Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a frid Egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Frida Egg
Speaker 1: Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hump.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg podcast
Speaker 2: and a new year. We had podcast up earlier this
Speaker 2: week with Garrett and I, but this is the first
Speaker 2: time I'm doing an intro, so I hope everybody had a.
Speaker 3: Great holiday season.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We have a podcast kind of almost almost an emergency podcast.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it that, but we had been Tom
Speaker 2: and I had been planning on talking before his ravel
Speaker 2: ramp back up, and he had a big announcement this
Speaker 2: week with the news that he will be designing the
Speaker 2: tenth course at Pinehurst, so a new design that I
Speaker 2: was anxious to talk to him about, as well as
Speaker 2: some other stuff. We have another episode of the Yolk
Speaker 2: with Doc coming next week, but this is an episode
Speaker 2: all about his new golf course at Pinehurst, as well
Speaker 2: as just some talk about Pinehurst area in general and
Speaker 2: Pinehurst Number two and just some other stuff. So, without
Speaker 2: further ado, here is Tom Doke on his new golf
Speaker 2: course at Pinehurst. All right, Tom, New Year, I think
Speaker 2: I asked you this last year. Any New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I'm just I've just got I just
Speaker 1: got to try to keep up with everything.
Speaker 3: We're doing, organization, staying organized. It's the way I kind.
Speaker 1: Of saying no to more people. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to I'm gonna have to go back to being
Speaker 1: good at saying no to people because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're really busy and there's still calls coming in, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just gotta, you know, for this year
Speaker 1: and next year, it's like, I've got to be as
Speaker 1: efficient with my days as possible or I'll never be
Speaker 1: home at all.
Speaker 2: How hard is it to say no? And like, are
Speaker 2: there things like is there certain things that you just
Speaker 2: can't say no to? Like, what's that like when you're
Speaker 2: at a point right now where you're you're pretty booked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's very hard for most people to
Speaker 1: say no. And honestly, on a personal level, it always
Speaker 1: has been for me too. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always understood that, like a lot of
Speaker 1: your reputation is not doing the things that they're not
Speaker 1: for you. You know, if you if you take you know,
Speaker 1: if you take every job you're offered, you're gonna wind
Speaker 1: up in the wrong fit. A lot of times where
Speaker 1: you don't you're not on the same page with the
Speaker 1: client or the land is it doesn't suit your style
Speaker 1: of what you want to do. And the best thing
Speaker 1: to do is just say no to those opportunities and
Speaker 1: not worry about them and let somebody else do that
Speaker 1: and maybe it'll fit them better, you know. And most
Speaker 1: of my career I was always good at that, but
Speaker 1: you know, that's part of how I got the reputation
Speaker 1: I did. You know, I wasn't very good at saying no,
Speaker 1: and I would like you know, and plus I would
Speaker 1: hold off on saying no because you know, you at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you're trying to do the
Speaker 1: best things you can do at any given time. You know,
Speaker 1: not you don't have a bunch of tens lined up
Speaker 1: to build every year. So is this thing that's going
Speaker 1: to be a seven or an eight? Is that the
Speaker 1: best thing that I can do next year two years
Speaker 1: from now, I don't know. And what other things are
Speaker 1: going to come up after I hang up with this guy.
Speaker 1: I have no clue there might not be any there
Speaker 1: might be a lot of better things. So I would
Speaker 1: try to put off the decision until I needed to
Speaker 1: make it. But that frustrated people, and if I, you know,
Speaker 1: and when I'd say no, I'd be pretty abrupt about it,
Speaker 1: and then they think, oh, he's an asshole, he was
Speaker 1: leading us on or whatever. But it was really just
Speaker 1: my discomfort. I mean, I knew all along I did
Speaker 1: I wanted to say no, and I just didn't know
Speaker 1: how to deliver it very well.
Speaker 3: Saying no is extremely hard.
Speaker 2: I struggle with this too, and I think, like what
Speaker 2: you said really resonates with me because what I like
Speaker 2: to do I like to procrastinate, because it's not I
Speaker 2: don't want to say no. I want to do the thing,
Speaker 2: but I know, like in the back of my head
Speaker 2: an less like something else like falls apart. There's no
Speaker 2: feasible way for me to do it, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think that you run into that, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: that's I joked. I've joked with some of my team
Speaker 2: and some some of my close friend that this year
Speaker 2: is like the year of me saying no, because I
Speaker 2: found myself last year like completely run down and like
Speaker 2: gone for twenty straight days and like what am I doing?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm it's I've spent three weekends in a
Speaker 2: row away from home and this just doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: a smart thing to do.
Speaker 1: Right, And you know, and you're not you know, you're
Speaker 1: not saying yes or no. You're not you're not thinking
Speaker 1: you ought to say yes for other people so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, when you've got a payroll and you've got
Speaker 1: some guy. You know, for most of my career, my
Speaker 1: guys are like we could handle more, we could do more,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, yeah, but I can't. And now
Speaker 1: it's like the shoes on the other foot. They're you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh no, how are I signing up so
Speaker 1: many things?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's hard. It's it's hard.
Speaker 2: I think the hard thing for you too, is like
Speaker 2: you you don't have the capacity to do a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, like I could go see thirty courses, forty
Speaker 2: fifty courses next year, Like that's something I can do.
Speaker 2: And you know, the volume of yes I get to
Speaker 2: say is much greater than you doing the you know,
Speaker 2: you're like max capacity three four projects at once.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. I mean, it depends on how
Speaker 1: much time I want to spend on the ground working
Speaker 1: on the greens. The routings actually come together pretty fast
Speaker 1: these days. Not that you won't change your mind and
Speaker 1: refine it if you go back and spend another three
Speaker 1: or four days on the site between you know, between
Speaker 1: when you first do it and when you get to construction.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's really efficient and and a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. But you know, it's the commitment to going
Speaker 1: back several more times for construction that's the hard one
Speaker 1: to make because you don't know when that's going to be,
Speaker 1: and you don't know how busy you're going to be
Speaker 1: when you have to do that. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: the one thing I've changed about how I do in
Speaker 1: the how I'm doing business now is I'm putting in
Speaker 1: the contracts. You know, after all the planning work, I'm
Speaker 1: getting paid per day that I spend on site, so
Speaker 1: that if I get real busy and I don't have
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't have. I don't have twenty
Speaker 1: five days to be at all these different places. I
Speaker 1: only have twenty or sixteen or whatever. That's what they're
Speaker 1: paying me for, and they can't really you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't promise that i'd be at all of them thirty days,
Speaker 1: and you know, whether I really need to or not,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I mean, letting Eric and
Speaker 1: Angela and Clyde finished Saint Patrick's a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago and me not going back, that was a tough
Speaker 1: decision for me to make. I you know, I nearly
Speaker 1: always go do that, but I just let them do
Speaker 1: it and it turned out great. You know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go I'm gonna go back to New Zealand next month
Speaker 1: and see what happened after we shaped up a bunch
Speaker 1: of greens in March and April last year and then
Speaker 1: I left and I go back, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like it's going to be really good.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's probably going to be a couple
Speaker 1: of them that are a little different than I thought,
Speaker 1: but they might be better. So, you know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get more comfortable with that because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, somewhere here in five or ten years,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to want to go do all those
Speaker 1: follow up visits or I'm only going to do them
Speaker 1: if like nothing else is going on. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting more comfortable with that, and you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just have more faith in the people that
Speaker 1: are doing the work that they're going to do a
Speaker 1: great job.
Speaker 2: You know, you're describing like the difficulty of scaling a business,
Speaker 2: you know, where you have to let go of things
Speaker 2: and everything because you know, the thing that I find
Speaker 2: interesting is really like I think one of your big
Speaker 2: differentiators early on was how much time you spend on site.
Speaker 2: And it's not like you're not spending time on site now,
Speaker 2: but it's you know, you can spend a ton of
Speaker 2: time on site when you only have one job.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know, and you know, and some of
Speaker 1: that time isn't very productive. It's a it's a cool
Speaker 1: thing to a point to have. You know, I got
Speaker 1: a lot of time to think about this, but you know,
Speaker 1: at some point you just become indecisive about what you
Speaker 1: should do and you know you can't. You're not very
Speaker 1: good at keeping things moving along. And there is you know,
Speaker 1: golf course construction there you know, the process of construction
Speaker 1: does teach you to you know, keep going, and that
Speaker 1: there is you know, there are certain decisions that have
Speaker 1: to be made, and you just can't put this off
Speaker 1: in definitely, although it's funny. Sometimes it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: the contractor will insist we got to finish this hole
Speaker 1: this week, and it's like, no, you don't. I mean
Speaker 1: we could go I'm not comfortable with this today. You know,
Speaker 1: we could go finish those two holes. Well, I'm still
Speaker 1: thinking about this, and you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be doing that for all the holes all the time.
Speaker 1: But sometimes that's the thing to do, is just say now,
Speaker 1: stop there, let's go do this and give me more
Speaker 1: time on this.
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I remembercalling right now a conversation I had with Bill
Speaker 2: Corr last year on the podcast where I think one
Speaker 2: of his big takeaways from COVID, and it was I
Speaker 2: think it was with regards to Tari. Yeah, was how
Speaker 2: how competent and how like how good the course turned
Speaker 2: out with how little he was there because of COVID.
Speaker 2: Like he was like, I think I think Riley Johnson,
Speaker 2: I can't remember who else was there. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's like those guys did such an amazing job. And
Speaker 2: I'm walking around and I'm like, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it would be any better if I spent so much time.
Speaker 2: And I think, I mean that goes to like having
Speaker 2: the best people working for you is an extremely important
Speaker 2: aspect of if you're going to take some time away
Speaker 2: as having people that you trust in those positions to
Speaker 2: take on.
Speaker 1: Absolutely And you know, and and Bill's the same as me.
Speaker 1: We've we've had those people for the last twenty years, yeah,
Speaker 1: twenty five years. And it's like, you know, some people
Speaker 1: know who they are, but you know, everyone as long
Speaker 1: as we're kind of in charge, everybody just assumes at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you know, we're the one
Speaker 1: who made all the cool decisions. And no, a lot
Speaker 1: of times we're just like, you know, we gave that
Speaker 1: guy room to run over there. And you know, like
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go to Saint Patrick's, what are
Speaker 1: the holes at Saint Patrick's that people have talked to
Speaker 1: me the most about. One of them is the eleventh.
Speaker 1: It has a really wild green. It's got like a
Speaker 1: trough in the middle and a shelf on the left
Speaker 1: and a crazy little high shelf on the right. And
Speaker 1: that's not mine at all, that's Clott And you know,
Speaker 1: when I you know, when I got back and saw
Speaker 1: what he'd done. I kind of dipped my lip and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that's that is really severe, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to get chewed out for this. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's not even my idea. But it's cool,
Speaker 1: you know, I just got to get comfortable with it's
Speaker 1: playable and we'll take the heat for it. And you know,
Speaker 1: and the other one, you know, one of the other
Speaker 1: ones is the sixth the part five that has a
Speaker 1: little it has an elevated green with a little ridge
Speaker 1: just in front of it. So it's really hard, you know,
Speaker 1: downwind you have to land it short onto an upslope
Speaker 1: and get it to screwed up there somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: into the wind. Maybe you can fly it on the green,
Speaker 1: but you're not getting home in two. That's the one
Speaker 1: green that we couldn't finish when I was there because
Speaker 1: we had all the stockpile of we were screening materials
Speaker 1: there for the whole job. So Eric had to build
Speaker 1: that one after I left. And it's nothing like I visualized,
Speaker 1: but it's a really cool green. And and again it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw it when I went back and
Speaker 1: my first you know, it was done at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just getting ready to open. And my
Speaker 1: first impression was like, oh, man, that's really severe. We
Speaker 1: might have to tone that down a little some way
Speaker 1: after you in a year or two, and you know,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I'm not going to overreact now,
Speaker 1: you know. Let's see what people think of it. And
Speaker 1: people love it. Most people love it. Some people think
Speaker 1: it's way too severe.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good. It makes people feel different things.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's talk about a new project just announced this
Speaker 2: week of this week of recording Pinehurst number ten. You
Speaker 2: will be designing a new golf course at Pinehurst and
Speaker 2: it will be, from what I understand, in habit a
Speaker 2: little bit of a course they had years ago called
Speaker 2: the Pit, but then mostly beyond a new property that
Speaker 2: hasn't been built on before.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about the land.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's actually on two different pieces of property. Part
Speaker 1: on the the Pit was a Dan Maples course that
Speaker 1: was kind of like Tobacco Road before Tobacco Rode, except
Speaker 1: it was a really narrow version of that really narrow version.
Speaker 1: And so after Tobacco Road opened, it kind of floundered.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of a sudden, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: why would you play this instead of going to that.
Speaker 1: It's all so much a bigger scale and it you know,
Speaker 1: and then two thousand and eight hit and it faded
Speaker 1: pretty fast after that, so that you know, the resort
Speaker 1: wound up. You know, it's two miles from the resort.
Speaker 1: They were obviously the ones who wound up buying that.
Speaker 1: But the other piece of land was something if I
Speaker 1: understand the history right, Robert and Jones owned it for
Speaker 1: years and the family sold it to the resort on
Speaker 1: a condition that one of the Joneses would do the
Speaker 1: golf course. And in two thousand and one they started
Speaker 1: doing that golf course. Rhys Jones had started building a
Speaker 1: course on part of this property and they cleared. They
Speaker 1: didn't get very far and then nine to eleven happened
Speaker 1: and that shut it down, and it's just been sitting
Speaker 1: there for the last twenty years. You could barely to
Speaker 1: I honestly, I was shocked when I heard that they
Speaker 1: cleared some of it, because when you're walking it, it's
Speaker 1: just thick woods. And actually, you know, the part that
Speaker 1: they cleared, it had twenty years to grow back, and
Speaker 1: it's the woods are thicker, you know, the trees are smaller,
Speaker 1: and you can tell now, you know. Once they told
Speaker 1: me that, it's like, oh yeah, this must be something
Speaker 1: they cleared and has grown back because the trees are
Speaker 1: just super thick and not very big.
Speaker 2: That makes sense because there's there's not as much like
Speaker 2: when the trees get tall, there's only so much can
Speaker 2: grow under it. But when they're really small that yeah,
Speaker 2: there's just a ton right And you know, I.
Speaker 1: Mean all of that land is like logging land. So
Speaker 1: the older stuff has been thinned out a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but the newer stuff they really hadn't done much out
Speaker 1: there for twenty years now.
Speaker 2: So what's the site like in terms of how how
Speaker 2: would you compare it? Obviously, I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that's unique about Pinehurst is a lot of people
Speaker 2: have gone down and played a lot of courses down there,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious about the topography the land and how
Speaker 2: it compares to other courses and properties in the area.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I mean, and you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: hard for me because I haven't seen there's a there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of fairly new courses there that I haven't
Speaker 1: seen much of, but like I've never been to Forest Creek.
Speaker 1: Is it the two Fassio courses. But so the first
Speaker 1: thing is the pit. A good portion of the pit
Speaker 1: was on this like old quarry works that with a
Speaker 1: bunch of ten fifteen foot piles of material. That is
Speaker 1: not the part of the pit that we're working on.
Speaker 1: That's they'll do another golf course on that land, you know,
Speaker 1: five years from now or something like that. But so,
Speaker 1: you know, the part that we got, the first few
Speaker 1: home of the pit were kind of over more gentle pineers,
Speaker 1: kind of parkland stuff, and you know, so we've got
Speaker 1: three or four holes in that land, and then we're
Speaker 1: across on the other site where there's you know, much
Speaker 1: big you know, big tree, big pine trees, more elevation change,
Speaker 1: a couple of little ponds that I think they might have.
Speaker 1: I think they actually might have built the ponds for
Speaker 1: the Rhys Jones course, but they're you know, they're kind
Speaker 1: of they're not really big ponds, and they're in the woods,
Speaker 1: you know, just surrounded by big trees. So you know,
Speaker 1: the cool thing is at this point they don't really
Speaker 1: look like a golf course pond that you'd have built
Speaker 1: too much, you know, because it's it's all naturalized around them,
Speaker 1: and you know, and we're being pretty careful when we play,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of our fifteenth and seventeenth holes play
Speaker 1: with those ponds in play, and golf is only kind
Speaker 1: of on one side of the pond, you know, it
Speaker 1: only touches the pond in one or two spots, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like your typical golf course pond where
Speaker 1: there's fairways on both sides, you know. Overall though, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's there's more elevation change than any of the resources
Speaker 1: courses that I know of. I've never seen number eight,
Speaker 1: but there's something like ninety or one hundred feet elevation
Speaker 1: change from the highest point to the lowest point, and
Speaker 1: it kind of works, and it kind of works from
Speaker 1: the clubhouse up the hill, so the turn is it's
Speaker 1: not like straight out and straight back with the turn
Speaker 1: is kind of about the farthest point from the clubhouse
Speaker 1: and up the highest point and from up there, the
Speaker 1: three or four holes that play up there, I think
Speaker 1: you're going to have like some great views across part
Speaker 1: of the rest of the golf course down across the valley,
Speaker 1: so you know, I think that'll give it a different
Speaker 1: feel than the other courses at Pinehurst. You know, with
Speaker 1: that much elevation change, you know, we're still working out
Speaker 1: like how much how much of this open sand look
Speaker 1: can we have out there, because you know, open sand
Speaker 1: on flat ground is fine, but open sand on steep
Speaker 1: ground is erosion and problems. So you know, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think we're you know, we're not out
Speaker 1: to try to make it look like tobacco road or
Speaker 1: or you know, it's even hard to really you know.
Speaker 1: You know, if I said I wanted to do Piner's
Speaker 1: number two again, which I'm not trying to copy Piner's
Speaker 1: number two obviously, you know you couldn't really do it
Speaker 1: on this site. You know, those those those sandy open
Speaker 1: areas on number two works so well because it's fairly
Speaker 1: flat and the water doesn't keep running and keep making
Speaker 1: an erosion thing. There's just a bunch of little puddles
Speaker 1: that go down into the sand really fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was recently out at a course that you had
Speaker 2: a part in the tree Farm and it's a it's
Speaker 2: a pretty dramatic site and I was out there when
Speaker 2: on a during a heavy rain, and one of the
Speaker 2: cool things that it's not finished yet in terms of
Speaker 2: all the native planting in those open sandy areas, and
Speaker 2: you could just see the erosion issues that it presents,
Speaker 2: like the sand and open because the water is gonna go.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing how you know, how water just can
Speaker 2: rip across a dramatic property.
Speaker 3: So what type of things can.
Speaker 2: You do to create a you know, that type of
Speaker 2: contrast and aesthetic but prevent erosion.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean the first thing is the more the
Speaker 1: more of it you leave in kind of the native state,
Speaker 1: you know, pine straw underneath trees, kind of breaking up,
Speaker 1: cushioning the blow sort of. You know, there's there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of erosion out there right now on the
Speaker 1: raw land. It's when you clear a fairway open and
Speaker 1: you get all the water that's raining on that fairway
Speaker 1: coming down one valley. You know what, as soon as
Speaker 1: it leaves the turf wherever, that's where the problem is.
Speaker 1: You know, on the turf, it's probably gonna be okay,
Speaker 1: unless unless there's concentrated water coming from another hole up above.
Speaker 1: So you know, so we'll have to do more, like
Speaker 1: you know, we'll have to do some big drainage work
Speaker 1: to stop you know, to stop stuff where it's either
Speaker 1: where it's coming onto the hole or where it's going off.
Speaker 2: So is is that like making you know, if I
Speaker 2: understand that right, like doing earthwork outside the hole to
Speaker 2: divert water different directions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes, but you know you can't really. I mean,
Speaker 1: if water is coming down toward the fairway of a
Speaker 1: part four, it's there's no way, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: easy to divert it all the way around that You're
Speaker 1: going to have to handle it somewhere. So so you're
Speaker 1: just you're kind of making a pocket there, and it's
Speaker 1: probably not above the hole, you know, it's probably kind
Speaker 1: of at the edge of the hole. You're catching the
Speaker 1: water there in turf, and you know, just letting the
Speaker 1: water you know, either putting it a pipe and taking
Speaker 1: it to a pond or or just letting it settle
Speaker 1: out right there and dealing with the problem at the
Speaker 1: edge of the hole and not letting it come ripping
Speaker 1: across the middle of the carara.
Speaker 2: So that's that's kind of how you would avoid having
Speaker 2: lots of like basins in play right.
Speaker 3: With it.
Speaker 2: With it we talked a little bit obviously the sthetic,
Speaker 2: you know, the elevation the land will be different in
Speaker 2: the sense of design, you know, especially with number two.
Speaker 2: Obviously that's like the elephant in the room whenever you
Speaker 2: talk about Pinehurst, how do you go about making a
Speaker 2: course that has a different feel and and is it
Speaker 2: feels unique from a design standpoint at at a resort
Speaker 2: that has our a nine golf courses and surrounding area
Speaker 2: that also has you know, midpines, pine needles, Tobacco Road
Speaker 2: as you've talked about, how do you go about making
Speaker 2: a unique design in an area that is very rich
Speaker 2: with golf.
Speaker 1: Well that's a sixty four thousand dollars question, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you know, and it's going to
Speaker 1: take you know, exactly what we're gonna do, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you yet. That's what the next two months are for,
Speaker 1: is kind of figuring out, you know, what are we
Speaker 1: doing to make this look a little different. But you know,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about Pinehurst is, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like it's all monotone at all. I mean, pine needles
Speaker 1: and mid Pines aren't exactly like number two. But you know,
Speaker 1: there is sort of a you know, I mean a
Speaker 1: certain part of it is just the environment. It's sandy,
Speaker 1: it's these certain things grow in this area that you
Speaker 1: know that wiregrass is like fairly unique to Pinehurst. You're
Speaker 1: not going to have a golf course in Pinehurst without
Speaker 1: some of that. But you know, but you know, most
Speaker 1: of those golf courses were designed by Donald Ross. So
Speaker 1: if I'm looking to you know, you know, if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, well, my my greens are going to be
Speaker 1: like some other architect from the past. If you don't
Speaker 1: pick Donald Ross, you're off to a really good start.
Speaker 1: You know, anybody else It's like they don't have much
Speaker 1: of that there. You know, one of the things I
Speaker 1: really looked for on this site because Number two is
Speaker 1: famous for having those those raised saucer greens, and I
Speaker 1: thought about the other courses I've seen there. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know what they don't have They I can't except
Speaker 1: for maybe Tobacco Road, none of those courses have a
Speaker 1: green kind of in a bowl, even a little one.
Speaker 1: So we've got three or four, you know, I found
Speaker 1: these little these little places, and you know, it had
Speaker 1: to be kind of like right, it had to be
Speaker 1: a place where not all the drainage goes into that bowl.
Speaker 1: It had to be kind of in a saddle. And
Speaker 1: we managed to find three or four really good ones
Speaker 1: that you know. There's no green sites like those on
Speaker 1: any of the other Pioneers courses, so that's a good start.
Speaker 2: Now for a quick word from our sponsor, and our
Speaker 2: sponsor is Club TFE. We launched a new membership. It's
Speaker 2: a new content membership. It's called Club TFE and it
Speaker 2: is for people that want more content from us. So
Speaker 2: we've had the website up and running for just about
Speaker 2: a week now and it's humming. So we've had daily posts.
Speaker 2: We've had a couple of course reviews. So over the
Speaker 2: course of the year we're going to do a weekly
Speaker 2: course review. The Club TFE blog will have you know
Speaker 2: pretty much. I don't want to promise daily, but right
Speaker 2: now we're putting out daily stuff on that, daily articles,
Speaker 2: and then we are going to have a monthly hangout
Speaker 2: and a monthly video.
Speaker 3: So the videos up.
Speaker 2: It's on the twelfth hole at Tree Farm, the construction
Speaker 2: of the twelfth hole at Tree Farm, and we've got
Speaker 2: a ton of good stuff on there. I think it'll
Speaker 2: be something you'll look back on a year out and say, man,
Speaker 2: I'm glad I put my money into that. So we
Speaker 2: hope to see you in club TF To join, go
Speaker 2: to the frieda egg dot com slash membership and you
Speaker 2: can read all about all the details of this membership
Speaker 2: and sign up there if you're interested. Now back to
Speaker 2: Tom Doak with regards to number two. I'd love to
Speaker 2: hear I don't think we've ever really talked about it
Speaker 2: on the podcast, but I'd love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 2: on what makes it great a great golf course and also,
Speaker 2: you know the importance of Bill Core and Ben Crenshaw's
Speaker 2: restoration there were in terms of golf golf course architecture.
Speaker 1: Well you know, I mean I always had that as
Speaker 1: a ten and The Confidential Guide is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite golf courses, and that was probably of all the
Speaker 1: of all the courses I rated at ten, that was
Speaker 1: the one I would get the most flak back from
Speaker 1: people like, oh, I don't understand why you've got that
Speaker 1: rated so highly. It's like all the greens are the same,
Speaker 1: they're so severe, and no they're not. They're not the
Speaker 1: same greens at all. I mean, the conturing of those
Speaker 1: greens is it's all why you know, none of them
Speaker 1: are easy, but there they've all got their own character.
Speaker 1: That's why it's such an interesting golf course. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of the interest is that that sort of evolved
Speaker 1: over time. I don't you know, those greens weren't that
Speaker 1: high and that severe when they were built. That kept
Speaker 1: evolving as they get top dressed more and and but
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of evolved with the rest of
Speaker 1: the game getting easier. So they they just that the
Speaker 1: greens evolve and be more difficult to balance that out
Speaker 1: a little bit. But you know, to me, the best
Speaker 1: what's so great about the golf course is, first of all,
Speaker 1: there's just a ton of short game interest and most critically,
Speaker 1: you know, the short game stuff is like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard anywhere you miss the greens, but if you
Speaker 1: go around any of those greens, it's like, okay, I
Speaker 1: can maybe you know, make par at least get my
Speaker 1: ball back up on the green if I miss over here.
Speaker 1: But if I miss over there, I'll be lucky just
Speaker 1: to get the ball back up on the putting surface.
Speaker 1: So you know, now there's a lot of strategy to it.
Speaker 1: It's like you got to think about where, you know,
Speaker 1: if you got to play a little defensively and think about, okay,
Speaker 1: where can I not miss and that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: really hard to do without thinking negatively. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't be thinking that way in your mind. You have
Speaker 1: to be thinking about I'm playing the left front of
Speaker 1: the green because that's the one place I can get
Speaker 1: up and down if I if I miss and and
Speaker 1: you know so and the other thing about the golf
Speaker 1: course generally the best place to miss is short, is
Speaker 1: short and straight right in front. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're right in front of the green and kind
Speaker 1: of chipping onto the length of it, you know, you mean,
Speaker 1: you may never you may not get it close very much,
Speaker 1: but you're you know, you're less likely to be playing
Speaker 1: hockey back and forth across the green.
Speaker 3: I think. And that's what makes it so playable, for
Speaker 3: like playable.
Speaker 1: And that's also what you know, that's what makes it
Speaker 1: a great golf course. Is you know your mom can
Speaker 1: do that. Yes, as long as she hits it straight,
Speaker 1: she's rewarded for that consistently. Anybody that hits it straight
Speaker 1: is rewarded fairly consistently. It's missing a green to the sides,
Speaker 1: it's gonna hurt you. And like, you know, the better
Speaker 1: you are further away, you're trying to do that. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a good solution to that problem of you know,
Speaker 1: how do I keep it interesting for the better player.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, there, now they're you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: taking that risk from two hundred and thirty yards on
Speaker 1: a par five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean great players.
Speaker 2: I think like the better the iron player is, the
Speaker 2: more dialed in they are distance control wise, where the
Speaker 2: way they miss is right and left. Yes, So if
Speaker 2: you're if you if there's a golf going, and that's
Speaker 2: what I think pine I think Jeff Ogilvie said on
Speaker 2: this podcast. He's like, you could put me in the
Speaker 2: middle of the fairway on every hole and I'd be
Speaker 2: really happy if we were sitting at the bar afterwards.
Speaker 3: And I hit twelve out of eighteen greens.
Speaker 2: And I think that and he's and I think that's
Speaker 2: kind of the magic of it is that you know,
Speaker 2: I played once with a like a twenty plus handicap.
Speaker 2: Is this old guy I hit it down the middle
Speaker 2: the first three or four hole. This guy like was
Speaker 2: just dinking it along and he was like one under
Speaker 2: and I was two or three over.
Speaker 1: Any guy. Ian Andrew tells his story about you know,
Speaker 1: going there with his dad, and his dad just kicked
Speaker 1: his ass and he was all frustrated about it afterwards,
Speaker 1: and his dad's like, you're not learning anything, are you.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, but that's you know, one of
Speaker 1: the stories I remember about it when they you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was the Tour champ when they first
Speaker 1: started the Tour Championship, they played it there for.
Speaker 3: They used to have a eight round tournament there.
Speaker 1: No, that was, yeah, I know about that, but no,
Speaker 1: like in the in the nineties I think, or maybe
Speaker 1: the late eighties, they they used it for the Tour
Speaker 1: Championship the first couple of years, and so there's only
Speaker 1: like thirty players in the field at the end of
Speaker 1: the year, and basically if you weren't in the top
Speaker 1: eight or ten, you made the same money. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody was making money for showing up. And the prize,
Speaker 1: you know, the prize money was stacked to the top
Speaker 1: because it's.
Speaker 3: Last nineteen ninety one. In nineteen ninety two they played
Speaker 3: it there.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So so those two years
Speaker 1: I was, I wasn't there. I was just some A
Speaker 1: friend told me that like the last two days of
Speaker 1: the tournament, the guys that weren't in contention. They just
Speaker 1: deliberately played to the front edge of the greens like
Speaker 1: all day so they wouldn't embarrass themselves. It's just like
Speaker 1: I'll just get to hear a chip up and make
Speaker 1: par and get out, you know, and not shoot seventy eight.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It was Craig Saddler and Paul Aziger won won those
Speaker 2: two tour championships, and obviously then Yeah, so in terms
Speaker 2: of that restoration, you saw that course. I remember you
Speaker 2: saying you saw it really early on in life. And
Speaker 2: then you know, obviously before and after that Core and
Speaker 2: Crunchhaw restoration, you know, you already had thought of it
Speaker 2: as a ten before the restoration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, for years. I mean I loved it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I took a bunch of the people
Speaker 1: that worked for me there over the years. I took
Speaker 1: kill A Hants the first time he was there was
Speaker 1: with me, and you know, and I still thought really
Speaker 1: highly of the golf course. And then and like like
Speaker 1: I think before though, at whenever they had the USA
Speaker 1: Amateur there back in two thousand and eight or nine
Speaker 1: or seven, somewhere in there, I don't remember exactly where
Speaker 1: I took one of my interns there. We went there
Speaker 1: and Tobacco Road, and you know, at that point they'd
Speaker 1: had the US Open once or twice. They were getting
Speaker 1: ready for the USA Amateur and they narrowed up the
Speaker 1: you know, they narrowed everything up for the tournaments, and
Speaker 1: they'd never moded back out to its width, and like
Speaker 1: it was just bermuda grass everywhere and most of the
Speaker 1: most of the the wiregrass and stuff was gone and
Speaker 1: out of play areas, and I just was like, I
Speaker 1: felt really bad about it, and I I I was
Speaker 1: on Golf Club Atlas the next week and I wrote
Speaker 1: it was really sad. I mean, it was like going
Speaker 1: to visit your favorite uncle and he's got to mention
Speaker 1: he doesn't remember who you are. And Tom Cashley was
Speaker 1: the president of Pinehurst. He was, he was, he worked
Speaker 1: for them, but he wasn't the president at that point.
Speaker 1: He read that that, he said I read that that morning,
Speaker 1: and I was like, He's like, I spit out my coffee, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you know, and it was you know,
Speaker 1: and that was that was right about the same time
Speaker 1: Bill and Ben were they were working on Dormy Club
Speaker 1: and they'd come over and Bill had very gently tried
Speaker 1: to say the same thing I said much more abruptly.
Speaker 1: But you know, the two of us saying it at
Speaker 1: the same time kind of was part of the impetus
Speaker 1: for them to start working on it, because up to then, frankly,
Speaker 1: they were just thinking, you know, we're hosting the US
Speaker 1: Open and the US Aner, and everybody says it's that.
Speaker 1: You know, all the pro say it's their favorite golf course,
Speaker 1: So you know, we're doing everything just right.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, right, if it's a pro's favorite golf course.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, right.
Speaker 2: I saw that there's somebody posted something about tearing out
Speaker 2: the best golf courses on tour, and we say, there's
Speaker 2: some comments from tour pros about how low certain courses
Speaker 2: with a preponderance of bunkers and thick rough all over
Speaker 2: the place, we're on the listing. So it's an interesting
Speaker 2: thing with like, you know, it a lot of I
Speaker 2: think a lot of golf courses that host tournaments fall
Speaker 2: into the bucket of like, well, if the tour pros
Speaker 2: like it, that's good, and that might not necessarily be
Speaker 2: the right thing, and especially that it seemed to happen
Speaker 2: a lot from really nineteen sixty through nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's true, but I you know, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't really think that's ever been the case for Pineher's
Speaker 1: Number two, where the guy where the guys loved it
Speaker 1: because it was growing in and getting more predictable, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean you asked all the you know, the old
Speaker 1: timers that played in the north and South, they all
Speaker 1: loved the place. They just thought it was a great
Speaker 1: golf course. And you know, the younger guys, they maybe
Speaker 1: never saw it like that. You know. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember it more vividly because I saw it when I
Speaker 1: was like twelve years old, fifty years ago. It was
Speaker 1: one of the first things I saw and it really
Speaker 1: made an impression, and it was like, boy, they're really
Speaker 1: getting away from that, and so it was it was
Speaker 1: great to see him, you know that they they not
Speaker 1: only went back to that, they went back past that.
Speaker 1: You know, they went back further than that to really
Speaker 1: tune it up.
Speaker 2: What are some of your other favorite I know you
Speaker 2: haven't seen everything in the area. What are some of
Speaker 2: your other favorite courses in the Pineers area and at
Speaker 2: the resort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really haven't, you know. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never worked around Pinehers I. You know, typically I
Speaker 1: will only get there for a couple of days at
Speaker 1: a time, and I'll go walk number two again and
Speaker 1: then I'll go see one other thing. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't really played that many other courses around Piners obviously.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a fan of Tobacco Road. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's one of the best golf courses in the world.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really cool piece of work, and
Speaker 1: I love going to see that, and you know, and
Speaker 1: we'll I'll take Angela back there to'll like look at
Speaker 1: certain things there both, you know, plants they're using around
Speaker 1: the bunkers and how he made the bunkers look so dramatic.
Speaker 1: But you know, but I don't I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: build that eighteen holes for the resort, and I doubt
Speaker 1: the resort would want me to build that eighteen holes
Speaker 1: for the resort. I only I never saw Midpines until
Speaker 1: after the renovations, you know, and from from my limited experience,
Speaker 1: that's my next favorite golf course in town. You know.
Speaker 1: You know, Pine Needles is a little seemed a little
Speaker 1: more conventional to me. I know they've done work there
Speaker 1: since I saw it, so I don't I can't really
Speaker 1: comment on that. But and you know Rand Morris that
Speaker 1: took me to Southern Pines several years ago. He loved
Speaker 1: it when it was just the Elks Club and a
Speaker 1: really simple golf course. So I haven't seen that. And
Speaker 1: what they've done with that, I've heard it's pretty pretty severe, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of thing I might have built
Speaker 1: when I was thirty. So you know, whether that's whether
Speaker 1: I'm gonna like that or not like that? I have
Speaker 1: no idea.
Speaker 2: What do you say you severe like you'd build when
Speaker 2: you're thirty? Can you expand on that a little bit?
Speaker 2: How how you know your I guess severity and and
Speaker 2: you have have evolved with with experience and age.
Speaker 1: I still like building difficult greens here and there, and
Speaker 1: you know, some projects more than here and there. But
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess I'm just I'm just I'm just
Speaker 1: more conscious, you know, when I was more involved with
Speaker 1: actually shaping them and creating them. You know, you get
Speaker 1: more attached to everyone. It's like, oh, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: really cool, and that one's even cooler, and you know,
Speaker 1: now I'm a little you know, there's other people contributing
Speaker 1: to that, and I'm a little more of the editor,
Speaker 1: so I can step back and say, yeah, these are
Speaker 1: all cool, but you put them all together and it's
Speaker 1: too much, you know. I just I don't want to
Speaker 1: play eighteen greens like that. So so that's that's the
Speaker 1: hard part is, you know, especially if you're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of the work yourself, is to like take a
Speaker 1: couple of steps back and go where am I on this?
Speaker 1: You know, And and it's really hard in the middle
Speaker 1: of a construction project, you know, when you go and
Speaker 1: see somebody else's golf course that's already that they just built,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you go, you know, if I
Speaker 1: go see Southern Pines, I'm going to go see it
Speaker 1: after working on my own thing, going to see Pinehurs
Speaker 1: number two, going to see some other really great golf courses,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to go there and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that seems really you know, that impression is going
Speaker 1: to be way different from if you were building it.
Speaker 1: You'd be spending almost every day out there, and after
Speaker 1: about three or four months, you start to lose touch
Speaker 1: as to how severe is this. You know, you need
Speaker 1: somebody else to be tapping you on the shoulder going
Speaker 1: are you sure you want to be doing that? And
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people don't have that or
Speaker 1: they don't want to listen to it. When somebody does
Speaker 1: tell it, you know, they and a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of guys, especially if they're if they're younger guys,
Speaker 1: they're good players. Like all their friends who come around
Speaker 1: are like, Oh, that's cool. That's the coolest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. You know, you should do the next one.
Speaker 1: You should do like this, And all the encouragement is
Speaker 1: for it to get harder and harder, whereas, like, you know,
Speaker 1: working for Mike Kaiser, it was the opposite. It's like,
Speaker 1: do you really have to do that? That's important? Sometimes
Speaker 1: the client could provide that for you. Sometimes the people
Speaker 1: that work for you can provide that for you. The
Speaker 1: Pete Daya's wife provided that for But if nobody's providing
Speaker 1: that for you, you will do stuff. You know, generally,
Speaker 1: I think most people will tend to are doing it
Speaker 1: too severe instead of too dull. But I mean it
Speaker 1: could go either way.
Speaker 3: Do you think this is something I think about?
Speaker 2: A ton is do you think that the actual Like everybody,
Speaker 2: I think the natural instinct is to say, oh wow,
Speaker 2: look at this crazy green. I can't believe the guy
Speaker 2: that this architect had had the confidence to pull off
Speaker 2: such a wild green. But is the actual confident thing
Speaker 2: to do? The thing that requires more confidence is to
Speaker 2: build an extremely understated, subtle green.
Speaker 1: You know, I suppose that. I mean, it really depends
Speaker 1: on your own tendencies. It's like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: for me, yes, I think you know, because my tendency
Speaker 1: is too I've seen all these cool greens that are
Speaker 1: probably some of the wildest greens on the planet. You know,
Speaker 1: you'd love to build something like that, and you know,
Speaker 1: to get to to to keep that in check is
Speaker 1: a hard thing to do, you know. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: already talked with Angela about this. For for Pioneer's number ten.
Speaker 1: She's gonna it's the first time she's had to run
Speaker 1: a job for me. Uh. You know, she's been ready
Speaker 1: to do it for a while. They're just been like
Speaker 1: three very talented people ahead of her on the totem pole.
Speaker 1: And you know, but right now, you know, they're all
Speaker 1: committed to something this year. You know that they'll help
Speaker 1: her out some shape and stuff. But you know, they
Speaker 1: couldn't run that job because they all have to get
Speaker 1: back to their other things by April. So, you know,
Speaker 1: so I've said to her, you know, I know she's thinking,
Speaker 1: this is her chance to do something really cool and
Speaker 1: do really cool stuff. And you know, I've said to her,
Speaker 1: you know, no, I mean this is you know, It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is. But at the same time, this is the
Speaker 1: time you're gonna have to learn that you have to
Speaker 1: take a step back and let some other people do
Speaker 1: some of the cool stuff, because that's that's the progression.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You go from you go from just wanting to build
Speaker 1: one cool green to you know, being able to do
Speaker 1: that at will, to running a job and realizing that's
Speaker 1: not what you need to be doing.
Speaker 2: Everybody always talks about how great it is to build
Speaker 2: in the sand hills and how great North Carolina sand
Speaker 2: hills are. What's actually like, what's the challenging? What makes
Speaker 2: it hard? Is there is there something hard that's about
Speaker 2: building there?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, it's not really as sandy as everybody says,
Speaker 1: or it's not. Depends from one side to the other,
Speaker 1: it's different. But the sand is not as deep everywhere,
Speaker 1: as you know, it's not sand twenty feet down like
Speaker 1: Sand Valley. So you know, if you're doing more work,
Speaker 1: you know, the more work you're doing, the more complicated
Speaker 1: it gets.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've seen, I mean, I've seen several things. I've looked
Speaker 1: at there in recent years. You know, I was there
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and it was really rainy
Speaker 1: and like there were a lot of puddles and wet areas,
Speaker 1: and not on Pioneer's Number two, but on some of
Speaker 1: the other courses. Resort and Tobacco Road got torn up
Speaker 1: by the rain that I'm talking about because of the
Speaker 1: things we were discussing earlier. It's hard to do that. Look,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't stand up that well to a
Speaker 1: big storm, and it's just like how often do you
Speaker 1: have that here? You know? Pineer's Number two is the opposite,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean one of the people that's helped us,
Speaker 1: that's helping us build going to help us build the
Speaker 1: new course, but it's helped us, like, you know, get
Speaker 1: all the permits together to do you know. So they
Speaker 1: call me about this project eight months ago and and
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, I can't turn this down. But
Speaker 1: we're really busy. You know, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: can do it, and I you know, I said pretty quickly, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got some other clients that they've been
Speaker 1: talking about building stuff at the start of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: but now they're realizing they're not going to get there
Speaker 1: and it's going to be twenty twenty four. So my
Speaker 1: problem is I could build a golf course in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, but I've already got a bunch of commitments
Speaker 1: that pushed back into twenty twenty four. I don't think
Speaker 1: I can do it then. So is it even possible
Speaker 1: that you could get it together that quickly? And you know,
Speaker 1: when I said it, I'm like, I don't know that
Speaker 1: they can because like in all the projects I've ever done,
Speaker 1: there was only one that it was less than twelve
Speaker 1: months from when they called me until we started building it,
Speaker 1: and that was Stonewall. And they, you know, they got
Speaker 1: permits with Tom Fazio's plan, not with Monk, you know,
Speaker 1: but everybody else. You know, when Julian Robertson or some
Speaker 1: billionaire calls you, they think, nah, we can make it
Speaker 1: go super fast. Now, It's never that easy. There's always
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a while to figure out what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do, and then there are there are always
Speaker 1: hoops to jump through in the permitting process, and it's
Speaker 1: just going to take some time, no matter who you are,
Speaker 1: how much money you throw at it, anything else, you know,
Speaker 1: But it helps that Pineers is obviously they're a big
Speaker 1: deal in their local community. That helped. But more than that,
Speaker 1: they've got two guys on the payroll, Bob Farren and
Speaker 1: Kevin R. Robinson, who have built a bunch of golf
Speaker 1: courses and rebuild a bunch of golf courses, and they
Speaker 1: know how that stuff gets done. And then they you know,
Speaker 1: in there. You know, Kevin was the superintendent and number
Speaker 1: two for five or ten years. He's been working there
Speaker 1: since he got out of school basically, and you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, and he's the one who explained to
Speaker 1: me how different the soils are. And you know, guess
Speaker 1: which course in Pineers is on the best?
Speaker 3: Number two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the highest ground there and the deepest sand.
Speaker 1: So you know, they never get a puddle there, they
Speaker 1: never have any erosion problems there. But as you move
Speaker 1: away from that and you're moving down the hill a
Speaker 1: little bit, it gets harder and harder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it sounds so simple when you really
Speaker 2: take a step back and think about it, but like
Speaker 2: high ground is so important, and you see it at
Speaker 2: places like one that jumps to mine in Chicago. Medina
Speaker 2: obviously has three courses and the course nobody ever plays
Speaker 2: really is number two, but that one sits on the
Speaker 2: highest ground on the at the place and it's got
Speaker 2: the firmst conditions day and day out, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, why is this course always in the best
Speaker 2: shape of all of them.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, the rain goes right.
Speaker 2: Off and onto all the other courses, right, So that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's exciting. So that what's the exact timeline on the project. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're going to start working twenty twenty three and uh
Speaker 2: and when when are they expecting to not exact, but
Speaker 2: when are the when is the hope for golf.
Speaker 1: Wee We started clearing already. There will be an army
Speaker 1: there before the end of January. And you know part
Speaker 1: you know, our goal is to finish it would be
Speaker 1: done with the golf course and have it all planned
Speaker 1: in September and open next year. That goes back to
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to be too busy in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. And and the resort, you know, that was
Speaker 1: music to their ears. Now that they've got permits, they'll
Speaker 1: have a it may not be open yet, but they'll
Speaker 1: have a done golf course. When the US Open is
Speaker 1: in town in twenty twenty four. You know that you'll
Speaker 1: be you'll be playing it in the summer of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four.
Speaker 2: If you go to the they get a cash in
Speaker 2: on all those media members coming to town.
Speaker 1: Absolutely they do. And you know, and especially you know,
Speaker 1: my other projects right now are all you know, Sedge Valley.
Speaker 1: We're going to get back to the first of April.
Speaker 1: You know, we could actually probably be working there today
Speaker 1: because it hasn't snowed much yet, but you can't plan
Speaker 1: on working in January, February, and March. So we start
Speaker 1: up again there the first of April. We start high
Speaker 1: point the first to April. I'm not sure exactly when
Speaker 1: we're going to get going in Mexico, but it's not
Speaker 1: not right now, It's not for a couple of months yet.
Speaker 1: So so for you know, until the first to April,
Speaker 1: I have all of my talented people available to go
Speaker 1: do some work at Pinehurst and you know, knock out
Speaker 1: as much of it as we can before everybody goes
Speaker 1: off and they're doing their own thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're hoping to take real advantage of that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go for a week in February and a week
Speaker 1: in March, and I think we'll have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of green shaped and holes half done by That's exciting.
Speaker 3: It's excited up so well.
Speaker 2: It'll be fun to follow this and talk more and
Speaker 2: more as the course comes together. But Tom, thanks for
Speaker 2: coming on and chatting about Pinehurst.
Speaker 1: It's a fun place. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode was edited by the great Meg Atkins Meg Editing.
Speaker 2: We are taking the editing keys away from Meg, putting
Speaker 2: it on some other stuff and Matt, who's going to
Speaker 2: be editing most of the pods this year, is on
Speaker 2: vacation this week, so begs back in the saddle back edited.
Speaker 2: As a quick reminder, today's episode was brought to you
Speaker 2: by Club TFE.
Speaker 3: Go check that out.
Speaker 2: It's the Frida egg dot com slash membership. It's one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty dollars a year, and we're going to
Speaker 2: be delivering a ton of content to members. As a reminder,
Speaker 2: nothing changes with this podcast or our newsletter.
Speaker 3: Or stuff going up on our website.
Speaker 2: This is just for people who want more and I
Speaker 2: think it's going to be a pretty cool thing. So
Speaker 2: thank you for listening to another edition of The Yoke
Speaker 2: with Dope.
Speaker 3: We will be back next week with a new.
Speaker 2: Episode and Pumper a new year of Frida egg pods.
Speaker 2: I'm energized, I'm ready to put together a lot of
Speaker 2: interesting interviews and episodes over the course of the year.
Speaker 2: So thanks for listening as always, and look forward to
Speaker 2: a big twenty twenty three