Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of Golf Course Architecture one
Speaker 1: oh one on the Yoke with Doak. If you miss
Speaker 1: part one, check it out on our feed, on iTunes, Stitcher,
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Speaker 2: Tom Dok is back and as usual, he's not holding back,
Speaker 2: but don't toss the yolk and the famously candied Doak
Speaker 2: doesn't pull any punches.
Speaker 3: How do I make natural looking contour? Hire the biggest
Speaker 3: pool in the village and told.
Speaker 4: Him to get flat first?
Speaker 3: Overrated, underrated, rough, terribly overrated over the years.
Speaker 1: So you've mentioned front to back sloping greens a couple times,
Speaker 1: and Tom w had a question. He says, I think
Speaker 1: that front to back sloping greens are challenging and interesting.
Speaker 1: Why don't we see more greens that slope this way?
Speaker 4: There's two reasons you don't see those more. One is
Speaker 4: that they're hard to see from the fairway.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're playing a hole that's just running
Speaker 3: straight down a hill and then the green keeps running
Speaker 3: down the hill, that's okay. That's just the same as
Speaker 3: having a flat hole with a flat green. You still
Speaker 3: see the same stuff, but if the hole's not really
Speaker 3: playing downhill, and then you've got you know, the green
Speaker 3: is kind of above your eye level a little bit,
Speaker 3: and it goes away from you. You don't see any
Speaker 3: of the surface of the green, and most golfers don't
Speaker 3: like that. They're very uncomfortable with it when they only
Speaker 3: see the flags sticking up behind the bunker and they
Speaker 3: can't really see if it's ten feet on the green
Speaker 3: or fifty feet on the green or whatever. So you know,
Speaker 3: and then the other reason is a green that goes
Speaker 3: away from you doesn't hold as well, and you've got
Speaker 3: a ton of players just immediately I hit a good
Speaker 3: shot and it didn't hold the green.
Speaker 4: That's unfair.
Speaker 3: So really it goes back to those two reasons. Make
Speaker 3: greens running away from you not popular. Doesn't mean it's
Speaker 3: not good design, but it means you're not going to
Speaker 3: get a lot of love for doing a lot of
Speaker 3: greens that go away from you. And you kind of
Speaker 3: have to balance that out when you're designing a golf course.
Speaker 3: Is how much do I care about that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: I know the more of this, you know, I know
Speaker 3: this is going to make the course more challenging and
Speaker 3: more interesting. But I also know it's going to turn
Speaker 3: some people off. So how far am I willing to
Speaker 3: go on that? And you know, I've done it a
Speaker 3: lot on some courses. Keep Kidnappers has a bunch of
Speaker 3: them because they're you know, keep kidnappers. Everybody thinks of
Speaker 3: it as a pretty flat side overlooking the ocean, but
Speaker 3: the real the whole thing is on you know, a
Speaker 3: decent tilt. It's like a tabletop, but it's a tilted tabletop,
Speaker 3: so the visibility is not really a problem. Basically, every
Speaker 3: hole that plays toward the ocean is playing downhill and
Speaker 3: the greens going away from you.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the first hole at Oakmont, and
Speaker 1: that's a perfect example of where the best players in
Speaker 1: the world all of a sudden have to think about
Speaker 1: where they're landing the shot and how much it's going
Speaker 1: to roll out.
Speaker 3: The first hole of Oakmont is you know, that's like
Speaker 3: a perfect example of what's good about a hole with
Speaker 3: a green running.
Speaker 4: Away, because.
Speaker 3: The part of the hole that people don't understand or
Speaker 3: don't get through their thick skull is if you're going
Speaker 3: to miss that green, miss it over the back. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's counterintuitive to most golfers. But you know, if
Speaker 3: you go along, you're chipping back uphill and it's not
Speaker 3: so severe. The worst thing you can do is try
Speaker 3: to sneak it onto the front of the green and either.
Speaker 4: Be short or miss it in the rough.
Speaker 3: Short and now you've got a terrifying little chip to
Speaker 3: a green that's still screaming away from you. Is you
Speaker 3: know that costs you, Like a that's usually a full shot.
Speaker 3: You know, you try to sneak it on the green
Speaker 3: and miss, your next shot is going to be at
Speaker 3: the back edge where you would have been in two
Speaker 3: if you had just taken more club. That's why I
Speaker 3: think those holes are worthwhile. And yet those are the
Speaker 3: ones that people people, the average golfer would scream about.
Speaker 3: The first hole at Oakmont, really long part four to
Speaker 3: a green that's really falling away from you is about
Speaker 3: as hard as it gets for most people. And they
Speaker 3: don't think, just rip a shot through the green, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter going back and go from there.
Speaker 5: The course.
Speaker 1: I grew up playing this little Muni and it is
Speaker 1: built in a floodplain in the sixties. This hole is
Speaker 1: someone The longer part fours and notoriously, the contractor built
Speaker 1: the green upside down, so it's built up in the
Speaker 1: front where it would have been built up in the back.
Speaker 4: Okay, and then it goes.
Speaker 3: I was thinking gravel on top that would have been
Speaker 3: really bad.
Speaker 1: But it runs away and it gives everybody just fit.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember that was where my high school
Speaker 1: team played, and that hole was always the toughest hole
Speaker 1: because you're if they put the pin back, you're hitting
Speaker 1: to this green that runs away and you always end
Speaker 1: up over. But it was, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the holes that I think of, despite the build up
Speaker 1: in the front, the super unnatural. It's like one of
Speaker 1: the holes I remember the most about that first and
Speaker 1: I think is one of the best holes there and
Speaker 1: it's dead straight your your first hole at Stonewall North
Speaker 1: has got that pitch running away.
Speaker 3: We were thinking about the first green at Oakmont when
Speaker 3: we built that hole.
Speaker 1: So uh, here's another question from Gordon Collins. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how to know what makes for a great green complexes.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to recognize whole strategies and why the architect
Speaker 1: can put certain features in those locations plays in different
Speaker 1: ways to play a whole but appreciating a good green
Speaker 1: complex versus a bad one is not something I grasp.
Speaker 4: Really good question, you know.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's a microcosm of what makes a
Speaker 3: good golf hole.
Speaker 4: In the strategy of a good golf hole.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I'm building courses, I spent the most
Speaker 3: of my time, you know, when we design a green,
Speaker 3: it's not so much for what the putts are going
Speaker 3: to be like, it's what the recovery shots are like
Speaker 3: around the green. I spent a lot of time, Like
Speaker 3: I remember sev when he used to play golf. You know,
Speaker 3: he'd be like he wouldn't have a club in his hand.
Speaker 3: He'd just be visualizing the shot and kind of making
Speaker 3: a little swing, trying to figure out, Okay, where am
Speaker 3: I going to land this ball so it stops dead
Speaker 3: to the hole, And I almost do the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, from over here, who you'd be really
Speaker 3: dead to that pin placement and over here and not
Speaker 3: so bad. So to me, a really good green complex
Speaker 3: is just one that there's a variety of difficulty around
Speaker 3: the green. There's a good side to beyond and there's
Speaker 3: a bad side to be on, just like there's a
Speaker 3: good side of the fairway to be on and there's
Speaker 3: a bad side of the fairway to be on. So
Speaker 3: you can do that with a lot of different things.
Speaker 3: You know, you can have a water hazard on one
Speaker 3: side and open ground to the other. You can have
Speaker 3: just you know, one or two really nasty bunkers that
Speaker 3: are a bad place to be. But you know, usually
Speaker 3: what's going to make it hard is the tilt of
Speaker 3: the green.
Speaker 4: That no matter.
Speaker 3: You know, if the green's tilted and there's a high
Speaker 3: side and the low side, usually you don't want to
Speaker 3: be on the high side. You want to be pitching
Speaker 3: or chipping uphill. So you know, sometimes that could be
Speaker 3: side to side in the greens. Sometimes it could be
Speaker 3: front to back like we were talking about. Traditionally it's
Speaker 3: back to front. You know, we try to mix it
Speaker 3: up so it's not the same for eighteen holes and
Speaker 3: you can't just say, okay, I always want to miss
Speaker 3: short and that'll be the easiest chip. But a good
Speaker 3: green complex is one where there are good places and
Speaker 3: bad places to be.
Speaker 1: That's so with that, you use a ton of short
Speaker 1: grass around the greens, How does.
Speaker 3: That not necessarily we like to use more short grass
Speaker 3: around the greens, but it's the same. You know, if
Speaker 3: there's rough surround in the green. You know, Wingfoot has
Speaker 3: rougher bunkers surrounding every green, but there's still bunkers you
Speaker 3: can be in and have a place to get up
Speaker 3: and down, and bunkers you better not be in like
Speaker 3: they you know, in the US Open, they used to
Speaker 3: talk about short sighting yourself all the time, Like the
Speaker 3: greens are pretty small and if you wind up, you know,
Speaker 3: if the pins on the tuck right and you miss
Speaker 3: the green right and the rough, you know, you're trying
Speaker 3: to hit a little touchy shot out of rough and
Speaker 3: you've only got ten feet of green to work with
Speaker 3: before it gets away from the hole. That's another example.
Speaker 3: I mean, even though there's no short grass around the green,
Speaker 3: you know, good player looks at that and goes, no,
Speaker 3: I need to miss to the wide side. And usually
Speaker 3: that's true. The only exception is if you've got a
Speaker 3: green this crowned. You know, we like to play with
Speaker 3: that too, where where you're bailing out and you think
Speaker 3: it's going to be an easy shot from there and
Speaker 3: it's not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, crown greens are are nasty.
Speaker 3: They well, it's there it's that they're counterintuitive, you know,
Speaker 3: the you know, good players tend to if in doubt,
Speaker 3: they play toward the middle of the green, and then
Speaker 3: all they have to do is miss it a little
Speaker 3: to the one side, and they're putting over the crown
Speaker 3: and they're they're so focused on avoiding short sighting themselves
Speaker 3: that they don't realize there are holes where that's the
Speaker 3: right place to miss.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I almost try and never short side myself.
Speaker 3: Right, but on a crown green, that's the place you
Speaker 3: want to miss usually as long as it's not real
Speaker 3: severe what's over to the right of the green side.
Speaker 1: The crown greens also get the ball rolling, which, yes,
Speaker 1: like that's something I hate when I see the ball rolling.
Speaker 4: It's like most people don't have a choice that roll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a it's a that's a difference
Speaker 1: between the you know, the average Like the ball rolling
Speaker 1: for a beginning player is like the best, most beautiful site,
Speaker 1: and the ball rolling for a tour player that's like
Speaker 1: when they've lost control.
Speaker 4: Yep, you're right for the most part.
Speaker 1: So Justin Anderson uh wants to know where does where
Speaker 1: do you draw the line between an interesting green complex
Speaker 1: and a silly green complex.
Speaker 3: That line's different for everybody. You know, I'm a ten
Speaker 3: handicap now or twelve. At best, I was about a five,
Speaker 3: but the strength of my golf was having a pretty
Speaker 3: good short game. So where I draw the line is
Speaker 3: probably a little farther higher up on the scale than
Speaker 3: where somebody else would draw the same line. But you know,
Speaker 3: the only thing I think is really unfair on a green, well,
Speaker 3: there's two things I've seen there that are unfair on
Speaker 3: a green. If you've got to play, you know, if
Speaker 3: there's enough tilt where they're put in the hole that
Speaker 3: if you try to put it up to the hole
Speaker 3: and it turns around and comes.
Speaker 4: Back, that's unfair. That's you know, you know, that's silly.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're above the hole and when you're putting,
Speaker 3: you know it goes aways past. I don't think that's unfair,
Speaker 3: you know, that's that's one of the few things you
Speaker 3: can do to challenge a good player, and you're you're
Speaker 3: telling him, don't get above the hole.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But as long as that pot from the other side
Speaker 3: of the hole will stop where it stops so you
Speaker 3: can go up and tap it in, then I think
Speaker 3: that's okay. The other thing I don't I think you
Speaker 3: have to be really careful of is having agreen with
Speaker 3: a lot of contour next to a water hazard. You know,
Speaker 3: every the thing I learned from Saint Andrew's more than
Speaker 3: anything else, was that all the crazy contourors out there,
Speaker 3: there's a good side and.
Speaker 4: A bad side to every one of them.
Speaker 3: And all the things that you complain about is being unfair.
Speaker 3: That contra is in my way and I have to
Speaker 3: put over the hole and it won't stop. If you'd
Speaker 3: have missed to the other side. That was a backstop
Speaker 3: for you, and it's your fault for being in the
Speaker 3: wrong place and having to deal with it. But when
Speaker 3: you add water to the mix, you know, if you
Speaker 3: put the water in the place where the bailout should be,
Speaker 3: then there's nothing you can do. A hole that I
Speaker 3: like to criticize a lot, just because people are familiar
Speaker 3: with it. Fifteen at Augusta. You're hitting You're hitting a
Speaker 3: second or third shot off a downhill lie. There's a
Speaker 3: pond right in front of the green, a shave bank
Speaker 3: going up to a shave short grass bank going up
Speaker 3: to the green. A green with a fair amount of
Speaker 3: tilt that's not really deep, and then it goes over
Speaker 3: the back, so you have to, like, if you miss long,
Speaker 3: you have to chip up over a slope and down
Speaker 3: toward the water. You know, that green really isn't it's
Speaker 3: not the most difficult green at Augusta by any stretch,
Speaker 3: but there's enough tilt to it that you really don't
Speaker 3: want to be chipping to.
Speaker 4: The downhill toward the water.
Speaker 3: And yet you can't leave yourself on the low side
Speaker 3: because there's.
Speaker 4: A pond there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's you know, that's the kind of hole
Speaker 3: I try to avoid.
Speaker 1: Building m HM, where there's where there's no real safe
Speaker 1: bailout right.
Speaker 5: It's kind of what we talked about.
Speaker 3: Every shot, every shot around the green is a hard shot.
Speaker 3: There's no easy side. It's just all.
Speaker 1: Hard that that makes a lot of sense that you
Speaker 1: should have one spot you can go, but you're giving
Speaker 1: up the especially on that whole a par five, you're
Speaker 1: giving up if you bail over there. You're giving like
Speaker 1: to say, there was a safe spot. You bail there,
Speaker 1: you're giving up your like easy look at a birdie
Speaker 1: or a chance at a birdie if it's your third shot,
Speaker 1: or a chance at an eagle if you're long enough
Speaker 1: to get there in two right.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've never really thought about it much
Speaker 3: in this discussion, but you know there there wasn't a
Speaker 3: pond to start with. It was a little stream going
Speaker 3: in front of the green and there was a little
Speaker 3: more room to the right by the bunker. So the
Speaker 3: original design of the hole it wasn't so bad. And
Speaker 3: you know, turning the stream into a pond really took away.
Speaker 3: You know, when the stream was there, Even if the
Speaker 3: stream was right up against the green, you could kind
Speaker 3: of chip over the stream.
Speaker 4: But with the pond there, you.
Speaker 3: Know, missing short means missing forty or fifty yards short
Speaker 3: and then having that downhill lie to hit that little
Speaker 3: shot over that's that's that's the hardest thing. I'd rather
Speaker 3: be in the water if I could drop somewhere that
Speaker 3: I didn't have to hit that little shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that half ledge from a downhill lie to like
Speaker 1: a shallow green is pretty tough for every type of flair.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: So here this kind of plays into our discussion. While
Speaker 1: John Wills asked, why do green surrounds an aprons always
Speaker 1: seem so scripted? Why can't the short grass and closely
Speaker 1: moan turf be more like you're bunkering, don't you know,
Speaker 1: like the I guess the short turf around, you know,
Speaker 1: and like artistic bunkering shapes.
Speaker 3: It could I mean, you know, I think that's one
Speaker 3: of those things that there was probably a lot more
Speaker 3: interest in the mowing patterns on approaches on old golf
Speaker 3: courses has just been lost over time. You know, Tommy,
Speaker 3: who is the superintendent for a high point, the first
Speaker 3: course I did when you sat Crystal Downs, I asked
Speaker 3: him one day, do they like teach you a class
Speaker 3: in chure school about you know, narrowing up the approach
Speaker 3: to the green, you know, like bringing the rough in
Speaker 3: toward the green so it looks like a you know,
Speaker 3: narrows down to like a neck and then widens out
Speaker 3: to the green. Because it seemed like everything I saw
Speaker 3: did that, and I was pretty sure that on original
Speaker 3: golf course it wasn't like that.
Speaker 4: And he said.
Speaker 3: It was just a subconscious thing that that he'd seen
Speaker 3: so many holes like that that he just naturally did
Speaker 3: it without thinking twice about it. And you know, sure enough,
Speaker 3: over time the golf course had changed because you know,
Speaker 3: superintendents imitate what they've seen in other places, and unless
Speaker 3: there's unless there's some pretty detailed map of how the
Speaker 3: golf course was supposed to be, things tend to get
Speaker 3: rounded off and more normal over time. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: like Chicago's a great example. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of different architects that worked in Chicago, and they had
Speaker 3: all different kinds of bunker styles. But when I first
Speaker 3: saw courses in Chicago in the seventies and eighties, the
Speaker 3: bunkers on every course looked the same. They all looked
Speaker 3: like Madna because Madna was the great course in town
Speaker 3: and that's where they played the big tournament. So everybody
Speaker 3: just sort of subconsciously started imitating with Dinah. Even if,
Speaker 3: you know, even if it was a Langford course with
Speaker 3: a steep bank in front of the green that was
Speaker 3: all grass, they would start flaring sand up the banks
Speaker 3: because that's what it would take to make it look
Speaker 3: like the great course down the road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about the short knacks that I mean,
Speaker 1: I had never thought about that, but now that I think, it's, like, God,
Speaker 1: how many golf courses have that, like that narrow neck
Speaker 1: going into the green.
Speaker 4: It's and it's one of the worst things you can do.
Speaker 3: I mean for the average player, you know, they need
Speaker 3: to run the ball into the green and you're always
Speaker 3: catching them up at the edge before they get there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's not you know, the good player
Speaker 3: is not worried about that at all. You're you know,
Speaker 3: you're flying over at ninety nine percent of the time,
Speaker 3: so you don't care. But the average player, it sticks
Speaker 3: them up a lot. And then the other thing is,
Speaker 3: you know I talked about, you know how you're trying
Speaker 3: to build bounces into the thing, and it's the bounce.
Speaker 3: You know, whether the bounce would help you onto the
Speaker 3: green or make it bounce away from the green. It
Speaker 3: takes both of them away and the ball just stops
Speaker 3: right in front of the green every time.
Speaker 5: That's it's one of the thrills.
Speaker 1: Like so many times, there's contours around the edges of bunkers,
Speaker 1: and the thrill of golf is like having your ball
Speaker 1: right on the edge of something and see if it
Speaker 1: goes in or out.
Speaker 3: Yes, And you know, I probably never would have realized
Speaker 3: that if it wasn't firstpend in that year in the UK,
Speaker 3: right out of college, because you didn't see mowing patterns
Speaker 3: like that I.
Speaker 4: Mean it was.
Speaker 3: You know, the earliest golf courses were kind of grazed
Speaker 3: and there wasn't you know, nobody was deciding exactly what
Speaker 3: part of it to mow.
Speaker 4: How but.
Speaker 3: Over time, you know, they they just didn't. You know,
Speaker 3: nothing about golf course design or maintenance was very.
Speaker 4: Very formal back in the old.
Speaker 3: Days, so you know, making kind of a symmetric approach
Speaker 3: was just not something that they were ever thinking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they just they just mowed the grass as much
Speaker 4: as much grass as they needed to mow, or the
Speaker 4: sheep ate it right, or the sheep.
Speaker 1: Joshua Robi wants to know how do you feel about
Speaker 1: trees as a safety feature.
Speaker 3: Trees as a safety feature are usually a bad idea.
Speaker 4: You know, if.
Speaker 3: Two holes are close enough together that you've got a
Speaker 3: safety problem. I, as a golfer, would rather see the
Speaker 3: ball coming or at least know that there's somebody hidden
Speaker 3: in my general direction. And if I'm the one hitting
Speaker 3: the shot over there, it'd be nice to know I
Speaker 3: need to yell for because there's somebody there, Because you know,
Speaker 3: you will have situations on golf courses where you don't
Speaker 3: realize there's anybody there at all, and they're in a
Speaker 3: dangerous spot. So you know, the ironic part of that
Speaker 3: is when you're consulting for club, if you take a
Speaker 3: tree out and then somebody gets hit, there might be
Speaker 3: a liability suit over that, and there's going to be
Speaker 3: the assumption that the tree might have saved the player
Speaker 3: from being hurt. But I find that's not the case.
Speaker 3: You know, that's saying about trees being ninety percent air
Speaker 3: applies to incoming as well as outgoing.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, a tree could ricochet, of all, and it
Speaker 1: could hit somebody that wouldn't have ever even been in
Speaker 1: the right in the area.
Speaker 4: That is also true.
Speaker 1: It makes me think about like six through eight Aposa
Speaker 1: Tiempo and all those trees.
Speaker 4: Yes, and.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I should say on the record,
Speaker 3: but the reason those trees are still there is because
Speaker 3: years ago a golfer on the eighth green was killed
Speaker 3: by a snap hook off the seventh t So that's
Speaker 3: one of those instances that me telling them to take
Speaker 3: out all the trees would open up a huge can
Speaker 3: of worms if anybody ever did that again.
Speaker 4: And that's why those trees are still there.
Speaker 3: Even though that those golf holes were certainly designed to
Speaker 3: all be one big space where you could just you know,
Speaker 3: on seven, you could he had room to miss left
Speaker 3: or right instead of hitting a tree on either side
Speaker 3: of the fairways.
Speaker 1: It's where it being a course that gets forty thousand
Speaker 1: rounds a year instead of like a ten thousand round
Speaker 1: exclusive club really kind of hurts sure as a golf course.
Speaker 4: And that's what.
Speaker 3: You know, if Alistair McKenzie had a weakness as a designer,
Speaker 3: it was that he didn't visualize those courses ever. Being
Speaker 3: that busy, you know, he would try so hard to
Speaker 3: take a natural feature like a wash or something and
Speaker 3: get it into play on two holes, just one, and.
Speaker 4: That would put the holes pretty close together.
Speaker 3: And then so a lot of times when you look
Speaker 3: at some of his older courses that aren't so well known,
Speaker 3: that's the problem because first there are these two holes
Speaker 3: that were too close together. They were both cool holes
Speaker 3: in isolation together, they were kind of too close, so
Speaker 3: they planted trees in between them to keep people from
Speaker 3: it in each other.
Speaker 4: And then, you know, and that took.
Speaker 3: Away the feature that the holes were routed around, so
Speaker 3: you it went from two good holes to two bad
Speaker 3: holes just because they were a little too close together
Speaker 3: for somebody's comfort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think everybody, every golfer should just have to
Speaker 1: be a sign a liability for him if I get hit, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sue because like you know, you're going,
Speaker 1: You're choosing to go play golf.
Speaker 4: Put a lovely concept.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of golf course architects that would support that,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of trial lawyers that wouldn't.
Speaker 5: Sean wants to know your views on hidden bunkers.
Speaker 3: There's very few people that think bunkers a hidden bunker
Speaker 3: is a good idea, and I've used them very rarely
Speaker 3: in my own work, even though you know, I'm a
Speaker 3: huge fan of Saint Andrew's and a bunch of other
Speaker 3: links courses where there are bunkers that are really hard
Speaker 3: to see.
Speaker 4: From the tea.
Speaker 3: So you know, I would never dismiss them as being okay,
Speaker 3: because that would mean I'd have to take out some
Speaker 3: of the coolest bunkers at St. Andrews because they don't apply.
Speaker 3: And of course, when you talk about hidden bunkers, it's
Speaker 3: like from anywhere do you have to be able to
Speaker 3: see the bunker from any place you've driven it, or
Speaker 3: just you know, do you have to see every bunker
Speaker 3: you could possibly hit into from the te one of
Speaker 3: the few hidden bunkers that I could think of that
Speaker 3: that I really loved. My first golf course, High Point,
Speaker 3: had a little short part four on the front nine,
Speaker 3: and it was a three hundred and twenty or thirty
Speaker 3: yard hole and the green kind of sat on this
Speaker 3: slight crown in the ground, so you know, it was
Speaker 3: it was kind of built. It was a shallow green,
Speaker 3: kind of long from left to right, and it sat
Speaker 3: up a little bit and then it fell off in
Speaker 3: the back and there was a there was a little
Speaker 3: hollow in front that you could see and it was
Speaker 3: all short grass. But behind it I put a pop
Speaker 3: bunker maybe the I don't know if it was the
Speaker 3: deepest pop bunker I built on any course, but it was.
Speaker 4: It was very difficult and it was really small, kind
Speaker 4: of like the Devil's asshole at Pine Valley.
Speaker 3: Not that severe, but severe. The golf pro at high
Speaker 3: Point when it opened said what is that thing? And abandoned. Well,
Speaker 3: so that's what we called it. It's beat existence. But
Speaker 3: to me, that was a great hazard on a short
Speaker 3: part four like that, because the player that knew it
Speaker 3: was there, was scared to death of it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It was like if the pin was anywhere near the
Speaker 3: back of the green, near where that bunker was, you
Speaker 3: didn't remember exactly where the bunker was, so you had
Speaker 3: to be extra careful. And of course I gave you
Speaker 3: plenty of room to miss in front. You could miss
Speaker 3: in front all day and then trying not to three
Speaker 3: pot but hitting it back there was really nasty. And
Speaker 3: by the same token, you know, ninety percent of golfers
Speaker 3: never miss long with an approach shot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they might skull one occasionally, but you.
Speaker 3: Know, bad golfers, even reasonable golfers, they always picked the
Speaker 3: club that if they hit it perfect, it'll just barely
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 4: So you know, the odds that.
Speaker 3: They're gonna miss ten yards or fifteen yards past the
Speaker 3: pin are pretty small, especially on a short on a
Speaker 3: short shot, So I figured that bunker was really out
Speaker 3: of play for everybody but the better players, and it was.
Speaker 4: It really got in people's heads. So never say never.
Speaker 3: In general, yes, you'd like to be able to see
Speaker 3: where the bunkers are, but there's an exception to pretty
Speaker 3: much every rule.
Speaker 5: When I when I was when I grew.
Speaker 1: I grew up caddying for like twelve years, and I
Speaker 1: always just like I would just hand people like a
Speaker 1: club or two extra. It's so funny how you say, like,
Speaker 1: I would always bank on them not hitting them ball
Speaker 1: solid and over clubbing them so that that that they
Speaker 1: be on the green.
Speaker 3: And actually, now that I think about it, one of
Speaker 3: my best lessons about hidden bunkers was from a couple
Speaker 3: months that I caddied in Saint Andrews. There's there's one
Speaker 3: hole in particular Saint Andrews. The twelfth is the short
Speaker 3: part four, and there was like three, three or four
Speaker 3: bunkers in the fair way that you can't see from
Speaker 3: the tea. They're really kind of all built for when
Speaker 3: the when the hole used to play backwards in the
Speaker 3: old days. And the first few times that I tried
Speaker 3: to caddy there for better players, I would try to
Speaker 3: describe where the bunkers were, but it's hopeless to try to.
Speaker 3: You know, you're looking at it as at a sea
Speaker 3: of fairwehead. It's like, well, there's a couple bunkers kind
Speaker 3: of in the middle at one ninety, and then there's
Speaker 3: a couple of bunkers out there at two forty and
Speaker 3: you know, and then they just top it off the
Speaker 3: tee because they were made them scared to death. So
Speaker 3: you know what I learned from that. I learned from
Speaker 3: that that you know, when you caddy for somebody, you
Speaker 3: have to be positive. Yeah, and you just you know,
Speaker 3: don't tell them about the things that they can't see.
Speaker 3: Just try to point them at somewhere where they can
Speaker 3: avoid it. And you know, if they if they happen
Speaker 3: to hit one in the bunker, you can apologize after.
Speaker 3: But but you know, the negative thought is the last
Speaker 3: thing you want to put in their minds. And I
Speaker 3: you know, and because of that lesson, it's like every
Speaker 3: time I watch the every time I watch the tour
Speaker 3: and they've got the mics close to the guys. Their
Speaker 3: caddies are so good at positive reinforcement. It's like the
Speaker 3: last thing they say to him is that's the perfect club.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's not like it's not like swing extra hard at
Speaker 3: this or there's gonna be trouble.
Speaker 1: It's I've never thought about it, but caddying is actually
Speaker 1: kind of a because when you caddy for beginners or
Speaker 1: like the average golfer, like it was, I was always
Speaker 1: about like getting people around the golf course and like
Speaker 1: avoiding hazard, like avoiding bunkers at all costs. But then
Speaker 1: for good players, you're like you learned, hey, take this
Speaker 1: line like get you you want to you want to
Speaker 1: take this aggressive line because like, you know, you you
Speaker 1: get these good players that could actually take advantage of things.
Speaker 1: But for like you know, everybody else, you're just navigating
Speaker 1: him around the course of the easiest you know kind
Speaker 1: of path.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And you know, caddying is part psychology. Playing golf as
Speaker 3: part psychology. Architecture is part psychology.
Speaker 1: It's maybe we should, you know, instead of former PGA
Speaker 1: tour players becoming caddies, they should be their caddies, or
Speaker 1: becoming architects that should be their caddies.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 3: I had to give a speech in Saint Andrews a
Speaker 3: few years ago, and that's one of the things I said.
Speaker 3: It was I got to play in the Dunhill Links
Speaker 3: thing one time. I was really out of my comfort
Speaker 3: zone playing a pro am with a bunch of pros.
Speaker 3: But it was kind of a gift from the client
Speaker 3: that Sabonic, who was good friends Johann Rupert, who runs Dunhill,
Speaker 3: was also one of the founding members of Sabonic. So
Speaker 3: so the two of them let me play in the
Speaker 3: pro aram without paying, however much a cost to do it.
Speaker 3: And you know, the caddies I had at Saint Andrew's
Speaker 3: and Kingsbarns especially were so good that I when I
Speaker 3: was given my talk at dinner, I was like, the
Speaker 3: two caddies that I've had the last two days.
Speaker 4: Would have been really good architects, you know, if.
Speaker 3: They could figure out how to make the land conform
Speaker 3: to what they do, because what they what they were
Speaker 3: doing was you know, looking at my game and trying
Speaker 3: to figure out how to navigate me around the golf course,
Speaker 3: which is you know, that's the weakness of a lot
Speaker 3: of players, is you know, and you know I've noticed
Speaker 3: playing that when I play with people I've had, you know,
Speaker 3: I have tons of people say, oh, that's one of
Speaker 3: the best rounds I've ever played.
Speaker 4: And it's.
Speaker 3: You know, it's partly because I'm helping steer them around
Speaker 3: a little bit, and some of it's not reinforcing the negative,
Speaker 3: but some of it's just you know, trying to simplify
Speaker 3: it for them because in their own heads it's way
Speaker 3: you know, it's way more complicated and they don't need
Speaker 3: to be thinking about all those things at once.
Speaker 1: Mark Stevens wants to know why there aren't more courses
Speaker 1: using micro contours in the fairway that lead to non
Speaker 1: level lies.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, the reason for that is because a lot of
Speaker 3: people think it's poor work. You know, the contractor would
Speaker 3: look bad if he didn't make the fairway look perfectly groomed,
Speaker 3: or the superintendent would look bad if if you couldn't
Speaker 3: mow all those little bumps just perfectly.
Speaker 4: It's funny. We did a you know, we've been working on.
Speaker 3: Woodhall Spa in England and there's a hole there that
Speaker 3: I had him clear out a bunch of trees to
Speaker 3: the right of the hole and restore some fairway to
Speaker 3: the right. And you know, we did all the work
Speaker 3: in the dirt last winter and I hadn't seen it
Speaker 3: with grass on it. And I went back it was
Speaker 3: I just came from there. We've been doing the second
Speaker 3: phase of our work this winter and I just once
Speaker 3: walked around the six holes that we did last year
Speaker 3: and I walked this fairway and I was like really
Speaker 3: rugged and even, and I was like, oh man, they
Speaker 3: didn't spend a lot of time finishing the fairway that
Speaker 3: I added, and then I looked over at the rest
Speaker 3: of the fairway and it was exactly like that. I
Speaker 3: was like, good for that. It would have really looked
Speaker 3: out a place if they'd done too much. But the
Speaker 3: high point the fairways were very uneven like that, and
Speaker 3: everybody thought that we just did a crappy job. They
Speaker 3: couldn't imagine that we wanted to leave some of that
Speaker 3: stuff in to be more random. It's really hard to
Speaker 3: it's really hard to do. It's really hard to get
Speaker 3: everybody to accept. And certainly the more you know, if
Speaker 3: you're if you're working with a piece of ground that
Speaker 3: it wasn't by trees and you didn't have to reshape
Speaker 3: it very much, then there's a lot of that natural
Speaker 3: wrinkle in it, and maybe it's saving you to not
Speaker 3: take it out. But in most cases it seems like,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're if you're having a clear trees
Speaker 3: and clean up the fairway, or or you're having to
Speaker 3: shape the fairway, then it's it's hard to make that
Speaker 3: kind of little wrinkle in the fairway and have it
Speaker 3: look natural at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think those little contours are another thing that,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about with a couple of things, like
Speaker 1: that's something that gets in good players' heads. And you know,
Speaker 1: the fifteen twenty handicap doesn't really even recognize, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's like a just a subtle side hill.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, and and the more extreme versions too.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of my favorite holes in the world
Speaker 3: is that is a par five at Crystal Downs, the
Speaker 3: eighth hole, and if you're playing it into the wind
Speaker 3: where most people will drive the ball as down in
Speaker 3: a bowl and there's all these bumpy conters and you
Speaker 3: know you can get it's about fifty to fifty that
Speaker 3: you'll draw like an awkward stance with the ball sitting
Speaker 3: on a downhill and a bump pretty close in front
Speaker 3: of it, and it's like, you know, you're on a
Speaker 3: par five and you're a long way from the green
Speaker 3: and you're thinking, I can't hit a forewood here. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just gonna hit right into that bump. I mean,
Speaker 3: I got to hit like six iron or seven iron
Speaker 3: or something to make sure I get it over the bump.
Speaker 3: And then if I do that, I probably won't even
Speaker 3: be able to reach the green. In three and you know,
Speaker 3: so that's the kind of thing that most guys would say, well,
Speaker 3: that's completely unfair, but no, that's just random. And you
Speaker 3: know that could have happened to your opponent instead of you,
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't be complaining that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that whole On the next shot, there's all the
Speaker 1: kinds of contours too on the up by the green,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. So this is uh, I get
Speaker 1: to use quotes and use a profanity like we were
Speaker 1: talking about before we got on the podcast. So what
Speaker 1: is one feature you implement in your design that gives
Speaker 1: you the most personal joy when you look back upon completion?
Speaker 1: And by joy I mean the inner chuckle that says, huh,
Speaker 1: that's gonna fuck with them.
Speaker 5: That's from Ryan Gilbert. Okay, he wants to know the pain.
Speaker 3: It's funny how so many golfers assume that architects are
Speaker 3: trying to screw them, and you know that that we're
Speaker 3: all sadistic in some way, and you know, every every
Speaker 3: little trick we put out there is to hurt you
Speaker 3: instead of maybe help you. And you know it goes
Speaker 3: back to what I said about the old course. Every
Speaker 3: contra out there has a good side.
Speaker 4: And a bad side.
Speaker 3: So yeah, as much as that little bump that I
Speaker 3: put at the back of that green messed with your shot,
Speaker 3: and I get the only reason I get a chuckle
Speaker 3: out of it is because I know that you could
Speaker 3: have done something else. You know, if I really didn't
Speaker 3: give you anything else to do, then the joke would
Speaker 3: beyond me. But I think it's you know, for me,
Speaker 3: the joy is the little subtle stuff like that more
Speaker 3: than the big stuff.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: By the same token, I've worked on some beautiful pieces
Speaker 3: of land, and I think that all of the guys
Speaker 3: that work for me, you know, what we're best at is.
Speaker 4: The esthetic part of it, and.
Speaker 3: The composition and making everything look like it fits and
Speaker 3: like it's been there forever. And people get really emotional.
Speaker 4: About it in a good way. You know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they get emotional in a bad way, they get
Speaker 3: really angry that some.
Speaker 4: Little contra affected them or whatever.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they get really emotional in a good way, either
Speaker 3: because they get a good bounce or just because.
Speaker 4: They're they're.
Speaker 3: Excited or thrilled to be out on a place like
Speaker 3: Pacific Dunes and just take it all in.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I heard from a couple, well, I heard from one
Speaker 3: of the players who played in the I think it
Speaker 3: was the women's mid am that they had there or
Speaker 3: the publics.
Speaker 4: I think it was the publics.
Speaker 3: One of the players said she she came off the
Speaker 3: third green and went down to the fourth tee and
Speaker 3: came around that corner for the first time and looked
Speaker 3: down the fourth.
Speaker 4: Hall, and she cried because it was that beautiful.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't think there's Architects don't talk
Speaker 3: about it that much, but there's you know, one of
Speaker 3: the reasons people like golf deep down is because it's
Speaker 3: a place where.
Speaker 4: It's safe to let.
Speaker 3: Your emotions out a little bit, you know, yell and
Speaker 3: screen for a good shot or curse at a bad shot.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's a lot of places you can't
Speaker 3: do that anymore. I mean, golf is one of the
Speaker 3: few places left. And I think that the good courses,
Speaker 3: you know, dial the knob up on that for both
Speaker 3: sides of the question, both giving you places that you
Speaker 3: curse and places that you get really excited. So I
Speaker 3: can't say that we think about that every day when
Speaker 3: we're building stuff directly, but I think our courses have
Speaker 3: done a pretty good job of doing that. You know,
Speaker 3: for every little trick we're playing on you, we're also
Speaker 3: giving you something to be joyful about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's always, yeah, there's always the opposite side of
Speaker 1: every opposite side of every contour is such a it's
Speaker 1: almost like something that should be on a sign for
Speaker 1: every bad side of a contour, there's a good sign.
Speaker 3: There's there's a few contras I've built where it would
Speaker 3: be good if they were labeled for people. You know,
Speaker 3: if you are reading this sign from this direction, you
Speaker 3: made a mistake.
Speaker 1: So let's get some general kind of course and architects
Speaker 1: stuff to wrap up this GCA one oh one. We
Speaker 1: got tons of questions I think could be in another segment.
Speaker 1: We'll repurpose for different segments here. But so Panther Mike asks,
Speaker 1: outside the old course, what course slash architect has had
Speaker 1: the most significance on the game.
Speaker 4: You know, anytime people ask me questions.
Speaker 3: About the best or the most or anything, I'm always
Speaker 3: afraid to answer because because once you because when you've
Speaker 3: really seen you know, like I've been influenced by so
Speaker 3: many things that just picking one or two and saying
Speaker 3: that's the one, it's.
Speaker 4: Really hard for me to do. Like in Australia.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt that Alistair McKenzie going down there and
Speaker 3: working on Royal Melbourne had a huge effect on all
Speaker 3: of golf in Australia. You can point to that one
Speaker 3: guy on that trip just completely raising the bar for
Speaker 3: what architecture was. And he wasn't there long enough to
Speaker 3: build all that stuff. I mean he you know, he
Speaker 3: spent six weeks there and he spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time with two guys, Alex Russell who was a club
Speaker 3: champion at Royal Melbourne and kind of became his design
Speaker 3: associate for all the Australian work, and the greenkeeper, mic Morcambe,
Speaker 3: who was the guy who built most of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, everything they built reflected what they learned
Speaker 3: from him, and everything that's come after in Australia is
Speaker 3: based on the impact that they had. But can you
Speaker 3: pick can you pick something like that for the entire
Speaker 3: world of golf?
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know. In Japan, irony of ironies.
Speaker 3: The most influential single moment in architecture in Japan was
Speaker 3: that after World War Two, when the Americans were over
Speaker 3: there sort of making sure that the war was really
Speaker 3: over the best clubs in Tokyo had real problems growing grass.
Speaker 3: I mean, Tokyo's climate is like Atlanta. It gets cold
Speaker 3: in the winter, it's really hot and humid in the summer.
Speaker 3: Growing any kind of grass that will survive, that will
Speaker 3: survive both extremes, well, it's hard to do. And this
Speaker 3: general that was stationed over there said, well, in Georgia,
Speaker 3: we have a few courses that have like all alternate greens.
Speaker 3: One's bent grass and one's bermuda grass, and so in
Speaker 3: the winter you can play on the bank grass green.
Speaker 3: In the summer, when it gets too hot and humid,
Speaker 3: you can take the traffic off that and go on
Speaker 3: the other green. So some of the clubs around Tokyo
Speaker 3: did that, and then when they had a golf boom,
Speaker 3: everybody looked at the best courses around Tokyo and they
Speaker 3: had two greens. So they start building two greens on
Speaker 3: every golf hole, on every golf course for years and years,
Speaker 3: just because that's what the best course had.
Speaker 4: So I guess I've ducked that question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you know, you know, besides the old course,
Speaker 3: I guess the answer, the really answer to that question
Speaker 3: is old Tom Morris had the most impact. You know,
Speaker 3: some of what he designed was pretty simple and he
Speaker 3: did it in a day, and some of it he
Speaker 3: spent a lot more time and doesn't get enough credit for.
Speaker 3: But he was really the first golf course archety TechEd
Speaker 3: where it was somebody besides just the players deciding where
Speaker 3: the holes should be. And he worked on a lot
Speaker 3: of beautiful sites in Scotland that have influenced everything else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he had a lot of influence.
Speaker 1: He's the he's kind of at the top of the
Speaker 1: tree where everything goes down from, you know, Sean Martin,
Speaker 1: he's uh, he asked another question of a similar nature,
Speaker 1: and we're just going to take the number out of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: what are the most influential designs in US history?
Speaker 3: Pine Valley certainly, you know, it had a tremendous impact
Speaker 3: on the architects of its day and sort of like
Speaker 3: raising the bar and also raising the bar on difficulty
Speaker 3: a little bit, and you know, everybody respected that course
Speaker 3: so much. And then it's had its influence again in
Speaker 3: the last thirty years, you know, being number one in
Speaker 3: the rankings of golf courses for most of this last
Speaker 3: twenty or thirty years has a tremendous impact on all
Speaker 3: of us as designers and what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3: Like one of the cliches about Pine Valley for years
Speaker 3: was that it's so cool that you can't see any
Speaker 3: other hole from the hole you're on, and that wasn't true.
Speaker 3: When Pine Valley was built. You could see not entirely
Speaker 3: across it. But you know, there's ups and downs, but
Speaker 3: they had cleared most of the trees when they built it,
Speaker 3: and the trees have grown back in between the holes
Speaker 3: in the years since. So in the twenties it wasn't
Speaker 3: a tree lined and you could never see another hole,
Speaker 3: but by the seventies or eighties it had become that way.
Speaker 3: So you know, there were a lot of courses built
Speaker 3: on the premise that, oh, we want to isolate every
Speaker 3: hole from every other hole. Not necessarily a good influence.
Speaker 3: Like you know, it's not necessarily a good influence.
Speaker 4: The idea that.
Speaker 3: That every single hole on the golf course, you know,
Speaker 3: needs to be spectacular. It needs to be something you
Speaker 3: can make a postcard out of. You know, every hole
Speaker 3: on the golf course should contribute something to the hole.
Speaker 3: But there aren't many pieces of land like Pine Valley,
Speaker 3: and there aren't many courses that you know, can make
Speaker 3: their market be exclusively about single digit handicappers are the
Speaker 3: only ones they have to worry about getting around this
Speaker 3: golf course. We don't want other players. So you know,
Speaker 3: Pine Valley is not the best model for everybody, and
Speaker 3: yet it's been hugely impactful as a model for people today.
Speaker 3: You know, if you want to answer the question of
Speaker 3: why are so many monern courses too hard, Pine Valley
Speaker 3: is the answer. It's number one. So everybody thinks that's
Speaker 3: what they've got to do.
Speaker 1: For people that aren't kind of that don't have access,
Speaker 1: what are some courses that you would recommend them to
Speaker 1: go play that are open to the public, that could,
Speaker 1: you know, really be great architectural experiences.
Speaker 5: This is from Justin Hulahan.
Speaker 3: Are we talking about are we limiting those to the
Speaker 3: United States for purposes of this discussion? Obviously in the
Speaker 3: UK most of those courses, I mean, the best single
Speaker 3: thing you can do is go to the UK for
Speaker 3: a few days because you can get on those courses.
Speaker 3: You know, all you have to do is go to
Speaker 3: gullin North Barrack, Saint Andrew's Carnousti you're going to see
Speaker 3: more good public golf in a short span than you
Speaker 3: that I could get you driving back and forth across
Speaker 3: the United States.
Speaker 5: Kill Spendy too, spend.
Speaker 4: You kill Spindy.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't find you wouldn't turn down that little lane.
Speaker 5: As far as you asked.
Speaker 4: God, it's hard for me to think about the whole US.
Speaker 4: And you know, I mean.
Speaker 3: There's there are underrated good golf courses in every region.
Speaker 3: I've written a book about that, partly about that. But
Speaker 3: it's a hard question to answer because a lot of
Speaker 3: you know, anything that gets a reputation for being great,
Speaker 3: the price goes up accordingly, Like you can go play
Speaker 3: all the courses at Bandon Dunes. There's a really good answer,
Speaker 3: but they're not so inexpensive to play anymore, or Pasa Tiempo,
Speaker 3: which we've talked about.
Speaker 4: Tough ticket.
Speaker 3: Now, any of the courses that make the top hundred
Speaker 3: automatically price goes up. So you've got to look past that,
Speaker 3: and you've got to you know, a good way is
Speaker 3: just to look for like lesser known courses by any
Speaker 3: architect that you raid highly. You know, some of them
Speaker 3: are terribly maintained or don't have the money to do
Speaker 3: anything with and some of them are really overgrown, but
Speaker 3: underneath usually there's a good product there for people to
Speaker 3: see and it won't cost a lot of money because
Speaker 3: that's why they don't have a lot of money to
Speaker 3: maintain it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's why I usually do when I go to a
Speaker 1: new area, I either read Tom's book It's the Confidential
Speaker 1: Guide wherever I'm going, or I or I look for
Speaker 1: like little uni courses that were designed by you know
Speaker 1: Ross's website, the Don Ross Society as a full listing
Speaker 1: and you can almost always find one of those.
Speaker 3: Or I don't know, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: the old Cornish and Witten book the I think they
Speaker 3: renamed it to the Architects of Golf, you know, that
Speaker 3: had full biographies of architects and lists of everything that
Speaker 3: they worked on.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: That's how I found Crystal Downs for the first time.
Speaker 3: It was just you know, reading a list of Alistair
Speaker 3: McKenzie courses and it was on there with no other
Speaker 3: information about him, Like where is that? And why have
Speaker 3: I not heard of that at all? Because I had
Speaker 3: the first time I ever saw the name. So yeah,
Speaker 3: there's I don't know that there's any more hidden gems
Speaker 3: out there that I would think are tens.
Speaker 4: On my scale.
Speaker 3: But there's still a lot of quality that gets overlooked
Speaker 3: because somebody's not taking care of it or it's.
Speaker 4: Just in a place that people don't go.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: With that, it's a segue into I forgot to write
Speaker 1: down the name of.
Speaker 5: This who asked this question?
Speaker 4: But anonymous?
Speaker 1: Anonymous, Yes, anonymous. It's a great curve of your enthusiasm
Speaker 1: when the guy, you know, he talks about anonymous donors.
Speaker 1: But who are the architects that every golfer should see
Speaker 1: in their lifetime? And we'll keep this us like if
Speaker 1: you're gonna I think this might actually be a better
Speaker 1: quest than your top one hundred quests is going to see.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see the work of these architects.
Speaker 3: So how do you are we saying like a group
Speaker 3: of architects that will represent different points on the spectrum,
Speaker 3: or you know these two or three particular architects tip
Speaker 3: done a lot of good. You know, you can spend
Speaker 3: your life going and seeing Donald Ross courses. Yea, And
Speaker 3: I think I read something the other day there's some
Speaker 3: guy that's played like three hundred and fifty Donald Ross
Speaker 3: courses out of I think the list was that he
Speaker 3: only did just over four hundred, and I'm not sure
Speaker 3: if that's true. It's hard to imagine that three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty of them are still open. That's a pretty
Speaker 3: good record, but for a variety of different things. You know,
Speaker 3: it's so easy to name all the traditional great architects
Speaker 3: Ross and tilling Hast and McKenzie and McDonald. I mean,
Speaker 3: you have to see a McDonald course or a Seth
Speaker 3: Rayner course to see the template holes they built and
Speaker 3: how distinctive they are. If you've seen you have to
Speaker 3: see two of their courses to understand that they did
Speaker 3: use pretty much the same concepts from one piece of
Speaker 3: land to the next. I'm a huge fan of McKenzie's work, obviously,
Speaker 3: and there's not many McKenzie courses in America that you
Speaker 3: can go wrong and have it not be a really
Speaker 3: great course. So that's a pretty easy pick.
Speaker 4: You know. George Thomas did not build very many golf courses.
Speaker 3: But they're very distinctive. Those three courses in La La
Speaker 3: country Club and Riviera and bell Air where we're working now,
Speaker 3: there's so many holes on each of them, that are
Speaker 3: really distinctive and you've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 4: So he should definitely be on the list. Perry Maxwell
Speaker 4: should definitely be on the list.
Speaker 3: I mean, lots of architects get credit or blame for
Speaker 3: building severe greens. Maxwell was the master at building greens
Speaker 3: that were so distinct and made so much difference in
Speaker 3: how you played the hole that he almost didn't need
Speaker 3: to do a lot else. He didn't build a lot
Speaker 3: of fairway bunkers because he knew that was just like
Speaker 3: window dressing. You know, you still wanted to be over
Speaker 3: on one side of the hole, whether there was a
Speaker 3: bunker there or not, so you didn't really need something
Speaker 3: to amplify that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Among more recent architects, you have to see a pet
Speaker 3: Die course and.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: To appreciate the severity of it, and at the same time,
Speaker 3: you know the they're very angular. Maybe the angler is
Speaker 3: not the right word there. You know, there's very soft
Speaker 3: curvy lines to those hazards that make them tough. You know,
Speaker 3: I think you have to see a Mike Strants course.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mike was Mike was really an artist. He
Speaker 3: could draw, and some of the things that he built
Speaker 3: almost look like caricatures of golf holes more than real
Speaker 3: golf holes. I mean, they're really exaggerated versions. But you know,
Speaker 3: he was also a real sculptor when it came to
Speaker 3: building hazards. I don't know that many people have ever
Speaker 3: built hazards they'll look better than his. I don't know
Speaker 3: how many you want me to list. That's a good
Speaker 3: short list of seeing some really different styles.
Speaker 1: The uh yeah, they it's all great architects with very
Speaker 1: distinctly and unique It's a good variety amongst that group.
Speaker 5: I can't remember who I had on.
Speaker 1: I think it might have been Mike Devreese said that
Speaker 1: Perry Maxwell's career was hurt most of anybody because of
Speaker 1: the Great Depression is when he had finally reached his peak.
Speaker 3: Which yeah, for sure, you know, I mean, most of
Speaker 3: the other famous Golden Golden Age architects, you know, made
Speaker 3: hay and the boom in the twenties, but Maxwell was
Speaker 3: just getting started really in the mid twenties. He only
Speaker 3: built a handful of courses before the Depression hit. He
Speaker 3: was lucky that, I mean, we wouldn't know anything about
Speaker 3: his work except for in the depression. One of the
Speaker 3: few areas that wasn't hit hard was like Oklahoma, Kansas,
Speaker 3: Texas because there was still.
Speaker 4: All money there.
Speaker 3: So that's when he built southern hills and prairie dunes
Speaker 3: and colonial.
Speaker 4: He redid colonial. That's what funded his best work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know we got Richard here, and this
Speaker 1: is kind of maybe I should have asked this before,
Speaker 1: but what would what is the summer reading that you
Speaker 1: just signed before your golf course architecture one on one class,
Speaker 1: if you were a professor.
Speaker 3: Summer reading, you know, there's four or five old books
Speaker 3: on golf course architecture. You know, lots of architects write
Speaker 3: books because it's a good marketing tool and you want
Speaker 3: to get your ideas out there, and they do lead
Speaker 3: directly to jobs. The most the first example I can
Speaker 3: think of, sitting on the table right in front of me,
Speaker 3: is Robert Hunter's book The Links, which I think I
Speaker 3: think Hunter's book and Tom Simpson's book The Architectural Side
Speaker 3: of Golf are the two most fun.
Speaker 4: Books to read about golf course architecture.
Speaker 3: They don't try to explain the details and draw a
Speaker 3: bunch of golf holes and and sell you on their
Speaker 3: style as much as some of the other architects, did Hunter,
Speaker 3: You know, he was only kind of a golf court.
Speaker 3: He worked with Mackenzie a little bit, but he wasn't
Speaker 3: really he was not trying to establish his career by
Speaker 3: writing this book. He was writing it to try to
Speaker 3: explain it to everybody else but Hunter's book. The guy
Speaker 3: who the guy who developed Crystal Downs when he did
Speaker 3: the when he laid out the housing plan, he built
Speaker 3: a little nine hole course to go with it. That's
Speaker 3: mostly where the front nine is now and the tenth
Speaker 3: and eighteenth holes, and he just did it himself. And
Speaker 3: then a friend of his. Hunter's book was published in
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty six, so it's like the year after this
Speaker 3: guy built the little course himself and a friend of
Speaker 3: his gave him a Hunter's book and he read it
Speaker 3: from cover to cover and he was like, I think
Speaker 3: I screwed up. It sounds like there's more to this
Speaker 3: than what I knew. So he wrote Hunter a letter
Speaker 3: and said, I built myself a golf course on this
Speaker 3: really nice piece of ground, and I don't really think
Speaker 3: I did very well with it, you know, do you
Speaker 3: have any advice for me? And Hunter wrote him back
Speaker 3: and said, well, Alistair McKenzie is is out here in
Speaker 3: California working on a couple of things, but he's going
Speaker 3: to go back to England in the fall, so he's
Speaker 3: going to take the train past Chicago. So if you want,
Speaker 3: I'll get him to stop and come up and see
Speaker 3: your land. And that's how Crystal Downs came to be,
Speaker 3: or the Crystal Downs that we know. Otherwise it would
Speaker 3: be a little nine hole course by the guy, by
Speaker 3: the founder. So that was kind of a tangent. But
Speaker 3: Hunter's book and Simpson's book, you know, they're more about
Speaker 3: the fun of golf and how architecture interacts with that.
Speaker 3: They're not the how to books like George Thomas wrote,
Speaker 3: or like my book The Anatomy of a Golf Course.
Speaker 3: McKenzie's is sort of in between. You know, he has
Speaker 3: his bullet points of that he wants to make and
Speaker 3: and how important it is to hire a good golf
Speaker 3: course architect so you don't have to keep changing things
Speaker 3: over the years. But there's a lot of fun little
Speaker 3: anecdotes and stories in it too, so it's a fun read.
Speaker 3: I wish I could write something that engaging.
Speaker 1: It's the thing I find amazing is like how these
Speaker 1: guys like the way they wrote like these like short
Speaker 1: quipp ads that were so you know, simple as like
Speaker 1: you know, like Hunters and it's still funny, like Hunters
Speaker 1: is of one of his quotes. It is like, you know,
Speaker 1: long par four after long par four is kind of
Speaker 1: like a cup of watery soup.
Speaker 4: You know, it's uh Mackenzie's.
Speaker 3: Mackenzie's is like, you know, how do I get how
Speaker 3: do I make natural looking contour? Hire the biggest fool
Speaker 3: in the village and tell them to make it flat,
Speaker 3: which apparently I learned later was about a specific person.
Speaker 4: In England that he had dealt with a smart guy.
Speaker 1: Let's we gotta do a couple overrated, underrated, and then
Speaker 1: we're we're wrapping up g c A one on one.
Speaker 1: We'll have to do one uh two to one in
Speaker 1: another pod. All right, first, overrated, underrated.
Speaker 3: Rough terribly overrated over the years. I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: it still is, but overrated.
Speaker 1: It's coming coming back to the to the pendulum.
Speaker 5: All right, a music one the doors.
Speaker 3: I'm not qualified to answer that one. I know a
Speaker 3: little of their music, but not.
Speaker 4: Enough to say.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna say underrated, okay, and then so
Speaker 3: I'll listen to more of their music and get back
Speaker 3: to you on.
Speaker 4: That next one.
Speaker 3: Golf in Ohio, I want to say overrated. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of good courses in Ohio, and but you know, Columbus,
Speaker 3: partly because Jack Nicholess comes from there, partly because Pete
Speaker 3: Die some of his early career was around there. Columbus
Speaker 3: is very well known for having five or six great
Speaker 3: golf courses right around there. But hell, Philadelphia has twenty
Speaker 3: five and New York has fifty. So Ohio has gotten
Speaker 3: a lot of credit for those five or six really
Speaker 3: good ones.
Speaker 5: All right, that's a wrap. We'll be back podcast too.
Speaker 1: We'll be coming out in a couple of weeks and
Speaker 1: it'll be on seth Rayner, Wili and the Sony Open.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to the Egg podcast.
Speaker 5: We do the digging for you to later.
Speaker 2: It was acted in Sat