WEBVTT - How Digital Tech and AI Could Change Golf Course Design 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.800 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:04.920 I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:06.960 And when I find my ball in a bride egg 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.560 Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg egg, 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:11.800 Frida egg, bride egg. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.120 Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:37.120 And Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.760 and today we are talking about new digital technologies and 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.600 their potential influence on golf course design. This is something 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.800 that's been on my mind a lot lately. The pace 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.880 of technological progress seems to be just quickening and quickening. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.440 The artificial intelligence stuff that's come out in recent months 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.040 and weeks has been just insane, like chat GPT. I'm 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.280 sure you've seen that I used to be in English heature. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.720 That piece of technology alone would have completely changed the 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.800 way that I approached my job as an English teacher. 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.240 And so I'm sort of wondering at what point is 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.880 some of this new technology going to make its way 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.760 into golf architecture in a big way and really restructure 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.320 how that business is done. So to sort through these issues, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.280 I'm going to talk to Peter Florey. Peter is probably 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:26.959 best known in the golf world as one of the 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.640 driving forces behind the LEDO Recreation project in Wisconsin. It 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.560 was really Peter's research that made a lot of that possible, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:39.319 and he used some very interesting digital methods in that process. 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:41.720 So we're going to talk about that and also just 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.560 about new technologies that are becoming available to golf course 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:51.280 architects and developers, including some pretty wild AI stuff. So 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.800 that's all ahead. But first, this episode is brought to 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.920 you by Fat Cork. Fat Cork is all about champagne. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.160 They work exclusively with small, family run champagne producers who 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.600 grow their own grapes. 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There are gift sets and tasting 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.000 kits as well, including a couple that are designed specifically 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.560 for Valentine's Day, which is coming up. If you use 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.840 the code golf Golf, you can get free shipping, which 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.800 is a big deal when it comes to champagne. You 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.600 can get a handwritten gift note and if you call 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.160 or email, a real live human will help. Really cool 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.400 company here, fat Cork check them out, all right, let's 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:48.080 go to Peter Floyd. All right, So I thought a 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.280 good way to start this conversation that we're going to 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.840 have about digital technology and its effect on golf course 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.960 design would be to tell a story about how you've 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.840 used some of this technology in an actual project. Right, So, 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.520 you are a key part of the Lido project in Wisconsin. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.840 You initially modeled that lost Ceb McDonald SETH Rayner golf course, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.480 and what you did really enabled the architects at Tom 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:20.640 Doakes Firm to recreate the course in a completely different location. Now, 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.080 you've told me previously that this was more of a 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:30.560 research project than a technological one, but certainly technology was 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.279 involved in it. So maybe you could just tell me 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:38.040 how you created your digital version of the Lido and 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.919 what technology you did use to help you in this process. 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.760 Yeah. I think it's an interesting case because most of 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.320 the technology had been existing for a while before this, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.880 and it just sort of took this case to sort 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:57.839 of push it to everyone's attention. As you're saying, most 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:02.240 of the leader research could have been done on anything. 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.680 I could have sculpted it in clay, you know, I 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.800 could have used older programs, but the newer programs are 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.000 very convenient, and I guess it did play a role 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.080 because the research sort of compounded, so that having a 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.880 three dimensional model that you could rotate and look at 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.880 from different vantage points, with different focal lengths and all 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:31.240 that really did have a compounding effect because when I 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.440 got more and more photos, we could start to sort 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.400 of rotate and identify unknown photos, photos that no one 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:39.960 knew which hole. It was all of a sudden, I 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.840 could see the clubhouse in the distance, and I could 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.839 see a couple of telephone poles and other landmarks, and 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.200 I could just sort of match the angle and then 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.840 I'm like, Okay, that's got to be the fifteenth green. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.560 And then once you know that, you know that may 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.440 be in the background of another photo, and as sort 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:02.039 of a chain reaction of identification of photos. And I 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.440 guess if I was using clay it would be harder 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.040 to do that. But the technology I was using was 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.280 fairly basic. There's a lot more advanced technology than that, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.200 but I'd say it was good enough to do the 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:19.400 trick for this project. And then once I created the 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:26.200 digital model, there were more sort of technological applications that 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.480 we had to improvise. I say we, but Tom Doak 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.040 and his team and Brian Zeger. They had to figure 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.520 out how to extract it from the environment that I 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.200 created in which it wasn't programmed to be extracted, so 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:44.320 that was a whole tech issue. And then using sort 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:49.479 of the save as feature by scanning what Tom Doak 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.960 and Brian Schneider and those guys would put in the ground. 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.080 You know, they're working in pure sand there, and they 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.080 would sort of get a rough draft from the digital 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.640 model with GPS dozers, and then they would refine it 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.560 and sculpt it the best that they could using photos 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.880 and all sorts of other things, and then before the 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.120 wind would blow it away and destroy it, they could 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.200 laser scan it and sort of save as and then 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:17.440 do whatever else they needed to do and then come 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.880 back and restore it to that And that's one of 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.760 the interesting sort of technologies that emerged, or the usefulness 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.160 of it emerged during this project. And I think Tom 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.640 has talked about how he just thought of other uses 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.600 for it, like you going over to New Zealand less 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.600 and doing a bunch of grains at a time and 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.320 sort of saving them all as. And then he could 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.560 not travel there seven times, but only once or twice. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.440 Gotcha all right? I think I'd like a little more 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.440 detail about your initial digital model of the lido that 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.800 you created in a video game called The Golf Club. 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.200 So tell me about the technology that went into that 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.080 and the process that you used to create this model 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.000 that you know, when you first were creating it really 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.480 stunned people in its specificity and kind of led to 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.560 the process that this project ended up following. So what 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.480 was that initial digital version of the leado? How did 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:19.560 you create that? 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.560 So just a little bit background. I've always dabbled in 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.240 I mean, I remember being in middle school and like 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.679 Jack Nicholas's program came out that I thought looked photo 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.360 realistic then and now it looks like Pong in comparison. 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.400 But you know, I would I would geek out on 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.120 that after school. So I think I had some I 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:39.760 was drawn to it a bit, and I was sort 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.760 of kept up with, you know, links golf, had sort 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.640 of a designer and other things, but it went dormant 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.560 for a while when I got into work life, and 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.079 I guess what rekindled the interest was we we built 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.160 a house and I had the idea to put a 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.400 simulator in the basement, and my my kids were sort 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.640 of getting a little interested in golf, and the software 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.720 that I use was the Golf Club for that simulator, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.160 and I figured out that I could design holes that 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.400 were more fit for like a seven year old. So 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.400 I just I knew it had designer component, and I 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.439 would go in there and just be like, Okay, it'd 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:20.960 be cool if they had a water carry, you know, 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.320 ten yard water carry to a really easy grain with 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.920 a big backstop. I just started screwing around like that 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.920 and creating kids courses, and then after a while I 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:32.760 sort of got comfortable with it, and I started to 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.480 see the power of it. And again that's a very 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.800 simple rendering program. It's very easy to use. Anyone could 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.880 pick it up. But I'm like, it's actually pretty good, 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:44.920 and it's you get the reward of being able to 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.679 play it. And so I've always been interested in lost 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.120 golf courses, and I was a member of Olympic fields 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.720 that had two lost golf courses, and so that was 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.240 my first entry point, is, man, maybe I could figure 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.080 out what those were. And I started kind of screwing 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.520 around in the program and importing the lidar and researching 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.960 their history room. And then I think the second project 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.240 was probably mill road farm up in Lake Forest, the 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:19.240 famous loss course, and I rendered that one completely and 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.199 then kind of moved onto Ocean Links and a few others. 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.000 And I was still working during this time, but I 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.080 had a big, heavy burst of work and then all 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.200 of a sudden kind of a lull, and I just 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.640 I'm like, man, what would be the holy grail of 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.599 lost golf? To see if I could do here and 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:38.640 see if I could revive and go play in my basement? 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.319 And the Leado had always been the lost city of 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:47.800 Atlantis and the golf architecture community, and at that point 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.200 I didn't really know much about it. I had seen 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.640 a few pictures. I viewed it as a kind of 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.800 a geometric template course, and I was more going into 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.439 it skeptically, saying what was so great about this, saying 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.600 let's see if I can find out. And I sort 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:07.560 of got into it through one hole to eight pole, 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.520 which had some pretty good photographic evidence, and I posted 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.880 the results on golf club bat lists and then just 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:19.520 started immediately getting feedback from fellow golf nerds, and it 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.920 was actually very constructive, helpful feedback. I sort of misinterpreted 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.800 the hole at first. I got some theories from a 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.560 few people and refined it and put it back until 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.280 we thought it was good enough. But just that exposure 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.040 started to bring photos out of the woodwork, and then 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.360 I started getting messages and emails, and that really cascaded 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:46.600 into resulting enough information to do the whole course. So 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.240 that took a while, and I had no end data, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.360 I had no goal. It was just to get it right. 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.240 So I would do it for three hours one night, 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.120 six hours another night. I'd abandoned for a couple of weeks, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:00.960 and it was just sort of a fun thing to 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.280 like a three or crossword puzzle, to keep going back. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.920 And and the more work I put into it, I 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.000 would say, the easier it got, because the more everything 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.240 sort of fit together, and the more feedback I could 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.319 get from the images and comparing angles and stuff like that, 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.200 so it got more and more rewarding, which I think 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.800 things like this are typically the opposite. They get sort 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.240 of diminishing returns, but this one sort of got more 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.200 and more lifelike, like sort of sketching out a portrait 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.959 and then filling in the details. And I guess the 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:40.520 culmination was when and there was a couple of different 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.800 touch points. Tom do OK contact me and was sort 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.280 of feeling me out for how accurate it was. I 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.880 think Andy actually introduced me to Michael Kaiser Jr. And 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:51.839 sort of time and. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:57.199 This would be Andy Johnson that you're referring to Friday Founder. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:12:59.679 Yeah. I think he was sort of watching what I 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.600 was doing. He knew Michael Keser Junr. I really didn't, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.280 so a couple different introductions, and then when I presented 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.760 it again, I didn't really know he was serious about 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:14.360 doing it. I was just sort of showing him what 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.000 it was. But by the end of that meeting he 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.200 was He seemed very gong on. He's like, yeah, I've 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:21.880 been wanting to do this for a long time, or 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.360 my father has. I knew that they considered doing it 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:27.600 at the band in Dune Side a long time ago, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.920 but I thought I thought that would have been neat, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.400 And then I thought it would have been pretty neat 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.240 if they did at stream Song. I know they were, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.040 you know, that was kind of like the right environment 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.520 to do it, sort of a blank slate, but I 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.680 thought it was dead at this point. So I was 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.920 doing it for sort of history's sake and my own 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:46.880 sake and everyone so they could see what it was like. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.559 And then yeah, when he sort of brought up that 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.720 it could be a reality, I just got very excited. Yeah, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.000 and then that sort of motivated me to then be like, 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.240 oh man, you know, I should really go back over 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.680 this thing with a fine tooth comb and make sure 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.000 it really is what I think because before that, you know, 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.160 there's some details that you could sort of brush over. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.000 But when you know someone's gonna put in the ground, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.560 all of a sudden, the review editing phase started and 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:14.439 that was pretty heavy. 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.880 And what is it that you ended up handing over 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.560 to Doake's team to guide them, to help guide them 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.360 in the process of actually reproducing the golf course. Was 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:31.960 there like a specific model or digital something that that 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:33.320 you gave to them in the end. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.480 Well, then we sort of ran into a little dilemma. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.000 It was like, Okay, there's this nice looking rendering of 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.400 it in a digital environment, but again, it wasn't meant 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.400 it's not an architectural tool. It's more of a video game, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.520 and it was sort of trapped in there. And so 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.560 the worst case we could have manually sort of measured 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.440 every point of it and kind of created our own topo. 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.600 But that's when Brian Zigger came in, and you know, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.400 he he was living up there, he was sort of 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.640 I sort of think of him as like a tech ninja, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.520 and he's very into golf, and you kind of need 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.640 the fusion of those two interests to be to be 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:18.480 very useful here. And he just had ideas like, I 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.080 think I know how to get this out of there, 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.240 and I would say what he did is sort of 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.880 I don't want to say hacked, but he he figured 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.040 out that the measuring tool in the game would give 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.040 a coordinate and a height and could measure a distance. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:38.240 So he sort of figured out that if he did 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.960 a little macro, he could send this measuring tool off 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.000 on a multi day journey or however long it took 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.760 to run the program and it would just go every 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.320 foot or every two feet and take a measurement. And 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:55.680 he found a way to basically automate a topo system 0:15:55.720 --> 0:16:00.560 out of that. So that that was big. Tom likes 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.080 to work with topo, as I think most of the 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.360 big architects do. You know, some of them may sort 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.760 of convert more digital going forward, but that that's how 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.320 they're used to working. And you know, there was a 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.080 little more to it like they needed to space out 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.080 a few things for safety and do some other scaling. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.200 But that was basically the delivery on the tech side 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.800 from my standpoint, was giving the model to Brian and 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.160 letting him try to extract it. And then from a 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:37.040 just a practical work perspective, I created like a like 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.960 a field level cheat sheet for them where I just 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.240 basically took everything I knew about each hole, everything that I 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.640 thought was useful, and sort of typed it up in 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.200 a document that I don't remember, probably came out to 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.640 a hundred pages or something like that, and every useful 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.360 image I copy and pasted in there. And they I 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:01.200 think they reproduced that book. The Brian Schneider and the 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.640 guys in the field could sort of constantly refer to 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:08.160 it and not have to rely on memory or sort 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.080 of keep coming back to me. So I think that 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:12.680 that was good. And then at one point to even 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.560 set up like a visual hut out there on site 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.320 that had a bunch of computer monitors and was nice 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.600 and dark and they could they really needed to look 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:24.399 at the finer details they could go in there. 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.520 Wow. Okay, now you were talking about something earlier that 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.879 the builders were using in the field at the Lido 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.040 something where they could kind of say that as could 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:37.800 you tell me a bit more about that. I'm not 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.120 sure I completely understood that process or what the technology 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.920 was that they were using. Was it GPS. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.919 It's basically, I guess the way to state it. It 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.600 really matters on the green contours because you have to 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:53.640 be you know, you don't want the wind to change 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.240 it by a few inches here and there. I would 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.880 say the fairway contours matter less. But the basic concept 0:17:59.920 --> 0:18:03.840 is they could first first they could do a rough 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.600 draft from the digital model, and they could use GPS 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:12.159 dozers to to actually sculpt the land, so they you know, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.080 I wasn't there during this, but they piled the stand 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.520 up and essentially the machine will keep subtracting from it 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.639 and comparing it to the GPS, and from my understanding, 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.720 some pretty big machines could get pretty good level of 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.800 detail from that, Like they could even sort of cover 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.919 their own tracks with the scraper or you know however 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:40.320 it works. But once they do that, then I'd say, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.280 then that's where my model ended and where Tom and 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.760 Brian Schneider and their artistry comes in. You know, there 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.440 was a lot of looking at photographs trying to get 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.159 micro contours. You know, there's some of the greens I 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.360 had a lot of information, so I didn't have much 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.560 or I had information, but it was from sort of 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.480 strangely the things in the middle of the course. I 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.280 had less information because we had obliques from the perimeter, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:07.520 so the center of the course was kind of the 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.199 furthest away And for a few of those we had 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.520 ground level photos and great info, and a couple were 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:18.080 a little murky. And Tom and Brian's interpretation, you know, 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.880 from having studied the National Golf Links and other courses 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.280 and the knowledge drainage, you know, they were much better 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.639 looking at the photos and interpreting what was happening. So 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.040 there are a lot of cases where whatever I put 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.080 in the digital model, especially in the middle of the course, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.760 they may have overruled with better evidence, or they may 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.240 have just gone to a finer level of detail and said, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:44.920 you know, we can see more detail than what was 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.080 in your model, and so, you know, say they do 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.400 call it the finish work, and then it's it's a sandy, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.359 windy environment out there, and the save ass feature would 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:02.199 be then taking a local GPS station with basically a 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.400 laser device like a local lid oer device. I think, 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.120 similar to what the strac aligne guys use for their 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.960 green maps and all that, and you basically, I don't know. 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.359 I think it takes fifteen twenty minutes or so. You 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.320 can laser an entire green complex and then you have 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.359 it to you know, saying the eighth of an inch 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:27.119 of accuracy digitally, so then if if you leave and 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.160 the wind kind of rearranges it, you can always put 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.159 it right back. And that's that's what I'm calling abas future. 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.400 I don't they probably don't refer to it that way. 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.280 And it's probably similar to what architects do. Restoration architects 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.359 do when they want to like preserve green contours before 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.760 they kind of take the greens down to the base 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.240 and rebuild them. Right, if they want to save what 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.399 the original contours are, they might do use some of 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:58.600 this laser scan technology to save that digitally so that 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.359 they know when they rebuild it, they're rebuilding something that 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.200 looks more or less like the original functions like it. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.000 Yeah, I believe that was the first use of this technology, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.640 and people have been doing that for a while. So yeah, 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:12.439 if you had. If you had to take out the 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.679 thatch layer of a green, you would, you know, and 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.560 you wanted to preserve the dynamics, you could scan it first, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.400 kind of put it under the knife and then make 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:23.000 sure that you could put it back if you ever 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.840 wanted to, or put it back and lower it, or 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.320 you could do things like, you know, reduce the slopes 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.040 by two percent. You could do all sorts of things 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:33.800 digitally once you have it scanned. 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:40.680 Were there any particular surprises in the transition from digital 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.640 to physical, like some holes that just turned out differently 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.320 than you thought, or had to be altered in the 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.680 field by the intervention of Brian Schneider and Tom Doak, 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.119 or holes that were just much better than you imagined. 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.919 Anything that was just like, hey, this is not quite 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.840 what I thought it would be now that I'm seeing 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:01.719 it in the ground. 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.960 Well, there were. First of all, there's there's a million 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:09.240 little technicalities like there's you know, I mean, I learned 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.919 a lot going through this process. Like aerials. You know, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:13.800 you don't you think of them as being straight down, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.840 but they're not. They're you know, if you really wanted 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:21.960 to to and we skipped a little bit of things 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.840 we had something called the Anaglyph, which was overlapping survey 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:30.560 flight images that we combined during during my modeling phase. 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.080 A guy named Craig Disher, who's a golf historian but 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.440 also a military photo historian, found these back to back 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.199 aerials pretty high definition. I would say some of the 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.280 highest definition I've seen for an old course. And he 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.640 overlapped them and color coded them so I could put 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.000 on three D glasses and I could look and zoom 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:54.359 in and I could see the contours of the course 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.679 to a pretty high degree. Without that, it was very 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:00.560 hard to tell if things were coming up up or down. 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.280 You had to really think about the shading a lot. 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:07.800