WEBVTT - Yolk with Doak 7: Bel-Air CC 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.000 Welcome back to the final part of the latest episode 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.520 of The Yoke with Doak. If you've missed Part one 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.440 or Part two of our discussion, be sure to check 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.719 them out on our feed or on our website. In 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.960 Part three, we continue our discussion on George Thomas bel 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:19.000 Air and golf architecture as a whole. If you've missed 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.279 any of the previous editions of The Yoke with Doak, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.680 we have a dedicated page on the website under the 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:30.360 podcast tab where you can go perus, ask questions, and 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.840 check out the previous episodes. So, without further ado, here 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.840 is part three of our podcast with Tom Eric Iverson, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:54.200 Blake Conant, Kai Golby and Brian Schneider and enjoy. Tom 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:56.920 Dolk is back and as usual, he's not holding back. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.040 But you don't hats the yult. 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.920 And the famously candid dope doesn't pull any punchet. 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.120 How do I make natural looking contour? Hire the biggest 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.119 pool in the village and tell him to make it flat? 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:13.240 First? 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.880 Overrated, underrated, rough, terribly overrated over the years. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:32.560 Rob Collins, fellow architect. He wants to know what have 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.200 you found most useful? And this is a kind of 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:39.080 a team answer here from what the club had, what 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.560 you've discovered on your own to getting this place back. 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.600 And I'll start with one thing. In restoration work, there's 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.840 it's not really public disagreement, but there there is a 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.680 big dichotomy between people that think that you should try 0:01:55.720 --> 0:02:00.800 to build the course toward the original plans versus toward 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.200 whatever photographic evidence you have of the golf course that 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.000 got built. Because nothing's ever built exactly to the plants. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.160 And depending on who the architect is, you can, you know, 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.520 like with Donald Ross, sometimes you can make the case 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.560 Weill Ross was barely ever there, so you should work 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.160 to the plans instead of whatever the stupid guys that 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:27.760 built the golf course actually did. But when there's an architect, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.639 when there's when there is an architect who did spend 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.560 time on it, which George Thomas clearly was. First of all, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.440 there's no plans, I mean other than other than like 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.040 a plan for the development and where the golf holes 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:42.840 were and where the lots are around it. There's no 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.960 detailed plans of these holes that I've ever seen drawn. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.960 Jeff Sackelford's book has some really cool drawings of some 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.239 of the holes that had been lost here, like the 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.799 second and the ninth that we've restored, But those are 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.120 Jeff's drawings, they're not George time Is drawings. Thomas didn't 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.520 do drawings of these holes anywhere that we found or 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:11.520 that the club had in their archives. So we're you know, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.640 we're going with the photographic evidence that we have because 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.360 we couldn't go from the plans even if we wanted to. 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.040 But I would make even if I had George Thomas 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.200 his own drawing of the second all if it was 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.360 the before he built it, I would go with what 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.800 he built because in my work, the difference between whatever 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.720 drawing I do at the beginning and what we wind 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.320 up with. We're trying to make it better than the drawing. 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.560 That's what That's why we spend all our time out here. 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.520 Otherwise we just hand the drawing to somebody and say 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:43.880 do that. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.520 As what we talked about in the first podcast we 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.560 had is that so much of your job is in 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.120 the third dimension, and that's what can't be captured in 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:55.440 drawings or photos. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:57.920 It's hard to capture in the photos too, and that's 0:03:57.920 --> 0:03:59.040 what these guys will speak to. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:05.040 Yeah, had both Kai and Blake can can expand on 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:10.360 this even farther. But most places you find old bunker sand, 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.400 And you know that that's kind of that's a fun 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.000 just kind of a fun part of the process. You 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.760 asked Kai in the in the first part of this steal, 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.440 you know, what's the most interesting thing you ever dug 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.560 out by accident? In Some of the most interesting things 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.840 you find on purpose are just the edges of these 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.600 enormous bunkers. And Kai also kind of noticed early on 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:40.320 that that ended up being a pretty consistent trend, is 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.640 finding steel pipe around some of these features, which would 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.640 have been kind of the original routing of the irrigation 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.039 around the edges of the greens or the edges of 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:50.600 the bunkers. 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.120 And yeah, you know, when you're digging a bunker and 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.000 you run into a steel pipe, you've probably gone too far, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.880 because that was the pipe was around the bunker. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.520 Yeah, through the middle of the Yeah. 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.159 Occasionally that's that's when I'm ripping a pg A tow 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.240 our of course, and I'm rating it after and I'm 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.200 like delete this is when you hit a pipe here, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.440 just bringing that dirt right back down right. 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.640 Yeah, But it's a good indicator and and and it 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.520 also it's just another piece of evidence that there's never one. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.760 There's there's never one. Go to. This is all the 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.560 information you need to do this. It's always an assembly 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.839 of stuff that you find some holes. We have great 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:40.159 straight down aerial photos of three or four different years, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.600 and everything's clear as a bell, and other things are 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:48.200 There's there's no good straight down aerial photo of number 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:53.280 five because it's off in the corner. You know, the best. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.080 There's a We have a ton of shots that are 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.560 taken from a bit of an angle, but the one 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.000 straight that we have that little corner is pretty fuzzy, 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:04.800 but that happens to be the one that we have 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.880 good ground level shots of with golfers in it also 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:12.560 to give it scale. So you find the bunker sand 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:17.719 at a certain depth, and then you kind of chase 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:19.800 that bunker sand up a little slope to where the 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:21.560 face was, and then all of a sudden that kind 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.080 of drives the face to be at this height, and 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.599 then you know, twenty five feet to the right is 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.920 this little kind of ridgeline coming off the hillside that 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:34.600 you just put the dirt there, and the whole thing 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.080 just kind of folds into place. 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.960 I have a question, because I just got back here 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.440 today and I haven't seen the work that they've done 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.400 at number five yet. Did you find the old bunker 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:44.960 sand on that. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.000 Hole, the bunker that's on the right, tucked up against 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.160 the slope, because the rest of it had just been 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.640 a smear to move the dirt. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.839 To a lot of what we're talking about, I mean, 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.200 some of this is archaeology. And the reason it works 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.320 is because when they did work on these golf course 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.320 at a later date, a lot of times they were 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.560 just lazy and they whatever new version they built, they 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.680 just brought in trucked in fill and buried everything and 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.320 built over the top of the old thing. They didn't 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.680 take all this. If they'd taken all the sand out 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.720 of the bunkers, we wouldn't know how deep the bunkers are. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.520 But it's still down there three or four feet and 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.040 all you got to do is dig and find it. 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.240 But when there's a green like five, which when they 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.520 take something away to make that new green for the back, 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.760 now we got nothing, you know, we don't have We 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.080 can't find where the old bunkers where, we can't find 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.480 the elevation of the old green. We have to go 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.240 back and look at pictures taken from ground level. It's 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.000 all we've got because there's nothing physical left of it. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.720 There was there was old bunker saying in the big 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.040 front bunker two and yeah, that right bunker gives you 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.120 an indication of where the green level would have been. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:55.920 Right. 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.640 So a lot of it's piecing that stuff together. And 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:05.000 then honestly, like thirty minutes that you spend when you 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.840 first get to a hole is trying to relocate the 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.160 exact spot of ground level photo may have been taken from. 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.880 So you're walking around like trying to get yourself oriented. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:16.720 The other thing, and I don't know if it was 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.040 Ryan Yoans or Brian Sullivan who found all the old obliques, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.320 but those have been very helpful to get the third 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.800 dimension as far as man, this sand was really flashed 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.880 in the area. You sometimes can't tell that, so it 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.840 gives you a sense of how big something was, how 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.680 big a contour was. The other thing, though, is like 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.360 I feel like Catherine Hepburn or Bob Newhart has just 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.080 a stash of ground level photos somewhere in their attic 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.480 of here is Bob Newhart playing around a golf you know, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.720 like nineteen sixty and it's you know, oh, that's nobody 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.280 came forward with those with that treasure trove, that little 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.280 white buffalo of photos. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.360 Right, And that's that's the the big danger. The biggest 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.120 danger in restoration projects is as soon as you get done, 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.679 somebody digs up a bunch of old photos and shows 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.080 you did it wrong. Which that's what happened at Crystal 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.160 Downs and Crystal Downs in the eighties before I joined 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.640 they they brought Jeff Cornish in to look at it 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:28.679 and suggest renovations at restoration. And you know, it was 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.400 a Mackenzie course, so Jeff assumed that you know, the 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:38.280 bunkers had capes and bays and these these shaped to 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.760 them like Cyprus Point does. And like somebody said earlier, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.920 you know, you tend to find what you want to find. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.760 So you know, they dug around a little bit in 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.199 the sand, and it's harder and Crystal Downs because it's 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.880 basically all sand, so it's not it's not so easy 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.360 to find where the old bunker sand is because the 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.400 whole place is sand, so you can't belle erits clay, 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.080 and when you're digging through clay and all of a sudden, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.280 they're saying, you know what, you've just found it crystal downs. 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.440 You can't really do that. But they probed around, and 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.800 so they made a bunch of bunkers with capes and bays. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.800 And about ten years after they did that, some member 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:24.240 found a home movie of playing the golf course in 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.280 nineteen thirty two, not every hole, but most of them, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.320 and they, you know, they took the movie apart and 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.960 did freeze frame. There's what number one green looked like. 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.280 And those bunkers, those bunkers were all wrong, you know, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.440 because Perry Maxwell had built the golf course for Mackenzie, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.640 and it looked like Perry Maxwell. You know, it looked 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.160 like Perry Maxwell bunkers with kind of blobby shapes and 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.480 rough edges, but not the not the capes and bays. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:56.960 So much so they you know, they went back and 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.520 redid it all over again and got it dead to 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.880 nuts right now. But you know, yeah, we we spent 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:09.319 a lot of time asking we got bel Air to 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.800 pay a friend of ours to do some research and 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.200 dig through every place that we could find. Out here, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.440 they're asking me to shout out Tommy Nacarato, who does 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:26.040 who does that kind of research? Especially for courses in 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.240 the LA area and as a huge George Thomas Nutt 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.920 and and you know he's been to like the UCLA 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.360 libraries to know what aerial photos exist of all these 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.160 golf courses. And you know, without people like that, I mean, 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.840 we can't do that, you know that that would be 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.080 crazy for you know, you know Jack Nicholas and Tom 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.880 Fazio they're not doing that, and neither of I I mean, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.840 we've got to rely on you know, we rely on 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.000 the clubs to some level, and more and more of 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.240 them because they've done a club history book in the 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.439 last ten or twenty years. They've got some good stuff, 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.400 but nearly always. You know, if we ask around and 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.679 we dig around, you know, we we can find something 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.520 else that the club hasn't seen yet. And in this 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.439 at this club, by far, the coolest thing that we 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.560 talked about the May West Hole at the beginning of 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.600 this that it was a part four with a green 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.319 kind of tucked up in the corner to a big 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.319 mound in front of the green that made it blind, 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.280 and then a hillside coming down from the right that's 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.559 kind of another mound. So it was the May West 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:38.199 Boosoms And there's a picture of it in George Thomas's book, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.320 but there's only one picture, and from the angle the 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.480 picture is taken, you can't really see the green because 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.400 it's behind the mounds. So we had no idea what 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:48.280 the green looked like. 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:48.680 You know. 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:50.680 We had an aerial photo that showed a rough shape 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.920 of the green, but we didn't know how high, we 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.160 didn't know what contra was in it or anything else. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:02.840 And Tommy Macarato found a picture from somewhere taken from 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.800 the thirteenth t looking back, so you could see the 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.680 mound come down in back into the green and how 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.120 the little notch that between where the man came back 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:16.880 and where the left side of the green was that 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:22.160 fell off. So we knew how to restore it. And 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.640 I'm glad. I'm glad we found that photo before instead 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.440 of two years from now after we're done and got 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:28.800 it wrong. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.280 Probably a good piece of advice for any GREENS committing 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.120 members how can you help, is just just go drove 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.319 around the college libraries and try and find any kind 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.600 of old photo. I got messaged by somebody and I said, 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.640 you should just try and find as many old photos 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:46.079 as you can. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.200 Absolutely, you know, I've been trying to find. I can't believe, 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:52.920 since we started this job, I've been trying to find 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.600 like a really old scorecard of the golf course because 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.760 the teams don't show up quite as well in the 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.760 aerial photo is as everything else. You know, they weren't 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.920 as well defined as they are now, and they so 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.920 you can't depending on what time of year the pictures taken, 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.320 you can't see the actual outline of the tea and 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.040 exactly where they were. So to know exactly where all 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.320 the original teas were, you'd really like to have a 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.480 scorecard that measures it off, and I can't. You know, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.280 I've assed around and the oldest scorecard I've got so 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.720 far as from the sixties or seventies. It's before you know, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.160 it's not even it's after Dick Wilson with all the stars. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.760 That somebody has to have a scorecard. 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:34.840 Somebody has to have it. And just the other day, 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.440 the very first time I came to Beller in nineteen eighty, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.720 I played golf with Eddie Marins, who's the pro emeritus now. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.600 But while we were waiting until of course got quiet 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.400 so we could play, we went and had lunch and 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:54.080 the Men's grill and his former boss, Joe Novak, had 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.680 lunch with us, and Joe Novac spent like an hour 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:02.120 over lunch telling me how various architects had ruined Bellair, 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.480 you know, took the Maywest pull out and all this 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.080 other stuff. He was, you know, and I didn't realize 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:14.240 until this year when there's a there's a like a 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.240 case in the in one of the hallways of the 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.320 clubhouse that has a little display about Joe Novak. And 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.560 Joe Novak was the first pro at bell Air. He 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.200 was the pro from when it opened in nineteen twenty 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:34.640 seven until six in the sixties when he retired and 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.240 became the pro emeritus and Eddie Merin's take took over. 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.120 So they've only ever had three pros. But I didn't 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.400 realize that that guy who was telling me all those stories, 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.280 he'd been there right from the beginning. 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.240 That's that's like, was it oak Mount's on their third 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.000 pro now that Bob Ford retired. It's most a lot 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.680 of the iconic places have so few pros in terms 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.200 of being out here. What would you rate as Thomas's 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:08.800 best trait as an architect? This is an answer for 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.160 the whole group after Tom. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.680 For me, it's not one to do the same thing 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:20.800 over again, you know, there's not like bell Air has 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.680 or Riviera has a version of the dan hole the 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.160 fourth or it's a longer hole than the famous one 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.200 at North Beric. It's to twenty five. There's a huge 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:36.640 bunker short of it, and depending on I mean, he 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.760 actually had an option to lay up short of the 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.600 bunker and hits straight in over that instead of playing 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.480 the board off the right as an option if you couldn't, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.680 you know, if you couldn't hit it to thirty and 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.240 hit it on the green on the fly. But he 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.080 didn't do that. He didn't try to build one at 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.800 bell Air too, He didn't try to build one at 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.280 La Country Club too. He sort of like, okay, that's 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:02.960 my version of that. Now I'm going to go do 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.840 something different on the next golf course. And just like 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.200 Brian was saying, I mean, he spent a lot more 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:14.840 time dreaming up these conceptual things and then trying to 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.000 find a place for something like that on the new 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.520 courses that he was doing than most other architects. 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:21.760 I know. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.240 Part of that is because he did so few golf courses, 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.760 you know, I mean you get to a point where 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.160 you're too busy to do that. I mean, I don't 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.520 really draw a bunch of theory. You know, when I 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.480 was twenty I drew all kinds of theoretical golf holes. 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.000 Now I just go out on a site and look 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.439 at the visa land and try to think, well, what 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.160 will fit with this? But you know, he really did. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.719 He thought way outside of the box, and he was 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:54.080 not afraid to go do it. But he wasn't you know, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.240 he didn't have this formula down because he only you know, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.440 he only built, however, many golf courses in his life, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.080 and he didn't want to do the same thing over it. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:10.359 Brian, I'm thinking about his bunkers, and we've talked a 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.399 bit about. 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.800 This is great because it answer is a question from 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.240 another listener. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:15.920 Is that right? 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.359 The style of the bunkers stands out obviously in the scale. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.000 I mean there's some massive bunkers at bel Air in 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.920 the other work he's done everywhere else, but there aren't 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:27.600 that many of them. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:34.080 And to that point, when I came to start work, 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.520 what was the number seventy seven bunkers that were here? 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.560 Seventy seven or seventy nine or something like that that 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.800 were on the golf course a year ago today. George 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:49.400 Thomas built forty two bunkers on the golf course and 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.439 you know they just kept adding more and some of 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.800 the holes, like number ten has four bunkers around and 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.199 now I had none. He built these bunkers at this 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.440 huge scale, like somebody was saying earlier. But he didn't 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.040 build four of them around the green. He just built 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:07.200 one there. 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:07.640 It is. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.359 Get over that and you're good. Eighteen as a humongous 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.240 bunker in front of it. They'd added bunkers on both 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.840 sides of it after the fact, you know so. And 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.760 it has to do with the style too, you know, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.320 his style now is famous that you could say it's 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:30.119 the thing that you know, depending on who you're talking to, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.200 Gill Hants or Bill cor or me or somebody else. 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.879 You know, we all build these cool bunker shapes and 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.080 you could say it come from Mackenzie and the sand 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.560 belt of Australia. You could say it comes from George Thomas. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.399 They're all slightly different versions of a similar style. And 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.439 you know, I remember when Gilhants worked for me and 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.439 we were trying we were going to build black Forest 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:54.919 and wanted to build bunkers like that. He and I 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.480 brought him out here for a week and we went 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.720 to Cyprus Point in San Francisco Golf Club and Riviera 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:06.320 and La Country Club and paste off how big those 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.000 bunkers were and how far the keep stuck into them 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.440 and stuff, so we could do similar stuff. But that 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.600 style that Tom has had and that really wild look, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:24.159 it was like it was meant to be looked at 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.280 one or two bunkers at a time, not four overlapping ones. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.080 You know. So the visuals on this golf course changed 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.800 tremendously when they started adding bunkers. I mean it just 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.359 got way too busy. And so the one bunker with 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.120 all the things going on, that looked good, but when 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.200 you had three or four of them, it just looked crazy. 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:53.000 I imagine that one bunker loses its impact because sometimes 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.080 you hear it with almost everything, less is more, But 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.879 having that only one bunker is pose a three. Like 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.679 you look at three bunkers and if there's one short, 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.760 there's one left and there's one right. And what I 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:14.560 say to myself is, well, just hit a fucking good shot. Literally, 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:16.879 what I say to myself whenever I have trouble on 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:22.520 both sides, and like when there's when there's just one 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.960 the strategy change where you're like, just don't hit it there, 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.120 and all of a sudden you miss. 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.760 Right or you know, just just just the way you 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.680 said it, don't hit it there. For most golfers, that's 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:38.200 where they're going because you've made them think about there 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.960 and how bad that would be. And you know you're 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:42.919 a good enough player to get over that and just 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:48.560 miss wide left if the bunker's right. Yeah, but but yeah, 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:53.080 I mean, you do these things get It's not just 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.240 the visuals, it's like it does impact how you play 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.960 the whole. The visual impacts how you play the whole. 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.720 You know, you're scared away from something and you see 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.399 some open you know, it's like run to daylight. You 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.480 see some space over there that looks like you're not 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.399 gonna get any trouble if you're over there, I'll just 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:12.880 miss out there a little more. And then a lot 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.480 of times, what I've learned about bel air is a 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.280 lot of times you're out there and now you've got 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.280 a downhill chip shot that you just cannot stop anywhere 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.120 near the all at all. That looked like a good 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:24.720 place to be. 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:29.359 It's not over there is usually worse than the big bunker. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:30.880 Yeah, to that point. 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.120 I mean he only built forty some bunkers at bel Air, 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.520 but they're they're all relevant. I mean, you put them 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.040 in the right places, and there's still irrelevant today that 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:40.960 The second hole is a great example. There was a 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:45.320 massive central fairry bunker with lots of fairway left kind 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:47.639 of banking off of hillside and a lot of ferry 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:49.919 out to the right. But over the years tree has 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.840 been planted up the left and the bunker's gone away 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.159 in the center, and the hole became, you know, a 0:22:56.800 --> 0:22:59.920 third less wide, and you've lost the options of playing 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.840 around this thing that was really relevant. And you know 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:04.800 now there's a bunker ferry bunker out in the right 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.919 that was added that was more penal than you know, 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.119 something that made you think about where you want to 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:14.040 hit the ball. And you know, Riviera is a great example. 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:16.200 I was telling the story earlier, earlier today. I worked 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:21.639 there in nineteen ninety seven for the superintendent and in 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:26.080 nineteen ninety eight the golf course held the Senior US 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.879 Senior Open. I don't know how many bunkers are a 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.359 Rivierra but after the first round to play, there were 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:32.959 only two bunkers in the golf course that didn't need 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:37.040 to be raped, which meant that almost every bunker on 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.920 that golf course for the world's best seniors was in play. 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:42.200 And you know, that was a golf course that was 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:44.479 built in the nineteen twenties and the bunkers haven't been 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:46.800 moved around there. They're exactly where George Thomas put him. 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.040 Some teas have been added, but every boat, you know, 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:53.000 every bunker he put on that golf course is still 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:57.760 relevant seventy years after he built it, and there aren't 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:00.720 that many. And to me, that's that's pretty pressive. And 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:02.760 the restored bel air is going to be more of 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:04.560 the same and it's going to be really interesting because 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.480 trees have been taken out, with has been restored and 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:09.240 a lot of those options are going to come back. 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:13.320 That one single bunker is responsible for a whole lot 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:14.520 of thought and interest. 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:18.399 Just to kind of expand on what Brian's saying, what 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:20.280 you had said before, Andy, when you said, oh, it's 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:23.000 surrounded by bunkers, I just say, just hit a good shot. 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.439 I haven't played golf with you. I've heard you're a 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.720 good player, But that's great for you. You can hit 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:31.040 a five iron two hundred yards in the air and 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.959 stop it on that green. But what's cool about what 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:36.000 these guys did is there was one bunker, and it 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:39.080 might be massive and scary, but there was a way 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:43.359 for everybody else to play around it. And I just 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:45.200 think that's why these golf courses are so cool. And 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:47.840 I'm sure you've talked about in your podcast in the past, 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:49.000 but the Golden. 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:49.600 Age courses were cool. 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:51.840 They weren't They gave everybody a chance. 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.800 Also, it's just like what we were talking about with 0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:58.240 the backside of that bunker, where a low running shot 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:02.639 could use that to run it into the. 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:05.000 The ground option was actually an option in golf back then. 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:06.520 You know, everyone still used it. 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:09.520 The good news about California too, is that it doesn't 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.760 rain much, so the ground game is actually in effect 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:13.960 most days. 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:16.159 You know what's cool about George Thomas, You tell me 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:18.200 what you learned from one thing I thought was cool 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:21.320 you come out to California, not being from here. I 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:24.160 committed her. I think the landscape, the natural landscape out 0:25:24.160 --> 0:25:27.720 here is just fantastic and gorgeous, and every golf course 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:30.040 out here seems to try as hard as they can 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:33.119 not to have a California landscape, and George Thomas seemed 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:36.720 to really embrace just the coolness of California. As Tom said, 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:39.520 it was pretty wild and rugged back then. But I 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.119 think with bel Air, we're bringing some of the California 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:44.480 landscape back by getting rid of some of the kind 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:46.960 of English garden effect that was covering it all up. 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:53.320 Another aspect of just the so many fewer bunkers in 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:56.919 combination with getting rid of a bunch of trees. You know, 0:25:57.119 --> 0:25:59.280 an element that you referred to Andy that I think 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:04.960 really actually aids better players is just is just more 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:12.160 kind of subliminal information, uh, you know, tree left, tree right, 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:15.000 bunker left, bunker right, whatever it is. You know, you're 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:18.160 just kind of splitting the difference and finding the safe 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:21.600 spot in the middle. The narrower these golf courses get. 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:24.760 And one thing I've learned over the years is the 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:28.560 more you know, people think it's you're making things easier 0:26:28.600 --> 0:26:31.000 when you take trees away, When you take away all 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:34.320 that extra information about where where you need to go, 0:26:34.400 --> 0:26:38.160 you need to think about it more, which is that's 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:42.760 not good, you know, just in terms of having you know, 0:26:42.840 --> 0:26:47.560 hitting a successful shot, and the other thing is that 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:53.399 it strips away some of the feeling of of you know, 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:55.840 a little bit of safety where your ball is gonna 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:58.760 end up. I mean, we talked about Tom and I 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:01.720 were just kind of walking around left of seventeen green 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:04.600 and there was kind of a bunker off the back 0:27:04.680 --> 0:27:07.639 left side and a big pine tree kind of at 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:11.680 the left corner of the green, and it's a long, 0:27:11.800 --> 0:27:18.119 hard hole, and you know, those two things helped you 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:20.200 feel like, well, if you if you kind of tug 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:22.359 one left, it's going to catch the tree and fall 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:24.960 near the tree and you're kind of under it, but 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:26.960 you can kind of scrape one on the green and 0:27:26.960 --> 0:27:28.959 probably get up and down, or you're in the bunker. 0:27:29.680 --> 0:27:32.440 And you know, we're talking for good players. Thinking here 0:27:33.080 --> 0:27:36.119 those guys that come up from UCLA and you know, 0:27:36.200 --> 0:27:37.960 six feet below the level of the green and a 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:41.359 bunker twenty feet from the hole, they're thinking of making 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:46.399 that one. And whereas a mid handicapped member doesn't like 0:27:46.440 --> 0:27:50.040 being in a bunker, take all that crap away. You know, 0:27:50.119 --> 0:27:53.360 Tom made the comment, the one thing to make this 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:56.480 golf course as hard as you'd want is just momore 0:27:57.000 --> 0:27:59.400 and now it's just a grass slope. If you miss left, 0:27:59.400 --> 0:28:02.000 you're all the way down on the other side of 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:08.720 eighteen t in or near this baranka, and who knows 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:10.000 what you're gonna make from down there. 0:28:10.480 --> 0:28:12.520 And we didn't go to that level on that, You know, 0:28:12.520 --> 0:28:14.840 we could, we could mow a lot more ground down. Yeah, 0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:17.400 that's like, but let the ball get way away from 0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:20.600 the green. Kind of crazy. We didn't go there. But 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:23.119 you know what you're talking about is what what I 0:28:23.200 --> 0:28:26.560 used to hear a lot in terms of definition was, Yeah, 0:28:26.840 --> 0:28:28.280 was the name of the game back then. You know, 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:31.520 it's like the tree to the more in the bunker, 0:28:31.560 --> 0:28:33.199 the tree to the left of the green is like, 0:28:34.560 --> 0:28:36.680 you don't ever be left of there. This is kind 0:28:36.680 --> 0:28:40.680 of holding you in. You started inside that and you're okay, 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:44.440 but you're not getting on. You don't have that anymore. 0:28:44.480 --> 0:28:46.640 You're like, look at now you're looking at the edge 0:28:46.680 --> 0:28:49.440 of the green and how precarious it is and how 0:28:49.560 --> 0:28:51.960 bad it is if you miss it left. It's a 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:53.000 totally different feel. 0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:56.960 Yeah, it just feel there's just a lot more negative 0:28:57.640 --> 0:29:00.520 thoughts that can creep in when all that stuff is 0:29:00.560 --> 0:29:05.880 stripped away. So it's amazing how much more intimidating that 0:29:05.960 --> 0:29:09.920 hole is with just one feature, just that bunker well 0:29:09.960 --> 0:29:14.160 away from the green. But it's freaky back there, and 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:15.760 you gotta be careful. 0:29:16.360 --> 0:29:23.280 I firmly believe that when an architect stimulates thought, that's 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:27.360 when he wins, because as soon as I think, that's 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:31.520 when doubt am I making it? Is this the right choice? 0:29:32.320 --> 0:29:32.800 And once. 0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:37.760 Yeah, and you're thinking about that exactly, it gets you 0:29:37.840 --> 0:29:41.000 out of your commit Like you watch these tour players 0:29:41.040 --> 0:29:44.000 and they take forever over shots, but it's all about 0:29:44.000 --> 0:29:48.320 them getting fully committed and just making a swing. And 0:29:48.560 --> 0:29:53.160 as soon as you enter something that stimulates thought, that's 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:57.480 where doubt comes in. And that's where having all these 0:29:57.520 --> 0:30:01.640 options and taking trees out make it more playable for 0:30:01.720 --> 0:30:04.920 the regular player and much much more difficult for the 0:30:04.920 --> 0:30:05.440 good player. 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:08.000 And that's when I worked for Pete Dye. We were 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:09.920 working on the plans for the stadium of course at 0:30:09.920 --> 0:30:12.800 PJA West, and I've printed this quote in one or 0:30:12.840 --> 0:30:16.920 two of my books, and Perry Dye was not happy 0:30:16.920 --> 0:30:19.440 with me the first time he used it because it was, 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:21.360 you know, it was something his dad just said to 0:30:21.400 --> 0:30:24.080 me casually while we were working on something, but I 0:30:24.120 --> 0:30:27.920 thought it deserved its place in history. We were trying 0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:31.240 to we're trying to work on things for the stadium 0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:37.120 course that the players were really uncomfortable with. Like at 0:30:37.120 --> 0:30:39.720 the time, they didn't carry four wedges. They just carried 0:30:39.760 --> 0:30:42.360 pitching wedges and sand wedge. So they did not like 0:30:42.480 --> 0:30:45.520 leaving themselves sixty eighty yards because they didn't have a 0:30:45.560 --> 0:30:49.720 club for that. In fact, because Pete started building so 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:51.920 many holes where that was bad. You know where that 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:54.360 was a bad place, but you wound up wanting to 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:56.560 go there because he wouldn't let you lay back to 0:30:56.640 --> 0:30:59.160 the hundred yard mark and hit your full wedge. We 0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:01.400 put something in the way there, so you had to 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:03.640 like either lay way back or get it up where 0:31:03.640 --> 0:31:06.880 you were uncomfortable. And he did it so often that 0:31:06.960 --> 0:31:11.040 they started carrying more wedges to deal with it because 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:13.720 he wouldn't let them play the way they played everywhere else. 0:31:14.360 --> 0:31:17.080 But anyway, just casually talking about what we were doing, 0:31:17.960 --> 0:31:20.640 just he just kind of blurted out, if you get 0:31:20.640 --> 0:31:21.960 those dudes thinking they're in. 0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:29.200 Trouble, exactly, that's the way every golf every golf course 0:31:29.240 --> 0:31:32.239 for pro should be, Like longer and narrower, is just 0:31:33.880 --> 0:31:35.280 you know, you're telling them where to go. 0:31:36.760 --> 0:31:40.320 Well, and what these guys were talking about with bunkers 0:31:40.320 --> 0:31:43.080 and taking trees away that you asked what we appreciate 0:31:43.120 --> 0:31:46.640 about George Thomas, and it's that his landing areas are 0:31:46.680 --> 0:31:50.560 staggered on the parallel holes. So some people may say, 0:31:50.600 --> 0:31:52.720 if you take away these bunkers or these trees, you're 0:31:52.720 --> 0:31:56.120 creating a safety issue. But like on six and seven, 0:31:56.200 --> 0:31:58.640 how they paralleled the t shot on six would not 0:31:58.760 --> 0:32:02.680 interfere with people playing on seven, and vice versa. The 0:32:02.760 --> 0:32:05.200 landing areas aren't next to each other, like the landing 0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:07.920 area for twelve is not interfering with the landing area 0:32:07.920 --> 0:32:12.320 on fourteen. So to Tom's point of the canyons are 0:32:12.360 --> 0:32:15.120 too narrow for what we would today think could fit 0:32:15.200 --> 0:32:19.640 two holes the way he yeah, that's how he staggered 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:23.440 those landing areas was and now it's being revealed was 0:32:23.840 --> 0:32:26.400 part of the genius of this genius routing. 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:31.600 To go back to your point about the lack of definition. 0:32:31.680 --> 0:32:35.600 I remember after the US Open at Aaron Hills, an 0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:39.040 interview with Jason Day after his last round, he was 0:32:39.080 --> 0:32:40.720 asked about the width of the golf course and he 0:32:41.760 --> 0:32:44.360 flat out said the width made it harder for him 0:32:44.360 --> 0:32:46.240 to focus on a target off the tea. He really 0:32:46.280 --> 0:32:50.160 struggled off the tea because the landing areas weren't well 0:32:50.200 --> 0:32:52.520 defined that week and he wasn't used to that, and 0:32:52.560 --> 0:32:54.640 he had a hard time focusing on where he should 0:32:54.680 --> 0:32:56.280 hit the ball off the tea, which I thought was fascinating. 0:32:56.600 --> 0:32:59.480 And these fairways were the widest they've seen in years, 0:33:00.200 --> 0:33:03.680 and that made it harder for him too to play 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:06.280 well off the tee. And it was refreshing to hear 0:33:06.320 --> 0:33:07.920 him say that that happened to you. In the first 0:33:07.960 --> 0:33:12.440 tea at Saint Andrews, I stayed in play by three inches. 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:23.480 Another interesting quote from the US Open that is relevant 0:33:23.520 --> 0:33:26.480 to this conversation was, you know, they had that whole 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:31.160 overspray debate and they had this really thick, thick fescue 0:33:32.360 --> 0:33:35.080 and they cut it down last minute, and they Jordan 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:37.720 Spieth had his press conference and they asked him about 0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:41.160 it and he goes, well, actually, in some ways it's 0:33:41.240 --> 0:33:44.240 worse because your ball gets in there and all of 0:33:44.240 --> 0:33:46.120 a sudden you think you have a chance instead of 0:33:46.160 --> 0:33:50.240 just chipping out. And you know, this goes back to 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:53.920 our conversation about taking trees out and that idea you 0:33:54.320 --> 0:33:56.160 have you're in a grove of trees, it's just a 0:33:56.160 --> 0:34:00.760 punch out. But like when you're in rough and you 0:34:00.840 --> 0:34:02.720 got a clear shot to the green, you're going for 0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:05.680 it no matter what, and like and not just that, 0:34:05.760 --> 0:34:09.160 it's also the flip side of that is you take 0:34:09.200 --> 0:34:11.400 the chance to hit a great shot away. 0:34:12.400 --> 0:34:17.080 And as long as what it's requiring is a great shot. 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:20.080 You know, if what you're doing is making it so 0:34:20.120 --> 0:34:22.400 everybody can hit the green, no, you don't want to 0:34:22.440 --> 0:34:26.320 do that. But if you're giving a guy a chance, 0:34:26.640 --> 0:34:33.840 a chance, but a difficult shot to play out of rough, over, bunkers, whatever, 0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:37.440 and he pulls it off, that's a big part of 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:40.799 what you're trying to do in golf course architecture. And 0:34:41.280 --> 0:34:43.400 putting a bunch of stuff in the way so nobody 0:34:43.440 --> 0:34:45.920 can do that is ridiculous. 0:34:46.680 --> 0:34:50.959 With our crew here tonight, we would be very shortsighted 0:34:51.040 --> 0:34:53.879 and not talk at least a little bit about Billy Bell, 0:34:54.560 --> 0:35:01.239 William Bell, George Thomas's construction guy, Kyle Mackie, what have 0:35:01.360 --> 0:35:05.120 you learned from William Bell's golf courses in his style 0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:07.600 and is he is he underrated. 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:14.000 I wouldn't say I've seen enough of mister Bell's work 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:16.920 to really pass judgment on it. I can only speak 0:35:16.960 --> 0:35:20.799 to you know what I've learned from working on bell Air. 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:27.680 But we have we have distinct different years of aerial photographs. 0:35:27.840 --> 0:35:32.560 And you know, the original bunkers that Thomas built were 0:35:33.120 --> 0:35:35.600 really nothing. They were the scale was the same, they 0:35:35.600 --> 0:35:39.680 were enormous, and they had some larger landforms involved. But 0:35:39.719 --> 0:35:44.799 the really you know, the really wacky crazy stuff came 0:35:44.840 --> 0:35:50.160 about when when Billy Bell got involved in in kind 0:35:50.200 --> 0:35:54.719 of work, you know, exerted his influence on on what 0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:59.040 was going on. So that's the one thing that I 0:35:59.120 --> 0:36:02.239 noticed on this project in particular right away was just 0:36:03.080 --> 0:36:06.719 that from the original, you know, the earliest photographs of 0:36:06.800 --> 0:36:10.480 the place that they were really simple, large landforms, and 0:36:10.520 --> 0:36:14.719 the the you know, the detail came a little bit 0:36:14.800 --> 0:36:19.520 later and came in spades when when Billy Bell was here. 0:36:21.400 --> 0:36:23.359 And you have worked on one other of course, where 0:36:23.360 --> 0:36:26.040 Billy Bell did bunkers in the San Francisco Golf Club 0:36:26.040 --> 0:36:30.360 where he never gets any credit, but same thing tilling 0:36:30.480 --> 0:36:35.800 Hatfs version early nineteen twenties. Scales, right, shapes are different, 0:36:37.800 --> 0:36:41.000 simpler time in the late twenties, Billy Bell went up 0:36:41.040 --> 0:36:43.000 there for a little while, and those are the bunkers 0:36:43.040 --> 0:36:45.400 that you see all the pictures of, and they've the 0:36:45.480 --> 0:36:48.839 famous little Tilly hole has got famous when Billy All 0:36:48.880 --> 0:36:50.000 built the bunker. 0:36:49.640 --> 0:36:51.760 In front of it. We'll start calling it little Billy. 0:36:52.400 --> 0:36:59.880 Yeah, it's a little Billy mumfree so deep, it seems 0:36:59.920 --> 0:37:06.640 like you know, George Thomas Bunkering and Mackenzie with Robert 0:37:06.760 --> 0:37:12.399 Hunter Bunkering are revered as the greatest bunkering of all 0:37:12.480 --> 0:37:16.160 time and they all happen to be in California. What 0:37:16.640 --> 0:37:19.560 is it about California that inspired this bunker? 0:37:19.760 --> 0:37:24.680 It doesn't rain much? In answer? Yeah, I mean that's 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:27.480 that is huge, and you know it works in the 0:37:27.520 --> 0:37:30.280 sand Belt to Melbourne too, they're raising all those bunkers. 0:37:30.600 --> 0:37:32.960 There's two things going on in the sand Belt to Melbourne. 0:37:33.640 --> 0:37:40.360 It doesn't rain much and the it's here too. Bermuda 0:37:40.400 --> 0:37:44.600 grass holds the edges much better. You know, the roots 0:37:44.640 --> 0:37:48.080 go really deep. The reason they can have a bunker 0:37:48.120 --> 0:37:52.120 at raw Melbourne with just a practically vertical edge is 0:37:52.120 --> 0:37:55.319 because there's so much root structure going down that you 0:37:55.320 --> 0:37:58.240 can just take a spade shovel and chop it down 0:37:59.080 --> 0:38:05.319 and not worry about all the eroding and contaminating the 0:38:05.400 --> 0:38:08.719 bunker with a bunch of bad material. It holds its 0:38:08.719 --> 0:38:12.120 shape and then the rain doesn't erod it and mess 0:38:12.160 --> 0:38:15.480 it all up either, So you know, so you don't 0:38:15.520 --> 0:38:17.399 see bunkers, you know, if you have the same bunk 0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:19.839 If they try to build the same bunkers in Scotland, 0:38:20.200 --> 0:38:22.840 they're all blown away in a year. I mean, you know, 0:38:22.920 --> 0:38:27.000 the biggest problem abandoned dunes by far is how much 0:38:27.040 --> 0:38:30.000 wind erosion there is in the bunkers. It's Pacific dunes 0:38:30.080 --> 0:38:33.400 is just crazy. How much time and effort they spend. 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:35.880 Of course they don't have to spend time and effort 0:38:35.880 --> 0:38:37.839 on a lot of other things, so they can put 0:38:37.880 --> 0:38:41.160 the labor to that instead of some other places if 0:38:41.160 --> 0:38:44.640 they'd done things differently. But there is no question that 0:38:44.680 --> 0:38:48.279 it worked. The reason you see it here and in 0:38:48.320 --> 0:38:51.120 Melbourne to a lesser extent, is because it doesn't rain 0:38:51.280 --> 0:38:53.560 very much and you can build those shapes and not 0:38:53.680 --> 0:38:55.799 have to send the crew out to fix all the 0:38:55.840 --> 0:38:59.440 bunkers every time it rains, because it doesn't matter. It 0:38:59.440 --> 0:39:02.400 doesn't rain enough to make a difference. But when you 0:39:02.440 --> 0:39:04.719 try to take these shapes and build them everywhere else 0:39:04.719 --> 0:39:08.240 around the world. In Asia, that doesn't work. 0:39:09.360 --> 0:39:09.839 You have a. 0:39:09.760 --> 0:39:14.120 Tropical storm every afternoon in the summer. It's just it's 0:39:14.160 --> 0:39:15.880 impossible to get those shapes. 0:39:17.360 --> 0:39:20.200 Andy wonder that you mentioned your question about Billy Bell. 0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:21.919 I've worked a couple of courses out here that Billy 0:39:21.920 --> 0:39:24.680 Bell was involved in, and they're all very cool. But 0:39:24.800 --> 0:39:27.440 I think what it really boils down to with Billy 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:30.120 Bell is that it takes more than one person to 0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:32.440 build a good golf course. And Billy Bell was helping 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:37.960 George Thomas, he was helping Killing Hast and Tom's name 0:39:38.040 --> 0:39:40.040 might be on the golf course, but there's a lot 0:39:40.080 --> 0:39:42.879 of people involved in any golf course that happens it's 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:44.880 a good golf course, there's more than one person that 0:39:45.360 --> 0:39:46.240 had a hand in it. 0:39:47.800 --> 0:39:49.680 And it takes time to I mean, one of the 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:53.759 things we were looking at today was all the barancas 0:39:53.920 --> 0:39:57.680 over at La Country Club and how they were naturalized 0:39:57.719 --> 0:40:02.800 when they did stuff, and and I mean they had 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:06.440 just go works the same way I do. He is 0:40:06.480 --> 0:40:09.200 a ton of guys out there who are talented and 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:12.680 trying to do cool stuff, and they're working really hard 0:40:12.760 --> 0:40:16.400 on all this artistic stuff around the edges. The issue 0:40:16.480 --> 0:40:18.480 is you can go too far. One of the things 0:40:18.480 --> 0:40:21.720 that makes all these golf courses really good is time 0:40:23.239 --> 0:40:30.560 and somebody involved over the longer term to work out 0:40:30.600 --> 0:40:33.840 all those details. No matter no matter how good everybody 0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:38.840 is here, the really good golf courses are going to 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:41.960 get better over time and the other ones are going 0:40:42.000 --> 0:40:45.840 to get worse over time because of who the superintendent 0:40:46.000 --> 0:40:49.120 is and who his crew is, and to some extent, 0:40:49.200 --> 0:40:53.279 who the green chairman is. But they're either good at 0:40:53.320 --> 0:40:56.040 that stuff or they're not good at it. And I 0:40:56.080 --> 0:40:59.160 guarant every single golf course I've done has either gotten 0:40:59.200 --> 0:41:02.400 better or got worse. They don't stay the same because 0:41:02.400 --> 0:41:06.560 they're living, growing things and there's other people involved. So 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:10.480 we didn't just go over there by ourselves. We went 0:41:10.520 --> 0:41:14.120 over there with the new superintendent here who used to 0:41:14.160 --> 0:41:17.120 be the assistant superintendent over there, so he understands it 0:41:17.320 --> 0:41:22.280 really well. And you know, we're kind of thinking, let's 0:41:22.400 --> 0:41:29.319 not overkill this and think overthink it too hard. We 0:41:29.400 --> 0:41:32.120 could try to get everything perfect by the fourth of 0:41:32.160 --> 0:41:36.680 July next year when it opens, but really, you know, 0:41:37.440 --> 0:41:41.399 when we want it perfect is the next fifty years 0:41:42.160 --> 0:41:46.799 and he'll get there. Let's just not make it too 0:41:46.800 --> 0:41:49.600 complicated for him to get there, you know. Let's let's 0:41:49.600 --> 0:41:53.799 get everything grasped and where he doesn't have to worry 0:41:53.800 --> 0:41:57.600 about it washing away first and then start to work 0:41:57.640 --> 0:42:00.359 on some of that stuff instead of instead of doing 0:42:00.400 --> 0:42:02.880 all these edges now and then having them all go 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:04.520 crazy the first time it rings. 0:42:04.719 --> 0:42:06.600 Yeah, it's hard to believe. George Thomas and Billy Bell 0:42:06.600 --> 0:42:09.560 spend a bunch of time working out how they wanted 0:42:09.560 --> 0:42:11.320 the bunkers. You know, how the Arroyals were going to 0:42:11.320 --> 0:42:12.759 look really cool on opening day. 0:42:13.480 --> 0:42:14.880 Yeah, don't Friday. 0:42:14.960 --> 0:42:20.360 We have just we have definitive photographic evidence. They didn't 0:42:20.440 --> 0:42:24.160 look cool on opening day. They look cool two or 0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:28.120 three years after opening day, after Billy Bell was back 0:42:28.160 --> 0:42:29.160 tinkering around with him. 0:42:29.200 --> 0:42:32.200 So when was that Because the course opened in twenty seven, 0:42:32.280 --> 0:42:35.400 But when was Billy Bell here redoing the bunkers. 0:42:35.960 --> 0:42:41.560 Well it's the course. I think technically it opened in 0:42:41.640 --> 0:42:44.200 twenty seven, but it was built in twenty five and 0:42:44.239 --> 0:42:47.120 they were playing it before twenty seven, and so our 0:42:47.160 --> 0:42:50.319 earliest pictures are in nineteen twenty five, and then we 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:54.359 have another set from twenty seven, and it's it's it's 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:57.160 in that, you know, it's different than what we're doing now. 0:42:57.239 --> 0:43:00.239 What we're doing now, we're doing eight months work and 0:43:00.280 --> 0:43:03.320 then bang, they're going to open it to five hundred members. 0:43:03.960 --> 0:43:05.719 Back then, it was a year and a half or 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:08.360 two years of growing and you played a little golf 0:43:08.400 --> 0:43:11.600 on it, but it wasn't really ready for the onslaught 0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:16.439 because they didn't have irrigation systems like we do now, 0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:18.520 and they you know, it took a lot longer to 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:20.160 grow in a golf course and get it all right, 0:43:20.840 --> 0:43:22.640 and so they had a lot more time to tinker 0:43:22.680 --> 0:43:26.799 around with it. I mean, all we would really need 0:43:27.560 --> 0:43:30.239 is one summer when the bermuda grass was growing so 0:43:30.280 --> 0:43:32.680 we could see how everything reacted and we could go 0:43:32.719 --> 0:43:35.280 fix some of that. But they want to be open. 0:43:35.120 --> 0:43:39.680 Then, so that's the job of the super right. 0:43:40.000 --> 0:43:45.000 Well, it's not just his day. You know, we'll be 0:43:45.080 --> 0:43:50.400 involved in the next couple of years. But importantly he's 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:53.520 around here now we're when we're still working on it, 0:43:53.960 --> 0:43:57.600 so you know by the time by the time we're 0:43:57.640 --> 0:44:00.239 out of here, he's been working with us for a 0:44:00.239 --> 0:44:04.520 while and you understand the same things that we all 0:44:04.560 --> 0:44:07.719 talk about every night, and he's the one who's going 0:44:07.800 --> 0:44:11.839 to be watching out for that in the long term. 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:16.560 Eric, that's gotta be a really important facet of any restoration. 0:44:16.719 --> 0:44:18.919 Is it super and the relationship there right? 0:44:20.920 --> 0:44:23.920 Yeah, I think it goes It can go beyond the 0:44:23.960 --> 0:44:28.520 super to the membership. You know, the I like to say, 0:44:28.560 --> 0:44:31.759 you know, when we're talking about golf course architecture, you know, 0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:37.719 we're not curing cancer out there. It's we're making a 0:44:37.760 --> 0:44:41.759 field to play for a fun game. But a lot 0:44:41.760 --> 0:44:46.840 of the nuance can be lost if people just try 0:44:46.880 --> 0:44:51.399 to think about it in terms of what's there and 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:54.000 what do you want it to look like? You know, 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:55.640 you get that all the time. What do you want 0:44:55.640 --> 0:44:58.360 this to look like? You know, what should this be like? 0:44:58.440 --> 0:45:02.200 What should that look like? And it's less about what 0:45:02.280 --> 0:45:06.560 it looks like and more about how it works and 0:45:06.600 --> 0:45:14.320 how it looks will follow. If it's well built, holes 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:17.560 on good ground, how it looks will kind of take 0:45:17.600 --> 0:45:23.800 care of itself. So more importantly than having a superintendent 0:45:23.960 --> 0:45:27.640 that quote unquote knows what you want it to look like, 0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:30.759 it's more important that they understand how it's supposed to 0:45:30.800 --> 0:45:36.439 work and understand how maybe more important what you don't 0:45:36.440 --> 0:45:42.439 want it to look like. But anything past that qualification 0:45:44.040 --> 0:45:46.520 is okay. And I think the best clubs in the 0:45:46.560 --> 0:45:49.359 world have a membership that get that too. They don't 0:45:49.400 --> 0:45:51.759 need the superintendent to kind of tell them what what 0:45:51.840 --> 0:45:54.080 it ought to look like. They're their own best police. 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:56.440 I think Tom could probably speak to. 0:45:56.719 --> 0:45:59.680 But a lot of them they've grown up with it 0:45:59.719 --> 0:46:02.840 because it's always been well managed. I mean Raal Melbourne. 0:46:04.239 --> 0:46:07.320 You know, Mackenzie was famously in Melbourne for six weeks 0:46:07.320 --> 0:46:09.160 and he built one hall at Roll Melbourne and then 0:46:09.160 --> 0:46:14.160 he left in the but the superintendent there mc Morecambe 0:46:14.360 --> 0:46:17.520 and Alex Russell, the club champion, they're the ones who 0:46:17.520 --> 0:46:20.440 actually built the golf course and then we were talking 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:23.400 about golf pros here and now there's been three in 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:27.600 however many years. Raw Melbourne's had four superintendents since the 0:46:27.680 --> 0:46:31.000 day they built it. Morecambe he was there for twenty years. 0:46:31.480 --> 0:46:35.040 His assistant was Claude Crockford. Crockford was there for thirty years. 0:46:35.160 --> 0:46:37.200 They're the ones who worked out what it looks like. 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:40.200 And everybody and every member at Roy Melbourne that we 0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:44.359 deal with now they get it because they've seen those 0:46:44.400 --> 0:46:46.680 guys work exactly. 0:46:46.719 --> 0:46:50.360 I mean, all the best, the very best places in 0:46:50.400 --> 0:46:55.120 the world have the membership really is fifty percent along 0:46:55.160 --> 0:46:59.320 on the education of what their golf course is all about, 0:46:59.360 --> 0:47:02.839 and you know who built it and what's important and 0:47:02.880 --> 0:47:05.600 what's not important. And that's a big part of it. 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:09.000 So you know, that'll be a big part of bel 0:47:09.080 --> 0:47:13.360 Air as well, is getting people to kind of re 0:47:13.520 --> 0:47:18.239 embrace not just that George Thomas his name was on it, 0:47:19.200 --> 0:47:23.560 but that this is what is so great about it, 0:47:23.800 --> 0:47:25.200 and getting them to understand that. 0:47:25.560 --> 0:47:28.799 Like them being able to say, look at how few 0:47:28.840 --> 0:47:32.520 bunkers there are out here, but how well placed they are. 0:47:32.840 --> 0:47:39.240 Yeah, And and not everybody, really, frankly, not everybody. People 0:47:39.280 --> 0:47:43.200 are busy, not everybody has time to delve into golf 0:47:43.200 --> 0:47:47.680 course architecture. But I think most golfers just kind of 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:52.040 play regularly and you've liked golf, you just kind of 0:47:52.760 --> 0:47:54.600 know it when you see it's like, damn, that just 0:47:55.080 --> 0:47:58.319 feels right. This just feels so much better. Can't really 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:01.440 put my finger on it, but yeah, this is better. 0:48:01.800 --> 0:48:03.919 And then the ones that are a little more keen 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:07.600 to like dig into it, they'll they'll ask questions and 0:48:07.719 --> 0:48:12.560 learn and there's that whole faction too, that are sometimes 0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:15.480 they can sometimes they can be a hassle too. They 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:19.839 get a little too involved. But you know you want 0:48:19.920 --> 0:48:21.400 you want an educated membership. 0:48:22.040 --> 0:48:26.479 Yeah, let's uh, let's get out of here with some 0:48:26.800 --> 0:48:29.840 overrated underrateds. Who's who's ready for overrated? 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:32.759 Underrated? I'll go this too often? Let them do this 0:48:34.040 --> 0:48:34.479 all right? 0:48:34.640 --> 0:48:37.840 First? Can I just go underrated or do I have 0:48:37.840 --> 0:48:39.680 to do both? You gotta pick. 0:48:40.239 --> 0:48:42.719 He's gonna he's gonna give you a particular thing. 0:48:43.360 --> 0:48:47.160 I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one one topic. You 0:48:47.200 --> 0:48:53.760 say overrated, there's no okay, no properly rated Stanley Thompson. 0:48:55.800 --> 0:49:00.200 It has to be either over or under I think 0:49:00.239 --> 0:49:06.120 I think underappreciated, underrated in the ah, you know, in 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:10.759 the in the grand scheme of golf and just the 0:49:10.760 --> 0:49:13.120 the average golfer in the in the world has never 0:49:13.160 --> 0:49:16.960 heard of Stanley Thompson. But I think in architecture circles 0:49:17.000 --> 0:49:22.640 he's very much appreciated, and so I would say underrated. 0:49:27.040 --> 0:49:29.360 That's a good parallel to George Thomas, probably for America, 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:32.960 because that I mean George Thomas has his small body 0:49:32.960 --> 0:49:38.800 of work in California and two Americans. I suppose Stanley 0:49:38.800 --> 0:49:42.240 Thompson had his relatively small body of work in Canada, 0:49:42.280 --> 0:49:44.960 which he was more prolific than Thomas. But you know, 0:49:45.000 --> 0:49:47.000 I think his best work would stand up to Thomas's 0:49:47.040 --> 0:49:49.759 as well. Just isn't nearly as well known to Americans 0:49:49.760 --> 0:49:54.480 because Riviera is on TV every year and Capilano's not. 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:59.080 I forgot to put who asked this question, but it 0:49:59.120 --> 0:49:59.960 was probably a Canadian. 0:50:00.400 --> 0:50:06.000 Yeah, half America's probably think Stanley Johnson was a right 0:50:06.040 --> 0:50:07.680 winger for the Blackhawks or something. 0:50:08.239 --> 0:50:13.200 Stanley Thompson might be overrated in Canada. Canada's gonna hate 0:50:13.239 --> 0:50:17.960 me now, all right. Overrated, underrated, false. 0:50:17.680 --> 0:50:25.480 Fronts, overrated. Oh, it's one of the things we've been 0:50:25.520 --> 0:50:28.080 dealing with a bell Air. I mean this, this, this 0:50:28.200 --> 0:50:31.360 topography is steeper than it looks. You know, you're playing 0:50:31.400 --> 0:50:35.960 up canyons. They're all draining out the bottom and like 0:50:36.080 --> 0:50:40.640 the eighteenth hole it was when I got the topa map, 0:50:40.719 --> 0:50:43.239 so it's like, man, that's a hard hoole. It's only 0:50:43.320 --> 0:50:46.279 four hundred yards. It's like, oh, it's seventy five feet 0:50:46.360 --> 0:50:49.440 up hill. I had no idea it was that much uphill, 0:50:49.560 --> 0:50:51.560 because you're just because you're looking in the canyon, and 0:50:51.600 --> 0:50:54.959 you don't you think you're looking down because you're looking 0:50:55.000 --> 0:50:56.960 at the bottom of the canyon. You don't realize how 0:50:57.000 --> 0:51:01.200 much the thing is climbing up the hill. So you 0:51:01.280 --> 0:51:04.319 get fooled. You get fooled a lot. Now I'm trying 0:51:04.360 --> 0:51:08.440 to remember what the question with the actual question was here, Well, 0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:11.479 the false front. So so when you're playing uphill that much, 0:51:12.200 --> 0:51:14.960 you can't see the surface of the green because the 0:51:14.960 --> 0:51:20.120 green is thirty feet above you. And you know, in 0:51:20.160 --> 0:51:23.279 the old days the green was pitched back toward the 0:51:23.280 --> 0:51:26.600 fairway on the same almost the same slope as the 0:51:26.680 --> 0:51:29.279 hill you're going up in it, you could see a 0:51:29.280 --> 0:51:31.759 little more of it. But now the green has to 0:51:31.800 --> 0:51:36.759 be flatter because the greens are faster and it's way 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:39.000 up above you. So you can't see a part of 0:51:39.040 --> 0:51:41.160 the green surface. And the only thing you can do 0:51:41.520 --> 0:51:43.479 if you want the golfer in the fairway to see green, 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:47.160 you give him a false front. The problem of that 0:51:47.360 --> 0:51:50.040 is the part that he sees he can't land you know, 0:51:50.480 --> 0:51:53.080 you can't land on that's not a good place to be. 0:51:54.160 --> 0:51:57.400 I just I don't like him because it's you know, 0:51:57.880 --> 0:52:00.520 you try to make things more visible than that, so 0:52:00.560 --> 0:52:04.200 you don't need a false front. And if you've got 0:52:04.239 --> 0:52:09.080 a lot of uphill approach shots, for God's sake, try 0:52:09.120 --> 0:52:11.080 to vary them so you just don't have to use 0:52:11.120 --> 0:52:13.200 that same thing over and over again. We dealt with 0:52:13.200 --> 0:52:15.520 that at Stone Eagle, and we've been trying to figure 0:52:15.520 --> 0:52:17.799 it out here. How do you know, how do we 0:52:17.880 --> 0:52:21.680 keep this true to Thomas? But you can't really actually 0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:25.600 see very much of that green surface from the fairway 0:52:25.760 --> 0:52:27.600 like you would have in the old days. But we 0:52:27.640 --> 0:52:28.800 can't have it be that Steed. 0:52:30.440 --> 0:52:32.200 This is maybe the only time I'll get to say 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:34.600 this in my life. But I think Tom stole my answer. 0:52:36.840 --> 0:52:42.160 I also think false fronts are overrated in the way 0:52:42.160 --> 0:52:46.439 they're utilized. I think I talked about Hollywood Golf Club, 0:52:46.600 --> 0:52:48.600 Like the way the sixth Green and the tenth Green 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:53.479 there uses a two or three foot sort of roll 0:52:53.600 --> 0:52:56.160 in the front as a false front is very effective, 0:52:56.960 --> 0:53:01.960 and using that is under and probably underutilized. 0:53:03.160 --> 0:53:06.360 Yeah, Tom was talking in the context of uphill holes, 0:53:06.400 --> 0:53:09.759 but you know, Blake just named two great examples. But 0:53:09.840 --> 0:53:11.520 Saint Andrews has a bunch of holes where there's a 0:53:11.560 --> 0:53:14.959 really abrupt contour right at the front of the green, 0:53:15.560 --> 0:53:17.880 and then it's relatively flat beyond that. But if the 0:53:17.880 --> 0:53:21.280 pin is cut close to that contour at the front, 0:53:21.840 --> 0:53:26.279 negotiating that up and over is a really tricky shot 0:53:26.320 --> 0:53:28.160 and a really fun shot because a lot of times 0:53:28.200 --> 0:53:29.920 it requires you to play something along the ground as 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:33.000 opposed to flying in the air. You know, I don't 0:53:33.000 --> 0:53:35.560 know if that qualifies as a false front necessarily, but 0:53:35.800 --> 0:53:37.880 you know there is short grass mode down over the 0:53:37.880 --> 0:53:41.520 front of that contour, and you're seeing putting surface along 0:53:41.560 --> 0:53:42.160 that face. 0:53:43.200 --> 0:53:46.480 Yeah, fourteen seventeen greens that st Andrews are too. I'm 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:48.120 not saying those are overrated. 0:53:48.760 --> 0:53:51.080 Yeah, yeah, I'm just in a context where you're on 0:53:51.160 --> 0:53:54.200 flatter ground and it's not an uphill hole. Visibility is 0:53:54.239 --> 0:53:56.560 not the issue. There's just a really abrupt contour at 0:53:56.560 --> 0:53:58.600 the front or you're mowing putting surface down. To me, 0:53:58.719 --> 0:53:59.879 that's really good. 0:54:00.440 --> 0:54:03.440 So would you say unpinnable surface is underrated? 0:54:05.600 --> 0:54:12.360 I love unpinnable surface, and by Bryan, a lot of 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:17.880 unpinnable surface. Yeah, that's intrated. 0:54:17.920 --> 0:54:21.560 I'm out of a job to play Devil's advocate to that. 0:54:21.960 --> 0:54:26.479 To that whole point, part of the reason we're all 0:54:26.520 --> 0:54:32.040 here tonight is that had there been maybe a few 0:54:32.080 --> 0:54:36.279 more false fronts at bel Air, Dick Wilson wouldn't have 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:38.480 wiped a third of those holes out because you couldn't 0:54:38.480 --> 0:54:41.680 see the green. And part of putting this place back 0:54:41.719 --> 0:54:44.680 together is committing to the fact that you're not going 0:54:44.760 --> 0:54:47.120 to see the green from a lot of places in 0:54:47.160 --> 0:54:52.400 the fairway because they're up in the air. And that 0:54:52.600 --> 0:54:56.080 was just part and parcel of what was going on. 0:54:57.200 --> 0:55:01.239 That's that's that's the justification of taking the May West 0:55:01.239 --> 0:55:05.719 hole out. So you know, I think they're I'd say 0:55:05.719 --> 0:55:12.399 they're overused for sure, but yeah, they they they help 0:55:13.040 --> 0:55:14.839 give you a little idea of what you're what you're 0:55:14.880 --> 0:55:16.680 aiming at when you otherwise can't see anything. 0:55:19.160 --> 0:55:22.840 Well, you know, we uh we ran over by about 0:55:22.880 --> 0:55:25.680 an hour, so this is now a three part pot. 0:55:26.640 --> 0:55:30.600 But the uh, that was a great conversation. I hope 0:55:31.640 --> 0:55:35.440 everyone enjoyed learning a little bit about George Thomas. Uh, 0:55:35.920 --> 0:55:40.359 how you guys work and bel Air. So thank you 0:55:40.360 --> 0:55:43.359 guys all for the time. And uh, I think all 0:55:43.400 --> 0:55:45.160 of you guys are on Instagram right. 0:55:47.000 --> 0:55:51.160 Eric's the most of us, Eric Cudge, Well, we'll post 0:55:51.200 --> 0:55:54.960 all the handles on Instagram, and thanks for turning tuning 0:55:55.000 --> 0:55:57.560 into another episode of The Yolk with Doak. 0:55:58.120 --> 0:56:01.000 Thanks Andy, Thanks Andy, Thank you. 0:56:02.080 --> 0:56:04.640 You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. 0:56:05.080 --> 0:56:06.640 We do the digging for you.