Speaker 1: Tom Doak is back and as usual, he's not holding back.
Speaker 2: But don't toss the yolk and the famously candid Doak
Speaker 2: doesn't pull any punches. How do I make natural looking? Contour?
Speaker 2: Hire the biggest fool in the village and told him to.
Speaker 1: Make it flat burst, overrated, underrated, rough.
Speaker 2: Terribly overrated over the years.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the first episode of The
Speaker 3: Yoke with Doak.
Speaker 1: Tom exciting to get this going.
Speaker 2: Thanks Andy, it's nice to be here. And a very
Speaker 2: clever title on your part. There's not many things that
Speaker 2: rhyme with Doke.
Speaker 1: There were, you know, my.
Speaker 3: Wife kept saying it's got to be talking with Tom
Speaker 3: and I was like, that's about the most boring title
Speaker 3: you could come up with.
Speaker 1: But it worked out.
Speaker 3: So today we're going to talk about golf course architecture
Speaker 3: one on one. So we've got a ton of questions
Speaker 3: from listeners and they range from you know, the very beginning,
Speaker 3: you know, what what is golf course architecture? To you know,
Speaker 3: questions about specific features that you know different golf courses.
Speaker 3: So the first question I think where we can start
Speaker 3: off with is from Tommy j and it was it's
Speaker 3: how would you describe golf course architecture to fifth grader?
Speaker 2: Oh, to a fifth grader, that's about the age where
Speaker 2: I took up golf. I think that the idea of
Speaker 2: golf course architecture is to playing out a golf course
Speaker 2: over the ground that'll be interesting for people to play,
Speaker 2: you know. And part of that's finding the right path
Speaker 2: across the ground so you don't have to keep climbing
Speaker 2: up hills and going downhills too much. And then part
Speaker 2: of it's figuring out what sorts of things you have
Speaker 2: to build to add to the fun and the interest
Speaker 2: of the golf course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good way to do it.
Speaker 3: I remember my early golf memories. I played tree golf
Speaker 3: and I would play with whiffle balls in our front
Speaker 3: yards or in our neighborhood with a buddy, and we'd
Speaker 3: played at different trees, but we had the street was
Speaker 3: like a water hazard, so you know, you'd have to
Speaker 3: play over it. It wouldn't have been a good golf
Speaker 3: course design because there were a lot of four scarries.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I started thinking about design more on paper. I
Speaker 2: mean one of the very first courses I saw was
Speaker 2: Harbortown when it was brand new, and the thing that
Speaker 2: got me hooked on golf course architecture was this little
Speaker 2: booklet that Charles I, the golf writer, had done. It
Speaker 2: was like hole by hole diagrams. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: you for a yardage book today, except without yardages because
Speaker 2: it was nineteen seventy and people didn't play by yardage
Speaker 2: so much. But it had like a diagram of the
Speaker 2: whole and three really simple sentences about how to play it, like,
Speaker 2: you know, this is a short par five, and if
Speaker 2: you're going for the green in two, you need to
Speaker 2: drive it left near that bunker, otherwise there's going to
Speaker 2: be a tree in your way for the second shot,
Speaker 2: you know. And it was something a ten year old
Speaker 2: could read and understand, and golf course architecture really isn't
Speaker 2: much more complicated than that.
Speaker 3: I wonder if learning golf course architecture, you see it
Speaker 3: with like languages, Now, kids get taught foreign languages at
Speaker 3: age like four because they've found that it's easier to
Speaker 3: oh wait wait, So I wonder if that would be
Speaker 3: like similar for golf course architecture, Like if learning the
Speaker 3: principles at a really young age would be easier.
Speaker 2: I think it would help, you know, just in terms
Speaker 2: terms of you know, coming to acceptance on a lot
Speaker 2: of it, but also you know, really thinking through the
Speaker 2: things that you challenge that challenge you about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh maybe it's it's the beginning of your
Speaker 3: golf life. You should learn it, like right, that should
Speaker 3: be the first thing you learned before you even learn
Speaker 3: how to play. Let's uh so Mark Ell wants to know,
Speaker 3: how do I know I'm standing on a good golf
Speaker 3: hole in terms of the t shot, approach and green
Speaker 3: How do you know it's good?
Speaker 2: I think if it excites you, it's good. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, most architects would give you a lot of
Speaker 2: different reasons about strategy, and you know, in some ways,
Speaker 2: you know, good golf design is like watching some of
Speaker 2: whose expert play billiards. It's like you have to make
Speaker 2: one shot, but really good player is the about setting
Speaker 2: up the next shot at the same time. And you
Speaker 2: know a good golf hole does that too. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not just about hitting along straight drive. It's about
Speaker 2: you know, what's that going to leave you once you
Speaker 2: do it? And you know, depending on your game, there
Speaker 2: might be places you don't want to leave yourself because
Speaker 2: you're you know, you're just not a good bunker player,
Speaker 2: and there's a bunker fifty yards short of the green
Speaker 2: and that's the last place you want to be, so
Speaker 2: you know, do something different with your t shot instead
Speaker 2: of risking that. But you know, it is simple enough
Speaker 2: that the average person, you know, like my wife doesn't
Speaker 2: play golf, but usually she can pick out a good
Speaker 2: golf hole. It's there's just something about it that fits
Speaker 2: the eye and it looks really engaging. And you don't
Speaker 2: even have to be a golfer to know that the
Speaker 2: proportions are right.
Speaker 3: As I was recently at a golf course and and
Speaker 3: somebody that didn't know a ton about golf was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I love the thirty hole there, and like sure enough
Speaker 3: that hole was like it was like one of the
Speaker 3: coolest holes out of the golf course for sure, Like
Speaker 3: you know, probably it was probably the hole that sticks
Speaker 3: with you the most. But it's like, you know, this
Speaker 3: is a novice that doesn't know anything, but he picked
Speaker 3: out that hole. I remember that hole, So ma, that's
Speaker 3: that's uh, there's a lot of truth to that. So
Speaker 3: Kyle Nathan asks, what are the different styles of golf
Speaker 3: course architecture.
Speaker 2: The you know, the old books that I've read about
Speaker 2: golf course architecture separated into three schools. There was penal design,
Speaker 2: which is, if you hit a bad shot, you wind
Speaker 2: up in a bunker or a hazard or something just
Speaker 2: right off the bat. Strategic design, which is, maybe there
Speaker 2: aren't a lot of hazards, but the hazards are really
Speaker 2: close to where you really want to go, so you
Speaker 2: can decide to flirt with them or play give them
Speaker 2: a lot of room and kind of play half away
Speaker 2: from them. And then Robert tren Jones started talking about
Speaker 2: that he was doing something different called the heroic school,
Speaker 2: where you know, you you give somebody a water hazard
Speaker 2: to hit over it in order to gain an advantage
Speaker 2: for the next shot. So that's kind of strategic, but
Speaker 2: more in your face, you know. And I've always used
Speaker 2: the example that great golf courses really have a usually
Speaker 2: have a mix of all three. I mean, you very
Speaker 2: rarely see I don't think you ever see a course
Speaker 2: with eighteen just purely strategic holes that don't have any
Speaker 2: you know, left and right bunkering on a hole, you know.
Speaker 2: I once used the example of Augusta National. You look
Speaker 2: at eleven, twelve, thirteen in augusta National, they are pretty
Speaker 2: famous holes. Eleven is really strategic. There's only one thing
Speaker 2: you don't want to do. Hit it in the lake
Speaker 2: to the left. You've got all the room in the
Speaker 2: world on the right to avoid the lake to the left.
Speaker 2: You get to number twelve, and that's a penal hole. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean there is. You know, you can aim away
Speaker 2: from the right hand pin over to the left hand pin,
Speaker 2: but if you do that, you're hitting over a bunker
Speaker 2: with another nasty bunker behind, so you're avoiding the water.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like you do have choices, but you
Speaker 2: still have to hit a really good shot. There's no
Speaker 2: getting around having to hit a good shot on that hole.
Speaker 2: And then thirteen is more of a heroic hole. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're a great player, you're thinking about going for
Speaker 2: it in two and shaping your shot around the corner
Speaker 2: of the dog legs, so you've got a way to
Speaker 2: get in there, and you shorten the approach where it's possible,
Speaker 2: you know, and the average player can't think that way,
Speaker 2: but it's a good three shot hole for them, so
Speaker 2: you know, there's a really good example. August is considered
Speaker 2: like one of the great strategic courses, but not every
Speaker 2: hole on it is a purely strategic hole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's still like some peenus aspects of it. I
Speaker 3: was writing an article on a short part three the
Speaker 3: other day and I was thinking about it. I was like, well, like,
Speaker 3: all short par threes are kind of penal holes for
Speaker 3: the most.
Speaker 2: Part, nearly all. Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes I
Speaker 2: take flak from people that, you know, I've heard several
Speaker 2: people say they don't like my par threes as much
Speaker 2: as some of my other holes, and it's I think
Speaker 2: it's because I don't really like building penal holes, so
Speaker 2: I don't, you know, I don't like surrounding greens with bunkers.
Speaker 2: I'll usually give you a place to miss. And for
Speaker 2: most people, a good par three is a penal hole
Speaker 2: that it's just guarded everywhere because they figure you've got
Speaker 2: a short iron in your hands and it's on a tee,
Speaker 2: so you ought to be this is the time. I
Speaker 2: ought to be able to make you hit a good shot.
Speaker 3: I feel like those par threes are great, but something
Speaker 3: that gets messed up there is with the like the
Speaker 3: ladies and senior teas because they have to have this
Speaker 3: forced care, and a lot of times they don't. They
Speaker 3: don't move the teas up far enough to give them
Speaker 3: a chance because they're hitting like a I watched my mom.
Speaker 1: She'll hit like have to hit like a five wood.
Speaker 3: Right into like this little green with a with bunkers
Speaker 3: everywhere exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you don't building a green that
Speaker 2: requires a carry into it is really hard for people
Speaker 2: who hit the ball in a load trajectory, And a
Speaker 2: lot of architects don't even think about people that hit
Speaker 2: it on a load trajectory until they get in their
Speaker 2: senior years and suddenly wish they had thought about that morey.
Speaker 3: It seems like it's that's the playing the game as
Speaker 3: a as a lady. When I watch like my mother
Speaker 3: or like the rare time that my wife goes out,
Speaker 3: is it's just such a different game. It's so much
Speaker 3: harder for them. But here's here's a good question. Ben
Speaker 3: Vanna wants to know how important are drawing skills and
Speaker 3: becoming a golf course architect.
Speaker 2: If drawing skills were really important, I would have never
Speaker 2: been able to get a job. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I can draw like a play in view of a
Speaker 2: golf hall. Okay, but you know, if you wanted me
Speaker 2: to do a rendering of what it was going to
Speaker 2: look like, I'd be hopeless at that I took. I
Speaker 2: had to take one drawing course in college for my
Speaker 2: landscape architecture degree, and that I'm sure that was the
Speaker 2: lowest grade I gotten in three years of landscape architecture.
Speaker 2: And I used to be very defensive about it. But
Speaker 2: but I've you know, I've learned over the years a
Speaker 2: different you know, everybody has a different way of communicating.
Speaker 2: And but the thing that I've learned the most is,
Speaker 2: you know, to me, golf course, architecture is it's more
Speaker 2: sculpture than drawing. I mean, you're working in three dimensions,
Speaker 2: and the third dimension really matters. You know, whether the
Speaker 2: whether the the green is pitching away from the line
Speaker 2: of play a little bit, or whether there's a crown
Speaker 2: there has a huge effect on things, and you have
Speaker 2: to be able to visualize that. So I don't think,
Speaker 2: you know, I've never thought that the guys that just
Speaker 2: strictly draw plans and then hand that to somebody to
Speaker 2: try to build. You know, Michelangelo wouldn't do a sculpture
Speaker 2: by starting in two D and drawing a plan of
Speaker 2: it and then going to three D. He just went
Speaker 2: straight to three D when it was time to do sculpture.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's kind of how we build golf courses. Plus,
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 3: Draw whenever I see one of those contests, for like, hey, raw,
Speaker 3: draw a golf hole and be to enter the contest.
Speaker 3: I'm a horrendous drawer, Like I can't write. My handwriting's horrible.
Speaker 3: My drawing skills are terrible, and I always I'm always like, well,
Speaker 3: that's just I'm not gonna even take the time because
Speaker 3: I don't want my thoughts to even be what's on paper,
Speaker 3: because it's not representative of what I'm thinking about at all.
Speaker 3: Like I'm not that's how bad I am at drawing,
Speaker 3: but it I imagine a lot of stuff happens in the
Speaker 3: ground too, Like that you have to make some minor tweaks,
Speaker 3: Like you can't just go off of a drawing and
Speaker 3: get the result.
Speaker 1: You know, there's very rare.
Speaker 2: I don't think. Yeah, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody is that good at drawing to
Speaker 2: get exactly what they want just from a drawing. I mean,
Speaker 2: every great golf course I've ever seen was built by
Speaker 2: people out in the out in the ground who understood golf.
Speaker 2: And you know, we're really paying attention to all those
Speaker 2: details when they were building it. So I'm not saying
Speaker 2: it can't be done. I just don't know if a
Speaker 2: place where it has been done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with technology, who knows. Eventually it might get to
Speaker 3: somewhere with that.
Speaker 2: Well, the day, you know, the day that the day
Speaker 2: that everybody is able to like do a golf course
Speaker 2: entirely in three D virtual reality so they can just
Speaker 2: translate it out to the ground, will also be the
Speaker 2: day you don't need to go out on the ground
Speaker 2: anywhere because you could just stay in your house and
Speaker 2: do it on the virtual reality. So I'm hoping that's
Speaker 2: still a long way off.
Speaker 1: Have you have you ever seen those like that? I
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 3: I have a bunch of readers that play this like
Speaker 3: video game that's like a golf course design. You can
Speaker 3: design the golf course. It's called like the golf club
Speaker 3: or something. Have you ever tried doing that thing?
Speaker 2: I tried a little with the really early ones, like
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty years ago. No, I haven't. I haven't touched
Speaker 2: any of the latest stuff. Like I said, I'm scared
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, at some point, it's not just
Speaker 2: gonna put golf course architects out of business. If they're
Speaker 2: really good at it, it'll put golf out of business.
Speaker 2: And that would be a sad day for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And like with the screen golf popularity in Southeast Asia,
Speaker 3: it I don't know. Screen golf's gonna come to America eventually,
Speaker 3: and it might take some of the popular It might grow.
Speaker 1: The game though, too.
Speaker 2: That's true, it might.
Speaker 1: There's there's a give and take.
Speaker 3: Here's a good question, so, mister asks, golf is full
Speaker 3: of counterintuitions. So you know, hit down to make the
Speaker 3: ball go up, for one, if your ball's going right,
Speaker 3: swing right to make it go left. Is there anything
Speaker 3: in architecture that you found is counterintuitive?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's not a one oh one question. You should
Speaker 2: say that for the three to oh one class.
Speaker 1: I know it. It was such a good question.
Speaker 2: I think there are a bunch of things that are
Speaker 2: counterintuitive about good golf course architecture. And I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think where to start with that. Well, I guess the
Speaker 2: first counterintuitive thing to me is that what people you know,
Speaker 2: one of the words I don't like to use in
Speaker 2: golf course architecture is fair. And the reason is fair
Speaker 2: changes for every single player. You know, you and I
Speaker 2: don't play the same game. You hit it forty yards
Speaker 2: farther than me on a bad day. So you know,
Speaker 2: you might think that a hole is fair because you're
Speaker 2: hitting a seven iron into a green that takes you
Speaker 2: a good shot to get a seven iron and hold it,
Speaker 2: and so you would call that hole fair. And then
Speaker 2: I would be looking at that green with a four
Speaker 2: or five iron in my hands and not quite the
Speaker 2: same ability as you, and I would pronounce it unfair
Speaker 2: because even if I carry the bunker in front, I'm
Speaker 2: going to have a hard time hold in the green.
Speaker 2: So you know, and that that that just keeps sliding
Speaker 2: down the scale for every different golfer. Every different golfer
Speaker 2: has different abilities, so you can't really say that something's
Speaker 2: fair for everyone. And and the but the tricky part is,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of architects, especially the ones who
Speaker 2: are good players, you know, they think of everything in
Speaker 2: terms of fair and trying to make it work out
Speaker 2: well for them, and they don't realize that they're making
Speaker 2: that makes everything work out just wrong for somebody who's
Speaker 2: twenty five yards shorter than them or twenty five yards
Speaker 2: longer than them.
Speaker 3: So I I think one of the toughest things is
Speaker 3: thinking For me thinking backwards. I always try and think
Speaker 3: about like my dad or my mom and how they play.
Speaker 1: And then you know different.
Speaker 3: You have to think about every type of player when
Speaker 3: you're designing a course.
Speaker 2: You should think about every type of player when you're
Speaker 2: designing a course. It's hard to do. I mean it's
Speaker 2: you know, when you when you've got a real wrinkly
Speaker 2: piece of land. You know, if you're hitting over a valley,
Speaker 2: trying to find tease for every level of player that
Speaker 2: that you know they can get to the top on
Speaker 2: the other side is tough to do. You kind of
Speaker 2: like you know when you're laying out of course. You know,
Speaker 2: if you want, if you want to require a two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty yard T shot, a pretty good T
Speaker 2: shot to get over that valley, you know, you'll play
Speaker 2: around with the angle of the hole. You know, the
Speaker 2: valley might be one hundred yards across on a straight line,
Speaker 2: but if you turn the hole on a diagonal, you
Speaker 2: can make it so it's two hundred or two twenty
Speaker 2: or whatever you want. The problem is, then when you
Speaker 2: try to make it work for a one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty yard carry, you know, you can, you can move
Speaker 2: the tee up the one side so you're hitting more
Speaker 2: straight across, but then you wind up getting to the
Speaker 2: point where you're just hitting straight across the fairway and
Speaker 2: out the other side. You know. So the the angle
Speaker 2: that you take for whether you're planning the golf course
Speaker 2: from the back T first or the middle T first,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of makes it harder to to put
Speaker 2: the other t's in the right place. And ninety five
Speaker 2: percent of golf courses they're designed from the back tees first,
Speaker 2: so the forward t's are the ones where the problems
Speaker 2: show up.
Speaker 3: I imagine that T box placement is like, that's something
Speaker 3: I never think about with when it comes to architecture.
Speaker 3: Is that something that like a lot of like a
Speaker 3: lot of thought goes into from your.
Speaker 2: On Actually I think probably not enough thought goes into
Speaker 2: T box placement for the middle and forward tees. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of people just put it a certain percentage
Speaker 2: of distance, operate a certain number of yards up from
Speaker 2: the from the back tees, and call it good. But
Speaker 2: you know, when you're dealing with a piece of land
Speaker 2: that has undulation to it, there's a lot more to
Speaker 2: it than that. And you know, I think everybody thinks,
Speaker 2: you know, most architects when they get out on site,
Speaker 2: they're thinking more about their own game than about everyone else.
Speaker 2: You know, you try to think about everyone else, but
Speaker 2: but you visualize the shots that you can hit. So
Speaker 2: it's pretty hard to make yourself back off and think.
Speaker 2: You know, I used to think. I used to think
Speaker 2: about my mom a lot and knowing that she could
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I only saw her play later
Speaker 2: in life, and she barely got the ball airborne a
Speaker 2: lot of the time. But that's sort of easy to visualize,
Speaker 2: you know. I can go back to that pretty easily
Speaker 2: and think, now, there's no way my mom could get
Speaker 2: around this. You know, it's much harder to think about
Speaker 2: the the senior player who is still good but hits
Speaker 2: the ball low and only carries it one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty or forty yards, and what works for them.
Speaker 3: Car for the course wants to know what is the
Speaker 3: most difficult obstacle when designing a course A poor soil
Speaker 3: b bland topography See overbearing owner or d.
Speaker 2: Other Oh, repeat the question again.
Speaker 3: Because the most difficult obstacle when designing a course.
Speaker 2: Okay, I remember the three options, you know, I wrote
Speaker 2: right in the front of my little red book. An
Speaker 2: old guy that used to work in the construction business
Speaker 2: named David Postalwage, who was one of my first bosses
Speaker 2: when I worked for the Dies, said that, you know,
Speaker 2: everything comes back to the land, the owner, and the money,
Speaker 2: and you really, you know, to do something really good,
Speaker 2: you've got to get all three of them right. So
Speaker 2: the soils are the land and the topography and the
Speaker 2: topography and of the two, you know you can you
Speaker 2: can fix those if you spend enough money. But you know,
Speaker 2: I think the soils are the harder thing to fix.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a big A lot of these
Speaker 2: new courses build out west and overseas. They'll like truck
Speaker 2: in a foot of sand to sand cap all the
Speaker 2: fairways fifty acres of grass. You know, it's hard to
Speaker 2: make the numbers where. You know, it's hard to build
Speaker 2: a course that is profitable when you spend that much,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to create perfect conditions on a harsh site.
Speaker 2: So I think that would be my first choice overbearing owner.
Speaker 2: You know, I try to use my sixth sense so
Speaker 2: I don't wind up working for those guys and just
Speaker 2: declining a job like that. But you know, you do.
Speaker 2: You have to have a you have to have a
Speaker 2: good relationship with the client for it to work. And
Speaker 2: I get so I guess the answer to that problem
Speaker 2: is you just have to know the ones to walk
Speaker 2: away from that you don't think you could work with.
Speaker 2: And I've certainly walked away from a few potential jobs
Speaker 2: because I just didn't think the client and I would
Speaker 2: be on the same page.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the uh I did a bunker. I built
Speaker 3: a bunker this summer. And you quickly realize when you
Speaker 3: hit clay and it's really hard to dig in clay.
Speaker 3: It's like I was thinking about it. It's like when it
Speaker 3: was like sandy and nice loose soil, it was easy,
Speaker 3: and you hit clay, it's like, oh, this is really hard.
Speaker 2: To work with no doubt. I mean, and you know, honestly,
Speaker 2: one of the keys to my success in the golf
Speaker 2: business is that I've done so many projects on sand
Speaker 2: because it is so much easier. You know, I've the
Speaker 2: best analogy that I could ever come up with for
Speaker 2: somebody is you know, if you were like in the
Speaker 2: printing business, when desktop publishing came along, it was a
Speaker 2: whole different world because you could actually like see on
Speaker 2: a computer screen exactly what was going to be on
Speaker 2: a page. Before that, you had to make all these
Speaker 2: allowances for you know, how the spacing was going to
Speaker 2: work out, and how much room to leave at the
Speaker 2: top and bottom, and you never really saw the finished
Speaker 2: page until somebody put it in a typeset or put
Speaker 2: it together. You know. In golf course architecture, when you're
Speaker 2: building in clay, you know, once you've kind of shaped
Speaker 2: the green the way you want, there's all these other
Speaker 2: steps that still have to happen. You know, you have
Speaker 2: to put trench in, drainage underneath, and then put a
Speaker 2: gravel layer in, and then put a sand layer in,
Speaker 2: and presumably all those layers are exactly right and flowing together,
Speaker 2: so what you built on the bottom winds up on
Speaker 2: the top. But it's really hard to do. There's a
Speaker 2: lot more steps in places where things can go wrong.
Speaker 2: It's harder to visualize the first step and get it right,
Speaker 2: you know, And if you do something on the ground
Speaker 2: floor of that and then you get up to the
Speaker 2: top and you're like, oh, that doesn't look too good.
Speaker 2: You're kind of stuck. You're not supposed to like change
Speaker 2: the profile of the green in order to make something
Speaker 2: work better. You know, in sand, it's only one layer.
Speaker 2: You shape and you're done. You dig a bunker and
Speaker 2: you stand it in and try to visualize the shot
Speaker 2: that you're going to play. And if you think, now
Speaker 2: I want it a little deeper, you go back and
Speaker 2: dig out a few more scoops and lower it another
Speaker 2: six inches. Whereas in clay, you know, you've got to
Speaker 2: stand in that bunker and visualize, Okay, there's going to
Speaker 2: be a liner in this thing, and then there's gonna
Speaker 2: be sand on top of that, and there's gonna be
Speaker 2: topsail on the face of the bunker, and you really
Speaker 2: don't have as clear a feel for the shot that
Speaker 2: you're going to have to hit out of it when
Speaker 2: it all gets put back together.
Speaker 3: Besides, like the layers, do you think it settles any differently,
Speaker 3: like over time with all like the gravel and everything,
Speaker 3: or is it is you.
Speaker 2: Know, I've I've heard people talk about green settling when
Speaker 2: we when we do consulting work they say, oh, that
Speaker 2: green's settled, and usually I just think, well, no, the
Speaker 2: green's faster, and it's just you know, the ball's getting
Speaker 2: away from you more because the green is faster, and
Speaker 2: you think something else must have happened here. But it's
Speaker 2: possible if you're building out it, if you build out
Speaker 2: of like you know, if you put five or six
Speaker 2: feet of phil to build a green and you don't
Speaker 2: compact it and run over with the equipment a lot
Speaker 2: at the start and it's clay and not sand, Sand
Speaker 2: gets pretty compacted pretty fast as much as it's going
Speaker 2: to It's possible some kinds of soil will settle a
Speaker 2: little bit. You know. I've never seen it much on
Speaker 2: my courses, but we don't build a lot of things
Speaker 2: out of phil, you know, I try not to put
Speaker 2: phil at a green site, so I personally I have almost
Speaker 2: never seen it on my own courses. I can think
Speaker 2: of exactly one hole where I think something's settled a
Speaker 2: little bit. But maybe it's more common than I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I might be just an old lives tale can
Speaker 3: hidecki Winn wants to know if you pay attention to
Speaker 3: par when you're designing a golf course.
Speaker 2: I'd like to say no that I don't pay attention
Speaker 2: to par. The it'd be more fair to say I
Speaker 2: try not to let par drive all my decisions. Like
Speaker 2: I know some architects that if they've built more that
Speaker 2: if they've built two par fours in a row, they
Speaker 2: are uncomfortable with doing a third. They think they think
Speaker 2: it must be time for a par three or a
Speaker 2: par five. And I have to, you know, I just
Speaker 2: you know, when I traveled around when I was in
Speaker 2: college and saw these great courses, you know, I've seen
Speaker 2: so many of those kind of rules be broken, and
Speaker 2: you know, still thought the golf course was great that
Speaker 2: I kind of threw a lot of that out, you know.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to think of a good example. There's
Speaker 2: there's a course in England called Saunton that's a very
Speaker 2: good course out in the west of England, a links course,
Speaker 2: and I think they changed what I think they changed
Speaker 2: the second hole to a par five. But Sauntan, the
Speaker 2: first fourteen holes were like it had four par fours
Speaker 2: and then a par three, and it's seven more par
Speaker 2: fours and then a par three, and it had like
Speaker 2: two par fives at the end to be to wind
Speaker 2: up at par seventy one or something. But it was
Speaker 2: like it was kind of an interesting experience playing it
Speaker 2: for the first time. It's like, wow, is there ever
Speaker 2: going to be a par five or is there It
Speaker 2: seems like we've gone a long way without a par three.
Speaker 2: But I don't have a problem with that if that's
Speaker 2: you know, if that's what you feel like makes for
Speaker 2: the best golf courses. You know, at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, though, you know, when I get a routing
Speaker 2: plan kind of three quarters done, yes, I look and
Speaker 2: if it's par seventy four or it's par sixty nine,
Speaker 2: you know, realistically, I've got to think is the client
Speaker 2: going to be okay with this? Or you know, what
Speaker 2: are my options to make it not that way? But
Speaker 2: I try to follow my eye first and then think, okay,
Speaker 2: this is too weird. And absolutely the best example of
Speaker 2: that when we were outing Pacific Dunes. I'd been struggling
Speaker 2: around trying to put the pieces together, and I had
Speaker 2: most of the holes figured out, but there were a
Speaker 2: couple places. My last version changed a couple of holes,
Speaker 2: but it also changed the sequence pretty completely. You know,
Speaker 2: one version you would have been going you would have
Speaker 2: played not all the coastal holes in order, but pretty
Speaker 2: close to that instead of getting to them and away
Speaker 2: from them. So when we we walked through the routing,
Speaker 2: the final routing one morning, and we were going to
Speaker 2: walk through the previous routing afterwards, everybody loved the routing
Speaker 2: that we had so much that it's like, we're done.
Speaker 2: That's the routing. And we went in and had lunch,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of everybody in a good mood. And
Speaker 2: I was sitting across from Mike Kaiser and I started
Speaker 2: thinking about the scorecard for it, because i'd only, you know,
Speaker 2: figured out this new sequence like the night before, and
Speaker 2: I hadn't done a scorecard or anything. So I just
Speaker 2: started jotting it down on a napkin because I realized
Speaker 2: it was going to be pretty weird. And you know,
Speaker 2: there are seven par fours on the front nine, the
Speaker 2: third holes a part five, fifth holes a par three,
Speaker 2: all the other holes are part fours, and then the
Speaker 2: back nine you start with two part threes in a row,
Speaker 2: then a part five, and then fourteens a part three,
Speaker 2: fifteens apart five, seventeen's apart three, and eighteen's apart five.
Speaker 2: So there's four Part three's in the back nine and
Speaker 2: three part five and only two par fours, and I thought, damn,
Speaker 2: I've never seen a great course that got away with that.
Speaker 2: So I slid that napkin over to mister Kaiser and said,
Speaker 2: are you comfortable with this? And he said, if you'd
Speaker 2: just showed me that before we went out for that walk,
Speaker 2: I just said no. But we all walked it and
Speaker 2: we all thought it was great, So I'm comfortable with it.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, a lot of people make up
Speaker 2: their minds. You've heard the saying don't judge a book
Speaker 2: by the cover. A lot of people make a lot
Speaker 2: of decisions about golf courses by looking at the scorecard,
Speaker 2: and I just think that's the dumbest thing you can do.
Speaker 2: You know, you just got to go out and look
Speaker 2: at what's out there on the ground and how the
Speaker 2: golf course takes you around the ground, and that's the
Speaker 2: most important thing. If it doesn't fit precisely into the
Speaker 2: box of Part thirty six on each side, who cares?
Speaker 2: As long as it's good.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you once there is a great
Speaker 3: course that has a setup like that, it's more likely
Speaker 3: to have more obscure you know, formations of scorecards. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, it usually takes one thought leader to you know,
Speaker 3: one you know example, to lead the way to more.
Speaker 2: No doubt, no doubt. I mean, golf is a game
Speaker 2: of follow the leader, like in you know, in Asia.
Speaker 2: I did a course in China. Sadly it never opened
Speaker 2: because they changed their minds on allowing golf in China.
Speaker 2: But you know, in Japan, in China, in Korea, par
Speaker 2: seventy two is almost like a religion. It's like they
Speaker 2: are so uncomfortable with the idea that you could do
Speaker 2: anything else that you know, it's maybe one of the
Speaker 2: reasons they don't call me more about going over there,
Speaker 2: because I you know, that's so far from my mind
Speaker 2: when I'm trying to design something. But you can just
Speaker 2: see the level of discomfort with a client like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, that's going to be really
Speaker 2: hard to sell. And you know, it's strange to me
Speaker 2: because they don't you know, I guess they feel that
Speaker 2: way because they don't know that much else about golf,
Speaker 2: so they do know this one thing that it's supposed
Speaker 2: to be par seventy two. That's what quality is. You know,
Speaker 2: the more you know, the less important that gets to be.
Speaker 3: It also seems like there's like, if you know just enough,
Speaker 3: you're almost the most dangerous person.
Speaker 2: Like sure, sure, there's some superintendents that think that about me,
Speaker 2: that I know just enough about turf to be a
Speaker 2: be a real problem.
Speaker 3: So it kind of leads right into we got a
Speaker 3: lot of questions about routing and talking about this, and
Speaker 3: it is a natural transition. Blair Bromley asked, when you
Speaker 3: first visit a site for a potential project, what's the
Speaker 3: first thing that comes into your mind.
Speaker 2: I just did that twice in the last five days.
Speaker 2: I was in Spain looking at a couple potential projects,
Speaker 2: and I hadn't Usually I try to have a map beforehand,
Speaker 2: because when you go out on a site for the
Speaker 2: first time, if I take somebody with me that's not
Speaker 2: used to doing it, you know, without golf holes on
Speaker 2: the land, it seems so much more vast, and it
Speaker 2: really is. You know, a golf course takes up at
Speaker 2: a minimum one hundred and fifty acres and sometimes we're
Speaker 2: looking at hundreds of acres of ground trying to figure
Speaker 2: out where the holes go, and you know, the sense
Speaker 2: of scale, you know, even a simple part four hole
Speaker 2: is a quarter mile long, and when you get out
Speaker 2: there and there's no fair way and no scale, it
Speaker 2: looks a quarter mile long. It looks like a long
Speaker 2: way out there, and your eye tricks you. It's you know,
Speaker 2: I've the number one question I'm asked when I'm walking
Speaker 2: a golf course with somebody in the dirt, is is
Speaker 2: this a par five? Because they all look like par five's.
Speaker 2: You know, a three hundred and fifty yard old looks
Speaker 2: like a par five to the average person until you
Speaker 2: get a flag out there or something for scale that
Speaker 2: they can see how the scale of a golf hole
Speaker 2: fits it. You know, I'm different when I go out
Speaker 2: on a piece of land for the first time. I'm
Speaker 2: like looking for the problems, like where's the corner that
Speaker 2: if I get into that corner, I can't get out,
Speaker 2: you know, because ultimately the client, you know, the client
Speaker 2: wants to know if this is potentially a great course,
Speaker 2: and I want to know is this a job I
Speaker 2: want to take? And so it's kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: is there something here that's going to prevent this from
Speaker 2: getting to where everybody wants it to be. The other
Speaker 2: thing that you look for because you know, I rely
Speaker 2: on topo maps quite a bit to work with the routing.
Speaker 2: But there are things that don't show up while on
Speaker 2: the map, you know, like trees and vegetation, Like if
Speaker 2: there's this, you know, trees will be marked on the map.
Speaker 2: But they you know, they all look alike on the map.
Speaker 2: And obviously some are huge, beautiful oak trees and some
Speaker 2: are little scrubby things. So you know, picking out the
Speaker 2: ones that are great looking things that you wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to cut down, and trying to make those features instead
Speaker 2: of getting right in the way of something is really important,
Speaker 2: So you start trying to note where those things are.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing that doesn't show up on
Speaker 2: a map is the views. Like you know, if you've
Speaker 2: if you've got a course that's next to the water,
Speaker 2: that's not hard to visualize on the map. You know,
Speaker 2: you're you're just looking out to the water. But if
Speaker 2: you've got like both pluses and minuses, if you've got
Speaker 2: a beautiful church steeple, and you'd like to have a
Speaker 2: whole play toward that that maybe not beyond the map,
Speaker 2: and you have to have a sense of where it is.
Speaker 2: By the same token, if you've got a power line
Speaker 2: going past. You know, you don't want to be playing
Speaker 2: right at one of those towers. I mean it's you
Speaker 2: know a lot of properties have power lines somewhere around
Speaker 2: them and it doesn't really bother the golfers experience very much.
Speaker 2: As long as you're not playing right at one of
Speaker 2: those towers, then they can't help but notice it, or
Speaker 2: playing from under one, or playing from under one.
Speaker 3: So you you mentioned you know owners and you know,
Speaker 3: whether it be an owner or developer, always wants to
Speaker 3: know if it's a truly a great course. Do you
Speaker 3: do you have a sense, like with some of your courses,
Speaker 3: have you known from like the second you got out there.
Speaker 1: It was going to be a great golf course.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been lucky. I've worked with I've worked with
Speaker 2: a bunch to sites that could and should be great
Speaker 2: courses from the day I first laid eyes on him.
Speaker 2: Pacific Dunes obviously, even though some of it was covered
Speaker 2: by gorse. I mean, Pacific Dunes, you knew right away
Speaker 2: there were going to be a bunch of great holes.
Speaker 2: But there were pieces of it you couldn't really visualize
Speaker 2: because the gorse was so thick, you know, But you know,
Speaker 2: you get to the level like Terry Edy in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: which turned out great. You know, from day one or
Speaker 2: day two, our client was asking us, do you think
Speaker 2: this could be one of the top fifty courses in
Speaker 2: the world. And we're standing in the middle of a
Speaker 2: pine forest that somebody planted over the top of these
Speaker 2: dunes and you can't see a hundred yards. So I've
Speaker 2: got is a map and I know there's a great
Speaker 2: ocean view out there, and I'm like just biting my
Speaker 2: lip because you know, I don't think he wanted to
Speaker 2: try to do the golf course unless I thought it
Speaker 2: could be that good, and that it's a huge leap
Speaker 2: of faith, especially on a site where you're not you know,
Speaker 2: I said, vegetation is an important feature of the golf course,
Speaker 2: and we didn't have any to work with. I mean,
Speaker 2: none of those pine trees were going to stay in
Speaker 2: the finished product. You know, they're all planted in rows.
Speaker 2: So even the places you didn't want a golf hole,
Speaker 2: they looked really artificial and awkward. So we're going to
Speaker 2: replace everything with natural vegetation. So staying at the beginning, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that could be the top fifty in the
Speaker 2: world is kind of a crazy goal. But you know
Speaker 2: what I said to him was, you know, all I
Speaker 2: know is every time I get an ocean front site,
Speaker 2: everybody loves it. And you got that big ocean front
Speaker 2: right there, so I think you got a shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's that from everything I've heard, that one
Speaker 3: is a special place. Putting together a golf course is
Speaker 3: kind of like a puzzle. And from what I gather
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 1: So where do you you draw the line?
Speaker 3: And this is from Philip Johnson, where do you draw
Speaker 3: the line between having the best hole on the property
Speaker 3: and having the better overall routing.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to get You've got to get
Speaker 2: a little feel for the client about what they're after.
Speaker 2: You know, there there may be some kinds of clients,
Speaker 2: not the typical ones that I go to, that you know,
Speaker 2: all they want is the one great hole that's a
Speaker 2: hook for the place. They're not really thinking they're going
Speaker 2: to build a great golf course. But you know, like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of courses in Hawaii that have the
Speaker 2: one great part of three over the ocean, and then
Speaker 2: everything else is inland away from the ocean. They put
Speaker 2: houses along the ocean, but if your goal is to
Speaker 2: you know, if the client's goal is to build a
Speaker 2: great golf course, you have to be willing to throw
Speaker 2: out a really good hole that just doesn't fit. Or
Speaker 2: you know, I can build this great hole, but I
Speaker 2: know if I do the hole after, it's going to
Speaker 2: stink because you're not you know, you can get away
Speaker 2: with the whole after it being kind of blah because
Speaker 2: everybody's still coasting off the high of just having played
Speaker 2: a really great hole. But if the next whole stinks,
Speaker 2: that kind of root, you know, that kind of just
Speaker 2: drives a stake through the last hole being so good.
Speaker 2: So there's a there's a balance there, and you know,
Speaker 2: I usually find a couple holes pretty quickly in the
Speaker 2: process that are really hard to give up on. But
Speaker 2: sometimes taking that one piece outs is what you have
Speaker 2: to do, and it's hard, it's hard to make yourself
Speaker 2: do it, but you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: you're trying to find the best eighteen piece puzzle, not
Speaker 2: just the one cool looking piece.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because then you end up in a chase to
Speaker 3: try and figure out how to get in and out
Speaker 3: of that one spot. Well, if you have one that
Speaker 3: you just feel like you can't get rid of it
Speaker 3: probably is going to be, at the end of it
Speaker 3: a pain to get.
Speaker 2: To, right. I mean, one of the you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: there's so many things about routing that you know, even
Speaker 2: if they like give you a place for the clubhouse
Speaker 2: to be at the beginning, and you you know, now
Speaker 2: you're I mean, if you do that, you're telling me, Okay,
Speaker 2: you got to build four holes around this point right here.
Speaker 2: So you know, I want to start trying to find
Speaker 2: holes first and then see where there's a bunch of
Speaker 2: holes that come together and see if we can make
Speaker 2: the clubhouse work there. But you know, sometimes it's a
Speaker 2: building that you're going to renovate. Sometimes it's just you know,
Speaker 2: on a on a lot of projects, it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: there's one place you're going to drive into the property,
Speaker 2: and they don't want to build two extra miles a
Speaker 2: road to get over to the other side to put
Speaker 2: a clubhouse over there. So you know, the first good
Speaker 2: spot to build a clubhouse is going to be the spot,
Speaker 2: and you accept that. But the fewer us that you
Speaker 2: start with, the better, you know, the more options you
Speaker 2: have for the routing. Same with it has to return
Speaker 2: at the ninth hole. You know, that crosses out a
Speaker 2: ton of options just you know, that means you can't
Speaker 2: ever get more than five holes away from more of
Speaker 2: the clubhouses.
Speaker 3: That that's something that boggles my mind, is like why
Speaker 3: can't it stop after six holes?
Speaker 1: Like why can't it if.
Speaker 2: In some court lots of good courses, do you know
Speaker 2: there's certain places where yeah, we want a nine hole option,
Speaker 2: and we think we're going to do a lot of
Speaker 2: business that way. But you know, one of the clients
Speaker 2: that said that to me, that really wanted the ninth
Speaker 2: hole to come back to the clubhouse was Julian Robertson
Speaker 2: and Kepe Kidnappers. And I thought, nobody's coming all this
Speaker 2: way and they're gonna stop at nine or or would
Speaker 2: be angry if they had to play an extra hole
Speaker 2: before they got back to the clubhouse to leave after ten.
Speaker 2: And yet it was a really important thing to him,
Speaker 2: partly because he's a member of Shinnecok Kills, one of
Speaker 2: the great courses of the world, which conveniently comes back
Speaker 2: at the ninth hole. So we had to modify that
Speaker 2: routing a little bit to get Julian uncomfortable with it
Speaker 2: and get the club at you know, get the clubhouse,
Speaker 2: moved the clubhouse slightly to get it, so it worked
Speaker 2: with two loops A nine.
Speaker 3: Trevor Dormer asks, how have you honed your approach to
Speaker 3: routing over the years. Trevor's not a beginner.
Speaker 2: No, Trevor's not a beginner. I know his name. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure my approach is any different. It's just that
Speaker 2: you get better at it the more you practice. And
Speaker 2: you talked about routing being a puzzle, and it's just
Speaker 2: like it's just like doing the Sunday New York Times
Speaker 2: crossword puzzle. I mean, the first time that you try
Speaker 2: to do that, it just looks like a hopeless exercise
Speaker 2: that you're going to make that that you're going to
Speaker 2: get all those words and fit together and finish the
Speaker 2: whole thing. This just seems impossible. If you do it
Speaker 2: every week, you start seeing some conventions and you start seeing, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: they have to use there's a few kind of key
Speaker 2: words that sometimes they need to use in order to
Speaker 2: you know, when you've got an odd combination of letters,
Speaker 2: there's only a certain number of words that are going
Speaker 2: to fit that. So there's there's little tricks that you
Speaker 2: learn as you go, and I'm not sure I can
Speaker 2: describe exactly what all those tricks are. But you know,
Speaker 2: when I let my associates work on a routing with me,
Speaker 2: sometimes they'll be like, they'll find a really good hole
Speaker 2: over here, and I'm just like shutting them down right away,
Speaker 2: like you're never getting back from that one. You know,
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you're going down a dead end
Speaker 2: and you're either going to have a bad hole coming
Speaker 2: back or or just you get yourself into a corner
Speaker 2: you can't you physically can't get out of. There's no
Speaker 2: room for another fair way to come back. You know,
Speaker 2: if a property is certain width, there's room for four
Speaker 2: holes play in parallel, and those holes can get tighter
Speaker 2: and tighter together, but at some point it gets a
Speaker 2: little too tight for four holes, and the next the
Speaker 2: next option is only two because you can't play out
Speaker 2: and play back and play out and never get back
Speaker 2: to the clubhouse. So, you know, you just learn to
Speaker 2: see those kinds of things on the map more quickly.
Speaker 2: As you've done it more, you're still looking for the
Speaker 2: same things. You're looking for the features that make the
Speaker 2: land special, And how can I use that as part
Speaker 2: of a golf hole. You know, the hardest part is
Speaker 2: when there's something besides golf going on. You know, I
Speaker 2: went to landscape architecture school because you couldn't go to
Speaker 2: golf course architecture school, and I did, you know, when
Speaker 2: we started, I didn't think I was going to plan
Speaker 2: resorts or you know, national parks or all the other
Speaker 2: things that landscape architects do. But it's helped me a
Speaker 2: lot in dealing with landscape architects who do the land
Speaker 2: plans for the bigger project around my golf course. And
Speaker 2: the hardest part is they're looking for all those same
Speaker 2: features that I like. They like too. They want to
Speaker 2: make the entrance road go by this point so you
Speaker 2: can see that tree with the ocean in the background,
Speaker 2: and it's a little bit of a wrestling match over
Speaker 2: who gets to use which cool things. And so the
Speaker 2: client's priorities really matter. You know, if the client is
Speaker 2: more interested in the housing or the hotel than the golf,
Speaker 2: I don't win those arguments as much. And it's harder
Speaker 2: to build a great golf course.
Speaker 3: So as like, for a beginner, if they were on
Speaker 3: to start to really what should they pay attention to
Speaker 3: about routing, Like what are maybe say a couple things
Speaker 3: that they should pay attention to when they.
Speaker 1: Play golf at a golf course.
Speaker 2: That's a hard question because I don't think. I think
Speaker 2: it's very difficult when you're out playing golf to visualize
Speaker 2: the land without a golf course. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, when you see the answer to
Speaker 2: the crossword the next day, it's hard to feel stuck.
Speaker 2: You know, you can always go look at the answer,
Speaker 2: so you don't see the options that were passing up.
Speaker 2: You know, it's really hard. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: times people will people will make a suggestion to me
Speaker 2: of I could have changed the fifth hole and move
Speaker 2: the green over to the right, and they don't understand
Speaker 2: that anytime you make a move like that, there's a
Speaker 2: there's another move that has you know, that means the
Speaker 2: sixt has to be in a different place too, and
Speaker 2: that's the part that probably isn't going to work. So well,
Speaker 2: that's why I didn't do it the way they suggested.
Speaker 2: But to see that stuff when you've never tried to
Speaker 2: visualize the property as a whole, it is really hard
Speaker 2: to do. So, so I guess for me, you know,
Speaker 2: if if you're if you're really interested in routing, the
Speaker 2: first things to focus on are just when you play
Speaker 2: a golf course that you love, like, see see how
Speaker 2: many of the standard rules of how you should do
Speaker 2: things that it breaks? You know, try to notice those
Speaker 2: things because the more you look around, the more you
Speaker 2: find that, oh, these great courses break those rules pretty often.
Speaker 2: And you know, the fewer preconceptions you have about how
Speaker 2: you know going into how you should do it, the
Speaker 2: better you know. The more open minded you can be about, well,
Speaker 2: I could go any direction here, the more interesting you
Speaker 2: can leave it for yourself.
Speaker 3: Peter Coffee wants to know what's the toughest type of
Speaker 3: hole for you to design? Is it a par three,
Speaker 3: A short, part four, long, part four, part five, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I got the par fours down. I think those are
Speaker 2: nearly always the holes on my courses that people like
Speaker 2: the most. I mentioned earlier Part three's some people say, oh,
Speaker 2: he doesn't design great par threes. He's too He's trying
Speaker 2: to be too strategic, and we, you know, we want
Speaker 2: the part three to be just a beautiful picture post
Speaker 2: card hole surrounded by trouble. I've done that occasionally, but
Speaker 2: but I don't like to like. I mean, one of
Speaker 2: the hardest part three's in the world in my opinion,
Speaker 2: certainly the hardest one I've ever built, is this little
Speaker 2: tiny hole at barn Google Dunes. It's like one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty yards max. It can't play into a fierce
Speaker 2: wind does a lot of the time, so it's name.
Speaker 2: Don't visualize that you're always going to be hitting a
Speaker 2: wedge to it. It's just got a tiny green and
Speaker 2: it's slightly crowned, and there there's death bunkers to the
Speaker 2: left of it, in front of it, just like you know,
Speaker 2: I think we built them eight feet deep, but with
Speaker 2: the wind on the sand out of the bunkers, they've
Speaker 2: gotten even deeper. And over the back of the tiny green,
Speaker 2: it just goes down a hill in the back into rough.
Speaker 2: But there is a bailout short and right of the green.
Speaker 2: You know, there's bunkers on the surrounding the bailout area,
Speaker 2: but there's a place that if you if you're not
Speaker 2: sure you can hit the green, there's a there's a
Speaker 2: slightly bigger area you know you actually aim just for
Speaker 2: the right edge of the green, or just off the
Speaker 2: right of the green. And if you wind up short,
Speaker 2: it's not easy to get up and down for three,
Speaker 2: but at least you'll finish the hole. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you pull it in the left bunker, you might pick up.
Speaker 2: You know. That's my idea of a great hole where okay,
Speaker 2: there is a little bailout and if I was playing
Speaker 2: a match with you and you hit it in the
Speaker 2: left bunker, I don't have to hit it on the green.
Speaker 2: I can bail, and then you know, I might still
Speaker 2: mess up. I bail and then you hit a good
Speaker 2: bunker shot and oops, I wasn't so smart after all.
Speaker 1: But you can have the advantage by bailing.
Speaker 3: That's right, because I'm in a bad spot and now
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you've got like a half shot advantage.
Speaker 2: And that hole is I mean, that hole is so
Speaker 2: severe around the green that I see great players bailing
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty yard Part three with with really
Speaker 2: good players laying up deliberately because they don't want to
Speaker 2: take the chance of making a six going in the bunker.
Speaker 3: So something I've noticed playing a lot of your designs
Speaker 3: and is that I when I have a wedge in
Speaker 3: my hand, which the game of golf has divulged into
Speaker 3: a driver wedge.
Speaker 1: For like the very good players.
Speaker 3: When I have a wedge in my hand, I am
Speaker 3: absolutely terrified. And I don't know if if you're if
Speaker 3: it's just in my head, but like the way that
Speaker 3: you've built you know, greens and bunkers like like my head,
Speaker 3: and like I'm all of a sudden thinking about the
Speaker 3: exact numbers I have to hit shots and how they're
Speaker 3: going to land and react in it. And it's different
Speaker 3: than almost you know, any other architect. Is that on purpose?
Speaker 3: That's on purpose?
Speaker 2: I'm smiling to hear it, because because we really do
Speaker 2: think about that a lot. You know, I talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, going back to when we were talking about
Speaker 2: low trajectory players earlier. There's things that you can do
Speaker 2: that don't bother those guys so much, that really bother
Speaker 2: a good player because when you're you know, if there's
Speaker 2: a if there's a crown or a bump in a
Speaker 2: green like stream Song has a lot of them, and
Speaker 2: you're hitting a forewood into the hole and landed thirty
Speaker 2: yards short of the green and it running up that
Speaker 2: bump doesn't make any difference for a player like that,
Speaker 2: the ball will just roll over the bump if it
Speaker 2: has enough momentum to roll over the bump, and it'll
Speaker 2: roll over softly and go to the other side. You know,
Speaker 2: a good player with a wedge in his hand, he's
Speaker 2: deathly afraid of hitting the backside of the bump and
Speaker 2: have the ball go skidding over the green. And honestly,
Speaker 2: you know, that's one of the few weapons you have
Speaker 2: to really frighten a really good player anymore. You know,
Speaker 2: when I worked for mister Dye, he said, all the
Speaker 2: part fours or driver eight iron driver wedge for good players. Now.
Speaker 2: And you know, the great players, if you look at
Speaker 2: the chor stats, on average, they hit the ball within
Speaker 2: fifteen feet of the hole when they've got a short
Speaker 2: iron in their hands. And you know, back then, the
Speaker 2: guidance for put in the hole was that you wouldn't
Speaker 2: cut the cup less than five paces from the edge
Speaker 2: of the green. So that basically means you can't do
Speaker 2: anything within the circle that the good player is going
Speaker 2: to hit the ball. The only thing you can do
Speaker 2: in that circle is have some contra and some contra
Speaker 2: that makes them think twice about where do I want
Speaker 2: where do I really want this ball to land? You know,
Speaker 2: we play with that a lot to try to make
Speaker 2: it challenging and a little frightening because the other thing,
Speaker 2: the other thing mister Dye was absolutely adamant about, is
Speaker 2: you know, with a great player, you have to try
Speaker 2: to get inside their heads. They're too good to make
Speaker 2: normal mistakes on a golf course that other people make,
Speaker 2: so you have to do things that make them uncomfortable
Speaker 2: at some level. You know, he did a lot with water.
Speaker 2: He did it sometimes with really really deep bunkers, but
Speaker 2: you know he also did it with a lot of
Speaker 2: visual things, like having the green sit up and you
Speaker 2: know it's where there's trouble falling off the back of
Speaker 2: the green and you can't really feel where the back
Speaker 2: of the green is. I've used that a lot in
Speaker 2: my own work, you know. And then the other thing
Speaker 2: that I've used and kind of for different reasons than
Speaker 2: mister Dye, you know, going back to talking about barnbug
Speaker 2: or that bailout that I'm leaving, leaving a player. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of very good players will play very conservative
Speaker 2: golf when they see something difficult up ahead, and you know,
Speaker 2: you don't use that against them necessarily, but you know,
Speaker 2: if I build a golf course where you can just
Speaker 2: hit it straight at the flag eighteen times. Somebody having
Speaker 2: a good day is going to hit it close to
Speaker 2: the flag an awful lot, and more power to them.
Speaker 2: But if I can get them a little scared to
Speaker 2: hit it right at the flag because the green has
Speaker 2: tilt in it and they don't want to be past
Speaker 2: the hole, or because there's some contra that they don't
Speaker 2: want to hit, or because there's a bailout and it
Speaker 2: would be easier to just take the bailout. You know,
Speaker 2: those are the only things that keep people from shooting
Speaker 2: sixty four all the time, the great players, if somebody does,
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with it, but I don't
Speaker 2: want it to.
Speaker 1: Be easy for Yeah, i'd agree with that.
Speaker 3: It's when you see these guys on tour get it going,
Speaker 3: it's I mean.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, somebody told me. You know, Gary Woodland went
Speaker 2: to Dismal River like the week before the Open at
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay because you wanted to play on fescue. And
Speaker 2: one of the three days he was there, he show
Speaker 2: fifty nine on my course, and I'm like, okay, he's
Speaker 2: a great player, all right, you know, eleven under par
Speaker 2: more power to.
Speaker 1: Him that will do it.
Speaker 3: For Part one of Golf Course Architecture one on one,
Speaker 3: Part two will be posted next week. If you're new
Speaker 3: to the podcast, be sure to subscribe on iTunes or
Speaker 3: your podcast provider of your choice,