Speaker 1: I miss the green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a fried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Friday, Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off.
Speaker 3: Of the Welcome back to another edition of the Friday
Speaker 3: Egg Golf Podcast. I'm your host, Andy Johnson, and welcome
Speaker 3: to another episode of our series with golf architect Tom Doak.
Speaker 2: I was excited.
Speaker 3: I made a last minute decision to head to Traverse
Speaker 3: City for one of our events at the Kingsley Club
Speaker 3: and was able to catch Tom up there while I visited,
Speaker 3: So we recorded a couple a couple episodes. This one
Speaker 3: will be out now. The second part of this conversation
Speaker 3: will be out in a couple of weeks. This podcast
Speaker 3: is going to kind of center around a wide range
Speaker 3: of topics, but mostly Tom playing Sedge Valley for the
Speaker 3: first time. Then we dive into a bunch of different
Speaker 3: topics there. So this was super fun. Thanks to Tom
Speaker 3: for the time as always, and enjoy this podcast. Before
Speaker 3: we get to Tom, let's talk about our partner club
Speaker 3: champion Club Champion is I think the best.
Speaker 2: Way to get fit for golf clubs. You go there.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing experience from the moment you walk in
Speaker 3: the door, it is just the studios are amazing. There
Speaker 3: are golf clubs everywhere. I think, like one of the
Speaker 3: things that's super unique is you know you have the
Speaker 3: ability to get basically any setup you want, any type
Speaker 3: of a shaft, any type of manufacturer. They have sixty
Speaker 3: five thousand potential hittable head and golf and shaft combinations,
Speaker 3: including like.
Speaker 2: All the new stuff.
Speaker 3: I had a fitting done at a manufacturer and that
Speaker 3: ironhead that I got wasn't available at the manufacturer and
Speaker 3: was available there. They have one hundred and twenty studios nationwide,
Speaker 3: So these studios are everywhere you can find them if
Speaker 3: you're in a major metro area, and their fitters are amazing.
Speaker 2: So I would go there.
Speaker 3: It's gonna get you optimized, it's going to get you
Speaker 3: playing better golf. And we have an awesome promo code.
Speaker 3: It's if you use the code frieda Egg, you'll get
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars full bag fitting or fifty dollars for
Speaker 3: any other fitting type with a club purchase so go
Speaker 3: to club champion dot com, use the promo code frieda
Speaker 3: Egg and you get a one hundred dollars full bag
Speaker 3: fitting or fifty dollars for any other fitting so like
Speaker 3: a fairway Wood, hybrid, ironed, wedges, potter or whatever it
Speaker 3: may be, with the promo code Friday thanks to Club Champion.
Speaker 3: Let's get to Tom Doak and this discussion. What what
Speaker 3: you travel so much? You've traveled so much in your life.
Speaker 3: What is your what are your tips for Australia and
Speaker 3: New Zealand? Can you make it a trip together? What's
Speaker 3: what's your You know, people are always now I feel
Speaker 3: like it's becoming more and more popular as more direct
Speaker 3: flights are available to these places.
Speaker 2: From you know, all these cities. Can you do both
Speaker 2: at once?
Speaker 1: You can? I mean there's certainly more people going down
Speaker 1: there than they used to do for golf and and
Speaker 1: you certainly can go do both. I mean I used
Speaker 1: to stop through New Zealand a little, you know, most
Speaker 1: of the time on the way to Australia because Air
Speaker 1: New Zealand is such a great airline, and you know
Speaker 1: I could fly in, stop for a day or two
Speaker 1: and go on to Australia, but you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like trying to do Scotland and Ireland on the
Speaker 1: same trip. I mean, just have faith that there's plenty
Speaker 1: to see in Australia, or there's plenty to see in
Speaker 1: New Zealand, and to try, you know, to try to
Speaker 1: cram in both because you think you'll never go back
Speaker 1: over there as foolish. You know, once you go to one,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, now we want to go to
Speaker 1: the other. So I would never try to put both together.
Speaker 1: I did the very first time I went. It was
Speaker 1: in the middle of building high Point. I had the
Speaker 1: winter off with nothing to do, and I went down
Speaker 1: there for like over March, my birthdays in March, and
Speaker 1: I was in Australia for like three weeks, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney.
Speaker 1: There wasn't anything in Tesnan to go see then, and
Speaker 1: then stop through New Zealand for a week on the
Speaker 1: way back, and I felt like I saw most everything
Speaker 1: I wanted to see on Australia, but I felt like
Speaker 1: I didn't even scratch New Zealand. I didn't get to
Speaker 1: the South Island at all. And like, you know, people
Speaker 1: in New Zealand will tell you you're here and you're
Speaker 1: not going to the South Island? Are you stupid? You know,
Speaker 1: that's that's their idea of you should spend all your
Speaker 1: time down there if you could.
Speaker 3: That's in researching New Zealand. Like most of the almost
Speaker 3: all the golfs on the North Island that you have
Speaker 3: to see, But then you look at the South Island
Speaker 3: and you're like, well, I want to spend like two
Speaker 3: weeks there playing very little golf and doing all the
Speaker 3: other stuff, and it's like, I mean, it looks like.
Speaker 2: Just an amazing place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and New Zealand is it's tougher to travel too,
Speaker 1: because it's bigger. You know, it's like the whole West
Speaker 1: coast of them. You know, it's like trying to see
Speaker 1: all from Vancouver all the way to San Diego or
Speaker 1: a Baja on one trip. That's a big trip. And
Speaker 1: you can there's good little commuter flights, so you can
Speaker 1: bounce around and see some things, but nearly everything you're
Speaker 1: going to want to see is a four hour drive
Speaker 1: or a six hour drive away from the next place,
Speaker 1: and you know, you just spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: in the car, which is not really how you want
Speaker 1: to experience New Zealand.
Speaker 3: I hadn't planned to ask this, but how would you
Speaker 3: prioritize regions of the UK? Like, is there if you
Speaker 3: were on a golf like you wanted to see the
Speaker 3: greatest links courses in the world. Is there like an
Speaker 3: order that you would go in if you were if
Speaker 3: you were thinking about it, if you had, you know,
Speaker 3: think back to like I'm twenty five or I'm thirty,
Speaker 3: or I'm thirty five, I'm really into golf architecture, but
Speaker 3: I've never been there right where? How would you kind
Speaker 3: of like lay out the next thirty years of your
Speaker 3: life of like taking a trip every couple of years.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing it all in one year. Like just
Speaker 1: you didn't win.
Speaker 2: The Drill Award. You don't get to do it all
Speaker 2: in one year.
Speaker 3: You have a you have a life and you're just trying,
Speaker 3: like how would you prioritize you need to go here, here, here, here,
Speaker 3: Like how how would you do?
Speaker 1: Think it's a lot easier when I didn't have a
Speaker 1: life that I have plenty of time. All I mean
Speaker 1: for me and I think for a for most people,
Speaker 1: the starter trip is go to go to He's Lothian
Speaker 1: in St Andrews, you know. That's that's the big first
Speaker 1: step and the heart, you know, and then after that,
Speaker 1: probably the most popular thing now is to go north
Speaker 1: to see Dornick and Castle Stuart and Cruden Bay and
Speaker 1: all those places, and the West coast kind of gets
Speaker 1: overlooked a little bit now. I think that. I don't think,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not really that far from Saint Andrews.
Speaker 1: But if you're if you're only going for a or
Speaker 1: you know, ten days, including a weekend, I would not
Speaker 1: I don't think I would go. I don't think I
Speaker 1: would do Saint Andrew's in all of East Lothian and
Speaker 1: then try to go to Prestwick and True on the
Speaker 1: same trip, even though it's only like a couple three
Speaker 1: hours to get over there. So that's one. I hadn't
Speaker 1: been back there in a long long time until I
Speaker 1: took Brian zaig Or a year ago when we were
Speaker 1: over because I wanted to Prestwick had the twelve hole
Speaker 1: original course set up then and I really wanted to
Speaker 1: see that. But it's the first time i'd been back
Speaker 1: there and walked around. First time it seemed Turnberry in
Speaker 1: like thirty years. So that's three separate trips. I think
Speaker 1: those are your first three. No, maybe not the first.
Speaker 1: I mean to do all those before you go to
Speaker 1: Ireland at all, or before you go see anything in England.
Speaker 1: I don't know, probably not. You know, if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to get a sense of the variety,
Speaker 1: you either do the north part of Ireland or the
Speaker 1: southwest part of Ireland before you cross all of Scotland
Speaker 1: off your list, because you know, some people enjoy Ireland more.
Speaker 3: It's definitely a different style golf, like a different I
Speaker 3: feel like it's just like the culture of golf's a
Speaker 3: little it's just a little different in Ireland than Scotland.
Speaker 1: The culture of golf is a little different. The courses
Speaker 1: are different, they're not as different. You know, the north
Speaker 1: of Scotland, Dornick and Cruden Bay, those are a little
Speaker 1: more like Irish courses just because there's views. You get
Speaker 1: up in the dunes and you can see the water,
Speaker 1: whereas traditional links courses you really don't very much. And
Speaker 1: the Irish courses are the opit. You know, they're just spectacular.
Speaker 1: They're they're up in the dunes and falling off a
Speaker 1: cliff into the into the ocean. So you know what
Speaker 1: order you do them in. I don't think it really
Speaker 1: matters that much. And then you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of little areas of England that I have I have
Speaker 1: not gotten back to a lot of those places at
Speaker 1: all in the last thirty years because I've had work
Speaker 1: in He's Loathing, I've had work in Ireland, I've had
Speaker 1: work in the North of Scotland, and I just keep
Speaker 1: going back to them. But honestly, you know, if you
Speaker 1: told me I how weak right now, I'd go back
Speaker 1: to Rye and I go back to West Sussex and
Speaker 1: all that stuff south of London. There's some great golf there,
Speaker 1: and I just, you know, it seems like that's the
Speaker 1: most overlooked thing to do. You know, you said links golf,
Speaker 1: and if you're talking about links golf, that part of
Speaker 1: England is just Deal and Sandwich maybe Princes. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they've done with it. I know they've changed
Speaker 1: Princes since I saw it. And Rye and those are
Speaker 1: about the only links courses down there that you're going
Speaker 1: to think about. Seand but to get to do some
Speaker 1: of those hands, some of those Heathland horses, that's a
Speaker 1: great Trip's that's like arguably as good a trip as
Speaker 1: any of those other ones that I talked about, and
Speaker 1: people do not think about that.
Speaker 2: I think they're a little bit less promotional.
Speaker 1: Oh way. You know, there's there's there's an Irish golf
Speaker 1: tourist board almost and you know, Scottish golf. Scottish tourism
Speaker 1: promotes the heck out of golf. It's their main thing,
Speaker 1: and that I don't even know if there's an English
Speaker 1: tourist board at all. They certainly don't promote golf in England,
Speaker 1: which is you know, most of those clubs will accommodate
Speaker 1: overseas visitors, but it's not their main business. It's not
Speaker 1: how they make most of their money like it is
Speaker 1: in Scotland and Ireland.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a hybrid there of like the American
Speaker 3: and Scotland model, where you have like the clubs are
Speaker 3: a little bit more exclusive, but they still retain some
Speaker 3: playing abilities.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's it's kind.
Speaker 3: Of like it's just it's almost like the evolution of
Speaker 3: golf is Scotland clubs, Scottish clubs, Irish clubs to English
Speaker 3: clubs to American clubs.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, in terms of the structure, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of it's just economics. I mean, clubs around London
Speaker 1: can can charge more than eight hundred pounds a year
Speaker 1: to their members without you know, nobody's going to complain
Speaker 1: about it down there the way they would in Scotland
Speaker 1: or Ireland. You know, in Scotland and Ireland they're very
Speaker 1: spoiled on never having paid a lot in greens fees.
Speaker 1: You know, back in the day they subsisted on that
Speaker 1: and the golf courses weren't in great shape, but it
Speaker 1: was fine because that's what you know, it only costs
Speaker 1: as much. Nobody complained about the conditions, and very importantly,
Speaker 1: you don't complain about the conditions if you play match
Speaker 1: play all the time because the other guy's doing the
Speaker 1: same exact thing. You know, it's much different once once
Speaker 1: you're keeping a card.
Speaker 2: H Yeah, that's completely true.
Speaker 3: One of the other things with the England that I'm
Speaker 3: kind of I think probably lends to the uniqueness of
Speaker 3: it is the different eras of golf design, right, you
Speaker 3: get kind of that. You know, it would coincide a
Speaker 3: little bit with American Golden Age. It probably is the
Speaker 3: golden age of their design period. But then you also
Speaker 3: have kind of the old links courses, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean you know all the links courses have
Speaker 1: such a long pedigree. You know, a place like Mirrorfield.
Speaker 1: Colt worked on a one point, Simpson worked on at
Speaker 1: a one point. You know, old tam Ore has worked
Speaker 1: on a one point. You know, not many people go
Speaker 1: there and try to pick that apart at all. It's
Speaker 1: just like, well it's old, you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: an old thing and it's evolved, and you know, nobody
Speaker 1: and nobody would ever think on those links courses of
Speaker 1: trying to restore them to Simpsons version or Colts version exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, we think we've made improvements along
Speaker 1: the way. Whereas you know, around London or some of
Speaker 1: the only examples of like Herbert Fowler's work, or Simpson's
Speaker 1: work or or Colt's work that are just still pretty
Speaker 1: much their original work and they haven't been changed very much.
Speaker 1: Is very different for over there, they don't. Golf architect
Speaker 1: are not as revered and and golf architecture is not
Speaker 1: so precious to them because most golf courses have been
Speaker 1: most links courses have been changed several times. That's just
Speaker 1: part of the part of the deal because they were
Speaker 1: all built for hickorys or for something before that.
Speaker 3: Even you just finished a couple of days at San Valley,
Speaker 3: you got to play Sage for really the first time.
Speaker 3: What were your takeaways from playing the golf course?
Speaker 1: And what.
Speaker 3: As an architect, what are you what do you think
Speaker 3: about when you're playing a golf course that you built
Speaker 3: for really the first time.
Speaker 1: Well, first shout out to Michael Kaiser who sent the
Speaker 1: plane over to pick us up in Traverse City and
Speaker 1: go over there. It's funny, you know, between Lido and Sedge,
Speaker 1: I drove around Lake Michigan through the up like about
Speaker 1: ten times over three years. And and you know that's
Speaker 1: a seven and a half hour drive if you don't
Speaker 1: take a break, and.
Speaker 2: It's it's a pretty drive, but I could it's a.
Speaker 1: Long, pretty drive, but it's a long drive. And my
Speaker 1: body's getting older. And you know last week we jumped
Speaker 1: and jumped in the plane and we were we were
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin rapids in thirty two minutes, and it's like, ooh,
Speaker 1: this is easy. Can't get used to this.
Speaker 3: But it could become a pilot and you could get
Speaker 3: like just assessmin.
Speaker 1: No as much easier when they just pick you up,
Speaker 1: take you, drop you off, don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: any of the other stuff. So, you know, it used
Speaker 1: to be one of the first ten golf courses I built.
Speaker 1: The biggest day was the first day the superintendent coy
Speaker 1: holes and we got to go play the golf course
Speaker 1: because one of you know, usually there would be four
Speaker 1: of us play in and one of us is going
Speaker 1: to have the course record, might be seventy nine, but
Speaker 1: somebody was going to have the course record. And you know,
Speaker 1: nowadays I'm almost never there for that. You know, the
Speaker 1: client sneaks out with somebody to do it first so
Speaker 1: they can they can do it, and I'm not in town,
Speaker 1: so instead of that, you know, it's not usually you know,
Speaker 1: usually I'll have gone and played the golf course once,
Speaker 1: like right about when it opens, like we did for
Speaker 1: a media day in Pinehurst this summer, but then I
Speaker 1: won't have played. That's the only time I've played Pineers
Speaker 1: number ten so far until we have the Renaissance Cup
Speaker 1: on it in November, and usually that's when all my
Speaker 1: crew gets back to see it for the first time
Speaker 1: and play it, and that's a lot of fun. But
Speaker 1: to take the whole crew to Sedge for a couple
Speaker 1: of days and just play, just just us was really special,
Speaker 1: and we hit it perfect weather midweek it wasn't quite
Speaker 1: as busy as normal, so we you know, we weren't
Speaker 1: really waiting on any big felt like we had it
Speaker 1: to ourselves. Even though they did about one hundred rounds
Speaker 1: a day for the two days. They space the tea
Speaker 1: times a little further apart this year to just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of throttle play a little bit because because a
Speaker 1: lot of times they're putting so much traffic on fescue
Speaker 1: fairways that first year, it really does a lot of damage.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what the difference between twelve minute
Speaker 1: tea times instead of ten minute tea times is you
Speaker 1: just feel like you have the course to yourself. You don't,
Speaker 1: you're not waiting on anybody. It was amazingly different. But
Speaker 1: the superintendent was like, yeah, it'd be nice if they
Speaker 1: kept it, but we you know, we've calculated that's about
Speaker 1: a million and a half dollars and tea times lost,
Speaker 1: you know, not having one more tea time every hour
Speaker 1: all season. There was a lot of money, so it's
Speaker 1: probably not gonna stay there for very much longer, but
Speaker 1: it was great.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. I did a Michigan trip.
Speaker 3: This was like shortly after college, and we played you
Speaker 3: know a lot of places.
Speaker 2: It was Arcadie, it was Arcadia Bluffs.
Speaker 3: I mean, this was like two thousand and nine ish.
Speaker 3: We played up at Belvidere. We played, and then we
Speaker 3: came back and we played. On the way back, we
Speaker 3: stopped at Harbor Shores and the they did fifteen minute
Speaker 3: tea time intervals and after like after like five or
Speaker 3: six rounds of golf on like ten to eight minute intervals,
Speaker 3: that fifteen minute it was insane and it was like,
Speaker 3: why can't And it's.
Speaker 2: Like, well, there's a drawback to that.
Speaker 3: You deliver an exceptional customer experience, but it comes at
Speaker 3: a cost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you charge, you know, you could charge
Speaker 1: more to make the experience better, but pretty quickly after
Speaker 1: that you'd be like, well, we could just charge more
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 3: So it's like the Pebble Beach conundrum right where it's
Speaker 3: like they charge a lot, they charge a lot for
Speaker 3: everything on property, but people are aligned enough to do
Speaker 3: it right. So what were your takeaways on the on
Speaker 3: the golf course, like what I guess we could start
Speaker 3: with like the the general stuff, but then I think,
Speaker 3: like I'd love to hear if if there were things
Speaker 3: that you weren't necessarily sure of that worked really well,
Speaker 3: or things that you might have thought didn't work great.
Speaker 1: Well. You know. I mean, I've been asking people all
Speaker 1: summer if they say they've gone and play to like,
Speaker 1: how is the pace to play? I don't realize they
Speaker 1: had the ta tons spaced out as much. But you know,
Speaker 1: we've been We've been a little concern from the beginning
Speaker 1: about having those you know, five through eight on the
Speaker 1: front nine with a lot of part threes. And I
Speaker 1: haven't been too concerned about it because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna get held up somewhere, but it can't get
Speaker 1: held up everywhere. You know, You've only got so many
Speaker 1: people out there. If you're you know, if I'm waiting
Speaker 1: on the sixty and then those guys because I think
Speaker 1: I might drive the green and then those people go
Speaker 1: up to seven, I'm probably not going to be waiting
Speaker 1: on them there so so and no sign of that
Speaker 1: at all. You know. I've asked a lot of people
Speaker 1: did they feel like it was a shorter golf course.
Speaker 1: Did they miss not having the par fives? Never thought
Speaker 1: about it playing the golf it. Never didn't think about
Speaker 1: that for one second when I was actually playing. It's
Speaker 1: just like one good hole after another, and some of
Speaker 1: the flatter or more subtle holes that we built turn
Speaker 1: out really good. Number two's a great hole. Number nine
Speaker 1: is a really cool hole when they move the pin
Speaker 1: around to different spots. The tenth green is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: Eleven is a really good par five. Pretty tough hole,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot going on there. You know.
Speaker 3: One thing with ten that I didn't realize until I
Speaker 3: was photographing it, And I think, like one of the
Speaker 3: things I think about a lot is like everybody's always
Speaker 3: on me about like you shouldn't be doing the drone photography.
Speaker 3: We have like two wonderful drone pilots, Matt and Cameron,
Speaker 3: who do a great job, but I still do a
Speaker 3: lot of droning. And one of the things that I
Speaker 3: tell people is like if I drone and photographic golf course,
Speaker 3: I understand it way more than if I just play it.
Speaker 3: One of my big takeaways how amazing that it's flat
Speaker 3: and nobody would think of it as an amazing green site.
Speaker 3: But that tenth green it backs up on the ridge
Speaker 3: like it abuts that ridge that's above what is that
Speaker 3: the seventh green eight green that when you move that
Speaker 3: pin back, I haven't played a backpin there it. I
Speaker 3: mean you fall off the face of the earth behind it.
Speaker 3: It's like a pretty epic like back green site. And
Speaker 3: it's like you would think of it as a flatter
Speaker 3: part of the property, but there is a really nice
Speaker 3: ridge at the back of that green when that pins back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now that you mentioned it, the pin was
Speaker 1: fairly far back one day, but we still we probably
Speaker 1: still got more trees to take out back there, so
Speaker 1: it's really more stark that you know, you don't see
Speaker 1: anything behind it except somewhere over on the other side.
Speaker 1: But when we were building it, I thought absolutely that's
Speaker 1: part of this hole is that you have to be
Speaker 1: a little careful going into.
Speaker 2: That back there.
Speaker 3: It's just like a kind of like a walk. It's
Speaker 3: like you're kind of like walking a plank out in
Speaker 3: the back. And I would never have thought about it
Speaker 3: based off that I've it three times now. I never
Speaker 3: have thought about it until I saw it from behind.
Speaker 1: Right. It's a little like putting a you know, it's
Speaker 1: like putting a hidden bunker behind a green. It's like
Speaker 1: the first couple three times you play, you don't even
Speaker 1: think about you know, it's like it's not there until
Speaker 1: you hit it over the green once, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people typically, you know, typically the average golfer is,
Speaker 1: you know, planting hitting there five n one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty yards and it goes one sixty five and they
Speaker 1: never see what's behind the green.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, so the flatterholes, I agree with eleven.
Speaker 2: And then what what else? What else did you think?
Speaker 1: You know, we we all played twelve so bad the
Speaker 1: first the first day, and they told us, though, the
Speaker 1: people lose a lot of balls on the right, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and we did too the first day. It's because it's
Speaker 1: hard to see much of the left side of the
Speaker 1: hole and see see that there's a lot of room
Speaker 1: up there, and some of it's just there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like quote unquote native stuff in weeds growing up
Speaker 1: right at the edge from the native to the fairways.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna like thin that out and cut it back,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to see. You know, you don't see
Speaker 1: much over there, and then you see even less and
Speaker 1: there's some gnarly grass around the edge, so you're like
Speaker 1: you just start looking at the flag and then hit
Speaker 1: your usual left to right ball and wind up down
Speaker 1: in the crap along the right hand side. But then
Speaker 1: the second day I hit a really good T shot
Speaker 1: and I was like they had the pinned back on
Speaker 1: that last shelf and I was up on the shoulder
Speaker 1: on the left and the shoulder on the left, you know,
Speaker 1: was too much on my line to play off that
Speaker 1: shoulder end down in and get it within twenty feet,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at the green like there's been a
Speaker 1: long time looking at it. And then I tried to
Speaker 1: chip to the right, like there's a little slot between
Speaker 1: where the back plateau comes up and the little thing
Speaker 1: on the right, and I got it just in the
Speaker 1: perfect spot. It didn't It made about a hairpin turn
Speaker 1: off of that and came back and like missed the
Speaker 1: hole by that, and the caddy was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to spend more time chipping around these screens. It
Speaker 1: was like, I didn't think you could get that with
Speaker 1: it twenty feet. I was like I wasn't sure I
Speaker 1: could either, But that was fun. I love that twelfth hole.
Speaker 2: I one of the things I like.
Speaker 3: About it is how left if you're if you hit
Speaker 3: it at green distance, like you kind of run out
Speaker 3: of real estate left where it can run into the native.
Speaker 3: But I just love that shot from left. It's just
Speaker 3: it is you can hit so many different shots. You
Speaker 3: can look at that the bank on the right play
Speaker 3: it back depending on those but that that running shot
Speaker 3: that kind of like uses the slope is such a
Speaker 3: fun shot to hit. I I that it's just such
Speaker 3: a neat little ridge. I always think about what you
Speaker 3: said it might have been. It might have been like
Speaker 3: the third or fourth episode of this podcast with us
Speaker 3: talking but you you said, I wish that we could
Speaker 3: have a sign on contours. I said, if you're reading this,
Speaker 3: you're in the wrong spot because left there feels like
Speaker 3: that depending on the pin.
Speaker 2: But there, like you're like.
Speaker 3: This is a little bit of a spot a boxer
Speaker 3: versus like if you're if you're right of it. A
Speaker 3: lot of those you have that ridge that just funnels
Speaker 3: the ball back in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you know, I just enjoy playing those shots.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people talk about Drivable Part
Speaker 1: four US and that they're playing that whole like two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy yards and I don't even think we
Speaker 1: were playing a two hundred and fifty the day we played,
Speaker 1: but I don't. It's still like a it's a really
Speaker 1: skinny target. Not that people are not that many people
Speaker 1: will hit it on the green, but I like, you know,
Speaker 1: instead of what they used to call a drive and
Speaker 1: pitch hole or a driveable hole, I've got this thing
Speaker 1: in between. It's like a drive and chip, you know.
Speaker 1: And I do it on hard fives too. It's like,
Speaker 1: if you can get the second shot up, they're close.
Speaker 1: I just want to get it close enough up there
Speaker 1: to the green, like within forty yards, I'm chipping that
Speaker 1: instead of you know, I don't have five wedges in
Speaker 1: my bag. I'm still carrying eight clubs in my bag.
Speaker 1: But you know, I love those kind of shots, and
Speaker 1: there's lots of that in Link Scoff. There's lots of
Speaker 1: that on a bunch of my courses that are you know,
Speaker 1: the fairways are tight and there's a lot of short
Speaker 1: grass around the greens and you can do it. I
Speaker 1: don't see holes like that very many other places.
Speaker 3: I think that's like one of the things that I
Speaker 3: I feel like as a golf course architecture society. I
Speaker 3: think this is the Honestly, I think I might blame
Speaker 3: it on the tenth hole at Rivera in the how
Speaker 3: popular it's become over the last fifteen years television and
Speaker 3: maybe ten years on television, and like the idea of
Speaker 3: a drivable par four has become like it almost feels
Speaker 3: like people like need it to be. But oftentimes I
Speaker 3: find the most enjoyment, the most mental stimulation when it's
Speaker 3: extraordinarily difficult to drive it, like it's almost impossible, and
Speaker 3: it's more about where do I want to rice this ball?
Speaker 3: Do I want to push it up? Because like the
Speaker 3: common statistical belief is get it as close as possible,
Speaker 3: But there are some really clever designed drive and pitch
Speaker 3: holes where getting it close as possible is not always
Speaker 3: the right the right idea.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean yeah, one of my good friends says,
Speaker 1: the key to your short purforce is never go for
Speaker 1: it at all, no matter how much I am tempted.
Speaker 1: Don't do that. That won't work out. And it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily that I'm deliberately doing that, But but usually when
Speaker 1: I'm like dangling the carrot, like okay, this you could
Speaker 1: drive this. It's like, but there's trouble if you try.
Speaker 1: And you know, to your point, I mean, everybody talks
Speaker 1: about the tenth of Riviera being a driveable part four.
Speaker 1: It's impos It's exactly the drive in chiphole that I
Speaker 1: just talked about. I mean there's like, is there like
Speaker 1: one or two guys in in four days at the
Speaker 1: tournament they actually hit a ball that stays on the green.
Speaker 1: It's just almost possible.
Speaker 3: They just roll on to the front. It's not like
Speaker 3: they can get everywhere on the green. It just like
Speaker 3: trickles on to the front. Not many do that, yeah,
Speaker 3: very few.
Speaker 1: You know, they're all aiming like twenty yards left and
Speaker 1: if they if they hit one on the front, it's
Speaker 1: a mistake.
Speaker 3: They're aiming at the bushes on the left and hoping
Speaker 3: they don't hit it where they're aiming.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, I mean, you know, I talk with
Speaker 1: people now, you know, back in the day, a short
Speaker 1: part four was like three hundred and sixty yard drive
Speaker 1: and pitch hole. I talk with people now, they ask
Speaker 1: if I have any or perforce, and they think a
Speaker 1: short part four is a drivable part four, Like there's
Speaker 1: no other kind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, That's that's what I kind of like amazed about.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like we have three drivable part fours.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, what if like you had one drivable
Speaker 3: one that you could really drive and like two that
Speaker 3: are like you have to think about what you're doing,
Speaker 3: and sure you could push it up and maybe in
Speaker 3: the right conditions get there, but really the thought is
Speaker 3: like do I want to leave this at like one twenty?
Speaker 3: Do I want to get it? Push it up to sixty?
Speaker 3: Do I want to push it up to eighty yards?
Speaker 3: Like where do I want to leave this? And what
Speaker 3: part of the fairway do I want to leave this on?
Speaker 3: Because like one of the beauties of like to me,
Speaker 3: that's missing in just the it's not missing this is
Speaker 3: the wrong word, but like the it's almost like the
Speaker 3: the characterization has become this drivable thing is like the
Speaker 3: idea like I always like, I kind of like the
Speaker 3: idea of like you're hitting a fore iron and then
Speaker 3: you as an art architect can demand a certain precision
Speaker 3: where it's almost becomes like I'm playing a long par
Speaker 3: three to a short par three, Like my landing area
Speaker 3: is like hitting a long par three shot right and
Speaker 3: then it's a short part three in a perfect a.
Speaker 1: Like I used to play, like I still try to
Speaker 1: play seventeen A crystal Downs. I mean, I never think
Speaker 1: about hitting driver up there. I'm not I'm not long
Speaker 1: enough to even think about that, because if you don't
Speaker 1: get it all the way up there, it's going to
Speaker 1: roll back forty or fifty yards. So but yeah, I
Speaker 1: used to play that two hundred yard shot one hundred
Speaker 1: yard shot, and they both had to be really good
Speaker 1: shots or you'd make six. But you don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of holes like that that that you know, almost
Speaker 1: encourage you to hit an iron off the tee instead
Speaker 1: of driver. And of course, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: our clients don't want anything that tight. Gonna be too
Speaker 1: many lost ball, it's going to slow down play too much.
Speaker 1: So so can we just make it a little wider?
Speaker 1: And we do? And you know, Sedge Valley has three
Speaker 1: in theory three driveable part fours, Like seriously, we're we're
Speaker 1: a plus handicapped guy does have a chance to hit
Speaker 1: it on all three of those greens. But I feel
Speaker 1: like the holes are pretty different. You know, six is
Speaker 1: you know you've got kind of a you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of fair way there, but there's only like
Speaker 1: there's only kind of a circle in the left center
Speaker 1: of it that gives you a nice easy shot into
Speaker 1: the green.
Speaker 2: The hard one I thought.
Speaker 3: I thought I pulled it off, and then I was
Speaker 3: in the left bunker. Tell everybody you don't want to
Speaker 3: be in the left bunker because it's like this, and
Speaker 3: you got down a downhill bunker shot to this extraordinarily
Speaker 3: narrow green.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know if I can even
Speaker 2: hit this on the green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, you know, I try to do that
Speaker 1: as much as I can. Okay, you thought you were
Speaker 1: going to drive the green, and you were that you
Speaker 1: were not close, So now you have a fifty yard
Speaker 1: bunker shot. It's like the one thing that most people
Speaker 1: are like, don't ever give me that. And then twelve,
Speaker 1: you know you can drive it in that little pop
Speaker 1: bunker and not even be able to get to the green.
Speaker 1: And that is a very skinny one too, And that
Speaker 1: one is like, you know, you don't to me, it's
Speaker 1: skinny in a different way. It's like you know you
Speaker 1: can use the slopes around it, but you also don't
Speaker 1: you know, the closer you drive it to it. The
Speaker 1: harder it is to use those slopes because you get
Speaker 1: now you're at the wrong angle and the pin is
Speaker 1: on the same side of the thing as you are,
Speaker 1: and now you're going to have to be really clever
Speaker 1: to play it off a bank on the other side
Speaker 1: or something in order to get it close. And then
Speaker 1: eighteen a little longer than the other two. You got
Speaker 1: to carry it a long way if you're going to
Speaker 1: do that, I mean, unless you're playing down I guess
Speaker 1: a lot of people play that from down below and
Speaker 1: it is easy to drive if you're there, but from
Speaker 1: the from the realty, it's like, no, that's too much
Speaker 1: carry for me. But again, the shape of that green
Speaker 1: makes me think about where should I go? You know,
Speaker 1: I was playing I played left there two days because
Speaker 1: that's the way I played the whole up barn Google
Speaker 1: most of the time, and I wanted to see if
Speaker 1: it played the same. And my crew were you know,
Speaker 1: Eric's trying to hit driver up there over the shoulder
Speaker 1: close and the other guys are like down in front
Speaker 1: of the big bunker and just hitting. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a blind shot in, but it's a better angle to
Speaker 1: the backpin.
Speaker 2: I like that hole with the backpin.
Speaker 3: What I think is cool about it is you can
Speaker 3: hit an almost perfect driver.
Speaker 2: I've done this.
Speaker 3: I've had that backpin twice where I hit an what
Speaker 3: I thought was a perfect driver and I ended up
Speaker 3: on the front part of the green finished, and and
Speaker 3: then the next time I remembered that and I just
Speaker 3: like shaded five yards left of where I hit it
Speaker 3: the first time, and I pulled it off and I
Speaker 3: ended up with like a very but like the idea
Speaker 3: of accomplishing it but not being done because it wasn't
Speaker 3: quite perfect.
Speaker 1: Right, he made the carry, You thought that was great,
Speaker 1: and you still left yourself for really wait.
Speaker 3: A second, like I'm gonna do I chip this like
Speaker 3: I thought this, I'm on the green, like we're you know.
Speaker 3: I think that's like one of the other things that
Speaker 3: frustrates me a little bit with my with with a
Speaker 3: lot of like modern ideology of around golf is like
Speaker 3: the idea of like, if I've hit the green, I
Speaker 3: deserve to be able to easily two putt. It's like, well, no,
Speaker 3: you didn't hit the right part of the green, you know, right.
Speaker 1: And so so the one thing that's different about that
Speaker 1: whole from the fourth at barm Google is it's about
Speaker 1: twenty yards longer. And you know Barboogle, you're always playing
Speaker 1: you know, ninety percent of the time you play there,
Speaker 1: you're playing into a twenty mile an hour wind and
Speaker 1: Sam Valley, the wind can be behind you, it could
Speaker 1: be from the left. So but it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: play consistently longer. So we thought, okay, we have to.
Speaker 1: You know, we were using the light our data to
Speaker 1: get the bones of the hole in. But you know,
Speaker 1: we but we we did. The one thing we didn't
Speaker 1: want to do is make it. If it was the
Speaker 1: same length, it would have been too easy to drive.
Speaker 1: So you know, we struggled with, well, where do we
Speaker 1: make Where do we put that twenty yards in? Because
Speaker 1: if we if we keep all the green complex and
Speaker 1: all the fair way the same and we just have
Speaker 1: the t twenty yards for the back, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a twenty yard more carry to get over the bunker.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know about that. You know,
Speaker 1: that's going to be that's going to make the carry
Speaker 1: like really hard for guys. So so we act actually
Speaker 1: put it in kind of between the green and the bunker.
Speaker 1: There's a little more of a space there, and that's
Speaker 1: the extra slope that kicks your ball to the left.
Speaker 1: If you don't get it all that, you know you
Speaker 1: can get it past the bunker, but you still didn't
Speaker 1: get it to the part where it goes down into
Speaker 1: the right side of the green and everything just kind
Speaker 1: of feeds left instead. So at bar Google, if you
Speaker 1: get a day where it's not real windy and you
Speaker 1: can drive it, it's more receptive up there. But you know,
Speaker 1: most days you don't even think about trying to hit
Speaker 1: that shot because there's so much trouble.
Speaker 3: Right I you know, it's a fascinating I would you know,
Speaker 3: we just talked about this with the drive and pitch
Speaker 3: hole versus the driveable.
Speaker 2: To me, it's almost more.
Speaker 3: Fascinating for a strong player when you can't quite get
Speaker 3: there what you do because it's like right left, Like I,
Speaker 3: you know, to be completely honest, I have never even
Speaker 3: looked like I people. I've had people tell me left
Speaker 3: just the way to play, and I just like when
Speaker 3: I'm playing golf, I don't even look at left like
Speaker 3: it is just you know, I'm going to hit it
Speaker 3: sure at the green. But like if I played into
Speaker 3: a strong into the wind, like all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden that all the bunkers and
Speaker 3: that right side, how the it kind of moves on
Speaker 3: an angle, Like I think about the right side and
Speaker 3: the angle of that and how I cannot bail, you know,
Speaker 3: like it almost helps me that I can't bail with
Speaker 3: the with the right the way it is that it
Speaker 3: makes me be more committed, if that makes sense. But
Speaker 3: if I was playing into headwind, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm I would look like it's it's again, like or
Speaker 3: I'd love to go play it with like a hickory
Speaker 3: set and like in that hole becomes alive and it
Speaker 3: kind of talks to the to the topic we're just discussing,
Speaker 3: Like I think that hole is actually more compelling for
Speaker 3: a shorter hitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not, you know, for a shorter hitter.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of the great thing about having short
Speaker 1: part fours is they could be tricky for a good player,
Speaker 1: and they're very straightforward for a shorter hitter, Like you know,
Speaker 1: like I mean, one of the best short part fours
Speaker 1: I've ever built, a six Ali Pacific Dunes, and like
Speaker 1: I love that, you know, all of the really good
Speaker 1: players I know, if you ask them, what's what hole
Speaker 1: at Pacific Dunes are you afraid of, it's that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the green's just so small, it's it's such a
Speaker 3: skinny target.
Speaker 1: But you're actually thinking about driving the green, you know,
Speaker 1: like I went and watched the Curtis Cup there. None
Speaker 1: of them are thinking about driving the green. And it
Speaker 1: was a very straightforward drive in pitch hole for them.
Speaker 1: And they you know, they hit pitch shots straight, so
Speaker 1: that was no problem at all. And they've you know,
Speaker 1: they were always somebody always made three in those matches.
Speaker 1: It was kind of crazy, just like, Okay, you take
Speaker 1: out the temptation part and this is a very simple hole.
Speaker 1: So the same. It's the same with the eighteenth that
Speaker 1: said valley, Like if you can't go for it, you know,
Speaker 1: you can think really hard about it. Should I go left?
Speaker 1: Should I go right? You know, if you're not afraid
Speaker 1: of a blind pitch, it's just like hitting it short
Speaker 1: of the bunker, and hitting a blind pitch into a
Speaker 1: big bowl is definitely the way to go. You'd make
Speaker 1: four there like ninety percent of the time.
Speaker 2: That's the thing.
Speaker 3: The amazing thing about the whole is like you're offering
Speaker 3: someone a short west shot into a bowl. I think
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that I.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: To me, one of the great ingredients of a short
Speaker 3: Part four is when you offer someone something extraordinarily enticing,
Speaker 3: like a really good player, something extraordinarily enticing, if they
Speaker 3: pass up the temptation of going for it, where it's
Speaker 3: like I'm giving you a wedge, Like a lot of
Speaker 3: cases like it's even just like I'm giving you a wedge.
Speaker 3: A lot of courses you work on have great topography
Speaker 3: a wedge from a flat lie. Like to me, that's
Speaker 3: like the interesting thing with the way the pros and
Speaker 3: now play three at Augusta National is that they all
Speaker 3: drive it into that gully short of the third green
Speaker 3: and then they have this pitch up, you know, twenty
Speaker 3: five feet to a green that kind of runs away,
Speaker 3: and it's like, if you just lay back on the ridge,
Speaker 3: it is maybe the only time outside of a par
Speaker 3: three at Augusta National that you get a dead flat
Speaker 3: lie and the only time that you have a short
Speaker 3: wedge in your hand with a dead flat lie like that.
Speaker 2: It's just something you never get there.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of amazing to me how that the
Speaker 3: evolution of analytics has led to this, like and you
Speaker 3: watch some of the guys that have played there forever
Speaker 3: I remember, like up until like till he's not exempt anymore.
Speaker 3: But Lee Westwood just like everybody's bombing it down there,
Speaker 3: He's still hidding the iron to the top of the hill.
Speaker 3: And you see the older guys still believe in that mentality.
Speaker 3: But analytics has really changed where they push it down
Speaker 3: into this very undesirable place.
Speaker 1: Right. But and you know those the analytics are general, yes,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they're you know, they need
Speaker 1: to look at their scoring average on that whole because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's doing in many favors. I see
Speaker 1: a lot of guys missing that hole up every years.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating thing about this analytics.
Speaker 3: It's like you know, they there's been this, and I believe,
Speaker 3: like I'm a big believer of like analytics is like
Speaker 3: the what it's done for, like accelerating the golf IQ
Speaker 3: of young golfers is like extraordinary, like stuff that I
Speaker 3: learned when I was twenty seven, after twenty year or
Speaker 3: almost twenty years of competitive golf, I had light bulb
Speaker 3: moments my late twenties, Like these kids are learning at
Speaker 3: age sixteen and like, that's the value. But so much
Speaker 3: of the analytics is based off of golf played on
Speaker 3: golf courses with like and I don't want to but
Speaker 3: like pretty run of the mill design in conditions that
Speaker 3: do not have you know, implications for where you miss,
Speaker 3: you know where being twenty yards.
Speaker 1: Out, Yeah, the whole fairway is flat, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter which part you hit it too, You're going to
Speaker 1: have a flat lie instead of like, no, I got
Speaker 1: to get it there and thirty yards further up it's
Speaker 1: not flat anymore and that's.
Speaker 3: Harder or what you what I think? Eric Iverson said
Speaker 3: in an early podcast that we did from bel Air,
Speaker 3: he said, my first day on the site with Tom,
Speaker 3: he had me he said, I was supposed to build
Speaker 3: a green and he said, build me a green that
Speaker 3: when you're on one side of the fairway looks completely
Speaker 3: different than the other side. A lot of golf courses,
Speaker 3: if you go from right side of the faraway to
Speaker 3: the left side of the fairway, it looks the same.
Speaker 3: Like when it looks different, that presents like a completely
Speaker 3: different situation which are going to have drastically different analytics
Speaker 3: and results from right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that you're right. The analytics are just
Speaker 1: it also seems to me that you know, I mean
Speaker 1: even analytics that are that just digest everything off the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. That's all the guys playing good, bad, and
Speaker 1: indifferent all week instead of like, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: in one of the last groups on Sunday and you're
Speaker 1: playing as good as you ever can, you can take
Speaker 1: more chances. Your your window has gotten smaller that you're
Speaker 1: going to hit. Your circle that you're going to hit
Speaker 1: that ball in is smaller because you're right on your
Speaker 1: game and some of them don't play like that. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know whereas you know Tiger Woods, he understood all that,
Speaker 1: but when he was playing good, it's like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hit a little fade into that and make it
Speaker 1: skip once and stop. That's not on the analytics thing
Speaker 1: at all. But you know, he knew he was playing,
Speaker 1: he knew he was comfortable with that shot.
Speaker 3: That's the thing is, like you your performance, you have
Speaker 3: statistical variants of your own right and understanding where you are.
Speaker 3: I think that's like the I think that there's going
Speaker 3: you look at what saber metrics and baseball where they
Speaker 3: were twenty years ago, when like the moneyball a's were
Speaker 3: you know, revolutionizing the sport to then it became a
Speaker 3: common adopted practice. Everybody's using these statistics, and then there
Speaker 3: was a there's now a next level of statistical analysis
Speaker 3: that has gone way past where it was twenty five
Speaker 3: years ago. I think golf like we are on the
Speaker 3: baseline of like understanding statistics because like and I think
Speaker 3: like some of the players are like starting to like
Speaker 3: they have their own coat. They understand that they're their
Speaker 3: statistical profiles way different than the paint by number.
Speaker 1: It's very much like I mean, the part of baseball
Speaker 1: that relates to is like the pitching coaches now they're like,
Speaker 1: don't throw the slider anymore. That you're getting killed with
Speaker 1: the slider. You know, develop another pitch and and use
Speaker 1: you know, make this pitch better. You know, stick with
Speaker 1: that fastball, don't try the other fastball, and then don't
Speaker 1: be throwing this except as a throwaway thing. You're getting
Speaker 1: killed on that. And that's you know, golfers need that
Speaker 1: level because that's really changed some pitchers. You know, you
Speaker 1: see pitchers go to Houston and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it's like they pitch a new way and they're better.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, I think all sports are seeing this, Like
Speaker 3: there's like a whole revolt with that this year because
Speaker 3: the defenses have finally adapted and are like game scorings
Speaker 3: down because the defense is finally caught up to the offenses.
Speaker 3: And now again it's on the offenses to adapt again
Speaker 3: and do something that spites the defense. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the unique aspect of golf that doesn't get talked
Speaker 3: about enough, Like the defense against golfers is golfer extra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's hard to you know, I thought about
Speaker 1: that a lot when we were working in Houston, but
Speaker 1: you know, the offense of what I understood, you know,
Speaker 1: I tried to understand the analytics, but it seems so
Speaker 1: boilerplate that it was like there wasn't much you could
Speaker 1: do with the defense that was going to change how
Speaker 1: they thought about the whole or how they played the hole.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've been trying for you you know,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to do things for years that get
Speaker 1: good players to think about it more and see something
Speaker 1: either that scares them or tempts them into doing not
Speaker 1: what the analytics say if they just stick to what
Speaker 1: the analytics say, you know, hit it thirty two yards
Speaker 1: away from that bunker. You know, that's what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And you know, to me, it's kind of sad like
Speaker 1: when we when we rebuilt that seventeenth hole in Houston
Speaker 1: last year. It's like, Okay, I know where the edge
Speaker 1: of the water is. I'm want to make a green
Speaker 1: that's about, you know, fairly skinny. So if you miss
Speaker 1: it left pin high, that's the worst place. So you're
Speaker 1: you know, you've got the green a little bit off
Speaker 1: the water, and then you've got the green about eighteen
Speaker 1: yards wide, and then you realize very fast, well, you
Speaker 1: know they're going to be aiming ten yards left of
Speaker 1: this green. The guy that actually hits the ball in
Speaker 1: the green probably wasn't aim in there. You know, that's
Speaker 1: it's just a bad shot. They're all going to be
Speaker 1: aiming left of the thing because that's what the analytics
Speaker 1: tell them to do. And then a gas it's whoever
Speaker 1: you know, hits the least. You know, they throw the
Speaker 1: analytics pretty much out the window. When you've got a
Speaker 1: wedge in your hand from fifteen twenty yards off the green,
Speaker 1: you know, you're really really boiling down to execution there.
Speaker 1: But but I did you know, when I was in
Speaker 1: Scotland this summer for the to walk around the Renaissance Club,
Speaker 1: the they're having meetings with the PGA tour guys about
Speaker 1: you know, they've got one more year on the contract
Speaker 1: to have the Scottish Open right now. They'd like to
Speaker 1: host a long term I think the tours would like
Speaker 1: it to stay there so they don't have to. You know,
Speaker 1: some people think the Scottish Open should be all over Scotland,
Speaker 1: and I get that, But from the from the players
Speaker 1: standpoint and especially from the tourist standpoints, like going somewhere
Speaker 1: different every year is hard and they you know, it's
Speaker 1: so much more work for them to put together. It's
Speaker 1: much easier if they're staying at the same place year
Speaker 1: after year.
Speaker 2: Don't forget the sponsors. That's another aspect.
Speaker 3: They know exactly what their chalet is going to look like,
Speaker 3: how they can craft their experience for the like it.
Speaker 1: I suppose you know some some sponsor. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not always the sponsor rolls over every few years and
Speaker 1: sometimes they got a different idea of where it should
Speaker 1: be or what they want too, but we've been we've
Speaker 1: been talking about changes there. It's much harder than it
Speaker 1: is an Augusta because you're the Scottish openers right in
Speaker 1: the middle of a short growing season. In Scotland. You
Speaker 1: cannot tear up a green the week after the tournament
Speaker 1: and get it back into perfect shape. You can't even
Speaker 1: tell it's a different the next by the next tournament
Speaker 1: just won't happen. So we really can't do much with
Speaker 1: change in the greens. We can do everything else, but
Speaker 1: you know, most of its window dressing. You put in
Speaker 1: a new bunker and like you look at the shottling
Speaker 1: stuff at the end of the tournament, it's like three
Speaker 1: eyes hit it in that bunker and seventy two you know,
Speaker 1: in seventy two holes of the one hundred and fifty guys.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, so so really it's more about
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're hopefully you're changing how they're thinking
Speaker 1: about the hole and where they're trying to hit it
Speaker 1: that the bunker is there. It's not that the bunker
Speaker 1: is actually going to catch them that much. But you know,
Speaker 1: Padrake said something to me that just you know, I
Speaker 1: guess I sort of understood it, but I hadn't really
Speaker 1: registered yet. So so one of the things we changed
Speaker 1: two or three years ago we put in a new
Speaker 1: fairway bunker on the right of the first hole. It's
Speaker 1: about three hundred yards off the tee. It's tied over there.
Speaker 1: If you aim away from it, you're bringing the tree
Speaker 1: that's to the left and short of the green into play.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're making them, you know, we're making
Speaker 1: them decide which one of those two things is going
Speaker 1: to be in play for them. So between the bunk,
Speaker 1: you know, to the right of the bunker, there is
Speaker 1: about twenty yards of rough that's not very thick, and
Speaker 1: then outside of that there's like some trees and then
Speaker 1: a couple of gorse bushes. It's like so nobody's ever
Speaker 1: going to hit it to the right of the bunker deliberately.
Speaker 1: It's not near big enough to aim there. But you know,
Speaker 1: Padrick said, the guys complained a lot that, you know,
Speaker 1: their playing partner or opponent gets away with missing there.
Speaker 1: They don't have a problem with hitting it if they
Speaker 1: if they hit it in the bunker, they don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with that because they knew it was there
Speaker 1: and they should have kept away from it, But what
Speaker 1: really bothers them? If somebody misses a little more and
Speaker 1: it doesn't go in a bunker and it gets they
Speaker 1: get away with it. It's like for a tour pro's mentality,
Speaker 1: it's like everything between that bunker and the gorse should
Speaker 1: be more bunkers and deeper rough than just something so
Speaker 1: you never get away with.
Speaker 2: The scale of it has to get more different.
Speaker 1: The works of shot is right, and that's what fair is,
Speaker 1: and they all understand that wouldn't work for the members
Speaker 1: any other week, but it still just riles them up
Speaker 1: that you know, I was aiming over here, and well
Speaker 1: the other guy was aiming over here and he hit
Speaker 1: one way wide and he got away with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing bothers someone like that a tour pro more
Speaker 3: than that, I think one of I think an interesting
Speaker 3: discussion about golf analytics is that all the analytics are
Speaker 3: based in the idea of stroke play and all the
Speaker 3: numbers the decisions are based out of fear of what
Speaker 3: double triple, quadruples or even bogies will do to your
Speaker 3: seventy two whole score, fifty four.
Speaker 1: Hole score or thirty whatever.
Speaker 2: The scale of the tournament is what that impact will do.
Speaker 3: So all of this, all of this analytical system is
Speaker 3: based off numbers in the set. Now, if the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour was a match play tour where you played matchplay tournaments,
Speaker 3: it would completely spin how the analytics work. It would
Speaker 3: be completely flipped on its head, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the thing that would have way more relevance would be
Speaker 3: golf architecture and you'd see way more attempts at heroic
Speaker 3: shots that line. I think conceivably your line on seventeen
Speaker 3: in Houston would shade way more aggressive if the penalty
Speaker 3: for a triple bogie was simply a loss of whole. Yes,
Speaker 3: And that's like the interesting discussion about analytics is like
Speaker 3: these systems are based off of the existing rules and
Speaker 3: by the tour or an amateur golf primarily being a
Speaker 3: stroke play pursuit in America, right, the analytics and the
Speaker 3: strategy behind playing golf is dramatically different than if it
Speaker 3: was a matchplay.
Speaker 1: System, and dramatically different than like how people play every
Speaker 1: day golf in Scotland. Yeah, you throw those analytics out
Speaker 1: because that's not the same. And yeah, I mean if
Speaker 1: in match play, the the analytics would be much more
Speaker 1: like playing poker, Like as soon as you know what
Speaker 1: the other guy what, you know, the odds changed completely
Speaker 1: with what the other guy's cards are, and you have
Speaker 1: to be able to figure out in your head. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: now that he's done that, does it still make sense
Speaker 1: for me to go twenty yards left of the screen
Speaker 1: or you know, numbers wise? Is that not going to
Speaker 1: work out? And I really need to try to hit
Speaker 1: it on the green or I'm going to lose the
Speaker 1: hole anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, like I mean to me, that's where
Speaker 3: like match like the amount. I think we're at this
Speaker 3: information age with golf and golf courses, like you think
Speaker 3: about rangefinders, pin sheets, like all these things that you
Speaker 3: give people to to me, what happens, and like we're
Speaker 3: never going back to where we lose this information. But
Speaker 3: like sometimes golf courses like what I love, Like I
Speaker 3: hate big flags. I hate them for punch bowls, especially
Speaker 3: if it's a golf course like tall flage, Like especially
Speaker 3: if it's a golf course where if I walk past
Speaker 3: that green playing a previous hole, to me, a really
Speaker 3: smart player is going to look and see where that
Speaker 3: hole is and they're going to put away in their
Speaker 3: memory bank for when they come rack around and play
Speaker 3: the hole. Like to me, that is like some of
Speaker 3: the advantages and just like and to me, match play
Speaker 3: at this point, and golf is really the thinking like
Speaker 3: if you want the most intricate experience of playing golf,
Speaker 3: what analytics has done is it has created a framework
Speaker 3: to play stroke play golf, and a lot of those
Speaker 3: that framework works for match play, but match play turns
Speaker 3: is alive that experience, that reactionary experience to what your
Speaker 3: opponent's doing. Everybody says, play your own style, like play
Speaker 3: the way, but it's impossible to ignore. And it also
Speaker 3: it just amplifies the intricacies of golf course architecture.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, I mean the
Speaker 1: analytics or play boring golf. Yeah, hit it to the
Speaker 1: middle of the green, aime, aime away from the hazard.
Speaker 1: You know, just don't don't take any chances, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're you're good, So why take any chances you
Speaker 1: know you can you can just not play for the
Speaker 1: whole and still make four birdies around because you're that good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like so much for the best players,
Speaker 3: it's like avoid mistakes and you are going to just
Speaker 3: run into four or five birdies around like that is
Speaker 3: the general belief of men's professional golf at this point.
Speaker 3: Let's get back. We got very off topic. Said sorry,
Speaker 3: now me too, seg what is one hole? From playing it?
Speaker 3: That just really I guess like spoke to you like
Speaker 3: that you really loved that the way it played out,
Speaker 3: that you you previously weren't thinking that much about just
Speaker 3: based off of playing from designing on paper into the
Speaker 3: ground that then playing it. You were like, I really
Speaker 3: like this one.
Speaker 1: You said on paper, Like you thought I had it
Speaker 1: all figured out on paper, which some holes more than others,
Speaker 1: some metamorphous of it. Uh, you know, you know five
Speaker 1: was a last minute idea kind of off paper, and
Speaker 1: you know, we saw a pin to the left, and
Speaker 1: we saw a pin to the right, and I got
Speaker 1: up first in our matches on both those holes, and
Speaker 1: I just played for the backboard on the greens both times.
Speaker 1: You know, I think the I think the hardest pin
Speaker 1: there is the one in the in the middle of
Speaker 1: the V. It's like, you don't if you go through
Speaker 1: it all, you either have to stop it on a
Speaker 1: dime or you're going in the back bunker and that's
Speaker 1: really hard. But I thought the that's a really good
Speaker 1: little hole. The shots around. You know, if you miss
Speaker 1: the shots to get it close, they're not severe. You
Speaker 1: can even pot pretty well from one side of the
Speaker 1: green to the other. But but trying to make three
Speaker 1: off a miss is pretty hard. And it's such a
Speaker 1: short haul. It's like, oh, this should be so easy.
Speaker 1: But you you know, for me, it's like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to hit it to the correct half of
Speaker 1: the V and go from there. And you know, thirteen,
Speaker 1: the part three with the really big green, is kind
Speaker 1: of the opposite. That was the one that I always like,
Speaker 1: you know, that doesn't really fit in with the rest
Speaker 1: of the golf course so much. You know, it was
Speaker 1: just a big flat air and we were trying to
Speaker 1: figure out something to do with it that would tie
Speaker 1: it together, you know, tie that green and fourteen tea
Speaker 1: in with eleven going past them back beyond there, because
Speaker 1: it was just like a little they're a little too
Speaker 1: close to have any like native stuff in there that
Speaker 1: meant anything, and a little too far to just be like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't have them in play off of
Speaker 1: fourteen t or off of eleven t so, so thirteen
Speaker 1: has like five like wildly different whole locations. There's there's
Speaker 1: a little whole location front left that you've got to
Speaker 1: like use the slope behind it to stop it. There's
Speaker 1: a little whole location front right behind the mounts where
Speaker 1: you really want to land just short and left and
Speaker 1: have it feed off the little contour to the right
Speaker 1: to get over there. There's the shelf on the left
Speaker 1: which you can use the bank to the left a
Speaker 1: little bit. There's the stuff down off the shelf to
Speaker 1: the left that you all of a sudden you can't
Speaker 1: really play it in left to right. It's either going
Speaker 1: to get stuck up there or go pretty far past.
Speaker 1: And and there's there's almost a hidden pin to the right.
Speaker 1: We only saw two of them. I think that's a
Speaker 1: hole that like the first time you play the golf course,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that didn't really fit in. I think
Speaker 1: you'd have to play that course a bunch to go like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really different from one day to another. But
Speaker 1: it seemed to seemed like it was going to work
Speaker 1: that way, and I think it it probably won't be
Speaker 1: appreciated that much by the first time player, but Hopefully
Speaker 1: eventually people see it enough to go, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: not you got to hit different kinds of You got
Speaker 1: to approach this different on different days. On that.
Speaker 3: On that topic, like playing it a lot, do do
Speaker 3: you ever wish some of your resort courses were were
Speaker 3: like private clubs or a fee courses that people played
Speaker 3: regularly that we're like, oh yeah, everything and if there
Speaker 3: are there one or two that jump to mind that
Speaker 3: you you would love to have seen that golf course
Speaker 3: it be a everyday course for the majority of the customers.
Speaker 1: I mean, the reason I do like that experience is
Speaker 1: because people get to know the golf course a lot
Speaker 1: better and and appreciate the subtlety in it. You know,
Speaker 1: I get better feedback at a members club because the
Speaker 1: members get to know it well enough to know. You know,
Speaker 1: you thought that playing out left there would be a
Speaker 1: good thing, but we keep trying that and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't work. And you know, on a resort course, you
Speaker 1: never figure it out. You just you know, will people
Speaker 1: only play it once or twice and they give up
Speaker 1: on it, or or it works out perfect for them
Speaker 1: and they think they're a genius, but or they say
Speaker 1: it's unfair or they say it's unfair. You know, we
Speaker 1: were talking about that at high Point the other day.
Speaker 1: You know high Point, it's kind of in between. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like Sand Valley or abandoned that at best
Speaker 1: people would go once a year. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: when it was a public golf course, they used to
Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of locals that played
Speaker 1: it half regularly, but you know, the shots like potting
Speaker 1: up to the back of thirteen green to get it
Speaker 1: to come down to the left side. You know, these
Speaker 1: members will get to know that a lot better than
Speaker 1: most people used to just seeing it if they came
Speaker 1: up here once a year on vacation. So so really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean for Pacific Dunes or Barn Google to be
Speaker 1: things that people played on a weekly basis, those would
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun. I think they'd probably be
Speaker 1: that much more appreciated. Even though you know, as I've
Speaker 1: said many times of this podcast before, it's great for
Speaker 1: my career that those were public. They get so much
Speaker 1: more press and pr free because the readers can go there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's it's I think that's like one
Speaker 3: of the things that this era of design might grapple
Speaker 3: with is like the economics of public golf are just
Speaker 3: so a cumbersome at this point for like new public
Speaker 3: golf outside of.
Speaker 1: Just resorts, high high end resorts.
Speaker 3: It's like the only like the idea. And I've said
Speaker 3: this to so many people ask me that it's just
Speaker 3: like how can you overcome twenty million dollars like or
Speaker 3: fifteen million dollars with like the payback period is just
Speaker 3: so long that we're just going to like the market
Speaker 3: has you know, gone a certain way until there's a
Speaker 3: big change in how expectations. The only way it changes
Speaker 3: if there's like this huge change in customer expectation for
Speaker 3: a really good for what's considered a really good, affordable
Speaker 3: public golf course.
Speaker 1: I think that's always been kind of true. I mean,
Speaker 1: of some of the courses you highlight as the great
Speaker 1: public golf courses in America and the great Communi courses
Speaker 1: in America were built as private clubs in the twenties
Speaker 1: and then bankrupt immediately and became public golf courses. They
Speaker 1: weren't built as public golf courses. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: hear from people all the time, oh, is that going
Speaker 1: to be another high end private golf club and it's
Speaker 1: like or another two d and fifty dollars resort course.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, there was a rule of
Speaker 1: thumb when I got into the business, and I don't
Speaker 1: know why it would have changed that. For every million
Speaker 1: dollars you spent building a golf course, that was going
Speaker 1: to be one dollar on the green or ten bucks
Speaker 1: on the green fee. So if it costs twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars to develop a new golf course, it's a two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars green fee. Is how that's going to work,
Speaker 1: one way or another, whether it's private or resort. That's
Speaker 1: the average of what they're going to have to get
Speaker 1: in order to make that work. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: maybe not true if you're in a place where you
Speaker 1: could play forty or fifty thousand rounds a year, but
Speaker 1: most places where six or eight months season. That's that's
Speaker 1: how it has to work.
Speaker 3: The place that you can play forty fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: rounds a year reliably is California.
Speaker 1: And there's other reasons why it's extensive there.
Speaker 3: The yeah, I think the only other relatively unexplored model
Speaker 3: in American golf that has public access is the membership
Speaker 3: that the UK kind of model that has some sort
Speaker 3: of downstroke in membership that allows a quicker payback. That's
Speaker 3: the only one to me that really can can get
Speaker 3: that public model out there in with new builds. But
Speaker 3: it is like a hybrid.
Speaker 1: Like lido. You mean, yeah, where it's a club, but
Speaker 1: there's also outside plus.
Speaker 2: So you get the you recoop.
Speaker 3: You're not out twenty million dollars or fifteen million dollars.
Speaker 3: You recoup five or ten of it, and then you
Speaker 3: gret you pay it back like to when you think
Speaker 3: about the economics of it, Like to me, that's the
Speaker 3: only But then you're still talking high end, like you're
Speaker 3: not going to have a membership.
Speaker 2: And be like, yeah, we're charged in seventy five dollars
Speaker 2: when we open it up to the public.
Speaker 3: No, probably not, So it's hard I think the best
Speaker 3: public affordable golf opportunities, as you said numerous times, it's
Speaker 3: the second or third ownership of a property.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I was just done a podcast for
Speaker 1: Golf Magazine the other day with Billcore and Rob Collins
Speaker 1: and Andrew Green about the rankings and what we all
Speaker 1: thought of the rankings is a general thing, and whether
Speaker 1: it was good or bad, And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, the worst thing about him is it's like
Speaker 1: a price list for you know, if your golf course
Speaker 1: is fiftieth in the rankings and you're only charging a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, you're an idiot. And you know, look around you.
Speaker 1: It should be two hundred and fifty, so that you
Speaker 1: know there is no bargains left, or there's almost no
Speaker 1: bargains left. I think. I think the only course in
Speaker 1: the top fifty or sixty in the world that is
Speaker 1: not a three hundred dollars golf course is barn Google
Speaker 1: because they don't think Australia. You know, that's ninety percent
Speaker 1: Australian's coming from Melbourne and Sydney and they're now used
Speaker 1: to pay them three hundred dollars to play golf and
Speaker 1: so it's about half that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think about that a lot.
Speaker 3: It's like, and there's also the flip side of that
Speaker 3: is like they've seen this all over the UK because
Speaker 3: nobody came when we were fifty dollars and then we
Speaker 3: marked it up to two hundred dollars and now when
Speaker 3: now we're books out, but.
Speaker 1: There's got to be a ranking behind. There's the same again,
Speaker 1: it is, but there's a ranking behind it. If it
Speaker 1: wasn't for that, you know, if you were trying to
Speaker 1: charge two hundred and you weren't ranked in the top
Speaker 1: fifty three affordable public courses in England, you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to charge as much. I mean, it's funny like
Speaker 1: they you know, all the magazines are trying they think
Speaker 1: they're trying to do their best to rank affordable public courses.
Speaker 1: They're just driving up the price. It's like, if we're
Speaker 1: number five in the affordable, we shouldn't be affordable anymore
Speaker 1: by their definition. We could raise the green fee.
Speaker 3: That's why I really respect places like Lawsonia's had some
Speaker 3: price increase, but they.
Speaker 2: Are committed to being affordable.
Speaker 3: Like it is like and I think like there's something
Speaker 3: about like the facilities that are it's in there like
Speaker 3: DNA like to me, like we like Revere.
Speaker 2: So much.
Speaker 3: In golf architecture, these these golf courses that are you know,
Speaker 3: have ten thousand rounds and amazing architecture that's maintained perfectly.
Speaker 3: They are amazing, But like the ones that will always
Speaker 3: stand out to me is like the most the toughest
Speaker 3: feat in golf anywhere.
Speaker 2: Is affordable golf with.
Speaker 3: Exceptional architecture and presentation, you know, right, like those are
Speaker 3: the those are the the true unicorns. Like you know,
Speaker 3: with money and and and especially now with like where
Speaker 3: Mounern architecture has gotten. I think you can achieve a
Speaker 3: really high bar of golf architecture and presentation, but very
Speaker 3: few can do it at an affordable rate open to
Speaker 3: the public, with like the demands of like you can't
Speaker 3: do like you can't make improvements because you have a
Speaker 3: T shirt that's sold.
Speaker 1: Out, right, Yeah, that's hard. I mean, you know, all
Speaker 1: of us in the golf business they are a little
Speaker 1: guilty of that too. We want to make more money.
Speaker 1: We want to you know, I mean I question a
Speaker 1: lot why we need three rows of irrigation or four
Speaker 1: rows of irrigation or whatever instead of the places that
Speaker 1: used to have one. But it usually falls on deaf earth.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like it's like if you if we
Speaker 1: didn't have that, we could charge less, and the client
Speaker 1: is thinking if we had that, we could charge more.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's very true, all right, tying the knot on
Speaker 3: sedge as we've gone all over the place, you're I
Speaker 3: don't think you're going to reprint the Northern Destinations of
Speaker 3: the Confidential Guide anytime soon.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to rewrite it, no, so that's probably
Speaker 1: not going to be in there.
Speaker 2: Well, what would be the Doak score of such?
Speaker 1: Who? I don't know yet. I mean, I at least
Speaker 1: I was there last week. You know. I feel like
Speaker 1: trying to give a score to a golf course is like,
Speaker 1: you know, give me three or four months and let
Speaker 1: me see, let me see how I feel about it then.
Speaker 1: But you know, a lot of those courses that it
Speaker 1: was kind of inspired by in England there are sevens
Speaker 1: and eight's on the Doak scale, occasionally at nine, but
Speaker 1: that mostly they're seven and eight. It fits right in there,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it does fit right in there with those,
Speaker 1: and you know, arguably, I mean, there's more detail to it.
Speaker 1: Those greens are really cool. They're so different than high
Speaker 1: Point screens. I thought of the two properties is pretty similar,
Speaker 1: and I've been playing high Point all si're and then
Speaker 1: I go over there for a couple of days, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: these are really different. Different guys building them, and a
Speaker 1: little less elevation change right around the green stir. It
Speaker 1: really did make it different.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 3: I think there's so much like a static similarity between
Speaker 3: yes Point, like down to like the just the surrounding
Speaker 3: the flora and faun.
Speaker 1: Even though it it's very different, like the stuff, the
Speaker 1: native stuff that said value is actually almost completely different
Speaker 1: than what's growing at high Point. It has the same
Speaker 1: general look and you know, it gets the same weather,
Speaker 1: so it browns out in the summer and it gets
Speaker 1: thick if it rains a lot in the spring. But
Speaker 1: it's different plants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's cool similar, similar, as you said thirty two
Speaker 3: minutes and probably almost similar, exactly the same. On the
Speaker 3: latitude latitude, I always get those confused longitude and latitude.
Speaker 3: All right, this does it for episode one. We'll have
Speaker 3: a couple more of these coming, but we're going to
Speaker 3: switch topics here. Thanks Tom, all Right, thank you for
Speaker 3: listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. We
Speaker 3: will be back next week. I'm excited about what we
Speaker 3: got coming down the pipe. Big thanks to PJ. Clark
Speaker 3: for editing and producing this podcast. And hey, if you
Speaker 3: like nitty gritty conversations about golf courses and golf architecture,
Speaker 3: if you like this episode, I think you'd really like
Speaker 3: our membership Club TFY Club TFE is one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty dollars a year and really focuses on golf architecture
Speaker 3: right now. We're going to add a bunch of features
Speaker 3: to this membership over time, but we have a weekly
Speaker 3: course profile that goes up in depth look at a
Speaker 3: golf course. We have Design Notebook, which you know, really
Speaker 3: Garrett puts together. It's a it's an awesome, awesome weekly
Speaker 3: feature that dives into all the latest design news and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's a great way to support us. It also
Speaker 3: gives you early access to our events, access to member
Speaker 3: only events. We had a couple come out this week
Speaker 3: that are pretty cool if I do so say so myself,
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's it's a great way to support what
Speaker 3: we do. It helps us grow, It helps us continue
Speaker 3: to cover the game the way we want to cover
Speaker 3: the game. So check it out at the Frida egg
Speaker 3: dot com slash membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars
Speaker 3: a year and I think people have really enjoyed it
Speaker 3: so big. Thanks to all the members out there, and
Speaker 3: if you aren't, we'd love you to consider joining and
Speaker 3: becoming part of our community and club TFE. Thanks and
Speaker 3: we will be back next week with more episodes of
Speaker 3: the Friday Golf Podcast.