2: like if I was scheduled to play that day, I
Speaker 2: would have been like, no, no thanks. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: just like thirty five mile in our winds out there.
Speaker 2: It's insane and it's just extraordinarily demanding golf course to
Speaker 2: play in that type of wind. I would have been like,
Speaker 2: no thanks. And I asked the cat. The caddy said
Speaker 2: that she said for the people she would carry for
Speaker 2: they lost a dozen balls by the third hole. It
Speaker 2: is it's not a place where it's not like all
Speaker 2: low handicaps, Like that's the thing is like the this
Speaker 2: is a type of place that you get corporate retreat,
Speaker 2: you get people that have never played golf. It's their
Speaker 2: first round of golf ever at the Ocean course. Like
Speaker 2: could you imagine do you imagine playing your first round
Speaker 2: of golf at the Ocean Course? Like I would hate
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 1: I can't. Yeah, I mean, and it's not just a
Speaker 1: it's not a resource cour resort course in the Abandon
Speaker 1: Dunes or sand Valley a sense where it's a golf
Speaker 1: resort exclusively, like where you're going there to play golf.
Speaker 1: It's a resort resort, right, it's a it's a nice
Speaker 1: place to go on a vacation, even if you're not
Speaker 1: particularly interested in golf, and so you can find yourself
Speaker 1: out on that course without having many skills at all.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you something, all of everything I
Speaker 2: just said about Kiowa, about the Ocean course, it might
Speaker 2: be worse at Turtle Point. That's the most claustrophobic golf course. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't ever imagine playing it as like a
Speaker 2: twenty handicap. There's things that I love about Kiowa the
Speaker 2: resort in general, and then there are things I dislike,
Speaker 2: And one of them is like the Turtle Point and
Speaker 2: how they felt the need to squeeze three holes on
Speaker 2: the ocean And it's like anybody that saw the Ezema
Speaker 2: tournament and Bahamas the Web event where the winds just
Speaker 2: reaped carnage, and that you know, there's allegedly the story
Speaker 2: is that Greg Norman when he played the course and
Speaker 2: with Hank Keny.
Speaker 3: They ran out of golf balls on the twelve hole.
Speaker 2: That's Turtle Point, Like you get out on the ocean
Speaker 2: holes and there's like thirty yards of space to hit it.
Speaker 3: And I watched this guy. You know, you could walk
Speaker 3: right through there.
Speaker 2: You know, there's walking trails and I was out for
Speaker 2: a walk and I just watched this guy stand on
Speaker 2: the tea and he could just tell he was just
Speaker 2: making the most guy to swing. He hit it right
Speaker 2: into the houses, like it's just like a natural reaction.
Speaker 2: I think that does have to be some of the
Speaker 2: holes in America that people lose the most golf balls on,
Speaker 2: or those ocean holes that they just crammed in there
Speaker 2: in between houses beach.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting relic. I mean, I don't think golf
Speaker 1: resorts are being built like this anymore, where the courses
Speaker 1: are super super hard.
Speaker 2: I think about it, it's like they were really ahead
Speaker 2: of their time in terms of environmental practices land planning,
Speaker 2: like they did a great They did a lot of
Speaker 2: great things with like preserving nature there, which is great.
Speaker 2: That's what makes it so cool to visit. Just in general,
Speaker 2: if you're a person that enjoys like walking. It's amazing place.
Speaker 2: Like I've got a renewed or maybe even new passion
Speaker 2: for walks. That's something new for twenty twenty for me.
Speaker 2: But like I just loved walking around there. But the
Speaker 2: the golf. From the golf standpoint, they developed this resort
Speaker 2: probably the worst time in golf history to develop a
Speaker 2: resort on like sandy soil near the ocean. You think
Speaker 2: about what could be, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That said ocean course at Kiowa is a cool place.
Speaker 1: I think that's the that's the verdict.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think like people will pooh pooh it just because
Speaker 2: of the time it was and how hard it is.
Speaker 2: But like it's okay, a golf course could be very
Speaker 2: good and very hard like that is. That's fine, Like
Speaker 2: it's very demanding it but there's a lot of strategy
Speaker 2: and a lot of cool angular stuff within that demand,
Speaker 2: and it is a course that is is a one
Speaker 2: of a kind golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And something we haven't mentioned yet that I wanted
Speaker 1: to touch on before we move on to other topics
Speaker 1: is just the look of the ocean course at Kiowa.
Speaker 1: I think even in Pete Dye's body of work, it
Speaker 1: is a uniquely cool looking well shaped course. He usually
Speaker 1: did a good job making his courses look distinctive. But
Speaker 1: the just look at photographs of the ocean course and
Speaker 1: seeing the way the bunkers are shaped, the way the
Speaker 1: contours are done around the greens, It's varied, unexpected, it's strange.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it natural necessarily. You know, there are
Speaker 1: other architects who have done a better job of emulating
Speaker 1: a dune's environment more exactly. But the way that the
Speaker 1: shapes kind of pop up off of the ground but
Speaker 1: still stay pretty low profile and don't look ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's something there that is that is cool
Speaker 1: about Kiwa.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily like you wouldn't imagine being natural, no
Speaker 2: per se, but it doesn't look out of place.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And why is that? Like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: trying to find my way to that answer, because it's
Speaker 1: it's not the way the bunkers are shaped. It's not
Speaker 1: like he's trying to fool you into thinking those were
Speaker 1: there before. I think part of it is that it's
Speaker 1: fairly low profile. The greens are pushed up, but it's
Speaker 1: not like he built these massive stadium course like surrounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I think one of the things
Speaker 2: is because they have what Hugo did with the dunes
Speaker 2: and making all those dunes ridges. I think the term
Speaker 2: scale gets thrown around a lot as just like a buzzword.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people don't know what it means. Scale. Scale can be.
Speaker 1: It's not just big scale that we're talking about. When
Speaker 1: we talk about scale, we're talking about the match between
Speaker 1: the scale of the environment and the scale of the course.
Speaker 2: Right, So those dunes create a bigger scale, which allowed
Speaker 2: the features he built, which aren't super large, to blend
Speaker 2: in more because of their the surrounds being bigger, the
Speaker 2: natural surrounds being bigger, the things that he built up
Speaker 2: and these bunkers, these bunkers do not look natural at all, right,
Speaker 2: but they work. And I think we see this sometimes
Speaker 2: with like a above ground features, you know, just a
Speaker 2: general they're the bunkers are some of them are almost
Speaker 2: above ground features, like like they pop up, they're like
Speaker 2: almost I know he got into volcano bunkers later in.
Speaker 1: The French Lick era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but these might have been the precursor to
Speaker 2: the volcano bunkers.
Speaker 1: Sure, this is getting late in his career here, right,
Speaker 1: This is This is fairly late period Pete Die, so
Speaker 1: he'd been doing it for a while and so this
Speaker 1: is a different phase of his career than Harbor Town
Speaker 1: or TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 3: This is Sawgrass today is not.
Speaker 1: Necessarily Pete Die, yeah, because.
Speaker 3: It's more TPC design than Pete Die.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all right, So Ocean corsic Quio a cool
Speaker 1: place with some fantastic things about it, but also some
Speaker 1: questions to ask about its design, which makes it really
Speaker 1: interesting to discuss.
Speaker 3: That's Pete Die for you polarizing.
Speaker 1: He's polarizing, and he should be, and I wish more
Speaker 1: architects were, in fact, because he might be the most
Speaker 1: interesting architect to discuss of all time, mainly because you
Speaker 1: can't possibly play one of his courses and say I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to quibble with here, but you can't.
Speaker 1: You also can't play one of his golf courses and
Speaker 1: say there's nothing here that I like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's you know where His contemporary obviously
Speaker 2: was Fazzio and Nicholas to a certain extent sure, And
Speaker 2: I think that's the thing that separated Die for me
Speaker 2: from Fazio is that Die was able to go outside
Speaker 2: of the box a little bit more, and he wasn't
Speaker 2: afraid to take risks where I feel like Fazio kind
Speaker 2: of just ouh, this works here, you know, do this here,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: This is another golf course. We do this and this
Speaker 3: and this.
Speaker 2: And he did the thing with Fazzio too, is he
Speaker 2: built a lot of very good golf courses. But I
Speaker 2: just don't think, you know, he never was audacious enough
Speaker 2: to build, you know, whether you like Pete Dye or not,
Speaker 2: his stuff is memorable and that that in itself is
Speaker 2: worth going to see, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 2: what somebody. I don't think Mike Strantz is that great
Speaker 2: of an architect. Everybody loves him, but I think what
Speaker 2: people love him about about him is that the stuff's memorable.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a it's a unique art form. And
Speaker 2: that's what architecture is. It's art. And I think, like
Speaker 2: you know, Strants, it would been really interesting to see
Speaker 2: how his career progressed, because that's one of the other
Speaker 2: interesting things things with architects that I really like examining
Speaker 2: and thinking about is how they progress from early stages
Speaker 2: to later stages. And obviously this is like we just
Speaker 2: talked about, this is a later Die versus Harbor Town,
Speaker 2: early Die or you know Crooked Stick or the golf club,
Speaker 2: and I think or the stadium phase, like there is
Speaker 2: the stadium phase too. I think the thing with with
Speaker 2: Fassio was it was always kind of a Fassio, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think the thing with Strands was it was
Speaker 2: really cool to look at, but you wondered about some
Speaker 2: of the functionality. You wonder about some of the everyday
Speaker 2: aspects of it. There are a lot of questions around
Speaker 2: the architecture. The architecture was more art than function, you know,
Speaker 2: more form than function.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point about Strandson and Strans is
Speaker 1: actually a really good comparison with Die. Yes, if you're
Speaker 1: looking at the evolution of golf architecture, where the lines
Speaker 1: of influence go, obviously they go in a number of
Speaker 1: directions from Die. He mentored any number of great architects
Speaker 1: that you know now. But if you're looking for an
Speaker 1: architect who is truly carrying on that Die tradition of
Speaker 1: provocative work, then Mike Strants is a pretty good example.
Speaker 2: I was kind of a I think I've talked about
Speaker 2: this before on this pot. I think one of the
Speaker 2: things I think about a ton is, like, how would
Speaker 2: Strants have evolved? Yeah, what would we have seen in
Speaker 2: twenty ten, Because when he passed away, he was just
Speaker 2: reaching the pinnacle. The commissions were getting better and better
Speaker 2: and bigger, and he was about to hit you know,
Speaker 2: kind of the height of his career. And he would
Speaker 2: have been a really interesting foil to the minimalist style
Speaker 2: architecture that won out with Bill Khrer and Tom Doak.
Speaker 2: I don't think he would have built a golf course abandoned,
Speaker 2: like I don't think that would have happened, But he
Speaker 2: would have built a lot of other golf courses that
Speaker 2: would have been stylistically and philosophically built a lot differently
Speaker 2: than the style that really won out and today is
Speaker 2: the one that's in vogue, you know, the dominant style.
Speaker 1: Yeah. If he didn't build a golf course for the
Speaker 1: Kaisers and he died in two thousand and five, right,
Speaker 1: so there was certainly maybe an opportunity to have done
Speaker 1: so and it didn't happen. And maybe that a place
Speaker 1: like Bandon Dune's would never have really jibed with Mike Strants,
Speaker 1: but he might have built something at like stream Song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that the courses at stream Song that are
Speaker 1: there are there. Nonetheless, it's interesting to think about what
Speaker 1: he might have done with the property that became stream
Speaker 1: Song Black. Ye, what would Mike Strands have done there?
Speaker 1: I think gil Hanst did something really interesting and provocative
Speaker 1: in its own way there, but almost certainly Mike Strants
Speaker 1: would have done something very very different.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's the cool thing to think about
Speaker 2: with anything. That's a beautiful thing about architectures. Look at
Speaker 2: conceptual plans. If he had four architects draw them up,
Speaker 2: they'd all be wildly different, you know. And I think
Speaker 2: so it'll be interesting to see what happens with Maxwellis's architecture.
Speaker 3: I think there's there's two.
Speaker 2: You know, you got Jackson and Kahn kind of carrying
Speaker 2: out this tradition, and then you've got Rob Collins and
Speaker 2: Tad King that create and it'll be really interesting to
Speaker 2: see where it goes. And it's something that's kind of
Speaker 2: been missing from from the golf architecture discussion for the
Speaker 2: last fifteen years, where you know, minimalism has been the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, golf architecture, it moves slowly, right, the influences move slowly.
Speaker 3: There are that many projects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has many fewer opportunities to evolve as an
Speaker 1: art form than like music does, for instance. And so
Speaker 1: if somebody right now is really influenced by Mike Strantz
Speaker 1: or Pete Dye and is drawing on different threads in
Speaker 1: golf architecture history than many of the architects who get
Speaker 1: all the jobs right now, then we won't really know
Speaker 1: that for another few years. But as you say, King Collins,
Speaker 1: the Landman project, the things that they're doing in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: that might be the next sort of telltale sign about
Speaker 1: where things might be going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if they deliver and you know that it'll be interesting,
Speaker 2: because then it would you know, kind of prescribe and
Speaker 2: the notion of like you can build really dramatic stuff anywhere, right,
Speaker 2: you can create interesting The idea of creating versus finding