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Speaker 1: The fried egg requires a different technique. What you need
Speaker 1: to do is actually square the face so it'll dig
Speaker 1: down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right
Speaker 1: out onto the green.
Speaker 2: Here's the take.
Speaker 3: Saying out of a buried lion of bunker is completely
Speaker 3: different than playing out of a night and clean lion.
Speaker 3: A greenside bunker.
Speaker 2: You'd need to be aggressive on any show. Weather it's
Speaker 2: sitting cleanly for its Friday Egg.
Speaker 1: Well, we've all faithed it. The dreaded fried egg not
Speaker 1: to be cleared, though it's actually a pretty easy shot
Speaker 1: to hit. Welcome back to the School of golf architecture
Speaker 1: on the Frida Egg podcast and to the second part
Speaker 1: of my discussion with architect Jeff man Gay about golf
Speaker 1: course routing. I'm Garrett Morrison. Now i'd recommend that you
Speaker 1: go back and listen to part one if you haven't already.
Speaker 1: That episode lays a lot of groundwork for what we
Speaker 1: discuss in this one, But just to recap, we defined
Speaker 1: routing as the way in which architects lay out golf
Speaker 1: holes on the land, or, in other words, the positions
Speaker 1: they choose for each team and each green. Jeff and
Speaker 1: I identified three main aspects of a routing that any
Speaker 1: golfer can see and understand while playing around. One, whether
Speaker 1: the walks between greens and teas make sense. Two, whether
Speaker 1: the holes use the best pre existing features of the property.
Speaker 1: In Three, whether the routing has a sense of drama
Speaker 1: from beginning to middle to end. In this episode, Jeff
Speaker 1: and I apply these criteria to a few different well
Speaker 1: known routings. This is, first of all, a way of
Speaker 1: demonstrating how you can read the routing of any given
Speaker 1: golf course, but it's also an opportunity to explore the
Speaker 1: evolution of routing through history. How have methods of routing
Speaker 1: golf courses changed over time and does the future hold
Speaker 1: any new possibilities. Starting with the Old Course, we've talked
Speaker 1: about some of the inherent flaws of the out and
Speaker 1: back routing in the sense that it doesn't provide much
Speaker 1: variety in the relationship of the holes to the wind.
Speaker 1: But what do you think are some of the merits
Speaker 1: of the out and back routing? You know, just what
Speaker 1: do you what do you think of that as as
Speaker 1: an example of how to rout a golf course.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a bit of a coincidence that we can
Speaker 3: criticize the out and back routing of the Old course,
Speaker 3: mostly because of the lack of variety in terms of
Speaker 3: how how the course tacks into the.
Speaker 2: Wind and away from the wind. But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: The best thing about that out and back routing is.
Speaker 3: That it allows the golf course to pretty easily be
Speaker 3: played reversible, which is something that I can't believe hasn't
Speaker 3: gotten more traction in the last hundred years of golf architecture,
Speaker 3: you know, we I mean, the benefits of having one
Speaker 3: golf course that can play two ways are pretty obvious, right,
Speaker 3: huge benefits the ownership they get to basically get two
Speaker 3: courses for the price of one. They also get two
Speaker 3: courses that can be maintained for the price of one,
Speaker 3: and the environmental benefits that come along with that as well.
Speaker 3: You know, you got thirty six holes basically being maintained
Speaker 3: as eighteen. It's a it's a it's a wonderful concept
Speaker 3: that again, I mean there's a few golf courses have
Speaker 3: been the loop. I think Frank Pont's done to at
Speaker 3: least one or two, and in Europe. It just the
Speaker 3: concept makes so much sense, yet it's been done so
Speaker 3: few times to this point. It's it's it's puzzling to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, it takes a client that understands the concept.
Speaker 3: It takes the correct piece of ground too. You know,
Speaker 3: you're on a piece of ground that's hilly, it's going
Speaker 3: to be pretty difficult to find find a way to
Speaker 3: get it to play in reverse rele you know, comparatively,
Speaker 3: when you look at a piece of ground like Saint Andrew's,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's basically flat and rumpled. Although I hear
Speaker 3: Sylvie's Ranch works pretty good and there's some pretty hilly,
Speaker 3: hilly spots there.
Speaker 1: You were just there, right, yeah, I was just there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'd love to talk about that one later as
Speaker 1: an example of along alongside the loop, as an example
Speaker 1: of what might be next in routing. But Sylvie's Valley
Speaker 1: Ranch certainly has a very clever approach to the reversible
Speaker 1: routing in that it has twenty seven greens and not
Speaker 1: all the greens are in play every day. But it
Speaker 1: makes the routing work on a very hilly piece of property,
Speaker 1: which is which is quite an accomplishment. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes the reversible routing at
Speaker 1: the Old Course work is that, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: rumpled piece of land, but it's not a hilly piece
Speaker 1: of land, right, you're not. You don't have to go
Speaker 1: back up a big hill that you've gone down the
Speaker 1: day before. Now, Okay, So there's this wacky theory I
Speaker 1: have about about the Old Course routing as it relates
Speaker 1: to what we are discussing in the you know, the
Speaker 1: storytelling or the drama aspects of routing a golf course.
Speaker 1: You know, to me, that old course routing is very
Speaker 1: elemental and primal in a way. You start from the
Speaker 1: town basically, and you can just imagine the initial golfers
Speaker 1: there saying, okay, we start here because this is where
Speaker 1: we are. This is where the town is, and where
Speaker 1: we're gonna head just straight out to uh to the
Speaker 1: river Eden, you know, that's where. That's where we're gonna
Speaker 1: head out to. We're gonna go out there, and then
Speaker 1: once we get there, we're going to kind of hang
Speaker 1: out there for a second. Right, that's the Shepherd's Crook
Speaker 1: part of the routing. We're gonna hang out in this
Speaker 1: nice little gathering spot because this seems like a nice
Speaker 1: place to be. We've gotten here, we want to spend
Speaker 1: a little bit of time here, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: go back. We're going to return home. There is a
Speaker 1: natural sense of drama to me about that routing. That's
Speaker 1: basically the plot of the Hobbit right there and back again.
Speaker 1: And and so I want, I wonder if it feels
Speaker 1: that way to you when when you're playing the Old Course.
Speaker 1: That there's a there's a sense that you're taking it
Speaker 1: a journey out to something, staying there for a bit
Speaker 1: and then coming back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I've heard to describe exactly that way,
Speaker 3: but I agree, and I love that description. I also
Speaker 3: believe that that's got to be true, right, that the
Speaker 3: other thing that is piece of lynx Land, you know,
Speaker 3: it is a thin strip that, just as you just described,
Speaker 3: took off from town, stopped at the river and came back.
Speaker 3: And it'd be interesting, I mean, this is completely impossible,
Speaker 3: but it would certainly be interesting to go back in
Speaker 3: time and see who decided to put the quote unquote
Speaker 3: greens where they went and where they are today. Right,
Speaker 3: somebody had to go out there and say, well, this
Speaker 3: is a reasonably flat spot here where we can cut
Speaker 3: the hole in the ground and putt So my suspicion
Speaker 3: and I should go back and read Scott McPherson's book
Speaker 3: on the on the evolution of.
Speaker 2: The Old Course to see if this is right or wrong.
Speaker 3: But twenty two holes existed at the Old Course way
Speaker 3: back when it first started. Somebody had to have gone
Speaker 3: out there and picked those, you know, eleven sites or
Speaker 3: whatever it was where they were going to try to
Speaker 3: get to, you know, to to finally arrive with those
Speaker 3: twenty two holes. A guy you from town out to
Speaker 3: the river back. That's golf architecture routing.
Speaker 1: And you have to think that it was by committee
Speaker 1: and that it was gradual, you know, and that's maybe
Speaker 1: the best way to do it. You know, they've played
Speaker 1: over that little piece of land a bunch of times
Speaker 1: and eventually figured out where the best places were to
Speaker 1: cut the holes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I either haven't thought about it this
Speaker 3: way or haven't thought about it this way in a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 2: But essentially the evolution of the.
Speaker 3: Old course definitely involved picking those sites that were the
Speaker 3: best green sites, which is what golf architecture.
Speaker 2: Still begins with.
Speaker 3: You get out on a raw piece of ground. I mean,
Speaker 3: the first thing we do as designers is start to
Speaker 3: look at where's the best places to put the greens,
Speaker 3: and the questions are.
Speaker 2: Which are the most beautiful sites, Which sites will.
Speaker 3: Allow you to connect them in a way that you're
Speaker 3: going to end up with the best variety of holes,
Speaker 3: both looks, distances, everything that lends to variety, But most
Speaker 3: of all, you're looking for places where you're going to
Speaker 3: relatively easily build a green.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't want to build a green.
Speaker 3: On a hills on a hillsite that's forty five degrees slope,
Speaker 3: it's just hard to build a green there, and it
Speaker 3: takes a lot of fill and it's more expensive. So again,
Speaker 3: looking for those sites that are naturally greens or require
Speaker 3: comparatively minimal work to create.
Speaker 2: A green is what we're looking for.
Speaker 3: And getting back to the old course, I'm sure that
Speaker 3: hundreds of years ago, that's exactly what they were doing.
Speaker 3: I mean, they didn't have much equipment out there to
Speaker 3: manipulate things, so they were looking at spots.
Speaker 2: It literally made sense to be a putting green.
Speaker 1: So now let's go to the next stage of the
Speaker 1: evolution of routing a golf course, which I think is
Speaker 1: represented well by Merefield, which feels a lot more intentional
Speaker 1: in the way that it's routed as opposed to kind
Speaker 1: of natural and by committee. It feels like the routing
Speaker 1: at Merefield was very expertly done. Did you talk about
Speaker 1: the Merefield routing a little bit and what makes it
Speaker 1: so kind of historically important, especially as compared to the
Speaker 1: out and back routings that we've been talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when Harry Gold showed up at Mierfield, there was
Speaker 3: a pretty rudimentary, I guess you'd say, in comparison, a
Speaker 3: rudimentary old Tom Morris course there. And like Saint Andrew's
Speaker 3: and a number of the early links, it had more
Speaker 3: of an out and back, not not at vary as
Speaker 3: varied a routing as you see at Mierfield today. And
Speaker 3: that's what the lesson that Mierfield taught in the early
Speaker 3: days of routing golf courses is how to lay out
Speaker 3: holes again with with that wind consideration in mind, where's
Speaker 3: the prevailing wind? You know, what does it do a
Speaker 3: majority of the time, And how can we get these
Speaker 3: holes to confront that wind at varying angles, hole after
Speaker 3: hole after hole. The only two holes in Deerfield that
Speaker 3: run consecutive in the same direction on the compass are
Speaker 3: four and five. Otherwise you play each hole with the
Speaker 3: wind coming at.
Speaker 2: You from a different angle.
Speaker 3: And you know, over the years there's been a lot
Speaker 3: of a lot of discussion about that routing in golf
Speaker 3: architecture circles for that reason, and when where and when
Speaker 3: it's possible, you know, a good routing.
Speaker 2: Is going to turn you in into different direction from
Speaker 2: hole to hole to hole.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear about what the Mirfield routing
Speaker 1: is for those who are unfamiliar with it, the front
Speaker 1: nine goes around the perimeter of the property and the
Speaker 1: back nine basically is set within the front nine, and
Speaker 1: so you've got these these kind of you know, almost
Speaker 1: concentric circles. Though of course the holes, especially on the
Speaker 1: back nine, often reverse in order to fit in. But
Speaker 1: you can imagine it as as kind of you know,
Speaker 1: outer and inner routing. And you know, we've seen architects
Speaker 1: basely adapt that routing to a number of different sites.
Speaker 1: I know that Ross did it a lot, and tilling
Speaker 1: Hast especially did it quite frequently. And it's and it's
Speaker 1: very clever because you've got those returning nines and you
Speaker 1: and you've got the different relationships to the wind, and
Speaker 1: you're constantly kind of revisiting sections of the property that
Speaker 1: you've seen before, but you're you're coming at them from
Speaker 1: a different direction. How much better can routing get from there? Honestly, No, that's.
Speaker 3: Still you know, that still ranks up there as one
Speaker 3: one of the ones you're trying to be inspired by
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about Cypress Point. What
Speaker 1: a lot of people are familiar with the basics of
Speaker 1: that routing, but what makes it special and how does
Speaker 1: it kind of fit into some of the principles of
Speaker 1: routing that we've been talking about.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the biggest thing with Cyprus Point is
Speaker 3: I really believe that that Alistair mackenzie was truly trying
Speaker 3: to celebrate that really one of a kind site.
Speaker 2: You know, you're dealing with dunes.
Speaker 3: Beautiful cypress for coastal bluffs. He does a wonderful job,
Speaker 3: starting the golf course in the dunes, taking into the forest,
Speaker 3: leaving the forest back into.
Speaker 2: The dunes, one more trip to the forest, back into.
Speaker 3: The dunes, and then eventually coming down thirteen and fourteen
Speaker 3: you see the Pacific Ocean. It's getting closer and closer.
Speaker 3: And then another one of those wonderful little walks and golf.
Speaker 3: You know, we talk about connectivity and golf courses, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't say that fourteen Green and fifteen Tea are very
Speaker 3: well connected. You get a long walk, you get across
Speaker 3: what might be one of the most you know, the
Speaker 3: busiest roads in America these days, but the walker. Once
Speaker 3: you get across the road onto the ocean side, the
Speaker 3: little trail that takes you over to fifteen T and
Speaker 3: turn the corner and see that hole for the first time.
Speaker 3: It's one of the most exhilarating experiences. And I'm sure
Speaker 3: that trail was cut purposefully to wait for that review,
Speaker 3: you know, as long as they could for you to
Speaker 3: turn the corner and get on fifteen T and then
Speaker 3: finally playing playing the coastal holes at Cypress as the
Speaker 3: big conclusion, I'm not sure it gets much better, and
Speaker 3: people have people complain about the eighteenth tool, you know.
Speaker 3: I was reading about that the other day again. I
Speaker 3: came across it that someone had said that Cyprus points
Speaker 3: the best seventeen whole course in the world because eighteen
Speaker 3: turns you around from the ocean and takes you through
Speaker 3: the trees again back up to the clubhouse. I don't
Speaker 3: agree with that. I think eighteen is actually one of
Speaker 3: the most unique golf holes you'll ever see in your
Speaker 3: entire life. Again, as part celebrating that wonderful property, I
Speaker 3: think I think the doctor wanted to take you through
Speaker 3: those beautiful cypress trees. I mean, these cypress trees at
Speaker 3: Cyprus Point are some of the most beautiful natural things
Speaker 3: you'll let's see anywhere, and I think his eighteenth hole
Speaker 3: there celebrates that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely features those I mean, and there's so
Speaker 1: much to talk about here. For one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I should mention that there is some doubt as to
Speaker 1: whether SETH Rayner or Alistair McKenzie is most responsible for
Speaker 1: the routing at Cypress Point. You know, obviously McKenzie is
Speaker 1: the architect of record, but there is an ongoing debate
Speaker 1: about who did the original routing and how much of
Speaker 1: that original routing made it into the to the final
Speaker 1: golf course. We don't need to get into that here.
Speaker 1: That's that's a topic for podcasts by our friends over
Speaker 1: the Society of Golf Historians. I think that's more more
Speaker 1: a subject for Connor Lewis. But in any case, the
Speaker 1: routing of Cyprus Point is so rich and it represents
Speaker 1: all the things we've been talking about. You know, you've
Speaker 1: already talked about the variety of landscapes at Cyprus Point.
Speaker 1: You've got the woods, and you've got the dunes, and
Speaker 1: you've got the ocean, and it's hard to imagine a
Speaker 1: routing using those three places better or with more variety,
Speaker 1: or you know, more different parts of the round. You've
Speaker 1: got the sense of drama, like you talked about going
Speaker 1: out to the ocean at the end and really coming
Speaker 1: to a culmination. There the great connectors between the fourteenth
Speaker 1: Green and the fifteenth Tee and between the fifteenth Green
Speaker 1: and the sixteenth t longish walks, but nobody would want
Speaker 1: those not to be there. And then I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a perfect story in many ways because the eighteenth Hole,
Speaker 1: even though it's underrated, as you say, and has many
Speaker 1: things to recommend it, there is a sense of kind
Speaker 1: of calming down from the sixteenth and seventeenth holes. And
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of structure, great stories are structured.
Speaker 1: Where the climax isn't at the very end, The climax
Speaker 1: isn't the last paragraph. The climax comes a few pages earlier.
Speaker 1: And then there's what English teachers will call a den umont.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a calming down and a sense of
Speaker 1: resolution and a sense that okay, now life is going on.
Speaker 1: And I think that the eighteenth Hole at Cyprus Point
Speaker 1: delivers that. One thing we haven't talked about is the
Speaker 1: gathering points at Cyprus Point, which are some of the
Speaker 1: I guess we touched on it briefly earlier, but some
Speaker 1: of the best anywhere, right, I mean, you know that
Speaker 1: there's a couple of really dramatic landforms at Cypress Point
Speaker 1: and a lot of holes. Oh yeah, you're showing me
Speaker 1: right now. I have look at this. So what we're what? What? What?
Speaker 1: What Jeff and I are showing each other right now?
Speaker 1: Are are respective copies of the World Atlas of Golf,
Speaker 1: which we just happened to both have right next to us.
Speaker 1: And we've got the old green cover. We don't have
Speaker 1: that new abomination. We've got we've got the old edition
Speaker 1: of the World Atlas of Golf. So we both had
Speaker 1: that book next to us. It has a great map
Speaker 1: of Cypress Point. Gathering points at Cypress Point are congregation points,
Speaker 1: I think is what you called them. Uh, tell me
Speaker 1: about some of those at Cypress Point and how they work.
Speaker 3: Well. One of the really cool spots at Cyprus And
Speaker 3: it's a really great example of you know, using a
Speaker 3: single natural feature to work off of and into is
Speaker 3: a big duneline that bisects the property where three green
Speaker 3: twelve t or sorry, three green four T eleven green,
Speaker 3: twelve T nine green, ten T six green, and then
Speaker 3: one of the best part of threes ever seven plays
Speaker 3: off of it and eight plays off of it. So
Speaker 3: you're talking about I wish I had a measurement here,
Speaker 3: but you're talking about a single dune ridge that cuts
Speaker 3: through the property.
Speaker 2: I guess would be over on the east side of
Speaker 2: the property.
Speaker 3: You know, far away from the ocean. But to work
Speaker 3: what one, two, three, four, five, six, seventy eight nine
Speaker 3: holes off of a single dune ridge, you know. And again,
Speaker 3: most people who play Cyprus Point, they're enjoying the holes,
Speaker 3: they're not thinking about the fact that McKenzie used that
Speaker 3: one ridge to work that much of the golf course
Speaker 3: off of and onto in such a dramatic fashion.
Speaker 2: And all of those holes are they couldn't be more different.
Speaker 3: And they all use that single natural features as as
Speaker 3: the main feature of the hole.
Speaker 1: Incredible, It's genius and it works practically too, right, You're
Speaker 1: not at no point, you know, when you when you
Speaker 1: jam that many holes around one feature, often you create
Speaker 1: safety problems, you create routing problems where you're you know,
Speaker 1: where there might be weird walks or connectivity issues. But
Speaker 1: there's none of that in these holes. Somehow they all
Speaker 1: work even though they're all congregated around this one place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's incredible And another great example of that,
Speaker 3: what did we determine congregational routing?
Speaker 1: So you know, there's so many other routings that that
Speaker 1: we could talk about. You know, so far we've talked
Speaker 1: about the old Course, Miarfield, Cyprus Point. These are really
Speaker 1: well known ones. One that I think people aren't as
Speaker 1: familiar with but you are, and that I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with because I have not into this course, but Highland's
Speaker 1: Lynx and and to me, that's a fascinating sounding routing.
Speaker 1: You've you've touched on a few aspects of it already,
Speaker 1: but could you tell me about that one and what
Speaker 1: you think makes it distinctive?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what makes.
Speaker 3: Island's links most distinctive, again similar to Cypress Point, is
Speaker 3: that is that the golf course traverses three or four
Speaker 3: very distinctive environments and it's actually an out and back routing.
Speaker 3: You know, one leaves the little protop, plays down the peninsula,
Speaker 3: starts out of the ocean, takes you to the forest
Speaker 3: and by the time you get to nine Green, you know,
Speaker 3: you're ten kilometers from where you began. The tenth is
Speaker 3: still out in the in the river valley. Thirteen takes
Speaker 3: you back to the ocean again, just traversing beautifully distinctive landscapes.
Speaker 3: But Stanley Thompson did the same thing that Aliston McKenzie
Speaker 3: did at Cypress Point too. Sure he was celebrating these
Speaker 3: these distinct environments and these beautifulties, but he didn't forget
Speaker 3: about the golf either, And Highland's Links, like Cyper's Point,
Speaker 3: is relentless in terms of the.
Speaker 2: Quality of the holes from the first.
Speaker 3: Tee to the eighteenth green, very distinctive, as beautiful as
Speaker 3: you can get in terms of a natural environment for golf,
Speaker 3: and a very simplistic layout where he really truly did utilize,
Speaker 3: you know, the inherent landscape in the best way possible
Speaker 3: for golf. Set you up to enjoy views of the ocean,
Speaker 3: enjoy views of distant mountains, to play down the fifteenth
Speaker 3: hole with an old church in the foreground and the
Speaker 3: ocean beyond. You know, real heavy stuff in terms of
Speaker 3: again focusing on building really really good golf holes, but
Speaker 3: then tying all that other stuff into it as well.
Speaker 2: You know, so that people can enjoy nature. And again
Speaker 2: that involves some views that are directly attributable to the routing.
Speaker 3: It involves walks that that one between twelve and thirteen
Speaker 3: along the Clybourne River. So again find find in a
Speaker 3: variety of holes and making them interesting as one thing,
Speaker 3: but then to take it to that to that next
Speaker 3: level with celebrating nature and creating a bigger experience than
Speaker 3: just hitting the golf ball is what those guys were
Speaker 3: able to do so so brilliantly at Highland's Lengths in
Speaker 3: Cyprus Point.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting that it's an out and
Speaker 1: back routing, you know, because uh, there's there's i think
Speaker 1: a false sense out there that the out and back
Speaker 1: model is antiquated or that that we moved beyond it.
Speaker 1: But Highland's Lengths does have roughly an out and back routing.
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering, I'm curious, when you're playing that course,
Speaker 1: does it feel like it's an out and back routing
Speaker 1: or do you kind of lose sight of that as
Speaker 1: you're going along.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, because you know what, I've played
Speaker 3: Highland's Links enough to confidently say that it does not
Speaker 3: feel like an out and back rounding at all at all,
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure I've ever thought about it that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I've studied the routing map so much,
Speaker 3: and I've looked at aerials in the golf course.
Speaker 2: I can see it plain as day.
Speaker 3: But yeah, when I'm out on the golf course playing there,
Speaker 3: you feel like there's enough change in direction. You're getting
Speaker 3: a huge variety of views, so you don't actually, you know,
Speaker 3: at Saint Andrew's, especially when you're coming in, you kind
Speaker 3: of know you're coming in on a direct line because
Speaker 3: the town's there and you're getting closer and closer. You
Speaker 3: don't have any consistent views at Highlands Links because you're
Speaker 3: in valleys and then up and looking at the ocean
Speaker 3: and looking at mountains, and that detracts from the fact
Speaker 3: that it essentially is an out and back routing. Stanley
Speaker 3: Thompson used out and back routing at baff as well.
Speaker 3: You know, in the old days at Bamp Springs they've
Speaker 3: changed the sequence of play, unfortunately since Thompson's day, But
Speaker 3: in the old days you're teed off in the shadow
Speaker 3: that that beautiful old hotel and really played out through
Speaker 3: the river valley turned around, came back.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd like Saint Andrews.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of little crooks here and there, but
Speaker 3: you're you're effectively out and back at theaf too, which
Speaker 3: is a great experience in terms of leaving the hotel
Speaker 3: and returning. I often wonder, if you know, if I
Speaker 3: could ask Stanley Thompson Saint Andrew's crossed his mind. I'd
Speaker 3: love to hear what his answer is, because when I
Speaker 3: think of baff I, I always think of Saint Andrews
Speaker 3: leaving town, leaving the hotel and coming back to town
Speaker 3: and coming back.
Speaker 2: To the hotel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that again. You know, I've said this before,
Speaker 1: but it but it strikes me again that that that
Speaker 1: model of routing. You know, you can you can do
Speaker 1: it in different ways. Obviously, you can do it in
Speaker 1: ways that, as we've been saying, don't feel necessarily like
Speaker 1: a repetitive out and back routing. But there is a
Speaker 1: natural sense of going on a journey, reaching a point,
Speaker 1: and then returning home. And all of those things have
Speaker 1: an emotional pull. There's the mystery of the journey, there's
Speaker 1: the there's the yearning to get out to that point,
Speaker 1: that distant point, and then once you get out there,
Speaker 1: once you've spent your time there and seeing what you
Speaker 1: need to see, then there's an equal emotional poll that's
Speaker 1: drawing you back home right homeward bound. I think these
Speaker 1: are things that tug at us in a in a
Speaker 1: really primal way, and and these routings, when well done,
Speaker 1: can do that.
Speaker 3: I agree, And in Saint Andrews and Banff for even
Speaker 3: the way I was just enthusiastically talking about both, it
Speaker 3: is an experience that does that you remember. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's a you're never going to forget those two
Speaker 3: experiences for sure, for those for that very reason, and
Speaker 3: it's again directly attributable to the to the routing.
Speaker 2: The other interesting thing.
Speaker 3: About that journey at Saint Andrews, which which I again
Speaker 3: I think for sure, that's how how golf developed there.
Speaker 2: You know, let's keep playing, play and playing, we can't
Speaker 2: go any further. We got to go back.
Speaker 3: Is how many holes does it take to get out
Speaker 3: there and come back on the available piece of ground?
Speaker 3: You know, for for guys like us who simply love
Speaker 3: to play golf, do I really care if I'm playing
Speaker 3: fifteen holes to get out there and come back they
Speaker 3: played twenty two holes originally and went out and came back.
Speaker 3: Now it's eighteen. Another interesting question, you know, in terms
Speaker 3: of routing, what fits best? You know, on any particular
Speaker 3: piece of ground, there's there's not always eighteen holes. Sometimes
Speaker 3: there's more than eighteen holes.
Speaker 2: But being able to go.
Speaker 3: Out there and find the best routing is, you know,
Speaker 3: the ultimate dream without having.
Speaker 2: To worry about anything, really just go find the best holes.
Speaker 2: Here's how many holes.
Speaker 3: We were able to fit on the available property, and
Speaker 3: let's play golf.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know how many holes Bryson to Shambeau
Speaker 1: would need to get out to the river at St. Andrews.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe three out and three backs something like that.
Speaker 2: Not as many as me, I know that.
Speaker 1: So the last thing I'd like to talk about, and
Speaker 1: this is less about a particular course or a specific example,
Speaker 1: and more about kind of what's next in routing, or
Speaker 1: whether there are some unexplored or less explored concepts in
Speaker 1: routing golf courses that we can begin to get into
Speaker 1: as golf architecture I hope continues to develop. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of the Loop, I'm thinking of Sylvie's Valley Ranch.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Uhopie Match Club. But there are probably
Speaker 1: a bunch of other examples. But I'm just I'm just
Speaker 1: curious about what you think we as routers of golf courses,
Speaker 1: whether are architects as routers of golf courses? What what
Speaker 1: things they haven't explored enough? What habits we might need
Speaker 1: to break or re examine, and how we can then
Speaker 1: break into new territory in routing. What do you think
Speaker 1: is there?
Speaker 3: Well, i'll tell you what I when I heard that
Speaker 3: the loop was happening, that's suppose as excited. Actually, you know,
Speaker 3: the other thing the most excited I probably ever was
Speaker 3: is what high point opened when I was the kid
Speaker 3: after reading about what Tom was doing there?
Speaker 2: Tom delk of course.
Speaker 3: And the next most exciting thing I think I heard
Speaker 3: was that Tom was doing a reversible course in Michigan.
Speaker 3: So I followed its development and I've played it now
Speaker 3: both ways and walked it, and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: It just strikes me, as I said earlier, that the
Speaker 3: concept of reversible course or a course that functions multifactly?
Speaker 2: Has it? Is that a word.
Speaker 1: Multi multi multifacetedly? Yeah? Why not?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: But of course that functions in more ways than one,
Speaker 3: I guess is the way to describe it. I'm just
Speaker 3: shocked at that concept hasn't been pursued more diligently over
Speaker 3: the past even half century. You know, again, the benefits
Speaker 3: of having two courses in one like the old course
Speaker 3: shows us. And now what the loop's doing is there's
Speaker 3: so many benefits to it. And when you talk about
Speaker 3: a whoopie, similarly, it's not a reversible golf course, but
Speaker 3: they've got some extra holes there so you can play
Speaker 3: alternate routings, alternate sequence of play, which reminds me of
Speaker 3: another great routing at Los Angeles Country Club, the North
Speaker 3: Course there the George Thomas laid out in the mid twenties.
Speaker 3: He famously came up with a concept that he called
Speaker 3: courses within a course. How do you build or I
Speaker 3: should use, I should say route? How do you route
Speaker 3: a golf course? Route eighteen holes that could function in
Speaker 3: multiple ways, not just as a traditional eighteen whole golf course.
Speaker 3: And again, I just think that golf has been lacking
Speaker 3: in terms of that type of creativity until recently. Because
Speaker 3: it's so exciting to hear, you know, the loops done.
Speaker 3: You know, I've heard other guys including Frank Pont in
Speaker 3: Europe and Dan Hickson out at Sylvie's Ranch. You know,
Speaker 3: let's figure out how these golf courses can be played
Speaker 3: in reverse, how we can set these holes up so
Speaker 3: that they're completely different.
Speaker 2: From one day to the next.
Speaker 3: And I'll never forget what Tom Doak said, you know,
Speaker 3: he said, if we're going to build a reversible golf.
Speaker 2: Course, it better be good both ways.
Speaker 3: You can't have one course, you know, be significantly better
Speaker 3: than the other course, because then people would just come
Speaker 3: and play the good course and not not the other way.
Speaker 3: And sadly, I think that's what happened in the old
Speaker 3: course over the years. Not not that the reverse course
Speaker 3: is necessarily any worse than the course we know, but
Speaker 3: after a number of British Opens we played there and
Speaker 3: not much history was made there. If you know, people
Speaker 3: from around the world are coming to Saint Andrew's to play.
Speaker 3: They want to play the open course, they want to
Speaker 3: see the they don't want to be there the day
Speaker 3: that you.
Speaker 2: Can't play the road all the way that we know
Speaker 2: it and see it on television.
Speaker 1: Or the Edenhole or I mean or the fourteenth there
Speaker 1: are Yeah, those holes have become utterly iconic people would
Speaker 1: be in aged if they showed up and they're one
Speaker 1: day there. They didn't get to play those right.
Speaker 3: So if the black course that the Loupe had more
Speaker 3: iconic goals in the red course, the business.
Speaker 2: Model that they built it on wouldn't work as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to want to play them all. And
Speaker 1: here I want to shout out Dan Hickson, who I
Speaker 1: think might be the most underrated architect in the United States.
Speaker 1: You know, he's done most of his work in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. But Sylvie's Valley Ranch is a brilliant concept.
Speaker 1: It's a reversible routing, but it has twenty seven greens,
Speaker 1: and the ways that it's made to work on that
Speaker 1: hilly piece of property are so complex and varied, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's one section of the course where basically the
Speaker 1: fairways kind of form a series of triangles. You know,
Speaker 1: you play one hole and the next hole kind of
Speaker 1: goes off in the opposite direction, except at a kind
Speaker 1: of forty five degree angle, and then the next hole
Speaker 1: does the same thing. So what you're left with, if
Speaker 1: you look at it from above, is a kind of zigzag,
Speaker 1: and you can play the zigzag in both It really
Speaker 1: does work as a reversible routing. And you know, I
Speaker 1: looked at it both ways, and there are really good
Speaker 1: holes on both courses. There are really good arguments for
Speaker 1: playing one course over the other, or really playing both courses,
Speaker 1: and it just works. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that made that happen was not
Speaker 1: being too wedded to the idea that I've got to
Speaker 1: have a pure reversible course. There's got to be eighteen greens,
Speaker 1: just realizing that there are many ways to do it.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways to rout a golf course.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways that you can configure holes
Speaker 1: on a golf course and make it do different things,
Speaker 1: And for whatever reason, we just haven't explored those. You know,
Speaker 1: the LACC you know Thomas's concepts there are fascinating. Have
Speaker 1: you seen that anywhere? And I just wonder why we
Speaker 1: aren't doing these things? It does it have to do
Speaker 1: with rankings, Does it have to do with just golf's
Speaker 1: kind of tentativeness to try something new? You know? What
Speaker 1: is it that's holding us back?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 3: I find And this is more prevalent at private clubs
Speaker 3: obviously than resort courses and public courses, But I find
Speaker 3: that golfers are are just married to their handicaps, which
Speaker 3: is something that is always just made me shake my head.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just want to play interesting golf. And
Speaker 3: there's always a way to raid a course, you know,
Speaker 3: even if even if you said it, if you're able
Speaker 3: to set it up as varied as lacc North, there's
Speaker 3: a way to rate a golf course on which a
Speaker 3: part three is a part four the next day. We
Speaker 3: just got to think outside of the box and be
Speaker 3: a little bit more innovative about how we're doing things.
Speaker 3: But most golfers, they want the tea's in the same
Speaker 3: spot and the pin in the same spot every day
Speaker 3: because they think that little marker is where the course
Speaker 3: was raided from, and that's going to maintain my handicaps
Speaker 3: so that when I play my friend, you know, they're
Speaker 3: not thinking about interesting golf holes as they as much
Speaker 3: as they are their own score and the bets have
Speaker 3: going on that day, which are depending on consistency, you know,
Speaker 3: and and really the last thing we want is consistency.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: You go you go to forest Dune to stay out,
Speaker 3: play the black Horse, sleep, you know, go to sleep
Speaker 3: at night and then play the red course the next day.
Speaker 3: That's not consistent, but it's super fun, you know. And
Speaker 3: same at L A C C. When number six is
Speaker 3: a long part three and then you show up one
Speaker 3: day and then you show up the next day and
Speaker 3: it's playing as a short part four. I mean, those
Speaker 3: are the types of things in routing I think that
Speaker 3: we need to golf. Golf really needs, you know, I
Speaker 3: think I think these short courses, these reversible course ideas,
Speaker 3: it's it's sort.
Speaker 2: Of spark more interesting golf course architecture.
Speaker 3: I think it's made a lot of people think differently about,
Speaker 3: you know, where they want to play and how the
Speaker 3: game is played, and.
Speaker 2: How the game is played in the most fun way possible.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about golf is that the
Speaker 1: playing fields are not standardized. A course can have thirteen
Speaker 1: par threes like Pan and Preserve or five long holes
Speaker 1: like the original leaf Links in Scotland. There's no rule
Speaker 1: saying those routings don't qualify as real golf courses. But
Speaker 1: as Jeff and I discussed towards the end of our conversation,
Speaker 1: modern courses just haven't taken the invitation to be whatever
Speaker 1: they want to be. Instead, they've become more and more
Speaker 1: wetted to the championship model of eighteen holes in a
Speaker 1: par between seventy and seventy two. I think that's gotten
Speaker 1: in the way of the best practices of golf course routing.
Speaker 1: An architect should just be focusing on how to get
Speaker 1: the most out of a piece of land, not on
Speaker 1: achieving a certain number of holes or a certain par
Speaker 1: Those are just arbitrary restrictions that we've put on ourselves.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, and this is where I want to
Speaker 1: hear from you, what's it going to take for weird
Speaker 1: golf course routings to go mainstream? And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about it fancy clubs or resorts, but at your local union.
Speaker 1: What's preventing it from having seven cool holes and like
Speaker 1: a souped up driving range or something. Maybe developers are
Speaker 1: too tentative, maybe architects are, but really I think it
Speaker 1: has to start with our own habits and attitudes as golfers,
Speaker 1: with realizing that not every score needs to count toward
Speaker 1: our handicaps, and that no matter what the routing is,
Speaker 1: no matter how many holes it has or what part
Speaker 1: it is, we can simply enjoy trying to hit good shots,
Speaker 1: or maybe trying to win a match against a friend.
Speaker 1: If you want to dig deeper into the topic of
Speaker 1: golf course routing, I've put together a post for this
Speaker 1: episode on the Frida egg dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at the Friday Egg with underscores
Speaker 1: between each word, and Jeff at Jeff Underscore Mingay, let's
Speaker 1: keep the conversation going.