WEBVTT - How to Build a (Profitable!) Mom-and-Pop Golf Course

0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.800
<v Speaker 1>I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When

0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:04.920
<v Speaker 1>I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.960
<v Speaker 2>And when I find my ball in a bride egg

0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.000
<v Speaker 2>Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, Frida egg

0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.240
<v Speaker 2>Egg Frida egg, bride egg Lie, I'm.

0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.360
<v Speaker 1>About ready to run off of thelf course game.

0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.559
<v Speaker 2>Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,

0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.239
<v Speaker 2>and today we are talking about how to build a

0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:47.400
<v Speaker 2>golf course affordably, and maybe more important, what's preventing people

0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.640
<v Speaker 2>from building golf courses affordably right now? This has been

0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.280
<v Speaker 2>a big theme in my recent conversations with architects and superintendents.

0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.280
<v Speaker 2>It's something people in the industry are talking about a lot.

0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.720
<v Speaker 2>How much is being spent on golf course construction and renovation,

0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.280
<v Speaker 2>some truly eye popping numbers out there, and it's a

0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.240
<v Speaker 2>problem because those costs get passed down to you, the golfer.

0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.880
<v Speaker 2>So I thought it was just time to have a

0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.160
<v Speaker 2>conversation purely focused on that theme. What is the nitty

0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.479
<v Speaker 2>gritty of how you actually build affordable golf? And this

0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.240
<v Speaker 2>is a question that's not just relevant for industry people,

0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.640
<v Speaker 2>for architects and superintendents. This is something that every golfer

0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.640
<v Speaker 2>should know at least a little about, because you pay

0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.000
<v Speaker 2>green fees, you pay member dues. Ultimately you are funding

0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.600
<v Speaker 2>all of this in the end. And if you're empowered

0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.200
<v Speaker 2>with some knowledge, you can start to say things like, hey,

0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.560
<v Speaker 2>that super expensive method of green construction or bunker construction

0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.360
<v Speaker 2>might not be necessary for my personal enjoyment of golf,

0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.600
<v Speaker 2>and you can start to push back on some of

0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.680
<v Speaker 2>the things that make the game more expensive right now.

0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.840
<v Speaker 2>So my guest for this podcast is Mike Young. Mike

0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.160
<v Speaker 2>is a golf course architect and really one of the

0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.399
<v Speaker 2>pioneers of modern minimalism in golf course construction. He designed

0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.480
<v Speaker 2>the Fields golf course in Georgia in nineteen eighty six,

0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.799
<v Speaker 2>and at that time the Fields was really different from

0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.200
<v Speaker 2>most of the golf getting built in America. It was

0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.880
<v Speaker 2>much more scaled down and natural, and it really predicted

0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.160
<v Speaker 2>the direction that architects like Corn Crenshaw and Tom Doak

0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.640
<v Speaker 2>ended up going. Mike is now the owner of the

0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.760
<v Speaker 2>Fields and the course is still very affordable to play,

0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.880
<v Speaker 2>so that gives him an extra special perspective on the

0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.440
<v Speaker 2>topic of the podcast today because Not only does he

0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.000
<v Speaker 2>know how to build affordable golf, economical golf, but he

0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.160
<v Speaker 2>also knows the realities that owners face after a golf

0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.760
<v Speaker 2>course gets built. So in addition to doing all of

0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.640
<v Speaker 2>that designing the fields the fields, Mike has done design

0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.720
<v Speaker 2>work at a number of other courses, mostly in the Southeast,

0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.560
<v Speaker 2>but also in Central America, and currently he's working on

0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.400
<v Speaker 2>a very exciting municipal project in Vidalia, Georgia. This course

0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:18.160
<v Speaker 2>is called Warmouth Sands and the plan is for it

0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.960
<v Speaker 2>to open this year. So we'll talk a bit about that,

0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.720
<v Speaker 2>but mainly, I just wanted to dig into some of

0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.840
<v Speaker 2>Mike's concerns about rising costs in the golf course industry

0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.639
<v Speaker 2>and some of the forces that he thinks are driving

0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.800
<v Speaker 2>those costs up beyond what they should be. I also

0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.320
<v Speaker 2>want to talk about his vision for what should be done.

0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.320
<v Speaker 2>How is it possible in this day and age to

0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.160
<v Speaker 2>build everyday golf courses for everyday players, or, as he

0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.960
<v Speaker 2>puts it, mom and pop golf courses. Really excited about

0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.120
<v Speaker 2>this conversation. Mike is one of my favorite voices in

0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.400
<v Speaker 2>the game, and I always get a lot out of

0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.520
<v Speaker 2>going back and forth with him. So a word about health.

0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.760
<v Speaker 2>And now I'm not talking about the health of the

0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:04.440
<v Speaker 2>golf course industry. I'm talking about bodily personal health. Taking

0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.440
<v Speaker 2>care of your health isn't always easy, but it should

0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.880
<v Speaker 2>at least be simple. That's why for the last year

0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.800
<v Speaker 2>and a half or so, I've been drinking ag one

0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.720
<v Speaker 2>every day, no exceptions. It's just one scoop mixed in water,

0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.840
<v Speaker 2>once a day, every day, and it makes me feel

0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:26.160
<v Speaker 2>energized and nourished. That's because each serving of ag one

0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:31.080
<v Speaker 2>delivers my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics

0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:36.279
<v Speaker 2>and more. It's a powerful healthy habit that's also powerfully simple.

0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.400
<v Speaker 2>I like to drink ag one first thing in the morning,

0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.880
<v Speaker 2>right before I take my kids to the bus stop.

0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.080
<v Speaker 2>It's really easy to do it that way, It's easy

0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.200
<v Speaker 2>to remember, it's part of my routine, and it's also

0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.680
<v Speaker 2>recommended for optimal nutrient absorption. So I just fill up

0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.840
<v Speaker 2>my shaker with cold water, one scoop of ag one,

0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.440
<v Speaker 2>shake it up, and I'm pretty much ready to go. Now,

0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.360
<v Speaker 2>if I'm on the road, which I often am, if

0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.560
<v Speaker 2>I'm traveling seeing golf courses and I can't bring my

0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.760
<v Speaker 2>full set up with me, then I'll just bring some

0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.080
<v Speaker 2>AG one travel packs. These are really convenient. I know

0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.880
<v Speaker 2>exactly how many I need to bring for each trip,

0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.320
<v Speaker 2>it's just the number of days that I'm gone. And

0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.920
<v Speaker 2>each one. Each travel pack is an individual serving of

0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.280
<v Speaker 2>AG one that's super easy to mix on the go,

0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.720
<v Speaker 2>which helps ensure that I get my daily nutrients no

0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.120
<v Speaker 2>matter where I might be in the world. If there's

0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.880
<v Speaker 2>one product I had to recommend to elevate your health,

0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.839
<v Speaker 2>it's AG one and that's why we've partnered with them

0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.880
<v Speaker 2>for so long at Frida Egg Golf. So if you

0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.640
<v Speaker 2>want to take ownership of your health, start with AG one.

0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.839
<v Speaker 2>Try AG one and get a free one year supply

0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.320
<v Speaker 2>of Vitamin D three plus K two and five free

0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.680
<v Speaker 2>AG one travel packs with your first purchase, exclusively at

0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:59.479
<v Speaker 2>drinkag one dot com slash the Frida Egg. That's drink

0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:03.880
<v Speaker 2>ag one dot com slash the Frida Egg. Check it out.

0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.000
<v Speaker 2>All right, Mike Young, Welcome to the podcast. Thank you

0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:12.640
<v Speaker 2>for being here.

0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:14.520
<v Speaker 1>Thanks looking forward to it.

0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.919
<v Speaker 2>So a little bit of backstory here for people. You know,

0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.560
<v Speaker 2>we've done a couple of episodes in the past about

0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:25.400
<v Speaker 2>building affordable golf courses and you sent me an email

0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.279
<v Speaker 2>not long ago saying that you know, there's more to

0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.680
<v Speaker 2>discuss here. There's more meat on this bone, essentially, is

0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:33.799
<v Speaker 2>what you were telling me. And you said, I would

0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.480
<v Speaker 2>like to discuss how you actually build the ten thousand

0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.680
<v Speaker 2>dollars green or the five hundred thousand dollars irrigation system

0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.680
<v Speaker 2>or bunkers. And I thought to myself, yes, please, let's

0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.440
<v Speaker 2>get into that. Let's get into detail about that. So

0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.960
<v Speaker 2>maybe we could just take this one piece at a time.

0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.160
<v Speaker 2>Say you're building a new green on a new site.

0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.240
<v Speaker 2>How do you do that as cheaply as possible? Can

0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:57.039
<v Speaker 2>you take me through that.

0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.880
<v Speaker 1>Let's call it not cheap, but let's call it efficient.

0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.880
<v Speaker 1>There you go. You know, it might be that if

0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.200
<v Speaker 1>I'm having to build a bent grass product, it might

0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:12.160
<v Speaker 1>be a complete USGA green. Let me let me say

0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.840
<v Speaker 1>one thing before I do that. Though, in this entire discussion,

0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.400
<v Speaker 1>everything we talk about most of the time on the internet,

0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.240
<v Speaker 1>and that's why I listened to Friday Egg and always

0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.520
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about for practical purposes, we're talking about the

0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.640
<v Speaker 1>top five hundred golf courses. There were five hundred and

0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.239
<v Speaker 1>thirty million rounds played last year. If you took twenty

0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:39.160
<v Speaker 1>thousand rounds for those top five hundred, that's ten million rounds.

0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.120
<v Speaker 1>They use five hundred and twenty million rounds that are

0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:48.600
<v Speaker 1>played somewhere, and those are not played on courses with

0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.960
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and fifty dollars and above green face. It's

0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:56.400
<v Speaker 1>a different product. In most cases, it's not a product

0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.120
<v Speaker 1>where people are signing the back of the check with

0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.160
<v Speaker 1>the people that run those things, or signed in the

0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.200
<v Speaker 1>front of the check. They're not able to use GoF

0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.840
<v Speaker 1>as a amenity for housing anything else. They're trying to

0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.239
<v Speaker 1>run golf courses, and so they look for a way

0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.160
<v Speaker 1>that allows them to make a profit, and most cases

0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.360
<v Speaker 1>make a living because, in my opinion, most of God

0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.120
<v Speaker 1>in this country is mom and pop. It's just that

0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.520
<v Speaker 1>you don't it doesn't bring the attention and you don't

0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.960
<v Speaker 1>hear of it like you do the top five hundred.

0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.400
<v Speaker 1>So let's just forget those top five hundred today and

0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.280
<v Speaker 1>let's talk about the rest of the five hundred and

0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.800
<v Speaker 1>twenty million rounds that are played. And with that, if

0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.559
<v Speaker 1>I'm building in Georgia, let's just say, in Georgia, if

0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.720
<v Speaker 1>I'm building a green for tiff eagle grass.

0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:49.960
<v Speaker 2>This is a Bermuda grass right tiff Eagle is.

0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:54.439
<v Speaker 1>The ultra door permuda grass that is probably the number

0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.960
<v Speaker 1>one being used now. And I'm in a smaller course

0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:02.800
<v Speaker 1>that's that can't afford the luxuries. I'm going to go

0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:07.080
<v Speaker 1>with twelve inches of river sand. I've learned the hard

0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.720
<v Speaker 1>way not to in the cavity. In the low areas

0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.400
<v Speaker 1>of the cavity, I try to open it up my

0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.800
<v Speaker 1>feather the sand out into the chipping areas so that

0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.200
<v Speaker 1>I don't have a capture any moisture or anything in

0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.760
<v Speaker 1>those low ends. Number moodagrass is looking for moisture in

0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.240
<v Speaker 1>the top two inches. So we just put the sand up,

0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.079
<v Speaker 1>floated out the way we need it and build it.

0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:34.400
<v Speaker 1>And that green is much more considerably cheaper than building

0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.640
<v Speaker 1>a USGA green. Where I've got to build a cavity,

0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:39.760
<v Speaker 1>I've got to make sure all the layers are parallel.

0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.480
<v Speaker 1>I'm going through. I'm probably at fifteen dollars a square

0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.000
<v Speaker 1>foot now, and this way i might be at three

0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:52.040
<v Speaker 1>dollars now. The thing about all that is the way

0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.839
<v Speaker 1>it gets marketed is there's a cheap ass over there

0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.760
<v Speaker 1>building this stuff that way. But the thing is my

0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.280
<v Speaker 1>guy's making a profit, the other guy might not be.

0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.760
<v Speaker 2>Right, and that has to be the argument, right, how

0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.920
<v Speaker 2>can you actually make a living owning a golf course

0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.680
<v Speaker 2>if you spend as much as people sometimes spend. So

0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.440
<v Speaker 2>what you're describing here with the river sand in just

0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:18.240
<v Speaker 2>this very it's kind of simple method of building, but

0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:22.480
<v Speaker 2>time tested. This is, as I understand it, a fairly

0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.360
<v Speaker 2>old fashioned way of building greens, right.

0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:26.959
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, I think if you look up until recently,

0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.240
<v Speaker 1>Marion's green, Oakmont's greens, all of those were extremely old greens,

0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.559
<v Speaker 1>and they were push up and you know, if you

0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.880
<v Speaker 1>might have had a foot of top dressing from over

0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.200
<v Speaker 1>the years, it's just pushed up. It's just sands pushed up.

0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.960
<v Speaker 1>And I can read and listen to all the hype

0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.720
<v Speaker 1>on the USGA green, and back when I was starting, man,

0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.719
<v Speaker 1>you were a bad boy if you didn't build a

0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.480
<v Speaker 1>USGA green. But there were several big boys that didn't

0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.920
<v Speaker 1>build USGA greens, and there were several that would say

0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.400
<v Speaker 1>they did. But if you went and measured it, there

0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.720
<v Speaker 1>might be thirty inches of sand in one puck spot

0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.520
<v Speaker 1>and ten inches in the other. But they had that

0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.040
<v Speaker 1>gravel on the bottom, and they preached the USGA green.

0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:13.760
<v Speaker 1>So if you're going strictly by the specifications, not the recommendation,

0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.800
<v Speaker 1>but the specification, you have to have your layers parallel,

0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.480
<v Speaker 1>and I think you're allowed a half inch of variation.

0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.240
<v Speaker 1>So if you get outside at half inch of variation,

0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.079
<v Speaker 1>did you really build a USGA green? I don't know.

0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.920
<v Speaker 2>So, you know, when it comes to deciding whether to

0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:37.760
<v Speaker 2>build a USGA green, for instance, or a green after

0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.880
<v Speaker 2>a more old fashioned method, you know, a push up

0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.600
<v Speaker 2>green basically made out of sand that's available. How do

0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.760
<v Speaker 2>people go about making that decision, do you think? And

0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:51.959
<v Speaker 2>why is it that they might go for the more

0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:52.720
<v Speaker 2>expensive option.

0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.840
<v Speaker 1>I think that a lot of golf courses, especially in

0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.720
<v Speaker 1>the nineties, people say, you know, though there was a

0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.360
<v Speaker 1>golf boom in the nineties, there wasn't a golf boom.

0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:04.800
<v Speaker 1>It was people wanted to buy junk land put a

0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.360
<v Speaker 1>golf course on it so they could sell forty houses

0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.560
<v Speaker 1>per hole. Now you've actually got a real golf boom,

0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.240
<v Speaker 1>but might not be as big. But they're building the

0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.040
<v Speaker 1>golf for golf. And when they build it for golf,

0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:21.160
<v Speaker 1>they're finding land that allows you to go out there

0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.160
<v Speaker 1>and in many cases just build a green on the

0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.440
<v Speaker 1>land that's there. When you're in a place that shouldn't

0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.439
<v Speaker 1>have a golf course, but some dude wants to put

0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.520
<v Speaker 1>it there so he can have his houses. You might

0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.200
<v Speaker 1>have to build a USGA green to make it work.

0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.640
<v Speaker 1>If you come into a sandy site, you've got plenty

0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.760
<v Speaker 1>of sunlight, you've got ways to move the water and

0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.439
<v Speaker 1>get it off the green. You might can put ten

0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:48.480
<v Speaker 1>twelve inches of sand down there and build a hell

0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.640
<v Speaker 1>out of it and be and have something that works.

0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.600
<v Speaker 1>And again it goes back to your superintendent. You're a

0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.040
<v Speaker 1>good superintendent that's going to grow that grass on concrete,

0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:05.280
<v Speaker 1>so it's Bermuda grass not vin grass. Right.

0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.840
<v Speaker 2>Well, I mean there's a couple of factors here, right.

0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.520
<v Speaker 2>There's the quality of the land, as you say, if

0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.599
<v Speaker 2>you're building on a swamp, then you might need to

0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.480
<v Speaker 2>build more expensively. But if you're building on a good

0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.880
<v Speaker 2>piece of land, as many golf courses are now that

0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.680
<v Speaker 2>we're more focused on core golf, then you might not

0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.360
<v Speaker 2>need the extra bells and whistles. And then the other factor,

0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.440
<v Speaker 2>as you say, is the superintendent and what they're able

0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.440
<v Speaker 2>to do. And it's pretty amazing what superintendents are able

0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:33.400
<v Speaker 2>to do these days right.

0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.760
<v Speaker 1>It is by far the best golf course owners are superintendents.

0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.000
<v Speaker 1>And I've i sold one of my golf courses. I

0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:43.400
<v Speaker 1>had one of the first ones I did to a

0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.640
<v Speaker 1>guy that had worked at Augusta Nationally became the director

0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.000
<v Speaker 1>of golf at Rentals Plantation. He called one dancing Mike.

0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.640
<v Speaker 1>It's they start getting rid of superintendents at fifty I

0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.400
<v Speaker 1>got to find a course. Well, it's funny the budget

0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.839
<v Speaker 1>he had down there and the budget he created when

0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.400
<v Speaker 1>he got his own, I would give him hell about it.

0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.480
<v Speaker 1>It was one tenth. He says, well, hell, I know

0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.000
<v Speaker 1>what to do on this end. But it's you know,

0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.760
<v Speaker 1>knowing how to do it for the right price. And

0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:12.839
<v Speaker 1>he knew how to do it for the right price,

0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:18.320
<v Speaker 1>ground driven reels, right applications of fertilizer, how to. And

0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.320
<v Speaker 1>that's what's funny, the really good superintendents that know how

0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.440
<v Speaker 1>to do it for that price. And for me, my

0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.640
<v Speaker 1>superintendent of the year is always going to be that

0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.440
<v Speaker 1>dude that can get that three hundred thousand dollars budget

0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.080
<v Speaker 1>looking jam up, versus the dude that's got ten ribbons

0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.840
<v Speaker 1>and five assistants And I don't mean anything against the

0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.480
<v Speaker 1>dude the other dude. I'm just saying there's a hell

0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:42.480
<v Speaker 1>a lot to be said for that.

0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.280
<v Speaker 2>It takes a certain confidence to say I don't need

0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.040
<v Speaker 2>that extra stuff to help me. I as a superintendent

0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.280
<v Speaker 2>can deal with what I'm given here on a low budget.

0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.240
<v Speaker 2>But you understand the perspective of the superintendents who ask

0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.200
<v Speaker 2>for the extra stuff, who asked for the USBA spack

0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.240
<v Speaker 2>and the precision era and all that. You understand that

0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.880
<v Speaker 2>because their jobs depend on having good grass and all

0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.520
<v Speaker 2>that stuff gives them a little bit more room for error.

0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.800
<v Speaker 1>Right, That's right. And that's basically what I'm saying is

0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.840
<v Speaker 1>I can appreciate that, understand it. But if those guys

0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.600
<v Speaker 1>have a chance to own their own golf course and

0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.280
<v Speaker 1>they're having to pay for it, it's amazing what they

0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:29.440
<v Speaker 1>can get done with their knowledge for numbers that they

0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.880
<v Speaker 1>can't they can't do it otherwise. Like my son told him, Superintendent,

0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.200
<v Speaker 1>that's one of the new sand based courses going, that's

0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.920
<v Speaker 1>in going in Georgia. Now. He asked him one day,

0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.440
<v Speaker 1>said how did you get all that poe out of

0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.800
<v Speaker 1>that permuter grass down there? And he said, look, says

0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.560
<v Speaker 1>you can't do what I did, said you'd be fired.

0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.600
<v Speaker 1>And because he said, what do you mean, he said, well,

0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800
<v Speaker 1>I own the place. I can spray round up. You can't.

0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.200
<v Speaker 1>And that's you know, those are the kind of things

0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.520
<v Speaker 1>that can't. I don't blame those guys. I'm just saying

0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.240
<v Speaker 1>that's the difference. Yeah. You know.

0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.160
<v Speaker 2>One of my favorite stories about affordable golf getting built

0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.440
<v Speaker 2>is that Diamond Springs in Michigan. It's a course outside

0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:11.200
<v Speaker 2>of Grand Rapids. The best known architect behind it was

0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:15.080
<v Speaker 2>Mike Devrees, but there were two architects behind this course.

0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.280
<v Speaker 2>The other was named k is named Chris Shoemaker, and

0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.800
<v Speaker 2>he was a superintendent who had previously been at another

0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.080
<v Speaker 2>golf course in Michigan, and he was also the owner,

0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.760
<v Speaker 2>the initial owner of Diamond Springs, and so he came

0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.760
<v Speaker 2>in and the whole place was one cut, one fairway cut.

0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.080
<v Speaker 2>And then you have the greens. There's single row irrigation,

0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.480
<v Speaker 2>very simple bunkers, very simple green construction. And you look

0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.040
<v Speaker 2>at that and say, well, if more golf courses were

0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.120
<v Speaker 2>built like that, more golf courses would be affordable. And

0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.760
<v Speaker 2>so you're absolutely right that superintendents know what they can

0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.280
<v Speaker 2>do to make a place affordable. It just you know,

0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:58.800
<v Speaker 2>if they're in the position of owning the course, that's

0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.120
<v Speaker 2>when they're really going to act on that knowledge, I suppose.

0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.720
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you see some really good affordable golf courses

0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:07.280
<v Speaker 1>owned by superintendents.

0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, I mean to an extent including you know,

0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.600
<v Speaker 2>your ownership of the fields. You're not a superintendent exactly,

0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.439
<v Speaker 2>but you have been in the in the industry of

0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.480
<v Speaker 2>constructing and growing grass for years.

0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.159
<v Speaker 1>And my son, my son does all the agronomy and

0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:28.440
<v Speaker 1>he basically his degrees in finance, and he basically got

0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.160
<v Speaker 1>on the internet and read everything he could and talked

0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.000
<v Speaker 1>to superintendents and he loves doing it. Right.

0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.080
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's let's talk about bunkers. Let's go on

0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.000
<v Speaker 2>to the next component here. How do you build bunkers

0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.320
<v Speaker 2>to use your term with economic efficiency.

0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:52.399
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's a bunker. It's like it's not a green

0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:59.040
<v Speaker 1>And I can appreciate the technology and the the inventive

0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.600
<v Speaker 1>ways that have come I'm about but I think if

0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.919
<v Speaker 1>you throw the sand pro away and don't put a

0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.480
<v Speaker 1>sandpro in a bunker, and put six inches of sand

0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.440
<v Speaker 1>in a bunker, that'll drain and it won't let water

0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.240
<v Speaker 1>come into it except verticant, except from the air, not

0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.680
<v Speaker 1>from the edges. And you rake that bunker two or

0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.359
<v Speaker 1>three times a week, it'll last long enough to take

0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.119
<v Speaker 1>that sand out and put new sand in it in

0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.240
<v Speaker 1>a few years. You might hose out your drain from

0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.080
<v Speaker 1>the other end to make sure there's not a gopher

0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.640
<v Speaker 1>or something in it every two or three years. But

0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.080
<v Speaker 1>I do that. And the coolest thing I've been I've

0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.800
<v Speaker 1>been doing it late lately, and I'm doing it in

0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:43.320
<v Speaker 1>warm Mouth, is I'm side an entire bunker. I like that.

0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.480
<v Speaker 1>I like that, And it might be we're going to see,

0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.679
<v Speaker 1>but so far I've had no issues. I like that,

0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.080
<v Speaker 1>But I just think that it's it's the other thing

0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.919
<v Speaker 1>is if you try to make your golf course indigenous

0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.800
<v Speaker 1>to the location, you you don't have the freely age,

0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.480
<v Speaker 1>you don't have the bunker you would find in sand

0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.399
<v Speaker 1>hills in Georgia where are clay based. In most cases

0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.959
<v Speaker 1>were clay, and that that bunker's artificial at best, and

0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.240
<v Speaker 1>so you're throwing sand in the cavity, So you just

0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.240
<v Speaker 1>got to make sure nothing else goes in it, and

0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.399
<v Speaker 1>you don't need to use that many bunkers on golf

0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.800
<v Speaker 1>courses that you're that are affordable golf courses I'm trying

0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.480
<v Speaker 1>to keep the budget.

0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.119
<v Speaker 2>Then well, okay, so there are two sides of this

0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.200
<v Speaker 2>issue that I'm curious about with bunkers. One is this

0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.040
<v Speaker 2>technology that you talked about, the different ways of kind

0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.240
<v Speaker 2>of building the bottom of the bunker, I suppose or

0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.320
<v Speaker 2>they're like the structure of the bunker. You mentioned that

0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.040
<v Speaker 2>you're using SOD right now at Warmouth Sands, and that's

0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.879
<v Speaker 2>that's one way that maybe isn't as common anymore. The

0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.720
<v Speaker 2>other the other aspect that I'm interested in is style,

0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.239
<v Speaker 2>and we can address that later. But right now, you

0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:06.119
<v Speaker 2>know a lot of what's available for structuring a bunker,

0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.800
<v Speaker 2>for making sure it drains. That that has changed.

0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:10.000
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.359
<v Speaker 2>We've got these liners now that are new and that

0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.120
<v Speaker 2>a lot of older courses are starting to put in,

0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:22.160
<v Speaker 2>and these are supposedly going to just make the bunkers

0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.400
<v Speaker 2>better over time. So you know, what do you make

0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.800
<v Speaker 2>and they're expensive, right, There's there's a cost that comes

0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.920
<v Speaker 2>with putting these liners in bunkers. What do you say

0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:39.480
<v Speaker 2>about that method of structuring a bunker and does it

0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.360
<v Speaker 2>provide more assurance that the bunker is going to keep

0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.119
<v Speaker 2>its shape or you know, be better quality over the

0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.760
<v Speaker 2>long term. Or do you think that that's for the

0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.040
<v Speaker 2>most part in unnecessary expenditure.

0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.560
<v Speaker 1>I think for guys that can afford that luxury and

0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:56.840
<v Speaker 1>they want to do it, I think the main two

0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:01.560
<v Speaker 1>methods better billy bunker and the capillary concrete, then it's

0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.600
<v Speaker 1>okay to do it. I think that from what I've seen,

0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.320
<v Speaker 1>not being an expert on those two methods, but I've used.

0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.000
<v Speaker 1>I've used the capillary concrete a few times. I don't

0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.680
<v Speaker 1>have any problem with it. I can't afford it on

0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.320
<v Speaker 1>my golf course and on courses where guys are saying, hey,

0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.760
<v Speaker 1>what can we do. I'm gonna go with the grass

0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.840
<v Speaker 1>because we can afford that. But the number one thing

0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.760
<v Speaker 1>I think to keep a bunker working is keep enough

0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.880
<v Speaker 1>sand in it. Every problem I've seen with these bunkers

0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.879
<v Speaker 1>is where the sand gets so shallow. If it's capillary concrete,

0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.200
<v Speaker 1>if it's better billy, if it's no liner, it's where

0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.439
<v Speaker 1>some dude kept raking it in a circle with a

0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.360
<v Speaker 1>sand pro And finally you just get down to where

0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:47.439
<v Speaker 1>there's nothing but a liner and you grab the liner.

0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.160
<v Speaker 1>One day, or you hit the gravel, or you do whatever.

0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:52.960
<v Speaker 1>But if you've got a guy where he probes that

0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.280
<v Speaker 1>sand and keeps that sand consistently at five or six inches,

0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:58.879
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of your problems go away, no

0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.840
<v Speaker 1>matter what you've got in it. Now me as a

0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.040
<v Speaker 1>you know, I'm a seventy one year old, grumpy, old

0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:09.640
<v Speaker 1>white dude. And so much of our golf today is subsidized.

0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.320
<v Speaker 1>And by that, I mean you'll have a guy that

0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.520
<v Speaker 1>has the money to build a golf course that's forty

0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.159
<v Speaker 1>million dollars golf course, and I think that's great. I

0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:22.000
<v Speaker 1>think more power to it. He doesn't have to make

0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:25.120
<v Speaker 1>that money back when he's just playing with it, so

0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:27.760
<v Speaker 1>he can afford to do that. And if he's charging

0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:29.919
<v Speaker 1>you fifteen hundred dollars a day to play golf or

0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:34.400
<v Speaker 1>something like that, that's fine. He's still subsidizing you. You're

0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.840
<v Speaker 1>not making a profit for him at that. And so

0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.280
<v Speaker 1>much of this golf we see at those levels. You

0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.040
<v Speaker 1>ask yourself what happens if he gets tired of it

0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.160
<v Speaker 1>and the next guy comes along. What if somebody had

0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:50.639
<v Speaker 1>to make a profit, how do they do it? And

0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.199
<v Speaker 1>that's my whole thing, is you know, Kayser's really the

0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:56.640
<v Speaker 1>only ones that have really figured this thing out as

0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.000
<v Speaker 1>far as building this thing and making a numbers work.

0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.960
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of this these hotels and all. Often

0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.040
<v Speaker 1>it's just to sell rooms and they're they're there. You

0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.760
<v Speaker 1>build a golf course for them, and they don't know

0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:11.880
<v Speaker 1>about the golf. They just want to it's an amenity

0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:13.040
<v Speaker 1>to sell rooms, right.

0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.000
<v Speaker 2>It's a lot a lost leader as they as they

0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:15.240
<v Speaker 2>put it.

0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so I think when you get down to, you know,

0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.320
<v Speaker 1>a superintendent, and this is going to sound like, oh,

0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.680
<v Speaker 1>here's here's the seventy one year old grumpio white dude

0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.880
<v Speaker 1>bitching at superintendent's guy comes in, tells his owner, Man,

0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:33.040
<v Speaker 1>I need capillary concrete or I need this. I can

0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:35.600
<v Speaker 1>save this. I can save you this many dollars over

0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:38.840
<v Speaker 1>the next five years. Well, okay, maybe you can, but

0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:42.040
<v Speaker 1>but you're starting off putting three hundred thousand dollars in

0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:45.239
<v Speaker 1>the bunkers. And for example, of course I did in

0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.560
<v Speaker 1>a town on the coast in Georgia. I find out

0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.280
<v Speaker 1>they're putting capillary concrete in the bunkers. They went to

0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.440
<v Speaker 1>the show, saw the capillary concrete, and the parks and

0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:56.840
<v Speaker 1>rec directions, Oh, let's do this. Didn't ask anything about it.

0:23:57.200 --> 0:23:59.400
<v Speaker 1>He just had somebody to come in put the concrete

0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:04.000
<v Speaker 1>in there. It's it's not a good, very good product,

0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.879
<v Speaker 1>but not everybody can afford those things. And that's alid,

0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.320
<v Speaker 1>isn't I don't know that I make my money back

0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.000
<v Speaker 1>on any of that. I want to be cash flowing

0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.600
<v Speaker 1>each year. I don't want to be dreaming about how

0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:17.520
<v Speaker 1>much I'm going to save over the next five years.

0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:21.080
<v Speaker 1>Cash flows the game, it's a mom and golf in

0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:24.560
<v Speaker 1>the United States is mom and pop for five hundred

0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:28.200
<v Speaker 1>million rounds, and mom and pop know how to do.

0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.760
<v Speaker 2>It, and you know, a lot of this it seems

0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.479
<v Speaker 2>to me comes down to anxiety about the future. I

0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.440
<v Speaker 2>guess because if you're if you're an affordable municipal course,

0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:44.600
<v Speaker 2>you don't have capillary concrete or better billy, and somebody

0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:48.320
<v Speaker 2>comes to you and says your bunkers are under threat

0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.600
<v Speaker 2>because they don't have this product. It takes a little

0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:53.840
<v Speaker 2>bit of knowledge and a little bit of guts to say,

0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:56.520
<v Speaker 2>you know what, actually, I think I think our bunkers

0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:59.119
<v Speaker 2>are fine. Is that just the point that people have

0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:02.240
<v Speaker 2>to get to where they say I'm confident that I

0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:06.960
<v Speaker 2>can keep these bunkers hanging together with the construction that

0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:07.400
<v Speaker 2>they have.

0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:10.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I think that's a personality deal. I think

0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:14.320
<v Speaker 1>it's ay, we can be x rated for a second,

0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:17.960
<v Speaker 1>right sure. Like it's like it's sometimes it's a wiener

0:25:18.000 --> 0:25:24.720
<v Speaker 1>measuring contests and and the you know, the course down

0:25:24.720 --> 0:25:27.720
<v Speaker 1>the street. It just got better, billy or whatever. So

0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:31.000
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to do it. And it's it's not when

0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:34.159
<v Speaker 1>you the old method. If if a guy gives you

0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.200
<v Speaker 1>a budget and you don't spend all the budget, then

0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:37.919
<v Speaker 1>then next year all you're going to get is what

0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:40.760
<v Speaker 1>you spent this year. I think that's very true with

0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:44.960
<v Speaker 1>a lot of places, and superintendents know that. So for

0:25:45.000 --> 0:25:47.560
<v Speaker 1>a lot of superintendents, in order to in order to

0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:51.680
<v Speaker 1>progress and move forward and get better jobs and all

0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:55.320
<v Speaker 1>the object is to get the best budget and give

0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:58.480
<v Speaker 1>it the best product you can give it. I have

0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:01.359
<v Speaker 1>no problem with that, no problem with anybody doing that.

0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:03.800
<v Speaker 1>But when it comes to making a profit, when it

0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:06.720
<v Speaker 1>comes to working for mom and pop, there's a lot

0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:09.600
<v Speaker 1>of superintendents that can make pretty good money on an

0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:14.080
<v Speaker 1>incentive basis working for these small families. Knowing when to

0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:17.359
<v Speaker 1>call bullshit, and that's does that. I hope that doesn't

0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:20.439
<v Speaker 1>offend anybody, but it's I appreciate the guy at the

0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:23.720
<v Speaker 1>two and a half million dollar budget course and the

0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:25.840
<v Speaker 1>same guy to quarter million dollar budget course.

0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:28.840
<v Speaker 2>I don't think it offends anybody. I think everybody can

0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:33.160
<v Speaker 2>relate with this where they hear about some new, great

0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.360
<v Speaker 2>product and they think, wait a minute, do I need that?

0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:39.159
<v Speaker 2>Is that actually going to save me money in the

0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:41.440
<v Speaker 2>long run? And at some point you just got to

0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:44.560
<v Speaker 2>have the confidence of saying, this is an expenditure that

0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:47.280
<v Speaker 2>I'm not necessarily going to make it back. It's going

0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:49.880
<v Speaker 2>to cost me a lot right now, and I don't

0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:51.520
<v Speaker 2>think it's going to save me that much in the

0:26:51.560 --> 0:26:54.640
<v Speaker 2>long run. So that's an interesting issue. And I mean,

0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:58.040
<v Speaker 2>obviously this is also site specific. I'm sure that some

0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:01.679
<v Speaker 2>sites are are you know, demand more of this kind

0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:02.600
<v Speaker 2>of technology.

0:27:02.960 --> 0:27:06.920
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it's very, very very site specific. It it's very

0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:09.919
<v Speaker 1>siche specific specific.

0:27:12.800 --> 0:27:15.640
<v Speaker 2>Let's get into irrigation systems, all right. So we've talked

0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:18.879
<v Speaker 2>about greens, We've talked about bunkers. Irrigation systems are a

0:27:18.880 --> 0:27:21.800
<v Speaker 2>big issue right now when it comes to the costs

0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:25.439
<v Speaker 2>of golf construction. I think a big factor is that

0:27:25.520 --> 0:27:28.320
<v Speaker 2>a lot of the irrigation contractors are booked out to

0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:33.119
<v Speaker 2>you know, twenty forty five or whatever, and so supply

0:27:33.160 --> 0:27:35.040
<v Speaker 2>and demand is all out of whack and a whack,

0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:38.000
<v Speaker 2>and it just it just causes the situation where the

0:27:38.440 --> 0:27:42.000
<v Speaker 2>irrigation contractors can kind of charge what they want to charge.

0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:46.080
<v Speaker 2>So would you say it's even possible at this moment

0:27:46.560 --> 0:27:49.040
<v Speaker 2>to do irrigation on a budget.

0:27:49.320 --> 0:27:51.679
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it's possible, but you need to know how to

0:27:51.720 --> 0:27:54.360
<v Speaker 1>do that. I mean today I went to buy some

0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.639
<v Speaker 1>six inch PBC putt. It was twelve dollars and twenty

0:27:58.640 --> 0:28:02.040
<v Speaker 1>five cents of foot. That's two hundred and fifty dollars

0:28:02.080 --> 0:28:05.040
<v Speaker 1>for a twenty foot piece of pipe. PVC is now

0:28:05.160 --> 0:28:10.200
<v Speaker 1>higher than HDPE, and the HDPE product is a really

0:28:10.200 --> 0:28:11.680
<v Speaker 1>good product for putting in irrigation.

0:28:12.480 --> 0:28:14.800
<v Speaker 2>Can you tell me what these things are, Give me

0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:17.440
<v Speaker 2>some context for what you're talking about here.

0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:21.040
<v Speaker 1>PVC is polyvil chloride pipe that we've always used, has

0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:23.080
<v Speaker 1>a bell housing on it. You slip it together in

0:28:23.080 --> 0:28:27.399
<v Speaker 1>twenty foot links put the system together. The HDPE is

0:28:27.440 --> 0:28:31.600
<v Speaker 1>a thick walled, high density poly ethylene pipe. You can

0:28:31.640 --> 0:28:33.800
<v Speaker 1>pull it in the ground with a vibratory plow. Some

0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:35.400
<v Speaker 1>of them pull in the four inch and the six

0:28:35.480 --> 0:28:39.920
<v Speaker 1>inch so you can weld it all together. You don't

0:28:39.960 --> 0:28:41.720
<v Speaker 1>have to slip it together and put it in a

0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:43.880
<v Speaker 1>ditch like that. You can weld it all together, pull

0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:46.800
<v Speaker 1>it down a fairway. You can pop a saddle on

0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:50.400
<v Speaker 1>wherever you need it, put the swing joints in, put

0:28:50.400 --> 0:28:53.920
<v Speaker 1>the heads in. But it doesn't have a free style

0:28:54.040 --> 0:28:56.800
<v Speaker 1>cycle like PVC. You don't have to have a frost

0:28:56.880 --> 0:29:00.840
<v Speaker 1>line on it. It can bend, you don't have to

0:29:00.920 --> 0:29:02.840
<v Speaker 1>drain it, it can expand there's so much you can

0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:05.479
<v Speaker 1>do with it, and so but it's always been more

0:29:05.520 --> 0:29:10.840
<v Speaker 1>expensive up until recently, and now PBC's gotten where it's

0:29:11.720 --> 0:29:16.160
<v Speaker 1>more expensive than that pipe. But irrigation is a very

0:29:16.640 --> 0:29:21.720
<v Speaker 1>frustrating thing for those of us that have that. Try

0:29:21.800 --> 0:29:25.280
<v Speaker 1>to build a four and a half to six million

0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:29.320
<v Speaker 1>dollar golf course, and mean, I mean new right now,

0:29:29.480 --> 0:29:32.400
<v Speaker 1>and you know that you can still easily do that,

0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:38.080
<v Speaker 1>but there's things like this past year, pump stations were

0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:41.600
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and eighty two hundred thousand dollars. I was

0:29:41.680 --> 0:29:44.600
<v Speaker 1>looking for one. I couldn't wait a year. I called

0:29:44.680 --> 0:29:48.280
<v Speaker 1>them pump station. I got an irrigation guy up in Wisconsin.

0:29:49.040 --> 0:29:50.760
<v Speaker 1>I said, man, I need to find a good pump

0:29:50.840 --> 0:29:53.600
<v Speaker 1>station that's out there. And he said, well, you know,

0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:56.400
<v Speaker 1>Blue Mound just got a new one. I've got one

0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:59.040
<v Speaker 1>that's seven years old or something. Said, I think you

0:29:59.080 --> 0:30:01.840
<v Speaker 1>can get it for ten thousand dollars. Okay, So we

0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:05.240
<v Speaker 1>take the ten thousand dollars station, we put thirty thousand

0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:08.600
<v Speaker 1>dollars into it, and it's a it's a very good

0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:12.000
<v Speaker 1>pump station. Those kind of things are out there. There's

0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:17.000
<v Speaker 1>there's several goth superintendents that have gotten innovative. There's one

0:30:17.000 --> 0:30:20.480
<v Speaker 1>guy in Florida who Jeff Cooors his name. I mean,

0:30:20.520 --> 0:30:24.400
<v Speaker 1>I can give him that, I guess, and Jeff will

0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:26.720
<v Speaker 1>go out to Arizona or wherever, and some of these

0:30:26.760 --> 0:30:29.680
<v Speaker 1>places that have the jack will be changing heads and

0:30:29.760 --> 0:30:32.320
<v Speaker 1>all every few years, and he'll take all that and

0:30:32.320 --> 0:30:35.760
<v Speaker 1>buy that stuff. And I can call Jeff and buy

0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:40.880
<v Speaker 1>a controller that's rebuilt for maybe a thousand bucks where

0:30:40.920 --> 0:30:44.080
<v Speaker 1>it might be eight or nine thousand dollars new. I

0:30:44.080 --> 0:30:46.880
<v Speaker 1>can say, hey, I need some heads that are this

0:30:47.000 --> 0:30:49.720
<v Speaker 1>type of Toro head or this type of hunter head

0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:51.800
<v Speaker 1>or this kind of Yeah, I've got those. I just

0:30:51.960 --> 0:30:54.600
<v Speaker 1>I've just rebuilt these and put new soloonoids in them,

0:30:54.600 --> 0:30:56.560
<v Speaker 1>and I'll buy them for one third of what they

0:30:56.600 --> 0:31:00.240
<v Speaker 1>cost me. And so somebody in one of those meanies

0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:02.280
<v Speaker 1>right now saying that son of a bitch is on

0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:05.840
<v Speaker 1>the air saying about you stuff. Well, for most of

0:31:05.920 --> 0:31:10.040
<v Speaker 1>us does. Five hundred and twenty million rounds are played

0:31:10.080 --> 0:31:15.000
<v Speaker 1>on courses that cannot afford to buy what's being offered

0:31:15.000 --> 0:31:19.880
<v Speaker 1>to them in the market today. That's no different than

0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:23.600
<v Speaker 1>if nobody was offering a camera or a Honda or

0:31:23.640 --> 0:31:27.480
<v Speaker 1>a Nissan, whatever you call the comparable cars in those lenses,

0:31:28.520 --> 0:31:31.960
<v Speaker 1>and everybody was having to drive a Mercedes. You so

0:31:32.040 --> 0:31:34.840
<v Speaker 1>many of these courses have to find another product and

0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:37.800
<v Speaker 1>they can't buy that. They can't make it work. And

0:31:37.840 --> 0:31:40.920
<v Speaker 1>that's what you're saying. That irrigation system. You just have

0:31:41.000 --> 0:31:43.240
<v Speaker 1>to say, Hey, you know what, I'm fine with center

0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:47.320
<v Speaker 1>line irrigation. I'm fine with in and out heads. I mean,

0:31:47.880 --> 0:31:51.040
<v Speaker 1>just heads that are in or full circle heads on

0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:54.280
<v Speaker 1>my greens. Those I can live with that. You figure

0:31:54.320 --> 0:31:57.320
<v Speaker 1>those things out and you make it work. I mean

0:31:57.320 --> 0:31:59.920
<v Speaker 1>at the fields, everybody likes our firm and fast conditions.

0:32:00.120 --> 0:32:02.320
<v Speaker 1>They don't understand is I hadn't we had water fairways

0:32:02.320 --> 0:32:07.239
<v Speaker 1>in six years, so it's like we let we let

0:32:07.320 --> 0:32:10.320
<v Speaker 1>terrain do it. So you know, we water at greens

0:32:10.320 --> 0:32:13.560
<v Speaker 1>and teas and if we had the water fairways, I

0:32:13.560 --> 0:32:16.640
<v Speaker 1>don't know that all the heads work. So it's it's

0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:18.960
<v Speaker 1>not that we're giving them an inferior product. It's just

0:32:19.000 --> 0:32:21.040
<v Speaker 1>that that's what we do for our price range and

0:32:21.080 --> 0:32:22.200
<v Speaker 1>it works, right.

0:32:22.240 --> 0:32:25.800
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there's there's a few different domains of cost.

0:32:26.000 --> 0:32:29.160
<v Speaker 2>I guess when it comes to irrigation. There's the equipment,

0:32:29.400 --> 0:32:32.480
<v Speaker 2>which you're talking about, where there is kind of this

0:32:32.560 --> 0:32:36.440
<v Speaker 2>maybe secondhand market, black market or whatever you want to

0:32:36.480 --> 0:32:38.640
<v Speaker 2>call it. You have to know people in order to

0:32:39.080 --> 0:32:41.960
<v Speaker 2>in order to find stuff. So there's the equipment side

0:32:42.000 --> 0:32:45.160
<v Speaker 2>of it. Then there's the then there's labor. The labor

0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:49.120
<v Speaker 2>side of it. Right there are irrigation contractors out there

0:32:49.520 --> 0:32:52.440
<v Speaker 2>right now. They can charge a lot because they're very busy.

0:32:53.600 --> 0:32:56.120
<v Speaker 2>What does it take for a mom and pop golf

0:32:56.120 --> 0:32:59.719
<v Speaker 2>course to be able to kind of handle its irrigation

0:33:00.160 --> 0:33:02.920
<v Speaker 2>little bit more in house? What kind of skill set

0:33:02.960 --> 0:33:04.320
<v Speaker 2>do you need in order to do that?

0:33:05.240 --> 0:33:07.880
<v Speaker 1>Well? If a guy's got a good Mini X and

0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:11.200
<v Speaker 1>got a superintendent that's been around for a while you can.

0:33:11.600 --> 0:33:14.280
<v Speaker 1>You can keep an irrigation system up and running, and

0:33:15.000 --> 0:33:17.160
<v Speaker 1>mainly you're just trying to put water on your greens

0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:19.280
<v Speaker 1>and your teas, and you fairways when you need it,

0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:24.160
<v Speaker 1>and you've got to have some basic skill sets. But

0:33:24.200 --> 0:33:27.960
<v Speaker 1>it's just it's nothing that the average superintendent doesn't have.

0:33:28.080 --> 0:33:31.280
<v Speaker 1>It's just it's just whether or not you have to

0:33:31.320 --> 0:33:34.640
<v Speaker 1>do it or not you take I say all the time,

0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:39.440
<v Speaker 1>if a guy a million dollar cost, whether it's irrigation

0:33:39.640 --> 0:33:42.880
<v Speaker 1>or whatnot at a club with five hundred members, is

0:33:42.960 --> 0:33:46.240
<v Speaker 1>really a two thousand dollars cost because they divide that

0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:49.040
<v Speaker 1>by five hundred. If it's one owner, that's a million

0:33:49.080 --> 0:33:53.280
<v Speaker 1>dollar cost. And that's that's what people don't see sometimes,

0:33:53.280 --> 0:33:55.760
<v Speaker 1>so they think they're playing golf for their dews or whatnot.

0:33:55.760 --> 0:33:57.720
<v Speaker 1>But they just got tossess two million dollars. They just

0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:02.240
<v Speaker 1>got assess a couple thousand bucks igation system. All of

0:34:02.240 --> 0:34:05.280
<v Speaker 1>those things are either divided out by a membership or

0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:06.920
<v Speaker 1>they paid for by an owner who has to turn

0:34:06.920 --> 0:34:11.160
<v Speaker 1>around make a profit. And I think that the average golfer,

0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:13.720
<v Speaker 1>if it's green and he likes it and the grains

0:34:13.719 --> 0:34:16.320
<v Speaker 1>are good, he doesn't know what kind of irrigation system

0:34:16.360 --> 0:34:22.080
<v Speaker 1>you have, and it's it's to get a little scientific

0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:24.640
<v Speaker 1>on you. So many people now they like the window

0:34:24.680 --> 0:34:28.000
<v Speaker 1>the water window, and a water window is basically this.

0:34:28.239 --> 0:34:32.200
<v Speaker 1>It's where if a superintendent says I can water my

0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:35.120
<v Speaker 1>entire golf course in four hours, and I say, well,

0:34:35.200 --> 0:34:38.359
<v Speaker 1>it takes me nine hours. Well, here's the deal. Let's

0:34:38.400 --> 0:34:40.680
<v Speaker 1>say you have five hundred heads, and let's say those

0:34:40.719 --> 0:34:44.640
<v Speaker 1>heads use fifty gallons a minute, and you want a

0:34:44.680 --> 0:34:47.879
<v Speaker 1>water in ten minute cycle. So you say, okay, I've

0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:50.200
<v Speaker 1>got a pump station over here. That's a thousand gallon

0:34:50.239 --> 0:34:53.359
<v Speaker 1>pump station, and I run that at eighty percent, so

0:34:53.400 --> 0:34:55.920
<v Speaker 1>I can throw out eight hundred gallons a minute. So

0:34:56.000 --> 0:34:59.000
<v Speaker 1>I divide that fifty and eight hundred, and I get

0:34:59.360 --> 0:35:02.640
<v Speaker 1>what sixteen heads that I can water at one time.

0:35:02.800 --> 0:35:08.439
<v Speaker 1>So I divide that sixteen in ten minute cycles. That's

0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:13.200
<v Speaker 1>gonna give me six cycles every hour. So that's ninety

0:35:13.280 --> 0:35:16.319
<v Speaker 1>six heads an hour. Right, So at ninety six heads

0:35:16.360 --> 0:35:20.319
<v Speaker 1>an hour, if I had five hundred heads in five

0:35:20.400 --> 0:35:23.080
<v Speaker 1>and a half hours, I could water the golf course.

0:35:23.440 --> 0:35:27.560
<v Speaker 1>I've got a thousand heads that take me eleven hours. Well,

0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:31.640
<v Speaker 1>for most of us, it doesn't matter but if you

0:35:31.640 --> 0:35:36.040
<v Speaker 1>get into some of these bigger places that you don't

0:35:36.080 --> 0:35:38.760
<v Speaker 1>want the irrigation going while they're playing golf or something

0:35:38.840 --> 0:35:41.400
<v Speaker 1>like that, they've got to have a bigger pump station.

0:35:41.840 --> 0:35:44.520
<v Speaker 1>They've got to have the capacity to throw this thing

0:35:44.560 --> 0:35:47.080
<v Speaker 1>out in four hours. We don't, and I think most

0:35:47.120 --> 0:35:50.040
<v Speaker 1>mom and pumps. You look at these new pump stations.

0:35:50.120 --> 0:35:51.920
<v Speaker 1>A lot of guys out there just got one pump

0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:55.040
<v Speaker 1>coming up out of the ground and they're watering the

0:35:55.080 --> 0:35:57.680
<v Speaker 1>golf course. And you can go over here and go

0:35:58.239 --> 0:36:02.080
<v Speaker 1>to the superintendent show and get a pumps is big time.

0:36:02.200 --> 0:36:06.400
<v Speaker 1>That's a quarter million bucks somebody had buying them, But

0:36:06.480 --> 0:36:19.239
<v Speaker 1>it's not the five hundred and twenty million rounds. All right.

0:36:19.280 --> 0:36:21.440
<v Speaker 2>Hey, I wanted to take a quick break here to

0:36:21.560 --> 0:36:26.360
<v Speaker 2>talk about Club TFE. CLUBTF is Frida Egg Golf's membership.

0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:30.040
<v Speaker 2>Just go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership

0:36:30.040 --> 0:36:33.920
<v Speaker 2>and you can see everything that we're offering through CLUBTFE.

0:36:34.480 --> 0:36:36.160
<v Speaker 2>So a couple of things that we've been up to

0:36:36.440 --> 0:36:40.240
<v Speaker 2>lately in CLUBTF As far as our exclusive content goes,

0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:44.560
<v Speaker 2>there's a recent edition of our weekly Featured Design Notebook

0:36:44.920 --> 0:36:48.960
<v Speaker 2>where I have an in depth interview with a superintendent

0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:52.880
<v Speaker 2>and a GM at Grable, which is planning to open

0:36:52.960 --> 0:36:55.960
<v Speaker 2>up later this year. So the big thing that happened

0:36:56.000 --> 0:36:59.960
<v Speaker 2>to Grabil recently is that they almost got absolutely nailed

0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:03.640
<v Speaker 2>by a wildfire. Wildfires are pretty common in the Nebraska

0:37:03.960 --> 0:37:07.880
<v Speaker 2>sand hills where Gray Bowl is located, and it was

0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:10.759
<v Speaker 2>a scary situation that the fire was approaching. It was

0:37:10.800 --> 0:37:15.800
<v Speaker 2>basically on the property, and the people there, including Superintendent

0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:19.319
<v Speaker 2>Michael Sheeley and a couple of his employees, decided to

0:37:19.400 --> 0:37:22.040
<v Speaker 2>just make a stand, decided to try to fight the fire,

0:37:22.719 --> 0:37:26.439
<v Speaker 2>and it is really an amazing story. Thankfully, nobody was hurt,

0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:30.400
<v Speaker 2>so we can talk about it as a happy story,

0:37:30.920 --> 0:37:34.240
<v Speaker 2>but the account of it that I got from Michael

0:37:34.280 --> 0:37:38.200
<v Speaker 2>Sheeley as well as the GM of the facility, Tyler Hadden,

0:37:38.880 --> 0:37:42.040
<v Speaker 2>was just super compelling and that is a big part

0:37:42.160 --> 0:37:45.400
<v Speaker 2>of the most recent edition of Design Notebooks. So that's

0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:47.480
<v Speaker 2>just an example of the kind of content you get

0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:51.560
<v Speaker 2>in Club TFE. Club TF is so important to Friday Golf.

0:37:51.680 --> 0:37:54.600
<v Speaker 2>It really allows us to do the kind of in

0:37:54.680 --> 0:37:57.759
<v Speaker 2>depth content that we love to do that we think

0:37:57.800 --> 0:38:01.279
<v Speaker 2>our audience likes from us, and that's why we have

0:38:01.800 --> 0:38:05.000
<v Speaker 2>this subscription there's a lot of other things that go

0:38:05.080 --> 0:38:09.480
<v Speaker 2>with Club TFE. You have access to exclusive Club TFE

0:38:09.560 --> 0:38:13.239
<v Speaker 2>member events, you have early access to registration for all

0:38:13.320 --> 0:38:16.760
<v Speaker 2>Frida Egg golf events and things like that, ongoing discounting,

0:38:16.800 --> 0:38:20.160
<v Speaker 2>the pro shop, yearly member gift, all sorts of perks

0:38:20.200 --> 0:38:23.200
<v Speaker 2>like that. So if you're interested, go to the Frida

0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:26.720
<v Speaker 2>egg dot com slash membership and join us in the club.

0:38:33.080 --> 0:38:36.319
<v Speaker 2>All right, So we have talked about greens, We've talked

0:38:36.320 --> 0:38:41.320
<v Speaker 2>about bunkers, touched on irrigation. Are there any other big

0:38:41.480 --> 0:38:44.680
<v Speaker 2>cost factors we haven't discussed yet that you think we

0:38:44.719 --> 0:38:46.319
<v Speaker 2>should we should get into.

0:38:46.800 --> 0:38:49.480
<v Speaker 1>You know, well, the grassing right now is a pretty

0:38:49.480 --> 0:38:52.640
<v Speaker 1>big deal. It's always said in the South and been

0:38:52.680 --> 0:38:55.239
<v Speaker 1>said for years that people maintain bent grass, but they

0:38:55.280 --> 0:38:58.200
<v Speaker 1>grow bermuda grass because in the summertime you can't grow it.

0:38:58.239 --> 0:39:00.800
<v Speaker 1>You have to maintain it. And a lot of good

0:39:00.800 --> 0:39:03.520
<v Speaker 1>superintendents go crazy trying to do that down there. And

0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:08.279
<v Speaker 1>so in the fairways, we've gotten to where people they're

0:39:08.280 --> 0:39:11.920
<v Speaker 1>putting down tiff grand this year, they're putting down to

0:39:12.040 --> 0:39:14.040
<v Speaker 1>home of thirty one or something. The next year, they're

0:39:14.040 --> 0:39:16.680
<v Speaker 1>putting down tiff tough. This year at the end of

0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:19.840
<v Speaker 1>the day, if I go to Scotland or somewhere to

0:39:19.840 --> 0:39:22.880
<v Speaker 1>play golf, they don't know what a mono stand is.

0:39:22.920 --> 0:39:26.360
<v Speaker 1>And basically a monostand is one grass. Everything else sprayed out.

0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:30.960
<v Speaker 1>Americans love that monostan stuff. Well, give me like a

0:39:31.000 --> 0:39:33.680
<v Speaker 1>four to nineteen permuta grass in the south and let

0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:36.040
<v Speaker 1>me cut it down to a half inch. And when

0:39:36.080 --> 0:39:37.839
<v Speaker 1>I cut it, I'm gonna kill half the I'm gonna

0:39:37.880 --> 0:39:40.000
<v Speaker 1>cut kill most of the weeds. You'll never know the difference.

0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:42.640
<v Speaker 1>And there could be three different grasses in there, and

0:39:42.719 --> 0:39:44.520
<v Speaker 1>most people are gonna go play golf and not know

0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:47.719
<v Speaker 1>the difference. But we have gotten so complicated with some

0:39:47.760 --> 0:39:51.040
<v Speaker 1>of this stuff that we are spending so much money

0:39:51.080 --> 0:39:55.040
<v Speaker 1>on some of these grasses. And it's when I first started.

0:39:55.080 --> 0:39:57.520
<v Speaker 1>We spread everything except for around the greens and the

0:39:57.520 --> 0:40:00.560
<v Speaker 1>bunker faces. Now they sot an entire golf course. You know,

0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:04.279
<v Speaker 1>I was looking at sod on a project today and

0:40:04.320 --> 0:40:08.560
<v Speaker 1>it was dollars and ten cents a foot installed and

0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:12.000
<v Speaker 1>buy carpet for that, I mean, I buy cheap carpet.

0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:18.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, it has become sort of a radical idea,

0:40:18.840 --> 0:40:21.320
<v Speaker 2>even to to sprig a golf course, it's not really

0:40:21.360 --> 0:40:24.839
<v Speaker 2>something that people do anymore because, as I understand it, it

0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:27.120
<v Speaker 2>just takes a little bit longer, right, and it's a

0:40:27.160 --> 0:40:29.840
<v Speaker 2>little bit less reliable. You know, when you're when you

0:40:30.040 --> 0:40:32.239
<v Speaker 2>saw the whole thing, you know when it's going to

0:40:32.320 --> 0:40:35.160
<v Speaker 2>be ready a little bit better you.

0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:37.000
<v Speaker 1>Do, and you might not have the you know, that's

0:40:37.000 --> 0:40:38.640
<v Speaker 1>where they say, you all, you're going to save this

0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:41.040
<v Speaker 1>much on erosion and all this odd You might, but

0:40:41.080 --> 0:40:43.160
<v Speaker 1>what if you don't have the money to do it?

0:40:43.160 --> 0:40:45.840
<v Speaker 1>It just I mean, how long did it take the

0:40:45.880 --> 0:40:49.120
<v Speaker 1>old old dead guys. Some of the courses took two years,

0:40:49.120 --> 0:40:51.640
<v Speaker 1>three years to get ready to play, right, and.

0:40:52.080 --> 0:40:54.680
<v Speaker 2>And they sometimes weren't very good when they were supposed

0:40:54.719 --> 0:40:56.759
<v Speaker 2>to or they or they weren't completely grassed when they

0:40:56.800 --> 0:40:59.200
<v Speaker 2>were supposed to open. Sometimes it took like a decade

0:40:59.200 --> 0:41:00.600
<v Speaker 2>for those courses to come together.

0:41:01.000 --> 0:41:06.279
<v Speaker 1>That's right, and it's it's I know a prominent superintendent

0:41:06.280 --> 0:41:08.600
<v Speaker 1>in Atlanta that a few years ago, I remember a

0:41:08.600 --> 0:41:10.799
<v Speaker 1>guy telling me and I put down some of the

0:41:10.840 --> 0:41:13.600
<v Speaker 1>first tiff eagle on a golf course in Natchez, Mississippi

0:41:13.640 --> 0:41:17.839
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen ninety eight or ninety seven, and the guy

0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:20.600
<v Speaker 1>with the USGA told me. He said, Mike said, this

0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:22.920
<v Speaker 1>is one of the first products that's going to go

0:41:22.960 --> 0:41:24.480
<v Speaker 1>from the bottom up. And I said, what are you

0:41:24.480 --> 0:41:28.640
<v Speaker 1>talking about. He said, well, most products in golf, they

0:41:28.680 --> 0:41:32.480
<v Speaker 1>start out at the elite clubs, and people find out

0:41:32.480 --> 0:41:34.200
<v Speaker 1>about them and bring them back to their clubs, and

0:41:34.200 --> 0:41:36.520
<v Speaker 1>they work their way down through the business, you know,

0:41:37.440 --> 0:41:39.439
<v Speaker 1>and get down to the bottom of the clubs. He said,

0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.879
<v Speaker 1>but these new Ultra Dwarf permuter grasses, you can lay

0:41:42.920 --> 0:41:47.279
<v Speaker 1>these things on a green without doing anything. Spray them out,

0:41:47.719 --> 0:41:51.000
<v Speaker 1>femigate them, put the grass no till method. You just

0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:53.520
<v Speaker 1>lay it on the green that's there, and eight weeks

0:41:53.560 --> 0:41:56.759
<v Speaker 1>later you've got a new surface and you're playing. And

0:41:56.800 --> 0:42:00.839
<v Speaker 1>he said that's people think that's cheap and they would

0:42:00.920 --> 0:42:04.640
<v Speaker 1>never do it at their elite club. But he said,

0:42:04.680 --> 0:42:06.879
<v Speaker 1>that's the way it's going to go. It's starting down here.

0:42:07.520 --> 0:42:10.399
<v Speaker 1>And that turned out to be true, and it's where

0:42:11.160 --> 0:42:14.600
<v Speaker 1>so many clubs in Atlanta now are Ultra Dwarf. And

0:42:15.000 --> 0:42:17.080
<v Speaker 1>one of the guys that is a very good bent

0:42:17.120 --> 0:42:21.360
<v Speaker 1>Grass superintendent converted to Ultra Dwarf and he told his

0:42:21.440 --> 0:42:23.120
<v Speaker 1>members said, okay, I'm only going to be now in

0:42:23.160 --> 0:42:24.839
<v Speaker 1>five or six weeks, and they said, what do you mean.

0:42:24.880 --> 0:42:27.600
<v Speaker 1>He said, well, I'm going to put the grass on

0:42:27.640 --> 0:42:30.120
<v Speaker 1>the greens. He said, when I open them back up

0:42:30.200 --> 0:42:32.280
<v Speaker 1>in five or six weeks, you're not going to hurt anything.

0:42:32.920 --> 0:42:34.600
<v Speaker 1>But you're going to be putting on grass it's a

0:42:34.680 --> 0:42:37.600
<v Speaker 1>quarter inch high, he said, So you can go play golf.

0:42:38.360 --> 0:42:41.239
<v Speaker 1>The greens aren't perfect, but it hasn't it hasn't hurt you,

0:42:41.840 --> 0:42:44.719
<v Speaker 1>and in ten weeks they'll be ready. But but you're

0:42:44.719 --> 0:42:46.320
<v Speaker 1>only going to have to quit playing for four or

0:42:46.320 --> 0:42:50.960
<v Speaker 1>five weeks. And so there's just how you think about it.

0:42:50.960 --> 0:42:53.440
<v Speaker 1>It's just everybody's different with that stuff.

0:42:54.280 --> 0:42:58.279
<v Speaker 2>So, as I understand it, your concern with a lot

0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:02.400
<v Speaker 2>of this stuff is not necessarcessarily the high end courses

0:43:02.520 --> 0:43:05.799
<v Speaker 2>are doing what they're doing. You're saying, go ahead, do

0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:10.760
<v Speaker 2>your high end stuff. It's more that it's become harder

0:43:11.280 --> 0:43:15.040
<v Speaker 2>to build affordable courses and to run mom and pop

0:43:15.120 --> 0:43:17.200
<v Speaker 2>golf courses. So what do you think are some of

0:43:17.280 --> 0:43:20.480
<v Speaker 2>the main forces in the golf industry right now that

0:43:20.760 --> 0:43:26.879
<v Speaker 2>are preventing people from building golf courses affordably and maintaining

0:43:26.920 --> 0:43:28.239
<v Speaker 2>them economically.

0:43:29.400 --> 0:43:32.440
<v Speaker 1>First off, I think really all these guys that are

0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:34.919
<v Speaker 1>jacking it up are really good for mom and pop

0:43:34.960 --> 0:43:38.600
<v Speaker 1>courses because we've got an excuse. And if you can

0:43:38.640 --> 0:43:41.719
<v Speaker 1>buy a mom and pop course, right, it's a lot

0:43:41.760 --> 0:43:44.200
<v Speaker 1>better deal for most people than going out and building one.

0:43:44.880 --> 0:43:46.480
<v Speaker 1>The problem is people that just want to get in

0:43:46.520 --> 0:43:48.680
<v Speaker 1>golf don't know what they're doing, and they hire a

0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:50.839
<v Speaker 1>lot of people that want to jack it around and

0:43:50.880 --> 0:43:52.440
<v Speaker 1>tell them they've got to have this and this and this,

0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:54.480
<v Speaker 1>and they borrow the money and then they got a problem.

0:43:54.960 --> 0:43:58.799
<v Speaker 1>I respect most of all the architects. There's only a

0:43:58.840 --> 0:44:02.719
<v Speaker 1>couple of knuckleheads, and I have the utmost respect for

0:44:02.760 --> 0:44:05.520
<v Speaker 1>those that determine to decide their career is going to

0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:09.400
<v Speaker 1>be building the elite courses. That's a you have to

0:44:09.440 --> 0:44:12.680
<v Speaker 1>admire those guys. That's a hard road. You're gone, you

0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:15.520
<v Speaker 1>have to commit to it at early age. You have

0:44:15.600 --> 0:44:17.440
<v Speaker 1>to get out there. You can't do with your family,

0:44:17.480 --> 0:44:20.000
<v Speaker 1>you can't do any of that. So we're power to them.

0:44:20.160 --> 0:44:22.919
<v Speaker 1>But it's sort of like, you know, you ever get

0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:25.920
<v Speaker 1>on a magazine and see who the top ten plastic

0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:27.960
<v Speaker 1>surgeons in the world are. When you open up page

0:44:27.960 --> 0:44:31.080
<v Speaker 1>and it says, here's the top ten plastic surgeons. I

0:44:31.120 --> 0:44:33.880
<v Speaker 1>think sometimes we get to where the goth architecture worlds

0:44:33.880 --> 0:44:36.200
<v Speaker 1>that way. I think there's all over the country. I

0:44:36.200 --> 0:44:39.760
<v Speaker 1>think there's some pretty good architects that people don't know about.

0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:43.680
<v Speaker 1>But the average country club member only knows what he's

0:44:43.719 --> 0:44:48.279
<v Speaker 1>been fed. And so he walks in and he says,

0:44:48.320 --> 0:44:50.040
<v Speaker 1>I got to have this or I got to have that.

0:44:51.080 --> 0:44:55.240
<v Speaker 1>He's not even going to consider talking to anyone that's

0:44:55.280 --> 0:44:58.920
<v Speaker 1>not here. And when he does that, it's not a

0:44:59.000 --> 0:45:01.800
<v Speaker 1>question of can the other guy build that or something.

0:45:01.880 --> 0:45:04.520
<v Speaker 1>It's a question of, here's what my budget's going to be.

0:45:04.920 --> 0:45:09.360
<v Speaker 1>I remember not that long ago when guys like Nicholas

0:45:09.360 --> 0:45:11.680
<v Speaker 1>and Fasia were like, well, look I don't build anything

0:45:11.719 --> 0:45:14.840
<v Speaker 1>for less than this, I need this much budget. That's fine,

0:45:14.960 --> 0:45:18.160
<v Speaker 1>they can get that, but it doesn't mean that you

0:45:18.239 --> 0:45:22.759
<v Speaker 1>can't build a product that works. And so it's a

0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:26.120
<v Speaker 1>totally different outlook from people when they're dealing with the

0:45:26.200 --> 0:45:30.800
<v Speaker 1>average architect in America versus the ten guys that everybody

0:45:30.840 --> 0:45:33.000
<v Speaker 1>knows about, or the five guys everybody knows about. It

0:45:33.360 --> 0:45:35.960
<v Speaker 1>is that if one of the grains has got too

0:45:36.040 --> 0:45:38.640
<v Speaker 1>much slope on it they can't put then you're no

0:45:38.719 --> 0:45:41.200
<v Speaker 1>good and they never want to use you again. If

0:45:41.200 --> 0:45:45.439
<v Speaker 1>I'm one of the top dudes, then it's like, hey,

0:45:45.440 --> 0:45:48.680
<v Speaker 1>will you come back and fix this? And it's two

0:45:48.760 --> 0:45:51.440
<v Speaker 1>different things, so you got to be careful in those ways.

0:45:52.040 --> 0:45:54.440
<v Speaker 1>The problem is so many people just don't want to

0:45:54.440 --> 0:45:58.359
<v Speaker 1>build the affordable course. They don't know. It's not the

0:45:58.480 --> 0:46:00.520
<v Speaker 1>architects that don't want to build it. I mean, it's

0:46:00.560 --> 0:46:03.719
<v Speaker 1>like it's it's it's that these clubs and all are

0:46:03.760 --> 0:46:08.360
<v Speaker 1>being bsd into spending money that just doesn't need to

0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:11.919
<v Speaker 1>be spent. And you see it every day. And I've

0:46:11.920 --> 0:46:13.440
<v Speaker 1>had to learn the hard way just to get it

0:46:13.440 --> 0:46:15.239
<v Speaker 1>out of my mind and let don't let it worry me.

0:46:15.280 --> 0:46:17.120
<v Speaker 1>I want to I want to go play golf or something.

0:46:17.160 --> 0:46:20.440
<v Speaker 1>I'm not going to worry about it anymorening. But it's

0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:23.040
<v Speaker 1>you see it and you say, how did you come

0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:26.839
<v Speaker 1>up with that? And it's and and then you realize, hey,

0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:31.920
<v Speaker 1>I got sold. And that's that's what's happening, is is

0:46:34.080 --> 0:46:38.319
<v Speaker 1>the industry ends up it it knows where it can

0:46:38.360 --> 0:46:39.040
<v Speaker 1>sell itself.

0:46:40.000 --> 0:46:44.160
<v Speaker 2>Well, So where do you think the movement will come

0:46:44.200 --> 0:46:48.480
<v Speaker 2>from to push back against this jacking up of the

0:46:48.520 --> 0:46:52.000
<v Speaker 2>costs at golf courses? And the jacking up of green

0:46:52.040 --> 0:46:55.800
<v Speaker 2>fees that happens as a result. Who needs to push

0:46:55.840 --> 0:46:58.560
<v Speaker 2>back primarily? And what do they what do they need

0:46:58.600 --> 0:46:58.879
<v Speaker 2>to do?

0:46:59.640 --> 0:47:02.759
<v Speaker 1>Well? I think I don't know your age exactly, but

0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:05.400
<v Speaker 1>I think your age group. When I see the little

0:47:06.120 --> 0:47:08.799
<v Speaker 1>millennial dude coming through my place with his leather bag

0:47:08.840 --> 0:47:12.759
<v Speaker 1>and his dog and those true golf shoes on, you know,

0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:17.200
<v Speaker 1>he he's uh, he's fine, He's gonna push it back.

0:47:17.640 --> 0:47:22.320
<v Speaker 1>He's not into having the widescreen TV over the urinal

0:47:22.400 --> 0:47:25.960
<v Speaker 1>or anything, and he can. I just think that generation

0:47:26.160 --> 0:47:29.000
<v Speaker 1>might do it. They're not into the what I call

0:47:29.080 --> 0:47:34.360
<v Speaker 1>the edges. They want to go so many clubs, the

0:47:34.400 --> 0:47:37.319
<v Speaker 1>money they spend on the edges, you know, fairway and

0:47:37.640 --> 0:47:41.239
<v Speaker 1>flower beds, all that stuff. And these younger guys they

0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:42.960
<v Speaker 1>understand that and they get it and they would rather

0:47:43.040 --> 0:47:47.600
<v Speaker 1>go out. They're not after perfect conditions. And that's a

0:47:47.680 --> 0:47:51.040
<v Speaker 1>battle that nobody's gonna win, because we're gonna continue, and

0:47:51.080 --> 0:47:54.120
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna continue, and we're gonna take it, and they're

0:47:54.120 --> 0:47:57.160
<v Speaker 1>gonna roll the ball back, and some clown's gonna come

0:47:57.160 --> 0:47:59.759
<v Speaker 1>along and cut his fairways down to three sixteenth of

0:47:59.760 --> 0:48:02.160
<v Speaker 1>then and everything they roll back is going to roll

0:48:02.239 --> 0:48:05.200
<v Speaker 1>right back out there. So I think I think it's

0:48:05.239 --> 0:48:08.560
<v Speaker 1>an age thing. I think that group appreciates golf in

0:48:08.640 --> 0:48:12.759
<v Speaker 1>a different way than my age appreciated GoF For so

0:48:12.840 --> 0:48:16.160
<v Speaker 1>many of my buddies, it was a had to be

0:48:16.200 --> 0:48:19.400
<v Speaker 1>at the club thing, wanted to They married these Stepford

0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:21.760
<v Speaker 1>wife type ladies that want to be at the club.

0:48:22.360 --> 0:48:25.240
<v Speaker 1>It was wan it was a social thing. These guys,

0:48:25.280 --> 0:48:28.959
<v Speaker 1>it's social, but they actually like playing golf. I don't

0:48:28.960 --> 0:48:32.120
<v Speaker 1>think a lot of the guys my age played really

0:48:32.640 --> 0:48:35.239
<v Speaker 1>loved the sport that much. You had some, but you

0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:36.600
<v Speaker 1>had a lot of them that felt they needed to

0:48:36.640 --> 0:48:39.759
<v Speaker 1>do it for business. Your group doesn't seem to care.

0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:44.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, it's funny like and it's it's understandable.

0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:45.920
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to put a value judgment on how

0:48:45.960 --> 0:48:49.319
<v Speaker 2>different generations approach golf at all, or say that say

0:48:49.320 --> 0:48:52.920
<v Speaker 2>that the way that you know, millennials or my generation

0:48:53.040 --> 0:48:56.120
<v Speaker 2>approaches that is better necessarily, but it's just different. I

0:48:56.400 --> 0:48:59.760
<v Speaker 2>think that it's not as important for business or social

0:48:59.800 --> 0:49:02.920
<v Speaker 2>life life anymore. No, it used to be. It used

0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:06.719
<v Speaker 2>to be the center of a certain social class's social life,

0:49:07.160 --> 0:49:10.279
<v Speaker 2>and it used to be extremely important for certain kinds

0:49:10.280 --> 0:49:13.160
<v Speaker 2>of businesses. I don't think it's that way anymore. And

0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:15.680
<v Speaker 2>so the people who get into golf are into it

0:49:15.719 --> 0:49:19.720
<v Speaker 2>because they want to play golf. They're they're into the game.

0:49:20.719 --> 0:49:20.920
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:49:21.400 --> 0:49:24.240
<v Speaker 2>The thing that is, the thing that I find weird

0:49:24.600 --> 0:49:27.000
<v Speaker 2>about this whole deal is that it does seem like

0:49:27.000 --> 0:49:32.120
<v Speaker 2>there's a market for affordable core golf experiences where the

0:49:32.239 --> 0:49:35.120
<v Speaker 2>edges are roughed up a little bit, the course blends

0:49:35.160 --> 0:49:38.440
<v Speaker 2>into its environment nicely. Things don't have to be perfect,

0:49:38.800 --> 0:49:41.400
<v Speaker 2>you don't need a lot of amenities at the facility.

0:49:42.040 --> 0:49:44.680
<v Speaker 2>I think there's a market for that, an audience for that,

0:49:45.239 --> 0:49:48.080
<v Speaker 2>but it seems like the it seems like the supply

0:49:48.280 --> 0:49:52.160
<v Speaker 2>of those places is low. And so I know that,

0:49:52.400 --> 0:49:57.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, you can't possibly have the definitive answer to

0:49:57.400 --> 0:50:00.560
<v Speaker 2>this question, since it's an unanswerable question, But how do

0:50:00.640 --> 0:50:02.800
<v Speaker 2>we get to a place where the golf course industry

0:50:03.440 --> 0:50:06.560
<v Speaker 2>is supplying more of those experiences for the people who

0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:07.520
<v Speaker 2>seem to want them.

0:50:08.719 --> 0:50:13.040
<v Speaker 1>I've thought about that. I think that you if everybody

0:50:13.080 --> 0:50:16.520
<v Speaker 1>that goes into my business, the architecture business, is looking

0:50:16.560 --> 0:50:19.919
<v Speaker 1>for the glamour and wants to get one of the

0:50:19.960 --> 0:50:24.240
<v Speaker 1>top one hundred, that's a hard road, but there's plenty

0:50:24.280 --> 0:50:27.279
<v Speaker 1>of money to be made if they will just be

0:50:27.480 --> 0:50:30.480
<v Speaker 1>like the top builder in your town, I don't know

0:50:30.520 --> 0:50:33.000
<v Speaker 1>his name. For houses, you don't know the name of

0:50:33.000 --> 0:50:35.680
<v Speaker 1>the top builder in my town. The same thing goes

0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:38.239
<v Speaker 1>for golf courses in certain regions. You don't know who

0:50:38.239 --> 0:50:42.359
<v Speaker 1>they are, but just go build them and don't You've

0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:46.640
<v Speaker 1>got to have a personality where when the dude comes

0:50:46.719 --> 0:50:48.799
<v Speaker 1>in and tells everybody you don't know what you're doing

0:50:48.880 --> 0:50:50.759
<v Speaker 1>because you didn't do it this way or that way.

0:50:51.360 --> 0:50:53.440
<v Speaker 1>You've got to just be able to roll with it.

0:50:54.000 --> 0:50:59.879
<v Speaker 1>Because if your owners are happy and they understand why

0:50:59.920 --> 0:51:03.440
<v Speaker 1>you did things a certain way, and they're they're making money,

0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:05.439
<v Speaker 1>then you're fine. And I think a lot of young

0:51:05.480 --> 0:51:08.080
<v Speaker 1>guys haven't gotten to that point. You know, they haven't

0:51:08.120 --> 0:51:10.600
<v Speaker 1>figured that out yet, but I think they will. You know,

0:51:11.000 --> 0:51:13.920
<v Speaker 1>you've got to be able to call bullshit. It's almost

0:51:14.000 --> 0:51:16.359
<v Speaker 1>like an underground market. I mean, the mom and pop

0:51:16.440 --> 0:51:20.120
<v Speaker 1>golf course just doesn't tell everybody how they do it.

0:51:21.760 --> 0:51:24.280
<v Speaker 1>Once you get in that market, you can do okay

0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:27.759
<v Speaker 1>in that market. And uh, those guys are they can

0:51:27.920 --> 0:51:31.319
<v Speaker 1>they know how to call bullshit and and your age

0:51:31.320 --> 0:51:33.960
<v Speaker 1>group is figuring that out well.

0:51:34.000 --> 0:51:38.400
<v Speaker 2>As as tricky as it is to build affordable golf,

0:51:38.480 --> 0:51:41.759
<v Speaker 2>to run affordable golf, you were, you are doing it

0:51:41.880 --> 0:51:45.279
<v Speaker 2>right now. You have a new project that I'm very

0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:51.920
<v Speaker 2>interested in in Vidalia, Georgia, of sweet Onion fame. So

0:51:52.360 --> 0:51:55.880
<v Speaker 2>there's a municipal golf course going in in this in

0:51:55.960 --> 0:51:59.279
<v Speaker 2>this town, and you are the architect behind it. Could

0:51:59.320 --> 0:52:00.880
<v Speaker 2>you just give me the baby six of what this

0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:02.080
<v Speaker 2>project is all about.

0:52:02.360 --> 0:52:07.120
<v Speaker 1>I've built i think four municipal courses in Georgia and

0:52:07.680 --> 0:52:11.480
<v Speaker 1>a few others around the southeast. And the mayor called

0:52:11.560 --> 0:52:13.719
<v Speaker 1>one day. The guy had me come in there and

0:52:13.719 --> 0:52:16.440
<v Speaker 1>look at his course that he was closing. I wanted

0:52:16.440 --> 0:52:19.120
<v Speaker 1>to know what to do with it. And mayor called

0:52:19.120 --> 0:52:21.560
<v Speaker 1>and he said, what do you think we could do

0:52:21.600 --> 0:52:23.840
<v Speaker 1>with that course? And we looked at it and played

0:52:23.880 --> 0:52:26.520
<v Speaker 1>with it for a month or two, and I said, Mayor,

0:52:27.080 --> 0:52:29.080
<v Speaker 1>I said, look, by the time you get through with

0:52:29.160 --> 0:52:31.920
<v Speaker 1>all this, you'd be much better off to go over

0:52:31.960 --> 0:52:34.600
<v Speaker 1>to the airport where you've got six hundred acres of

0:52:34.880 --> 0:52:38.399
<v Speaker 1>basically sandland and build your own golf course. He said,

0:52:38.400 --> 0:52:39.960
<v Speaker 1>that's what I want to hear. That's what I want

0:52:40.000 --> 0:52:42.160
<v Speaker 1>to do. And then he came to tell me that

0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:47.560
<v Speaker 1>they had been watching o'hoopie and that their fuel at

0:52:47.560 --> 0:52:52.720
<v Speaker 1>the airport had just jumped because all the G four's

0:52:52.800 --> 0:52:56.000
<v Speaker 1>and the Challenger six fiftieses everything that were coming in there.

0:52:56.000 --> 0:52:58.800
<v Speaker 1>And you know, you go over to the airport afternoon,

0:52:58.840 --> 0:53:02.920
<v Speaker 1>you got kid rock any logging sitting there, Eli and Peyton,

0:53:03.000 --> 0:53:04.880
<v Speaker 1>all these guys sitting there waiting on their planes.

0:53:05.680 --> 0:53:07.760
<v Speaker 2>So this is this is, by the way, a Hoopie

0:53:07.760 --> 0:53:13.800
<v Speaker 2>match club, private destination golf club that is about twenty

0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:15.759
<v Speaker 2>minutes from Vidalia, or.

0:53:15.719 --> 0:53:18.600
<v Speaker 1>So fifteen twenty minutes, it's right. But all the planes

0:53:18.680 --> 0:53:19.400
<v Speaker 1>land there.

0:53:19.360 --> 0:53:22.640
<v Speaker 2>Did all the planes go into Videlia. And that's and

0:53:22.680 --> 0:53:26.760
<v Speaker 2>this membership is high flying kind of kind of folks.

0:53:26.880 --> 0:53:29.160
<v Speaker 2>That's that's what this golf club is like.

0:53:29.360 --> 0:53:32.200
<v Speaker 1>But it's a lot of young guys that have made

0:53:32.239 --> 0:53:34.160
<v Speaker 1>their money early. It's it's you know, it's a lot

0:53:34.200 --> 0:53:37.200
<v Speaker 1>of guys that I don't know how the membership works there,

0:53:37.239 --> 0:53:39.000
<v Speaker 1>but I know the guys that come to play are

0:53:39.080 --> 0:53:42.319
<v Speaker 1>guys that you just see so many guys coming in there.

0:53:42.360 --> 0:53:44.880
<v Speaker 1>So the Mayor's like, you know what, this is an

0:53:44.880 --> 0:53:47.520
<v Speaker 1>economic engine, and he says I want to build this

0:53:47.560 --> 0:53:50.280
<v Speaker 1>golf course as an economic engine from this area because

0:53:50.880 --> 0:53:54.239
<v Speaker 1>I never understood what the sand could do to golf

0:53:54.360 --> 0:53:56.680
<v Speaker 1>or what sand was to golf, and I had explained

0:53:56.680 --> 0:54:00.719
<v Speaker 1>that to it and the demand that sold the land

0:54:00.719 --> 0:54:02.640
<v Speaker 1>for a hoop. He had sold all of his onion

0:54:02.680 --> 0:54:06.439
<v Speaker 1>farms to Bill Gates family farms. Bill Gates wanted the water.

0:54:06.520 --> 0:54:10.160
<v Speaker 1>He wanted to aquifer this down under there, and he

0:54:10.320 --> 0:54:13.560
<v Speaker 1>was big and Vadia and they had helped him out.

0:54:13.560 --> 0:54:17.200
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, they were raised all the money and we

0:54:17.239 --> 0:54:22.080
<v Speaker 1>started building a golf course. And we started to clear

0:54:22.680 --> 0:54:27.560
<v Speaker 1>over a year ago. And then the highway US Highway

0:54:27.600 --> 0:54:30.200
<v Speaker 1>won was being built to Miami and there was a

0:54:30.239 --> 0:54:33.400
<v Speaker 1>bypass and some of the land that was being donated

0:54:33.440 --> 0:54:35.520
<v Speaker 1>for the course was on the highway and on and

0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:38.680
<v Speaker 1>the highway bid didn't didn't let when they think it

0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:42.799
<v Speaker 1>thought it would, so everything got postponed. We had to

0:54:42.840 --> 0:54:45.480
<v Speaker 1>adjust some of the holes out and go to the

0:54:45.520 --> 0:54:49.319
<v Speaker 1>wetland committee, go to so we went through everything and

0:54:49.320 --> 0:54:52.399
<v Speaker 1>then we cleared and grub it. Grubbed it last month

0:54:52.440 --> 0:54:56.120
<v Speaker 1>and we started shaping a month ago. So we're we're

0:54:56.120 --> 0:54:59.120
<v Speaker 1>building it again now and it's a it'll be. It

0:54:59.120 --> 0:55:02.280
<v Speaker 1>won't be a long CA course. It'll be probably sixty

0:55:02.280 --> 0:55:06.000
<v Speaker 1>seven sixty six sixty seven hundred. I'm going to keep

0:55:06.080 --> 0:55:09.319
<v Speaker 1>less than fifteen bunkers on it, and it'll be a

0:55:09.360 --> 0:55:12.560
<v Speaker 1>good municipal golf course. It's you know, the new thing

0:55:12.680 --> 0:55:16.719
<v Speaker 1>is to get into the simulators on the range and

0:55:17.080 --> 0:55:20.640
<v Speaker 1>get more of a fire pit hang out place where

0:55:20.680 --> 0:55:24.839
<v Speaker 1>people can come out and do the top golf experience

0:55:25.280 --> 0:55:27.239
<v Speaker 1>in the evenings, that kind of stuff. So we're doing

0:55:27.280 --> 0:55:29.920
<v Speaker 1>that at the clubhouse. They've they've got a lot of

0:55:30.000 --> 0:55:34.000
<v Speaker 1>that going. But it's it's it's interesting what what one

0:55:34.040 --> 0:55:38.120
<v Speaker 1>guy coming in and building a course that nobody would

0:55:38.160 --> 0:55:41.160
<v Speaker 1>ever expect to be built there could do as far

0:55:41.200 --> 0:55:44.000
<v Speaker 1>as growing golf in that area and how people have

0:55:44.640 --> 0:55:47.880
<v Speaker 1>picked up on it and are behind it, and that

0:55:48.080 --> 0:55:50.640
<v Speaker 1>town now said, you know, they understand they've got sand

0:55:50.719 --> 0:55:53.560
<v Speaker 1>there and so that that's what that's what we've got

0:55:53.600 --> 0:55:54.399
<v Speaker 1>and that's what we're doing.

0:55:55.160 --> 0:55:58.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean it sounds and looks like a really

0:55:58.719 --> 0:56:01.200
<v Speaker 2>fun project. What are some of the ways that you're

0:56:01.280 --> 0:56:05.239
<v Speaker 2>keeping costs under control there? Like, you know, when you're

0:56:05.600 --> 0:56:10.640
<v Speaker 2>thinking this through as an architect approaching building an affordable

0:56:10.680 --> 0:56:13.120
<v Speaker 2>golf course, I already heard you mentioned the number of bunkers,

0:56:13.160 --> 0:56:17.080
<v Speaker 2>which is low for you know, an eighteen hole golf course,

0:56:17.120 --> 0:56:20.480
<v Speaker 2>and that's perhaps one way that you do it. How

0:56:20.480 --> 0:56:24.840
<v Speaker 2>do you think through building affordably from the very beginning.

0:56:25.120 --> 0:56:27.919
<v Speaker 1>The city about the irrigation system, and then we'll bid

0:56:27.960 --> 0:56:32.279
<v Speaker 1>it out to irrigation contractors and negotiate a price on

0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:35.440
<v Speaker 1>having that done. We've got to have some cart path.

0:56:35.600 --> 0:56:37.600
<v Speaker 1>I don't I'm not a big cart path fan, and

0:56:37.640 --> 0:56:41.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't think most people are, so our cart path

0:56:41.239 --> 0:56:44.399
<v Speaker 1>is going to be mainly teasing greens. I don't want

0:56:44.400 --> 0:56:48.440
<v Speaker 1>to use concrete or asphalts. You know some of the guys, Oh,

0:56:48.480 --> 0:56:51.799
<v Speaker 1>you've got to use concrete and asphalt, like if we

0:56:51.840 --> 0:56:54.880
<v Speaker 1>can find a crusher of a shell or something that works.

0:56:55.520 --> 0:56:58.319
<v Speaker 1>So we're still playing with that. The committee is very

0:56:58.320 --> 0:57:01.359
<v Speaker 1>open to that. It's it's a state of the art

0:57:01.400 --> 0:57:05.880
<v Speaker 1>irrigation system that we've got at the right price. We

0:57:06.680 --> 0:57:09.520
<v Speaker 1>bit it out and got everything at the right price,

0:57:09.520 --> 0:57:13.000
<v Speaker 1>and it'll it'll be it'll be me and bucks, and

0:57:13.040 --> 0:57:16.000
<v Speaker 1>that's that's pretty good. Today. We're gonna mow it at

0:57:16.000 --> 0:57:19.680
<v Speaker 1>one height to cut. We'll mow it with the gang

0:57:19.720 --> 0:57:24.040
<v Speaker 1>Wars it's it's interesting to interview superintendents and and you

0:57:24.160 --> 0:57:26.880
<v Speaker 1>know you've got one that gets it when he's been

0:57:26.880 --> 0:57:30.760
<v Speaker 1>at a prominent club and you're like, okay, dude, what

0:57:30.800 --> 0:57:33.440
<v Speaker 1>the hell are you doing here? And he's like, well,

0:57:33.440 --> 0:57:36.760
<v Speaker 1>I grew up twenty miles from here, I've been there,

0:57:36.880 --> 0:57:39.760
<v Speaker 1>I've seen that I know how to do what you're

0:57:39.760 --> 0:57:43.240
<v Speaker 1>talking about doing. I'm like, you know what you're giving up.

0:57:43.280 --> 0:57:46.120
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you're you're on the climb. Do you want

0:57:46.160 --> 0:57:49.440
<v Speaker 1>to come back and do this? And those are the

0:57:49.520 --> 0:57:51.360
<v Speaker 1>kind of guys. You find your guy like that that

0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:54.360
<v Speaker 1>can actually be the superintendent and run the place, be

0:57:54.440 --> 0:57:56.560
<v Speaker 1>over the golf pro and the whole deal, and you

0:57:56.560 --> 0:58:00.000
<v Speaker 1>you're on your way. And so I hope we've found

0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:04.400
<v Speaker 1>on one but just a country public golf course that

0:58:04.920 --> 0:58:07.400
<v Speaker 1>the numbers will be watched and it's got a lot

0:58:07.400 --> 0:58:08.320
<v Speaker 1>of people behind it.

0:58:09.120 --> 0:58:12.120
<v Speaker 2>And then what are the plans for opening right now?

0:58:12.160 --> 0:58:14.800
<v Speaker 2>I know things shifted around because of the highway and

0:58:15.320 --> 0:58:17.680
<v Speaker 2>that kind of stuff, but when when do you plan

0:58:17.760 --> 0:58:18.200
<v Speaker 2>to be open?

0:58:18.720 --> 0:58:21.880
<v Speaker 1>I'm hoping we can open in October, but if we do,

0:58:22.920 --> 0:58:26.280
<v Speaker 1>it won't be ultimate conditions, but it would be where

0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:28.160
<v Speaker 1>we could get it open greens would be fine, but

0:58:28.240 --> 0:58:30.520
<v Speaker 1>I don't know that the fairways at all be the

0:58:30.560 --> 0:58:34.200
<v Speaker 1>way I want them, So probably late in May, early June.

0:58:34.840 --> 0:58:36.640
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I think I

0:58:36.720 --> 0:58:38.520
<v Speaker 2>think it does sound like a really cool project.

0:58:38.560 --> 0:58:40.200
<v Speaker 1>And you got to come to the fields. You got

0:58:40.200 --> 0:58:42.280
<v Speaker 1>to come down eat a pig at the fields.

0:58:43.320 --> 0:58:45.240
<v Speaker 2>I do need to. I'm going to be out in

0:58:45.520 --> 0:58:48.440
<v Speaker 2>the Southeast fairly soon, like a lot of like a

0:58:48.440 --> 0:58:49.960
<v Speaker 2>lot of people in the golf media industry.

0:58:50.040 --> 0:58:52.160
<v Speaker 1>If you're down that way, I'll get mister Bob Crosby,

0:58:52.200 --> 0:58:55.880
<v Speaker 1>who wants to meet you, and we'll do something. You know.

0:58:55.960 --> 0:58:58.440
<v Speaker 2>It's funny. Bob and I have never met in person,

0:58:58.560 --> 0:59:02.000
<v Speaker 2>but we are pretty good for ends because of all

0:59:02.040 --> 0:59:04.760
<v Speaker 2>of our conversations over the years on the podcast and off.

0:59:05.280 --> 0:59:08.320
<v Speaker 2>One of my favorite people in golf. So as are you, Mike.

0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:11.320
<v Speaker 2>Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Really

0:59:11.560 --> 0:59:14.520
<v Speaker 2>enjoy always talking to you and we'll have to have

0:59:14.640 --> 0:59:15.400
<v Speaker 2>you back again soon.

0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:16.680
<v Speaker 1>Well that was fun.

0:59:27.160 --> 0:59:31.160
<v Speaker 2>This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by

0:59:31.200 --> 0:59:34.920
<v Speaker 2>Matt Rusius. Thank you, Matt. A quick thing that you

0:59:34.920 --> 0:59:37.680
<v Speaker 2>can do to support the fridayg Golf podcast is to

0:59:37.720 --> 0:59:41.560
<v Speaker 2>go to wherever you're listening to us and leave a rating,

0:59:41.760 --> 0:59:44.400
<v Speaker 2>or if there's an opportunity, leave a review. Tell us

0:59:44.440 --> 0:59:47.880
<v Speaker 2>how we're doing. That's it, Thank you so much for listening,

0:59:48.040 --> 0:59:49.160
<v Speaker 2>and we'll be back again soon