Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Before we get into our episode, I just want to
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Speaker 1: com and promo code Fridagg twenty for this PGA recap
Speaker 1: to do something a little bit different. Obviously, you can
Speaker 1: always check out the Shotgun Start to get your golf
Speaker 1: news and updates fixed and Brenda and I did a
Speaker 1: expansive recap on the PGA there, so I had Blake
Speaker 1: Conant on, who you might remember from the Achin podcast.
Speaker 1: Blake is a young architect. He works as a shaper
Speaker 1: for Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf and he was texting
Speaker 1: me during the coverage, so I figured I have him on.
Speaker 1: We talked a lot about course set up and challenging
Speaker 1: the pros and you know kind of how how Beth
Speaker 1: Page was presented and you know the leaderboard that came
Speaker 1: of it. So thanks for Blake for coming on, and
Speaker 1: without further ado here he is.
Speaker 2: I miss the green for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my.
Speaker 4: Ball in a brid egg Frida egg and.
Speaker 3: Dread and Frida egg, Frida egg, Fridgrida egg.
Speaker 1: Bride egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the
Speaker 1: golf course.
Speaker 2: So, uh, what what have you been up to, Blake?
Speaker 3: Been?
Speaker 1: Uh been a couple of months since we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about Acon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I've been traveling back and forth to Houston
Speaker 3: and helping out with Tom's project there a memorial park gone,
Speaker 3: and helped on a couple other projects in h renaissances
Speaker 3: with with Brian Scheinder and Eric Ivers, snuffing Long islanded
Speaker 3: up in Washington Golf, wrap it up those two things.
Speaker 3: Washington just got hammered with rain, so their project is
Speaker 3: like extended over into the spring. But it's coming together nicely.
Speaker 3: That's a cool, little, cool little thing, and it sort
Speaker 3: of informed some work in.
Speaker 5: Houston, so it was good to go back and see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah it I was out there too in the spring.
Speaker 1: It's a cool place. It's that the property is crazy.
Speaker 3: It's nuts. I don't understand how they fit eighteen holes
Speaker 3: on that clubhouse side of the property, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. And then they added the forty acres. Did
Speaker 3: Flinn routed five or six holes that actually have enough
Speaker 3: room and those feel great, but the topography's wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's nuts. So you've been you've been off
Speaker 2: a little you uh. You caught a lot of.
Speaker 1: The PGA this last week, huh? I did?
Speaker 3: I had?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The great thing is when you're not working, you're you're
Speaker 3: not working at all. So I had plenty of time
Speaker 3: to watch the p t A and just get into it.
Speaker 5: Girlfriends and face.
Speaker 2: Now is at work, so yeah, congrat congratulations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's also happened. You're not working, you can propose
Speaker 3: to your to your girlfriends.
Speaker 2: So that's great, that's that's awesome. That's uh. Now now
Speaker 2: you get a Now you get a wedding plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, No, the.
Speaker 5: Google Google docs have already started rolling in.
Speaker 3: We're dealing with that.
Speaker 2: It's your new part time job. So what do you
Speaker 2: what did.
Speaker 1: You what were your what were your big takeaways from
Speaker 1: the weekend?
Speaker 3: You know, honestly, it was it was a bit boring,
Speaker 3: and the first day sort of captured everybody because it's
Speaker 3: Tiger and Brooks going off in the morning.
Speaker 5: I had.
Speaker 3: They were the feature group in the morning and I
Speaker 3: was having watching them on my PGA app on the TV,
Speaker 3: so it was great. And then it's just I think
Speaker 3: Brooks has posted a number and everybody tried to get
Speaker 3: it the afternoon, that's Thursday.
Speaker 1: Morning, they went off, right, Yeah, yeah, he just he
Speaker 1: just kind of he kind of just rushed the field,
Speaker 1: you know, blitz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it sort of went downhill for the air.
Speaker 3: I mean, there wasn't really much drama to be had
Speaker 3: until DJ and Brooks almost got tied on the back.
Speaker 5: Nine on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: Watching Jim Dance and Nick Valdo try to create drama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the I think that when I talked
Speaker 1: to Jeff Ogilvie before leading up the championship, he kind
Speaker 1: of laid it out. You know, you're going to see
Speaker 1: a long hitting, high ball hitter win, just because that's
Speaker 1: the way Bethpage is. You know, somebody who executes well
Speaker 1: and hits it far and high. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: given how much rain they had up in the Northeast,
Speaker 1: it played even more into the bomber's hands in the
Speaker 1: sense of the rough was just unbelievably thick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that you could tell that right away,
Speaker 3: and they kept they kept mentioning that throughout Brooks' round
Speaker 3: of how he had said, I only have to beat
Speaker 3: a third of the field or something, and he's probably
Speaker 3: referencing that, well, Francisco Molinari, as good as he might
Speaker 3: be playing, had no chance. So he's probably not even
Speaker 3: worried about Molinari this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was everybody was talking about Tiger and the
Speaker 1: lead up, and because obviously his success at Bethpage winning
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve or two thousand and two and it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, that was such a different Tiger
Speaker 1: Woods than what we see today where you know, he
Speaker 1: was he was kind of the Brooks Kopka then, where
Speaker 1: he had a you know, a physical and and huge
Speaker 1: length advantage over everybody in the field. But but now
Speaker 1: he's kind of like the crafty veteran who who who
Speaker 1: gets it around and and I think that's That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I wanted to talk with you is that,
Speaker 1: you know, just from an architecture standpoint, set up standpoint,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, the the championship, and this is
Speaker 1: one of the things I think is is it's okay
Speaker 1: to have a championship like this. I think that the
Speaker 1: important thing is to understand that that if we have
Speaker 1: a setup like this, that this is what's going to
Speaker 1: happen more often than not.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, I was getting
Speaker 3: so tired of listening on eighteen of guys hoping the
Speaker 3: ball gets in the bunker.
Speaker 5: It's just it becomes nauseating. At some point.
Speaker 3: Those bunkers are all there, sort of the hallmark of
Speaker 3: the course, and they're supposed to be fears, and you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't even it's frustrating after a while, arrow up
Speaker 3: the fairways, you grow the rough up the guys want
Speaker 3: to get in the bunkers. The most iconic thing about
Speaker 3: bet Page in the first place it is that you're right,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what you're gonna get. So if you're fine
Speaker 3: with that, then then keep running your tournaments that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting.
Speaker 1: And obviously I know the next event will be at
Speaker 1: at Best or at at Pebble, and you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna see much of the same, but a
Speaker 1: much shorter golf course. You know, from from your standpoint,
Speaker 1: from an architecture standpoint, you know, these are two classic
Speaker 1: golf courses. You know, what would you say they were
Speaker 1: being when you narrow the rough? What are we losing
Speaker 1: from a from a standpoint of a viewer, and is
Speaker 1: there what are are we gain?
Speaker 2: What are we gaining?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, you know, I think what you're losing obviously
Speaker 3: is different ways to play hoole like six if that
Speaker 3: page is a great example of fairways way too narrow
Speaker 3: to take advantage of some of the angles that are
Speaker 3: created there. So you you are one the same way,
Speaker 3: It's like you end up with allowing guys to get
Speaker 3: out of position but then still have a recovery. You know,
Speaker 3: part of that's predicated on having interesting greens and in positions,
Speaker 3: which I don't think that page has as much as pebbles.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, if you're in the rough at
Speaker 3: that page, is you're not really the greens aren't asking
Speaker 3: you to be on one side of the fairway or
Speaker 3: for the other oftentimes. Yeah, so you're you're losing some
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 5: And then what was the second part.
Speaker 3: Of your question?
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, what do you do you think
Speaker 1: we're gaining anything with the narrow fairways?
Speaker 2: Is there you know, a way to play?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm out obviously a with advocate. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody doesn't think that, But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: from a Devil's advocate standpoint, do you think there's any
Speaker 1: anything that you know, the general public gains from having
Speaker 1: the narrow fairways thick rough.
Speaker 3: The general public?
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I mean, I understand it if if you're a club
Speaker 3: on a tight budget and you've got you've got to
Speaker 3: worry about dollars, but you know, for a tournament like this,
Speaker 3: it's you're you're making a conscious decision just to assume
Speaker 3: that the well will never go dry. So they're they're
Speaker 3: doing that for a reason, you know. The one if
Speaker 3: if I had to play Devil's Advocate. The one thing
Speaker 3: I I think they think it tests is if you're
Speaker 3: gonna take on the risky play, you're going to have
Speaker 3: to hit it straight and you're going to have to
Speaker 3: hit a great shot, or you can lay back and
Speaker 3: it'll you know, and then you've got more options. You're
Speaker 3: just further away. But they really like to test these guys.
Speaker 3: They're just putting the onus on them. I think there's
Speaker 3: different ways to test a good player, But if that's
Speaker 3: the way they want to go about it, then you're
Speaker 3: going to see more venues like Beth Page or so. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just how do you want to challenge
Speaker 3: these guys? And that's the way they've chosen to challenge them.
Speaker 3: And I don't necessarily agree that it's the best challenge,
Speaker 3: but it's certainly the consistent challenge, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I find it kind of fascinating because to me, what
Speaker 1: Best Page did with it? When you're making when the
Speaker 1: fairways are I think on average, they were twenty six
Speaker 1: yards wide. You know, you're the average tour pro, say
Speaker 1: it's three hundred yards. They're dispersion from you know, right
Speaker 1: to left. Miss is about seventy yards right, And if
Speaker 1: you lay back with a three iron, you know, your
Speaker 1: chances of hitting the fairway are only marginally better because
Speaker 1: of how narrow it is, right, Yeah, and then you're
Speaker 1: leaving a really long approach and do a green. A
Speaker 1: lot of those greens are elevated with with fronting hazards,
Speaker 1: so you're hitting you know, long irons in there's there
Speaker 1: was really no reason to lay back, you know, there was,
Speaker 1: and I think Brooks, you know, took full advantage of that.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what we saw. Brooks hit driver almost everywhere.
Speaker 1: And you know, and then when he missed the fairway,
Speaker 1: he was fine because he was hitting the high lofted
Speaker 1: clubs into the greens that require an aerial approach, and
Speaker 1: he's you know, the one thing you can't take away
Speaker 1: is his strength was clearly an advantage with this type
Speaker 1: of setup.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, even even when he found himself in trouble,
Speaker 3: he's strong enough to get it out of that rough.
Speaker 3: You know, I think of HB three with his with
Speaker 3: his shot on the last day that just went forty
Speaker 3: five degrees left. And I think Brooks was over there
Speaker 3: maybe Friday, and it could have very well been a
Speaker 3: different live but it was in the same sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: and he's just strong enough to muscle it out.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: And I think about six two when you say there's
Speaker 3: no advantage to lay up, that's a perfect example of
Speaker 3: they were asking guys to be really precise, even for
Speaker 3: their layouts, or even for even for yeah, clubbing down
Speaker 3: where if you just open up a little fair way
Speaker 3: to the right and make it thirty or thirty five
Speaker 3: yards wide, it gives guys more incentive to lay back
Speaker 3: and not take on that risk, which you know, like
Speaker 3: like you said, if you're if you're going to force
Speaker 3: their hand, then they're always going to take the longer club.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you watch a lot of the Open at the
Speaker 1: US Open at Aaron Hill's when it was there?
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if I did.
Speaker 5: I think I was working. What was that two years ago?
Speaker 2: Yeah, two years ago, twenty seventeen. There's a have you
Speaker 2: been out there?
Speaker 3: Though I haven't been out to Aaron Hill No. All
Speaker 3: I know is Tom talks about it. I think Tom
Speaker 3: did a routing out there and that it was a
Speaker 3: great piece of land. So that's about as much as
Speaker 3: I know about it other than what I saw on TV.
Speaker 1: It's I've been looking into stuff and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: write a little bit of an article, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if it'll ever ever come to fruition. As you know,
Speaker 1: writing happens a lot of times. But the it's a
Speaker 1: I find all these compelling parallels with Aaron Hills and
Speaker 1: Beth Page, but like a starkly different setup, right.
Speaker 2: You know, Brooks won.
Speaker 1: Both of those titles, shooting two seventy two, and you
Speaker 1: know both of them. I think the general golf world
Speaker 1: had like the same takeaway from it is like, Wow,
Speaker 1: Brooks just overpowered the golf course.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And the big difference was, you know, Aaron Hills, we
Speaker 1: saw forty fifty sixty yard wide pharaways and Beth Page
Speaker 1: we saw we saw twenty six yard wide pharaways right right,
Speaker 1: And and what we saw at Beth Page. You know,
Speaker 1: Beth Page, nobody really had a shot except for DJ
Speaker 1: in the in the fleeting moments. But DJ is the
Speaker 1: same style players Brooks, right. So, but then you look,
Speaker 1: you look at Aaron Hills and there were you know,
Speaker 1: Sunday going into Sunday, it was you know, long setup
Speaker 1: and a ton of guys had a shot and you know,
Speaker 1: including the likes. You know, you had Brian Harmon, you
Speaker 1: had a Headecki, Tommy Fleetwood, Bill Hass, you know, Charlie
Speaker 1: Hoffman as well as you know Fowler and JT. You know,
Speaker 1: you had a wide range of guys in that mix.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was an interesting parallel because that
Speaker 1: was not the Brooks you know, finished seventh on the
Speaker 1: week and driving distance fourth and driving accuracy and first
Speaker 1: in greens and regulation.
Speaker 2: Like he clearly just struck the ball beautifully.
Speaker 1: But then you know you got Brian Harmon finishing runner
Speaker 1: up and he's fifty second in driving distance, And I just.
Speaker 2: Thought it was an interesting difference. Is like.
Speaker 1: You weren't seeing any short hitters thrive at Bethpage. And
Speaker 1: I think that those narrow fairways, it's counterintuitive, just like golf,
Speaker 1: where the narrow fairways just took them.
Speaker 2: Out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and so are you saying, I suppose I'm
Speaker 3: curious what you think the difference is. Do you think
Speaker 3: it's only the width of the fairways or that's the
Speaker 3: biggest aspect of it. That sort of made it more
Speaker 3: of a well rounded field on Sunday at Aaron Hills
Speaker 3: compared to bet Page.
Speaker 1: Well, so it's a huge ballpark, right, So it was like,
Speaker 1: I think it was seventy seven hundred yards, Beth Page
Speaker 1: was seventy four.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of similarities. They both had, they
Speaker 2: had rain.
Speaker 1: I think the big difference was beth Page got that
Speaker 1: wind on Sunday, but Aaron Hills never got really the wind.
Speaker 2: That they expected.
Speaker 1: But the thing about it is like, so Brian, say,
Speaker 1: take chez Revi, who was in the mix. He had
Speaker 1: a bad last day there. He was he hit ninety
Speaker 1: one percent of the fairways. He's one of the shortest
Speaker 1: hitters on tour. So he hit ninety one percent of
Speaker 1: the fairways at Aaron Hills. And like that's a skill
Speaker 1: that was allowed to thrive and and from the fairway.
Speaker 1: These shorter guys can can compete because they can hit
Speaker 1: long irons close. That's way, that's why they're making a
Speaker 1: living out there, right. But if you if these guys,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're say they're dispersion sixty yards right.
Speaker 2: The shorter hitters, yeah, they can't hit.
Speaker 1: They can't hit ninety percent of fairways at at uh
Speaker 1: at a bath.
Speaker 2: Page, No that would. But if you can't, I can't
Speaker 2: hit those four irons from the rough.
Speaker 3: Though, you know, right, it's it's the four arms from
Speaker 3: the rough. And then it's it's also the uh, the
Speaker 3: fact that those fairways are wide.
Speaker 5: Still.
Speaker 3: You may be in the fairway, but you're on the
Speaker 3: totally wrong side of the fairway and you've got to
Speaker 3: pull off an incredible shot or you have to know
Speaker 3: where to miss on the green and just accept the
Speaker 3: fact that, yeah, I hit another fairaway, but I have
Speaker 3: no shot at its taking on this screen. I have
Speaker 3: to completely play away from the pin. And I imagine
Speaker 3: a player like Brian Harmon is really good at that.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that Brooks kept is
Speaker 3: really underrated at is knowing where to miss. The guy
Speaker 3: just very rarely short sides himself, and he is so
Speaker 3: he's so aggressive when he needs to be and never
Speaker 3: when he has to be, and he never feels outside pressure.
Speaker 3: It's almost like he's he knows where all seventy two
Speaker 3: pen positions are going to be, and he's mapped out
Speaker 3: wherever he miss is for every day, and he just
Speaker 3: goes about assistance. And I just I don't think there
Speaker 3: are many guys in the world who are capable of
Speaker 3: having that kind of restriction and confidence in their game
Speaker 3: and restraint. So I think he's got to give him
Speaker 3: some credit to where it probably worked out that way both.
Speaker 5: At Aaron Hills and his best page.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely.
Speaker 1: And and this is this conversations knows like whatsoever. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he's the best player in the world. And
Speaker 1: obviously with like you know, uh with with hint, with
Speaker 1: power players that always have the ability to be the
Speaker 1: most dominant players in the in the world. And there's
Speaker 1: a reason why the greatest players of all time have
Speaker 1: all been power players is because, like you know, most
Speaker 1: skills in golf are very have high variance. Like you know,
Speaker 1: day to day, you don't know what's going to come
Speaker 1: when you walk to the golf course. But if you
Speaker 1: have power, that's coming with you every day, you know.
Speaker 1: So if you are able to master all the other
Speaker 1: skills you know and you have power, you're going to
Speaker 1: be better than the guy that masters all the skills
Speaker 1: and doesn't have power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, just teaching those guys with power to
Speaker 3: to not always lean on that, you know, and maybe
Speaker 3: it takes those guys a lot of time to learn,
Speaker 3: and the really good ones learning quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's it's a fascinating thing with with Keopka,
Speaker 1: just because, like I think he's he's the first player
Speaker 1: we've seen since Tiger that really has like where you
Speaker 1: look at his game and you're like, he's he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any glaring deficiencies, right, you know, Jason Day had
Speaker 1: a great run, but you always were like, well, he
Speaker 1: gets a little squirrely with the driver, his iron game
Speaker 1: isn't that great, but he's you know, wonderful around the
Speaker 1: green speeth.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't have the power. You know, he
Speaker 2: doesn't have the power.
Speaker 1: And then you got like Rory, You're always wondering if
Speaker 1: the putter is going to show up, whereas like, you know, Keepka.
Speaker 1: That's that's his strength, I mean, and that's it's why
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that we've seen him win at so
Speaker 1: many different types of golf courses, whether it be Shinnacock,
Speaker 1: Aaron Hill's, Bethpage or Belle reeve. You know that, you know,
Speaker 1: three distinctly different styles there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 3: And and I guess every one of them. What I
Speaker 3: think it's underrated because rightfully so what what gets all
Speaker 3: the headlines? Brooks over powers of fields. But I really
Speaker 3: do think his ability to think around a golf course
Speaker 3: is underrated. And and maybe that's what a lot of
Speaker 3: golf courses that they play on tour are lacking. Is
Speaker 3: you're it's just the bombing gouge. You don't really have
Speaker 3: to think.
Speaker 5: About where to min.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to think about when to
Speaker 3: be aggressive or not to be aggressive. Those guys just
Speaker 3: hitting as far as they can, and those really good
Speaker 3: tests of golf always sort of bring out the thinkers,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting how the how the major championships, how
Speaker 1: they're so distinctly the leaderboard kind of separates differently, and
Speaker 1: you see different guys on the leader boards at majors
Speaker 1: than you would at your run of the mill Tour event. Now,
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Speaker 1: Now back to Blake Conan, you know, kind of going
Speaker 1: on with thinking like a lot of people say that
Speaker 1: angles don't really matter at the professional level.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would tend to agree almost they just
Speaker 3: hit them all to fucking high that it. You know,
Speaker 3: if if you've got a green that's sloping away from
Speaker 3: at one and a half percent, but they hit their
Speaker 3: four iron or five iron one hundred and thirty feet high,
Speaker 3: they still have enough room to stop it. And you
Speaker 3: can't get green so crazy that you've got something sloping
Speaker 3: away from the line of play at three percent just
Speaker 3: to combat that zero point one percent of good golfers.
Speaker 3: So you know, at some point you can't you can't
Speaker 3: design stuff to hurt everybody else or that vast majority
Speaker 3: of the field just to challenge that guy with with
Speaker 3: angles that you know, at at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: they're they're really really good and if they pull off
Speaker 3: a good drive and a good high four iron to
Speaker 3: get to the green they have a birdie putt, then
Speaker 3: you know, congratulations. And maybe that's maybe that's what the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour why they grow the rough up so high.
Speaker 5: They've just been defeated for.
Speaker 3: The past twenty years. They don't know how to challenge
Speaker 3: these guys anymore, but they know that rough works, and
Speaker 3: so that's that's their sort of defeat is mentality. You know,
Speaker 3: I'd be curious to see some I'd be curious to
Speaker 3: see some sharper angles, something sharper than like twenty degrees. Say,
Speaker 3: you know, if you started getting like a thirty or
Speaker 3: forty degree angle, or I guess it would be like
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty degree angle
Speaker 3: if you look at it, something like thirteen at Augusta
Speaker 3: it is that's when you're starting to get the angles
Speaker 3: that challenge those guys. But just a slight dog legs
Speaker 3: isn't anything that they really think about.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's an interesting thought, because, like I
Speaker 1: feel like most classic golf courses in classic design, you know,
Speaker 1: you saw very few sharp dog legs. Then they came
Speaker 1: in and kind of vogue in the sixties seventies that
Speaker 1: you saw a lot more dog tree lined dog legs.
Speaker 1: And you know the now I think we're going back
Speaker 1: towards that straighter golf design. Do you think, you know,
Speaker 1: if you were thinking about professionals that you know, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of modernizing those dog legs of.
Speaker 2: Yesteryear, modernizing the dog leg because like.
Speaker 1: You know, like Point of Woods for example, which was
Speaker 1: like the longtime host of the Western m I remember
Speaker 1: hearing that, you know, like they you know, Dustin Johnson's
Speaker 1: out there. He was played in one of the last
Speaker 1: ones there. They're going back this year, but you know
Speaker 1: he was just taking it over all the dog legs.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and and I'm curious, was the turning point of
Speaker 3: those dog legs based on older distances or it's the
Speaker 3: turning point or the angle in which it turns more
Speaker 3: set up.
Speaker 5: For a pro disting there.
Speaker 1: I think I think what happened was it is a
Speaker 1: obviously it's an RTJ course and it was set at
Speaker 1: a former pro length.
Speaker 4: Okay, so then.
Speaker 3: He has to take off the corner or he has
Speaker 3: to clumb down to play it as the whole intended.
Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, and so he chose like, hey, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to launch it over the trees all week.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 5: I you know, what do you want?
Speaker 3: What do you do for that?
Speaker 5: How do you.
Speaker 1: That's the crazy the crazy question because then like the
Speaker 1: I think that's where the tricky thing is with where
Speaker 1: kind of golf is going, is like, okay, so dog
Speaker 1: legs work, right, but then like, how do you design
Speaker 1: a dog leg for for brooks Kopka and you're eighteen
Speaker 1: handicap that plays on the weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the one thing you have
Speaker 3: to do is make sure the turning point are set
Speaker 3: for the majority of golfers. Now, whether it's a hinge
Speaker 3: turning point or whether it it's gradually been you know,
Speaker 3: you can't start putting the turning points at three hundred
Speaker 3: to make those guys think, because then you're gonna end
Speaker 3: up with ninety percent of the golfers you can't make
Speaker 3: it around the corner and are stuck behind a bunker,
Speaker 3: stuck behind trees, have a bad angle to the green,
Speaker 3: you know whatever. I just think that that would be
Speaker 3: catering too much as a professional, you know, And the
Speaker 3: one thing that that makes the pros do is get
Speaker 3: into the decision of something like, uh, we're dust to
Speaker 3: dustan where you either have to club down and yeah
Speaker 3: you've got to turn over your five wood or you
Speaker 3: have to try to bomb your driver over the trees.
Speaker 3: Is it? Is it tp? Is it stagraph that has
Speaker 3: the limb that overhangs one of the back piece to
Speaker 3: force the pros trajectory down. Is that it stawgrass?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think they have I'm not sure. I don't
Speaker 1: think they have one there. If they did, it would
Speaker 1: be one of those holes on the back line, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, and I didn't know it.
Speaker 1: Back line sounds right, But you know what what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, I think is one of the things this
Speaker 1: week Colonial does to a lot of guys, Like they
Speaker 1: have those dog legs out there, and I know Rom
Speaker 1: has been playing them very very aggressively, like you know,
Speaker 1: going over, But for the most part, guys all play
Speaker 1: to the corners of the dog legs. And that's why
Speaker 1: you see it like a really wide range of guys
Speaker 1: that win at Colonial.
Speaker 3: Interesting. Okay, then it comes down of who's playing the
Speaker 3: best golf this week, not who's just overpowering the field
Speaker 3: and having the be yard closer to the pan every hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you?
Speaker 1: I mean so so obviously with the Masters, you we
Speaker 1: get you know, at Augusta we get a very strategic setup,
Speaker 1: and the Open for the most part, we get one
Speaker 1: as well. You know, do you see do you think
Speaker 1: there's you know, like everything like golf architecture there. It's
Speaker 1: great to have variety within the design. Do you think
Speaker 1: do you think having variety in the Championship setups is good?
Speaker 1: Or do you do you feel like, you know, the
Speaker 1: setups should be in a manner which anybody can win,
Speaker 1: any style can win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it should reward who plays the best
Speaker 3: golf and that includes all paths of golf shots right
Speaker 3: and clearly how to challenge those guys is the subjective argument.
Speaker 3: I'm I really love watching the Open Championship and linked
Speaker 3: golf and watching guys have to think around a golf course.
Speaker 3: I like when the wind can suddenly shift and not
Speaker 3: everything is a manicured surface. You're you're having to go
Speaker 3: around and play around of golf and the conditions that
Speaker 3: are presented to you that day. It's you know, as
Speaker 3: far as the twenty five yards of fairway straight up
Speaker 3: the guts with six inches of rup you know, moan
Speaker 3: fifteen yards off of the fairway, it just becomes so
Speaker 3: repetitive and grinding. You can tell it's a grind to play,
Speaker 3: it's a grind to watch. It's just not a very compelling,
Speaker 3: not a very compelling product on So I don't know
Speaker 3: if that goes into their thinking at all of is
Speaker 3: it fun to watch or not, But that's sort of
Speaker 3: that's how I felt it.
Speaker 5: This year's PGA.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: One of the other things thought about with it is
Speaker 1: the is the the surrounds of the green also played
Speaker 1: kind of into you know, if it kind of played
Speaker 1: into like hitting it far and not worrying if it
Speaker 1: was in the rough, because there was you know, with
Speaker 1: all the rough around the greens. If you as long
Speaker 1: as you hit it near the green, it was going
Speaker 1: to stop around the green.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's that, you know. Justin Rose Off the
Speaker 3: back of floor had a bitch of a time from
Speaker 3: behind the green, one of the only plates where they
Speaker 3: had mown down short ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was like the only hole where we saw
Speaker 1: and I mean that that was such a cool hole
Speaker 1: with that green running away on the uphill approach and uh,
Speaker 1: and that's where we saw so many guys end up
Speaker 1: back there and it were rolls away. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like one of the few times we saw people the
Speaker 1: ball rolling away and there is like a discernible difference
Speaker 1: between a great and a good shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally and not you know a lot of guys
Speaker 3: not willing to take the most fun watching those guys
Speaker 3: who aren't willing to take their medicine when there's short
Speaker 3: grass around the greens and and that stuff is really
Speaker 3: compelling to watch when you have a guy get a
Speaker 3: little bit too greedy and then the ball comes right
Speaker 3: back to his seat because he didn't put enough on
Speaker 3: it and instead, you know, four, if you're behind the green,
Speaker 3: just pitch it out to the middle of the green
Speaker 3: and leave yourself a fifteen footer and take your par
Speaker 3: and call it good. And that's the stuff that leaks
Speaker 3: golf does so well, or the Open Championship, because there's
Speaker 3: always an abundance of short grass around the greens and
Speaker 3: you know, the ball can roll out a little further,
Speaker 3: the ball can get stopped on a funky little knob
Speaker 3: behind a funky little knob, you know, whatever, just make
Speaker 3: the recovery and the golf more interesting. You know. The
Speaker 3: one thing, I'll say, the one thing that Brooks has
Speaker 3: talked about in Houston because he's he's the one who's
Speaker 3: sort of like the PGA tour consultants or the pro
Speaker 3: consultants down there. And I haven't spent time with him,
Speaker 3: but his ideas have been relayed down the wire and
Speaker 3: he says they're challenged the most by awkward stances and
Speaker 3: rough around the green, or at least he is. So
Speaker 3: I think there's room for that. I think the problem
Speaker 3: it poses the bet page is there aren't really that
Speaker 3: many awkward stances. You know, if your ball's in the rough,
Speaker 3: you usually have a pretty level lie or up to
Speaker 3: lie in the rough. You know that there aren't many
Speaker 3: places where you're totally sideways trying to pitch out. But
Speaker 3: that is the one thing that he's talked about that
Speaker 3: does give them fits. And and maybe it's a combination
Speaker 3: of you've got to you know, ten yards or short
Speaker 3: grats around the green to let the ball get away,
Speaker 3: but then it gets into rough and some awkward lines
Speaker 3: in the and that the way to give those guys
Speaker 3: a little bit more of a challenge around the green.
Speaker 1: One of the things I always think about with pros
Speaker 1: and I I don't know if you have a good
Speaker 1: idea for this, but like my one of the things
Speaker 1: I always think about is like what makes a PGA
Speaker 1: What makes most PGA tour players. One of the things
Speaker 1: that's like is they're irrationally confident. You know, they're like
Speaker 1: a great They're all almost for the most part, like
Speaker 1: great three point shooters in the NBA, where it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if they've missed the last ten. They like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna pull the trigger, and they like with the
Speaker 1: same confidence every time. So something like that I think
Speaker 1: about a lot is the ability.
Speaker 2: To kind of trick them.
Speaker 1: You can't trick the pros when they're in the rough
Speaker 1: because like they they get they're in the rough and
Speaker 1: they get more cautious and and they're very they're actually
Speaker 1: extremely cautious players. You know, the best golfers are like
Speaker 1: you said, with Brooks, he's always missing in the right spots.
Speaker 1: He's because he's he's cautious. But if you're on short grass,
Speaker 1: they they then go into they kind of flip into
Speaker 1: irrational confidence mode. Right, Yeah, so like that, that to
Speaker 1: me is one area where I have I think Shinnakok
Speaker 1: did it well.
Speaker 2: Does that well? Where you know it is terrifying.
Speaker 1: But because they're in the fair way, they they think
Speaker 1: they can hit any shot, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just blindly believing that based on the cut of
Speaker 3: grass rather than thinking about the golf hole and the
Speaker 3: strategy of that golf hole.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And we we saw that too, because like you know,
Speaker 1: if you put water next to the green, they're gonna
Speaker 1: all play away from it all day long to the
Speaker 1: safe side.
Speaker 2: But if if you get a bunker and.
Speaker 1: Contours like some of the holes at Shinnacok, they're going
Speaker 1: to hit it into the bunker because they're going to
Speaker 1: get more aggressive because it's not water, they don't and
Speaker 1: that green can run away and they could be the
Speaker 1: worst spot than if you hid it in the water
Speaker 1: almost and yeah, and they you know, then they get
Speaker 1: frustrated because they can't you know, hole the green or
Speaker 1: whatever from that bunker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's the problem. They're too they're too quick
Speaker 3: to hate something about understanding the reason why and how,
Speaker 3: and they've got a platform to speak up about it
Speaker 3: cause change really quickly, which is also frustrating from an
Speaker 3: architecture point of view, where you'd rather have a discussion
Speaker 3: about you know the fact that challenging you in a
Speaker 3: good thing, and here's why, and here's you know, here's
Speaker 3: what you've been given to play away from it. You
Speaker 3: chose not to and you got stuckered into playing over there.
Speaker 3: Sorry next time, don't.
Speaker 2: It was interesting I had that.
Speaker 1: I had the economist on Ian Fillmore, who wasn't a
Speaker 1: golfer at all, but he kind of he talked about
Speaker 1: the technology change and the new breed golfer and and
Speaker 1: how he kind of believed it was on architects to
Speaker 1: make the next move. But you know, like you just
Speaker 1: kind of hit on, like to a certain extent. If
Speaker 1: the architects make a move and do something unique and different,
Speaker 1: then there's there's backlash and and in some cases, you know,
Speaker 1: the changes get remade to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the course? Uh Gill tried to do something
Speaker 3: on Boston. Who at Boston. Yeah, it's a great example,
Speaker 3: and honestly, I think it's I think the locker room
Speaker 3: at PGA tour events is probably like a middle school
Speaker 3: girl girls' locker room where one guy hates something and
Speaker 3: sees something and it spreads like wildfire until everybody's infected.
Speaker 3: And you know, even though they may not have even
Speaker 3: seen it, they hate it, and it's it's it's just
Speaker 3: hard to it's hard to, like you said, introduce something
Speaker 3: new or try to challenge them in a different way
Speaker 3: than they're used to and and have an open conversation
Speaker 3: about why it's good or how it worked or did
Speaker 3: it not work? And ultimately that's the problem with all
Speaker 3: subjective conversations. But there's there's got to be something that
Speaker 3: something that we can try.
Speaker 1: What have you watched any of the Trinity for Forest
Speaker 1: uh coverage?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I watched a bit of it. Yeah, what what's what?
Speaker 3: What's picking your mind about that place?
Speaker 2: I've just what did what did you think of?
Speaker 1: Obviously, like I feel the thing that always gets me,
Speaker 1: it's like par I think is one of the big issues.
Speaker 1: Like and everybody's like, oh, it's so easy out of
Speaker 1: Trinity Forest, but I think we always see somebody like
Speaker 1: separate and in that place really rewards great play, you know,
Speaker 1: and if you let go of scoring, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what are your thoughts on Triny forrest and
Speaker 1: scoring and and what you saw from the stuff you
Speaker 1: watched out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's Teta Green. It's not a hard
Speaker 3: golf course, but that is set up in a way
Speaker 3: where there's short grass around the greens, and that's the
Speaker 3: stuff that challenges those guys. You've got to have restraints
Speaker 3: to missing the right spot, and even though the fairways
Speaker 3: are wide and you may have hit the fairway, you
Speaker 3: probably can't attack certain pins on certain days. So that's
Speaker 3: what I really like about that challenge of the golf course.
Speaker 3: Like you said that, everybody it's up in arms because
Speaker 3: the winning score is twenty under, but you know who,
Speaker 3: if the par is two less there or one less there,
Speaker 3: then it's suddenly twelve or sixteen and nobody's complaining at all.
Speaker 3: So I think Trinity Forest is a it's a really
Speaker 3: compelling golf course and you certainly got to think your
Speaker 3: way around it and know where to miss, which again,
Speaker 3: if you saw any of Brooks's coverage, he hardly ever
Speaker 3: missed in the wrong spot there either, which gave himself
Speaker 3: a chance.
Speaker 2: What with with Trinity.
Speaker 1: And par like, do you ever think we're going to
Speaker 1: get to the point where somebody just says that, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a par sixty eight. I hope.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if it would. I don't know
Speaker 3: who will do that. If there would one PGA, like
Speaker 3: a PGA Tour event that says this is the par
Speaker 3: sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a Trinity might be a perfect example. I
Speaker 1: think it's par seventy one. What if they just said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be par sixty nine and the only par
Speaker 1: five next year is the uh is the fourteenth?
Speaker 2: That like six hundred yarder up the hill?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 5: I'd love to see that.
Speaker 3: Just to start, just to break the wheel.
Speaker 5: A little bit.
Speaker 3: And I, you know, I don't know if any I
Speaker 3: would think something like that would start at you know,
Speaker 3: say US Women Senior Am and I don't know if
Speaker 3: any of those tournaments had ever been hosted as a
Speaker 3: par sixty eight or sixty nine, but that would be
Speaker 3: you know, that would be a good place to test
Speaker 3: it out and bring it into into further further tournaments.
Speaker 3: I I have a hard time believing the PGH or
Speaker 3: whatever do it, but I think it would be awesome
Speaker 3: to watch.
Speaker 1: Well you think about it, so like out at Trinity
Speaker 1: one and uh, one and seven are power fives on
Speaker 1: the front nine, and uh I looked at the numbers
Speaker 1: for seven, and you know, nobody, nobody who hit a
Speaker 1: good drive wasn't going for it in two, And the
Speaker 1: same with you know one, Guys are hitting you know,
Speaker 1: short irons into it sometimes some days. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, what wasn't there you know some writing about
Speaker 1: back in the day about what a par five constitutes
Speaker 1: a par five?
Speaker 3: I'm sure there was one specific, no.
Speaker 1: Just in general, like it would be like, you know,
Speaker 1: three well struck golf shots right would get you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that's like the way to play it. So
Speaker 1: like if that's the if, if we're applying this to
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, you know, like shouldn't applied to the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour differently than Joe Schmoe golfer.
Speaker 3: Perhaps, aren't aren't they? Like aren't they trying to not
Speaker 3: go down that road?
Speaker 5: Though? Contend?
Speaker 3: Is it that a delippery slope towards any type of
Speaker 3: five ucation talk?
Speaker 1: But that's the thing I always like think about, is
Speaker 1: like they you know, like Brooks Kopka couldn't be further.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you if say the regular guy hits
Speaker 1: at two thirty, brooks Kopka hits it three twenty. You know,
Speaker 1: how can you even compare them with the same you know.
Speaker 2: Par.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I get your point.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's it's a it's a tricky
Speaker 1: situation because like I think that what technology has done
Speaker 1: is is it's gotten golf even further away from you know,
Speaker 1: the greats and the average guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a whole it's a it's a conversation that's
Speaker 3: not dissimilar from any like wealthy quality conversation you have,
Speaker 3: which is totally not meant for this podcast. But yeah,
Speaker 3: like you, you do things to try to make things
Speaker 3: more equal, and what you've ended up doing is furthering
Speaker 3: the gap, whether consciously or or unconsciously, you know, which,
Speaker 3: like you said, that's what rough does to these long tournaments.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what car is doing to the average player,
Speaker 3: the professional So a way to you know, like you're
Speaker 3: talking about trying to figure out a way to even
Speaker 3: the playing field a bit, would you say?
Speaker 2: Not even?
Speaker 1: But you know, like how because people complain when there's
Speaker 1: width that it becomes too easy, right, That's that's what
Speaker 1: Then when there's when if we have with then it's
Speaker 1: too easy because of the scores.
Speaker 2: They're shooting to par.
Speaker 3: And that's the hardest. It's so hard talking to clop
Speaker 3: or for anybody that is like you're trying to evangelize
Speaker 3: them into a new way to think about golf course architecture,
Speaker 3: and it's the wi conversation that's tough.
Speaker 5: It's and it's like I.
Speaker 3: Remember Brian Schneider was working at a club within the
Speaker 3: Northeast and the better players were sort of against the restoration,
Speaker 3: and the restoration took you know, a group of seven
Speaker 3: high handicappers, and then a year after the restoration was done,
Speaker 3: had found out that the high and mid handicappers handicaps
Speaker 3: had gone down one or two and the scratch conference
Speaker 3: had stayed the same or even gotten a little higher themselves.
Speaker 3: So you went back to him with this information of
Speaker 3: like remember all that talk about how with was wit
Speaker 3: was going to make the golf course easier and taking
Speaker 3: trees down, it's going to make the golf course easier,
Speaker 3: And there's like qualitative evidence towards the contrary. Yet they
Speaker 3: still didn't even accept that. So I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't I think that's the same issue that you
Speaker 3: would have on with larger scales.
Speaker 5: Talking about the DGA.
Speaker 3: Tour, it's just so hard to convince people that you know,
Speaker 3: adding with is not going to make the golf course easier,
Speaker 3: even with evidence right in front of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because then because then with presents a different option
Speaker 1: or a different difficulty. Then it's like picking your line
Speaker 1: becomes part of the So I don't know, we're preaching
Speaker 1: to the gospel here, it's not.
Speaker 3: I think that's not the right way to go about it.
Speaker 3: To work in cohesion with what you're doing at the green,
Speaker 3: what you're doing to the entire golf pool. You can't
Speaker 3: just start mowing random fairways wider and expecting that to
Speaker 3: be the light bulb moment. It's got to be a
Speaker 3: well thought out. You've got to know when and where
Speaker 3: to get wider relative to what's happening at the green
Speaker 3: and what you're doing at the green, whether you're adding
Speaker 3: short grass to one side or you know, adding short
Speaker 3: grass all around it. Just yeah, it's got to be
Speaker 3: it's gotta be a little more well thought out too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this, uh, this has been good. I know
Speaker 2: you've got a busy day.
Speaker 1: You're the life of a young architect, you're just checking
Speaker 1: out golf courses.
Speaker 3: I know, I'm well, I just got done. So Eric Iverson,
Speaker 3: one of senior associates he worked, did a little work
Speaker 3: on his own, and I just went and thought for
Speaker 3: the first time. Of course, he had done about twenty
Speaker 3: miles north of Omaha and Blair, Nebraska. He added like
Speaker 3: nine or ten holes, and they're really good. I'll send
Speaker 3: you some pictures. The holes he added are great, and
Speaker 3: it's it's one of those things it's like, yeah, it
Speaker 3: could be wider, and the greens could be mown out
Speaker 3: to where the original pad is. They've done a pretty
Speaker 3: good job of keeping the green is pretty big. So
Speaker 3: it was really I was glad to find out that
Speaker 3: there's some good public golf somewhere around Omaha, because we
Speaker 3: don't have much of it. And now I've got. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's called River Wild in and it's in Blair, Nebraska.
Speaker 5: And the holes that he did.
Speaker 3: It's different than what I've seen from any of these
Speaker 3: smaller parld courses where the nine he added was interspersed
Speaker 3: with the original nine rather than just tacking nine more
Speaker 3: holes onto an adjacent property. So it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: He added a couple Green did some of the existing
Speaker 3: corridors and then added seven or eighty two holes, so
Speaker 3: it's done in a different way than most.
Speaker 5: Others around here.
Speaker 2: Too interesting, That's that's neat. Yeah, that's h I got it.
Speaker 1: We're I think I'm gonna do a big Nebraska trip
Speaker 1: for end of end of June, so maybe i'll get
Speaker 1: it added to the itinerary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't you know if you're coming through Omaha, it'd
Speaker 3: be a place I got around into.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: So uh with the last question, what uh so Pebble,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna have similar thick, rough, narrow fairways,
Speaker 1: but you know it's a much shorter golf course.
Speaker 2: Would you expect the long hitters to thrive again?
Speaker 1: Or do you think we're gonna see more variety?
Speaker 3: I think you'll see more variety. It's based on the link.
Speaker 3: But they're really small greens too at Pebble. I think
Speaker 3: the greens at that page were quite a bit bigger.
Speaker 3: So I'll be curious to see how that affects the guys.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe somebody who has a really good short
Speaker 3: game around.
Speaker 4: Green will do well, Hey, you just broke your.
Speaker 5: Gonna be a bomber.
Speaker 1: Sorry where just you talked about short game and then
Speaker 1: that's where.
Speaker 2: He broke up.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, just I think somebody with a short game
Speaker 3: in recovery. You know, I don't know how many greens
Speaker 3: and regulations people will hit. I'm sure it'll be less
Speaker 3: than whatever it was. So then yeah, who's got a
Speaker 3: good wedge game out of the rough? I mean, do
Speaker 3: you see it being the bomb and guy like well
Speaker 3: Brooks take driver off every t I can't imagine that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many places he can't even hit driver.
Speaker 1: You know, like you think like one's not a driver hole,
Speaker 1: eight's not a driver hole, six is in a driver hole,
Speaker 1: four is in a driver hole. So you start to
Speaker 1: think about all the holes that aren't driver holes. You know,
Speaker 1: even like fifteen and sixteen aren't driver holes. So you're
Speaker 1: going to see I think it takes. It's gonna it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Obviously they're narrowing the fairways because of par You know
Speaker 1: that you can't tell me any any other reason for
Speaker 1: narrowing them. But I think that we will see a
Speaker 1: a much wider range of players. I think you're you're
Speaker 1: I think the big thing is where it's not going
Speaker 1: to be a forty yard discrepancy between your shorter hitters
Speaker 1: and brooks every hole and and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: then that makes up for the long rough. Like you know,
Speaker 1: if they're both playing from one hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 1: from the rough, it's a lot more equal than if
Speaker 1: one guy is one fifty and the other guys you know,
Speaker 1: one ninety. Yeah, very true, but I'd rather see it wide,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously.
Speaker 3: But it's just so weird when the bunkers are on
Speaker 3: an island of rough, you know, original bunkers. What's really
Speaker 3: scary is like what they've started doing at Riviera is
Speaker 3: when they start moving the bunkers to match these professional
Speaker 3: golf fairly lines and many start changing the architecture as
Speaker 3: a golf course place for everybody, which is very prostrating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's the.
Speaker 1: It's retrofitting golf for the absolute smallest percentage of golfers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You end up windening that that gap
Speaker 3: even further. And Riviera is the most private and private club,
Speaker 3: so they're they're not comparable to that paid or anything
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: But it's it's so funny because I played Old Elm
Speaker 1: with Zach Blair the other day and yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: you know, he was playing, we're playing, and and the
Speaker 1: thing we're talking about when we're going around we could
Speaker 1: you know, it's all the fallaway greens that we kept
Speaker 1: finding our shots just trickling off the green, you know.
Speaker 1: And that to me, that's like a perfect example of
Speaker 1: something that that the the eighteen handicap isn't going to notice.
Speaker 1: But like if I catch a iron just a hair thin,
Speaker 1: it's the difference between having ten feet for birdie and
Speaker 1: chipping back up the green.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And the fact that every green out there
Speaker 3: crown and old elm. I mean I felt like a
Speaker 3: ton of those greens crown, which that'll do, Like that's
Speaker 3: what doesn't.
Speaker 2: A lot of them were, I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: them are.
Speaker 1: But then they have a lot of fallaway greens too,
Speaker 1: you know, where it just moves with the natural movement
Speaker 1: of the ground.
Speaker 2: Blake, thanks for coming on you.
Speaker 1: Everybody can find you on Twitter at Dundee Golf. You're
Speaker 1: working with Renaissance as a shaper and trying to do
Speaker 1: some of your own work I imagine in the near future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely, just trying to find opportunities and make.
Speaker 5: Golf a little bit better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we'll uh well, we'll have you on again.
Speaker 1: One of these days we're going to actually talk about
Speaker 1: your life, you know, instead of just random times.
Speaker 3: I like talking about golf better.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So thanks for coming on and enjoy the rest
Speaker 1: of the day road tripping and the sand hills.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do
Speaker 2: the digging for you.