WEBVTT - Growing Grass at Sullivan County and Leveling Up a Golf Architecture Business 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.520 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:06.200 And when I find my ball in. 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.480 A bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:12.080 bride egg, Lie. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:35.559 I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.320 back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast. Today 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.440 I am joined by a couple of guests. I have 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.560 Sean Smith, the superintendent at Sullivan County Golf Course, which 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.520 is up in the cast skills and a golf course 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.760 that he has breathed a lot of new life in 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.800 h with also the help of Tom Coin, who's uh 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.480 come on board to help out this year and possibly 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.440 into the future. A golf course really on the rise. 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.319 And Sean has just really an amazing life story with 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.840 golf and life in general. So it was great to 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.759 talk to him about his life and his life in turf. 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.320 And then in the second part of this interview, we 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.400 talk with Tyler Ray. So Tyler, it's been a number 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.000 of years since I last talked to Tyler, and since 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.360 Tyler's career has really exploded. He's gone from being a 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:35.480 shaper and occasional solo architect to really a solo architect 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.120 that has a number of high profile jobs. So it 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.279 was really great to chop it up with Tyler about 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.080 growing his business as well as some of the projects 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:50.040 that they are working on have in the hopper and 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.960 you know, new build versus restoration, all sorts of stuff. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.280 So this is a jam pack podcast with a couple 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.760 interviews and yeah, let's get right into it. Here is 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.880 Sean Smith. But first let's take a quick break to 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.280 hear about our sponsor, Toro. For more than a century 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.080 with cutting edge turf equipment and irrigation solutions, Toro has 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.240 had your front nine covered and your back nine two. 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.080 In fact, Toro's always had your back period. Toro is 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.919 as committed to your long term success as tour pros 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.920 are committed to their shot. That's down to top notch 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:30.640 customer support from Toro and its dedicated local distributors, both 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.160 of whom are passionate about delivering turf equipment and irrigation 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.359 solutions that solve real world problems. Follow at Toro Golf 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.720 on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor today. 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:51.240 Now on to Sean Smith. All right, Sean, i'd love 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:55.320 to know from your perspective where modern agronomy has gone wrong. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.519 Oh, let's start out with a light one. I don't 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.600 know that modern agronomy has gone wrong. I think modern 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.280 agronomy has gone so right in so many different ways 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:12.720 and given people the ability and the opportunity to provide 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:19.000 conditions like anywhere and everywhere that pretty much anyone and 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.399 everyone who can will kind of rise to that bar, 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.079 and the bar has been set like really high. I mean, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.960 I was looking at old I grew up. I didn't 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.120 start playing golf until like the late nineties, and I 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.880 grew up watching like senior golf on the couch, like 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.800 after high school, and it was I was watching some 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.800 of those YouTube videos and the courses look so different. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.760 I mean, they don't look bad from my eye at all, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:48.400 But just the conditions everywhere have been raised so much 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:54.040 that I think it costs so much money to get 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.120 the equipment, maintain the equipment, maintain the workforce that if 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.440 there's anything that's gone wrong, it's just the scale of 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.440 it all, and it's become very hard to provide golf 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.440 for current people's tastes. That's maybe a little bit toned down. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.280 Yeah, in a way, it creates a gap, right, it 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.520 just creates a wider gulf between the haves and the 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.680 have nots. Really and from a maintenance standpoint, right. 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.280 Very much so. Uh, when I moved from Queens to 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.880 Liberty here, I didn't know anything about my golf course 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.080 here then. But like the situation they were in, and 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.120 it's really common for you know, you want to call 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.800 mom and pop golf courses or just you know, very small. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.080 There's a lot of them in the Northeast that you know, 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:46.040 they're just small courses that are attached to small towns. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.520 And they were operating you know, the fleet of equipment 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.000 that I inherited was from the late nineties. You know, 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.360 it was already all of it was pushing fifteen twenty 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.480 twenty five years old. It was only being maintained by 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.520 the skill of like one person who also was responsible 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.719 for you know, more than half the mowing out there. 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.040 Parts very hard to get. And they were operating on 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.880 a negative budget. Like there's no board meetings, there's no 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.720 green committee to approve budgets. It's just ask for what 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.800 you need and don't ask for much. And that's that's 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.440 still the reality at a lot of places. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.040 We're going to get to your career, but just something 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.320 that popped up with what you're talking about. I'd love 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.679 for you to kind of contrast as how your job 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.800 was different when you were on a crew at a 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:47.520 you know, high end private club versus where you're working 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.600 now Sullivan County, where you and one other person are 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.520 taking care of the course, the equipment, everything, Like, can 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.760 you just talk about how your day to day is 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.200 different in those two situations. 0:05:59.520 --> 0:05:59.880 Sure. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.480 I mean there's the basics that you have to cover, 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.960 the things that people are just gonna expect no matter 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.440 what if they're playing golf, and that's like the greens 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.040 and you know, some form of a tea box to 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.919 get off on and after that, and it's not a 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.880 frustrating experience and it is just me and one other 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:26.320 person full time. This year, we have two members who 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.480 are like younger retired guys who each help us two 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.680 days a week, so like four days a week, there's 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.960 three guys on the course instead of two, but it's 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:41.440 still a lot. So it's just like priorities triage. You know, 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.400 you get the greens done, you take care of the 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.839 greens first and foremost. We only have nine irrigation heads. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.520 Each greens it is serviced by like a roller based sprinkler, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.599 but it's you see a lot of things you want 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.719 to do, but it's greens. And then it's getting the 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.920 fairways cut and brings are very hard because it's growing 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.120 faster than you can mow it, and the course looks 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:10.400 bad until you can finally turn the corner and on 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.920 on a larger crew at a you know, on a 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.680 course with a bigger budget, all of those things. Just 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.440 because of the number of people involved, you're able to 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.120 keep mother Nature under your thumb a little bit easier 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.960 throughout the twelve months. You know, we don't work for 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.480 four or five months out of the year, and hopefully 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.480 that changes, but you know, that's just been a budgetary 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:40.000 reality up until now. So it's just you have to 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:46.800 learn to relish your victories. You know, take care of 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.560 what you can take care of, do your best with 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.800 everything else. You know, with hard work and repeated mowings, 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.680 it does all come around. I mean, the course looks 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.160 great right now. It's middle of July. You know, we 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.920 came around a few weeks ago, but things don't happen 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:04.680 as quick at the snap of a finger. You know, 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.840 bunkers don't get don't bunkers don't get raked at the 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.240 same time, greens get mode at the same time, teas 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.600 get mode, at the same time, fairways get mode. We 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.720 have the gracious, gracious help of Toro this year. They 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.080 set us up with a greens mow or a fairway 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.360 mower or a blower, a work card and just it's 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.160 been a it's night and day of the difference it's caused, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.560 but it's still we have one fairway mower and there's 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.040 only three people to put in those five or six seats, 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.160 so things don't get done all at once, you know, 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:35.400 at the snap of a finger. 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.160 Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's got to feel a 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.240 little bit different in terms of accomplishment though when you 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.080 when you get to the point of where it's, like 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.880 you said, it's looking really good right now, there's got 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.120 to be a little bit different feeling associated with that, 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:52.440 right it does. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:57.920 It's a large a good portion of like personal pride 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.040 and even though it's just like me and my guy 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.960 Chris day and day out, like there's still that camaraderie 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.319 that you get on a larger crew. And maybe it's 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:15.959 even intensified because I'm a superintendent, you know, and I'm 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.120 I got one or two other guys. You know, I'm 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:22.440 not out there planning our days. There's no morning meeting. 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.800 You know, we're just looking over our shoulder all day, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:26.720 filling the gaps and you know what I mean, like 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.400 it would be silly, you know. So my job's not 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.760 normal from that standpoint. But there's a huge, huge, like 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.280 intense pride that me and Chris share, especially this year, 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.199 seeing the change and seeing like all the new golfers 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.880 who are happy, but even more so like the old 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.360 Liberty golfers who have been around the whole time and 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.520 have are seeing the change and they you know, they 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.760 know it's just us still, but it's like with a 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:56.120 little bit of extra help, and it's so it's it's 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.240 a lot of pride. I love being out there, like 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.160 being on a fair way mower or mowen greens are 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.440 doing whatever it is out there is exactly the same 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.040 as golfing to me, like being on the golf course. 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.760 It's you could put me on the tee some golf 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.440 I say, National Golf League's never played there and first 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.199 t and hand me a fairway mower. And my golf bag. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.400 And it's a coin flip on what I might choose 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.840 that day, like what I want to do. Like it's 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.760 very much, very similar feeling I get out there anything 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:27.800 I'm doing on the golf course. 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.480 So, what what's the one job that you do that 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.360 would like auto? You would go for golf. You've used 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.319 the fairway and the greens mower. What's the one that 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.880 if you is like you can do this for a 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.920 bait to side or golf. It would just be a 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.240 no brainer. I'm going I'm going to play golf. 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:51.640 Oh something I hate basically, I hate anything to do 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.079 with irrigation. And that's not really coming from like a 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:58.320 firm and fast standpoint, although I'm there too, Like, I 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.320 just hate that part of the job. I hate pipes, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.000 I hate stuff I can't see. It's very boring. We 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:07.840 don't have to irrigate too much here. We didn't irrigate 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.800 the whole month of July because the weather just cooperated. 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.439 I just hate days when we have to water because 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.720 we can't water every day here. When we water, we 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:18.920 have to water a little heavy, and if it's hot 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:20.480 and dry, we got to do it two or three 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.559 times a week. And it just sucks, Like I'd rather 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.920 be golfing, But that's the time when like you can't 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.720 do anything else because it's life or death. 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:33.480 You know, this is my uneducated, the uneducated host here. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:35.600 But how do you know when you need to water? 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.400 Like I think most people that most people that are 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.880 listening that aren't turf professionals, that are homeowners that might 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.520 have sprinkler systems that go on all the time, Like 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.000 when do you know? How do you know you need 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.679 to water versus letting it ride for a month? 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.080 Well, this month was easy. I mean we were never 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.040 overly wet, and we never got more than a couple 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.520 inches at a time, but we got two or three 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.320 of those and enough to fill in the gaps. But 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.360 we went the entire It was the month of May, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.520 like which is normally our spring, our wettest month, no rain. 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.959 We had eighteen hundreds of an inch of measurable rain 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.120 for the month of May. So by the end of 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.679 May it looked like it did last year in September 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.200 at the end of a little drought we had and 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.160 it was crazy and we were having to water. A 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:29.760 lot of the grass was slow to come in because 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.280 that's normally when it fills in and tries to grow. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.000 So it was very obvious. Then a lot of it's 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.160 just experience, and a lot of it is your course. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:46.320 I have nine greens, They're pretty tiny. I don't have 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.880 like a ton of traffic. We don't cut at exceptionally 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:56.320 low heights, so I have some leeway and they never 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.440 get out of control in the sense that I can 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.760 turn around really quick. I don't have acres of greens 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:04.680 out there, you know what I mean. I have less 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.280 than an acre of green space. But you just, you know, 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.439 you know what you're shooting for. Generally, you're trying to 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.520 maintain a dry product. Dry greens mo better, they perform better, 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:20.640 they're less disease prone. But when they start to turn 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:22.920 colors in the high spots and the spots that you 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.280 know from experience are dry, you know when you start 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.559 to see the grass go from a nice vibrant green 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.240 to maybe a shade of blue or gray like that. 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.200 A lot of guys are looking at footprints. You make 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.120 a footprint on a hot, sunny day and it stays 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.320 there and the grass just kind of stays put. That's 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:45.000 when it's time to hit them. I don't use water meters. 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.560 So it sounds a lot. This sounds a lot like 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.240 somebody that's just got a good feel of the grill 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.000 like where Yeah, like you know when you when you've 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.280 pushed the meat, it's that you can feel it in 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.319 your finger in your hand when it's done right. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:02.680 You got this, Yeah, you got the little cooler spot 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.080 over here, and this little piece of chickens about there, 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.560 so you move it over there. The greens are just 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.040 like that. It's exactly like that. We could do the 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.760 rest of the podcast on food restaurant analogies when it 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:19.920 comes to golf course maintenance, in my opinion, give us 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:25.360 one I don't know, oh, like a daily one. Let's 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.760 just talk from like a uh what do you what 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.800 would you call it? And well, they're called condiments at 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.560 a restaurant ketchup on the table. Like if you go 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.120 into a nice restaurant and you ask for ketchup on 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.440 the table or something, that's like coming to me and 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:44.240 asking for a ball washer on a tee. Like there's like, 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.640 I know you like ketchup, I know you like your 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.720 balls clean like whatever, but that that's a bad one. 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.360 But no, I just think the towels for and you say, 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.320 you know, on a golf course, that's what you gotta 0:14:58.320 --> 0:14:59.280 get yourself a towel. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.480 Explainet to people and it does shut them up. But 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:05.640 the ball washer is absurd. I they don't even know 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:06.480 where those come from. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.600 Like I mean, the crazier thing is when you see 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.760 the price of what one of those ball washers costs. 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.440 Crazy. Everything in golf is expensive because golf is a 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.680 relatively rich sport, and they're no different. Oh yeah, it's 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.800 you put a handful of ball washes out there, you're 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.840 in for a few grand, like several grand, and over 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:36.720 the lifespan, forget it, like oh Moraine Country Club, February, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.360 Like just sand in parade. Ball washers getting you got 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.320 to get in the little nooks where it says par 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.160 a and then you gotta paint them all over again. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.960 It's awful. Don't make your golf course do that. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.760 Yeah, sign like signs, all those things like the the 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:57.000 like the standard. I was shocked and like alarmed when 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.520 I found out what those like, you know, the signed 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:05.680 the benches, the ball washers, the trash cans, the things 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:10.560 that like those quintessential items that you see at golf courses. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.680 When I found out how much they cost. I was like, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.360 I was appalled, honestly. Yeah, it was like, you know, 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.360 like you could almost shop at Creighton Barrel for less 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.600 money than through one of the golf course successory. 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.360 No, it's like that. It's like going from the Target 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.880 website to the Creighton Barrel website as far as like 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:30.960 the price is going up if you go from like 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:35.200 normal landscape stuff to golf landscape stuff, it's just like 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:35.880 ten x. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.560 It's and it's the same stuff. It's crazy. Let's talk 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.160 a little bit about your life and how how you 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.000 got into the golf course maintenance world. 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.640 Wanted to wanted somewhere to play golf for free. I 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.920 mean that was it. I grew up in Kansas City, 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.560 like in a suburb of Kansas City on the Kansas side, Lenexa, Kansas. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:04.640 A lot of kids want to get the hell out 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.280 of Kansas as soon as they can. I wasn't going 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.840 to college right away, so me and my cousin had 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.600 a chance to move to Dayton, Ohio. My aunt had 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.159 an apartment in her attic that she was willing to 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.440 let us use free of charge for a little bit. 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.119 So we packed up his civic and went there. I 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.080 had just been getting into the game of golf. I 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:30.160 was working at a skateboard shop. My dad always took 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.480 me to the putt putt and he always took me 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.399 to the driving range. So I was doing that stuff 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.680 growing up. And he was a guy who played a 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.159 couple times a year with the company and stuff, and 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.720 we were heavily into sports, but golf wasn't our thing 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.440 so much. But I was getting into it right out 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.520 of high school, teaching myself to play. Got to Dayton, Ohio. 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.800 My aunt lived within. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:56.240 It. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.520 I figured it. I was like a two mile radius. 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.600 There was a hundred and nate holes of golf right there. 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.040 Where she lived was Dayton country Club, Community Golf Course, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.320 Moraine country Club NCR. And that's just like a nice 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.840 strand there in Dayton, great golf town. But I so 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.040 I started putting in applications. I'd done a little landscaping 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:21.080 here and there. My dad one of his jobs when 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.080 I was little, he managed, was a general manager at 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.840 a big softball complex in Kansas City, and he did 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:29.439 a lot of the work on the fields there. So 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.840 we always did a bit of that and traveling around 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.200 as a kid when we'd go to like different cities. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.800 He would take me to like Yankee Stadium, or like 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:41.600 La we'd go to the Rose Bowl, or like Notre 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.439 Dame Stadium. Wherever we're at, we'd go, even if it 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.000 was like the middle of the day, nothing like we'd 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:47.720 be at like the chain link fans trying to look 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.000 in at the field and stuff. So we were into that. 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.119 But I I was just getting the golf as a player. 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.680 It was the Tiger Woods era. Wanted free golf. Because 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.840 I was broke. Me and my cousin were working at 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:04.040 the bagel shop up the street from Morain. I put 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:10.879 in an application at Moraine, thinking it was INCR. And 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.239 then I went up the road and put in an 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.280 application and asked them what course it was, and they 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.880 said it was INCR. And I filled one out anyway. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.280 And then by the time I had gotten home, the 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.680 superintendent at Moraine, Jerry Overbay, had already called and left 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.840 a message with my grandma. So one thing led to another. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.439 He hired me. I was probably twenty ish, this was 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.360 ninety twenty twenty one. This was probably like ninety eight, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.399 and I started working the crew and lucky for me, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:49.199 Moraine had like a super open culture, at least at 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.359 that point. I haven't been back in a couple of 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:56.040 years anyway, but I could play once he knew I 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:57.840 wasn't gonna quit after a couple of weeks, and I 0:19:57.880 --> 0:19:59.879 was into golf. Like he got me on the course 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.000 like immediately, he'd get me on the course on week 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.040 you know, normal weekday afternoons. And it got to the 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.600 point where, you know, I was there for seven years. 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:16.280 The better part learned everything there, really, the learned love 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.720 of golf. You know, this was pre it wasn't pre Internet, 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:21.280 but it was like early Internet. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:21.720 So I. 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.200 Didn't become like an architecture head or anything at that point. 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.000 But that's a pretty good course to cut your teeth on. 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.160 Even at that point. I mean there were a lot 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.359 more trees there, but you know, it was still everything 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:33.800 was there. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.720 The land, the lants is unbelievable there. 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.520 Yeah, and the land hasn't changed. It's it's a great 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.080 strip of land there. Like all those golf courses on 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.760 that little strand share that land. There's like six golf courses, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.520 great little strip, just. 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.000 A little pocket of nipper gamble there. 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.639 But anyway, that's that's how I got into turf, Like 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.000 I got into. I had a lot of free golf 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.040 and instantly loved mowing greens. Kind of worked my way 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.240 out of just doing like sandtraps and trap banks, you know, 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.120 all week every week. Jerry trusted me with course set 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:13.560 up pretty early, like the second season, like I was 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.400 doing course set up and stuff at Morain. Really got 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:17.840 into it. 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.360 And do you know from there, have you ever thought 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.479 about back like when you started doing doing turf at Moraine, 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.159 what it was that like specifically that really appealed to 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:31.120 you about it? 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.439 Yeah, And I had a very I think about it 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:41.320 a lot because there was a good little vibrant community 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.000 there among us among people who worked on golf courses 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.680 like Mondays. It was either like we were hosting at 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.639 Morain on maintenance Monday afternoons, or we were going to 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.040 someone else's course. And there was a lot of competition 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.399 among golf courses like who was the best and stuff, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.680 and we got to play all the best in that 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.960 and I was always very adamant that Morain was the best. 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:13.159 And yeah, back in the day, I'd tell you Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.359 that whole stretch and there's some competition there. I still 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.080 think it holds up pretty good, but there would always 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.440 be that competition and I didn't know what it was 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.080 because I couldn't talk about it then like I could now, 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:32.040 but it was definitely there was something about Morain that 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:36.680 was like you get in like streaks with your game 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.919 or something. Have you ever have you ever been to 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:41.920 a course in like your game you knew it wasn't 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.399 on or something, or maybe you knew the course was 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.000 long or something, but somehow the course conditions are just 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.760 the course itself kind of like negated all that and 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.000 you could either punch it around and get around or 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:58.440 like distance didn't matter like as much as you thought 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:00.719 it does on the card or something. Morange just has 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:05.359 a way of kind of negating styles of play. And 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:07.920 I think it's because it's one of the more natural 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:12.359 courses in that area. It's a very I mean, it's 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.000 an up and down course like and it goes up 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.440 and down like twice. And I don't know, I could 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.720 just always if you're playing really well, it could kind 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.600 of hit you around a little bit. If you weren't 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.679 playing well even back in the tree days, like you 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:34.639 weren't losing balls there when you got on those small greens. 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:36.760 You always had a chance there, but it was really 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.959 hard to get there. And there's also like just kind 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:43.600 of intangible things. There's like a rhythm to that course, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:50.040 the way like the kind of the sixteenth and the 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:52.679 seventh green sit there next to each other, and they 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.560 meet at kind of the same spot in each nine 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.560 and they're kind of like weird cousins of each other. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:00.600 They sit in the same spot out of the land, 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.520 their push ups with bunkers on each side. They come 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.159 down a hill and then the next two holes do 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:08.800 the same thing. It's two par fives now, and there's 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.040 like this cool symmetry and almost a sense of humor 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:14.680 to the design. Every hole is very different, but there's 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:18.680 a lot of familiarity out there. It's a very very 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:19.359 good golf course. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.680 Yeah, So where'd you go after Moraine? 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:30.000 Moraine? Oh, I went on the wagon or off the 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.879 wagon or whatever they So my life in Dayton was 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:37.840 like wake up at four, get to the golf course, 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:43.920 work my ass off, go home, either take a nap 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:45.760 or go to the driving range or something, or hit 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:49.000 balls if I wasn't playing, and then it was music. 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:53.720 Like I was a pretty serious guitar player at that time, 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:59.080 and my friend will Cope him and I played like 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:02.840 at bar joint and like beard like beer joints in Dayton, Ohio, 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:06.800 and even traveled around like West Virginia and Kentucky and 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:10.240 Pennsylvania and stuff, and we were kind of serious musicians, 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:17.600 drank a lot, party a lot. So after Morain, you know, 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:21.159 I was kind of my life kind of was getting 0:25:21.200 --> 0:25:26.280 more and more unsustainable and the alcohol kind of got 0:25:26.280 --> 0:25:29.320 out of control. Ended up going back home for a 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:33.560 little bit, ended up coming back to Morain for a 0:25:33.600 --> 0:25:38.360 little bit. The guitar and all that kind of art 0:25:38.400 --> 0:25:41.000 life eventually led me on a trip to New York. 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:44.520 As soon as I got there, I kind of fell 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:47.560 in love with it. That's kind of how New York 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:50.520 City is. But like I was only going to stay 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:52.520 there for two weeks with some friends and ended up 0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:56.560 and that's I essentially never left, you know, I kind 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.600 of picked up my things and stuff. But I between 0:26:00.640 --> 0:26:03.920 more Rain and New York City, I kind of lived 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:06.280 a hard life and lived even a harder life my 0:26:06.359 --> 0:26:10.080 first few years in New York City before kind of 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:13.639 getting my stuff together, and it was just alcoholism. It 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:18.879 was just you know, selfish living and drinking too much 0:26:18.960 --> 0:26:23.080 and not listening to anybody, and one thing led to another. 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:23.320 You know. 0:26:23.640 --> 0:26:30.520 I ended up doing fits and starts at rehabs, you know, 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:34.280 but it took three or four like residential rehabs up 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:37.199 here in New York. Thank god we have those for 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:42.000 people here before I really got my shit together and 0:26:42.040 --> 0:26:45.479 then ended up finally you know, this puts me at 0:26:45.840 --> 0:26:50.440 two thousand and ten, twenty eleven, met the girl who 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:57.000 would become my wife, kind of got more serious about things, 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:04.560 started using my skill in the city in horticulture. Ended 0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:09.680 up doing at a pretty high level, like terrace gardens 0:27:09.760 --> 0:27:13.080 and green walls and all the kind of plantings that 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:17.479 you see in like big cities. Yeah, even like like 0:27:17.520 --> 0:27:20.040 even like down to like Brownstone gardens, you know, people's 0:27:20.040 --> 0:27:23.680 backyards and stuff. But a lot of like big, big 0:27:23.760 --> 0:27:27.680 downtown Manhattan stuff, tech companies and stuff, huge green walls 0:27:27.720 --> 0:27:31.159 and terraces way up in the sky. Worked for a 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:35.679 great company called Blondie's Treehouse in the city under an 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:40.760 amazing horticulturalist. Her name was Boshana bud buzz Budzick. Sorry 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:43.359 I still have trouble spitting that whole name out. We 0:27:43.400 --> 0:27:47.360 call her bo but she was a Polish horticulturalist and 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:51.040 she had she was in charge of all the interior 0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:55.560 plants for Blondies that they did, and I think we 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.239 had like eight hundred accounts in the city. We had 0:27:58.240 --> 0:28:03.440 a crew of like twenty five thirty interior horticulture techs. 0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:05.840 And it was kind of like a crew at a 0:28:05.840 --> 0:28:09.040 big golf course, you know. We'd have weekly meetings, not 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:12.840 morning meetings, and like crews would go everywhere and it 0:28:12.880 --> 0:28:17.040 was a really cool job. When I left there, I 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:21.120 was kind of doing My job ended up being when 0:28:21.119 --> 0:28:23.919 they would do a new install, I would kind of 0:28:25.680 --> 0:28:30.000 show up on the scene, check the plants, and kind 0:28:30.000 --> 0:28:31.560 of scope it out and take care of it for 0:28:31.600 --> 0:28:34.000 the first couple of weeks, see what it was going 0:28:34.040 --> 0:28:35.520 to need, what it was going to take from, like 0:28:35.560 --> 0:28:40.120 a personnel standpoint, a water standpoint to maintain it, and 0:28:40.160 --> 0:28:43.080 kind of set up the maintenance program with both. And 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:46.520 it was really cool. Worked at places like Google and 0:28:46.600 --> 0:28:52.640 their campus down there. We did Facebook, we did Museum 0:28:52.640 --> 0:28:56.320 of Modern Art, Big Greenwall there, World Trade Center, all 0:28:56.360 --> 0:28:59.960 those buildings. There's really exciting job, very difficult job. 0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:04.800 What did that job teach you that you were able 0:29:04.840 --> 0:29:06.680 to take later to turf in. 0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:12.480 Golf person coming back like at that level, especially when 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:17.840 you're kind of dealing with the installation process and doing 0:29:17.880 --> 0:29:24.000 big plantings in a downtown area, you know, as much 0:29:24.040 --> 0:29:28.880 as seventy eighty stories high, the logistics are really really frustrating, 0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:32.400 especially when these buildings are going up. Everyone's trying to 0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:34.640 do everything with these buildings at the same time, from 0:29:34.680 --> 0:29:38.560 fleshing the offices out to doing the electrical and you're 0:29:38.600 --> 0:29:41.000 trying to get up there with bags of soil and 0:29:41.120 --> 0:29:44.960 live plants and bags of malt or what have you 0:29:45.280 --> 0:29:49.880 up freight elevators, and the logistics are just really frustrating. 0:29:51.280 --> 0:29:55.120 And then once you get them in there, they're beautiful projects, 0:29:55.160 --> 0:29:58.200 but the stresses that the plants are under are very unique. 0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:03.720 It's a lot of expos The sunlight can either be 0:30:03.880 --> 0:30:08.840 non existent or almost like omnipresent. You're dealing in a 0:30:08.920 --> 0:30:12.320 huge heat island effect. So I learned a lot just 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:15.360 about like plant physiology, what plants can take, what they can't. 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:19.800 Because you're you know, you're doing you know, a multimillion 0:30:19.880 --> 0:30:23.840 dollar install that's you know, a half acre of new 0:30:24.120 --> 0:30:30.360 groundcover or flowers or something, and it's ninety two degrees 0:30:30.480 --> 0:30:33.120 on the ground, and you know your plants are up 0:30:33.120 --> 0:30:37.040 there on the fiftieth floor on a south facing highly 0:30:37.160 --> 0:30:40.200 windy and they're in three inches of like soil less 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:43.840 plant mixture. Like it's just it's really under the gun 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:47.600 like it and a lot of like at golf courses, 0:30:48.440 --> 0:30:51.520 really high end golf courses. Like the most stressful job 0:30:51.560 --> 0:30:54.920 on that whole property will be like the assistant superintendent's 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:58.280 on a hot summer day, chasing around keeping greens alive, 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:03.680 you know, under heavy play and never never getting them 0:31:03.720 --> 0:31:07.440 too wet. But that's very equivalent to that, and you 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:10.840 but you're trying to do it. You might have So 0:31:10.880 --> 0:31:13.920 it's like having greens spread out all over Manhattan, and 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:17.440 one green's on the fiftieth floor down here on fourteenth Street, 0:31:17.640 --> 0:31:19.200 and then you got to go to the other one 0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:23.200 that's on the twelfth floor on you know, East seventy ninth, 0:31:23.640 --> 0:31:25.160 and you got to check two or three of these 0:31:25.160 --> 0:31:27.840 spots in a day. You gotta be taking the subway, 0:31:28.520 --> 0:31:31.400 you got it's so it's it's it's crazy. You got 0:31:31.520 --> 0:31:34.040 to argue with the freight elevator guy, or you gotta 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:38.960 you've lost your id or something. It's just it's always 0:31:39.000 --> 0:31:42.800 it's a whole different level of like logistics and things 0:31:42.800 --> 0:31:44.960 you don't think of that goes into it, just like 0:31:45.000 --> 0:31:46.120 little plants and offices. 0:31:46.840 --> 0:31:49.480 I I imagine that you can't have a fear of 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:52.920 heights either. At that point, you're probably in some precare. 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:55.600 I always look at like window washers when I'm in 0:31:55.680 --> 0:31:58.200 a tall building. I'm like, God, that's crazy. And in 0:31:58.240 --> 0:32:01.320 a way, you're doing even more with plants and stuff, 0:32:01.400 --> 0:32:05.800 right are you? Were you hanging from buildings. 0:32:04.520 --> 0:32:08.200 Never hanging from buildings, And I'm not afraid of heights, 0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:11.000 but I don't necessarily like them. And there were some 0:32:11.480 --> 0:32:14.560 properties that would give you that vertigo, but I mean 0:32:14.600 --> 0:32:17.960 it was mainly terraces. You know, you're walking out from inside. 0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:20.760 It wasn't like out there out there. 0:32:21.000 --> 0:32:25.200 Now. The craziest wall I had was in inside the 0:32:25.240 --> 0:32:28.960 Google campus. We had like two green walls that were 0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:32.200 like pillars of plants, like six feet on each side, 0:32:32.560 --> 0:32:34.840 and they went up. They started on the eighth floor 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:36.880 and went all the way up through the eleventh floor, 0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:40.200 and it was like kind of an open cafe area 0:32:40.680 --> 0:32:45.320 and two of these giant pillars of plants, and we 0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:49.560 had like a big like cherry picker. You know. I'd 0:32:49.600 --> 0:32:51.640 park it down the hallway. It was like kind of 0:32:51.640 --> 0:32:53.600 a they'd put it on the eighth floor because that's 0:32:53.600 --> 0:32:56.480 where all the air conditioning and stuff. It's like the 0:32:56.520 --> 0:32:59.320 brains of the building that go through like the middle floor. 0:32:59.560 --> 0:33:02.440 It was a fourteen story building. So I would pull 0:33:02.480 --> 0:33:04.880 this cherry picker down through the hall and pull it 0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:07.480 up there early in the mornings, and these things were 0:33:07.520 --> 0:33:09.880 like sixty seventy feet in the air, and you'd go 0:33:09.960 --> 0:33:13.520 all the way up and you'd get vertigo because the 0:33:13.560 --> 0:33:16.480 thing starts rocking and stuff, and people are starting to 0:33:16.480 --> 0:33:18.360 filter in and look at you do the work. It's 0:33:18.400 --> 0:33:21.400 like kind of part of the fun. But that stuff 0:33:21.400 --> 0:33:23.080 like that. But nothing crazy, no, No. 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:26.760 What made you want to get back into golf from 0:33:26.760 --> 0:33:27.280 this job? 0:33:27.960 --> 0:33:32.040 Frida Egg Baby, No in a big in a large sense, 0:33:32.320 --> 0:33:35.680 the Frida Egg at large though, the golf community that 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:41.360 I kind of walked back into or rediscovered. I got 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:45.600 healthy number one, Like you don't, well, actually I can. 0:33:45.720 --> 0:33:49.120 There were times. I won't get too into this, but 0:33:50.080 --> 0:33:51.840 it's suffice to say I was living out of a 0:33:52.000 --> 0:33:57.520 backpack like Lower Manhattan essentially, and there were times I 0:33:57.560 --> 0:34:00.520 would like hit balls at Chelsea Piers. They have like 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:03.840 a public green at Bryant Park. And at times when 0:34:03.840 --> 0:34:07.520 I was either like essentially homeless or CouchSurfing, like, I 0:34:07.560 --> 0:34:11.279 would stop and play a little bit. But as I 0:34:11.320 --> 0:34:14.440 got healthy, like and I got my body back, and 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:16.880 I got my sleep patterns back, and I had a 0:34:16.920 --> 0:34:19.320 regular job and had a bank account and all that stuff, 0:34:19.360 --> 0:34:22.799 it was like I could golf, like I was living 0:34:22.840 --> 0:34:25.719 in Queen's and everything. But we do have I mean, 0:34:25.760 --> 0:34:30.640 I was only once once we got the car in Queens. 0:34:30.640 --> 0:34:33.640 You know, I could get to Forest Park in six minutes. 0:34:33.680 --> 0:34:36.960 We were really close to Forest Park golf course. But 0:34:37.000 --> 0:34:39.239 I worked in Manhattan, so I would play, you know, 0:34:39.280 --> 0:34:45.640 I'd go practice at Chelsea Peers. The We found some 0:34:46.040 --> 0:34:49.040 real treasures that are up and down the beaches there 0:34:49.160 --> 0:34:52.280 near the city, some great par three courses like Rhese 0:34:52.360 --> 0:35:00.000 Park and Nickerson Dunes, yep, exactly. And that was another 0:35:00.080 --> 0:35:02.040 But that's what I mean. It was like kind of 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:07.000 that whole community that I rediscovered, putting language and thought, 0:35:07.080 --> 0:35:09.160 because you guys had kind of a head start, Like 0:35:09.239 --> 0:35:12.000 I'm older than a lot of you guys. I'm forty five, now, 0:35:12.520 --> 0:35:14.840 But I was kind of checked out there for a 0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:19.560 little bit, and a lot of you guys in those 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:22.800 later years, like right when I was kind of getting 0:35:22.840 --> 0:35:25.480 my shit back together, you guys were busy studying and 0:35:25.520 --> 0:35:29.080 busy researching and traveling and seeing all these golf courses 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:34.680 and doing the historical connections and putting language to it. 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:39.160 So by the time I had practiced up a little 0:35:39.200 --> 0:35:42.080 bit and was kind of like, hmm, you know, I'm 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:44.000 getting a little tired of doing this in the city, 0:35:44.080 --> 0:35:48.520 and you know I have some relevant skills. When I 0:35:48.560 --> 0:35:51.799 started getting on the computer, you guys would be the 0:35:51.800 --> 0:35:54.359 first thing that would come up. I always knew about 0:35:54.360 --> 0:35:57.200 golf club at lists now golf Club at list I 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:02.400 can remember coming across probably and two thousand and five 0:36:02.480 --> 0:36:05.160 or six is when I started reading that, and that 0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:08.719 might have been my first kind of entree into the 0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:13.880 real architecture stuff. But that's still a little traditional based. 0:36:13.960 --> 0:36:16.399 I mean, there's I mean, it's all of our best 0:36:16.440 --> 0:36:23.280 resource right, but like this new younger guys talking about 0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:25.760 it and kind of approaching it from a less stuffy 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:30.840 way was just it was a It gave me a 0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:33.840 lot of optimism because I didn't want I wasn't the 0:36:33.920 --> 0:36:38.279 person who was gonna step into like a conservative, like 0:36:38.520 --> 0:36:42.080 preppy kind of new pastime. I needed some sort of 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:46.759 plausible denial in there, so like cool guys like you 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:49.560 and not to like sound so cheesy about it, but 0:36:49.719 --> 0:36:52.919 just like in plain language, kind of gave me cover 0:36:53.000 --> 0:36:55.480 to get back in and like at least be enthusiastic 0:36:55.520 --> 0:36:58.000 and like at least knude know that there were some 0:36:58.080 --> 0:36:59.960 people out there different. 0:37:00.280 --> 0:37:05.080 Mhere what I got to ask for advice for any 0:37:05.200 --> 0:37:08.680 city dweller. You know, you lived in Queens and we're 0:37:08.680 --> 0:37:12.320 playing a lot of golf, a lot of affordable golf. 0:37:12.360 --> 0:37:15.920 What are the five courses you must see near the 0:37:15.960 --> 0:37:17.000 city And. 0:37:16.960 --> 0:37:20.319 There's good courses too, And I'm gonna give them kind 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:23.000 of a strategy about it too, because you don't just 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:24.920 want to show up or whatever. 0:37:25.080 --> 0:37:27.319 These are good. This is I need this. 0:37:27.840 --> 0:37:31.480 The city courses, they're they're packed right now, They're going 0:37:31.560 --> 0:37:35.439 to be packed four hours from now. Like if it's 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:40.520 sunny and plus forty degrees, like you're gonna run into 0:37:40.600 --> 0:37:43.040 golfers and probably quite a few. But your best bet 0:37:43.320 --> 0:37:46.960 is to either go very early. I mean, if you're 0:37:46.960 --> 0:37:48.680 living in the city, don't listen to this, you just 0:37:48.680 --> 0:37:53.799 gotta freaking gut it out. But five courses. Forest Park 0:37:53.880 --> 0:37:58.600 is awesome, really cool set of greens. All of these 0:37:58.680 --> 0:38:03.160 courses were basically we've done. This is one of the greatest, 0:38:03.200 --> 0:38:07.879 like untold stories in golf course architecture, what John van 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:11.120 Kleek did of styles in Van Cleek. By this time 0:38:11.239 --> 0:38:14.400 he was on his own the new deal projects like 0:38:14.440 --> 0:38:16.879 the WPA projects or whatever you want to call them, 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:19.520 that he did in New York City during those eighteen 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:24.080 months where he did. He redid Van Cortland, he redid 0:38:24.080 --> 0:38:33.200 Split Rock, he built Cassenna, redd Forest Park, built Douglas Town, 0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:39.160 built Reese Park. All golf courses built, constructed and like 0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:42.120 up and play like in less than two years with 0:38:42.160 --> 0:38:46.120 all this labor, and any of those golf courses are 0:38:46.160 --> 0:38:51.400 a blast to visit, but go online first and do 0:38:51.520 --> 0:38:56.120 some research. The New York City government has a really 0:38:56.160 --> 0:38:58.839 great time lapse thing like the NYC ven And now 0:38:59.160 --> 0:39:01.680 if you google that, it'll give you like a slider 0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:04.520 aerial where you can look at some twenties and thirties 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:07.439 aerials of these golf courses and see how crazy they were. 0:39:07.480 --> 0:39:09.799 The stuff that he built and a lot of it's 0:39:09.800 --> 0:39:12.760 still there in the ground, although it's been grasped over 0:39:13.080 --> 0:39:17.239 grown over. But they're all really really cool Golden Age 0:39:17.360 --> 0:39:20.800 golf courses, and he had a real flare around the greens. 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:27.640 You know, they're generally smallish, but like all all of 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:30.920 kind of the template styles are represented throughout his courses. 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:34.759 There's a lot of mutations of them. He just had 0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:37.560 a real fun style when he was doing these courses, 0:39:37.600 --> 0:39:39.160 and I think it was probably due to some of 0:39:39.200 --> 0:39:41.160 the speed he did it in It's just some of 0:39:41.200 --> 0:39:43.960 some of the architecture is almost kind of frivolous. It's 0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:45.600 kind of fun. 0:39:46.080 --> 0:39:48.800 Like, yeah, I've heard Split Rocks really cool. 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:52.439 Split Rock is great course. Yeah, both those courses there 0:39:52.920 --> 0:39:55.440 great day of golf if you want to do thirty six. Like, 0:39:55.480 --> 0:40:01.480 I don't know which one's better split Rock. There's Pelham 0:40:01.560 --> 0:40:04.080 and there's Split Rock. And I hope I'm not getting 0:40:04.120 --> 0:40:08.759 it wrong. Pelham or split Rock is the more is 0:40:08.800 --> 0:40:14.560 the more uh kind of wooded, rambunctious, and I think 0:40:14.600 --> 0:40:18.480 the other the more. They're both really good. They I 0:40:18.520 --> 0:40:22.120 think they were both golf courses like from the late 0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:25.759 eighteen hundreds on and just kind of permutated and that 0:40:25.920 --> 0:40:28.560 was the land that they used for the Van Cleet courses. 0:40:28.960 --> 0:40:33.160 But a lot of that, I'm trying to think of 0:40:33.160 --> 0:40:36.000 stuff that's maybe a little farther out. I didn't get 0:40:36.000 --> 0:40:38.439 to play golf on Long Island too much, as far 0:40:38.480 --> 0:40:44.160 as I was fortunate enough getting back into golf. My 0:40:44.280 --> 0:40:47.360 first job back into golf from doing the hort of 0:40:47.400 --> 0:40:52.160 culture work was at the Creek and Locus Valley under 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:53.239 Adam What ye. 0:40:53.400 --> 0:40:55.120 What year was this about? 0:40:55.600 --> 0:41:00.879 It was the September after the growing of Hans's work, 0:41:01.400 --> 0:41:05.319 so this last and exactly I think it was the 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:10.000 fall of seventeen and it was the off season. Adam 0:41:10.080 --> 0:41:13.799 went to school with Jason Mall, who was the then 0:41:13.920 --> 0:41:19.280 superintendent at Moraine. Yeah, and Jason and I were close, 0:41:19.800 --> 0:41:25.279 so kind of on Jason's recommendation, Adam hired me as 0:41:25.320 --> 0:41:28.359 like third assistant horticulturalists because they were also looking for 0:41:28.440 --> 0:41:31.480 like a horticulturalist for that club. And it was November. 0:41:31.840 --> 0:41:34.239 I was living in Queens and he said, come on 0:41:34.440 --> 0:41:36.800 try it out for a little bit, see if it 0:41:36.800 --> 0:41:39.320 would be a fit. And I loved it. I spent 0:41:40.640 --> 0:41:44.279 five or six weeks. It was nice. I could leave 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:46.960 Queens in the morning and be at the creek in 0:41:47.040 --> 0:41:50.840 forty five minutes. But if I didn't leave the creek 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:54.880 by about two thirty three o'clock, like that drive home 0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:58.240 could go to two and a half three hours pretty easily. 0:41:58.880 --> 0:42:02.640 So at that point I had like a you know, 0:42:02.680 --> 0:42:07.120 fourteen month fifteen month old daughter, My wife's working from home, 0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:11.720 so I kind of respectfully declined to, you know, start 0:42:11.760 --> 0:42:15.360 the spring out with them, but it gave me a 0:42:15.400 --> 0:42:18.399 big boost. And that was kind of concurrent with you 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:23.000 guys publishing my piece on Nickerson Dunes and getting to 0:42:23.040 --> 0:42:25.279 know Garrett and talking to Garrett quite a bit through 0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:28.120 that process, and both of those things gave me a 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:30.759 lot of wind in my sales. So after that it 0:42:30.840 --> 0:42:33.040 was just kind of a matter of when we ended 0:42:33.080 --> 0:42:34.879 up moving out of the city to get some more 0:42:34.920 --> 0:42:39.120 space and put some projects together up here until I 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:39.880 found this place. 0:42:40.480 --> 0:42:42.840 Were what were you doing up there before you found this, 0:42:43.280 --> 0:42:44.640 before you found Sullivan County? 0:42:45.440 --> 0:42:49.480 Uh? Right? At Like, I commuted back and forth from 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:52.360 the from here to the city for about nine months, 0:42:52.640 --> 0:42:56.080 still doing the horticulture job. Went back to the horticulture 0:42:56.160 --> 0:42:59.200 right after the creek. We ended up buying a house here, 0:43:00.200 --> 0:43:02.600 but I commuted back and forth from Liberty to New 0:43:02.680 --> 0:43:07.120 York for about nine months, and at that point there 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:11.360 were a couple projects brewing up here. There was a 0:43:11.440 --> 0:43:15.400 casino course up here that was built in the sixties 0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:19.600 and was getting Aerys Jones makeover. So I ended up 0:43:19.680 --> 0:43:22.160 helping a little bit out there for him, just kind 0:43:22.160 --> 0:43:25.359 of part time, did some work here in the clubhouse. 0:43:25.840 --> 0:43:31.520 And that was all before working at NS which is 0:43:31.600 --> 0:43:36.440 Rob Collins Place. So the whole time we were like 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:39.799 shopping for houses up here, I had known about the 0:43:39.840 --> 0:43:42.640 project it was going to happen. I kind of checked 0:43:42.640 --> 0:43:44.520 out the old golf course it was going to be on. 0:43:46.120 --> 0:43:50.560 By that time, I had been introduced like to Rob 0:43:50.600 --> 0:43:53.200 a little bit online and we had texted a little bit, 0:43:55.440 --> 0:43:58.000 so just going back and forth with him. Ended up 0:43:58.040 --> 0:44:03.320 having a friend who who I also met online from Knoxville. 0:44:03.400 --> 0:44:06.279 His name is Kyle. He ended up helping Rob and 0:44:06.320 --> 0:44:09.400 that crew during the construction. But I always had a 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:11.799 kind of a pulse on that, and when it was 0:44:11.800 --> 0:44:15.520 all completed, I ended up working with Anthony the superintendent 0:44:15.560 --> 0:44:19.880 on the growing at ANSS and did that and worked 0:44:19.880 --> 0:44:25.040 there through their first season and into all through their 0:44:25.080 --> 0:44:27.960 first off season, and that was when the job here 0:44:28.040 --> 0:44:30.960 opened up. So I did get about a year and 0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:33.960 a half in at a ness in between the city 0:44:34.000 --> 0:44:36.400 and here. So that was a really fun experience. 0:44:37.200 --> 0:44:41.360 Yeah, what was the what was growing like? And what 0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:45.040 what were the unique aspects of growing in a golf 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:48.520 course that you particularly take a lot with you from. 0:44:49.200 --> 0:44:51.480 I had never done it grow in, you know, I'd 0:44:51.520 --> 0:44:55.640 done random tee projects here and there, greens expansions, some 0:44:55.680 --> 0:44:58.640 bunker renovations and stuff, but never a whole grow in. 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:05.799 So they completed the course more or less late in 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:10.279 the season, and they had kind of hydro seated a 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:13.480 cover crop and by the time I got there the 0:45:13.520 --> 0:45:17.320 next growing season, you know, there was a winter involved 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:20.920 and they had started the serious hydro seating of the 0:45:20.920 --> 0:45:23.920 grasses that were going to be the turf, and so 0:45:24.000 --> 0:45:26.760 I participated in kind of the end of the hydro 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:35.160 seating process. That golf course was in a sense kind 0:45:35.239 --> 0:45:40.440 of built to perform in a way that was a 0:45:40.440 --> 0:45:44.560 little bit different than most like clay based, soil based courses. 0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:46.440 It was never going to be sand capped or anything. 0:45:46.800 --> 0:45:50.520 You know, the greens were sand based, but Rob and 0:45:50.600 --> 0:45:53.960 Ted wanted that course to play very firm and fast. 0:45:54.520 --> 0:46:00.280 So they had that place rock hard before we idro 0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:02.800 seated it, and they got the irrigation in the ground, 0:46:02.800 --> 0:46:05.279 and the process was just there were going to be 0:46:05.320 --> 0:46:09.400 two cuts. You have a fairway cut that's almost, you know, 0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:14.960 infinitely wide, that leeds into a native cut, and you 0:46:15.000 --> 0:46:18.319 know the the fairway cut was going to be. It 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:21.919 was rye grass and bluegrass, real tightly moan, and all 0:46:21.920 --> 0:46:24.799 the natives were fine fescue, and we just painted those 0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:31.080 things on and really growing in a golf courses of struggles, 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:33.799 things don't stay put, even in soil. I know, they 0:46:33.880 --> 0:46:35.920 say it's worse than sand, but you know when you 0:46:36.000 --> 0:46:40.719 go that there were tropical storms involved, thunderstorms, you know, 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:43.879 wipes out work that you took you hours to do, 0:46:45.440 --> 0:46:48.680 you know, just on repeat. You know, there were spots 0:46:48.680 --> 0:46:52.880 of that course that we had to rebuild, not large spots, 0:46:52.880 --> 0:46:56.120 and through no one's fault. It's just a natural process, 0:46:56.200 --> 0:46:59.480 especially on a course as voluptuous as that, but you know, 0:46:59.560 --> 0:47:01.680 just sex that you have to just keep hammering on 0:47:02.239 --> 0:47:04.400 and the grass just gets a little bit closer and 0:47:04.400 --> 0:47:06.640 a little bit closer and a little bit closer till 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:10.319 you finally have a surface, and then you finally see 0:47:10.360 --> 0:47:12.520 it start to knit, and then you're finally taking the 0:47:12.560 --> 0:47:15.880 mower down and it's really cool, and it's a real struggle. 0:47:15.960 --> 0:47:19.879 It's just seed and sand and dirt and water. And 0:47:20.480 --> 0:47:23.920 the whole time you're working out of a shed because 0:47:23.920 --> 0:47:26.600 they're building your new maintenance barn and then you're moving 0:47:26.640 --> 0:47:29.360 into that and you're learning how to set up a 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:34.080 maintenance barn. And we didn't have a mechanic, so Anthony 0:47:34.239 --> 0:47:36.960 was learning, you know, the hard way, how to do 0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:39.480 it on his own and then teaching me how to 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:42.160 do it just so we could keep the mowers out 0:47:42.200 --> 0:47:46.040 and stuff, you know, assembled a little crew, but eventually 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:48.120 got up to where it needed to be really really 0:47:48.120 --> 0:47:50.560 fun process, especially on a course that's so cool and 0:47:50.600 --> 0:47:52.200 fun to look at, like every day. 0:47:52.880 --> 0:47:57.240 So the Sullivan County job comes up and you jump 0:47:57.280 --> 0:48:01.879 at that. What was it about Sullivan County that attracted 0:48:02.080 --> 0:48:05.600 you to the job and what I know, this is 0:48:06.120 --> 0:48:10.120 a very special place for you. What makes it such 0:48:10.120 --> 0:48:11.120 a special place to you? 0:48:12.040 --> 0:48:14.680 Number one, it's very close. The house we ended up 0:48:14.719 --> 0:48:18.600 buying is half a mile that way, so I'm two 0:48:18.640 --> 0:48:21.800 minutes from work. I can walk here in seven or 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:27.480 eight minutes. I got here and it was going to 0:48:27.560 --> 0:48:30.920 be my local and I played it and it was 0:48:31.040 --> 0:48:33.040 very early and it was wet, and I was like, 0:48:33.080 --> 0:48:35.280 it's cool, you know, a lot of good land movement 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:39.560 and stuff. But it didn't sink in until a little 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:43.000 bit later in the spring when it dried out a 0:48:43.040 --> 0:48:44.640 little bit and they got it mowed out, and I 0:48:44.680 --> 0:48:47.600 could kind of see what the idea of the course was. 0:48:50.000 --> 0:48:52.279 I always kind of wanted to take care of my 0:48:52.400 --> 0:48:57.000 own place, but I never really had the guts, Like 0:48:57.719 --> 0:48:59.880 it was always going to have to be a perfect situation. 0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:03.480 And like you're talking to me like I'm a superintendent, 0:49:03.560 --> 0:49:08.960 and I am, and I I appreciate, you know, the 0:49:08.960 --> 0:49:11.840 skills that I have and everything, but there are thousands 0:49:11.880 --> 0:49:16.560 of superintendents right now doing the job at a higher 0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:20.080 level than me at their own place, and you know, 0:49:20.120 --> 0:49:23.680 they're managing people, they're managing members and everything. And this 0:49:23.880 --> 0:49:28.719 was the perfect situation because it was just the two owners. 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:33.759 And they asked me, when Tony and Mary decided to 0:49:33.760 --> 0:49:35.640 stay in Florida, if I could just come and mow 0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:37.799 it to keep it from going to see, you know, 0:49:38.000 --> 0:49:40.920 because they didn't think that I would want to kind 0:49:40.920 --> 0:49:42.239 of give it a go, or they didn't want to 0:49:42.239 --> 0:49:44.200 like put that on me right off the bat. But 0:49:44.280 --> 0:49:46.600 I was kind of like instantly like, if you give 0:49:46.640 --> 0:49:49.960 me Chris, which was Tony and Mary's helper, and now 0:49:50.000 --> 0:49:52.920 my guy, let's just keep it open, if you don't 0:49:52.960 --> 0:49:55.240 mind doing one more season. You've lost this much money, 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:58.480 you know, and maybe we can get some interested people. 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:00.880 And they trusted me enough to do it, you know. 0:50:01.160 --> 0:50:06.160 But it was a situation where I knew I couldn't 0:50:06.200 --> 0:50:09.440 meet the expectations here. I wasn't stepping into a place 0:50:09.520 --> 0:50:12.600 with very high expectations. And I even knew that I 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:15.000 had the skills that I could probably you know, raise 0:50:15.040 --> 0:50:18.080 it a little bit with my experience, but I knew 0:50:18.080 --> 0:50:20.000 that I wasn't gonna have to have a lot of 0:50:20.040 --> 0:50:25.200 the stuff regular superintendent for lack of a better term, 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:29.200 would have to. I don't have Greens committee meetings. You know. 0:50:29.480 --> 0:50:32.520 Tom coyn is on board now, But since he's been 0:50:32.560 --> 0:50:35.080 on board, he hasn't given me thirty seconds of grief. 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:37.600 We're both on the same page. We just wanted to 0:50:37.640 --> 0:50:40.440 look better out there, and we spend as much time 0:50:40.480 --> 0:50:43.759 as we can do in that, but it's also a 0:50:43.800 --> 0:50:46.800 really cool golf course. It was built by two guys 0:50:46.840 --> 0:50:50.320 who knew exactly what they were doing and had seen 0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:55.439 about everything. They were kind of builders for the first 0:50:55.520 --> 0:51:01.160 wave of Golden Age builders. Lynn Rayner no relation to 0:51:01.239 --> 0:51:07.160 seth Rad He was the original head pro and superintendent 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:10.640 at Leatherstocking Golf Course in Cooperstown, which is a Devereaux 0:51:10.640 --> 0:51:16.000 Emmett and by all accounts, essentially built that course for 0:51:16.200 --> 0:51:18.560 you know, within for Emmet. You know, he was there 0:51:18.719 --> 0:51:21.160 the man on the ground for the development of that 0:51:21.280 --> 0:51:26.279 course and the other architect of they worked together, Lynn 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:29.560 Rayner and then Maurice McCarthy, who did like the original 0:51:29.680 --> 0:51:37.080 layouts at Hershey, is on record in some records doing 0:51:37.120 --> 0:51:39.759 like courses like Knickerbocker. He pops up a lot of 0:51:39.760 --> 0:51:44.080 places as kind of like perhaps a builder some credits 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:46.400 on his own. But these weren't well known guys, but 0:51:46.440 --> 0:51:50.120 they were definitely around kind of that first wave. Lynn 0:51:50.200 --> 0:51:55.360 Rayner built five greens under Walter Travis at nearby Stanford 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.120 Golf Club. So these these were guys who built our course, 0:51:58.120 --> 0:52:01.080 who definitely were in the loop back then and kind 0:52:01.080 --> 0:52:07.640 of that first Golden Age crop you know the Emmett Travis, 0:52:07.840 --> 0:52:10.440 you know, before the Rosses and before the Tillies kind 0:52:10.440 --> 0:52:13.000 of that. So we have a really cool golf course. 0:52:13.120 --> 0:52:18.160 It's just it's pretty wild land, a lot of elevation change. 0:52:19.000 --> 0:52:21.640 They just kind of built teas and greens and worked 0:52:21.640 --> 0:52:26.279 with the land. We have twelve thirteen bunkers, depending on 0:52:26.320 --> 0:52:27.520 how you want to count out there. 0:52:28.200 --> 0:52:30.880 It's about depending on what you count as a bunker. 0:52:31.640 --> 0:52:33.799 We're trying to scratch a few more out that. We 0:52:33.920 --> 0:52:37.920 know that that we two's the last one looks it's 0:52:37.920 --> 0:52:40.600 the coolest bunker on the course. Like it's a very 0:52:40.680 --> 0:52:43.919 dramatic green side bunker, very deep, and it's right there. 0:52:43.960 --> 0:52:45.920 It's just weed it out. It's just like the last 0:52:45.920 --> 0:52:49.400 one on the list. So yeah, but it's cool. You 0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:53.359 just just midge over three thousand yards unrrigated. It's fun, 0:52:53.440 --> 0:52:56.720 really fun golf. Good ground game, good ground game course. 0:52:57.520 --> 0:53:01.680 Obviously, the maintenance expectator she took over was like, let's 0:53:01.719 --> 0:53:06.080 just not let this go to seed and in your 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:09.399 time you've elevated at what's what would you say has 0:53:09.440 --> 0:53:14.279 been the toughest challenge of getting this golf course kind 0:53:14.320 --> 0:53:18.440 of back to more more make it more and more playable. 0:53:19.440 --> 0:53:22.279 A few challenges that there's a term they use, a 0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:26.640 benevolent neglect, and this, if it was ever true, it's 0:53:26.719 --> 0:53:30.880 true here because they never tried to do anything too bad. 0:53:32.160 --> 0:53:38.240 When I from an agronomic standpoint, the greens had always 0:53:38.239 --> 0:53:41.480 been taken very good care of, but over the last 0:53:41.520 --> 0:53:44.799 decade they had stopped doing any top dressing or erification. 0:53:45.760 --> 0:53:49.200 So say when I cut a new cup and I 0:53:49.280 --> 0:53:52.640 pull that plug out, you know, I've got a pretty 0:53:52.760 --> 0:53:57.160 nice inch inch or two in some areas of thatch 0:53:57.400 --> 0:54:02.040 organic matter that's been built up. So that's one of 0:54:02.080 --> 0:54:06.840 the bigger issues we've been tackling, and we'll continue to 0:54:06.920 --> 0:54:13.360 tackle because that's they play better than they should for 0:54:13.440 --> 0:54:18.120 that much thatch if you keep them dry. But it's 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:19.799 not good, you know. We want to get some of 0:54:19.800 --> 0:54:21.799 that stuff out there and even them out a little bit. 0:54:22.400 --> 0:54:26.759 The grass lines have all been had all been lost. 0:54:27.200 --> 0:54:29.680 There's a couple of fairways here that I tripled in 0:54:30.080 --> 0:54:34.120 like square footage because they had just gotten so narrow, 0:54:34.800 --> 0:54:38.359 little tiny approaches going up to the greens and flaring out. 0:54:38.600 --> 0:54:42.279 So I worked on bringing everything out. It's a neat 0:54:42.320 --> 0:54:46.120 stand of grass it's an old mix, but there's really 0:54:47.520 --> 0:54:51.440 no difference in the stand from the fairway to the 0:54:51.520 --> 0:54:54.520 rough or anything. So I had kind of and really 0:54:54.520 --> 0:54:56.560 at the start of each season you kind of have 0:54:56.719 --> 0:54:59.560 free reiin to do grass lines and it takes to 0:54:59.600 --> 0:55:02.360 a fair cut really well if you can get on 0:55:02.400 --> 0:55:05.000 it in time. But that's kind of how I expanded 0:55:05.000 --> 0:55:08.239 the fairways and they look great now. But getting those, 0:55:08.400 --> 0:55:10.920 especially the approaches out wide so the ball can come 0:55:10.960 --> 0:55:13.120 into these greens from different angles, because that had all 0:55:13.200 --> 0:55:18.640 been lost is just bottlenecks. And then just we took down, 0:55:18.760 --> 0:55:21.520 like we have a lot of tree work still to do. 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:24.880 At the start of this year, we took down twenty 0:55:24.880 --> 0:55:29.239 five thirty trees, especially on our third hole, which had 0:55:29.239 --> 0:55:31.880 become kind of broken just because of the tree encroachment. 0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:34.319 It's on a hill that you need to be able 0:55:34.360 --> 0:55:36.160 to play it up so far, and you weren't able 0:55:36.200 --> 0:55:40.200 to do that. But our corridors are still nice and wide. 0:55:40.239 --> 0:55:42.400 We don't have any like super egregious trees, you know 0:55:42.400 --> 0:55:44.560 what I mean, it's just too for it's just too 0:55:44.600 --> 0:55:47.080 forested through. We have really nice vistas that we'd like 0:55:47.120 --> 0:55:53.200 to get back. So the general stuff trees, grass lines. 0:55:54.120 --> 0:55:59.080 We have drainage that we need to work on. I 0:55:59.080 --> 0:56:02.840 don't know. If they offered to put in a brand 0:56:02.880 --> 0:56:05.919 new irrigation system for fair ways and everything, I don't 0:56:05.920 --> 0:56:08.279 think i'd do it. I think we'll stay with just 0:56:08.320 --> 0:56:12.640 greens only, even if we do get a modern system. 0:56:13.040 --> 0:56:15.640 Like if it's good, if it's good enough for Fisher's Island, 0:56:15.800 --> 0:56:16.719 it's good enough for you. 0:56:17.120 --> 0:56:21.000 It's definitely good. And we're in such a sweet little spot. 0:56:21.040 --> 0:56:23.080 I mean, we're just waiting for the most springs. We're 0:56:23.120 --> 0:56:25.279 just waiting for him to dry out, you know, and 0:56:25.320 --> 0:56:28.680 it's like June finally comes and they're good, and it's 0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:31.319 you're just you hope it stays dry. You know. It's 0:56:31.400 --> 0:56:33.279 kind of you get a thunderstorm and you know the 0:56:33.280 --> 0:56:35.319 golf's gonna suck for a day, day and a half, 0:56:35.400 --> 0:56:38.000 and then they're gonna get back to dry. So it's nice. 0:56:38.040 --> 0:56:42.640 You just never last year we went like twenty two 0:56:42.719 --> 0:56:46.920 days in some heat without any rain, and they got 0:56:47.320 --> 0:56:50.400 pretty nasty looking, you know, but cool looking, you know, 0:56:50.520 --> 0:56:53.759 but you don't get too much of that anymore. Like 0:56:54.520 --> 0:56:59.160 it's fun, Like where where can you go in that 0:56:59.400 --> 0:57:05.319 middle class say that forty to ninety dollars round in 0:57:05.440 --> 0:57:08.719 America where you're gonna get like burned out un irrigated fairways, 0:57:08.760 --> 0:57:12.920 like public access, there's just not There's a few Northeast, 0:57:13.000 --> 0:57:15.000 especially if you're gonna find them, you'll probably find them 0:57:15.080 --> 0:57:19.440 up here, but there's no there's no like resort for 0:57:19.520 --> 0:57:20.440 a day doing that. 0:57:20.640 --> 0:57:24.200 Like there's a course in Door County, Wisconsin that just 0:57:24.240 --> 0:57:28.600 got sold to the packers owner or a packers somebody 0:57:28.640 --> 0:57:31.120 that works for the packers for like one million dollars. 0:57:31.520 --> 0:57:33.960 And I'd always had my eye on that golf course 0:57:34.000 --> 0:57:38.240 because it was by the bunk the bunker style was 0:57:38.400 --> 0:57:41.360 and it was built in the late twenties. The bunker 0:57:41.400 --> 0:57:44.600 style was eerily like I have an old areal of it, 0:57:44.720 --> 0:57:47.400 so similar to lang for Moreau, and I had done 0:57:47.440 --> 0:57:50.440 some research in It was built by Joe Roseman, the 0:57:50.520 --> 0:57:52.600 guy that invented the lawnmower. 0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:56.160 Ah, I didn't I don't even know about Joe Roseman, 0:57:56.160 --> 0:57:56.960 and here I am. 0:57:57.120 --> 0:57:59.680 But he and he had I think he had worked 0:57:59.680 --> 0:58:03.720 either for Harry Speed or Langford Moreau, one of those 0:58:03.760 --> 0:58:07.680 two guys that built some really wild crazy stuff in 0:58:07.720 --> 0:58:10.320 the Midwest. But that golf course just sold for a 0:58:10.320 --> 0:58:13.400 million bucks in Door County and it's unrrigated. 0:58:17.760 --> 0:58:18.280 Well, screw. 0:58:18.360 --> 0:58:20.920 I don't think I don't think the guy has intentions. 0:58:21.000 --> 0:58:23.240 I think he just didn't want it to become houses 0:58:23.640 --> 0:58:28.720 good golf, doesn't doesn't want it doesn't want to. It 0:58:28.760 --> 0:58:31.760 doesn't want to, you know, it doesn't have intentions I 0:58:31.760 --> 0:58:35.240 think of changing the golf course. Just didn't want houses 0:58:35.320 --> 0:58:36.640 near his vacation house. 0:58:36.680 --> 0:58:40.640 I think I can understand that. Like I feel like 0:58:40.720 --> 0:58:42.840 here I'm getting my cake and eating it too, because 0:58:42.840 --> 0:58:46.120 it's kind of gone from uh, we're gonna put it 0:58:46.200 --> 0:58:49.240 up for sale to you know, and they were going 0:58:49.320 --> 0:58:52.280 to do all these condos and their big hotel and 0:58:52.320 --> 0:58:54.800 that's off the board now. And it went from very 0:58:54.800 --> 0:58:58.560 perilous to now I've got someone who's at least very 0:58:58.600 --> 0:59:02.479 in line with a keeping the operation lean and keeping 0:59:02.560 --> 0:59:03.640 it kind of golf centric. 0:59:03.840 --> 0:59:08.480 So what's been the since you've been there? What's gone? 0:59:08.720 --> 0:59:11.959 Can you just explain, maybe you know, a cliff notes 0:59:12.040 --> 0:59:15.840 of the metamorphois of the property of the property, the 0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:18.720 ownership situation, and what's going on now. 0:59:19.840 --> 0:59:24.240 So this year when we opened, we had a least 0:59:24.280 --> 0:59:32.040 signed with Tom Coin just kind of a long process 0:59:32.080 --> 0:59:38.000 for me, reaching out to people primarily online, getting people 0:59:38.040 --> 0:59:43.160 to visit the course, some architects, some writers and stuff, 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:45.800 just to kind of make sure I'm not crazy here, 0:59:45.840 --> 0:59:48.520 you know, is this worth pursuing or not? Or am 0:59:48.560 --> 0:59:52.320 I just going to annoy people? But one thing led 0:59:52.360 --> 0:59:53.600 to another, and. 0:59:54.080 --> 0:59:56.600 So what was the situation that led to this? 0:59:57.480 --> 1:00:03.600 So last year closes. You know, we pulled it off 1:00:03.640 --> 1:00:07.480 in a sense where we kept the doors open, but 1:00:07.520 --> 1:00:09.600 by the end of the golf season last year, the 1:00:09.600 --> 1:00:12.520 owners gave me an ultimatum like May first, if you 1:00:12.520 --> 1:00:16.520 can bring somebody in who's interested in the golf course, 1:00:17.080 --> 1:00:21.280 you have the I was almost like the broker, But 1:00:21.400 --> 1:00:23.760 on May first, we're going to put it on open market. 1:00:24.240 --> 1:00:28.400 So I kind of put things into overdrive. I had 1:00:28.440 --> 1:00:32.200 actually seen a post on Twitter where Tom Coin was 1:00:32.440 --> 1:00:37.680 now working with the architect Colton Craig and kind of 1:00:38.040 --> 1:00:43.560 forming a venture, you know, kind of starting the starts 1:00:43.560 --> 1:00:46.400 of a company, and I was I had never considered 1:00:46.440 --> 1:00:48.640 reaching out to Tom Coin, but I had heard a 1:00:48.640 --> 1:00:51.640 lot about Colton Craig through the podcast and some of 1:00:51.680 --> 1:00:56.080 his projects, so I just blindly reached out to Coin 1:00:56.160 --> 1:00:58.640 on that post. I d M him on Twitter and 1:01:00.040 --> 1:01:03.360 send him an album of pictures of the course, explaining, listen, 1:01:04.560 --> 1:01:07.040 we got like, I got like five months to try 1:01:07.040 --> 1:01:10.440 to turn this thing around or it's gonna get sold. 1:01:10.920 --> 1:01:14.880 Here's the cast of characters, here's me, here's Chris, blah 1:01:14.880 --> 1:01:18.680 blah blah. And we started a dialogue. One thing leads 1:01:18.720 --> 1:01:23.000 to another. He gets to see the property, he's into it, 1:01:23.200 --> 1:01:26.040 hunky dory. He meets the owners, They're like, take it 1:01:26.080 --> 1:01:29.080 from us. You can run it for a season. So 1:01:29.560 --> 1:01:32.560 that's what we're doing. You know, it's a simple property. 1:01:32.680 --> 1:01:35.400 I'm sitting in the clubhouse here. We have a cart 1:01:35.440 --> 1:01:37.760 barn and we have a maintenance bar and those are 1:01:37.760 --> 1:01:42.800 the only structures on the whole property. We've did a 1:01:42.800 --> 1:01:46.800 little bit of tree work. We got new equipment from Toro, 1:01:47.480 --> 1:01:50.880 so instantly this year, like the quality of cut and 1:01:50.880 --> 1:01:53.960 the mowing was better. Last year, my maintenance to mowing 1:01:54.000 --> 1:01:56.280 time was like one to one, just like turning wrenches 1:01:56.400 --> 1:01:59.280 keeping the old ones like literally, and this year it's 1:01:59.720 --> 1:02:03.080 just much better. So the course looks better, greens are 1:02:03.080 --> 1:02:07.800 putting great. And then you know someone like Tom Coyne 1:02:07.840 --> 1:02:11.600 moves the needle so much with his connection, so you 1:02:11.640 --> 1:02:15.240 know this year silly stuff that every golf course has. 1:02:15.360 --> 1:02:17.720 You know, we have golf shirts with our logo on it. 1:02:18.160 --> 1:02:20.919 You know. He's friends with Lee y Branski, who does 1:02:20.960 --> 1:02:24.440 the Great US Open art, and he calls them and 1:02:24.480 --> 1:02:26.680 we get Lee y Bransky to do our logo, you know, 1:02:27.240 --> 1:02:30.560 with the Propeller and the golf club because in nineteen 1:02:30.640 --> 1:02:33.080 thirty one we had a transatlantic flight take off from 1:02:33.120 --> 1:02:35.000 our eighth fairway and it's kind of a big part 1:02:35.040 --> 1:02:42.200 of a club lore. Yeah, we got Aquatrolls who like 1:02:42.320 --> 1:02:47.520 supplies fertilizers and wedding agents who he had a relationship with, 1:02:47.680 --> 1:02:51.280 and they're kind of sponsoring me from the standpoint of 1:02:51.360 --> 1:02:55.160 helping me with our soil health and the right kind 1:02:55.200 --> 1:02:57.760 of nutrition out there. And they approach it very much 1:02:57.800 --> 1:03:01.280 from an environmental point of view like I do, so 1:03:01.320 --> 1:03:04.600 I don't have to be too scared of like what 1:03:04.680 --> 1:03:09.360 I'm putting down or spending money on things I don't 1:03:09.400 --> 1:03:13.400 want to spend money on anyway, two three weeks ago, 1:03:14.000 --> 1:03:17.760 and these names will mean something to the superintendent's listening 1:03:17.800 --> 1:03:22.800 to us now. But I had Scott Ramsey, who people 1:03:22.920 --> 1:03:27.400 might know best Yale from Yale. Yeah, then I had 1:03:27.800 --> 1:03:33.840 Tom Valentine, who is of the Marian superintendent lineage. His 1:03:33.960 --> 1:03:37.920 dad and his grandfather were superintendent at Marian for sixty 1:03:37.960 --> 1:03:41.800 seventy years together. And then the guys from a patrols, 1:03:41.840 --> 1:03:46.080 you know Aggie Young, We got Chris Pogi from Toro, Grassland, Toro. 1:03:46.200 --> 1:03:48.880 All these guys are like behind me now, like if 1:03:48.880 --> 1:03:51.240 I have a problem with the mower, or if I'm 1:03:51.320 --> 1:03:54.440 running out of a fung just side and bad weather's coming, 1:03:55.400 --> 1:03:58.600 it's like that which we had none of those resources earlier. 1:03:58.880 --> 1:04:02.040 So the course, there's just obvious benefits. It's just been 1:04:02.040 --> 1:04:04.120 brought up to kind of more of a level that 1:04:04.160 --> 1:04:06.160 you would expect when you come in and pay thirty 1:04:06.200 --> 1:04:09.320 or forty dollars for a round of golf and there's 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:13.480 just kind of a buzz. It's fun. People are coming 1:04:13.560 --> 1:04:16.120 from a lot of people are coming from the city. 1:04:16.240 --> 1:04:18.640 A lot of people are coming from Philadelphia, a lot 1:04:18.720 --> 1:04:21.640 of people are coming from Boston. We're two hours from 1:04:21.640 --> 1:04:25.800 New York, three hours from Philly, four hours from Boston, essentially, 1:04:26.480 --> 1:04:29.320 but they're making the trip. They're staying in little hotels here. 1:04:30.280 --> 1:04:32.840 The cat skills, this little part of the cat skills 1:04:32.920 --> 1:04:36.760 is it's like Heaven. Like the hottest temperature we've had 1:04:36.800 --> 1:04:40.320 all year, We've hit eighty seven twice, like I'm sitting 1:04:40.360 --> 1:04:44.400 here today, the high temperature with sixty eight degrees. We 1:04:44.520 --> 1:04:48.080 got some of the best like fly fishing and hiking 1:04:48.240 --> 1:04:52.480 and outdoor stuff literally in the world. This is to 1:04:52.560 --> 1:04:55.240 fly fishing, what like Long Island is to American golf, 1:04:55.320 --> 1:05:01.680 Like this is the hot spot, like so we we 1:05:01.920 --> 1:05:05.360 just hope to capitalize on it with courses like NS 1:05:08.600 --> 1:05:13.920 and hopefully the course, the new Reese Jones Course, and 1:05:13.960 --> 1:05:16.800 there's a couple other projects that I don't want to 1:05:16.840 --> 1:05:20.200 talk about too much, but there's some good golf to 1:05:20.240 --> 1:05:22.040 have up here, and there's a little golf trail. So 1:05:22.080 --> 1:05:24.760 I would definitely like tell people who are within a 1:05:24.880 --> 1:05:28.080 hollering distance to spend a couple of days and check 1:05:28.120 --> 1:05:30.680 out all the courses here. It's really nice part of 1:05:30.680 --> 1:05:31.080 the country. 1:05:31.480 --> 1:05:33.800 The Monster, John. 1:05:33.880 --> 1:05:37.120 Yeah, I didn't know how much you know about that. 1:05:37.960 --> 1:05:39.920 What a name for Reese's course. 1:05:41.080 --> 1:05:44.920 Joe Lee, who did the first iteration of the Monster 1:05:45.920 --> 1:05:49.040 and also did the Grossinger course which is right across 1:05:49.080 --> 1:05:54.440 town here at Liberty. He's an interesting character. Anders he 1:05:55.640 --> 1:05:59.520 worked for Dick Wilson. Yes, yeah, but he's apparently a 1:05:59.520 --> 1:06:02.560 little bit more agreeable than Dick Wilson, like from the 1:06:02.600 --> 1:06:05.960 client's point of view. But no, the Monster was like 1:06:06.040 --> 1:06:08.120 the longest course at the time. I think it was 1:06:08.240 --> 1:06:10.720 like seventy nine to fifty like when it opened in 1:06:10.760 --> 1:06:15.160 sixty eight or something like that. Like it had water everywhere, 1:06:15.520 --> 1:06:18.760 like it was like Island fairways. It was like that 1:06:18.880 --> 1:06:19.959 Ryder Cup course from. 1:06:19.880 --> 1:06:21.800 A few years back, like like. 1:06:23.080 --> 1:06:27.000 Like a sixties northeast version of that. Rhys Jones toned 1:06:27.000 --> 1:06:31.160 it down. It's actually a really cool golf course. I 1:06:31.240 --> 1:06:34.120 need to see the grass now. They built twelve of 1:06:34.160 --> 1:06:36.920 those holes like three years ago and then COVID just 1:06:37.240 --> 1:06:39.840 killed it. And then they came back and finished the 1:06:39.880 --> 1:06:43.680 last six holes last fall, and they've got those almost 1:06:43.760 --> 1:06:46.080 in condition, and they're about to open up. Like I 1:06:46.120 --> 1:06:49.480 think maybe this they might be over it right now. 1:06:49.640 --> 1:06:52.520 They might. It might be today, honestly, yeah, exactly. 1:06:52.360 --> 1:06:55.840 It might be August first. But it's cool. They've got 1:06:55.880 --> 1:07:03.200 like fine fescue find fescue blue grass mix fairways and 1:07:03.280 --> 1:07:07.040 actually I think they've planted that bent grass greens and 1:07:07.080 --> 1:07:10.720 then all the roughs and fairways are fine Fiescu bluegrass mix, 1:07:11.440 --> 1:07:13.520 so that could be an interesting surface out there, a 1:07:13.520 --> 1:07:14.080 little different. 1:07:14.760 --> 1:07:19.120 The gray Walls has that actually surface. And it's really 1:07:19.120 --> 1:07:23.480 cool is where where there's heavy cart traffic, the bluegrass 1:07:23.560 --> 1:07:25.760 kind of takes over, and where there isn't heavy cart 1:07:25.800 --> 1:07:29.640 traffic like on hills or anything, it's all fescue, right, 1:07:29.720 --> 1:07:31.600 So like if you think about it that way, that's 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:33.640 how it kind of interacts. And the thing they do 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:36.320 so well is they keep it all like they keep 1:07:36.320 --> 1:07:39.480 the carts really off the green, So in the twenty 1:07:39.520 --> 1:07:43.120 to thirty yard approach area, it's all fescue coming into 1:07:43.120 --> 1:07:43.520 the green. 1:07:44.000 --> 1:07:45.840 Very good, yeah, especially. 1:07:46.040 --> 1:07:49.040 Really great playing surface. 1:07:49.840 --> 1:07:55.480 So they cat skills, yeah, the catskills hopefully making a 1:07:55.480 --> 1:08:00.280 little resurgence and hopefully there's no news to repour. I mean, 1:08:00.320 --> 1:08:03.400 hopefully grossingers can turn in a corner too, because it's 1:08:03.440 --> 1:08:06.240 been closed now for nine or ten years. It was 1:08:06.280 --> 1:08:12.440 another Joe Finger design. Joe Finger, not Jovie. Joe Finger 1:08:12.560 --> 1:08:18.240 is no Finger. Okay, yes, yes, but he grafted eighteen 1:08:18.280 --> 1:08:21.040 holes on to a tilling hast eighteen and there's still 1:08:21.240 --> 1:08:23.640 like twelve and a half original tilling hast holes in 1:08:23.720 --> 1:08:27.559 the ground over there. And then it was a twenty 1:08:27.600 --> 1:08:30.599 seven hole facility. It's been closed for nine or ten years. 1:08:30.760 --> 1:08:34.720 They still mow the fairways and the greens, but all 1:08:34.800 --> 1:08:37.640 the resort buildings and everything have been wiped out. But 1:08:38.000 --> 1:08:40.280 it's just sitting there. They still have a crew like 1:08:40.400 --> 1:08:43.240 mowing it. You could go sell tea times there right now, 1:08:43.320 --> 1:08:45.719 but locked up. Yeah. 1:08:46.000 --> 1:08:50.280 Well, hey, I really appreciate the time Sean. And everybody 1:08:50.320 --> 1:08:54.280 can find you on social media. You're on Twitter, you're acts, 1:08:54.520 --> 1:08:56.559 as they call it now excellent so. 1:08:56.640 --> 1:09:00.840 Weird, Yeah, bad, complete this. It's just like it seems 1:09:00.920 --> 1:09:03.880 jarring because I still see the blue everywhere. But it's 1:09:03.960 --> 1:09:05.040 excellent my home screen. 1:09:05.040 --> 1:09:07.680 I'll think about it. We were we were working on 1:09:07.760 --> 1:09:12.880 the bottom of our newsletter and putting like Instagram, Facebook, 1:09:13.000 --> 1:09:15.839 and then we had Twitter on there and we switched 1:09:16.040 --> 1:09:16.640 to x. 1:09:17.080 --> 1:09:17.760 Did you get the. 1:09:17.720 --> 1:09:18.800 Fresh logo on there? 1:09:19.160 --> 1:09:22.240 But a little bit it looks like it looks like 1:09:22.280 --> 1:09:27.639 an error, right they get this like it doesn't look 1:09:27.760 --> 1:09:31.760 like it's a you know, like it's I don't know. 1:09:31.960 --> 1:09:35.000 I'm not a branding expert, but I'm curious what one 1:09:35.000 --> 1:09:39.560 would think about that. So can you there? And Instagram 1:09:39.600 --> 1:09:42.559 to Instagram? Yeah, the best way to fight, you would 1:09:42.600 --> 1:09:47.960 be just going to Sullivan County go and play the 1:09:48.000 --> 1:09:50.160 fall up there has got to be ideal, like with 1:09:50.200 --> 1:09:51.320 that coming around the corner. 1:09:51.439 --> 1:09:56.080 Best golf is in September early October, definitely, until until 1:09:56.120 --> 1:09:59.240 it gets cold enough to where the rain doesn't dry out, 1:09:59.280 --> 1:10:03.760 which is normally sometime late October mid November, and then 1:10:03.800 --> 1:10:05.479 you just do something else. 1:10:06.000 --> 1:10:08.839 Well. Thank you for coming on and telling your story. 1:10:08.960 --> 1:10:11.800 It's a I think it's it's a it's a fascinating 1:10:12.439 --> 1:10:16.200 one and obviously one where you know, golf has come 1:10:16.240 --> 1:10:18.679 in and out of your life and uh and and 1:10:18.840 --> 1:10:21.080 it seems like the best parts of it have been 1:10:21.120 --> 1:10:21.840 with golf in it. 1:10:22.240 --> 1:10:26.080 Thank you, Andy. It's in no small part I owe 1:10:26.080 --> 1:10:27.920 it to a lot of what you and your team 1:10:27.960 --> 1:10:33.280 are doing. Tell Garrett I said, hello you guys, especially 1:10:33.320 --> 1:10:35.559 with that article and all the all the stuff you 1:10:35.560 --> 1:10:37.760 guys do. Like I said before, you put a lot 1:10:37.800 --> 1:10:41.040 of wind in my sales, got me very excited about 1:10:41.080 --> 1:10:43.479 golf again. And here I am so thanks for having me. 1:10:43.840 --> 1:10:45.040 Thanks Sean, we'll talk soon. 1:10:45.640 --> 1:10:46.080 Thank you. 1:10:54.600 --> 1:10:57.839 All right. Thank you again to Sean Smith for the time. 1:10:58.400 --> 1:11:01.360 Be sure to follow him on Twitter. It's at Gorsnod, 1:11:02.560 --> 1:11:06.240 And before we get to Tyler Ray, let's take another 1:11:06.320 --> 1:11:10.679 break to talk about Toro. Americans like our utility vehicles 1:11:10.720 --> 1:11:14.040 the way we like our US open courses. Rugged. A 1:11:14.160 --> 1:11:16.720 winner needs to do it all in tough conditions, and 1:11:16.800 --> 1:11:19.800 Toro's new Workman UTX line is here to get the 1:11:19.920 --> 1:11:24.640 job done. Any job snow, nice, removal, tree maintenance, transporting 1:11:24.680 --> 1:11:28.960 equipment or materials. Whatever you need, this commercial grade, smooth 1:11:29.040 --> 1:11:32.839 riding four wheel drive monster has your back. The Workmen 1:11:33.000 --> 1:11:37.599 UTX is proprietary governing system unpairs ground speed and RPM 1:11:38.000 --> 1:11:41.160 so the operator can limit the machine speed without gutting 1:11:41.200 --> 1:11:45.640 the power. Higher RPMs when more oomph is required, less RPMs, 1:11:45.720 --> 1:11:48.800 and less fuel consumption when it isn't. That kind of 1:11:48.840 --> 1:11:52.080 all around performance is what champions are made of. Follow 1:11:52.120 --> 1:11:54.519 Add Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your 1:11:54.560 --> 1:12:07.040 local Toro distributor to schedule a demo. Now onto Tyler Ray. Tyler, 1:12:07.120 --> 1:12:09.679 it's been a little while and uh, you know since 1:12:09.720 --> 1:12:12.760 we last talked, you're you're quite quite a busy man. 1:12:13.760 --> 1:12:16.160 Yeah, thanks Andy, thanks for having me on. It's uh, 1:12:16.320 --> 1:12:18.840 we're riding the golf wave, so it's all good. 1:12:19.360 --> 1:12:22.439 Yeah, I wanted to talk about kind of your journey. 1:12:22.920 --> 1:12:25.559 The last time we talked, which was it had to 1:12:25.560 --> 1:12:30.479 be about six years ago, you were doing a little 1:12:30.479 --> 1:12:33.439 bit of solo work, but mostly as a as an 1:12:33.479 --> 1:12:37.960 associate working for Ron Pritchard. Now you are full blown 1:12:38.000 --> 1:12:40.920 on your own, and I'd love to hear a little 1:12:40.960 --> 1:12:46.200 bit about the differences of going from associate to solo architect. 1:12:46.960 --> 1:12:51.439 Yeah, gosh, that's a great, great first first start question there. 1:12:53.000 --> 1:12:56.240 You know, when you're when you're working for somebody else 1:12:56.400 --> 1:13:00.120 or when you're shaping and coming up in this industry, 1:13:00.760 --> 1:13:04.760 you don't get all the calls. You're you know, living 1:13:04.800 --> 1:13:07.200 on the road a lot job the job. You know. 1:13:07.400 --> 1:13:11.880 I was living at Cedar Rapids during that restoration, living 1:13:11.920 --> 1:13:16.639 at Beverly, you know, living and shaping full time pretty much, 1:13:17.280 --> 1:13:20.519 visiting some clubs here and there. But at the end 1:13:20.520 --> 1:13:22.840 of the night you go to the hotel or the 1:13:22.880 --> 1:13:29.080 Airbnb and you have five emails, three emails. Your phone's 1:13:29.120 --> 1:13:31.640 not really ringing during the day because Ron Pritchard was 1:13:31.680 --> 1:13:34.640 handling that and he was getting the calls and I 1:13:35.160 --> 1:13:37.479 I was just the guy kind of out in the 1:13:37.520 --> 1:13:40.200 road doing a lot of our work, making a lot 1:13:40.240 --> 1:13:42.599 of sight visits and we tag team that really well. 1:13:43.120 --> 1:13:48.960 But now it's the change is the twenty emails a day, 1:13:49.120 --> 1:13:54.960 the ten calls, the invoices, you know, paying five full 1:13:54.960 --> 1:14:01.439 time employees. You're really running a business, really a business man. 1:14:03.960 --> 1:14:07.320 It's real. It's real. And so to me, like the 1:14:07.360 --> 1:14:10.280 other night, I was at Wakanda the last couple of 1:14:10.360 --> 1:14:13.400 days building greens and all the bunkers, teas and stuff 1:14:13.400 --> 1:14:16.559 there in des Moine, and I mean going to bed 1:14:16.560 --> 1:14:18.720 at like twelve thirty, you know, and then you get 1:14:18.760 --> 1:14:21.639 up at four thirty and try to sneak a work 1:14:21.680 --> 1:14:23.800 out in in the morning just to stay healthy. And 1:14:24.960 --> 1:14:26.839 so it's real, it is real. 1:14:27.439 --> 1:14:29.800 H I can. I can sympathize and relate, you know, 1:14:29.880 --> 1:14:33.120 when you when when you travel, I think like that's 1:14:33.479 --> 1:14:36.360 one of the times where your tank gets the most empty, 1:14:36.520 --> 1:14:40.120 just because of the hours. And if you're you know, 1:14:40.200 --> 1:14:42.840 your your job is kind of in a way a 1:14:42.880 --> 1:14:45.400 little bit similar to mine. When I travel, I'm out 1:14:45.920 --> 1:14:49.880 on site at courses all day long and and at 1:14:50.040 --> 1:14:52.920 very early hours in the morning and late at night 1:14:53.040 --> 1:14:56.760 because of photography, and you know, you get home and 1:14:56.800 --> 1:15:00.120 it's like, oh, I still have to do all this 1:15:00.160 --> 1:15:03.519 other stuff, and it's just you know, you just kind 1:15:03.520 --> 1:15:05.960 of you get home from a trip and you know 1:15:06.000 --> 1:15:08.320 a lot of people say this with you've got young kids. 1:15:08.360 --> 1:15:11.080 I've got a young kid. A lot of people are like, well, 1:15:11.120 --> 1:15:13.439 at least you got some sleep while you're away. It's like, well, 1:15:13.439 --> 1:15:15.439 I got less sleep than if I be home. 1:15:15.600 --> 1:15:17.800 So exactly. 1:15:19.000 --> 1:15:22.880 With the boom and golf, as you as you alluded to, 1:15:22.960 --> 1:15:25.879 you're riding the wave in golf. One of the challenges 1:15:25.960 --> 1:15:28.160 I think out there has been you know, you went 1:15:28.240 --> 1:15:32.720 from golf architecture and golf construction, went from this industry 1:15:32.760 --> 1:15:37.720 that was relatively you know, predictable year over year. There 1:15:37.840 --> 1:15:42.000 wasn't a ton of projects that were going on, and 1:15:42.080 --> 1:15:45.040 now we have this huge boom. How's it been with 1:15:45.680 --> 1:15:50.600 finding good staff? And then also you know, contractors and 1:15:50.640 --> 1:15:53.479 different things when there's you know, just in general a 1:15:53.479 --> 1:15:56.000 little bit of a labor shortage out there, what's what's 1:15:56.040 --> 1:15:56.680 that been like? 1:15:57.280 --> 1:16:02.479 Well, everybody chases you know, the big money unfortunately when 1:16:02.520 --> 1:16:05.760 it's really hot, you know, and not architects per se, 1:16:05.800 --> 1:16:10.320 but but I mean down to labors, shapers. You know, 1:16:10.400 --> 1:16:14.760 everybody knows there's if they're good, they're gonna request a 1:16:14.760 --> 1:16:18.080 little bit more money, and so we're having to pay out, 1:16:18.560 --> 1:16:21.559 you know, higher fees for really good guys and and 1:16:21.880 --> 1:16:24.240 guys we've worked for in the past. And and I'm 1:16:24.240 --> 1:16:27.320 okay with that, you know, because these projects, if they're going, 1:16:28.040 --> 1:16:30.360 you know, the clients understand that. So it's okay. But 1:16:31.200 --> 1:16:35.160 it's hard to secure really good guys. All the best 1:16:35.360 --> 1:16:38.400 are really busy, you know, and that's like the best 1:16:38.439 --> 1:16:42.520 green finishers, the best bunker guys, the best those are operators, 1:16:43.760 --> 1:16:47.000 you know, they're just all really busy and uh and 1:16:47.040 --> 1:16:49.920 they're happy. And so when you're trying to pick and 1:16:50.000 --> 1:16:55.040 choose for certain projects, it's hard to retain really good help, 1:16:55.080 --> 1:16:59.800 you know, really good people. And so for us, every year, 1:16:59.840 --> 1:17:02.960 we we've just like, you know, our staff, I mean, 1:17:02.960 --> 1:17:06.439 we're paying them more and more and more, and I'm 1:17:06.479 --> 1:17:09.320 starting to raise my fees. The clubs, you know, and 1:17:09.600 --> 1:17:11.880 they're kind of like, oh, okay, I get it, you know, 1:17:11.960 --> 1:17:14.640 and I'm like, well, we're just paying so much for 1:17:14.720 --> 1:17:18.240 our great guys to retain you know, top notch talent, 1:17:18.520 --> 1:17:21.840 and but no, it's hard. It's really hard, Indy. And 1:17:23.960 --> 1:17:26.960 but you know, everything's cyclical, so who knows how long 1:17:27.000 --> 1:17:30.880 this wave is going to last. But it is good 1:17:30.960 --> 1:17:34.960 because you know, inflation every year three four percent. It's 1:17:35.000 --> 1:17:36.800 good to see people making a little more money in 1:17:36.840 --> 1:17:41.320 our industry too. It's such a hard industry. The road life, 1:17:41.720 --> 1:17:44.000 there's not it's not a long life. I mean, you 1:17:44.000 --> 1:17:46.040 see some guys do ten twelve years on the road 1:17:46.080 --> 1:17:49.040 and they're like, all right, I can't have a family, 1:17:49.080 --> 1:17:50.639 I can't have a life. I can't have a wife, 1:17:50.640 --> 1:17:54.200 I can't have kids. I'm never home. And so it's 1:17:54.240 --> 1:17:56.320 good guys are making a little more money because then 1:17:56.360 --> 1:17:58.320 they can spend a little more time at home. So 1:17:58.840 --> 1:18:01.360 I'm seeing a lot of guys work like eight months straight, 1:18:01.800 --> 1:18:04.840 take four off, you know, or or or work for 1:18:05.000 --> 1:18:08.000 straight then take a couple, or you know, work three months, 1:18:08.080 --> 1:18:11.000 three weeks straight, take a week, things like that. But 1:18:12.600 --> 1:18:13.559 you have to be creative. 1:18:14.200 --> 1:18:15.320 Are you a goals person? 1:18:16.520 --> 1:18:20.360 Goals as in g oa ls, Yeah, yeah, I have. 1:18:20.600 --> 1:18:24.439 I have five year goals. So I had twenty twenty five, thirty, 1:18:24.479 --> 1:18:28.880 thirty five, forty forty five, fifty and I've hit I've 1:18:28.960 --> 1:18:30.920 hit them, you know, I've hit them. There's there's two 1:18:30.960 --> 1:18:34.599 major goals I have before forty and it's getting tight here. 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:39.479 I'll be forty pretty soon, and there's two more that 1:18:39.520 --> 1:18:42.719 I need to hit and we're really close, so we're hopeful. 1:18:42.960 --> 1:18:45.599 But if you if you don't mind sharing them, what 1:18:45.680 --> 1:18:48.200 have what have been one or two that you've achieved 1:18:48.320 --> 1:18:51.000 and what are what are one or two that you're 1:18:51.160 --> 1:18:54.040 looking to get to that you haven't yet? 1:18:54.600 --> 1:18:56.960 Yeah, yeah, I think. I mean when I'm on an 1:18:57.000 --> 1:18:59.960 airplane at night or in the morning, when I'm coming 1:19:00.760 --> 1:19:04.519 going to clients, going to clubs, coming home, I'm on 1:19:04.560 --> 1:19:09.400 my phone and I'm always looking at my prioritization list 1:19:09.479 --> 1:19:11.320 of what I have to do. But there's always there's 1:19:11.400 --> 1:19:14.600 goals in there, and I'm always looking at them and 1:19:14.720 --> 1:19:17.160 changing them and not changing them but modifying them. And 1:19:18.200 --> 1:19:20.040 you know, one was, probably when I was twenty five, 1:19:20.280 --> 1:19:23.480 was I wanted to work for two top five architects 1:19:25.320 --> 1:19:27.640 at some point and I felt like, you know, with 1:19:27.720 --> 1:19:30.639 Corn Crenshaw working a little bit with Dog, Keith Foster, 1:19:30.800 --> 1:19:34.599 Ron Pritchard, you know, I tried to work with Gil 1:19:34.680 --> 1:19:37.519 We almost had a deal for Durrau back in the day, 1:19:38.240 --> 1:19:40.680 so I almost had something going with him. But I 1:19:40.720 --> 1:19:42.880 feel like I achieved that goal, you know, working with 1:19:42.920 --> 1:19:48.400 two top five guys or teams. And then another one 1:19:48.439 --> 1:19:54.280 was have like five top one hundred clubs by forty. 1:19:54.479 --> 1:19:57.519 That's the one I'm working on a little bit. We're 1:19:57.600 --> 1:20:01.240 lucky to sign Brookside Canton recently in Ohio. 1:20:00.960 --> 1:20:02.360 Where you're going to have your great spot. 1:20:02.400 --> 1:20:04.720 I think, yeah, you're shootout here on the twenty eighth 1:20:04.720 --> 1:20:07.519 of August, and so you know that one's in the 1:20:07.520 --> 1:20:11.679 Golf magazine top one hundred, and you know Beverly's pretty 1:20:11.760 --> 1:20:15.760 darn high up there Mountain Lake. So I think we're 1:20:16.000 --> 1:20:17.559 on the cusp. I think I have like four in 1:20:17.560 --> 1:20:22.240 the top one hundred, and we're hopeful maybe Wakanda sneaks 1:20:22.240 --> 1:20:23.599 in there here soon or. 1:20:23.880 --> 1:20:27.479 Or something else. I mean, you got ones that are 1:20:27.640 --> 1:20:30.600 in process that could go up, you know, like I 1:20:30.640 --> 1:20:33.080 guess that goal that all depends on when you judged 1:20:33.120 --> 1:20:33.839 it right. 1:20:33.960 --> 1:20:36.880 Right, right exactly lookout Mountain I mean, shoot, yeah, I'm 1:20:36.880 --> 1:20:39.519 more proud of that than almost anything in my whole career. 1:20:39.880 --> 1:20:42.960 I Mean, it's just shockingly bold, and so we're hopeful 1:20:43.040 --> 1:20:45.639 that gets really great reviews. It's getting great reviews now, 1:20:47.080 --> 1:20:50.160 but we're hopeful when Golf digests and magazine and everybody 1:20:50.160 --> 1:20:53.120 comes out that really see it this fall. We're hopeful 1:20:53.200 --> 1:20:55.120 next year it gets the love. I can't wait for 1:20:55.160 --> 1:20:56.960 you to see it. And John Cavalier, I was talking 1:20:57.000 --> 1:21:00.599 to him the other day with links gems and he 1:21:00.680 --> 1:21:02.960 was heading down to see it soon. But yeah, so 1:21:03.160 --> 1:21:06.400 that that's another one. And then I think, you know 1:21:06.479 --> 1:21:12.559 what else. Gosh, you know, some are personal stuff, some 1:21:12.720 --> 1:21:17.639 are you know, relationship stuff, stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, 1:21:17.760 --> 1:21:20.960 I guess business, you know, we're trying to hit different 1:21:21.080 --> 1:21:23.439 numbers and stuff like that, you know, with those top 1:21:23.439 --> 1:21:28.320 one hundred things, and I guess you know, I always 1:21:28.400 --> 1:21:31.400 categorize every year by the amount of work we do 1:21:31.479 --> 1:21:34.679 by dollars, So like last year we did thirty three 1:21:34.760 --> 1:21:38.400 million worth of projects, and the year before we did 1:21:38.439 --> 1:21:40.720 like twenty four million. In the year before we did 1:21:40.760 --> 1:21:45.880 like eighteen million. So we're trending. And so you know, 1:21:45.920 --> 1:21:48.280 a goal was for me was to do fifty million 1:21:48.520 --> 1:21:51.439 in a year, and in twenty twenty five we have 1:21:51.520 --> 1:21:53.680 that lined up. We have like fifty five million lined up. 1:21:53.720 --> 1:21:57.400 So that's a goal. It sounds like an odd goal, 1:21:57.479 --> 1:21:58.439 but but. 1:21:58.720 --> 1:22:01.639 I just know that, like that's a that's a relevant 1:22:01.760 --> 1:22:05.120 business skull. You know, everybody's trying to get revenue. 1:22:05.080 --> 1:22:07.320 You know, gross revenue. You know, everybody's always looking at 1:22:07.320 --> 1:22:09.080 P and R and gross revenue. And so for us, 1:22:09.120 --> 1:22:12.320 it's like, you know, when I think about what Gill's 1:22:12.400 --> 1:22:15.280 doing or Andrew Green or Tom Doak, I'm like, now, 1:22:15.360 --> 1:22:17.879 these guys might be doing eighty, you know, or seventy 1:22:17.920 --> 1:22:21.680 or one hundred million in projects a year. And with 1:22:21.800 --> 1:22:24.040 our new building Charleston coming up, I mean that's going 1:22:24.080 --> 1:22:26.160 to put us up up in the echelon up there. 1:22:26.240 --> 1:22:29.040 But I just think of like people always say, oh, 1:22:29.120 --> 1:22:32.920 how busy, Oh, you know, how busy architects are, How busy? 1:22:33.120 --> 1:22:34.719 So I think of the top five of how busy 1:22:34.760 --> 1:22:36.760 they are, And it's a direct correlation to how much 1:22:37.560 --> 1:22:39.000 project totals are. 1:22:39.400 --> 1:22:43.760 So when you think about your business, what what is 1:22:43.880 --> 1:22:46.599 the right amount of business? Is there a cap to 1:22:46.640 --> 1:22:51.559 it or are you are your goals to get it 1:22:51.600 --> 1:22:54.880 to where you can take on more than you know, 1:22:55.000 --> 1:22:57.639 say a Tom dok or a Bill Core and Crenshaw 1:22:57.680 --> 1:22:59.519 are taking on. Now, Like what what do you see 1:22:59.560 --> 1:23:03.880 as the right balance of projects versus you know, time 1:23:03.920 --> 1:23:04.519 on site? 1:23:05.040 --> 1:23:08.280 Yeah, no, that is the fine line of life there 1:23:09.400 --> 1:23:15.320 you know. So for me, I'm not really money driven 1:23:15.439 --> 1:23:17.599 in this. I mean I love it so much that 1:23:17.680 --> 1:23:21.320 I don't think about money like ever. You know. I love. 1:23:21.600 --> 1:23:23.519 I love getting up. I get out of bed every 1:23:23.520 --> 1:23:27.240 morning almost before the alarm because I love. I love 1:23:27.280 --> 1:23:29.719 seeing different golf courses every day and being on different 1:23:29.720 --> 1:23:32.600 golf courses. I mean, it's like my favorite thing, you know, 1:23:32.680 --> 1:23:35.920 other than my wife and kids and family, you know, 1:23:36.560 --> 1:23:39.000 I love. I love it so much. I can't wait 1:23:39.080 --> 1:23:41.920 to go, like you go photo, I bring my drone 1:23:41.960 --> 1:23:43.240 on the road. I have it sitting in front of 1:23:43.280 --> 1:23:45.559 me charging because I was at Mount Lake this week 1:23:45.600 --> 1:23:49.439 in Wakanda and Ansley Club in Atlanta, and it's like 1:23:49.960 --> 1:23:51.679 I can't wait to get up there and beat everybody 1:23:51.680 --> 1:23:53.679 out there and take the shots when the sun's coming 1:23:53.760 --> 1:23:55.320 up like you do. And then I'm the last one 1:23:55.360 --> 1:24:01.280 out there, you know. But I love spending time. I'm 1:24:01.320 --> 1:24:03.880 playing my own golf course, you know, Bitterman Golf Club 1:24:04.040 --> 1:24:07.400 in Wilmington, Delaware. And I love seeing my friends. And 1:24:07.960 --> 1:24:11.479 there's just more to life than work. And I worked 1:24:11.479 --> 1:24:15.439 from like eighteen to probably thirty three. I lived on 1:24:15.560 --> 1:24:19.200 the road in different localities. So I lived in Oregon. 1:24:19.240 --> 1:24:22.160 I lived in Charleston, I lived in Dallas, I lived 1:24:22.200 --> 1:24:26.400 in Chicago, Boston, London. I mean, I've lived in so 1:24:26.479 --> 1:24:31.960 many places that I almost became just this gypsy my friends. 1:24:32.120 --> 1:24:34.160 So my buddies would call me just like this gypsy. 1:24:34.640 --> 1:24:38.439 And so I value friendships a lot now in this 1:24:38.520 --> 1:24:41.360 part of my life, because I just didn't. For so 1:24:41.439 --> 1:24:44.799 many years. Everything was just work and I neglected everything. 1:24:44.960 --> 1:24:47.280 I didn't have girlfriends and I have athing. I was 1:24:47.280 --> 1:24:51.639 just sobly focused on building golf and trying to build 1:24:51.640 --> 1:24:54.759 my career and making relationships and visiting and seeing everything 1:24:54.840 --> 1:24:58.040 I could. And now I'm like taking a step back. 1:24:58.160 --> 1:25:02.840 I want to enjoy watching my kids grow. So I 1:25:02.960 --> 1:25:06.640 turned down twenty seven. I was adding it up in 1:25:06.640 --> 1:25:08.840 the last couple of weeks. It was like between twenty 1:25:08.880 --> 1:25:11.400 seven and thirty one clubs last year that we turned down, 1:25:11.960 --> 1:25:14.800 Which is cool. Okay, that's great, And I'm not I'm 1:25:14.800 --> 1:25:18.559 not saying that because I'm you'll being I'm bragging about it. 1:25:18.560 --> 1:25:22.040 It's it's answering your question of how much how much 1:25:22.080 --> 1:25:25.280 work is enough. I just looked in the mirror and said, well, 1:25:25.280 --> 1:25:27.600 if I keep taking all this work, or if I 1:25:27.680 --> 1:25:30.479 keep going after because they were just calls that said, hey, 1:25:30.680 --> 1:25:33.160 we'd like you to interview. It's not like, you know, 1:25:33.280 --> 1:25:36.280 I had the job or something like that, but these 1:25:36.320 --> 1:25:39.880 are just interviews and you know, X, Y and Z 1:25:40.040 --> 1:25:44.400 club and you know, somewhere in Kentucky or somewhere in 1:25:44.439 --> 1:25:47.680 Boston or Florida. And but I had to say no 1:25:48.120 --> 1:25:52.400 and politely decline because it's like, you know, we want 1:25:52.439 --> 1:25:56.120 to work with, you know, a smaller nest egg. We 1:25:56.160 --> 1:25:59.600 want to have a small boutique firm. We want to 1:25:59.600 --> 1:26:01.960 be hands on, but we also want to go home 1:26:02.479 --> 1:26:05.400 on Fridays. Like I'm in my office. It's a Friday, 1:26:05.400 --> 1:26:08.800 and it's delightful and there's dust gathering because I haven't 1:26:08.800 --> 1:26:12.160 been here enough. But I flew home yesterday from Wakanda, 1:26:12.160 --> 1:26:14.479 and it's like I'm going to be home Friday, Saturday 1:26:14.520 --> 1:26:16.880 and Sunday. This is great. I can play golf tomorrow morning. 1:26:17.040 --> 1:26:19.000 I can hang out with my family, go to the pool. 1:26:19.600 --> 1:26:21.840 And so that's to me what life is like and 1:26:21.920 --> 1:26:26.479 what life's about. It's more than golf, and it's more 1:26:26.520 --> 1:26:29.760 than trying to get all these clubs. I don't want 1:26:29.760 --> 1:26:33.920 to be dope and have all that work and I 1:26:33.960 --> 1:26:36.160 mean he travels so much. I talked to him last week. 1:26:36.479 --> 1:26:39.600 I was in Traverse City last week and you know, 1:26:39.680 --> 1:26:41.640 we couldn't wake up for lunch because he was I 1:26:41.680 --> 1:26:44.280 think gone for like six straight days. And you know, 1:26:44.439 --> 1:26:47.240 so those guys are awesome, and Gil's killing it. These 1:26:47.280 --> 1:26:51.120 guys are off the charts busy. But I just want 1:26:51.120 --> 1:26:53.760 to take the right amount and the select ones that 1:26:53.800 --> 1:26:56.920 I really want to work with, the special properties like Brookside, 1:26:57.600 --> 1:27:02.599 like Wakanda, like Beverly, like Mountain Lake, Brayburn, Detroit Golf, 1:27:03.439 --> 1:27:04.960 you know, and then some of these new builds that 1:27:04.960 --> 1:27:08.439 we're doing finally, like in Charleston. You know, just special 1:27:08.520 --> 1:27:12.160 places that we're really going to enjoy going to because 1:27:12.240 --> 1:27:14.800 I care a lot about where we like where we work, 1:27:15.680 --> 1:27:19.360 and because we immerse ourselves in the scenery, you know. 1:27:19.479 --> 1:27:24.000 Like Jim Ryan Junior, our design associate. You know, we 1:27:24.000 --> 1:27:26.360 were out in Des Moines the other night and we're 1:27:26.360 --> 1:27:29.519 trying different restaurants and walking around and exploring the city. 1:27:30.200 --> 1:27:32.760 It's like, Wow, the Moins really cool. You know, I 1:27:32.840 --> 1:27:34.360 never would have experienced the Moines. 1:27:34.479 --> 1:27:35.160 Makes it different. 1:27:35.800 --> 1:27:38.800 Yeah, you know, we never would have experienced it, you know. 1:27:39.000 --> 1:27:41.639 And uh so we're happy we're there and we're immersing 1:27:41.720 --> 1:27:45.240 ourselves with the membership and the locality. And I know 1:27:45.360 --> 1:27:47.240 so much more about den Moine than I ever knew, 1:27:47.280 --> 1:27:47.880 and it's cool. 1:27:48.320 --> 1:27:51.719 So I think you hit on a lot of things there. 1:27:51.800 --> 1:27:53.960 And I think one of the hard things, the hardest 1:27:53.960 --> 1:27:56.439 things to balance when you get into a job, as 1:27:56.479 --> 1:28:00.639 you alluded to, that you love that, like there's really 1:28:00.760 --> 1:28:03.040 the only thing that you love more than going and 1:28:03.080 --> 1:28:07.639 seeing new golf courses. Being on a golf course is family, right, 1:28:08.000 --> 1:28:11.400 And the hard thing about it is that, like you can, 1:28:12.280 --> 1:28:14.720 it can engross your life. It can take over your 1:28:14.720 --> 1:28:17.240 life because you don't feel like you're working. You know 1:28:17.400 --> 1:28:19.519 you're doing something that you love and you don't feel 1:28:19.560 --> 1:28:22.280 like you're working. But like sometimes you just have to 1:28:22.320 --> 1:28:26.519 take a step back and be like, wait a second, 1:28:26.960 --> 1:28:29.920 I still need a little bit of balance because you know, 1:28:30.600 --> 1:28:34.479 all the other life things help you relate in all 1:28:34.520 --> 1:28:37.439 the other situations, right, And if you if you get 1:28:37.479 --> 1:28:40.800 too down into the rabbit hole, you don't have any 1:28:40.880 --> 1:28:44.360 relation with society, right, That's the way I feel sometimes. 1:28:44.720 --> 1:28:49.760 One and relationships, friends, family, you know, your parents, and 1:28:50.920 --> 1:28:52.800 I love hanging out with my parents and going to 1:28:52.840 --> 1:28:55.519 play golf with my dad and seeing my sister and 1:28:55.560 --> 1:28:59.000 her husband and kids, and I I really look forward 1:28:59.040 --> 1:28:59.320 to that. 1:29:00.200 --> 1:29:03.719 So to talk a little bit about golf architecture here 1:29:05.280 --> 1:29:09.519 A question I had for you is, you've obviously grown 1:29:09.920 --> 1:29:14.400 over your career. You've been you've built greens for you know, 1:29:15.080 --> 1:29:18.480 I don't know exactly how many years, but I'm curious 1:29:18.600 --> 1:29:24.840 about experience in green building. And when you look at 1:29:25.479 --> 1:29:29.120 your early greens compared to the greens you're building now, 1:29:29.120 --> 1:29:30.720 do you notice any differences? 1:29:31.040 --> 1:29:31.240 You know? 1:29:31.320 --> 1:29:34.600 I think like we look at the Golden Age architects 1:29:34.680 --> 1:29:37.479 and everybody always likes to talk about how they evolved. 1:29:37.720 --> 1:29:38.880 How are you evolving? 1:29:39.640 --> 1:29:40.120 Wow? 1:29:40.200 --> 1:29:43.240 You know, I think about this. We talk about this 1:29:43.320 --> 1:29:46.400 a lot too, because we've just built. I was just 1:29:46.600 --> 1:29:49.400 building the green yesterday, the seventeenth at Wakanda, and then 1:29:49.439 --> 1:29:52.919 I built the second at Wakanda on Tuesday and Wednesday. 1:29:53.040 --> 1:29:56.040 So I mean we're building. We built forty nine greens 1:29:56.080 --> 1:29:59.840 last year and and so, and we're going to do 1:30:00.680 --> 1:30:02.640 a lot this year. I don't know the number, but 1:30:03.800 --> 1:30:08.400 I think when I was young, I you know, walking 1:30:08.439 --> 1:30:11.320 all these courses, you'd always think about the pine valleys 1:30:11.360 --> 1:30:14.040 and like what are the greatest sets of greens in 1:30:14.080 --> 1:30:16.360 the world. You know, you're thinking about Saint Andrew's and 1:30:16.439 --> 1:30:21.880 Augusta and they were always you know, like Chicago golf 1:30:21.920 --> 1:30:25.080 has a phenomenal set of greens putting surfaces, you know, 1:30:25.160 --> 1:30:30.200 and and so traveling around you know, World, Melbourne, stuff 1:30:30.200 --> 1:30:32.880 like that, you're always thinking about the best putting surfaces. 1:30:33.080 --> 1:30:36.639 But the problem is then when you get your chance 1:30:36.920 --> 1:30:41.479 to build greens, you're usually building them too crazy, a 1:30:41.520 --> 1:30:44.200 little too wild, because you're thinking of the best ones 1:30:44.200 --> 1:30:47.040 you've ever seen. And I sketch, So I have like 1:30:47.120 --> 1:30:50.960 a ton of sketches of greens, and I'll sketch the 1:30:51.040 --> 1:30:53.519 high points and the lows and where water is going, 1:30:53.560 --> 1:30:56.160 and then the shape. So it's really easy when I 1:30:56.200 --> 1:30:58.679 can pull up my phone or iPad and I can 1:30:59.280 --> 1:31:03.120 pull up, you know, a green at Royal Melbourne or 1:31:03.920 --> 1:31:09.360 you know from like say more Fontaine or something like that, 1:31:09.720 --> 1:31:11.639 or door Knock, and I'll pull it up and I'll 1:31:11.720 --> 1:31:13.479 kind of look at the highs and lows and kind 1:31:13.520 --> 1:31:17.120 of the composition of the green. But to me, what 1:31:17.240 --> 1:31:20.519 I've gotten better at I think when I was younger, 1:31:21.439 --> 1:31:24.400 you're trying to stuff too many things in one green 1:31:24.479 --> 1:31:28.479 and you're trying to shoot for the stars. And when 1:31:28.520 --> 1:31:33.400 I was younger we built, I think people were like, oh, 1:31:33.479 --> 1:31:36.040 these greens are just a little much. They're cool. When 1:31:36.080 --> 1:31:38.519 I go back and see stuff from twenty twelve, twenty ten, 1:31:39.200 --> 1:31:44.040 you know, fifteen years ago, I'm okay with them because 1:31:44.160 --> 1:31:47.320 the concepts were I've tried really hard. They're tied in 1:31:47.360 --> 1:31:50.040 really well, they make sense. There's a bunch of flags, 1:31:50.080 --> 1:31:53.679 but it's like some of the little details are just off, 1:31:54.439 --> 1:31:57.639 and maybe there's too much going on in them. So 1:31:57.760 --> 1:32:03.200 I have gotten a lot more fine and softer and 1:32:03.320 --> 1:32:08.320 like elegant and maybe maybe easier, you know, because I 1:32:08.400 --> 1:32:11.840 worry about all the different handicappers, you know, all the 1:32:11.880 --> 1:32:16.080 different levels skilled levels playing, and I realized that golfers 1:32:16.080 --> 1:32:22.400 are not that good, and so like Northmore. We redid 1:32:22.439 --> 1:32:25.800 Northmore last year and it just opened a couple weeks ago, 1:32:25.880 --> 1:32:29.599 and I was really proud of the most subtle greens there. 1:32:29.760 --> 1:32:32.920 Like there's one that's falling away, that's really a head 1:32:32.920 --> 1:32:35.800 scratcher that you really can't tell, but it's falling away. 1:32:35.840 --> 1:32:38.080 And then there's another one that has like the most 1:32:38.080 --> 1:32:41.040 gentle spine in it, but you'll have a putt and 1:32:41.120 --> 1:32:42.839 on the left side of the green it just wanders 1:32:42.840 --> 1:32:45.000 at the left, and on the right side of the green, 1:32:45.040 --> 1:32:47.719 it just wanders a little right. So I've almost found 1:32:47.720 --> 1:32:50.200 like the most confounding fun greens are the ones you 1:32:50.880 --> 1:32:53.120 just don't immediately walk up to and go, oh, look 1:32:53.160 --> 1:32:54.680 at the spine there, look at that, look at that. 1:32:55.080 --> 1:32:59.640 So I've been really into subtle stuff, but trying to 1:32:59.760 --> 1:33:02.559 mike match. So like north Moore, I tried to have, 1:33:03.360 --> 1:33:05.599 you know, we try to. I always say six sixty six, 1:33:05.680 --> 1:33:10.160 so like six pretty darn interesting fun greens. But they 1:33:10.200 --> 1:33:12.600 have to relate to the length of the hole. So 1:33:12.760 --> 1:33:15.760 shorter holes par three this or that reachable part five. 1:33:16.160 --> 1:33:17.760 If it's a long part four, I want it to 1:33:17.760 --> 1:33:20.200 be very subtle, you know, because guys are hitting in 1:33:20.240 --> 1:33:22.639 guys and gals are hitting in long irons or woods, 1:33:23.360 --> 1:33:27.640 so it's all length driven from the hole kind of 1:33:27.640 --> 1:33:31.200 determines the funnest funness meter that we put in there. 1:33:31.560 --> 1:33:35.639 But I'm really cognizant now, you know, fifteen years later 1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:39.479 of shape and greens of like less is more, let's 1:33:39.479 --> 1:33:42.400 be a little more subtle. Everybody's maintaining them so quick 1:33:42.479 --> 1:33:45.080 these days. You know at eleven, twelve, thirteen on the 1:33:45.120 --> 1:33:46.960 stamp that you put a little bump in there and 1:33:47.000 --> 1:33:52.360 it's it's enough. And then you know, working with some 1:33:52.400 --> 1:33:57.200 really good guys and watching great green builders, I was 1:33:57.240 --> 1:33:59.800 always a fan of like one movement in a green, 1:34:00.040 --> 1:34:03.400 how it affects every pot on the green. Like there 1:34:03.439 --> 1:34:07.000 was a green at Mountain Lake that rainer, you know, 1:34:07.120 --> 1:34:10.559 obviously I think it's like number fourteen, and it had 1:34:10.560 --> 1:34:13.200 this gentle spine in it. And they always said to 1:34:13.200 --> 1:34:14.960 me like, hey, whatever you do, just don't screw up 1:34:14.960 --> 1:34:17.960 fourteen green, you know. And it was their favorite greens 1:34:17.960 --> 1:34:19.639 the whole, all the members favorite green, and it has 1:34:19.680 --> 1:34:22.600 that gentle spine. But it affects every single pot on 1:34:22.600 --> 1:34:25.880 the green. And so I'm a big fan. Sometimes in 1:34:26.000 --> 1:34:31.599 one movement affecting everything, I think that's really cool. But yeah, 1:34:31.640 --> 1:34:33.200 and then the last thing off, I don't want to 1:34:33.240 --> 1:34:35.680 talk too long some of these answers. I know, I 1:34:35.680 --> 1:34:38.519 can get long winded because we love talking about this. 1:34:38.439 --> 1:34:40.439 This is good, this is the good stuff here. I 1:34:40.479 --> 1:34:42.920 have so much detail. I appreciate this. 1:34:43.640 --> 1:34:48.719 So like at Wakanda yesterday, okay, I'm you know, there's 1:34:48.760 --> 1:34:52.760 there's like five really good Langford greens out there that 1:34:52.880 --> 1:34:55.679 I'm not going to touch. Like we've pulled them out 1:34:55.720 --> 1:34:58.120 of the job a little bit. We're going to expand them. 1:34:58.400 --> 1:35:01.880 We're expanding every green. Rebuilt a bunch, but there are 1:35:01.920 --> 1:35:05.360 some complete duds, like straight up dead flat one percent. 1:35:05.520 --> 1:35:08.559 You know, something happened. A bunch were rebuilt in the 1:35:08.560 --> 1:35:11.320 seventies and eighties. But there are about five or six 1:35:12.200 --> 1:35:18.360 world class Lawsonia Culver level greens. So I'm looking at those, 1:35:18.600 --> 1:35:21.120 and I'm looking at like kind of what we're building. 1:35:21.880 --> 1:35:24.799 The whole time I'm thinking while I'm building greens is Tyler, 1:35:25.560 --> 1:35:28.640 don't get too crazy. We want to blend want. I 1:35:28.640 --> 1:35:31.360 want you to play one to eighteen in Wakanda and 1:35:31.439 --> 1:35:33.840 not be able to pick a Tyler a greenow. I 1:35:33.920 --> 1:35:36.920 want them to blend in. So here's the only problem. Though, 1:35:36.960 --> 1:35:41.799 this is a nineteen twenty one early Langford before Monroe Moreau, 1:35:41.960 --> 1:35:45.599 kind of before they were really cooking. He met Moreau 1:35:45.680 --> 1:35:49.120 in like nineteen nineteen, nineteen twenty when he was when 1:35:50.040 --> 1:35:53.400 Theodore Moreau was working for the American Park Builders, and 1:35:53.479 --> 1:35:56.200 so this was an early Langford. He really didn't start 1:35:56.720 --> 1:35:59.080 really knocking it out of the ballpark till like twenty five. 1:35:59.720 --> 1:36:02.200 So Conda has like the best land in America for 1:36:02.240 --> 1:36:05.040 a golf course. I mean, it's absolutely, I'm so in 1:36:05.040 --> 1:36:07.559 love with it. It's so crazy and bowl and the 1:36:07.600 --> 1:36:12.840 holder off the charts. But the Langford architecture wasn't like 1:36:12.960 --> 1:36:16.120 his peak yet, you know, his like high point. So 1:36:16.200 --> 1:36:19.280 it wasn't the Lawsonia you know, like nineteen twenty nine, thirty, 1:36:19.800 --> 1:36:23.360 the Culver, really great stuff that we see, Kanka Kilks, 1:36:23.360 --> 1:36:26.000 those three I think are the top three in his repertoire. 1:36:26.479 --> 1:36:30.040 So I'm I don't want to pull greens from those 1:36:30.560 --> 1:36:34.200 clubs and then have like eighteen off the charts, like 1:36:34.360 --> 1:36:37.599 mind blowing Langford greens because I don't think it would 1:36:37.640 --> 1:36:42.000 fit with what he built in twenty one and what's there. 1:36:42.880 --> 1:36:46.599 So see how like it gets, So it gets so 1:36:46.880 --> 1:36:50.400 hard to like make judgment calls on some of this stuff. 1:36:50.479 --> 1:36:53.479 So I'm sitting on like the second green yesterday, I'm like, ah, 1:36:53.520 --> 1:36:55.120 this is a little over the top. I got to 1:36:55.120 --> 1:36:57.320 tone this down a little. It's got to blend in 1:36:57.360 --> 1:37:00.679 with the landscape. It's got to make sense for this course. 1:37:02.400 --> 1:37:04.080 So I was being a little more muted. 1:37:04.400 --> 1:37:09.000 Would you say that the more difficult restoration projects, you know, 1:37:09.040 --> 1:37:12.519 this is a restoration, historical renovation, whatever you want to 1:37:12.520 --> 1:37:16.599 call it, are the ones where you kind of have 1:37:16.880 --> 1:37:21.960 a mixture of stuff that's left, stuff that has been changed, 1:37:22.320 --> 1:37:27.680 little documentation, versus the ones where you have everything and 1:37:27.720 --> 1:37:31.439 it's is that the most challenging restorer? What's the most 1:37:31.520 --> 1:37:35.120 challenging restoration historical renovation scenario? 1:37:35.680 --> 1:37:39.040 Yeah, one hundred percent. Like there's ABC kind of that 1:37:39.160 --> 1:37:41.599 I call it. So A is like going into White 1:37:41.640 --> 1:37:44.240 Bear and it's like we just want to touch the bunkers. 1:37:44.640 --> 1:37:47.280 That is easy, peasy. I don't have to do any greens. 1:37:47.560 --> 1:37:50.960 I'll do light green expansions, maybe fair way stuff, rebunker 1:37:51.000 --> 1:37:54.160 it look at old aerials. But when you get into 1:37:54.240 --> 1:37:58.080 greens work, I mean you just don't want outliers. You 1:37:58.080 --> 1:38:01.479 don't want Tyler ray greens to so many courses where 1:38:01.520 --> 1:38:04.080 you see three or four greens that were blown up 1:38:04.080 --> 1:38:06.280 in the eighties or nineties and they don't fit at all. 1:38:06.640 --> 1:38:09.240 It's like what were the architects looking at? You know, 1:38:09.360 --> 1:38:11.719 it's like you got three moonscape or four green scape. 1:38:11.760 --> 1:38:15.679 Speaking of White Bear, the eighteenth green at White Bears, right, there. 1:38:15.720 --> 1:38:17.400 Yeah, sorry, the one. 1:38:17.360 --> 1:38:23.160 Perfect examples, right, You're like, oh, what happened? 1:38:24.280 --> 1:38:26.679 Yeah, the parking lot bulldozer guy. I got a hold 1:38:26.720 --> 1:38:30.120 of that one. Yeah, but no, but you know, for 1:38:30.280 --> 1:38:32.280 or other examples of like you know Rono Mink, you 1:38:32.280 --> 1:38:34.640 know all eighteen greens, or you know when you have 1:38:34.720 --> 1:38:38.519 all eighteen greens existing that are amazing, you know, say 1:38:38.560 --> 1:38:42.760 like maybe even you know Summrset Hills or something like that. 1:38:42.800 --> 1:38:46.200 But that's a that's easy. You don't have a lot 1:38:46.240 --> 1:38:48.639 of decisions. It doesn't scare you. But then B is 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:52.960 kind of there's been four or five blown up or six, 1:38:53.280 --> 1:38:55.720 and you have to somehow blend them and then do 1:38:55.800 --> 1:38:59.120 the green expansions thoughtfully. And that's the wakanda that I'm 1:38:59.160 --> 1:39:02.080 in B. And then C is like, oh they've all 1:39:02.120 --> 1:39:04.600 been blown up. You can do whatever you want. So 1:39:04.680 --> 1:39:07.960 like Northmore, they were all blown up, Tyler Rae could 1:39:07.960 --> 1:39:09.840 rebuild them all and I kind of could go with 1:39:09.880 --> 1:39:13.520 my own theme and I wasn't held to some standard 1:39:14.479 --> 1:39:17.439 same thing like at Detroit Golf. I just go off 1:39:17.479 --> 1:39:20.240 a zoom with them. And we finished the master plan 1:39:20.320 --> 1:39:22.960 and everything we've met with the PGA tour and we're 1:39:22.960 --> 1:39:25.360 working with them on that, and the rocket mortgage was 1:39:25.400 --> 1:39:27.040 so great. With Ricky winning this year, I was so 1:39:27.040 --> 1:39:30.599 happy about that. But their greens were all rebuilt by 1:39:31.000 --> 1:39:34.479 Art Hills in nineteen eighty eight, and they're failing, you know, 1:39:34.560 --> 1:39:37.960 drainage all that. They're thirty some years old now and 1:39:38.000 --> 1:39:41.800 they were early kind of takes on USGA greens, so 1:39:41.840 --> 1:39:44.640 they're getting ready to fail. And so we're going to 1:39:44.680 --> 1:39:47.880 rebuild them. And guess what I get to redo all 1:39:47.920 --> 1:39:50.400 eighteen or twenty because I'm doing the putting green and chipping, 1:39:50.439 --> 1:39:52.800 so twenty greens and I get to do my take 1:39:52.840 --> 1:39:56.280 on Ross. So it's liberating. It's very liberating. 1:39:56.840 --> 1:40:00.679 That's It's an interesting note. I always feel like Detroit 1:40:00.720 --> 1:40:03.599 Golf like it was exciting when it got added. I 1:40:03.600 --> 1:40:07.080 haven't been there, and you it was excited when they 1:40:07.080 --> 1:40:10.120 got added. It's like, oh, a Ross course in an 1:40:10.200 --> 1:40:12.680 area of the country where I think you could make 1:40:12.680 --> 1:40:16.600 an argument is some Maybe his best work is Ohio 1:40:16.840 --> 1:40:22.000 and Michigan. The best concentration of Donald Ross courses might 1:40:22.040 --> 1:40:24.519 be there. And then I watched it on TV and 1:40:24.640 --> 1:40:28.200 every year I'm just like this, just this course doesn't 1:40:28.200 --> 1:40:32.200 have much juice and the greens. You know, it doesn't 1:40:32.200 --> 1:40:36.000 have the topographical interest of its neighbors like Oakland Hills 1:40:36.080 --> 1:40:40.120 or Franklin Hills, you know, you know, even Barton Hills, 1:40:40.160 --> 1:40:43.400 which I know you've worked at, really stunning piece of 1:40:43.400 --> 1:40:46.519 ground there, but you know, the greens just like they 1:40:47.000 --> 1:40:49.479 you know, It's like I've always watched it and was 1:40:49.520 --> 1:40:52.519 like these just I would expect a little bit more 1:40:53.160 --> 1:40:56.479 going on here given how flat everything else is. And 1:40:56.840 --> 1:40:59.280 that makes a ton of sense, especially when you go 1:40:59.360 --> 1:41:03.479 to like Canton Brookside, which has wild ground and wild greens. 1:41:03.520 --> 1:41:07.920 I mean that might be his his most extreme golf 1:41:07.960 --> 1:41:09.759 course out there right. 1:41:09.720 --> 1:41:12.200 Right it is. There are greens out there twelve percent, 1:41:12.640 --> 1:41:17.920 you know that that's sixth green and sixteen and can 1:41:17.960 --> 1:41:20.479 Brookside is just off the charts. You know, it's like 1:41:21.120 --> 1:41:21.679 fun Land. 1:41:22.280 --> 1:41:27.840 Yeah, what what would you say in terms of you know, 1:41:27.920 --> 1:41:30.840 you're now entering a different part of your career. You're 1:41:31.160 --> 1:41:33.120 you're starting to get some new builds. You have a 1:41:33.560 --> 1:41:37.400 new build on Long Island, uh, I think it's called 1:41:37.479 --> 1:41:40.479 spy Ring Golf Club that's opening this fall. You have 1:41:40.560 --> 1:41:44.400 a new project in Charleston area, and you're doing a 1:41:44.400 --> 1:41:47.519 ton of rest of the ration work, Which one you know, 1:41:47.760 --> 1:41:50.280 which one do you prefer if you if you had 1:41:50.320 --> 1:41:53.680 to pick one, And and how do you see your 1:41:53.720 --> 1:41:56.360 career evolving with this new work coming in? 1:41:57.439 --> 1:41:57.719 Wow? 1:41:57.880 --> 1:41:59.920 Yeah, that's a that's a good one. That's kind of 1:41:59.920 --> 1:42:01.760 a two part question there. That was good. 1:42:02.680 --> 1:42:04.800 You know, I think we're just giving. We're setting you 1:42:04.880 --> 1:42:06.640 up for long answers. Yeah, I know. 1:42:06.840 --> 1:42:09.080 Sorry, you know your listeners will probably be like, gosh, 1:42:09.120 --> 1:42:10.880 this guy can't get this guy off of here. He 1:42:10.920 --> 1:42:14.639 talks the whole time. But no, I think, you know, Andy, 1:42:15.960 --> 1:42:18.960 I never thought I would be in the position, to 1:42:19.040 --> 1:42:21.360 be honest. My father asked me a couple of years ago, 1:42:21.400 --> 1:42:22.840 and I said, you know, if I never built a 1:42:22.840 --> 1:42:26.320 course from scratch, I'll still die happy, you know, because 1:42:26.320 --> 1:42:29.679 I love restoration renovation work so much. And I meant 1:42:29.680 --> 1:42:32.479 that truthfully. I didn't know of the job. I didn't 1:42:32.520 --> 1:42:34.320 know if it would ever come to fruition. 1:42:34.200 --> 1:42:36.840 And especially that, I mean, there was just so few 1:42:36.880 --> 1:42:40.080 courses being built, you know, five years ago, right, and 1:42:40.280 --> 1:42:45.360 now is like completely different market for new courses, right, We're. 1:42:45.240 --> 1:42:47.840 I mean, it's just gangbusters. We looked at twenty some 1:42:48.000 --> 1:42:51.960 properties last year, all up and down the East coast, 1:42:52.000 --> 1:42:55.519 all over New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, everywhere. We 1:42:55.560 --> 1:42:59.559 looked at properties, and we still have some potential owners 1:42:59.600 --> 1:43:01.760 right now looking at properties. We're still maybe looking at 1:43:01.800 --> 1:43:05.759 one in New Jersey out in the sand across from Philly, 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:07.559 which is pretty pretty cool. 1:43:07.760 --> 1:43:09.560 To be a home game for you. 1:43:09.560 --> 1:43:14.200 You can see the Philadelphia skyline. It's amazing. So but 1:43:14.360 --> 1:43:17.400 we'll see if they can get it. So it's so 1:43:17.479 --> 1:43:19.680 hard new builds. That's the other thing too. It's like 1:43:19.720 --> 1:43:21.360 you have to secure the land, then you have to 1:43:21.360 --> 1:43:23.280 get the funding, then you have to get the permitting, 1:43:23.800 --> 1:43:25.640 then you have to have potable water, then you have 1:43:25.640 --> 1:43:28.439 to have three phase sewer. I mean you have to 1:43:28.479 --> 1:43:31.040 have like nine things come to fruition all in the 1:43:31.040 --> 1:43:33.719 same spot. And then it's. 1:43:33.640 --> 1:43:35.960 Just we talked about that on the POD is just 1:43:36.040 --> 1:43:40.360 like how how the timelines can all get screwed up 1:43:40.560 --> 1:43:44.120 in that where like, oh, I've budgeted and it's the 1:43:44.160 --> 1:43:47.479 hardest thing is I've budgeted this many people we are 1:43:47.560 --> 1:43:49.680 allocated to do this, and then it's like, well we 1:43:49.680 --> 1:43:51.840 couldn't get the permits. It's got to go next year, 1:43:52.200 --> 1:43:56.439 and that becomes a new challenge of timing and planning 1:43:56.520 --> 1:43:57.160 that you know. 1:43:57.960 --> 1:44:00.519 Yeah, the permitting is brutal, it really is. You have 1:44:00.560 --> 1:44:03.600 to start so early and hope that everything you know, 1:44:03.680 --> 1:44:07.719 work with a really talented engineer, and there's so many 1:44:07.800 --> 1:44:11.080 things like the Charleston job right now. I spoke to 1:44:11.120 --> 1:44:14.320 them earlier this morning, and we did all our soil samples, 1:44:14.439 --> 1:44:18.799 all our water samples, We've graded the whole site. We routed, 1:44:19.080 --> 1:44:21.160 you know, we came up with nineteen different routings, and 1:44:21.360 --> 1:44:24.360 Jim Ryan, actually, this is the funny thing, is I 1:44:24.400 --> 1:44:28.559 don't have an ego. Sometimes I've worked with a lot 1:44:28.560 --> 1:44:30.320 of people who have big egos and it's like you 1:44:30.400 --> 1:44:33.439 tell them you'd like show them something, and they just 1:44:33.479 --> 1:44:35.599 ignore you. And I never wanted to be that person. 1:44:35.680 --> 1:44:39.160 So Jim Ryan actually came up with like an alternative 1:44:39.439 --> 1:44:42.840 routing on our Charleston Charleston job, and I was like, Tyler, 1:44:42.920 --> 1:44:44.920 don't have a big ego. Let's just go look this out. 1:44:45.040 --> 1:44:46.760 Let's see if it works. And it ended up being 1:44:47.439 --> 1:44:51.160 absolutely off the charts routing. So most of the routing 1:44:51.400 --> 1:44:53.600 on like my third new build is going to be 1:44:53.640 --> 1:44:56.400 from one of my associates. But it was so good 1:44:56.479 --> 1:45:00.679 I couldn't say no, you know, but so he's got 1:45:00.720 --> 1:45:04.200 like probably eleven or twelve hole corridors there and then 1:45:04.520 --> 1:45:07.240 eight of seven or eight of mine. But it works 1:45:07.320 --> 1:45:10.200 so well. But you know, I guess where we were 1:45:10.200 --> 1:45:14.599 going with this was, you know, new builds and all that. Yeah, 1:45:14.600 --> 1:45:16.960 I mean, so it's just so hard to get them, 1:45:17.120 --> 1:45:19.600 I mean, all secured and they're so expensive. Land is 1:45:19.600 --> 1:45:22.120 so hard to find these days, and good land. I 1:45:22.160 --> 1:45:24.400 mean you can find flat land kind of anywhere in Florida, 1:45:24.479 --> 1:45:27.280 like they're doing everybody's flying. They're just going inland a 1:45:27.280 --> 1:45:30.360 little bit from Hope Sound and everything, but into. 1:45:30.120 --> 1:45:34.880 The swamp its having been down there are a lot 1:45:34.880 --> 1:45:38.120 of a lot of times in my life it is 1:45:38.160 --> 1:45:41.200 not desirable land in there. There's a there's a dune 1:45:41.280 --> 1:45:44.519 ridge that that has some really great land. But that's 1:45:44.560 --> 1:45:46.760 I think probably when we started. When you start talking 1:45:46.760 --> 1:45:50.400 about permitting and the availability of it is very difficult to. 1:45:50.360 --> 1:45:52.320 Get right exactly exactly well. 1:45:52.360 --> 1:45:55.519 But now now the Lake Wales area is popping that, 1:45:55.760 --> 1:45:59.439 like central you know, sand Belt seems to have a 1:45:59.439 --> 1:46:01.200 lot of project X that are gonna be coming up 1:46:01.200 --> 1:46:02.120 in there. You know. 1:46:02.240 --> 1:46:04.639 Yeah, I know Steve Smyers has some stuff cooking I've 1:46:04.680 --> 1:46:06.760 talked to him, and uh, you know that's kind of 1:46:06.760 --> 1:46:09.600 the high the high land, you know, kind of the 1:46:09.680 --> 1:46:13.720 hill country of Florida. And yeah, it's pretty cool, very 1:46:13.720 --> 1:46:16.679 cool there. I know I talked to some folks there 1:46:17.640 --> 1:46:21.320 when Tony Nice was at Mountain Lake, the superintendent. Now 1:46:21.320 --> 1:46:25.599 he went to Apogee, and I know he's he mentioned 1:46:25.600 --> 1:46:27.439 a bunch of stuff and yeah, there's a lot of 1:46:27.439 --> 1:46:29.519 stuff cooking in there. And Florida is just so hot. 1:46:29.640 --> 1:46:32.280 It's unbelievable. And I don't mean hot temperature. 1:46:32.280 --> 1:46:35.880 I mean it's like so multiple ways so hot, real 1:46:36.120 --> 1:46:39.720 real estate temperature, golf, golf construction. 1:46:40.120 --> 1:46:43.360 It's got the trifecta. It is. It is. Uh, they 1:46:43.360 --> 1:46:46.519 are killing it down there. But but I guess what 1:46:46.720 --> 1:46:48.519 was I what were we getting back to? I guess 1:46:48.560 --> 1:46:49.880 your question was too bad? 1:46:50.080 --> 1:46:54.280 New built, new build versus h versus restoration. You know, 1:46:54.360 --> 1:46:56.120 if you if you had to, if you had to 1:46:56.200 --> 1:46:58.679 choose one, which would you do? You know, the hard 1:46:58.800 --> 1:47:00.519 the hard question. Yeah, you know, we live in a 1:47:00.560 --> 1:47:03.120 world where you don't have to choose one. Which is nice? 1:47:03.200 --> 1:47:06.599 So right, I hope any perspective clients that are listening 1:47:06.600 --> 1:47:09.160 to this don't take it as Oh, he doesn't want 1:47:09.200 --> 1:47:11.519 to do one of the right right. 1:47:11.640 --> 1:47:15.200 No, it Look, I'm just here to be candid and 1:47:15.320 --> 1:47:17.000 if people can take it the way they want to 1:47:17.040 --> 1:47:18.840 take it, and so I'm going to tell the truth 1:47:18.960 --> 1:47:23.120 is new builds are really tough. And I've said it before, 1:47:23.160 --> 1:47:26.360 maybe even on that the prior podcast we did way 1:47:26.360 --> 1:47:28.800 back when you know, they suck the life out of 1:47:28.800 --> 1:47:32.519 you because they take eighteen months to two years, and 1:47:33.640 --> 1:47:37.240 I mean it's there's so much open dirt and and 1:47:37.600 --> 1:47:41.960 so we first started talking to Charleston clients back gosh 1:47:42.080 --> 1:47:44.760 August last year or September, so it's almost been a 1:47:44.840 --> 1:47:47.600 year already, and then we're planning the break ground in 1:47:47.600 --> 1:47:50.400 October and then it'll be another year of construction, so 1:47:50.439 --> 1:47:53.280 it won't open to probably November twenty four. So there's 1:47:53.360 --> 1:47:58.200 that two year timeline. Even longer than that, you know, 1:47:58.320 --> 1:48:02.160 from kind of first talk to fruition, you know, playing 1:48:02.240 --> 1:48:04.960 hit and hitting the first t shot. But there's so 1:48:05.120 --> 1:48:09.320 much work involved. There's somebody layers of it. I love them, 1:48:09.400 --> 1:48:12.240 I really do, because it's liberating. I can't wait. I 1:48:12.320 --> 1:48:16.160 just cannot wait to showcase like what a Tyler Ray 1:48:16.920 --> 1:48:19.160 I don't know golf courses, but kind of like my 1:48:19.280 --> 1:48:21.640 style and like all the things that have influenced me, 1:48:21.720 --> 1:48:25.240 the more Fontaines, the trips that I've taken, you know, 1:48:25.320 --> 1:48:28.599 the Valderrama stuff, the all the stuff from New Zealand 1:48:28.640 --> 1:48:32.920 and Australia, and all the all the stuff out west, 1:48:33.120 --> 1:48:35.719 you know, the L A. C. C. And the bel 1:48:35.800 --> 1:48:38.559 Airs and the you know, the cool stuff you see 1:48:38.800 --> 1:48:42.120 in California where you are. And so I just can't 1:48:42.120 --> 1:48:46.160 wait to show, you know, like super fun bold par threes. 1:48:46.400 --> 1:48:49.880 And then like I have, I've had ideas forever on 1:48:49.960 --> 1:48:52.320 part five because everybody talks about part fives how they're 1:48:52.400 --> 1:48:57.080 so hard to make meaningful, and I've had ideas cooked 1:48:57.120 --> 1:49:00.400 up on part fives my whole life, and I can't weight. 1:49:00.720 --> 1:49:03.120 Like I know, there's going to be some absolute stunners. 1:49:03.720 --> 1:49:07.120 I mean, it's impossible to make eighteen incredible golf holes, 1:49:07.120 --> 1:49:10.240 you know, even Pine Valley. I mean, it's just so hard. 1:49:10.439 --> 1:49:12.240 I just don't want to have a duzz out there, 1:49:12.400 --> 1:49:15.800 but I want eighteen really good golf holes where it's 1:49:15.800 --> 1:49:19.720 hard to discern what's the best hole. But anyway, but 1:49:20.040 --> 1:49:24.640 I want to you know, new builds are super liberating, 1:49:25.080 --> 1:49:29.800 They're very fun, a lot of freedom. I mean I'm 1:49:29.840 --> 1:49:31.920 picking the bunker style, I'm picking the green style, and 1:49:32.000 --> 1:49:36.320 picking grasses, soil, I mean everything. You know, this ownership 1:49:36.320 --> 1:49:39.479 has given me really a lot of carte blanche. And 1:49:39.479 --> 1:49:42.720 then on spir Ring that was another new build. And 1:49:42.760 --> 1:49:45.600 then I call Northmore a new build because we rerouted 1:49:45.760 --> 1:49:49.160 the property. I mean there's nothing that looks anything similar. 1:49:49.160 --> 1:49:52.040 We raised parts of the golf course eight feet. We 1:49:52.160 --> 1:49:56.439 cut two five acre ponds, so it's like a Tyler 1:49:56.520 --> 1:49:59.760 Ray golf course now. I mean there was no ross left. 1:50:00.120 --> 1:50:02.040 When people say, oh, you took a ross course and 1:50:02.080 --> 1:50:04.320 you know, yaday, and it's like there was nothing left. 1:50:05.800 --> 1:50:08.320 And so North Moore was probably our first new build. 1:50:08.400 --> 1:50:14.240 Inspiring now Charleston, so you know inspiring it's different than Charleston. 1:50:14.320 --> 1:50:17.639 Charleston is going to be super private. You know, they're 1:50:17.680 --> 1:50:21.280 going to overseed and be like a winter club. It's 1:50:21.320 --> 1:50:23.680 gonna be the first private club built in Charleston, I 1:50:23.680 --> 1:50:27.400 think since Bull's Bay. You know, there's like a six 1:50:27.520 --> 1:50:30.880 year waitlist everywhere in Charleston for golf. Where's spir Ring 1:50:31.000 --> 1:50:34.400 on Long Island Port Jefferson North North part of the 1:50:34.400 --> 1:50:36.160 island fifty miles out from the city. 1:50:38.000 --> 1:50:39.799 It's right by Saint George's. 1:50:39.880 --> 1:50:42.240 Huh Yeah, Saint George's is less than a mile away. 1:50:42.520 --> 1:50:44.080 And it's amazing. 1:50:44.600 --> 1:50:48.439 Yeah yeah, really hilly, really cool property. One hundred foot 1:50:48.479 --> 1:50:53.320 deep sand, all sand like sure sand, so really cool, 1:50:53.479 --> 1:50:55.960 drains so fast, so it's going to be rock hard. 1:50:56.400 --> 1:50:58.280 I mean you'll be able to freaking bounce it in 1:50:58.320 --> 1:51:01.160 from thirty yards out, which is the goal. So we 1:51:01.240 --> 1:51:02.400 have big open approaches. 1:51:02.479 --> 1:51:05.439 What's the client like there is it? Is it a 1:51:05.479 --> 1:51:09.960 private owner or is it a private developer? 1:51:10.360 --> 1:51:13.280 Yeah, private developer, so not a municipal but it is 1:51:13.320 --> 1:51:16.679 going to be public access. There was an existing golf 1:51:16.720 --> 1:51:20.759 course there called Heatherwood and it was like a par sixty, 1:51:21.360 --> 1:51:23.080 you know, it had like eight par fours and then 1:51:23.120 --> 1:51:26.280 the rest par three's. But it had amazing land and 1:51:26.479 --> 1:51:30.519 it didn't really use the land properly. But so it's 1:51:30.520 --> 1:51:34.760 pretty vast for you know, the golf course. But there 1:51:34.800 --> 1:51:38.080 is a housing element unfortunately, so there's some interior housing. 1:51:38.120 --> 1:51:41.120 But it's really well done. It's gorgeous. They spent a 1:51:41.120 --> 1:51:43.080 lot of money to do everything right. You know. It's 1:51:43.120 --> 1:51:47.320 like a little gated community, beautiful pool like almost like 1:51:47.400 --> 1:51:51.519 Cape Cod style housing with the beautiful like cedar shake, 1:51:52.200 --> 1:51:55.120 you know, siding and all that, and so at least 1:51:55.160 --> 1:51:57.200 it looks really good. And then the golf is just 1:51:57.400 --> 1:52:01.679 big fairways, big gnarly like corn crenchall style rugged punkers, 1:52:02.280 --> 1:52:06.040 and then big fun greens, not like Augusta so much, 1:52:06.120 --> 1:52:08.760 but I wanted them. I wanted you to have like 1:52:08.800 --> 1:52:13.080 twenty different flagsticks on each green, so it was it 1:52:13.120 --> 1:52:16.479 was different every time he played it, so that one's 1:52:16.600 --> 1:52:22.240 just not going to look anything like Charleston ironically, you know, 1:52:22.280 --> 1:52:24.840 so that one's more like public. I wanted to get 1:52:24.880 --> 1:52:27.800 people through it. Not many hazards, there's one or two 1:52:27.800 --> 1:52:31.840 bunkers a hole, but super fun. Like everybody that I've 1:52:31.840 --> 1:52:35.280 talked to, it's just like the fun factor, you know, 1:52:35.360 --> 1:52:38.280 really fun greens, fun shots. The land is really cool. 1:52:39.320 --> 1:52:42.120 But we just wanted people to come back, like repeatedly, 1:52:42.800 --> 1:52:45.040 and Long Island there's so much hard golf, like you 1:52:45.160 --> 1:52:48.320 just mentioned, you know, Saint George's and you know all 1:52:48.360 --> 1:52:50.920 those clubs out there. It's hard, you know, it's really 1:52:50.920 --> 1:52:51.479 hard golf. 1:52:52.479 --> 1:52:54.280 It's yeah, it's. 1:52:55.800 --> 1:52:55.840 That. 1:52:56.400 --> 1:52:58.640 And there isn't a lot of public golf. There's not 1:52:58.800 --> 1:53:02.000 a lot of it's firing public golf, which is which 1:53:02.040 --> 1:53:04.320 is the other thing I think when you New York 1:53:04.439 --> 1:53:07.200 is such a great, great place for golf, but like 1:53:07.320 --> 1:53:10.160 you have to have access for it to be you know, 1:53:10.280 --> 1:53:13.000 like there are good public golf courses in New York, 1:53:13.920 --> 1:53:17.439 but they're busy and and there aren't a lot of 1:53:17.680 --> 1:53:21.720 good public golf courses. So that's a that's an important thing. 1:53:21.800 --> 1:53:23.679 I wanted to talk a little bit more about Lookout 1:53:23.680 --> 1:53:27.880 Mountain in that project. Obviously a crazy place. I mean, 1:53:28.400 --> 1:53:31.840 as the name would suggest, Lookout Mountain, it's in it's 1:53:31.880 --> 1:53:35.519 on the Georgia Tennessee border, and uh it is. It 1:53:35.560 --> 1:53:38.160 was Seth Rainer. I I mean, there are a million 1:53:38.240 --> 1:53:41.040 courses that claim this. I feel like the Seth Rainer's 1:53:41.120 --> 1:53:46.000 last course. I believe he died during construction, and it is, 1:53:46.240 --> 1:53:48.240 you know, at the time of its build, I believe 1:53:48.280 --> 1:53:51.920 it was the second or the most expensive course being built. 1:53:52.000 --> 1:53:54.759 It was it in Yale, so too, you know rainer 1:53:54.960 --> 1:53:59.479 golf courses there. So this golf course, as the name 1:53:59.479 --> 1:54:02.559 would sugges, is a Rainer on a mountain, on a 1:54:02.600 --> 1:54:06.519 freaking mountain. It is is a wild place, you know, 1:54:06.720 --> 1:54:10.679 despite I think it was you know, I always when 1:54:10.680 --> 1:54:12.559 I had gone there, I was like, God, this place 1:54:12.600 --> 1:54:14.479 could be so good with a with a brush up, 1:54:14.640 --> 1:54:16.760 because you could you could see what it could be. 1:54:17.160 --> 1:54:19.800 But you know it had gotten some good work that 1:54:19.840 --> 1:54:23.679 had gotten it from one era to you know where 1:54:23.720 --> 1:54:26.320 it was where it was a really good golf course. 1:54:26.520 --> 1:54:29.879 And then you know, you guys just finished that project. 1:54:30.080 --> 1:54:34.240 I believe you paired with Kyle Frantz there to to 1:54:34.240 --> 1:54:38.600 to create that that project. And if you were going 1:54:38.680 --> 1:54:41.640 to just you know, give a short description of what 1:54:41.800 --> 1:54:44.520 Lookout Mountain is, now, what is it? 1:54:44.520 --> 1:54:50.240 It's the best of rainer. So before we broke around, 1:54:50.440 --> 1:54:55.960 I went everywhere I could for months, multiple times, multiple 1:54:56.000 --> 1:54:59.160 visits Short Acres, Chicago Golf, Blue Mound, which has maybe 1:54:59.200 --> 1:55:04.400 the best rainer green and still existing Fishers. Chicago Golf 1:55:04.440 --> 1:55:07.320 has some of the best greens too for rainer. And 1:55:07.360 --> 1:55:10.960 we just tried to see every single rainer we could 1:55:11.440 --> 1:55:17.280 and then make it the best eighteen rainer holes there 1:55:17.360 --> 1:55:20.920 were because the plan. So we were very fortunate to 1:55:20.920 --> 1:55:23.600 have a plan, a rainer plan. A seth rainer plant 1:55:23.680 --> 1:55:25.480 is like the rarest of the rare you find them. 1:55:25.480 --> 1:55:27.720 With Donald Ross at the time, telling asked Okay, great, 1:55:27.800 --> 1:55:31.200 Perry Maxwell Rainer. It's like we have a little bit 1:55:31.240 --> 1:55:35.120 of a plane at Mountain Lake, and I think there's 1:55:35.840 --> 1:55:38.360 two or three four others. I mean, there's not much 1:55:38.800 --> 1:55:42.000 that survived. So we had the full plan with every 1:55:42.000 --> 1:55:47.879 single bunker green shape, even the green templates, like eighteen 1:55:48.000 --> 1:55:51.280 was the maiden you know, we knew sixteen was a short. 1:55:51.320 --> 1:55:55.840 We knew seventeen was the double plateau. I mean, we 1:55:55.920 --> 1:55:58.680 knew the punch bowls knew, we knew what every template 1:55:58.840 --> 1:56:02.240 pretty much worked. Funny funny thing is, though the club 1:56:02.280 --> 1:56:05.440 on the scorecard had six of them wrong, just because 1:56:05.520 --> 1:56:08.800 you know, it's hard. People don't have no people aren't 1:56:09.120 --> 1:56:11.800 as crazy about this stuff as we are. But so 1:56:11.880 --> 1:56:15.600 we worked with Doug Stein, the Green past Green chairman 1:56:15.640 --> 1:56:17.920 and everything, and he's like one of my favorite guys 1:56:17.920 --> 1:56:18.440 in the world. 1:56:18.480 --> 1:56:20.720 But did you start the society? 1:56:21.320 --> 1:56:23.920 He did? He started the Seth Rainer Society. And he 1:56:23.960 --> 1:56:28.120 knows more about Rainer than anybody. He's amazing, you know, 1:56:28.200 --> 1:56:32.720 him and Anthony Piapi probably know the most. But anyway, 1:56:32.800 --> 1:56:36.320 so we worked with him. We got all the templates correct, 1:56:36.360 --> 1:56:40.640 and he then agreed and we figured that all out 1:56:40.960 --> 1:56:42.960 and then we went from there and we took like 1:56:43.080 --> 1:56:47.040 the best pieces, like the best. We kind of used 1:56:47.080 --> 1:56:49.720 like the best templates from these other clubs as like 1:56:49.920 --> 1:56:53.280 the guiding tool, and then riffed off of them a 1:56:53.320 --> 1:56:59.800 little bit. But Andy, it is so bold, it's I 1:57:00.080 --> 1:57:04.080 can't wait. It's fully grown in now. The greens are 1:57:04.080 --> 1:57:08.080 off the charts. I just can't wait. I hope people 1:57:08.120 --> 1:57:11.240 don't think it's too crazy, you know, but it's because 1:57:11.240 --> 1:57:14.200 it's the land is so insane. But I truly believe 1:57:14.240 --> 1:57:17.240 it's gonna be right there with the Yale Chicago Golf Fishers. 1:57:17.360 --> 1:57:20.200 Is the best, the best that Rainer has to offer. 1:57:20.400 --> 1:57:22.760 And I think it's only going to get better with age. 1:57:22.840 --> 1:57:25.040 You know, it's slowly going to get better every year, 1:57:25.520 --> 1:57:27.040 like four or five years from now. I think people 1:57:27.040 --> 1:57:29.480 are going to go visit and go, okay, you know, 1:57:29.640 --> 1:57:34.640 like this is, you know, a masterpiece. And we spent 1:57:34.760 --> 1:57:37.440 so much time down there. I personally shaped eighteen out 1:57:37.480 --> 1:57:39.680 of nineteen greens down there. There was one I didn't 1:57:39.680 --> 1:57:43.120 get on because my son was being born last August seventeenth, 1:57:43.560 --> 1:57:46.280 and so that week I didn't get on the fifth green, 1:57:46.520 --> 1:57:49.040 but I got on all the others and with the 1:57:49.080 --> 1:57:52.960 dozer shaping and finishing, and so we put our heart 1:57:52.960 --> 1:57:54.680 and soul in there. And we had Ben Warren and 1:57:54.720 --> 1:57:58.680 I can't say enough about Ben Warren Artists in Golf, 1:57:59.120 --> 1:58:01.200 that's his company, but he works a lot in Japan 1:58:01.720 --> 1:58:04.120 and he's worked for Gil and Doak. I think he 1:58:04.160 --> 1:58:08.240 did for corn Crunchhall. He built the one out there 1:58:08.280 --> 1:58:14.080 north of Meadow Clubs Brambles. He built brambles with them. 1:58:14.120 --> 1:58:16.960 And he's my age and we got along like De's 1:58:17.000 --> 1:58:20.640 and carrots. I love the guy. So he's from North Barrack, Scotland, 1:58:21.280 --> 1:58:23.440 and one of the most talented shapers I've ever seen 1:58:23.440 --> 1:58:25.440 in my life. We'd go out to dinner every night, 1:58:25.480 --> 1:58:30.080 we'd hang out, we'd talk about everything, and I couldn't 1:58:30.120 --> 1:58:32.600 have done it. And you know the same with Kyle. 1:58:32.640 --> 1:58:36.760 You know, Kyle obviously super talented. You know, has worked 1:58:36.760 --> 1:58:39.120 for everybody and does a lot of great work on 1:58:39.160 --> 1:58:43.080 his own. And so we teamed up because we felt 1:58:43.120 --> 1:58:45.840 like we were just so busy in both of our 1:58:45.880 --> 1:58:49.120 careers that if we could team up for a couple 1:58:49.160 --> 1:58:52.960 of jobs, maybe we can they could be masterpieces, you know. 1:58:53.040 --> 1:58:55.680 And I said this probably a couple of months ago. 1:58:55.680 --> 1:58:58.520 I think looking back on my career, I think in 1:58:58.600 --> 1:59:00.800 twenty years I might look back and lookout mountain and 1:59:01.680 --> 1:59:04.920 same with Kyle, We're probably going to be like, I 1:59:04.920 --> 1:59:07.880 don't think we could do any better. You know, it 1:59:07.960 --> 1:59:13.160 might be the best work even then. So but Kyle, yeah, 1:59:13.200 --> 1:59:16.800 he was. He's great, such a knowledgeable guy. I mean 1:59:16.800 --> 1:59:18.960 he put his heart and soul into it. And Ben Warren, 1:59:19.280 --> 1:59:22.120 and then we had a really great shaper, Eduardo Rojas 1:59:22.680 --> 1:59:26.280 who shaped with Kyle a lot, and rich lebar Like 1:59:26.360 --> 1:59:28.600 he did all the bunker work for Andrew Green at 1:59:28.600 --> 1:59:31.240 Oak Hill stuff like that. So he was no joke. 1:59:32.240 --> 1:59:35.680 So we had a fricking crew US four pretty much, 1:59:36.160 --> 1:59:39.640 and it was like every day you'd build a green, 1:59:39.680 --> 1:59:41.360 you do this and we'd all come look at it 1:59:41.440 --> 1:59:45.320 and and just meeting of the mines. But Ben Warren, 1:59:45.360 --> 1:59:48.000 I'm telling you, like he built the Redan because he 1:59:48.040 --> 1:59:50.200 grew up in North Berk so he built the Dan. 1:59:50.280 --> 1:59:52.800 He worked on the Barritz you know some of those 1:59:53.800 --> 1:59:55.320 the ones that are so good. I think it's the 1:59:55.320 --> 1:59:58.360 best radan in the world now, you know, right there 1:59:58.360 --> 2:00:00.840 with National Golf Links and then a real one at 2:00:00.920 --> 2:00:01.360 North Bari. 2:00:01.720 --> 2:00:04.320 It's a stunning setting. I mean you're up on the 2:00:04.800 --> 2:00:07.440 on the high hill just below the clubhouse, looking down 2:00:07.480 --> 2:00:10.160 and off a mountain. I mean, it's an it's an 2:00:10.160 --> 2:00:12.960 incredible That's I think the thing about the place that 2:00:13.120 --> 2:00:16.840 is just so you could see too, you could see 2:00:16.880 --> 2:00:20.280 how bold it once was and that had been kind 2:00:20.280 --> 2:00:23.000 of covered up in just grass like so many places, 2:00:23.480 --> 2:00:25.960 and you just you put that with the with the 2:00:26.040 --> 2:00:28.840 just the sublime setting of playing golf on a mountain, 2:00:29.120 --> 2:00:31.560 and uh, you know it's I can't wait to get 2:00:31.600 --> 2:00:32.000 back there. 2:00:32.600 --> 2:00:34.840 All the trees now are gone. So you see for 2:00:34.960 --> 2:00:39.440 hundreds of miles, you can see seven states Andy seven. Yeah, 2:00:39.480 --> 2:00:42.920 it's amazing. And there's a plaque that talks about that. 2:00:43.000 --> 2:00:45.680 So I'm not lying, like it's actual facts up there 2:00:45.720 --> 2:00:49.160 when your home lookout mountain to see seven states. But people, oh, 2:00:49.200 --> 2:00:51.440 never believe me. They're like, get out of here. And 2:00:51.480 --> 2:00:54.360 I'm like I show people. I'm like, you see that plane, 2:00:54.800 --> 2:00:57.320 you know, like it looks like it's a thousand miles away, 2:00:57.320 --> 2:00:59.120 but you can see a plane taking off. I'm like, 2:00:59.160 --> 2:01:03.160 that's Louisville Air Kentucky. Like that's how far you can 2:01:03.160 --> 2:01:07.120 see from there. So anyway, but to round off on 2:01:07.160 --> 2:01:10.240 that too to finish up. You know, Doug Stein, I 2:01:10.240 --> 2:01:12.360 think the really cool part about this is he calls 2:01:12.400 --> 2:01:16.400 it a completion, So it's not a restoration or a renovation. 2:01:16.600 --> 2:01:21.720 It's a completion because SETH. Rayner died during construction, and 2:01:21.720 --> 2:01:23.640 then they ran out of money, and then they had 2:01:23.840 --> 2:01:27.920 a hurricane that came up from Florida and everything the 2:01:27.920 --> 2:01:31.360 Panhandle and then just sat on Lookout Mountain and washed 2:01:31.840 --> 2:01:34.320 everything off of the golf course they had just top 2:01:34.360 --> 2:01:38.120 soiled and spragged it in twenty I want to say, 2:01:38.760 --> 2:01:41.840 I want to say twenty six was when that happened, 2:01:41.880 --> 2:01:45.120 or early twenty seven, because Rayner died in January twenty sixth. 2:01:45.320 --> 2:01:49.400 He did the plans in twenty five, and you know, 2:01:49.440 --> 2:01:52.720 so they had like a horrific ten inch rainstorm washed 2:01:52.720 --> 2:01:55.800 everything away, and they ran into so much rock, Like 2:01:55.840 --> 2:01:58.160 we had two rock cammers going the entire time, and 2:01:58.200 --> 2:02:03.040 I'm talking Andy like the biggest excavator you've ever seen. Yeah, 2:02:03.080 --> 2:02:05.360 we had two of them going the entire time, just 2:02:05.480 --> 2:02:10.080 rock hammering. And so I think they never built the 2:02:10.120 --> 2:02:12.680 fairy bunkers because of the rock and the granite, and 2:02:12.720 --> 2:02:15.080 they just built the fill pads and then some of 2:02:15.120 --> 2:02:18.360 the bunkers around the greens. So he calls it a 2:02:18.360 --> 2:02:21.960 completion because the plan was never completed because of the 2:02:22.000 --> 2:02:25.320 money and the rain event and all that, and so 2:02:26.680 --> 2:02:29.040 Doug Stein's got a great take on it. It's really 2:02:29.080 --> 2:02:33.720 cool and anyway, but that's Lookout. I try to be 2:02:33.720 --> 2:02:36.160 as humble as possible, but it's hard to be humble 2:02:36.200 --> 2:02:38.840 about Lookout because we're so proud of that one. We 2:02:38.960 --> 2:02:39.400 really are. 2:02:40.280 --> 2:02:45.080 Just as a personal actote from looking at the few 2:02:45.160 --> 2:02:49.360 pictures of it on your website, I just I'm so 2:02:49.560 --> 2:02:54.040 happy that the Rainer bunkers are do not look like 2:02:54.160 --> 2:02:57.880 Tetris pieces as they are interpreted at some places. There 2:02:57.960 --> 2:03:02.560 is some roundness to them. Sure they have some geometric characteristics, 2:03:02.560 --> 2:03:07.480 but they are rounded bunkers. They are not square edges 2:03:07.760 --> 2:03:10.680 that look like Tetris pieces. And I'll let everybody else 2:03:10.680 --> 2:03:12.080 put together the dots y. 2:03:12.120 --> 2:03:16.560 Yeah, exactly when people go and see I don't want 2:03:16.560 --> 2:03:20.680 to name the places, but there was an interpretation. This 2:03:20.840 --> 2:03:25.040 is my true believing, true belief on this is. You know, 2:03:25.200 --> 2:03:27.840 Brian Silva, a great architect. I have so much respect 2:03:27.920 --> 2:03:30.760 for him. He came into all these courses in the 2:03:30.840 --> 2:03:33.400 late nineties and early two thousands when people were finding 2:03:33.400 --> 2:03:37.000 out about Rainer and got a little carried ray away 2:03:37.080 --> 2:03:39.600 maybe with the edges and the corners like he did 2:03:39.600 --> 2:03:44.440 in Mount Lake, and he did, you know, at country 2:03:44.440 --> 2:03:49.560 called Charleston and a couple others. And when you see 2:03:49.680 --> 2:03:55.959 untouched Rainer, like at Fisher's Saint Louis, Chicago short acres, 2:03:56.880 --> 2:04:01.640 there are there's not one square or rectangular corner and 2:04:01.720 --> 2:04:05.280 any bunker on any aerial that you'll ever find. And 2:04:05.320 --> 2:04:09.120 then when you look at the Lookout Mountain masterplan from 2:04:09.200 --> 2:04:12.120 Rainer in twenty five, there's not one square bunker. They 2:04:12.120 --> 2:04:14.720 have beautiful shapes and round it they look like submarines. 2:04:14.800 --> 2:04:18.320 And so if you look at any historical data Fishers, Yale, 2:04:18.400 --> 2:04:22.680 any of this stuff, there's been this weird misconception by guys. 2:04:22.920 --> 2:04:25.960 They get to Rainer courses and they don't travel enough, 2:04:26.440 --> 2:04:28.960 they don't go see everything, and they just look on 2:04:29.000 --> 2:04:32.600 the interweb and they go, oh, that's Rainer, and it's 2:04:33.080 --> 2:04:37.080 very depressing. It bugs me more than you would ever 2:04:37.160 --> 2:04:41.680 imagine any because it's so it's like lazy, so lazy, 2:04:41.880 --> 2:04:42.720 it's so lazy. 2:04:43.400 --> 2:04:45.480 I think it's important to note too, with the Brian 2:04:45.520 --> 2:04:49.680 Silva stuff is that he when he started doing the 2:04:49.760 --> 2:04:55.160 rainer work, there was so little information available. We like, 2:04:55.200 --> 2:04:58.240 there needs to be a preface of like where golf 2:04:58.320 --> 2:05:02.200 architecture and restoration has gone over the last thirty years 2:05:02.240 --> 2:05:06.000 from when he was he was starting this rainer revival. 2:05:06.160 --> 2:05:09.800 And he deserves so much credit for restoration. 2:05:09.440 --> 2:05:12.680 One hundred percent. And I like him a lot, great personality. 2:05:12.160 --> 2:05:14.880 He's amazing personality. 2:05:15.440 --> 2:05:18.240 But you know what he has learned. I mean, he 2:05:18.320 --> 2:05:21.080 got it so close except for maybe the cornering of 2:05:21.120 --> 2:05:23.720 the bunkering, like the green pads and all that. The scale, 2:05:24.080 --> 2:05:27.240 he got really close and it's amazing how well he did. 2:05:27.480 --> 2:05:29.880 But if you look at Metai what he just did, 2:05:30.600 --> 2:05:33.080 so like he restored Metari, which is a rainer down 2:05:33.080 --> 2:05:36.800 in New Orleans last year. And then if you look 2:05:36.840 --> 2:05:40.840 at like the first rainer he restored, maybe in two thousand, 2:05:41.400 --> 2:05:43.360 maybe a Mount Lake I think was maybe his first. 2:05:43.360 --> 2:05:47.960 I'm not sure you can see his growth, and now 2:05:48.200 --> 2:05:51.800 like a Metori, there aren't square bunkers and weird corners 2:05:51.840 --> 2:05:55.800 like that. I think he nailed it. And so all 2:05:55.800 --> 2:05:58.480 the kudos in the world because that dude he really 2:05:58.520 --> 2:06:00.000 shed the light on it and if you go to 2:06:00.080 --> 2:06:03.640 a Black Creek there, which where Doug Stein, you know, 2:06:03.840 --> 2:06:07.280 is the man down at Black Creek just two or 2:06:07.280 --> 2:06:11.480 three miles from Lookout Mountain Club. I mean, there are 2:06:11.520 --> 2:06:14.440 some unbelievable holes by Brian Silva. It was a Brian 2:06:14.520 --> 2:06:18.280 Silva original and it's phenomenal. There are some great holes. 2:06:18.280 --> 2:06:20.360 The punch bowl there outs punch bowls like maybe the 2:06:20.400 --> 2:06:23.680 best there is and some of his takes on that 2:06:23.880 --> 2:06:26.200 on those on those holes are phenomenal. So yeah, all 2:06:26.240 --> 2:06:28.960 the kudos in the world of Brian you know, Gil 2:06:29.080 --> 2:06:31.720 is gil gets it. He gets Seth Rayner. You know, 2:06:31.840 --> 2:06:34.080 you see his work. I can't wait to see Yale, 2:06:34.080 --> 2:06:36.160 but you see his work at Fishers and stuff like that. 2:06:37.680 --> 2:06:40.360 And Kyle understood that too. Kyle friends and I we 2:06:40.480 --> 2:06:45.280 both agreed and we totally understood where we had to 2:06:45.320 --> 2:06:45.760 go with that. 2:06:46.760 --> 2:06:49.400 All right, real quick, last question. I know you're a 2:06:49.440 --> 2:06:53.240 big golf traveler. You love seeing new courses. What are 2:06:53.920 --> 2:06:56.720 you know it's spent six years or five years whatever 2:06:58.000 --> 2:07:04.120 since our last conversation. Curious, what give me three courses 2:07:04.200 --> 2:07:07.480 that are new to you in that time? That kind 2:07:07.480 --> 2:07:10.480 of knocked your socks off that that, uh, you know 2:07:10.520 --> 2:07:13.080 they could be big names or or give me one 2:07:13.120 --> 2:07:14.080 sleeper in there too. 2:07:14.480 --> 2:07:19.280 French Lick Boom, French Lick Indiana Ross Course maybe the 2:07:19.280 --> 2:07:21.839 best set of Ross greens. I mean they're wild, They're 2:07:21.880 --> 2:07:25.120 like a little over the top. I've been there now 2:07:25.200 --> 2:07:27.440 three times. I went back in May because I just like, 2:07:27.560 --> 2:07:29.280 I can't get enough of it, and it's so hard 2:07:29.320 --> 2:07:33.400 to get to. You have to like, yeah, I flew 2:07:33.440 --> 2:07:35.360 in the Louisville or I flew out of Louisville. I 2:07:35.400 --> 2:07:38.080 flew into Emmonsville, Indiana. Each way it's a couple of hours, 2:07:38.760 --> 2:07:41.320 but I want to see Victoria National two and I 2:07:41.360 --> 2:07:44.120 stopped in to see them, and that one maybe the 2:07:44.120 --> 2:07:48.880 best Fasio. But French Lick, I mean, it's just like 2:07:49.760 --> 2:07:53.800 it's early Ross too. It's nineteen fifteen, nineteen sixteen, nineteen seventeen, 2:07:54.480 --> 2:07:57.480 Like for how bold he built the greens and the bunkering. 2:07:58.280 --> 2:08:01.680 It looks like a rainer course because it's so bold. 2:08:01.800 --> 2:08:04.840 But Pete Die, I always like, before Pete passed, I 2:08:04.840 --> 2:08:07.720 wanted to ask him he knew who built that for 2:08:07.880 --> 2:08:11.680 Ross the constructor, and I never heard the name, and 2:08:11.760 --> 2:08:13.600 I wish I that was If I had one question 2:08:13.680 --> 2:08:16.320 for Pete Die before he died. You're like Pete who 2:08:16.360 --> 2:08:20.440 built French like for Ross because it it it influenced 2:08:20.480 --> 2:08:24.640 Pete Dye. That's how awesome it is. So that when 2:08:24.680 --> 2:08:31.600 Andy's number one, probably number two would be what has 2:08:31.600 --> 2:08:35.560 shocked me, like kind of like you know, definitely on 2:08:35.600 --> 2:08:38.920 the Langford. When I've been on this Langford kick, I'm 2:08:38.960 --> 2:08:42.480 always I'm always shocked. Where you'll find a Langford or 2:08:42.480 --> 2:08:45.040 Moreau and there will be like two greens remaining that 2:08:45.120 --> 2:08:49.200 are just like mind boggling, you know, like like if 2:08:49.280 --> 2:08:52.360 sixteen holes of duds and then like two of the 2:08:52.400 --> 2:08:56.760 most incredible greens you've ever seen. There's a course called 2:08:56.800 --> 2:09:02.400 ozaki Yea in Wisconsin is just south of I think 2:09:02.400 --> 2:09:04.520 it's right around Milwaukee Country Club and all that, that 2:09:04.560 --> 2:09:06.360 whole district just north of Milwaukee. 2:09:06.720 --> 2:09:09.160 It's in near Mechwon, Yeah. 2:09:09.000 --> 2:09:13.560 Mechwon, just south of West Bend and all that. But 2:09:13.880 --> 2:09:17.040 my buddy Brett, the superintendent, I went to UK with 2:09:17.160 --> 2:09:19.960 Kentucky and I've stopped be in I've probably been there 2:09:20.240 --> 2:09:24.440 four times. But this last visit I really had like 2:09:24.440 --> 2:09:27.320 an epiphany because it was built the same year as Wakanda, 2:09:27.400 --> 2:09:30.880 So nineteen twenty one Early Langford. We call it early 2:09:30.920 --> 2:09:35.360 because it's before he really got cooking, So it's the 2:09:35.360 --> 2:09:37.080 same year as Wakanda. So I just wanted to see 2:09:37.080 --> 2:09:40.160 the similarities. And it was like I was like a 2:09:40.280 --> 2:09:42.680 kid out there. I was laughing, I was giggling. I 2:09:42.720 --> 2:09:45.080 was out there all by myself, like four pm to dark, 2:09:45.920 --> 2:09:48.040 maybe a month and a half ago. It was like 2:09:48.080 --> 2:09:50.200 the best day of the year because I couldn't believe 2:09:51.440 --> 2:09:54.440 it was identical to Wakanda in the sense that like 2:09:54.960 --> 2:09:58.440 there's six world class greens out there. Great it's like 2:09:59.000 --> 2:10:01.640 great Land, but then there's like six that almost don't 2:10:01.680 --> 2:10:04.440 look like Langford holes, like somebody totally blew up, you know, 2:10:04.520 --> 2:10:07.160 somebody came into the eighties and like re routed. But 2:10:07.680 --> 2:10:09.480 the stuff that's sitting there, there's a fourth I think 2:10:09.520 --> 2:10:11.640 it's the fourteenth hole. It's a par three up the hill. 2:10:12.360 --> 2:10:15.720 It's the best part three that I've seen. It has 2:10:15.840 --> 2:10:18.680 so much complexity in the green and these big rolls 2:10:18.680 --> 2:10:21.120 and these big valleys. It's like Number two at Culver 2:10:21.320 --> 2:10:23.760 but better you know, Number two cover kind of the 2:10:23.840 --> 2:10:29.280 radan that blew my socks away. Because somebody asked me recently, 2:10:29.320 --> 2:10:31.680 like Oh, where would you want to work if somebody 2:10:31.680 --> 2:10:33.600 calls you, you know, in the next couple of years. 2:10:34.000 --> 2:10:36.480 And I was thinking, like, man, I could really I 2:10:36.480 --> 2:10:39.760 could really have some fun in Ozaki, Like we could 2:10:39.880 --> 2:10:43.560 crush it there and like it would be like the 2:10:43.640 --> 2:10:46.240 number one course other than maybe Lasonia or Sand Valley 2:10:46.240 --> 2:10:50.200 and stuff in or Milwaukee in Wisconsin. We could bring 2:10:50.240 --> 2:10:54.920 it up to the stratosphere. And the funniest thing is 2:10:55.560 --> 2:10:57.560 the other one. The third one is right up the 2:10:57.640 --> 2:11:00.480 road at Sheboygan Country clubine Hills. 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:02.680 Pine Hills is insane. 2:11:03.120 --> 2:11:05.440 You know it because you've been there a bunch. But 2:11:05.640 --> 2:11:08.800 they called me, you know, when I was at Beverly 2:11:08.840 --> 2:11:11.760 on a bulldozer when they called, and I'm like, pine Hills. 2:11:12.240 --> 2:11:15.080 It sounded like a name, Like the name the name 2:11:15.240 --> 2:11:18.400 is like so misleading because it's like what it sounds 2:11:18.480 --> 2:11:21.600 like a generic like you know, pine Hills is like 2:11:22.040 --> 2:11:24.840 a clip art version of a golf course name. 2:11:25.360 --> 2:11:28.280 Right, So I remember they called. And the funniest story 2:11:28.360 --> 2:11:32.240 I'm on like the twelve twelfth green at Beverly and 2:11:32.240 --> 2:11:33.880 I'm sitting there in the dozer because I remember it 2:11:33.920 --> 2:11:36.600 like yesterday, and I'm like, yeah, I didn't answer the 2:11:36.640 --> 2:11:39.200 phone because I had the music going and we were motoring, 2:11:39.480 --> 2:11:41.200 but I listened to the voicemail when I got off 2:11:41.200 --> 2:11:44.080 the dozer at dark and I look up pine Hills. 2:11:44.120 --> 2:11:46.560 So I type in pine Hills on my phone. Thirty 2:11:46.680 --> 2:11:48.880 courses come up. I couldn't figure out which one, so 2:11:48.920 --> 2:11:50.920 I was like, where is this? Where's this guy called 2:11:50.960 --> 2:11:54.440 me from? Is it like pine Hills in Texas? Is 2:11:54.440 --> 2:11:57.600 it pine Hills in California? So anyway, so the funny thing, 2:11:57.680 --> 2:12:00.120 so long story short, I go up there and I'm 2:12:00.120 --> 2:12:02.920 walking around with the committee and I'm like, oh, one's good, 2:12:03.080 --> 2:12:06.840 Oh yeah, two's good, Wow, three is cool? Man four 2:12:06.960 --> 2:12:09.000 is great. I mean we got through like ten holes 2:12:09.000 --> 2:12:11.600 and I'm like, why am I here? This place is 2:12:11.640 --> 2:12:13.200 so good. You don't even mean me. Agen need to 2:12:13.240 --> 2:12:14.120 cut down some trees. 2:12:14.760 --> 2:12:18.640 And honestly, honestly, I think like it could be the 2:12:18.680 --> 2:12:19.880 best course in Wisconsin. 2:12:20.520 --> 2:12:23.160 It could be. It could be, it could be top forty, 2:12:23.640 --> 2:12:24.879 could be top forty in America. 2:12:25.240 --> 2:12:29.480 I mean, it is so insanely good, and nobody ever 2:12:29.560 --> 2:12:32.840 talks about it because of the cooler courses, right, And 2:12:32.880 --> 2:12:35.960 it's like, that's that's the most fun course in town. 2:12:36.560 --> 2:12:38.640 That's the one that's the most fun to play. Like 2:12:38.800 --> 2:12:41.520 Whistleing Straits is gorgeous, is on the on the lake. 2:12:41.920 --> 2:12:44.800 There's some really cool stuff at Whistleing Straits. It's amazing 2:12:44.800 --> 2:12:47.840 what they did with earthwork there and it's in. But 2:12:48.000 --> 2:12:53.240 like from just a knock your socks off golf architecture experience, 2:12:53.360 --> 2:12:57.440 there are very few. Like you walk out to Pine 2:12:57.520 --> 2:12:59.000 Pine Hills is just insane. 2:13:00.080 --> 2:13:03.040 Yeah, you leave there and you're like, all right, what's 2:13:03.080 --> 2:13:06.160 the worst hole? And you can't. I mean, like I 2:13:06.200 --> 2:13:08.560 came up with the sixteenth, the part three, I kind 2:13:08.560 --> 2:13:11.000 of told them in my interview process, like we could 2:13:11.040 --> 2:13:13.520 cut down the trees, move the cart path, you know, 2:13:13.560 --> 2:13:15.280 shift this a little bit, but I want to touch 2:13:15.320 --> 2:13:17.360 the other seventeen. I just cut trees now, like the 2:13:17.400 --> 2:13:21.000 whole interior of eighteen, the big Boomerang hole with the 2:13:21.000 --> 2:13:21.520 big play. 2:13:21.680 --> 2:13:25.280 They did that too. It's unbelievable the different the difference 2:13:25.320 --> 2:13:27.920 it made. I actually had before and after footage. I've 2:13:27.960 --> 2:13:30.560 been meaning to post something on it. 2:13:31.080 --> 2:13:34.040 Yeah you should, but I didn't win that one. I 2:13:34.080 --> 2:13:39.400 was runner up and I should have done it for free, 2:13:39.520 --> 2:13:41.880 Like I don't even know what I was. I wasn't 2:13:41.880 --> 2:13:43.760 focused at the time because I was like sew into 2:13:43.800 --> 2:13:46.400 Beverly and like I kind of went up there and 2:13:46.400 --> 2:13:48.600 I don't think I don't think I had a good interview, 2:13:48.880 --> 2:13:52.640 and I really that's the number one of course, I 2:13:52.720 --> 2:13:56.720 wish I I had garnered because it is like playland. 2:13:58.280 --> 2:13:59.960 But the funny thing is it wouldn't have helped me 2:14:00.160 --> 2:14:01.760 get any other work because. 2:14:01.480 --> 2:14:02.920 Of nobody knows it. 2:14:03.120 --> 2:14:05.240 Nobody knows it, so you could do world class work 2:14:05.280 --> 2:14:07.760 and make it even better. But it's just the weirdest thing. 2:14:07.800 --> 2:14:09.800 Like I don't even understand why Golf Digest and like 2:14:09.920 --> 2:14:13.760 Rand war set and and like I typed in, so 2:14:14.080 --> 2:14:17.320 I'm on the you know whatever, the panel for Golf 2:14:17.360 --> 2:14:21.000 magazine and I he there's a write in at the bottom, like, hey, 2:14:21.040 --> 2:14:23.200 tell us if we've missed anything. I've written in pine 2:14:23.240 --> 2:14:27.400 Hills every fricking year on Rand's thing, like hey, Ran, I. 2:14:27.400 --> 2:14:30.600 Think he finally went there. I saw something about it. 2:14:30.640 --> 2:14:33.920 But yeah, I feel like we've been banging the Pine 2:14:33.960 --> 2:14:37.600 Hills drum for years. It's I mean, they have you know, 2:14:37.840 --> 2:14:40.720 listeners there. They have one of the best national memberships 2:14:40.760 --> 2:14:42.440 in the in the country too. 2:14:42.600 --> 2:14:44.560 Like I'd be a member there, I mean a really. 2:14:44.400 --> 2:14:49.600 Incredible, incredible national membership, especially for people from Chicago. But 2:14:49.680 --> 2:14:51.360 they a no brainer. 2:14:51.360 --> 2:14:54.280 If they hired Drew Rogers, who's a UK alum too, 2:14:54.320 --> 2:14:56.520 and I like him a lot, great guy. I really 2:14:56.520 --> 2:14:58.120 get along with Drew. I have a ton of respect 2:14:58.160 --> 2:15:01.320 for him. So they're in great hands. And all you 2:15:01.440 --> 2:15:03.800 gotta do is remove trees and open it up and 2:15:03.840 --> 2:15:06.120 get the native greens, span greens. 2:15:06.200 --> 2:15:07.520 I mean it's fair ways too. 2:15:07.840 --> 2:15:10.440 Yeah, and I think he'll get all that right. And 2:15:10.520 --> 2:15:12.240 I'm telling you, it's got to be in the top 2:15:12.280 --> 2:15:15.800 one hundred, like Brookside made a leap in the number 2:15:15.880 --> 2:15:18.960 ninety six this year. I mean Pine, if Brookside did it, 2:15:19.040 --> 2:15:22.600 Pine Hills has to be in the top one hundred, 2:15:22.840 --> 2:15:23.040 you know. 2:15:23.080 --> 2:15:26.480 And then Harry Speed there's a there's a course in 2:15:26.640 --> 2:15:30.040 Chicago that I played a ton in my twenties called 2:15:30.480 --> 2:15:33.720 Big Run that Harry Smede did. It's been monkeyed with, 2:15:33.840 --> 2:15:36.920 but you still you see some of the crazy stuff, 2:15:37.120 --> 2:15:40.400 like there's not a ton of it left, but it's 2:15:40.640 --> 2:15:43.800 it's embroiled in some housing development thing. I mean, if 2:15:43.840 --> 2:15:46.680 you were talking about a public golf course in in 2:15:46.760 --> 2:15:49.800 Chicago that you could take and you know, with five 2:15:49.840 --> 2:15:52.720 million dollars make off the charts. There there's three that 2:15:52.800 --> 2:15:56.400 come to mind. It's can't Kicky Elk's big run, and 2:15:56.440 --> 2:15:59.480 then you Spring Valley, which is technically in Wisconsin, but 2:16:00.280 --> 2:16:01.320 forty five minutes from the. 2:16:01.480 --> 2:16:03.640 It's still Yeah. I think some people are trying to 2:16:03.680 --> 2:16:05.400 get on that. I think they're trying. 2:16:05.120 --> 2:16:07.000 To a lot of people are a lot of people 2:16:07.080 --> 2:16:08.200 are sniffing around. 2:16:08.800 --> 2:16:11.440 You know though, to be honest, we took a Jim 2:16:11.480 --> 2:16:13.080 and Ryan and I know we got to wrap up here. 2:16:13.080 --> 2:16:15.200 But Jim Ryan and I took a deep, deep dive 2:16:16.480 --> 2:16:20.600 recently and spent like real meaningful days really looking at 2:16:20.600 --> 2:16:24.800 the architecture. And unfortunately, I think Kanka Kee blows Spring 2:16:24.880 --> 2:16:27.240 Valley all of the water Spring Valley. Spring Valley is 2:16:27.280 --> 2:16:28.040 just a little boring. 2:16:28.360 --> 2:16:31.160 Spring Valley is in a better spot, though it's a 2:16:31.240 --> 2:16:34.440 better It's like you're you got Lake Geneva, you got 2:16:34.440 --> 2:16:37.600 the northern suburbs, You've got like it's it's just like 2:16:38.160 --> 2:16:41.960 Kanka Key Elks. Is that difference between forty five minutes 2:16:42.000 --> 2:16:46.040 from city center versus Kanka Key Elks like our twenty 2:16:46.640 --> 2:16:50.320 that's a that's a huge difference. But Kanka Key Elks. 2:16:50.480 --> 2:16:53.280 I think Kanka Key Elks could be one of the 2:16:53.320 --> 2:16:56.560 four best courses in Illinois, full stop. 2:16:56.480 --> 2:17:00.520 Yep, yep. It has everything. The greens have so much character, 2:17:00.640 --> 2:17:03.880 the lambst incredible, the bunkerings all there. They could cut 2:17:03.879 --> 2:17:06.360 down the trees they're trying to. I think if they 2:17:06.400 --> 2:17:11.600 got back the old volcano part three fourteen sitting there, 2:17:11.680 --> 2:17:13.360 there's a flag in it. Somebody put a flag in 2:17:13.400 --> 2:17:15.080 it last time we were there, which was great. 2:17:15.080 --> 2:17:18.680 I got so excited because the last time I was there, 2:17:18.800 --> 2:17:20.560 they had a mower on it and I was like, 2:17:20.800 --> 2:17:23.760 they're mowing it out, but they stripped the green of 2:17:23.800 --> 2:17:27.920 all the green grass, so they'd have to rest it. 2:17:28.080 --> 2:17:31.640 And you know, it's it's just so funny that one 2:17:31.720 --> 2:17:36.920 par three that they bypassed it for. It makes a 2:17:37.040 --> 2:17:40.160 pro built allegedly a pro built it in like nineteen 2:17:40.200 --> 2:17:42.960 eighty and he was and he just pushed it up. 2:17:43.040 --> 2:17:45.520 It's covered in shade all year. Then you have this 2:17:45.680 --> 2:17:49.440 terrible walk back to the next tea. It's just uh 2:17:50.320 --> 2:17:54.320 but yeah, that place, that place is amazing. There's you know, 2:17:54.440 --> 2:17:59.160 the the opportunity for great public golf in Chicago exists, 2:17:59.200 --> 2:18:02.680 but Unfortunately it is so far away from having great 2:18:02.680 --> 2:18:07.040 public golf. So sorry to end it on a diary. 2:18:07.360 --> 2:18:09.000 But a real quick, quick. 2:18:09.160 --> 2:18:11.680 I real quick. I. Since you always are asking all 2:18:11.720 --> 2:18:14.000 the questions I got to ask a question for the 2:18:14.080 --> 2:18:17.160 audience here. You asked me the three courses that I 2:18:17.200 --> 2:18:20.080 thought were really cool that you know we haven't discussed ver. 2:18:20.480 --> 2:18:22.720 What are your three in all your travels? Because I 2:18:22.760 --> 2:18:24.280 know you're on the road a lot, so give us 2:18:24.320 --> 2:18:24.800 three real. 2:18:24.760 --> 2:18:29.040 Quick, all right? Recent this is recency bias. I Saint 2:18:29.080 --> 2:18:33.200 George's is out of this world like that that got 2:18:33.280 --> 2:18:36.840 the land, the the there's it's got like a little 2:18:36.879 --> 2:18:39.920 bit of everything, right. I hadn't seen like Devereaux emmet 2:18:40.040 --> 2:18:42.959 at like at you know, I'd seen Garden City, which 2:18:43.000 --> 2:18:45.440 is you know a lot of Devaux Emmett, which was great, 2:18:45.760 --> 2:18:50.080 but like it's got some quirk, It's got some some funk. 2:18:50.400 --> 2:18:52.520 It's got some of those like holes that you could 2:18:52.560 --> 2:18:55.680 take and just put on National Golf links or Shinnakok 2:18:55.760 --> 2:18:57.600 and be like, oh, this is just one of the holes, 2:18:57.640 --> 2:19:00.080 like the twelfth hole out there, you know that finishing 2:19:00.120 --> 2:19:03.080 stretches amazing. But then it's got like that cool. I 2:19:03.200 --> 2:19:06.720 was at ten, the like kind of like sidewinding short 2:19:06.760 --> 2:19:09.560 part four that with the like punch bowl green at 2:19:09.560 --> 2:19:14.160 that right on the on the road like it is. Yeah, 2:19:14.200 --> 2:19:17.280 it's like so funky and cool, so I would put 2:19:17.959 --> 2:19:22.720 that in there. Let's see, let me think about what 2:19:22.840 --> 2:19:25.920 else I've seen recently. I well, this is just going 2:19:25.959 --> 2:19:29.360 to be a New Jersey thing, because I mean New 2:19:29.440 --> 2:19:32.199 Jersey golf in general is amazing. But I couldn't believe 2:19:32.240 --> 2:19:36.040 how good Essex County was in New Jersey right like 2:19:36.080 --> 2:19:39.360 they're gonna do this Gillhands renovation. I kind of was like, Oh, 2:19:39.640 --> 2:19:41.959 we're going to see it before it gets renovated, and 2:19:42.040 --> 2:19:44.560 I was like, God, this isn't like very far off 2:19:44.560 --> 2:19:46.959 from being like really really good, you. 2:19:47.000 --> 2:19:49.040 Know, the same thing I walked it. I thought they 2:19:49.040 --> 2:19:51.240 had already done the renovation. 2:19:51.320 --> 2:19:51.800 Yeah. 2:19:51.840 --> 2:19:54.680 I was like, oh, this is amazing. Gil crushed it here. 2:19:54.879 --> 2:19:56.520 And They're like, oh no, we haven't done it yet, 2:19:56.560 --> 2:19:59.160 and I'm like what, Yeah, I walked like three years 2:19:59.160 --> 2:20:01.879 ago and thought it was mind boggling good yep. 2:20:02.640 --> 2:20:06.320 And then a third let's see this is the this 2:20:06.360 --> 2:20:10.320 is where it gets tough. A third new course from 2:20:10.360 --> 2:20:15.480 this year, uh recently, I mean I went to Scotland, 2:20:15.480 --> 2:20:18.400 which is hard because like all all the stuff over there, 2:20:19.520 --> 2:20:22.640 really you know, if I was going to pick one 2:20:22.760 --> 2:20:26.080 in Scotland. I've talked about this on this pod a 2:20:26.120 --> 2:20:30.960 lot as Elie was one that uh, I think there 2:20:31.040 --> 2:20:33.199 was like a lot of things going on in my life. 2:20:33.280 --> 2:20:36.439 I was I've gotten off the mat with food poisoning, 2:20:36.640 --> 2:20:39.640 like from two days earlier. That was like debilitating to me. 2:20:40.320 --> 2:20:42.440 And it was just this like you know, Wednesday of 2:20:42.480 --> 2:20:45.120 the Open Championship, I had been at Saint Andrews all 2:20:45.200 --> 2:20:48.240 day and got on it and we're racing against the dark. 2:20:48.320 --> 2:20:52.200 But the the routing out there is just it's just 2:20:52.680 --> 2:20:55.440 a magical journey, you know, the way you stay that 2:20:56.080 --> 2:20:58.640 the whole I think just in general, the whole in 2:20:59.560 --> 2:21:02.720 the any course that starts in town and you venture 2:21:02.760 --> 2:21:05.880 away from town and you have like this this journey 2:21:05.879 --> 2:21:08.200 out just like it. You know, North Barrick has it. 2:21:08.240 --> 2:21:11.640 St Andrews, the Old Course has it. Eely has it. 2:21:12.120 --> 2:21:16.920 There's just something so special about leaving town and then 2:21:17.000 --> 2:21:22.360 coming back like that. It just sets such a it 2:21:22.400 --> 2:21:28.960 makes the round a a trip right and and that's 2:21:29.080 --> 2:21:31.920 just such a beautiful thing. But with like eee the 2:21:31.959 --> 2:21:35.760 way you bounce back and forth. I thought from the 2:21:35.959 --> 2:21:39.640 ocean versus like, you know, staying, like getting out there 2:21:39.879 --> 2:21:43.040 right away and like blasting it early, or you know, 2:21:43.120 --> 2:21:46.240 like the way it jogs between it, you know, gives 2:21:46.280 --> 2:21:49.680 you looks, takes you away, brings you back and then 2:21:49.760 --> 2:21:52.600 you think it's over like that. That one, to me, 2:21:53.400 --> 2:21:56.480 that's the one, you know, it's funny. I saw North Barrack, 2:21:56.640 --> 2:22:00.000 I saw Mirfield, I saw the I played the Old 2:22:00.160 --> 2:22:02.440 Course the Tuesday after the Open. I think about all 2:22:02.480 --> 2:22:04.400 those courses a lot, but the one that I want 2:22:04.440 --> 2:22:08.080 to get back to the most is probably Ely in 2:22:08.160 --> 2:22:10.520 North Barrack. Those are the two that I really want 2:22:10.560 --> 2:22:13.200 to And it's not fair to the Old Course because 2:22:13.200 --> 2:22:16.680 I spent an entire week walking around the Old Course 2:22:16.760 --> 2:22:19.000 and then I played it right like so, I you know, 2:22:19.040 --> 2:22:21.480 I've walked around that one probably ten times at this 2:22:21.600 --> 2:22:25.440 point in my life versus Ely. It was just this one. 2:22:25.520 --> 2:22:28.120 We finished in the dark. It was pitch black and 2:22:28.160 --> 2:22:30.120 it was just like, God, I just want to get 2:22:30.160 --> 2:22:30.680 back there. 2:22:30.840 --> 2:22:33.360 So they still have that periscope on the first team. 2:22:34.040 --> 2:22:36.800 Oh yeah, Amaz, i'n't. 2:22:36.480 --> 2:22:39.640 Been there a couple of years. And oh like twenty fifteen, 2:22:39.680 --> 2:22:41.040 I think was my last visit there. 2:22:41.480 --> 2:22:44.760 Oh did Spring Valleys? Did Spring Valley still have the 2:22:44.760 --> 2:22:49.840 periscope on a whole twelve? Oh gosh, the plastic plassic 2:22:49.920 --> 2:22:50.840 PVC five? 2:22:51.240 --> 2:22:53.680 Yeah, yeah, because I actually drove Jim over to see 2:22:53.720 --> 2:22:57.039 it because we actually borrowed a cart there and he 2:22:57.160 --> 2:22:58.800 was like, what is this And I'm like, you won't 2:22:58.800 --> 2:23:01.360 even believe it. I'm like, it's it's pretty bad. 2:23:01.680 --> 2:23:06.160 Yeah, yeah, it's all right. Hey, thanks so much for 2:23:06.200 --> 2:23:10.360 the time. Everybody can follow along. You occasionally post on 2:23:10.400 --> 2:23:14.920 Instagram and Twitter, but you know, your your handles are there, 2:23:14.959 --> 2:23:17.880 and I can't wait to see your new work as 2:23:17.920 --> 2:23:21.600 well as some of your recent restoration work. And congrats 2:23:21.640 --> 2:23:24.560 on all the growth, and you know it's it's it's 2:23:24.560 --> 2:23:29.039 fun to see some of the the next generation of 2:23:29.120 --> 2:23:31.760 architects getting great opportunities. 2:23:32.000 --> 2:23:34.200 Thank you, Andy. Yeah, for sure. And I know my 2:23:34.280 --> 2:23:37.600 wife and my family have kind of gotten after me 2:23:37.640 --> 2:23:40.240 about social media. So I'm I have like a one 2:23:40.480 --> 2:23:43.160 one post a week, and I'm doing more stories and 2:23:43.760 --> 2:23:47.760 I posted like three times last year and everybody's like, dude, 2:23:47.959 --> 2:23:50.200 all my friends everybody's telling me I have to be 2:23:50.400 --> 2:23:55.480 more social media oriented. So I am making a big 2:23:55.520 --> 2:23:57.360 push and I'm going to put a lot more stuff 2:23:57.360 --> 2:24:00.240 out there. I'm taking the drone with me everywhere, so 2:24:00.280 --> 2:24:01.800 I people are going to see a lot more Beverly 2:24:01.879 --> 2:24:06.160 and Northmoor, Wakanda, not Lake, you know, look out, Charleston, 2:24:06.560 --> 2:24:09.360 spy Ring, Detroit so Brave Barn. 2:24:09.720 --> 2:24:13.039 Yeah, awesome, all right, thanks Tyler, we'll talk soon. 2:24:13.160 --> 2:24:15.080 All right, Andy, thank you so much. Appreciate it. 2:24:25.640 --> 2:24:28.920 Thanks for listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. 2:24:28.959 --> 2:24:32.840 Today's episode was edited by Matt Rushes. Thank you Matt. 2:24:33.480 --> 2:24:37.119 As a quick reminder, Club tf's humming, We've got lots 2:24:37.160 --> 2:24:40.000 of stuff up there. We put up a bally Neil 2:24:40.200 --> 2:24:43.240 video routing bally Neil video with Tom Doak last week, 2:24:43.320 --> 2:24:46.840 which has gotten rave reviews. It's it's a phenomenal watch. 2:24:46.920 --> 2:24:49.360 I you know, I didn't have any part in it, 2:24:49.440 --> 2:24:51.440 so I can I can say that. I guess I 2:24:51.480 --> 2:24:53.720 shot it a little bit of footage, but Cameron threw 2:24:53.800 --> 2:24:57.440 together and it's a video interview with Tom talking about 2:24:57.520 --> 2:25:01.520 routing bally Neil. It's really good. Right on top of that, 2:25:02.480 --> 2:25:05.440 one big announcement, we have a member guest coming to 2:25:06.200 --> 2:25:10.560 CLUBTFE we're going to be doing more events for members 2:25:10.600 --> 2:25:14.000 and clubtf and the coming probably next year, we'll we'll 2:25:14.000 --> 2:25:17.240 have more but you know, more opportunities for CLUBTFE members 2:25:17.320 --> 2:25:20.959 to play some cool places. We're doing a member guest. 2:25:21.400 --> 2:25:26.080 It'll be in northern California. It's in October, end of October, 2:25:26.760 --> 2:25:28.280 so if you want to be a part of that. 2:25:28.360 --> 2:25:31.280 The best way to get involved with those events are 2:25:31.400 --> 2:25:35.040 through CLUBTFE. You can sign up at the Frida egg 2:25:35.080 --> 2:25:38.400 dot com slash membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars 2:25:38.440 --> 2:25:40.400 a year and it's really the best way to support 2:25:40.400 --> 2:25:43.560 what we do here. So thank you guys, and we 2:25:43.640 --> 2:25:46.520 will be back next week with some new episodes of 2:25:46.560 --> 2:26:07.160 the Frida Egg Podcast.