Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 3: A bride egg, Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 3: Frida bride egg.
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 3: Friday Egg Podcast. Today we will dive back into the
Speaker 3: architecture world and we are joined by Jeff Minge. Jeff
Speaker 3: is an architect based out of Canada. He's done extensive
Speaker 3: work in the Pacific Northwest and also in Vancouver as
Speaker 3: well as he's starting to do some in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: He got to start with Rod.
Speaker 3: Whitman, uh doing some work with three of the you know,
Speaker 3: kind of most prolific new courses in Canada, Sagebrush, Cabot
Speaker 3: Links and black Hawk.
Speaker 2: And welcome on, Jeff.
Speaker 1: Oh, thanks for having me, and he appreciate the interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're we're excited to learn a little bit about
Speaker 3: you and kind of your work.
Speaker 2: And and and.
Speaker 4: All the all the things you know that we don't know,
Speaker 4: all right, So why don't you, why don't you give
Speaker 4: us a little background on yourself and and how you
Speaker 4: got into architecture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was fortunate to grow up playing golf at
Speaker 1: Essex Golf and Country Club in Windsor, Ontario, which is
Speaker 1: just across the river from Detroit. Essex was, uh it's
Speaker 1: a Donald Ross course from nineteen twenty nine. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: as a kid, I mean I just took a unbelievable
Speaker 1: interest in the golf course. You know, my my brother
Speaker 1: and I joke around occasionally. You know, he was able
Speaker 1: to focus on the ball and the hole, became a
Speaker 1: real good player, and I kind of hit shots and
Speaker 1: then looked around and thought, Man, how'd they build that bunker,
Speaker 1: how'd they build that green? You know, why is the
Speaker 1: golf course laid out this way? I just it was
Speaker 1: just something in me that that, you know, an instinctual
Speaker 1: interest in that sort of thing as I looked at
Speaker 1: the course. But then I was lucky too, because my
Speaker 1: dad is an avid book collector, and I used to
Speaker 1: go to his office and look through his bookshelf. And
Speaker 1: it still amazes me that, you know, we're talking back
Speaker 1: in the late eighties when I was a teenager. You know,
Speaker 1: my dad had all the books, he had golf Architecture
Speaker 1: by McKenzie. You know, he had Scotland's Gift by CB McDonald,
Speaker 1: all those classic books. So on top of taking an
Speaker 1: interest in Essex, I had all this literature and all
Speaker 1: these resources that my dad had, and I started reading
Speaker 1: all those books, which was fun and educational, and so
Speaker 1: I started, you know, I'm sixteen, seventeen years old. I
Speaker 1: started writing letters to architects saying, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to do this. It's a it's a found out, it's
Speaker 1: a real job, and you can do it. And I
Speaker 1: consistently got the same advice from guys I admired, you know,
Speaker 1: a young Tom Doak answered my letters. Pete Die Bill Cooor.
Speaker 1: You know this is again back in the late eighties
Speaker 1: or early nineties, and I kept hearing that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to be a good, a good golf course architect,
Speaker 1: you got to really learn how to build on the
Speaker 1: construction of things. You know, anyone could come up with theories, philosophies,
Speaker 1: but if you don't know how to actually implement that
Speaker 1: stuff on the ground, you know, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be as good as you could be. So long story short,
Speaker 1: I subsequent we found out that there was this Canadian
Speaker 1: guy named Rod Whitman, who had worked for Corn Crenshaw,
Speaker 1: worked for Pete Dye. You know, he worked in a
Speaker 1: way design build method. So I just pastored Rod for
Speaker 1: I can't even remember how long, and he finally called
Speaker 1: me up and said, all right, if you want to work,
Speaker 1: I'm doing something at Edmonton. Show up you know, whatever
Speaker 1: date it was, and I jumped on a plane, immediately
Speaker 1: lied to him, and I knew how to run a
Speaker 1: bulldozer and ended up working for him for ten years.
Speaker 2: So what was it? What was it like when you know,
Speaker 2: he said get on the dozer?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: What was the first experience?
Speaker 1: That's a funny story. I'm glad you asked it because
Speaker 1: I actually just told this story the other night. When
Speaker 1: I was in Minneapolis. I showed up on site and
Speaker 1: we were the tenth hole at this golf course was
Speaker 1: going to play up and over a hill. So the
Speaker 1: objective was to cut the hill down a little bit
Speaker 1: to reduced the severity of it up and over tea shot. So,
Speaker 1: first first day on site with Rod, he says to me,
Speaker 1: you've run a bulldozer, right, And I said yes, And
Speaker 1: he said, uh, okay, Well what you need to do
Speaker 1: is cut that hill down, Here's where the tenth tee
Speaker 1: is going to be, here's the here's the line of
Speaker 1: the tea shot. Cut the hill down, take the cut
Speaker 1: material down to the tees, and flatten off. Flatten off
Speaker 1: a teeing area. I said, okay, So he leaves and
Speaker 1: I get in the bulldozer. No clue even had to
Speaker 1: start it, run it nothing. I finally found that, finally
Speaker 1: found the key, started it up, started messing around. Rod
Speaker 1: came back, I don't know a couple hours later, and
Speaker 1: he looked at what I'd done, and his first response was,
Speaker 1: you've never run a bulldozer before, have you? And I said, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you caught me, but uh but we hit it off,
Speaker 1: and he gave me an unbelievable opportunity to to just
Speaker 1: jump into it, you know, literally jump into the fire.
Speaker 1: Get on that bulldozer, get on that excavator, get on
Speaker 1: that track here, get on that sand rake, you know,
Speaker 1: and finish the green and you know, it's just just
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the it's the foundation of everything I
Speaker 1: do now and Tholip Golf forever would be grateful to
Speaker 1: him for putting me in that position without any rogers.
Speaker 1: Roger an easygoing guy. That's what's so great about him
Speaker 1: and he he just you know, gave me a remarkable opportunity.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. So do you think there's any you know,
Speaker 3: I think you know from Keith Rabbit talked about Bill
Speaker 3: Corr being pretty easy going and laid back.
Speaker 2: Do you think is there you know, is are there
Speaker 2: common traits.
Speaker 3: That you see with with some of the great architects
Speaker 3: that you've you know, been able to meet, and do
Speaker 3: you think there's any common traits that is.
Speaker 1: Certainly one of the traits of guys that that that
Speaker 1: I really admire, you know, Rod, Bill, Tom doak Uh,
Speaker 1: Gil hansh you know that that whole vein of guys
Speaker 1: and it all, you know, I often think it kind
Speaker 1: of all stems back to Pete Dye, you know, who
Speaker 1: who was easy going to You know, if you get
Speaker 1: a passion for architecture and you want to work, let's
Speaker 1: go to work. You know, it's not about landscape architecture
Speaker 1: degrees and you know, the certifications and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just got to get out there in
Speaker 1: the field and work, and the best work comes from
Speaker 1: a sincere passion for architecture. You know. I mean Rod
Speaker 1: always said on our jobs, you know, we'd have a guy.
Speaker 1: We'd have a guy come to us like you know,
Speaker 1: offence to anyone, but we'd have a guy come to
Speaker 1: us and say, Okay, I just spent the last six
Speaker 1: years working for Nicholas or working for Palmer, or working
Speaker 1: for this guy, work for that guy. I've been shaping
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. Rod would put that resume aside
Speaker 1: and take the kid who'd never like me like I was,
Speaker 1: who'd never been on a project before and just had
Speaker 1: a passion for golf architecture. You know, there's a difference
Speaker 1: between having a sincere passion for golf architecture and simply
Speaker 1: knowing how to shape golf courses. Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think I think he died recognized that a long
Speaker 1: time ago. You know, Rod, I mean, you know, he
Speaker 1: rot had no experience really when he went to work
Speaker 1: for Pete Austin country clubs in the early eighties. You
Speaker 1: know Bill Koor, I mean his background is in like
Speaker 1: Greek philosophy or something you know, from college. And Rod too,
Speaker 1: he's got a he's got something like a philosophy degree.
Speaker 1: I studied political science, you know, But we all, we
Speaker 1: all came into the thing with passion, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said about that. But back
Speaker 1: to your question, you have to take an easy going
Speaker 1: attitude to bring to bring people like that into the mix,
Speaker 1: you know. And again, all those guys I named are
Speaker 1: just kind of like, you know, don't sweat it. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go out there and we're gonna work hard
Speaker 1: and and uh and get it done with passion. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what you're seeing in a lot of
Speaker 1: architecture these days. You know, you're seeing a lot more
Speaker 1: a lot more passion than you are seeing just business,
Speaker 1: you know, like guys running a business and building courses
Speaker 1: and moving on to an XT course. Who're seeing people
Speaker 1: who really who really care and are really delving into
Speaker 1: it and are really trying to be craftsmen, you know,
Speaker 1: with with their work. So it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: neat era, you know, it's a neat air to be
Speaker 1: involved in. Even though there's not a lot of golf
Speaker 1: courses being built comparatively, there's certainly a lot of quality
Speaker 1: work being done, which is which is really cool.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I'm interested.
Speaker 3: You know, you're a part of this design build movement,
Speaker 3: and it seems like it's a it's a pretty it's
Speaker 3: getting to be more of an even spit split, you know,
Speaker 3: like this the design build philosophy.
Speaker 2: Obviously, you know, you spend a lot more time on site.
Speaker 2: Do you think that.
Speaker 3: Gives you obviously an inherent advantage when you're go Yeah, so,
Speaker 3: I mean you learn a lot of the nuances right,
Speaker 3: well exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm lucky that when I explain to my
Speaker 1: clients right out of the gate that you know, plans
Speaker 1: are entirely conceptual, because, as you just said, when when
Speaker 1: you're permitted to spend time on site, things change, you know,
Speaker 1: you things change as you're shaping, things change as you
Speaker 1: continue to study the situation and tweak the design. And
Speaker 1: so to charge clients, you know, an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: money to sit in Toronto and design a golf course
Speaker 1: in Seattle is both a waste of time and a
Speaker 1: waste of money. You know, I would rather have my
Speaker 1: clients spend spend money on me being on site, paying
Speaker 1: attention to details as things get built, and then also
Speaker 1: participating in the shaping as well. You know, that's money
Speaker 1: well spent. And you know, again, usually that's part of
Speaker 1: my you know, part of my my speel when I
Speaker 1: when I come to a potential client or a new
Speaker 1: client and explain to them that that they're going to
Speaker 1: get the best best results out of that method, Uh,
Speaker 1: simply because you know, you you got to pay attention.
Speaker 1: It's like Ben Crenshaw said, you know what's the most
Speaker 1: important thing in golf architecture, and it's time. You know,
Speaker 1: you need time to be out there, time to build,
Speaker 1: time to look, time to tweak, you know, and and
Speaker 1: all those sorts of things. And the more time you
Speaker 1: have without wasting time or taking too much time, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna end up with a with with the
Speaker 1: best result possible.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know you write a good amount, and
Speaker 3: I think it's a lot like writing is like when
Speaker 3: you have the time to really write something and you
Speaker 3: and you keep working on you know things that they
Speaker 3: always turn out better.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And that's that's a perfect analogy, it really is.
Speaker 1: But then you just have to find you have to
Speaker 1: find that balance, right because you know, if you think
Speaker 1: of an author who just wants to continually refine, refine, refine,
Speaker 1: you'll never get the book published. So you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a there's a final line of when the
Speaker 1: thinking in the in the tweaking and that changing, you know,
Speaker 1: stops have to stop. It reminds me of a funny
Speaker 1: story Dick Young's cap, who was who's the developer of
Speaker 1: sand Hills. He developed a golf course that Rod actually
Speaker 1: worked on with Pete Dye at Firethorn in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Speaker 1: And we were sitting down at dinner one time with
Speaker 1: Dick Young's cap, and he told the story of Pete
Speaker 1: Die showing up at Firethorn during construction, and every time
Speaker 1: Pete showed up, he wanted to think more, he wanted
Speaker 1: to tweak more, and they were getting close to the
Speaker 1: finish line, and Dick Young's cap, who's got a great personality,
Speaker 1: you know, he finally said, that's it, you're done. We're graphic,
Speaker 1: there's no more changes. Otherwise he felt they were never
Speaker 1: going to finish the golf course. Yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 1: so again there's a there's a bit of a talent
Speaker 1: in realizing that, Okay, we've done all we can. That's done,
Speaker 1: because I think, you know, with our artistic minds, I
Speaker 1: think we'd never be done if we didn't have to
Speaker 1: be done.
Speaker 3: Right, So you've touched on Pete Die a couple of times,
Speaker 3: and you know we're the tours at a Die course
Speaker 3: now and then obviously the players is coming up, and
Speaker 3: we had the heritage at Harbortown. If you were going
Speaker 3: to say, you know, what's the one thing that you
Speaker 3: would take away from Pete Die as an architect that
Speaker 3: you know really kind of like that you admire the most,
Speaker 3: what would it be.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say the guts and the strength to
Speaker 1: be bold with your work. You know, the I deal
Speaker 1: with a lot of client clubs and I just find
Speaker 1: golfers and I say this to my committees and memberships
Speaker 1: that I work with. Golfers are soft these days. You know,
Speaker 1: they want the golf course to cater to them. You know,
Speaker 1: you do something bold, whether it be a deep bunker
Speaker 1: or a big contour or a green or or something,
Speaker 1: and they're they're most of them are upset all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't want golf to be golf. And
Speaker 1: you know Pete you know, we all know he actually
Speaker 1: gets some bad rap. I think because you know he
Speaker 1: got he got this reputation. At all he did was
Speaker 1: build hard golf courses. I don't believe that to be
Speaker 1: true at all. I find a lot of his golf
Speaker 1: courses to be really fun. But there's always bold features
Speaker 1: out there, you know, that that excite you to play.
Speaker 1: And I just get this sense all the time when
Speaker 1: I'm working at clubs and people want to tone it
Speaker 1: down because they don't want to. I mean, it sounds simplistic,
Speaker 1: but I often say they don't want to play golf.
Speaker 1: I mean when you go up, when you go to Scotland,
Speaker 1: you go to Ireland, you know, you you see stuff
Speaker 1: that is like bold and hard, and you know, I
Speaker 1: got I talked to the pet one time at the
Speaker 1: uh I think it was two thousand and eight PGA
Speaker 1: Championship at Oakland Hills. I just happened to run into
Speaker 1: him and we're talking about things, and you know, he said,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. I was all excited. He asked,
Speaker 1: you know, why do you think people play golf? And
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to get some philosophical answer,
Speaker 1: and he said, simply because it's hard. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: part part of the reason you play is because you
Speaker 1: always think you could do better next time, you know,
Speaker 1: And you know, and again I really give him a
Speaker 1: lot of credit I think he built his reputation on
Speaker 1: not being afraid to be bold. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: make every hole bold or every course bold, but you
Speaker 1: need you need some stuff that's going to excite people,
Speaker 1: want people to come back to play, and it's thrill
Speaker 1: come back to try and yeah, thrills and try to
Speaker 1: try to conquer some things that are that are seemingly difficult,
Speaker 1: you know, or are difficult.
Speaker 3: That's why I think so you hit the nail on
Speaker 3: the head with golf in general, Like, you know, the
Speaker 3: thing that keeps you, it keeps everybody coming back, is
Speaker 3: the fact that it's like untacraable, you know, you never
Speaker 3: you know, I've played some of the best rounds of
Speaker 3: my life and i walk off the course and I'm
Speaker 3: like shaking my head because I'm like, dang, I three
Speaker 3: pointed from twelve feet and you know, it could have
Speaker 3: been could have been even better. And that's like the
Speaker 3: beauty of golf is that there's you're never fully satisfied.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and it's it's it's challenging these days, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially for a guy like me. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm still in the midst of building my career.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dog or a core or even a
Speaker 1: Hants or anything like that yet. But you know, when
Speaker 1: you're working at a club and you see an opportunity
Speaker 1: to do something bold, you know, your first thought is, okay,
Speaker 1: how you know, how is this going to be received?
Speaker 1: You know, am I going to be? Am I going
Speaker 1: to get fired here? Because I want to do something
Speaker 1: that's got some real character. But you know, and I
Speaker 1: follow through because I do think of guys like like
Speaker 1: Pete Dye and and other architecture. But you need those
Speaker 1: type of features, you need those types of holes out there.
Speaker 1: But it is it's you know, it's it's a you're
Speaker 1: always thinking about the potential threat when you're when you're
Speaker 1: about to build something that you know is going to
Speaker 1: be controversial. But as you know, I mean, all the
Speaker 1: great holes in the world are are polarizing. You know,
Speaker 1: you either love them or hate them. If they were
Speaker 1: if they just shot in the middle, maybe no.
Speaker 2: Good, right, Yep, It's uh, it's it's very true.
Speaker 3: I mean, like Mackenzie thought Cyprus Point was going to
Speaker 3: be just maligned, but you know, because of how bold
Speaker 3: he went, and then you know, the natural beauty kind
Speaker 3: of over overshadowed everything.
Speaker 2: But i'd be interesting.
Speaker 3: You know, you you've talked a lot about, you know,
Speaker 3: dealing with memberships, and I know you've you've done a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, restorations and renovations of clubs. Like
Speaker 3: what would you say, you know, would be like the
Speaker 3: one thing you wish every membership committee would do, like,
Speaker 3: you know, having the experience, Like, what's the one thing
Speaker 3: that like really great membership committees do.
Speaker 1: Well? You know, it's kind of like it's kind of
Speaker 1: like Alistair McKenzie. I think it was Alistair mckennee years
Speaker 1: ago said that the best number for a committee, the
Speaker 1: makeup of a committee is an even numbered less than three, right,
Speaker 1: which is which is one? And it makes me think
Speaker 1: of an experience I had at the Derrek Club. You know,
Speaker 1: we in Edmonton, Alberta. We completely rebuilt an existing golf course.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically a new golf course. And they did
Speaker 1: a very nice job of allowing us to deal with
Speaker 1: a two person committee. We you know, they they our
Speaker 1: plans were vetted through Green Committee, long Range Planning Committee,
Speaker 1: Board of Directors, but once we got the thing through
Speaker 1: the membership, through the club, we simply dealt with two
Speaker 1: board members on construction schedule and financing in budget issues. Right,
Speaker 1: So we avoided what is most typical where you know,
Speaker 1: you've got twelve people in a room, you can't cut,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't come to consensus. I mean, golfers,
Speaker 1: golf architecture is very, very subjective, as you know too.
Speaker 1: Everybody has different opinions and that's fine, it's wonderful. That's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we have such a great variance
Speaker 1: of golf courses, you know, and variety is so important
Speaker 1: to golf. But when it gets down to it and
Speaker 1: you've and you've hired an expert architect, and you've hired
Speaker 1: you know, you've got an expert super golf course superintendent,
Speaker 1: expert shapers, contractor, I mean, you got to let them
Speaker 1: go to work, can't. You can't have twelve people and
Speaker 1: they're putting giving their opinions on every tee, every bunker,
Speaker 1: every green. I mean, it's it's like spinning your tires
Speaker 1: and mud, you know, when you're dealing with that situation.
Speaker 1: So I think I think the Derrek Club, even though
Speaker 1: it's a difficult thing to do politically, the Derek Club
Speaker 1: provides an excellent example of how to just let the
Speaker 1: people that you've hired go to work and not not
Speaker 1: not have interference with too many design opinions getting thrown
Speaker 1: thrown in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the other aspect of it is, you know,
Speaker 3: most members of private clubs are very very successful in
Speaker 3: their trade, you know, and they aren't used to being
Speaker 3: you know, not the boss exactly.
Speaker 1: But the other problem too, like I said earlier, is
Speaker 1: that is that you know, I always use this example.
Speaker 1: You know, Jack Nicholas won eighteen professional majors and two
Speaker 1: US Amateurs because he was able to tailor his game
Speaker 1: to varying courses, right He when he knew when he
Speaker 1: was at Saint Andrews he had to play different than
Speaker 1: he did when he was at Augusta, and he had
Speaker 1: to play different when he was at Pebble Beach than
Speaker 1: he did then he played at Augusta, you know, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That's why he was such a successful champion.
Speaker 1: The problem with so many club golfers is they want
Speaker 1: the exact opposite to happen. They want the golf course
Speaker 1: designed and set up to cater to them. And I'm
Speaker 1: constantly confused by that because as we talked about just
Speaker 1: a minute ago, I mean, the attraction to the game
Speaker 1: is the challenge. But so many golfers they run from
Speaker 1: the challenge and they just complain about the condition of
Speaker 1: the bunkers or the or where the teas were set up,
Speaker 1: but where the hole was cut. You know, we all
Speaker 1: hear that all the time, and it's just such a
Speaker 1: it's such an ironic thing, you know, when I can
Speaker 1: be a little sarcastic sometimes and I ask people, again,
Speaker 1: did you really want to play golf? Or what kind
Speaker 1: of game are you trying to try to create here
Speaker 1: that's actually not golf? You know?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean a perfect example is where I play
Speaker 3: in Chicago. I started playing there a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: and I've I've always been a player that hit a
Speaker 3: right to left t shot, and this golf course, like
Speaker 3: you know, it had some shots where you had to move.
Speaker 2: The ball left to right.
Speaker 3: And over the over the years I've become so much
Speaker 3: more well rounded of a golfer because I've learned and
Speaker 3: been forced to learn how to hit the ball left
Speaker 3: to right. And you know example, and it's just it,
Speaker 3: that's the way people need to look at these things.
Speaker 3: Is looking at it and saying like, you know, like
Speaker 3: if I play a course that really tests certain aspects
Speaker 3: of my game, you know, I you know, while still
Speaker 3: being fair, like you know, I think that, and I'm
Speaker 3: you know, like not having nowhere to bail out nowhere
Speaker 3: like but like where you have this test, like it's
Speaker 3: only going to.
Speaker 1: Make you better, right, And I think that's why you know,
Speaker 1: Pete Die has gone to bad rap? Is it he was?
Speaker 1: You know Sawgrass you just mentioned the Players Championship. I
Speaker 1: mean Sawgrass is so cool because it's like overkill of
Speaker 1: presenting you with varying challenges, you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you actually look, I used to. I learned so much
Speaker 1: Plan TPC, Sawgrass and the old Sega of you know
Speaker 1: video games system years ago, right because they show you
Speaker 1: the overview of the whole. And when you when you
Speaker 1: know a little bit about architecture, you could see that
Speaker 1: so many of the holes and so many angles are
Speaker 1: set up, you know, for cut off the tee and
Speaker 1: then draw into the green, you know. And with the
Speaker 1: eighties when the golf course opened, with the eighties clubs
Speaker 1: and balls, you know, those those types of shots meant something.
Speaker 1: And I think why a lot of those pros back.
Speaker 1: And I'm just being speculative, but my my suspicion is
Speaker 1: that most of those pros out there when when when
Speaker 1: Pete did put those that you know, precise challenge out
Speaker 1: there and they couldn't hit the shot that was required,
Speaker 1: it just burned him up, you know. And and Pete
Speaker 1: always talked about you get into those guys heads, that's
Speaker 1: when you really got them right. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 1: when he was asking him the dude, you know, shape
Speaker 1: it this way, shape it that way, hit it low,
Speaker 1: hit it high. You know. It's just it's such a
Speaker 1: smart design. I mean, I still can't believe he took
Speaker 1: a swamp and ended up with with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's arguably, I mean, I don't want to I
Speaker 1: don't want to overstate this, but I think Sawgrass is
Speaker 1: arguably one of the greatest achievements in golf architecture. You know,
Speaker 1: to be first of all, to facilitate golf in what
Speaker 1: was really a swamp, and then to come up with
Speaker 1: so many holes that are just you know, fascinating from
Speaker 1: you know the look of the holes, the strategy behind
Speaker 1: the holes. I mean, I just got tons of respect
Speaker 1: for mister Due and that golf course. And I know
Speaker 1: I've kind of argued with a lot of people who
Speaker 1: feel differently about it, but that's my opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it also the one of the things
Speaker 3: that does so well is it doesn't really favor a
Speaker 3: specific type of player. You know that you see a
Speaker 3: great variety in the leaderboard and winners there year in
Speaker 3: year out, because because you I think that's what he
Speaker 3: does so well is that he always you know, there
Speaker 3: are always angles and ideal angles. The ideal angles usually
Speaker 3: come with a little bit of risk, and then you know,
Speaker 3: and then he asked you to hit south and it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's very clear, you know what you need
Speaker 3: to do, and if you pull it off, you usually
Speaker 3: have a great look at Bertie or Eagle, and if
Speaker 3: you don't, you're going to be you know, and you
Speaker 3: don't miss it in the right spot, you're going to
Speaker 3: be in a world hurt, right, And.
Speaker 1: The sad part about that, I mean, I love the
Speaker 1: way you just described that, but the sad part about
Speaker 1: that is the way club of ball technology is now
Speaker 1: It's taken so much away from from exactly what you
Speaker 1: just described, because the ball is just being hit you know,
Speaker 1: super high, ye monstrously high and monstrously long. No spin,
Speaker 1: you know, no spin, you know, so all that shapen
Speaker 1: and high low stuff is gone, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty sad, actually, you know when you think about
Speaker 1: how fascinating the game was even twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think about it.
Speaker 3: I had Aaron Oberholzer on and he talked about the
Speaker 3: first time he hit a pro V one. You know,
Speaker 3: he was a pro golfer at the time, and he
Speaker 3: was like, holy cow, this is.
Speaker 2: So much different.
Speaker 6: And how I mean you look at hey, I think
Speaker 6: it's the pro V one's obviously been the one that's
Speaker 6: kind of really changed the game because when it as
Speaker 6: soon as it shifted from professional nineties to those that
Speaker 6: I mean, the spin just year over year has gotten
Speaker 6: less and less, and ball goes further and straighter and
Speaker 6: skills diminished.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it just it just boggles my mind that
Speaker 1: anyone would think that that's a good thing for the game.
Speaker 1: I just I don't understand it. But you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've read it yet, but I just finished.
Speaker 1: I'm friends with Morten Rudstein, who's been a long time
Speaker 1: friend of mine. I was fascinated that he just wrote
Speaker 1: that book with Tiger Woods celebrating the ninety seven Masters,
Speaker 1: and so I was, I was slipping through the book.
Speaker 1: It's a great book, actually, and the best part about
Speaker 1: it for me is Tiger talking about Augusta and he
Speaker 1: he just frankly says that the nineteen ninety seven golf
Speaker 1: course is not even close to the same golf course
Speaker 1: they play today when we saw it, when we see
Speaker 1: it on TV. I mean, we watched the ninety seven Masters,
Speaker 1: we watched this year's Masters. It looks the same to us.
Speaker 1: But the details that he describes in terms of how
Speaker 1: different not only how different the playing equipment is, but
Speaker 1: what they've done to the golf course because of the
Speaker 1: playing equipment, is just fascinating. It's really kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, it's an architectural read in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously we all know they lengthen the course,
Speaker 1: they planted trees, they introduce rough but Tiger's comments on
Speaker 1: how much they've changed the green surfaces and the green
Speaker 1: surrounds is interesting because the golf course has gotten so
Speaker 1: much longer. They've apparently flattened out a lot of the
Speaker 1: pin positions, and he says the greens have actually gotten
Speaker 1: a lot less interesting and a lot more subtle over
Speaker 1: the years in the pinnable areas, which which has really
Speaker 1: made the golf course less interesting. He said, it was
Speaker 1: way more interesting when it was shorter and the greens
Speaker 1: were a little bit more severe like they were originally,
Speaker 1: rather than just playing a big long golf course with
Speaker 1: with with more flat areas on the greens.
Speaker 3: It's it's interesting, and that book is one that's on
Speaker 3: my list of of to do's, but it's it boggles
Speaker 3: my mind how anybody how this theory of tiger proofing
Speaker 3: came about that Like, Okay, we've got this guy that's
Speaker 3: come on tour and he hits it so far, Like
Speaker 3: what we need to do to level the field is
Speaker 3: to make golf courses longer, Like what like that makes
Speaker 3: no sense whatsoever.
Speaker 1: He admits that in the book too. He says all
Speaker 1: they did was play right into his hands because he
Speaker 1: could he could take advantage of his strength, even more
Speaker 1: so the longer the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all you did was just remove And now we
Speaker 2: live in this.
Speaker 3: Era where all the golf courses are built for power
Speaker 3: players and sure enough, power players dominate.
Speaker 1: The game, right, There's no you don't see any Corey
Speaker 1: Pavens around anymore, which which really sucks too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember following Corey Paven at that that two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight PGA championship, and I'll tell you what, you
Speaker 1: you want to watch a fun golfer. You know, Corey's
Speaker 1: out there hitting cuts and draws and low high with
Speaker 1: long clubs into those greens because you know, obviously Oakland
Speaker 1: Hills was playing really long and I kept thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: you know what if we could watch the good players
Speaker 1: do this, Watch Tiger hit a four iron into a
Speaker 1: par four and either cut it or faded or hit
Speaker 1: it low. You know. But you then, you know, you'd
Speaker 1: leave Corey Paven at that t thousand and eight PGA
Speaker 1: and go over to the guys on the leader board.
Speaker 1: They hit the drivers. You can't even see the ball,
Speaker 1: they hit it so high and so far. And then
Speaker 1: they're down there in wedge territory and they in another
Speaker 1: high one and plunk it on the green. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's fun to watch. I'd rather watch Ben Hogan and
Speaker 1: Byron Nelson slinging it around, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But That's what I always say to people is like,
Speaker 3: you know, people are like, oh, I'd love to see
Speaker 3: you know, DJ Rory and you know Jason Day in
Speaker 3: the same group, and it's like, well, they're all the
Speaker 3: same player. It's just like with It's just like golf
Speaker 3: course design. What makes a great variety, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'd like to see a guy like, you know, I'd
Speaker 3: like to see a group.
Speaker 2: That has you know, one of the bombers in it.
Speaker 3: Then you throw in like a Kevin Kissner that's like
Speaker 3: kind of an all around guy, and you throw in
Speaker 3: another guy that that's a shorter hitter that that gets
Speaker 3: it done a completely different way. That that is interesting
Speaker 3: to watch because you see how these different styles of
Speaker 3: play like how they all get it done.
Speaker 2: And it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the if people are interested in
Speaker 1: this topic, I mean, one of the great rounds of
Speaker 1: ball striking, shot making. I think one of the last
Speaker 1: great rounds was Nick Faldo in the nineteen ninety six Masters.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. I don't know if you remember or
Speaker 1: not his shot that he hit from thirteen fairway into
Speaker 1: the green. He was on a hook lie, you know,
Speaker 1: severe right to left lie. But he needed to cut
Speaker 1: the ball into that green with a back right pin. Ye.
Speaker 1: And I've watched it a million times. He had Fanny
Speaker 1: Suison on the bag and they were debating and he
Speaker 1: had it. He had a I can't remember what clubs
Speaker 1: he was debating, but he was pulling one club and
Speaker 1: talking and ended up pulling another club and he just
Speaker 1: set up over that thing and hit that a bullet cut.
Speaker 1: And they had the camera perfectly behind him, so you
Speaker 1: see the trajectory of the ball and he hit this
Speaker 1: beautiful cut off this hook lie. Just like, man, if
Speaker 1: you're a golf fan and our architecture fan, you're like,
Speaker 1: that's that's what you live for, right, that's what you
Speaker 1: want to see, and you just don't see it anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that's I mean, that's the subtle, subtle ways
Speaker 3: of architecture to really challenge people is give people that,
Speaker 3: you know, I think William Flynn was one of the
Speaker 3: first that did it, was give you know, call for
Speaker 3: a right to left shot and give them a left
Speaker 3: to right lie. And you know it's, uh, the that's
Speaker 3: a I think that's you know what intrigue.
Speaker 2: I think that's what's so cool.
Speaker 3: About golf course architecture is all like the little subtleties
Speaker 3: that that you guys can do, that can you know,
Speaker 3: really give great players fits. So i'd love you know,
Speaker 3: I know, you know, we've gone on a tangent here
Speaker 3: of professional golf, which isn't the worst thing.
Speaker 2: But we let's get back and let's talk.
Speaker 3: A little bit about your work up in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3: I think you've you've done a lot of work at courses.
Speaker 2: Designed by A. V.
Speaker 3: McCann, which you know, having done you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of research, it seems to be one of the more
Speaker 3: underappreciated architects of the Golden Age era.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. Actually, I'm you know, I back, Oh
Speaker 1: Jesus must have been. In the late nineties, I visited Vancouver,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm always making lists if I'm in
Speaker 1: a particular city, what courses do I need to see
Speaker 1: in those cities? So I started making a list, and
Speaker 1: I'm a kid from the East obviously, so I hadn't
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time out west at that point.
Speaker 1: I need to see Shaughnessy, I need to see Mariene Drive,
Speaker 1: I need to see the Victoria Golf Club, I need
Speaker 1: to see Roke Colewood. I need to see Capillano. Obviously
Speaker 1: Capillana is the Stanley Thompson course, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, all the other ones it was Av McCann.
Speaker 1: Av McCann. I'm like, who is this guy? You know?
Speaker 1: So I subsequently tracked down a guy named Mike Rist
Speaker 1: He's from Vancouver, who had done some remarkable research on
Speaker 1: McCann's life. He immigrated from Ireland, born and raised in Dublin,
Speaker 1: came over to Canada and about nineteen twelve I think
Speaker 1: it was, and he was back before he came over.
Speaker 1: He was in the loop with all the big names.
Speaker 1: He was a great amateur golfer, so he played he'd
Speaker 1: played amateur championships around the British Isles, and he knew
Speaker 1: all the guys, you know, John Lowe and all the
Speaker 1: guys of the time who were getting into you know,
Speaker 1: kind of this Renaissance movement golf, that golf architecture, especially
Speaker 1: at the time. So when he got to British Columbia
Speaker 1: there wasn't much golf around. He had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: lay out what is now Royal Cowood in Victoria, where
Speaker 1: he lived. He tweaked the Victoria Golf Club where I
Speaker 1: work now, and he based himself out of there too,
Speaker 1: is his all His letterhead was Victoria Golf Club. But anyway,
Speaker 1: from those two golf courses, he subsequently laid out courses
Speaker 1: in Seattle, Portland all the way down to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: He actually the original designer of the California Golf Club
Speaker 1: before Mackenzie and Hunter came in and bunkered it. But
Speaker 1: he did. He worked from nineteen thirteen until he died
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four. The problem was is that by
Speaker 1: almost by the end of World War Two, most of
Speaker 1: his original designs had really deteriorated. You know, I've found
Speaker 1: that out in the research I've done in the putting
Speaker 1: together the restoration master plans for his courses. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll run into guys, you know, I'll pitch the restoration
Speaker 1: of a particular bunker or whatnot, and I'll run into
Speaker 1: a member who says, you know, I've been a member
Speaker 1: here for fifty years, I don't remember that bunker ever
Speaker 1: being there. And that kind of supports my theory that,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in the Northwest, when the when the
Speaker 1: second you know, come out of the depression into the
Speaker 1: Second World War. I mean, there were all the young
Speaker 1: guys who would have been on the maintenance crews and
Speaker 1: whatnot were over fighting the war. Nobody was spending money
Speaker 1: on golf courses because of the war and because of
Speaker 1: the depressed. So things started to disappear, you know, bunkers
Speaker 1: went away and courses changed a lot. People had really
Speaker 1: forgotten about McCann's prowess and his talents. I mean during
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and thirties, if you look at historic
Speaker 1: photos and McCann courses, I mean, they stack right up
Speaker 1: with anywhere else, you know, whether it be Ross tilling has,
Speaker 1: you know, in all the greats who were working in
Speaker 1: America at the time as his contemporary. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: the work deteriorated, and by the end of the Second
Speaker 1: World War, no one, no one remembered who a Av
Speaker 1: McCann was, or what is what his original golf courses
Speaker 1: were like. And again, the more I delved into his
Speaker 1: life and his work, he was he was. He was
Speaker 1: on part with all all the greats in the twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties. So it's been it's been a real privilege
Speaker 1: to have an opportunity to kind of dig all this
Speaker 1: stuff out of the archives and kind of bring some
Speaker 1: attention to to, uh, to McCann's legacy.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of your job is being an educator.
Speaker 3: It seems like, you know, it's uh, it's interesting. I
Speaker 3: imagine that the Northwest has its own it's constraints, you know,
Speaker 3: especially with with trees and everything, more so than almost
Speaker 3: every other any other part of the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I mean not not
Speaker 1: only not only are there you know, obviously beautiful trees
Speaker 1: in the Northwest because of the climate. You know, you
Speaker 1: get those big, beautiful Douglas furs, and really the Northwest
Speaker 1: is filled with the types of trees you really don't
Speaker 1: want to see on a golf course. Most often ye big, big,
Speaker 1: big evergreens to cause shade and problems. Well that's what
Speaker 1: I was just going to say. You know. The biggest
Speaker 1: thing that I've had to fight is that sa Holly
Speaker 1: has long And I've got nothing against Sally. I actually
Speaker 1: never played there, to be honest with you, but I've
Speaker 1: visited the place and the biggest problem is it's sholly
Speaker 1: because of it of its history of hosting championship golf
Speaker 1: it's kind of held. It's kind of become the standard
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Northwest. So every time as an architect
Speaker 1: and working with the superintendents I work with, when we
Speaker 1: propose some tree removal, you know, we're always fighting the well,
Speaker 1: holly's a holly, does it? You know? There's a tree
Speaker 1: in the middle of the fairway, it's a holly. The
Speaker 1: greens are surrounded by trees, it's a holly. How come
Speaker 1: they can grow grafts, you know, So we're always we're
Speaker 1: always fighting that supposed standard of Sahlly being a course
Speaker 1: that's heavily treed, where trees come into play, where trees
Speaker 1: shade greens, and they don't do anything about it. So
Speaker 1: I think that's a holly standard has been a real
Speaker 1: issue for us. But we're overcoming it, as you said,
Speaker 1: as we dig out all these historical photos and dig
Speaker 1: out some of McCann's writings, and now people in the
Speaker 1: Northwest are starting to pay attention to what's been done,
Speaker 1: you know. As you probably know too, it seems like
Speaker 1: golf trends moved east to west in North America. So
Speaker 1: Seattle's obviously going to be, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: last places where the wave of any kind of movement
Speaker 1: gets to in golf. So but people are starting to
Speaker 1: become more conscious of the benefits of tree removal and
Speaker 1: the benefits of being able to see across these golf
Speaker 1: courses and appreciate the train and appreciate long views, appreciate
Speaker 1: more room to play, appreciate strategies you know, when you
Speaker 1: widen corridors. So you're absolutely right, it is a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a learning process, and a large part of
Speaker 1: my job is actually being an educator. But I enjoyed
Speaker 1: I've always enjoyed history. As I said, I studied political
Speaker 1: science and history and I've always kind of been historically minded.
Speaker 1: So it's fun to, you know, again, dig out the
Speaker 1: materials and put together the writings and give the presentations.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we made some good progress in the Northwest,
Speaker 1: So it's fun.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I think trees make golf easier for good players and
Speaker 3: harder for bad players.
Speaker 1: I agree. You get you get a fair away, that's
Speaker 1: that's lined. I know you're a good player. Andy, you
Speaker 1: know you get tree line, tree line right, tree line left.
Speaker 1: You can focus on that target, you know, and and
Speaker 1: you guys who are good like that focus.
Speaker 3: There's nowhere you have to think about hitting it.
Speaker 1: And as you know, the other people, I mean, how
Speaker 1: many fairways do they miss every round? A lot? So
Speaker 1: when you're in a tight tree line golf course, you're
Speaker 1: exactly right, easy for the good player and a lot
Speaker 1: more difficult for the higher handicap, which is the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of what the ideal and golf course architecture is. Right,
Speaker 1: you want to golf, You want a golf course to
Speaker 1: challenge the best players and at the same time allow
Speaker 1: everyone else to have fun. And you know, and I
Speaker 1: used that argument a lot too, because Av McCann preached
Speaker 1: that forever. One of the most fascinating things I've read
Speaker 1: about from him actually is later in his life a
Speaker 1: kid wrote him a letter. I think it was in
Speaker 1: the He died in sixty four, so I think it
Speaker 1: was in the fifties or early they had late fifties. No,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, early fifties, because they were in the letter
Speaker 1: they were talking about the nineteen fifty one US Open
Speaker 1: at Oakland Hills. You know, when Robert Trent Jones narrowed
Speaker 1: the course, you know, bunkerd the hell out of it,
Speaker 1: and Ben Hogan won and said he conquered the monster.
Speaker 1: You know, it was the first time that you know,
Speaker 1: just making a golf course super hard, got a lot
Speaker 1: of publicity and a lot of attention, and McCann was
Speaker 1: totally against that. And the kid asked him, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to go into golf architecture. You know, what
Speaker 1: do I need to learn? And he said, well, don't
Speaker 1: pay attention to Oakland Hills. All you need to do
Speaker 1: is read the two chapters and Bobby Jones's autobiography about
Speaker 1: the development of Augusta Nashville. You know, he thought that
Speaker 1: they achieved the ideal in terms of creating a course
Speaker 1: that challenged the best and catered to the enjoyment of
Speaker 1: everyone else along the line with Saint Andrews, and you know,
Speaker 1: it opened up with twenty two bunkers in nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 1: They had big, wide fairways, but they could play the
Speaker 1: masters there, you know. And that's a neat piece of advice.
Speaker 1: I always go back to that McCann quote about who
Speaker 1: would think that Bobby Jones's autobiography is an architecture book,
Speaker 1: but it is those two chapters.
Speaker 3: It's ironic that you that that same person that kind
Speaker 3: of did that to Oakland Hills did the exact same
Speaker 3: thing to Bobby Jones's AUGUSTA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is interesting. It's also interesting that Bobby Jones
Speaker 1: was working with him when he started, you know, change
Speaker 1: in sixteen and eleven and yeah, it's boy, if you
Speaker 1: could bring Jones back and talk to him while working
Speaker 1: with McKenzie and then Trent Jones on that golf course, boy,
Speaker 1: would that be something to listen to. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I read something about this year that golf WRX
Speaker 3: did an article with Robert Trent Jones Junior and he
Speaker 3: was talking about it, and you know, it just had
Speaker 3: me shaking my head the whole time, you know, talking
Speaker 3: about how you know they needed to remove bunkers or
Speaker 3: add bunkers and add water hazards and all this stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's like, God, you just don't get it. It's
Speaker 3: it's interesting, Like I think, like the runoff areas that
Speaker 3: you see are so becoming so popular now and golf
Speaker 3: like is a perfect example. For like the regular player,
Speaker 3: that fifteen handicap so easy, You grab a putter.
Speaker 2: And you put it, you know, But then for the
Speaker 2: for the.
Speaker 3: Better player, you look at it and you were like,
Speaker 3: what do I do here? You know, and you're like,
Speaker 3: do I hit a hit a sixty degree? Do I
Speaker 3: hit use like a gap wedge and hit a low checker?
Speaker 3: Do I bump it? Do I use a putter?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: And all that question puts doubt.
Speaker 3: Into your head and you and that's when you win
Speaker 3: as an architect against a good players, when you make
Speaker 3: them think and exactly and but for the for the
Speaker 3: regular player they and but like when you think about it,
Speaker 3: it's contradictory, like, oh, these runoff areas are easier, but
Speaker 3: in actuality they're harder for the good player.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I agree one hundred percent. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: I love short crafts for the for the reasons you
Speaker 1: said it's it's it fits into the equation of creating
Speaker 1: the ideal and architecture right as you just said, the
Speaker 1: higher handicap they can knock it out of the green
Speaker 1: with the putter probably you know, maybe not close to
Speaker 1: the hole, but at least they're keeping the ball moving
Speaker 1: they're on the green. And then the shot options, the
Speaker 1: tight lies present the challenge for for better golfers. But
Speaker 1: I lately I've been playing the devil's advocate on that one.
Speaker 1: I mean, again, I love short grass, but you know
Speaker 1: it's it's architecture in all forms of art, really, but
Speaker 1: you know, there's always trends in architecture, and I think
Speaker 1: I think sometimes the short grass areas kind of are
Speaker 1: starting to get a little bit out of control, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, you know, everywhere because I run
Speaker 1: into it with members too. Everywhere there's a fall off
Speaker 1: off the side of the green. You know, there's always
Speaker 1: a suggestion about putting short grass down there, and as
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not opposed to it. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I mentioned this earlier. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I think variety is most important. You know, you want
Speaker 1: to have holes where when you miss, sometimes you're a bunker.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you got that tight lie on the short grass
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned, sometimes you're rough. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: still a golf shot, right, that should be part of
Speaker 1: the equation to be playing out of two or three
Speaker 1: inches of grass too. I mean, you just have to
Speaker 1: make sure that it's not happening every time you miss
Speaker 1: a fair way and every time you misagree, that's when
Speaker 1: the golf course gets monotonous. So I think we need
Speaker 1: to use all of those hazards, you know, and kind
Speaker 1: of sprinkle them around equitably so that you get all
Speaker 1: kinds of different shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something I don't see a lot of that.
Speaker 3: I kind of really like our grass bunkers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's interesting you don't see them a lot.
Speaker 1: I've got an article sitting in front of me right here,
Speaker 1: actually because i've been working on this McCann stuff and
Speaker 1: trying to do things minimize bunkers on golf courses. And
Speaker 1: there's an article that mackenzie wrote in the Alistair. Mackenzie
Speaker 1: wrote the American Golfer magazine in nineteen thirty three, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about how golf courses have too many
Speaker 1: bunkers and actually advocating the use of grass hollows. And
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. It's in all my travels you rarely
Speaker 1: see grassy hollows. Actually, Bee Die courses you see, you
Speaker 1: see a lot of grassy hollows. But it's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing that I put some thought into. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I particularly know how to effectively use them, but
Speaker 1: in lieu of bunkers, it's an interesting thing to think about,
Speaker 1: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean it's another example of like for compared to
Speaker 3: a bunker, for like your beginner a grass bunker is
Speaker 3: worlds easier, you know, right, and then for the better
Speaker 3: players it's world's harder.
Speaker 1: And most importantly, it's less expensive to build and less
Speaker 1: expenses to maintain. Yeah, yeah, and that's what that's what
Speaker 1: mackenzie was advocating back in nineteen thirty three. And that's
Speaker 1: actually a fascinating thing to me right now, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've had this dream of one day
Speaker 1: having an opportunity to build a build a bunker this
Speaker 1: golf course. I don't even know if it would fly,
Speaker 1: you know what, which owner open would let you do it?
Speaker 1: And would golfers recognize that you could do something interesting
Speaker 1: and without any sand bunkers. You know. It's just it's
Speaker 1: something I'd love to give a shot to, you know,
Speaker 1: interesting greens, interesting contour in the fair ways, and figuring
Speaker 1: out a way to do it without any bunkers. You know.
Speaker 1: I'd love to take on that challenge someday.
Speaker 3: It's well, like you know, like we've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about Augusta, but I think one of the most overlooked
Speaker 3: great holes out there is the fourteenth and it's bunker less, and.
Speaker 2: I think it would be I think it would be
Speaker 2: very cool.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about, you know, what
Speaker 3: kind of new architecture ideas or trends get you most
Speaker 3: excited and that kind of feel, you know, doing something bunkerless.
Speaker 2: It could be cool that you could do it.
Speaker 3: You could be as it could be less than eighteen
Speaker 3: holes too, you know it. You'd have to have a
Speaker 3: good piece of land, I imagine, though, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I was just thinking the same thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, a nice, rolling, sandy piece of ground with
Speaker 5: good contour would give you a lot more options than than,
Speaker 5: you know, than a less interesting piece of land, that's
Speaker 5: for sure. But I don't know, I've you know, it's
Speaker 5: going to sound like a sales pitch, but I mean
Speaker 5: I've always been kind of obsessed with with economy, you know,
Speaker 5: in efficiency.
Speaker 1: You know, I would rather have someone go play one
Speaker 1: of my golf courses and say, geez, did you see
Speaker 1: what what what Minge did for a million dollars, rather
Speaker 1: than say, geez, did you see Minge spend fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars on there? And I don't even want to play there,
Speaker 1: you know. So trying to figure out ways to be
Speaker 1: efficient and economic, you know, is a is a very
Speaker 1: interesting challenge to me, and obviously from a from a
Speaker 1: business standpoint, I mean, geez, that's what you should be
Speaker 1: providing your clients with, you know.
Speaker 3: Well, it's lessons like especially at a public course, you
Speaker 3: know that all the costs just get passed the consumer,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's why we see two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty dollars green speeds at a lot of these plays,
Speaker 3: Like why is why.
Speaker 2: Does Whistling Straights cost four hundred dollars to play? Well?
Speaker 3: They moved an insane amount of earth to build the
Speaker 3: golf course, right, and you know, like you you look
Speaker 3: at other places, like I think one of the things
Speaker 3: that I've been I'm fascinated at from like this kind
Speaker 3: of discussion is the Loop. You know, the Tom Doks
Speaker 3: recent course, and I know Dan Hickson is doing a
Speaker 3: reversible course that opens this year up in Oregon, but
Speaker 3: the idea of two golf courses in one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I can't wait to get to the Loop.
Speaker 1: I tried to get there last summer and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't work out the schedule. But I'm hoping to get
Speaker 1: there this year because it is it is a fascinating concept, amazing.
Speaker 1: I actually looked at a piece of ground in British
Speaker 1: Columbia to redo it existing golf course that had this
Speaker 1: similar potential. Unfortunately, the project did go ahead, but I
Speaker 1: pitched it to the the owner there, and you know,
Speaker 1: he was quite confused by the by the idea, you know,
Speaker 1: And I remember hearing Tom Doaks say that that he'd
Speaker 1: been considering that. He may he may have said this
Speaker 1: to you, and you talked to him recently. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people wouldn't get that concept. You have
Speaker 1: to find the right owner who's willing to take on that,
Speaker 1: you know that. I guess it's just an oddity that
Speaker 1: a lot of people wouldn't wouldn't quite get. So it's cool.
Speaker 1: That's cool that they gave Calm an opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1: I can't think about a better guy to give it
Speaker 1: a shot, to be honest with you, I'm sure it's great.
Speaker 1: Frank Pont actually a friend of mine who's based in
Speaker 1: Amsterdam over in Europe. He's working on two projects where
Speaker 1: he's he's going to be doing reversible courses over there
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands. So I don't know, maybe it's going
Speaker 1: to become a bit of a trend, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it'd be a bad thing in spots that we
Speaker 1: can figure it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, you know, like
Speaker 3: especially for a resort, you know, like it gives somebody
Speaker 3: as to stay an extra day, you know, if you're
Speaker 3: trying to build destination golf. I think it would make
Speaker 3: a lot of sense for a members course too, because
Speaker 3: you get a lot you know variety.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, but again, well again we're fighting the North
Speaker 1: American mentality of I mean, you know, I see things
Speaker 1: like they don't want you know, members of golf clubs
Speaker 1: complain if you move the team markers back and or forth.
Speaker 1: You know, they always want to play that hole at
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty seven yards. If you set up
Speaker 1: at one hundred and thirty seven, they walk up and
Speaker 1: say why they watch move the teas up. So we're constantly,
Speaker 1: you know, fighting to create that type of stuff when
Speaker 1: people don't at variety. You know, again going back to
Speaker 1: the start of our conversation, they don't want to challenge,
Speaker 1: they don't want it to be different. It's it's it really,
Speaker 1: it's really mind boggling to be the way some golfers think.
Speaker 3: Something I've started to do in non like stipulated rounds.
Speaker 3: Is I just play whatever tea box I want to play,
Speaker 3: you know, And I've just decided that, like, why do
Speaker 3: I have to play.
Speaker 2: A specific te box on a specific day, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: if I.
Speaker 3: Want to play a par five up and make it
Speaker 3: a completely different hole than what it is I play
Speaker 3: the majority of the time, why not if I don't
Speaker 3: want to hit it, you know, like if it's into
Speaker 3: the wind and I don't want to have to hit
Speaker 3: like a punch three wood on a par three, I'll
Speaker 3: move up and hit a different shot, you know. It's
Speaker 3: like or if I want to move back, like I
Speaker 3: just I think that's one of the problems with the
Speaker 3: game is that we've become so it's become so focused
Speaker 3: on score and tease and handicap, and that's what needs
Speaker 3: to be let go because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: it's just about having fun. It's like, like the most
Speaker 3: fun times I've had on a golf course is like
Speaker 3: when you just peg it, you know, and there are
Speaker 3: no te markers out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's It just reminds me of another
Speaker 1: amazing content that hasn't been attempted again, and that's George
Speaker 1: Thomas's La South, you know Los Angeles Country cub South Course.
Speaker 1: When Thomas designed it in the in the mid twenties,
Speaker 1: his concept was to create a course within a course,
Speaker 1: so that golf course and I know that Gil Hanson
Speaker 1: and Jeff shakov are recently stored a lot of those concepts, thankfully,
Speaker 1: but Thomas wanted you to go out there and basically
Speaker 1: create enough tea options and enough options to set the
Speaker 1: pins that you're basically every day you're out there, you're
Speaker 1: playing a different golf course. The holes aren't even close
Speaker 1: to the same because of the options you have in
Speaker 1: terms of the way you set it up. And really
Speaker 1: that just derived from the old course, right, you know,
Speaker 1: the old course gives you a lot of room to flex.
Speaker 1: The distances of the holes and the greens are so
Speaker 1: big that you know, you can take the pins far right,
Speaker 1: far left, up front in the back then the wind
Speaker 1: starts blowing. I mean, of course, is the epitome of
Speaker 1: course within a course, and it's it's a really neat
Speaker 1: concept that I think that needs to be resurrected when
Speaker 1: we have those opportunities.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if there's all kinds of little things you can
Speaker 3: do so I'm curious. You know, we've talked a ton
Speaker 3: about kind of Golden Age architects. What if you were gonna,
Speaker 3: uh kind of create like your ideal architects using like,
Speaker 3: you know, the different different skills, like you know, routing
Speaker 3: bunkers of of you know, it could be current, it
Speaker 3: could be uh, Golden Age architects. How would you construct
Speaker 3: the architect whether it be like routing, bunkering greens. You know,
Speaker 3: if we put it into like, you know, three or
Speaker 3: four categories, you.
Speaker 1: Mean, who would be in charge of each category?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh, holy cow, that's uh, that might be one of
Speaker 1: the best questions I've ever been asked. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I go back to my childhood and it
Speaker 1: didn't take me very long to realize how great Donald
Speaker 1: Ross was at routing golf courses. You know, absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1: Rarely do you see a Ross course where the routing
Speaker 1: has been changed because you can't really improve upon it.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'd give Ross the routing. Well, I probably
Speaker 1: I probably sound like a lot of my a lot
Speaker 1: of my contemporaries here, but I might put Perry Maxwell
Speaker 1: in charge of the greens. You know, he's I mean,
Speaker 1: Perry Maxwell Green's. The best ones are just stuff the chart,
Speaker 1: good prairie dunes and whatnot. Cheef bunkers. I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I like about bunkering is
Speaker 1: I like variety. I mean, I think on all my projects,
Speaker 1: I try to bring a different bunker style to each
Speaker 1: one because I think that, you know, obviously, the bunkers
Speaker 1: are one of the biggest visual aspects of any golf course.
Speaker 1: And Bill Koor and Ben Crenshaw in there, guys Jeff Bradley,
Speaker 1: Dave Axcellen, they've done such a good job resurrecting, you know,
Speaker 1: a great naturalistic Tom Simpson style of bunkering that I
Speaker 1: think there's been too many copycats. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: I put Tom Simpson in charge of the bunkering, but
Speaker 1: you know, right now, I think we need to we
Speaker 1: need a kind of a renaissance and bunker style. We
Speaker 1: got to get away from that kind of blowout look
Speaker 1: and start looking at some different things. But that being said,
Speaker 1: I might put Coorn in charge of the bunkers, either
Speaker 1: him or Tom Simpson. So there you go, running greens bunkers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's uh, that's a formidable three That's the
Speaker 3: thing I like.
Speaker 2: About the core Crenshaw.
Speaker 3: What they do is that the VERI and the and
Speaker 3: the bunkers, like we've talked about, it's like so many
Speaker 3: different shapes and sizes and different placements. Like they aren't
Speaker 3: afraid to just throw a bunker right in the middle
Speaker 3: of a fairway, Like I love that, and I hate
Speaker 3: when people like are afraid to do that right because
Speaker 3: that's right where you want to hit the ball.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it interesting. I've often got that comment
Speaker 1: at the clubs I work out. We just restored a
Speaker 1: center fairway bunker off the tee at over Lake in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and we brought the committee out to to show them
Speaker 1: what we were up to. And one of the first
Speaker 1: comments I got and is why would you put a
Speaker 1: bunker there? That's right where I want to hit it?
Speaker 1: And my response was immediately to say, that's the point,
Speaker 1: as you just suggested. You know now that now that
Speaker 1: there's a bunker right where you wanted to hit it, Okay,
Speaker 1: well now things are gonna get get get fun right.
Speaker 1: Can I carry it? Should I play short? Should I
Speaker 1: play left? Should I play right? You know now you've
Speaker 1: now you've Golf's an inherently physical game, as we know,
Speaker 1: and if you could bring a mental element into into
Speaker 1: the equation, you know, it's going to become more interesting
Speaker 1: if you take the right attitude to it.
Speaker 3: It's uh, I think it was Mackenzie said, like the bunker,
Speaker 3: a hazard should always be on the intended line of play, right,
Speaker 3: and you know.
Speaker 1: The most way to describe what I just said, You're right.
Speaker 3: It's amazing how these those those old school architects had
Speaker 3: like a I think Riley was talking about it, and
Speaker 3: it they're how concisely they could describe things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: It's uh.
Speaker 3: I think they were just a little bit more blunt
Speaker 3: and not afraid of what, you know, what they were saying.
Speaker 1: You know, that could be part of it, no doubt.
Speaker 3: So we got a ton of really great Twitter questions
Speaker 3: I wanted to get to and you're you're a big
Speaker 3: music fan, so uh KVOY wanted to know, you know,
Speaker 3: has how has music influenced your work on the golf course?
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great question. I would say firstly
Speaker 1: that you know, most parts of my life are inspired
Speaker 1: by music. I tend to have headphones on all the time,
Speaker 1: I again take just take inspiration from all kinds of genres.
Speaker 1: You know, my tastes and music vary from you know,
Speaker 1: I'll be listening to the Doobie Brothers and I'll be
Speaker 1: listening to Public Enemy that i might be listening to
Speaker 1: a metal band you know that I'm interested in. So
Speaker 1: when I'm out on a golf course shaping, usually I
Speaker 1: usually have my music going. And again, I just kind
Speaker 1: of feel, I feel good about things when I'm listening
Speaker 1: to what I want to listen to and I think artistically,
Speaker 1: it just becomes inspiring and puts me in the right
Speaker 1: frame of mind to be creative and and being being
Speaker 1: the right mood to do to do good work.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you got to have the right mindset for anything, you.
Speaker 2: Know, absolutely every aspect of life.
Speaker 3: I feel like, So, uh, let's see, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: we're going to transition to a musical artist who had
Speaker 3: a question for you, Micah Iration wants to know template
Speaker 3: holes limiting or.
Speaker 2: Are they a great starting point?
Speaker 1: Geez, that's a good question too. I would never call
Speaker 1: them limiting because you know, the great template holes really
Speaker 1: really give us, you know, you know, they easy easily
Speaker 1: explain architectural concepts and philosophies that have stood the test
Speaker 1: of time and have worked and you know, make make
Speaker 1: golf holes and golf courses, you know, be what they be,
Speaker 1: what they should be. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: think we got to be careful that we're not just
Speaker 1: going around copying. You know. Another thing that I've been
Speaker 1: kind of critical of is you know there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of talk of like the Lacy bunker edges. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of DAN talk, you know, in
Speaker 1: architecture in recent years, you know, where everybody's always talking
Speaker 1: about using side slopes to help people kick balls onto greens,
Speaker 1: and hey, that's cool there. DAN is one of the
Speaker 1: most exciting Part three concepts there there is, and time
Speaker 1: has proven that. But you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: overkill anything, right, we go back to the word variety.
Speaker 1: So when when the when when the template concept presents
Speaker 1: itself in a certain piece of ground or a certain situation.
Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to ignore it because again, you
Speaker 1: know that those concepts work really well, But I think
Speaker 1: we got to be careful not to not to overdo
Speaker 1: it too. I think that makes sense.
Speaker 3: No, No, I think that's I think I'm a huge
Speaker 3: Rainer McDonald fan. And you know, I've had the lucky
Speaker 3: opportunity to have played Short Acres, one of Rainer's best courses,
Speaker 3: you know, probably closer.
Speaker 2: One hundred times.
Speaker 3: And you know, you think about the golf course, and
Speaker 3: he uses a lot of great templates, but the best
Speaker 3: holes on the golf course are the non template holes
Speaker 3: because he was given this beautiful land and this unbelievably
Speaker 3: unique land and he and he created unique golf holes that.
Speaker 2: Fit the land.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where you can't allow the templates
Speaker 3: to you know, be in a box like you know,
Speaker 3: and but like if you were given a dead flat
Speaker 3: piece of land and you did all template holes, it
Speaker 3: probably turned out really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, Chicago is a good example of that, right,
Speaker 1: really good example of that. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a Chicago aside. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that McDonald Rainer templates worked so good is that they
Speaker 1: were so good at fitting those concepts to the existing terrain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, they would find the table top ridge that
Speaker 1: tilted right to left like at the National you know
Speaker 1: Dan Green on it, or find a find a hill
Speaker 1: to tuck the alp screen behind an existing hill. I'm
Speaker 1: not a constructed hill, so you know, I think when
Speaker 1: it comes across as being natural rather than forced as
Speaker 1: a preconceived idea or concept, I think it works a
Speaker 1: lot better. Although I do love Chicago Golf Club too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I'm getting out there in in
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, so I'm I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1: You should be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've locked it, but it's uh, it's a big
Speaker 3: bucket list one I'm getting.
Speaker 2: Off the list. So so, you know, I know.
Speaker 3: You've been spending a lot of time in Minneapolis, talk
Speaker 3: about a little bit about the GoF city Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a little bit under the.
Speaker 1: Radar, I I would say so. I Yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: hanging around and working at Town and Country Club for
Speaker 1: the last year and a half working on a master plan,
Speaker 1: and Bill Larson, the superintendent the country Club, has been
Speaker 1: really He's given me an incredible tour of all most
Speaker 1: of the courses around Minneapolis Saint Paul, and I would
Speaker 1: go so far as to say that, you know, as
Speaker 1: far as the depth of great golf courses on the
Speaker 1: list of courses there, it's it's one of the deepest
Speaker 1: lists I've ever seen. I mean, there are extraordinary courses
Speaker 1: in that city that no one's ever heard of. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite places there that many people probably haven't
Speaker 1: heard of his Somerset Country Club, which is in Saint Paul.
Speaker 1: And it's one of SETH. Rayner's first golf courses. I
Speaker 1: think it dates back to I think it's pre nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen or so. Wonderful setting, wonderful clubhouse, great course,
Speaker 1: all the template holes in there. One of the craziest
Speaker 1: dans I've ever seen is at Somerset Country Club. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you got I mean White Bear Yacht Club,
Speaker 1: which is up in White Bear, Minnesota, which is not
Speaker 1: today twenty thirty minute drives from Saint Paul. I would
Speaker 1: put White There Yacht Club maybe in my top five
Speaker 1: of course as I've ever played. Wow, that's how good.
Speaker 1: That's how good. It is just a wonderful piece of
Speaker 1: land in a wonderful setting, real lay a layout of land,
Speaker 1: golf course. And then you've got you know, you've got Minnicotta,
Speaker 1: which has hosted a lot of championships. Interlocking there's a
Speaker 1: great old Donald Ross course near Lake Minatonka. I think
Speaker 1: it's called Woodhill. You know a lot of places like
Speaker 1: that that are kind of, as you said, under the radar,
Speaker 1: but just off the chart. Good Midland Hills, another Rainer course.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could keep going and going. It's what's
Speaker 1: a deep list of a really great golf.
Speaker 2: Have you played Northwoods up in Duluth.
Speaker 1: No, I haven't been there yet, but you know what
Speaker 1: every golfer I run into in Minneapolis St. Paul says
Speaker 1: to me, have you been up to Northland yet? It's
Speaker 1: a really excited uh tone in their voice. So I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get up there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They I've had so many people say tell.
Speaker 3: Me I got to go play Northland, and it's so
Speaker 3: I gotta get up to Minneapolis one of these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to make sure you go to Duluth
Speaker 1: in the summer though, Yeah, the middle of summer. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm there.
Speaker 3: I'm Chicagoan, so you know it's not I don't have
Speaker 3: quite as cold, but I know what the constricted season.
Speaker 2: And and what golf in May and June can be
Speaker 2: like even June can be just bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think when I was up there last
Speaker 1: week and snow and of course of Northland, that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons we didn't go.
Speaker 2: Up that's uh this way up there, so uh, I apologize.
Speaker 2: I didn't get the name of who asked this.
Speaker 3: But what's one piece of knowledge that you take away
Speaker 3: from working with Whitman on on the great projects that
Speaker 3: he's that you've been working with.
Speaker 6: Him on.
Speaker 1: That that's an easy question. I'll never forget. When I
Speaker 1: first started working with Rod and hanging around with and
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of like the kid who
Speaker 1: had who had read all the architecture books, you know,
Speaker 1: and all I wanted to do was talk about theory
Speaker 1: and concepts and that sort of thing. And Rod said
Speaker 1: to me one time, you know, he said, hey, let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. You know about ten percent of
Speaker 1: golf architecture is philosophizing and talking about concepts, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of the ninety percent is just hard work.
Speaker 1: And I've watched Rod work hard. You know, he's he's
Speaker 1: I won't reveal his age, but he's been in the
Speaker 1: business for a long time now. And you still see
Speaker 1: Rod on the bungozer, you still see him doing finished work.
Speaker 1: You still see him out, you know, out there in
Speaker 1: the field working hard. And I'll never forget him saying
Speaker 1: that to me ten ten percent conceptual hard work, And
Speaker 1: I wrote down a quote he said one time that
Speaker 1: I still think is great. He said to me, you
Speaker 1: know the guys with dirt under their fingernails who have
Speaker 1: the best chance at building the best And you know,
Speaker 1: I think about that all the time in terms of
Speaker 1: being out there and getting my hands dirty and working hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I take away from this.
Speaker 3: I imagine you don't lose perspective that way too. It's
Speaker 3: like a lot of things. You move up in professional
Speaker 3: life and and you forget what you know the job's
Speaker 3: really about, you know, and sometimes some of the cores
Speaker 3: of of of.
Speaker 1: Your work exactly. And I've made myself a promise that
Speaker 1: the day that I don't want to get on a
Speaker 1: buldos or an excavator or go finish a green, I
Speaker 1: think I've lost lost the passion that I have. And
Speaker 1: you know, I doubt I will, But in the day
Speaker 1: if that ever happens, I think I'll stop working. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I'm sure Rod feels the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so we're and to the end, we got to
Speaker 3: do our Frida egg tradition here.
Speaker 2: Of overrated underrated, So yeah, just easy, rapid fire questions
Speaker 2: they've you know, morphed into, you know, then they end
Speaker 2: up in debates. But but first up a Canadian tradition poutine.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, it's underrated, of course, there's nothing better than poutine.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not as popular in the States, but
Speaker 3: good poutine is good, good food.
Speaker 1: You know. Well it's because you guys got to go
Speaker 1: to Montreal to eat it. Then you'll realize how good
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: Okay, So if you're in Montreal, you got to get
Speaker 3: the poutine. I know my fiance is going there for
Speaker 3: a bachelorette party of one of our friends, so I'll
Speaker 3: tell her if she has to get poutine. Look at me,
Speaker 3: I've got a third eye.
Speaker 2: Though, Cross bunkers.
Speaker 1: Under rated, I think.
Speaker 3: Okay, I agree, I think they're awesome. You know, I've
Speaker 3: been getting a lot of flak from my love of
Speaker 3: the Great Hazard. What would you say about the Great
Speaker 3: Hazard or Hell's.
Speaker 1: I love it hells Acre seven at Fine Valley.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's that's the.
Speaker 1: Coolest ones I've ever seen, and I absolutely loved it
Speaker 1: is When I visited Ben Crenshaw's Austin golf club. That yeah,
Speaker 1: the ninth hole is a cool uphill long part five,
Speaker 1: and they have a great hazard in the middle of
Speaker 1: the fairway, you know, big mounds and big sandy areas.
Speaker 1: I was, I had my jaw at the ground that
Speaker 1: I saw it. I thought it was so cool. And
Speaker 1: what's neat about it is, you know, we philosophize about
Speaker 1: lateral strategies on golf holes. You know, you know, if
Speaker 1: a pin's talk right behind a bunker, you want to
Speaker 1: drive left and vice versa. You know, we always talk
Speaker 1: about that. What I love about the great hazard is
Speaker 1: it actually it's a it's a it's a you know,
Speaker 1: a challenge of simply hitting a golf ball, you know,
Speaker 1: where you've got to drive it far enough that you
Speaker 1: can get over that hazard. And if somehow or another
Speaker 1: you don't hit the proper drive, then the next shot,
Speaker 1: you know, again, you just need power and length to
Speaker 1: get to get over that hazard. It's it's just quirky
Speaker 1: in a good way. And I think also part of
Speaker 1: the challenge of golf, you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: they're you know, we complained about the golf ball going
Speaker 1: too far and whatnot. But I still think that part
Speaker 1: of the challenge should occasionally be long hitting, and I
Speaker 1: think that Hazard does a good job. Was that.
Speaker 3: I think that one of the things I love about
Speaker 3: it is it's like a really good way. Like you
Speaker 3: know most part five that you hit a bad drive
Speaker 3: and it's just oh, I just lay it up, you know,
Speaker 3: and like it's fine. You know, I'm just gonna lay
Speaker 3: it up to one hundred and twenty and I'll I'll
Speaker 3: have still have a good birdie chance, like the great hazard,
Speaker 3: Like if you don'thit a good drive, like you all
Speaker 3: of a sudden have like a mid to long iron
Speaker 3: into the green and.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh shit, I need to make pars.
Speaker 1: Right. And then that's the thing. That's the thing about
Speaker 1: designing par fives too, right, there's too many par fives
Speaker 1: I think, where it's the second shot that's completely boring,
Speaker 1: you know. So so whenever you whenever you get a
Speaker 1: par five where you actually have something to do on
Speaker 1: the second shot if you're not going for the green,
Speaker 1: I mean, those are the great three shot holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I might, I might start a campaign more great hazards.
Speaker 1: I'll try to find one for you, all right.
Speaker 2: The doors, Oh well.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say either underrated or overrated. I think they're
Speaker 1: properly appreciated.
Speaker 2: Now you got to pick one, I'll.
Speaker 1: Go overrated then, all right, story guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay. Music on the golf course.
Speaker 1: Overrated. As much as I'm a music fan, I don't
Speaker 1: particularly enjoy people around me playing.
Speaker 2: Music, all right, that's uh. I was expecting the opposite. No,
Speaker 2: So all right, well, well, we really appreciate the time.
Speaker 3: And you know it's a it's gonna this will probably
Speaker 3: be going up on Friday afternoon and over the weekend.
Speaker 2: So you know, what's being a big music fan.
Speaker 3: What's one band that we may never have heard of
Speaker 3: and the listeners have never heard of that.
Speaker 2: We used to listen to this weekend.
Speaker 1: Oh, what a great question. Lately I have been listening
Speaker 1: to a lot of Gojira, go Zerra, Yes, g O
Speaker 1: j I R A.
Speaker 2: Hold on, I write it down. I'm gonna listen to
Speaker 2: it this afternoon.
Speaker 1: They've got it. They've put on a new album a
Speaker 1: few months ago called Magma, and I've been pretty pretty
Speaker 1: obsessed with with that album. It's very very well done.
Speaker 1: O heavy heavy music, but it's very well done.
Speaker 3: G O.
Speaker 1: G O j I R A R Era goes zero.
Speaker 1: All Right, and I'll let you know a little secret
Speaker 1: goes Zira is what the Japanese called Godzillah and the
Speaker 1: bands in the bands from France, so there's a small
Speaker 1: world scenario for it.
Speaker 3: This is actually there's like almost too much there for
Speaker 3: my head. Bay and can see American movie, Japanese word,
Speaker 3: French band.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the album is one of those great ones
Speaker 1: that you can hit play on the first track and
Speaker 1: it is pretty entertaining right through the end. So sounds
Speaker 1: like I like. I like the album concept where it's
Speaker 1: where it's most fun to listen to it front to
Speaker 1: back rather than just picking individual tracks. So I think
Speaker 1: that this album kind of fits that fits that ideal.
Speaker 2: For me, just like a great golf course.
Speaker 1: Right, Hey, there you go, perfect?
Speaker 3: All right, Well, Jeff, thanks so much, and I'll throw
Speaker 3: your Jeff's on Twitter. He I'll throw his profile link
Speaker 3: into the pod and give him a follow, and you know,
Speaker 3: any questions we didn't get to, I'm sure he'd be
Speaker 3: happy to interact and answer on on Twitter.
Speaker 2: So thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks Andy, I appreciate the interest. Enjoyed it all right,
Speaker 1: Bye bye,