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 bride egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday, Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off.
Speaker 2: Of the hump.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison. I am here with Andy Johnson, or
Speaker 1: at least a portion of Andy Johnson. You've had a
Speaker 1: rough go of it lately. How are you doing, Andy.
Speaker 2: Garrett, I'm doing well. I feel like a million bucks
Speaker 2: compared to however I was last year. I or last
Speaker 2: week coming out of health and safety last year protocols
Speaker 2: from from the Masters. So it's been a it's been
Speaker 2: a long last few days. But we're back here.
Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, No, it's it's great to have you back
Speaker 1: at near full strength. So thanks for being here today.
Speaker 1: So today we are going to be talking about Pas Tiempo,
Speaker 1: probably my favorite course, and I'll get into why it's
Speaker 1: my favorite course, but is it up there for you
Speaker 1: as well? Just as a general impression.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I would. Yeah, it's one of my
Speaker 2: favorite golf courses. Would it be the course that I'd
Speaker 2: play every day? Probably not. It's a bit of a
Speaker 2: bit of a physical challenge for everyday place. But in
Speaker 2: terms of bucket list golf courses, and especially when you
Speaker 2: start to look at courses that anybody could play any
Speaker 2: day of the week, pas Tiepo gets near the very
Speaker 2: top of the courses you must see before you die.
Speaker 2: And I think in terms, you could make an argument
Speaker 2: that of any American public golf course, you can make
Speaker 2: an argument that this should be number one on your
Speaker 2: bucket list because of the significance of the architecture, the
Speaker 2: architect and where it sits in kind of American golf architecture.
Speaker 1: Its main competitor for that number one spot I feel
Speaker 1: for the public golfer would be Pebble Beach.
Speaker 2: Right, I would say, I would actually argue, I think
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach obviously has you know, the architectural significance of
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach is rather small in comparison. I mean, Pebble
Speaker 2: Beach's significance has been founded through its beautiful site and
Speaker 2: its historic moments of championships that have happened there PASTA
Speaker 2: Tiempo is probably the greatest architect of all time and
Speaker 2: public access and mostly almost everything there is original of
Speaker 2: what was built. I would say the place that rivals
Speaker 2: it Pinehurst number two.
Speaker 1: In terms of architectural significance significant.
Speaker 2: I'm saying from pure design standpoint, I don't think because
Speaker 2: you could go play a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 2: of Bill Corr or Tom Doak public golf out there,
Speaker 2: like you could you know beyond if you want to
Speaker 2: take bandoned trails and Pacific dunes and put those is
Speaker 2: to places, right, but there's there's very there's very little
Speaker 2: public access Alistair McKenzie in America. And then with with
Speaker 2: Pineers number two, it would be you know, one of
Speaker 2: maybe the top doll ross golf course right where another
Speaker 2: legendary golf architect of the Golden Age that you can
Speaker 2: go see. So from an architecture standpoint, I think you
Speaker 2: can make an argument this should be number one on
Speaker 2: your bucket list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think I would put it there.
Speaker 1: I would say that I am biased, and just to
Speaker 1: give an idea of my relationship with this course over time,
Speaker 1: it was probably the first truly great golf course that
Speaker 1: I played. I played it when I was thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1: I believe it was nineteen ninety eight with my dad.
Speaker 1: This was prior to the work that Tom Doak and
Speaker 1: his team at Renaissance Golf Design did there, and so
Speaker 1: the course was, you know, had a ways to go
Speaker 1: before it could get to the course that it is today.
Speaker 1: But even then it made such a massive impression on me,
Speaker 1: and throughout my life, I've had the opportunity to get
Speaker 1: back there a number of times. I lived in the
Speaker 1: Monterey area for a few years, and I would get
Speaker 1: up to Pas Tiampo two or three times a year
Speaker 1: and play it. This is just one of my absolute
Speaker 1: favorite places to go, and I think it really is
Speaker 1: my favorite golf course. It's probably not the best golf
Speaker 1: course that I've played overall in terms of its capacity
Speaker 1: to meet its full potential, but just in terms of
Speaker 1: the place and the design and what it has meant
Speaker 1: to me, it's my favorite course. You know that this
Speaker 1: is the place for me, and so I truly love
Speaker 1: this golf course. Now we are going to have a
Speaker 1: honest and nuanced discussion of this course. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be all puffing Pas Tiempo up because this course
Speaker 1: has some flaws and also the club has made a
Speaker 1: decision recently about the future of the course that there
Speaker 1: could be a debate about. You know, they're about to
Speaker 1: rebuild their greens essentially, and they're doing this with the
Speaker 1: best of intentions, apparently to you know, restore some of
Speaker 1: the Mackenzie features that have supposedly been lost over time.
Speaker 1: But there is a again, an honest and nuanced discussion
Speaker 1: to have about that decision. So those are the places
Speaker 1: that we're going to go in this podcast. But I
Speaker 1: think first we just wanted to talk about the course
Speaker 1: itself and some of the design features that really make
Speaker 1: it special. So why don't we start with the front nine.
Speaker 1: The front nine gets somewhat underrated because the back nine
Speaker 1: is so brilliant, and we're going to get to the
Speaker 1: back nine, but the front nine is really remarkable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's super good. I think the back nine
Speaker 2: obviously is one of the best nines in all of golf,
Speaker 2: and I think that's where you get obscured a little bit.
Speaker 2: But the front nine is kind of one of those
Speaker 2: instances where you sit and there's a lot of great
Speaker 2: holes on it. There's a really great stretch of holes.
Speaker 2: I think two through five is phenomenal. But what I
Speaker 2: always kind of go back to is, man, I wish
Speaker 2: one was the way it should be. I wish six
Speaker 2: was the way it should be. I wish seven was
Speaker 2: the way it should be. I wish nine was the
Speaker 2: way it should be. And that's what kind of holds
Speaker 2: me back from kind of truly loving the front nine.
Speaker 2: I always find myself though, what I'm either in, like
Speaker 2: the second fairway or the thirty or the second green.
Speaker 2: At that point, I'm just like, God, the front nine
Speaker 2: is really great, is what I always think to myself.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so I've done a poor job of setting
Speaker 1: this episode up. We've kind of gone straight into talking
Speaker 1: about the golf course, but should mention it's an Alistair
Speaker 1: mackenzie design. It opened in nineteen twenty nine. It had
Speaker 1: an opening day where Bobby Jones played alongside a few
Speaker 1: other great players of the time, including Marion Hollins, who
Speaker 1: was a fantastic golfer, and she was the driving force,
Speaker 1: the visionary behind the Pasa Tempo project. She was also
Speaker 1: a very important figure in the building of Cyprus Point Club.
Speaker 1: She worked for Samuel Morse was the director of athletics.
Speaker 1: I believe for the Pebble Beach Company. Pasa Tiempo was
Speaker 1: Marion Hollins's baby. Marion Hollins was recently inducted into the
Speaker 1: World Golf Hall of Fame posthumously, but it was a
Speaker 1: great moment to appreciate her incredible career and contribution to golf.
Speaker 1: Pas Tiempo is at the center of that contribution. She
Speaker 1: was behind every decision about this entire development, and it
Speaker 1: really is a development. It's not just a golf course.
Speaker 1: It's also a residential community and it was imagined that
Speaker 1: way from the very beginning. Okay, so that's just laying
Speaker 1: some groundwork in case people didn't know about the backstory
Speaker 1: of Mackenzie and Mary and Hollins. These are the major
Speaker 1: driving forces behind this whole creation. Okay. So the front nine,
Speaker 1: it kind of has two sections, right, there's this upper
Speaker 1: section and there's this lower section. And in the upper
Speaker 1: section our holes one to nine, most of six, seven,
Speaker 1: and eight, and then the lower section consists of holes two, three, four,
Speaker 1: and five. The lower section is brilliant and very much intact.
Speaker 1: The upper section. Those holes were originally designed to be
Speaker 1: have these big, wide shared corridors and since nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: there have been trees planted to separate out the fairways,
Speaker 1: and so those holes no longer share fairways. They have
Speaker 1: their own fairways, and a couple of those fairways are
Speaker 1: pretty narrow, pretty restricted, and the holes just played differently
Speaker 1: than they were designed to play, and that's just kind
Speaker 1: of the reality. I'm not sure that's going to change.
Speaker 1: And so there are some places in that upper section
Speaker 1: of the front nine that feel cramped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and that's I think the big question
Speaker 2: about the golf courses is what makes what happens with
Speaker 2: those holes over the next, you know, fifty years. Obviously
Speaker 2: the reason that they were planted was safety. Somebody lost
Speaker 2: their life on the eighth green from a wayward t
Speaker 2: shot from the seventh so they planted a bunch of
Speaker 2: trees to prevent that kind of thing from happening.
Speaker 1: As there's a fence up there too.
Speaker 2: You might want to do. You know, you don't want
Speaker 2: people dying on your golf course. And you know the
Speaker 2: thing about it is the trees really mask how good
Speaker 2: the greens are there. Like the sixth Green is a
Speaker 2: terrific green, you know, with so many neat little kind
Speaker 2: of nooks. You know, you have that left nook and
Speaker 2: then you have the back one that that part of
Speaker 2: the back that runs away there. And what happens is
Speaker 2: that that hole gets so narrow that you lose the
Speaker 2: dimension of really wanting to push up and go for
Speaker 2: it because it's so narrow at the green because of
Speaker 2: the houses that came in. And then you have the
Speaker 2: trees on the right, and then the seventh, Like the
Speaker 2: seventh is one of the best greens on the golf
Speaker 2: course and it's really obscured by the trees making it
Speaker 2: you know, opening that up would be make it such
Speaker 2: a fun little drive and pitch hole. And I think
Speaker 2: that that that hole, you know, you when you're at
Speaker 2: seven green. The only reason I know this is because
Speaker 2: I'm flying a drone, you know there, But the you're
Speaker 2: right next to the third green and the fourth tee,
Speaker 2: and it's really an amazing thing. Like you get spun
Speaker 2: around by that routing a lot, but it's a really
Speaker 2: cool little focal point. And you talk about the upper
Speaker 2: and the lower holes, you're effectively just on the ridge
Speaker 2: above those those greens there, and it's you're no more
Speaker 2: than fifty yards. You're basically there's just a house between.
Speaker 1: You, yeah, And what separates the upper section of the
Speaker 1: front nine from the lower section of the front nine
Speaker 1: is this hill and the hill and now has houses
Speaker 1: on it, and so it's a little bit hard to
Speaker 1: see the natural feature, but it is this little hill
Speaker 1: in the middle of this general down slope, and a
Speaker 1: bunch of holes play around this hill. So the second
Speaker 1: hole goes along the side of the hill. The third hole,
Speaker 1: a long par three spectacular hole, plays back up into
Speaker 1: the hill. The fourth hole plays off of the hill,
Speaker 1: the sixth hole plays along the other side of the hill,
Speaker 1: the seventh hole plays back into the hill as you
Speaker 1: were saying, and getting pretty close to the third green
Speaker 1: and the fourth tee, and then eight plays off of
Speaker 1: the hill. So in that way, this is sort of
Speaker 1: a classic Mackenzie routing. He did this at Cypress Point.
Speaker 1: He did this at Valley Club, where there was a
Speaker 1: hill or in the case of Cypress Point, a dune,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of holes play into and off of
Speaker 1: it in different ways. The same thing was done at
Speaker 1: Pasa Tiampo on the front nine, but it's a little
Speaker 1: bit hard to see because of the trees and the
Speaker 1: development that has happened on the fringes of the golf course,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly still there. That principle of that routing
Speaker 1: is still there.
Speaker 2: What's interesting, too, is that the back nine actually plays
Speaker 2: in and out of a valley. Effectively. The focal point
Speaker 2: on the back nine isn't a high hill. It's actually
Speaker 2: a low valley, and everything kind of spires off of that.
Speaker 2: It is a meeting point. If you think about the
Speaker 2: back nine, the tenth, the sixteenth, the twelfth, the eleventh,
Speaker 2: t the thirteenth tee, all of those that area right
Speaker 2: there is at kind of a low point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well the Baranka runs through the lowest point
Speaker 1: of all, and so all those holes on the back
Speaker 1: nine center around that, you know, that low point where
Speaker 1: the water runs through. So in any case on the
Speaker 1: front nine, if you were to point people to a
Speaker 1: hole that you think represents the best of the front nine,
Speaker 1: where would you go?
Speaker 2: I really like the fourth It's a short, shortist Part four.
Speaker 2: One of the things I like about it it's got
Speaker 2: a few key McKenzie features. It's got the layered bunkers
Speaker 2: that everybody likes to point out, the camouflage. It's got
Speaker 2: a bunker in the fairway that's probably about ninety yards
Speaker 2: away from the green. Seventy to ninety yards, I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly off the top of my head. And then
Speaker 2: that bunker appears to be kind of like stacked right
Speaker 2: up against the green side bunker, and it looks from
Speaker 2: the tee like it's all one big bunker complex, but
Speaker 2: in reality there's a huge gap between them and the
Speaker 2: green side bunkers. There's a bunker also short and right
Speaker 2: off the tee. And what I think is really interesting
Speaker 2: about it, and you know, kind of picked up the
Speaker 2: latest time that we went around it, and it's because
Speaker 2: you hit your shot over to the right. I hit
Speaker 2: mine way up just short of that bunker. Perfect spot
Speaker 2: the left.
Speaker 1: The one on the left.
Speaker 2: You hit yours over kind of over the right bunker,
Speaker 2: but you know, kind of shorter off the tee, and
Speaker 2: we both had really good avenues into a right pin.
Speaker 2: And what was interesting was your shot. You were able
Speaker 2: to use a feature on the green, which is you know,
Speaker 2: it kind of is built up on the left to
Speaker 2: funnel your kind of slingshot your ball towards the middle
Speaker 2: of the green from that right side. Well, mine, I'm
Speaker 2: staring right down you know, perfect angle to hit to
Speaker 2: that to a middle right pin, and you know it is.
Speaker 2: You know, there's just different methods, different routes. And something
Speaker 2: I think with Alistair Mackenzie is he's one of the
Speaker 2: few not great players truly great. Now he could get
Speaker 2: the golf ball around, but he wasn't a great distinguished
Speaker 2: amateur champion. And I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: that did was it created a sympathy for lots of
Speaker 2: styles of play, and he accommodated different types of players
Speaker 2: with different options of play. And that's a perfect example.
Speaker 2: On the fourth is that being long and left is ideal,
Speaker 2: but if you're short and right, you're not out of
Speaker 2: the equation yet you still have a shot if you
Speaker 2: understand the contours of the green, and that green's really cool.
Speaker 2: It's kind of got a left tier, a front leftier,
Speaker 2: a right mid right tier that's depressed down into kind
Speaker 2: of a bowl, and then a back right tier. It
Speaker 2: embodies those those Mackenzie greens where that bolpin is really
Speaker 2: gettable and everybody can kind of get at it. It
Speaker 2: looks harder than it is because it you know, if
Speaker 2: you if you didn't understand the contours, you might think
Speaker 2: that's the toughest pin. But then that back right pin
Speaker 2: is so hard. It's such a small little target. So
Speaker 2: it's got this malleability about it where it's got these
Speaker 2: pins that are really difficult, really hard to get at
Speaker 2: and make birdie. But it's also got some pins that
Speaker 2: are really fun funnel pins that you can make a
Speaker 2: lot of birdies.
Speaker 1: With great hole. Now the second green, the fourth green,
Speaker 1: the fifth green, all are really good examples. I think
Speaker 1: of how Mackenzie was designing greens when he was building
Speaker 1: Passa Tiempo, and they have these kind of amoeba shapes
Speaker 1: to them, where there are these little fingers that kind
Speaker 1: of extend out from the center of the green, and
Speaker 1: then there are bunkers that kind of fit into the
Speaker 1: notches that those fingers create. I know I'm mixing metaphors here,
Speaker 1: but just imagine these sort of amoeba shapes with bunkers
Speaker 1: kind of stuck into them. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: greens that Pasa Tiempo have these shapes, and it just
Speaker 1: gives a great variety of pin positions and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Now, in addition to the weird shapes
Speaker 1: that the greens have, they have wonderful contours as well.
Speaker 1: They're all very different. This is a truly kind of memorable,
Speaker 1: wonderful set of greens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the greens are I think on top of the
Speaker 2: topography is jaw dropping, but the greens are really you
Speaker 2: could just spend so much time putting around hitting different
Speaker 2: little sections, and you know, it's the perfect example. I
Speaker 2: always talk about how hard it is to have bad
Speaker 2: holes when you have great greens, and how great greens
Speaker 2: are fun to play from anywhere, like any yardage. If
Speaker 2: you put like truly world class greens, you could play
Speaker 2: from twenty yards, you could play from two hundred yards,
Speaker 2: you could play from six hundred yards, and the hole
Speaker 2: is going to be fun because of the green. And
Speaker 2: I think about a lot of the greens out there
Speaker 2: and how enjoyable they would be to have in your
Speaker 2: backyard because they present so many different quirks and shots
Speaker 2: in places where you can use slopes to bank them
Speaker 2: off into little pockets. You know, there's easy spots, there's
Speaker 2: difficult spots, and you know, the greens have a wonderful
Speaker 2: variety and cadence to them. They are intense. Let's not
Speaker 2: be you know, let's not beat around the bush. These
Speaker 2: are probably some of the most difficult greens to put
Speaker 2: on in the country, just because of the combination of
Speaker 2: their slope as well. Is there different positions that these
Speaker 2: pins you can find them in. It just they have
Speaker 2: these pockets. They're so hard to get at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're almost sort of experimental. And you know, coming
Speaker 1: off of this podcast that I did with Bob Crosby recently,
Speaker 1: Bob was a contributor to the Postmasters episode that I did,
Speaker 1: and he talked about how Augusta National late in Alistair
Speaker 1: McKenzie's career, was part of an attempt to find a
Speaker 1: kind of new way of doing architecture. You know, Mackenzie
Speaker 1: at this point was looking for other options, ways to
Speaker 1: kind of change what he was doing. Now. By the
Speaker 1: time he got to Augusta, mackenzie had become convinced that
Speaker 1: golf courses that were built in the twenties just had
Speaker 1: too many bunkers, and he was looking for ways to
Speaker 1: reduce the number of bunkers. Pasa Tiempo does not reflect
Speaker 1: that mode of Alistair McKenzie's thinking. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of bunkers out there. They're very artistically presented, a specially
Speaker 1: around the greens. There's a kind of excess to them,
Speaker 1: but a real beauty as well. So we're not dealing
Speaker 1: with a Mackenzie who was kind of trying to limit
Speaker 1: the number of bunkers that he was building on his
Speaker 1: golf courses. But I think where you get the experimental
Speaker 1: nature of mackenzie's later career at Pasa Tiempo is in
Speaker 1: the design of those greens. They are just different from
Speaker 1: what he was building earlier. You just have to go
Speaker 1: look at Metal Club, which is a beautifully restored course,
Speaker 1: a wonderful golf course. So I don't mean to slam
Speaker 1: Metal Club for having uninteresting greens, because they're certainly not that,
Speaker 1: but they're really really different. And Metal Club was built
Speaker 1: just really a few years before Pasa Tempo. But by
Speaker 1: the time McKenzie got to Pasa Tiempo, he was just
Speaker 1: clearly looking for different ways to do things, you know,
Speaker 1: and these greens are a great example of that attempt
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So one other thing that I picked up on
Speaker 2: Big played Pasta Tiempo a couple of weeks before the
Speaker 2: Masters of that's spending a week there, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: particularly enamored with the ground contours that Mackenzie built. They're
Speaker 2: all over the place at Augusta, nashvill and a lot
Speaker 2: of them have been taking out, taken out, you know,
Speaker 2: some of them. And they are all over the place
Speaker 2: at at Pasta Tiempo. And what I mean by that
Speaker 2: is like mounds that are by no means natural, but
Speaker 2: they were created to influence play. And there are these
Speaker 2: contours that they help you if you're approaching from the
Speaker 2: right angle. They hurt you if you're approaching from the
Speaker 2: wrong angle. But one place where if you see an
Speaker 2: old photo of one at Pasta Tiempo, you see those
Speaker 2: beautiful mounds that were kind of littered the fair away,
Speaker 2: and particularly the right side of the fairway, and the
Speaker 2: obvious play was up the left, which is now a
Speaker 2: driving range was the ideal play, and that got you
Speaker 2: kind of over by the left. There there was that
Speaker 2: first Ranka really showed up there on the left side
Speaker 2: of one, but you saw all these mounds, and the
Speaker 2: mounds are still kind of there now, and those mounds
Speaker 2: are on the un the safer line, and it's I
Speaker 2: just love the randomness of that, Like, oh, you hit
Speaker 2: it over to the right, you play safe, and you're
Speaker 2: in effectively a mogl field. It'd be like if you
Speaker 2: were doing a ski race and you know you had
Speaker 2: one one route that was barren of moguls, but it's
Speaker 2: a much tougher route to take to get to. And
Speaker 2: then you know you have the safer, the wider, easier
Speaker 2: route to get to, but it's filled with moguls. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of like this this. You know one as
Speaker 2: a fully restored hole. If they ever got rid of
Speaker 2: the driving, rage would present. And and these are why
Speaker 2: that I think the front nine comes up shorter of
Speaker 2: the of the back. Lind Is you look at things
Speaker 2: like that one hole, the first hole is severely compromised
Speaker 2: from what it was.
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Speaker 1: we get to the back nine. It's a brilliant back nine.
Speaker 1: It's it's just about close to perfect. What are some
Speaker 1: of the virtues of the back nine that you think of? First?
Speaker 2: I think, just in general, the variety of ways that
Speaker 2: a central hazard is used. So the central hazard is
Speaker 2: this baranka. It's a dramatic baranka. It's not a small,
Speaker 2: little dried up creek. It's a canyon baranca variety. So
Speaker 2: it's it's wide. The general variety in which this is
Speaker 2: used in the ways you play along it, over it,
Speaker 2: through it in different parts of the back nine. So
Speaker 2: this is the central theme of the back nine. Is
Speaker 2: this you're effectively your adventure or battle with the baranca.
Speaker 2: It's going to ask you right off the bat to
Speaker 2: hit it over it on ten. And this used to
Speaker 2: be a much larger carry when it was a par five,
Speaker 2: so you know today it's not a huge part of it.
Speaker 2: But when when the t shot was in the middle
Speaker 2: of that parking lot like it used to be, this
Speaker 2: was a imposing carry and you know the So you
Speaker 2: start with it and it runs up the left on
Speaker 2: that hole on ten and up into the green. The
Speaker 2: eleventh that cuts up the left and across the twelfth
Speaker 2: that plays up the left and then in front of
Speaker 2: the green, so you're contending with it on a different shot,
Speaker 2: different part of the shot. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 2: on the approach, you know at the green as opposed
Speaker 2: to eleven. It's it's over early on and off the
Speaker 2: tee that you're dealing with it. Thirteen it runs up
Speaker 2: the left. Again, I guess one of the things that
Speaker 2: I would say is that it does run up the
Speaker 2: left a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the orientation of the nine. It kind
Speaker 1: of goes counterclockwise, and so the baranca is often on
Speaker 1: the left.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So thirteen is up the left, fourteen it's up
Speaker 2: the left, but it's also in the fairway. One of
Speaker 2: the things I love with thirteen and fourteen is the
Speaker 2: way that Mackenzie brought the baranca feature out into the
Speaker 2: golf features that weren't necessarily, you know, baranca features. So
Speaker 2: on thirteen, if you kind of look at the way
Speaker 2: he built that hole, the dramatic bunkering around the green
Speaker 2: is unforgettable. But really what that is supposed to do
Speaker 2: is to mimic the Baranca. So it's supposed to kind
Speaker 2: of feel like it comes right out of that Baranca
Speaker 2: on the left, which it does a great job of
Speaker 2: like that. It's supposed to be resemble that. And then
Speaker 2: on fourteen it across the fairway and makes just such
Speaker 2: a compellingly strategic golf hole with the you know, hit
Speaker 2: it over this on the left and you've got the
Speaker 2: perfect spot to hit a shot in, but you have
Speaker 2: to deal with you know, you could lose your ball
Speaker 2: on the left, and if you don't clear over that
Speaker 2: central fairway feature, which is kind of about probably like
Speaker 2: eight feet tall, you're going to have a blind shot
Speaker 2: with a potentially really awkward lie. And then and then
Speaker 2: obviously fifteen is the par three in the baranca, and
Speaker 2: then sixteen you're coming out of it with it up
Speaker 2: the left and it cuts across the green again, and
Speaker 2: seventeen you have it behind the green, and eighteen is
Speaker 2: that one last shot over the biggest part of the
Speaker 2: baranca to a green that sits right on the other
Speaker 2: side of it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned seventeen and eighteen. They can be controversial holes.
Speaker 1: You know, if people are trying to pick nets about
Speaker 1: the back nine at Pasa Tiempo, they'll often focus on seven,
Speaker 1: a shortish par four that a lot of people find
Speaker 1: somewhat undistinguished compared to the other holes, and then eighteen,
Speaker 1: which is a par three finisher, and people often don't
Speaker 1: like par three finishers. Could we briefly say a couple
Speaker 1: of words about seventeen. I'm not saying it's the best
Speaker 1: hole on the back nine, but I think it's a
Speaker 1: really good golf hole that gets underrated, and especially if
Speaker 1: you haven't been there since they restored the green, since
Speaker 1: they extended that green all the way back essentially to
Speaker 1: the Baranka. It used to be a much smaller green.
Speaker 1: It had reduced to that size, but now it's this long,
Speaker 1: strange green. Kind of I think it's kind of a
Speaker 1: cool hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's super cool. I think, Well, here are the reasons.
Speaker 2: The topography is pretty syneicially severe. You're playing significantly uphill,
Speaker 2: but also that that slope, that side slope is pretty
Speaker 2: severe left or right, and you're hitting a shorter iron
Speaker 2: in and it's this long, narrow green that presents a
Speaker 2: very hard shot for a shorter iron. Your tendency is
Speaker 2: to miss it short right. And with that lie and
Speaker 2: with that green, it's an awful shot to miss short
Speaker 2: right because you're you end up way below the green
Speaker 2: with all the slope in the ground, so the green
Speaker 2: kind of sits high up and if you miss short right,
Speaker 2: you're kind of dead. And the other aspect is then
Speaker 2: it gets you to bail left, and if you bail
Speaker 2: left and you miss it over on the left side
Speaker 2: of the green. I cannot tell you that I've had
Speaker 2: the putt probably three times, and every time I end
Speaker 2: up like ten to fifteen feet past. It is so
Speaker 2: unbelievably fast. Even when you know it's so fast, it's
Speaker 2: almost impossible to not hit it past the hole, so
Speaker 2: you end up I also like that the green, this long,
Speaker 2: skinny green. It's so different from every other green on
Speaker 2: the on the back nine and the whole course in general,
Speaker 2: and those backpins are impossible to get back to it is.
Speaker 2: It's a cool hole, it's a connector. Yeah, sure it
Speaker 2: gets you to set eighteen t. It's not sixteen. It
Speaker 2: comes like when you think about it, in the stretch
Speaker 2: of holes it comes in. It's understandable why people feel
Speaker 2: like it's a miss. But there was no way you
Speaker 2: could build a hole set from seventeen to eighteen green.
Speaker 1: Without without like blasting out the hillside. You'd have to
Speaker 1: like if you if you put not to pick on
Speaker 1: Tom Fasio, but I'm gonna pick on Tom Fasio. If
Speaker 1: you put Tom Fazio out there and said build a
Speaker 1: long finishing hole from seventeen t to eighteen green. Then
Speaker 1: he probably would have blasted a valley through that through
Speaker 1: that hillside there to open up the visibility to eighteen green,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't really an option and they decided not
Speaker 1: to do that here fortunately, And the landscape is intact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing. So if you want to
Speaker 2: make that a hole like the that's the problem is
Speaker 2: that it would end up being this really awkward like
Speaker 2: for long hitters, it would be fine, but for anybody
Speaker 2: that's not a long hitter, they'd be laying up to
Speaker 2: like the edge to where the eighteenth tea is just
Speaker 2: to have a shot and hitting like a fairway wood
Speaker 2: long iron into that green. It would be a silly,
Speaker 2: silly hole for the vast majority of golfers.
Speaker 1: And the baranka is like one hundred and thirty yards
Speaker 1: wide at that point. Would you say, that's that's about
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 2: I think. So, I mean it's from like that forward
Speaker 2: tee to the green effectively, what's that just.
Speaker 1: To the front of the green. Yeah, it's about one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty yards just to get across the baranka.
Speaker 1: And so if you're trying to build a par four
Speaker 1: where the landing zone is somewhere short of the baranca
Speaker 1: and then the shot is across. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of players who are going to be in situations where
Speaker 1: you know, they have to like hit a little you know, pitch.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I've seen. My mom have to do
Speaker 2: this on numerous occasions, and I always like think about it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what a silly golf hole is? Where, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes my mom will hit a layup shot and the
Speaker 2: layup shots not quite good enough and she has to
Speaker 2: lay up again, right, and it's like, what are we
Speaker 2: doing that? Some people have to play golf this way
Speaker 2: and I could just blast it over it, you know.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the problem that you would run
Speaker 2: into the seventeenth hole as it stands, though, is I
Speaker 2: would say, it's not in my it's not in my
Speaker 2: bottom five or four holes at pass a Tiempo.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there are definitely holes on the front
Speaker 1: nine as they stand right now, they're weaker, and I
Speaker 1: think that is an actively fun, cool golf hole to
Speaker 1: play now, the par three finisher. You asked me at
Speaker 1: one point, why do you think people don't like having
Speaker 1: a part three as a finishing hole? And I came
Speaker 1: up empty. I was like, I don't know why. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where that objection comes from. So I asked
Speaker 1: on Twitter and I got a bunch of responses and
Speaker 1: they were all, you know, it was an actually a
Speaker 1: nice Twitter moment where where people were sort of explaining
Speaker 1: their preferences and nobody was judging anybody else, and it
Speaker 1: didn't turn into an argument. It was just a very satisfying,
Speaker 1: you know, finding out of people's opinions about this. And
Speaker 1: the most common responses that I got to this question
Speaker 1: were one, A satisfying finishing hole on a golf course
Speaker 1: should assess all aspects of the game, so the drive,
Speaker 1: the approach, and the putt and whatever other shots come,
Speaker 1: you know, as a result of poor shots or whatever.
Speaker 1: That it just feels more satisfying and more complete for
Speaker 1: a finishing hole to assess all those aspects of the
Speaker 1: game instead of just the approach and the putt. Another
Speaker 1: argument that people made against par three finishing holes is
Speaker 1: that par four and five finishing holes have more variants,
Speaker 1: more a greater variety of outcomes for the end of
Speaker 1: a round or a match, and so they're more dynamic.
Speaker 1: Another common response was that people just enjoy hitting driver
Speaker 1: on the last hole, just one last chance to smash it.
Speaker 1: And then finally people were saying that a par three
Speaker 1: just feels like an abrupt way to end the round,
Speaker 1: sort of like an anti climax, like you're being rushed
Speaker 1: out the door, like here's the end, ook there it is.
Speaker 2: I always think about the eighteenth hole. The eighteenth hole
Speaker 2: is a means. The first and eighteenth hole to me
Speaker 2: are means to get away and get to the clubhouse.
Speaker 2: Those are the ways I think about the first in
Speaker 2: the eighteenth hole, and I rarely you rarely see great
Speaker 2: first holes or eighteenth holes. Yet everybody always likes to
Speaker 2: be like, you know, is the eighteenth hole like if
Speaker 2: the architect did his job, you know, probably should be
Speaker 2: just like kind of street. Unless it's like an unbelievable
Speaker 2: site with great holes everywhere, the eighteenth hole is probably
Speaker 2: going to be underwhelming. Like when I think about the
Speaker 2: great eighteenth holes, the truly mind blowing eighteenth holes, the
Speaker 2: one course that pops into my mind is Sandhills, And
Speaker 2: you know what, there's mind blowing golf holes everywhere you
Speaker 2: turn out there.
Speaker 1: There's a million great golf holes, and they could have
Speaker 1: my impression of that project is that they could have
Speaker 1: put the clubhouse anywhere a lot of different places. The
Speaker 1: other thing, they had a huge array of options.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, can we talk about the eighteenth at
Speaker 2: Pasta Tampo. Yeah, here's how.
Speaker 1: I let's talk about the why is why is it
Speaker 1: a good golf This.
Speaker 2: Is just this is a personal A lot of people
Speaker 2: use personal examples there, and I'll give you one of
Speaker 2: me is that I was I think I was playing
Speaker 2: a match against Zach Blair, friend of the program there,
Speaker 2: and it was it was a close match. It was
Speaker 2: we were tied going into the last hole, and I
Speaker 2: remember You're standing on that tee and you're just thinking, God,
Speaker 2: I got to hit a perfect shot here. I got
Speaker 2: to hit a truly great golf shot here, because if
Speaker 2: I don't hit one, Zach's probably gonna hit one. And
Speaker 2: from a match play standpoint, I think it puts the
Speaker 2: ultimate emphasis on hitting a golf shot. And at the
Speaker 2: time and moment, and this golf course was designed when
Speaker 2: match play was the dominant form of game of the game.
Speaker 2: You know, Bobby Jones was the first person to play
Speaker 2: the golf course and he made his career in his
Speaker 2: fame playing match play and winning matches, and the eighteenth
Speaker 2: hole as a finisher. While it might, you know, let
Speaker 2: people down from a stroke play sense, if you're playing
Speaker 2: a match, it will not let you down. I guarantee it.
Speaker 2: If your match takes it to eighteen, it's so fun.
Speaker 2: It's like the best way to finish. And I remember
Speaker 2: I hit a shot that rolled up the slope or
Speaker 2: landed past the flag and spun down the slope two
Speaker 2: time true kick and range and Zach did the same thing,
Speaker 2: and it was just like the most fun minute of
Speaker 2: golf watching the two shots do it. And it was
Speaker 2: you know, we both executed a shot. And but you know,
Speaker 2: an average shot there if you don't hit a great
Speaker 2: shot birdie is an easy task to accomplish if you
Speaker 2: hit a great shot there. If you don't hit a
Speaker 2: great shot there, fours and fives are easily in the ballpark.
Speaker 2: Like you know, you're one misstep away from a double
Speaker 2: bow gear warse.
Speaker 1: You can four pet that green so easily. If you're
Speaker 1: in the wrong section of the green.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you're chipping from the wrong spot, you
Speaker 2: could be in if you say the pitt's back left,
Speaker 2: do you miss long left, you might not even be
Speaker 2: able to keep the ball on the green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably gonna run off the front front right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it presents this high variance situation for an end
Speaker 2: of a match, which is it's thrilling, it's and you're
Speaker 2: hitting over this baranca. It's it's symbolic because it's the
Speaker 2: final conquest of this hazard you're playing against all day
Speaker 2: and it's like your last you know, jolt of the
Speaker 2: theme and what makes past tempo pasta tiempo.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's a it's a thrilling last hole,
Speaker 1: it's a great par three, and that would address a
Speaker 1: lot of people's concerns. I think that you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to play that hole and think that's an anti
Speaker 1: climax or that's an unsatisfying way to finish my round.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's even a great walk that you do
Speaker 1: across the baranca. You walk across this bridge and you
Speaker 1: have that moment of like the round is coming to
Speaker 1: an end and I get this one last wonderful walk
Speaker 1: across this bridge, across this beautiful natural phenomenon. And so
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people's concerns about the way
Speaker 1: that a par three eighteenth hole might feel just anti
Speaker 1: climactic our address just by the fact that this is
Speaker 1: a terrific final hole. That said, I understand some of
Speaker 1: people's arguments about not having a par three final hole.
Speaker 1: We had some really intelligent responses from you know, Kevin
Speaker 1: Clark saying, I don't care whether a pro course finishes
Speaker 1: on a par three, but when playing, I want to
Speaker 1: play a full hole and rip a drive one last time.
Speaker 1: It's the culmination of the day. Smacking one on eighteen
Speaker 1: feels great. We have one from Cameron Ford, who's actually
Speaker 1: my cousin. I enjoy the longer walk on the last
Speaker 1: hole at Chambers twice a week used to carry At
Speaker 1: Chambers Bay, they used to start people on the back nine,
Speaker 1: so you'd finish on nine a par three. The ending
Speaker 1: just sort of happened versus on eighteen, where you get
Speaker 1: to soak it in. I find those arguments like pretty
Speaker 1: reasonable and in a sense persuasive, but in the end
Speaker 1: I think that they're all sort of overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: principle of an architect should be allowed to find the
Speaker 1: best possible solution the land that he or she is given,
Speaker 1: and so I'm just really glad that Marion Hollins, as
Speaker 1: the visionary behind this project as the owner, allowed Alistair
Speaker 1: mackenzie to finish this course on a par three and
Speaker 1: didn't say, oh, no, we can't do that. That's you know,
Speaker 1: try to think of any other great course that ends
Speaker 1: on a par three that that people wouldn't like that.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that she was open to the idea of
Speaker 1: this unwritten rule being broken. And I would hope that
Speaker 1: in spite of people's general and in some ways understandable
Speaker 1: preference for finishing on a par four or par five,
Speaker 1: that that preference isn't so ingrained that future owners, that
Speaker 1: future clients aren't telling architects. Yeah, I know that having
Speaker 1: a par three eighteenth hole might be the best solution
Speaker 1: for this property, but we can't do that because people
Speaker 1: would reject it. The more we put golf architecture into
Speaker 1: a box, the more architects have to, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of work around these rules rules and reject what the
Speaker 1: best routings would be, just because they have to achieve
Speaker 1: a certain par number, a certain number of holes, and
Speaker 1: this requirement that the eighteenth hole be a long hole.
Speaker 1: And so I think that there is that potential danger
Speaker 1: of being too firm in one's preference for a non
Speaker 1: par three eighteenth hole. And I think that always the
Speaker 1: question should be, well, was it the best solution for
Speaker 1: the land, and if it is, then great.
Speaker 2: I no complaints here, I you know, I think the
Speaker 2: most important thing you said there was putting architecture in
Speaker 2: a box, because Pasita Tempo is an example of architecture
Speaker 2: not in a box and an architect that wasn't afraid
Speaker 2: it wasn't afraid to experiment and try new things.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the future of Pasa Tempo.
Speaker 2: Oh, what a delightful, delightful topic. So the club announced
Speaker 2: that they would be undertaking a full restoration, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, a historical renovation really when you look at it.
Speaker 2: They will be taking the greens that are original to
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty nine in their current form, like they are
Speaker 2: original greens. They have not been you know, monkeyed around with.
Speaker 2: They are they're you know, they've been monkeyed around with
Speaker 2: a little bit over the years, but they are the
Speaker 2: original Alistair Mackenzie greens and they will be rebuilding them.
Speaker 2: On top of this, they will be doing some you know,
Speaker 2: they'll get new grass in the faraways, they will get
Speaker 2: new irrigation, they will rebuild bunkers. They will also do
Speaker 2: a significant project on clearing out the barancas. So overall,
Speaker 2: you know, this is a golf course that's investing in
Speaker 2: its product, which is overall, you know, generally a good
Speaker 2: thing to do. They've obviously seen a rise in popularity
Speaker 2: over the years. Of recent years, they are are charging
Speaker 2: a much more significant greens fee than even three years ago.
Speaker 2: I believe now it's around three hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 2: or so to play this. Their membership, which is one
Speaker 2: of the most unique memberships in all of golf, kind
Speaker 2: of operates as a lot of NFTs operate now, where
Speaker 2: it's a you buy a membership share and you own
Speaker 2: the membership and you can sell the membership share for
Speaker 2: however much you want when you want out. So if
Speaker 2: you bought a membership, say in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: I think I've heard that they were going for like
Speaker 2: twenty five grand. Today these membership units are going for
Speaker 2: like two hundred and fifty grand. And one of the
Speaker 2: unique with it being open to the public every day,
Speaker 2: what it does for the membership is that they never
Speaker 2: are going to be assessed ever. Their their fees are
Speaker 2: capped effectively like this is what you pay every month
Speaker 2: and you're not gonna get hit with charges beyond that.
Speaker 2: And then you own the membership, you can sell it
Speaker 2: for whatever you want. And the market values obviously been
Speaker 2: going up for that. For example, this membership because of
Speaker 2: their structure with the public play, which is why more
Speaker 2: and more memberships should allow for public play, is they
Speaker 2: aren't paying a dime. None of the members are paying
Speaker 2: out of pocket for this restoration, which will be a
Speaker 2: significant dollar amount. I believe the plan is to do
Speaker 2: one to nine next year and the other nine the
Speaker 2: following year. So they will take one nine out of play,
Speaker 2: renovate it, and then they'll put the put the other nine,
Speaker 2: take the other nine out of play the following year.
Speaker 2: So what are your initial thoughts?
Speaker 1: Well, I think whenever we hear the term restoration, we
Speaker 1: get warm, cozy feelings inside like this is great. As
Speaker 1: you said, they're investing in their golf course. I think
Speaker 1: the Baranca clearance might be absolutely huge. That would be great.
Speaker 2: Oh one quick thing, the projects being done by Jim
Speaker 2: Urbina important to point out. And then this is with
Speaker 2: Justin Mannon. They're great superintendent at the helm.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Justin Mannon is fantastic. We spoke to him
Speaker 1: at length the last time we were at Pasa Tiempo.
Speaker 1: And then Jim Urbina has a lot of experience at
Speaker 1: Pasa Tampo. He has been working with the course for
Speaker 1: years now. I believe that when Tom Doakes firm Renaissance
Speaker 1: Golf Design started working at Pasa Teampo, whether it was
Speaker 1: the late nineties or early two thousands, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but I believe that Jim Urbina was there pretty much
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Am I right about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think he was the consultant that did the
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the groundwork. Tom would come
Speaker 2: in and you know, give notes, and then Jim would
Speaker 2: do the work.
Speaker 1: Very few people are more deeply familiar with this golf
Speaker 1: course than Jim Urbina, and so it totally makes sense
Speaker 1: that he is overseeing this process. I think that where
Speaker 1: alarm bells were triggered for me in the past week,
Speaker 1: specifically on Twitter and regarding the official Pasa Tempo Twitter account,
Speaker 1: is rhetoric like this, and let me just read this
Speaker 1: is a tweet from at Pasa Tiempo Golf, which is
Speaker 1: the official Pasa Tempo account. It's not a parody account.
Speaker 1: This account says greens are ninety three years old and
Speaker 1: have never been rebuilt. Green complexes are not even close
Speaker 1: to the original design. Pin placement locations cut in half
Speaker 1: over the years due to sand splash build up, multiple
Speaker 1: band AID solutions over the years time to build the
Speaker 1: USGA specs and then followed up with this. Greens currently
Speaker 1: not Alistair mackenzie Greens. We will restore them as close
Speaker 1: as possible to his original design work starts in April
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. And that tweet was deleted because I
Speaker 1: assume that Pasatiempo doesn't want people who are playing between
Speaker 1: now in April twenty twenty three thinking that they're not
Speaker 1: playing on Alistair McKenzie Greens when they are.
Speaker 2: I agree with the sentiment here is that they have
Speaker 2: Alistair McKenzie Greens, and you know, this type of rebuilt
Speaker 2: to USGA spec has been done very successfully in the past.
Speaker 2: Look no further than Winkfoot, and I think from what
Speaker 2: I've heard talking to people in the area is that
Speaker 2: recycled water that they use, which is a big part
Speaker 2: of their maintenance program. As their recycled water practices, they
Speaker 2: have their own plant effectively that recycles wastewater from a
Speaker 2: nearby town, and that recycled water has been very, very
Speaker 2: harsh to the greens and has created an environment that's
Speaker 2: kind of unsustainable long term. And that the USGA greens
Speaker 2: because of the amount of play, which is like sixty
Speaker 2: thousand rounds a year, because of the recycled water, and
Speaker 2: then because of the the climate, the USGA greiants present
Speaker 2: the best playing surface for pasta tempo the next hundred years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who are we to argue with that? Obviously,
Speaker 1: Justin Mandon knows way more about the year round conditions
Speaker 1: of those greens than anybody, and so it sounds like
Speaker 1: this project to rebuild to USGA specs has a coherent
Speaker 1: rationale behind it. Now, there are those who would suggest
Speaker 1: that there are different ways to go about this kind
Speaker 1: of project. Now, I personally don't know enough about rebuilding
Speaker 1: greens and USGA specs and the different options available to
Speaker 1: architects and green keepers to speak authoritatively about this, but
Speaker 1: there are definitely those who strongly believe that the right
Speaker 1: way to go about this would be to strip off
Speaker 1: the sod of the current greens, clear off some of
Speaker 1: the sandy build up that has happened over the past
Speaker 1: ninety three years, and specifically sand splash is is, you know,
Speaker 1: an issue that the club is naming as one that
Speaker 1: has affected the shape of the greens and has reduced
Speaker 1: whole locations along the edges of the greens because when
Speaker 1: people play out of bunkers, obviously sand splashes on the
Speaker 1: green and over time those edges of the greens start
Speaker 1: to bulge up and that affects the amount of pin
Speaker 1: positions you can put on a green and just the
Speaker 1: contours overall. And so you know, a suggestion would be
Speaker 1: just to carefully clear off that sand splash and then
Speaker 1: resaw the greens and keep the original builds in there. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason people would argue for this is that there
Speaker 1: is something about those original greens, and Pasa Tiempo still
Speaker 1: has them. That's a relative rarity. It's it's pretty rare
Speaker 1: that someone has an original set of Alistair Mackenzie greens,
Speaker 1: eighteen original greens. It's amazing and they're awesome, awesome greens,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, and so the purest would argue,
Speaker 1: you've got to do what you can to keep those
Speaker 1: and if it's possible to keep those and to do
Speaker 1: this work in a more kind of low profile, low
Speaker 1: impact way, then you've got to do that. And there
Speaker 1: are a number of courses that you could name that
Speaker 1: have used this process. Maybe the highest profile one is
Speaker 1: that I know of his Royal Melbourne, which which has
Speaker 1: another great set of Alistair Mackenzie slash Alex Russell greens,
Speaker 1: and this is the process that they use to maintain
Speaker 1: the original greens. Rebuilding the greens to USGA specs is
Speaker 1: a relatively aggressive way to go about this, and it's risky,
Speaker 1: it could go wrong. You have to rebuild them really,
Speaker 1: really well. And as anybody who has seen reproductions of
Speaker 1: certain kinds of artwork can can tell you, like, if
Speaker 1: somebody tried to re sculpt the you know, the statue
Speaker 1: like a Michelangelo sculpture, then it probably just wouldn't look
Speaker 1: quite right. Now, will Jim Orbina be able to recreate
Speaker 1: these greens as closely as possible? I would say probably,
Speaker 1: you know, he's really really familiar with these greens. But
Speaker 1: where my concern started to kick in is when the
Speaker 1: official Pasit Tampo account was saying things like these are
Speaker 1: no longer Alistair mackenzie greens not even close to the
Speaker 1: original design. Well, of course they're close to the original design.
Speaker 1: They are the original design, and so I would hope
Speaker 1: that those that people in the club have a really
Speaker 1: keen regard for what is currently in the ground at
Speaker 1: Pasa Tampo, and that everybody takes a super close look
Speaker 1: at what is actually there before they go about this
Speaker 1: process of rebuilding. Now. Of course I think Jim or
Speaker 1: Bean is going to do that. Of course I think
Speaker 1: Justin Mannon is going to do that. But it's also
Speaker 1: important that the narve within the club is not we
Speaker 1: have strayed way far away from Alistair Mackenzie's greens, and
Speaker 1: we need to rebuild them because they're junk. Right now.
Speaker 1: The narrative is we have an amazing set of original
Speaker 1: Alstro Mackenzie greens. We're going to be so careful in
Speaker 1: the way that we reproduce them. We need to rebuild
Speaker 1: them in this way because of X, Y and Z,
Speaker 1: but we understand what we have. That would be a
Speaker 1: more reassuring message I think out of the club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it would be. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, when it comes to these types of you know, decisions,
Speaker 2: this this is it's just a it's a risky one.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. I think it all comes from, you know,
Speaker 2: a love of of that what's there right now, understanding
Speaker 2: it's a you know, world class set of greens right now.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of this centers around the
Speaker 2: idea of expectations with with maintenance and where it's gone,
Speaker 2: and the idea that every green needs to perform identical
Speaker 2: to the last green, which I think is a bunch
Speaker 2: of bullshit. And the idea of uniform conditions around a
Speaker 2: golf course, especially a golf course like Pasta Tiempo, I
Speaker 2: think is a fleeting race. It's a race to the bottom.
Speaker 2: It's it's conveying that, like the game should be fair,
Speaker 2: uniform and fair. I think the last thing you want
Speaker 2: to do at Pas Tempo is create uniformity. That I
Speaker 2: love the way it looks. That's got this wild kind
Speaker 2: of hodgepodge turf look that I think they're going to keep.
Speaker 2: You know, you want that place to look old, you
Speaker 2: want it to be different. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that's that's masked in all this this idea
Speaker 2: of finding more pins is that inevitably there is going
Speaker 2: to be a softening of greens out there because of
Speaker 2: their you know, there aren't pins right now at the
Speaker 2: current speeds that are maintaining it. And I think the club,
Speaker 2: you know, it was on display at the Western Intercollegiate
Speaker 2: last week. They keep the greens probably about four to
Speaker 2: five feet too fast for that tournament. You know, this
Speaker 2: is a course that could be a leader and say, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got Alistair McKenzie original greens and we're gonna keep
Speaker 2: them at eight and we're gonna have a lot of pins.
Speaker 2: You're gonna they're gonna be slower on uphill putts then
Speaker 2: you're used to putting, but they're gonna be really fast
Speaker 2: on downhill puss because you're never gonna see as much
Speaker 2: slope and putts as we offer here. And I think
Speaker 2: that's the thing when I read everything that they're doing
Speaker 2: that's masked, is that this is a convenient way to
Speaker 2: soften slopes on certain greens that have become completely unpinnable
Speaker 2: because of the green speeds that are expected of the membership.
Speaker 2: And UH to charge four hundred dollars around.
Speaker 1: That is the kind of dark lingering concern here. And
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just see where it goes, and it
Speaker 1: would really be tragic to see the slopes of these
Speaker 1: greens softened because that is so much part of the
Speaker 1: character of this course. And you know, furthermore, people can
Speaker 1: point to successful rebuilds of greens. You know, Wingfoot's greens
Speaker 1: are famously were rebuilt and are are still terrific. But
Speaker 1: the thing is that Pasa Tempo is not Wingfoot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Wingfoot is an entirely different type of club with a
Speaker 1: very wealthy membership that they assessed for that project. Pasa Tempo,
Speaker 1: you know, makes ends meet off of these memberships and
Speaker 1: off of public tea times, and those green fees have
Speaker 1: gone up over the past several years. You know, five
Speaker 1: years ago there were about two fifty and on a
Speaker 1: certain tea time app you could reliably find about one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten dollars tea times at Pasa Tiempo. It
Speaker 1: was very possible for me as a high school teacher
Speaker 1: to go up there two, three, even four times a
Speaker 1: year and play that golf course. If the green fees
Speaker 1: keep creeping up, then it's going to start to become
Speaker 1: a totally different kind of golf course. And if you know,
Speaker 1: that's the membership's call. If they want to be more
Speaker 1: a golf course where people make it a once in
Speaker 1: a lifetime destination and pay a premium for the experience
Speaker 1: and travel from far places to come play it, then
Speaker 1: I think that the quality of the course justifies that
Speaker 1: that they're going to be able to get that kind
Speaker 1: of business. But Pasatiempo, for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: part of its charm is that it has been a
Speaker 1: little bit rugged. It has been an old feeling course.
Speaker 1: And I hope that it doesn't just feel kind of
Speaker 1: like brand spaking, shining new. I hope it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like Wingfoot. I hope it looks like Pasatiempo.
Speaker 2: It's got Yeah, it's got to retain its old feel.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that gets me about potentially softening
Speaker 2: greens Is is losing the aspect of the wildness of
Speaker 2: Pasa Tiempo. Is that is with the Baranka. It's a
Speaker 2: it's an adventure. It's not a it's not a round
Speaker 2: of golf. It's it's an adventure against the elements. And
Speaker 2: that's the key to the golf course it is is
Speaker 2: what you're going up against is always not fair, and
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be fair. And I think that a lot
Speaker 2: of this centers around the idea of fair and modern
Speaker 2: maintenance practices and beliefs that that you know from memberships
Speaker 2: in public play that greens should be X speed if
Speaker 2: I'm paying this much for my membership and this much
Speaker 2: to play around of golf.
Speaker 1: That said, we'll see how it turns out. It could
Speaker 1: turn out great. I know that I'm going to go
Speaker 1: back there and play for as long as I'm able,
Speaker 1: as long as they'll have it. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: such a wonderful golf course. Great to discuss it with you, Andy,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast
Speaker 1: was edited by Meg Atkins. I'd like to include a
Speaker 1: plug here for the Frida Egg Pro Shop, which you
Speaker 1: can find at proshop dot the Fridagg dot com. Available
Speaker 1: right now in the pro shop is an aerial photo
Speaker 1: of all eighteen greens at PASA TMO. It's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: so check it out at proshop dot the Fridagg dot com.
Speaker 1: And thanks for listening.