Speaker 1: Today we're talking about what makes Riviera Country Club a
Speaker 1: great golf course. My guest is a professional golfer who
Speaker 1: has played Riviera in competition. He's also a golf course
Speaker 1: enthusiast and most recently a golf course developer. His name
Speaker 1: is Zach Blair. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf,
Speaker 1: all right. So today's big question is a two parter.
Speaker 1: Why is Riviera a great golf course and how could
Speaker 1: it be better? So right off the bat, I'd say
Speaker 1: that Riviera is one of the best designed golf courses
Speaker 1: in America. I would put it in the top ten
Speaker 1: in that regard, probably maybe the top five. Is just
Speaker 1: an incredibly accomplished work of golf architecture by George Thomas
Speaker 1: and his associate Billy Bell. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: jumps out to me about it is the whole to
Speaker 1: whole variety. Every hole feels immediately distinct and memorable. You know,
Speaker 1: Jeff Shackelford likes to talk about the drive home test.
Speaker 1: As you're driving home, how easily can you call each
Speaker 1: hole to your memory? And I would say Riviera passes
Speaker 1: that test about as well as any course in the world.
Speaker 1: And that's particularly impressive to me with Riviera because the
Speaker 1: property itself doesn't have all that much inherent variety in it.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not bad, you know, it's just a southern
Speaker 1: California canyon essentially with a baranka running down one side,
Speaker 1: so there is some stuff to work with, but the
Speaker 1: valley floor itself is pretty boring, and there's just not
Speaker 1: the kind of undulation that you see at other courses
Speaker 1: that are in Riviera's class. You know, you consider Oakmont
Speaker 1: or Shinnacok Hills or Marion to be the rivals of Riviera.
Speaker 1: Riviera just doesn't have what those courses have in terms
Speaker 1: of topography. And yet each hole at Riviera has its
Speaker 1: own distinct personality. So why don't we walk through a
Speaker 1: stretch of holes that I think really exemplifies this characteristic
Speaker 1: of Riviera's and that for me is holes four through eight.
Speaker 1: So starting with the fourth hole, this is a long
Speaker 1: par three built right into the canyon wall. It's sort
Speaker 1: of George Thomas's version of a Ridan template. So the
Speaker 1: green is protected front left and its slopes as well
Speaker 1: as angles front right to back left, and then there's
Speaker 1: this big kicker slope coming off the canyon wall feeding
Speaker 1: into the green. Just a really striking, beautiful rendition of
Speaker 1: a ridan. Then you get to the fifth hole, a
Speaker 1: muscular par four, slight dog leg to the left, plenty
Speaker 1: of room on the right, but if you bail out
Speaker 1: to the right, your approach is going to be blocked
Speaker 1: out by this big mound that sits front right of
Speaker 1: the green. So it's all about hugging the inside of
Speaker 1: the dog leg there going left if you can. All right,
Speaker 1: Now we go to six, which is the famous doughnut
Speaker 1: par three with the bunker right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the green. Incredibly bold choice by Thomas, but it's also
Speaker 1: functional because if you know the contours of the green,
Speaker 1: you can usually put around the bunker. If you're on
Speaker 1: the wrong side of it. You see a lot of
Speaker 1: players in PGA Tour events chipping over it, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an option, but really you can put to almost
Speaker 1: any pin position on that green if you know how
Speaker 1: to use the contours very clever. Then you go to
Speaker 1: the seventh hole, which is a strategic par four playing
Speaker 1: along the main baranka of the property. It's short enough
Speaker 1: to be gettable, but the baranca is on the right.
Speaker 1: And then there's this big bunker that comes in diagonally
Speaker 1: from the left, so the fairway sort of pinches in
Speaker 1: and that forces you to make a decision off the
Speaker 1: tee about how far up you want to push. Finally,
Speaker 1: the eighth hole is a split fairway par four with
Speaker 1: the baranka running right down the middle, and once again
Speaker 1: decision time off the tee. You have to choose between
Speaker 1: two completely different routes, each with its own potential advantages
Speaker 1: and disadvantages. So right there in the span of five holes,
Speaker 1: you've got a long redand type par three and a
Speaker 1: tough par four, both along the canyon wall. You've got
Speaker 1: a shorter par three with a bunker right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the green. You've got a short, strategic par four,
Speaker 1: and then a double fairway hole. That's a lot of variety,
Speaker 1: and I think it really speaks to Tom Skill in
Speaker 1: giving each whole some distinctive characteristic that lodges in the
Speaker 1: player's memory, and it also shows Thomas's facility with strategic design.
Speaker 1: All of the par fours in that stretch have some
Speaker 1: kind of risk reward element. On five, it's about pushing
Speaker 1: toward that left edge. On seven, it's about how much
Speaker 1: you want to take on the bottleneck, and on eight
Speaker 1: it's about choosing between two entirely different fairways. So you've
Speaker 1: got three distinctive flavors of what I would call the
Speaker 1: strategic school of golf architecture right there. But each one
Speaker 1: is very well thought out, very well balanced, just ingeniously
Speaker 1: conceived by George Thomas. Okay, So another thing that makes
Speaker 1: Riviera special is the quality of its earthworks, Especially for
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, which is when the course opened. Hers
Speaker 1: Thomas and Billy Bell, who was his associate and kind
Speaker 1: of lead construction guy, moved quite a bit of dirt
Speaker 1: to make everything at Riviera work, and they actually used
Speaker 1: some newish technology in this process. They used what were
Speaker 1: called road scrapers, basically motorized earth moving vehicles. But when
Speaker 1: you visit Riviera for the first time, you don't really
Speaker 1: notice that the land was significantly manipulated. You don't notice
Speaker 1: the work of those road scrapers, and that's because Thomas
Speaker 1: and Bell were very skilled at concealing their cuts and fills.
Speaker 1: Everything looks natural and effortless, and I think the most
Speaker 1: impressive example of this work is along the canyon wall
Speaker 1: at the northwestern end of the site. That's where you'll
Speaker 1: find holes four, five and eighteen. Four and five we've
Speaker 1: already talked about from a strategic perspective, but one thing
Speaker 1: I'd recommend doing on four and five is walking down
Speaker 1: to the left of those greens and looking back up.
Speaker 1: That's when you'll see how big those fill pads are
Speaker 1: that prop up the greens against the canyon wall. You
Speaker 1: just don't see that when you're playing the holes unless
Speaker 1: you hit your ball down there, but if you look
Speaker 1: at them, you just see those are massive, right. And
Speaker 1: then there's eighteen, which is hugely manufactured. Initially, there was
Speaker 1: this twenty foot gully running along the base of the
Speaker 1: hill below the clubhouse and right where they wanted to
Speaker 1: put the eighteenth green, and so to build that green,
Speaker 1: Thomas and Bell filled in the gully and then raise
Speaker 1: the green another ten feet to get what you see now.
Speaker 1: But when you look at it today, you would not
Speaker 1: guess that the terrain was originally totally different, and that's
Speaker 1: a sign of quality construction. So, yes, Riviera is a
Speaker 1: brilliantly designed golf course. In its current form, however, I
Speaker 1: think it falls well short of its potential. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about a few specific issues that Riviera has. The
Speaker 1: first is the Kakuya grass, which is the primary turf
Speaker 1: found in the fairways and rough at Riviera. This is
Speaker 1: not the original turf. It was probably introduced in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight to reinforce certain sections of the property after
Speaker 1: a massive flood damaged the course. But it's an incredibly sticky,
Speaker 1: grabby turf type, which means that the ball doesn't bounce
Speaker 1: and run all that much. And that's a shame because
Speaker 1: Thomas designed Riviera to be played along the ground. He
Speaker 1: wanted players to be able to run shots into green
Speaker 1: and to use all those interesting slopes and contours that
Speaker 1: Thomas and Bell built. But that's not really the reality
Speaker 1: at Riviera anymore. It is primarily an aerial golf course.
Speaker 1: The second problem is that the greens and fairways have
Speaker 1: shrunk considerably over time. This is an issue you see
Speaker 1: at a lot of classic golf courses. Mowing lines creep
Speaker 1: inward and suddenly you've lost significant portions of the playing surfaces.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, you lose some of the character
Speaker 1: of the design. You lose width, you lose strategic angles,
Speaker 1: you lose a sense of scale. Right the golf course
Speaker 1: matching the scale of the land, everything gets kind of muffled,
Speaker 1: and that's what I think has happened at Riviera. The
Speaker 1: third issue I'd point out is the lack of vegetative
Speaker 1: texture on the property. Right now, Riviera is dominated by cocua,
Speaker 1: grap and eucalyptus trees, and that makes for a pretty
Speaker 1: limited visual palette. If you just compare Riviera with the
Speaker 1: North course at Los Angeles Country Club, I think you'll
Speaker 1: see what I mean. LACC has that indigenous southern California look.
Speaker 1: It has scrubby vegetation, It has a wonderful variety of trees.
Speaker 1: The barankas are colorful and rugged, all of which is
Speaker 1: a credit to Gil Hans and the restoration that he
Speaker 1: did there fifteen years ago, and also to the club's
Speaker 1: stewardship since then. But I think Riviera could do something similar,
Speaker 1: and I wish it would. Finally, and relatedly, the eucalyptus
Speaker 1: trees at Riviera are a problem in some places, specifically
Speaker 1: on the thirteenth hole, and this one drives me kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. It's a part four with a baranka running
Speaker 1: along the left side. The fairway should go all the
Speaker 1: way to the Baranka, and not only does it not,
Speaker 1: but there's a stand of eucalyptus trees between the baranka
Speaker 1: and the fairway, So the whole has this wonderful natural
Speaker 1: hazard that it's just disregarding right now. Now, if Riviera
Speaker 1: removed the trees, I'm sure that scores would be lower,
Speaker 1: and maybe that would be a problem for the club.
Speaker 1: Maybe that would be a problem for the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: but it would be a much more interesting and attractive
Speaker 1: hole in my opinion. So big picture here, Riviera is
Speaker 1: a phenomenal golf course. It is one of the best
Speaker 1: designs ever, but I do think it could be much
Speaker 1: much better. All right, so let's continue talking about Riviera
Speaker 1: with Zach Blair. Zach is the developer and one of
Speaker 1: the design brains behind the Tree Farm, and he's also
Speaker 1: a PGA Tour professional who has played Rivia in the
Speaker 1: tournament now known as the Genesis Invitational. So I thought
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to get his perspective on the
Speaker 1: golf course, both as a pro and as a golf
Speaker 1: architecture aficionado. All right, let's jump to my conversation with
Speaker 1: Zach Blair. All right, Zach Blair, welcome to the pod.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Riviera today, a place with which
Speaker 1: you're very familiar. You're passionate about the golf architecture there,
Speaker 1: you've actually written about it before, written about the Tempole
Speaker 1: at the very least, but also you have kind of
Speaker 1: a professional golfer's perspective on this place as well. So
Speaker 1: what was the first time that you played Riviera and
Speaker 1: what were your initial impressions.
Speaker 3: I think it was probably twenty fourteen, maybe during the
Speaker 3: It used to not an elevated event, so someone like
Speaker 3: me used to get in. But I mean I had
Speaker 3: heard a ton about it, had played a couple other
Speaker 3: places in La and you know, had had been asked
Speaker 3: the question, you know, what do you like more?
Speaker 2: Which place do you think is better?
Speaker 3: But I had never played riv so it was cool
Speaker 3: to to kind of see it for the first time
Speaker 3: in that sort of kind of setting.
Speaker 2: During the I don't even know what it was called
Speaker 2: back then. I think it was the Trust, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: It might have been something, it might have been something
Speaker 3: before that, but anyways that I think that was maybe
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen was the first time I saw.
Speaker 1: It, Okay, And what what stood out to you the
Speaker 1: first time you played the course.
Speaker 3: I mean when you walk up to the first t
Speaker 3: it's a pretty cool uh you know, it's a pretty
Speaker 3: cool setting kind of right there by the clubhouse, kind
Speaker 3: of hitting down.
Speaker 2: To that narrow you know, that narrow fairway on that
Speaker 2: short part five.
Speaker 3: But I think just like the thing that stood out
Speaker 3: to me was just how many good holes there were
Speaker 3: out there, and just you know, all the greens were
Speaker 3: really cool. And just like anytime somebody asks, like, what's
Speaker 3: your favorite course on the PGA tour, it's like a
Speaker 3: pretty easy answer that you know, that's mine. But yeah,
Speaker 3: just I think just like just a really really cool property.
Speaker 3: The way it's routed and the way they used kind
Speaker 3: of all the barancas and stuff like that to move
Speaker 3: water around on on like not a super interesting site,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, But they did a really
Speaker 3: cool job kind of getting you from one to eighteen
Speaker 3: with a bunch of different looks. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: you do a bunch of different stuff out there. You
Speaker 3: can hit driver a lot, you can hit different clubs.
Speaker 3: You got a bunch of different looks into the greens,
Speaker 3: and then you know, the greens are really cool too,
Speaker 3: So I mean it's like you wish you played that
Speaker 3: thirty times a year on the PGA Tour, you know.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the opinion that Riviera is one's favorite course
Speaker 1: on the PGA Tour is pretty common among PGA Tour players.
Speaker 1: You're not when it comes to golf course architecture. You're
Speaker 1: not the typical PGA Tour player. You have you have
Speaker 1: kind of a keener interest in it than than maybe
Speaker 1: most do. And yet there does seem to be a
Speaker 1: widely accepted opinion among tour pros that that Riviera is
Speaker 1: one of the best courses. If you ask a lot
Speaker 1: of different pros what their favorite course is, they often
Speaker 1: say Riviera. Do you have any any theories about why
Speaker 1: that is, especially given that Riviera has has some definite quirks,
Speaker 1: you know, as a green with a bunker in the
Speaker 1: middle of it, and et cetera, et cetera. So why
Speaker 1: is it the pros are so taken with the course,
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's not a ton of great
Speaker 3: places we play, so I think it certainly sticks out that,
Speaker 3: you know, how far ahead of everything else that it is.
Speaker 3: I think for anyone it's pretty easy to I mean,
Speaker 3: you don't have to be like a super golf nerd
Speaker 3: to to see how cool it is. It's just a
Speaker 3: bunch are really really good golf holes. And I think
Speaker 3: it is one of those places where it does kind
Speaker 3: of reward doing the right stuff. You know, you drive
Speaker 3: it well or you hit it well. You know, you
Speaker 3: can put good out there. But it is tricky, you know,
Speaker 3: on the greens. Being Poe, you always hear kind of
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of three putts inside of ten
Speaker 3: feet that week, you know, old school greens. But I
Speaker 3: think probably just just from the fact that we don't
Speaker 3: play many golf courses, I would say, outside of a
Speaker 3: handful or outside of the majors that are even kind
Speaker 3: of in that realm of how good it is. And
Speaker 3: you know, so that carries some weight for sure.
Speaker 1: When you think about the different skill areas that a
Speaker 1: course might might test. What comes to mind at Riviera
Speaker 1: is there is there a kind of skill area that
Speaker 1: that course emphasizes more than the more than the average
Speaker 1: venue for.
Speaker 3: You, well, I think the kind of the green complexes
Speaker 3: and just the way it's bunkered and kind of everything
Speaker 3: around the greens.
Speaker 2: You know, you got.
Speaker 3: To do the right stuff. You got to know where
Speaker 3: to hit it. You got to hit your numbers, and
Speaker 3: you can get like severely penalized if you miss, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So they're they're able to, you know,
Speaker 3: get some of those pins right over. Some of the
Speaker 3: bunkers are kind of tucked back into some corners that
Speaker 3: you know, have some big contours that that kind of
Speaker 3: help defend it. So you know, you've got to be
Speaker 3: doing the right stuff, executing what you're trying to do.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know exactly like what the
Speaker 3: winning score there typically is, but I mean when it's firm,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's just kind of a crapshoot. I
Speaker 3: guess year and in year out, but like when it's
Speaker 3: when it's firm, you know, it's it's like a legit test,
Speaker 3: you know. And I think, you know, there's a there's
Speaker 3: a handful of at least I haven't played it in
Speaker 3: the event, you know, in a while. But you know,
Speaker 3: there's some long holes and there's some short holes, and
Speaker 3: there's a couple of long par threes and a couple
Speaker 3: of short ones. It's kind of got everything, you know,
Speaker 3: the par fives, it's like you got the really short
Speaker 3: one on one and seventeen can kind of play long.
Speaker 3: So it's just I think it's just a really good
Speaker 3: test of kind of everything you got to drive it. Well,
Speaker 3: there's the you know, the trees kind of play a
Speaker 3: factor when you kind of get offline. You know, you
Speaker 3: got the tenthole that you know can kind of be diabolical,
Speaker 3: but you can.
Speaker 2: Also make a two on it. So it's it's really just.
Speaker 3: You know, kind of got everything you want from a
Speaker 3: from a golf course aspect, and they can kind of
Speaker 3: tune it up for the tournament to kind of play
Speaker 3: even better for professional golf, which is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it gets windy, it I mean it can
Speaker 1: be brutal. I remember a few years ago they actually
Speaker 1: stopped the event because you know, the greens were firm
Speaker 1: and it was starting to blow a little bit and
Speaker 1: they got spooked. Yeah, so it's it can it can
Speaker 1: definitely have teeth. It's an interesting course. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is very balanced, as you're saying, it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: discriminate against any particular type of player, though though longer
Speaker 1: hitters have tended to do pretty well. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's there are kind of weird results at Riviera historically,
Speaker 1: you know, like it, Bubba Watson plays so well there,
Speaker 1: Adam Scott plays so well there. Tiger Woods has never
Speaker 1: won there. Jack Nicholas never won there, and I just
Speaker 1: I wonder if that just is sort of a set
Speaker 1: of random results, or if there's a reason that Riviera
Speaker 1: just seems to be different from other tour courses in
Speaker 1: the way that it elevates some players and gives other
Speaker 1: players fits.
Speaker 2: Don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have a theory about that
Speaker 1: or thoughts about that, but it's just something that has
Speaker 1: always saddled around in my head about Rivier. It's like,
Speaker 1: why is it that this course seems to be different?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't, I don't really know.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised that Tiger's never won there, and Jack, obviously,
Speaker 3: I want to say when I played, I had Andy
Speaker 3: Martinez caddie for me a few few years out there,
Speaker 3: so I think Johnny Miller had probably won out there
Speaker 3: because he'd always you know, tell me stories about him
Speaker 3: hitting some cool shots into eighteen. And but you know,
Speaker 3: Bubba and Adam Scott maybe like statistically maybe not the
Speaker 3: best putters, but have also like wanted Augusta and won
Speaker 3: there like you know, some crazy greens with some big,
Speaker 3: big kind of slopes and contour kind of tilt on
Speaker 3: him that you know, kind of maybe lets you use
Speaker 3: your imagination more. And you know, you get so many
Speaker 3: putts that are kind of outside the hole there that
Speaker 3: it's just kind of a crap shoot, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. You got to you got to use your
Speaker 3: imagination a bit more than like, Hey, it's you know, inside.
Speaker 2: Right all day and that's that's what you get.
Speaker 3: I would say, on a lot of normal tour courses, right,
Speaker 3: you get a lot of putts that are kind of
Speaker 3: inside the hole.
Speaker 2: But not not at Riviera. You know, you get a
Speaker 2: lot of.
Speaker 3: Putts that are very uncomfortable and you know, if you miss,
Speaker 3: they kind of get further away. And but yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't really know why, Uh, nothing really sticks out to
Speaker 3: me why certain people have not been successful there that
Speaker 3: are kind of, you know, the best in the world.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it could be the Kakula effect.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really know, but we'll we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that later. But it's yeah, it's just something I've
Speaker 1: I've always kind of kind of wondered about let's get
Speaker 1: into some particular holes. So just to start off, is
Speaker 1: there a hole at Riviera that you think doesn't get
Speaker 1: enough play? Is there is there an underrated hole that
Speaker 1: you often think about.
Speaker 3: I want to say, uh, like the seventh hole is
Speaker 3: pretty cool. I always had a you know, that green
Speaker 3: was just kind of fell off in the right spots
Speaker 3: and the you know, the ground kind of got you
Speaker 3: into some trouble, you know, on the t shot, so
Speaker 3: that one kind of sticks out. You hear a lot
Speaker 3: about eight, obviously, and you hear a lot about six
Speaker 3: and ten. There's a couple holes on the back like
Speaker 3: maybe like thirteen or thirteen or something like that. That
Speaker 3: that's a pretty good one that you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: sure you hear a ton about. But I mean the
Speaker 3: cool thing about the course is like every hole is
Speaker 3: really really good and it's also an interesting course that
Speaker 3: it's like nothing makes them like.
Speaker 2: Outrageously hard, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's not like you're, oh, you know, hazard lining the
Speaker 3: left side. I can't go there, you know, like the
Speaker 3: water hazard in front of the green or something. It's
Speaker 3: just where they can get the pins and you know
Speaker 3: where you.
Speaker 2: Have to be to kind of attack.
Speaker 3: Those places can kind of change from day to day
Speaker 3: and wind and you know how firm the golf course
Speaker 3: is playing, So it's it just I think it has
Speaker 3: kind of a lot of flexibility and you know, pretty versatile,
Speaker 3: you know, in what you have to do to score
Speaker 3: well and get balls close to the hole. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I would probably say seven is the one that comes
Speaker 3: to mind that I always thought was. It's not that
Speaker 3: long either, you know what I mean, And it feels
Speaker 3: like you can kind of screw that hole up pretty easily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you get in the wrong position around the green,
Speaker 1: you can you can get into some ridiculous spots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seven is is mine too. I think that's my favorite
Speaker 1: hole on the course that this is actually what I've
Speaker 1: said traditionally, though there are other holes that would be
Speaker 1: in the running, but none that are sort of as
Speaker 1: unheralded as as seven. But it's this. It's this super
Speaker 1: interesting middle length to even on the shorter end for pros,
Speaker 1: especially par four running along that baranka that that lines
Speaker 1: one side of the property, so that baranka is on
Speaker 1: the right, and then there's this big fairway bunker kind
Speaker 1: of cutting diagonally in from the left into into the fairway,
Speaker 1: and the fairway kind of bottlenecks, and so you have
Speaker 1: to make a choice about where you're gonna where you're
Speaker 1: gonna play. And then the green is is pretty small,
Speaker 1: pretty pushed up, lots of interesting contours, runoffs, places you
Speaker 1: really don't want to be around it, and and so
Speaker 1: really it does help to kind of be as close
Speaker 1: as possible on your approach because you want to be
Speaker 1: able to get at the target. You don't want to
Speaker 1: miss anywhere around the green, but there is some risk
Speaker 1: in pushing your ball up. And it also helps to
Speaker 1: to kind of be a little it along the along
Speaker 1: the right side. There are maybe some trees that should
Speaker 1: come out to really open up that play, but that's
Speaker 1: maybe another subject. But yeah, it's it's like a it's
Speaker 1: a super interesting uh part four, isn't it is? Is
Speaker 1: that a hole where you I mean, do you hit
Speaker 1: driver there? What? What do you what's your approach there?
Speaker 3: I always hit driver, but I'm I'm on the you know,
Speaker 3: shorter side, so you definitely see people not hit driver.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of like the you know, it feels
Speaker 3: like the fair way over close to the bunker kind
Speaker 3: of kicks into the bunker a teeny bit, and like
Speaker 3: you said that, you know, you don't want to hug
Speaker 3: it down the right and get blocked out by the trees.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just got so much going on, and
Speaker 3: it's just like the fractional little things where it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm just not in the right spot, or oh my
Speaker 3: ball just kicked in the bunker. Oh that pins just
Speaker 3: in the back left corner. I can't get at it
Speaker 3: from this angle. So I always thought that was just
Speaker 3: a super interesting hole. But you know, so many of
Speaker 3: the other ones out there, you know, can kind of
Speaker 3: fall in line with that as well.
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Speaker 1: get back to my interview with Zach Blair. It kind
Speaker 1: of represents what you were talking about earlier, where there's
Speaker 1: no big flashy thing about seven. It's just the accumulation
Speaker 1: of all these little different difficulties and subtleties that end
Speaker 1: up making it like a tricky hole where you can
Speaker 1: really get into into some trouble. But you can also
Speaker 1: you can also just play it in the most boring
Speaker 1: way possible. You can hit the fairway and hit it
Speaker 1: within five feet and make bloody. I mean, there's nothing
Speaker 1: preventing you from doing that. But but once you get
Speaker 1: a little bit off the beaten track, it's it's tricky. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of which you've you've talked publicly about about the
Speaker 1: tenth hole before. This is the hole that most people
Speaker 1: will be most familiar with at Riviera, the short to
Speaker 1: driveable part four with the big necklace bunker and the
Speaker 1: fairway and the and the green that slopes off severely
Speaker 1: from kind of right to left slash kind of back
Speaker 1: to frontish and you know the ring of bunkers around
Speaker 1: the green. So, uh, take me through your your approach
Speaker 1: to to this whole. How do you how do you
Speaker 1: think through the way you attack number ten?
Speaker 3: I think the first handful of years I played it,
Speaker 3: I don't think you know, I don't like analytics and
Speaker 3: data certainly wasn't where it is today with you know,
Speaker 3: people kind of having hard numbers to to see like oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, it, you know, you definitely shouldn't lay up.
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, my first few years, I
Speaker 3: think you saw a lot more people kind of hit
Speaker 3: a iron or whatever and got a full number in,
Speaker 3: and towards the last couple of years I played, I
Speaker 3: think it was like rarely did you ever see anyone
Speaker 3: not kind of push it up at least like, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you would occasionally see like an aggressive
Speaker 3: layup where it was like a three wood to you know,
Speaker 3: to the left side or something like that. So my
Speaker 3: first couple of years I definitely laid up most of
Speaker 3: the time because I kind of couldn't get there unless
Speaker 3: it was kind of like perfect conditions. I couldn't have
Speaker 3: any wind. And that bunker, you know, if you hit
Speaker 3: it in that bunker, that's short left, like I don't know,
Speaker 3: fifty yards short left, Like that's not a great spot
Speaker 3: to be either. And if you I would say, I
Speaker 3: tend to kind of miss balls to the right, and
Speaker 3: if you miss anything right that's short of the green,
Speaker 3: you're basically chipping off the left side anyways, or you're
Speaker 3: going to hit it in the bunker short and then
Speaker 3: chip off into the left side. So I always kind
Speaker 3: of felt like, hey, if I could hit an iron
Speaker 3: over to ninety yards, I can get this on the green.
Speaker 3: But that became, I think a little more challenging than
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, and kind of I eventually saw
Speaker 3: the light of hey, I'm just going to blast one
Speaker 3: over there to the left and try and chip it
Speaker 3: on the green, and if I get lucky and keep
Speaker 3: one on, you know, in one, that's great. But I
Speaker 3: don't think I necessarily had a ton of success on
Speaker 3: that whole, you know, the handful of times that I've
Speaker 3: played at.
Speaker 1: Well so have have distance games and kind of analytics
Speaker 1: ruined the tenth hole at Riviera? Have they made it
Speaker 1: a less interesting hole in the in the past few years?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 3: I think it's still super interesting because it's so severe,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just so penal If you kind of
Speaker 3: are in the wrong spot and you see a lot
Speaker 3: of really like crazy stuff around the greens, especially from
Speaker 3: you know, the best players in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, you see people putting it off.
Speaker 3: The green or chipping it, you know, into the back bunker,
Speaker 3: you know, and you're just kind of like, man, how
Speaker 3: can you not get that one close? But it's just
Speaker 3: the contours and the slopes around that green or are
Speaker 3: just so severe that I don't think it's less interesting,
Speaker 3: But you definitely don't see you know, you don't see
Speaker 3: really like the option, you know, the choice of somebody
Speaker 3: laying up, just because I think the numbers have like
Speaker 3: they're pretty black and white that it's kind of like, not,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: This right play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not the right play to not just blash
Speaker 3: driver over to the left.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess what continues to make it interesting
Speaker 1: is kind of what you're gesturing towards that there's there's
Speaker 1: still this amazing range of potential outcomes. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: blast it up around the green, and so it's still
Speaker 1: incredibly entertaining to watch because you don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen, like you and you see kinds of shots
Speaker 1: and kinds of outcomes that you you really don't see
Speaker 1: on any other hole on the PGA tour. But certainly
Speaker 1: the strategic aspect of the hole, the classic kind of
Speaker 1: Golden Age strategy of the hole, where where you're choosing
Speaker 1: between kind of hitting a conservative long iron a way
Speaker 1: out to the left and giving yourself a nice little
Speaker 1: wedge approach versus being more aggressive that's no longer there
Speaker 1: for the pros. It might be there for me if
Speaker 1: if I were to to play the hole, but but
Speaker 1: for the pros, it's it's, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: solved what what you should do. I think Justin Thomas
Speaker 1: may have been one of the one of the last
Speaker 1: holdouts because he's such a great wedge player. He just
Speaker 1: I think he figured until maybe last year or the
Speaker 1: year before, like I can just rely on my wedge
Speaker 1: game here, but but everybody else.
Speaker 3: Pretty much, it just takes. It takes one bad I can.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a good wedge player, you know, it takes.
Speaker 2: It takes one bad eighty yard ledge back.
Speaker 3: Right, you know flag and you kind of catch one
Speaker 3: a little low and it skips into the back bunker
Speaker 3: and plugs, and you're kind of like, okay, I can
Speaker 3: get there in one instead of two, uh, you know.
Speaker 3: And and I think, honestly, like there's just more build
Speaker 3: up and build up and build up in that front
Speaker 3: kind of right bunker that just makes the you know,
Speaker 3: makes the pitch kind of towards the back just more
Speaker 3: severe and more severe every year that it really just
Speaker 3: like you're kind of saying, it's just not really worth.
Speaker 2: It anymore to do anything.
Speaker 3: And I think most people kind of hit it far
Speaker 3: enough now too that they can kind of take that
Speaker 3: bunker that's fifty yards short or whatever out of play
Speaker 3: pretty pretty easily. But I mean, it still really is,
Speaker 3: you know, such a fun hole to watch because you
Speaker 3: see two's and sevens and hole outs and long putts
Speaker 3: and people putting it into the bunker and spinning it
Speaker 3: off the green that you know, it's so severe that
Speaker 3: it's fun.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. It's it's you know, you might it
Speaker 1: might not hold up to the kind of classical strategic
Speaker 1: analysis anymore, but it's undeniably like that's the hole that
Speaker 1: you that you want to watch, yeah, when you're watching
Speaker 1: the tournament, And just to put a finer point on
Speaker 1: the timeline here, you played the tournament twenty fifteen through
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and that was kind of when this was
Speaker 1: starting to change, this shift that we're talking about from
Speaker 1: like half the field laying up to nobody laying up.
Speaker 1: That was right at the beginning of that shift. And
Speaker 1: you can see the story on shot Tracker and Shotlink
Speaker 1: over over time, like there's a remarkable kind of push
Speaker 1: of all the dots to the area around the green,
Speaker 1: and that has accelerated since you've played the tournament for sure,
Speaker 1: you know with ten, Like, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was your action the first time you saw it, but
Speaker 1: the first time I saw that whole in person, the
Speaker 1: thing that stuck out to me was just the way
Speaker 1: that that green sits on that tilt. It almost looks
Speaker 1: like a skate park, like something you would see at
Speaker 1: a skate park as opposed to of golf course. Like
Speaker 1: it's really just so propped up there, and probably that
Speaker 1: kind of sand splash build up effect in the front
Speaker 1: right bunker that you're referring to has had an influence there.
Speaker 1: But it's just like, you know, sitting there on a big,
Speaker 1: big tilt, and that's the whole. That's the game of
Speaker 1: the hole, right, is like trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to navigate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well let's talk about some some other
Speaker 1: holes at at Riviera. Is is there another one? Like
Speaker 1: so we just talked about the kind of lost strategic
Speaker 1: aspects of ten. Is there a hole where where you
Speaker 1: think like some strategy is is still there where where
Speaker 1: you're where you're still kind of caught between caught between
Speaker 1: thought patterns and shot types and have to really make
Speaker 1: a tough decision.
Speaker 3: For me, eight was always kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: do I go left or do I go right?
Speaker 1: I couldn't double fairway hole with the braaka cutting right
Speaker 1: up the middle right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know there were again I kind of
Speaker 3: tend to lose it right a little more regularly, so
Speaker 3: I always was kind of scared to go down the
Speaker 3: left to hit it too are right into the branca
Speaker 3: and kind of lose my ball. But you know, there
Speaker 3: were certain pins where it was super advantageous to be
Speaker 3: on that side. So I mean that was one that
Speaker 3: you know, I haven't seen it in the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. They obviously didn't play it last year, but
Speaker 3: I would assume you still get a pretty even split
Speaker 3: on that whole, just based on people's comfort level of
Speaker 3: you know, where they want to be and you know
Speaker 3: what they're trying to kind of, you know, do on
Speaker 3: their approach shot, so that you know that one kind
Speaker 3: of comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: Say eight is, and that again is one where the
Speaker 1: shot tracker kind of tells a story. It's one of
Speaker 1: the few holes on the PGA too are in general
Speaker 1: where you see different players taking different approaches and where
Speaker 1: pin position can can change the way that people which
Speaker 1: fair way they choose. There's still kind of a split.
Speaker 1: There's not you know, a solved strategy yet, which is
Speaker 1: definitely a credit to the whole. I do wish that
Speaker 1: some of the reshaping went a little bit differently there
Speaker 1: that they did, but the the strategy of the hole is,
Speaker 1: you know, once they restored that double fairway, it was
Speaker 1: it was pretty awesome. Is there a is there a
Speaker 1: hole that you that you'd like to see restored? I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've dug too much into the history
Speaker 1: of Raviera, but is there one where you're where you're
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the presentation of the hole currently
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, if they just made a tweak here
Speaker 1: or tweak there, and it would probably be a little
Speaker 1: bit cooler.
Speaker 2: For the par three is one that kind of jumps out.
Speaker 3: I don't know how different it is now versus you know,
Speaker 3: when they built it or whatnot, but it the way
Speaker 3: it plays right now, you can't, you know, you can't
Speaker 3: really work the ball in from the right side. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's the grasses or the contours or
Speaker 3: shaping or whatnot. But you know, most people just kind
Speaker 3: of bang one long and you hope it stays on
Speaker 3: the back. So I you know that that seems to
Speaker 3: be like an easy one to jump to that It's like,
Speaker 3: I think there's probably some stuff they could do there
Speaker 3: to make it a little more interesting of a golf hole.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to think there's there's probably some holes
Speaker 3: you know that if you added some length that would
Speaker 3: probably be more interesting. Like you know, if you could
Speaker 3: just snap your fingers and add fifty yards to number
Speaker 3: one or eighty r like you know whatever. You know,
Speaker 3: you'd probably see some different stuff going on there. But
Speaker 3: I mean they're still all really cool and you know,
Speaker 3: really fun to play.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, yeah. I mean the the bones
Speaker 1: are still there. But I mean one is for the pros.
Speaker 1: That's that's turned into a par four and maybe not
Speaker 1: that long of a par four, And it would be
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to see how those second shots
Speaker 1: would turn out if it were more kind of on
Speaker 1: the edge of the distance that that somebody could achieve
Speaker 1: in two shots. But yeah, going back to four. You
Speaker 1: know that four has been a big subject of discussion
Speaker 1: recently because it's it's pretty clear that you know, nobody's
Speaker 1: trying that that run up shot from the right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's a This is George Thomas's version
Speaker 1: of a ra dan hole. The whole idea is that
Speaker 1: you do have the option of going straight for the
Speaker 1: green over the kind of front left bunker, but there's
Speaker 1: a nice big ramp feeding in from the right that
Speaker 1: you're also supposed to be able to use. But it's
Speaker 1: become I don't know if it's become harder to use
Speaker 1: or if it was always hard to use, but certainly
Speaker 1: if you look at it now, it's it's just not
Speaker 1: a very reliable shot to send it out there, because
Speaker 1: often it will get hung up, and if it doesn't
Speaker 1: get hung up, then it's probably going to run through
Speaker 1: the green. My theory is that, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the the combined effect of the cokuyu, which is a
Speaker 1: sticky grass in the in the run up to the green,
Speaker 1: so that you know, trying to use it as a
Speaker 1: as a ramp is a little bit tricky because you
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to bounce or if it's
Speaker 1: going to stick, and then the green just being very
Speaker 1: very fast, right, So once you get onto the green,
Speaker 1: the ball is just going to keep running through, whereas
Speaker 1: back in the day, presumably the run up was faster
Speaker 1: and the green was slower, which which would have been
Speaker 1: a better combination for trying trying to use that run
Speaker 1: up shot. So that's at least my kind of working hypothesis.
Speaker 1: But but I'm curious in general when it comes to
Speaker 1: the cocua at at Riviera is does it does it
Speaker 1: change your approach at all? Did did it factor into
Speaker 1: your game plan? Did you use like different wedges or
Speaker 1: anything at rivi Era? What how did you experience that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never I never changed like equipment, you know
Speaker 3: for the grass, but you could definitely, you know, see
Speaker 3: it kind of playing a role in what was going on.
Speaker 3: And you know, pretty hard to bounce shots in. And
Speaker 3: there are definitely some holes that you know, you wish
Speaker 3: you would be able to cause there, at least for
Speaker 3: me again, I was I'm one of the shorter players.
Speaker 3: You know, there are a few kind of like four
Speaker 3: and a half holes out there that you're like, man,
Speaker 3: I got a long iron in like you know, I
Speaker 3: remember twelve kind of being pretty long and two being
Speaker 3: really long, thinking like man, it would be nice to
Speaker 3: be able to, you know, scoot a shot in here
Speaker 3: and four, and it's just not really you know, doesn't
Speaker 3: really allow that. And I also felt like the Cucuya
Speaker 3: kind of made driving it a teeny bit easier out
Speaker 3: there because it wouldn't kind of get away from you,
Speaker 3: and especially as you got into the rough, you know,
Speaker 3: you usually got pretty decent lies.
Speaker 2: And it kind of.
Speaker 3: Would almost be a little bit of a bumper and
Speaker 3: not allow you to kind of get into trouble. I
Speaker 3: always thought the place would be a little better of
Speaker 3: a test if it was kind of, you know, got
Speaker 3: the fairways like much wider and you know, let the
Speaker 3: ball kind of run into trouble, almost kind of like
Speaker 3: what they've done to Augusta in the last handful of years,
Speaker 3: kind of getting rid of that you know, second cut
Speaker 3: and letting balls kind of chase into.
Speaker 2: The trees a little deeper.
Speaker 3: But it's still the cucui You probably even if it
Speaker 3: was all fairway, you know, still might have a hard
Speaker 3: time doing some of that. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: they've ever wanted to change or thought about changing, but
Speaker 3: it seems like it's always kind of a discussion every
Speaker 3: year when when the turnam there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my understanding is that it would be hard to
Speaker 1: change because Kakuya's is invasive and and really stubborn and
Speaker 1: and that kind of you know, once once it's there,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's kind of not leaving. But I'm sure
Speaker 1: that there's you know, if you look at for instance,
Speaker 1: l ACC North and bell Air, you know, the two
Speaker 1: other great George Thomas courses in LA I don't know
Speaker 1: how how recently you've played either of those, but the
Speaker 1: the Bermuda grass that they use in the fairways there
Speaker 1: is under the right conditions, very bouncy and and and
Speaker 1: very nice, you know, and in southern California recently kind
Speaker 1: of these new strains of Bermuda have proven pretty successful.
Speaker 1: So I just wonder how much Riviera would improve if
Speaker 1: they had the l A CEC grass or if they
Speaker 1: had the bel Air grass, if that would I don't know,
Speaker 1: is your experience of playing those other courses different from
Speaker 1: from Riviera and in that respect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think kind of what I was
Speaker 3: getting to before was like, you know, you would you
Speaker 3: would see a lot of like a more penal side
Speaker 3: to hitting it in the rough or balls kind of
Speaker 3: chasing and running away versus you know, kind of getting
Speaker 3: that just like perfect teed up you know, shot in
Speaker 3: the rough where you know you.
Speaker 2: Still lose a little bit of predictability.
Speaker 3: But when you get that kind of jumper out of
Speaker 3: the rough or or the ball really is kind of
Speaker 3: bouncing into trouble, you know that that plays like a
Speaker 3: big role into a couple of those places where where
Speaker 3: the ball is just kind of flying away from where
Speaker 3: you want it to be versus kind of sticking where
Speaker 3: you want it to be. So yeah, I think you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of nailed it with with those those other
Speaker 3: places can kind of tune it up to to get ripping,
Speaker 3: you know in the fairways where I mean you see that,
Speaker 3: you see that a teeny bit at Riviera, like when
Speaker 3: it gets really really firm. But I think it just
Speaker 3: takes such a more optimal you know run up to
Speaker 3: the event, plus you know, the four days of the
Speaker 3: tournament to to kind of get it to that spot.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think it would be cooler if you
Speaker 3: if you had the Bermuda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to be clear, like they do about
Speaker 1: as good a job with coquas as you can probably do.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up playing on cocuta because I
Speaker 1: grew up in Southern California, so very familiar with it,
Speaker 1: and what you're saying about the ball kind of being
Speaker 1: teed up is totally true about cocua. It's actually kind
Speaker 1: of funny to go from playing on that kind of
Speaker 1: grass to firm fescue because it feels like you have
Speaker 1: less of a margin for error all of a sudden
Speaker 1: with your especially with your iron shots, because the cocuie
Speaker 1: it makes it feel like you can really go after
Speaker 1: the ball and there's almost like this sponge beneath there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that will that will help you out a little bit.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean clearly with the ball on
Speaker 1: the ground. LACC North bel Air Valley Club of Montecito,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've played there recently, but the
Speaker 1: turf there is unbelievable and it's like a Santa Ana
Speaker 1: hybrid Bermuda grass and it's just so so good and
Speaker 1: you're like, Wow, if Southern California golf could be like
Speaker 1: this all the time, then it would be absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I mean I kind of wonder what
Speaker 1: the future that is going to be. So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: You know, you've you've now gone through the process of
Speaker 1: helping to design and build your own golf course at
Speaker 1: the Tree Farm. You know, I remember when when you
Speaker 1: first came on my Radarzac in the kind of mid
Speaker 1: twenty tens as this this interesting PGA tour player who
Speaker 1: was also interested in golf course architecture and talked about
Speaker 1: golf course architecture in a compelling way. Now you're a
Speaker 1: lot more experienced right in the in the actual practice
Speaker 1: of building golf courses. Has that experience like changed your
Speaker 1: perspective at all on courses like Riviera? Do you look
Speaker 1: at those courses differently now? Do you see different things
Speaker 1: than you used to before you actually went through the
Speaker 1: Tree Farm process.
Speaker 3: Maybe a little bit just of you know, oh, kind
Speaker 3: of understanding from a construction standpoint of why they would
Speaker 3: maybe do certain things. I feel like I had a
Speaker 3: decent idea of you know, you know, water moving and
Speaker 3: kind of getting something from here to here, and.
Speaker 2: Why they would do certain things.
Speaker 3: But then you know, actually doing it and having someone
Speaker 3: like Kai, you know, be super helpful and really explaining
Speaker 3: why you don't want to do that here.
Speaker 1: And this is Kai goldby by the way, who was
Speaker 1: the construction head at the Tree Farm and definitely one
Speaker 1: of the industries leading instructuring gurus. Guy knows just knows
Speaker 1: what he's doing that it comes to building golf courses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think maybe just kind of a finer
Speaker 3: understanding of why certain things would be done, why they
Speaker 3: would put a bunker here, not put a bunker here.
Speaker 3: You know, why this slope on the green might do this.
Speaker 3: You know, from from my understanding from doing it and
Speaker 3: working with those guys, they're always kind of thinking about
Speaker 3: like where the water's going. So I don't know if
Speaker 3: I necessarily had that deep of an understanding of it initially.
Speaker 3: I feel like I kind of had an idea of
Speaker 3: some of that stuff before, but it definitely, you know,
Speaker 3: gets your kind of brain spinning, you know, seeing some
Speaker 3: really cool places after, you know, building the tree farm,
Speaker 3: and you know kind of going like wow, these guys
Speaker 3: were like super super with it. You know, they they
Speaker 3: definitely knew what they were doing even back then, So
Speaker 3: it's definitely cool to see those those great places.
Speaker 1: Yeah, towards the beginning of our conversation here, you did
Speaker 1: mention that that the way that water moves around Riviera
Speaker 1: Is is something that stands out to you. Are there any
Speaker 1: details there that that that you think of with Riviera,
Speaker 1: like what how how the drainage works. Do you have
Speaker 1: you noticed anything about that on the course.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously you have like all the all the barankas
Speaker 3: kind of you know throughout the golf course you.
Speaker 2: Know, on almost like almost the entire place. You know,
Speaker 2: you kind of see it. And I only played it.
Speaker 3: One of the years i played it, there was crazy,
Speaker 3: crazy storms and you kind of actually got to see it,
Speaker 3: you know, working where you really see kind of water
Speaker 3: running through there. Usually they're just kind of dry and
Speaker 3: you know, sandy and have grasses in them.
Speaker 2: But it's pretty kind of remarkable.
Speaker 3: It's to think that back then, you know, people were
Speaker 3: thinking that much about moving water, but they obviously they
Speaker 3: knew a lot. Not not thinking that they weren't smart
Speaker 3: or anything, they obviously knew what they were doing. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to say, I think I might have like
Speaker 3: a book on it, so I kind of read, you know,
Speaker 3: read about them building those for that kind of specific purpose,
Speaker 3: and it is cool to kind of see it in action.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a you know, the baranka on that
Speaker 1: one side of the property is sort of the main
Speaker 1: river in the system, and then you have all these
Speaker 1: different tributaries, yeah, winding through the holes and leading to
Speaker 1: that main baranca, which is a very natural way to
Speaker 1: do drain This is the way that drainage naturally happens
Speaker 1: on a landscape because the water kind of carves these
Speaker 1: little areas. And so maybe some of that was intact,
Speaker 1: was it was just kept there by to allow for
Speaker 1: the natural drainage, but clearly some of it was also built,
Speaker 1: and there was you know, there was an awareness that
Speaker 1: this is how it should function. It the water should
Speaker 1: be moving across the holes down to this main baranca
Speaker 1: system and then the brink eventually you know, goes down
Speaker 1: through the canyon and feeds out into the ocean. And
Speaker 1: so it's it's very sensible the way it works. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as you say that, I think I remember that year
Speaker 1: when when images were circulating of the kind of of
Speaker 1: the water moving through the golf course, and it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool to see that, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I just remember being out there because we
Speaker 3: were finishing one of the rounds and then we you know,
Speaker 3: got called off and had to come back the next morning.
Speaker 3: But like being out there that one day where it
Speaker 3: was like dumping and thinking like, man, how are they
Speaker 3: going to play like the next day, and then going
Speaker 3: out there and being like I can't believe there's not
Speaker 3: I can't believe, like we're golfing today and I can't
Speaker 3: believe the golf course is like dry, you know, I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't believe we're not just playing out of puddles everywhere,
Speaker 3: and being pretty amazed that, you know, seeing it the
Speaker 3: day before and kind of seeing everything run towards where
Speaker 3: they're supposed to go and and like you say, get
Speaker 3: to that kind of like main that that main Baranca
Speaker 3: where it kind of gets all taken away.
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, pretty.
Speaker 3: Pretty cool and definitely something that you know, always kind
Speaker 3: of stuck with me, you know, and and Kai kind
Speaker 3: of always talking about water moving and you know, surface
Speaker 3: draining and and everything like that is pretty pretty neat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last question related to Riviera for you. You have
Speaker 1: ten rounds to split between Riviera and the other two
Speaker 1: big Thomas courses in l A, l ACC North and
Speaker 1: bel Air. How are you splitting those rounds?
Speaker 2: I've never played bel Air, h okay, but I've I've played.
Speaker 1: L A Okay well, maybe just between l A and
Speaker 1: and Riviera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think honestly both of them. There
Speaker 3: there's a there's very few of these like debates of
Speaker 3: of places that have that great of you know, two
Speaker 3: golf courses when you're talking like National and Shinnacock and
Speaker 3: riv and l A, and there's very few of them
Speaker 3: that I think are you know, I don't really care
Speaker 3: what somebody else says. I can kind of get down
Speaker 3: with h with their opinion. I think both of them
Speaker 3: are like really really good. And I would probably go
Speaker 3: like six four l A just because I think the
Speaker 3: way the golf course plays with the grasses and and
Speaker 3: the times I've played it, it's been just like so firm,
Speaker 3: and you know, you really you really have to think
Speaker 3: about where you're going to be, and just I think
Speaker 3: the green complexes from a shape standpoint are are maybe
Speaker 3: a little more kind of weird and wild and you
Speaker 3: see just some some different stuff. So I would probably
Speaker 3: go six four l A c C. But I know
Speaker 3: like tons of people that are like I would go
Speaker 3: seven three RIV And I'm kind of like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I totally I can totally see that, And I think
Speaker 3: just the aesthetic maybe at LACC, the kind of rugged,
Speaker 3: you know, just all the little details, is a little
Speaker 3: more thoughtful and kind of like my style versus RIVS.
Speaker 3: Maybe like a little more of corporate factories not the
Speaker 3: right like.
Speaker 2: Word, but you know, I mean it's a little it's just.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a different vibe. So I think
Speaker 3: that plays into it. But just like from.
Speaker 2: Golf hole to golf hole, a golf hole to golf hole.
Speaker 3: One through eighteen, I would probably say RIVS better, but
Speaker 3: I enjoy LACC a little more.
Speaker 2: That That's kind of a weird take, but you know
Speaker 2: that's my take.
Speaker 1: I no, I agree with one hundred percent of what
Speaker 1: you just said, because LACC, I mean, the big difference
Speaker 1: here is that la CC North went through a recent
Speaker 1: and very good restoration. Yeah, and Riviera just has I
Speaker 1: mean Corn Crenshaw worked there in the mid nineties, but
Speaker 1: there was only so much that I think they were
Speaker 1: allowed to do, and so la CC North is closer
Speaker 1: to what it what it needs to be, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Riviera is Riviera is not really there in that process.
Speaker 1: But the holes at Riviera are so good. The design
Speaker 1: is probably George Thomas's best design, and maybe maybe one
Speaker 1: of like top three, top five Golden Age designs period, Like,
Speaker 1: it's so brilliant, but it's just not you know, L A. C.
Speaker 1: C Has all that texture, right, they brought it back. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they brought back all that wonderful like California feel, and
Speaker 1: that's not there at Riviera, right yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: just it's different that way, right Yeah, yeah, cool. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the Podzac. It's
Speaker 1: it's been very fun to talk to you about Riviera.
Speaker 1: Do you have any Do you have any plans coming
Speaker 1: up that people should be aware of. Are you seeing
Speaker 1: any cool golf courses coming up? Are you anything people
Speaker 1: should pay attention to.
Speaker 3: Heading down to South America to Argentina, going to see
Speaker 3: the Jockey Club for the first time, so I'm pretty
Speaker 3: excited about that. And then I don't know, haven't been
Speaker 3: to the Tree Farm in a few months, so kind
Speaker 3: of itching to get back there and you know, play
Speaker 3: some play some rounds out there.
Speaker 1: But Masters week is kind of approaching, so it's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big, big week for all those Ache and
Speaker 1: area courses exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But other than that, kind of just it's been crazy
Speaker 3: weather in Utah, Like you know, the golf courses have
Speaker 3: been open all winter, so it's been kind of easy
Speaker 3: to stay here. And you know, even though it's a
Speaker 3: little chilly Sundays, it's still you know, five minutes away
Speaker 3: right down the street to go play with some friends.
Speaker 3: So nothing major on the horizon for me.
Speaker 1: Very cool, all right, Thanks for coming on, Zach.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you like these kinds of deep
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