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Speaker 1: a demo. Today's episode is with Chevy Chase Country Club's
Speaker 1: Director of Ground Stephen Britton. Stephen's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: people in the turf industry. He is into golf history,
Speaker 1: professional golf, golf course architecture. Really he is a golf tragic.
Speaker 1: He came over from Australia. Really interesting story. So without
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Stephen Britton. I miss a green,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in arid egg Friday
Speaker 2: egg the dread and Frida egg Frida egg Frida egg
Speaker 2: bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 2: the hump.
Speaker 1: Was Royal Bubber, the first of the great Australian courses.
Speaker 1: You played grown up, No so I grew up.
Speaker 3: I actually grew up about a mile from the front
Speaker 3: gates of Pinsula Kingswood. You know when I back then
Speaker 3: it was called Peninsula Country Club. It was always a
Speaker 3: good golf course, thirty six holes there and it's amazing
Speaker 3: now Mike Cocking redid both the golf courses.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 3: But I grew up about a mile from that golf course.
Speaker 3: I used to pick balls there on the range after
Speaker 3: high school and we would get to play there as
Speaker 3: an employee.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 3: I used to pick balls in the range and clean
Speaker 3: clubs in the backroom, and worked in the pro shop
Speaker 3: every now and then, and so you would. We were
Speaker 3: allowed to play and practice there, So that was probably
Speaker 3: the first. That was probably the first good golf course
Speaker 3: I played. I grew up playing golf at at a
Speaker 3: public golf course down the street from Peninsula, right next
Speaker 3: to the city dump. If the wind blew, the whole
Speaker 3: golf course smelt like rubbish. The whole day was covered
Speaker 3: in seeing goals. All you'd ever hear is the reverse
Speaker 3: buzzers of the dozers.
Speaker 2: Pushing the rubbish over. But it was great.
Speaker 3: It was three hundred dollars for unlimited golf for twelve months.
Speaker 2: And so I used to play there.
Speaker 3: And then when I was working at Peninsula, you know
Speaker 3: I could as an employee, you get to play there
Speaker 3: a little bit. So that would have been the first
Speaker 3: good golf course that I that I played. And then
Speaker 3: as I got a little as I got a little
Speaker 3: bit better, we joined a private club which is on
Speaker 3: the same road but next door to Peninsula, caught Long Island,
Speaker 3: and that's a good standbout golf course. It was really good.
Speaker 3: So they was those kind of those courses in that
Speaker 3: Frankston area. They would have been the first ones I saw.
Speaker 1: That's it sounds like my growing up in goth Our
Speaker 1: Junior membership I think was three hundred bucks and play
Speaker 1: all I wanted, except for like Saturday Sunday mornings, like
Speaker 1: the restrictions, and then you know, I'd play it Norwood
Speaker 1: when I had playing privileges just from working it, and
Speaker 1: it was that was the way to do it. But
Speaker 1: it was so nice the days you get to play
Speaker 1: the country Club, you know, versus the Muni.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Like I remember, so the Muni had polar
Speaker 3: greens and the country Club had bent grass greens then,
Speaker 3: and I remember going and playing Peninsula and like made
Speaker 3: of mind that was working there. That kind of got
Speaker 3: me the job on the range. I remember them telling
Speaker 3: me like, hey, these are bent grass growing. It's really
Speaker 3: different than what we've been putting on. And they were
Speaker 3: firmer and faster and smoother. I remember thinking, like, I
Speaker 3: feel like I can hold every puddle on these, like
Speaker 3: I never That was the first time I kind of
Speaker 3: ever knew the difference between poe and bank grass.
Speaker 2: I just figured they were all greens before then.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you're a kid too, when you
Speaker 1: know you're learning the game, when you switch to those
Speaker 1: fast greens and then you go to the it's such
Speaker 1: a huge adjustment when you're a kid, Like you can't
Speaker 1: get your bearing straight on the on the speed of butts.
Speaker 1: That's stuff that I just remember, Like when I played
Speaker 1: fast screens, I'd have so much trouble. Then i'd go
Speaker 1: back to the media. I'd have trouble getting them to
Speaker 1: the hole.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. They were the best days though.
Speaker 3: That The Communich course that I grew up at had
Speaker 3: tons of kids my age and.
Speaker 2: We just spent every day there.
Speaker 3: Would we play every day after school and we'd play
Speaker 3: skins games and like after school it was quiet, like
Speaker 3: seven of us were playing like a group of seven
Speaker 3: and play skins for balls and stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: it was they were the best days playing golf back then.
Speaker 3: It was tons of fun.
Speaker 1: When did you start working grounds at Royal Melbourne?
Speaker 2: Okay, So when I finished high school, I was I
Speaker 2: loved golf. I was obsessed with golf.
Speaker 3: Then I was playing golf a lot, and so I
Speaker 3: knew I wanted to work in golf, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: ever going to be good enough to do, you know,
Speaker 3: be a club pro or anything like that, or work
Speaker 3: in a pro shop. And so I just kind of
Speaker 3: decided I wanted to be I wanted to be a greenskeeper,
Speaker 3: and so that would have That was nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 3: and so that was like before the.
Speaker 2: Internet and emails. I think people will probably email, and
Speaker 2: then I wasn't, and I sent, I wrote letters.
Speaker 3: I mailed them to the ten best clubs in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: like I picked you know, Rural Melbourne, Victoria, Kingston Heath, Metropolitan, Woodlands,
Speaker 3: yari Era, Huntingdale.
Speaker 2: All those and I just wrote this letter.
Speaker 3: I can't even remember what it said, but it said,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a junior golfer and I want to
Speaker 3: be a greenskeeper and I was.
Speaker 2: Looking for an apprenticeship.
Speaker 3: So they do schooling really different in Melbourne than America.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: You get hired as an apprentice after high school and
Speaker 3: the club employs you as a full time employee, and
Speaker 3: you kind of go to school one week every month,
Speaker 3: like so you'd work three weeks and then you go
Speaker 3: to school for a week and you do that for
Speaker 3: four years and then after that you're like a fully
Speaker 3: qualified Greenskeeper.
Speaker 1: I kind of like that, Martyl.
Speaker 2: It was the best system. Yeah, it was great. I
Speaker 2: wish something like that was over here.
Speaker 3: Maybe there is, but it's really different here, Like why
Speaker 3: guys at work for me who have gone to college here,
Speaker 3: you know, greenskeeping is just like one class they take,
Speaker 3: they're taking all these other classes that they have to
Speaker 3: do and then they just do a summer internship for
Speaker 3: ninety days and that's kind of bit. But yeah, we
Speaker 3: would work and go to school and it was it
Speaker 3: was the best way to do it. And the club
Speaker 3: pays for that. Like when you hired as an apprentice,
Speaker 3: they pay your tuition to go to school, and so
Speaker 3: you're make you're making money because you're you're working, but
Speaker 3: the club covers your tuition. So as dumb luck would
Speaker 3: have it, out of those ten letters. Royal Melbourne, Jim
Speaker 3: Porter was the superintendent of Royal Melbourne.
Speaker 2: He was like the.
Speaker 3: Fourth superintendent of the club's history. And he got back
Speaker 3: to me and said, hey, we're looking for an apprentice.
Speaker 3: Do you want to come in? And he put me
Speaker 3: on like a three month trial and that so just
Speaker 3: it was just luck, right, Like that's just that was
Speaker 3: just happened to be the right place at the right time,
Speaker 3: and he put me on a trial and he hired
Speaker 3: me as an apprentice. So they would so a lot
Speaker 3: of clubs would hire like one apprentice every four years, right,
Speaker 3: like when you finish your apprenticeship, they'd start to look
Speaker 3: for another one. And so I was that guy at
Speaker 3: Royal Melbourne. I didn't even have a driver's license. My
Speaker 3: mum drove me to the job interview, like I was.
Speaker 3: I think I was seventeen but just finished high school.
Speaker 3: And so I worked there for eight years. It was
Speaker 3: it was great.
Speaker 1: It was So after you did the apprenticeship, you work
Speaker 1: for four more years.
Speaker 3: No, so you do your apprenticeship for four years and
Speaker 3: then most clubs you stay on and you're a fully
Speaker 3: qualified greenskeeper. So that's that's your full time job then, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so after the apprenticeship you did four more years there.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, you're right. Yeah, so I actually did.
Speaker 3: I did an apprenticeship and then I did more schooling.
Speaker 2: I did a diploma class. So the way to think
Speaker 2: of that for.
Speaker 3: In American terms is think of it as like a
Speaker 3: two year degree or a four year degree. So the
Speaker 3: apprenticeship would be thought of as probably a two year
Speaker 3: degree and then if you do extra schooling the diploma
Speaker 3: course that would be your bachelor's that would be before
Speaker 3: year degree.
Speaker 2: So I did. I did that after my apprenticeship, which
Speaker 2: was one night a week for two I think it
Speaker 2: was two or three years now, and it was.
Speaker 3: It was every Wednesday night from like three o'clock in
Speaker 3: the afternoon till nine o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: So you're still working, but you would go and do
Speaker 2: that class in the evenings.
Speaker 1: How are your role like when you started, I assume
Speaker 1: you were doing all the grunt stuff, but by the
Speaker 1: time you're at the end of the eight years, what
Speaker 1: type of stuff were you doing for the club and
Speaker 1: the grounds crew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so when you start out, you're filanteed of its
Speaker 3: and ranking bunkers and you don't really get to mow
Speaker 3: a lot. And then but as time goes on, they
Speaker 3: they'd say, hey, you know today we're going to teach
Speaker 3: out a maul green, and you know we're going to
Speaker 3: teach in a mo fairways, and then you'd work your
Speaker 3: way all the way up until you were spraying, because
Speaker 3: that's spraying is quite an important thing obviously, and it's
Speaker 3: you kind of put your best guys on that. So yeah,
Speaker 3: by the end you're the one spraying greens, and especially
Speaker 3: you're hosting tournaments, which we did at Royal Melbourne like that,
Speaker 3: when you're spraying greens kind of the week before the tournament,
Speaker 3: that can be nerve wracking, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't Tiger play in that time frame down there?
Speaker 1: Or was that at Kinkston Heath that he played in
Speaker 1: that like maybe late nineties?
Speaker 2: Why don't so that?
Speaker 3: So when I worked there, we had the we had
Speaker 3: the Greg Norman Holden Classic, that was a tournament that
Speaker 3: Norman had on the Australasian PGA Tour, and then we
Speaker 3: had the ninety eight President's Cup, which I was there for,
Speaker 3: and then we had a couple of Heinekens after that
Speaker 3: which were kind of European to Australasian two events. So
Speaker 3: it was an exciting time. There was an exciting time
Speaker 3: to work there, especially with the President's Cup. That was
Speaker 3: the first time the President's Cup had coming to Australia.
Speaker 3: It's only one we've ever won righth.
Speaker 2: So that was it was. It was an exciting time
Speaker 2: to work at the club. It was great.
Speaker 1: What uh, what do you look back on I mean,
Speaker 1: you were seventeen years old through twenty four. I assume
Speaker 1: your interest in architecture probably peaked at a later age.
Speaker 1: You might have been generally interested in it. But what
Speaker 1: do you look back on and think about when now,
Speaker 1: like I know, you go back to Australia and you've
Speaker 1: been back to Royal Melbourne a bunch of times, but like,
Speaker 1: what are things that you overlooked about Royal Melbourne that
Speaker 1: you now look at as you know, head superintendent, somebody
Speaker 1: that's been in the industry for a couple of decades.
Speaker 3: If you grow up in Melbourne and you're playing those
Speaker 3: courses and I know lots of the guys from Melbourne
Speaker 3: and say this, and especially the good players that come
Speaker 3: over America, like you kind of you kind of think.
Speaker 2: That that's how all the courses look, right.
Speaker 3: Because back then in the nineties on TV, like we
Speaker 3: didn't have cable TV back then, and so you'd only
Speaker 3: get to see the Masters and you wouldn't see week
Speaker 3: to week PGA Tour events in America. So I just
Speaker 3: remember thinking like, this is what all golf courses were,
Speaker 3: and this is how they're all mown.
Speaker 2: And but it when you leave there, I think you realize.
Speaker 2: That's when you realize how great it is right and
Speaker 2: how everything we did there was great.
Speaker 3: The way we managed the water, we never overwarded and
Speaker 3: we were always really lean with the water.
Speaker 2: And the way they mowed the golf course every like
Speaker 2: I remember thinking like mowing everything to the.
Speaker 3: Bunkers and you know, mowing short grass all the way
Speaker 3: to the bunkers around the greens.
Speaker 2: I remember just thinking that was normal.
Speaker 3: And when I first came to and then when I
Speaker 3: came to America, I mean, you see what bunkers in
Speaker 3: the RAF and there's rough all the way around the greens,
Speaker 3: and you start to realize, like, oh Jesus, we do
Speaker 3: it really different in Melbourne than to everybody else.
Speaker 1: How has Melbourne evolved since the since you worked on
Speaker 1: it in early two thousands to like what we saw
Speaker 1: in the President's Cup How how has it evolved in
Speaker 1: its maintenance practices or is it pretty much the same
Speaker 1: as the Has the course changed at all?
Speaker 3: So like architectually it hasn't changed. I think they've done
Speaker 3: some stuff right since I when I was there, they
Speaker 3: really change anything it agronomically, I think it's changed quite
Speaker 3: a bit, because so when I worked there. We had
Speaker 3: on the fairways we would have what they called a
Speaker 3: two grass system.
Speaker 2: So in the in the winter time, all this native
Speaker 2: poer would come up in.
Speaker 3: The fairways and the fairways would just turn into power fairways.
Speaker 3: And then at the end the winter, the poe would
Speaker 3: fizzle out and die off. Sometimes we'd spray it out,
Speaker 3: sometimes we just let it fizzle away, and then all
Speaker 3: this native bermuda grass cooch grass would come up and
Speaker 3: the fairways would be bermuda fairways in the summer. And
Speaker 3: it was I think it was unique to Roll Melbourne.
Speaker 3: I can't remember if all the sand Belt clubs had
Speaker 3: that years ago, but when I.
Speaker 2: Was at Royal Melvin, that's how it was.
Speaker 3: You had power fairways in the winter and bermuda fairways
Speaker 3: in the summer. And so that they got away from
Speaker 3: that over time because I think, you know, that's a
Speaker 3: tough transition to transition out from poer to bermuda and
Speaker 3: you get some.
Speaker 2: Bare spots coming into the summer, and you know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't get that cold in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: You can have really you can have good and bermuda
Speaker 3: fairways in the winter. So they got away from that
Speaker 3: at some point, which is probably a good thing because
Speaker 3: it means the fairways are better year round.
Speaker 2: And so now the green.
Speaker 3: Surrounds now find fescue are around the greens, which when
Speaker 3: I was there, they were actually mostly power around the
Speaker 3: greens and some bank grass and the fine fescue that
Speaker 3: Richard Foresight's is a superintendent there now that he's put
Speaker 3: in and they're amazing.
Speaker 2: I mean they're firm and fast, Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: great to chip off of the best.
Speaker 3: Lies, and and with the fine fescue he can spray
Speaker 3: certain herbicides to keep the poe out, which will stop
Speaker 3: the poe getting in the greens, which is really important there.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's interesting. So that fascue surround because of the
Speaker 1: way you can spray it, actually it creates like almost
Speaker 1: like a buffer for.
Speaker 3: The power right they have, so they'll have a program
Speaker 3: where they'll they'll spray certain herbicides that it's that are
Speaker 3: really the fine fescue is quite tolerant to some of
Speaker 3: these herbicides that.
Speaker 2: Will help keep the poer out of that fine fescue.
Speaker 2: So that helps out whereas when I was there, it
Speaker 2: was power all around.
Speaker 3: The greens, and so it's hard to keep poer from
Speaker 3: getting into the greens.
Speaker 1: Would that work in like the Midwest, like say Chicago,
Speaker 1: because I know, like when the you know, Poe getting
Speaker 1: into the greens is something common here and I just
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Like but I mean he's mowing everything. There's my own
Speaker 3: low and so you'd have to do the same thing.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I haven't really thought about that,
Speaker 3: but it works there because there's no Poe on that
Speaker 3: golf course at all.
Speaker 1: At run I think that might work at col Club too, right,
Speaker 1: col Club does that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's really similar program.
Speaker 3: Everything's fine fescue, right, fine fescue fairways at Cow Club,
Speaker 3: everything around the greens is fine fescue. So they have
Speaker 3: a really good program there to keep it out. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's a good point. It's really similar to their
Speaker 3: set up.
Speaker 2: So and when I was there. When I was.
Speaker 3: There, the greens on the non composite course, okay, they
Speaker 3: were the original what they were called Sutton's greens that
Speaker 3: Mick moorecamceded when they did the renovation with Aliston McKenzie
Speaker 3: and Alex Russell. And then the composite course greens were
Speaker 3: actually Pencross so American Bank grass that they had converted.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes in the eighties, I'm not too sure.
Speaker 3: And the superintendent that I worked for the club had
Speaker 3: decided that they were going to try to put the
Speaker 3: Sutton's greens back, which was hard to do because you
Speaker 3: don't know, they don't know what grass that is.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Sutton's was a seed company in England that in the twenties,
Speaker 3: golf courses in America and around the world would buy
Speaker 3: just greens, grass seed from this company in England, and
Speaker 3: that's what you seeded your greens to. And you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think they never knew exactly what was.
Speaker 2: In the mix. So those greens had segregated out to
Speaker 2: the parent plant.
Speaker 3: So those greens at certain times of the year would
Speaker 3: have purple patches and.
Speaker 2: Dark green patches and light green patches. And so they
Speaker 2: took samples out of each one of those different patches
Speaker 2: and a company in New Zealand grew the grass and
Speaker 2: got them to set seed. I don't know that, I.
Speaker 3: Don't really know the whole process, but they came up
Speaker 3: with the closest thing they could imagine to the original
Speaker 3: seed meeks.
Speaker 1: So they recreated it.
Speaker 2: They recreated it.
Speaker 3: That's what gym started the superintendent that I worked for,
Speaker 3: and so in my first year, we side cut the
Speaker 3: twelfth East green, which was the smallest green on the
Speaker 3: golf course, and we seeded it to that seed meeks
Speaker 3: and kind of replicated what that those greens were seeded
Speaker 3: to in the twenties and so it was a.
Speaker 2: Really exciting time.
Speaker 3: We ended up doing the whole golf course to that
Speaker 3: and that's what they have today.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know last week we saw wingfoot and I
Speaker 1: think one of the need things about that restoration was
Speaker 1: how that they preserve the grass from the greens like
Speaker 1: the Poea and they didn't go with that brand new
Speaker 1: great like they you know, they basically used the same
Speaker 1: grass and roll Melbourn's case, just figuring out a way
Speaker 1: to recreate the seed to get that same grass.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that that all happened when I was there,
Speaker 3: which was really great to be around, and it's turned
Speaker 3: out great today.
Speaker 2: The greens of the greens of Rome Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable, I think, oh yeah, like not just for the tournaments, they're.
Speaker 2: Great every day.
Speaker 1: When did you leave Australia And why why'd you leave Australia. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're rising, rising superstar at Royal Melbourne. What what
Speaker 1: got you out of the country.
Speaker 3: So in two thousand the so we had the ninety
Speaker 3: eight President's Cup at Rome Melbourne and in two thousand
Speaker 3: then had the President's Cup over here in Virginia Robert
Speaker 3: Trent Jones Golf Club, and I can't remember the exact connection.
Speaker 2: But there was a connection between the two clubs a little.
Speaker 3: Bit, and there was an opportunity for a couple of
Speaker 3: us from Royal Melbourne to come over and work that event.
Speaker 3: Myself and another guy on the staff at the time,
Speaker 3: we came over to work.
Speaker 2: The two thousand Presidents Cup at Robert Trent Jones.
Speaker 3: And so at the time, well still then now today
Speaker 3: Scott Furlong was the superintendent and Glenn Smickley, who's now
Speaker 3: general manager at Cow Club, he was a general manager.
Speaker 2: At Robert Trent Jones and.
Speaker 3: I came over and we all kind of hit it
Speaker 3: off and became friends and we stayed in touch, and
Speaker 3: I went back to Royal Melbourne and you know, not
Speaker 3: a lot would change a Royal album back then. Like
Speaker 3: I said, Jim was like the fourth superintendent in the
Speaker 3: club's history and the assistant had been there for a
Speaker 3: long time, and so in two thousand and three, Scott
Speaker 3: contacted me and said, hey, we have an assistant position
Speaker 3: to open up at Robert Trent Jones. Would you be
Speaker 3: interested in coming over and being an assistant here? And
Speaker 3: it was the best thing for me, because you know,
Speaker 3: I loved working at roll Mel when it was great
Speaker 3: in but I you know, I probably needed to grow
Speaker 3: up a little bit as a little immature, and so
Speaker 3: packing my bags and coming to America and taking on
Speaker 3: an assistant position was in hindsight, the best thing for me,
Speaker 3: and it kind of made me get a little more
Speaker 3: serious about things. And they had already they had the
Speaker 3: two thousand and five President's Cup kind of locked in,
Speaker 3: so I thought, wow, this is a good opportunity to
Speaker 3: come over and see what America is about. And also
Speaker 3: I'll be an assistant superintendent for the two thousand and
Speaker 3: five President's Cup. So it sounds like cliche, but I
Speaker 3: packed two bags and emptied my bank account, which wasn't much,
Speaker 3: and moved over and then the club hew me get
Speaker 3: a visa. So why first I came over on mic
Speaker 3: O keefs Ohio State programming on his J one visa
Speaker 3: and then the club helped me, helped to get me
Speaker 3: a longer.
Speaker 2: Visa to stay for six years, and that was it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the club, that club's probably got some you know,
Speaker 1: they can pull the strings on the visas easier than
Speaker 1: a lot of clubs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have, They have those kinds of people, that's
Speaker 3: for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Moving, so you move halfway across the world and you move.
Speaker 1: I was it more jarring moving from Melbourne to America
Speaker 1: and get used to the American lifestyle or moving from
Speaker 1: growing grass at Royal Melbourne to growing grass in the
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic?
Speaker 2: Well, I know, I Well, so I've been away once already.
Speaker 2: In I left.
Speaker 3: I took a year off from rural Melbourne to go
Speaker 3: to the UK and I worked at Wimbledon at the
Speaker 3: All England Tennis Club. So I worked at the tennis
Speaker 3: club and looked after grass tennis courts for almost a
Speaker 3: year at Wimbledon.
Speaker 1: So I'd been away from How you get how'd you
Speaker 1: get that job?
Speaker 2: The same thing? A guy at Raw Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Knew somebody who was at Wimbledon and they were looking
Speaker 3: for kind of seasonal greenskeepers. And I got approached and said, Hey,
Speaker 3: is this something you'd want to do. And my dad's
Speaker 3: British and so my dad's whole side of the family
Speaker 3: live in England. And again I was obsessed with golf
Speaker 3: and I'd become interested in golf course architecture. Right that
Speaker 3: was when, you know, I was kind of one of
Speaker 3: those early guys on golf club at Lists, and I
Speaker 3: was looking at golf club Atlists four days a week,
Speaker 3: and so you start to learn about all these great
Speaker 3: clubs over there, and I thought Jesus.
Speaker 2: Would be a good opportunity to go work at Wimbledon.
Speaker 3: But while I'm there, I can go and see Sunningdale
Speaker 3: and Working and Walton Heath and you know, and go
Speaker 3: up to Someny Andrews and try to visit golf courses
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I did. I've went over I.
Speaker 3: Worked there in so I went over there before the
Speaker 3: President's Cup at Robert Trent Jones. I was there for
Speaker 3: the two thousand Wimoloden Championships. We had the Davis Cup
Speaker 3: that year as well, so we did we did the
Speaker 3: two thousand Championships and then we had the Davis Cup
Speaker 3: right after that.
Speaker 2: And it was great.
Speaker 3: It was great to learn another side of greenskeeping on
Speaker 3: tennis courts.
Speaker 1: And talk about how is it different, Like how do
Speaker 1: you maintain a grass tennis court differently than a golf
Speaker 1: course obviously they're both playing surfaces, or is there similarities
Speaker 1: and differences?
Speaker 3: I mean, so they kind of moan a little bit
Speaker 3: lower than what I would say is a tea heigh, right,
Speaker 3: But tennis court you're trying to get a rock hard.
Speaker 2: I mean we would we would mow them with.
Speaker 3: The same mom as we'd mow a golf course green
Speaker 3: with and but then we would roll the courts with
Speaker 3: like a with like a row, like an Ashvelt steamroller,
Speaker 3: you know, And so we would try to get them
Speaker 3: rock hard. There's not a lot of turf other than
Speaker 3: the courts at wimbled and like the whole places to men,
Speaker 3: you know, and then there's these grass courts.
Speaker 2: They have clay courts for the members.
Speaker 3: It's a members club, right, the All England have a membership,
Speaker 3: and there's indoor courts in the winter time, and they
Speaker 3: have croquet courts as well, and then they have the
Speaker 3: championship courts.
Speaker 2: So but it was great.
Speaker 3: I got to work there for the year and visited
Speaker 3: tried to visit as many golf clubs as I could.
Speaker 3: That was kind of what I was more interested in,
Speaker 3: to be honest with you. I went up and I
Speaker 3: went up to Saint Andrew's.
Speaker 1: And one quick question, how how much firmer? Like if
Speaker 1: I hit a golf shot, and I know Wimbledon grass court,
Speaker 1: would it just like bounce forever?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they crack out right like the baselines
Speaker 3: after a few days in the tournament, they're cracking open,
Speaker 3: Like there's cracks in them where you can see, you know,
Speaker 3: a few inches down. So oh yeah, they're rock hard. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the ball you'd never stop it. They'd bounce and bounce.
Speaker 2: Off the court.
Speaker 1: Interesting, and the grass stay is alive and everything. So
Speaker 1: that's just the the end of the spectrum of of
Speaker 1: how firm you could get turf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the baselines struggle at the you know,
Speaker 3: by the end of the two weeks that they're usually
Speaker 3: pretty beat up.
Speaker 2: Because that's why they're run them back and forth.
Speaker 3: But it was funny that at the time, So the
Speaker 3: superintendent at wimbled And at the time was a man
Speaker 3: named Eddie sea Wood who'd been there forever. He was
Speaker 3: kind of like a legend in tennis court meetings in England.
Speaker 2: He was a really really great guy, really old school,
Speaker 2: wore a shirt and tied to work more a tire
Speaker 2: to work every day, and geez, he was just really
Speaker 2: good at it. And but they're seed mix. I remember
Speaker 2: asking them.
Speaker 3: What what scene they would use back then. It was
Speaker 3: a secret they and kind of ended their own and
Speaker 3: they didn't really want anyone to know.
Speaker 2: But it was a good place.
Speaker 3: But like I said, I was kind of more interested in, yeah,
Speaker 3: visiting golf courses.
Speaker 2: And playing golf over there.
Speaker 3: And I went to Saint Andrew's right after the two
Speaker 3: thousand British Open and I didn't get to play though,
Speaker 3: because it was so busy then because the British Open
Speaker 3: had just finished. All the steads was still up and
Speaker 3: they were just packed that I caught the train up
Speaker 3: after work and spent the weekend up there, and I
Speaker 3: think I walked the course like ten times and took photos,
Speaker 3: went out there by myself and just spent the weekend
Speaker 3: at St Andrews by myself, just to see the old course.
Speaker 2: And it was a good time.
Speaker 1: What was your you know, your at this point, early
Speaker 1: twenties and you're getting into architecture, What were your like,
Speaker 1: what did you learn over there that you didn't really
Speaker 1: understand having just played in Australia, which in Melbourne, which
Speaker 1: is obviously one of the great golf cities too.
Speaker 2: I remember I remember thinking, like some of the heath
Speaker 2: courses in London they were a bit like Melbourne, you know,
Speaker 2: like because they have heath between the tea, like a
Speaker 2: lot of clubs in Melbourne will have heath from the
Speaker 2: tee to the beginning of the fairway, and it's a
Speaker 2: lot of the courses there would as well. I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: like Jesus surprised how similar some of them were to
Speaker 2: Melbourne and the old course.
Speaker 3: I remember walking around that I wasn't playing, and so
Speaker 3: it's really hard to try to figure out what's what.
Speaker 3: I remember walking it for the first time and not
Speaker 3: even knowing which way holes were going and where greens
Speaker 3: were and because you can just walk around it, there's
Speaker 3: a there was like a seashell path that went around
Speaker 3: the whole golf course, and I just used to walk
Speaker 3: around that over and over, and I'd walk out into
Speaker 3: the holes when there was no play and no groups and.
Speaker 2: But that so that was really good. We're really different to.
Speaker 3: America, but Yeah, so I'd been away for a year,
Speaker 3: so coming to America wasn't as daunting because I'd already
Speaker 3: been gone once. But yeah, really different, Like of all
Speaker 3: the places I could have chosen to come and work
Speaker 3: in America, the mid Atlantic and the DC area is
Speaker 3: I didn't know at the time how it was to
Speaker 3: grow grass here because it's really hot in the summer
Speaker 3: and you know, you're only growing cool season grasses. And
Speaker 3: then greenskeeping was really that was really different than back home.
Speaker 3: That was the biggest learning curve, way different.
Speaker 1: What was the was there an early mess up? You
Speaker 1: do something that you just killed a bunch of grass
Speaker 1: because you just didn't know that it was going to
Speaker 1: get the way it was going to get, like so
Speaker 1: hot and humid or something.
Speaker 3: No, Because I mean so when I went to Robert
Speaker 3: Trent Jones, I mean big staff, high expectations.
Speaker 2: So I was one of four assistant superintendents.
Speaker 3: And so you know, you're like the entry level guy
Speaker 3: and three older guys kind of say, hey, this is
Speaker 3: how we do it, and this is how you keep
Speaker 3: it alive, and you just so you kind of learn, right,
Speaker 3: like you learn through being there every day and being around.
Speaker 1: Those guys, because that's in the suburb. That's what it's about.
Speaker 1: It's like just keeping it alive, right, It's like number
Speaker 1: one as opposed to you know, I imagine it's so
Speaker 1: much different than Royal Melbourne or even England.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it gets hot in Melbourne, but it
Speaker 3: gets cool at night, and that's the difference here. It
Speaker 3: gets hot here and it stays hot during the night,
Speaker 3: and it's so humid here. I mean, yeah, July fourth
Speaker 3: to labor Dight. Here, it's hold onto what you've got
Speaker 3: and just try to get to the fall. That's kind
Speaker 3: of the raw thumb that everyone in this area goes
Speaker 3: by because if it gets wet in the summertime and
Speaker 3: we start to get those storms, and the worst is
Speaker 3: when you get a downpour in the afternoon and then
Speaker 3: the sun comes back out and it's blazing hot.
Speaker 2: That's when everyone's kind of white knuckled.
Speaker 3: And really when summers in DC and when people will
Speaker 3: have a.
Speaker 2: Lot of problems.
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Speaker 1: distributor today. Now back to Stephen Britain. You talked about
Speaker 1: how greenskeeping was so much different just the generally here
Speaker 1: and getting that was a huge adjustment. In what ways
Speaker 1: was it different than Australia.
Speaker 3: I mean, so like all the obvious stuff you could
Speaker 3: probably think of, right, like we didn't we didn't do
Speaker 3: anything the rough in the middle, and we didn't water
Speaker 3: the ruff and we didn't even.
Speaker 2: Know it that much. But it's a really different golf course.
Speaker 3: In Melbourne, they were unsand and native ruffs and so
Speaker 3: you hit your ball on the sand, you hit your
Speaker 3: ball on the ruff, and you could be in bare
Speaker 3: sand or you could be in grass and you never
Speaker 3: really know. But over here the ruffs are perfect and
Speaker 3: fertilize the ruff and spray the rough and water the roff,
Speaker 3: and the roff gets moaned two or three times a week,
Speaker 3: and that was different. I remember thinking genez is spending
Speaker 3: as much time in the rough as we are in
Speaker 3: fair ways, and I just wasn't used to that. In Melbourne,
Speaker 3: we just you didn't even look at it. We didn't
Speaker 3: think about the ruff, so that, you know, that was
Speaker 3: a surprise. And just the level of greenskeeping was the
Speaker 3: expectations are so much higher than what it was back then.
Speaker 3: I mean it was the I think greens keeping in general,
Speaker 3: like in the mid nineties, I think golfers expectations not
Speaker 3: just like pro golf, so much higher now than they
Speaker 3: were twenty years ago, right, I mean I think Ryal
Speaker 3: Melbourne back in the nineties really raked the bunkers twice
Speaker 3: a week. I don't remember hearing any complaints about the
Speaker 3: bunkers back then. And you know, I don't know what,
Speaker 3: I don't know how can they rake them now? But
Speaker 3: I mean Robert Jones will raked the bunkers every day,
Speaker 3: and you know it was set up. It was almost
Speaker 3: like a tournament set up every day.
Speaker 1: It felt like some members had it their way, probably
Speaker 1: rake them in the middle of the day too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet there's some courses out there that do
Speaker 2: that a bet. So that was that was really different.
Speaker 3: That was that took some getting used to, just the
Speaker 3: different maintenance expectations and the different way they looked at things.
Speaker 1: And drastically different style of golf too, Like I mean, RTJ,
Speaker 1: I haven't been out there, but I I've looked at it.
Speaker 1: I mean extremely aerial versus real Melbourne, extremely ground oriented.
Speaker 1: I mean about as polar opposite as you could get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I remember, they don't do it anymore.
Speaker 3: But we used to rake the bunkers all the way
Speaker 3: up to the face, which I think a lot of
Speaker 3: courses in America were doing back then. And you know,
Speaker 3: in Melbourne we would keep all the faces smooth. We
Speaker 3: never would rake them, and we wanted them to be
Speaker 3: rock hard and don't touch them. And even some moss
Speaker 3: or you get like a crusty kind of layer growing
Speaker 3: on getting on the sand, and we wanted that because
Speaker 3: we wanted the balls to roll back down. And I
Speaker 3: remember thinking, like Jesus, funny they rank up the face.
Speaker 3: I didn't think you'd want that, and it wasn't just
Speaker 3: that club like that was the kind of the American
Speaker 3: way to rake bunkers back then was they just raked
Speaker 3: everything from.
Speaker 2: Edge to edge and all over. I remember coming and thinking,
Speaker 2: I don't know why they do that, Like I wouldn't
Speaker 2: think you'd want to do that. And then so.
Speaker 3: It was when I got my first superintendent's job. I
Speaker 3: went back a little bit. I said, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to rake the face. We're going to keep
Speaker 3: the face as smooth and we're just going to rake
Speaker 3: the bottom.
Speaker 1: Where was that job at? The first superintendent job was
Speaker 1: that TPC Potomac No.
Speaker 3: I It was a Tom Fazio designed golf course right
Speaker 3: down the street from Robert Trent Jones, which was great
Speaker 3: for me because I, you know, the superintendent Scott at
Speaker 3: Robert Trent Jones, I was right down the street, so
Speaker 3: I could I could borrow equipment or I could.
Speaker 2: That was the greatest place for me to start because.
Speaker 3: The expectations weren't as high and I could make some
Speaker 3: mistakes and it wasn't as much of a catastrophe as
Speaker 3: it could be at some other clubs, and so I
Speaker 3: could kind of play around with things and in some
Speaker 3: ways They let me kind of do whatever I wanted there.
Speaker 3: I could change brassing lines and I even added some
Speaker 3: bent grass around some greens to make it a little
Speaker 3: bit more like home. Because there were just some swales, right,
Speaker 3: I said, I'm gonna take the rough out and put
Speaker 3: grass in here to make a little chipping area, And
Speaker 3: so I could play around at that place as much
Speaker 3: as I wanted.
Speaker 2: It was tons of fun. It was the perfect place
Speaker 2: for my first superintendent's job because I could try to
Speaker 2: figure my own way in.
Speaker 3: If I made a mistake, it wasn't it wasn't such
Speaker 3: a big deal. And I had the guys at Robert
Speaker 3: Trent Jones right down the street.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's a big part of I feel
Speaker 1: like superintendent's in the culture is where you know, if
Speaker 1: you work for somebody, or you know, you have somebody
Speaker 1: that works for you and they get a job, then
Speaker 1: it almost becomes like you almost become an unpaid consultant
Speaker 1: for the for that other club.
Speaker 2: Right. Oh yeah, And you know, I didn't know it
Speaker 2: at the time when I.
Speaker 3: Went there, but that's what that That's what Scott's program
Speaker 3: was all about, Like, Hey, you're going to come in
Speaker 3: and be an assistant for three or four years and
Speaker 3: then you're going to go get your own golf course.
Speaker 3: And so there were there's a big group of guys
Speaker 3: that have worked at that club that are now superintendents
Speaker 3: and and then they all talk and they all, you know,
Speaker 3: we all have a group text and everybody helps each
Speaker 3: other and it's a really and a lot of them
Speaker 3: have stayed in the DC area and it's a really
Speaker 3: good setup.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a gang, like a gang of superintendent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was. It was a good thing.
Speaker 3: And then so I was at that club for four
Speaker 3: years and then that's when I went to TPC Potomac.
Speaker 3: Was I went to t CE Potomac in two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine?
Speaker 1: What was What was it like going from a club
Speaker 1: culture to the tour which you know you're going to
Speaker 1: essentially like it would be like going from I feel
Speaker 1: like almost like a startup or mom pop business to
Speaker 1: a billion dollar company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was really it was really different,
Speaker 3: but it was great, Like I wanted to, I really
Speaker 3: wanted because we'd had tour events at.
Speaker 2: Royal Melbourne and I loved them.
Speaker 3: I loved working when we would have a professional tournament
Speaker 3: come to Royal Melbourne.
Speaker 2: It was really exciting and I really loved that time.
Speaker 3: And so to be able to go to a golf
Speaker 3: course that hosted events was huge and we and they
Speaker 3: had the twenty ten Senior Players Championship Market Mira one.
Speaker 2: That was the first. That was the first tournament I
Speaker 2: worked as a superintendent.
Speaker 1: That was the first event back for the course since
Speaker 1: it was you know, it's much the lined opening where
Speaker 1: what player what players just went off at it call.
Speaker 2: It like.
Speaker 3: Well, so the old avenue I didn't even I didn't
Speaker 3: know any So the golf course was rebuilt into as
Speaker 3: the seven in two thousand and eight. Steve winslof PG
Speaker 3: two architect did the redesign and I never even knew.
Speaker 2: What I knew.
Speaker 3: I'd heard of Avanal, but I never I couldn't picture
Speaker 3: any of the old holes. But Greg Norman gave it
Speaker 3: a Greg Norman gave it a beating. The ninth hole,
Speaker 3: he said that they drop a bomb on it and
Speaker 3: blow it up. There was it was a downhill path
Speaker 3: three and in the redesign they moved the green up
Speaker 3: on the hill.
Speaker 2: But Greg Norman ripped him apart. I guess when he
Speaker 2: would play there.
Speaker 1: It's a bit ironic that he was the one doing
Speaker 1: the ripping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, yeah, I guess see the ninth hole
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 3: I don't know if something bad happened maybe I don't
Speaker 3: know what happened, but he said they should drop a
Speaker 3: bomb on it. So I came in right after they
Speaker 3: had just reopened. I think they'd only been reopened from
Speaker 3: for like six months when I started. So yeah, it
Speaker 3: was really different. I mean, but it was great because
Speaker 3: I loved pro all so working for the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: was you know, it was really exciting because you would,
Speaker 3: you know, you hear things about the tour and players
Speaker 3: and then it was great because we'd host I hosted
Speaker 3: five events in ten years i was there, and so
Speaker 3: I'd love it when Australians would come to play because
Speaker 3: I would always go and talk to them and say
Speaker 3: hi to them, and that was always it was really fun,
Speaker 3: right like trying to I'd try to like turn the.
Speaker 2: Course up a little bit like it was back home,
Speaker 2: and so it was good.
Speaker 1: How does maintenance work? Obviously at a club, you're you're
Speaker 1: you've got your greens chair, you've got your GM and
Speaker 1: you've got a management structure and everything, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you're you're the expert. I imagine
Speaker 1: in that when you're working for TPC Tour, there's a
Speaker 1: whole corporate structure, and I imagine there's a career path
Speaker 1: once you're you know, in it as a superintendent to
Speaker 1: where you become somebody that oversees a number of superintendents, right,
Speaker 1: and so as a superintendent you probably have a lot
Speaker 1: more checks and balances at the at the TPC courses.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, so there's a whole So the agronomy
Speaker 3: team with the PGA Tour, it's kind of split in two.
Speaker 3: There's there's a TPC group that kind of oversees tPCS
Speaker 3: and then there's a competitions group that oversees tournaments on
Speaker 3: the three other tours that aren't on tPCS.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, you I would.
Speaker 3: Have an agronomist and he would come and visit the
Speaker 3: golf course kind of quarterly on average, and so he
Speaker 3: would inspect the golf course and inspect your maintenance shop,
Speaker 3: and there was a checklist and you would kind of
Speaker 3: work together and try to put together plans of especially
Speaker 3: how you're going to prepare for tournaments and so yeah,
Speaker 3: it's yeah, there's a lot of checks and balance.
Speaker 1: Would they just show up on it now so you
Speaker 1: know when they're covered?
Speaker 2: No, No, no, you know.
Speaker 1: Crazy of it. It showed up with the checklists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of prep. You maintenance.
Speaker 3: Shot might be a bit dirty or gotten a bit sideways,
Speaker 3: and so there'd be some cleaning going on before.
Speaker 1: It almost be better if they just showed up randomly.
Speaker 2: That's how they would probably get the truest. They're great guys.
Speaker 2: They would never do that, but no, they would. They
Speaker 2: would give you. They would let you know when they're coming.
Speaker 1: Did you kind of have like a box that you
Speaker 1: had to keep the course in where you know where
Speaker 1: at the at the Fazio course you worked out after RTJ?
Speaker 1: You could you kind of colored outside the lines so
Speaker 1: you h some improvisation I med it was. Was it
Speaker 1: much more frowned upon in the in the the tour
Speaker 1: a little?
Speaker 3: I mean so, oh yeah, well you would have to
Speaker 3: you would have to get several people to sign off
Speaker 3: on things.
Speaker 2: If you know, I couldn't just go out and change.
Speaker 3: The golf course because I decided that I'm going to
Speaker 3: widen that fairway by thirty yards and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: gonna rip out all the rough around the green and
Speaker 3: make short grass all around the green. You couldn't do that,
Speaker 3: but you could suggest. You'd work with your agronomist and
Speaker 3: the design team and you would say, hey, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: I think this whole would be better if we did this,
Speaker 3: And sometimes they'd say yes, and sometimes they'd say no.
Speaker 3: But you couldn't go and do it yourself. There was
Speaker 3: several levels of approval that you had to get. And
Speaker 3: then that's the same way when you're having a tournament.
Speaker 3: You have an agronomist that comes in the week before
Speaker 3: and you're together every day and you're kind of monitoring
Speaker 3: the greens and the bunkers, and you know, you start
Speaker 3: working together on what you think you need to work
Speaker 3: on to get ready for next week.
Speaker 1: And yeah, interested in that. How working with the tour
Speaker 1: for a tournament, obviously you guys had the you know,
Speaker 1: Tiger's event for a couple of years in a row.
Speaker 1: What was it like, what's the run up like? And
Speaker 1: then as a as a core superintendent, what's the week
Speaker 1: of and your input levels on pins and week of
Speaker 1: conditioning for a tournament?
Speaker 3: So no input on pins. That's all the rules staff.
Speaker 3: So it's a tough balance. It's a tough balance, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, TPC Potomac was a busy club, so you're
Speaker 3: trying to manage member play but also get ready to
Speaker 3: have a tournament and make it look like nobody's been there.
Speaker 3: And our tournament dates were tough because it was July
Speaker 3: fourth weekend in the middle of the summer, so that
Speaker 3: was always tough. But the lead up, you know, we
Speaker 3: would it was cart path only for a month to
Speaker 3: keep the carts out of the RAF and but you'd
Speaker 3: never get you never you don't have a say on
Speaker 3: where the pins are going. That's all the rules stuff.
Speaker 3: They'll they'll sign a rules official to do front nine
Speaker 3: back nine setup, and those guys get to pick how
Speaker 3: they want where they want the team markers and the
Speaker 3: pins to go on the front and back nine.
Speaker 2: But you would work together with you get an advance.
Speaker 3: Official who comes in the week before and so the
Speaker 3: three of you, your advance your competition's agronomous, your advance
Speaker 3: official and yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, you get.
Speaker 3: Together and you kind of pick a target stimp, like
Speaker 3: where you want the stimp to be on the first
Speaker 3: day and you know, hey, let's shoot for twelve and
Speaker 3: a half and we'll ramp up to thirteen or low
Speaker 3: thirteens by Sunday. So that and that was a tough balance.
Speaker 3: That was always a tough balance for me because maybe
Speaker 3: being from Australia and I love golf and I like architecture,
Speaker 3: and I want the course to play a certain way,
Speaker 3: and so I was always leaning towards really drying it
Speaker 3: out and trying to put it on the edge a
Speaker 3: little bit. And I feel like we in twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: Quick and Loans, we I feel like we did.
Speaker 2: We did well with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the one that only a couple guys
Speaker 1: were under par right it was Kyle Stanley was in it,
Speaker 1: and if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3: Yep, Francesco Molinari won the last one, but Kyle Stanley
Speaker 3: won that one and yep, so eight under one.
Speaker 2: It was. So it was tough that year.
Speaker 3: But regardless of scores, I just wanted it to play
Speaker 3: firm and dry and a little bit like it would
Speaker 3: be back home. And but that's a tough balance because
Speaker 3: you know, it can look pretty ugly come Sunday when you're.
Speaker 2: Doing that, which I didn't care about. I just well,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to put on a good golf on it.
Speaker 3: And but that's tough for the club because so Jeff
Speaker 3: Obie and I had this conversation during the Quicken Loans
Speaker 3: once because we were really dry, and he was he
Speaker 3: was loving it and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he can't put he he was in the interview
Speaker 1: he talked about it was it felt like he was
Speaker 1: playing in Australia. I remember that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. That that was that was great
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: And he said in the paper a bit that week,
Speaker 3: like it's good to play on greens that remind me
Speaker 3: of back home.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I was kind of going for.
Speaker 3: But in DC, doing that around July fourth weekend, that's
Speaker 3: hard to do without it getting pretty ugly. And there's
Speaker 3: never any it's not disease and it's not anything like that.
Speaker 3: It just gets dry and it starts to will and
Speaker 3: and I was telling Jeff, like, that's a it's a
Speaker 3: tough balance because the clubs booked god knows how many
Speaker 3: corporate outings after the tournament, and you know they could
Speaker 3: sell it. They could sell a corporate Monday outing for
Speaker 3: eighty thousand dollars on them, you know, for one day
Speaker 3: or one hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is, for
Speaker 3: a week or two after the tournament. And now Steven's
Speaker 3: just gone and put the place on on edge and
Speaker 3: it doesn't look so great, and so what does that
Speaker 3: do for club revenue? And that's when you know a
Speaker 3: club manager would get a little worried and they don't
Speaker 3: want So it's that tough balance, right of like you're
Speaker 3: trying to prepare for a tournament and you want to
Speaker 3: put it on the edge. And I personally didn't mind
Speaker 3: how ugly it got, because I just wanted it to
Speaker 3: play good m But club management doesn't always want that
Speaker 3: because how does that affect revenues after the tournament? How
Speaker 3: does that affect the perception to members that they haven't
Speaker 3: played the course for two weeks and now they want
Speaker 3: to get back out and it's lead up and whatnot.
Speaker 2: So that for every superintendent that hosts.
Speaker 3: An event, that's always a that's a tough balance, right,
Speaker 3: especially because half the time where they're playing events, the
Speaker 3: weather's never especially when they get on the East coast,
Speaker 3: the weather's never right. Yeah, it's only the West coast, guys,
Speaker 3: get great weather.
Speaker 2: The East Coast guy, East Coast.
Speaker 3: Superintendents, it's always hard because you got most of them
Speaker 3: are in the summer, and you get summer storms on
Speaker 3: the East Coast.
Speaker 1: I think that next year, the one where Moulinari one
Speaker 1: and Tiger was in it, Zach Blair was in it.
Speaker 1: I remember that was the infamous one where Tiger was
Speaker 1: changing sure every every three holes because how sweaty he was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, there's the hottest round of golf. The
Speaker 3: heating next was one hundred and fifteen. And here I
Speaker 3: am mowing the greens four times. Everyone else in the
Speaker 3: areas bathing their green. See, I got mow the greens
Speaker 3: three or four times, and mow of the fairways in
Speaker 3: the evening. And it was hard, and yeah, I got
Speaker 3: the I got the rains pulled in a little bit
Speaker 3: on that second one because I pushed it pretty far
Speaker 3: in the first one, and so on the second one.
Speaker 2: It was because what you do is so they checked,
Speaker 2: they check.
Speaker 3: Moisture, so you stimp. You check moisture, and you check
Speaker 3: firmness every morning and every evening, right, and they like
Speaker 3: that data and they write it.
Speaker 2: Down and then that some greens are wetter than others,
Speaker 2: and some greens are dryer than others, and some greens
Speaker 2: stimp quicker than others and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And me, I didn't I would just let it go.
Speaker 3: Like the year before, I didn't really mind. But that
Speaker 3: second one, it was like, well, you know, the fifth
Speaker 3: green is really dry.
Speaker 2: I think we need to water that one tonight.
Speaker 1: So they kind of have like a box of parameters
Speaker 1: that they want to keep the course in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 3: I mean it changes depending on the grasses they're playing
Speaker 3: on and the area of the country.
Speaker 2: But they'll they'll pick the week before.
Speaker 3: They'll say, hey, let's let's shoot to be here on firmness,
Speaker 3: you know, let's shoot to be stimping around this number,
Speaker 3: and let's keep the greens at kind.
Speaker 2: Of this moisture.
Speaker 3: So they'll they'll pick those three numbers and they'll just
Speaker 3: try to they'll try to kind of maintain or maybe
Speaker 3: even slightly drop off from those numbers by the end
Speaker 3: of the week. I don't really I always had it.
Speaker 3: As I got a little older, I still wrestle with
Speaker 3: that a little bit because I don't know, seems to
Speaker 3: be that it seems to me it'll be okay. If
Speaker 3: one green is softer than the other, and one green's
Speaker 3: further than the other, right, Like, that would make the
Speaker 3: course play a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: And it would ask players to answer different questions rather
Speaker 1: than the same one over and over again. Right, that
Speaker 1: might make a little bit more interesting golf tournament.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, it's not there far. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: player run organization.
Speaker 3: The players have told them that they want consistency, so
Speaker 3: I don't blame them one bit.
Speaker 2: But I just think if you have a green that
Speaker 2: sits down in.
Speaker 3: A hole, like the twelfth at Augusta, right, that green's
Speaker 3: got to always be softer than the other. The twelfth
Speaker 3: green in Augusta has to be softer than the eighteenth
Speaker 3: green and.
Speaker 1: Augusta it sits in the sheet all day, right Yeah, And.
Speaker 3: So like at Royal Melbourne, for example, the third green
Speaker 3: on the East course, which is on the Composite course,
Speaker 3: at least in my time, was always softer than the
Speaker 3: sixth green on the West course that is on the
Speaker 3: composite course, right, because the third East green sits.
Speaker 2: Way down in a hole. It used to have these
Speaker 2: huge cypress trees around it, and it was it was
Speaker 2: just always a tough green to dry out when I
Speaker 2: worked there, and.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's okay, right, Like you feel like
Speaker 3: the caddie should say, hey, this green yesterday was a
Speaker 3: bit softer and it sits down in a hole, and
Speaker 3: you should play this one closer to the flag because
Speaker 3: it'll probably stop quicker. And on the other firm greens
Speaker 3: you've got to play it shorter and roll it up.
Speaker 3: But same with the bunkers, Like they want the bunkers
Speaker 3: to just be all exactly the same, and.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I feel like it would be kind
Speaker 2: of cooler if they all played a little bit differently.
Speaker 1: It's like this pursuit for uniformity and maintenance. When I mean,
Speaker 1: if you walk around any but any member of your yard,
Speaker 1: the grass is going to be different in different areas.
Speaker 1: Like I've got a giant silver maple. The grass is
Speaker 1: way different there than I'm my parkway that has no
Speaker 1: trees on it. You know, Like I can't grow the
Speaker 1: same grass there. And if I, if I, if I
Speaker 1: want the same grass, I'm gonna have to spend I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to spend eight times as much time and
Speaker 1: money to get that.
Speaker 3: That's what happens is so superintendent's are working so hard
Speaker 3: to get it all playing the same and in Australia
Speaker 3: we just when I think back again, it was the nineties,
Speaker 3: so it was a different time, but I felt like
Speaker 3: we just didn't get us hung up on that.
Speaker 2: Like I put this on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Mike Clayton and I were going back and forth on
Speaker 3: Twitter a little while ago, and and this same topic
Speaker 3: came up, and I used the sixth West at Royal
Speaker 3: Melbourne as an example. And I don't know about today,
Speaker 3: but in my time, the front left bunker on the
Speaker 3: sixth West.
Speaker 2: Or All Melbourne was always a boggy bunker.
Speaker 3: It always felt like it had more sand than it
Speaker 3: and and if you hit it in that bunker, there
Speaker 3: was always a really good chance your ball was gonna
Speaker 3: plug or you were gonna have an uphill shot. That
Speaker 3: bunker's twelve feet deep or whatever, and you're out of
Speaker 3: really boggy sand and behind that green on the back
Speaker 3: left corner there's this little bunker, and that green was
Speaker 3: always rock That bunker was always rock hard. It was
Speaker 3: like you know, hitting off of a hard pan and
Speaker 3: the green falls away from you there and it.
Speaker 2: Was the hard like you couldn't pick two.
Speaker 3: More different bunker shots on one hole, the front left
Speaker 3: bunker and the back left bunker.
Speaker 2: And I always remember thinking that, like we would get
Speaker 2: to play at Real Melbourne as employees, and you kind
Speaker 2: of knew when you were in the middle of that
Speaker 2: fair way. You just knew in your head, like, jeez,
Speaker 2: if I hit it short in the front left one
Speaker 2: is probably gonna plug. And if I hit in the
Speaker 2: back one, that's the hardest up and down in the world.
Speaker 2: I'm never going to get up.
Speaker 3: And you just knew, and that was okay, But it
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be that way anymore. Like, no matter
Speaker 3: what bunk you hit in it, it's gonna be the
Speaker 3: exact same.
Speaker 1: It stinks too. I always say that the why golf
Speaker 1: is the coolest game is because, no matter what, you'll
Speaker 1: never ever be in the same exact position twice in
Speaker 1: your life. Like you could play golf every single day,
Speaker 1: all day long for the rest of your life, you'll
Speaker 1: never hit the exact same shot twice because you'll never
Speaker 1: have the same lie, the same exact wind to the
Speaker 1: same pin from the exact same yardage, right, And that
Speaker 1: something that adds to that is having to like getting
Speaker 1: in the sand and feeling in your your feet and
Speaker 1: in knowing. Intrinsically, it almost rewards the experienced player that
Speaker 1: can analyze all that stuff, and in a way, the
Speaker 1: uniformity kind of dumbs down the game.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, so you write a good article.
Speaker 3: I think it was last week about the ruff, right,
Speaker 3: thick ruff versus low ruff, and whether you're going to
Speaker 3: get a flyer and how much more unpredictable that is
Speaker 3: than thick ruff, and I.
Speaker 2: Agree with that.
Speaker 3: I remember we had a tournament once at TPC and
Speaker 3: the ruff was really thick, and I remember Mark Russell said, oh, look,
Speaker 3: we got to mow the rough Friday night because it's
Speaker 3: going to be too thick come Sunday. And again, me
Speaker 3: being superintendent's always protective of their golf course and Mark Russell,
Speaker 3: he's a brilliant golf mind.
Speaker 2: Like that guy, he's really really smart.
Speaker 3: And I remember saying to him like, I don't worry
Speaker 3: about it, like I think it'll be fine on Sunday.
Speaker 3: I really don't think we need to mow the ruff.
Speaker 3: And he explained that that was the first time I'd
Speaker 3: ever heard someone explain.
Speaker 2: It to me that way.
Speaker 3: He said, listen, if you have the rough flower and
Speaker 3: they don't know whether the ball is going to fly
Speaker 3: out or how it's going to come out to be
Speaker 3: so much harder for them. And I never had thought
Speaker 3: of it that way, and he was the first one
Speaker 3: that explained it that way, and he was right.
Speaker 2: He's dead right.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's funny like everybody's talking these days
Speaker 3: about how to set courses up and scoring and you
Speaker 3: just wonder, like, is that something you know it was
Speaker 3: a little more irregular. Would that make the that would
Speaker 3: you know that would change it up?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: The most irregular championships to open And look what it
Speaker 1: does every year. You know like that that you hit
Speaker 1: it in the rough there, you have no clue what's
Speaker 1: going to happen to the ball when it comes out.
Speaker 1: It could look like you're the easiest lie in the
Speaker 1: world and shoot sixty yards left And yeah, I think that,
Speaker 1: And then I think the best part about it is
Speaker 1: what you what Russell alluded to. It's like you have
Speaker 1: a couple that you misjudge, a couple of those, and
Speaker 1: that that's going to be in the guy's head and
Speaker 1: that's the best place to be with a tour player.
Speaker 1: You got it. The only way you can challenge them
Speaker 1: is to make it feel like it's not a driving range,
Speaker 1: you know, totally.
Speaker 3: Like I remember a podcast you did you said you
Speaker 3: did with Jeff once and you talked about maybe it
Speaker 3: was when you were younger or in Melbourne and he
Speaker 3: hit a drive and it would go in the rough,
Speaker 3: and that that anticipation or that excitement, especially when you
Speaker 3: were young and you're playing in a club event and
Speaker 3: as you're walking up down the fairway and you're walking
Speaker 3: up to the ball, you're kind of like, oh, please
Speaker 3: be sitting good, Please be good, and that anticipation or
Speaker 3: that excitement of getting to it, and it happens to
Speaker 3: be sitting up and you're like, yes, I can go
Speaker 3: with this now for part five, maybe you could get
Speaker 3: three wooden get there or it's not sitting very good
Speaker 3: and were jout and I remember he said, you know
Speaker 3: that's all gone now because you're walking down a fairway
Speaker 3: and you know exactly how it's going to be lying
Speaker 3: and it's easier to get those irregular ruffs and those
Speaker 3: are regular eyes when you're unsand too, and the golf
Speaker 3: course is unseand Roff's going to be a little like
Speaker 3: Pine like it is down at Pinehurst or places. It's
Speaker 3: easier to get that when you're un sane. It's hard
Speaker 3: like up here, when you're and clay and it rains
Speaker 3: forty inches a year, grass grows kind of NonStop. It
Speaker 3: is harder to get that irregular rough a little bit right.
Speaker 1: It seems like you could with that if you didn't chase,
Speaker 1: you know, that consistency. It seems like that, not knowing exactly,
Speaker 1: but for a superintendent, that's you're constantly chasing your tail
Speaker 1: for that consistency. And it probably costs a ton of money,
Speaker 1: and it might you know, it might some woe. This
Speaker 1: would be something that every a lot of members would
Speaker 1: argue about. But it might cheapen the experience of golf.
Speaker 1: And then it also comes at an extreme resource time
Speaker 1: and money cost.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I've hosted tournaments before, we would you know,
Speaker 3: we might be double cutting and rolling the greens right,
Speaker 3: and we'd stimp the grain and for whatever reason, it's
Speaker 3: four inches slower than the grain before. So we give
Speaker 3: it an extra role, you know, to try to get
Speaker 3: it to catch up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: As my time went on, as I got older, I
Speaker 3: remember just becoming a little more disillusioned with that and thinking, geez, like,
Speaker 3: it's okay that they're a little bit different.
Speaker 1: It could too be like if you stip it in
Speaker 1: one spot, that's just subtly uphill, right, Like you just
Speaker 1: stimp it in one place, you could stip differently in
Speaker 1: another place. It's grass, right, it's grolling. It could be
Speaker 1: different within a green.
Speaker 3: Well, you wish you could say, hey, those two greens
Speaker 3: over there are really slow. Why don't you get nuts
Speaker 3: with the pim position on those couple because they're really slow.
Speaker 2: But Dean, I mean so Dean Demon.
Speaker 3: He used to play at TPC Potomac quite a bit
Speaker 3: and I would always go out and kind of ride
Speaker 3: a hole with him and chat with him. And he's
Speaker 3: a huge proponent of slow greens. He used to even
Speaker 3: greens would never overly fast.
Speaker 2: Remember play, but.
Speaker 3: He always used to say to me, like, the greens
Speaker 3: are too fast, they're too perfect. It's easy to hold
Speaker 3: putts out here, and why don't you slow him down
Speaker 3: and put the pins. He was a big one for that.
Speaker 3: He used to ill but he still does. He he
Speaker 3: always thought the greens were too fast and.
Speaker 2: Putting would be so much harder if the greens were slow.
Speaker 3: And he was he was a huge part. He hated
Speaker 3: the fact that the green speeds had gotten to where
Speaker 3: they were.
Speaker 1: I think I don't. I think he gets a lot
Speaker 1: of credit, but I still think he doesn't get enough
Speaker 1: credit for all the stuff he did. And like his
Speaker 1: general thoughts on a lot of things, like, I mean
Speaker 1: that guy one of the most brilliant minds golf's ever had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, really interesting guy. He hated to think rough
Speaker 3: and he and he hated fast greens, at least when
Speaker 3: he would he always plays his wife Judy and he'd say,
Speaker 3: Raff's too thick for my wife, and it's no fun
Speaker 3: to play out of And the greens are too fast
Speaker 3: when you get up on the green.
Speaker 1: And yeah, being somebody that loves architecture, talk about I know,
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody would put TPC Potomac in like
Speaker 1: a masterclass of architecture, mold. What was it like working
Speaker 1: at a golf course that doesn't really get your juices
Speaker 1: flowing from an architecture standpoint, it's a.
Speaker 2: Catch twenty two, right, Like I think about it.
Speaker 3: A bit, like you if you did work somewhere there's
Speaker 3: a brilliant design architecturally. A lot of the times, those
Speaker 3: places don't want to change anything, right, They're like, hey,
Speaker 3: this is kind of the Holy grail. Just mow the grass,
Speaker 3: keep the grass alive, rake the bunkers. We like it
Speaker 3: the way it is.
Speaker 2: And rightfully so.
Speaker 3: On some of the best designs in the country. But
Speaker 3: as a superintendent, most superintendents always want to tweak with
Speaker 3: their golf course. So don't get me wrong, it would
Speaker 3: be great to work on some of those great designs,
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I think you do want
Speaker 3: a little bit of freedom to play around with them
Speaker 3: a little bit and within reason, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because if you're at one of the great great spots,
Speaker 1: your job you're a caretaker more so than if you're
Speaker 1: at somewhere where the pedigree is a little bit less
Speaker 1: and you've you've got a little bit more freedom, right.
Speaker 3: I Mean, the funnest jobs would be the guys that
Speaker 3: take over from somewhere that was great a long time ago,
Speaker 3: and they've got good maps and good aerials, and then
Speaker 3: they've got a bit of a freedom to stay to
Speaker 3: the club. Hey, what don't you know this is how
Speaker 3: this hole used to be eighty years ago, and the
Speaker 3: fairway was this wide, and these trees were out over here,
Speaker 3: and you know, if you're okay with it, I'm going
Speaker 3: to take those trees down, and I'm going to rip
Speaker 3: that rough up and I'm going to make the f
Speaker 3: their way wider, and I can do all that in house,
Speaker 3: and that would be a lot of fun, right those,
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes those are the funnest And we all
Speaker 3: know people that have gotten jobs like that and got
Speaker 3: to tinker with their courses, and sometimes those would be
Speaker 3: the funnest ones around to.
Speaker 2: Be able to look at what you've done.
Speaker 3: I mean, like Curtis at Old Elm, Right, that's one
Speaker 3: that passed to mind. I mean I was there last
Speaker 3: year and it's you know, he did so much of
Speaker 3: that sounds like in house, and I don't know the
Speaker 3: exact process they used, but how much fun that must
Speaker 3: have been, and how proud you can be to look
Speaker 3: at it today, at like what they've done, and you
Speaker 3: know that a lot of it was him, right, So
Speaker 3: those but the problem is there's not many of those
Speaker 3: left because lots of them are being restored, thankfully, and
Speaker 3: so there's not many of those left these days to
Speaker 3: stumble upon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Brian Palver, the old superintendent at short
Speaker 1: Akers I expensive time his office he had he had
Speaker 1: their old I can't remember exactly what year. It was,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty nine. Ariel blown up huge. I mean it
Speaker 1: was the entire wall right in front of his desk
Speaker 1: and he would just stare at it every day. And
Speaker 1: they got everything almost back, and I remember I was
Speaker 1: in there and he just held just look at the
Speaker 1: one spot, the one or two spots that it wasn't exactly,
Speaker 1: and he would be like, that's that's next, that's that's
Speaker 1: like it like encompassed his life for you know, five
Speaker 1: six years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't they overlap? I think I heard a story.
Speaker 2: Didn't they overlay the plan on like a Google Earth
Speaker 2: map or something? And it was almost spot on? Right?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, somebody told me that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there was one spot where he didn't do
Speaker 1: it exactly and he was like, you know, really screwed
Speaker 1: that one up to tell you, just was really upset
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, right, I mean, that must be so much
Speaker 3: fun to get to get something like that.
Speaker 2: Right. There's not many of them left.
Speaker 1: I mean there's plenty. Believe me, there are people realize, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's some that have been restored that you go
Speaker 1: out to and you're like, you know, you didn't restore it.
Speaker 1: The line's twenty yards off, like what you know, the
Speaker 1: bunkers in the you know, doesn't cut all the way
Speaker 1: in and you can just see it because you can
Speaker 1: see the land form. That's one of my pet peeves
Speaker 1: is when you see a great, great fairway land form
Speaker 1: and then the fairway line is right on the middle
Speaker 1: of it, and you're like, and it's been restored, and
Speaker 1: you're like, how do you not see the left half
Speaker 1: of that? That that land feature that was clearly the fairway.
Speaker 1: You know, these old architects didn't drape fairways over land
Speaker 1: features and then cut off put rough on half of it.
Speaker 1: You know, they wanted the ball to roll off it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, I'm showing. Yeah, you would know,
Speaker 3: you've you've seen. You probably have a list of the
Speaker 3: ones that are still available to.
Speaker 1: Maybe one of my favorite conversations I've ever had with
Speaker 1: you is centers around I guess I would call them
Speaker 1: knick knacks around golf courses. Oh yeah, your pat feeve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the furniture and stuff like that. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: gets crazy, right, there's companies out there that's so rubbish
Speaker 3: bins for two thousand dollars and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I've done it. If bored them. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're at a club that.
Speaker 3: I've worked at clubs in the past where that was
Speaker 3: kind of what they wanted and and that's what you do.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's funny how I always think of that. Like,
Speaker 2: so back in Melbourne they have a lot of the
Speaker 2: old Samba.
Speaker 3: Of courses had these tea boxes, these steel tea boxes.
Speaker 3: They're not really I don't think you'd really use them
Speaker 3: for anything now, but they were for.
Speaker 2: Back in the day. They were a rubbish spin or.
Speaker 3: I think they even might have put seeing them when
Speaker 3: they were before tea's right and they were using sand tea.
Speaker 2: Off of them.
Speaker 3: Those things were great. They look Kingston Heath still has them.
Speaker 3: They looked beautiful. But yeah, over here and they love
Speaker 3: some furniture over here. At some past clubs I've worked out,
Speaker 3: they they want a lot of furniture. I mean likely,
Speaker 3: I'm most places i've been, I've been able to convince
Speaker 3: them to go back the other way and it's been
Speaker 3: met favorably.
Speaker 2: And but yeah.
Speaker 3: There's some places you go to where it's it's everywhere.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you and I visited some golf courses where
Speaker 3: get a couple of holes in and.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you you look at it and you think, God,
Speaker 1: there's they just spent twenty thousand dollars on something that
Speaker 1: they didn't need to spend twenty something thousand dollars. And
Speaker 1: then you go in like the best spots, like the
Speaker 1: coolest places have this like homemade stuff and like it's
Speaker 1: completely authentic and unique to them. And and that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing that it's like it happens where they think, oh,
Speaker 1: we're dressing up the place, but really what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you're you're you're making it more tacky. And if
Speaker 1: you just went out and hand made something, cut down
Speaker 1: a tree and and and just chopped up some blocks
Speaker 1: from the course, you'd make the golf course better and
Speaker 1: you'd make the whole experience more unique. Like that, I
Speaker 1: think that's like an underrated part. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, where it falls, because I'm sure there's like
Speaker 1: a golf committee or some committee at a club that
Speaker 1: I don't even know, you know, what the title of
Speaker 1: is that dresses these things up. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it almost should be in the hands of the superintendent
Speaker 1: because what it would do is it would it would
Speaker 1: create a unique feel and it would become it's almost
Speaker 1: like a culture thing for the club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely a movement back to it, right, guys
Speaker 3: making their own benches out of logs, cutting half and
Speaker 3: making their own team, and there's definitely a movement back
Speaker 3: to that. But yeah, you're right, Like the best clubs
Speaker 3: in the country, I don't have it, almost don't have
Speaker 3: anything ye down on Long Island.
Speaker 2: Or clubs in Philadelphia and in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: I mean I remember going to one of the best
Speaker 3: clubs in the country once and their scorecard box on
Speaker 3: like the second tea, so if you forgot to get
Speaker 3: a scorecard, we tee it off get another way. It
Speaker 3: was just in a mailbox. I think this is what
Speaker 3: you're talking about. And I said to you, if that
Speaker 3: was at some clubs I've worked out in the past.
Speaker 2: We'd have bought a.
Speaker 3: Two thousand dollars scorecard box, you know, polished hardwood, looking beautiful.
Speaker 3: But here's the one of the best courses in the
Speaker 3: country and they've just gone an old mailbox with the
Speaker 3: scorecards in it.
Speaker 2: It's perfect.
Speaker 1: And I went to the GIS show this year. I've
Speaker 1: walck it around and I've said it all these things.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how who goes there and buys this stuff?
Speaker 1: Like you could do? There's so many things. It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's the same thing going same thing
Speaker 1: going out in golf. It's like, you know, people buy
Speaker 1: sixty dollars alignment aids that are just wood sticks that
Speaker 1: are you know.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, it's like you and I have walked around
Speaker 3: the gas show that you started almost hyperventilating walking past
Speaker 3: some of those furniture schools.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like it's these are the same clubs that'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't have money to fix the golf course, and
Speaker 1: it's like you just spent twenty five grand on useless
Speaker 1: shit for around the golf course. You could spend that
Speaker 1: and you could you could expand a green for that
Speaker 1: much money.
Speaker 2: It happens, right, Yeah, it has happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, but you hope that's where you get the
Speaker 3: right people in place, and you can if you sell
Speaker 3: your vision well enough and you kind of explain it
Speaker 3: well enough, most most places will be open to most places.
Speaker 2: Get it. There's definitely a movement back to that. Back
Speaker 2: to that. I think a lot of places are starting
Speaker 2: to go go away from that. Yeah them where it
Speaker 2: was maybe twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be cool. I mean, like, I think the
Speaker 1: more golf can pull on its history. And obviously there
Speaker 1: are courses that don't have that history. But you don't
Speaker 1: make something, you know, it makes something yours because if
Speaker 1: you make something, then it's yours. Nobody else has that.
Speaker 3: Well, COVID's probably helping that out a little bit, right,
Speaker 3: because a lot of golf courses had to pull everything
Speaker 3: off the golf course.
Speaker 1: That's true, and maybe.
Speaker 3: Some places now realize that, well, jeez, you know, if
Speaker 3: you've if you've taken the ball washers off the golf course,
Speaker 3: maybe people are like, well, do you really miss them?
Speaker 2: Or maybe you don't need them?
Speaker 3: Right, It's probably COVID's probably one of the worst things
Speaker 3: that could have happened to some of those companies that
Speaker 3: make furniture, right, because.
Speaker 1: Ball washers maybe the thing that bugs me the most.
Speaker 1: And here's the other thing, with the benches and stuff.
Speaker 1: Nothing's better than just going and sitting down under a tree.
Speaker 1: That's the best thing to do. Find some shade sitting
Speaker 1: down on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you'd hope pay some plays good enough that
Speaker 2: you don't really you.
Speaker 1: Haven't you haven't been to public golf course on the
Speaker 1: weekend in a while, Steven, Right, Well.
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, yeah, it's funny. I know, like a
Speaker 3: lot of superintendents I talk to, that's a bit of
Speaker 3: the talk right now. Right COVID has a lot of
Speaker 3: clubs have removed bunker ranches and ball washers and all
Speaker 3: the knickknacks, and some clubs are kind of realizing that
Speaker 3: maybe we didn't need all that, and so there's there's
Speaker 3: I know, there's a lot of superintendents I talk to.
Speaker 3: That's that's what they're all talking about right now, is
Speaker 3: whether they they can at least reduce some of it,
Speaker 3: or whether some of it even needs to go back
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: What are some things on the matenance and like the
Speaker 1: turf side that you've learned from COVID and restrictions and
Speaker 1: you know, less staff I imagine, and I.
Speaker 3: Mean I'm sure I think everybody having to do trying
Speaker 3: to do the same with less.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It seems like players up at most clubs, and which
Speaker 3: is a great thing. So on the turf side. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's only there's only so much you can change. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to think it's it's a hard one. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've definitely changed the way we most some stuff and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out different ways to do things. But
Speaker 3: from the biggest impact I think is that is what
Speaker 3: we were just talking about, the knickknack thing that seems
Speaker 3: to be the biggest that seems to.
Speaker 2: Be the one that everybody's talking about.
Speaker 3: The guys that I talk to, that seems to be
Speaker 3: the biggest thing that everybody's talking about.
Speaker 1: I'll found money. Yeah, my book. All the golf course
Speaker 1: accessory companies are going to come after me now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna have to plot the way you
Speaker 2: walk around the GOS show next time you plot your
Speaker 2: way around Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, it's it's been fun. You're on Twitter, you're
Speaker 1: on Instagram, big history and architecture dot. I recommend following Steven.
Speaker 1: He's got he brings a lot to the to the
Speaker 1: social media world too.
Speaker 2: It's been great and thank you Anddiot you do a
Speaker 2: great job.
Speaker 3: And I've been listening for a long time back to
Speaker 3: when you and I first met at Belmont that was
Speaker 3: a fun day.
Speaker 1: That was the one that was a place where lots
Speaker 1: of money mismanagement there with us brand new cart pass
Speaker 1: and then crying poor.
Speaker 2: Oh that that was. That was That was a good
Speaker 2: couple of days that.
Speaker 3: Now, thank you for everything you do. And you and
Speaker 3: I have talked about this before many a road trip.
Speaker 3: Listening to the pods has got me through many a
Speaker 3: road trip.
Speaker 2: So great job. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for coming on. It's a I'm glad we
Speaker 1: got to do this. It's it's always fun talking. So
Speaker 1: uh we'll talk soon and thank you definitely. Stager and
Speaker 1: Plosis appeared Anconada pay Company of Canada